Ganymede (The Clockwork Century 3)

“Suppose I could have a word with you? For a minute, if you can spare it. ”

“I was headed down to Chinatown to scare up some supper. You care to join me?”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I mean, sure. Fang’s probably down there anyway, and Houjin will wander over once Mercy shoos him away again—or that’s my guess. I’ll be leaving for a long trip soon, and if he wants to come, he’ll have to get himself ready. ”

“A long trip?” Briar repeated. “How long, and are you taking off soon?”

“Might be gone a few weeks, but I’ll stick around until morning. Everybody and his brother wants to add something to my shopping list. ”

“Have you been offering?”

“I suppose I might’ve been. ”

“Then it’s nobody’s fault but your own. ” She bumped her shoulder against him, and he pretended to recoil—as if she’d knocked him so hard, she’d sent him off balance.

They made a funny pair, walking together back up the way Andan had come. Him so tall, he had to duck at every door

way. Her so comparatively small that the top of her head barely reached his chest. The captain felt conspicuous beside Briar Wilkes; he felt his height more acutely than usual when he had to crane his neck to look down at her, and she had to twist herself to look up at him.

But he liked it when she did.

Once upon a time, she’d been a notorious girl—a pretty teenager who’d run away from home to marry a man twice her age. But sixteen years, widowhood, hard work, and raising a son alone had taken away the imperious tilt of her nose. (Cly remembered it from a drawing he’d seen, a wedding announcement he recalled from ages ago. ) The intervening time had worn away her wealth, her softness, and her youth—but not the symmetry of her face. And for everything the years had claimed, they had given something in return.

At thirty-six, she was a patient and confident woman.

She was also the sheriff of Seattle, insomuch as the walled city had one. Her father had been a lawman who died a folk hero, obeying the spirit of the law if not the letter.

She’d never intended to replace him. She’d intended to live and die a rich man’s wife in a house with expensive furnishings and silver cutlery, pampering a brood of well-dressed children who played the piano and learned to ride horses with perfect posture. But time had had other ideas, and now she wore her father’s hat, his badge, and his belt buckle engraved with his initials, MW. And even the underground’s newcomers knew who she must be, whether they recognized her as Maynard’s daughter or not.

Cly lifted the big vault door and held it up while Briar climbed past it, into the subterranean underworld that passed for “outside. ” He followed her, asking, “What’s the fastest way to get where we’re going? I’m still learning my way around down here. ”

She paused with her hands on her hips, checking the signs and finding her bearings. “This way’s fastest in the long run. The other two ways I know are roundabout, and I don’t know the tunnels so well myself. Every time I think I’ve got my directions figured out, I turn around and wind up lost. ”

“You’ve been lost down here?”

“Sure. These days I carry one of Frank Creat’s compasses and it helps me a lot, but sometimes I just have to find my way topside and look around to figure out where I am. ”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Cly said. “All those rotters up there. All that gas. ”

“That’s what the masks are for, and the rotters aren’t so hard to avoid, once you know what lures them. As long as you stay off the streets, it’s not so much trouble to stay out of their way. Nobody’s seen any down here since Minnericht died. No coincidence, if you ask me. ” She started off down a wood-slat trail with a sign that said KING STREET on it. Chinatown was shortly beyond the train station. “You worry too much,” she told him.

“Do you take Swakhammer’s Daisy with you?” he asked, meaning the sonic weapon that could stun the rotters into submission, if only for a few minutes at a time.

“Lord, no. I can hardly lift that thing. ”

Falling into step beside her, Cly argued, “Then it sounds like I’m worrying just the right amount. I don’t like it, you all alone up there. ”

“I could show you the topside way, if you want,” she offered. “We could go left at the fork instead, and come up through the old Continental Hotel. From there, we could go rooftop to rooftop all the way to Chinatown, almost. You’d see it’s not so bad. ”

“You’re only trying to make me feel better. ”

“Is it working?” she asked, looking up at him with a gleam in her eye.

“No. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stick to the underside. I don’t like wearing gas masks, and I don’t like rotters. ”

“Then you took a terrible wrong turn someplace, because you’re sure as hell in the wrong city, Captain. ”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. The surface here isn’t much to look at, but the underground is a sight to see. And…” He stopped himself from saying more.