Angel of Brass (2 page)

* * *

Jin ducked into the first side alley he came
to, his heart hammering.

That had been close—far closer than he ever
wanted to get to the smiling men again. If the girl had given him
up...

Yet she hadn’t, although he didn’t know why.
He’d heard the fear in her voice, yet she’d still stood up to the
smiling men.

Well, the best thing he could do to thank her
would be to put as much distance between them as possible. Jin
pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his belt. The boots came
off next, their laces knotted together and hung awkwardly around
his neck. The delicate brass joints of his fingers gleamed in the
moonlight. Extending the sharp claws from the tips of his metal
fingers and toes, he began to climb.

When he was halfway up, a mechapede passed
by, its hundred thin legs clinging to brick walls as easily as the
sidewalk. Its sinuous body looked like the flow of water in the
moonlight, and its spotlight eyes cut through the shadows cast by
the streetlamps. No doubt it was headed for the wreckage of the
airship with a dozen police in its wake. He waited until it was
well past before moving again; the last thing he needed was to be
dragged away for questioning.

The old mortar made the climb easy, and soon
he was scampering across the rooftops, leaping from one to the next
across narrow alleys. A few blocks away, a monorail groaned and
clanked past, and he risked jumping to the roof. No one inside
noticed the muffled thump as he landed, or didn’t bother to
investigate if they did.

The wind blew in his face, sweeping back his
hair and the feathers tied into it. As the monorail put more
distance between him and the smiling men, Jin felt some of his
tension seep away, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness. His first
task was to find a flophouse and spend some of the precious coins
in his pocket on a safe place to sleep. Then food, if he could
afford it. After that...

He didn’t know.

I’ve got to break Del out, somehow. I can’t
just leave her with Fath—with Dr. Malachi.

Easier said than done, with only a little
money in his pocket and no friends in the world. He wondered
fleetingly if the girl might be willing to help him out, just once
more. She was a cute one, with her wavy brown hair and spectacles,
grease smeared across her freckled nose.

If the smiling men realized that she’d helped
him, she’d be dead before the sun rose.

Too risky. I can’t drag anyone else into
this. I’ve handled it alone so far, haven’t I? And when I get Del
back, there’ll be two of us again, and everything will be fine.

We’ll finally be free.

Chapter 2

Molly leaned back in her seat, nearly asleep
despite the vibration of the monorail car. Her late night had
turned into an early morning, and it had been all she could do not
to doze off in class. If she’d been traveling alone, she would have
curled up in the seat and tried to catnap between stops. Liam,
however, wanted to go over what she’d told him about the night
before.

“He had metal
teeth?”
her companion
asked, gleefully aghast at the prospect. Like herself, William
Two-Gears was a student at Eroe Technical Institute in Brasstown,
although his interests lay in the area of electricity, while hers
focused more on the mechanical aspects of engineering.

Liam’s mother was Eroevian, and his father
from some people to the north of the Xatlian Empire, whose name
Molly couldn’t even begin to pronounce. At any rate, he had copper
skin and black hair, worn in spikes with the tips bleached to
blond. A single golden gear dangled from each ear, and he sported a
small jade plug below his lower lip. His maternal heritage showed
in a startling pair of greenish-gray eyes.

“That isn’t so unusual,” Molly said with a
yawn. “People have been making false teeth for centuries, you
know.”

“It’s still cursed strange.” Liam settled
back in his seat. “Did you go to the police?”

“And tell them what, exactly? That the boy
responsible for the airship crash practically fell on my head, but
he’s being chased by men with metal teeth, so I let him get away?”
Molly shook her head. “I left a note for Master Singh, explaining
that the skylight had broken, but without going into detail. He’s
working on a new invention, so he isn’t going to notice
anyway.”

“What is it this time?”

“Something to do with an automatic pie-making
machine. At least it’s practical, unlike the last one, which was
supposed to detect the aetheric vibrations of ghosts.”

Liam grinned. “Do you think he’ll finish
it?”

“Why should this one be any different from
the last fifty? He’ll get a new idea halfway through and be off
after that instead.” The monorail slowed as it approached the
platform, so Molly stood up and hefted her book-filled bag over her
shoulder. “I swear, besides the mechanical experience, the most
important thing I’ve learned from working at the shop is to finish
one project before starting another. I’m not going to end up a
half-baked old lunatic, convinced the next idea is the one that
will change the world.”

“At least he has dreams,” Liam pointed out,
slinging his own bag onto his back. “There are worse ways to spend
your life.”

“And better ones. Ones that actually
get
you somewhere.”

They made their way out of the car and onto
the crowded platform. The season stood just on the edge of winter,
and there was a distinct bite to the air that had Molly tugging her
thick coat more tightly about her. The sky was dense gray with
clouds, threatening a cold drizzle.

As the monorail pulled off in a shower of
smoke and sparks, Molly said, “There’s a traveling circus set up
down by the docks. Do you want to go?”

“I’d love to, but there’s a lecture on the
theory of time travel that I want to attend, and I need to get
cleaned up first.” Although his frock coat hid most of the grease
stains on his shirt, his morning lab had played havoc on his
trousers, which now sported acid-etched holes near the cuffs.
“Besides, your landlady already thinks we’re having a torrid
affair. No need to add fuel to the boiler.”

Molly snorted. “All right, then, go to your
lecture. Take notes for me if it’s anything interesting.”

“Will do. See you tomorrow in class.”

Alone, Molly made her way down from the
platform to street level. Although the institute was in Brasstown,
not too far from where her parents lived, she rented a room in
Chartown. As with attending the institute, convincing them to let
her stay in a boarding house had been a battle, and she’d won only
by pointing out that she’d be closer to work if she roomed
there.

Not to mention I still feel more at home here
in Chartown.

She’d grown up in the lower city, until her
father’s textile factory had multiplied to two installations, then
four, then a modest empire of cotton and wool. At almost the same
time, her older sister had caught the eye of a nobleman, which had
resulted in the entire family being raised up upon her marriage.
The rest of the family had adapted easily to the shift to the upper
city, but Molly had never felt like anything but an outsider in
Brasstown.

The streets of Chartown were a bustling
kaleidoscope of color and motion. Hansom cabs and horse-drawn carts
competed with pedestrians, velocipedes, and the occasional steam
car or tractor. Newsboys shouted from the corners, fighting to
attract attention over the songs of street vendors selling
everything from noodles to bits of lace. The bright flash of parrot
feathers in hair or hats contrasted sharply with the dull brick
buildings. A pair of goggleboys loitered at an intersection,
dressed from head to toe in red and black, their hair dyed scarlet
and strung with gears and wire. One of the new refrigerated trucks
trundled past, and Molly was half-tempted to stop the driver and
beg for a look at its engine.

The boarding house where she rented a room
sat on a quiet side street. As she approached, Molly saw that there
was a carriage drawn up in front of the house. A magnificent
clockwork horse stood in the traces, the brass plates of its flanks
intricately etched with designs of flowers and birds. Even before
she saw the coat of arms on the side of the carriage, Molly knew
who the visitor must be.

What now?
Saints, if Winifred had come
with an invitation to one of their mother’s awful parties, Molly
would scream.

Squaring her shoulders, Molly made her way up
the brick walk to the front door. There was a small garden in front
of the boarding house; a squat statue of Saint Ula, who repelled
slugs and other pests, stood amidst the withered stalks of last
summer’s basil.

As she had expected, Mrs. Smythe sat in the
front parlor, offering Winifred a cup of tea and babbling about how
wonderful it was to have such a lady of quality visit her humble
boarding house. Winifred sat in the best chair, beneath a hideous
portrait of the long-dead Mr. Smythe, smiling as graciously as if
she were taking tea with the queen. Which she had done, on at least
one occasion.

“Oh, Molly, there you are!” said Mrs. Smythe.
“I was just telling Lady Ellington that you were due home from
class. Would you like to change before joining us for tea?”

Molly ignored the not-so-subtle hint.
“Winifred is my sister—she’s seen me in worse getup than this.”

Mrs. Smythe looked shocked, but Winifred
unsuccessfully hid a grin behind her teacup. The difference between
the two sisters could not have been greater, Molly thought, unable
to entirely suppress the old pang of envy.

Winifred was tall and shapely, her willowy
build complementing the latest gowns. Fair hair framed a delicate
face, and her blue eyes had been described as “heart-breaking” on
more than one occasion. After the family’s transition to Brasstown,
she had slipped into society with the ease of one born to it. As a
result, she was the favorite, the one their mother doted on and
trotted out in front of guests like a performing dog.

Molly, on the other hand, had taken after
their father, in that she was short and rather more sturdily built.
She’d also gotten his muddy brown hair and poor eyesight, although
unlike him, she wasn’t too proud to wear spectacles. Despite her
mother’s best attempts to stuff her into silk gowns and
lace-trimmed frocks, she was far more at home in an old, beat-up
coat with chains dangling from the shoulders, a tool belt slung
around her hips, and a pair of very heavy steel-toed boots.

Winifred had spent their formative years
throwing tea parties for the girls of their social set. Molly had
tried to dismantle the neighborhood pumping station at age ten,
then scandalized Sir Throgmorton by correcting his explanation of
how aetherwave worked when she was fifteen. Her father had weakly
joked that at least the steam car was always in perfect working
order, and that grease stains were no more difficult to remove than
red wine. Her mother had not been amused.

“Winifred, would you come upstairs with me?”
Molly asked, ignoring Mrs. Smythe’s silent signals to join them. “I
need to wash up.”

Winifred rose, her powder-blue skirts not
even creased from the chair. “Of course, Molly.”

Molly lived in the garret room at the top of
three flights of stairs. The slanting roof would have made it feel
cramped even without piles of books, three toolboxes of various
sizes, a partially disassembled engine, and several trunks of gears
and other parts. Molly tossed her bag onto a chair that already had
two coats and a pair of trousers draped over it. There was a
cluttered desk jammed under the window, and a small bed that hadn’t
been made since Molly moved in.

Winifred perched on the edge of the bed,
while Molly rummaged in her wardrobe for something clean. “You
realize that one of these days, I’ll find you trapped under a
landslide of books and empty teacups,” Winifred said.

“Probably.”

“If you’d just let the landlady clean a
little...”

“And damage one of my projects, like the maid
did when I was fifteen?” Molly asked. With a shake of her head, she
peeled off her coat, fingerless gloves, and fireproof vest.

“It was only the one time,” Winifred pointed
out.

“It was only the one time, because I didn’t
let anyone touch my things ever again.”

Winifred rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t very
fair of you not to give her a second chance.”

“I’m not really interested in giving people
second chances,” Molly replied, hopping on one foot as she pulled
on a clean set of pants. “Not when it comes to my projects, anyway.
So, how is Gibson these days?”

Winifred smiled at her transparent attempt to
change the subject. “He’s fine. Living the thrilling life of a
courtier, by which I mean that he mainly acts as a secretary or a
clerk whenever someone with bluer blood requires his
assistance.”

Although Molly’s brother-in-law was nice
enough, her few encounters with him had convinced her that he was
the dullest person who had ever lived. Gibson’s idea of a thrilling
night on the town probably involved being home and in bed by
ten.

He seems to make Winifred happy, though.
That’s really all that matters, in the end.
He’d also managed
to make their mother happy, by having a great many noble titles
that sounded impressive, even though it had been about five
generations since they’d actually meant anything.

“What about you?” Winifred asked. “Are you
happy, Molly?”

“I’m fine,” Molly said, as she laced her
boots back up. “School is hard, but I enjoy the challenge. I love
working at the shop, except for some of the customers.” For a
moment, she thought about telling her sister about her adventure of
the night before, but that would only worry Winifred. So instead,
she asked, “I haven’t seen the papers today—was there anything
about an airship accident?”