china urn patterned with blue chrysanthemums. “Your cheek is uncalled for. Why were you really following me?”
Nick didn’t answer right away. The foyer was not large, but it had a marble floor and gold-leaf scrollwork framing the door. He hadn’t been inside a rich man’s house before—not through the front door, anyhow—and the sight of so much wealth threw him back on his heels. It was one thing to know he was poor, quite another to feel the full force of everything he could never have. A bitter taste invaded his mouth, as if he had been chewing the ashes of his own dreams.
Anger robbed him of caution. “I’m curious to know what you want with Tobias Roth, sir. He may be clever, but he is little more than a pretty boy.”
“And you are, no doubt, infinitely more clever and capable.” Dr. Magnus turned a mocking sneer his way as he opened the door to the rest of the house. “Nick with no name and less education.”
The barb stung, but Nick responded by strolling into the doctor’s rooms as if he already owned something much finer. The trick wasn’t to swagger, but simply to fill the space with his presence. No great feat for a showman.
He schooled his face as he looked around, observing the tooled green leather on the walls, the carpet so thick the toes of his boots disappeared as he walked. The center of the room was filled with a huge table, bow- legged and carved with zephyrs at every corner. It was piled high with books and contraptions Nick guessed were scientific in purpose.
His stomach roiled with an emotion he couldn’t name. Envy was part of it, but there was more. At least one other ingredient was rage so acute that bile burned in throat.
Magnus turned a device mounted on the wall, and a gigantic chandelier came to life overhead. Glass baubles rattled in the drafts of the high, high ceiling, but the light remained bright and steady. Now Nick could make out a balcony of sorts all the way around the room, where tall bookcases lined every inch of wall space.
Nick swallowed down his emotions for the sake of curiosity. “That doesn’t look like gaslight.”
“It’s not. It is electrical incandescent light operated from a generator. Nothing here is gas or coal. I refuse to do business with the so-called steam barons.”
“Were you Disconnected?”
“No. I never bothered to have the place hooked up to their utilities.”
“For what reason?” Nick looked around uneasily, noticing the dusty odor in the place, the cobwebs clinging in the shadowed corners. Perhaps the man really did have no servants. But if he had only been in England a short time, where had this library come from?
“Let me answer that in a roundabout way. The Savoy is an interesting playhouse,” Magnus said. “Apparently the original plan was to light it entirely with electricity. They’d got as far as hiring someone to build a generator.”
“And?” Nick couldn’t care less, but danger lurked at the edges of Magnus’s words. No doubt he would care in a moment or two.
“D’Oyly Carte, the proprietor, is still using the Gold King’s gas. Evidently there was a sudden change of direction after his electrical man was found dead. Bled to death after swallowing a dozen broken lightbulbs. The chap who designed the bulbs, some fellow named Swan, suffered a similar fate. There were a great many jokes about the Savoy being his swan song.”
Nick swore under his breath. “Why does one playhouse matter so much to the steam barons?”
“The steam barons? No one accused them of a thing.”
“Who else would do it?”
“Precisely. And if they let one establishment do what they liked, anyone who could get away would wriggle out from under their collective thumb. They are greedy masters, after all. One pays once for light and again for heat and thrice if you are so lucky as to receive electricity for your business—but woe betide the customer who tries to cut costs by converting the steam to electricity or the gas to a boiler without the express permission of the utility. They might miss an opportunity to collect their fee.”
“What’s your involvement, sir?” He asked the question boldly, not like a servant to his master but man to man. As usual, the only tool he had was his pride.
Magnus studied him, obviously weighing what he saw. “Me? I am but a humble doctor who practices the art of mesmerism. My involvement counts for nothing—and yet like every man, woman, and child of the world, my involvement is everything. There are plenty of theaters in Paris, New York, Florence, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg. There are also hospitals, universities, and racetracks. The entire world is watching what happens in the Empire with avid interest. Should Europe simply sit back and watch a mighty power bleed to death? Should they go to war? The question of when to intervene on Queen Victoria’s behalf, and how much, is greatly debated.”
“And if they don’t step in?” Now Nick was actually curious. He rarely had occasion to think much beyond his own horizon, but this intrigued him.
“Someone will, eventually. I might say inevitably. But will it be too late? Your steam magnates already have tentacles in the German states. I would rather like to lop those tentacles off, and I might even be able to do it if I play my cards cleverly enough.”
Since when did a mere mesmerist interfere in international affairs? Dr. Magnus was clearly more than he admitted to. “You care about what happens in Germany?”
The man laughed, showing white teeth. “Before you accuse me of philanthropical leanings, let me say first the barons have something I want.”
“What is that?”
“My own affair.”
Magnus fell into a red velvet wing chair that framed his head like a peacock’s fan. He waved Nick to a footstool. Instead, Nick leaned against the table and folded his arms. He wanted to stay light on his feet.
“So you will fight them?” he asked, watching Magnus’s dark face. What would the steam barons have that this creature would want?
“I’m not a rebel in the accepted sense. I work alone. But I do plan to poke a stick in their wheels. You might say that right now I am looking for the best possible stick for the job.”
Nick looked down at the stacks of books on the table. Most looked very old, the leather corners worn away to expose fraying cloth. The titles contained words he didn’t know, or maybe they weren’t even in English. “So, Dr. Magnus, do these ancient books say that Tobias Roth is a good stick?”
“He has an exceptional talent for mechanics, as well as the ideal family connections. His father, in particular, has access to Society. That is part of what I need. But I am also curious about Miss Cooper. I saw something of hers, an invention that quite took my breath away.”
Nick froze inside, but he refused to let the least twitch cross his face. “She’s barely out of school.” Relieved, he heard his voice was even, not showing the alarm he felt at the thought of Evie in this dark stranger’s crosshairs.
“She is the girl you climbed the wall of Hilliard House to see, is she not? Old enough for stolen kisses?”
Nick turned away from Magnus, pretending to examine one of the contraptions perched on the stacks of moldering tomes. This one looked suspiciously like a miniature still, but there was no way he would ever drink the greenish liquid in the tiny flask beneath the mile of tubing.
By the time he turned back, Nick had prepared his lie. “No, sir, I’m rather more interested in Tobias Roth’s sister. The fair-haired girl.”
Dr. Magnus gave a sly smile, as if he were playing along with the lie. “Ah, so the golden-haired beauty likes a bit of rough, does she?”
Nick shrugged. “She is pretty and has money.”
“And who can fail to appreciate such straightforward charms?”
Nick wandered idly down the length of the table. He wanted to put distance between himself and Magnus before his worry for Evelina showed on his face.
Halfway down, a set of plans was unfurled from a clockwork scroll. He’d seen such scroll devices before. Lengths of specially prepared silk were used like paper and could be wound down to cases no larger than a pocketbook. He leaned closer to see what the plans were for.
He caught his breath. The design was a cutaway drawing of an airship so graceful Nick thought it might float
