A Study in Silks

“Some people invite fate to deal with them irrevocably.” Keating inclined his head, a little sorrowful, a little cocky.

Oh, he is good, thought Tobias. Chilling, but he has the amused statesman nod down perfectly. The only flaw was that Keating watched his audience’s reaction a little too closely. He was still testing out his mask. Is he going to make a play for a seat in Parliament? A ministerial role? Maybe more?

“I don’t waste time, Mr. Roth. And I admire your willingness to speak out and identify a problem. In fact …” he fished in his pocket and drew out a watch.

To Tobias’s surprise, he handed it to him. “What’s this?”

“The world’s smallest steam engine. What do you think of it?”

He struggled to collect his thoughts, which were still parsing through newspaper accounts of Magnus’s demise. There hadn’t been an arrest. Had Keating played a role in the man’s death? If so—Tobias turned his attention to the watch before mounting horror suffused his face.

The watch was a large hunter with a case, but the back opened up to reveal a tiny boiler. It was almost burning hot to the touch, uncomfortable unless one held it by the chain. “A clever notion. I’d love to take it apart. But it hardly seems practical. You’d roast a hole in your pocket, wouldn’t you?”

“We think alike, my boy.” Keating gave him sly smile. “I’ve had my doubts about Bancroft, but the jury is ready to see if you’re cut from better cloth.”

Tobias tensed, as if the floor were suddenly made of crackling ice.

He saw the steam baron had got the desired result. Keating’s smile was reminiscent of a jolly crocodile. “Keep the watch. It’s yours. The previous owner doesn’t need it anymore.”

“Previous owner?” Had he had seen the watch somewhere before?

The smile disappeared. “Aragon Jackson. My former aide.”

His father had said there might be an opening on the Gold King’s staff. Jackson had been a pet inventor of sorts, hadn’t he? The watch felt slippery in Tobias’s hand. “Former? Is Mr. Jackson no longer with you?”

“He was obliged to leave. Permanently.”

Good God. Did irrevocable fate remove the right monster?

“I like to collect good people,” Keating said affably. “Think about it, Mr. Roth. You could have a free hand and all the tools and supplies you need. You could spend day after day doing nothing but tinkering to your heart’s delight. And I pay well.”

It sounded like salvation and damnation in one tidy package. Tobias struggled between the urge to run and a desire to leap at the offer. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Keating patted him on the shoulder. “Come have dinner with my daughter and me some night. You know Alice, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Tobias with a greasy feeling in his stomach. “I have the pleasure of Miss Keating’s acquaintance.”

“Excellent. We’ll have a talk about things.”

Chapter Forty-one

Nick stared after Evelina, nearly blind with misery. He shouldn’t have kissed her, especially not like that. He should have just left town. Now even when he came back to London, he would have no right to see her.

Anger charred his veins, fueled by a horrible helplessness. What could he do? He already made the best living possible for someone with no last name, and that was chancy. All it would take was one fall during the show, and he would be done. But what choices did he have?

He looked around the room, suddenly unsure why he was there. None of this business with artifacts and thieves was his problem. Holmes had been a good sport to ask him along, but he didn’t have a place in their story. Nameless Nick was just the bit of rough that gave the narrative spice and then vanished when it was time to light the fire and draw the drapes against the dangerous night.

Fly.

He looked toward the spot where he thought the voice had come from. Evelina had left her basket. It had been knocked over during their grappling kiss, the contents spilling out across the papers littering the desk.

Fly.

Nick took a step toward the mess, both repulsed by and reverent of anything Evelina had touched. As he reached out to right the basket, his hand tingled as if he’d been scalded.

There was an ugly lump of clockwork that looked as if it had been rescued from a fire. Or a shipwreck. Whatever it was had been damaged. Curious, he picked it up.

You came.

Nick stared at the thing. There had to be a deva inside, just as with Evelina’s bird. “Who were you waiting for?”

Your fathers were my people.

“I have no father.” But of course that was not true. Technically, everyone had a father. He just had no idea who his had been.

You understand my words. Others do not. You are of my people, the riders of air.

“What about Evelina?”

She was not the one. You are.

“Lucky me.” He knew Evelina could hear air devas, just like he could hear those of the earth and forest, but he could hear animals sometimes, too. And, apparently, talking scrap metal.

That is your legacy. I waited and you came.

And then he noticed the silk bag in the bottom of the basket, a corner of something gold poking out the top. He put down the lump of metal and picked up the bag. When he dumped it out, a king’s ransom in gold and stones poured into his hand.

Ship. You build. I fly.

Nick was good with his hands, but he didn’t know how to build—not like Tobias or Evelina. He was about to say that, but then stopped himself. He couldn’t be defeated before he’d even begun. Perhaps he wasn’t an engineer, but it seemed he finally had the right Blood for something. Maybe for once in his life he was in in luck— he had the airship plans, and he had Striker, who was aching to break free of the Gold King’s leash. And then Nick looked at the cube, suddenly understanding what it was. Athena’s Casket—the deva that the steam barons wanted to use for their fleet of lethal airships.

Dark hells, what have I stumbled on? Terror crept up his limbs as his fingers, with a will of their own, curled around the fortune in his hand. He had no right to any of it. Not even to escape the Indomitable Niccolo and become somebody else, someone with the kind of power she would be forced to notice.

Nick shook his head as if to clear it. Jilted love was a bad reason to decide anything—he was stronger than that. Whatever he did, he had to do because it was the right thing for Nick and no one else.

You came.

The casket hummed happily in the basket. It was ugly, stripped of everything that had once made it fearsomely beautiful, but it knew what it was for. Nick wished he had one iota of that clarity. “I’m not a thief.”

But you came. I fly. You fly.

He dumped the gold back into the basket, his hands tingling with the feel of Evelina’s body struggling against his. “I love her.”

The deva reached out, touching his mind, like a mother soothing her heartbroken child. Then win her. Make her see who you are.

Like a frail twig, whatever had kept Nick on the side of the law snapped.

Evelina slowed her pace as she reached the gallery. She stopped just outside the large open room, forcing