The Mysterious Madam Morpho
Page 10

She closed the door and leaned back against it. As soon as he was in the workshop, she darted to the mirror to check that her hat was set right. But no—it was still on the rack. She had almost gone outside without a hat! The impropriety was shocking, not to mention the risk, as Bludmen were about en masse and would surely be feeling their hunger. Plucking her topper from a tentacle, she buttoned it to the back of her jacket collar and set it at just the right angle.
In one afternoon, she had lain beside a man in the dark, felt the brush of his hand on her face, and then spent hours working with him, head uncovered and elbows occasionally brushing with the most fascinating electricity. If her father had known, he would have been furious. Well, had he not already disowned her. Perhaps for someone with such progressive views as herself, a clockwork caravan was not so much a fall from grace as an exit from a life that had not suited her. If Beauregard was what a woman could expect of respected scholars and businessmen in the city, she had already been treated with more dignity and kindness by Henry, and she had known him for only two days.
A muffled voice said, “I’m ready.”
Imogen gasped and then burst out laughing. His outfit was even more outlandish than Vil’s. His wide-brimmed bowler extended down his neck, fastened firmly to a long black coat. Goggles with smoky lenses obscured his eyes. The beard and mustache that normally disguised the bottom half of his face were covered by a mask of leather and brass. His nose was the only part of him visible.
“Egad. You look a positive outlaw,” she said, fighting the chuckles.
“Perhaps. But please bear in mind that there’s only one reason I would enter into that mewling, jostling crowd. Madam Morpho, would you be so kind as to accompany me to Criminy Stain’s Clockwork Caravan?”
He held out his arm, and she took it gladly.
“I hear the clockworks themselves are quite masterly,” she said.
“I wouldn’t know about that,” he answered, “but I understand that the mechanist is rather a genius. And they’re soon to have an arresting new act in which a beautiful woman of much mystery commands a band of exotic butterflies.”
He opened the door and helped her down the stairs to the ground. She could feel the tension in his arm and looked to his face, but he simply shook his head and said, “Now or never.”
To the left was the engine, and to the right, a crowd had gathered around Veruca the Abyssinian Sword Swallower. With Imogen’s elbow tucked firmly against his side, Henry drew her in that direction, and she gave Veruca a small wave. The powerfully built woman paused, a scimitar poised at her lips, raising one dark eyebrow at the man on Imogen’s arm. So it was true, then, that no one in the caravan had ever seen the Mysterious Mr. Murdoch. Although she had not doubted his word or that of Emerlie, who had certainly been happy to blab, it was still surprising to know that someone as sharp and watchful as Veruca had never caught a glimpse of the famous mechanist. Of course, to the crowd of amazed Pinkies, they were just one more couple out to enjoy a brief reprieve from the gilded and wired cage of the huge, overcrowded city.
Imogen had been so frightened standing before the London wall with her self-faked papers, as if the guards would see through her ruse to the rebellious soul within. But the guard had barely looked at her, and as soon as she had settled herself beside her trunk in the conveyance, her heart had seemed lighter and lighter the further she came into the countryside.
“Where are the bludbunnies?” she asked as they strolled toward the crowd.
Henry leaned over to whisper, “We can’t keep them out completely, but we try. If carnivalleros see one, they’re supposed to kill it. They get a copper for every ten bodies they bring to Cook. And there are several clockworks designed to kill the nasty little creatures, too. No matter how excellent our technology gets, there are just so many of them.”
Still, despite the darkness of the night and the number of Bludmen and possible blud creatures about, she felt safe tucked against him. There was just something so competent about the man, and he was clearly a genius. And yet he didn’t share the hubris of the scholars she had known. Imogen wanted to ask him pointed questions, dig out truths equal to those she had revealed earlier. But before she could find the right words, he led her past Veruca to the clockwork between the engine and the red caboose.
“This is one of my favorites,” he whispered.
The great copper crocagator was beautiful, so cunningly crafted that she could imagine it crawling up from a deep river, water glistening on its riveted teeth. It sat upright, mouth wide and smiling, eyes occasionally blinking sleepily. Across its great brass stomach were stamped the words RUB MY BELLY, THEN RUB YOURS.
“Go on.” He grinned and released her arm.
She swayed in place, unsure. She knew it couldn’t be dangerous. Not if it was part of the carnival, and not if he was urging her toward it. Still, Imogen was leery of approaching such a large automaton and one with such bright, shining teeth. She still remembered the clockwork horror stories from her childhood—a rampaging metal lion in the London Zoo and the ill-fated Royal Carousel that had malfunctioned during the ribbon-cutting ceremony and nearly killed several children and the Magistrate. Even after it had been proven safe, she had never wanted to visit it and ride the moving metal monsters. But surely automata had come rather far since then, and surely a man as talented and careful as Henry would know exactly how to craft his masterpieces.
Lifting her chin high, she stepped firmly to the crocagator, her boot heels sinking in the spongy ground. The metal was cold under her glove, and she rubbed the smooth brass in a circular motion. At the press of her hand, machinery inside began to move, and the gator’s mouth opened wider with a contented sigh that verged on becoming a purr. With a hiss, a strip of paper curled out from between his teeth. When it stopped, she reached to rip it off, but for some reason she couldn’t name, she did not read it out loud.
Good things are in store for you. Bravery is its own reward.
“Is it a good fortune?” he asked with a grin.
“Cryptic but positive. Would you like to read it?”
He threw an arm dramatically over his goggles.
“Leroi’s fortunes don’t work that way. You must read it and eat it without telling anyone. If you wish it to come true, that is.”
“Eat it?”
“Taste it.”
Tentatively, she touched her tongue to the corner of the fortune, and it dissolved in fizzing sugar.
“Candy fortunes. How charming. What will you think of next?”
She shook her head before curling the ribbon carefully in her hand and placing it delicately in her mouth. The fortune melted on her tongue, sweet but tart, like a lemon ice and light as air. When she looked up, she found Henry’s eyes watching her through the smoky glass with that strange mix of curiosity and hunger she caught every now and then, as if he were a cat amazed by a mouse or a scientist enamored of his subject or, more likely, a combination of both.
“Will you get your own fortune?” she asked.
He took her arm again, this time without asking, but she found she didn’t mind his proprietary air. As they stopped to watch the next act, he murmured, “Mine is to create the fortunes, not live them.”
Next were the Twisty Sisters, Demi and Cherie. To Imogen’s eyes, they were lithe young girls in far too little clothing posing and twisting in ways that shouldn’t have been possible.
“You can hardly tell they’re Bludmen,” Henry said near her ear, but Imogen realized that she could tell. The Bludmen had a certain look about them, a certain cool beauty and smoothness and calm that Pinkies simply didn’t possess. That, and she had never seen humans who could move that way, bent over and around each other like pretzels.
They passed the juggling polanda bear and paused for a moment to watch Charlie Dregs make magic with his Punch and Judy show. The crowd was mostly children, and they turned to stare at Henry’s get-up with malicious distrust. With a chuckle, he directed Imogen out of the crowd, past a clockwork unicorn, and on to the next wagon, where a woman with a dancing master’s baton was shooing people into two groups.
Her fiery red skin, ink-black hair, and forked tail had to mean that she was a daimon, the first that Imogen had seen outside of books. In London, like the Bludmen, they mostly kept to themselves in their own district, although she knew that in Franchia, they made up well more than half the population and filled the cabarets, operas, and stages. The woman was beautiful and exotic, in a tightly fitted dress that seemed to be made of pure glitter, and she moved with unbelievable grace and confidence, her tail waving sinuously through a slit in the skirt.
“You there,” she said, placing a bare red hand on Imogen’s arm. “Ma chère, you must go over to that side, with the ladies. And you, my fine flappy crow. You must go with the menfolk.”
“But I don’t—” Imogen began.
The woman clicked her tongue and said, “Perhaps you do not at home. But here, you do.”
Imogen looked up in confusion at Henry, but he stood already with the men, the mischievous smile she knew was there hidden under his mask. With two steps backward, Imogen stood amid the rustling crowd of London ladies in their fashionable dresses of jewel-tinted taffeta and velvet, their huge hats jostling one another to the tune of nervous giggles. When her eyes strayed to the bright red wagon, she read, Mademoiselle Caprice & Sons, Dancing Masters of Paris.
Two daimon boys appeared, one with a hurdy-gurdy and the other in an indigo tuxedo spangled with stars. Bowing deeply, the dancer took his place with the men, and the musician began to play an exotic tune. Imogen lost track of Henry and of time itself as she followed the daimon woman’s example and tried her first dance steps, something most girls in London would have learned before entering society at fifteen. The rhythm was easy enough, and her feet behaved honorably. When Mademoiselle Caprice was finally satisfied with the women’s steps, Imogen looked up, panting with happy exertion, to find Henry waiting.
“May I have this dance?” he asked with great seriousness, and he took her waist and clasped her hand. His body radiated warmth and competence, and it felt utterly intimate when he pulled her close in the cage of his arms.