Simon exchanged startled looks.
“What did we agree, brother?” Ivana asked, her finger still hovering over the copper at her throat.
“That… that the baroness should reach China,” Danilo whispered. “And we should help her.”
“Just so.” Ivana touched a different button on her collar, and Danilo arched his back with a great gasp, but this time the expression on his face read pure pleasure instead of pain. His mouth fell open, and he groaned. Ivana released her collar, and Danilo relaxed.
“There we are,” she said. “We may clean ourselves up and change into different trousers, if we desire.”
“We are grateful, sister.” Tears streamed down Danilo’s face. “Grateful.” He got up and stumbled out of the observation area.
“We are sorry you had to see that,” Ivana called down to Gavin and Alice. “This is why experiment with Oriental boy is so important. If it works, we have no more arguments.”
“Well,” Gavin said, setting his rucksack on the floor and opening the top, “if you want Alice to reach China, I suppose that means we should be on our way. If you’ll just open that gate…”
“We said baroness must reach China,” Ivana agreed. “You, on other hand, are quite different. We need advanced clockworkers. You will join Gontas.”
“Or Zalizniaks,” said the old man.
Gavin had been expecting something like this, but the actual words still chilled him. Alice, meanwhile, had her traveling tools out, the ones rolled up in black velvet embroidered with
“Don’t fight us,” the steel-toothed clockworker said. “It will go easier. Believe us.”
“No!” Phipps rose. “He belongs to me!”
“Sit!” Ivana barked, and grabbed Phipps’s metal hand. Two other clockworkers grabbed Simon and Glenda before the Third Ward agents could react, and handcuffed them to their chairs. Glenda shrieked in outrage. Simon kicked at his captor, who easily dodged away. The metal hands snatched at Gavin.
“Gavin!” Alice cried. She had a set of lock picks in her hands.
“Get Feng!” Gavin shouted, and the plague slowed time. He dodged the set of grasping arms and snatched the collar from the other set. Angles and trajectories drew themselves in the air for him. He moved his arm a precise two degrees to the left and half a degree down, and threw the collar. The gleaming discus spun through the air and hit the first lever on Ivana’s console, the one she had been holding when the gate crashed down and the lights came up. The lever deployed, and gate cranked upward.
“What are you doing?” Ivana howled. She was still holding Phipps’s arm. “How dare you?”
She reached for the lever, but Gavin raised his wristband. More angles, more trajectories. The magnetic polarizer sent a tiny gear spinning toward her, and it pinged off a button on her collar. Instantly, every clockworker in the gallery, including Ivana, screamed in pain. They clutched at their throats and howled. Phipps, her metal arm still caught in Ivana’s grip, jumped and jigged in place as well, though she retained enough self-control to send Gavin a look of pure venom. The mechanical arms reaching into the cell went limp. Glenda and Simon struggled against their handcuffs, but to no avail.
“Hurry!” Gavin said to Alice. “Before the electricity stops!”
Alice already had the cold cage unlocked. She yanked it open, but Feng didn’t move. “Feng!” she said. “Come on!”
At her words, Feng left the cage. Gavin snatched the set of ear protectors from his pack, put them on, and dashed out the doorway behind them. The three of them pounded down the long corridor, Gavin clutching the rucksack in front of him. They ran down the steps to the great room, and Gavin headed for the spiral staircase leading up to the main house, but Alice turned, towing Feng with her.
“What are you doing?” he asked, pulling one ear protector aside so he could hear her.
“I’m not leaving these children behind,” she said.
He sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. And I agree with you. Let’s go.”
Alice’s cure had already spread to all the children, thanks to the close quarters of the cages, and they looked healthier, more alert. She bent over the lock on the first cage, and the whistle hanging around her neck clattered against the bars. The child inside backed away from her.
“It’s the same kind of lock they had on Feng’s cage,” she said. “I can open it almost as fast as with a key by now.”
“They’ll come any minute,” Gavin said.
Alice didn’t respond. In seconds, she had the door open, but the ragged little boy inside refused to come out. “Feng, can you tell him we’re here to take him away?”
Feng didn’t respond. He simply stood near the cage, the spider plastered across half his face.
“Feng!” Alice said.
And then Gavin had it. “Feng,” he said, “tell the children in Ukrainian we’ve come to take them out of here. Tell them we’ve come to take them home.”
Feng spoke musical Cyrillic syllables. The boy looked doubtful even as Alice unlocked the second cage. “Why does Feng listen to you?” she asked.
“You have to give him a direct order,” Gavin said. “It’s what the Gontas were working on—absolute obedience.”
Alice looked sick. “That’s horrible!”
