The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century 4)

“Mr. Troost. You’re an engineer, aren’t you?”

“Close enough. ”

“I’ll want a word with you later. You, too, Houjin. I have a team of my own at the Station, but I’ll need all the mechanical heads I can put together. ” Then he concluded, “Between us, I believe that we can best them. Entirely. ”

Twenty-two

The city mobilized. Houjin was carted off with Yaozu—he didn’t leave with Cly’s permission, exactly, but the captain didn’t attempt to stop him. Angeline disappeared out the back of Maynard’s as soon as Yaozu had finished speaking, as if she’d forgotten something and only just remembered it, but Rector suspected that she was trying to avoid the man altogether.

The remaining crew of the Naamah Darling went up to Fort Decatur to prepare the ship for launch and reconnaissance—and a potential supply run as well, if it could be made quickly enough. Zeke vanished with the captain, as if the boy could replace Houjin (a thought that made even Rector laugh), and Briar Wilkes left right behind them. Lucy O’Gunning began cleaning the bar, Swakhammer and his daughter went out the back door chatting, and there was nobody else left who Rector knew well enough to ask, What should I do? Where should I go?

Everyone ignored him, so he went back to the Vaults. It was either that or the Station, and he didn’t know anyone there except for Bishop and Yaozu, and neither one of them seemed too likely to take him under their wing. Or even give him the time of day, without duress.

But the Vaults were easy, and not very far away. He’d figured out the path by now, and while he’d been jaunting through the facilities with Zeke he’d spied a room that nobody seemed to be using. Since he doubted that Mercy Lynch would beat him back, he let himself into the sickroom, gathered his be

longings, and relocated to the other space on the next floor down.

This new room was dark, but all the rooms were dark. It was scantily furnished, but again, none of the rooms were poshly appointed as far as he knew—except maybe out at the Station, where Yaozu had enough money to appoint whatever he pleased.

Rector wondered if he ought to find his way out to the Station, after all.

The Doornails had been pretty nice to him, so far as nice went. Except maybe the nurse, who hadn’t been nice, but she’d saved his life. And maybe Cly or Briar Wilkes, who’d been none too welcoming—but hadn’t chased him out of the fort, either. But Zeke was all right, same as ever. And Houjin was tolerable, once you figured him out. And Angeline was fine by him, if you ignore the fact that he’d never expected to call a woman old enough to be his grandmother some kind of friend.

As he sat on the edge of the dry, uncomfortable bed, he asked himself what he really wanted and found no answer except a dull pang of hunger for sap, which he’d effectively concluded that he couldn’t have anymore, regardless of how much he wanted it.

(Something about the dismembered pile of bones and meat. Something about the moaning, lonely grunts and wails of the rotters. Something about being so close to it all, and Yaozu running an operation with no use for users, now or ever. )

All right then. No more sap. Not for now.

He considered sharing this unhappy conclusion with Zeke or Houjin, or even Mercy Lynch—since she was so keen to hear all about sap and its effects—but he wasn’t certain he could stick with the resolution, if in fact this was a resolution at all. He didn’t know. He’d never made one before.

All he knew was that he’d gone a stretch without sap and he was thinking clearer than he had in a very long time, and feeling better than when he’d been on the outside—persistent Blight gas be damned. He was hungry more often than not, but he’d always been hungry outside—and now he knew where to find food, and no one would swat him with a belt if they caught him taking any. He was tired, but he’d often been tired before, and now he had a place to sleep that he didn’t share with anyone else. Maybe it didn’t lock, and maybe it didn’t belong to him in any concrete way apart from possession being so much of the law down here, but it was his and no one was fighting him for it.

If he were to try his luck at the Station, he might find the population less accommodating, or more competitive, which was his true worry. Bishop had suggested that the Station would be filled with men more like himself, inclined to crime, drug use, and cheating behavior, and that sounded tricky. It was easier, he suspected, to be the only person of his sort. Better a big fish in a small pond.

But when he looked around the tiny, dingy, dark, and utilitarian room … it did not feel much different from the orphanage. It felt like a lateral move, and not a step up. Even if it was his, and his alone.

He was mulling this over when he heard a violent clatter and a keening, simpering sound that made his ears want to close up. He hopped to his feet and poked his head out into the hall, and there he saw Angeline wrestling with something that was too large for her to easily carry.

When she saw him, she smiled and set her burden down with a grunt. “Red!” she exclaimed, panting roughly as she caught her breath. “Come give me a hand with this, would you?”

“What … what is it?” he asked, coming closer only because she was so unafraid—and it wouldn’t do for him to cringe away like a coward.

“Silly boy—it’s the cage we set out the other day. And inside it…” She drew aside a moth-eaten blanket that’d been covering the cage. “I’ve got Zeke’s fox. ”

The creature snapped and hissed, crawling in a circle as if trying to create a smaller and smaller ball of fox—something tiny enough to fit through the mesh and escape. Angeline dropped the blanket again, and the persistent fuss of the animal’s crying tapered off.

“Why is it Zeke’s fox?” Rector asked.

“Because he’s the one who wanted to save it. Him and me, I guess, but I don’t plan to look after it, and I expect he will. Help me carry this,” she directed.

Rector did so, but he made sure to grab a good handful of blanket before putting his fingers anywhere within potential biting distance.

He needn’t have worried. The fox cowered away from both of them.

“Where are we taking it?” he asked as he lumbered beside her, walking sideways to keep from dropping the cage and fox both.

“I thought one of these extra rooms down here might do the trick. Same as you, I expect,” she said. “You picked one out? Is that what you’re doing down here?” She sidled as they walked, the cage held between them.