even as the thought crossed her mind, a red indicator light on her left wing’s control bar flashed. Her air bottle was running out. With the airship now so far away, Alice had no hope of catching up. Her heart sank, and she felt sick. She was losing Gavin again, both metaphorically and physically. She would never-
No. Damn it,
“What are you doing?” yelled Glenda behind and above her. “Alice!”
But Alice ignored her. The glider shot downward with stomach-dropping speed toward the wreckage. The flames had gone out-hydrogen fires always ended quickly-but the crowd around the massive ruin remained uncertain, giving the area a wide berth. Alice brought the glider lower and, averting her eyes from a gory mess on the splintered deck, managed her first landing without losing her feet. She smelled burned wood and flesh. With shaking hands, she unbuckled the harness, flung the wings aside, and ran toward the gaping fissure that rent the deck from bow to stern. Simon landed a little ways from her.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“No time.” Alice dropped into the dim hold and landed on the chest of the brass war machine, her shoes scrabbling on the metal. It was a mechanical, somewhat similar to the one Patrick Barton had used, but much larger and more human-shaped. It had a head instead of a bubble, with vestigial eyes and even a mouth, but the top was clear glass, with a place for the controller to sit and direct it. Alice’s skilled, practiced eye ran over it, gathering instant details. In seconds, she found the switch that popped the dome open, and she lowered herself into the seat therein. Because the giant was lying on its back, Alice was consequently lying on her own back. She pulled the dome shut and looked around at the switches, dials, and pulleys. There was always a logic to this sort of thing, and her talent, the one that allowed her to understand and assemble clockworker inventions, let her see exactly how it all fit together. She pulled a lever and spun a dial. Steam hissed, and somewhere deep inside the machine’s chest, a boiler roared to life. Power boomed through the pistons, and Alice made the machine sit up. It cranked upright, shouldering aside debris with easy power.
Alice was panting with fear and worry. Every moment it took to work this out meant the clockworker was getting farther and farther away with Gavin. Under Alice’s direction, the mechanical got to its feet. Bitter-smelling coal smoke leaked from the joints, and she found herself three stories above the wreckage. Below, Simon looked up at her from the ruined deck in openmouthed surprise. Glenda swooped in for a landing of her own. Alice didn’t stop for explanations. The little airship was already dwindling in the distance, following the Thames. Alice moved her feet, and the metal giant walked. The crowd screamed and scattered. Treading carefully, Alice stepped clear of the ruins and onto the thoroughfare that went alongside the river. Then, her mouth a grim line, she started to run.
Power stormed through her, and she exulted in it. The war machine was hers now, and she would use it to set things right, to restore order. People saw her coming and scattered long before she arrived, leaving an empty street. Her feet left deep gouges in the cobblestones and gravel, and buildings rumbled in her path. In moments, she caught up to the little airship, which, being slightly above her head, obscured her vision of the deck. Alice reached upward with a hand to grab at it, but her control wasn’t perfect, and she missed. The ship bobbled in the air and tried to gain altitude, but Alice grabbed at it again. This time her fingers caught the keel. It crunched a little, and she eased off, then pulled the ship down like a child taking a model down from a shelf. If the mechanical had been human-sized, the ship would have been the size of a pair of hatboxes, and it was easy to hold. The envelope bobbed up and down like a balloon on a string.
Alice brought the deck down to eye level. Near the stern stood Gavin, his face pale and angry. He was chained by one wrist to the stern railing, and on his right shoulder was Click. The brass cat’s left claws pricked Gavin’s jugular. Click could slash deeper than any knife, and Gavin was being careful not to move. Nearby waited the grinning clockworker in his ragged coat and tall top hat. Alice’s stomach churned with fear for Gavin’s safety and hatred for the clockworker who was endangering him.
“You!” Alice said, and her voice came out through the mechanical’s mouth. “Let him go!”
The clockworker shook his head and gestured for Alice to back away.
“I won’t let you have him,” Alice said.
The clockworker drew a finger across his throat, a deadly gesture enhanced by the skull mask that covered the upper half of his face. Alice’s chest tightened.
“You won’t kill him,” Alice said. “You went through too much trouble to get him, though I have no idea. . no idea why.”
But even as she finished the sentence, Alice did know. The certainty stole over her with the clarity of a puzzle that locked together at last.
“Aunt Edwina,” she said. “You’re Aunt Edwina.”
Gavin went pale. “The Red Velvet Lady.”
The clockworker cocked his-her-head. It all made perfect sense. Only Aunt Edwina, who had built Alice’s automatons, would have a way to take control of them. Only Aunt Edwina had the apparent obsession with Gavin. Only Aunt Edwina was a clockworker who had dropped out of sight at the same time the clockworker in a skull mask had popped up in London. Now that Alice had the chance to look closely, in daylight, when the clockworker wasn’t jumping and moving around, she could see that he-she-was a tall, thin woman rather than a short, slender man. The male clothing, hat, and mask were a simple but effective disguise. People saw a man’s outfit and assumed the wearer was male. Alice herself had benefited from this on the trip back from capturing Patrick Barton. The world spun, and Alice clutched the mechanical’s controls. There would be time for hysterics later. Right now, she had other issues to deal with.
She had intended to tell Edwina to let Gavin go again, but instead she blurted out, “Why, Aunt Edwina? Why kidnap Gavin and fake your death and destroy your house and start these rampages over London? What are you
The clockworker made a gesture, and Click’s claws moved. Gavin made a noise, and a thin trickle of blood oozed down his neck.
“Stop!” Alice cried. She had forgotten that, aunt or no aunt, clockworkers were still insane. “Aunt Edwina, don’t! I’ll let the ship go. Just don’t hurt Gavin.”
“No!” Gavin croaked. “I won’t be a prisoner again.”
“It’ll be all right, Gavin. But first-Click, give me your left forepaw, please.”
There was a moment, and then Click’s left forepaw dropped away, just as it had when Alice had given the same command in Edwina’s tower. Gavin reacted. He ripped Click off his shoulder and threw him at the clockworker. Caught off guard, Edwina took the brass cat full in the midriff. She stumbled backward, then dived over the gunwale. Gavin yelled. Alice shrieked, her voice amplified by the mechanical. Then the clockworker rose up, supported by four madly spinning whirligigs, so tiny against their giant brother. She snapped her fingers, and three of the whirligigs sang a note, the same notes Alice remembered the clockworker playing at the Bank of England. Edwina snapped her fingers again, and the notes played a second time. Then she touched the brim of her hat and the whirligigs sped her away.
“Why the notes?” Alice said.
“Who cares?” Gavin snarled. “Why does she keep kidnapping me? Is it the way I dress? Do I smell good?”
She needed to keep moving. Whatever happened, she needed to keep moving. If she stopped, the hysterics would take over. Alice extended the mechanical’s free arm to the deck and checked the controls. Certain the mechanical would stay frozen in place and hold the airship steady, she released herself from the chair and made her way carefully along the arm until she was able to swing herself onto the deck. Click limped over to greet her, freed of whatever influence Edwina had put on him. Alice patted his head, took up his missing paw, and popped the claws out. One of them had a lockpick on it. She used it to work at the cuff chaining Gavin’s wrist to the rail without meeting his eye, though she felt his body heat and smelled sweat and leather. He didn’t comment, either, but his breath came in her ear. At last the lock came free. He rubbed his wrist as Alice replaced Click’s paw.
“Thanks,” he said. “I think we’re gathering a crowd down below.”
She straightened, Click at her feet. “No doubt.”
“So.” Gavin shifted his weight. “Your aunt Edwina.”
“Yes.”
They stood in silence, looking at each other high above the ground. A sudden exhilaration swept Alice. It came to her that she had defeated a genius, a clockworker, and more than once. Up here, with Gavin and the Third Ward, all that mattered was what she could do, not who she was. Up here, she was free.
