Chapter Seventeen
Mina was still in a warm, spicy haze when they stopped in Venice three days later, hovering over the tall ruins. Noon arrived.
Fox didn’t.
Near the bow where Mina was sitting, Yasmeen looked over the side, tapping her fingers against the rail . . . though the aviator’s fingers were more like claws when she bent her fingers just so.
Minutes passed. Mina drank out of a bottle. After what seemed a long while, Mr. Pegg said, “Your orders, captain?”
“To wait!” Yasmeen snapped. “He’s just late. And he owes me too much to leave him behind.”
What a bloody liar, Mina thought, and set the bottle aside. It wasn’t helping. She wasn’t Yasmeen. She didn’t want to pretend to feel something else—and she didn’t want to hold her emotions at bay anymore.
Throughout the afternoon, Yasmeen paced the decks, smoking. Night fell to eerie growls below, from zombies drawn by the lanterns. Mina refused her wine over dinner. Yasmeen seemed in good spirits, and they’d spent enough time together of late that the occasional silences were no longer awkward. After she’d finished eating, Yasmeen pulled out a tattered magazine and settled into the pillows to read.
She caught Mina’s look and said, “If he survived the damn zombies in the Egyptian tombs, he can survive Venice.”
“No doubt.” Though after observing the number of zombies below, Mina wasn’t so certain. “Have you seen the tombs?”
“Not those underground, but I’ve flown over the pyramids several times. New Worlders will pay almost anything to see them. The only route that makes more is smuggling pilgrims into Mecca.” She narrowed her eyes at Mina and let the magazine fall against her chest. “Where would you go, if it could be anywhere?”
Back to the Terror. But unless she stopped imagining herself with him, the pain would never fade. “The Ivory Market,” she said. “The Horde quarter. So that I could see what it’s like to walk down a street without being stared at.”
“They would anyway. So small and pretty, and yet you look like a police inspector even when you aren’t wearing your uniform.” She pursed her lips. “I don’t want to return to the Ivory Market, but I know of another city where people wouldn’t care what you are. After we’ve picked up Fox, how does a week in Port Fallow strike you?”
A week where nobody cared what she was—before she returned to London, where people cared so much that she couldn’t have what she most wanted.
“I couldn’t pay—”
Yasmeen waved that off. “Trahaearn paid enough.”
Twenty-five livre for one day, and that was only to Calais. Mina couldn’t imagine the amount Lady Corsair had made on this journey.
“How much is Fox paying you?”
“Five livre.” Her hard stare dared Mina to say anything.
Prudently, Mina didn’t.
Burnett couldn’t have sent the wiregram to Chatham.
Mina woke, staring into the ceiling of the narrow cabin. From giddiness to devastation, then muzzled by wine—but for the first time in several days, her mind was sharp.
And she was clearly an idiot.
Through the porthole, she heard the growls and hisses from below. Fox still hadn’t shown or signaled to the airship. She hauled on her overcoat, buckling it over her nightshirt as she left the cabin.
Sheffield wasn’t Black Guard. He wouldn’t have sent the order to the assassin. Burnett couldn’t have—he’d been on a ship near the Ivory Market. She’d missed someone.
Arriving at the captain’s cabin, she knocked softly. Yasmeen opened the door wearing a crimson silk wrapper that clung to her breasts. She’d uncovered her hair. Her ears poked through the narrow braids, revealing the black, tufted points.
The sweet, sickly smell emanating from the darkened cabin was unmistakable.
Blissed on opium, Yasmeen’s pupils were dilated as she looked Mina over. She smiled slowly, and asked with a purr, “Yes, inspector?”
“Burnett didn’t order Baxter’s assassination. We have to return to London, so that I can discover who did.”
“Yes, I suppose you should. Do you have five livre?”
Of course she didn’t. “No.”
Yasmeen shut the door in her face.
When the aviators’ shouts sounded above decks a week later, Mina was pacing her cabin like a woman crazed, and trying to convince herself that she’d have no better luck returning home if she jumped from the airship and took her chances with the zombies all across Europe.
She climbed up into the glow of the deck lanterns. At the side of the airship, Yasmeen was ordering the rope ladder tossed over. Rifles cracked as the aviators shot into the dark at the zombies below.
Fox climbed over the gunwale, dirt encrusted over his skin, clothes hanging off his frame, his mouth hidden in a month’s growth of beard. He set down his glider—folded now into some other contraption, Mina saw—and looked up at Yasmeen. His face held none of the eagerness he’d displayed the first time he’d boarded. His features were hard, dangerous.
“Take me to the Ivory Market now,” he told her.
Mina couldn’t see the captain’s face, but the aviators around them went suddenly still.
Yasmeen’s voice was pleasant. “Our agreement was that I’d return you to Chatham, Mr. Fox.”
“I’m changing it.” Withdrawing a heavy purse from his belt, he tossed it at her feet. “The Market. Now.”
“By way of Chatham. I’ve another passenger, Mr. Fox. I cannot kidnap her.”
Jaw setting, he pulled his revolver and aimed it at the captain. Mina’s hand went to her own weapons, but she wondered if shooting him would be necessary. Beneath his determination lay obvious and severe exhaustion. He might simply drop where he stood within another moment.
Yasmeen lifted her hands out to her sides. Her voice softened to a purr. “Put that away now, Mr. Fox, and we’ll both pretend that four weeks of running from zombies has muddled your head. You’ll sleep—and wake up alive. But only if you put it away now.”
Without lowering the gun, he glanced at an aviator. “Set the course for—” He broke off, his gaze searching the spot where Yasmeen had been. His head turned.
She came up from behind him, as if she climbed up the outside of the ship’s hull. Her forearm snagged around his throat and yanked him back over the rail. Both disappeared.
Heart racing, Mina sprinted forward. Before she reached the side, Yasmeen flipped back up, landing in a crouch on the gunwale.
Gingerly, she hopped to the deck. “Pull that ladder up, Mr. Pegg. Ms. Khouri, fire the engines. Take us the hell out of here.”
Blue heavens. “And Fox?”
With the toe of her boot, Yasmeen flicked his purse up to her hand, and continued on. “I threw him over. Will you arrest me, inspector?”
No. He’d tried to take her ship at gunpoint. Even over English soil, Mina wouldn’t have arrested her. But she was still shocked by the suddenness of it—and saddened by the stupidity of it all. She hadn’t known Fox very long, but what she had known, she’d liked well enough.
She watched the captain drop through the hatch to the lower deck and moved back the rail. There was only darkness below. Only the hisses and growls of the zombies. Fox must be one of them now.
What had possessed him to do something so foolish? What possible motive could he have had for immediately heading to the Ivory Market? Not just exhaustion or insanity.
She glanced down at his glider.
Mina found Yasmeen in her cabin, downing a snifter of green absinthe. Feathers floated in the air—she’d torn the pillows to pieces. She looked at Mina as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
“What’s that?”
Mina held up his glider. “It transforms into a reinforced carrier.”
“Oh? For what?”
Kneeling beside the low table in a pile of feathers and shredded silk, Mina opened the carrier. Yasmeen sucked in a breath.
Between carefully cushioned plates of glass lay a small sketch, the paper yellow and fragile, the ink faded to brown. A study of a wing skeleton, paired with a mechanical counterpart created of a wooden frame manipulated by pulleys and strings—a glider contraption, perhaps.
The captain stopped with her fingers hovering above the glass, as if not daring to touch even that. “Is it real?”
Mina’s gaze slipped over the neat, backward script. Though she couldn’t read it, the shape of Leonardo da Vinci’s handwriting was as familiar to Mina as her own—as it was to everyone in England and the New World. If this was genuine, it would be worth thousands of livre. Tens of thousands.
And because it might be genuine, she gently closed the contraption again.
“I’ll find his sister,” Yasmeen said.
“To give her this?”
She grinned. “No. To tell her that I killed him. If I gave her this, she’d have no reason to write.”
“She won’t have anything to write about now, anyway.”
“I suppose not. The stupid bastard. Why do they always try to control everything? Why can’t they just let us be?”
Men? Mina shook her head. Her experience with them had obviously been different than Yasmeen’s. “I don’t know,” she said.
Yasmeen sighed before sliding her a wry, sideways glance. “To England, then?”
To England, and back to the gray. Clouds blanketed London—not the yellow fog that often came at night, yet still low enough that Yasmeen could sail in during the afternoon without drawing much notice. Mina had said to drop her in Chatham, but the aviator captain had only looked at her for a long moment, and Mina had decided not to argue. As they flew closer, following the path of the Thames, she was glad for Yasmeen’s stubbornness.
London was burning in patches.
Across the river from the Isle of Dogs, the navy docks had caught fire. To avoid the thick column of smoke, Yasmeen sailed over the island—and the Iron Duke’s docks hadn’t been touched. Mina’s breath caught painfully in her throat when she recognized the Terror , her sails furled and decks empty. Though she’d been trying to avoid looking at it, her gaze flew to his house. Was Rhys home now? How long ago had they arrived? Had he tried to contact her—and what had he thought when he’d learned that Lady Corsair hadn’t returned to England yet?
But the airship sailed on, and unless she followed the rail to the stern with spyglass in hand, she had to let that small glimpse of him go. With an ache in her throat, she looked forward again. They flew past the tower and its ruined wall, and the grounds that no one had built on in nine years.
“Inspector!” Yasmeen came to the rail. “Look there. My men spotted steelcoats. Near the prison, they said.”
In the city? Revulsion turned in her stomach. Perhaps they were necessary on navy ships, for protection on the seas and abroad, but nothing in London wanted or warranted the use of that much force. If not for the ratcatchers, the police wouldn’t even carry guns with bullets—just the opium darts.
She found the steelcoats through the spyglass, dozens upon dozens of them. In their great hulking suits, the marines formed a solid line in front of Newgate prison, apparently guarding the entrance from—
“There’s a mob!” Astonished, she strained to see. “They’re packed solid from Ludgate to the meat market!”
Great blue heavens. What had happened? Had the police called in the navy’s steelcoats to help manage it? Mina simply couldn’t imagine Commissioner Broyles doing anything of the sort.
She glanced up the river toward headquarters and froze. Where was that smoke coming from? “Is Scotland Yard on fire?”
Yasmeen signaled to her men. “We’ll soon see.”
Within a few minutes, the source of the fire came into view—not headquarters, but the Admiralty building across the street. Yasmeen ordered the sails furled, and she climbed down the rope ladder with Mina. Despite the fire, the street was all but deserted. A pair of constables rushed out of headquarters as they approached the entrance, not even pausing to gawp at Yasmeen’s tall boots, shirtsleeves, or the pistols and knives studding her person.
“Constables!” They stopped at Mina’s voice. “What’s happened?”
“The Iron Duke’s been arrested, sir! He’s set to hang at sunset!”
She couldn’t comprehend it. “Arrested by whom?”
“The Lord High Admiral, sir, as Marco’s Terror came into dock this morning. The duke’s at Newgate now—as we’ve been ordered to be.” Without waiting for dismissal, they began to move on at a fast clip. “Your man’s upstairs with Hale, inspector. They’re coming right after us.”
Headquarters’ first level was as empty of people as the street. Mina ran up the stairs, followed by Yasmeen. She almost collided with Newberry on the stair landing.
“Sir?” He stepped back into the hallway, his eyes wide with shock and relief. “Thank God, sir! We thought you were on the ship—and in Newgate with the others now.”
“All of the crew was arrested?” Had everyone in London gone completely mad? “Why?”
“Because the Iron Duke destroyed the Black Guard’s weapon.” Hale joined them in the hall. Her gaze flicked to Yasmeen. “Captain Corsair. Thank you for bringing her home.”
Yasmeen smiled, showing her sharp teeth. “Is that a dismissal?”
“Not if the Iron Duke is a friend of yours.” Hale looked to Mina again. “Your report arrived.”
And had detailed Sheffield’s involvement in this. “Sir, I’m sor—”
Hale held up her hand. “Mr. Sheffield confessed all to me the day you left—including that it was the Duke of Dorchester who approached him, asking for the invitation to the auction in return for my safety.”
Smoking hells. The same man who’d arrested Rhys. “The Lord High Admiral, sir?”
“Yes. As you can imagine, that put me in a delicate position. My involvement—my former involvement—with Mr. Sheffield immediately made my investigation into Dorchester’s activities . . . problematic, and anyone would have regarded Sheffield’s confession as suspect. I lacked evidence of any sort. Your Newberry provided me with the first bit.”
“That wiregram came from Dorchester’s office, sir,” Newberry said.
And they couldn’t have arrested the highest ranking member of the Royal Navy on so little evidence: Sheffield’s word, and the memory of a clerk in Chatham.
“But your report told me that I only had to wait for the Terror to return, and I would have Haynes’s recording, and testimony from the men on the Terror and in the fleet.”
“None of it named Dorchester, sir.”
“Not yet,” Hale said. “But we’d have found enough, and that would have led to more, and finally tightened the noose. Dorchester beat me to it.”
And took Rhys and the crew. “But how is the Iron Duke in Newgate?”
“Dorchester was waiting at his docks this morning, with his steelcoats lined up, and under naval authority, charged him with piracy, treason, and murder.” Hale shook her head. “Of course, he underestimated the public’s reaction. Now Dorchester has dug his heels in and taken over Newgate. He has his steelcoats guarding the gallows outside the entrance, where he insists the hanging will take place.”
Mina couldn’t dredge up a dram of fear. A hanging simply wouldn’t happen. If he brought the Iron Duke up to that gallows scaffolding, the crowd would surge—steelcoats or not. “Is he mad?”
“I don’t know what he’s thinking. But I won’t assume that he’s mad.” She held Mina’s gaze. “All of the crew is in Newgate, charged with piracy. Your mother and father left for the prison earlier, hoping to apply for your brother’s release. I don’t know if they’ve returned since the mob has formed.”
They’d be all right. They’d take care of each other. “How do we stop a mob?”
“I don’t mean to stop them—just to keep them at Newgate and from burning the rest of London. And if we cannot stop this hanging, then I hope to God that they do.”
“So we’re off to Newgate, then.” Mina turned to Yasmeen. “And you?”
“I can’t be known to associate with London coppers.” Though she grinned, her gaze was serious. “I’ll pay a visit to the Blacksmith. If I ask nicely, he’ll bring more against the steelcoats than your opium darts. Perhaps he already is.”
Mina frowned. “What?”
“Come now. You don’t think he’s just been building mechanical whores?”
She looked to Hale. After the Horde’s occupation, most of London’s citizenry thought it bad enough that the police carried guns. If the Metropolitan Police ever used anything like steelcoats, the outcry would have been long and loud. There was simply too much fear that so much power in the hands of a single entity would be used to suppress them.
But they viewed the Blacksmith differently. And even those who feared his appearance never seemed to fear that he’d crush them, any more than they feared that the Iron Duke would.
“We’ll accept all of the help we can get—especially if it means that fewer people in that mob will die,” Hale said, and turned to regard Yasmeen. “Will you take me to him?”
“I say, when they built this new prison, I didn’t expect the accommodations to be so fine. Much finer than the last prison I was in, to be certain.”
Scarsdale had to raise his voice over the hiss of the steelcoat’s boiler. Seated in a chair beside Rhys, the bounder wore irons around his wrists, and was forced to lean forward with his elbows on his knees to accommodate the chain that fastened his irons to the steel loop set into the floor with mortar.
The warden’s reply was just as loud, but less cheerful. In apologetic tones, he said, “Thank you, my lord. We try to make certain that our more esteemed guests can stay in relative comfort. Without a doubt, you are both our most esteemed thus far.”
After a pause, the warden added, “Your Grace, are you certain that you would not like my men to find a bench for you?”
Crouching on the stone floor, Rhys looked up from his own chains, his own steel loop. His chair’s legs had splintered out from beneath him when they’d brought him and Scarsdale to the warden’s office ten minutes before, but he didn’t mind the floor. He’d have more leverage when he finally decided to stand.
“No,” he said.
Sweating, the warden looked over Rhys’s shoulder to the steelcoat guarding the door. Anger flashed across the man’s expression, but he remained behind his desk.
Good man. There was courage, and there was stupidity. An unarmed man attacking a steelcoat only qualified for one of those descriptions. Rhys had made a similar decision when they’d come into dock, and found Dorchester and his steelcoats waiting for him. He could have ordered his men to fight their way through, but the cost of their lives would have been too high of a price to pay.
And Dorchester wasn’t worth dying for. They’d take him down and leave this prison another way—not with the blood of a warden on their hands.
The warden or his crew.
“Where are my men?”
“In the yard, sir. There wasn’t room in the cells,” he said.
And he must not expect them to stay here long. Rhys didn’t expect that they would, either.
As if discomforted by the silence, the warden cleared his throat. “Is there anything that I can have brought to you while we wait for the Lord High Admiral? We dine modestly here, but—”
“Absinthe?” Scarsdale looked hopeful.
“I don’t think so, my lord. Nothing stronger than wine.”
“Wine will do.”
“And for Your Grace?”
“Water,” Rhys said.
“Yes, yes.” He could hear Scarsdale’s grin. “A big mug of water. A man of his size possesses a burning thirst, and needs an awful lot to douse it.”
Looking grateful to be of some use, the warden went to the door and called for a tray. He stopped by the window returning to his desk. Rhys didn’t need to see outside to know what was happening.
Neither did Scarsdale. In a low voice, he said, “The mob’s quite loud now, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you imagine that your inspector is out there with them?”
Mina had best not be. For now, the crowd had focused on him, but as Newgate remained closed and they became frustrated, they might turn on each other. She’d be the first target.
So he needed to escape from here soon.
The door opened, and a secretary brought in their drinks. Rhys set the water in front of him. Scarsdale’s chains wouldn’t let him raise the wineglass to his lips.
He heaved a sigh. “I say, warden. Will you release my chain from that loop?”
The warden hesitated, looking toward the door.
As if he’d forgotten the steelcoat was there, Scarsdale swiveled around as far as he could. Shaking his head, he looked to the warden again. “Bother, man. I’ll still be in irons and chains—and you’ve got nothing to fear from me, regardless. I’m just a navigator, and a drunk to boot.” He jerked his chin toward Rhys. “It’s him you have to worry about. And look, he can put a glass to his mouth without bending over so far that he could see up his own arse. No need to release him.”
“All right.” Keys in hand, the warden came around the desk, muttering, “You can’t do much with that lumbering sack of metal watching over you.”
“Quite right,” Scarsdale agreed.
Soon the heavy steps of another lumbering sack of metal sounded from the hall—but this steelcoat didn’t come in, waiting outside the door. An escort, then. So the lighter steps would be Dorchester’s.
About damn time.
Even using Newberry’s bulk as a wedge to push through the crowd, it was almost an hour before Mina forged close enough to see the prison at the corner of Old Bailey and Newgate. The few windows built into the gray stone didn’t weaken its imposing face, but revealed the walls’ impenetrable thickness. When Mina stood on her toes, she could see the gallows platform and the steelcoats’ thick, rounded helmets. The prison’s arched portcullis gate stood behind them, visible through the smoke rising from their boiler packs.
The shouts from the crowd had raised in volume, become more regular—almost a chant. They suddenly swelled, and a small surge moved through the mob near the prison’s southwestern corner. The steelcoats’ rifles fired. Screams followed, and the shouts began again, cacophonous, deafening.
Her father would be there—up at the steelcoat line on Old Bailey, with the worst of the wounded. Mina shouted for Newberry to begin pushing along the buildings containing the mob. Circling to the side of the prison and finding a narrow space to cross would be easier than fighting through the enormous crowd gathered in front.
For fifteen minutes, she followed him, almost clinging to his back through the roughest spots. All around them, people were climbing up steps, onto windowsills, onto carts and coaches, all hoping for a better view. Every crate had been turned over and supported at least two men.
Mina stopped. Wearing welding goggles and a hat, a small girl was clinging to a lamppost, looking over the crowd. A tinker’s tattoo circled her wrist.
“Anne!” Mina’s shout brought Newberry to a halt, but the girl didn’t hear. She tried again. “Tinker Anne!”
The girl looked round, pushing up her goggles. Her eyes widened.
Oh, blue heavens. “Newberry! Bring that girl here.”
He didn’t need to. Anne scrambled down from the post and wriggled through bodies and legs like an eel. Mina drew her behind an abandoned lorry topped by thirty men and women, and with almost as many urchins huddled beneath.
The noise of the crowd forced her to shout. “What are you thinking, tinker? This is no place for you!”
The girl’s smile wavered. “The Blacksmith’s coming, inspector! I wanted to see his walker up against the old suits!”
So did Mina. But she shook her head. “You have to go, Anne. If this mob riots, you’ll be taken down first. Do you understand? Some will care that you’re a girl, and you’re young. But there’s too many that won’t!”
“You’re here.”
“It’s my job to be here. Go home, Anne, so that I know you’re safe!”
An apologetic cough came from beside her. “Through these streets alone, sir?”
Mina looked to Newberry. Damn it all. He was right—running alone through London wouldn’t be any safer than remaining here. All right, then. “Newberry, turn your back to us. Unbuckle your overcoat and spread it open.”
As soon as he did, Mina hauled off her own coats and untucked her shirt before unbuckling her armor. It was too big for the girl, but would do the job. Within moments, she had the girl covered and her jackets refastened.
Newberry, bless him, survived the experience.
She bent toward Anne again. “Now, you stay with us—but especially with Newberry. If we’re separated, if the mob comes at you, you run. And if you can’t run, try to hide beneath something, like this lorry. Roll into a ball and protect your head and belly. All right?”
Face pale, the girl nodded.
“Good.” Mina smiled to reassure her, then abruptly straightened when a noise began penetrating the clamor of the crowd.
Heavy, like steelcoats, but not in rigid formation. And intermittently, a thunderous boom—accompanied by a tremor.
The crowd quieted. Still loud, but many of them turning their heads, murmuring and wondering instead of shouting. Mina looked to Newberry. From his great height, he could better see over the mob.
“What is it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t see anything yet, sir.”
“Inspector.” Anne tugged on Mina’s sleeve, her eyes bright. “That’s the Blacksmith.”
Though the man had charged Rhys with piracy, treason, and murder—despite his having acted under the regency council’s order—Dorchester wasn’t insane. Rhys had briefly wondered so at the docks, but the emotion burning in the man’s eyes wasn’t madness. Dorchester was furious.
Rhys could allow him that—and was why he allowed the man this. He’d killed an admiral and had blown a first-rate to pieces, both on what must seem to be little evidence that Burnett had been Black Guard. And the proof of Endeavour was gone, as well.
He’d struck the Royal Navy and the High Lord Admiral a severe blow. The man obviously meant to strike one back by bringing him and his crew here, but Rhys cared little if he spent time in a prison.
He did care that Mina was probably in a mob outside—and that the people who formed it would be hurt on his behalf, simply because a man couldn’t manage his temper.
Or his arrogance. Dorchester came in carrying one of the Horde’s freezing devices, but otherwise unarmed. He must have felt safe with Rhys crouching low on the floor, practically on his knees.
Rhys remembered many men who’d thought that position gave them power. They’d forgotten that Rhys had teeth.
With a drunken grin, Scarsdale showed his own teeth. “Quite a snappy jacket, Your Grace. You must be furious that we sunk your ship—expensive, aren’t they?—and that your Black Guard admiral went down with it, but all of England is better off for it. So let us go on, then.”
“Better off?” Dorchester seemed to taste the words. “No.”
“Well, to be sure, the Royal Navy’s fleet isn’t better off with a first-rate at the bottom of the ocean. But in England, yes—everybody’s better off not dead. You realize that’s what Endeavour and Burnett would have done?”
“Not everybody,” Dorchester said. “Just the infected.”
Fuck. Rhys didn’t glance at Scarsdale, but he knew by the bounder’s sudden silence that he’d had the same realization: Dorchester wasn’t just furious. He was Black Guard.
Did Mina know? She undoubtedly did. Returning to London more than a week ago after picking up Fox, she’d have delved straight back into the investigation, tying up loose ends . . . no doubt she’d have followed one of those to Dorchester.
So she’d know who had him now. Not just an angry man, but one who would kill himself and everyone around him to avoid discovery. Well, Dorchester had all but announced himself now. So Rhys assumed he planned to act soon.
That suited Rhys. It’d give Mina something more to arrest him with.
Dorchester must have recognized the silence for the realization that it was. “Do you not wonder why?”
He wanted them to say it aloud? To show fear? Bah.
“He probably only wonders what your son’s political leanings are,” Scarsdale said. “I imagine that the boy will take your seat in Parliament soon.”
As soon as the man was dead.
Rhys suppressed his grin. And though he knew Scarsdale had intended for his response to increase Dorchester’s fury, to bring him to careless rage so that the man wouldn’t be careful with his words, the admiral’s anger cooled and hardened.
“Parliament is the problem. They fight, they argue, they say their decisions are for the good of England. Whether the infected should inherit, whether they should be a judge. But they ignore that infection itself is the danger—and will be our downfall.”
“Is that so?” Scarsdale downed his wine. With shaking hands, the warden refilled his glass.
“You can be controlled. It would only take one of our enemies to create the right signal, and all of England burns. I have heard what happened in the revolution—and that was damage done when the infected were under no one’s control. Under the control of our enemies, the infected could destroy the country this quickly.” He snapped his fingers. “So the Black Guard fights for the security of England—and we will accomplish what the politicians don’t have the will and the courage to do.”
“Kill everyone!” Scarsdale nodded and lifted his glass to the man. “Quite right.”
“Protect England by eradicating the infection.”
“Yes, yes! Protect England by killing Englishmen! Sound logic, sir.”
“The infected aren’t Englishmen. They’re something the Horde has created. Controlled. They’re a dormant disease, waiting for something else to control them. England can’t afford the risk of having such creations on English soil.”
The warden’s face had reddened. “Sir, I must object to this—”
Dorchester touched the base of the freezing device, cutting the warden off. Scarsdale sat frozen with his wine filling his open mouth—overflowing onto his jacket. Rhys remained still.
With another touch, Dorchester released them. The warden heaved in a long breath, devastation weighing on his features. Scarsdale blinked.
“I say, did I spill? Sorry about the mess, warden.”
The man didn’t answer. He stared at the Lord High Admiral—hating him, Rhys knew, with every fiber in his body. Just as Mina would have. As everyone who’d lived beneath the Horde would have.
“You’re not men,” Dorchester said. “You’re windups. Automatons. Men use machinery. You are machinery. And some of the infected are worse, not machines but animals. We won’t let that infection spread to England, too. And there is still another threat, as you breed. Shall England be populated by men who are like ratcatchers? Shall children be born with armor and razor teeth? No, it shall not be.”
Passion reddened Dorchester’s cheeks. Carelessly, Scarsdale blotted his jacket with a handkerchief.
“That seems a waste,” he said. “Within a few generations, this might be a country full of strong men with iron bones—and bugs that can’t be controlled. Wouldn’t that make the Horde or anyone else think twice before trying to destroy us again?”
“They would be monsters who destroy true men. The whole world would be filled with them, stomping out all that is human.”
“I think men like that would prefer stomping on admirals who overstep their power.” Scarsdale paused, looked up—still cheerful, but not the least bit soused. “So why is it that you’re hanging us, then?”
Dorchester looked to Rhys. “First, him—the symbol of England’s freedom from the Horde. But there was no freedom. The country is still infected, and still under the Horde’s threat. So I’ll take that illusion away. I’ll quarantine the infected and give them a choice between Europe or eradication—and those who resist us will be put down. And finally, the Black Guard will take England back from the Horde.”
“And you’ll save your own life.” Rhys spoke for the first time since Dorchester had entered the warden’s office, startling the admiral.
“What?”
“You bought a weapon for over twenty-five thousand livre. The Black Guard wouldn’t have that in their coffers, not just from selling slaves. So the other members must have entrusted enormous amounts of their personal money to you.” Rhys watched Dorchester’s face tighten. The man controlled himself well, but this fear didn’t lurk deep. “You must have promised results, assured them of success—and yet you lost the weapon.”
And now, it was not just anger that drove Dorchester. Not just his belief in the Black Guard’s cause. That he’d resorted to such a drastic and self-destructive plan told Rhys that a great deal of desperation lay behind it—much like a frigate captain watching a first-rate bearing down on his ship, and ordering his men to fire the engines.
But Dorchester was all but done. And Rhys wanted to know who to go after next.
“Even now, those members of the Black Guard must be hearing the news that the weapon was sunk. Men to whom you promised an England free of buggers. So you’re still trying to give them one, because they’ll make you pay if you fail again. Who are they?”
Face pale, Dorchester shook his head. Gesturing to the steelcoat behind Rhys, he said, “It’s time to escort His Grace outside. Warden, take his chain from that loop.”
With the hiss of hydraulics and the clank of gears, the steelcoat moved behind him. Scarsdale gave a pitying snort and leaned close to Rhys, holding out his wine, chains swinging from the irons on his wrists.
“A last sip of the good stuff, captain?” When Rhys shook his head, Scarsdale lifted the mug. “Of water, then?”
“No.”
Scarsdale sighed and backed out of the way, glass and mug in hand. “It’s no use fighting, captain,” he said. “These steelcoats aren’t fast, but they’ll flatten you with a single blow.”
“So I’ve heard,” Rhys said.
Dorchester was losing patience. “Warden?”
As the man reluctantly came around his desk, Scarsdale prattled on, “I once sat and drank Jasper Evans under the table in Port Fallow. Dreadful conversationalist. All he talked about was losing the steelcoat contract to Morgan. Evans’s were a bit faster, you know. Morgan changed the boiler and made adjustments to the overall design to prove that he wasn’t stealing Evans’s—but they all added up to a slower suit.”
Keys shaking in his hands, the warden bent in front of him. Rhys gripped the chain and met the man’s gaze. The warden’s eyes widened—then narrowed in fierce satisfaction. He stepped back.
With a powerful surge, Rhys stood. The steel loop tore from the stone in a shower of mortar. From behind him, he heard a great hiss of steam, and a low gurgle. Dorchester stared at them, flabbergasted.
Scarsdale continued, “He also told me about Morgan’s design flaw—how he left the exhaust tube from the furnace wide open, so the coals were easy to douse. So easy that a single glass of water does the trick. And I say, your marine is trapped inside all of that metal, isn’t he? Another member of the Black Guard, I suppose, if you trusted him to watch over us.” He rapped his knuckles against the chest plate and shook his head over the hollow echo. “The navy ought to have paid the extra money for Evans’s design. ‘Always pay a man what he’s worth,’ that’s the captain’s—”
Dorchester reached for the Horde’s device, freezing Scarsdale midrap. Chains dangling from his wrists, Rhys stepped forward, towering over the man.
Resignation swept over Dorchester’s face, followed by stiff determination. He lifted his chin. “You may kill me, but you’ll never stop the Black Gua—”
“Pipe down, admiral!”
Christ. Rhys could stand to listen to nonsense—hell, Scarsdale had inured him to that—but he couldn’t tolerate the shit Dorchester spewed. He knocked the freezing device to the stone floor. The spike broke. Scarsdale continued rapping.
The warden came forward, relief loosening everything from his gait to his expression. “Shall I remove your wrist irons, Your Grace?”
Mina had once told him that people might be inspired by such an image—and he still had to face all of those waiting outside. He owed them that, owed all of those who’d come for him. He might not have made all of them his, but they’d obviously made him theirs. So he’d see them off, and make certain as few as possible were hurt for having come to help him.
“No,” he told the warden. “But remove Scarsdale’s, and put them on the admiral. Behind his back, so that he can’t easily kill himself.”
As soon as that was done, Rhys grabbed the admiral’s hair, began dragging him to the door.
“I say, it’s a good thing you rarely come up against bald men. God knows what’s crawling through the hair you’d have to steer them around by.” Scarsdale listened at the door, pointed in the direction of the steelcoat waiting outside. “What now?”
“We give the crowd what they want.” And his inspector an arrest.
He strode into the hall. The steelcoat raised his rifle—and dropped it as soon as Rhys twisted the admiral’s head, making the threat clear. Scarsdale collected the weapon and they moved on. The warden joined them, and soon his prison guards.
“There will be more steelcoats outside,” Scarsdale said. “Surely not all Black Guard, but still under his command.”
“And the admiral will order them to stand down.”
“Never,” Dorchester said.
Rhys looked to the window as a faint tremble shook through the prison’s floor, then met Scarsdale’s eyes.
The bounder grinned. “Then again, perhaps we won’t need him to.”
Clinging to the side of the lorry, using the tire as a step, Mina looked over the crowd. Apparently half-spider, Anne climbed up to the top and forced herself into a tiny crevice between two men.
A ripple started through the mob on Newgate Street, pushing and spreading the crowd apart. The Blacksmith’s name swept along with it, carried south along Old Bailey to Mina’s ears. Marching single file, his steelcoats came into view. Lighter than the clunky marine steelcoats, they moved more easily, and the steam and smoke coming from their boiler packs rose in wisps rather than clouds.
But what threat would they pose? Mina shook her head. “His steelcoats aren’t carrying any weapons.”
“He calls them his metalmen, not steelcoats. And they don’t have to carry weapons,” Anne said. “The weapons are built into the arms. They just have to”—the tinker cocked her wrist and gave it a flip—“and the gun mechanisms fold out. Or this”—she pulled her elbow back before throwing her hand forward, palm flat—“for the flame jets.”
Astounded, Mina looked to them again. The crowd had moved back, and the metalmen had lined up across from the steelcoats. The marines held their formation.
“If they are metalmen, what is a walker?”
The tinker pointed. Around them, a great cry rose up. Not terror, but an astonishment that echoed Mina’s as the machine stepped into view.
A walker, yes. On enormous steel legs constructed of pneumatic pistons and gears, it stood almost as tall as the prison walls. Steam rose from the boiler, a giant pipe cylinder that formed the walker’s body. At the base of the body, still fifteen feet off the ground, the Blacksmith occupied the pilot seat, his skin gleaming in the dull afternoon light. Standing behind his seat was Hale, clinging to a stabilizing rod with one hand and her hat with the other.
The Blacksmith reached for an item near his feet—a speaking trumpet designed to amplify sounds, which he gave to Hale. She put it to her mouth.
“ROYAL—”
Her voice exploded over the crowd, shocking all to silence. Hale jerked the trumpet down, staring at the Blacksmith. He gestured for her to continue.
“Royal Marines, on the authority of the Metropolitan Police Force, I’m ordering you to stand down! Your siege on this prison is unlawful and unwarranted.”
Newberry shook his head. “They won’t do it. Not on her authority.”
Hale must have realized the same. She addressed the crowd, instead. “Clear a path to the prison gate—in an orderly fashion, if you please!”
The response wasn’t immediate. Then the huge machine let out a great huff and one of the legs moved forward. The loosely woven path that the metalmen had left suddenly widened, and the mob seemed to move outward, squeezing and expanding like a compression wave.
Mina hopped to the ground. “Newberry, we need to be closer.”
The constable looked doubtfully over the crowd. “I don’t see how we’ll—”
Shouts erupted around them. Cries of “At the gate!” and “The Iron Duke!” rang through the mob.
Mina’s heart constricted. Was Dorchester daring to bring Rhys out to hang? Truly?
“What’s happening, constable?”
He shook his head. “I can’t see the gate, sir.”
“Newberry, please!”
The men and women on the lorry began to jump and yell, rocking the vehicle from side to side. Anne scrambled down. Mina grabbed her hand as Newberry pushed a path farther into the crowd, battling for every inch. Mina fought her despair. Reaching the front line would be impossible.
Cheers sounded from the lorry behind them—and from the front of the mob. Mina couldn’t see anything but the constable’s back. Red-faced, Newberry turned to her.
“Try this, sir.”
Giant hands circling her waist, he hauled her up, and suddenly she was seated on his broad shoulder. Mina swallowed her surprise and narrowed her gaze on the gallows scaffolding, trying to make sense of the scene on the platform.
Rhys was in his shirtsleeves, chains hanging from his wrists. In front of him stood Dorchester, head held high—and in irons. Even over the cheers, Mina heard the Iron Duke’s command.
“Lord High Admiral, order your men to lay down their weapons.” The line of steelcoats seemed to waver as several marines turned to look. “This is over, Dorchester. You’ll soon be under arrest for conspiring with the Black Guard. Don’t make these marines pay for your crimes against England.”
Yes. Mina clenched her fists, tempted to cheer along with the others. But she needed to focus on a way to that scaffolding and make the arrest. This mob wanted Dorchester’s blood, they wanted to see him swinging in the Iron Duke’s place, but Rhys had told them an arrest would be enough. So they needed that, at least.
She looked to the Blacksmith’s walker. Hale was nearer to Dorchester, but she likely wouldn’t be jumping down from that thing soon.
So Mina needed to get up there. But how would she—
Something hit her head. Mina instinctively ducked, almost throwing Newberry off balance. Suddenly furious, she grabbed for the thing that was still on her, and . . . found a rope. She looked up.
Lady Corsair hovered quietly overhead, her engines silent. Yasmeen peered over the rail and lifted her hands in a clear What are you waiting for?
“Watch Anne!” Mina shouted to Newberry, and hauled herself up.
Yasmeen didn’t wait for her to climb more than a few feet. Mina’s stomach swooped as the airship flew forward. Clinging to the rope, she sailed over the mob toward the scaffolding.
Her gaze met the Iron Duke’s, and the connection seemed to guide her in. Rhys. The pain of him sending her away had gone. At this moment, all that remained was the sheer relief of seeing him unharmed. She dropped lightly to the gallows platform, and he was there to steady her with a firm grip on her hand. Loss speared through her when he let go.
“Detective Inspector Wentworth.”
“Your Grace.” Because it seemed appropriate, she executed a short bow.
That amused him. “The Lord High Admiral has confessed to being a member of the Black Guard, and part of a plot to kill every bugger in England . . . which would include the king.”
With a short nod, Mina turned to Dorchester. “Your Grace, I am placing you under arrest for treason, conspiracy to commit mass murder, and for ordering the assassination of Admiral Baxter.” That was for the mob; more formal charges would be made later, Mina was certain. Her gaze searched the nearby crowd and found a bowler hat. “Constable! Please secure this man, and prepare to take him to headquarters for questioning.”
She wished it had been Newberry. But she would make up for it, somehow.
Though the constable looked uncertain as he approached the lines of metalmen and steelcoats, he walked through them without incident. Almost all of the marines faced the gallows now. Through their helmets’ eye slits, Mina saw dismay, anger, disbelief.
Dorchester waited, tall and dignified. His chest puffed up as he drew in a deep breath.
“Marines!” he shouted. “Open fire on the Iron Duke!”
Mina’s blood froze. But though the remaining steelcoats turned to face them, no one raised their weapon.
“Fire! If you love England, fire!”
Several shook their heads, setting down their guns. Mina began to nod her satisfaction—but from the corner of her eye, she saw one barrel swing up.
A member of the Black Guard—or simply someone who always followed orders, no matter the manner of man they came from.
Rhys saw it, too. He began to turn.
But he wasn’t as fast as she was.
Mina slammed into his chest. Holding her tight, Rhys pivoted to take the shot at his back. The echoing crack of the rifle faded. He gave an astonished laugh.
They hadn’t been hit. Only a few yards away, and the idiot had missed. From behind him came a clamor as steelcoats or metalmen downed the shooter. Something burned in his ribs, probably jabbed by a part of Mina’s uniform as she’d thrown herself at him. He felt her relief, as the tension slowly left her rigid form, leaving her limp.
Too limp. She almost slipped out of his arms. Rhys hauled her back up, trying to comprehend her closed eyes, the slackness of her body. The blood, soaking into his shirt.
So he’d been shot after all; the bullet had hit a rib. And—
Shot through Mina.
No. He shook her. “Mina?”
Her head fell back. Her chest separated from his.
Blood gushed down her front.
“Mina? No. Mina!” Roaring her name, he hauled her close again. His hands found blood at her back. No, no. Dropping to his knees, he lay her down, ripped off his shirt and pressed it to her chest. Blood pooled beneath her. “Help me! Ah, God. Help me!”
The hissing of boilers answered him, silence from the crowd. Feet pounded across the gallows platform. Scarsdale dropped to the boards beside him, tearing his shirtsleeves away. Rhys shoved them beneath her, trying to stop the bleeding at her back.
God help him—he didn’t know if it was.
Raggedly shouting her name, he pulled her up to half-sitting and dragged her between his legs, cloth clamped to her chest, pushing her back hard against his thigh. She convulsed, coughing up a bubble of blood.
“No, Mina. No, no.” Rhys held her tight. He bent his head to hers. “Please. Please!”
A hand on his arm brought his head up. With bleak eyes, he stared at the white-faced man kneeling beside him. Realization snapped through him.
Father. Surgeon.
“Help her,” he whispered hoarsely. “Help her.”
The man nodded, leaning forward. A woman in a billowing blue skirt fell to the platform next to him. Rhys recognized the white hair, disheveled and falling over her shoulder, the tinted lenses.
Mother.
“William?” Devastation lined her delicate face. “William? Can you—”
“Trahaearn, keep pressure here and here.” The father’s hands covered Rhys’s at Mina’s front and back. “If you value her life, don’t let up.”
Rhys pressed hard. He didn’t think she’d be able to take a breath, he pressed so hard.
But he didn’t think she could breathe, anyway.
The father looked to the mother. “The bugs are helping, Cecily, but they can’t do it alone. I need a heart. A pump like you made for Beatrice Addle. Do you remember?”
She glanced at her empty hands. “But I don’t—”
“Look, Cecily. Look.”
Her mouth firmed. Nodding, she stood, her gaze sweeping the crowd. She pointed.
“You! Come here. You! And you! All of you, up here. You! The dockworker! You two steelcoats. The rest of you, make way for them. And run, damn you all.” She spun around again, grabbed Scarsdale. “You, help me. We’ll hold them down and rip the pieces off, if we must.”
They hurried off, but Rhys didn’t watch where they went. Only Mina. The father withdrew her opium gun and shot a dart into her neck. Rhys held onto her, faintly aware of the murmurs from the crowd, the cries from the mother, Scarsdale’s cajoling voice. Faintly aware that the woman was taking parts from prosthetics and putting them together.
“Hurry, Cecily!”
Another convulsion ripped through Mina’s small frame. Drifting away, and taking Rhys’s life with him. He buried his face in her hair, whispered her name over and over. Trying to give her a line to hold on to. Trying to give her an anchor.
His was slipping, and her name was no longer a whisper, but a cry through clenched teeth.
The mother rushed up, winding a pump made of pistons within a tin canister. Narrow rubber tubes capped with steel valves projected from each side. “It’s dirty. I couldn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter,” the father said sharply. “The bugs will clean it.”
“And she’ll rip it off. The moment she wakes up. She wouldn’t want this.”
“Let that be her choice, Cecily! Now, which tube is the intake—?” His voice broke. His wife tucked the right tube into his palm, and clasped her fingers over his. His hand stopped trembling. “Yes. Thank you, my love. Be my eyes, now. Hold her still, Trahaearn.”
He pushed Rhys’s hand from Mina’s chest. The mother and father bent over her. He had to look away when he saw Mina’s dagger in the father’s hand.
If he saw what the man did with it, Rhys feared he would kill the only man who could save her. Even the Blacksmith couldn’t graft a mechanical heart more quickly.
Saving her . . . He pictured the mechanism that would be her heart—a crude pump. He’d heard of others who’d been saved the same way. The clockwork pump only had one speed, and so it was too dangerous to be excited. Too dangerous to move around. Even climbing the stairs could overtax the windup heart. Mina would be stuck in a single room. Trapped, for the rest of her life.
But that was only if she survived. With an injury like this, bug fever became a certainty.
The mother’s breath hitched. “They’re grafting it on,” she said.
Scarsdale’s shout rang out beside them. “The bugs are grafting on her new heart!”
Stomps and cheers rose over the steam from the steelcoats and the mechanical clicking of Mina’s heart. Rhys watched her blood surge through the tubes. He pressed his lips to her black hair, just above her ear, and said the words he needed to say. The words he’d tell her again, the moment she opened her eyes.
He looked up as heavy steps shook the boards beneath them. The Blacksmith crouched beside the father, studying the mechanical heart.
“You’ve done good work.”
The mother’s small hands fisted, and she said fiercely, “We will pay you anything. Anything.”
Rhys met the Blacksmith’s eyes. There’d be no payment from them. Not ever.
“She’s already paid enough,” the Blacksmith said. “Take her home, Rockingham, and keep her quiet and still. If she survives the bug fever, I’ll come to you. Do you have enough ice and opium?”
Tears leaked over the father’s cheeks. “I have some. I’ll need more.”
“I’ll see that you get it.”
The Blacksmith stepped back, making room for two prison guards carrying a stretcher. He gestured to someone above—Yasmeen, Rhys realized, when the cargo platform lowered to the gallows.
Though it almost killed him, he laid Mina on the stretcher. The heart lay on her chest, subtly rocking as it clicked and pumped. Carefully, the two guards lifted her and carried her onto the platform. The mother followed.
The father stopped Rhys from boarding with them.
“Sir. Thank you for all of your help. But there is nothing left for you to do, and I must insist that you let her recuperate in solitude and privacy, surrounded by those she loves.”
That had to include him. Feeling scraped and raw through to his heart, Rhys told him, “She jumped in front of me. She saved my life.”
Though sudden pity warmed the other man’s eyes, Rockingham shook his head. “My Mina would have done that for anyone. Now, if you care for her, leave her be for now. She can have no stress or excitement—and both seem to follow you about.”
Mina would have done that for anyone.
It was true. Stricken, Rhys stared at him. But he stepped back. His gaze fell to Mina’s still face, and remained there until he couldn’t see her anymore. He’d wait. And if she loved him, she’d come for him.
She might come for him, anyway. His inspector went where the dead bodies were. Without her, that was all that Rhys would be.
And until then, Rhys still needed to make certain that when she finally came, that she could stay. He looked to the crowd. They’d all cheered for her. They hadn’t seen the Horde, but a woman who’d risked everything to save someone that belonged to them—the Iron Duke. He wouldn’t let them return to seeing her as they had.
So he would give them Mina.