By the time she was eighteen, she’d learned to make herself presentable in fine gowns, and to arrange the curls of her hair to excite men’s interest, and she’d already had three offers. She hadn’t given any of them answer, but thought to accept the one her father most liked so at least somebody would be happy.
Then one day she’d stepped out of the house, parasol over her shoulder, intending a short walk to remind herself of her duty before that evening’s dinner party, and there Gerald and Major had stood, at the foot of the stairs, two dashing figures from an adventure tale.
“What do you think about, when you look at the flame of a candle?” Gerald had asked.
She stared, parasol clutched in gloved hands, mind tumbling into an honest answer despite her learned poise. “I think of birds playing in sunlight. I wonder if the sun and the fire are the same. I think of how time slows down when you watch the hands of a clock move.”
Major, the younger and handsomer of the pair, gave her a sly grin and offered his hand. “You’re wasted here. Come with us.”
At that moment she knew she’d never been in love before, because she lost her heart to Major. She set her parasol against the railing on the stairs, stepped forward, and took his hand. Gerald pulled the theatrical black cape he’d been wearing off his shoulders, turned it with a twist of his wrists, and swept it around himself, Major, and Clare. A second of cold followed, along with a feeling of drowning. Clare shut her eyes and covered her face. When Major murmured a word of comfort, she finally looked around her and saw the warehouse. Gerald introduced himself and the rest of his cohort, and explained that they were masters of the world, which they could manipulate however they liked. It seemed a very fine thing.
Thus she vanished from her old life as cleanly as if she had never existed. Part of her would always see Gerald and Major as her saviors.
Gerald’s company, his band of unseen activists, waited in their warehouse headquarters until their next project, which would only happen when Gerald traced lines of influence to the next target. The next chess piece. Clare looked forward to the leisure time until she was in the middle of it, when she just wanted to go out and do something.
Maybe it was just that she’d realized a long time ago that she wasn’t any good at the wild version of poker the others played to pass time. She sat the games out, tried to read a book, or daydreamed. Watched dust motes and candle flames.
The other four were the fighters. The competitive ones. She’d joined this company by accident.
Cards snicked as Major dealt them out. Clean-shaven, with short cropped hair, he was dashing, military. He wore a dark blue uniform jacket without insignia; a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar; boots that needed polishing, but that only showed how active he was. Always in the thick of it. Clare could watch him deal cards all day.
“Wait a minute. Are we on Tuesday rules or Wednesday?” Ildie asked.
Fred looked up from his hand, blinking in a moment of confusion. “Today’s Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Tuesday rules on Thursday. That’s the fun of it,” Marco said, voice flat, attention on the cards.
“I hate you all,” Ildie said, scowling. They chuckled, because she always said that.
Ildie dressed like a man, in an oxford shirt, leather pants, and high boots. This sometimes still shocked Clare, who hadn’t given up long skirts and braided hair when she’d left a proper parlor for this. Ildie had already been a rebel when she joined. At least Clare had learned not to tell Ildie how much nicer she’d look if she grew her hair out. Fred had sideburns, wore a loosened cravat, and out of all of them might be presentable in society with a little polish. Marco never would be. Stubble shadowed his face, and he always wore his duster to hide the pistols on his belt.
A pair of hurricane lamps on tables lit the scene. The warehouse was lived-in, the walls lined with shelves, which were piled with books, rolled up charts, atlases, sextants, hourglasses, a couple of dusty globes. They’d pushed together chairs and coffee tables for a parlor, and the far corner was curtained off into rooms with cots and washbasins. In the parlor, a freestanding chalkboard was covered with writing and charts, and more sheets of paper lay strewn on the floor, abandoned when the equations scrawled on them went wrong. When they went right, the sheets were pinned to the walls and shelves and became the next plan. At the moment, nothing was pinned up.