spilled him onto the floor. He scrabbled madly at the boards and rushed indignantly out of the room.
“No interruptions?” Gavin grinned.
“Have some tea,” Alice said, plucking a cup from the tray.
“Darling? Can you hear me?”
Gavin jumped. Alice dropped the cup and it shattered on the wood floor. It was Edwina’s voice, and it was coming from Kemp. The automaton stood completely frozen, still holding the tea tray.
“Hello?” Kemp said, speaking as Edwina. “Alice, are you there?”
“Wha-what?” Alice said. “Aunt Edwina?”
“Oh, good. It works. Listen, darling, I don’t have much time, so listen quickly.”
“What’s going on?” Alice demanded. “Where are you? You’re not going to attack another airship, are you?”
“Not to worry, darling. I’m in my cell at the Third Ward. They call it a workroom or a laboratory, but it’s a cell, nonetheless. I’ve been pretending my grip on reality has slipped, but they still give me equipment to play with and I cobbled together this transmitter. Did you talk to the ambassador as I told you?”
“You didn’t tell me to do anything, but yes,” Alice said, recovering herself. “We figured out what you meant.”
“Then you know about the cure and why the Crown wants to suppress it. I realized this would happen, you know, which is why I set everything up the way I did.”
“What do you mean by that?” Gavin asked.
“Mr. Ennock is there? Good! This will make things simpler. Have you joined the Third Ward, Alice?”
“Yes,” Alice said slowly. “I’m in training, but I’m in.”
“Excellent!” Edwina sounded relieved. “I haven’t told you everything yet, so I need you to listen closely now. The clockwork plague is destroying the entire world, and not only by disease. One day, a clockworker will make something powerful enough to wipe out all life on Earth. This plague
Gavin’s thoughts went to the Impossible Cube, and he glanced at Alice. Her face was white. He reached for her hand, but she shook it off.
“The Ward has my first cure, the one that works on one person at a time. They put it in the Doomsday Vault. They’re still looking for my second cure, the one that spreads.”
“You said it was incubating,” Alice interrupted.
“It is. They can’t find it because I put it in the one place they’d never look.”
“I’ll ask,” Gavin said with a sigh. “Where?”
“Inside me.”
Alice’s expression became incredulous. “Inside you?”
“There are places even the Ward can’t search, darling. Now that I have proper facilities again, I can finish incubating it. In fact, it will be done by morning. That’s where you two come in.”
“I don’t understand,” Gavin said.
“Both cures must be released. That’s why I arranged for the two of you to join the Third Ward. Once I was able to use the Ward’s facilities to finish the cure-”
“You would need someone to break you out,” Alice finished. “No.”
“Darling, you must. The Ward will never let this cure go. You need to break me out of this dungeon, and you need to steal the first cure from the Doomsday Vault.”
“Edwina, you’ve gone mad,” Alice protested.
“No. I’m quite sane, though I may not last much longer once the Ward realizes what I’m doing. It’s damned hard to work with someone watching. They think I’m growing blue roses. I’m actually quite close, come to that.”
“Do you mean all this talk about making me independent was nothing more than a ruse to get me into the Ward so I could eventually break
“And anyway,” Gavin put in, “security is very tight. We couldn’t get you out, let alone break into the Doomsday Vault.”
“I was afraid you might react this way, darling.” Edwina’s voice was tight. “That’s the real reason I brought Gavin into your life and maneuvered you into falling in love.”
Alice gasped, and Gavin’s blood went cold. “What do you mean?” he said quietly.
“When I had Gavin asleep in my tower,” Edwina continued, “I injected him with the clockwork plague.”
Gavin’s knees buckled. The room rocked, and he went to the floor with his head between his knees. There had been a bandage around his upper arm when he woke up in the tower of the Red Velvet Lady. At the time, he had been mystified by it. Now he knew what it was for, and he wished he hadn’t. His gorge rose, and he threw up on the floorboards between his ankles.
“You’re bluffing,” Alice said desperately. “It’s a lie. He’d be dead by now if it were true.”
“No, darling. It was my own recipe, the slowed version, but he does have it. At least he’s not contagious yet.”
“No,” Alice whispered.
“There’s good news. You can cure him long before he becomes one of those unfortunates who lurch through alleyways. Just get me out of the Third Ward and break into the Doomsday Vault. And you’d better hurry.”
The lights in Kemp’s eyes flickered out, then came back on. He turned his head left, then right. “Oh! Oh dear! Did I switch off? Sir! Do you require assistance?”
Gavin stared at the stinking puddle of vomit. The revelation crushed him to the floor, and his back ached anew. A small sore on the back of his hand caught his eye. Was it a plague sore? In a few weeks, he would join the souls shambling through the shadows, hoping someone would throw him an apple.
“I won’t let this happen again, Gavin.” Alice was kneeling beside him with her arms around his shoulders. Several of her little automatons perched on her shoulders. “I won’t. We’ll find a way into the Vault, and we’ll get Aunt Edwina out so we can cure you. I don’t care how impossible it is.”
Gavin brought his head up. “I know how to do it.”
Moments later, Gavin was sketching madly on a sheet of foolscap at Alice’s new kitchen table with Alice leaning over him. Kemp had been banished to Alice’s bedroom, however unfairly, and Click perched on the coal stove, heedless of the heat it put out. Several of the little automatons were lined up above the cupboards. Alice kept a continual hand on Gavin’s arm or his shoulder or his head, as if he might float away and her touch would keep his feet touching the floor. Thank God he wasn’t contagious yet. She couldn’t bear the thought of not touching him.
A number of feelings battled inside her-fury at Aunt Edwina for doing this to Gavin and to her, guilt over her role in the entire affair, fear of what was going to happen next, and through it all, a growing and powerful love for Gavin. When he was nearby, she felt his presence, and when he was gone, she felt his absence. When he laughed, she was happy, and when he was upset, she wanted to tear London in two. And right now, she felt ready to destroy the world for him.
“Doctor Clef is the key,” he said. “He finished his Impossible Cube earlier today, and Lieutenant Phipps said it has to go into the Doomsday Vault.”
“So they’ll have to open it,” Alice breathed.
“Yes. There’s a little ceremony surrounding any invention that goes in. An hour before sunrise, all the clockworkers are locked in their rooms, and the available agents stand honor guard in two lines-like this-while Lieutenant Phipps marches between them. She takes the invention to the Doomsday Vault, which is here. The guards open it, and she puts it inside. Then everyone has a breakfast of kippers and eggs and beer, including the clockworker who invented the device. If he’s gone completely insane, he sits at the table in a straitjacket.”
“So we somehow sneak in when the Vault opens and hide inside until they all leave?”
Gavin shook his head. “No. The Vault would close on us and we’d be trapped. There’s only one way to do it.” He put his pencil down and exhaled, long and slow. “Alice, if we go through with this, it’ll be a crime against the British Crown. I’ll be branded an American spy, and you’ll be a traitor. Are you willing?”
And she hesitated. He was right. She tried to set aside thoughts of Gavin and to think of the situation clearly,
