Obsidian Eyes (13 page)

“That’s why.” He gave her a wry smile. “You know about the guilds and how they operate.”

Neatly trapped by her guild life she answered on instinct, without thinking. She sighed.
Molly-coddled aristocrats with no idea of how the world really works.

“Can I cross the Grim Reapers off the list of guilds you might belong to then?”

She blew out a deep sigh. “This isn’t a game anymore.”

“No, it’s not. Whatever it is, it revolves around my friend.” His tone changed.

She looked up into his eyes and saw concern.

“There’s no one else I can talk to about this and I believe you know far more than anyone else. To Zeb all this is an absorbing experiment with only hypothetical applications. He has no real appreciation of the dangerous line he treads.” Jared held her gaze until she looked down and away.

The stone in Allie’s gut grew in size and she brushed her hands over her arms to dispel a sudden chill. She thought Zeb wasn’t the only one caught in something without a real appreciation of the larger picture.

“I can only speculate and I think we need to talk to Marshall. But you don’t mess with the Reapers, and this most definitely falls into their realm. If the device came onto the black market it would generate a bidding frenzy. What country wouldn’t want this in their arsenal?” She pitched her voice low, so no one above in the corridor would hear their hushed conversation. Something else bothered her. “And Zeb’s a soft target.”

Jared nodded in agreement. “That’s what I feared.”

Sunday, 31
^st
July.

eb attacked his enormous creation with a screwdriver and loose nuts and bolts flew in all directions. Allie and Eloise chased after them and placed all the small pieces in tin boxes. Jared and Duncan were enlisted to carry the largest parts and they laboured all day long, carrying each piece to an empty and secluded stall in the barn. By evening, they had a giant Thumper jigsaw puzzle waiting for Zeb to reassemble.

The next morning, an unexpected rain kept everyone inside and by unspoken consent the friends piled into the library nook―except for Eloise, who sat in their bedroom, praying the storm brought a lightning strike to power her electrodes. Allie battled Duncan for sofa space and ended up with her legs thrown over his lap. Zeb read next to Jared, who kept glaring in her direction, leaving her to ponder what could possibly have annoyed him this time. Duncan rested an enormous illustrated guide to weapons on her shins.

“Does that even qualify as a book? It’s only pictures.” Allie ribbed.

“I have to read the captions under the pictures.” He stuck his tongue out at her.

“Can you read those without moving your lips?” A casual camaraderie had sprung up between Allie and Duncan rooted in the sort of insulting banter thrown by siblings.

Duncan dug his book into her shins, causing her to stifle a yelp. She tossed her book on to the low table, determined to tackle at least one of the topics gnawing at the back of her brain.

“Can you explain how Weasel works to me?” she asked Zeb.

His eyes lit up and he shoved his glasses up his nose with an oil-stained finger. He closed his book and clasped it in his hands.

Allie held up a hand. “Use small words. I’m not a science girl.”

His smile deflated a little and he screwed up his eyes in concentration.

“Start by explaining your original intention when you set out to make Weasel.” She threw him an easy start point, before his brain exploded.

“Ah, well, I wanted to create a device to control the rodent problem in the barn.” He dropped his book to the table. “Weasel wouldn’t stay out there.”

Allie cast a glance at the deformed feline, resting but alert at the foot of the sofa. The ears rotated in slow circles, ensuring Zeb didn’t try anything sneaky. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of mice?”

The creature dropped its head lower on to its paws and fixed its eyes to the floor.

“See that, is what I don’t understand.” Allie pointed to Weasel. “Weasel understands me but that’s just not possible for a wind-up toy.”

The head rose and it fixed Allie with a rotating red and black stare.

“Sorry, no offence intended.” Satisfied with her apology, the head sank back onto its paws.

“He’s a boy by the way.” She looked from Weasel to Zeb.

“No, it has no gender, it’s an it.”

Weasel gave a soft hiss and Allie laughed. “Well I refuse to call him
it
any longer. So back to why
he
prefers me to you?”

Zeb frowned but let the point go, to continue his lesson. “Do you know of the Stone of Coulags?”

Allie racked her brain. “Yes, fell out of the sky ages ago in some little dark corner of Scotland.”

Jared placed a marker in his book, coughed and then sat up. “That
dark little corner
happens to be in my family’s territory.”

Duncan snorted at her faux pas and then yelped when Allie got him in the ribs with the toe of her boot.

Zeb nodded. “A hundred and fifty years ago to be precise. A young lord and a small group of friends were out hunting. That night a fire blazed across the sky and the meteor struck the ground near Coulags. Warmed by a large quantity of whisky, the lord and his friends decided to set off in the dark to find the object that had fallen from the heavens. A glow drew them to a remote area where they found a large stone lying in a crater, smoke still rising from the surface.”

“Sounds rather poetic when you put it like that,” Allie said.

“Some time later, the men who handled the stone in those first few days noticed a strange phenomenon. They didn’t have to wind their pocket watches. Ever.”

Allie flicked a glance to Weasel as she figured out the implication. “So the stone somehow makes wind up devices run indefinitely?”

“Yes,” Zeb’s tone crept higher as he became excited about the monumental discovery. His hand gestures became more effusive as he spoke. “But we recently discovered the effect of the stone is far greater than just that.”

“For over a century it was a fabulous garden ornament at our family estate,” Jared added to laughter all around. “Then thirty years ago my family had the meteor taken to KRAC headquarters in Edinburgh where Lord Lithgow, Zeb’s father, began his experiments.”

Zeb carried on with his history lesson. “Through his experiments, my father found that devices left by the stone acted in a manner beyond their intended scope.”

Allie sat up, swinging her feet off Duncan’s lap and down to the ground. Weasel moved closer, to lean against her skirt. “What do you mean beyond their intended scope?”

Zeb scratched his head, trying to find the right words. “Well, most of it is highly classified. But as an example, a musical automaton supposed to play a set list began composing. The devices took their basic programming and then exceeded their predefined limits.”

She glanced down at her little friend. “Like a rodent controller who decides it doesn’t like mice?”

“Exactly! Through trial and error my father found he didn’t have to leave the entire device touching the stone, just the core componentry.”

Allie tried to translate Zeb’s words into something she could understand. “You mean the brain?”

Zeb screwed up his face at her crude description. “Of sorts, yes.”

Her eyes ran over the disobedient creature at her feet, in size only slightly larger than a kitten. “Which for a creature like Weasel, would be rather small. I imagine just the sort of piece that might be easily overlooked and slipped into a pocket.”

Zeb shifted on the sofa and began staring at the fire surround.

Duncan dropped his large hand onto Allie’s shoulder. “Leave Zeb alone, you’re making him all squirrely. Yes, he sneaks stuff into the main lab but we would never tell on him, he’s our friend.”

Allie let out a sigh. Everyone thought she would steal the school silver while Zeb walked away from a military base with his pockets stuffed of top secret components.
It seems breeding is the difference between a thief and an experimenting genius.

Jared pinned her with his gaze. “The Scottish government and KRAC allow other governments, military and businesses to leave components near the stone, so that all nations can share in the sentient technology.”

“And your family take a cut of that business?” Allie asked.

Jared met her gaze. “Yes.”

Allie ran through the implications and they were staggering. She let out a low whistle.
No wonder Eloise said he was one of the highest ranking nobles here and probably the wealthiest as well.

“You’re not going to kidnap me and hold out for an exorbitant ransom are you?” Laughter burned in his eyes.

She cocked her head to one side, considering the possibility. Shut up with Jared in a remote location? Her heart stuttered against her corset stays. The two of them in seclusion? Not going to happen. “Wasn’t planning on it, sorry.”

“Shame,” he murmured.

Heat flushed through her torso. “So how does this stone work?”

Zeb resumed his impromptu lesson. “Some say the stone was touched by the hand of God and is proof that only he can bestow life. The stone works because it carries the trace of His touch and imbibes a hint of life to mechanical things.”

Allie’s mind turned to Eloise and her experiments with electricity, which would challenge the theological view. “What do you think?”

“I think it works in a way we don’t yet have the science to explain, but will one day.”

Another thought crept into her mind. “So does Thumper have a brain?”

The three boys exchanged guilty looks and none of them answered.

“Well, it’s sure going to be fun when you flip his switch. Have you thought what you will do if Thumper is as opinionated as Weasel?” Allie couldn’t keep the laughter from her voice.

Zeb looked equal parts flummoxed and worried as he considered the possibility.

Genius doesn’t always go hand in hand with common sense.

A chime from the clock over the mantle reminded them all of the time. The others rose to head back to their rooms, to finish homework due the next morning. Alfred raised a hand to Allie, calling her over to his desk. Weasel kept pace with Allie, his body hidden among the folds of her skirt.

Her grandfather shuffled papers, waiting until the other youths left before clearing his throat.

Oh, no.
A cold lump circled lower and lower in her gut. “Out with it, I’m guessing you have bad news.”

“I have been advised that your presence is not required at dance class,” he said, risking a glance over his glasses at his granddaughter.

Allie gripped the book in her hands tighter and resisted the urge to laugh aloud. “I assume Lady Madeline had a hand in that decision?”

Alfred said nothing but shifted uncomfortably in his chair, a clear indication Allie was correct. She guessed Madeline had been unhappy about sharing her dance partner.

I bet she never shared her toys in the nursery
.

Or perhaps she should thank Madeline, unsure how her racing pulse would cope with waltzing with Jared every week, before she gave herself away.

“Don’t worry about me, Poppa, I’m not upset.” She kissed his cheek, and left.