Riveted (9 page)

“You.”

Her face fell. “Hornblow over it all.”

Was
that
English? Whatever she meant by “hornblow,” it probably wasn’t the sort of noise that Annika associated with the word. “What does that mean?”

“Annika.” Her name was a remonstration. So it must be something vulgar, then. Something she’d have been fined for saying in Manhattan City. When Annika only looked at her, waiting, Mary’s cheeks reddened. She leaned closer and said under her breath,
“Poop.
”

Well, yes. Annika supposed that it was.

Annika infinitely preferred sewing to studying. It seemed
ridiculous, as those two tasks were almost the same. Both required her to sit in the corner of the wardroom, in the armchair near the brightest lamp, yet she still seemed to squint as often over small print as she did a seam. With enough time, bending over a page or a garment stiffened her neck and made her wish for one of the more comfortable chairs beside the bookshelves, or a seat at the game table, where the players stretched while moving a mark or tossing a card, rather than sitting in one attitude for an eternity.

When she sewed, however, none of that discomfort seemed to matter. Studying, she had to force herself to focus, or be easily distracted by everyone else’s activities.

She turned the page of the generator manual, and stifled a sigh as another diagram introduced a host of new words. She already understood how the electrical generator worked, but didn’t know
the French terms for most of the components. As much as she disliked taking the time to learn them, however—an armature coil and a
bobinage d’induit
performed exactly the same function, no matter what she called the thing—she would dislike appearing completely ignorant in front of the chief even more.

Luckily, many of the words were similar, because she wouldn’t have much time to look over them. Less than an hour remained until first watch began.

It was still more time than Annika might have spent if Doctor Kentewess hadn’t asked whether she’d be in the wardroom after supper. If not for that—and if Elena hadn’t been clinging to a bucket when Annika had returned to their cabin to dress for dinner—Annika might have taken the advice she’d given to Mary and attempted to sleep again.

If she didn’t fall asleep here. How long had she been looking at this diagram? And the room was so warm. Fighting a yawn, she blinked quickly, trying to concentrate. Her final blink turned into a long, slow nod with her eyes closed.

Voices in the passageway shook her out of it—the doctor’s voice among them. Oh, good. She gladly closed the manual and looked to the door.

A young man with a pointed reddish beard entered. Oh, she’d seen him before—but where? The older man behind him appeared just as familiar, though she recalled him laughing. Had it been on the docks? That seemed right. He’d worn an overcoat and an enormous hat, and he’d been laughing as she and her rescuer walked past their steamcoach…

Oh.

Her stomach dropped through the seat of her chair. She knew who the third man would be, but couldn’t account for the leap of her pulse upon seeing him. His presence surprised her, yes. But why the sudden impulse to flee?

Before his long legs carried him a full step through the door, his
gaze had scanned the wardroom and locked on hers. She heard the doctor introducing the three to the navigator and the players at the game table, but Annika had already realized who he must be: David Kentewess. Not in a little cart at all—and no longer a boy.

He was still looking at her. Just
watching
her from across the length of the room, his face unreadable and the intensity of his gaze like a strong grip that prevented her from glancing away. She stared back, heart slamming against her ribs. Oh, but surely there was no need for this panic. The impression she’d had before—of him wanting something from her, that he would follow her until he got it—had just been her imagination…hadn’t it? What could Lucia’s nephew want from her? He must be as surprised as Annika was.

But, no. Why would he be surprised? He’d escorted her to
Phatéon
’s mooring station…and hadn’t said a word that he would soon be traveling aboard the same airship. Why refrain from telling her? Had his silence been some New World courtesy that she didn’t understand? Or had he deliberately withheld the information?

Perhaps she would never know. But at least now she could ask why he chased volcanoes.

He looked away when the men at the game table stood and extended their hands to his companions. Oh,
finally
. Annika took a moment to steady her nerves and to study him—a study that was far more interesting that a schematic had been. His legs were likely the same sort of skeletal prosthetics as his hand; unfortunately, his wool trousers concealed their design. Dinner gloves hid his hands now, too—but the absence of the garments he’d removed since she’d last seen him revealed more.

Without his brimmed hat, no shadows obscured his features. More ragged scars cut through the hairline at his left temple and bisected the eyebrow over his gleaming lens apparatus. His black hair was combed straight back from a broad forehead and skimmed the bottom edge of his collar. The overcoat he’d worn on the docks
added bulk he didn’t actually carry—as did his jacket now. The heavy tweed fit him horribly. His shoulders were wide, his torso tapering to lean hips, but his clothes might as well have been cut to fit a box. She hoped he had not paid much money for them.

Perhaps he would soon win enough for a new jacket, though. At the game table, the first mate gestured to the patolli board, inviting Lucia and the passengers to join them. The older man responded eagerly, friendly avarice in his tone.
Oh.
Annika glanced down at the generator manual, surprised by her disappointment. A moment ago, she’d wanted to escape. Now she wished that there was enough time before first watch to join the game.

She looked up and found David Kentewess’s gaze on her again. A moment later, the older man’s eyes lighted on her. He blinked and turned to the doctor, then to her nephew. Annika couldn’t hear what he said, but she saw Lucia’s quick glance in Annika’s direction. After a word with those settling in around the game table, the doctor started across the wardroom.

Kentewess left the others and accompanied her. Standing, Annika forced herself to look away from him and greeted his aunt, who responded with a curious arch of her brows.

“Mr. Dooley wanted to know whether you’d had any additional trouble from the port officers. I wasn’t aware that you’d had any trouble at all. Is everything well?”

“Oh, yes. I was detained at the port gates. Your nephew bravely rescued me.”

“
Rescued
you? Why, he mentioned nothing of it.”

When his aunt slanted him an inquiring glance, Kentewess flushed. “It was nothing, Aunt Lucia. Only a miscommunication.”

“Nothing to you, perhaps,” Annika said. “But considering what might have happened if that miscommunication hadn’t been resolved, it meant everything to me.”

He seemed to still, holding her gaze. “Did it?”

“Perhaps not
everything
,” she had to admit, and looked to
Lucia. “He’s right to question me. Only minutes after he risked himself to confront the port officer, I rejected his company.”

Oh, she must have exposed her lack of proper sensibilities again. Lucia’s mouth opened, but she seemed at a loss for words. With wide eyes, the woman looked to her nephew, who didn’t appear taken aback.

“I told her that you did,” he said to Annika. “But at the time, she thought I spoke of someone else.”

And Lucia likely felt awkward now for asking to introduce them. Well, there was no reason for that. “I began wishing that I hadn’t rejected your offer shortly after I boarded—and I wished it all the more after I saw what Cook sent up for our supper.”

The right corner of his mouth lifted. “Will you accept the company now?”

“I will be happy to.” Though only one other seat had been grouped in this corner. Not enough for the three of them. “Give me one moment to drag the extra chair over from the library—”

“I’ll do it,” he said before she could take a step.

Lucia stopped them both with a lift of her hand. “David, you go ahead and sit, dear. I intend to win a round at the table.”

She left them with a smile and swish of her skirts. Kentewess glanced at Annika’s chair, then to the one on her right—reluctantly, it seemed, as if he’d have rather chosen her seat. He sat after she did, his back ramrod straight. The light from the lamp on the small table between them glinted off the thin steel casing of his eyepiece and reflected in the lens. Not speaking, he simply looked at her.

His obvious discomfort sparked her own. Suddenly uncertain, Annika searched for something to say, and could only come up with, “Thank you. Again.”

“You shouldn’t. I’ve taken advantage of your gratitude, after all.”

“You haven’t forced me to eat supper with you.”

“My goal wasn’t to eat, but to remain in your company.”

Oh, yes. So that he could know her better. “Well, you are in
luck. You see the two things that compose almost all of my life now.” She gestured to her dress, then to the generator manual. “Making whatever sort of clothing takes my fancy, and those schematics.”

“You sewed that one?”

“Yes.” She touched the high neck and the stiff, pleated lace ruff. “I’m told that such finery is only for nobility and royalty. But I like the look of it so well, I can’t resist making my own. Do you mistake me for a queen?”

He hesitated, as if deciding whether to answer diplomatically. When he chose honesty, she liked him all the better for it.

“No,” he said.

“Then no harm is done. If someone ever did mistake an engine stoker for a noble, then his idiocy will cause him more problems than my ruff ever could. Why do you wear gloves now? No one else in your party did.”

Though his expression didn’t change, the fingers of his left hand curled slightly. “I never know how people will react to the prosthetic. Tonight, at least, I didn’t want to ruin my host’s dinner.”

“People fear it?”

“Some do.”

“Do you take off your eyepiece, too?”

But of course he couldn’t. She could see now that it was also grafted to him, a seamless meld of flesh and steel.

That brief, one-sided smile flashed again. “No.”

“So they must realize that a metal hand might be there, despite the glove. In fact, they might think that both of your hands are metal.”

“Yes.”

Ah. So he was saving idiots from themselves. “I’m usually more afraid of what I can’t see, because that threat is the unexpected one. Do you like being feared? It seems a powerful ability to make someone quake in your presence without any action on your part.”

“It’s better than pity.”

“What isn’t?” Pity only served the person who felt it; generosity better served the person who needed it. “I’d prefer everyone to fear me. Though that must be alienating.”

The port officer hadn’t been able to send him away fast enough. She assumed that others did, too. They likely used varying degrees of politeness to do it, but the effect would be the same.

“It can be, yes.” His admission held no self-pity, however; he sounded baffled. “You don’t fear them, though. Have you seen many like this in Norway?”

“Oh, yes.” No, not truly. Prosthetics were common enough in the Scandinavian port cities, and the kingdoms allowed people infected with nanoagents to settle there, but her familiarity came from home.

With one exception, all of the women who’d founded Hannasvik had been infected, and their bodies had undergone the Horde’s modifications. Though the same augmentation was rare among the women now, many were infected—and still others needed their own prosthetics after accidents or wild dog attacks.

None were as brilliantly made as Kentewess’s, however. His devices would have inspired envy in her village.

Realizing that he was watching her, waiting for more, she added, “And
Phatéon
has been to England several times, of course.”

“Of course.”

A probing look accompanied that easy reply. Annika paused. The sense of unease that had come over her on the docks had returned—the certainty that he wanted something from her.

Perhaps she was mistaken. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to direct the conversation away from her fabricated past. “I’m sorry to say that those two things are truly all there is to know about me. Our supper would have been a short one.”

“No.” He leaned toward her slightly, bracing his elbow on the arm of the chair—finally settling in. “I’d still want to know more.”

“It would have been a boring supper, then. I’m already intimately familiar with the topic.”

“Then I’d have asked you to talk about yourself until I was bored, too—though I doubt I would have ever been.”

Oh, but she liked his smile. And as unsettling as that intense focus was, Annika enjoyed how direct he was and how his gaze never wavered. She couldn’t fathom why he was intent on discovering more—perhaps it was just politeness and a desire to please his aunt—but his attention flattered her. Usually the passengers who visited the wardroom took one glance at Annika’s clothes and decided she was either absurd or simpleminded. It felt absolutely lovely that someone thought she might be fascinating, instead.

But she was more interested in him. “I think we should talk about you. Why volcanoes? Do you travel often? Have you ever had to fight zombies as you climbed to a mountain peak? Oh, it all begins to sound like an Archimedes Fox adventure.”

“With fewer villains?” His warm, quiet laugh drew her in. “It is nothing so exciting—and I’m also familiar with this topic. We should talk about everyone else in this room instead.”

He was joking, but it sounded like a fine idea to Annika. No doubt whatever he shared of his companions would also tell her more about him. And she enjoyed listening to him—the rhythm of his words sounded like a pony at a trot. Duh
dum
duh
dum
. His speech was much more pleasant than riding at that pace, however, with no sense of being bounced around.