Steam Guardians 01 - A Lady Can Never Be Too Curious (8 page)

Her companions suddenly became deadly serious. She looked from Darius to Lykos and back again.

“What did I say?”

They glanced at each other, obviously weighing whether to respond to her.

“Are you claiming Dr. Nerval has knowledge of Deep Earth Crystals?”

Darius asked the question, his voice low and edged with suspicion. It sounded like a challenge, and she felt her strength returning with full force to face it.

“More than knowledge. He has a room full of them. When I refused to handle one he claimed was a level-four—like the one I caught in your Solitary Chamber—he had me strapped to that chair to teach me obedience. How did you find me anyway?”

Lykos put the top back on the flask with a quick twist and dropped it onto the seat between them. Both men wore hard expressions.

“Did he tell you how he knew about the one you caught inside the lecture hall?”

“Answer my question first. I already responded to one of yours.”

Darius frowned, but Lykos snorted with amusement. “I’m beginning to understand your irritation with her.”

“I am not irritating, sir. How unkind of you to say so,” Janette admonished.

Lykos grinned at her as his expression became one of contemplation. He studied her for a long moment. “Perhaps that is the wrong word, but you are certainly…an active element.”

“Enough. We’re straying off the topic,” Darius said. “I bribed one of the bullyboys Dr. Nerval employs on his way back to the slums. The man was happy enough to spill a little information. Now answer my question.”

She had to think for a moment to recall which question he meant. “Oh…well, Dr. Nerval claimed to know about the crystal I caught during the lecture from his sources. He pointed at one he said was similar and told me I was a…Pure Spirit. Which is the same thing the Professor giving the lecture said I was.”

The two men glanced at each other again, confirming she was correct without a doubt.

A tingle of apprehension went across her skin as the carriage slowed down. There was suddenly much more light surrounding the carriage. Janette peered out the window to see some sort of gate. It rose on either side of them, apparently constructed of the same material as Darius’s desk. The moment the carriage entered it, she felt the current go through her. The lapel pins on her Illuminist companions lit until they passed through the gate.

“So…this Pure Spirit business, it makes it possible for the current from the crystals to not harm me, but your pins protect you…by completing the circuit.”

“Clever girl.” Darius wasn’t giving her a compliment. He was back to watching her suspiciously.

“Is it so wrong to want to understand what I seem to be? It’s rather a relief to know there is a reason behind the melody I hear when I’m near those crystals. The only other explanation is I’m going insane.”

“You aren’t.” Darius offered the pair of words with a hint of approval in his voice. “At least our community doesn’t believe you are. I won’t offer you the same assurance beyond our gates.”

The carriage stopped, and the driver let down the stairs. Darius left his seat first, closing the space between them.

“But you’re very lucky we were able to find you.”

Tension renewed its grip on her along with the horror that had kept her company through the long hours of the day.

She might still be there.

“I believe Darius is offering that hand for you.”

Janette jumped, startled by the comment. A quick glance toward the door showed Darius was waiting, his hand outstretched for her to steady her exit from the vehicle.

“Oh…yes.” She took the offered hand, then stumbled on her way through the narrow doorway, stepping on her petticoat ruffle.

Darius’s hand closed around hers, holding her steady when she would have lost her balance.

“You need to recover.”

There was a hint of disgust in his voice, or maybe it was more like he’d been proven correct because she wasn’t holding up better.

“I am right as rain now that I’m out of that horrible chair.” She pulled her hand loose and smoothed her skirt while making sure her back was ramrod straight. For a moment she stared into Darius’s unbelieving eyes, until the carriage captured her complete attention.

There truly were no horses.

“How does it work?”

Janette didn’t wait for an answer but walked all the way around the vehicle in her quest to understand it. There were four wheels and a driver’s box where she expected it to be. In the back there was a boiler with a steam pipe sticking up. When the driver released the brake, he also pulled on a second lever and steam hissed on its way up and out of the boiler.

Beneath the carriage there were gears connected by rods that moved them and then the wheels. The driver actually steered the carriage with a wheel that Janette could only compare to a ship’s wheel, but it was much smaller and made of iron.

“You’re in the Illuminist sector now, Janette. We don’t depend on animals as much as the world you were raised in.”

“Yes, I recall the gates.”

Just like the Jewish communities, the Illuminists lived with their own kind. The main difference was that the Illuminists actually had gates to keep outsiders away. The air smelled different, and she realized it smelled like the country. Fresh and lacking the stink so often present in the city.

“Come inside, Janette. You need to keep out of sight. Now that others know of your abilities, someone will likely be looking for you.”

A doorman held the door open, but he lacked the stiff formality of her father’s servants. He offered them a jovial grin and was dressed in a shirt that was clean but not an unpractical color like white; instead, it was a deep blue. His vest had four pockets, two at the waist and a second set at the breast. An Illuminist pin reflected the light shining from inside the house.

“Glad to see you back, sir. Welcome, miss.”

Janette found herself smiling back at him.

“Miss Janette will require a room and some supper, Hector.”

The manservant closed the door before nodding. “I’ll see to it, sir.”

“I need you to answer some more questions, Janette.” Darius held a door open to what looked like a study. Lykos stood behind her.

“You two act like constables.”

“More like detectives, but your perception is accurate. Security and protection of the Order is our sworn duty. We are Guardians.” Lykos offered the explanation as he extended his arm toward the open study door. He was still slightly behind her, reminding her of the burly attendants who had shadowed her every step at the clinic, ever ready to strong arm her. The difference was the ring of dedication in Lykos’s voice. He and Darius had integrity, something the attendants had lacked. Besides, she wanted to be here.

She stepped through the door, and the room began to brighten. The level of light was only a glow at first but increased until the room was comfortably lit. She heard the slightest amount of crystal rhythm when she concentrated; otherwise, it didn’t bother her.

“The reaction between the crystals—that’s what powers everything.” She walked closer to one of the lamps and laid her hand on it. She could feel the current and turned to see the badges on the two men’s lapels lit.

“The stronger crystal is in your badges, which completes the current.”

Lykos looked at Darius again, but Darius didn’t notice because he was watching her. There was a gleam of appreciation in his eyes, which pleased her.

She felt her lips twitch up and turned to hide her smile.

“Do you know who told Dr. Nerval about your visit to the lecture?” Darius was back on his mission to discover what she knew. Janette turned to face him.

“No. But he knew the crystal I touched was a level-four, and I recall Professor Yulric saying the same thing. He also had a cane with a carved crystal on the top of it. He handed it to me at my father’s house.”

Both men weighed her words.

“What is a Pure Spirit? Please don’t say I need to challenge your exam before you tell me. I believe we are past keeping me ignorant at this point.”

“Possibly,” Darius said. “But for the moment, we need to discover why and how information is leaking.” He reached out and pulled on a thin tapestry sash hanging from the wall, ringing a bell somewhere in the kitchen.

Janette fingered her skirt, feeling alone. Darius was focused on his duty to protect his Order, and she was nothing but the incident that had brought this current dilemma to light. Like a piece of evidence. That awful feeling of being nothing more than an object was creeping through her again.

The world felt bigger, and her confidence, smaller. Things she had felt secure in that morning no longer gave her comfort. The door opened, and Hector appeared.

“Hector will take you to the kitchen, Janette,” Darius said.

The desire to remain twisted her insides, but she refused to allow her emotions to rule her now that she had escaped the clinic. Things were certainly improved, and she’d hold on to that knowledge.

Clinging to Darius was bound to land her in a different sort of trouble altogether.

“Thank you, gentlemen. I am grateful for your assistance tonight.”

Polished and polite, her exit was everything her father would have approved of—except she wasn’t part of the world where such things mattered anymore. Still, part of her was humming with excitement because she’d managed to embark on an adventure, and this one didn’t live between the pages of a book.

Of course, that meant the aches and pains would be real too. Along with the danger. But she was absorbed with the sense of anticipation warming her insides. In spite of the way the gag had bruised the corners of her mouth, she smiled.

***

“I’d say Miss Janette just managed to make herself quite useful.”

“Possibly, but at a great cost to herself.” Darius discovered his attention wandering away from the task before him. He should have felt irritated, but as the moments passed, his ire didn’t rise. No, only a desire to follow his guest into the kitchen to make sure she was seen to.
Comforted
was the more correct word, but it frustrated him to acknowledge the tender impulse.

“Hector won’t appreciate your questioning his ability to run your house,” Lykos offered drily. “Run out to check on your guest, and he’ll likely overstarch your shirts.”

Darius frowned. “The man works for me.”

Lykos snorted. “You sound just like one of those society gentlemen. The servants work for you and all.”

“Smart-arse.”

His friend shrugged. “But you got my point.”

“I did.” It left him with a major infraction to deal with and Janette neatly taken out of his immediate care.

It shouldn’t bother him, yet it did, because all he wanted to do was finish what had started between them last night. There were suddenly no barriers between them. The control he’d labored so diligently to perfect was threatening to crumble. Janette could pass the exam; he felt it in his gut, which meant she would no longer be forbidden to him. It was the worst sort of temptation because he was having the devil’s time trying to think of another deterrent to seeking her out and kissing her.

But duty called, one necessary to keep Janette safe. That truth was strong enough to keep him in the study.

“Let’s find out all we can about Dr. Nerval and his clinic.”

Lykos abandoned his playful attitude, becoming the partner Darius knew so well.

***

For how late it was, Hector produced a meal that was quite pleasing. But once her belly was full, Janette was left with nothing to distract her from how rank she smelled. Terror and horror had sent perspiration to her skin and soaked her dress too many times. In spite of being dry now, she was as rumpled as a third-class passenger on a steamer.

The bathroom the manservant showed her to fascinated her. The tub had a round, eight-inch fixture held above it by a pair of pipes. There were tiny holes all over the underside of the fixture.

“Forgive me for being so forward, miss, but I believe you will find the washing tub quite nice. Use the knob to begin the water flowing. For hot water, raise the levers. The closer they come to the central pipe, the hotter the water. Be careful not to burn yourself.”

The manservant closed the door, saving Janette from having him witness her astonishment.

No one had running hot water.

Some fortunate homes were becoming equipped with piped water—which was quite a nice convenience—but hot water was still added with a kettle.

She leaned into the tub and peered at the controls. There was a four-fingered knob she recognized, but there were also two-inch-wide levers that closed around the pipe the cold water ran through up to the fixture with the holes in it. They were both down and sticking straight out with the cold-water pipe in the center. They wouldn’t move until she turned on the cold water. She heard it traveling up the pipe, and then it sprayed down into the tub like a rain shower, the water falling out of all the holes in the strange fixture.

She shivered because the water was icy cold, but even so, she was willing to suffer it to be clean. After struggling to get out of her dress, petticoat, and shoes, she approached the tub and stared at the twin levers. They moved easily enough, and as she pushed them up, they began to get closer to the pipe through which the cold water flowed.

She heard the crystals. They grew louder as the two levers drew closer to each other. Sticking her fingers between them, she felt the current. It went right through the pipe, and a moment later the water falling down from the fixture lost its chill.

So that was the secret. Some of the mystery lifted, allowing her to see the Illuminists for what they were—men of invention. The reaction between the crystals caused a current that might be used to heat water, which could then become steam. The carriage came to mind, and it was clear how the vehicle was powered. Even though she’d heard it discussed during the lecture, seeing it was far more impressive.

No fire. No coal. Only crystals, which were harmless until brought together to create a reaction.

Astounding.

Every ache in her body was suddenly worth it for the knowledge. She stepped into the tub and smiled as warm water flowed down her body. Her father could disown her, and she’d miss him, but she would never regret learning. Somehow she’d convinced herself that sneaking science circulars was enough. It wasn’t. She needed more. There was a yearning inside her that was growing every day, and she wasn’t going to ignore it any longer. She frowned when she looked down at her wet chemise. Her father had insisted she bathe in the undergarment to keep her innocence untarnished.