Black Mercury (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) Read online

Clara looked unimpressed. “So?”

  His shoulders slumped. “Crap.”

  Clara sighed. “Off home with you,” she said. She was a bit less formidable when he was on his feet, since she was several inches shorter than his six-foot-two-and-something height. But she could still skewer him with the faintly disappointed, how-could-you-do-that look that she was wearing right now.

  “The races aren’t over yet,” he protested.

  Her eyebrows went up, just a degree or two.

  “But, liebling, I have nothing to do at ho—”

  “Cas! Go!”

  “All right, all right,” he muttered. “Cas has been a bad boy, no more fun for him.”

  “I really hope you aren’t referring to multiple collisions as ‘fun’.”

  Cas did his best to look innocent. “What are you going to do?”

  “It seems I’ve got pain medication to pick up,” she said coolly. “And after that? I suppose I’d better go see your—”

  “Don’t tell my father,” he begged.

  “—aunt,” she finished.

  Cas sagged a little in relief. But only for a moment. “Do you think she’ll fix my autocarriage?”

  Clara looked up at the bright blue spring sky, her expression long-suffering. “Again? Well. Let’s hope so, shall we?”

  She turned to leave, but Caspar intercepted her. “Admit it,” he said, smiling. “You were scared for me.”

  She glowered up at him. “No.” Pushing past him, she stalked away, her back rigid.

  “Worried?” Cas called after her. “Even a little bit concerned!”

  “I shan’t admit it!” she called back without turning around. That was almost as good as a “yes”. Cas allowed himself a smile before his neck muscles screamed again, and the smile dissolved into a grimace.

  “So,” he muttered to himself. “How to get home…?”

  Chapter Two

  Clara rarely wore skirts. She was more comfortable in the trousers, loose blouses and wide belts that were gaining popularity among the women of Eisenstadt. A day at the races, however, required that she make an exception—especially when she was there in her official capacity as a member of the Goldstein team.

  It was unfortunate, then, that the morning had ended with her on her knees in the dust and grime of Eisenstadt’s autocarriage racing track, checking to see how many pieces of Cas were left. The lower half of her deep green skirt bore a most unladylike layer of fine mud across the lightweight, spring-season fabric, and a closer glance even revealed a small tear.

  Damnit. She couldn’t afford to replace her good clothes just yet.

  The track was located right on the south-eastern edge of Eisenstadt, with its own elevated train system to carry the majority of spectators to and from the centre of the city. Clara made her way to the little station on foot, trying to walk as though she wasn’t slightly dishevelled and mud-spattered. People expected Hildegard Goldstein to show up for the test races; after all, the Goldstein team carriage was her creation, and she was nominally responsible for its maintenance.

  But Clara knew her better. If she wanted to see Hildy, she’d have to go to her office.

  Her “private” office.

  The ride back to Clara’s part of town took only ten minutes. She’d long since found herself obliged to move closer to the track; Cas spent so much time out there, she couldn’t help it. She could never get him to present himself for meetings at his father’s offices. She spent the short journey sitting by herself, staring out of the window. If she tilted her head just a little she could see the Drifting Isle, a dark shape in the clear blue sky. It was nearing noon, and the sun had risen above the strange land mass. The island had been floating up there for a thousand years, as near as anyone could tell; adrift on the winds, it traced a slow circuit of the city once every fifty years or so. Just now it lay to the east of Eisenstadt, about a mile up in the air.

  She wasn’t surprised, then, to find her little house in near darkness when she arrived home. The shadow cast by the isle was known as The Drift; just now it was moving across the city from west to east, which put her abode directly in the path of the spreading shadow. Shutting her front door firmly behind her, she snapped on the electric lights.

  A bird squeaked in protest and departed in a flurry of flapping wings.

  “Sorry, Minnie,” Clara called after the pigeon’s retreating form.

  “My eyes!” Min yelled back from the next room.

  “I said I was sorry!”

  “That’s not going to unblind me, is it, missy?”

  Clara grinned, following the bird through to her bedroom. Min had taken up her second-favourite spot atop the wardrobe, where Clara had helped her to build a ragged nest of twigs and strips of old cloth.

  “Don’t do it!” shrieked Min.

  Clara’s hand paused on its way to the light switch. “But I can’t see.”

  “Should’ve thought of that before you decided to come home in the middle of the day!”

  “I wasn’t planning to.” Clara switched the lights on. “Anyway, I thought you were out patrolling the nests?”

  Min clicked her beak together. They’d been friends for long enough that Clara recognised it as a sound of disgust. “The Hatch is mostly over. Not much to do anymore.”

  That explained it. Min got cranky when she was bored.

  “I’m going to see Hildy,” Clara offered as she discarded the semi-ruined skirt and replaced it with her oldest, most comfortable trousers. “Want to come along?”

  “Hildy!” Min bellowed, and flew a circle around the room. The electric light glinted off the bird’s unusual green, grey, and gold feathers, and Clara quickly grew dizzy watching the flashing colours circle round and around.

  “You’ll wear yourself out,” she chided. Finished with the buttons of her blouse, Clara donned a wide belt—the one without her tools, this time—and reached for her coat. On second thought, she dropped the coat again. It was late spring and the weather was sunny and warm. She wouldn’t need it.

  “Nonsense,” cackled Min. “I am a bundle of energy. Inexhaustible.”

  “So it’ll be only ten hours of sleep tonight, then, instead of sixteen like usual.” Clara paused by her bedroom door, letting Min fly out ahead of her.

  The brightly-coloured pigeon cackled again. “That’s about right. Why are we seeing Hildy?”

  Clara sighed, her smile fading. “It’s been a complicated morning.”

  “That’s not an answer, Clarry.”

  “Cas,” Clara elaborated. “We’re going to see Hildy because of Cas.”

  Min soared through the house to the front door and perched atop the frame, waiting while Clara caught up. “Like usual, then?”

  “Oh, yes,” Clara said with a small smile. “Just like usual.”

  Half an hour later, Clara stood in a quiet and rather small warehouse surrounded by half-finished frames for horse-drawn carriages. Autocarriages were the most popular form of transport for those who could afford the initial expense—which was colossal—plus the maintenance, the fuel, and the wages for drivers and engineers. Most people couldn’t. Instead, they hired autocarriages for important events, and otherwise used the more old-fashioned method of transport.

  This particular warehouse wasn’t one of the top suppliers of quality carriages to the citizenry of Eisenstadt. In fact, few people had ever heard of Eberstark Coachmakers. Most of the coaches Clara could see had been there for months. They were arranged to look as though work was ongoing, and the display would be quite convincing for those who didn’t visit regularly.

  “Off you go, Min,” Clara said.

  “Right!” Min launched herself from Clara’s shoulder and hurtled towards the roof. An opening perhaps fifteen inches square had been left in the far wall, directly under the roof, and the pigeon disappeared through it. Clara heard her yelling something on the other side.

  A few moments later, she heard the creak of a door opening and a curtain twitched aside. />
  “Quick, now,” said a deep voice.

  Clara hurried to step through the door, dragging the curtain back across behind her. Til Mencken held the door for her and closed it quietly as soon as she was inside.

  “Thanks, Til,” she smiled. “Is Hildy here?”

  Til was one of those large men who could make a simple nod look threatening if he wanted to, which he almost never did. He was enormous, nearly a foot taller than Clara, and built like a barn. He was well into his forties, but that hadn’t had any effect on his physical condition. His large frame rippled with muscle.

  In spite of all this, Clara knew him to be as gentle as they came. He gave her a shy smile, which softened his black-bearded face considerably, his blue eyes warm and welcoming.

  “She’s here, right enough. You expect her to be anyplace else?”

  Clara grinned. “Not really, no. I’ve known her longer than today. Can I see her?” It wasn’t that Clara thought she might be unwelcome. Rather, she knew that Hildegard Goldstein’s pastimes could be… volatile. It wasn’t wise to just walk in on her.

  Til nodded. “She’s staring at walls.”

  Hmm. When Hildegard took up wall-staring, that usually meant she was Having An Idea. She might not welcome the intrusion, but then again, nothing was going to explode. Clara followed Til’s pointing finger over to the opposite side of Hildy Goldstein’s hidden warehouse.

  This area of the building was larger than the fake coachmaker’s house next door. The ceiling was very high, leaving room for tall objects and many wide shelves groaning with tools and materials. Several mechanical constructs were set up in different parts of the floor: she could see a racing model autocarriage similar to the one Cas drove, a new type of elevator under construction nearby, and on the other side of the workshop something was being done with electric lights. Despite the activity, the warehouse was quiet; Hildy preferred for distractions to be kept to a minimum.

  Hildy herself was sitting at a table at the very back, leaning on her folded arms, her face turned towards the wall. Clara recognised it as her thinking posture. She cleared her throat and tried to make some noise with her feet as she approached.

  Hildy didn’t move.

  “Ah… Hild? Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  Hildegard still didn’t move. Clara could barely tell that she was breathing. Deep in thought, to say the least.

  While Clara was wondering how to proceed, Min flew in, banked sharply to avoid hitting the wall, and descended towards Hildy’s head. At speed.

  “Hildy!” she screamed. “It’s been way too long! How are you?”

  Hildy’s body twitched and her breathing became audible. It was like watching her waking up from a deep and eerily silent sleep.

  “Minnie,” she said slowly. “It’s been two days.”

  “That’s ages,” said the pigeon, sitting on Hildy’s shoulder. “Bring on the food.”

  Hildegard straightened up, smiling ruefully. She always carried a pocketful of seed for Min. She spilled a handful of it on the table now, and Min fell to.

  Clara watched Hildegard. The older woman looked… strange, somehow. Oh, not physically. Her gold-and-grey hair was pulled back in a loose knot as usual, her dark men’s clothes were far from immaculate, and her face bore all the usual signs of many years of good humour. It was her expression that struck Clara as different. It had all the distracted intensity of her usual deep reflections, and something else. Suppressed excitement, perhaps, carried to a pitch Hildy didn’t usually indulge in—no matter how visionary her latest invention might be.

  Clara wanted to enquire, but thought better of it. Hildy kept her ideas to herself until she was good and ready to share them. It was a habit she’d developed through long experience.

  “Sorry to disturb you, Hildy,” she said quietly. “I should’ve muzzled Min when we came in.”

  Hildegard’s focus sharpened on Clara, as if she’d already forgotten she was there. “You know better than to try that, I think.” Her eyes sparkled with humour, the tension draining from her face.

  “True. I’d wake up with a bed full of beetles tomorrow morning.”

  “Til could use your help on the elevator, if you’re here to work.”

  Clara shook her head. “I’ll be happy to help him in a minute, but first I need to talk to you.”

  Hildegard shot her a knowing look. “What sort of a mess has Cas got himself into now?”

  “The sort that involves destroying his autocarriage.”

  Hildegard blinked. “When you say ‘destroy’, you don’t mean completely…?”

  Clara took a seat at the table and explained everything about Cas’s morning, sparing nothing. She wasn’t afraid of angering Hildegard. Cas was the beloved nephew, and while he could do plenty of wrong, he was always forgiven for it.

  “Such foul play,” Hildegard said when Clara had finished. “I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

  “It doesn’t bode well for the Cup races,” Clara agreed.

  “Can he still participate?”

  Clara shrugged one thin shoulder. “He thinks his father will protect him from disqualification. It remains to be seen whether he’s right.”

  Hildegard smiled briefly. “Max won’t stand idly by while they disqualify his son. And you know how formidable he can be.”

  Clara did. Maximilian Goldstein, head of Goldstein Industries, was her employer; or at least, he was the person who paid her salary, even if she technically answered to Cas (at least in theory). He was also a distant relative of hers. Her great-grandmother Malwine Goldstein had married out of the family many years ago, choosing a gentleman of Shuchun, Jun Koh, as her husband. A few generations later, Clara still bore the clear signs of her Shuchun heritage in her physical appearance, and her relationship to the Goldstein family was distant. But it had been enough to get her an introduction to Max Goldstein five years before (on her mother’s insistence), and he had given her a job. Of sorts.

  “Formidable” was exactly the right word for him. At the age of twenty, she’d been quietly terrified of him. At twenty-five, she still steered clear of him wherever possible.

  “He might be able to pull it off, indeed,” Clara agreed. “But even if he does, Cas’s autocarriage isn’t fit to drive. I told him I’d come over here and see—”

  “What?” Hildegard stiffened visibly, her expression turning alarmed. “You didn’t tell him about this place?”

  “No! Of course not.” Clara stared, shocked. She had been working with Hildy for years— albeit in secret—and her discretion had never been questioned before.

  “Sorry, Clara,” Hildegard sighed, relaxing again. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Clara said nothing, smoothing away her frown. Hildegard kept her workshop secret for good reason. Max was her brother, and quite a few of her best inventions over the years had been co-opted into the Goldstein Industries’ empire. It had been done with Hildegard’s consent, more or less, but Clara knew how hard she found it to refuse anything to Max. It had left Hildy with little wealth or property of her own; all earnings from her inventions went into the company, leaving her dependent on her brother. So a few years ago she had ostensibly given up inventing, choosing instead to work on her ideas in the privacy of this hidden workshop. It wasn’t easy for her to finance her projects, and she was constantly worried about Max discovering what she was doing. Even Cas, a definite favourite with her, had never been told about her workshop.

  But she didn’t habitually question the loyalty of those who worked with her. Clara had as much reason to keep her involvement a secret as Hildegard did—if Max knew about her mechanical skills, she too would be absorbed into Goldstein Industries and her autonomy would be lost. She’d have a terrible fight on her hands to avoid that.

  “Has something happened?” Clara asked. Perhaps Max had discovered something, and that was the reason for Hildy’s tension.

  “I’m not sure,” Hildegard replied, and that weird supp
ressed excitement shone in her eyes again. But then she shook herself. “Let’s deal with Cas first. Where’s the autocarriage?”

  “Still at the track.”

  “Righto. Keep it there.”

  Clara blinked. “What? Wouldn’t you prefer to have it here?”

  “Not this time. I’ll take the tools and Til and head over to the track tonight. If you and Cas could meet us there at about ten, that would be fine.”

  “You’re going to fix it on the track?”

  “Yes.” Hildy smiled. “It could be an interesting evening.”

  Her hand went to a pocket in her blouse, where Clara could see the protruding top of a glass vial. She touched the glass quickly, then dropped her hands into her lap. Her smile grew bigger.

  “Something has happened, hasn’t it?” Clara said.

  Hildy looked ready to bounce on the spot. “I suppose it has, yes. Max gave me something.”

  Clara’s eyebrows shot up. “Max gave you something? Gave. You mean he sold you something. Or that he gave-with-strict-conditions.”

  “Probably the latter,” Hildy admitted. She hesitated, then drew out the glass vial and showed it to Clara. Through the clear walls of the little bottle, Clara could see a dark liquid.

  “What’s that? Oil?”

  “Not oil. Not anything I’ve seen before. It’s… interesting, Clarry.”

  “Interesting” meant that it had possibilities in Hildy’s estimation. “What’s the idea?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but if Cas wants me to fix his carriage—again—then he’ll help me test it.’

  Clara smiled, not very pleasantly. “Oh, he’ll help.”

  “You know,” Hildy said, sitting back, “if this experiment works out as I hope, you could come and work for me properly. Quit that silly job with Caspar. It’s a waste of your talents.”

  Clara’s heart sped up a little. “The prospects are that good?”

  Hildy held up a cautionary hand. “Only if Max’s ‘gift’ works as I hope it will. It may not.”

  No wonder Hildy had been distracted. Clara forced her rising excitement down, mindful of Hildegard’s caution. Her experiments worked spectacularly well—some of the time. But they could also fail, equally spectacularly.