Agent of the Crown (51 page)

She had to invent a Device before they could
even start, a heating tool to melt the remaining wax away. Digging
old candle out might have appealed to Jessamy, but even now that
she wasn’t the Princess Telaine didn’t like getting things under
her nails.

She found a strong source three attics away,
which saved them trying to haul things up and down the stairs
without Grandmama seeing them, and using her earth-mover-honed
skills she transported it to the chandelier room. She and Jessamy
took turns melting wax and washing the brass, something Telaine
insisted on when she saw how dirty she was after the first
hour.

Later, she went into the city and bought
shirts, trousers, and good work boots. Putting them on for the
first time gave her a pang of sorrow, but only a little one. Lainie
Bricker needed to disappear as much as the Princess did.

Days passed. Telaine fell into what she hoped
was a pattern and not a rut. Most mornings she’d steal away,
sometimes with Jessamy and sometimes not, to work on the
chandelier. They’d managed to keep their activity a secret from
everyone except Uncle, even Julia, whose friendly prying into
Telaine’s business took some work to avoid.

It took six days to clean out the wax and
another day for Telaine, crawling over the chandelier to examine it
from all angles, to come up with a plan for converting it into a
Device. The hollows where the candles went would hold motive
forces; she would invent a Device that would plug into those
hollows, connect to the motive force, and glow. They would be easy
to replace and provide plenty of light for years to come, and if
the motive forces died, well, the source to imbue them was right
there.

Afternoons she spent with Julia and Emma
Telaine, playing with the baby, watching her roll from her back to
her stomach and try to crawl. Much as she loved her cousin and her
namesake, this was the time of day when she was most likely to
become homesick, for as much as she was beginning to find peace,
she couldn’t stop thinking of Longbourne as home. She thought of
Eleanor, mourning her sons; thought of pregnant Blythe, whose child
would grow up not knowing its father; thought of Ben, and cut those
thoughts off ruthlessly before they could start her crying again.
When she caught Julia looking at her oddly, she exerted herself to
play and talk and laugh, and if it wasn’t completely natural, at
least it also wasn’t forced.

In the evenings, she spent time with her
family, or sometimes attended a dance or a concert. There weren’t
many of these; it still hurt to be snubbed. She subtly led Evan
Kirkpatrick to understand she wasn’t interested in him. It seemed
she had learned some things from the Princess that weren’t
poisoned.

Lainie Bricker had been a familiar face at
the artificers’ yards; now Telaine went under her own name and saw
little difference in how she was treated, though one or two
craftsmen tried to cheat her now they knew she was royalty.

She explained what she wanted for the
chandelier to a woman named Ellen who specialized in working brass,
and together they came up with a design for a hollow brass “sphere”
shaped like an eggplant, where the narrower end connected with the
Device to make the wider end glow. It took several tries to get it
right, Telaine experimenting on the Devices in a corner of Ellen’s
workshop while Ellen worked the brass. She had the idle thought one
morning,
I’d like to have my own workshop like this
, and a
memory of the forge and watching Ben work came to her so strongly
that she had to lay down her tools and squeeze her eyes shut until
the dizziness passed.

Finally the day came when the artisan touched
the narrow end of the sphere to the surface of Telaine’s Device,
and they watched the sphere go from deep red through golden yellow
to a brilliant but soft white light, while remaining cool to the
touch.

“Nice work, Lainie,” the artisan said.
Telaine had given up everything of Lainie Bricker but the name.
Well, it had been Telaine’s name first.

“Yours was the hard part, Ellen.”

“Not with all those gears and skinny wires it
wasn’t. How many of these do you want?” Telaine named a figure.
Ellen whistled. “That’s going to take a while. I can do batches of
twenty if you want. Let you go on working ’stead of waiting on
me.”

“Thanks, Ellen. I owe you.”

“You do indeed. I take cash.”

Telaine lugged a box of Devices and the first
batch of spheres up to the attic and taught Jessamy to imbue his
first motive forces. He was so excited he almost glowed brighter
than the spheres. “You keep doing that,” Telaine said, “while I put
together this last thing. Remember, it’s impossible to over-imbue a
motive force; they just stop taking in energy. So better to take
too long than too short a time.”

The “last thing” she was putting together was
the Device that turned the whole chandelier on or off. Telaine had
come up with a Device that was a simple switch with only two
settings. She’d embedded an identical Device at the top of the
chandelier, out of sight from the ground. Turning the switch to
‘off’ caused the Device on the chandelier to shift the motive
forces enough out of alignment that the spheres wouldn’t glow. If
for some reason Grandmama wanted to leave the chandelier burning
all night long, she had that option.

“All right. That’s done. I think we can start
installing these things without blinding ourselves. Just don’t lose
this, or kick it, or step on it, or something,” she warned, waving
the control Device in Jessamy’s face. He snatched it away from her,
mock-snarling, but put it carefully on a windowsill out of the
way.

It didn’t take long to install the first
twenty spheres. Jessamy had the honor of testing the control
switch. A tiny segment of the chandelier lit up. They cheered,
silently, not sure how far their voices would carry, or what
Grandmama would do if she heard ghostly voices in her rafters.

Now the work went faster. Telaine would
collect their day’s batch of twenty and return to install them; the
rest of the morning she spent in her sitting room, building more of
the tiny Devices. It was almost as tedious as repairing the weapons
had been. Jessamy was allowed to watch but not help; he took it
well, saying he was already closer to real Devisery than anyone
else his age.

Her sitting room became scattered with spare
parts and tools, after she decided to set up her shop there rather
than her dressing room. The work went faster, but although she had
more work space, she still chafed at the limitations imposed by her
supply shortage. Every day they turned on the chandelier, and every
day the glow spread farther, and yet Telaine wished it might go
faster still. She was impatient, all the time, as if she were
waiting for something but didn’t know what.

A week after installing the first spheres,
Telaine balanced a couple of boxes on her hip while she fumbled at
the attic door. If she’d left anything behind, she’d…well, she’d
just have to make another trip, wouldn’t she, because it wasn’t as
if these Devices would build themselves.

She regretted going to Julia’s luncheon party
yesterday, since it had cut into her Devisery time and now she had
only fifteen Devices and twenty spheres that needed them. Then she
felt guilty about that regret. Julia had gone to extra effort to
invite only people who didn’t hate the Princess, and Telaine
had
enjoyed herself for once. Even so, she was impatient at
being behind schedule, even if it was a schedule she’d created for
herself.

She set the box of spheres in the corner and
spread out a handkerchief on the floor to assemble the Devices on.
Jessamy could start installing them when he got there. He had
turned out to be an excellent apprentice. She ought to see about
formalizing their relationship. No, she ought to see about
formalizing a certificate in her own name, and
then
take on
an official apprentice. The cheerful idea made the growing heat in
the attic more bearable.

She hooked a wire to a screw and tightened
both down, set the Device aside and started on the next.

“Hi,” Jessamy said, shutting the door behind
him. “It’s warm up here, don’t you think? It’s going to be
uncomfortable in late summer.”

“That’s why we’re going to finish this before
then,” Telaine said. She was feeling sticky now, despite not having
exerted herself much. She set the completed Device to one side and
stood. “I want to install the ones on the underside. They’re the
hardest to reach and I feel like I’ve been putting them off too
long. Here, see if you can get around there.”

The two of them squirmed into position under
the chandelier until Jessamy was able to tap a Device into a hollow
and seat the sphere Telaine handed him without it falling out. “You
sure we can’t just roll it over?” he complained.

“It weighs hundreds of pounds. There’s no
way,” Telaine said, panting. Sweat trickled down her neck. She’d
have to bathe after this. “I think you can do this by yourself. I’m
going to finish the Devices.”

Jessamy grumbled, but wormed his way around
to the next less-accessible spot. A few more years—hah, maybe a few
more months—and he’d be too tall to fit under the chandelier. Well,
she could do it if she had to, but that was the point of having an
apprentice, you had someone to crawl under things on your
behalf.

She started on the second Device and
discovered two of the parts were misaligned. She tried to free them
with her fingers, applied the miniature wrench with some force, and
the tool snapped in her hand. She cursed. “Jess!” she called out.
He grunted. “I need you to fetch me a replacement for this from my
rooms.”

“Why don’t you go?”

“Because it’s the apprentice’s job to run
errands. Unless you’d rather keep on with what you’re doing.”

Jessamy shot out from under the chandelier.
So some of those grunts had been for show. “What should I get?” he
asked. She described where the tool was, gave him the broken one
for reference, and sent him on his way. Then she rolled up her
sleeves and took his place. No sense wasting time waiting.

As soon as she was under the chandelier,
Telaine wondered why she hadn’t gone after the new wrench herself.
There wasn’t much room, and although she knew the chandelier was
immobile—had to be, with all the climbing on it she’d done—she
still had the feeling if she breathed wrong, it would roll over and
crush her. She couldn’t even work quickly without risking dropping
pieces that would break or, worse, roll out of her reach and
require her to scramble out again.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes. Maybe
she should stop and braid it. She tapped in one more Device, seated
one more sphere, and slid sideways to the next area, which wasn’t
so claustrophobic.

She’d begun to wonder what was taking Jessamy
so long when she heard him coming across the other attics. “Sorry
about that. I got caught by Julia and then I had to take the long
way around to avoid Grandmama. She wants to see you, by the
way.”

“Grandmama?”

“Julia. Guess it’s urgent because I heard her
tell someone else to find you too. She asked if I knew where you
were and I said no, of course, and she said if I saw you to tell
you she wants you. So I did.”

“Did she say why?”

“Maybe. I wasn’t listening.”

Telaine groaned. She ought to see what Julia
wanted. Her cousin didn’t usually seek her out for unimportant
reasons. On the other hand, she and Jessamy were behind schedule
and she still had three Devices to finish. But if Julia was looking
for her…she cursed, then said, “You’re not allowed to say those
words until you’re a full Deviser.”

“Yes, Lainie,” he said, grinning. “Are you
going?”

“I suppose I should. I’ll hurry back. You go
on installing the spheres, and if I don’t come back before you’re
done, put everything into the box and I’ll fetch it later.” She
wiped her hands on her pants, braided her hair and tied it off with
a piece of cord, then descended the back stairs and went looking
for Julia.

She came out of the stairwell onto the
landing and ran straight into Grandmama, making her drop the book
she was holding. “Oh! Sorry.”

“What were you doing back there?” Grandmama
picked up the book and dusted it off, straightening a few bent
pages. “You know those stairs are off-limits.”

“I…was following a source.” It sounded like a
lie even without the echo.

“Hmm.” Grandmama tucked the book under her
arm. “I’m not going to pursue the question. You always were good at
keeping secrets…and now I know why.” She smiled.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth
earlier. I know you guessed, when we were at Clarence’s awful
play.”

“It’s all right. I knew you’d tell me when
you were ready. I was surprised to learn the truth, of course, but
honestly, I was so proud of you I didn’t mind that you’d been
concealing things from all of us.”

“Proud?”

“Of course. You know I love you, but it did
make me sad, hearing about your exploits and flirtations. I always
thought there was more to you than that. Hoped there was, at any
rate. Are you sure you’re well? I know it wasn’t real, but you did
lose half your life.”

“Of course. I lost the half I didn’t care
about. I have my family, I love Devisery, and now I can pursue it
openly.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant. Whatever
happened with Evan Kirkpatrick?”

Telaine blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I know he tried to court you, and you
rebuffed him. Obviously I don’t expect you to encourage someone
just because he’s interested in you, but you haven’t given anyone a
chance since you returned.”

“I don’t know anyone who
wants
a
chance, Grandmama. My social life is more or less in shreds. And
I’m happy this way.”