The Deepest Poison Page 6
With that, the music puffed out. She was dead. Again.
“Lady?” Octavia whispered, though she already surmised what had just happened. The Lady had spoken before through people on the brink of life and death—through a boy in Leffen, and through Alonzo when Octavia had saved him with a leaf. She had a sense that a leaf wouldn’t work on this woman now—after all, she was too far gone for even the Lady to utilize as a messenger.
North. Caskentia. What had the Lady tried to say? Octavia stood, shaken.
The entrance of the terminal roared with humanity, but this time she could discern true sounds as well: overlapping voices, footsteps, the clatter of wheels, the rumbles of trains. The songs were like breeze-blown tree branches outside a window, much easier to ignore than the banshee screams they’d been before.
She studied the crowd. It was peculiar to see so many darker skin tones, ranging from deep tan to coal. Tamarans were rare in Caskentia, which was one reason why Alonzo had stood out so much to her. And why he was doomed as a Clockwork Dagger—too unusual, too memorable. Now he would blend in too much for her to find him.
She followed the flow outside to the plaza and froze as elbows and bodies jostled against her.
Night draped over a metropolis set aglow. Before her was an illuminated hexagon easily a half mile in diameter. In the middle was a massive roundabout packed with more cabriolets, automated cycles, and bicycles than she had ever seen in her life. Each side of the hexagon featured a massive building that was blocks long and dozens of floors tall. Tramway tracks stacked around them. Every ten or so floors, another track made a circuit. Bridges spanned the high gaps, the trestles like fine spiderwebs. Beyond the plaza, tower upon tower stretched into the sky.
On the far side of the hexagon sat the ornate palace known as the Warriors’ Arena. It was shorter than all of the surrounding buildings at a mere dozen floors, but no less magnificent. A bright stained-glass dome crowned the gray edifice. Mooring towers lined the long roof; airships bobbed from several. Long, rippling banners advertised the next Arena bout several days away.
Peculiar, how the city-states prided themselves on centuries without war even as they relished the blood sport of Warriors played out in the Arena.
Spotlights waved to and fro like gigantic dogs’ tails made of rays. They beamed over airships on high, their gasbags adorned with advertisements far too distant for her to fully read from ground level.
Somehow, amidst these thousands of people, Octavia needed to find Alonzo.
As obvious as the Garret household would be to Daggers and Wasters, it also presented the only specific location for her to meet him. Now it was a matter of finding it. With her coat pulled close and satchel snug at her hip, Octavia set off across the plaza.
How can I inquire with any subtlety? She approached a doorman as he stalked a yellow-lit entry between a haberdashery and a cheese shop. The directory sign behind him listed a dozen residence floors, but no occupants by name. There were simply too many.
“Pardon me,” Octavia said, smiling. “I’m to deliver a message to the Garret flat but I’ve lost the address.”
“Shoo, girl. You look like you were dragged behind a lorry.” He motioned her away with both hands.
She bit her lip to contain a retort, but she knew the man was right. Her coat had multiple rips after the train ride, and it barely managed to cover her uniform if she remained standing. If she lingered anywhere for long, she would be jailed as a vagrant.
She looked around, scanning for any clue, any idea. Another airship drifted overhead. From here she could see the ad, the familiar calligraphy and crown logo featuring two fashionable young ladies holding up slender tins.
ROYAL-TEA. A TASTY BALM FOR ANY ILL!
She snarled. A few nearby pedestrians lurched away from her, wide-eyed. That blasted Royal-Tea was everywhere. The Wasters made the concoction by brewing the dried bark of the Lady’s Tree—and they were kidnapping teenage girls from Mercia to fetch the bark. A dangerous task, with the woods full of threems—beasts part equine and part dragon—to act in the Lady’s defense. Ads for Royal-Tea had plastered Caskentia, and each purchase unknowingly funded the war effort of their greatest enemy.
The presence of the tea was a reminder that Wasters would be here as well, keener than ever before to kidnap her. Because trained assassins from Caskentia are not enough to worry about.
It also brought to mind Mrs. Stout. Octavia pressed her fingers to her lips and sent a prayer to her friend.
Mrs. Stout had been Octavia’s roommate aboard the Argus. The vivacious and plump older woman turned out to be a childhood friend of Octavia’s mentor, Miss Percival. Mrs. Stout was also the long-lost princess of Caskentia, Allendia. Her kidnapping fifty years ago had sparked the endless intermittent conflict with the Waste. The young princess had been presumed dead, and the next year, the rest of the royal family was killed in a Waster attack on Mercia. With her cousin Queen Evandia now on the throne, Mrs. Stout had adapted to life as a civilian with the hopes that it might spare Caskentia a civil war.
Miss Percival had been one of the few who knew Mrs. Stout’s true identity and she’d kept the secret for decades, until now. She arranged for Octavia and Mrs. Stout to travel together by airship because she had sold them out to the Waste.
It was mostly about the money to save the academy. It had to be. But envy had to be part of it as well, and fear.
Octavia was so sick of being feared, but with these new changes, she was starting to fear herself as well.
She hurried past more lorries and cycles. A fountain glowed purple. Two boys in knickerbockers sat on the edge and splashed each other, giggling. The lit fountain—Alonzo had said his mother’s flat overlooked a blue fountain. Looking around, she realized that she had passed an orange fountain already, and she didn’t see any duplicated colors. Lady be praised!
After another long block of walking, she found the blue landmark and glanced at the building above. At least now she was at the right place. It was just a matter of gaining entry and going from there. Could she sneak around the back? Perhaps there was a goods entry. She walked past a doorman, looking for any placard listing residences.
“Hey! You!” The doorman lunged to grab her arm.
Octavia’s hand immediately went to her torso for her capsicum flute. Drat. Used it on the airship! When she found nothing, her hand formed a fist and she punched at his fingers. “Let me go! Stop!”
“Stop struggling, woman. I been told to look for you. Come here.” Chew tobacco reeked on his breath. Mouth lesions.
She stopped fighting, though her heart continued to hammer in her chest. A small twist and she could grab her parasol from its loop on her satchel. It’d make a fine cudgel.
“Who told you to look for me?”
“A Mr. Garret. Said to look for a pale young woman with brown hair and a ripped black coat. You fit the description mighty well. Hold on. He just went inside to the lobby.”
She could have melted into the pavement in relief. The doorman returned to his station and scribbled a note. He tucked it inside a strange capsule and set it at the base of a clear pipe. At the press of a button, the capsule shot up the tube with a mighty whoosh and vanished through the ceiling. She stared, mouth gaping.
“What, never seen a pneumatic tube system before?” He brayed a laugh. “The message will go right to the desk. Hold here.”
All the best inventions come from Tamarania. She shook her head in awe. Yet another reminder that she was in the place that invented airships, mechas, and even gremlins.
A few more minutes of restless pacing, and she heard that familiar song of marching-band brasses—distorted. Alonzo nigh broke the glass door as he flung it wide. Relief shone in his eyes. Even with noise of his song dimmed by the headband, blood screamed beneath his clothes. Ribs. Muscle shredded. Bone chipped.
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“Al . . . Mr. Garret.” She could have hugged him, but she knew it would worsen his pain.
“I was just about to head upstairs, m’lady. Now we shall go together. My thanks to you, sir.” Alonzo extended a hand to the doorman, to which the man responded with a bright smile. There’d been a coin tucked in Alonzo’s palm.
She followed Alonzo into an austere hallway. “You were stabbed. Several hours ago,” she murmured.
“Yes. ’Tis not that bad, truly.” He frowned. “You are aware of this, just as you were aware of the ailments of the factory workers?”
“Yes. My senses have strengthened in a rather obnoxious way. The city . . . has been especially taxing.” She gestured to her headband. “This is all that’s keeping me from crouching in a corner, aware of the screaming maladies of passersby.”
Alonzo’s brows drew together in thought. They stood before the black wire of the lift doors. Judging by the number of floors, they would have quite a wait. At least her senses informed her that he could manage awhile more, though in agony.
“What happened, Alonzo?” Shallow wound. No poison, but there are always zymes to cause infections. Someone aimed for his kidneys. “Someone was trying to kill you. Was it . . . ?” Clockwork Daggers? Wasters?
He stared at the ticking light on the dial that showed the lift floors. “No. None of our past acquaintances. The train car was mostly occupied by Caskentian workers of a desperate nature. One decided to liberate me of my coins and bag, and when that effort failed, my body.”
“Yes. They were a rather desperate lot.”
His gaze snapped to her. “Were you assaulted?”
“Don’t you dare fuss over me. Must you end up injured in every single city?”
“Considering our ‘smashing’ arrival in Tamarania, I feel I have done quite well today.”
“I’ll grant you that. A straightforward stabbing is preferable to breaking most every bone in your body, not to mention potential immolation. Your piloting skills are to be applauded.”
“Thank you. Ah, here we are.”
The lift lowered into place. The iron gate cranked open. People exited, eyeing them and granting a wide berth. The lift man looked none too pleased to be in their company either. Octavia’s tepid smile didn’t seem to relieve him. Fortunately the ride only lasted five floors.
“Room 553,” Alonzo said as they staggered together into a carpeted hallway. The place was staid and clean with white wainscoting and cream paint. Pneumatic tubes followed the walls and connected to each room.
“Is your mother here?” They walked past 550, 551.
“I know not. At the front desk I sent up a message that was approved by—”
The door ahead of them burst open. “He’s here! He’s here!” A small body lunged from the domicile. She looked to be perhaps ten or twelve in age, her kinky black hair cropped close to her skull and molded into a pastrylike swirl. Her skin shone in a bright nutmeg tone. Icy-blue eyes, just like Alonzo’s, were filled with tears. Alonzo caught her with a pain-filled grunt as he was almost bowled over.
“Tatiana!” The name was an agonized wheeze.
The girl bounced in place, squeezing him. “When the desk sent up the message, I could hardly believe it! You, here! I’m so happy!”
Octavia forced her jaw up again as she looked between them. “Ah . . . Alonzo?”
Sweet Lady. Do I really know this man at all? Is this his daughter?
About the Author
BETH CATO hails from Hanford, California, but currently writes and bakes cookies in a lair outside of Phoenix, Arizona. She shares the household with a hockey-loving husband, a numbers-obsessed son, and a cat the size of a canned ham. You can follow her on Twitter @bethcato.
www.bethcato.com
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By Beth Cato
The Clockwork Dagger
The Clockwork Crown
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from The Clockwork Crown copyright © 2015 by Beth Cato.
THE DEEPEST POISON. Copyright © 2015 by Beth Cato. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition APRIL 2015 ISBN: 9780062411242
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