Chapter 37
Chapter
A makeshift dance floor opened, and the musicians played a toe-tapping polka. Happy couples in fine gowns and soft shoes twirled across the checkered floor, in circles around the plesiosaur. The song slowed, easing into a waltz.
“May I have this dance?”
I jumped and glared over my shoulder at Henry. The quickening of my pulse made me snappish. “And where have you been all night?”
“I’ll take that as a yes?” He slipped his arm around my waist and lifted my other palm, running a thumb over my knuckles. I shivered and scowled. I could feel the warmth of his palm through my dress, an imprint on my skin. Heat rushed to my toes.
“It isn’t appropriate,” I protested. “I’m your assistant.”
“It’s only a dance,” he murmured, and God help me, I didn’t drop his hand.
I was a poor dancer, but Henry was an excellent one, and he led us both with confidence of skill. His grip was strong but light on my waist.
“I’ve been looking for you. We still haven’t had a chance to talk properly.” I cleared my throat as he carried us around in time with the music, never minding my stumbles.
His eyes sparkled. “Oh?”
“About the salamanders. And—the others.” Belemnites, and trilobites, and ammonites, and sea snails, and, and, and…
“Ah. That,” Henry said, and he twirled me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice cracking, when he caught me close again.
Henry’s lips parted. “Oh, Mary. Not this again.”
“But—”
He shook his head as we spun. “How could you ever think I’d blame you? There were always going to be losses. That’s the nature of the experiment. The cost of the work. So don’t dwell on what we’ve lost,” he said, and his hand tightened on my hip, to pull me in. “Think of all we’ve gained.”
I forgot, for a moment, that we were in a room full of geomagicians and lords and other important people, and considered kissing him then and there. I thought of raking my hands through his hair, pulling his mouth down, and catching his lips against mine.
And Henry’s gaze held something hungry, too, as those storm-cloud eyes stared into mine. He’d asked for my friendship, once upon a time, and I said I didn’t trust him.
But that wasn’t true anymore. And there was no denying we were friends now. Friends, and maybe—perhaps—
He doesn’t want you. You’re just drunk and making a fool of yourself.
I stumbled over my feet as the thought tossed cold water on my ardor.
Henry had to catch me. “Whoa. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I stammered, reeling away. “I only need some air.”
I stumbled down one of the corridors, deeper into the bowels of Palmanaeus, a warren of storage rooms and study carrels and locked office doors.
I thought I’d been careful. I’d thought myself prepared. But here I was, once again, thinking of Henry Stanton’s mouth and wishing his fingers would lace through mine. And this time, I didn’t have the excuse of being sixteen.
The reliq-lamps in the hallway flickered in their iron sconces and mirrored-glass cases, mocking my foolishness.
“Damn Henry. Damn, damned, damnable man,” I mumbled.
One of the reliq-lamps had burned out, a missing tooth in the row of neat lights. Silver was considered the best material for reliq-lamps, given its natural reflective properties, and I stopped in front of the burnt light, staring at a hammered circlet of silver behind the glass dome.
Someone had worn that. Nestled next to flesh, around their neck or tucked into their stays, or maybe wrapped around a thigh if they were particularly worried about theft.
Some man or woman had probably leased it from a slicker.
They’d worn it for a week, or maybe two, and then taken it back in exchange for a couple shillings.
All their magic, poured into the metal. And what had they bought with it?
Bread, or fish, or cheese? Had they saved it for medicine, or fuel?
Maybe they had put it toward a debt to the cobbler, or the physiomagician, or the landlord.
And now here was their reliq, burned low in one night.
I was too drunk for this. Drunk and lovesick.
I was just about to sulk back to the party when I saw two figures turn down one of the branching hallways ahead. I recognized Lucy even with the shadows; I’d know that determined walk anywhere.
I followed, and just as I was about to call out—Where on earth has she been all night? Doesn’t she know I need her?—she and Elizabeth stopped, looked around furtively, and slipped through a doorway.
Ah. I blushed. I was loath to interrupt their chance at intimacy. I hurried away, thoughts flooded by upsetting images of Henry and myself, together in an empty, darkened office…
Then I heard footsteps in the hall, coming from the other direction. And not the light steps of women, but men’s heavy boot-falls. On a wave of instinct, I hid behind a bookcase.
Three men ducked quickly into the same room as Lucy and Elizabeth and shut the door behind.
Well, then. It appeared the two women weren’t sneaking away for privacy. No; this was Promethean business.
I frowned. Lucy had no right to be sneaking outsiders into Palmanaeus House for her little meetings. Especially not tonight. It was dangerous—what if they were caught?—but it was also plain rude.
I’d always trusted Lucy’s judgment, but she was once again testing the strength of that trust.
My brow and lips knotted as I grasped the door handle, ready to pull it wide and tell her off for being both careless and obnoxious.
“…a full assault seems extreme,” said a man’s reedy voice.
“I disagree,” said another male voice, laced with cold anger. “Polite politics and protests have bought us nothing. It’s far past time we burn the whole damn slicks to ash, in every city in England.”
Burn the slicks?
I didn’t like the slicks. Obviously. Of course I didn’t. But to burn them?
A heavy sigh. Lucy’s. “Look,” said my friend, “I want to destroy the slicks as much as anyone. I’d like to see every one of them wiped from every city in England.”
My head spun. But—but what would happen to England? To society? We would be plunged into darkness—I glanced at the reliq-lamps along the wall—quite literally.
Surely there were other ways to make a point. Weren’t there?
There was silence from inside the room, too. I could picture Lucy, shifting foot to foot as she searched for the right words.
“But the slicks are more than buildings and potions and weigh-scales. If we burn the quadrants down, they’ll just rebuild.
No. We have to think beyond the slicks. Beyond the physical.
If we fail to change the hearts and minds of our fellow men, then I guarantee we will never see true change.
In fact, I believe we’d see even the sympathetic common people turn against us. ”
“So what would you have us do instead?”
“We…we starve them out,” Lucy said slowly.
“What do you mean?”
“A blockade on the slicks. We cut off their access to magic.” I heard Lucy take a deep breath.
Her voice grew stronger as she spoke. “Until Parliament passes the bill to raise the exchange rates, we lead a boycott of the London slicks. No one sells their magic. No one buys reliqs. See how fast they raise the rates then.”
“There will be repercussions,” said another, deeper voice. “And not just from the rich. Sellers will be furious, too.”
“Then let them,” snapped Lucy. “But it’s the only way I can think to prove how valuable their magic really is. See if they complain when it works.”
“I thought we were done with this foolishness about rates,” the nasal voice said. “It isn’t enough.”
“No,” said Lucy. “It isn’t. But it’s a first step. To show that the system—the way things have always been—can, in fact, be changed. And if something can be changed, then, eventually, it can be broken.”
I listened a few minutes more, as they worked through logistics and assigned responsibilities.
When the meeting appeared to be winding down, I peeled away from the door. I couldn’t let Lucy catch me spying; our friendship might never recover.
I exhaled through wrinkled nostrils as I crept back to the entryway.
I wished, very much, that I hadn’t gone spying on anyone.
I didn’t want to be a spy—I wanted to be a geomagician, for God’s sake.
I could have just kept drinking champagne and moping, and then I would be blissfully unaware of Lucy’s plans. Because what was I meant to do now?
I knew Lucy well enough to know she would call her blockade collective action.
But I knew it would be violence.
If the Prometheans did manage to blockade the London slicks, the whole might of the British Empire would be thrown against them. Military. Constables. Mercenaries. There would be blood in the streets.
Lucy was a grown woman, and could make her own choices, and take her own risks.
But Elizabeth. Elizabeth was young, scarcely out of girlhood. Elizabeth shouldn’t be out gallivanting in the midst of civil unrest that could blow into violence at the slightest breath. I could picture it, too easily: Elizabeth, falling, with red blooming from her neck, a river in the cobblestones.
I shivered. Elizabeth didn’t deserve to pay the price for Lucy’s folly. Something in the turning gears in my head locked into determined place as I set off to find Buckland.