Rise of the Arcane Fire (The Secret Order) Read online

“Has he told you you’re beautiful?” David whispered so close to my ear. His cheek brushed mine as he tilted his head, bringing his lips so near. “You could have the world if you wanted. I would give it to you.”

  I couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. I felt aflame, and terrified at the same time. I shouldn’t have felt anything. I should have been able to push him away. But I didn’t want to. I wanted him to let me feel his lips against mine. I was drunk with it.

  I was weak.

  I was selfish.

  But I couldn’t.

  I dropped my chin, and took a slow step backward.

  David let out a heavy breath, then brought my hand to his lips. They caressed the bare skin on the back of my hand with sinful intent before he let me go.

  “Until next we meet, Miss Whitlock.” He gave me a courtly bow, then turned and strode from the room. At the doorway he paused and glanced back over his shoulder, his taunting half smile flashing at me. Then as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone.

  I stood in the silence, trying to comprehend what had just transpired.

  David. Of all people, David.

  What had I done?

  With my hands shaking I flapped them in front of me as I furiously paced the room.

  What had I almost done?

  I couldn’t think through the buzzing in my ears. My heart continued to gallop through my chest as my stomach leapt from my shoes to my throat over and over. As I paced toward the table, my gaze caught on the music box.

  What had I wanted to do?

  Oh dear Lord, I had paved a path to my own ruin, and I had done it gladly. It would be impossible to face him again. All at once I tried to reconcile everything I thought I knew about him with what had just happened, and no matter how I tried, I could not.

  My only consolation was that no one would ever know.

  But I would know.

  I stopped in front of the table and forced myself to regain my composure.

  Fretting about things wouldn’t make them go away. I ran a hand over the drawings from the archives. Now that David and I had a pact to work together, I no longer needed to study how to make my automaton react to stimulus. I could return two-thirds of the drawings I had taken out of the archives. Technically I wasn’t supposed to be in the archives without supervision, but I was only going to replace what had been given to me. Surely the drawings would be more secure in the archives than sitting out on my table, and the walk down to the cellars would do much to steady my nerves.

  It was late, and the Academy was empty. The last light of the deep red sunset lingered in the dim panes of the old mullioned windows. Holding the delicate drawings with care, I turned down a narrow hall and descended the stone stair at the far end.

  Alone in the oppressive dark, I wandered down the wide corridor to the large archives deep in the old cellars. Torches remained lit through the wine and ale cellar, the lights flickering over the large wooden casks. It would have been like any dusty old wine cellar, except for the large iron armatures and gears affixed to the racks that allowed the Amusementists to sort and retrieve any cask they wished with a simple pull of a lever.

  Something snapped, like the crack of a whip against the stone floor. I leapt forward and nearly dropped my lamp as I turned quickly around. The shadows stretched, reaching out from under the casks of wine and ale. I thought I heard a crackling, like a fire, but I saw nothing.

  Fear was playing tricks on my mind, and I had no time for them. Steadying myself, I marched straight to the archives and slipped through the large wooden door at the far end of the wine cellar.

  The archives were dark, but with the small circle of light from my lamp, I managed to place everything I was holding on one of the long tables. I lit four of the large lamps bolted into the wide stone columns in the center of the massive room. Shelves stretched between the columns filled with old books and journals and large slots for rolled drawings.

  I had to hurry to return each of the drawings to its rightful place. Bob would arrive soon to take me home, and I didn’t have time to waste. I saved the oldest roll for last, as I had to climb a tall ladder secured to rails on the shelves to reach the slot where it belonged, and I didn’t much care for ladders.

  Gathering my skirts, I managed to hold the drawing and carefully climb the rungs even though my toes caught the hem of my dress twice. I didn’t wish to fall, and from my perch atop the ladder I could imagine my own body crumpled on the floor, with my head split on the hard stone. I didn’t want to think of how long it would take before someone found me, or what the rats would do to my dead body.

  I shuddered as I placed the drawing in its slot. Then I began scrambling down the ladder. My toe caught the inside of my hem again, and I slipped. I gasped, and I clung to the ladder with both hands as my feet fell free. The ladder slid along the rails, swinging me four feet to the right as I clambered to regain my footing.

  With my heart in my throat, I managed to find my perch and pulled myself right onto the ladder once again. I stood there, panting, with my eyes closed tight and my fingers gripping so fast to the rung, I didn’t think I would ever pry them free again.

  When I opened my eyes, I found myself staring at a thin book with a leather binding as black as pitch tucked at the end of the records and bound minutes from Gatherings. There were no words written on the spine. That alone was odd, and enough to draw my curiosity. I pulled the book from the shelf, and with my whole body shaking from my near fall, I descended the ladder.

  I took the book with me to the table and fell into the chair, grateful my shaking legs had remained steady enough to allow me to reach it. I didn’t yet have the strength in my knees, or the composure, to climb the stair back out of the cellars, so I opened the book to distract myself until I felt I could walk again.

  I flipped through the beginning of the book, which looked like more minutes from meetings. The pages had been transcribed, but most of it was written in Italian. That would do me little good. I was proud of my French and German, but my Italian was abysmal.

  I fanned the pages, but only half the book had been recorded in. The rest was blank. As I let it rest on its spine, the pages fell open to the last entry that had been recorded. It must have been creased there recently.

  What I read there sent a chill down the back of my arms. The latter entries had been written in English.

  Decision for the issuance of the Black Mark against Ulysses Rathford stands, for the crimes of murder and rogue invention.

  I skimmed over the next two pages of evidence against Rathford, which included a sketch of the same machine I had helped destroy, and testimony from Oliver regarding what had been found in the dungeon of the castle in Yorkshire.

  When I came to the end of the entry, I had to read the last paragraph three times before I fully comprehended the scope of the judgment.

  According to the testimony of Oliver Stanley, Duke of Chadwick, Rathford’s actions were entirely of his own making and unknown to the rest of the Rathford line. Because of this estrangement from his current heir, an exception shall be made for the Rathford name so long as the current son proves worthy in the Academy. Should he fail, the name will be struck  from the history of the Order for all time.

  Poor Peter. If this was known to him, he must have been suffering under terrible pressure, and I had only added to it.

  I wished there were a way I could know for certain he was not the saboteur. I wanted things between us to go back to the way they’d been at the start. I wanted my friend back.

  I couldn’t linger on that thought for long before I realized what I held in my hand. This was the record of evidence of every Black Mark. It could reveal the truth about what had happened between my grandfather and Richard Haddock.

  I quickly flipped back through the pages, scouring the looping script for any sign of the name . . .

  Haddock.

  There it was, as clear and bold as the hand of the Devil himself. I hastily read the entry.

  Decis
ion for the issuance of the Black Mark against Richard Haddock for conspiracy to profit from an invention of war.

  Inventing weapons was strictly forbidden by the Order. There was no way for the Order to survive if they could not remain neutral in war. The membership was international, and the last century alone would have set half the Order against itself. It was one of the reasons for the strict rules of secrecy. No one wanted to be labeled a traitor for associating with an enemy of the Crown due to the Order, and no Amusementist was willing to dissolve the Order for the politics of war.

  I wondered what Haddock had intended to invent, and how my grandfather had played a role. I read through the testimony against him, but whatever Haddock had tried to invent was so dangerous that even in this record it was only ever referred to as “the machine.”

  In Haddock’s defense he had claimed that the machine had not been intended for war but instead had been meant to be used to clear land for the installation of future Amusements.

  The committee hadn’t believed him. It was unclear in the entry if he had succeeded in creating this “machine.” I wondered about the bomb and if it was part of the weapon.

  My eyes skimmed over the next section to see what fate had befallen Haddock. When I reached the final paragraph, I nearly dropped the book.

  In an attempt to escape imprisonment during trial, Richard Haddock was brought to justice by the hand of Gerhard Reichlin. The Reichlin clan has ascended in honor for the capture and defeat of so heinous a criminal. Richard Haddock’s name shall be struck from our history for all time.

  The Haddock line is dead.

  At the bottom of the page was a spiral symbol like a ram’s horn with a red skull stamped over the black ink.

  I closed the book and took a deep breath. Haddock had just cause to seek revenge on both sides of my family. The thought chilled me. It was a very good thing he was well in the grave.

  Unless he wasn’t truly dead.

  If the committee had been mistaken, and Haddock somehow had survived, no one had more reason to seek out the death of my family than he did. He had been an Amusementist, and clearly a remarkable inventor if my grandfather had sought him out as a mentor.

  If he had survived, it was possible he had found a means of extending his own life. Maybe that was the purpose of the clockwork mask. While such an invention seemed impossible, I had seen a machine bend time itself. Extending life seemed simple by comparison.

  I had much to think about as I replaced the book and extinguished the lamps. Bob would be furious with me for keeping him so long. I had to return to the carriage bay. Finding proof of Haddock’s death would have to wait for morning.

  Shutting the door with care, I stepped into the wine cellar. The lamps were still lit.

  “Hello?” I called. “Is anyone still here?” I didn’t like leaving lamps burning. They could cause a fire. I turned a slow circle, listening for a response.

  Snap!

  I heard the loud crack again, like a gunshot, followed by a pained shout and the crackling. It wasn’t in my mind. Someone was in trouble.

  Gripping my lamp tightly, I ran toward the noise, only to find myself facing a wall of large casks lined floor to ceiling against the stone. It was a dead end—or was it?

  Dimming my lamp, I walked through the shadows, moving a hand along the faces of the enormous casks. In the darkness the third one on the bottom row had a strange glow, as if a light were shining through a crack in the wall just behind it.

  I felt along the face but couldn’t find a trigger or a latch for a hidden door. Reaching between the casks, my hand found the thick bung plugging the cask. Beneath the plug, I found the seal. So I used my key to open it, and the face of the cask swung outward.

  Through the open face of the barrel came an eerie green light. I placed my lamp at my feet and ducked as I stepped into the enormous cask.

  There was no back end to the barrel. Instead it opened up to a narrow hall. I followed it until I reached a half-open door. The green light flared like whips of lightning as the crackling and snapping grew more intense.

  I peered into the room beyond, and immediately I drew my hands to my mouth in horror.

  Headmaster Lawrence sat on a chair bolted to a platform raised four or five feet from the ground. He was shirtless, his pale skin reflecting the green glow of a large glass orb above him. A metal crown connected to the chair with long coils of wire circled his head. His eyes were closed, and his face was drawn taut with agony. I could barely hear over the sound of energy whipping over and through the orb as whirring gears turned along the outer arms of the ghastly machine.

  Another crack cut through the air, and I leapt back. I could see what looked like a projection of an image within the glass orb. I squinted against the light, unsure what the image was.

  Slowly it came into focus. The scene was of a glowing river of fire flowing, as dark iron buckets suspended from heavy chains dipped into the inferno and heaved the thick molten metal up into the air. A bird appeared, large with a gray head and a finely barred breast. His dark wings flapped above the ironworks around him. It looked like a falcon.

  No, not a falcon, a cuckoo with a bright yellow bill.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of the bird, or the machine. Was it intended to expose a man’s dreams? Headmaster Lawrence gave a shout, though his eyes remained tightly closed. The machine itself was a nightmare. I had to help him.

  I took a step forward, but then suddenly the molten metal from the buckets tipped and poured over the flying bird. It burst into flame, turning black and skeletal before falling into the fire.

  The headmaster laughed.

  I backed away.

  Feeling unsettled, I ran as fast as I could through the cask and shut the door. I didn’t wish to know what Headmaster Lawrence was doing.

  His dreadful machine was one Amusement I wanted no part of.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE NEXT MORNING I WOKE up in my soft bed with warm sunlight slanting over my bedcovers and a fresh pitcher of flowers from my modest garden sitting on my dressing table. A bird sang merrily as it greeted the dawn.

  It was a beautiful morning, a morning that should have made me feel pleasant and eager to live life.

  Instead I couldn’t tear the lingering images of my disturbing dreams from my head. I shivered, cold to the bone. I wished to be back at the Academy, and already I was plotting excuses to spend more time in the archives searching for any information I could find about Richard Haddock.

  Something was very wrong with me.

  The blasted bird kept singing, taunting me with what life would feel like if I could just leave the Order. But I knew I never would. I had given up too much already. I had refused a marriage and had chosen a path that only seemed to grow darker the further I traveled on it.

  As I listened to the bird sing, I questioned whatever corruption of my spirit drew me toward danger like a moth to the flame.

  And I had the sudden urge to take in a stray cat.

  Dressing quickly, I wove my hair in a heavy braid and tied it in a simple knot at my neck. There were no lessons at the Academy for the day. My obsessions would have to wait.

  As the morning drifted on, I effortlessly balanced the records in the shop and took inventory of the various colorful toys adorning my shelves. It all seemed so quaint.

  Four different customers had come into the shop, filling it with the giggles, laughter, and the occasional begging of children without a care in the world beyond the desire for the toys in their arms. I wished I could be like them, to only see the beautiful things before me, and have no knowledge of what mysteries remained hidden just beyond the shelves.

  When I scolded a small boy for filling his pockets full of colorful glass marbles he had no intention of paying for, they spilled out of a hole in his pocket and clattered over the polished floor, much to his dramatic chagrin. As I stooped to gather them up, the silver key that always hung around my neck felt heavy as it swung away from my
heart.

  Just then the bell on the front door rang. A flock of colorful skirts paraded into the shop amid a cackle of familiar laughter.

  I took a steadying breath. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to escape. The young boy scampered out, and I wished to follow him, the shop be damned.

  “Miss Whitlock, whatever are you doing crawling about on your hands and knees?” The voice of the vapid Thornby daughter drifted through the room. Condescending. Just like it had been at Strompton’s memorial.

  Lord have mercy.

  I rose, keeping the slick glass marbles held tight in my fists. The girl wasn’t alone. She had three of her friends with her. I hadn’t met them. I didn’t care to either. They looked at me as if I were some sooty blemish on their hems. I tried to recall the Thornby girl’s name. It was something plain, like Alice—no, it was Mary.

  “May I help you?” I asked in my politest voice even as I kept a furious grip on the marbles.

  Mary drifted over to the marionettes and idly tugged on one of the strings. “We’re only looking,” she said in an overly sweet voice. “Just trying to determine if there is anything here of worth.”

  The others giggled, and I felt the marbles grow hot in my hand. I gave her my most imperial look and stepped behind the counting desk. I released the marbles into a small box. “Everything you see is of fine quality, provided you can afford it.”

  Mary turned, her nose crinkling in an unattractive way. “I can have whatever I wish,” she said as she ran her finger along the lace trim of one of the dolls. She picked it up and toyed with the coils of hair beneath the tiny bonnet. “I do love acquiring fine things.” She let her cool gaze drift over my modest dress. “But I suppose you have little time for refinement, what with all your work.”

  “I manage,” I said, quickly calculating my ledgers. Perhaps if I ignored her, she’d spontaneously burst into flame.

  “Hmph. If you insist.” She placed the doll back on the shelf and turned to me. “Just the other day the Earl of Strompton spent all morning purchasing a fine thing indeed. According to Prudence he spent a small fortune on a very ornate music box before proceeding on to the monastery.”