“Especially over opium,” Feng said.

Jun shot him a hard look. “At any rate, our empires are locked in a continual game of ma que. Do you know the game?”

“I’ve only recently learned of it,” Alice said.

“It’s the best game in the world,” Feng said. “Father and I play against the Queen and the Prince Consort all the time. We let them win when Father wants something.”

“Does it work?” Gavin asked.

Feng nodded. “Usually.”

“What does ma que have to do with clockworkers?” Alice interjected.

Jun said, “The players draw ivory tiles of varying value and power, which they meld until a winner becomes clear. The Dragon Men and clockworkers are powerful, random tiles in our little game. They appear when they wish, helping out one player and then the other, but they balance out both sides in the long run.”

The world swirled dizzily for a moment. The solution hung there in front of Alice like ripe fruit, and she knew.

“Balance out,” she echoed. “Good heavens. Dear Lord. Ambassador, thank you for seeing us, but we have to go.”

“What?” Feng said. “I want to know my friend better.”

“Later.” Alice was already on her feet, which forced the men to rise. “Gavin, we have to leave. Now.”

Jun Lung caught Gavin’s arm. “My son may have repaid you the favor you did, but I have not. Honor still binds me to you, and I hope to see you again, young sir.”

With that, they left. Down in the lobby, Gavin turned to Alice. “What was that all about?”

“I understand what’s happening with Aunt Edwina and Lieutenant Phipps,” she said. “And I want a damned stiff drink before I tell you about it.”

A bit later, they were sitting at a corner table in a pub. Gavin had a Guinness at his elbow, and Alice had a very bad glass of wine. She gulped it down without tasting it, and her hands were shaking as she signaled for another.

“Tell me,” Gavin said worriedly, “before you get too drunk to talk.”

“It’s all about balance.” Alice leaned across the table, hardly able to believe she was saying these words, but knowing they were true nonetheless. “The Third Ward wants to lock Edwina up because the Crown wants to make sure her cure never, ever gets used.”

“What?” Gavin folded his arms. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? Ambassador Lung reminded us how delicate the balance is between China and England. Little conflicts flare up between us, but never quite escalate into an all-out war. We both trade. We make and break treaties. We negotiate. Why? Because both sides collect clockworkers who build little toys. Both sides have the same technological advantage. What would happen if England released Aunt Edwina’s cure?”

“Countless plague victims would recover?”

“Unimportant,” Alice said, “from the British Empire’s point of view. The plague would stop creating clockworkers. Once the current ones went mad and died, we’d have none. An end to clockworkers means an end to world-bending inventions for England, and that means China would become the most powerful empire in the world.”

“The cure would get to China,” Gavin countered. “Their clockworker supply would dry up, too.”

“The cure would take quite a while to spread to China,” Alice said. “Months, even years. That’s all it would take for China to pull ahead, potentially forever. The Crown won’t risk that. So they’re suppressing Aunt Edwina’s cure.”

“And condemning thousands to a slow, terrible death,” Gavin finished softly. His Guinness remained untouched. “That’s terrible.”

“Do you believe it?” Alice half hoped he would say she was mad, that he would find some flaw in her theory to prove it wrong, but he only rubbed his palms over his face and sighed.

“I believe it completely.”

Alice felt proud of her deduction and absolutely wretched about it at the same time. Gavin reached across the table and took her hand. The gesture made her feel slightly better.

The pub door opened, and Feng slipped in. Ignoring the stares of the other patrons, he dropped into a chair next to Gavin and signaled for a drink. “Found you,” he said in his uneven English. “I will not lose you again.”

Gavin shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me, Feng, but I’m not-”

“I have no friends here,” Feng blurted out. “Everyone looks at me; they see a Chinese man. They see a curiosity. They see a son of the ambassador, grandnephew of the emperor. My father wants me to learn diplomacy, and I try and try, but I’m no damned good at it. If I sneak out to do something fun, it gets me into trouble.”

“By fun, you mean women?” Gavin said shrewdly.

“Many times,” Feng replied with an unabashed grin. “They think Chinese boys will show them something different. They say there are many things English boys will not do.”

“Mr. Lung!” Alice said. “Perhaps this is a conversation you and Mr. Ennock could finish later.”

“You see?” Feng said. “This is why I am a bad diplomat.”

“Your English is very good,” Gavin said kindly.

“I gave you the nightingale because it is meant to carry messages to secret lovers,” Feng told him.

“Now look-”

“No, no.” Feng laughed. “Boys like you do not please me.”

“But others boys do?” Alice couldn’t help asking.

“Why not?” He leaned forward. “Have you ever tried them, Gavin?”

“No!”

“Then how do you know-”

“Mr. Lung,” Alice put in, “what is your point?”

“The nightingale remembers who held it last and will fly to that person. You can put your voice in it and let it fly away. Then it will return with another message. We can use it to communicate, too, as friends. I had no chance to explain it to you, but I hoped you would figure it out.” His Guinness arrived, and he drained it quickly. “I should go, before Father becomes angry again. Good-bye, my friends.”

And he was gone.

Chapter Eighteen

“It is finished!” Dr. Clef pushed his goggles onto his high forehead and gave Gavin a wide smile. One of his eyeteeth was missing. “Can you believe? The most difficult thing I have ever created!”

Gavin put out a finger to touch the cube on Dr. Clef’s worktable. The cube was the size of a shoebox and made of a frame of thin beams. And it twisted. The edges crossed one another in impossible ways, with the front going behind the back, or the back coming before the front. It made Gavin dizzy. When his hand approached it, his fingers seemed suddenly too far away. He pulled back.

“What does it do?” Gavin asked.

“Turn the crank on the generator and you will see,” Dr. Clef replied. “Or perhaps I should say you will hear.

Gavin turned the crank. Electricity crackled at the spot where the Impossible Cube was connected to the wire. The cube glowed blue and drifted slowly upward. Gavin thought of his new airship. He hadn’t tested it in open sky yet.

Dr. Clef picked up a tuning fork from a set on the table and tapped it. A clear tone-G, Gavin noted-rang out. Dr. Clef pressed the base of the fork against one side of the cube. The note roared into full volume, but it was more than just an auditory note. It went straight through Gavin’s body, through muscle and bone and into his soul. For a moment he felt as if he had no corporeal self. He had fallen into dust and scattered over the entire universe. Then the note ended, and he was standing in the workroom again. He stopped cranking, and the cube sat inert, though it

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