A Study in Darkness (26 page)

And then the ballet began in earnest, with the usual parade of set pieces in twos and threes. The company was small, and Evelina remembered what Magnus had said about some of his dancers requiring repair. Even at less than full strength, what she saw of the troupe enchanted her with their fluid precision. Yet as marvelous as they all were, Serafina was so much more. Evelina knew performance and performers, and while Serafina was more mechanically refined than the others, there was another reason for her superiority. All the dolls danced, but Serafina danced with joy.

But even as she performed, her companions twirling and weaving behind her, one corner of the stage grew dark, the lights winking out one by one to be replaced by an ominous red glow. When the light grew bright enough, Evelina could see Magnus. At first he was a silhouette in black, more a crow in his dark coat, his long hair trailing to his shoulders. Then, as he raised his bowed head, the crimson light grew bright enough that she saw he cupped the flame—without a candle—in his hands.
Magic
. Evelina knew it for what it was but others would not. This was the theater, the one place where true power was mistaken for a conjurer’s illusion.

Serafina—ghostly sylph, vulnerable heroine—pirouetted across the stage, seeming as delicate as blown glass until … suddenly Magnus was there, dark and forbidding. He caught her in his arms, and she melted into a seeming faint, arms trailing as she drooped, captive to his brooding darkness. The cellist leaned into the dirgelike tune as Magnus bent
over the doll. The corps de ballet swirled anxiously as Magnus swept up his captive, bearing her through the forest of tombstones as a red hue drenched the stage with an aura of blood.

The cello roared and wept. Blue lightning shot across the stage, dancing between coils like a demonic serpent. In the strange, horrible brightness, Magnus turned to glare at the audience, his eyes a glowing scarlet. Someone in the audience shrieked.

Sudden blackness swamped the Magnetorium once more, leaving nothing but the fearsome image imprinted on Evelina’s brain. It lingered, refusing to fade. Suddenly ice-cold, she shook herself back to life, realizing that her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. The performance had completely pulled her in, the terror of Serafina’s abduction slipping past her guard.
Well played, Magnus
.

Time meant nothing in the blackness. A few seconds might have ticked by, or hours. But then someone started to clap. And another. And then the place was in an uproar of delight.

The house lights came up a notch to reveal a black curtain drawn across the proscenium arch. It was the first intermission. Evelina got out of her seat and hurried out the front door to gulp in fresh air. Even the brisk September night seemed warmer than her blood at first, but then her heart seemed to start again. A long shudder took her, as if to throw off the influence of what she’d seen.

“What do you think?” a voice said softly behind her.

It was Magnus, smoking a Turkish cigarette and looking pleased with himself. Other audience members stood mere feet away, but didn’t seem to recognize him. That didn’t surprise Evelina. It was an easy enough trick for a sorcerer.

“I’m impressed,” she said, “but I have some ideas about the lighting. The red at the end is a touch obvious.”

“Does the job tempt you, now you’ve seen the show?” One corner of his mouth curled up.

There wasn’t much she could say. It did, very much. She wanted to look inside those automatons in the worst way.
And I’m running out of time to get Keating his information
.

But her pride demanded something more than a straightforward yes. “The vampire, the maiden, and the horde of scary wraiths? I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I loved reading old copies of
Varney the Vampire
as a girl.”

Magnus made a face. “I was hoping for rather more gravitas than a penny dreadful.”

“Come now, I can’t wait to see what the villain does to our hapless maiden.”

He tossed the stub of the cigarette aside, letting it sizzle on the wet stones. “I suppose I should go put my fangs in.”

“You’re aware of the concept of typecasting?”

He gave her a droll look. “So acidic for one so young.”

Evelina lifted her chin, enjoying the banter despite herself. Truth be told, she was desperate for wit, beauty, and wonder, and this evening was giving her all three. “You said it yourself. Those that bite the hardest live to fight another day.”

“Be careful who you nip, kitten.” The words held just the suggestion of an edge.

“Always, nosferatu. There is every chance you might bite back.”

“And yet I wager that you will stay on as long as there is a saucer of milk.”

“How little you know me.”

“We’ll see, Miss Cooper. Milk is hard to give up.”

“Then I immediately renounce all dairy products.”

“That makes for a bitter cup of tea.” He gave a slight shrug and disappeared in the direction of the stage door, whistling a dirge from the show.

September 20, 1888

Dear Sir,

First, let me assure you that I have in no way forgotten the terms of our arrangement and that I have pursued, with all possible energy, the objectives upon which we agreed. However, the information that you seek is indeed well concealed and it has taken me until this date to find a strong lead. Accordingly, I have placed myself in a position to gain the confidence of the party involved. All I require is a little more time. I beg you to grant me until the end of the month to bring this matter to a satisfactory result.

Your obedient servant,

E.C.

PS—A response may be sent via The Ten Bells. It is a public drinking house, but the owner is trustworthy, for a price.

—addressed to Keating care of the Oraculars’ Club

THE MALE AUTOMATON LAY DISMEMBERED ON EVELINA
’
S
worktable, the cover off his left thigh and a forest of tubes, pulleys, and gears scattered around him. Whoever had first assembled Casimir—obviously a connoisseur of male
pulchritude—had chosen to make the doll as faithful to anatomy as possible. Feeling a little foolish, Evelina had ended up draping him in some attempt at modesty. She wasn’t sure if it was because she cared, or if she thought Casimir might if he ever became as sentient as Serafina.

As far as she was able to determine, all the functioning automatons could understand and obey relatively complex commands. They had to, in order to carry out the intricate steps of the ballets. Most had logic processors that enabled speech, although their conversation was more of the “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir” variety. Only one or two, Casimir among them, had anything approaching the ability to reason at the most basic level, and none displayed what Evelina considered emotion or personality. Serafina was clearly where Magnus had focused his energies, exploring what he called the nexus between magic and machine.

The sorcerer was clearly curious about Evelina’s abilities and asked if she had made any more creatures like Mouse and Bird. She knew from past encounters that he wanted to learn her methods, but this time around he was careful not to push. No doubt that would come eventually, but for now Magnus was paving the way by revealing his own process of discovery.

“Serafina was the recipient of my earliest experiments in mechanical emotion,” he told her one afternoon as Evelina put away her tools for the day.

“It sounds as if you made several.”

“I did. I was breaking new ground.”

Evelina paused to wrap one of her cutting tools in cloth. “And you tried these all on the same subject? Is that good science?”

“I could argue that using one subject gave the process consistency.”

“And your experiments did not conflict, one on top of the other?”

Magnus waved a hand. “Inconsistency is in itself a human trait. One might argue it is appropriate for a female.” He winked as he pushed away from the workbench, drifting off to some other task.

Beyond irritated, Evelina had forced herself to pack the blade away. Like so many men—especially those doling out wages—he gave himself permission to make the occasional boneheaded comment.

Women may be fickle, but at least we work
. There were three male dolls, and they were all out of order. Evelina had been working for Magnus for four days, and had spent that time—when she wasn’t hunting for signs of the Blue King’s weaponry—assessing what needed to be done with the automatons. A few needed minor repairs, but the others were a different story. Magnus had asked her to give priority to the male dolls because certain scenarios demanded masculine characters—the usual princes, huntsmen, and knights. Apparently Magnus had no ambition to strap on ballet shoes, so Casimir was the first onto the workbench.

But Evelina was quickly running out of supplies. Even with the Blue King’s approval to use and repair machines, parts were hard to come by—especially the high-quality clockwork needed for the dolls.

The wire she was threading through a broken joint in hopes of holding two brittle pieces together snapped and rebounded into a curling tail, making a quivering, scraping sound almost like a snicker. Scalp prickling with irritation, she set her pliers down with an emphatic smack. The sound bounced through the cavernous space where she was working, emphasizing the fact that she was on her own with her problems.

Well, if Magnus wanted a dancing Casimir, he was going to have to get her parts. She flipped the sheet over the automaton and pulled off the apron she wore over her skirts to protect them from grease. She dropped the apron over the doll’s feet and drew in her breath. She could hear the distant murmur of the street, her own breathing, and the rustle of a rat in the walls, but she could not hear Magnus.

The first two days, he’d barely let her out of his sight when she was at the theater, but yesterday he had gone out briefly once the other employees had arrived midafternoon. The rhythm of the Magnetorium was different from other theaters. They did put the dolls through their paces to make
sure everything ran smoothly, but those sessions were more of a technical check than a traditional rehearsal and generally didn’t take long. Consequently, the crew wasn’t due to arrive until well into the afternoon.

Did that mean she was the only one there? Evelina stood quiet a little longer, listening, smelling the pungent mix of grease, glue, and old wood, and tasting the air for any hint of magic. There was sorcery there, but it was a lingering memory, like the scent of coffee long after it was drunk. No hint that Magnus was there. She’d been waiting for this opportunity for days.

It had felt like months. Tomorrow was Tobias’s wedding. Today was one day until Keating’s deadline, and Evelina hadn’t yet received a reply to her note begging for more time. Every few minutes, she had to force down her anxiety, swallow back the rising panic that said everything was lost. Tobias. Her reputation. Her uncle’s safety. Her own future. There was nothing she could do about the first, but she could try to salvage the rest. All she had to do was be brave, brilliant, and extremely lucky.

Nothing to fret about, surely—if one was as stubborn as Grandmamma Holmes and as sharp as her shrimp fork.

Evelina crossed to the door that led from the workshop to the rest of the theater. It was unlocked, so she pushed it open with a soft “hello?” The corridor was narrow and dark, but nothing stirred. She walked quickly ahead, doing her best to look confident just in case she was caught. She was just there to ask for parts, after all.

The corridor led to the stage. Between the stage and workroom were green rooms, storage, and the usual backstage paraphernalia. She’d already explored those areas, and the ease with which Magnus had let her confirmed her conclusion—there was nothing of interest in those rooms. What she had yet to see was the upstairs.

About halfway along the corridor, a narrow staircase led off to the right. There was no handrail, and the stairs were thin pie-wedges that forced her to walk on tiptoe around the narrow curve. Evelina’s skin prickled at the notion that the climb to Magnus’s private domain was literally perilous.

When she came to the top, she paused to listen again. Nothing.

The upstairs was smaller than the lower floor, because the theater itself took up both stories. What she saw now sat above the workshop and storage areas. Two narrow hallways divided the space like a T.

Evelina walked forward very quietly, her chest tight with apprehension. A sign marked Private hung on the door to her right, indicating that was the entrance to Magnus’s rooms. Her hand lingered above the knob a moment, then withdrew. There were other rooms behind her. Perhaps it was cowardice, but she decided to save the doctor’s door for last.

She turned away, feeling instantly better as she moved away from Magnus’s lair and toward the plain-looking doors ahead. There were two to either side. It took only a moment to determine that the ones on the right were dressing rooms. The largest was furnished in a fussy, feminine style, with a large wardrobe, vanity, and a dainty sofa in pale pink velvet. This, she surmised, was Serafina’s. The automaton slept with the others, but she was dressed and prepared for the shows up here, almost as if she were a true prima ballerina. It was a clever bit of window dressing, for when the patrons of the theater begged to meet its shining star, they had to be shown something other than a machine lying inert on a cheap wooden table. At the Magnetorium, illusion was all.