The Doomsday Vault

“Yes.” Gavin glanced in their direction. Simon was towing a stormy-faced Norbert toward the men’s room with Kemp bringing up the rear. “He made a sacrifice, and I need to use it.”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

Heedless of the crowd, he took Alice’s elbow and walked her toward the main door. “Walk with me.”

“I’m still engaged, Mr. Ennock, and I’m-”

“We’re just talking, and we’re in public. It’s not unseemly. Come on.” And then they were outside on the front steps of the theater. Concertgoers moved in and out, exchanging the stuffiness of the hall for the cool damp of the outdoors. Alice stood just inside a pool of light cast by a streetlamp, the golden light casting her mourning clothes into sharp relief, while Gavin stood in darkness, where his hair and shirt shone silver. Gavin rehearsed what he would say, formed every poetic word in his mind.

“What are we talking about, Mr. Ennock?” Alice asked, her voice soft as earth.

And all the words left Gavin, as if the darkness had chased them away. The silence stretched long and dank between them, and suddenly he said, “I’ve been studying music frequencies with Doctor Clef.”

Alice stared at him. “That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“He’s the one who discovered that every note has its own unique frequency based on the number of times the sound waves cycle per second.” Gavin was babbling now, and he couldn’t stop. “I have perfect pitch, so he’s been training me to recognize different notes by their frequencies, even though pitch and frequency aren’t exactly the same, since pitch is subjective and frequency is absolute, but Doctor Clef says perfect pitch is more correctly called absolute pitch, so maybe they’re more closely related than anyone knows.”

Alice drew back. “Gavin, what are you talking about?”

“Frequency. Weren’t you listening? Every note can be expressed as a number, a frequency. Middle C is two hundred sixty-one point six three, and if you add those digits together, you get eighteen, and if you add those digits together, you get nine.”

“Is that important?”

“I don’t know,” Gavin said helplessly. Stupid, unrelated words poured out of him, and still he couldn’t stop. “Numbers are the key to everything, Alice, even to musical notes.”

Alice stared at him. “Say that again.”

“Numbers are the key to everything, even to musical notes.”

“Musical notes. Why the musical notes?” Her face suddenly grew animated. “The key. The key to musical notes!” Now she was babbling. “Gavin, tell me-do you remember the notes Aunt Edwina played on that strange instrument just before she ran away from us at the bank? Didn’t she also make my automatons play the same notes on the airship?”

“I remember everything,” he said, and it was true. “And yes, they were the same notes both times.”

“She was trying to tell us something with them. What were those notes?”

“G-sharp, B, a rest, and a D.”

“And what frequency did each of those notes have?”

“The G had a frequency of fifty-one; the B had a frequency of thirty; the rest had a frequency of zero; and the D had a frequency of nine-so low you could barely hear it.”

The excitement on her face became plainer. “Say those numbers again.”

“Fifty-one and thirty, zero, and nine.”

“Oh!” Alice put a hand to her mouth again. “Oh, Gavin! I know what’s going on! I know where Aunt Edwina is hiding! I know, Gavin! Or, rather, I can find out!”

At last, the insane babble left him, and he seized her right hand in both of his. “Then come with me, Alice. Come with me to the Third Ward. They still want you. I still want you.”

“I can’t, Gavin.” Her face was flushed in the yellow gaslight. “I can’t just rush off with you, however much I might have wanted to. I thought I had learned what I needed to leave, but then my father passed away, and everything changed. If you hit an automaton just right, Gavin, its memory wheels reset, and it loses everything it learned. Father’s passing hit me very hard.”

“So we’re back to appearances again.” He swallowed. “Who are you preserving appearances for, Alice?”

“Everyone!” Alice protested. “Gavin, you have this idea that anyone can just fly off and do whatever he wants. But I have a traditional title now and the traditional responsibilities that come with it. I have to have a legitimate child to pass the title down to, or the title will die. And Norbert paid off thousands of pounds of debt for me-”

“For your father,” Gavin corrected.

“It’s much the same. He paid for Father’s funeral, too. And I have a responsibility to Norbert in return. We keep up appearances in order to fulfill those responsibilities to each other. You think that changing everything would be so simple, so easy, but it isn’t, Gavin. People are complicated. Relationships are complicated, and you don’t seem to understand that. We don’t always get what we want.”

“It doesn’t stop us from trying to get it,” Gavin countered. “And it doesn’t mean we should give up.” He shifted tactics. “What about your responsibility to the Crown? To the people of the British Empire? Your aunt killed dozens of men, and if you know where she’s hiding, you have a responsibility to find her and save other lives.”

“And this responsibility just happens to coincide with what you want.”

“Is that wrong? For once can’t the world work for us?”

“Oh, Gavin.” Tears welled up in her brown eyes, but her hand remained within both of Gavin’s. “You are so young.”

“And you act so old. So what? Your whole life you’ve followed logic and reason, rules and regulations, but you’re not an automaton. Close your eyes and jump. I’ll catch you and we’ll fly. I love you, Alice. It’s always been you.”

The electric lights over the theater doors flashed three times, indicating intermission was over. Most of the crowd had already drifted inside, leaving them nearly alone on the damp sidewalk. Norbert appeared in the doorway, a pinkish stain on his dress shirt. Behind him, Kemp tried to get through, but Norbert resolutely blocked his way.

“Alice?” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

Alice slipped her hand out of Gavin’s and turned toward him. “Getting some air, darling. I’m on my way in.”

“Come with me,” Gavin whispered. “Tell me how to find your aunt.”

She paused, caught between the two of them. She licked her lips. Gavin forced himself to remain still. Norbert glanced impatiently at a pocket watch.

“Alice,” he said, “we won’t be able to find our seats in the dark.”

“Madam?” Kemp said. “What do you wish to do?”

Alice glanced at Gavin, and he knew her answer. An icy shell crushed his heart as she turned toward Norbert. Abruptly she spun back and said, “I’ll send you a telegram about what I know.” Then she was up the steps and through the doorway with her fiance. Kemp gave Gavin a short glance with his expressionless eyes and shut the theater door.

Gavin sank to the bottom step, heedless of the damp and dirt. Every scar on his back ached, and they pulled him down like taut chains. He drew the little nightingale from his pocket and pressed the side of its head so it sang. The mechanical notes sounded dull as a pile of lead shot. Gavin silently swore he would never sing or play the fiddle again, not in a world where Alice would never hear him.

The theater doors banged open. Alice burst through them and rushed down to Gavin. He leapt to his feet just as she flung herself into his arms.

“I’m an idiot,” she whispered in his ear. “To hell with Norbert. It’s always been you, too.”

And then she was kissing him. Gavin pulled her to him and tightened his arms around her. His aches vanished and his heart soared. They joined hands and fled through the dark.

Gavin didn’t even remember how they got back to Ward headquarters or when Kemp caught up to them. He only knew he was running up the steps to the main doors of the house, and it felt as if his feet barely touched the ground. A breathless Alice ran beside him, her eyes bright. He stopped in the doorway to kiss her again. She kissed back, and he wanted to shout and laugh even while his body pressed hard against hers.

“Mr. Ennock!” she gasped when they parted. “One doesn’t kiss a baroness like that!”

“One doesn’t?” he said with a wide grin.