“I’m not offering a choice.”
In that moment, all the frustration and anger and fear she’d been keeping under control got away from her. “Why are you doing this?” she burst out. “What do you have to gain? The plague in England is dead. There are no more clockworkers. The Third Ward’s purpose is no more!”
Phipps strode forward and grabbed Alice by the front of her blouse in a metal fist. Her breath smelled of stale bread and long-forgotten wine. Alice grabbed Phipps’s wrist with her own metal gauntlet, but Phipps was stronger by far. “You endanger the world. You diminish me. You destroyed my reason to exist.”
“Let her go, Phipps!” Gavin barked, but Simon pointed his rifle at him, and he went still. The paradox generator sat uselessly at his feet like a half-dead flower.
“So now you’ve replaced your purpose with an obsession to destroy me?” Alice countered. “Is it worth the cost? You’ve dragged Simon and Glenda into hell, and these children are paying the price as well. Let us go to China, Susan, and we’ll restore balance to the world. It won’t be the balance you remember, but it’ll be balance nonetheless.”
“Madam. Madam. Madam.”
Phipps’s six-fingered hand tightened on the white cloth at Alice’s throat, and Alice found it a bit hard to breathe. “Balance is restored only through justice. I will have justice.”
“The Gontas will be here in two minutes, Lieutenant,” said Glenda from behind her rifle.
“Susan,” Gavin said evenly, “we shouldn’t be talking about this here. These children need our help, our assistance, our aid. Isn’t that also your duty, your responsibility, your obligation?”
“A fine try, Ennock,” Phipps said. “But I’m not a clockworker.”
“Listen to me, Lieutenant.” The words came out half-choked, and Alice could barely draw breath through the iron grip at her throat. She fumbled for the whistle on its chain, but couldn’t get to it. “You have a chance here to build instead of destroy. You can save these children and thousands like them. Just let us go.”
Phipps stared at Alice, her ice-blue eyes meeting Alice’s brown ones. She wavered. The grip at Alice’s throat relaxed and she could breathe freely again. Relief made Alice relax. Everything was going to be fine. The children continued to huddle around Gavin, and she wanted to tell them it would be all right now, but she had no way to—
“No!” Phipps snarled. Her grip tightened again. “No! No! No! I will have justice! Glenda, chain them both. Simon, keep them covered. If they move wrong, shoot to kill. Alice first. That’ll keep Gavin in line.”
“Madam. Madam. Madam.”
“We have barely sixty seconds,” Glenda reported, setting her rifle aside and producing a set of heavy handcuffs.
“Feng!” Alice cried in desperation. “Attack Phipps!”
Feng instantly launched himself at Phipps. The move caught Phipps off guard and he slammed into her, knocking her down. Alice went down, too, but Phipps released her grip and she was able to roll free. Gavin’s wristbands snapped a cog at Glenda, who ducked by reflex. Gavin shoved through the crying group of children and swept the rifle from Glenda’s hands with a hook kick. It hit the floor and slid away. Simon spun and aimed his weapon straight at Gavin. The tip glowed red.
Feng and Phipps rolled across the floor, trading and blocking blows faster than Alice could track. “No!” Phipps chanted. “No! No! No! No!” Feng was getting tired, and Phipps landed several choice hits on him. Alice struggled to her feet, fumbling for the whistle.
Gavin faced Simon across the glowing rifle barrel. Simon’s eyes were sunken, his hair disheveled, his black coat torn. “Are you going to shoot me, Simon?” Gavin said. “Simon Peter d’Arco, the man who killed his friend and partner?”
“I have my orders,” he said hoarsely.
“What orders come from your soul?” Gavin asked. “You once gave up happiness to give me Alice. I can’t imagine that someone so unselfish would kill for shallow reasons.”
“You never wanted me,” Simon said. “So I found someone else, and Phipps ripped me away from him to follow you. It always comes back to you, Gavin. You!”
“I’m sorry,” Gavin admitted. “I know you’re angry. But is anger worth my life, or the lives of these children?”
“Madam. Madam. Madam.”
Glenda was moving toward her lost rifle. Simon twisted a lever, and the red barrel glowed scarlet. Alice froze, the whistle at her mouth, as Simon fired. The energy beam shot past Gavin and hit Glenda’s rifle. It leaped away, a molten mass. Glenda swore and jumped back.
“You traitorous bastard!” Phipps leaped to her feet, dark hair wild. Feng staggered upright, still trying to attack but not possessing the coordination. “I’ll see you court-martialed, d’Arco!”
The door at the top of the balcony burst open, and clockworker Cossacks boiled into the room. Ivana was at the forefront. She waved a sword that would have looked ridiculous with her pink tea gown if the vibrating blade hadn’t sheared a marble bust in half as she passed. The other Gontas bore similar weapons, including a number of projectile arms.
“Shit,” said Simon and Gavin together.
Alice blew the whistle. It shrilled high and loud, like a baby chick crying for its mother. There was a small moment of silence when everyone in the giant room paused, as if startled that Alice would do something so ridiculous. Alice stood in the middle of the frozen chaos. The children huddled together, frightened and without a protector. Feng staggered about, still trying to obey orders and attack Phipps, but betrayed by his battered body. Kemp’s head droned sorrowfully to itself. Gavin and Simon remained side by side, dark and light, newly become brothers. Even the Gontas and Zalizniaks paused momentarily in their charge.
And then an angry trumpeting answered the whistle. A faint rumble grew stronger, and the front doors smashed open. They wrenched off their hinges, and Alice ducked as one door flew over her head and crashed at the foot the stairs just as Ivana and two of her siblings arrived there. Ivana’s dying scream was buried under six inches of solid oak. The mechanical elephant stampeded over the remains of the automaton army, trumpeted again, and came to a halt near Alice. It made a formidable wall of brass between her and Phipps.
“Get aboard!” Alice barked. “Feng, get the children on the elephant!”
But Gavin and Simon were now halfway across the room from Alice and the mechanical animal. Gavin snatched up the paradox generator and the two of them ran for the elephant, but one of the Gontas on the staircase lobbed a small device that landed in the space between Gavin and the elephant. It exploded with a strange pop that only rocked Alice but knocked both Gavin and Simon sprawling. Gavin slid backward across the smooth floor, away from the elephant and toward the staircase. Alice shouted his name.
Gavin managed to regain his feet. By a miracle, he hadn’t lost his hold on the paradox generator. Simon, meanwhile, flew in a different direction entirely and fetched up against one of the walls. He pulled himself upright, rifle in hand. The Cossacks laughed and tried to clamber over the wreckage at the foot of the stairs. One of them gave it up and turned to aim a large, multibarreled rifle in the elephant’s general direction.
“Go, Alice!” Gavin shouted. “Take the kids and go!”
“No!” Alice cried, horrified at the idea. “I can’t leave you!” But the space between them was wide, and the Gontas were already aiming a number of other weapons. The air would turn deadly in seconds. The children were climbing up the elephant and into the brass gondola, using handholds welded onto its hide for just this purpose. Feng urged them along, but they were slow, and there was no way to get them all in before the Gontas started their barrage.
Gavin held up the paradox generator and grabbed the crank. Of course! The Cossacks couldn’t resist it. All he had to do was freeze them in place long enough for—