was as dirty as hers—that was far from surprising, but the marks that crisscrossed the back of Caleb’s hand were a system of cross-hatched scars, white and rising from the skin’s already pale surface and a testament to Caleb’s continued courage.
He said he wouldn’t give in to the Maker and he hadn’t, though it had cost him.
Before Caleb could withdraw his hand, Jordan knocked the cup awkwardly aside to grasp his fingers.
For a moment they were still and silent that way, tea leaking from the overturned cup, Jordan’s hand clenching the fingers of the boy next door.
“Please don’t,” he whispered, his voice rasping to finally break the shared silence. “You’re wasting good tea.”
But she wrapped her fingers more tightly around his. “How did you come to be here?”
“Although I do not mind your questions normally…” He shifted in the straw on the hole’s other side. “You must not ask me that.”
His fingers twitched against her palm.
“You must let me go,” he said.
“Not yet.” She twisted closer, trying to get her face close enough that she could see his face.
But the darkness between them was too deep.
“I don’t wish to let go just yet.”
“We never do.” He groaned. “Who are you really holding on to, Jordan? It can’t be me … You barely know me…”
She sighed.
“Who was he?”
She released him then, pulling away to tuck her knees up and wrap her arms around them. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Liar. You’re holding on to someone. In your heart. I know it.”
“How would you know?”
“Because we do that—hold on. It’s what keeps us going. It’s all that keeps us going.”
She heard him move in the straw again and she imagined him mirroring her position just a wall away. “
“Well, it certainly isn’t the love of one’s family … not for me.” Silence soaked up the moments like a sponge falling into water for the first time. He reached through the gap in the wall again, this time even farther into the grim space of her cell. His fingers fidgeted, wanting hers, and she could not help but take them again.
“Who keeps
“Thomas.”
She nearly pulled back in surprise at him naming another man. But his delivery of the name, so soft and sweet and …
And they rested that way in the dirt and the straw, neither of them worrying over filth or social convention, holding hands and remembering a brighter, better time when love was fresh and new and within reach. It was remembering those things that next spurred Jordan to action. Caleb was right, she was holding on to someone and realized then in her Tank how lost she felt without him.
Rowen was lost and he’d been lost for days. How was it that a man of his education and breeding could be so utterly turned around in a forest? He sat with a huff at the base of a tree and ran his hands across his face, scratching at the stubble growing there. He growled out his despair. He no longer had clean clothing, a ramrod for his pistol, or his horse, and, to make things worse, he was growing whiskers to rival his grandfather’s. Soon he’d have a full beard and mustache and children would flock to him and call him Father Christmas …
How did people stay reasonably clean shaven before barbers and razors and straps? Did they use other knives? He looked at his sword. He’d cut his head clean off if he tried to shave with it. The natives. What did they use? Flint? He glared at his pistol and its firing mechanism. No flint to be had as they’d made the fashionable switch to percussion caps not long ago. They fired better most times, but one could hardly get a good shave from a percussion cap.
Flint was merely a piece of rock that could be sharpened. Surely he could find that. Even if he couldn’t find the horses. Or Holgate. Or Jordan.
His stomach rumbled. Well, no one would mistake him for Father Christmas, as lean as he was becoming. He threw a rock he’d managed to sit on and cursed at the thought it might have been flint. And no one would ever mistake him for being jolly.
Damn it all! His best friend was dead, his steed was missing along with most of his remaining possessions, he hadn’t had a meal of substance since Frederick’s house, and he was absolutely certain he had sat beneath this same exact tree raging about his failures before!
By the time he reached Holgate Jordan would already be gone. If he ever reached Holgate. His chance at a happily ever after was slim at best and his chance of being a hero? Worse.
He dragged himself back up to his feet and held onto the tree. He had to take desperate measures. He had to find Ransom. Or Silver. Or both.
And he might just have to do the thing he’d never dreamed of doing—ask for directions.
Damn it all!
There was something about a child and spreading kindness that did not sit well with Bran and his title of Maker, so he summoned Councilman Stevenson to his laboratory to conclude business. “I have not the stomach for this job anymore,” Bran admitted, his gaze traveling over the Councilman’s head to rest on the sightless skull in its makeshift place of honor—the skull belonging to the child who reminded him so much of the little girl who now frequently shadowed his steps. The same little girl that looked up at him with worshipful eyes and suggested he try patience above pain.
“And precisely what do you mean by that?”
“I mean…” Bran looked down, his brow pinching together over the narrow bridge of his nose. “I cannot be your Maker any longer.”
The Councilman hopped back, shaking his head in surprise. “You cannot…?” Again he shook his head. “I fail to see how you have come to believe that you have a choice in such matters.”
“Of course I have a choice. I have a family now. I must make this choice for their good as much as my own. Perhaps more for theirs than mine.”
“A family?” the Councilman chortled, holding his stomach with one hand. “You have a bastard daughter by a whore and a maid warming your bed until you tighten your purse strings or she finds someone more interesting.” He shook his head, still laughing. “A
Bran crossed his arms over his chest and spread his feet in a broader stance. “I will Make no more Conductors.”
“Then who do you think will? Who will provide our most valuable energy resource except you? Who will power our lights and our carriages and our airships?”
“There is talk of a better power source: steam,” Bran suggested.
The Councilman’s head snaked forward.
“Yes. Steam.”
Lord Stevenson raked a hand through his thinning hair. “Do you have any idea of how a change to steam— only a possibility of power, truly—would change our entire society? Can you fathom what such a thing might mean?”
“It might mean that Councilman Braga was right. It might mean revolution,” Bran said matter-of-factly.
Stevenson snorted. “My
“And because of my
