The Impossible Cube

“Whatever the reason, we have a conspicuous ship,” Alice said, “and the Third Ward is spreading word of a generous reward for our capture.”

“Is the clicky kitty hungry? Would he like a saucer of arsenic?”

Gavin sighed and leaned over the gunwale, the fresh breeze on his face, solid wood beneath his bare feet. Forests and fields stretched to the horizon, emerald meeting azure, broken only by a railroad that ribboned through the green.

Alice joined him. “What are you thinking?”

“That you’re right. The ship is too conspicuous,” he said. “We’re too conspicuous. You have that gauntlet that won’t come off. Feng is Chinese. Dr. Clef is… Dr. Clef. And we have all these automatons. I mean, you can order Kemp to stay hidden—”

“We have to for at least a while,” Alice interrupted. “Human-seeming automatons are illegal on most of the Continent.”

“Only in the western part,” Gavin said, “where the Catholic Church is powerful. Once you get past the four French Kingdoms and the ten Prussian Kingdoms into Poland and the Ukrainian Empire, no one cares.”

“Oh.” Alice looked miffed that she hadn’t known this. “Kemp will be glad to hear that.”

“But I was saying that Click has a way of showing up wherever he wants,” Gavin continued. “We’re a very distinctive group, and you know Phipps has described us carefully.”

“Come, clicky kitty,” Dr. Clef said. “We will go below and you will watch me while I work. Would you like that? You would.”

“If I took such a tone with Click,” Feng said to no one in particular, “he would disembowel me. Why does he allow Dr. Clef the privilege?”

A train passed beneath them, puffing smoke and spurting steam. The whistle—a G, Gavin noted automatically —sounded high and thin up in the air. The locomotive was painted bright red, and the cars sported bright colors as well. It looked like a child’s toy. Something about it tugged at him, but he couldn’t say what.

“We’ll have to figure something out soon,” Gavin finished. “Luxembourg is the only place nearby where we can stock up on paraffin oil for the generator, and we have to stop there.”

“And the food stores are nearly nonexistent,” Kemp added. “Madam and everyone else were searching for Sir, and I was not allowed to shop.”

“That’s another worry,” Alice said. “Money. We don’t have much left. The Ward won’t be paying our salaries anytime soon, and I rather doubt Norbert would be willing to wire me any money now that I’ve left him.”

Gavin stared across the free sky as tension tightened his muscles again. Even here, on his own ship, problems weighed him down. He wanted—needed—to leap over the side and coast away with nothing but bright and flowing air beneath him. The clouds twisted in the air currents, droplets hovering like trillions of tiny spirits buoyed by—

Alice touched his arm. “You’ve been staring for a long time. Would you play for me?”

“A long time?” He blinked at her. “How long?”

“Over an hour.” She handed him his bow and fiddle. “Maybe this will focus you.”

Gavin looked around, bewildered. The sun had moved a considerable distance. Dr. Clef, Click, and Alice’s whirligig were nowhere to be seen. Only Feng remained, still at the helm. Gavin looked down at his fiddle. It had been his constant companion ever since he could remember. His inborn perfect pitch let him pick up songs almost instantly, which meant he was able to play street corners in Boston at an early age and bring the pennies home to his mother and siblings. He had secretly fantasized that one day he would play in a music hall or even in an orchestra. But later, on his twelfth birthday, Gramps had brought him down to the Boston shipyards and introduced him to Captain Felix Naismith of the Juniper. From that day on, cabin boy Gavin Ennock had barely touched the ground while he played for airmen and ran their errands. Then came the attack. In seconds, both Naismith and Gavin’s best friend were dead and Gavin was forced to perform for pirates. They had stranded him in London. Unable to find work on another airship, he’d gone back to playing the streets for pennies until Alice’s aunt had snatched him away and locked him in her tower. For three weeks, he’d had nothing to do but play the violin until Alice had appeared and rescued him. And then he had rescued her, and then she him, and so it went.

He drew his bow over the strings and was about to begin when Alice abruptly held up a hand. For a dreadful moment, he thought he’d made a mistake and she was stopping him. It was one of his secret fears—that he’d made a mistake while playing where someone could hear. His playing, like his pitch, needed to be perfect. It often felt as if someone were watching over him, waiting to pounce if he played wrong, though he couldn’t say why.

But Alice said only, “A moment. I want to try something first.”

From her pocket, she took a small bird made of gleaming silver. Sapphires made up its eyes and glowed softly at the tips of its claws.

“My nightingale,” Feng said. “Yours now, Gavin. I am glad Antoine did not get it.”

“I found it in the hotel.” Alice set the bird at Gavin’s feet and pressed its left eye. “Now, play.”

Gavin nodded and swung into a song familiar to all airmen. He played a verse, relieved when he got through it with no mistakes, then sang.

For to see Mad Tom of Bedlam, ten thousand miles I traveled

Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes to save her shoes from gravel.

Still I sing bonny boys, bonny mad boys, bedlam boys are bonny

For they all go bare and they live by the air, and they want no drink nor money.

“Tom of Bedlam” was the unofficial song of airmen everywhere. The idea that men who lived by the air went naked and didn’t want for drink or money held immense appeal, and the song’s infinite verses were made for