The dock was attached to one of the houses on Watering Street by a set of narrow wooden stairs. When I stopped shaking, I forced the door, then carried Emily upstairs. It was a nice house.
I lay Emily on a couch in the drawing room, then found bandages and a ready-pack poultice in a pantry by the kitchen. I cut away her shirt and dressed the wound as well as I could. There was a thin hole, front and back. It was plugged with matte gray pewter, the flashing flaking off onto her skin. The bullet had gone through. Her survival was a matter of blood loss and the abuse of our trip out of the Church. I wasn’t sure what effect Camilla’s foetal metal had on the wound, but it seemed to have stabilized her. I covered her in a flannel blanket I found in the great bedroom on the main level. There were no sounds in the house, other than my frantic rushing around and the occasional tight sigh from Emily. Once she was settled, I searched the place to make sure we were alone.
There was a child’s room on the second floor, shelves of wooden toys, dusty. The linen closet smelled like mildew. The bed in the master was made, but there was none of the detritus associated with daily life. The picture frames that lined the hallway were empty, and I found scraps of old photos in the ashes of the den fireplace. I felt confident we wouldn’t be disturbed. I went back to check on Emily.
She was pale and cold, but still breathing. Shallow. I slipped my hand behind her neck, adjusted the pillow. She mumbled, but didn’t wake up. I checked the curtains, the doors, all the windows. Emily again, still breathing, still pale as death.
The wine stocks were kept in a dry storage off the kitchen. I got a bottle and a corkscrew, along with a dusty glass that I washed out in the tepid water of the sink. Walking back to the drawing room, I stopped by the door to the private dock below. I had cracked the frame. I tilted the door open and listened. I heard water, the messy slap of waves on wood planking, creaking rope. It smelled like a drowned dog. I closed the door as best I could and shoved a bookcase up against it.
The wine was good. A ’14 Sauvignon, vintner from the Brumblebacks across the Ebd. An expensive pour, and I was drinking it out of a greasy water glass in an empty house. Wax from the cork flaked into the glass when I poured, but I didn’t mind. I pulled up a stool and sat by Emily, drinking and watching her and waiting. I didn’t know what I was waiting for.
Her breathing seemed to even out. Her lips were slightly parted, a little teeth and tongue showing between. I wiped the last of the metal dribble away with a rag soaked in the sauvignon. She sighed, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Hey,” she whispered. “Good wine.”
“Nothing but the best.” I put the bottle down and brushed her hair from her eyes. “How are you feeling?”
She cleared her throat and nodded to the bottle. I went to the kitchen and got a shallow bowl. She drank carefully while I held the wine to her lips.
“Were you trying to drown me?” Her voice was dry, and she dropped half the words, but I understood. “I’m just asking, because I feel that may have been part of your plan.”
“You feel that way, huh?” I grinned.
“Purely an observation, Jacob.”
“Right. So you’re feeling better.”
“I feel like I was shot, held underwater and then dragged through sewage.”
“You forgot the wine,” I said, sloshing the bottle.
“Right. All that, plus wine. Amends made.”
“It is a very good wine.”
She struggled to sit up, but gave up and settled into the couch again. She licked her lips and closed her eyes.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Yeah. I don’t know how to explain it.” I looked over at her and drank a little wine. “What do you remember?”
“A girl, tied up and half gone. Like some kind of experiment.”
I nodded. She was breathing slowly, her heart rate slowing down. I thought she was almost asleep when she stirred.
“So what was it?”
“Some kind of legend,” I said. “Forget it. It was a dream. We’ll talk about it later.”
“Later. Okay.” Several long, slow breaths. “Where’s Wilson?”
“I haven’t gone for him, yet. I didn’t want to move you, or leave you here. I dressed the wound. We’ll get to him, when you’re well enough to move.” I put down the bottle and leaned closer. There was fresh blood on her shirt. “I think you’re bleeding again.”
“Okay,” she said.
I adjusted the bandage, carefully folding her shirt over her breasts. The wound was gummy, a little red seeping at the edges. The plug of metal had worked loose. I plucked at it, and saw cogwork churning underneath. I grimaced, then tightened the cloth, added more gauze, returned the shirt.
“That should hold. No polo for a few days, okay? Em?”
Her lips were parted, her breath deep and even. I crept back to the kitchen and cobbled together a meal of stale bread and traveler’s stock in a can. I set up at the writer’s desk in the drawing room, a muted candle by my side so I could see her as night fell outside.
Her face was a warm moon, floating in the night. I watched her while I ate, and listened to the city outside.
I met Emily before. Before everything, before the shit happened. I met Emily while I was still at the Academy. I just didn’t know her yet.
We were in the habit, the boys of Twelfth Cadre and I, of getting well-deep drunk on Friday nights after field exercises. It was our only free night. Technically, the sainted elect of the Pilot’s Cadres had every night off. We were the nobility, after all. But practically, between the daily drills, classwork and recovery from the layers of surgery, we didn’t have even minutes to commit to leisure most nights. An accident of scheduling gave us Fridays. Most of those nights were a drunken blur, time spent unwinding. I didn’t even remember most of them. I remember this night, though.
I was recovering from the final round of the Engine surgeries. They staggered our recovery times, so that most of us made all the classes. It was the responsibility of the healthy to help the invalid, so they didn’t lose class time. I spent the week in my barrack, trying to decipher Hammett’s notes. Scribbles. But I passed all the tests, the examinations. I was cleared to fly. Tomorrow. I remember. It was my last night as a Pilot.
We went to the Faulty Tooth, our usual place. I felt good. A week in bed on a diet of cereal and water meant I got drunk easy and hard. The night started well for me. Plenty of girls, and they all liked the uniform. Common girls, girls whose fathers I didn’t know. My kind of girls.
Emily was working. I didn’t know. I suppose it would have mattered to me, at the time. It would have bothered me in different ways than it does now.
She stood by the bar; we had a booth. Girls circulated, laughing, holding hands. Drinking things we bought them. She was gorgeous and stood apart. She talked to various men, and seemed familiar with the barkeep. I hadn’t seen her before.
When the time came, when I felt it was right, I went to the bar. Pretended to be impatient for the wench to make her rounds back to us. I stood beside her and placed my order, then stretched and, as casually as a butcher laying out the prize pig, struck the best pose I knew. She smiled, but not the way I intended.
“Nice pants,” she said.
“Thank… uh. They’re just part of the uniform.” I flicked the cuff clasps. “Pilot Cadre.”
“Mm.” She drank some wine. “Well, they’re kind to you. Big night?”
“Oh, you know.” I rolled my hand to the boys, who were staring at us while they pretended to ignore us. “Just getting out.”
“Living the big life, huh.” She wasn’t quite dismissive. I didn’t think. I couldn’t tell if she was making fun of me or just had a very peculiar way of showing interest. “They let you prizes go anywhere?”
“Hey, we go to the sky. The sky goes everywhere.”
She laughed and covered it with a drink of wine. I thought it was a good line. I looked back at the boys. Their attention was absolute.
“Look,” she said. “You’re a nice kid. And the Corps will be good to you. Stay with it.’
“It’s not a slag job, you know.” I gathered up the drinks I’d ordered. “Tough work. Keeping the skies safe for citizens like you.” I went back to the boys. They were unbearable.
I drank the rest of the night quickly. When she left I made some excuses and followed.
It almost felt staged. I was so fucking angry. There was a light mist, gray streamers drifting across the cobbles, the street rain slick and blurry behind the beer in my blood. She was well ahead of me when I came out. She went around a corner and I followed quickly, fists in my pocket. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just wanted to talk, to make her see. She needed to see that I was someone worth paying attention to. She would see.
The night tightened into a narrow, drunken tunnel. Someone slipped out of an alley, near where she had just disappeared. He was closer to her, and faster. Seconds after he slipped around the corner there was a scream. I ran.
I wasn’t fast enough to save him. Which wasn’t what I was expecting.
She stood in front of him, her dress ruffled, her hands around a long thin blade. He was against the wall. Some of him was on the pavement, leaking into the drain. She dropped him and looked over at me.
She was breathing heavily, her careful hair coming out of its tress. I looked down at the blood on her fingers. She tossed the blade onto the steaming body, then wiped her hands on his coat. She took a bag from his pocket and hid it in her dress.
“Were you… did he try to…” I stammered drunkenly.
“Either way, are you going to turn me in, Pilot?” She lowered her head, staring at me like a predator. I took a step back. “We don’t all need heroes, friend.”
I didn’t know what to say. She left me there, to explain the pilfered body to the Badge that was just about to come around the corner.
There might be a fever. I kept checking, but it was hard to tell. Her face was still very pale, but she breathed evenly. I prepared a small meal, best I could do in this weird house. She ate some and then fell asleep almost immediately. I tried to make her comfortable, but it was hard to tell if I was doing any good.
While she was out I changed the bandage. I was probably doing that too often, but I didn’t know what else to do. I folded her shirt carefully, kept it as decent as possible. The tiny hole in her chest was still bleeding, soaking into the gauze in a startlingly brilliant crimson. I didn’t know if that was normal, or if I should be concerned. I didn’t know what Camilla’s newborn machine was doing inside her, how it was remaking her. I couldn’t see any visible changes on the outside. There were usually changes.
I needed to go get Wilson. Medicine wasn’t something I did. Generally, I did the thing that necessitated medicine. The precursor. Wilson would know what to do, even if there was nothing to be done.
I soaked a rag in cold water and put it on her forehead. That didn’t look right, so I folded it and put it behind her neck. She squirmed and started coughing. The rag went back into the sink.
Wilson would know. I crouched by the front window and peered carefully out into the street. Not much traffic. Night was ending, the first hammered silver light crowding into the overcast. If I was going to do it, I needed to get at it, before morning brought the crowds back to the street. Just an hour, and not even that. I looked back at her. So pale. I checked for fever again. Coughs tore through her chest, upset her carefully draped shirt. I put it back, then got another bottle of wine from the pantry. Morning filled the room slowly, lining her face in pewter light.
Wilson would know. But Wilson would have to wait.
It was two years. I had enough on my mind during that time to forget Emily. But when I saw her, standing across the bar and smiling… it came back.
Different bar, different district. Different friends. And the pistol I had strapped to my leg wasn’t part of some uniform, nothing ceremonial or exquisite about it. Things had changed for Jacob Burn. But she was still there, still brilliant. I stood up, to go talk to her.
“Wouldn’t,” Matthus said, his hand lightly on my elbow. He glanced at me, then at Emily. “Cacher’s girl, one of Valentine’s people. I wouldn’t.”
The rest of the table looked. One of them said. “Yeah, I know her. Whore. No harm in it, Jacob.”
“She’s not working tonight. Doesn’t pick up men in bars.” Matthus snorted into his beer. “Her clientele make appointments. Not the like of you, son.”
“Then what’s she doing here?” I asked. “Alone. If Cacher cares for her so much.”
“Girl can’t get a drink?”
“This isn’t a safe district, Math. Bad people about.” The table had a chuckle at that. Bad people. I had a sudden flash of her standing over her attacker, the memory rolling through me, the blood on that blade, the look in her eye.
“It’s your funeral, mate.” Matthus said, then wrote me off. Kind of friends I had.
I went to her, my table snickering and being generally bad people. Old noble Jacob, talking to the ladies. Forgotten who he was, or more accurately, who he was no longer. A good laugh, for the crew.
She seemed amused to see me coming. One look, then her eyes were on the bar in front of her, the slightest smile on her face.
“Buy a girl a drink?” I asked. She looked at me, no hint of that smile evident.
“Girls have money too, you know.”
I shrugged. She turned to the barkeep. “Castle Crest on the rocks, compliments of the gentleman in the dull gray coat.” I winced. Crest was expensive stuff. My dad drank Crest, after a good vote in the Council. We sat in silence while the ‘keep poured into his cleanest glass, the ice cracking under the slow amber liquid. She drank it quickly.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
I clattered my empty glass at the barkeep and he refilled it, with less care and flourish. More foam than brew. We stood there in silence again. She started to turn away.
“You could at least talk to me,” I hissed, so the crew couldn’t hear me. “That’s the least you could do for my coin. Don’t make the fool of me like that.”
She turned back. Her eyes were cold as stone.
“I hadn’t realized this was a transaction. Is that what your mates told you? That I have a slot,” she spat. “You can put coins in it?”
“I… godsdamn it. No, that’s not what I meant.” I flushed and busied myself drinking my warm beer. I spilled a little and had to wipe it on my sleeve. “It’s not at all what I meant.”
“Then what, exactly, did you mean?”
I stared off behind the bar. The bottles back there were dusty. A painting hung above, a copy of a copy of a masterpiece I had seen hanging in the artist’s studio when I was a child.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” I asked without looking at her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her toying with her glass. She signaled the barkeep, waved off another pour of the Crest and pointed to something a little less elegant.
“I do, actually.” She looked at me, a brief flash of eyes, a smile. Her voice was quiet. “I wouldn’t, honestly, not if you hadn’t had such a spectacularly bad day the following.”
I grunted and drank. The people who remembered me usually remembered me for that day. Those who forgot me, too.
“I’ve often wondered, you know. What happened to that boy I met? The one who fell from the sky.”
I turned to her, remembering the ridiculous pose that I’d struck on the night. I looked down at myself, the drab clothes, the stained sleeve. The only thing about my appearance that was in order was the pistol, oiled and black.
“Looks like he kept falling,” she said.
I turned away, signaled for another beer.
“I’ve kept myself,” I said. “Troubles, but I’ve kept myself together. I don’t need sympathy.”
“That’s good. Sympathy’s not something I do well. We’ve all had bad times. Just because your childhood was one of privilege and potential, that doesn’t make your days any tougher than mine.”
“If you say.”
“Two ways to go, Jacob.” She drank her cheap bourbon slowly, wincing as she ran it around her mouth. “People who have trouble like yours can go two ways. They can get all morose and indignant, and crumble under the weight of their own tragedy. Or,” she whispered as she turned to face the bar. “They can adjust. Get stronger. Help themselves. Stand up for themselves. They become one of those two people. Strong or dead.”
“Which one of those people takes advice from whores in bars?” I asked.
She smiled, thin and tight. Her hands were twisted around her glass.
“Let’s say I don’t pound you for that, Jacob. Just this once. Those your friends?” she asked, nodding to my table.
I looked over. A rough bunch, all cheap coats and pilfered finery that was mismatched and smudged. I remembered that Marcus was there. He was looking at me kind of nervously. At the time it didn’t register. People were nervous around me, around my pewter eyes.
“That’s them.”
“Do you have any other friends?” she asked. I shook my head. “Really? From the Academy, the Council? All those years growing up, you didn’t make one friend.”
“They don’t talk to me anymore.”
“Dressed like that, it’s no surprise. And you don’t seek them out, do you?” She put her back to the bar and leaned on her elbows, looking out over the smoky vista of the room. “It’s safer down here, isn’t it? Folks like this, they don’t expect much of their friends. It’s hard to disappoint them.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re saying, lady.”
She laughed. “I think I do. What drove you down here? Honestly. What puts a boy like you in a place like this? And don’t tell me cursed fate or your father.” She took a drink and winced. “People make choices. People stand up to them.”
“Pretty smart for a whore.”
“You keep saying that. You think it’s clever. I’m getting tired of it,” Drink, wince. “Not because it hurts for you to know my true nature. Not because you’ve shamed me. I’m getting tired of how clumsy it is. I really thought more of you. Thought you’d be better at this.”
I was quiet. I didn’t like the rocks she was flipping over, the scabs she was poking. It had taken me a while to get here, to drag myself up from the shit my life had become. I wouldn’t say I was happy, but I was content.
“What’re you getting at?”
“You think your old friends would talk to you again? If we got you cleaned up. Maybe buy you a pair of those smart pants that suit you so well. Could you mingle in those circles again?”
I looked at her harshly. She was smiling. She turned her face at me and winked.
“There are some people I know, Jacob. Friends. They’d like to have a friend in those circles.”
“I’m not that friend.” I shook my head, indicated the filthy bar. “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t walk in those circles anymore.”
“By choice,” she said. I started to protest, but she put a hand on my wrist. Fire rushed through me. “I know. You’ll say you were forced out. Shunned. But that’s just you, letting yourself collapse.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said.
“Nothing is. But I think, if we give you some money, a place to stay, a chance to clean up, that you’d be surprised how many of your old friends would come calling.”
“I don’t think so. Not the people I knew.”
“Well. You’re no longer the friend they knew, either. You’re something else. Something dangerous. And people in those circles, they like to have dangerous friends.”
“Maybe.”
“Believe me. I know.” She flashed a devious smile, almost angry. “The beautiful people like to have dangerous fucking friends.”
I looked back at my table, and the drunks and the criminals I’d spent the last two years around.
“What would I do?”
“Favors,” she said. “That’s how this whole thing works. Favors and friends.”
I nodded. Emily smiled, then hooked her arm around my elbow.
“Pay up, then let’s go see someone. A good friend. A particularly dangerous friend.”
“Who?”
“A man by the name of Valentine.”
My bones went cold, but I nodded and she led me out.
I woke up, startled, then stood. My chair clattered back, banging against the desk before spinning to the hardwood floor. Emily was looking at me, her eyes half-open.
“Dreaming?” she asked. Her voice was dry and harsh. I went to get some water, awkwardly aware of my rapidly softening erection. I ran my hands under the cold water from the tap, then brought Emily her glass.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think so.”
Emily pulled herself into a sitting position, wincing once then not putting any pressure on her injured arm. She drank some water.
“Anything good? Your dream?”
I shook my head, took the empty glass and set it on the desk.
“Are you feeling hungry?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She rubbed her eyes with one hand, then looked around the room. “Are we safe here?”
“No. Not completely. The owners could come back, or a neighbor could get curious and report us. But that hasn’t happened yet.” I went into the kitchen, wrapped some cold cured bacon into a roll and went back into the dining room. She was staring out the window. “Eat this.”
She took the sandwich and dutifully consumed it one mechanical bite at a time. When she was done I gave her more water, cut with what was left of the wine.
“Thanks,” she said, wiping her hands on the priceless virgin calfskin divan. “I owe you.”
“Probably not,” I said. “Just friends doing favors.”
She smiled.
“Is this how you think of this, Jacob? That I’m just a friend, doing you a favor, helping out with this problem of yours?”
I shrugged and turned away, busying myself with the plate and empty water glass. She gathered the blanket up under her breasts and leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
“Well,” she said, quietly, “I’m still grateful.”
I took the dishes back to the kitchen and put them into the sink. When I came back she was still staring at the ceiling.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Still shot. But better. What about you?”
I hadn’t thought about it. My ribs ached, and I realized there was a crushing pressure around my head. “I’m fine. Have you heard, Wilson says I can’t be killed.”
I ran my hand over her forehead. Her skin was cool and slightly moist. Her hair fell across her face, so I pushed it aside with one finger. She looked up at me with those watery brown eyes that hinted at red and gold.
“Jacob. Uh.” She bit her lip and looked over my shoulder. “I’m really sorry.”
“For getting shot?” I sat on the couch. “Yeah, I’m pretty sore at you for that. Inconsiderate.”
“No, no.” She put her hand on my chest, rubbed my collar between finger and thumb. “This whole thing. It’s such a complicated situation, and I’m sorry you’re having to go through it. I almost feel like, if I hadn’t sent you to the Heights, none of this would have happened.”
“Nah. That thing would have just come for me in the city. Maybe come for you, too. It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe. Still, I feel bad. And the last few years, Jacob. I know it’s been difficult for you.”
“What? Being thrown out of my wealthy family, living as a bandit? Nothing to it. And I’ve met some interesting people, at least.”
She laughed, then winced and deflated.
“Take it easy, Em. You’re not-”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean, I know it’s been difficult for you. With me, and Cacher.”
“Oh.” I straightened up. “Well, I mean. Yeah.”
“Yeah. It’s just a tough thing, Jacob. Cacher’s an important guy, and I need him. Him and Valentine, both.”
“I know.” I started to stand up. “Maybe you should try to get some more sleep. I can go get Wilson, probably.”
She pulled me back down.
“Listen to me. Okay? For one second, brush off your wounded pride and your goddamn pathos and just listen. It’s been tough for me, too. What I do isn’t glamorous, or even pleasant. But it’s what I have to do, and you know it. And without Cacher, it would have been a whole lot harder. I couldn’t risk that, losing that protection. No matter how I felt.”
I sat looking at her for a minute. She seemed genuinely sorry. Though that might have just been the blood loss talking.
“Well, I mean.” I scratched my hand. “You could have given me discount, at least.”
Emily moaned.
“You’re such an asshole, sometimes. Such a damn asshole.”
She grabbed my collar with her one good arm and pulled me down. Our lips met, teeth clicking, and then I was buried in warmth and softness. She tasted like… nothing I knew. She tasted perfect.
When I sat up she was crying, and there was fresh blood on her shirt.
“Maybe next time don’t lean on me like that.”
“Oh, shit, Em, I’m sorry. Damn it.” I stood up quickly and got more bandages and a clean alcohol swab. When I came back into the room she was leaning up on her good arm. “Lie back and let me-”
“Shut up,” she hissed. I stopped. There was a clatter on the front sidewalk, like someone spilling coins.
We stayed perfectly still, staring at the door. The sound came again, closer. I dropped the bandages and went for my gun. It was still gone.
“Can you walk?” I whispered.
“Maybe.” She was already sitting up, her legs tossed sluggishly over the edge of the couch, feet on the ground. She leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. “Maybe.”
I gave her my arm. Together we got her upright and began to shuffle to the hallway.
“We’ll hide downstairs, on the dock,” I said. “I’ll swim. There are other docks nearby, have to be. One of them must have a boat.”
“And if they come downstairs?” she asked, her teeth grinding. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight.
“Then I’ll perform a heroic rescue. That might be better, actually. I’ve always favored the idea of heroism.”
“Looking forward to that,” she said, little laughs escaping around the pain.
The front door burst open. There was a machine. It was a twisted array of pipes, crudely bolted together and animated by a set of arms and legs of rough artifice. It stumbled into the room. A valve clapped open and emitted a low moan. Its voice sounded like a pipe organ channeling a hurricane.
“Jacob godsdamned Burn, don’t you let them keep me like this. For mercy’s sake, you kill me, you fucking horrible bastard. You fucking kill me again.”
Emily slumped against me, gaping. I nearly dropped her. I knew that voice, twisted as it was through metal.
“Marcus?”
“Oh, hell.” Emily buried her face in my shoulder.
“Marcus, indeed. Good boy, Marcus,” Sloane said as he walked through the door. He reached down and banged a lever on the thing’s back. The machine that spoke with Marcus’ voice clattered to the floor.
“Now. Stand still.” He pointed a pistol at us. Dozens of Badgemen flowed in behind him. “We need to have a chat, Jacob Burn.”