Boneshaker (The Clockwork Century 1)

Here was the source of the smoke smell: a brick fireplace with smoldering logs turning the room a golden orange. A blocky black desk squatted in the middle of the floor, atop an Oriental rug with dragons embroidered into the corners. Behind the desk was a fat leather chair with an overstuffed seat, and in front of the desk were two other chairs. Zeke had never been in anybody’s office before and he didn’t know what the point of it might be; but it was a beautiful room, and warm. If it had a bed, it would be a perfect place to live.

Because no one was looking, he walked around the far side of the desk and opened its top drawer. Inside he found papers written in a language he didn’t understand. The second drawer—a deeper one, with a lock that wasn’t fastened—held something more interesting.

At first he thought it was his imagination that the satchel looked familiar. He wanted to believe he’d seen it before, on his mother’s shoulder, but he couldn’t be certain at a glance, so he opened it and jammed his hands inside. His swift rummaging revealed ammunition, goggles, and a mask, none of which he’d ever seen before. And then he found the badge with its ragged MW initials and his mother’s tobacco pouch, untouched for days, and he knew that nothing in the bag belonged to the doctor.

He reached down and scooped it up. When he bent to shove the drawer shut, he saw a rifle stashed under the desk, where it couldn’t be seen except from behind the tall-backed chair where Zeke probably wasn’t supposed to sit.

He snatched the rifle, too.

The room was empty and quiet, except for the flickering chatter of the fireplace. Zeke left it that way and charged back into the hall with his treasures.

There was a door across the way, but Zeke couldn’t open it. He beat against it with Rudy’s warped cane, but when the knob broke it simply fell off, and whatever braced the other side held firm. He flung his weight against it enough times to bruise his shoulder. Nothing budged. But there were other doors to be opened, and he could come back to that one if it came down to it.

The next one across the hall opened into an empty bedroom. And the one next door to it failed to open at all, until Zeke bashed the knob into fragments with the butt end of the cane. The lock tried to hold, but the boy could kick like a mule—and within half a minute the frame splintered, and the door opened violently.

Twenty-six

Briar dreamed of earthquakes and machines so huge that they mowed down cities. Somewhere, at the edge of the things she could hear, she detected the sound of gunfire and something else—or maybe nothing else, because whatever it was, it didn’t come again. Somewhere else it was soft and the lights were turned down low, and the bed was deep enough to cradle a family of four.

It smelled like dust and kerosene, and old flowers dried and left in a vase beside a basin.

Levi was there. He asked her, “You never did tell him, did you?”

From the bed, where her eyes were so heavy she could hardly hold them open, Briar said, “I never told him anything. But I will, as soon as I can. ”

“Really?” He did not look convinced; he looked amused.

He was wearing the thick linen apron he often wore in the laboratory workshop, and it was covered by a light coat that went down to his knees. His boots were unlaced, as usual, as if it never occurred to him to fix them. Around his forehead a set of conjoined monocles was strapped,

wearing a groove into the skin that never fully went away.

She was too tired to object when he came to sit on the edge of the bed. He looked exactly how she last remembered him, and he was smiling, as if everything was all right and nothing had ever been wrong. She told him, “Really. I’m going to tell him, no matter what it costs me. I’m tired of keeping all these secrets. I can’t keep them all anymore. And I won’t. ”

“You won’t?” He reached for her hand, but she didn’t let him take it.

She rolled over onto her side, facing away from him and clutching at her stomach. “What do you want?” she asked him. “What are you even doing here?”

He said, “Dreaming, I think. Same as you. Look, my love. We meet here—if nowhere else. ”

“Then this is a dream,” she said, and a sick feeling spread through her stomach like acid. “For a minute I thought it wasn’t. ”

“It might be the only thing you ever did right,” he said, moving neither toward nor away from her. His weight on the edge of the bed bowed the mattress and made her feel as if she were rolling or falling into his space.

“What? Not telling him?”

“If you had, you might’ve lost him before now. ”

“I haven’t lost him,” she said. “I just can’t find him. ”

Levi shook his head. She could feel the motion of it, though she couldn’t see him. “He’s found what he wanted, and you’ll never get him home again. He wanted facts. He wanted a father. ”

“You’re dead,” she told him, as if he did not know.

“You won’t convince him of it. ”

She crushed her eyes closed and buried her head in the pillow, which almost wanted to smother her with its musty, warm odor. “I won’t have to convince him, if I show him. ”

“You’re a fool. The same fool you always were. ”