Emily seemed plenty clear that this meet came from outside. Whether that meant from higher in Valentine’s organization, or from someone on Prescott’s side of the deal didn’t matter. It was a bad meet, but it was the meet we had to make. But now I knew it wasn’t the client. Prescott had been forced into this, not by his people but by Valentine’s. And they had told me it was on Prescott’s side. Meaning someone wasn’t being honest, someone didn’t trust. I was being put in a bad position, and I didn’t like it.
I drank and I waited, either for the show to start or some other part of this increasingly strange deal to fall into place. The show came first. A butler with high, thin hair and immaculate cuffs gathered us up and led us through a stone archway in the hall to the estate’s private theater.
The place wasn’t big enough. Most estates had a theater, at least the good ones, but they were made for extended families getting together for drinks and a light opera. We were crowded in, the air was hot and even the quiet whisper of such a crowd was nearly a roar in the pure acoustics of the theater. The concert hall was a tight circle, concentric rings of velvet seats terraced around a polished wooden stage. They led her to the center, the frictionlamps bright on her white dress, then several of the attendants busied themselves with the equipment that had been set up next to the stage. There was a young man seated next to me, a child really, the son of some Admiral. He leaned against me, straining to see.
“What are they doing? Is that the Summer Girl?”
I looked down at the thin white girl, alone on stage. “No, but it will be. You’ll see.”
The boy’s mother patted his arm. “His first social affair,” she whispered. “He’s very excited.”
I nodded. “He understands, right? He won’t be frightened?”
The boy looked at me with hot green eyes. He shook his head firmly. His mother smiled.
“Oh,” said the boy, his attention on the stage below. It had gotten quiet around us. “Oh.”
I turned to see. The Artificers approached the girl with a jar. I leaned forward. The jar was glass, and the dark contents seemed to squirm. The girl closed her eyes and opened her mouth. I could see the furtive coiling of her machine. She had beautiful lips, full and shiny like glass, and they were quivering. I wondered if she was afraid.
The Master Artificer was a tall man with arms that moved fluidly, like they were nothing but joints. He dipped his hands into the jar and brought out something shiny. The queen foetus. He placed it on the girl’s tongue and then stepped back, along with the rest of the Guildsmen. The girl’s hands fluttered to her throat and she opened her eyes, wide and white. A second later she made a coughing, gasping sound. The boy’s mother tutted and turned her face. The rest of the audience shifted uncomfortably.
It happened suddenly. The Artificers set down the jar and tipped it over. The swarm spilled out like glittering, jeweled honey, their tiny legs clicking against the wood as they washed across the stage. They climbed the girl and began to nest with her, become her, entering the secret machines that made up the engram. They were seeking their queen and her pattern, the song stitched into her shell and her memory, awaiting birth and creation. The girl shivered, and she became.
She straightened up, looking out across the audience. I hadn’t seen The Summer Girl performed in some time, since my Academy days, in fact. But there she was, unmistakable. She stood in front of the audience like she ruled it, like these people didn’t exist when she wasn’t on stage, and when she was on stage they existed only to appreciate her. The girl had that stance, her back and chin and shoulders laying claim to the Manor Tomb. The swarm fed on her, rebuilt her before our quiet eyes. Her skin leaked white, her cheekbones flattened and rose, the perfect lips became more, writhing as they changed. She stood taller, her hair shimmered and changed color, cascaded down her shoulders. She was older now, fuller, her hips and breasts those of a woman. The audience was silent, stunned.
The Summer Girl stood before us, more perfect than she had actually been on that long distant day. She raised an arm to us, nodded to the Lady Tomb in her seat of honor, and then she sang. Perfectly, beautifully, her voice was a warm hammer in my head. This tiny hall could not contain her, the very bones of the mountain around us thrummed with her song. I remember nothing of words or themes, as it always is with The Summer Girl. Just warm glory and peace remaking my heart, flowing through my bones, filling the cramped metal of my heart like slow lightning in my blood.
When it was over, there was silence. I imagine we would have clapped if she had left anything in us, if we hadn’t been drained by the beauty of her voice. The Girl nodded, again, content with our awe. And then she fell apart, her hair and face crumbling and tumbling down the girl, bits and pieces clattering against the wooden stage. The girl collapsed, trailing thin lines of blood from her proxy body as the shell of the Summer Girl left her. The Guildsmen scurried forward, sweeping up the scraps of miracle, the slowly squirming remnants of the Maker Beetles, helping the girl to her feet. They escorted her off the stage, her hand to her head, her legs dragging between two strong Artificers. Only when she was gone, when the last bit of the Summer Girl had been swept away, could we bring ourselves to stand and applaud the empty stage.
In standing, my eyes slid across the stage and settled on the darkness, where they had led the girl. There was a man standing there, dressed in the deep blue of the Artificers, though he was paying no attention to the other Guildsmen busy in their art all around him. He had his arms crossed, and seemed to hover in the shadow of the bright lights. His head turned slowly, looking out at the audience. As his gaze passed me I felt a deep shiver of recognition. Cold eyes, the lightest blue, like snow over water. He looked beyond me, paused, then turned his face towards me again.
He looked right at me. His face was empty, completely slack. Without a word he disappeared from the stage.
Around me the crowd was still applauding. Just a moment earlier I had been sweating in the close heat of the theater. Now that sweat froze against my skin. I looked around for an exit.
Lady Tomb was waiting at the end of my row. She was looking directly at me. She nodded and disappeared among the unending ovation. I turned and left the hall.
Chapter Three
A man was waiting for me, one of the servants. He introduced himself as Harold, personal attendant to the Lady Tomb. He had high white hair, thin on the sides. He nodded to me as I stepped out of the roaring applause and turned, walking down a hallway, deeper into the estate. I looked around, but no one else left the theater. There must be other exits, though, someplace for the performers to rest and retire without troubling the guests. Harold got ahead of me, so I hurried to catch up.
Though there were no windows this deep, I could tell it was still raining. The air smelled like water and lightning. The lightning might have been the frictionlamps that glowed along the tight, immaculate hallway, but who knows. The whole place smelled like bad weather. The polish of the dark wood flashed as I walked along it, shinier than silver.
High and White led me to a parlor, a room carpeted in deep blue with walls of dark wood and old metal fittings. The Lady was waiting, faced away from me. She was still in her black and gray, but in this empty room the get-up looked unnecessarily fancy. The room might have once been a library or shrine. There were walls of shelves and glass display cases on three sides, but they were all bare. Nothing but dust and the Lady. She held a glass of wine and gazed at a plaque on the wall. There was another glass on a shelf by the door, condensation beading on its side and running down the fragile stem. The servant nodded to Tomb and left, closing the door behind him. I took the wine and went to stand by her.
“Did you enjoy our show, Mr. Burn?” she asked. Her voice was soft, none of the mocking formality from earlier.
“I did. It was chosen well.”
She nodded absently. “I thought Mr. Valentine might send someone, eventually. When I saw your name on the guest list, I thought it might be you.” She took a drink of wine and turned to face me. “Is it?”
“I can’t visit my childhood haunts? Have dinner with some of my old Corps mates? See a show? You offered me an invitation. I accepted.”
