Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times (14 page)

Jack had never been permitted so much as a kitten back home, and this wondrous thing was ever so much better than a kitten. He stared in awe at its stomping iron feet, the wings that began to flap faster and faster. A hotter, meaner jet of steam issued violently from its nostrils, a high-pitched screech piercing the room. The entire cage rattled against the table.

“I don’t think it likes me,” said Jack, loud enough for the girl to hear him over the racket. A particularly violent kick from one of the creature’s strong legs snapped one of the metal bars that imprisoned it, and the dragon screamed again.

“It likes you fine,” said the girl, pushing past Jack, a tiny cup in her hand. She deftly avoided another cloud of scalding steam and poured a ribbon of thick black liquid down into a waiting, thirsty mouth.

So it needed to drink oil, just like Beth did. Had Beth had a dragon during her time here? Perhaps she’d had
this
one. Jack made up his mind to ask her, if he ever saw her again.

They hanged people to get me here.

“I’ll run your bath,” said the girl. He nodded and did not speak as she opened another door.

The bath was not like the copper tub at Dr. Snailwater’s, with water slopping over onto the kitchen floor. Instead, it was an enormous marble thing, brass spouts at one end, the other far enough away Jack thought he might have to swim to it. The whole room was marble, echoing, the splashing of the water so loud he could as well be in the eye of a thunderstorm. Gathered around a sink were bottles and bottles that glowed unearthly colors, sometimes two at once, as if dreams had been captured in the glass and stoppered there.

“I am perfectly capable of bathing myself,” said Jack when it looked as if the girl would stay.

Her eyes slanted. “Be right outside, then.”

That was well enough. He wasn’t a
child.

The water was warm, but not overly so. His clothes lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, and he had a sneaking suspicion he would never see them again. That they were the last part of him to go.

He stayed in until the bath grew cool, then cold, and he shivered. A clock on the wall—even
his
house did not have such things in the bath—read close to dawn. Beth and Dr. Snailwater would be waking soon. Well,
he
would, and the doctor would wind Beth before making tea, and they would see right away that Jack was gone.

A rich suit of blue, stitched with silver, waited for him,
finer than anything he’d ever worn before. The girl helped him, for there were too many buttons and buckles to count on the shirt and coat and small leather boots. There was a mirror, tall as a man, but Jack did not look.

“What’s your name?” Jack asked the girl.

“Arabella, your lordship,” she said. “The Lady will be positively chuffed with you. Might give us all a half day.”

Jack went over to the cage, put his hand on the lock. Would it fly away? The dragon spread its wings, clanging against the bars.

“Aye, those ones are sweet enough once they’ve had their oils,” said Arabella, “but steer clear of the ones in the mountains. Big as houses, they are. Not that you’ll have much need to leave the palace, of course. No risk of steaming for you.”

“And the Lady? Is she sweet?” Jack asked.

Arabella’s eyes darkened, as if smoke were swirling through the glass. Like marbles. “She will be to you. Such a rage she was in when she thought she’d never get you. Sir Lorc—” She snapped her mouth shut.

“Sir Lorcan what?”

“Never you mind. Your lordship, sir. The Lady is lovely; you’ll see.”

Lordship.
Jack slid the latch free. The door swung open and the dragon whipped its head toward the sound. It
leaped for freedom so quickly, Jack jumped back, landing sprawled on the bed. Wings flapped, lifting, soaring up to the ceiling, flashing in the lamplight.

Arabella ducked as it swooped an inch above her head. Twice it circled the room, hissing thin jets of steam from its nostrils. Jack sat up for a better look, and it slowed, drifting down to land on his shoulder.

“Hello,” he said. It was lighter than he’d expected, and the thick cloth of his suit protected him from its steely talons.

“See? Best of friends,” said Arabella approvingly. “Now, back it goes.”

“What would happen if I took it apart?” he asked.

Her eyes widened in glassy shock. “That would be as murder, your lordship,” she said.

“Why? Couldn’t I just put it together again?”

Arabella shook her head violently. “The pieces’d all be there, but
it
would be gone. Needs to be held together to keep the . . . the essence of it inside, see?”

“Oh.” With some difficulty, he prized the creature off and tucked it back inside the cage, locking the door tight.

Far away, deep in the palace, something crashed. Arabella flinched. “Goodness! She’s awake. Come. Hurry now.”

Hurrying was difficult in the strange new boots with
their little raised heels and toes that pinched a bit. And Jack did not want to go. In this room, this room that was
his
now, everything that had happened thus far seemed very distant, a story.

But he’d come of his own choice, to make the hangings stop. The crowds were scattered again, back in their houses and shops, shipyards, and factories. Beth and the doctor and Xeno would return to the things that filled their days before Jack had run away from home so much farther than he’d ever intended. Ever imagined.

Outside the door, the noise was louder, and Jack could hear a voice that sounded like flint and fire. “Where is he?” it demanded. “Where is my son? Bring him to me at once!”

Jack stopped. She was talking about him. Arabella took his elbow to chivy him forward along the corridor to the top of the marble staircase.

“He is coming, Lady,” said another voice, younger, a girl, perhaps one of the many who’d poked and prodded at him before he’d been taken to his room. “Any moment now.”

Behave yourself, little Jack.
Jack started and saw Lorcan standing half in shadow, his face a mask.
You have seen what I will do. Please her, or it will be your neck inside that noose.

“H-how do you do that?” Jack asked him.

“Do what?” Arabella looked confused. “Oh! Sir Lorcan, didn’t see you there. I’m taking him down right now.”

“Of course.” Lorcan spread his arms. “Do not let me keep you.”

He didn’t answer Jack.

The banister was cold beneath Jack’s hand. He gripped it so his knuckles turned white as the marble.
Click
,
click
. His heels struck the stairs, counting the steps. At the bottom, Arabella steered him left, through the wide entrance hall and to another set of doors, opposite the ones he’d been through earlier. A footman stood ready. Jack felt his stare like hands on his face.

The doors opened onto a most beautiful room, but Jack had little chance for more than a brief impression of silk and brass and velvet.

This, then, must be the Lady, and she was the prettiest thing Jack had ever seen, so pretty it frightened him. She bloomed like an enormous red flower in the middle of the floor, her smile showing too many teeth. Her lips were very red, too, and her eyes a perfect blue. A small hat, ringed with diamonds, sat on her head.

“Splendid,” she breathed, her eyes wide. “Oh, so very splendid.”

She came closer. “Tell me your name.”

“J-Jack,” he said. His knees knocked together in the fancy breeches.

“Jack,” she repeated. “A strong name. A
good
name.”

It was my grandfather’s,
Jack wanted to say, but something whispered to him that this wouldn’t be wise. So he said nothing at all.

“We are going to have such
fun
, Jack.” She clapped her hands. “Parties and cake and all manner of smashing times. Are you pleased with your chambers? Are they good enough for you?”

Oddly, it felt to Jack that she was genuinely concerned about this. “Yes,” he answered. “Thank you.”
He hanged people to get me here.

“So polite. Lovely.”

She embraced him then, all perfume and powder. He thought of his mother, though he didn’t know why. Certainly she’d never hugged him thus, or not for as long as Jack could remember. And then of Mrs. Pond, who’d always greeted him home from school, squeezing the very breath from him. He stood very still until the Lady released him.

“Splendid,” she said once more.

“W-what do I call you?” Jack asked.

She blinked in surprise. “Why, Mother, of course.”

Jack looked more closely at the room. A throne sat in the middle on a large rug, and curtains billowed at the windows. A girl was crouched, sweeping up shards of china. Portraits lined the walls, as they did in the corridor upstairs.

All were of boys who could pass for Jack’s brothers, had he any, the oils faded and cracked, some more than others. Dozens of them. Even the newest appeared old, and though they all looked similar, Jack could tell that one was Lorcan, himself appearing like a slightly older version of Jack.

Jack looked, and thought of the brilliant white stone at the base of the tower, and tried to ignore the ache in his chest that wasn’t caused by filthy air this time, but by knowing he would never be home again.

•  •  •

Preparations were made.

A great parade, decreed the Lady. The people would know of her new son. Another throne, a miniature of the one already in the grand room, was fetched, and Jack was forced to sit in it for hours on end as people came for her approval with fabrics to touch, food to sample.

And then she would send them all away, even the ladies-in-waiting, and it would just be her and Jack surrounded by the splendor and the portraits. He was allowed to play as much as he liked with the Tune-Turner, even to take it apart and put it together again for her amusement.

“Sir Lorcan of Havelock, Lady,” announced the footman from the door. Jack raised his head. The Lady beckoned Lorcan forward.

“Ah, Lorcan, what news?” she asked. It was so quick
Jack was certain he’d imagined the flinch, the curling of Lorcan’s hands, but then he was bowing, and when he straightened again, he was perfectly at ease.

“The fleets are in excellent repair, Lady,” he said. “Ready to fly at your command.”

Jack remembered the airships carving the sky over the park. Had Beth stayed with Dr. Snailwater, or had she returned to her birdcage gazebo to watch the passersby, now that Jack was gone?

The Lady smiled. “Excellent. All that must wait, however. We must celebrate first!”

“Do you think delaying is wise, Lady? The longer we wait, the stronger the colonies grow, more fond of their independence,” said Lorcan.

This time, Jack was certain he saw anger. The Lady’s eyes flashed as she half rose from her throne, but she glanced toward Jack and lowered herself again. “I do. Now leave us. Go inspect the palanquins, if you like. We are playing chess.” A cat’s smile curled her lips. “Send someone in with cake on your way.”

Lorcan’s heels tapped loudly over the floor.
You will grow old,
he said in Jack’s head as he left.
Grow old and die in misery like all who came before me, but I will still be here. I have served her these two hundred years, and will an eternity more. Enjoy her favor while you can.

A servant entered with a tray laden with tea and crumpets and cakes of different flavors. Lemon, strawberry jam, Battenberg with its thick layer of almond paste all around. The Lady moved a pawn. Arabella and the other girls, whose names Jack could not for the life of him remember, sat on the floor, whispering among themselves. Jack could see he would win, if only he moved his bishop this way, queen that.

He chose a knight.

“Well done, Lady,” said Arabella, her gleaming eyes on Jack as he lay down his king. He looked away. But the Lady didn’t seem to know he’d lost on purpose, that he had some notion of what would happen were he to anger her. She patted his head and motioned for a girl to pour the tea.

“What would you like to do next, dearest?” asked the Lady.

He wanted to explore the palace. Thus far, he’d really only seen his room, and this one, and the route between the two. Even the room to which he’d been led upon his arrival had been closed to him since.

Rings of silver and gold dug into his hand as she led him out, ordering Arabella and the footman not to follow. They would be perfectly fine on their own, she said. Together they wandered long corridors, into empty rooms he was told were used by dignitaries from foreign lands when they came to visit.

Jack couldn’t help but notice they were filmed with a thin sheen of dust.

She took him to the library of which Beth had spoken, and he pretended surprise at its shelves reaching to the high ceilings. “Read anything you wish,” she said. He thought of the books in his room at home.

But he liked it here. No school to be sent off to, and not once had the Lady sent him away so she might giggle with her friends in private. The throne room doors were not locked to him at any hour, and he wasn’t reduced to peering through the keyhole at silly magic tricks.

Lorcan’s, though, had not seemed so very silly. With his magic, Lorcan had power over life or death, killing the daisy, making the bird-shaped hairpin flutter as if it were real.

“Have you always lived here?” asked Jack. There were other palaces in his London; everything else seemed the same.

“For longer than you can imagine.”

She’s not like the rest of us. No one knows from whence she came
,
the doctor had said.

For a moment, Jack felt sorry for her, if that was really true. Whatever she was, she was lonely. Why else had she so desperately wanted a child?

He would be a good son to her. And she would be a good mother to him.

“Thank you for the dragon,” he said. “I like to watch it fly.”

“They always say that in the beginning,” she whispered. Jack strained to hear her, and she stepped away to the window. “So grateful in the beginning, but they grow, and they must leave.”