A Study in Silks

legs. He had an irrational urge to cover her up to preserve her modesty. “Who built her?”

Magnus waved a dismissive hand. “A young Italian made it to an existing plan. Alas, consumption took him before he perfected her. The first trials showed flaws in the design, and I was obliged to make repairs. She walked and talked to perfection, but her ability to reason occasionally proved primitive, even aberrant—a common difficulty with automatons, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I have just now recalibrated that portion of her workings and would like to embark on a new trial at once.”

“So she outlived her first maker.” Tobias layed the final hand at her side. The fingers slipped coolly over his, as pliable as if she merely slept.

“She is an orphan and an only child. How long she stays thus is up to you.”

“If you took her apart, can you not reassemble the pieces?” Edgerton asked.

Magnus smiled. “Of course. But I believe that an essential bond is formed between the maker and the made. You will nourish her in the act of bringing her to life and be, if you will, her bridegrooms in her passage back to the world. Or, you will not and she remains but a puppet.”

“Bridegrooms?” Tobias asked, his thoughts straying to Serafina’s detailed anatomy. He yanked them back, somewhere between disgusted and amused.

“I am being metaphorical, of course.” Magnus lifted the head and admired the painted face. “Do not mistinterpret my meaning as some piece of low comedy. Serafina represents a test, as I said. The questions she poses are not a matter of springs and gears, much less of the flesh.”

Bucky lifted his eyebrows, but said nothing more. Of all of them, he seemed the least interested in the doll.

The exchange was entirely lost on Edgerton, who was all about the mechanics. He squinted at the steel socket of her left hip, his concentration absolute. “The wear here is bad. She’s going to be arthritic before her time if we don’t replace these. The curve is wrong for the shape of the joint.”

“How hard will that be to fix?” Tobias asked.

He shrugged, taking measurements with a protractor square. “It’s finer work than we can do here. My father’s man is in town today. I’m going to talk to him before he catches the evening train for Sheffield. Either he’ll have something we can use, or I can get him to order some custom work.”

He cast a glance at Magnus. “If I have to bring something in from Sheffield, it might mean a bribe to the Gold King’s officers. You know how the barons are about machinery.”

Magnus simply nodded and flicked his fingers, as if the cost was nothing. Edgerton left.

Tobias and Bucky remained at the table, one on either side. Bucky cast a look at Magnus, his face doubtful. “What are you going to do with her once she’s operational? You say you want a troupe of these puppets?”

“There are specialized kinds of theater that require a durable cast.” Magnus rose and began pacing the floor. He wore no cape, but one seemed to swirl about him anyway as he stopped, reaching into the trunk. “These are the designs.”

He drew out a dull brown portfolio and unwound the string that secured the cover. He withdrew a handful of sketches, laying them out on the edge of the worktable. With a start, Tobias recognized his father’s handwriting.

“Yes,” said Magnus. “She is of the latest technology, but the original concepts were your father’s work. You come by your talent honestly. My hope is that, unlike him, you do not become entangled in mundane considerations. A gift like yours demands freedom to fly.” Magnus met his gaze and held it, as if to make sure Tobias grasped the full import of his words.

“I’m just a dilettante.”

Magnus’s mouth curved in an expression that said humility was sweet, but utterly unnecessary. It made Tobias taste the lie on his tongue.

He didn’t want to be a mere dabbler. Tobias felt his skin heat with a sudden desire to live up to the task Dr. Magnus had set. It felt like a hunger, or the thirst after an entire night of drink. He was a rich man’s son. His life might not depend on proving himself, but something else, something important inside him, did.

Magnus replied without taking his eyes from Tobias. “My goal has always been to unite artifice and animus.”

“What does that mean?” Bucky asked with a nervous laugh.

“There are a thousand ways to construe the concept. I like to think that we always put a little bit of our souls into what we create. In turn, creations feed their creator by seducing the public with their beauty.”

“You made your puppet sound like the bride of a vampire,” said Bucky.

Magnus laughed, but it wasn’t a reassuring sound. “An apt comparison, in a way, though I would not put it in such graphic terms. Creators need the awe and wonder of their audiences the way a revenant needs blood.”

Bucky’s face twitched, as if he were trying very hard not to laugh. “I hope you don’t expect children to play with your dolls.”

Dr. Magnus narrowed his eyes. “I don’t let just anyone play with my toys.” Then he chuckled. “Serafina is dear to me. I owe her much. Creating a thing of beauty purifies the soul, don’t you think?”

Tobias winced. “I wonder what a flaming sheep says about my chances for salvation.”

Bucky scratched his chin. “Perhaps slightly more than the exploding still. But not much.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

I shouldn’t be here. This is utter and complete folly. Evelina stood across the street from the Hibernia Amphitheatre, looking up at the marquis—The Indomitable Niccolo! The Fabulous Flying Coopers!—and tried to identify the burning in her chest. Regret? Jealousy? Relief that she had escaped that life?

Much of it was loss. She was going to be presented the next day. After that, there was the Season and perhaps college, if she could manage it. Evelina carried magic within her, but her path was clearly pointed toward a life within the gentry. She’d made that choice long ago.

Yet seeing Nick again last night had left her hollow and uncertain. He still watched over her. In the complicated world she lived in now, she was terrified of never finding that kind of unconditional affection again. Of never deserving it. Of never loving any man, not even Tobias, as much.

It wasn’t only Nick that she missed. She desperately wanted to see Gran Cooper, but would Gran want to see her? In Evelina’s dreams, sometimes the old woman turned a look of reproach her way that made her start awake in tears. Evelina felt like two people—one scrambling away from Ploughman’s toward the safety of Society, the other screaming in her face that lopping off that part of herself would never be possible.

Evelina took a shaking breath, gripping her beaded reticule until it crushed against the dark navy stripes of her skirt. Damn you, Nick. She knew she couldn’t go back, but he had still managed to shake her. She would be presented and she would take her place in Society, but she had to go back to Ploughman’s and take one last look before she could go forward to the queen. It was a rite, a ritual, and perhaps a final good-bye.

Evelina had meant to come alone to make her farewells, but had invited Imogen at the last minute. Her friend had seemed too quiet, almost haunted, since last night. Evelina put it down to the stress of the presentation, or perhaps that she had endured another nightmare, perhaps the one about being trapped inside a box. Those were the most frequent and the ones Imogen hated the most. At any rate, she needed a distraction, and Ploughman’s was excellent for that. It seemed to work.

“What are you waiting for?” Imogen tugged excitedly at her elbow. “Let’s buy our tickets! Where do we get them? Oh, there’s a little booth by the door over there.”

Evelina looked to where Imogen pointed and, sure enough, there was a tiny automated ticket office. The Hibernia was an up-to-the-minute venue, painted in brilliant vermillion and gold. A large clock soared from the roof, brass gears flashing as they whirred inside the enormous glass case. The entire place looked like a child’s toy.

“You’d think I would feel like I am returning in triumph,” Evelina said quietly. Her voice was barely audible