Bitter Cold: A Steampunk Snow Queen (The Clockwork Republic Series Book 4) (8 page)

What would Kit do in this situation?

In her head, she could hear his calm, deep voice say "Contact the authorities."

No good. No time for that. What would I talk Kit into doing if he were here?

Untroubled by the logical inconsistency of Kit helping to plan his own rescue, she imagined him near, asking the questions he always asked and providing the rational suggestions he always provided. In short order, she'd come up with a reasonable plan. The real Kit could be fairly predictable, which made it easier to figure out what advice pretend Kit should give.

If she was going to rescue him, she'd have to do more than get the sleigh into the air. She'd need to do so without anyone noticing and reporting her. The Alchemists Guild may have had no restrictions on creating an air buoyancy formulae, but she suspected the Continental Commission on Air Traffic as well as the Aeronautic Navy of Missouri might take exception to a young lady flying an experimental aircraft over the republics at high speed.

And she intended to fly at as high a rate of speed as she could coax out of the machine. Time was wasting, and every moment carried her best friend further away and possibly into greater peril.

After that, the problems were considerably easier to solve. She could hardly take off from the alley without attracting unwanted attention, especially after the events of the day. This necessitated a tedious trip down the back alleys, driving the sleigh on its locomotive tracks, to the park. She kept one eye trained nervously on the windows of the houses, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for why she was driving a Christmas exhibit through the back streets of town after dusk in March.

After the day's earlier exploits, they must not have found her current adventure all that peculiar or interesting. Not a soul came out to confront her. Once she'd gotten to the park, she made haste to reconfigure the steam engine's gears to the propellers she'd cobbled together and apply and activate the featherfall formulae before the constable stumbled upon her activities.

She doused the surface of the sleigh with the first bottle of featherfall. Then she pulled out a torch from her box of supplies and lit it from the lantern she'd brought along. She brushed the edges of the flames against the sides of the sleigh, like a painter putting a final coat of shellac on her work.

By the time she had heated the reindeer and the front edge of the sleigh, it was rising up from the ground. Greta suppressed a squeal of excitement and relief.

It was working!

She tossed her supplies into the sleigh, and clambered up into it. From inside, she swept the torch all around the outside and inside of the conveyance. With every pass, it floated higher and higher, till she cleared the treetops.

With a great whoop of triumph, she fired up the engine and set the propellers spinning. The sleigh shot forward, causing her to tumble over the driver's seat into the cargo area which had held Santa's enormous bag of toys. She pulled herself back up and dragged herself back into what was now the pilot's chair. Her gloved hands worked the controls, and she quickly figured out how to direct the makeshift airship, although it didn't turn with anything like precision.

After some consternation about whether to leave them behind, she'd left the clockwork reindeer attached to the sleigh, thinking they made the bizarre contraption look a bit more natural. It turned out to be a good instinct; they helped steer the thing like a forward-mounted rudder, prancing across the night sky. She rejoiced that she'd decided to activate them first. Climbing across them with the torch while hanging in midair might have been a strain on even her nerves.

Greta slowed the propellers slightly and reached under the seat for the old blankets and scarves she'd need to bundle herself up against the cold, pulling her goggles over her eyes and wrapping a scarf around her face to protect her from the bracing wind. Her workbox and the angel decorations rattled against the floorboards.

She scanned the air, looking for the landmarks and airship lightposts which would guide her way to Little Rock, where she hoped the captors had taken Kit. She was gratified to see a beacon in the distance to the south.

She would follow their trail towards the Arkansas border. Greta feared her flying sleigh could not overtake the expensive airship the old woman from the park described. She had another outrageous idea to speed her progress.

Once, when she'd been working in the lab, a particularly volatile mixture had caught fire. Jets of flame from the top of the bottle had propelled it across the room like the Chinese rockets she had seen during a fireworks display.

Dare I attempt another successful formulae in one day? Especially when the next is a controlled explosion?

Although she had far more experience creating explosions than any of the other achievements she'd accomplished today, she decided she didn't like her odds of success. She had cheated death enough times for one day. If the rockets misfired, it might destroy her air-sleigh. Kit would be lost for certain.

As she soared through the Missouri sky, she wondered who on earth could have taken him. The most obvious reason was someone needed his mechanical skills, and had seen the newspaper articles from the exposition. She agreed with the old woman from the park: anyone with a personal airship must be wealthy. At least, it implied someone with means enough to just hire a simple tinker as opposed to kidnapping him.

The abduction cast a grim light on the whole affair. Whomever was responsible either expected Kit to refuse to do whatever work was required, or didn't intend to let him walk away after it was completed.

Most likely, both.

She diverted from the glowing trail of beacons as she neared the Arkansas border. Slipping a flying Santa sleigh pulled by four copper reindeer past the border unnoticed would work better away from the main roads and airship routes. She'd make camp and sleep in the woods.

A small airship was not made for overnight travel. They'd most likely stop in the capital city of Little Rock several miles past the border, at least for the night. Even as large as the city was, it only had one sky port. She'd pick up the chase the next day.

She found an empty swath of grass in the woods near the edge of the city, and poured a bucket of water down the sides of the sleigh. It slowly dropped to the ground, landing with a jarring bump. Switching the gear configuration, she drove the sleigh into the edge of the woods, and covered it with brush and leafy branches. The shiny copper reindeer were the most difficult to hide. After a few minutes, she made a bedroll on the ground, and built a small fire.

The sound of coyotes in the distance sent a chill down her spine.

Proper young ladies were most definitely not supposed to sleep outdoors, much less alone. Her parents would be appalled if they ever found out. Hopefully, she would be able to return home before they did. As she buried herself under the blankets and stared into the flickering fire, she allowed herself to consider a possibility she hadn't earlier.

What if Kit had left willingly? What if the owner of the airship had made him an offer he wanted to accept, albeit under unusual and suspicious circumstances?

Surely he wouldn't have run off without letting her know what was going on. Of course, her parents, for all their consternation with her usual improprieties, would probably be equally certain she'd never run off alone without leaving so much as a note of explanation. And she had just insulted him terribly. Not to mention nearly gotten him killed. Again.

Maybe the airship owner had offered him a lucrative job, and he'd finally decided he'd had enough of Greta and her shenanigans. Could she really blame him?

As she drifted off to sleep, her final thought was if that was true, she was going to kill him for making her worry like this.

Chapter 8

Loose Ends

The Little Rock skyport stood like a ragged sentinel against the setting sun. The tower of iron and brass scrollwork jutted into the purple sky, ringed with platforms dotted with airships of every size and description. A vibrant patchwork of balloons and sails of every color swayed in the breeze like a field of heavy-headed wildflowers, despite the huge canvas wind breaks.

One central shaft carried the steam lift, an ingenious contraption which ferried passengers, cargo and crew from the upper platforms down to the street. Open stairwells spiraled to the ground around it, like arteries through which a stream of people and goods surged into and out of the Republic of Arkansas.

Missouri was a trade center as the gateway to the western nations. Arkansas' wealth came from an abundance of natural steam power. The early settlers had discovered the hot springs and built great steamworks to power factories. They constructed steam gardens, hothouse conservatories which grew exotic and ordinary crops year round for export to nearby republics.

Arkansas had quickly earned a reputation for luxury and excess. Little Rock was one of the most cosmopolitan cities west of the Mississippi. It lacked the patina of age and respectability New York or Boston possessed, but it made up for it with an adventurous spirit -- and a total absence of propriety.

The Aeolus docked at the skyport on one of the smaller platforms near the ground. These required greater skill to navigate, but Guthrie was a fine pilot and managed it easily. Evelyn instructed Kit to follow the pilot down to the street. He nodded, his handsome young face unreadable.

The skyport bustled as always, but this platform only held four ships. Fewer people to notice her arrivals and departures, and all of them cheap when it came to to buying silence and forgetfulness. Most of them were anxious to avoid notice themselves.

A brown-haired man of about thirty years was securing a small cargo freighter nearby. The name Whirlwind was emblazoned on the side of his battered airship in lurid orange and gold script. Evelyn thought it a peculiar name. Tornadoes were the worst thing one could encounter in the air.

"Do you have the full docking fee, Elias? Or do you think you can win it off me in another poker game?" The port manager's tone indicated a long and friendly acquaintance. He slapped the younger man on the back.

"Here it is, you old rascal. But if you're foolish enough to sit down with me for a few hands, I'll gladly take it back from you." The rough voice bespoke a man who spent his days in the open wind and his nights throwing back cheap whiskey. Evelyn sneered at the pair from the shadows of the Aeolus. She'd been hoping the platform would be empty.

A porter ran breathlessly up to Evelyn from the office. "Miss DeWinter! I'm so sorry, I must have lost you against the sky. That new paint job and balloon are a bit hazardous. Could cause a collision."

At this, the port manager and the captain of the Whirlwind turned to look their way.

She frowned at the impertinent porter. "I assure you, my captain is quite skilled enough to avoid any such thing. If your vision is so poor it impedes your duties, perhaps you should consider a new line of work." She glared down her nose at the man.

The porter stuttered an apology, and picked up the small leather trunk she'd brought on the short trip to St. Louis. As he reached for the wooden case which held her clockwork ravens, she rapped him sharply on the knuckles.

"I will carry that one."

As she paid the startled porter, she noticed the raven she'd released earlier alight in the stairwell leading down to the steam lift.

"Please take the trunk ahead. I have some business to discuss with the port manager." The porter nodded and began carting the trunk down the stairs. She stepped back onto the Aeolus, pretending to fuss with something in the gondola until the porter was out of sight.

She carried the wooden case to the stairwell and bent low, swishing her azure skirts out of the way to pick up the mechanical bird. Holding it close to her face, she pressed its wings tight against its body. A whirring and clicking emanated from the creature, followed by a hollow, wheedling voice.

"The girl knows the tinker lives. The airship was seen. Should I take care of her?"

Evelyn's face turned white. She regained her composure just before she crushed the raven in her grip. She pulled a piece of alchemical coal from the case, feeding it to the bird like a morsel of corn. She pressed its wings down again and recited another message.

"The girl is no threat. Leave her to me. Proceed to the Boreas."

Unlike the wolves, Gresham was a tool she controlled with absolute precision. Quiet and pale as death, the thin man was perfectly obedient. If a warm heart beat beneath his charcoal suit, she'd seen no evidence of it while he'd been in her employment. He was a monster, but one who seemed to relish being under the control of someone else. In short, he suited her needs precisely.

Much as he would enjoy eliminating the girl, he would do nothing without Evelyn's express permission. She released the bird, which flew north towards the invisible pull of Gresham's ring.

Just as she snapped the case closed, a shadow fell across the stairwell. The port manager and the young freighter captain stared at her.

"Do you need some assistance, ma'am? I could have sworn I heard voices." The port manager's bushy mustache twitched. He'd never seemed to like her, although, like everyone, he treated her with cautious respect.

"I'm perfectly fine. As you can see, there's no one else here."