Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess

she whispered. “I will miss you. But I’m afraid I simply can’t have you around complicating things.” She ran her fingertip along his shoulder. “If only by being such a temptation.” She sighed and snuggled against him. “I’m afraid you really will have to go,” she said in a small, sad voice.

Klaus had smiled. “Hah!” he chuckled, “Anghowr d’jer thirg yg—”

He paused. That statement hadn’t come out as he’d expected. He’d stared at the empty goblet in his hand. The goblet Lucrezia had filled hours ago. The goblet she hadn’t drunk from. The goblet she’d—

“My dring,” he enunciated as clearly as he could. “Hyu pzind by dring.”

Her face swam into focus. She must’ve crawled right up to stare directly into his face—watching him with a charming scientific interest. “Not poison, silly,” he heard her chiding him from a thousand kilometers away, “I’m one of the Good Guys now, remember?” She leaned in and chastely kissed his nose. “Goodbye, darling.”

He reached for her as everything collapsed into blackness...

No, this was pointless indulgence. He had years ago realized that his grave mistake had not been made that night in the castle in the mountains. No, it had been made long before that, made when he had first known what Lucrezia was, and yet allowed himself to fall into a delicious, dangerous romance, instead of running for the hills as any sensible person would have done. Well, Sparks were not known for being sensible, but Klaus had liked to think he was above all that...

Baron Klaus Wulfenbach made an exasperated noise as he resurfaced from the memories that had held him captive. He shifted his weight trying to sit up, then grit his teeth in pain. At the foot of the bed, Doctor Merrliwee, a trim, serious-faced woman, glanced up from the machine she was adjusting and made a quick, no-nonsense gesture before returning her attention to her instruments.

The doctor’s assistant bustled over and adjusted Klaus’ pillows. “Please try not to move too much while the doctor is working, Herr Baron.” Klaus ignored her and glared at the golden locket in his hand, the beautiful face of Lucrezia smiling back at him from the frame. Set facing her, in the other half of the locket, was a matching miniature of Bill Heterodyne—his old friend—so young—smiling happily. The painter had captured their likenesses with breathtaking skill.

Lucrezia had married Bill, as she said she would, and by all reports, been happy, for a time. He had been glad to hear that. But... what had happened to them? Where were they? Lucrezia had done such a good job of putting Klaus out of the way... it had taken him years to return home. And when he had...

He was no closer to knowing now than when he had fought his way home to find Europa in ruins. And now, after all this time, there was a girl. Lucrezia and Bill’s daughter. Raised by Bill and Barry’s old constructs, Punch and Judy, no less. And for some reason kept hidden away—a secret—apparently from him. Why? Hadn’t he traveled with them? Fought by their sides through all kinds of adventures? Weren’t they his old friends?

Klaus turned the locket over in his hand, and examined the back. It was a strange little device—and now that it was broken open—obviously much more than just a simple piece of jewelry. It had been taken from the soldier captured along with the Heterodyne girl back in Beetleburg, but it was obviously not the soldier’s property. It even had the girl’s name and address on the back. When questioned, the soldier, whose name was Moloch Von Zinzer, confessed to having first stolen the locket, then broken it by throwing it against a wall in a fit of rage. It was large and sturdy, the front decorated with the famous stylized trilobite of the Heterodynes. That, in itself, was not unusual. Throughout Europa, it was common for anyone with any kind of affiliation—to one of the Great Houses, old noble families, Universities, guilds or fraternal orders—to wear a sigil proclaiming their connection. A large pin at the throat was the most usual place for this little bit of heraldry. There were no official regulations about who was allowed to wear what—as long as one was willing to risk embarrassing misunderstandings, or even the possible wrath of legitimate members of the group in question—one could wear what one liked. The trilobite of the Heterodynes was worn everywhere, and simply marked the wearer as one of the vast group of people who loved stories of the Heterodyne Boys and their adventures. And yet... Klaus thought... for this girl—this new Spark who had slipped through his fingers, it had been the real thing—but how could he have known?

The locket opened on recessed hinges, revealing the portraits. Simple enough, to any casual observer. But the impact that had broken the mechanism had also caused the back of the case to pop off—to expose a small compartment behind Lucrezia’s portrait. A similar compartment lay behind Bill’s—Klaus had pried it open during his initial examination. The hidden mechanisms inside were now laid bare—strange watch-like movements that needed special lenses to see clearly. But this was clearly not a device for telling time. Deep within the framework of the tiny assemblage, Klaus could see fantastically coiled springs that powered tuning forks as delicate as human hairs.

Klaus had always had an artistic eye. This meant that, when dealing with Sparks, he was often able to identify the creator of a particular piece of technology through nothing more than their stylistic quirks—the type of gearing they preferred, for instance, or the type of stitching on a construct. Because of this knack, he was able to identify this locket and its mechanism as the work of Barry Heterodyne. And yet... it was more sophisticated, more... intense than anything he had ever before seen his friend create. Barry had always been a mechanical genius, it was true, but this little machine was a new high. It was clear to Klaus that his friend had poured everything he had ever learned into this little device. It would take time and careful study to understand its full potential.

Normally, Klaus would have found this exhilarating. An intellectual puzzle of this caliber came along all too rarely. Unfortunately, the appearance and escape of the girl, and all these implied, left him no time for such amusements. There was going to be trouble because of this, and it would require swift action.

Doctor Merrliwee straightened up and slipped a screwdriver into a loop at her belt. She then coughed discreetly. Klaus looked up. She had apparently finished tuning the speed-healing engine she had bolted around his leg, and was now about to activate it. She raised one eyebrow. “Are you ready, Herr Baron?”

Klaus took a deep breath and nodded. The Doctor nodded back, and flipped a series of switches. The machine chugged slowly to full power, lights began to flash, and a wave of hot, pulsing pain caused Klaus to clench his teeth so hard that stars swam across his vision. It would have to be endured. There was no time to allow himself the luxury of normal healing.

He lay back, closed his eyes, and ran through a complex series of mental exercises, shunting the pain to the back of his mind, where it could be locked away and ignored. After a minute or so, he breathed deeply, opened his eyes and turned his attention to the room beyond his bedside.

It was a large room, lined with tall windows, beyond which over a hundred assorted airships could be seen jockeying for position. These were some of the ships that danced attendance upon the behemoth airship, Castle Wulfenbach, but they were only a small part of the actual airship fleet of the Wulfenbach Empire.

The Castle’s escort was in even more disarray than usual, due to the recent emergency. As Klaus watched, a fire-fighting tanker, its water bags shriveled, dropped before the window, on its way to replenish its supply from some lake or river below.

Little ships moved between the larger ones, searching for damage along the vast expanse of Castle Wulfenbach’s hull. While escaping, Othar had bought himself an extra head start by causing havoc on board the Castle. He had triggered alarms, set fires, and released all manner of experimental subjects. Klaus made a mental note: he would have to think up some very solid defenses against this simple, yet surprisingly effective, strategy.

Klaus then paused and, with effort, reminded himself that he could delegate things like this now. With a tight smile, he scanned the crowd in the room and considered the abilities of each. Each member of his command staff was already overloaded with work—whose day should he make more interesting?