The Clockwork Dagger (36 page)

A wave of grief passed over Mr. Drury's face. “Mr. Grinn was my dearest childhood friend, Miss Leander. He would have done anything to save you.”

“Yes, so he could enslave me to your cause.” Her bitten lip continued to ooze. Every word tasted of blood.

“Our cause is about freedom. Your powers can save many lives.”

Octavia had almost reached them. So close, she could smell Alonzo's burned flesh.
Like supper meat.
That old revulsion roiled in her stomach again, worse than it had in years. Sweat beaded Alonzo's skin, the swelling around his eye like a ripe plum. She stopped, facing the men, willing something to happen.

Maybe the tea had no power unless it was ingested.
What am I missing?
The foul taste of blood covered her tongue.

Me.

I am the missing ingredient.

She spat blood into the spilled tea.

Hot prickles began in the soles of her feet and whirled upward, causing the hair to rise on the back of her neck. The same sensation as when she activated a circle, only stronger. Power, raw power.

Vines burst from the ground, a countless number in a flailing sheet of green, and whipped toward the men. Octavia hit the ground as the expected gunshots rang out, her hands shielding her head. None of the vines lashed toward her this time—no, they had a different focus.

Shrill screams quivered in the air and were cut short. More shots, Taney yelling, more screams, the roar of fire. Heat rippled overhead, a shock against the autumn cool. She raised her eyes. The vines were everywhere, making it nigh impossible to see who was who in the thrashing mess of flora and men. The harsh scent of cut grass assaulted her nose. A new cry arose, different from blood, a terrible and pathetic whine—the same sound she heard when she sliced the vine, only multiplied. These vines lived and bled.

“Alonzo!” she shouted, sitting up on her knees. A vine as thick as her forearm glided past, dragging a man's leg in its wake. She forced her gaze away.

The Lady did that.

The Lady maims. She kills.

The Lady manifests through blood. My blood.

“Alonzo!” she screamed.

Fire billowed and the vines bowed and crested like an ocean wave. A flash of blond hair above revealed Lanskay. Vines clenched his waist like a fist and hauled him upward. Flames trickled from his hands and singed several vines, causing them to curl back, but others took their place. Her eyes met with Lanskay's, his face determined yet fearful, and then he plummeted to the ground.

Taney was there beside Lanskay, a sword in his hand.
A sword? Where did an antiquated weapon like that come from?
Severed vines draped from Lanskay like a child's play costume gone wrong and disintegrated as he leaped up. Taney and Lanskay retreated together, Taney driving back vines with the blade.

“Alonzo!” Octavia half turned. “Vincan! The potentate is getting away!” She stepped forward. She held a breath for a moment, frozen in fear, but the vines shrank back to create a path. A few seconds later and they all began to withdraw into the cracked, dry earth.

The walls of the tent had collapsed. Several men, or bits of them, adorned the ground like the aftermath of a canon blast. Something squished underfoot. She didn't look down.

A lump of man lay on the flattened canvas of the tent. His leather-adorned arms hugged his body limply, his mouth agape. The exit wound of the bullet was a black hole in his temple. It wept blood and matter.

Octavia stopped. Her breath burned in her throat. “Alonzo?”

“I wasn't trying to shoot him.” Mr. Drury sat just behind him, leaning on his knees. “The vines reached for me and I fired and he tried to lurch up, get away.”

“No,” she breathed.

“Come with me, Miss Leander.” Mr. Drury stood and brushed off his suit. It still fit him with tailored excellence, even stained by the trail and spatter. “We can meet with Mr. Taney and Mr. Lanskay. I'm sure we can work out a compromise, and that they won't force you to do anything you do not wish to do.”

It took effort to breathe, as if her lungs had turned solid. “That will never happen. You're lying to yourself if you believe that, Mr. Drury.”

Something in his eyes hardened. “I want you to come with me, Miss Leander.”

“I will not.”

His gun remained on the ground beside Alonzo. As Mr. Drury stepped forward, she was keenly aware of his proven strength and agility and how well she would fare against him in a melee. She retreated several steps.

Lady, help me.
The vines were gone, the earth shattered and uneven underfoot. Mr. Drury loomed in her sight a mere step away. He grabbed her upper arm, the clench of his fingers firm. She reached behind her head. Her fingers found the metal shaft of the bullet probe used to secure her bun. She grabbed hold and jerked her arm forward. The world blurred.

His eye screamed—a juicy squirt—followed by a crunch and that distinctive whistle and whiff of brain matter. Mr. Drury groaned as he toppled backward. The medical instrument protruded from his eye. The music of him bleated and wailed.

She stared at him for several long heartbeats.
A bullet probe. I . . . what did I . . . Mr. Drury. His eye . . . his brain.

Other music called to her, the brilliant brasses going dull. She turned and staggered forward.
Alonzo.

Octavia fell hard to her knees and bent over him, her hands resting on the smoothness of his cheeks. He was still warm to the touch. Life lingered in him yet. She fumbled her hand inside her dress and to her brassiere, even knowing that her supply had been exhausted by tending Vincan.
My satchel. It's somewhere beneath the tent. Where's an opening? Can I cut my way inside? Oh Lady. There's no time.

His heat was fading, his skin stiffening. The brass band of his soul had quieted to the soft rat-tat-tat of a lone drum. His glazed eyes stared toward the sun, the blue more pale than it had ever been in life.

“Lady,” she gasped, “Lady. Please.” She curled her back and shut her eyes, willing herself into Al Cala, drawing herself to the image of the true Tree. An icy wind numbed her face.
This isn't my imagination.
A child's laugh caused her to recoil in surprise. Her vision swooped like a bird in flight and found a figure in the thick of the branches. A young boy, on a swing of weathered rope and driftwood.

“Listen to the branch and look to the leaves.”
His words returned to her with the lash of the wind.
Look to the leaves.

She opened her eyes to the desolation of the camp and shoved a hand into her apron pouch. The leaf fit in her hand, her thumb tracing the midrib.
Taney said the juice is poison. Chewing it is poison.
She tugged Alonzo's jaw fully open and with her filthy fingers lifted the limp weight of his tongue. The leaf, so tonguelike itself, fit in the depression behind his lower teeth; his tongue lay on top as a lid. She withdrew her fingers and nudged his mouth shut again. Her warm tears plinked like rain as she brushed the softened leather of his shoulder.

“Lady, please bring him back. Please bring him back.” She opened his jacket, and the crimson steward's coat still underneath, peeling back the layers of fabric until she found flesh. Her skin, even tanned by labor, was so pale against his nutmeg tone. Her fingers curled against the muscled knoll of his chest.

“Live,” she whispered, and brought her face over his. Without the probe in place, her hair shifted and unfurled behind her headband. A crazed ringlet drifted to rest on his cheek.

Alonzo twitched. Beneath her fingers, his heartbeat surged. Music flared in her ears, the triumphant fanfare of trumpets. His lips opened with a gasp. His eyes blinked wildly and then focused on her. The bruised knob on his cheek wavered like the ocean surface and sank in, revealing unblemished skin and the perfect angle of his cheekbone. The thick sludge of blood along his cheek and ear evaporated, the screams quelled. The wounds sealed and the music withdrew as well, resuming its quiet background hum.

The cooked stench of his burn wound dissipated. She breathed in, fully.

“Octavia.” He said her name with his first exhalation. He frowned, his tongue finding the leaf obstructing his mouth.

“Don't bite it! Here, open up.” He did, his expression puzzled. She pinched the leaf out again, and even as she lifted it away it faded into dust.

“I saw the Tree,” he whispered, and she knew he wasn't speaking of the one nearby. He wiggled his lips for a moment, as if shaking off the rigor of death. “It spoke to me, it told me . . .”

A harsh chill quaked her body.
No. No. This can't be as it was with the child. Not again. Not to be taunted with life, with him, to lose him anew.

“ . . . ‘Go.' ”

Octavia blinked rapidly. “ ‘Go?' That's it?”

“Isn't that enough?” A grin creased gentle lines into his face. She felt the warm heaviness of his hand on her shoulder, and she lowered her lips to his. The texture was chapped yet soft, his heat sending a giddy whirl through her stomach. A slight whimper escaped her throat. His hand glided to her neck, his thumb brushing her skin. With his lips moving against hers, his breath surprisingly minty, everything felt right.

Her eyelids fluttered shut for a few seconds, and then she realized she wanted to see this. See him. His pale blue eyes were open as well, studying her in that intense way he studied everything. A smile turned her lips even as she kissed him again, fiercer. A moan escaped his throat as he pulled her closer.

His song grew stronger, her awareness more keen than ever before. She felt the very reverberation of his life force against her lips, the way a tree's leaves take in the heat of the sun.

As if—as if I can feel his heart, wield power over his life right now, without a circle, without any herbs in hand. It wasn't like this just a few days ago at the Saint's Road—but my blood didn't cause pampria to sprout before the swamp either.

His body, his song, quivered through her awareness as if she were a composer. She had read the musical notes of bodies for so many years, but now it was as though she could pry apart the wind instruments and drums and brass by her very will. Control them. Rewrite the song.

She jerked back, frightened.

The ground shuddered. She glanced up. The giant tree was shrinking. The motion was slow, nowhere near as fast as it had been in growth, as it withdrew toward the ground. Alonzo propped himself up on his elbows, his gaze still on her. One hand went to his chest as if to check his own heartbeat.

“That . . . that was nice,” she said with a shaky smile.
I wanted it to be nicer. Lady, what's happening to me?

“Helloooooooo down there!” Mrs. Stout's voice was high and far away.

“Octavia . . .”

“Viola will be down in a few minutes.” The words were raspy.

“That infernal burned you.”

She looked at the welts on her wrist. “It was nothing compared to the way they tortured you.”

His sleeve was still clumsily rolled to the elbow, cloth stained by gore. Faint pink lines showed where they had scorched him. “ 'Tis not fair, really. I am healed, yet you, the healer, are still hurt. When we find your satchel . . .” Alonzo's body brushed against the canvas tent as he worked to stand. His breath caught sharply. “Drury. Did you do that?”

“Oh Lady. I did.” She crawled over to Mr. Drury, already bracing herself for the sight of him. Shrapnel to the eye was never pretty. “I can save him.” Her fingers fumbled out another leaf.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Alonzo asked.

“I'm a medician. I can't . . . I can't just let someone die. Not even him.”

Still, she cringed as she touched his lips. She tucked the leaf beneath his tongue and shut his jaw.

“Was that truly the potentate here?”

“Yes.” Keeping her gaze away from Alonzo, she rested a hand against Mr. Drury's forehead. She spoke of what she had learned of their plot against Mercia, that Miss Percival had indeed sold out both Octavia herself and Viola Stout, that they were using young girls to harvest the gleanings of the Lady's Tree. The words flowed fast, and as the minutes passed Mr. Drury's skin only grew colder.

“Did I do something wrong?” she said aloud. Through her, the Lady had mended thousands of strangers over the years. She knew the Lady was currently present, even without a circle to draw her eye.

I could press my lips to his, see if I feel any thrum of life as with Alonzo
. Personal revulsion was an adequate excuse to avoid that, but even more, she knew there was nothing there to feel.

Octavia opened Mr. Drury's mouth and withdrew the leaf. It looked the same as before, only glossy with saliva. It remained whole in her hand.

“The Lady didn't want him healed.” She stared at Mr. Drury in awe. “I have never . . . never seen her deny someone so utterly. But after he saved me from that machine at the hotel, I never felt the burden of a blessing on me. She . . . she . . .”

“Considering his sins, that is her choice to make.”

Octavia nodded mutely and traced the crusted slash across her thumb.

The Lady killed. She killed Mr. Drury by denying him life anew, and she killed the other Wasters whose body parts still lie scattered across the ground. Who is the Lady, really?

Who am I? A medician—and something more?

She shivered, discomfited by the very blood running through her veins.

V
IOLA RETURNED TO EARTH
shaky but well. Leaf had made a comfortable nest for himself on the shelf of her bosom, one wing draped over her shoulder to hook himself in place. He chirped in greeting but seemed content.

“My goodness,” said Viola, plopping down on an overturned bucket beside a smoldering fire. “My goodness. I saw everything from up there. Every awful thing.”