Boneshaker

“No,” Briar admitted. “But you didn’t say you hadn’t. So pardon me if I get a little more direct.”

Mi

The doctor slid sideways, pivoting on his hip to face Briar while remaining seated. “Did you ask the airmen? Captain Cly — he’s the fellow on the Naamah Darling, isn’t that right? — he sees and hears more than most men. Perhaps it’s that u

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Briar said, and she hated herself for being childishly rude. It wouldn’t serve her purposes, and it wouldn’t move him to help her, but there was an old pattern in play and she couldn’t find a different track. She was angry, and frightened on top of that, and in those conditions she regressed into someone she didn’t like. “I asked him, and I asked every other airman who’d give me five minutes of his time. No one’s seen hide nor hair of him, which isn’t so crazy given that he came in from the water runoff, not from the sky.”

A flicker of the gleaming, flickering blue lights behind the mask almost implied a lilted eyebrow. He said, “Then why didn’t you do likewise? Surely it would’ve made for a much less… traumatic entrance into our fine and Blighted city.”

“The earthquake the other night. It flattened the tu

“It’s not nearly a thousand feet,” he murmured. “It’s only a couple hundred. But that’s useful to know, about the runoff tu

Whatever he’d been prepared to say, he abandoned it and said instead, “I’ll make a point to have it fixed. But tell me, Miss Briar, how did you intend to leave the city? If you knew the tu

“Where’s my son?” she asked bluntly, again forcing that sharp change of subject.

His answer oozed with something too theatrical to be meaningful. “Whatever makes you think I know?”

“Because if you didn’t know, you would’ve said so by now. And if you know where he is, and you’re giving me this runaround, then you must want him for something—”

“Miss Briar,” he interrupted, with more volume than was strictly necessary. The force of his voice, laden with strange weights and brass bells, brought her to silence in a way that chilled her. She didn’t mean to obey him when he told her, “There’s no need for abruptness. We can talk about your son if you like, but I won’t be subject to your accusations or demands. You are now a guest in my home. So long as you act the part, you may expect to be treated accordingly.”

Lucy’s breaths were coming in quick, asthmatic squeezes that counted the time like a second hand on a pocket watch. She still hadn’t risen from her seat on the bench, and now she looked positively unable to. The barkeep’s skin was nearly green with fear, and Briar thought that she might vomit at any moment.

But she didn’t, not then. She held herself upright and dry, and she said, “Please, I think — Briar, I think — let’s all stay calm. There’s nothing to be short about. We’re guests; it’s like he said.”

“I heard him.”

“Then I’d ask you, for my sake, to accept his hospitality. He says you can talk, and he’ll let you talk. I’m only asking you — in a motherly way, if you don’t mind it — to mind your ma

It wasn’t motherly at all, the way she was suggesting restraint. It was the trembling attempt of a child trying to appease two bickering parents.

Briar swallowed whatever else she was going to say. It took her a moment; she was forcing down a great knot of things she wanted to shout. And then she said, with words she’d measured as neatly as buttonholes, “I’d appreciate the chance to speak with you, yes. Whether it’s here in your home, as a guest, or elsewhere, I have no preference. But I only came here for one thing — not to make friends, or to be a pleasant guest. I came here to find my boy, and until I do, you’ll have to forgive me if my attention lies somewhere other than my ma

The blue lights behind his mask — those flame-bright nubs that stood in place of his eyes — did not blink or waver. He said, “I understand, and my forgiveness surely follows.” And immediately afterward, a gentle pinging noise sounded from his chest.

For one irrational, delirious moment Briar thought it must be his heart, a carved or assembled thing without a soul or a drop of blood; but he reached into a pocket to remove a round gold watch, checked its face, and made a small grunt.

“Ladies, I see that it’s getting late. Please allow me to offer you quarters for the evening. It won’t be the Vaults, but you might find it suitable, regardless.”

“No!” Lucy said, too fast and too loud. “No, we couldn’t impose on you like that. We’ll just be heading on our way.”

Briar argued, “Lucy, I’m staying until he tells me what he knows about Zeke. And I’ll stay as a guest if that’s how he wants it. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to,” she added. She looked into Lucy’s eyes with what she hoped was a meaningful gaze, and she said softly, “I won’t take it personal if you want to see your own way home, now that you’re all fixed up.”

It wasn’t just fear Briar saw on Lucy’s face. Suspicion crept there too, and curiosity too strong to be extinguished even by terror. “I won’t leave you here alone,” she said. “And anyway, I don’t want to go back by myself.”

“But you could, if it came to that. I’m happy for your company,” Briar said, “but I wouldn’t ask you to stick around if you don’t want to.”

Mi

He said, “Actually, come to think of it, Lucy — I have a bit of an errand I’d like for you to run.”

“You already said you wanted me to bring Huey out here, and that would pay you for fixing the arm.” She did not sound even remotely charmed by the prospect.

“And I note you made me no such promise or agreement,” he said with some displeasure. “But that’s neither here nor there. You’ll bring him here, or you’ll wish you’d done so later. I thought you valued Maynard’s, Miss Lucy. I thought it was worth something to you. Worth preserving, if nothing else.”

“Don’t be a bastard,” she spit, her own ma

“I’ll be a bastard and worse, if it pleases me.”

Briar thought she could see some curtain being drawn aside; she could see one mask sliding slowly away, even as the one he wore seemed bolted onto his very skeleton. He said, “Tomorrow or the next day, you’ll bring me Huey so that we can discuss tinkering and other assorted things; and tonight, you will go out to my fort.”

“Decatur?” Lucy asked, as if the prospect honestly surprised her. Briar did not like his claim to the place.

“Yes, I want you to go there and deliver a message for me,” he declared. “We have more unexpected guests inside our walls than just your friend here, and I want to make sure they understand their place.”

“And what place is that?” Lucy asked.

“Myplace.” He reached a gloved hand into an interior pocket of his vest and withdrew a sealed letter. “Take this to whatever captain you find there. I understand that someone is using my old lot to make repairs.”

Lucy was furious, but not stupid enough to put it on display. She said, “You could get anybody to carry a message for you. There’s no sense in sending me out into the streets, late at night, through crowds of hungry rotters just to get me out of the way. I’ll just leave, if that’s what you want, and if Briar says it’s all right with her.”