The Clockwork Dagger (6 page)

Octavia opened the middle pocket of her satchel, revealing the white of her medician blanket. “Come along now,” she said, scooping up the creature. He weighed as much as two chicken eggs. The gremlin's eyes were dark and solemn as she snapped the flap shut.

Octavia escaped the room. In the open space above the stairs, she found the dandies in a mob. Considering how she had just bashed many of them with a tray, she wasn't surprised at their glowers and commentary as she hurried past.

“Upstart—”

“Meddlesome git—”

“Someone ought to teach her—”

Breathless, she fumbled out her key and opened the door, ducking inside. As she turned, a piece of paper on the sink caught her eye. As she drew closer, she noted it was a napkin.

IF YOU CONTINUE TO DELFORD, YOU WILL DIE.

The words were bold and blocky, stealing the breath from her lungs. It wasn't from the other men, not that fast. Whoever wrote this knew what she was, where she was going. What did this mean? Why would she die?

“I'm just a medician,” she whispered, and knew the words for false as soon as they escaped her lips. She had never been “just a medician.”

Whatever the note meant, it didn't need to be seen by Mrs. Stout. Her fingers trembling, she set her satchel on the floor and pulled out the gremlin. He quivered in her palm, his squashed nose sniffing the air. Just as Octavia crammed the note into her satchel, Mrs. Stout burst into the room.

“There!” she said with a huff. “How is the creature?”

“Well.” Octavia managed a shaky smile as the gremlin scurried up her arm to the shoulder, wings tickling against her sleeves. She glanced around the room and couldn't spy any other threats.
Die. Why would I die? How do they know where I'm going?

“Good. I gave that captain a piece of my mind, I'll tell you! His ear will be burning for hours. Give me space to get to the closet, child.”

Stooping down, the older woman pulled out a brown suitcase in full leather. The corners showed softness from wear, but the craftsmanship was obvious. Mrs. Stout came from some money. She opened the case and tugged something from the base. Metal clinked. The gremlin made a sound akin to a purr as his long ears perked up.

Mrs. Stout held a small metal cage, folded down. With a few snaps it assumed its full size of about a foot in diameter. “In Leffen I intended to buy a new mecha bird. The best mechanists in the kingdom are there! I saw no point in buying a new cage when I already had one at home, so I brought this along. Do you think it's too small?”

“It looks about right to me,” said Octavia, welcoming any distraction from her new anxieties. Even more, the gremlin was eager. He sprang from her shoulder and glided to Mrs. Stout's lap with the softest flutter of wings. “The cage is silver. They do have a fixation for the metal, don't they?”

“They hoard silver, but fancy all things metal, really. Finding a gremlins' nest is like a dragon's cave of old, mounded high with everything from wedding rings to engine casings from steam cabriolets.”

“A man out there said these were chimeras.” Octavia studied the gremlin, as if she could discern seams or mismatched flesh.

“Yes, creations out of Tamarania. It's not enough for scientists to twiddle with machines; no, they must alter living beings as well.” Mrs. Stout huffed in disagreement. “Of course, there are some who say their presence in Caskentia is to undermine us.”

“How's that?”

“Oh, there are
books
on the subject,” Mrs. Stout said sagely, as if that made it true. Her eyes sparkled as she leaned forward with a storyteller's eagerness. “In the south, men can speak with gremlins, work with them. Here, they are mischief makers. Thieves. Some suspect that gremlins are here to ensure we cannot develop our technology, that gremlins steal everything and haul it south so those nations remain superior.”

“That's footle. Anyone with sense knows Caskentia undermines itself sufficiently and doesn't require any outside interference.”

“True. Nothing's been the same since the days of King Kethan.” Sadness weighed on Mrs. Stout's words, but then, she was old enough to actually remember those golden years. “Most gremlin flocks live near cities, just as we found this mob today. Makes scavenging easier for them, I imagine, though you never see them inside a city. Even gremlins have standards!”

A dislike of cities. Something we have in common.

The gremlin took to the air and alighted on Octavia's lap. With an eye on his catlike mouth, she slowly stroked his head. Soft folds at the base of the ears reminded her of worn leather. The gremlin butted his head against her, chittering, and folded his body in a meditative Al Cala posture like a small child. Octavia sucked in a breath, caught by memory.

For years, when loneliness overwhelmed her, Octavia would retreat to the academy's upstairs office and crawl beneath Miss Percival's desk. Above her, Miss Percival's pen scratched on paper. Octavia bowed in Al Cala, forehead to the ground, breathing, taking in the mere closeness of another body.

“Is it the fire tonight?” Miss Percival would ask after a time, knowing of the nightmares that plagued Octavia.

“Yes,” she sometimes said, or “No. The others . . .”
Won't talk to me. Say I'm too good for them. That obviously the Lady is the only friend I need.

If it was the latter, Miss Percival's hand would work beneath the desk to rest on Octavia's shoulder. “It was the same for me.”

No, it wasn't.
Miss Percival couldn't hear a song outside of an enchanted circle; Octavia knew that—she had tested it with small injuries. Miss Percival was none the wiser, gifted as she was.

As Octavia crouched beneath the desk, she knew the anxiety in her mentor's blood, the drawn-out notes of weariness and the rat-tat-tat of the constant terror that a thousand more things must be done before sleep. Sometimes the song was accompanied by the agonized resonant drum of a migraine, or the quiver of knees and hands cramped after hours of harvesting.

“Let your breath be the wind in the Lady's branches, Octavia. Give her your sorrow, your guilt.”

They breathed together. In those moments, Miss Percival's song hummed in solace.

They had outgrown that ritual years ago. Judging by Miss Percival's strained song in recent months, not even Al Cala granted her respite these days.

But this gremlin—this creature cobbled together of various parts—meditated in a perfect Al Cala pose. Tears filled Octavia's eyes as she pressed a hand to the gremlin's back, just as Miss Percival once soothed her.

Do you grieve for those who died? Are you afraid to be caged within these walls, the way I feel amongst city streets?

It would be impossible to keep the creature hidden the entire trip. She knew that, and yet she couldn't withhold her fondness for this little gremlin the same color as spring leaves.
Leaf. The perfect name for a gremlin.
Mrs. Stout would never approve of the attachment it implied, so Octavia kept it to herself. Her fingers trailed down Leaf's spine to the small nub of his tail.

A bell rang out in the hall. “Come now, little one, and try out the cage,” Octavia said.

To her shock, the gremlin flew right inside the silver-barred cube. Mrs. Stout did the latch. Leaf had barely enough room to spread his wings, but he didn't seem perturbed by his new confines.

“Well! The creature learned what a cage was right away,” said Mrs. Stout. “My oh my. I wonder what else we could teach him?”

“Yes. There's something special about him.”
Leaf.
The name fit the chimera well. He was an aberration without a true place in this world, just like her.

“I
SUSPECT THIS MAY
be horse, not beef, but it's cooked too long to tell.” Mrs. Stout's nostrils flared as she sniffed at her supper stew. “Well, meat is meat!”

I couldn't eat flame-cooked meat for years after I moved to the academy. Couldn't even be in its presence without retching.

Octavia let a lump of gristle roll over the back of her spoon. “I suppose.” The afternoon had passed in blissful peace as they taught Leaf the names of some twenty objects, but now darkness had fallen beyond the promenade's windows.

“You're fussing, not eating.” Mrs. Stout pointed her spoon accusingly. “Our gremlin is caged and safe. Soon enough he'll be free, and you will have nothing to worry about!”

Today has been one new worry after another.

“Oh.” Mrs. Stout's eyes widened as she looked across the room. She reached to her lap and, to Octavia's surprise, pulled out a small notebook and nubby pencil. She began to scribble, her tongue jabbing at her red-painted lip.

“What are you doing, Mrs. Stout?”

“I am a keen observer of humanity. That woman over there, her dress is coarse, like a pony in winter. I must record that imagery. It's perfect.”

“You're a poet?” Octavia leaned forward with eagerness. The mechanical band played softly in the background, the sound of the mandolin soothing like a body in good health.

Mrs. Stout tilted her head, her expression mildly aghast. “Goodness, no. Though I do write. On occasion.” Her scrutinizing gaze traveled elsewhere, and her pencil scratched more words on paper. Octavia noted their fellow diners made no move to socialize. Apparently, one doesn't make friends by assaulting fellow passengers with a serving tray.

Their soup bowls were empty when Mr. Garret approached and leaned over the table, his hands hovering near their dishes.

“There has been a disturbance in your room,” he said, his voice low. “People complained of noise. I had seen you both at supper, so I unlocked the door, expecting a burglar.”

The two women shared an expression of white-faced dread.

“Mr. Garret, I can explain—” Octavia began.

“I know what happened earlier and I can guess what happened now.” His tone was mild, not indignant as she expected. “How long did you plan to keep the beastie?”

“Only until tonight,” Mrs. Stout said. Octavia felt a wave of sadness at the words.

“If people already suspect something about our room, is there someplace where no one will find him?” Octavia asked. “Until we can free him, of course.”

Mr. Garret considered her. “The cargo hold should do until the promenade empties about midnight. No one will hear him there. He'll be safe, Miss Leander.”

Octavia released a deep breath. “Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Garret. And your humanity.”
Each time I meet this man, I like him a little more.

“Bludgeoning a defenseless creature is no sport, m'lady.” His words reflected his Tamaran heritage: all logic and clear morality, even as his lilting accent was pure Mercian. For the first time, Octavia wondered what it would be like to settle in Tamarania, a city-state known for sparse crime, pacifism, and street-corner philosophers.

Mrs. Stout dabbed her lips with a napkin. “If we must wait until late for our clandestine activities, I do believe I'll retire to bed.”

“Your cots can certainly be set up now, m'ladies,” Mr. Garret said in a louder voice, backing up. They followed him from the promenade as Octavia scrutinized him.

Romantic entanglements, however brief, were dangerous. She knew that from the medical wards and the heartbreaks she'd witnessed time and again. A girl would heal a soldier. Enjoy his company. Think cozy what-ifs. He returns to duty. Dies in some terrible, instantaneous way.

I'll know Mr. Garret for only a few days. I'm not some flibbertigibbet out for a fling. Our relationship is temporary. Professional.

Though Mrs. Stout is right. His uniform pants do fit in an extremely flattering way.

She was so busy looking down that she almost walked into him as he stopped at their room. A self-conscious flush warmed her cheeks as she fumbled for her key.

She entered first. The thin bunk mattress was flipped onto the floor. A splash of water across the sink revealed that the tap had been running. A handle along the wall had been flipped down, revealing a small foldout writing surface. In the midst of the maelstrom sat Leaf. His ears perked up at the sight of Octavia and he launched himself at her shoulder, squawking.

“Shush, shush,” she said, nudging aside the open cage so she could squeeze beside the sink. She noted the undone padlock and scanned the floor. There was no sign of the key that had been left hooked atop the cage. Perhaps Leaf was too intelligent for his own good.

Mrs. Stout and Mr. Garret entered, and he shut the door behind him. Standing there, they occupied almost all the space in the room.

“This is what we will do,” Mr. Garret said, then paused, his brows lowered in thought. “I will escort Miss Leander into the cargo hold. Mrs. Stout, I hate to leave this mess for you—”

“Tosh and fiddlesticks.” Mrs. Stout flicked her hand, then smoothed the blue streak in her hair. “I'm not an invalid. I can tidy things and then call a steward to ready our beds.”

“What of you, Mr. Garret?” Octavia asked. “Yet again, you go beyond the duties of your station to assist me.”

“Doing what is right is often an unpopular choice. That said, I am not often popular.” He softened the words with an almost bashful shrug.

Octavia pressed her fingers to her mouth as if she could hide her smile. “Oh. Perhaps that's why we get along so well, Mr. Garret.”

Amusement glittered in his eyes. “Perhaps, m'lady. Now, can you cage the beastie?”

“Certainly.” Octavia made a kissing noise to attract the gremlin's attention. He remained precariously balanced on her shoulder, his wing like a fan by her ear. “Into the cage and quiet, little one. We must take you someplace safe.”

Leaf chittered and half slid down the slope of Octavia's breasts. He glided into the cage at her feet.