Rise of the Arcane Fire (The Secret Order) (20 page)

He looked at me as if expecting me to say something, but I had no words for him.

With a disgusted shake of his head, he turned away. “Fine. Be unreasonable. I only offered my help. I know when I’m not wanted.” He straightened his coat with a stiff jerk. “Good luck to you. The assignment is impossible.”

“I’ll find a way.” I clasped my hands together in front of me. I could feel the presence of the automaton staring over my shoulder. She was mine. I wouldn’t let anyone ruin her. “Goodbye, Rathford.”

Peter snatched up his hat, and with a furious anger burning in his once kind eyes, he marched up the stairs and out of the hall, slamming the door behind him.

The sound echoed through the chamber like the crash of a great tree succumbing to a battering storm. Then stillness settled on the air once more, heavy and stifling.

In the chilling silence I turned to my automaton. Naked and faceless, she stared back at me as if waiting for the chance to come alive. I didn’t know how I would help her to walk, let alone make her dance.

I didn’t even know how I would move her from the room.

Holding my hands as if in prayer, I touched them to my lips and closed my eyes until the quaking in my body subsided and I could breathe again.

“I am in a fine mess,” I whispered to myself as I took the automaton’s hand and gently lifted it. When I let go, it swung back to her side with a ratcheting series of clicks.

I turned a slow circle, but I was entirely alone. The rising benches seemed to loom over me, while the empty podium whispered,
You have no place here.

And through all of it, I still had trouble believing Peter could be the saboteur.

I just couldn’t be certain who was friend and who was foe.

During the next week the automaton consumed my life. The headmaster had it moved to a spare room in the monastery where I could work on it in peace, but the empty room felt like a prison cell.

To aid us, our lessons turned to the finer points of automaton construction and direction, but I couldn’t see how any of it would help me in my task. There were two main methods of control for the mechanical beings: Either they ran on tracks, like the ones I had encountered on the clockwork ship during the Rathford incident, or they had a complicated switch system. I needed to create a control system that made my automaton move with the ability to react to whatever David’s automaton was doing.

In this I had the more difficult challenge. David could make his automaton lumber around the room like a plodding ox and it would be suitable, but if my automaton couldn’t follow that movement, mine would be the one in the wrong.

What I needed to know was how a complicated automaton, like the Minotaur from the labyrinth at Tavingshall, functioned. That mechanical beast had had absolutely no difficulty tracking the motion of Will and me as we’d run for our lives while it had tried to gore us. I had survived one round with that monster. I was not keen on trying it again just to study how the bloody thing worked.

By the end of the week, I had achieved nothing. My automaton still stood, motionless and silent, in our dim little room.

Frustrated, I left her and sought out one of the instructors so I could search the archives. Perhaps some early drawings of the Minotaur from the Tavingshall labyrinth could be found there. That was a much safer prospect than visiting the beast again. I started with the headmaster’s quarters, but he wasn’t there, so I checked our main classroom.

Oliver was inside setting up a miniature rail system across the front table. My heart jumped. I hadn’t spoken to him since the accident, but he was one of the few people I could trust completely.

He looked up at me, the patch still over the one eye, though his skin now appeared quite normal. “Hello, Meg. I was just setting out our next lesson.” He gave me a friendly smile. His words felt like a warm blanket wrapped around me on a very bitter day. It was good to know he wasn’t angry with me for the aviary disaster.

“I see you intend to put us through our paces. How is your eye healing?” I asked, feeling terrible that he was still injured.

He frowned just slightly. “It could be faring better, to be honest. Lucinda claims the patch has made me a better shot.” I tried not to smile as he carefully fixed a miniature figure onto the track. Oliver had no talent for firearms.

“I’m so sorry you were injured.”

“I’ve seen worse.” He gave me a grin that made me think back on our adventures together. He had come out of them badly gouged and nearly drowned, and he had broken his arm. In context I supposed this wasn’t so bad.

“Could I beg a question?” It felt good to speak to Oliver.

“Of course.” He gave me his full attention.

“I can’t help wondering why it is that so many of the Order seem prone to madness.” As I looked at Oliver I couldn’t help remembering how mad he had seemed when I had met him. “Rathford, Strompton—and others.” I knew I shouldn’t mention Haddock or the saboteur.

Oliver seemed thoughtful. “I suppose it’s part of the nature of who we are and what we do. Give a man the power of God in heaven and it becomes too easy to believe he has the right to use that power how he will.” Oliver looked as if he’d swallowed something distasteful. “It’s good for us to have some humility.”

I nodded. “Is that why you nominated me? To humiliate them?”

“Now, Meg, that’s unfair. I’d hoped you’d give us all some perspective.” He grinned and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe how well his scheme had played out. “And you have.” He clapped his hands together. “Now, how are you faring with your project?” he asked.

“Not so well as I would have hoped.” I didn’t know if he knew about the saboteur. I decided not to mention it, just in case the headmaster didn’t wish me to. “I was hoping for permission to access the archives.”

I bent down to inspect the track he’d laid out. It was complicated. I didn’t see how we could create something that elaborate in the ballroom. No one would be able to move without being forced to step over the rails and wheels every few feet. While it might work, it certainly wouldn’t be either functional or particularly elegant.

“Permission granted,” Oliver stated without looking up. He squinted his good eye as he turned a crank on one of the control wheels, and the figure jerked along the track. “This needs some work. That will be a good task to set the class on tomorrow.”

“Oliver?” My heart fluttered a bit with my nervousness. I had one advantage over my classmates. While I didn’t have my family to aid me, I did have good friends. “Would you help me with my automaton?”

Oliver stood to his full height, then let out a heavy sigh as he placed his palms on the table. “I’m sorry, Meg. I wish I could, truly, but I cannot. As a full instructor here, I’m unable to aid you. It would be seen as favoritism, and I would lose standing in the Order. I’m afraid I’m already suspect due to our close association.”

I swallowed a bitter knot in my throat. “I understand.” Letting my gaze fall to my feet, I turned to leave the room. “Thank you, Oliver.”

He didn’t say anything as I slowly shut the door and returned to my cell. I retreated to the corner and inspected the drawings of control systems that had been provided to me by Headmaster Lawrence. I let my elbows rest on the smooth wood of the table as I stared at the incomprehensible maze of lines and annotations scrawled across the paper.

As I drew in a shaky breath, a heavy tear splattered on the parchment and soaked in, blurring the ink lines as it spread slowly outward.

A soft rap sounded on the open door. I quickly swiped a hand across my eyes as I drew myself up and wrested my composure back into order. I didn’t know who would be bothering me so late. It was well past the time for the others to return home. I had arranged for Bob to come to collect me well after nightfall so I would have extra time for work.

“I don’t wish to . . . ,” I began as I turned, but my voice caught.

In the doorway stood David.

I STARED AT HIM FOR
a full second. My heart beat. Two seconds, three. He watched from the doorway, leaning on the heavy wood frame and closing me into the room. Fear crawled under my skin, and I shifted closer to the table. “What are you doing here?”

David cocked his head and moved into the room. He stepped to the side so he no longer blocked the door, and held up an imperial hand as if silencing an imaginary crowd. I took a step closer to the door. His pale eyes caught the light of my lamp and glittered, cool and icy, like the surface of a frozen lake. “I mean no offense. I thought it might be nice to see how my competition was faring.”

He gave me what I assumed was his most winning smile. The fact that it only turned up half his mouth irritated me, as if I were only worth half the effort.

“You know full well what I’m capable of,” I said, even as I slowly clasped my heaviest wrench.

“Indeed,” he said, taking another step toward my automaton. He lifted his chin, peering at the automaton with great interest. “But this is a very daunting task.”

“Which is why you should return promptly to your own project and cease gaping at mine.” I cradled the head of the wrench in my palm, the heavy weight of it cool against my skin.

David’s lopsided smile ticked up as if he were amused. It was the kind of grin a cat gives a mouse when he has it by the tail. “I’ve heard rumors that you’ve had some trouble finding volunteers to assist you.”

I gripped the handle of the wrench tighter even as it felt like someone had jerked the stays of my corset too tight. “Are you here to gloat?” I asked, lifting my chin and taking a step toward him. “If you are, you can leave.”

He lifted his hand again. I wanted to smack it back down. I was not his servant he could silence with the wave of his hand. He may have been an earl outside of these walls, but within them we were both apprentices to the same Order. I would not stand for it. “Excuse me, David, do you see a fly?”

“No.” His brow furrowed as he looked at me, perplexed.

“A bee perhaps?” I tilted my head to match the arrogant angle of his.

“No, not at all.”

“Then there’s no call to flap your arm about.” I laid the wrench on the table with a heavy thump. “Now, unless there is a point to this visit, kindly get out.”

He had the temerity to laugh. “There’s no need to be prickly about it. I only wished to offer aid.”

I let out a huff. “You, aid me?” I crossed my arms, and David’s eyes flicked down, only to lazily drift up again. “Somehow I doubt the sincerity of your offer.”

He shook his head, a very subtle motion that I almost didn’t notice. Then the corners of his lips ticked downward before he resumed his painted-on half smile.

He stepped to the table and glanced at the drawings for the automaton. “I have more help than I need, and I’m sure I can convince some of those willing to work with me to assist you instead, so long as I make it clear that this is all a single effort. After all, the two automatons have to work as a combined unit, and so really it is only one project if you think about it logically, not two. We’re all in this together, after all. The greater glory of the Academy is the only thing that matters, isn’t it?”

I let out a short breath, then a second when I found it difficult to breathe in. It took almost all my effort to trample on the fire of my anger, but I managed. That fire must have shone in my eyes, because a shadow of doubt flickered over his expression.

“For the glory of the Academy?” I began, my words feeling sharp on my tongue. “Or the glory of you?”

His grin faded to a tense line as the crease in his brow deepened. For the first time his façade cracked. He leaned forward slightly, clearly confused, as if he were an actor on the stage who’d suddenly forgotten his next line. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” I dropped my arms and pushed past him to gather up my plans and pull them to my side of the table.

He planted a palm on one of my sketches, and we both froze, facing one another. “But I’m not sure of your meaning.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, no, my lord. I’m sure you wouldn’t understand my meaning.” I snatched the paper out from under his palm, rolled it up with the rest, shoved them under my arm, and proceeded out the door. With any luck my driver would be early and I could leave at once. David followed closely on my heels as I marched down the corridor.

“Now see here. Stop all these hysterics and let’s have this out plainly.”

It was as if I’d suddenly stepped into some sort of snare. My feet rooted on the spot, and I turned to him. “I’ll cease all my
hysterics
when you cease your insufferable arrogance.”

“Arrogance!” It was his turn to bark out a laugh. “I’ll have you know I’m quite modest,” he said as he straightened his fine silk waistcoat. “It’s not my fault that I have many admirers. I didn’t ask for them. It’s wrong of you to judge my character so harshly when I’ve been nothing but fair to you.”

I clenched my teeth so hard, my jaw ached with it. I tried to hold back the flood of words that came rushing to my mind, but it was no use. The tide was too great. “Fair to me? Have you really?” I turned and resumed my pace down the corridor. He caught me by the elbow. I wrenched my arm from his grasp, accidentally dropping the drawings to the floor.