Newbury looked pained. “You can’t think the Bastion Society is a better option, Veronica! Surely you can’t think that?”
Veronica shook her head emphatically. “Of course not. But I’m worried there isn’t a great deal of difference between them anymore. I think they’re all as bad as each other: Aubrey Knox, Dr. Fabian, Enoch Graves… and the Queen. How could she condone what Fabian has done to Amelia? How could she encourage him?”
“I…,” Newbury started, but faltered.
“And look at us, Newbury!” she continued. “Look what she’s done to us. She’s poisoned us with her ridiculous games. She’s had me spy on you. You! One of the best men I’ve ever met. The best man I’ve ever met. And look what that did to you.” The tears came then, in great floods down her cheeks. She didn’t even bother to try to stop them.
Newbury leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her in a warm embrace. “You might be right,” he said, and she knew then that he believed it. “It’ll be over soon, Veronica. One way or another.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Bastion Society is moving against the Queen. They believe her to be a living blasphemy, a soul trapped in an undying body, and they intend to storm the palace to bring her reign to an end.”
Veronica looked up at him, her eyes wide with shock. “It’s just as Amelia predicted. Cracking walls and fire and pain. And the one who sits in the chair is key.”
Newbury released her and slowly pushed himself up onto his feet. “We need to find a way out,” he stated flatly. “We have to warn her. Whatever she might have done, Veronica, we can’t let an army of occultists storm the palace. It’ll bring the Empire to its knees.”
Veronica nodded. “It may already be too late. It’s been hours.”
Newbury cursed under his breath. “All the same, we have to try. We have to get away from here. Graves said he would keep us alive long enough to show us the ruination of everything we hold dear. Either way, if we don’t get out of here soon, we’re dead.”
Veronica smiled. For the first time in hours, she was starting to feel a glimmer of hope. She’d thought it was over when Newbury had been deep in the throes of the opium withdrawal. Now, he was beginning to muster his strength. He was weak and bedraggled, but he was Newbury. His instinct was kicking in. He wanted to live.
“We need to work out how to get past this lock,” he said. “They took everything useful before they tossed me in here.”
“The lock isn’t the problem,” she replied, reaching up and extracting two thin metal pins from her hair. She held them out to him. They were lock picks, taken from his collection in Chelsea and secured there as they’d prepared for their spot of breaking and entering. Experience had long since taught her to conceal a few such items upon her person, just in case. She pointed towards the door. “That’s the problem.”
Newbury followed the line of her finger. There, perched on the wall just beside the door, was a large mechanical spider. “Damn it!” he said. He took a few steps towards the door. Three red lights flickered to life atop the machine, a little cluster of them, like glowing eyes. The body raised up on its eight spindly legs, and it emitted a high-pitched whirring sound as the blades in its belly began to spin and hum. Newbury stopped dead in his tracks, about three feet from the door.
“It’s just like the one that attacked us at my apartment,” Veronica said. “It sits there quietly, powered down, until one of us approaches the door. Then it stirs. I’ve not dared to get too close, in case I incite it to attack.”
Newbury nodded. “Graves said they had more of them.” He rubbed his face.
Veronica felt her newfound hope beginning to seep away. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to provoke it. There’s nothing in here we can use as a weapon. I would have had us out of here already if it hadn’t been for that.”
Newbury shrugged. “Bring those here. The lock picks.”
Veronica got to her feet. Newbury was sizing up the mechanical beast. He took another step towards it, and the scream of the spinning blades increased in intensity.
“Maurice, don’t be stupid. One wrong move and it’ll tear you apart,” she said.
Newbury looked back at her over his shoulder. “We’re dead anyway if we don’t get out of here. Might as well die trying.”
Veronica didn’t have any response. She knew he was right, but she could hardly condone his taking his life in his hands in such dramatic fashion. It was clear he was going to attempt to wrestle the thing out of the way.
Newbury seemed to take her silence as acquiescence. “Be ready with one of those lock picks,” he said. “When I say so, I want you to jam it in the recess behind those three red lights. I think those must be its eyes.”
“You think those are its eyes? What if they’re simply lights?”
Newbury looked exasperated. He ignored her and continued. “Once it’s in there, work it about a bit, try to damage the mechanisms. I want to make sure it can’t see us. Confuse it.”
Veronica sighed. She slid one of the lock picks into her belt and held the other in her fist like a dagger.
Newbury smiled. “Let’s get out of here, Miss Hobbes.” He sprang forward, surprising even her with his sudden movement. In one bound he was by the door, grabbing the spider machine from the wall by its legs, holding it at arm’s length, and grunting with the exertion of keeping it at bay. The spider bucked and wriggled, its blades screaming and whining as it fought to free itself from Newbury’s viselike grip.
One of the legs got free, stabbing at Newbury’s hand and causing him to cry out in pain as it buried itself in flesh. But he managed to hold on, his face locked in a grimace. “Now, Veronica!” he yelled.
She rushed forward, brandishing the lock pick. The spider thing continued to writhe and squirm in Newbury’s grasp. “Hurry!” he said urgently. She located the little cluster of red lights. They were less than an inch from the deadly blades. She risked losing her hand if Newbury wasn’t able to hold the machine still.
“Veronica!”
So be it. She jabbed down with the lock pick, shattering one of the glass eyes and jamming the metal shaft of the pick deep into the mechanisms of the clockwork monster. She forced the pick back and forth, feeling tiny gears crack and snap inside the device.
“Good,” Newbury said. “Good!”
She pulled the lock pick free and repeated the action, shattering another eye, wrenching more of the machine’s delicate internal systems out of place. It continued to buck violently in Newbury’s grip, but it wasn’t responding to Veronica. Blood was trickling down Newbury’s arm from a number of vicious cuts caused by the errant leg.
“Right, back away,” said Newbury, and Veronica did as she was told, retreating into the cell until her back was against the far wall.
Still holding the now-blinded machine at arm’s length, Newbury approached the door.
Oh, clever, Veronica thought, as she watched him jam the spinning blades against the door panel, aiming it carefully over the lock. Unseeing, acting purely on whatever instinct had been invested in its mechanical brain, the spider thing bit down into the wood with its saw blades.
Newbury held it there, pressing it firmly against the door as it chewed a hole in the wood. The blades screeched as they struck metal, but carved on through, cutting a large hole right through the door and taking the entire lock mechanism along with it.
Seconds later, the disc of wood fell to the ground with a loud clatter. With all his might, Newbury hefted the spider and flung it at the cell’s back wall. It collided with the rock face with a crunch and fell to the ground, three of its legs hanging uselessly at its side. It scuttled for cover, banging into the wall before disappearing into the dark recesses of the cell.
Veronica stared at Newbury in wonder. Even now, he still had the capacity to surprise her.