They hurried away, dodging the gas lamps. Occasionally, they heard footsteps or horses’ hooves a street or two over, and every time they hid in alleys or doorways or under stoops, though they didn’t have any more close encounters with police. The streets wound steadily uphill, and Gavin’s legs started to ache from the steady climbing, and the battery pack pulled at his shoulder muscles. After a while, he said, “Where are the plague zombies?”
That made Alice pause. “I don’t know. We should have seen at least one or two by now.”
“Perhaps the priest will know,” Feng said.
They finally arrived at the Church of Our Lady. The huge stone building loomed over Gavin, buttressed high and stiff, surrounded by a low wall and a square marked off from the street by a line of stone pillars that stretched between them like an iron lattice. Stained glass windows shut themselves against the night.
“It is… large,” Feng said. “I imagined a small stone church, not an entire cathedral.”
“I think they’ve applied for cathedral status with the Pope,” Gavin said.
“They have to apply to call it a cathedral?” Feng looked doubtfully up at the walls, which seemed half fortress, half heaven. “I would enjoy seeing the paperwork for that.”
“The Papists do have their ideas,” Alice said. “Where do we go in?”
The main doors, half large enough to admit a dirigible, were obviously locked and barred, and the idea of knocking on such enormous timbers felt ridiculous. They followed the wall around until they found a more normal- sized pair of doors in an alcove. Feng knocked hard, then pounded at some length. Gavin nervously dropped his hand to the whip. Time passed, and the door wrenched open to reveal an old woman in a dressing gown and nightcap. A candlestick glimmered in her hand. She demanded something in French, and Alice responded. Gavin caught the words
“She wants us to wait here,” Alice said as the woman padded away, taking the light with her. Gavin waited in uneasy blackness with Alice and Feng beside him. None of them spoke. The emptiness beyond seemed to eat words, or even the idea of speaking. Time didn’t move. Gavin sensed the weight of the pack on his shoulders, and the heft of the whip handle in his hand, and the pull of the cutlass at his belt. Alice’s and Feng’s breathing beside him pushed about tiny amounts of air that puffed against his face, bounced off and swirled away in chaotic forms that held patterns just beyond his understanding. He reached out and put his hand into one and felt it scatter and flee. Another swirl of breath bounced off him, creating patterned chaos on his skin, and if he just concentrated hard enough, he might be able to understand it, perhaps even control it, even—
“Gavin!” Alice’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Are you coming?”
“Chaos swirls against my skin,” he said, “but the pattern remains out of reach. How can I touch it?”
“We shouldn’t stay up here,” said a man’s voice in lightly accented English. “Just bring him along.”
And then Gavin was within the great empty place, standing before a half-sized statue of a woman on a pedestal holding an infant—the Virgin Mary. Behind her, windows of stained glass rose above an elaborate altar. She stood on a crescent moon and wore robes of gold and crimson. In her right hand she held a scepter. The baby Jesus cradled a ball in his hand and stretched out the other in benediction. Both mother and child wore tall crowns of gold that sparkled with jewels. Candles flickered around her feet and in the candelabra behind her, lending her an otherworldly glow.
“But you take her out and bring her around the city just after Easter,” Gavin said softly. “Eight days afterward. The Octave.”
The priest blinked. He had receding gray hair and a thin build. “You’ve heard of it.”
“No. It’s just obvious.” Gavin flicked a glance at the statue’s pale brown hair and dark brown eyes and rounded beauty and machine-like scepter in her hand, then glanced at Alice. “She looks like—”
“Don’t,” Alice said.
“But she really—”
“I said don’t,” Alice said again, and her voice floated to the high ceiling. She repositioned her backpack. “Monsignor Adames, I have a cure for the clockwork plague, and one of the people I helped told me to come here.”
“A cure?” Adames repeated. “I don’t understand.”
“Her touch cures the clockwork plague,” Feng said.
“Her touch,” he echoed, then gave a small laugh. “I’m sorry if I seem doubtful, but… well, I’m doubtful. I believe in the holy miracles, including the ones that founded this very church, but—”
“I play the fiddle,” Gavin interrupted, “and I sing.”
Monsignor Adames fell silent. Then he said slowly, “There are rumors. I’ve heard of a beautiful woman with a sword and an angel with a golden voice who appear to cure the afflicted at night and who are pursued by brass demons during the day. I thought they were nothing but desperate stories from people who want comfort. But now…”
“How can we help?” Alice asked.
Adames hesitated only a moment. “This way.” He caught up a candle from the statue’s feet and led them to a door behind one of the carved, earth-colored pillars lining the cathedral. A tight spiral staircase twisted downward. Adames pulled back the skirts of his robe with his free hand and held up the candle with the other to light the way as they descended.
“You’re an angel?” Feng said to Gavin on the stairs. “May I be the one to write your family about that?
