Curio (38 page)

The jumble of misshapen faces and distorted limbs beneath her feet sent a wave of shock throbbing through her bones. Out of nowhere, her Defender mark spiked, sending granite-hard strength flooding from her torso outward. She bent, the crazy notion of tearing the bars off the top of the cage swirling through her brain.

A voice stopped her.

“Why, there you are, Mistress Grey.”

She straightened, a name pushing past her teeth. “Benedict.”

He stood on the ledge. Beyond him in the outer chamber, soldiers waited, no doubt raised by the guard who'd escaped. Blue eyes hooded by black lashes narrowed at Grey. “You'll address me as Lord Blueboy.”

A cackle from the jailer sent a shiver up her back, but didn't penetrate the layer of stone covering her insides like armor made of courage. She brushed the hair out of her face and planted her feet on the top of the cage.

“We've come for the prisoner, Seree.”

“Have you now? You and”—he shifted his gaze to Callis—“the Mad Tock?”

Grey didn't answer.

“How fortunate to find my missing prize and the culprits behind the terrorist attack all here in one place.” His lips curved in a smile then fell into a hard mold. “Jailer, deliver Mistress Grey and the Mad Tock to my soldiers.”

“Wait.”

Benedict had turned toward the door, but Grey's shout drew him up. He shifted back. “Yes?”

“Release Seree and Cal—the Mad Tock. I'll go with you.”

“You're mad too if you think I'll let this creature escape. He's confessed. He and the tavern owner are insurgents.” He raised hands that glowed white in the darkness and gestured to the prison. “When I'm done with them, they'll long for the comforts of the Dulaig's layer.”

“Question them if you want but give me their punishment.” The words flowed from a space deep within Grey, sounding strange in her own voice. She locked eyes with Benedict.

“Very well.” He turned his back. “Jailer, release the prisoner Seree as well. We'll see just how many charges Mistress Grey will answer for.”

The crash shook the Clang from bow to stern. Blaise tumbled against the wall as equipment and debris dislodged from the ceiling. Myver staggered under the airship parts raining down, his arms out as if he could catch the detritus.

Creaks and groans rose from the hull as the ship gnashed its way into the hydro hub. A massive rushing sound drowned out shouts from the quarterdeck.

Staggering to his feet, Blaise turned to see a spout of black water surge through the ship. The mid-ship tocks were up to their waists in swirling water. Blaise stared.
Water?
Myver stood frozen in the stern. The tock made a sound between a scream and a chime just before the swell reached him. With his right hand Blaise grabbed a pipe on the wall, stretching his left arm toward Myver, but he was gone. Flood
water poured through the hull, rushing over the open stern in a torrential waterfall. The tide dragged at Blaise's legs, the water level rising by the second.

The sound of cracking glass rose over the gush. The tubes running from the water tank up through the Clang's metal ceiling creaked. Trapped by the water pressure, a tock body squirmed against the tube that carried gas to the balloon above—Gagnon.

Blaise reached for a metal seam two feet from him, wincing as the force of the water strained the grip of his injured arm. He hauled himself forward as the flow carried tocks and bits of the Clang's inner workings past him and out of the stern opening. A zing in his ear sent alarm pumping though his veins. Bullets! The flood hadn't washed away all of the soldiers.

With a loud chink, the crack in the glass snaked upward. Blaise found another handhold and heaved himself one step closer to the pinned captain. Water pushed against his chest. The weight of his steam pack lugged his shoulders and torso back into the surge. He struggled another step. And another.

Bullets ricocheted off the metal walls, tearing into pipes and plopping in the water like jumping metal fish. Gagnon's head was jammed against the glass, his face angled in Blaise's direction. The gears in the tock's face were still, but his eyes focused on Blaise.

Curling his right arm around a protruding bar, Blaise planted his feet on the grid five feet below the water's surface and extended his left hand to Gagnon. The tock watched the rescue attempt, immobilized either by the current or the corrosion spreading through his workings.

Blaise shifted, gripped the bar with his hand, and leaned farther into the flood. His fingers touched Gagnon's limp arm as it trailed in the current. Finally, he was able to grip the tock's wrist.

A pop set Blaise's ears ringing. The tube at Gagnon's back shattered, sending glass shards slicing through the air and water. Sparks glanced off the tock's body as a bullet lodged in Gagnon's chest cavity. Before Blaise could react to the injury, flames whooshed upward in the remaining portion of the glass tube. The heat singed Blaise's skin for a split second before Gagnon's weight yanked his hold on the bar loose. The water sucked them down ship and over the edge of the stern.

Black water filled Blaise's vision as he tumbled toward the ground, still gripping Gagnon's dead weight.

Hands shackled and waterlogged boots squelching, Grey marched between Callis and Seree. The woman next to her barely resembled a porcie. From the wet hair clinging to her cracked face to the frayed hem of her skirt, she was the color of ashen mud. Only her amber eyes retained the startling beauty of the porcelain people. They lifted from the street to stare at Grey.

“Who—?” A gurgle broke off the question and Seree bent, retching sludge-like water into the street. The soldiers surrounding them sidestepped the mess, their eyes fixed ahead. Seree stumbled on.

Led by Blueboy in a low horseless carriage, the procession moved first through the bleak streets surrounding Harrowstone, then into a quiet neighborhood with tall, narrow houses. The clang of the soldiers' feet jarred Grey's memory. She'd landed here almost two weeks ago, the night Haimon sent her to Curio. She studied her surroundings as best she could from her place in the convoy, but no hints of a way out presented themselves. If Blaise thought the lock in the glass forest was their best hope, then that's where they'd start. That is, if she managed to pull off her plan and escape before Benedict imprisoned her—or worse.

On her left, Callis whispered, “We won't abandon you to the Dulaig's prison, Grey. Blaise will think of something.”

His words underscored her growing dread. What had she done? The smirk Benedict gave her in the prison confirmed Blaise's assessment of the ruler's intentions. Her body was no longer hers, those glittering blue eyes had declared. He thought he owned her just as he owned his estate and Fantine. And he would bring her as low as the tormented woman at Grey's side.

Sensation flickered behind Grey's Defender mark. A shell of stone crept outward, lining her body with an internal shield. She lifted her chin. He would not find her as soft and pliable as he expected. All she needed was the right opportunity—an unguarded moment—and she would break Benedict's rule and break free from his grasp. She and Blaise would be on their way home.

The noise of the procession brought porcies out from their homes. They pointed and a few called insults. But as the convoy moved into the grand neighborhood bordering Benedict's estate, the jeering subsided.

Seree stumbled, going down to one knee in the street. Callis darted to her side, and the soldiers around the prisoners halted, their attention on the two huddled figures.

Shouting carried over the heads of the tin men. Grey craned her neck to see ahead. Two soldiers, identical to the rest, sprinted from an adjoining street. They bypassed their comrades and made for Benedict's carriage, disappearing from view as they gained the head of the line.

In a few moments the parade was moving again, but whispers carried through the ranks of soldiers. They turned their flat metal faces to the east. Grey followed their gazes. A black column of smoke rose on the horizon, billowing over the city like a monster made of fog.

A soldier on her left muttered, “Explosion.”

She clutched her chest where a hole opened in her heart, sucking the Defender strength out of her. The Clang had crashed.

Blaise
.

No, he wouldn't have been on the ship. He was supposed to fly outside, running interference while the airship targeted the hydro hub.

A hard tip jabbed into her back.

“Move,” a voice droned.

She jerked away from the gun muzzle. Every one of the soldiers carried a weapon. Did Blaise stand a chance against so many?

Grey put one heavy foot in front of the other. The mark on her belly grew cold, but she trained her eyes on the pillar of smoke, willing the Defender connection to tell her Blaise was alive.

Blaise slammed into the surface of the water, jarring every bone before the unwavering blackness sucked him under. Noxious liquid flooded his mouth, nose, and eyes. He thrashed, Gagnon's weight hauling him down, down.

The ground shook and a massive burst of light illuminated the water. Black particles like waterborne dust filled his vision, rushing past him on random currents.

He managed to get his feet under him, and at last his head broke the surface. Standing, he discovered the floodwater only reached his chest, though the swirling currents tugged at his limbs and threatened to sweep his feet from beneath him. All around, chunks of metal plopped into the water and ash drifted down to float on the sludge. The Clang had exploded. Blaise coughed and dragged Gagnon's head
above the waves, though the tock didn't need to breathe so much as visit Blaise's lab for repairs—if anything remained of the lab after Blueboy's raid.

Another blast jolted him, followed by another and another. Blaise waded away from the hydro hub as smaller explosions pounded his ears and sent debris raining down on top of him.

Once he escaped the metal storm, he turned back. Smoke billowed from the tattered fabric of the hydrogen balloon. The hull of the Clang, what was left of it, was wedged into the bottom portion of the demolished hydro hub. The two twisted-together metal structures resembled a giant cradle or feeding trough.

Water rushed over the ground below the purification locus and out onto the field, sweeping away soldiers and mechanical horses. But the swell flowed away from the road, which followed an embankment. Soldiers lined the barrier, muskets aimed at the few tock crew members still functioning after the crash. Blaise stopped, eyes on the gun muzzles nearest him.

He could run for the far side of the field. The soldiers wouldn't follow him into the tainted water, but at this range, with a hundred weapons trained on him, he wouldn't make it two feet.

Gagnon's weight anchored him in place. Blaise glanced down. He held the captain with one arm. His left hand hung at his side. He flexed his fingers and wrist, but when he tried to raise the arm, the agony set a ring of black mist around his vision.