Iron Codex 2 - The Nightmare Garden (35 page)

They came rushing up the ladder. The dive siren sounded below, but they ignored it, as transfixed as I was by the glowing sight before us.

Rasputina stared, her face slack with disbelief. “I’ll be damned. It’s real.”

“It was the ice. The—the sound it makes,” I stammered. “The sound like breaking bones. It made me think, and then I saw the lights.…”

“It was right here all this time,” Rasputina muttered. “I could have been making a fortune doing this run.”

I swung my leg over the conning tower and grabbed hold of the ladder leading down the outside, knowing what I had to do. I was so close—just a jump to the ice and a short walk to the dock.

“Where in this frozen hell do you think you’re going?” Rasputina shouted at me. “You’ll die out there with nothing but your coat!”

“Going where I meant to when I got on this boat!” I shouted back. I couldn’t risk waiting around for more trouble in getting where I was going. I could make it. The
Bone Sepulchre was so close, I had to tilt my head back to see the top spire.

“You can’t trek over ice!” Rasputina bellowed. “The snow could be six feet deep, and who knows how far away that thing really is!”

“Thanks for everything,” I shouted, jumping from the bobbing boat to the ice. I turned back to wave to Rasputina and Sorkin. They’d taken me far enough. This part I could do on my own. The thought warmed me a bit. My satchel was under my coat—I had barely let it out of my sight since I’d boarded the
Oktobriana
, because if Rasputina or her crew found the compass or my diary … well, it didn’t bear thinking about. I had everything I needed, minus a plan, but I’d deal with that when I actually reached the Brotherhood.

“Dammit, girl!” Rasputina shouted, leaning over the railing of the tower. “I am not responsible for you any longer! You are insane!”

My feet dug into the ice for balance, and I stood for a moment, staring at the Bone Sepulchre. I couldn’t argue with Rasputina—the
idea
of trekking across ice and knocking on the Brotherhood’s door unannounced was insane—but off the boat, in the open air with no iron close to me, I felt more lucid than I had in days.

I started walking, Rasputina’s voice and the
Oktobriana
’s bulk fading behind me, until I was alone on the glacier, with only the stars for company.

The Bone Sepulchre was much farther away than it had looked under the glow of the aurora, and I felt as if I’d been
walking for hours when I heard the bells. Not the dull tolling of the bells at St. Oppenheimer’s back in Lovecraft, but a light tinkling that traveled to my ears across the windswept waste.

A shape came into view, whiter than the starlit ice field: a low conveyance of some kind, pulled by another hulking white shape.

The shape stopped, and something that at least
looked
human tugged at reins hung with sleigh bells. “Whoa.”

The shape was alive. I stood perfectly still in surprise, wind buffeting the empty bits of my too-large coat and pants, as it huffed a puff of dragon’s breath at me. Horns curled behind the creature’s ears, and its fur hung shaggy and white. It stamped its black hooves and returned my stare with glowing gold eyes. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just put up my hands in surrender. Better to let them think I was harmless, at least to start with.

Despite my gesture of surrender, the human in the sleigh pointed a very businesslike gun at me, which I found to be a bit extreme. “State your business,” the man snapped. His eyes were covered by goggles like my own, and his winter gear was completely white, down to the fur on his collar, which looked suspiciously like the coat of the thing that pulled the sleigh. I didn’t like talking to faceless people, be they Proctors or the Brotherhood, but I backed up a step and raised my hands higher.

“I’m Aoife Grayson,” I said, over the howling wind. “I’m here to—”

Before I could finish, the faceless man vaulted from his seat and grabbed me, pressing the gun into my side and
shoving me toward the sleigh. “Get in and get on the floor. Facedown.”

I tried to comply, but he shoved me and I fell. My bulky coat saved me from smashing my ribs on the bench, but I landed on the satchel, and Draven’s compass dug uncomfortably into my side. That was fine. As long as this man didn’t think I was a spy, he could shove me around all he wanted. I’d do what I’d always done back in Lovecraft when faced with a bully: keep my head down and try not to draw attention.

The man holstered his gun and turned the sleigh around, clucking loudly at the creature pulling it until it broke into an awkward gallop.

“Boy oh boy,” the man muttered to himself. “Wait until they see who I’ve got here.” He let out a surprisingly high-pitched cackle for such a big, gruff type. I stayed quiet not so much because he scared me, but because I was finally sheltered from the wind, which was a relief.

The ride was bumpy, at least from where I lay on the floor. The ice looked smooth, but we jittered and bounced, and the thing pulling us panted in a harsh rhythm in sync with my heartbeat.

When we slowed, I chanced a look up. We had passed through a carved archway, and doors slid shut behind us—doors of ice that blurred the outside world but didn’t cause it to disappear entirely. If I hadn’t been being held at gunpoint, I would have been thrilled by the engineering skill it took to carve an entire room and working mechanical doors from a glacier.

“Get up,” the man ordered, and I did as he said. The cold wasn’t so paralyzing indoors, but it still sliced straight
through my coat. I wrapped my arms around myself protectively to keep the bulge of the satchel hidden as he shoved me down from the sleigh.

“Goggles and hood off,” the man ordered, and snatched them off my head before I could comply on my own. I chewed on my lip and waited for his reaction, my stomach knotted with apprehension.

He looked at me and then snorted behind his own mask. “You know, for all the flap about you back in the world, you’re still just a kid.”

“And you’re not a gentleman,” I responded. “What of it?”

He raised his free hand and pointed a scolding finger at me. “Destroyer of the Engine or not, Gateminder heir or just Grayson’s bastard—you don’t get to speak to me like that, and I’ll put you in your place next time you do.”

I bristled at the mention of my father. The destroyer label was going to stick to me—I accepted that now—but my family was off-limits.

“Now, now, Bruce,” someone said before I could slap the man across the face. The voice was full and resplendent, as if it should have been echoing from a pulpit somewhere. “That’s no way to talk to the favorite child of the Gateminder.”

I turned to look, curious about my rescuer. The man who’d spoken wore a white padded coat trimmed in fur, like the first man’s, but suit pants protruded from beneath, along with shoes shined to a high gloss. Not clothes for the outside, and not the clothes of someone low on the totem pole. His hood was down, and I took in a full head of white hair gleaming under the violet-tinged light that still danced through the ice walls all around us. “Well, well,” he said.
“Aoife Grayson, in the flesh.” He frowned at me. “Do you know who I am?”

I recognized the blunt nose, not nearly as attractive on a man, and the snapping eyes. I tried to sound as if I knew what I was talking about, as if my being here having this conversation were normal. “You’re Valentina Crosley’s father.”

“Ah, very perceptive,” he said. “I see you’ve met my dear daughter. Tell me, how is she faring on her own, with your … father?”

I pretended not to notice that he evidently would much rather have used another word in place of
father
and put a smile I wholly didn’t feel on my face. “She’s well. They both are.”

He held out his hand, and his smile was also false. So we were going to be achingly polite rather than confrontational. That suited me just fine—I wanted the Brotherhood to like me. “My name is Harold Crosley, and I hope that you and I will get along
very
well indeed, Miss Grayson. It’s such a relief to have you among the fold.”

I didn’t take his hand. It was crucial that I choose the right response, if I was going to make the Brotherhood trust me. Or trust me for long enough that I could find the nightmare clock and figure out how to use it, at any rate. “Really?” I said. “A relief? A happy occasion? Do you think I’m stupid, Mr. Crosley?” I took a breath and kept going, even though I was quaking with the fear that they wouldn’t let me finish my performance and the big jerk with the gun would just shoot me for insolence. “You know what I did in Lovecraft,” I told Crosley. “You should want to throw me in
a deep, dark hole and never let me see daylight again. Not only did I destroy the Engine and break the Gates in the Iron Land, I weakened all the others. Plus, I’m Archie Grayson’s daughter. The Archie Grayson who stole your darling daughter Valentina away.” I folded my arms across my chest in an imitation of Dean’s posture, hoping I looked tough. “And yet you’re
happy
to see me at your doorstep? Why is that, Mr. Crosley?”

“Why are you here?” he countered with a smile. It wasn’t the false smile he’d shown before—this one told me he’d been proven right about something he’d suspected. “If we’re so bound to do you wrong and you’re such a villain,” Crosley continued, “I’d have to conclude you’re only here because you want something from us, and that you’re going to try to use deceit to get it. I’d hate to think such a thing of a Grayson, young lady. Even if Archie and I are no longer civil.”

“You have something my father doesn’t,” I said. For once, I could tell lying wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Crosley was a lot more accomplished at it than I was.

“And what’s that?” His mouth twitched with amusement. He must have loved having somebody from my family need something from him.

“I need to look at the Iron Codex,” I said. My father’s journals had told me a little when I’d read them back in Massachusetts, but not everything. Not much of actual use. Short of being knocked unconscious, I didn’t even know how to reach the dream room, with its dark figure. I had no idea how to manipulate the clock should I make it there. I needed the Codex.

“That’s interesting,” Crosley said. “You need my Codex and I need somebody with a Weird, which we’re fully aware that your brother does not possess.”

Valentina’s hushed and frantic conversation came back to me. Now it made sense. Mr. Crosley wanted my Weird, and she hadn’t wanted to give me up. “Then you’ll let me look at it?”

“Maybe.” Crosley shrugged. “If your Weird can help us as much as I think it can.”

He didn’t trust me, that was obvious. “I don’t know how much my Weird can help anyone,” I murmured. “You’ve seen what it can do.”

“You’ll come to understand, Aoife,” Crosley said quietly, “we don’t revile you for what happened. We know how the Fae can be, and that it wasn’t your fault, the incident with the Gates. We’re glad you came to us.” He put a hand on my shoulder, snaking me into his grasp. “What say before we continue this conversation we get you warmed up somewhere a little more comfortable. Are you hungry?”

“Famished,” I said truthfully. Relief coursed through me. I was in.

Crosley smiled even wider when I assented. It was a sweet trap of a smile this time, the kind designed to entice little girls who wanted to show they were clever.

“I’m glad you found your way home, Aoife. It’s good work we do here, and the Gateminder and future Gateminders like you are needed for every bit of it. We’re glad to have you.”

“I’m so very glad to be here,” I replied, and let him lead me through the doors.

*  *  *

Beyond the doors lay a great hall, at least thirty feet from floor to ceiling. Icicles dangled from the roof. “Is this whole place made of ice?” I asked in wonder. I couldn’t conceive of such a feat.

“It is. And never more than thirty-two degrees,” Crosley said proudly. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of that outfit and into something that’ll keep you warm.” He marched straight through the hall, ignoring the stares of the other occupants. There were a fair number of people in the room. Reading tables lined the gleaming ice walls, along with workbenches, and there was even a depression in the ice where a pair of mechanics bent over the innards of a clockwork jitney.

“Why do you use those sleighs if you have mechanicals?” I asked. I figured the more inane questions I asked of him, the less suspicious he would be of any ulterior motives I might have.

“Engines seize up in low temperatures,” Crosley said. “That critter that pulled you in here with the sleigh—it’s a yetikin—bred for the cold.”

“I see,” I said, and forced a ladylike smile. I couldn’t care less about what pulled the Brotherhood’s sleighs, but Crosley seemed content to chatter while we walked, and as long as I acted like a simpering schoolgirl, nothing I said would give him a second’s pause.

“This way, my dear,” he said, and ushered me into what looked like a men’s clubroom: all dark furniture, distinguished suits and jackets on the occupants, and air full of
their cigar smoke and heavy, hushed conversation. A carved bar took up the back portion, a bartender in a natty white jacket and scarf hard at work.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Crosley asked, sitting me in one of the engulfing armchairs. I sank so deep that I wouldn’t easily get out again, especially in my bulky cold-weather clothes.

“A cup of tea would be lovely, please,” I said. “Thank you so much.” I didn’t like being backed into a corner, in this chair, unable to gauge what was happening around me, but I forced myself to stay calm. Crosley wasn’t going to try to cut my throat, at least not yet. He didn’t know I was really after the nightmare clock.

“Well, now that I can get a proper look at you, you’re quite lovely,” Crosley said. “You remind me of Valentina, before her unfortunate decision to leave her place in society and take up a … front-line position in the Brotherhood, doing things unsuitable for a well-bred young woman like her.” The way he said it, lips pursing, left no doubt how he felt about his daughter’s allegiances. Apparently I, not being of the same breed of rich jerk, was exempt from such disapproval.