They were just moving back to the dance floor when a delicate brass dove fluttered into the ballroom and landed on Norbert’s shoulder. With a surprised look, he opened a small panel on the back, removed a slip of paper, and read. Alice took the bird from him and examined it. The delicate work on the feathers was particularly fine. The glassy eyes were bright and alert, and it moved realistically in her gloved hands.
“I’m sorry, Miss Michaels, but a situation has arisen at my factory and I must leave,” Norbert said. “And here I was hoping to see you home. Do forgive me.”
And then he was gone, the dove fluttering after him.
“Everyone’s talking about you,” Louisa said, appearing at her elbow like magic.
“Is that good or bad?”
“Hard to tell. Norbert Williamson is the joker in the pack. No one knows what he’s really about, so they don’t know how to react to him-or to you, now. But they’re still not talking to you. The men are afraid of the clockwork plague, and the women are afraid that anyone who talks to you won’t be asked to dance by anyone good.”
Alice sighed, suddenly tired. “Except you.”
“There are advantages to having one’s own money,” Louisa said without a shred of self-consciousness. “Patrick Barton-the ash-blond one in the bad coat-is seeing me home tonight. And he’ll probably have breakfast.”
It took a moment for the meaning to sink in. Alice snapped open her fan, scandalized. “Louisa!”
Louisa laughed again. “You need to have more fun, Alice. Call on me, darling. I should mingle.” And she left.
Exhaustion settled over Alice, and the ballroom air was loaded with heat from dancing bodies. She decided it was time to go. Lady Greenfellow hadn’t stationed herself near the door yet, which meant Alice didn’t need to bid her an official good-bye, though she would have to write a long thank-you letter later. She retrieved her shawl and allowed the manservant to open the massive front doors for her. The cool night air woke her a bit as the servant waved at one of the cabs for hire that waited in the circular drive. It was an old-fashioned one, with four wheels instead of two and a driver who sat up front. In the distance, faint music played-a haunting, compelling melody from a flutelike instrument Alice couldn’t quite identify. To Alice’s surprise, the servant handed the driver a sum of money and told him to take the lady home.
“Courtesy of Mr. Williamson, ma’am,” the servant said, helping her in.
Alice knew she should feel delighted that Norbert Williamson was expressing a continued interest in her, but now that she wasn’t dancing, the champagne was catching up with her and she felt only sleepy. At least Father would be pleased. The cab clattered and rolled through gaslit London streets with Alice dozing in the back. The faint music she had heard earlier grew louder, irritating rather than pleasing. Far off, Big Ben tolled the time with his familiar bells-two a.m.-and the carriage came to an abrupt halt. Alice roused herself and turned to look out the side of the cab.
Facing her was a crowd of plague zombies. The first one reached for the door.
Chapter Two
Gavin Ennock let the last long note slide from his fiddle and fade away. He lifted the bow from the strings and cocked a bright blue eye at Old Graf, whose own eyes were obscured by heavy brass lookout goggles.
“Ah, that puts heart into a man.” Old Graf sighed. His magnified gaze, however, never left the cloud-flecked sky ahead of them. A thin wind blew at their backs, not quite able to penetrate the pale, supple leather of the jackets and trousers they both wore. Overhead, the ever-present bulge of the airship’s gas envelope blotted out the sun, though in a few hours, the sun would sink behind them, and the decks would grow uncomfortably warm. The netting that hung from the envelope creaked in a familiar rhythm, and the ship swayed beneath it. A faint vibration from the engine propellers came up through the soles of Gavin’s boots. Far below, the Atlantic Ocean lay calm and flat and blue.
Gavin inhaled the sea air. His hair, a pale blond bleached nearly white by the sun, fluttered against his forehead like feathers. Gavin’s face had lost its boyish roundness and acquired the more squared look of a man, but he was a little short for his seventeen years and had no hint of facial hair, two facts the airmen teased him about mercilessly. Old Graf never did, which was one of the reasons Gavin had come up to the lookout post at the front of the airship.
A seagull coasted past with a thin cry that started on an E-flat and descended to a gravelly A. Gavin echoed the bird’s call on his fiddle, matching the pitches exactly. The gull cocked a beady eye at him, then dived away.
“‘Blind Mary’?” Old Graf said.
“How is that a song for a man on lookout duty?” Gavin countered with a grin.
Old Graf continued to scan the air ahead of them. They were on the forecastle, the foremost section of the ship. An airship like the USS Juniper didn’t have a crow’s nest-the cigar-shaped envelope precluded one-which meant the lookout had to be as far forward as possible.
“It’s a taste of home,” Old Graf said.
Gavin set bow to strings and played. “Blind Mary” was an old Irish song, one of hundreds he’d picked up as a kid in Boston. In his head, he saw an old woman feeling her way along a country lane, and he let his fingers slide along the strings, playing her sadness and age. Gavin heard every note perfectly in his head. Each note, each chord, each song had its own unique sound, and it seemed impossible to him that anyone couldn’t tell them apart. A and A-sharp were as different as red and blue.
Gavin let himself play with the melody the second time through, wandering with it as if Mary had lost her way, stumbling, frightened, but finding her place again at the last second. Yet, in the end, the song still left her blind and alone. Behind them on the main deck, some of the airmen paused in their work to listen until the song ended. Old Graf fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and blew his nose.
“How is it that a seventeen-year-old cabin boy plays like an immortal angel?” he blurted out, then flushed slightly and coughed.
“It helps to have a fine listener.” Gavin clapped him on the shoulder. “My gramps gave me the fiddle, but he said the music is a gift from God. And Captain Naismith says I’ll be a full airman soon enough.”
Old Graf’s weathered face went pale. “Dear Lord.”
“My being an airman isn’t such bad news, is it?”
“Gliders. Straight for us.” Old Graf flicked the lenses of his goggles up and reached for the alarm bell. Gavin grabbed the spare lookout helmet from the rack, jammed it on his own head, and looked through the lenses as Old Graf yanked the cord. Bells sounded all throughout the Juniper. Through the helmet lenses, Gavin saw ominous birdlike shapes zipping toward the airship he’d been calling home since he was twelve. They were painted blue and white to better hide in the sky, and part of Gavin was impressed that Old Graf had seen them even as the rest of him tightened with fear and dread. He counted eight, and there were probably more that he couldn’t see.
“What’s out there, Graf?”demanded Captain Naismith’s voice through the speaking tube at Old Graf’s elbow.
“Pirate gliders, Captain,” Old Graf yelled back, flipping his lenses back down. “I mark at least a dozen.”
“Which means probably twice that. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Can you see the main cruiser?”
“Not-yes! Welsh privateer, probably with a letter of marque.” He squinted through the lenses. “Gondolier class. Semirigid.”
“All hands prepare for battle!”boomed the captain. “Drop ballast compression and take us up to fifteen hundred feet. We have two dozen gliders coming in. They’ll try to get over the netting to attack the decks, so I want everyone who can swing a sword or fire an air pistol up in the ropes! Mr. Thomas, prepare to jettison the cargo. Master Ennock, get your ass down to the gondola, and I mean now!”