He withdrew the stone from his pocket. Couldn’t hurt to give it a try.
“Et in Arcadia ego,” he whispered.
Light shivered next to him and spat out a handsome man in a dressing gown, who stared at him disapprovingly and said, “Athena’s Girdle, boy! Could you pick a less decent hour to summon a chap?”
Syrus stared. This was the same Architect who had been with the witch outside Rackham’s, the one the witch had called Hal.
The Architect looked around. “I doubt there’s any less decent place, either. How did you . . . ?”
He saw Syrus’s injury and heard the banging at the door simultaneously. He made a sound of disgust.
“Never mind. Come here and take hold of my sleeve,” he said.
Syrus hesitated. It occurred to him that he could be jumping from the kettle into the fire, as Nainai would say.
“Oh, dash it all, boy!” the Architect said. “I am not leading you to certain doom! Take hold of my sleeve or stay here and suffer your fate. I’m under house arrest. If my valet finds I’m gone, there’ll be more than a pack of angry Refiners waiting, I promise you.”
Syrus took hold of the Architect’s sleeve just as the Tinkers burst through the door. Their white eyes dissolved into the green haze of the New London dawn.
CHAPTER 15
I’ve never been particularly enraptured with girlish things. Give me a sylphid net, a capture box, and a sketchbook and I’m the closest to Scientific Paradise one can rationally get. Now I feel guilty for my enjoyment of those things, with Piskel riding comfortably in my pocket by day and sleeping in a little nest I’ve made for him in my wardrobe by night. I had to coax him out from under the werehound’s skull with the mere promise of jam cake after Hal was escorted away. It wasn’t easy.
Hal. I have no idea what’s become of him. I tried to ask Father, but he very quickly set aside my queries. “Pedant Lumin was dismissed,” he said, not looking me in the eye, when I asked one evening. “He will soon be replaced, have no fear. You should turn your mind to other matters. You have much to learn before taking up your place in the Virulen household.” And with a snap of his newspaper, he’d ended the discussion. There has been no letter, no magic whisper, nothing since. Even when I ask Piskel about Hal, the sylphid only shakes his head and sighs.
So, I was actually relieved when Mistress Virulen’s request came for me to join her at the Night Emporium this afternoon. We’re to begin shopping for our Carnival gowns and she has promised to take me to high tea at The Menagerie, an exclusive Uptown ladies’ club, afterward.
Aunt Minta won’t allow me to take the trolley to the Emporium unaccompanied. “Let’s hire a carriage instead. There’s been trouble at the Lowtown Refinery and more predicted throughout the City,” she says, as she pulls on her kid gloves. “They suspect the Architects are involved.”
I try not to show any emotion at the mention of them. I have left Piskel behind in his wardrobe nest today, as his presence might be too dangerous for both of us. He must not be seen. He would be mounted for a Museum display and I would be sent to the decontamination asylum for certain if the sylphid were to be found on my person.
We wait in the foyer until the carriage is announced and then step out into another gray New London afternoon. The air is sharp with the promise of an autumn storm; green-edged gusts skirl down the cobbled street, catching our skirts and tangling them about our legs. I hold my new bonnet tight against my head as we hurry to the carriage; the driving wight blinks at us as we nearly trip over him in our haste to get inside.
“The Night Emporium,” Aunt Minta calls through the speaking tube, and we’re off, rocking down through the blustery streets.
We don’t speak much until we’re almost at my destination, and then Aunt Minta puts her hand over mine. “Now, my dear,” she says, “remember what we’ve been working toward. Discretion and decorum—these will be of utmost value to your new mistress.”
I nod. We’ve been through so many things over the last few days that I can scarcely remember more than pacing up and down in the parlor balancing a book on my head while Aunt Minta corrected every flaw in my posture with an old cane. “Shoulders back, bosom out—we want them to appreciate your attributes, my dear, not wonder whether you’re even female. . . .”
And the blushing, the hideous blushing, as my corsets were laced tighter, my gowns cut lower, a bustle added to make sure “back there” was as well-proportioned as “up front.” I have never thought of any of it before and now it seems it’s all I can think of, because I can’t bear to think about anything else.
Aunt Minta squeezes my hand, bringing me out of my gloom. The carriage has stopped at the entrance to the Night Emporium. Aunt Minta peeps out the door. “Ah, there they are.” She points out the guards near the gate. A Manticore rears red on their livery. “They’ll take you to Mistress Virulen.” She smiles and kisses me briskly on both cheeks. “Out you go. And remember—discretion and decorum, my dear!”
I embrace Aunt Minta, inhaling one last comforting whiff of her verbena and orange blossom perfume. Then I step out with the driving wight’s help, buffeted by the gusts that have chased us all the way down from High Street in Midtown. His grip is odd—one moment insubstantial, another firm as death. The Imperial Refinery just alongside the Tower makes and programs the wights to customer specifications, but the process of their making is a great trade secret. It’s said only the Empress knows how the wights are truly made. I’ve always thought of wights as mindless automata, but knowing the truth about the Elementals has made me question everything. The driver’s expressionless face flickers and then he drifts back toward the carriage as Aunt Minta calls to be returned to High Street. I’m left standing with no real answers.
The Night Emporium’s violet-swirled domes bloom over me, spanning half of the bridge that vaults the River Vaunting and joins Lowtown on the other side. Closer to Lowtown, there are gambling houses and other dens of iniquity, but on this side of the great bridge, we’re still firmly in Midtown. The arched gates are lit by twinkling everlights that flash like Piskel when he’s excited or happy. Various shop wights circulate through the crowd, offering samples of candied apples or eversilk ribbons. It seems a bit odd to me that a lady of such stature as Mistress Virulen would come here to seek Carnival gear, but perhaps she is bored of the Uptown boutiques and looking for a bit more local color.
I exhale a long, slow breath, approach the liveried guards, and hand them my invitation as instructed. Their appraising looks make me want to shrink back into myself, but I haven’t spent the past several days walking with a book on my head for nothing. I throw my shoulders back and say, “Take me to Mistress Virulen, please,” as if I’m giving a Scholar directions for finding a lecture in the labyrinthine Museum.
They turn in unison and begin shouting for the way to be cleared.
We pass through the arched gates with their fanciful lights and glimmering faces. People look askance and whisper behind their hands as I follow the guards. I wave away several wights before we enter Hooke & Smee’s, a ladies’ costume shop. The shop is empty of all but Mistress Virulen and a few of her retainers. She glances up from the fabric the seamstress wights have spread before her and rushes toward me across the honey-golden boards.
“Vespa,” she says, taking both my hands in hers. “I may call you that, mayn’t I?”
“Of course, my lady . . .” My voice doesn’t even sound like my own.
“Oh, stuff and nonsense, do call me Lucy. When we’re in intimate circumstances like this, of course.”
I nod, then blush when I realize I’ve forgotten to remove my bonnet.