The Great Unravel, page 15
part #3 of Riddle in Ruby Series
Then it lit up bright, and the crowd gasped.
The Swede flicked a lever, and the machine came to a halt. He looked at them all. The room lay quiet, shocked.
That’s when Ruby heard it: somewhere, up above and behind, a creak of leather, as if someone were leaning forward, and the faintest click.
A clocklock being primed.
Beside her, Athena stiffened, too. “Oh, Science,” she whispered.
The two girls whirled, searching the glittering rafters.
“Now. I daresay, Laura has no tinker training. Is that right, Laura? You can remove the mask.”
She did, and she shook her head with a tiny grin, as if she couldn’t believe her luck.
“I don’t see anything,” muttered Athena. She was desperately running her gaze along the upper reaches of the hall, same as Ruby.
“And how do you feel?” asked the Swede.
“Wonderful,” said Laura, and the sides of her mouth widened into a blissful smile.
The Swede turned back to the audience. “The energy we just harvested from Laura will keep this lamp alight for a full day and night.”
There. The black, round hole in the middle of all the glittering lights, the end of a musket barrel leveled by a shadow perched in one of the high crystal windows, leveled straight at the man leaning against the pillar.
“Just think of the wonders we could—”
“Oh, no.” Ruby turned back and raised Reginald’s hand high in the air toward Van Huffridge. “Sir! Get Down!”
His eyes were wide and intelligent and compassionate, and in that moment Ruby mourned never seeing what kind of king he would be.
Because right then someone shot Lothor Van Huffridge.
CHAPTER 19
“Take care when you fish in chemystral waters. You never know what might come up on your hook.”
—Dores Da Rocha, 1718
Cram led Henry up the servants’ stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. His heart kept pace with his feet.
“The Reeve, Professor,” he muttered.
“I know, Cram.”
“All gussied up like a Van Huffridge servant.”
“I know.”
“That one got a mite close to us on the rope bridge. You think she recognized me?”
The only sound for most of a floor was their boots on the hardwood steps.
“I don’t know, Cram. I don’t think she did. Wouldn’t she have sounded the alarm? Come after us?”
“No telling with them reeves. We’d best keep our eyes open and keep fires under our feet. Four stories up, this is us.” They tumbled out of the door into a long carpeted hallway with wood-paneled walls holding smaller panels of cloudy tinker’s glass, almost like windows.
Cram had a thought, and it stopped him dead in his tracks. “Professor?” he whispered.
Henry came up next to him, favoring his bum leg from the climb. His heavy breathing echoed in the hallway. “Yes, Cram?”
Cram tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “This house is packed to the gills full of party guests and servants, and yet this hallway is empty as a bucket with a hole in its bottom.” It was an eerie kind of silence, like the quiet before a giant rock falls on your head.
Eyes wide, Henry looked at him. “Now that you mention it . . .” As one they started up again, hurrying down the hallway.
The tapestry of the lions eating the farmers was there, as promised, and it was even more scary than Cram had imagined it would be. The door next to it was heavily carved with notes and images of horns and mandolins and things. Cram eased the door open with the faintest of clicks, and then both of them sneaked through into the anteroom.
As he slid the door back into place, something feather light landed on his neck.
Someone said in his ear, “Don’t move.” It was a low voice. A woman’s.
Cram froze.
“Turn around.”
He did.
The cutest little razor lay up against his neck, and holding it was a tall woman sporting a thick, curly shock of salt-and-pepper hair who had a chin that could cut glass. In her left hand she held another razor—both were inlaid with mother-of-pearl, very fine—and that one rested across the professor’s Adam’s apple. A single drop of red had pooled up along the blade.
“Who are you boys?” said the woman.
Cram licked his lips and held out the platter. “Tarts for Miss Paine?”
“Who are you?” The tickle at his throat deepened a hair. It stung.
“Cram. Cram Cramson, milady, and this here’s Henry Collins.”
“Henry Collins? The boy with the journal?” she said.
Henry chewed his lip. “That is I,” he said.
“And the journal?”
“Safe,” Henry said.
“And Athen Boyle?”
“Here, in this building.”
“And Ruby Teach?”
“With Athen.”
The woman’s eyes flicked back and forth between them, and then her face lit in a wide grin. “Well done! That is hero’s work and a magic trick all in one.” She tucked the razors back into the folds of her party dress right quick. Her dress was the finest silk, white as milk. It contrasted well against her brown skin, and when she smiled, the cords on her neck flexed, witness to a life of hard work.
“Thandie Paine, at your service. The whole of the colonies and much of the rest of the world are looking for you, all the while trying to let no one else know that they’re doing it.” She fingered a small vial around her neck. “Is alla Ferra here? She and her boars were certainly worth their king’s ransom.”
The room behind her was large and filled with a gravichord, a cello, and a party-dressed crowd of two dozen or so of the hardest, meanest folk Cram had ever seen. They gathered around a far door brandishing an array of clocklocks and hand weapons, ready to spring into action.
“Er, hello,” said Cram.
“Where are my manners? Cram Cramson, Henry Collins, meet the Committee for Local Coronation.”
“Coronation?” Henry sputtered. “Miss Paine, do you mean to tell me—”
“We are crowning Lothor tonight.”
Cram’s heart stopped for a moment. Then it swelled.
Before he could say anything else, something behind Thandie Paine wobbled precariously on the edge of a little table, as if she had quickly set it down before almost slicing them into bacon. Cram grabbed it, saving it from falling before he recognized what it was.
A crown.
Cram had never met a crown face-to-face before. But he knew what crowns were like, golden, shiny things with long, thin points and crusted with jewels and such. A piece of gleaming candy to top the robes and furs and to remind everyone that your people was richer and powerfuler than the rest. A sign that Providence had chosen you to make grand edicts and gad about castles, sauntering from feast to boar hunt and back again.
This crown was nothing like that.
It was iron and hickory, all of a piece and of a weight such that you could knock a fella out with it or hammer a nail into a board if you wanted. The tinker that made it—this was no jeweler’s work—had raised pictures into the iron, but not of seashells or lions or castles. Here was a man plowing a field with oxen. There was a woman pouring metal in a foundry, and scenes all about it of hunting, and making, and mending, and, well, living. Out from the front of it, right at the center of the forehead, preened a ferocious, wild—
“I’m sorry, is that a turkey?” said Henry Collins.
“It is.” Thandie Paine was looking at Cram. “You know what that is, lad?”
It could be nothing else. Cram felt ten feet tall. “Well, it’s the crown of the king of America, ain’t it?”
She nodded, face as serious as an avalanche.
“But a turkey?” Henry’s brows knitted in thought. “Not, you know, a bear? Or an eagle? Something more . . . noble?”
Cram could barely keep his heart inside his chest. “Professor, maybe let that go, considering what we got to say?”
Henry turned to him aghast. “Oh, yes. Right. How to begin?”
There was no time for politeness. “Lady Paine, you’re in trouble,” said Cram.
“Call me Thandie.” She took the crown back from Cram. “What do you mean?”
He just dropped the whole of the story on her head. “We been sent by the Warren. The Reeve and the crown got a watch on the secret door to Bluestone Square. And if they know the where of the Warren—”
“They may know the rest of our plans.” Paine finished his thought. She shared a worried glance with the rest of the folks in the room.
Henry sputtered. “But wasn’t the plan for the rising to happen tomorrow, with the Warren and the rest of the city? Why now? What if they’re just waiting for you to—”
She cut him off. “Henry, well done for getting here and the heroic journey and all, but I have a revolution to start in just a moment and a very important machine to steal as well. The rest of the rising will happen of its own accord. We have that machine within our grasp! This kind of opportunity will never happen again. If we steal the device as colonials, we’re criminals. If we take it for our new country, we’re patriots. If the coronation happened in secret, the crown could control the information. Now is the time for a bold public gesture, and we’ll pick up our plan along the way.” She pointed at the far door. “The ballroom is right out there, and Lothor will give the signal any second. We are committed, no matter what they have planned for us. When we leave, lock this door, and don’t let anyone in or out unless it is me. You understand?”
Suddenly it all clicked into place. “Thandie, wait.” Cram grabbed her arm, and she whirled back to face him, lightning quick. “There are reeves here, right now. In this building. In the kitchens we saw four gussied up like servants.”
Paine’s eyes widened. “The hell you say.”
“This ain’t your trap you’re springing. It’s theirs.”
Somewhere beyond the door, a shot rang out.
The door to the ballroom crashed open.
Cram’s world turned in on itself.
In the doorway stood the reeve with the red hair, the one who had almost caught them at the bridge. Corson, that was her name, and behind her was a wall of rough folk, some in Van Huffridge livery, some in the blacks of the Reeve. Corson tossed a little copper flask over the Committee for Local Coronation’s heads, and it landed in the center of the room with a clink. It was smoking.
Paine, eyes wide, tore open the door to the hallway and yelled, “Go!” Cram and Henry dived through, and she was only a split second behind.
There was a huge sound, a BLORK, and in an instant the doorway to the music room filled in with solid amber. Thandie Paine hung in the air, stuck in it up to her waist. “Help me!”
Cram and Henry grabbed her arms and heaved with all their might, but she was stuck fast.
Cram turned to Henry. “Can you melt this, Professor?”
The other boy shook his head. “Not quickly. It would take—”
Just then Avid Wake and the other disguised reeves emerged from the stairs down the hall.
“Stop!” yelled Avid.
Quick as a wolf trap, Henry popped the cap on a little clay pot from his belt and hurled it down the hallway. There was a flash, and then a curtain of crystal shot out of the pot, slamming into the ceiling and walls, sealing the passage.
“That’s right!” Cram yelled. “We got ourselves a tinker, too!”
As if in response, the lattice shuddered with impact and cracked. Shadows on the other side were throwing themselves into it.
“Cram.” Thandie Paine forced two things into his hands. One was the small flask, torn from a chain around her neck. “This is alla Ferra’s payment.”
The other was the crown.
“And this must be protected.” She smiled, grim and proud. Not a surrender but a challenge. “Now go.”
Cram’s heart was in his boots. He couldn’t think of nothing to say, but he nodded; then he and Henry lit out down the crystal hallways, now filling with crowds of other people racing who knew where.
“Where are we going?” yelled Cram.
“I have no idea!” Henry yelled back.
“Excellent!”
They rounded a corner into the main ballroom.
It was a pulsing, heaving madhouse.
A British soldier and a woman in an evening dress wrestled over a musket. An old man stood alone on the parquet floor, tears streaming down his face. Fights everywhere. Chaos reigned. They ducked behind a tapestry just in time to dodge a jogging squad of redcoats.
“I have no idea where to begin,” whispered Henry.
Cram flogged his brains. Lady Athena. “Look for the floofy dress!”
Henry craned his neck about and then pointed. A torn tuft of lace hung from a balcony on the floor above. They wrangled their way up some stairs and checked doorways until they found Lady Athena and Ferret—still in Reggie’s body—tucked into a corner behind a wall of purple flowers. Next to Lady Athena a pair of boots attached to an unconscious soldier stuck out from behind a potted plant.
“Thank Providence,” Athena breathed. “I thought we might have lost you.”
Reggie looked up from a lace handkerchief, eyes red.
Cram grabbed her shoulder. “What is it, Ferret?”
Reggie yanked his shoulder away. “Unhand me, churl! Do you not know? Someone shot Lothor Van Huffridge.”
Cram saw red. “Listen, Ferret, this ain’t the time for—”
Lady Athena held up her hands in despair. “I think she’s trapped in there.”
“In where?”
“Reggie.”
“Who is this she you keep referring to, Evallina?” Reggie warbled angrily.
“Just— Here, I found a toy soldier. Play with it.”
“Excellent!”
“Did they really shoot Van Huffridge?” asked Henry.
“Someone did. From the rafters. Then everyone went mad. The exits are sealed off. We beat a track back up here to try to avoid the redcoats. Rool is here.”
“And more reeves.” Henry poked his head up over the sofa.
Athena pointed down to Cram’s hands. “What’s that?”
Cram held it close. Its weight was the only thing reliable right now. “The crown of the King of America.”
“Well, he won’t be needing it. We have got to get out of here right now.” She pulled herself over to Reggie. “Ruby, it’s time. You’re going to get Cram and Henry captured if you don’t come back.”
Reggie looked about, clearly uncomfortable. “Who?”
Lady Athena held him by the face so he couldn’t look away. “Ruby, it’s Athena. And Henry. And Cram. Your crew. We need you.”
Reggie looked up at Athena with limpid, soulful eyes.
And threw up.
And then his body wriggled and wraggled and bubbled and did some things Cram didn’t have no words for.
Within moments it was Ferret who sat there in a pile of clothes three sizes too big for her. She squinted and winced. “Well, that was awful.”
Athena produced a knife, and they cut the legs off the breeches and belted down the rest.
With a wheeze Ruby pushed herself to a crouch. Cram clapped her on the shoulder in glee. “Welcome back, Ferret!” She fell over. He helped her up. “Er, can you do this?” he said.
She gave his arm a squeeze, eyes bleak. “Well, I have to, don’t I?”
They lit out down the empty hallway outside the balcony. “Down!” Athena whispered, and they all got down on their bellies and peered out of a floor-to-ceiling window. Below lay the great drive they had pulled into only a few hours before. Carriages lined it again.
But these were not the tinker’s carriages of Philadelphi’s finest folk. Each had two hulking dray horses at its front. And they had bars and stout locks and were fair covered in redcoats. As Cram watched, a crowd of party guests was herded inside, and then a grizzled sergeant with one eye slammed the door home and locked it tight with a massive padlock. He pounded twice on the side, and the carriage clattered forward. The next pulled up, ready for its load of prisoners.
“They’re taking them prisoner. All of them.”
Ruby whistled. “That’s a neat sharp. Just gather together the whole mess and then sort out the rebels later.”
“So Paine wasn’t the only person who thought a public event would be useful,” said Henry.
Ruby turned to them. The color had come back into her face. “Well, we can’t go that way.”
Cram racked his brains. Garderobe tunnels. A place this posh, with running water, would have to have sewers. “Follow me,” he said.
They stood to go, and from across the hall a call stopped them in their tracks.
“Sweetling!”
She was perched on a balcony a floor up and on the other side of the great hall. It was Avid Wake.
She and Ferret locked eyes.
Something passed between them. The reeve girl looked angry and . . . scared. She looked scared.
With a shake of her head, Avid waved them on, walking back into the shadows.
The friends looked at one another for just a moment.
“Let’s go then,” said Ruby.
Cram led them on a tense path, starting and stopping and twirling back down through Van Huffridge House, dodging several patrols, which were thinning now that most of the guests had been rounded up. It was a shock how quickly the house had gone so empty. Food left half eaten on crystal plates. Untouched wine in cobalt goblets. As they sneaked behind the now-abandoned stage, Cram climbed over a fallen chair. Tree branches wound up its sides in an intricate dance with scenes of labor and virtue. It had to have been carved by the same artist who had done the crown in his hands.
It was a throne.
They left it behind as he led them down into the basement and the tunnels below.
It wasn’t hard to find the sewers. There was a big metal plate over a hole in the floor, and when they got that up, a ladder descended down into the darkness. There were no reeves or soldiers down this far. Perhaps they had missed it, or perhaps they just thought whoever would duck down a sewer wasn’t worth their notice. Cram wondered what was happening out in the streets. The crown had not been caught unprepared. It had sprung its own trap. Something withered inside him.
