Burning Up

Ivy’s heart began to hammer. Turning her head, she strained to listen—and heard the heavy tread on the stairs. Oh, blue heavens. Mad Machen would take her if she remained here.

She glanced toward the bed, and the sight of the rumpled linens spurred her into action. He was too near to take the time and gather her things. Ivy scrambled through the window, grabbing on to the ladder. Exerting almost no effort at all, she let her arms carry her up the rope, and vanished into silence and the fog.

TWO

Two Years Later . . .

The jokes began as soon as Ivy ducked her head beneath the pianist’s lacy pink skirts. Rolling over onto her back, she lay on the musician’s raised wooden platform and looked up into the gears that formed the automaton’s guts. Luckily, this wouldn’t take long—just a broken tooth on the deadbeat escapement that timed the motion of the feet, and a worm gear out of alignment. She worked, trying to ignore the men doing their best to make the little town of Fool’s Cove earn its name. By the time she’d repaired the escapement, every Hans, Stefan, and Jozef with two brain cells and a drink in his hand had joined in, offering tips for oiling a woman up—including Klaas, the tavern’s owner.

She should have quoted him a higher price.

But they tired of it quickly enough. After a couple of minutes of tuning them out, she realized the tavern had gone quiet. Silent, even.

She paused. With her fingers wrapped around a pendulum rod, she listened to the approaching tread of a single pair of boots, painfully aware of her legs sticking out from beneath pink lace. The skirts lifted, and Ivy found herself staring into cat-green eyes under a ruby kerchief.

Lady Corsair said, “I’ve come to collect what you owe me, Ivy Blacksmith.”

The woman’s smile sent a tremor through Ivy’s legs. Run. But she only came up on her elbows and asked, “Wasn’t repairing every piece of equipment on your airship payment enough?”

The narrowing of Lady Corsair’s eyes was her only answer.

Alright. Lady Corsair’s captain had never asked her to work; Ivy had simply needed to keep herself busy. “So I owe you the price of a passage from London to Port Fallow. I’ll pay it now.”

It’d take every bit of Ivy’s savings, but she’d rather settle this debt with coin. She sat up, aware of the grease on her fingers, her cheek.

“I don’t want your coin. We need you to build something for us.”

Ivy’s stomach dropped. Building didn’t worry her as much as the other part. “Us?”

Lady Corsair straightened and stepped back, revealing the man behind her. Mad Machen—his face dark, eyes wild.

By the fucking stars, no.

Blood surged to her legs. Scuttling back, Ivy turned, got her boots under her and sprinted for the tavern kitchen. Past the stoves, she burst through the door and stumbled into a muddy yard full of white chickens. Feathers flew as they scrambled out of her path, squawking their alarm. She leapt over a gate, made it into the street.

Lady Corsair came out of nowhere. Catching Ivy by the hair with both hands, the aviator whipped her around to a stop, then yanked Ivy back against her.

Her voice was a terrifying purr in Ivy’s ear. “You’re fortunate I don’t toss you to my men for that, blacksmith.”

Almost blinded by tears of frustration and pain, Ivy spat, “You’re tossing me to him.”

“Two years ago, you cheated him out of a fare. As his friend, I’m only helping him claim what is rightfully his.” Strong fingers tightened in Ivy’s hair. “Look up.”

Ivy blinked away the tears, fighting whatever was working up from her chest—a scream or a sob, she didn’t know. Half concealed by the low clouds, Lady Corsair floated above Ivy’s shop, a long and shallow wooden ship tethered beneath an enormous white balloon. They’d come in under silent sail; her engines were off, the tail propellers still. A rope ladder had been lowered to Ivy’s front door. They’d known exactly where to find her.

“I see,” she choked out.

“Good. Now understand this: my aviators haven’t had a good raid in months. You can keep fighting, and I’ll let my crew run through this town instead of Port Fallow, which can handle them. So what say you, blacksmith?”

Ivy closed her eyes, clenched her fists. She had arms powerful enough to rip this woman apart. Instinct warned her not to try. There was strong, and there was deadly—and she feared Lady Corsair had the edge on the latter.

Her chest aching, she looked toward her shop again. “I have to gather my things.”

Without a word, Lady Corsair let her go. Ivy trudged forward, avoiding the curious eyes of the townspeople coming out to look. Several sped back into the safety of their homes the moment they glimpsed the woman following her.

When they glimpsed the man, too. Though she couldn’t make out the words, Ivy heard the rough anger in Mad Machen’s voice as he questioned Lady Corsair. Felt his gaze boring into her back.

How stupid to hope she might have been safe here on the Norwegian coast, in one of the settlements populated by the descendants of families from eastern Europe who’d fled from the Horde centuries ago—and more recently, from England—but she’d never thought Mad Machen would sail into Fool’s Cove. He couldn’t sail into Fool’s Cove. The shallow water hid jagged towers of stone that ripped out the wooden bottoms of every deep-keeled boat. Ice locked the town in winter. In the spring, giant eels seethed in an electric, twisted mating dance, and in the fall, the herring spawned in the fjord that drained into the cove drew young megalodons who churned the waters in a season-long feeding frenzy. The only route into the town was by airship or the fjord; only a fool would sail in by ship.

But he hadn’t sailed. And the woman Ivy had assumed was his rival was his friend, instead.

She stepped around the rope ladder, resisting the urge to grab each rail and rip it down. When she opened the door, the bell’s jingle welcomed her into the shop. A blue curtain split the ground level room in half. The small window in front showcased the automata she’d built—the practical egg-crackers and handwashers, the fanciful singing birds and jumping frogs—and the dresses sewed by her shopmate, Netta. Seamstress and blacksmith, they both pulled in more coin with repairs than with sales off the shelf . . . but even the repair money was barely enough to keep food in their bellies.

No thanks to bloody Mad Machen.

Only last month, she’d treated an emaciated man who still bore the marks of a whip. She’d made him a new foot, and listened to how Mad Machen had attacked his merchant ship, forced the man onto his crew, used him until he couldn’t walk anymore, then left him to die in a dinghy. Mad Machen . . . who’d been tearing up the coast of the North Sea, searching for the redheaded blacksmith from London who’d cheated him.

The man had given her hair and guild tattoo a significant look. Though the work she’d done on his foot could have fed her for a year, she hadn’t asked him to pay.

It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the story, received that look, and hadn’t been paid in return. Mad Machen had a habit of dropping men into dinghies near the cove. For months now, Ivy had suspected he knew she was there, and his revenge had been keeping her frightened and waiting. She should have run then—but she simply hadn’t wanted to run again.

Black hair pulled into a bun at her nape, Netta came up to the front, and the friendly smile of greeting she wore warmed when she saw Ivy. “Back so early, and without a pint to show for it. That Klaas has a tighter fist than a sailor a year out to sea.” She tsked, shaking her head, then moved over to the window. “We have a fish pie today, thanks from the widow Aughton. Now, look at all the busybodies standing about. What’re they sticking their noses into today?”