Ultimate Nyssa Glass
The Complete Series
Nyssa Glass and the House of Mirrors
Nyssa Glass and the Juliet Dilemma
Nyssa Glass and the Cutpurse Kid
Nyssa Glass's Clockwork Christmas
Nyssa Glass and the Electric Heart
H. L. Burke
Copyright © 2016 H. L. Burke
All rights reserved.
Cover Design: Jennifer White
Image Credit: Stephane
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Nyssa Glass and
the House of Mirrors
Copyright © 2016 H. L. Burke
To the self-taught and the determined.
-H. L.
Chapter One
“Late, late, late …” Nyssa Glass nearly bowled over a wind-up paper-vendor as she emerged from her boarding house, her ruffled skirts swishing around her knee-high, buttoned boots. She clutched her leather satchel to her chest and inhaled the comforting, nutty smell of the flaxseed oil she’d polished it with the night before. The satchel was her most prized possession, carefully constructed with pockets for all her various tools, but stylish enough that she could wear it to church functions without drawing attention.
Mr. Calloway, her employer and mentor, always insisted on escorting her to church functions, but being away from her tools made her anxious, a throwback to keeping lockpicks in her back pocket, she supposed. If Mr. Calloway had made that connection, he probably would’ve tried to break her of the habit. He seemed to see it as a harmless quirk, though.
Nyssa searched her brain for an excuse for her tardiness. It wasn’t really one thing that had caused her to be late. More of a series of minute annoyances. Laces snapping on her corset, for instance. She hated her corset. It hadn’t been a required part of her wardrobe until the last year or so. Before her enrollment in Miss Pratchett’s School for Mechanically Minded Maids, no one had cared if she dressed like a boy. Now that she was a graduate of that prestigious school, though, she had to dress her status and age.
Turning sixteen seemed to have only brought on more wardrobe restrictions and pimples … the pimples being the second thing to go wrong that morning, though she supposed it was her own fault for letting them distract her. Normally she wouldn’t bother with make up, but the size of the red spot on the bridge of her nose had sent her begging her roommate for powder. Then breakfast was burned, keys were misplaced, and their elderly landlady had caught her in the hallway and wanted to chat.
“Should’ve just shouted, ‘sorry, late,’ and ran for it.” Nyssa shook her head at her own weakness. “No, you had to not only say 'I'm doing fine, thank you,' but ask her how her parakeet was faring as well.”
The air was cool, but hazy with the exhaust from the nearby steam-power plant. The click of the inner workings of New Taured's automated button factory rose above her footsteps, causing her to walk in time with that rhythm. A few folk lingered on the sidewalk, milling about; however, most shops wouldn't open for another hour. Mr. Calloway liked to open early to “make the most of the day.”
Nyssa liked to stay up late then sleep until her alarm clock screamed at her.
The clock tower at the end of the street clanged for seven o’clock. She clenched her teeth.
As she turned onto Clockwork Row, the timepiece store on the corner erupted in a cacophony of chimes, bells, and cuckoos. She wasn’t sure how the keeper tolerated that going off every hour on the hour. Nyssa needed silence to work … well, silence except for the sound of her own voice. Talking to herself was another of her “harmless quirks.”
Lights shone through the windows of Mr. Calloway’s shop, the painted letters declaring his ability to repair all forms of videophones, radios, and signal sending devices. The sign in the door already read “open.”
She pushed open the door, triggering a mechanism which chimed out the first several bars of a lullaby, and Nyssa smiled in spite of herself. It was a new tune today. Mr. Calloway liked to mix it up every so often.
The old man pushed down his magnifying goggles and smiled at Nyssa from the other side of the counter. “Ah, there you are. My watch must be fast.”
“Your watch, the clock tower, and the two hundred or so timepieces in the store next door?” She raised her eyebrows.
“I know. Coincidences abound.” He bent back over the inner workings of a radio.
Nyssa mulled over her options. Just because Mr. Calloway wasn’t going to make a big fuss over her being late didn’t mean he didn’t deserve an explanation, but as she’d hashed out on the way over, there wasn’t really an explanation, not a concise one anyway. “It won’t happen again,” she said simply.
Hiking her skirts to just above her knees, she vaulted over the counter.
Mr. Calloway pushed a schematic towards her. “Dalhart & Rivera is launching an upgraded version of their videophone next month. They sent out advanced schematics this morning, so we can be prepared for questions and complete any repairs.”
Nyssa unrolled the fresh white paper, inked in blue. It took her a full three minutes of scanning to spot the first difference between the new and the old. “Is this all? A slightly larger viewscreen and one or two new vacuum tubes? That hardly seems worth the trouble of a relaunch.”
“Ah, but you know every wealthy patron will wish to upgrade their in-home system, just to say they have the latest and the greatest.” Mr. Calloway gave a wry smile. His watery blue eyes looked huge through the lenses of his glasses.
Nyssa looked away to avoid laughing.
“It’s a shame, though. When the company was just ‘Dalhart Incorporated,’ they built things to last forever, not to be replaced every six months.” He waved to the wall behind him where a bronze-framed screen rested. “I purchased that model almost a decade ago, when I took the shop over from my
