Steampunk! Part 24

She takes a slow, ragged breath. "What am I going to do?"

I think for a moment, and then I say, "What would Steam Girl do?"

"I'm not Steam Girl," she says.

The air in the trailer is thick and warm. I feel light-headed, like I imagine being drunk must feel. I reach into my pocket and pull out her flying helmet and goggles.

"Yes, you are," I say. "You're clever and courageous and beautiful. If anyone can sort this mess out, it's you."

She looks at me for a long, long time. Then leans forward and kisses me, lightly, on the lips. Lifts the helmet and slowly puts it on.

There's a moment of perfect stillness.

And then she stands up and smiles.

"Come on, then, Rocket Boy," she says, and holds out her hand.

Sofia looked out the window of her aunt's London town house, at the chimney-sweep spiders clattering along the slate rooftops, their gla.s.s abdomens full of ash. Her lip curled.

"Are you feeling unwell, Sofia?" inquired Lady Obermann.

"Oh, no," said Sofia, standing and smoothing out her skirts - her favorite, a soft rose color, covering a simple dress of sprig muslin. "The air is wonderfully refreshing."

Lady Obermann sniffed. "Excellent. I do so dislike illness in young people." When Sofie didn't respond, she continued. "I believe I spotted your cousin Valerian downstairs. He would no doubt like to take a turn about the park. You should accompany him rather than perch here like a gargoyle."

"I should enjoy that immensely," said Sofia, perhaps a shade too brightly. She set the cake she'd been holding back down on its tiered silver platter, beside several untouched sandwiches. One of the side tables unhinged itself to stretch into a mechanized parlor maid, who began gathering up the tea things with jerky motions.

Sofie turned her head so she didn't have to look at it.

She knew she was the victim of fortunate circ.u.mstances: an heiress and, having recently lost her papa to an illness born of dissipation, an orphan. Her aunt had been kind enough to take her in, but it was quite obvious that she intended to foist her son on Sofia before she was properly out. All done with such kindness, however, that Sofia would have been hard-pressed to refuse his attentions, should he have ever decided to actually favor her with them.

For her cousin Valerian's part, he clearly thought of her as a child when he thought of her at all. When she actually was a child, he had been kind, carrying her on his shoulders so that she could pull down crisp green apples from trees. He had pulled splinters out of her fingers, and once he made a bandage from his neck cloth and moss when she skinned her knee trying to ride one of the mechanized gardening beasts.

Back then, Sofie had looked forward to holidays in the country, when the whole family would be together. She had looked forward to Valerian, who alone among them was unfailingly patient and kind. But he had words with his father one year, and the next summer he went home with his friends from Eton. She'd missed him then, but she did not need him now. Especially because he had made it so perfectly clear that he'd never missed her at all.

Yes, she would be hard-pressed to refuse his attentions, but it was still maddening that he never gave her the opportunity.

Since it was her duty to be an obedient niece, Sofia went to look for him. She told herself - repeatedly - there was no other possible reason for seeking him out.

Pa.s.sing through the house and down the stairs, she was careful of the bra.s.s-and-cloth wires connecting the automaton servants to the walls. They turned their metal faces away as she pa.s.sed, bowing their heads, so silent that she heard only the faint whirring of their gears.

She found both her cousins in the Blue Salon. Valerian, a gentleman of six and twenty, had carelessly thrown himself into a chair at the edge of the room and glowered as his sister, Amelia, waltzed about with her mechanized dance instructor.

The marionette was very fine. His sculptor must have worked from a well-favored model, because his bra.s.s features were curiously compelling. Amelia was shown to great advantage in his arms, her face flushed and the blue bandeau that pulled back her dark curls a complement to her sparkling blue eyes.

When Valerian saw Sofie, he rose. "Cousin."

"My aunt suggested that you might be going for a ride," Sofia said. "I see she was mistaken. You must excuse me."

"Not at all," said Valerian. "Nothing would please me more. There is something I would say to you in confidence."

For a moment, Sofia wondered if his mother had pushed him into making a declaration, but his gaze was on his sister and the marionette that swept her around the room. She did not know what to think.

Valerian left Sofie to pull a pelisse over her dress and gather up gloves and a m.u.f.f. Then she hurried out toward her cousin's barouche.

"Miss," croaked the butler, his voice box badly in need of oil. "Your hat."

"Oh," Sofia said, embarra.s.sed that the house had noticed with its gla.s.sy lenses what she had not. She was anxious to be out riding with Valerian and making a cake of herself because of it.

"Thank you," she said to the butler. The rest of the family called the butler Wexley, as if he were a real servant, one of the family, but she couldn't bear the fiction.

The Obermanns had not seen the things she had, so she had to forgive them their comfort with the automatons, even if the sight of them chilled her blood.

Sofia had dragged her father home from automaton parlors more times than she wanted to recall. They were gambling h.e.l.ls, unlike the refined White's or Boodles, and filled with even worse pleasures than dice or cards.

She remembered the sinister gyrations of faux girls and boys, moving around the rooms in precise rhythms and striking poses before being chosen for the back rooms and their metered pleasures. She recalled a mannequin with a child's body and shining copper skin, licking an oversize sweet with jerking movements of her head and papery tongue. She remembered another, blindfolded and gagged, his hands cuffed behind his back. He jerked slowly against his bonds, first left, then right, then left again. Perfect repet.i.tion.

"These are primitive," her father had told her, voice slurred. "The castoffs and parts from broken servants." No one seemed to mind.

"Don't be missish," her father had said as she hung back from him, instructing one of the stable hands to hand him into his barouche. The front of her father's shirt was stained with brandy and any quant.i.ty of Madeira. His neck cloth was a mess, his quizzing gla.s.s cracked, and his shirt points beyond all repair. "Come and kiss me! I've won a lot of money."

Perhaps had her father lost more, his habits would have been regulated by debt, but he had the devil's own luck. He played better foxed than he did sober. And so he added to his fortune even as he drank himself to death.

And if his reputation had sunk in some circles, it rose in others. Sofia knew that he was far from the only gentleman to frequent such places. One of their neighbors in Bath went so far as to bring one of the used female automatons from a parlor to his home and set her up as one of the servants, linking her with the house. Another had accrued a great deal of debt by beating a mannequin until its head caved in after a particularly bad round of cards. Automatons, even these, were expensive.

She had seen so many men - even her uncle - pull on the skirts of automatons, press them against walls, or trade them to friends.

And not just gentlemen were drawn to the things. One of Sofia's schoolmates had been given two mannequins by her parents to act as personal servants. They were youngish male twins with black hair cut in the style of medieval pages and eyes as blue as gla.s.s eyes could be. The schoolmate had invited over several other young women of her acquaintance for tea and cordials. Sofia milled awkwardly as the other girls cooed and kissed the boys' porcelain skin. She was embarra.s.sed, without being able to explain why, although she had to admit that the twins were something out of the common way. They giggled together with high-pitched, tinny voices and whispered nonsense.

One of the things she appreciated most about Valerian was the way he treated the automatons. The same way he treated almost everyone: with perfect courtesy.

Sofia did not understand why the mannequins worked as they did, but she knew they couldn't really think, didn't really learn. They laughed because of the large metal box of wires and gears turning at the center of all automaton houses, the one that controlled the things. It told them to bring you a bowl of grapes, and not a bowl of stones, or to remind you about your hat. It wasn't intelligence or consciousness or empathy. That they seemed to possess these qualities was enough for pretense, but Sofie resisted it. She reminded herself of the makers who oiled the gears and entered commands to the machine at the center of the house on slides of engraved copper. They were the ones who told the automatons what to do. They were the ones who would carry the blame if one of the mannequins stabbed them in their beds.

One of them could, Sofie was sure. And it would wear the same stupid expression as it did when asking her if she'd like another cup of tea.

Valerian handed Sofie up into his barouche. He had a reputation as a first-rate whip that seemed deserved as they rode toward town in the dappled light.

Sofie smoothed down her dress and tried not to glory in the breeze on her face and the warmth of the sun. Ladies weren't supposed to want to be outside too much, for fear of freckling.

"My mother wanted me to speak with you," he said.

Sofie took a breath. She had certainly not wanted his proposal to begin with an avowal of her aunt's regard rather than his own. Still, her stomach knotted at his words. Instead of looking at him, she stared instead at her gloved hands, at the smudge of oil on the cloth where she had brushed the butler.

Valerian cleared his throat. "I know it isn't quite the thing, to involve you in our troubles this way, cousin, but I fear my mother's insistence means she will go to you herself if I do not."

Sofie frowned. That didn't sound right - surely he didn't despise her so much that he intended to insult her even as he asked her to be his wife. He had to know she couldn't accept under those circ.u.mstances. But perhaps that was the point. Then he could return to his mother, duty done, and report her refusal. She tried to compose a stinging set-down even as she found herself blinking back tears.

Tears that made her uncomfortably aware that her feelings were less indifferent than she'd pretended.

"Amelia has refused the hand of Sir Thomas Followell. He is a good man, kind, and a baronet with enough of an income to keep her well and pay off my father's debts. My father is livid." He was looking at the road, his jaw set.

"Oh," she said, suddenly aware this was not a proposal at all. She felt profoundly, shamefully stupid. She was the child he thought her.

"My mother wants you to make Amelia see reason." Valerian turned to her at last. "Father wishes to force her into a marriage. It's absurd. If she doesn't want to marry, there is no way to make her want it."

He did not appear to notice her embarra.s.sment, any more than he had noticed her earlier expectations. He seldom looked at her at all, or at least when he did, he wouldn't look at her for very long. She seemed incapable of holding his interest for more than a brief period.

"That is a hardship," Sofie said, sounding harsh to her own ears. "But I don't see what help I can be."

"She has always looked up to you," Valerian said, which seemed unlikely. Amelia and Sofie had gotten along well enough as children, but over the last few years when they had been thrust together, Amelia grew quickly bored. Valerian went on, oblivious, "She has become, well - she's quite attached to her dance instructor. I would appreciate if you would accompany her out on such diversions as might amuse you both."

"But," said Sofie. "Her dance instructor - he's not human."

"Yes," said Valerian with a sigh. "Quite."

So great was her horror that despite feeling low over Valerian, she resolved to speak with Amelia.

It wasn't until that evening that she found her chance. Lady Obermann was near the fire, sewing a new ribbon onto a hat, while Amelia had been playing on the pianoforte. When Amelia rose, Sofie followed her. From the hallway she could see into the dining room, where the servants were unfolding the ma.s.sive serving hand from the dumbwaiter so things could be placed on the table immediately from the kitchen.

Amelia paused on the stairs. "What is it, cousin?"

"He does not love you," Sofie said. "He cannot love you."

Spots of color appeared on Amelia's cheeks. "I don't know what you could be talking of."

"Your dance instructor. I have seen you favor him, making yourself and your family ridiculous."

When Amelia turned to Sofie, her eyes were blazing. "As I have seen the way you look at my brother. Would you thank me if I told you that your hopes were impossible?"

Sofie flinched, then took a quick breath to steady herself. Had she really been so obvious and yet been so oblivious? "The truth is true," she said, "no matter how painful. You need not thank me, only heed my words."

"I don't believe you." Amelia glanced toward the ballroom, where the automaton doubtless waited, leaned against a wall like a statue, gears turning even in rest. "They are not like us, yes, but Nicholas is a gentleman in every way that matters. He hears the beauty in music. He laughs and loves as we do."

"If you believed he was like that, you would never call him by his given name. You would address him properly, like a gentleman," Sofie said.

Amelia stiffened. "It is the only name he has."

"They are made to please us," Sofie said, catching Amelia's hand. "And to counterfeit us. He says what you want him to say and nothing more."

"No," said Amelia. "He has told me he loves me. Why would he be instructed to do that?"

"I do not know," Sofie confessed. "But, Amelia, what will your life with him be? He has nothing. Your father owns him, and your brother will inherit him. He is property."

"We are all property, in one way or another," said Amelia. "You may wonder at me speaking this way, but is it really better to marry someone wealthy who might be cruel or hateful than a penniless creature who adores you? I get a little income from my grandmother. I could live modestly on that, somewhere, with Nicholas as my servant and companion. Or I could keep house for my brother until he finds a wife. Surely that would be appropriate." She smiled, but it was an uncertain smile. "And perhaps Valerian's wife would let me stay on - an old tabby to help with his children."

"But your reputation -" Sofie began.

"I would give it up for love!" Amelia declared. "I will wind up on the shelf, an eccentric. Perhaps I can never marry Nicholas, but I can grow old with him, and his beauty will never change. Surely in that I must be envied." She tossed her curls.

"But he might become different. In a different house, with a different central hub. The automatons are all connected to this house. If you were to move him, he might change."

"Anyone might," said Amelia, her voice brittle. "You certainly have. But Nicholas loves me."

"He antic.i.p.ates your desires like any servant," Sofie says. "He feels nothing - he only acts according to your wishes. I can prove it."

Amelia hesitated, and in that moment, Sofie saw how much Amelia already doubted her suitor.

Sofie's plan was simple.

"You will show me how to dance the way you show Amelia," Sofie told the automaton.

The dance master bowed and extended his hand to take hers. His grip was light, and when he turned his handsome face to hers, she realized it had been sculpted to be carefully blank. How could Amelia see anything but herself reflected in metal?

"Do you like to dance?" Sofie asked, trying to relax in his arms. He was clearly skilled, sweeping her across the floor as though the tinny music coming from inside his chest were an orchestra.

"Yes, my lady," he said, perfectly polite.

"Am I as good a dancer as Amelia?" she asked.

"You are both quite good," he said. "But she will benefit from dancing with more partners."

"That won't make you jealous?" she asked with a small smile.

"I am jealous of every moment Amelia spends outside this room," the automaton said.

Sofie stopped dancing. "That's absurd. Admit it, you only say that because you think she wants you to."

He said nothing.

"You must do what we say," said Sofie. "You must admit it because I tell you to. You cannot disobey me."

"I cannot harm one of you, either," he said. "I cannot hurt Amelia."

"There, you admit it," Sofie said, pulling away from the dance and pointing a finger at him. "You only say the things you do because you must not hurt her."

"I do not know why I am as I am," said the automaton, but Sofie knew that even his voice was made from the contractions of a bellows, forced by gears. "I can only respond as I was made to."

It was impossible to read anything into his sculpted face. He was as he was made to be.

"What if I wanted you to kiss me?" Sofie asked.

He seemed to hesitate.

Sofie took a deep breath. "Kiss me. I command it."

At the feel of his cold lips against hers, she flushed with triumph. She had thought her first kiss would be different from this; she had nursed girlish fancies about Valerian. But this mattered, and those fancies would come to nothing.

"How could you?" Amelia said, walking out from the doorway where she'd hidden herself. She told the automaton he wasn't real. She told him he was useless. She told him that she'd have him ripped from the wall and sold for parts.