I’m coming, Nikolai,
he thought.
Just hang on a little longer.
* * *
Five soldiers guarded the arched gateway of the fortress, and they aimed their rifles when Kalvis galloped up. Sofiya brought the horse up short and leaped to the ground. The portcullis was up, at least, and Sofiya could see into the fortress beyond. She prayed Thad was right, that Tsar Alexander was here.
“No one enters!” one of the soldiers barked. “Leave now!”
“I must speak to the tsar,” she said. “Urgently!”
“No one sees the tsar!” the soldier repeated. “Certainly not a woman with unknown clockwork machinery.”
Sofiya walked quietly up to him, her arms spread wide. Kalvis came behind her. “I am the woman who saved the tsar’s life earlier today. I must speak to him. He will want to see me.”
The soldier refused to budge. “This is your final warning.”
It took but a moment for her to work out where every soldier was standing, how much each weighed, what kind of pressure it would take to move them. Sofiya moved. She wrenched the rifle out of the surprised soldier’s hands and smacked his temple with it. Before he went down, she punched a second soldier in the chest with the stock and elbowed a third in the nose. Bone crunched. Kalvis casually kicked the fourth soldier in the midriff and he went flying into the river. Sofiya whipped round and trained her new rifle on the fifth soldier, who was now facing Sofiya by himself.
“Drop your weapon, soldier. This isn’t worth your salary.”
He obeyed, and Sofiya hit him. He went down. Sofiya leaped onto Kalvis’s back and urged him through the gate.
They arrived in the fortress proper and Sofiya paused a moment to look around. A great many narrow streets and buildings were everywhere, but Thad had said the place crawled with automatons. She saw none here. Only soldiers occupied the place now. Purple shadows slid out of corners and crevices. Smells of oil and gunpowder and hot metal filled the air. Atop the wall, platoons of soldiers moved machines of war—cannons cranked around by clockwork machinery, the great automatons ready to fling projectiles, kegs of powder, stacks of cannonballs, rockets, bombs, catapults, and other machines. The sight of them made her heart race and brought a tang of coppery excitement to her mouth. She itched to examine them up close, take them apart, play with them, improve them. She pushed the impulse aside. This was not the time. Everything was being moved around to aim at Vasilyevsky Island—and Nikolai.
A lieutenant rode up on a horse, a normal one. “What are you doing here? Who let you in? No civilians are—”
“The tsar sent for me,” she snapped. “Show me to him. Immediately!”
“The tsar? But he wouldn’t—”
“This machine,” Sofiya gestured to Kalvis, “carries information, weaknesses about the clockwork island. The tsar has commanded me to bring it to him personally. Now, Lieutenant!”
The lieutenant hesitated, then nodded. “This way.”
He led them toward the wall, where a pavilion had been hastily erected over several tables. The tsar stood among them, surrounded by military men of rank, examining long, unrolled documents. He looked up in surprise when Sofiya and the lieutenant rode up. The men moved to intercept, but the tsar waved them aside and ordered Sofiya’s approach instead, to her relief. Her bluff had worked. The lieutenant bowed and withdrew.
“I never had the chance to thank you, Miss Ekk,” Alexander said. “My life was threatened twice in one day, and you rescued me. Russia owes you a great debt. I only wish we weren’t occupied by—”
“Ser,”
Sofiya interrupted, greatly daring, “this is why I’ve come. I have news.”
Alexander raised his eyebrows, and a man Sofiya didn’t recognize stepped forward. “Majesty, we should continue. We have the southwestern sector and the northwestern sector ready, but we must ascertain how to train the weapons on the east, and the sun is setting. Also, the remaining clockworkers we brought up from the prison to calibrate everything are proving less than cooperative.”
“In a moment, Major,” the tsar said. “What is so urgent that you barged up here, Miss Ekk?”
For a dreadful moment, Sofiya couldn’t speak. There was so much to explain, and it was all so complicated. The weapons and the men on the wall were readying to attack at any moment, and if he made a mistake, Nikolai and Thad would be caught in the middle of it. She was sick with worry, and now she had to plead her case before one of the most powerful and ruthless men in the world, one who hated clockworkers. The strain made her
glance with envy at the battlements on the wall. Among the soldiers were men and even a few women in ragged, filthy clothes. Clockworkers, all of whom had been threatened with execution only hours earlier. They were working on the machines under the sharp supervision of guards armed with whips and pistols. They didn’t seem to notice—the machines consumed them. Sofiya suddenly ached to join them, let the world go and plunge into a world of numbers and gears, where everything always made sense. It would be easy enough. Just walk up and start working. There would no doubt be consternation and even some shouting at first, but everything would calm down quickly enough, and she could—
No. Nikolai and Thad were counting on her.
“Ser,”
she said, “you are about to fire on an innocent. The boy Nikolai is on that island. Please—Mr. Sharpe and I saved your life twice, and the lives of your children. Now you can repay that debt by saving them.”
The major scoffed and went back to the maps and charts. The tsar gave Sofiya a long look. “This is an entire city,” he said. “Those machines have taken an entire section of it and thrown the humans out. More than a hundred people have died in the panic, and I have lost the Academy of Sciences, the Kunstkammer, the docks, the foundry, all of it, and heaven only knows what will happen next. You can’t expect that I will simply leave those clockworker abominations to their own devices to help a single automaton child, even to repay the greatest debt.”
“The machines haven’t actually killed anyone,” Sofiya pressed. “People died from other causes.”
“Does that matter?” The tsar sounded angry now.
“They have attacked my city, my country. These filthy machines are rising up to take the place of men, and you are asking me to step back because one of the machines might be innocent? We must destroy them, and then we will finish destroying all clockworkers to ensure it never happens again!”
Sofiya suppressed a grimace. Nikolai hung in the balance, and she couldn’t give it up.” How long will it take to prepare the attack?” she asked.
“No more than ten minutes, perhaps twenty. We are racing the sun.”
“An hour, my lord,” Sofiya said wildly. “I beg you. Put off the attack one hour. Please!”
The major had returned in time to catch the last part of the conversation. “Sire, I really must advise against that. The clockwork machinery on the island is growing exponentially.”
“I agree, Major. I’m sorry, Miss Ekk, but I cannot put the country in jeopardy even to repay this debt.”
Sofiya’s heart sank. In ten minutes, Thad and Nikolai would be at the center of a whirlwind attack—and she would have to watch. There had to be something she could say, something she could do. Desperately, she cast about, but nothing came to mind. Her hand went to her skirt pocket, where she kept the picture of her sister Olenka in her wheelchair.
“If that is all, Miss Ekk,” the tsar said politely, as if they were back in his drawing room and not on a clockwork battlefield, “I must return to—”
“There’s more,” Sofiya said faintly.
“More?”
“Ser,
I should tell you one last thing.” The words came
slowly, as if pulled from her on a chain. She knew Thad often felt caught between two extremes. It was a position she herself didn’t understand—why didn’t he simply pick one side or the other? But now she understood. The middle path was familiar, while the two extremes were filled with terrifying unknowns. Now she had to choose one. She touched the picture in her pocket again, met the tsar’s gaze, and chose without blinking.
“I can give you the identity and the location of the clockworker who is behind everything that has happened these last few days,” she said. “I would be willing to give it to you in exchange for that single hour.”
“Sire!” said the major.
“Wait.” Alexander held up a hand. “Why did you not come forward with this information before, Miss Ekk?”
Sofiya swallowed. She had chosen, and there was no reason to hesitate. Still, it was hard. “The clockworker said his machines are watching my sister Olenka Ivanova Ekk. She lives nearby. The clockworker said if I ever moved against him, he would kill her.”
“I see.” The tsar drummed his fingers on the table and Sofiya held her breath. He was going to order the attack anyway. She had just betrayed Olenka for nothing. Men were all the same.
“Tell me who it is, and you will have your hour, Miss Ekk,” the tsar said. “Then our debt is repaid and the attack will begin, no matter who is on that island.”
Sofiya’s knees went weak. “Thank you, sire.”
“And when this is over,” he added, “we will send someone to look after your sister. Will that do?”
Without thinking, Sofiya grasped his hand and kissed the back. He allowed it for rather longer than he should
have, and their eyes met. Sofiya remembered Alexander’s reputation for taking mistresses, and for a dreadful moment, she though he might try to add her to his collection. Then he took his hand back and the moment ended.
“Sire,” she hurried to add, “there is still more. The rest of the prisoners in the cells—General Parkarov only rounded them up to distract Mr. Sharpe from learning who the real assassin was. They’re innocent. Could you set them free? It costs you nothing.”
The tsar stared at her. Perhaps this time she had pushed too far. But he said, “Very well. See to it in the morning, Major.”
“Ser.”
“And now, the information, Miss Ekk? Your hour is ticking.”
Sofiya prayed Thad was able to hurry even as she began to speak.
T
he Academy had been changed into a fortress matching the one across the river. Thad peered up at the high building walls through the slits on his mask. The spiderweb of cables was thickest here, giving the street something of an indoor feel. A structure across the street had been cannibalized, its materials used to buttress the Academy. The roof had been crenellated, and an enormous machine loomed in the center, hidden from a distance view by the cabling. Thad could only see the thing because he was under the same cables. It had a gun barrel the size of an oak tree. Other, smaller, machines were scattered around it. Automatons and spiders worked on them, adding pieces, cutting, welding, riveting. Through it all, the loudspeakers blared Mr. Griffin’s message of fatherly love and obedience, and more automatons worked in the streets. Many of them had strange-looking rifles, and groups of automatons were drilling with them, marching in perfect unison. All this in the few hours he had been anesthetized in Mr. Griffin’s lair. What would they accomplish in a week? Or a year?
Maddie sat on the colt’s slim head, and she seemed to have established communication with him. He trotted briskly along, and Thad loped to keep up. The automatons remained content to ignore him, though walking past the armed soldiers did nothing for Thad’s nerves, especially when they abruptly turned toward him with a unified
clack
. But it was nothing more than a neatly executed about-face. Thad kept his brass hand visible and tried to lurch more often. It occurred to him that he was, in a twisted way, doing now what Nikolai used to do. Nikolai had pretended to be a human boy in a city filled with humans so the inhabitants wouldn’t hurt him. Thad was pretending to be an automaton man in a city filled with machines for the same reason. It was frightening, having to watch every step, wondering what would happen if he were found out.
“Doom,” said Dante.
At the base of one Academy wall, the colt came to a short staircase that led down to a small door. Maddie jumped down and ran to it, squeaking urgently. Thad surreptitiously straightened his mask and went in.
The passage beyond was low, damp, and stony. Maddie extruded a tendril that came alight with a
pop.
Dante flapped his wings. “Bless my soul!”
“I feel the same way, birdbrain,” Thad said. “Let’s go.”
The tunnel was difficult to navigate. The light was bad, and Thad could barely see inside the mask. At least down here, he couldn’t hear the constant drone of Mr. Griffin’s voice. A web of wires and cables covered everything, and Thad was afraid to touch any of it, which slowed them down. The colt stayed close behind him, as if for comfort, and kept bumping into him. Tension tightened
every muscle and thrummed in his nerves. His breathing came harsh inside the metal mask, and sweat dripped down his face. He eeled and twisted his way deeper into the tunnels. He passed clicking spiders and lurching automatons. They ignored him. By now he was half wishing they
would
attack, just to relieve the pressure.
“Thad, can you hear me?” the colt said in his ear.
Thad twisted, his pistol out and cocked. The colt had spoken in Sofiya’s voice. It was crackly and hard to hear, but definitely her.
“Thad? Are you all right? Can you hear me?”
He glanced around. The stone tunnel was empty for the moment. “Sofiya? How—?”
“I’m at the Peter and Paul Fortress. They have all sorts of explosives here—black powder, dynamite, these new grenades. They are extremely powerful, and I would like to—”
“Very busy here, Sofiya.”
“Sorry. Are you all right? Do you have Nikolai?”
“Working on that.”
“I built Kalvis and the colt to have a weak wireless connection, and I was able to strengthen it enough to”—she paused at a burst of noise—“not hold for long. I bought you an hour before the tsar attacks.”
“An hour?” More anxiety. Thad pursed his lips. “That’s not much time.”
“And that was thirty-five minutes ago,” Sofiya said. “You have twenty-five minutes before they attack. You must—”