Chapter Thirty-Two
THIRTY-TWO
Vesper stared at Ada, confusion racking her mind. “I don’t understand.”
“You know the thing about honeybees?” Ada said quietly.
“They’re small, unassuming, easy to swat at and ignore.
No one really notices them, until they sting.
” She pulled her wrist back, and examined the charm on her bracelet.
“Now, I’ll give you credit. I thought it’d be easy enough throwing you off at first—that’s why I gave you Bess, to distract you—but you proved me wrong.
You’re far sharper than I’d anticipated.
” She smiled. “The hardest thing about being a smart woman in our world? We’re used to being the only ones in the room.
We forget to look around for others like us.
” She sighed. “I was hoping you might be scared off, after that mishap with the horse.”
Something dropped in the pit of Vesper’s stomach. “You ensorcelled the horse. That’s why it charged at me during the polo match.”
“As I said, I never had any formal education,” said Ada. “But I learned a few useful things. Not that it worked.” The young woman’s brows knitted. “You never heeded any of my warnings.”
“You released the teratorn too,” said Vesper slowly. “And you sent the newspaper clipping threatening me.”
“Foolish, really. I should have known you and I are too much alike.” Ada shrugged. “You’d never back down from a challenge. I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t either.”
Vesper stared. “How did you do it? How did you kill Francis?”
Ada sat back and stared at the star-speckled sky.
She sighed. “Being from a good, respectable family does have its perks. Of course, it meant I received an invitation to the exhibition. All I had to do was wait until Francis was alone, and then convince him to come with me into the maze for a toast. Frank had always been a lush, never one to say no to a beverage, especially if it was expensive.”
“You poisoned him.”
Ada examined her fingernails. “The thing about being an artist? No one notices when you have the things you’re expected to, even when those things are quite dangerous.
Did you know paint thinner can kill a man in a matter of minutes?
It’s quite efficient, really. All I had to do was invite Francis into the maze, flatter him with a few toasts to his ‘genius,’ then spike his drink with paint thinner when he wasn’t paying attention.
“I thought that would do the trick, but then he went and ruined it by vomiting.” She rolled her eyes, looking disgusted. “I knew then that I would have to do something more drastic.”
“You followed him,” Vesper said. “You watched me while I tried to help him.”
“At first I thought you might prove a complication,” said Ada lightly.
“But then you made it easy for me and left. House of Dezimon’s champagne bottles are famously large.
They use nice, thick glass.” Her eyes glinted.
“One good hit was all I needed. After I killed him, I just wiped the blood off in the grass and slipped back into the party.”
Vesper shook her head. She was replaying everything now, seeing it all through a new lens that had been right in front of her the whole time. “Why, Ada? Why did you do this?”
Ada turned to stare out into the dark. Her smile faded.
“Most people know of my talent as an artist,” she said softly.
“Ada’s watercolors are so lovely,” she mimicked, “You simply must commission Ada for one of her darling miniatures!” She sighed.
“Nineteen years gives you a lot of time, plenty of opportunity to learn how to draw more than landscapes and adorable kittens. I went to the library, checked out books on quantum mechanical theory and industrial engineering. It was difficult, but slowly I taught myself how to draw other things—machines, engines.”
“The Gladwell Machine,” Vesper whispered. “You helped design it.”
“No.” Ada turned on her, voice sharp. “I didn’t help, I designed it all. It should never have been called the Gladwell Machine, that was never what I called it in my original blueprints.” Her gaze dropped. “In my sketchbook, she was always the Illuminator.”
Vesper stared at her friend. “How did Francis Gladwell get his hands on your work? Did he steal it?”
Ada shook her head. “He didn’t steal it,” she said bitterly. “I gave it to him. I had to.”
Vesper frowned. “But why—?”
“Oh, don’t be na?ve, Vesper.” At once, the savage bite had returned to Ada’s voice.
“You’ve lived in Basalton for just as long as I have.
You work in a male-dominated industry. You know exactly how things work in this city.
” She stood and began to pace. “I knew that no investor would ever take the work of a woman seriously, and I knew that I’d have to file a patent under my father’s name, or worse, a husband’s, and then they’d own the rights to it.
” She made a face. “I needed someone I could use, and Francis—Frank—was a near-perfect candidate.” She ticked her index finger.
“When I met him, he was just some unwanted bastard getting a stipend from his embarrassed father, but I saw potential for more. He was a virtual stranger to high society, which meant he could be molded.” Her eyes danced.
“And I molded him. I came up with Francis Gladwell’s illustrious pedigree, and I was the one who made sure the right things were said about him to the right people.
I even named him—he owed it all to me. We made a deal: I would quietly help him rise in high society, and in exchange, he would act as my proxy, presenting the idea of the Illuminator to the public and identifying potential investors for it.
I even gave myself a bit of extra security—I never fully explained how the machine worked, and Frank was nowhere near smart enough to create a duplicate.
” Ada sighed. “It was a foolproof plan.”
“Until it wasn’t,” Vesper murmured. Vesper thought about the crude sketches she and Maximilian had seen in Francis’s hotel room. She’d dismissed them as early drafts, but now she understood. “He tried to make his own machine, didn’t he?”
Ada closed her eyes. For several seconds, she said nothing, then: “It was worse than that. The day before the exhibition, Francis asked for a meeting, said he needed to talk. He told me that there’d been a change in plans, that he’d gone to the Department of Trademark and patented the Illuminator, but under his own name.
” Ada opened her eyes, and a single tear slicked her cheek.
“He told me that he already had an investor lined up, and that I was no longer needed.”
“That was Belver.” Another piece of the puzzle clicked together in her mind. “He and Francis were going to go into business together.”
“Charles proved tricky too,” said Ada. She sounded bitter again. “He wasn’t willing to relinquish his part of the machine’s ownership even after Francis died. Fortunately, I was able to deal with him quite easily.”
“You shot him,” Vesper said. “When I saw you in the farmer’s market, that’s why you were there. How did you do it?”
Ada shrugged. “It was easy enough, hiding the pistol in my parasol. I had no idea that there would be a protest happening, or that some of Belver’s former employees would be there, but it all worked out quite nicely for me.”
Vesper swallowed. “So, you murdered two men in cold blood.”
“I did what I had to.” Ada’s tone became neutral, businesslike. “I took the bits and scraps this world gave me, and I made something. Francis Gladwell was going to take it all away, my only chance. Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn’t do the same, in my position?”
Vesper stiffened. She knew what she wanted her answer to be.
She wanted to say no immediately, to believe that she was somehow morally superior, incorruptible, entirely above doing anything as awful as what Ada had done.
That was easier, but it wasn’t the truth.
If Basalton had taught her anything, it was that no one was immune to the lure of power.
Anyone could start a fire; all they needed was the right kindling.
“I don’t know.”
For the first time, Ada looked truly sad.
“May you never find out.” Without warning, she closed the gap between them.
Up close, her eyes were steely. “You must understand. This is what intelligent women have to do to survive in this city. We aren’t free in it, so we have to make our own way, not by waiting for what we deserve, but by taking it, the same way men do.
Do you know what I was planning to do with the money from the Illuminator?
” She looked off into the distance. “I was going to leave Basalton, start somewhere new where I wouldn’t have to marry an old man I didn’t even like simply because my father demanded it.
I was going to have the only thing I’ve ever really wanted: freedom. ”
Vesper stared at Ada for several seconds without speaking.
Slowly, the truth dawned on her. Ada Bickerton might have done bad things, terrible things.
She might have been monstrous, but she wasn’t the real villain.
This city, this society that fettered brilliant creatures until they turned rabid, was the real villain.
This world had failed Ada, and countless girls and women just like her.
“I’m sorry, Ada.”
Ada turned to her, a new gleam in her eyes. “Sorry?”
“I’m sorry for the way you’ve been wronged. I truly am.” Vesper shook her head. “But what you’ve done? I can’t let you get away with that. I can’t just stand by.”
Ada looked at her for a long time without saying anything. Vesper expected that she might get angry, that she might rage at her, or even cry. Instead, Ada only sighed.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she whispered. “And I’m also sorry for what I’m going to have to do now.”
The hairs on the back of Vesper’s neck stood on end.
The girl hadn’t moved, but one of her hands had slipped into her dress’s pocket. She looked up at Vesper, and her normal smile had been replaced with a much cooler one.