hidden in their desk drawers, waiting for the right opportunity.
Only Keating had pursued the legend of Athena’s Casket—the Holy Grail of air flight—or so he’d thought. Even scholars thought it more myth than fact. Now he looked around the room, wondering if one of his rivals was the thief.
He took his seat. He was the last to arrive, but already he could feel the tension in the room, like some thick, sticky substance clinging to every surface. The Harter affair had put everyone on edge. There was little of the usual premeeting chitchat among the seven principals. The aides, flunkies, and hangers-on were restless, expending their energy in stormy glowers at their neighbors. Only the Violet Queen asked after Alice and the progress of his gallery. The woman never forgot her manners, despite the lines of tension bracketing her mouth.
The chair was a rotating position, and today Green had it. Jane Spicer was one of the two female members of the council, succeeding her late husband to the position. The softest thing about her was the bottle-green silk of her day dress. Otherwise, she ruled the commercial districts of the capital with a fearsome hand.
“Gentlemen. Ladies.” She rapped on the table with her knuckles, reminding Keating of a stern governess. What little conversation there was dribbled to a halt, stemmed by the harsh grating of her voice. If that tone could have been distilled and used as a weapon, the Empire would have the entire globe shaking in its boots. “We have a long agenda, so I suggest we begin.”
Keating listened with half an ear to what came next—an unnecessary roll call, the adoption of past minutes, and so on. He looked around the table. The Violet Queen, decked out in frilly violet ruffles, was as feminine as Green was not and was completely prepared to use that beauty when it suited her. Next to her sat Scarlet, an athletic, black-haired man with piercing dark eyes. Neither of these two worried Keating much—they were smaller players in the game, dangerous only if they forgot their self-interest long enough to work together, and that was unlikely. Keating and Blount were both too good at sowing dissent.
The next two did interest him, but for different reasons. Silence Gasworks was an enigma, operating in the underground. It was believed that a couple ruled the Black Kingdom, but no one was entirely sure. They typically sent a single representative—and not always the same one—who sat and listened, voted if required, and volunteered nothing. Today it was a gray-bearded man in a kind of cassock who had identified himself as Mr. Fish. Indeed, he contributed as much as if he had floated up on the Thames’s polluted banks, belly to the air.
Keating would have been insulted by the apparition and thrown the lone man out, except he dared not. The underground was as large as the whole of London, and no one was sure how much power the Black Kingdom actually had. So Mr. Fish sat, silent, solitary, and unmolested.
The final member of the council was the Gray King, who occupied a smallish territory on Green’s northern borders. His people were outdoor sporting types with red faces and bushy whiskers who no doubt kept hounds and drank vats of good amber ale for breakfast. Gray was a good businessman and a nice enough fellow, in the fine old tradition of English country squires. Unfortunately, he had made some serious mistakes for which he was about to atone. That included trusting his peers.
Green’s shardlike voice fell silent, letting their ears rest a beat before launching into the new business of the agenda.
“Before we begin, I have something to add regarding the division of supply areas,” Keating said, modulating his own tone between firm and utterly reasonable. “The junction of the Blue, Green, and Gold pipelines at Blackfriars Bridge is proving inconvenient.”
“How so?” Green asked suspiciously.
“Simplification. Our gas and steam and rail holdings don’t align. There are householders in the area who pay you for their heat, me for gas, and then board a Blue train to go to their workplace. That fails to promote loyalty with our client base, which is something we all aspire to.” Sometimes that loyalty was inspired the end of a streetkeeper’s fist, but that was mere detail. “I propose Green retreat north of Fleet and leave the bridge as a clean divider between Blue and Gold territories.”
The woman huffed. “I think not. That area of town provides good revenue, as you well know. And furthermore, there is a toll on that bridge that is currently split three ways. You mean to cut me out.”
“Surely you are mistaken, madam.” She wasn’t, and they both knew it, but Keating plowed on. “The toll program has been purely experimental. We agreed not to institute charges that would impair healthy commerce in London. For a flat fee, anyone can buy a monthly pass and avoid individual tolls altogether. It only makes sense. Merchants have to move their wares. Farmers must get their goods to market. Fishermen …”
“Yes, yes, spare me the litany.” She waved his words aside. “Your words mean nothing. The meaning is in the money.”
She was right. Merchants paid not only for heat and light, but also to move their goods via railways, docks, and now bridges. The barons’ stranglehold on the areas their companies served was all but complete. Keating’s gaze flicked up to the sour-faced men standing behind Mrs. Spicer. They looked like clerks, doomed to a future of high desks and cold lunches. He knew for a fact she bled her businessmen of money before any of them got enough capital together to challenge her. Not a bad plan, but she didn’t have the wits to be subtle about it. It would have worked better if she’d made them think handing over their fortunes was their own idea.
“Move your area of influence north,” King Coal wheezed. “That will compensate you most handsomely.”
She wasn’t impressed. “I have a nonexpansion treaty with Gray.”
“Perhaps a concession, then,” Keating suggested smoothly. “You promised not to take him over if we left your southern borders alone. Give us your share of the bridge, and we’ll let you expand north.”
Gray jumped to his feet. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Indeed,” said Green, sitting back in her chair. Yet she did not relax. Every angle of her body begged for an excuse to pounce on this opportunity.
Keating meant to give her that. He rose more slowly, letting his fingertips rest on the mahogany surface of the table. “It means that inquiries have revealed storehouses of machine parts within Gray’s borders. Parts that any competent mechanic could use to construct his own boilers, gas burners, or batteries. Parts smuggled from unlicensed factories in the north and used in the workshops of the Harter Engine Company.”
Green rose, a hungry look on her square face. “That contravenes the first article of the Steam Council’s code of conduct. ‘No one shall promote or enable the general populace to generate their own power or means of locomotion without the express approval of all.’”
“He’s supporting the rebels!” Scarlet almost shouted in his fury. He was half out of his chair, but the Violet Queen pulled him back into his place by the sleeve.
“You’re seeing rebels everywhere, my dear,” she said calmly. “Calm yourself. They generally don’t hide under the furniture, much less at our council meetings.”
“You’re wrong,” Scarlet shot back, though with more self-control. “It’s this damned Baskerville affair. It’s not just the rabble anymore. The gentry are getting involved.”
“That’s nothing more than wishful thinking on the rabble’s part.” Violet pulled out her handkerchief, a delicate fluttering of lawn and lace, and dabbed at a faint gleam of perspiration on her cheeks. It was hot in the room, and tempers were making it worse. “All gentlemen of quality pass through my houses sooner or later, and if they have secrets my employees have a way of finding them out. I’ve heard nothing about the Quality taking up arms against us.”
That seemed to reassure Scarlet, but Keating’s interest was piqued. Whatever Violet thought, not every gentleman went whoring, and not every one who did struck up a conversation about politics with his doxy. More to the point, what was this Baskerville business? And why hadn’t he heard about it? The gap in information irked him, especially so soon after his shipment went awry. He hated being caught by surprise.
But Gray saved him the trouble of asking questions. “What’s Baskerville?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” snarled Scarlet.
“Baskerville is a phantom,” wheezed King Coal, his chair letting off a gust of steam as he leaned forward. “A rumor. A vaguery. There are whispers of a shadow government that will sweep in and seize control when the time is right, and we shall all end up on the gallows.”
A ripple of laughter went around the room, some voices less confident than others.
“It’s all nonsense. The crown prince will never stand for it,” the Blue King added. Victoria’s pleasure-loving
