The Impossible Cube

“The signature of the Third Ward,” Gavin said.

“What is the significance?” Feng asked. He was still clutching the firefly jar.

“It’s a message. Phipps isn’t giving up, and she has the power to touch even the church.”

“Gavin!” Phipps’s voice carried through the churchyard loud and clear. Alarm speared Gavin’s chest and he held Alice tight. “One last gift for you and your friends.”

At the last moment he spotted her on a shadowy window ledge above the crowd’s head. She had a pebble in her mechanical hand, and she threw. Fearful for Alice, Gavin spun, shielding her with his body. But instead of feeling the bite of stone on flesh, he only heard one more note of shattered glass. Feng stood next to him, the pieces of destroyed jar in his hands. Blood ran from a cut on his arm. A chill ran over Gavin.

“No!” he whispered.

The cloud of fireflies hovered in place for a moment, keeping the shape of the jar. Then they scattered, swarming over the crowd, streaking green starlight in a thousand different directions. The people scattered, yipping and slapping. Hundreds of dead fireflies dropped to the ground, crushed by hands and stomped by feet.

“Damn you!” Gavin cried at the church. But Phipps was already gone.

Interlude

“When will you be well enough to travel?” Phipps asked.

Glenda lay propped up in her hotel room bed with a steak on her eye and her arm in a sling. “I don’t know. Three days, perhaps four. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

“I should be sorry, Agent Teasdale. I’m your commander, and I let you down.”

Since Glenda had the bed, Simon occupied her customary place in the chair. “I’m not feeling very well myself,” he said. “We wrecked a church, Lieutenant.”

“A church that violated a number of laws regarding human-shaped automatons and the illegal sheltering of plague victims. Monsignor Adames knew the risks,” Phipps replied, fighting to remain calm. This was the second time Gavin and Alice had slipped away from her, and she hated looking the fool. She was also fighting to push aside a growing unease that Simon had a point. “In any case, I’m sure the amount of money he scavenges from the wrecked mechanicals will more than compensate him.”

“A church, Lieutenant,” Simon repeated. “How do we justify—”

A knock interrupted him. Simon answered the door and returned with a letter addressed to Phipps. She had a good idea what it was about, and reading the heavy paper inside only confirmed her suspicion.

“It’s from the office of the grand duke,” she said. “The gendarmerie is no longer available to assist us in our enquiries and we have been asked, in the politest manner possible, to leave Luxembourg as soon as we are able. I suspected as much.”

“Why did you break that jar?” Glenda asked.

Phipps almost grimaced and stopped herself. Breaking the jar had been a mistake, her temper getting the better of her. She had no idea what the jar had contained, only that it was somehow valuable to Gavin and Alice, and the final pebble in her hand had been too much of a temptation there in the shadow of the church. Lately, it was harder and harder to keep her emotions in check. How could she know if her decisions were based on logic or emotion when she was angry all the time? She was fighting for what was just, as Father had taught, and Father was never wrong. As long as she did that, she herself could not be wrong.

“Never let an opponent think he has the upper hand, even when he’s handed you a… setback,” she said in an explanation that sounded lame even to herself. “Better to take a small victory.”

“Hm,” said Glenda.

“So what now?” Simon asked, a little warily.

“Once Glenda can travel again, we will follow that circus.”

Simon blinked. “The Kalakos Circus? The gendarmes searched there and found nothing.”

“Of course they didn’t. Alice was out and about on her little mission at the time, and circus performers won’t admit anything to the police.”

“Then how do you know they’re with the circus?” Glenda asked.

“Didn’t you catch the scent of peanuts and cooked sugar on Gavin when we were in the church? It was all over him,” Phipps replied. “He’s hiding there, all right. Unfortunately, we can’t confront them now, not with Glenda injured and the mechanicals destroyed.”

“And the gendarmerie unhappy with us,” Simon put in.

“True. Fortunately, while you were out fetching the steak, Simon, I was able to make some enquiries. The circus plans to spend some time in Berlin, and from there it will travel to Kiev.”

Glenda sat up straighter, and winced. “The Ukrainian Empire? Are they mad?”

“It will be an absolute hell,” Phipps agreed.

Chapter Seven

The world rocked and wobbled. Alice tossed about, trying to make everything settle down, and finally she came fully awake. It came to her that she was lying on her narrow bunk in her stateroom on The Lady of Liberty. She wore a nightgown and cap, and the blankets lay heavy atop her. How had she come to be here? The last thing she remembered was Gavin carrying her out of the ruined church.

The room continued to sway, more like a train than the Lady’s usual stately glide, and Alice’s sleep-addled mind finally remembered the day she had helped fit the airship with train wheels and hook her up to the circus train. They must be under way. Mindful of the low ceiling, she sat up as the door slid open and Kemp entered with a tea tray.

“So glad to see you awake, Madam,” he said brightly. “I thought you might be hungry.”