Before She Wakes: Forbidden Fairy Tales (8 page)

“Mon Dieu,”
mutters the king, desperation in his voice.

I feel the slight twitch of Roark's hips, and I know he'll release soon. I slide almost free, curling my tongue once around the hood of his cock before withdrawing completely. Watching the sinking of his chest and shoulders, the bobbing of his desperate cock, I smile and rise to my feet.

I step back to study Roark's form, resting an elbow in one hand and propping my chin in the other. Blue spirals pound beneath his skin. “Does it please Your Majesty?” I ask.

“My
lady,
” comes the reply from behind me. “I've never seen anything so wonderful.”

I turn. The king is staring at me with open lust. My gaze rakes down until it connects with the rise between the edges of his embroidered doublet.

I smile. “Would Your Majesty like to see more?”

“Indeed, Your Majesty would.” Unlike his gaze, his voice is low and restrained.

Moving behind his chair, I take hold of the back. “If it please Your Majesty?”

He rises, and I scoot the chair back a couple of feet, feeling my gown brush against Roark. I motion to the chair and the king sits.

“My Lord Roark,” I say without turning, “if you would help me with the fastenings of my gown.”

I wait, but not a word comes in reply. Not a sound.

“Well, go on, man,” orders the king, a choked laugh erupting from his lips.

I feel Roark's fingers at my back, and a breath shudders through me. I pull the gown over my shoulders and let it slide to the floor.

I move, skirt of my petticoat swaying, to stand between the seated king and the table. Resting my backside against the edge of the table, I reach up and begin unfastening the hooks of my corset. Peeling back the edges, exposing mounds of bosom and just a peek of taut nipple, I say, “For Your Majesty's inspection.”

The pattern of ochre leaves throbs along with my heart. The king rises to his feet, taking a slow step forward. I push my knees apart, inviting him to move closer.

“Stunning creature,” he breathes. “I'm so glad I've not had my dessert.”

Stepping around me, he sweeps the dishes away with a clattering racket. Plates shatter on the floor.

With a glance at the stoic shifter behind him, I scoot onto the table, smiling and lying back until the hard tabletop meets my shoulder bones.

The king bends over me, dark curls from his wig tickling my chest. He tugs my corset all the way open, and then he pops a cherry into his mouth, biting it in half. Removing the seed with his fingers, he carefully covers each hard pebble of a nipple with the dripping red fruit. The flesh between my legs burns like a furnace.

He lifts a boat full of plum sauce, dribbling it slowly over every line of color marking my skin. Moving to stand between my legs, he slides my petticoat up over my calves, my knees, and finally my thighs.

I can no longer see the king due to all the linen between us, but suddenly I feel something thick and velvety against my folded flesh. He gives a long moan and I realize he's licking me. Fingers slide into the slicked opening, and something rounded and cold rubs and presses into aching tissues—I recall the large ring ornamenting the middle finger of the royal right hand. I groan loudly as the object begins to slide slowly in and out.

The king gives a cackle of laughter. “What fun, eh, Roark? But I'm afraid she's got me at my limit.”

The king takes hold of my thighs and drags me down the table until my buttocks hang off the edge. He presses in close, bending over me, and his tongue snakes out to lap up the plum sauce. I moan and writhe beneath him, desperate to feel the hard press of a cock—his, Roark's, the footman's, anyone's.

But he licks and laps up every sticky rivulet before dropping his head to suckle at each breast, tongue circling and cleaning the crimson stain from my skin.

Righting himself, he releases his cock from his breeches, grabs my hips in his hands, and plunges inside me. I give a cry of relief as he begins to pound into me in a circular motion, winding me up with every hard thrust.

His rhythm increases, jolting my whole body as he grunts in pleasure—not like a king at all, but like an animal—my breasts snapping high on my chest with every thrust. I grip the edges of the table with my hands for leverage to force him deeper.

“Mon Dieu!”
he shouts as I scream with release.

Before I've even caught my breath, he's slipped out and tucked himself back into his breeches. “Now come, my man,” he pants at Roark, “find some relief.”

He waves at my hard-used and heaving body.

Roark makes no sign of moving, and the king folds his hands behind his back. “I insist.”

Roark steps forward. “Are you satisfied, Isabeau?” he asks in Occitan. His dry tone barely masks a snarl.

“Almost,” I murmur, watching as he slips between my legs.

“What have I awakened?” he demands, grabbing one hip.

“More than you bargained for, My Lord Dragon.” I mean it as a taunt, but it comes out softer.

His grip suddenly hardens, bruising my flesh, and he rolls me onto my stomach.

I gasp as his hand comes down on my back, and then he's pushing roughly inside me.

I listen to the raw rhythm of his breathing as my body rocks against the tabletop, his abdomen jamming against my backside with every thrust.

I won't let him rule me, but
mon Dieu,
he will fuck me. Until I can't walk or see straight. The king and his desire are but a smoky memory as the dragon fire consumes us.

We erupt into the sky over Versailles. I feel teeth sinking into my flank and I roar with rage, somersaulting away from him. I want to scald him, but remembering what happened last time, I fly north without looking back, working my muscles, pushing myself to my limit. A hot blast of steam rolls over my back. The heat penetrates the scales damaged by his teeth, and I roar in pain. But I keep going.

I'm soaring over an expanse of forest when out of nowhere clouds appear. Thick and black, they behave like no clouds I've ever seen, drifting in from both sides. They seem to gather and follow my flight. Suddenly, with a crack of thunder and a bright flash of light, I feel a stab of white-hot heat against my other flank.

I lose control of my wings and tumble.

A silver-blue blur sails in from one side, colliding with my own deadweight, and I'm somehow moving horizontally again. It's enough to get my wings back in working order, and I manage a controlled fall to a mountain meadow below.

I feel a gathering and sinking, and a moment later I'm stretched naked in a bed of purple and yellow flowers. Muttering an oath, I reach for one hip, yelping with pain as my hand brushes inflamed flesh.

Roark drops to the grass beside me, already shifted.

“What is the matter with you?” I shout, climbing to my feet. “You could have killed me!”

He bellows a long stream of syllables I don't understand. I slowly shake my head, and gradually the stream slows to a trickle until finally it stops.

But only for a moment.

“I
wanted
to kill you!” he shouts back in Occitan.

“You'd kill me for what I did with the king? You selfish, childish brute! What right do you have? Why shouldn't I kill
you
for taking what I never meant to give? At least now we are equals.”

At this last phrase—which I hadn't actually meant to say—he suddenly stills. “Equals,” he repeats.

“I'm not your prize,” I snap. “The king never promised you that. You'll be paid for services rendered, just like you wanted.”

“And you won't be ruled by me, is this what I'm to understand?” His tone is still sharp, but his rage has cooled.

“My body answers to yours, and there seems to be nothing I can do about that. But
I
will choose whom I give it to. No, I won't be ruled by you. Or by anyone.”

He studies me as my own anger cools, slowing my heart and the pace of my breathing.

“So you will work for the king now.”

“As do you.”

“You struck a good bargain. You got more than he wanted to give, and gave less.” He speaks honestly, with no trace of resentment. “But still you let him have you.”

“He let me have
him.
”

I see how he tries not to smile. “Yes, and he helped you put me in my place. I'll know better than to underestimate you in future.”

“I should hope so.”

He steps closer, and I'm reminded that we're both naked. “I want to propose a side agreement,” he says in that low tone that vibrates through my blood.

“What do you mean?”

“We need the king's friendship, but it may not always be so. Or there might come a day when he seeks to cross one of us.”

I study his face, failing to understand.

“I won't do it,” he continues.

“You won't do what?”

“Cross you. I give you my word that I'll never do it at the request of the king, or anyone. And if at any time he should fail to remember your agreement, I will remind him.”

I may not be as sophisticated as Louis and his courtiers, but I do know that there's only one of the two men I've shared my body with that I'd trust not to hurt me. At least not irreparably.

“What of Aurora?” I ask. “I'm bound to her.”

“My proposal includes her. She'll be released as soon as we return.”

Finally I nod. “Then I make the same oath to you.”

The hard, glittering gaze softens. “Roussillon will not pay my fee. I'll not have gold sully our alliance. But you mustn't let the king know, or he'll suspect we are plotting against him.”

“You're giving up your fee?”

“I'm exchanging it for something that's worth more to me.”

I fend off an urge to raise my fingers to his lips. It occurs to me we've never kissed. I don't count the brief hot, desperate press of lips in the cave. I didn't want anything so intimate as a kiss from him then.

“I don't understand why,” I reply.

He raises a hand to my cheek. His palm covers half of my face, and I feel his fingertips press lightly at the base of my skull. I don't have to look down to verify the flush of ochre.

“Perhaps one day you'll take me for a mate.” He lowers his face and I feel his breath on my cheeks. “The female chooses.”

“You might have told me that from the beginning.”

He laughs. “It wasn't obvious? Do you think I'd feel so desperate about you if I had the ability to force you?”

This statement sticks a little, my thoughts trying to pry it apart for closer examination. Before I can reply, he continues, “I can only answer your desire. But even if you don't choose me, I will always want you. We will always be kin.” He rubs the end of his nose against mine, whispering, “I'll always want to fly with you.”

This new tenderness touches me in a place the heat and lust has not come close to. Yet the outcome is the same—we both pulse with color.

Raising his other hand, he cradles my face, and I feel the brush of his lips. The kiss is soft and supple, but he follows it by gently biting my bottom lip. I moan softly and push my tongue into his mouth. His lips seal against mine, welcoming me deeper.

His hand glides down my back, but before it reaches its destination I bound away.

Dashing across the meadow, I throw a glance over my shoulder.
Catch me if you can
.

My body leaves the ground in a rush of air. I whirl backward, head over tail, reversing direction, roaring with joy at the freedom this body gives me.

My challenge doesn't go unanswered.

The shadow of his wings falls across me, and my heart races. I open my mouth to blast him with fire, but it's a bluff and he knows it. The flame stops short of his massive body.

The excitement of this chase heats my blood, and I want to both escape and be caught. He seems to know this and toys with me, nipping at the flesh near my tail. Pulling ahead of me, dropping into a roll, and then drawing up even with me again.

We've almost covered the distance back to Versailles when I feel his claws at my shoulders, followed by his teeth at my neck. Steam hisses over my head and I roar and snap at him, but he stills me with a careful bite between neck and shoulder and latches on. I'm freed from the burden of flight and could easily fight him, but I feel the heat of his desire and don't want to be anywhere else.

Massive muscles jerk and curl, and it feels like a tree has been thrust inside me. He works his wings harder, forcing us into the blazing sun. The angle of our flight embeds him deeper and I go limp in his spiky embrace, letting him do what he will. He turns us then, and we're plummeting toward the earth. With three powerful thrusts I feel him stiffen and spend himself inside me, molten heat jetting all the way to my ribs. I shudder with pleasure, flame spewing from my jaws.

We somehow reach the ground without erupting into a ball of flame, and he crushes me against the soil with the final throes of his release. Massive nostrils nuzzle the back of my neck, and finally he rises. I hear the intake of air as he huffs and sniffs along my flanks, and then his tongue blots gently against the burns there. I rise and stretch, sending a teasing puff of smoke at him, and he barks a reply.

Filling my lungs with air, I lift again from the ground. He joins me, silver wings stirring up a windy caress. We point toward Aurora and home.

Raven stole my mama's heart. I don't mean that in any kind of poetic sense. It was the last bit of color she had in the world. The last bit of shiny. A fist-sized chunk of rose quartz, the last thing my pa ever hauled up from the mines. He promised her he'd polish it one day. “Polish it until it winks at ye, Esther,” he'd told her. But he never got the chance, because the very next day the ground above his head let loose on him and all of the men on shift that night. We never saw him again.

He stole the color, piece by piece, did Master Raven (as the townsfolk call him). Some even say he sucked the color right out of the sky, leaving this sort of sickly yellow-brown sheen on the world. But that wasn't Raven. The fires that burn all night, the stinking factories, the smoking airships—they're to blame for that.

All that shines
under
the sky, now that's a different tale. It's a fact Master Raven's keep is surrounded by a moat, and that moat is filled to overflowing with all the glittery objects he's taken over the years. A higgledy-piggledy monument to the memory of color.

My name is Pearl, and I live in a village called Dublin that has nothing to do with the original city by that name, except our mayor's pa hailed from there. He once told my father the word meant “black pool” in some ancient language, and I suppose that's fitting because that's the only color they come in around here. On the topic of my name and the mayor, he's never called me aught but “Ciara,” which he says in his old language means “little dark one,” on account of my black hair.

But here my pa would remind me that the way I talk makes people dizzy, so I'll close the book on the mayor, who's just about as useful to my story as he is to our village (which is to say, not very). Besides that, he's a greasy, unpleasant old man who once got it into his head to ask my pa to give me to him for a wife, and that was the end of their friendship—and my pa's teaching job at the primary school.

Sometimes I wonder if I'd married him, would my pa still be alive? But my ma says such wonderings only steal the life out of living.

My ma also says the theft of her stone doesn't matter at all, which is how I know her heart is breaking over it. I can't bring back my pa, but it's high time someone stood up to that part-man, part-crow, part-machine who's no more a master than I am.

That's why I'm going after Mama's heart.

Truth is, no one knows exactly what he is, or where he came from. He keeps to himself except when he's thieving, and even then no one's likely to linger long enough to start a conversation. We don't even know if he can talk. Sometimes I see his shadow out my window, gliding over the field behind the house. Great long wings, black as coal dust. Blacker than night, blotting out the stars. I don't know he's part man by my own witness; other folk have glimpsed him scavenging in the junk heaps out past the cotton mill. Some say he steals babies on those midnight flights, but I say that's folks afraid of something they don't understand.

Not to say I'm not afraid, because I am.

Ma would be sick about where I'm going, so I don't tell her. I say I'm going to Ida's, to help my best friend pack up for Market Day, and I hope she won't wonder why I'm taking more than normal care with my dress. I like bright colors, especially since they've mostly gone out of the world. I'm not overly vain, I don't think, but I know I look fine in red, purple, and green. Not that we can afford fine things, but my pa had a big heart, and on payday he'd often come home with a shiny bit for me—a crimson neckerchief, or a length of emerald lace to sew on my petticoat.

But today I don't want to stand out. I don a dark pair of knee-length trousers and my sturdiest boots, knowing I've got five miles of walking to reach Raven's keep. I'd trade the corset for one of Pa's shirts if my ma weren't sewing in one corner of my little bedroom. Instead, I settle for leaving it loose. Since its fastenings and trim are bright red, I pull on my favorite leather jacket, soft as butter from being hard-worn by former owners, and lace it close over my breasts so it hides the bits of color. My black hair suits the situation, but still I twist it up behind my head and pin it to keep it out of my face. Half a dozen spirals tumble down.

Crossing the room, I kiss Mama's round, warm cheek. She smells of bread yeast and verbena hand lotion. “See you in a while, Ma.”

I don't meet her gaze as she admonishes, “Don't stay too late, Pearl Esther. I've got your favorite supper on.”

The smell of chicken bones and rosemary simmering for soup stock is almost my undoing—that and the imagining of Ma's face when I don't come home in time for dumplings.

But I step out into the drizzle-gray morning and march across the field. I hope that Ma's still minding her sewing as I duck behind the tumbledown barn at the line of trees on the other side of the field. Here I've stashed a pack with lunch provisions and the only thing we have that might be called a weapon—Pa's pearl-handled letter-opener. I was reluctant to take it, knowing if I don't return, it's just one more piece of Pa that my ma has lost. But Ma's only got one good kitchen knife, and they're costly to replace.

Shouldering the pack, I start out again. A more sensible girl might have saved such a quest for summer. In early spring the trees are bare, leaving the ground beneath exposed to gazes from above, and there's a chill dampness that goes right to your bones. But it's a thing I've made up my mind to, and Ma always said I'm determined as the skillet is black.

I glance back once at our cottage, squat and cozy and snug, smoke curling from the chimney. I imagine Ma still at her sewing, humming softly now, not even mindful she's doing it.

My throat tightens like corset strings, and I spin on my heel toward the forest.

It's not long before my jacket's gone into my pack and sweat drips between my breasts and shoulder blades. I'd thought to keep to the forest and stay off the road, but I soon realize at this rate I won't reach the keep before dark.

When I'm even with the mill, I peer out of the trees and down the road in either direction. A lone pedal cart rattles lazily toward me, and I slip behind the trunk of an oak tree. It's the baker, Sully, off to market with his cart full of pastries and Ma's fresh bread.

After he passes, I step onto the road and continue on my way, keeping near the edge just in case.

I must be lost in thought, because as I round a bend in the road, there's no warning before a voice speaks up behind me.

“You're awful far from home, Miss Pearl.”

I turn, startled to find the mayor striding toward me. He's never used my real name before.

His eyes don't even try to avoid dropping to the top laces of my corset, which are loose enough to show the curves of my breasts, glistening with sweat. The sheer black cap sleeves do nothing to ease my sense of standing half-naked before him.

“Not running away, I hope?”

He smiles in a way that makes my insides curl, his hand smoothing stringy locks of grizzled hair over his bald spot.

“Running away, no,” I breathe. My voice turns traitor by sounding hurried and frightened.

“I should hope not. You'd be sorely missed.” He steps closer to me, and I can't help taking a tiny step back. “Shall I accompany you wherever you're going? To market, perhaps?”

I glance behind him, frowning as a troubling question rises. “What are you doing out here all by yourself, Mayor?”

He stares, the smile frozen on his undertaker's face. “Out for a little spring air,” he replies, folding his hands behind his back.

He's followed me. Somehow I know this. The same way you sometimes know someone's got bad news to share, before they speak a word.

“But by the by, I've something to say to ye, Pearl.” He hooks his fingers in his belt loops, squinting down at me through his eyepiece.

Dread rises up like a dark angel. “I can't talk now, Mayor,” I blurt. “I'm late for meeting Ida.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Now, Miss Pearl, I saw Ida packing boxes of greens for market not fifteen minutes ago. She said she didn't know what you were up to today.”

He doesn't seem to notice—or maybe doesn't care—that he's just let slip our meeting isn't by chance. Maybe he figures one lie's good for another.

“And on top of all that, I wish you'd finally call me Finn. I've known you all these years, since you were a babe in your mama's arms. Your father and I were friends.”

My eyes flash at this—I can tell by the startled expression on his face. “If you were my pa's friend, he wouldn't be dead,” I snap.

The smarmy smile finally gives way. “Why would you say such a thing, Pearl?”

“Everyone knows you sent him to the mines because—because—”

Admitting I know he wanted me for a wife gives me a sick feeling, like he's gotten into my bloomers. My face burns with anger and shame.

“Now you look here,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. He steps forward, grabbing my arm, and I cry out in protest.

He glances around and I know why. He's looking for someplace private, and he finds it—a shed in an empty field beside the road. He drags me into the grass, bruising me, as I fight his grip and wear myself out with struggling. He's taller than me and strong, and I don't have a prayer. We reach the shed and he shoves me against it, pressing close, his weight plumping my breasts and forcing them higher. His hand comes up and he squeezes one, and I give a yelp of outrage.

His hand gropes up the outside of my leg and hip, and finally I remember Pa's letter-opener, which I slipped into a pocket at the start of my journey. My arms are pinned alongside my body until his groping becomes more determined. While he works his fingers into the waist of my trousers, my hand on the opposite side makes it into the pocket.

The mayor gives a shout of pain and I watch the blood well, filling a gash that runs from temple to chin.

But I don't watch for long. As his hands fly to his face, I shove him hard, and his backside strikes the earth. I shoot away like a rabbit.

“You'll not leave your ma to mourn you,
Ciara,
” he shouts after me. “You'll be back, and I'll forgive you…as soon as you've paid for what you've done.”

By the time I stop running, Raven's tower looms before me. I keep to the trees as long as I can, but I have to leave cover to reach the moat. I'm counting on the jumble of colors and shapes to hide me if I keep my movements small, and on Raven to remain in the tower until nightfall.

I've only seen this colorful mountain from a distance up to now. As I draw closer, my heart sinks like a stone tossed into the millpond, exiled from light on a whim. His collection curves in a perfect circle around the tower, and it's high as my head.

“I'm going to need you, Pa,” I murmur.

Clocks, windup toys, bric-a-brac. Pieces of mirror, machine cogs, bent silverware. Mateless shoes, porcelain doll heads, swatches of bright fabric. No order to any of it. Just heap upon senseless heap of items plucked from context.

I know how they feel. What in the name of the Maker am I
doing
here? What do I hope to gain from such a quest? I've broken loose from my place in the world, I know it, sure as I know that if I do make it back home, I'm never going to be the same.

Taking a deep breath, I blow out the hopelessness curling like chimney smoke around my heart.

I try to think like Raven. It was bold, stealing that fist of quartz. It had lain on Mama's sill for a year; she liked the way it gleamed in the moonlight. One evening when the window stood open, the fresh, early spring breeze wafting into the room, the rock had vanished while both of us were sleeping. Raven avoids folk, so it must have truly caught his eye. Winked a challenge from the windowsill as he flew over the house. Everyone knows crows like a bit of shiny as much as any fine lady.

The evidence is all around me.

Raven took a risk with Mama's stone, so it isn't likely to be laying atop one of these piles for any passerby to ogle, is it? Or could be a shameless thief with a reputation as a baby stealer doesn't worry overmuch about passersby.

Stalling is what I'm doing.

I decide the most sensible course is to follow the moat round the keep—first outside, then in—and rule out the possibility of the stone having been tossed haphazard onto the pile and, due to the roughly round shape, having rolled down one side.

Gripping the hilt of Pa's knife, I start my first circuit.

Picking my way over glittering debris, I wonder how the crow-man keeps it so clean. As I was taught, this pile's been accumulating for years, yet everything sparkles and shines like it was stolen yesterday.

I creep along the edge, my eyes working over the chaotic ridgeline. For a long while I feel like a fool for ever thinking this was something I could do alone, but with each step, my eyes get better at picking out the right size, shape, and color. When I arrive back at my starting point I begin again, intending to use my newly trained vision more carefully in this second circuit.

Excitement percolates in my gut. I feel alive in a way I haven't before. Far from the shelter of my mama's roof, out where harm can find me, if the Maker wills it.

My head and my heart get so occupied with this new feeling, I don't realize they've dropped communication with my feet until my boot tip strikes a tankard. I swear under my breath as it skitters toward the hillside. This marks the end of its short flight, but the impact looses a small slide, and a moment later I'm up to my ankles in Raven's spoils.

“Well, little thief.”

In my haste to turn, I stumble toward the man standing behind me—a dandy of a fellow in a fine black suit and top hat. He's got a long-barreled pistol pointed right at my chest.

“You're not the first to try,” he says. “Nor the first to find it's not as easy as it looks.” He smiles at me like we're having a chat down at the village tavern. He's a well-formed man, with short chestnut hair and a close-shaved jaw.

“Who are
you
?” I demand, but my heart's pumping the blood at my ears so that I can hardly hear my own voice.

“You've got pluck, expecting an answer to such a question in your position. For that I'll tell you I'm Wilkes, the manservant here.”

“Manservant?”

“I wait upon Master Raven. He doesn't take kindly to thieves.”

“Ha!” I bark. “Funny thing, that. But I'm no thief. He's got something that belongs to me.”

His smile gets more of a curl to it, and my heart doesn't like this one bit. “That may be,” he replies. His eyes move slowly over me, the same way the mayor's did, but for some reason I don't feel like ants are crawling under my skin. “
You've
got something more than most folk around here, and that's something as will interest my master.” He waves the gun. “Move.”

“Move where?” I ask, wishing my voice sounded less like I feel.

“To the bridge.”

I swallow. “And if I won't?”

He pulls back the hammer of his pistol and my breath freezes in my chest. “I won't shoot you.” He points the pistol at the sky now. “But if I fire this weapon, he'll come. If you want to get there under your own power, you'll do as I say. And you'll hand that blade over to me.” He gestures at Pa's letter-opener.

I glare at him. “I'll go with you, but you can't have that.”

He holds out a gloved fist. “If Master releases you, you'll have it back. You have my word.”

If Master releases you.

I step toward him and lay the knife across his palm. He rubs a thumb over the handle. “You have a name, little thief?”

The way he says this, combined with the way his thumb moves over my knife, makes my breath stick a little. It occurs to me that in addition to being well formed, he has a rich, full voice and is uncommonly handsome. I clear my throat and reply, “Pearl.”

Again the corners of his mouth lift. “Well then, Pearl. After you.”

I trudge toward the bridge with him following. As we cross the moat, I study the lines of the keep's entryway, so high that three men upon each other's shoulders could pass through, but narrow enough to require single file. A large clock is embedded in the wall above the door. I watch it long enough to figure out that either time has stopped or it has.

The door swings open with a succession of loud clicks, and I hesitate before it.

“Go on,” orders Wilkes.

Inside, the door closes again behind us, and I see it's manipulated not by a person, but by levers and gears. The hall that welcomes us is about as gloomy as I'd expect, but like the treasures outside, it's not dingy or dusty. The space is lit by a crazy assortment of lamps—various colors of bulbs in wire cages, some mounted on what look like pipes, and others on whimsical lamps fashioned to look like animals or insects. Some are fitted with spinning tops with little figures—tiny people and animals, stars and hearts—powered by the heat of the lamp.

“Wilkes?”

I don't see the source of the deep voice at first, but then a shadow shifts into the room through a doorway at the back. I hold my breath as the figure moves, slow and deliberate, into the lamplight.

He's both more and less than what I imagined. Less of a monster…yet my heart races. The goosebumps rise along my bare arms and prick the back of my neck.

The dark wings have their effect, tips brushing the floor while the upper joints rise up higher even than his head. The satiny feathers look real to me, but I can see that the frame supporting them and binding them to his body is not of bone, but metal.

From the neck up he could be any man. His face is framed by wavy hair the same color as my own, and at his crown rests some sort of eyepiece—a small magnifying scope whose services are apparently not required for greeting visitors. His marble-white flesh looks smooth to the touch, but sinuous muscles work just below the surface. His bare chest is crossed by a complicated pattern of black leather straps connected by metal buckles, perhaps a system for supporting the enormous wings. Over the spot where his heart would be, two straps join at an angle, and the disk at the joint is a clock. The rest of him is concealed by dark, close-fitting trousers and boots.

“I've brought you a pearl, sir,” says Wilkes from behind me. “A thief I caught outside.”

He steps closer, and I hold my breath. His eyes move over me in the same way that he entered the room: slow and deliberate.

“Thief?”

I clench my hands into fists, gripping my courage. “I'm not a thief,” I insist, but my voice wavers. “You've taken something that belongs to me, and I've come to take it back.”

Part of what's got my heart hammering like a steam engine is the way he looks at me, like he's trying to see my insides. It doesn't help any that his eyes are so dark the center is almost a perfect circle of blackness.

“Bring her,” he says, turning and striding out of the room by the same door he entered.

I glance at Wilkes and he waves me forward.

“Where are we going?” I demand.

“To his workshop.”

There's a pulse of excitement he's managed to muffle behind this straightforward answer. In case this isn't enough, he adds, “Master Raven likes to understand how things work.”