Curio (49 page)

Grey accepted the robe Clara offered and pushed to her feet.

“Thank you for all you've done, but I have to get Blaise home.” She couldn't put into words the ache that overtook her when she looked at his tall form motionless on the bed.

“Then I suspect you'll need this.” Weatherton turned back and extended his hand.

Grey raised her palm and accepted the object. “The glass key.”

“You had it in your hand—your right hand—when Blaise brought you here.”

It weighed more than she expected. The finger-length blade had a cylindrical shape, and when she held it up to the light, it appeared hollow. Three symbols were etched into the crystal—a closed fist, an open hand with fingers splayed and stretching upwards, and a hand forming a cup as though begging for water. Something Haimon had said played in the back of her mind.

She brushed her hand over the carving. “Do you know what these symbols mean?”

Weatherton shook his head. “I've never seen anything like it.”

She let her eyes return to Blaise's face. “Maybe he'll recognize them. He knows where the door is. When he wakes up—”

“I'm afraid our situation is even more complicated.” Weatherton backed toward the door, Clara's hand in his. “We're at a standoff with Blueboy's army. Under siege, as it were. Which would be a welcome diversion if not for the urgency of your needs.”

Grey tried to read his expression. “I'm not sure—”

“The revolution is upon us.” The porcie's eyes gleamed. “Getting you away from my estate will take a little creativity.”

CHAPTER

30

I
've made a few modifications.” Ames Weatherton circled the workbench, eyeing the steam pack. “The wings are larger, able to support more weight. And I tinkered with the internal mechanism. The cinderite will heat more quickly, which will get these pistons pumping faster.”

Grey ran her hands over the spine of one long wing and Blaise's dazzling smile popped into her mind. The thought of him pale and lifeless twisted her insides, and the need to get him back to the human world sent Defender armor shooting through her limbs. Under the desperation and determination, something else sparked. It reminded her of summer storms building over the mountains. Whenever the electric energy surged, she had the instinct to seek cover. But how could she hide from something inside of her?

Callis strode into the lab and Seree marched in behind him. Weatherton had restored the dark-haired rebel porcie to full animation. Her amber eyes flashed in her crack-lined face. She stood on the other side of Callis, hands locked behind her back and gaze shifting about the room—anywhere but in Grey's direction.

Weatherton fiddled with the new harness straps then hoisted the pack and walked behind Grey, holding it up to her back as he muttered about lift and propulsion.

Callis's porcie lips lifted in a smile. “We have another Mad Tock on our hands.”

Grey looked down at her borrowed clothing. The cap-sleeved blouse, little more than a chemise, would allow the belts and buckles of the flight harness to fit snugly. A waist cincher secured baggy breeches that must've once belonged to a short tock. Her trouser cuffs grazed a pair of Clara's old ankle boots now fitted with navigation fins, thanks to Weatherton. A set of goggles hung from her neck.

Worry doused any tendrils of excitement over flying again. “Callis, did Blaise ever show you the tree with the lock in the Glass Forest?”

The modified porcie's smile faded. “I never accompanied him on his trips to the forest. Whatever he found in there, he never shared it with me.”

Grey accepted this news with a jerk of her chin. “How soon can we be off?”

Weatherton had the flying device back on the workbench and a tool in hand. “The pack is ready.” He tested the bellow cord. “Yes, the pack is ready. But we've devised a plan to get you away from the city before you have to use it.”

Callis stepped closer. “The soldiers are on the lookout for the Mad Tock. The moment you're spotted, they'll pursue. With Blaise . . . Well, he'll not be much help in his current condition.”

Seree made a noise like a gear rattled in her throat.

Heat—and a sting like the snap of electricity—flared in Grey's cheeks. Could she help it that Blaise's blood ran through her veins now? She thought her heart would explode with the truth of it. “I'll get him back home.” She forced the words through a tightening throat. “He'll get better there.” Provided they didn't step right into Adante's hands.

What hope did they have of saving her father when she was returning with an almost dead warrior? But she was a Defender too. Grey shoved that thought—and the gravity of the situation back home—out of her mind and faced the next step of their plan.

“How are you going to get Blaise and me out with the army ticking away on the front lawn?”

“Gagnon's hydro hub.” Callis's smile returned.

“The thing with all the arms? I thought it distributed water in the Cog Valley.”

“It does. But who's to say it can't distribute a couple of fugitives too?”

“We need to be at the far edge of my property in exactly one hour,” Weatherton said.

“We're going over the Shelf then?” Grey scrambled to fit the pieces together.

“Seree and I will see you safely across Cog Valley,” Callis said. “If we're followed, perhaps we can stall Blueboy's men while you and Blaise fly.”

Grey frowned at both porcies. “The two of you against countless soldiers?”

Callis lowered his voice. “It was just you and me against the Dulaig.”

Grey humphed. “And look how
that
turned out.”

“My point exactly,” Seree's voice cut in.

“Then why risk it?” Grey turned to the porcie rebel. “If Blaise and I fly out of here, we'll draw all the attention. It's just our necks on the line.”

Weatherton cleared his throat. “That wouldn't be very brave, my dear.”

Grey massaged her forehead. “Being brave for bravery's sake isn't much better than being beautiful for beauty's sake.”

Three voices chorused, “What?”

“Oh, never mind.” Grey let her hands smack against her thighs, ignoring the flash of pain in her wrist. “Weatherton, show me how I'm going to fly this thing with Blaise unconscious.”

Brahman led the way, holding a lantern out into the darkness of the tunnel ahead. Weatherton and Callis followed, a litter stretched between them supporting Blaise. Occasionally he came around, but his periods of consciousness were growing fewer and farther between. Grey and Seree brought up the rear of the little band.

Orange glow from the tock servant's lantern cast wavering shadows on the walls but ended a smidge beyond Grey's boots. She kept her eyes on the path, always a step behind the light.

“He must love you.” Seree's whisper sent a shiver over Grey's skin.

She clutched the key hanging from her throat and trudged a few steps before finding words for an answer. “We just met, really.”

“But you're the same. You have the same skin, same heat, same blood.” The porcie woman struggled with the last, unfamiliar word.

Grey held her porcelain hand up. The lantern light turned the smooth skin translucent, revealing the vague outline of gears and clockwork inside. She was one of the modified now. “We're not the same everywhere.”

“Do you love him?”

Grey flinched in the darkness. The words “I need him” sprang to her lips, but she swallowed them. Seree wouldn't understand. Grey didn't quite understand. But her Defender
mark pulsed. It dragged her feet forward so that she tripped over stones and ridges in the dirt. Like two magnets attracting one another, the pull of her mark consumed her senses when Blaise was near. Was that love, or something even stronger? She measured it against her affection for Whit and found that while she still loved her friend, her heart beat and her blood danced in time with a warrior's drum.

The silence in the tunnel pressed on Grey, or was it the force of Seree's unanswered question?

“I'll keep him alive, Seree. I promise.”

“Couldn't you just give some of his blood back?”

“I don't know. I guess if we can't get out, I'll ask Weatherton to try.”

The tension ebbing from the porcie woman at Grey's side eased. “All right,” she said after a moment. “I suppose I needed to hear that you would do for him what he did for you.”

“I would.” Tears pricked in Grey's eyes, blurring the quivering edge of the moving light.

They came out on a ledge set in the sheer face of the Shelf, which overlooked the crowded Cog Valley below. To the right, the land sank, making the stacks and tock buildings appear to slip toward the mouth of Lower. In the distance, across the wide maze of junk towers, a gradual slope led out of the valley to a stretch of green on the horizon.

Gagnon's huge hydro hub stood with arms distended in all directions like some metal organ with pipes for veins. Grey's eyes widened as several of the arms whirred into motion, planting themselves down on the ground. The bulbous sphere moved toward them, the arms rising and
lowering depending on the available space beneath the machine. The hydro hub picked its way through the stacks, heading straight for the ledge where Grey and her friends waited.

Weatherton laughed. “Magnificent.”

Callis spoke from behind him. “It's coming to take your water, I'm afraid.”

The Valor Society leader lowered his end of the stretcher and stepped to the edge. Grey followed and saw a second ledge just under them and to the right a bit. Tocks bustled around a massive capped-off pipe. As the hub neared, they took up positions, ready to oversee the transfer of water into the movable purification locus.

“You'll need to jump,” Weatherton shouted over the noise of the approaching hub.

Grey turned. Callis swung Blaise up from the litter, then Seree slid the poles out from the canvas and folded the material. She clutched it to her chest and nodded to Grey.

The hub creaked and shuddered to a stop beneath them and mechanical shouts blended with the clank of the mechanism. A roar shook the ground as water thundered into the locus.

“Ready?” Callis's mismatched eyes locked with Grey's before the modified porcie jumped with Blaise in his arms. Seree leapt after him.

Grey let her mark do the work. With a salute to Weatherton, she let go of the conscious restraint she'd placed on her bond with Blaise. Her feet sprinted toward the ledge, and she sailed over, landing in a light crouch, poised over Blaise. Callis toppled backward on the metal walkway circling the bulb-shaped hub, but a net of fine-woven chains stopped him from plummeting to the stacks below.

Blaise moaned and his eyes opened. Grey leaned over to explain their position, but his lashes fluttered and closed again. If she let him rest now, maybe he'd have strength for her questions later.

Grey stood, finding Seree around the curve of the hub. The porcie woman watched as the tocks shut off the water supply and disengaged the locus. With a jolt, the apparatus shoved away from the cliff face and crawled to the left. Appendages rose and lowered, tiptoeing through the intricate network of passages between the heaps. They moved in a semi-circle, stopping for the humming locus to dispense clean water into small vessels on stilts.