Ticker by Lisa Mantchev
“Send him up, please.”
Dreadnaught hesitated for the briefest of moments. “I’m not at all certain your parents would approve of a gentleman paying you a call in your bedroom, crisis or not.”
I squirmed impatiently against the pillows. “I doubt anything untoward will happen, but should the romance of the situation overwhelm him and he attempt to ravish me before your very eyes, you may knock him out with a tray.”
“I’m glad to see neither your spirits nor your powers of sarcasm were injured in your accident.” Dreadnaught opened the doors to the clothes press and pulled out a foamy, frothing concoction of lace and ribbons.
Violet was startled into a hoot of laughter. “By all the Bells, what is that?”
“A bed jacket from my Grandmother Pendleton.” I glowered my hardest despite the lance of pain such a mighty frown caused. “The woman has both atrocious taste in gifts and medieval ideas as to what a young lady should wear.”
“It’s perfect,” Dreadnaught said, handing it over to Violet and hurrying from the room.
“I’m allergic to fuss,” I protested.
Violet tied the ribbons and fluffed the lace ruffles, enjoying herself far more than the situation warranted. “Don’t be ridiculous. And you could do with a bit of fussing, in your delicate condition.”
“Delicate my arse.”
At that precise moment, Dreadnaught returned carrying yet another tray, this one laden with missives and parcels, with Marcus Kingsley right behind her.
He didn’t appear at all taken aback by my ridiculous frills or my foul language; instead, he made a lovely bow, hat tucked under his arm. “Tesseraria.”
“Legatus.”
“I’m glad to see that you are well.”
“If by ‘well’ you mean I look a right monkey,” I said, “then verily, I am well.”
“You have to admit she looks fetching, Marcus,” Violet said.
“Far be it from me to pass judgment on a lady’s attire,” the clever man replied. A few stiff steps brought him within feet of the bed. “I’m glad you’re going to recover. It was terrifying to watch you fly through the crossfire on the Vitesse. If I find a dozen gray hairs on my head, I’ll know who to blame.”
I studied the military-short haircut, ignoring the temptation to rub a hand over the closely cropped black curls. “Not a one.”
“Yet,” he added. “Give it time and a bit more of your reckless behavior.”
“Without a doubt, driving through a gunfight was the most reckless thing I’ve ever done,” I admitted. “And I’ve done quite a few reckless things in my life.”
He reached for my hand. “I shouted to you when you shot out of the driveway and took off down the street.”
“I heard you.” I stared hard at the place where our fingers met, thinking it better to look there than into his eyes.
He didn’t seem to care that we had an audience of two. “But you didn’t stop.”
Startled by the note of concern, I looked up. “I had to get to my brother.”
Marcus’s grip tightened to the point of impropriety. “You should have waited. I would have gone with you.”
“You were a bit preoccupied at the time, what with all the bullets whizzing past you.” I tried to extract my hand from his, but his gloves might as well have been coated in glue. “You were protecting Violet and Sebastian, too.”
“I’ve never been more tempted to abandon a post.” He let go of me, but only to reach into his jacket pocket to retrieve his notebook and pencil. “I need to know what happened when you went after Nic.”
Without realizing it, I’d braced myself for a lecture. A tirade, even. Instead, he offered me a level of understanding so deep that it was like a gift. It took a moment to recover, another to start giving my report. Some of the details stood out as stark and clear as newspaper typeface. Others had been smudged by three days of sleep and whatever medications the doctors had given me. I described the car. The faces of those inside it. How they’d tried to pull me from the Vitesse. How they’d captured Nic, and what direction they’d fled.
Then it was my turn to pose a question. “Did you investigate the Palmipède while I was . . .”
“Out of commission?” Marcus finished for me. “I’m afraid the good Mister Stirling hasn’t been able to procure a boarding yet.”
Something about his tone suggested unvoiced suspicions. When Violet hitched in a breath, I knew I hadn’t imagined it.
“And?” I prompted.
Marcus closed the notebook and changed the subject. “You’ll be glad to hear we recovered the Vitesse from the scene of the accident.”
“That’s not at the top of my list of concerns,” I said, unwilling to be distracted.
“It’s parked in the carriage house,” he persisted, accepting a cup of tea from Dreadnaught and studiously adding sugar. “Carmichael returned it personally after you were transported to the hospital.”
“Give that man an extra set of bars.” Suddenly tired, I fell back on my pillows and closed my eyes.
“Should we leave?” Violet asked. “You look dreadfully tired.”
“More dreadful than tired, I’m certain.” I forced my eyes open and focused my attention on the heap of mail at my elbow: notes from tailors and hatters, envelopes from various foreign medical universities. It would fall to me to pay them, to answer them, to make explanations.
Deepest apologies for the lateness of the payment, due to the fact that parties in question were kidnapped.
“This is also addressed to you, Miss.” Dreadnaught handed me a thickly wrapped parcel and a penknife. “Careful. It’s heavy and marked ‘Fragile.’ ”
Puzzled, I cut the string and pushed aside several layers of brown paper. Inside, daguerreotype slides were neatly stacked and interleaved with thin silver tissue. There was a folded note atop everything, but it fluttered to the floor when I caught the image on the gleaming surface of the first glass.
“By all the Cogs,” Marcus swore softly in my ear, but I couldn’t summon a single word in reply.
The topmost daguerreotype showed Nic in some undisclosed and poorly lit location, propped up in an iron bed. Bandages were pulled back to reveal a surgeon’s handiwork, stitches and swelling ringing the flesh about his eye sockets. The eyes themselves appeared untouched until I looked closer; within the depths of the pupils, there was a hard gleam that was wholly foreign and frightening. Looking at my twin, I felt trapped, a diamanté-headed pin through my clockwork heart.
“Unmistakably him, isn’t it?” I said like a ventriloquist’s dummy, my mouth moving and sound coming out without my say-so.
“What?” Violet placed her cup on the edge of the table. “What’s happened?”
I set down the daguerreotypes and covered them with my hands, wishing I could erase the truth with my fingers. “Warwick Augmented Nic’s eyes.” Only when I said it aloud did my Ticker react, shuddering horribly in my chest.
“What?” Violet faltered.
Marcus leapt forward, catching her about the waist when her legs gave out. Left to my own devices, I clung to consciousness, gripping the coverlet until I nearly tore the fabric.
Don’t you dare faint again, Penny Farthing. Don’t. You. Dare.
The Ticker’s balance wheels righted themselves, but only barely. Enduring the pain was better than the numbness.
“That poor, dear boy,” Dreadnaught said between the fingers she had clasped over her mouth.
“I’m fine,” Violet told Marcus, pushing away from him to stumble to the fire. I waited for the tears, for the screams. Goodness knows I could have shrieked loud and long for the both of us. Instead, an aura of calm settled over her. “I’ll be fine.” This time, the words rang with truth and fury both.
Marcus took two of the slides to the window, using the thin sunlight to study them further. “It’s a wonder the procedure didn’t kill him. These have to be the first ocular implants in the empire.”
“What could Warwi
Dreadnaught retrieved the note from the floor next to the bed. “Perhaps this explains it.”
I opened it with trembling hands, recognizing the surgeon’s handwriting immediately.
Penny,
I wish there was some way to make you understand that all I’ve done was for you. That day at Carteblanche, I held your poor withered heart in my hands. I will spend the rest of my days correcting the weaknesses of the flesh. I hoped you would come to me, but I was able to start with Nic. He’ll never need glasses again.
Please let me do the same for your ventriculator.
Your Devoted Servant,
Calvin Warwick
I tossed the paper away from me only seconds before it burst into flames. Marcus’s shout of surprise took me aback; I’d forgotten he hadn’t witnessed the self-destruction of the last note.
“Nitrocellulose,” I explained. “Sebastian said it’s highly flammable stuff that gets used in the making of moving pictures.”
“That it is,” Marcus said. “It’s also the primary ingredient in black powder. It’s possible Warwick has a connection to the mills just outside of town.” He lifted his wrist and began tapping out commands on his RiPA. “I’ll have a detachment check there and speak with the maintenance crew. If anyone’s been lurking about or any property’s gone missing, we’ll know within the hour.”
“Fast, but not fast enough,” I said. “We need to get to Warwick. I don’t think he’s going to leave well enough alone.”
“You think he’ll keep operating on Master Copernicus?” Dreadnaught blanched even as she posed the question.
“He might. And for all we know, he’s pulling people off the street again.” I tried not to picture a row of beds like Nic’s, each one containing a limp body—like dolls on a nursery floor, their arms and eyes and legs removed by a careless child. Averting my gaze from the daguerreotypes, I focused on the bedside table where another floral arrangement sat, a note tucked in the brilliant greenery. I pulled out the card, which was thickly ornamented with doves and roses, gilded along the scalloped edges, and stamped with silver lettering that read “Get Well Soon!”
No signature.
There’s a hidden meaning in every flower.
“Dreadnaught, who delivered this bouquet?” I asked, turning to the chatelaine.
Discreetly wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, she paused to study it. “It arrived this morning by courier.”
I eyed the arrangement again, searching for any clue it might yield. “I think it’s also from Warwick.”
Marcus peered closer at it, suddenly intent. “What makes you say that?”
“The flowers,” I said, reaching out to touch each bloom in turn. “Gladioli symbolize sincerity and strength of character. Purple hyacinths ask for forgiveness. White roses are for secrecy and silence. I can’t think of anyone else who would have reason to speak to me of secrets.”
Marcus pulled out a spotless pocket square. “Has anyone besides yourself and the delivery person touched this, Miss Dreadnaught?”
“No, Legatus.”
He plucked the flowers from the vase and set them to one side, then poured the water into the wash basin. “It’s been quite some time since I sent flowers to a young lady.”
“You ought to study floriography before attempting it again,” I said, telling myself I didn’t care a whit if Marcus sent flowers to anyone, young lady or not. “You don’t want to send the wrong message.”
He made a thoughtful sort of noise far in the back of his throat. “Let’s say I wanted something to serve as a reminder of new friendship. Hypothetically, of course. What sort of flowers should I select?”
Violet poured herself another cup of tea and answered his leading question when she saw I wouldn’t. “I suggest blue periwinkle.”
“That is certainly good to know. May I?” Marcus indicated my desk. Perplexed, I nodded, watching as he ground the tips of several lead pencils into fine powder between two pieces of paper. “What if I wanted to suggest the flower of friendship might be blooming into something greater?”
I knew he only wanted to distract me from the dreadful situation with Nic, and yet my suggestion was a faint, “Honeysuckle? For devoted affection.”
“Or salvia,” Violet added. “For thinking of you.”
I hoped that would be the end of the conversation, but Marcus had other ideas. Taking the lead dust, he applied it to the vase with a horsehair brush.
“What if I wanted to tell a certain young lady that she was in possession of my most ardent affection?” he asked. “What ought I send her?”
“Roses,” I said, praying my voice wouldn’t crack under the strain of remaining detached. “Red ones.”
When next Marcus spoke, it was as though he and I were the only people in the room. “I think I will study this language of flowers a bit further.”
“Will you?” I met his gaze, refusing to play the coquette. “To what purpose?”
“So that when I send the girl of my heart a bouquet,” he said, so softly that I had to strain my ears to the utmost, “it will tell her everything I want to say. But for now, Tesseraria, we will have to make do with hard evidence.”
He held the vase so I could see the fingerprint plainly standing out on the surface.
“It might belong to the delivery person or the florist,” I said, realizing why he’d gone through so much trouble.
“Either of whom might have some clue as to Warwick’s whereabouts.” Marcus passed the vase off to Dreadnaught. “Give that to one of the guards on duty and tell him to have it transported to the Flying Fortress for processing.”
The chatelaine nodded and rushed from the room. Violet went to fiddle with the tea service, and I could have cheerfully strangled her for leaving the conversation. Alone with my frills, my bows, my worries, and Marcus, I stared with great determination at the coverlet. The clatter of his RiPA was a welcome distraction for us all, despite the message being encoded.
He listened thoughtfully before tapping out a brief response. “That was Sebastian. He’s finally arranged a boarding on the Palmipède.”
“You see?” I said. “And the very moment I awakened. Fortuitous timing.”
“Fortuitous indeed,” Marcus said with a rueful shake of his head. “Until you consider the fact that you have stitches and most likely a concussion.”
“If you go to the Palmipède, I’m coming with you,” I said. “I’m the one they want.”
He exchanged a long look with Violet, then ventured, “Perhaps we’ll see how you’re feeling come this evening.”
When I sat up, I set my lace flounces aflutter. “A clever dodge from someone wholly unfamiliar with my recuperative powers. What sort of firepower are we taking?”
“Everyone who is going,” he said with a pointed look, “will do so with hopes for the best and prepared for the worst. In other words, armed to the teeth and carrying a few extra surprises.”
“I want a gun,” Violet announced, jerking on her gloves. “A big one. I’m going home to get a frock, and then I’ll return. I expect you—” she jabbed a finger at Marcus, “to see to it that she—” her attention shifted to me, “eats the contents of that hamper.” She slapped the Carry-Away Box. “Watch out for the salted caramel tarts, though. They’re very sticky and won’t do the bed linen a bit of good.”
Marcus caught her at the door. “I’ve assigned a guard to escort you wherever you might go. Check in with us every hour. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. We don’t want anyone else disappearing.”
Stompy boots made their way along the hall and down the stairs. Watching Violet go, Marcus didn’t glance at me when he said, “She’s very much in love with him.”
“Yes.”
“Does he love her in return?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That will keep him fighting.”
“He’s a Farthing. We fight to our last breath and then defy logic to take another.” R
“You’ll never get back your strength eating that.” Opening the lid on the Carry-Away Box, Marcus pulled out the salted caramel tarts and several molten-middle chocolate cakes before he spoke again. “Penny?”
Some sort of electrical current ran up my spine when he used my name, but I wouldn’t have let on for a million golden aureii. “Yes?”
“When you begin to plan something . . . and I know you will . . . I want to know what it is. Full disclosure.”
“I haven’t any plans yet.” I pointed at the iron bracelets, sitting in a pool of light on my desk. “I will keep you abreast of any future plotting, though.”
“So long as that plotting doesn’t include handing yourself over to Warwick.” Marcus took a napkin off the tea tray and settled it in my lap. “That wouldn’t do either of us any favors, would it?”
I found it very hard to concentrate. My every thought was a Butterfly battering against my skull and wheeling about to fly in tipsy circles behind my eyes. “I don’t know. It might be better for everyone if I did.”
“Don’t ever say that.” Marcus issued the command and followed it by handing me a caramel tart. “Now eat this.”
I smiled, relieved that I could focus my attention on anything other than his hands, his face. “Only if you take half.” I broke it messily in two and gestured that he should sit down. My Ticker gave a lurch when he obliged, not in the adjacent armchair but next to me.
“Will Dreadnaught have a fit if she comes in here and sees me sitting on your bed?” he queried.
My stomach suddenly realized how long it had been since I’d eaten, and I eagerly bit into my half of the tart. Shortbread crust crumbled to sweet sand on my tongue, and the saltiness of the caramel coated the roof of my mouth. “Are you afraid of our chatelaine, Mister Kingsley?”
“Of all the threats I’ve faced this week, she does seem the most formidable.” Remembering something, he pulled a paper-wrapped parcel from his other pocket and handed it to me. “This is for you.”