Despair clawed at Isabelle’s heart, but she did not relent. “But what about the war? Aragoth needs its príncipe.”
Julio grimaced. “I … am not a príncipe of Aragoth.” His gaze flicked to the corner of the cell where lay an inert heap of blood ciphers. “My father is not my father. Even my name is not my name.” His hands balled into white-knuckled fists. “I am a changeling and both Clìmacio and Alejandro know it. They have no reason to treat with me.”
“What about everyone else? Surely the presence of a third príncipe must give the nobles cause to doubt the rightness of their position.”
“There is no time for such a ploy. Kantelvar intends to force himself upon me within the hour, and he will force himself on you shortly thereafter. That must not happen.”
Isabelle’s hands balled in frustration, her spark-hand throwing motes of light. “Do you want to die so badly?”
“I do not want to die at all,” he said, “but—”
“No more buts,” Isabelle snapped. “If you want poison you can fetch it yourself after I get you out of these.” She reached for Julio’s chains. She had no key, but maybe her spark-hand could manipulate the locks on his manacles.
Julio flinched. “Stop!”
Isabelle froze. “Why?”
“Kantelvar commanded the omnimaton to kill anyone who tried to either harm me or set me free.”
“And poisoning doesn’t count?” Isabelle asked incredulously.
“It only understands Saintstongue, and it’s used to people leaving things for me to eat. It wouldn’t know the difference until it was too late.”
Isabelle warily backed up and turned to regard the machine. Could she give it an order?
Easing away from Julio, she held up the amulet and spoke in the Saintstongue, “Warder, hear me and obey. Set Príncipe Julio free.”
Isabelle half expected the machine to rip her apart, but it gave no sign of noticing her.
She asked, “Did he give any special words to it? A verse from the Instructions, maybe?”
“Aside from the Saintstongue, the only other consistency I’ve noted is the staff. I think it’s connected to the machines.”
“Which is why you tried to grab it.”
“That and I didn’t want him shocking me with it.”
Isabelle straightened up and carefully approached the omni. “What exactly did Kantelvar say to it?” Every statement he uttered, and every deal he made, was all about word games and slicing meaning very thinly. Was it too much to hope that he might have given similarly precise commands to his mechanical servants?
Julio squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to remember. “He was speaking in Saintstongue, ‘Neither unchain him nor allow him to be unchained without my permission. Likewise, neither harm him nor allow him to come to harm.’”
Isabelle reached up to smooth her veil, realized she wasn’t wearing one, and settled for tugging her collar. The machine wouldn’t heed her, wouldn’t let her remove Julio, and wouldn’t let her harm him …
“Ah!” Inspiration struck with the same thrilling terror as striking a match in the dark and finding oneself in a gunpowder magazine.
“You have something?” Julio asked.
Isabelle’s pulse raced, but she quelled the urge to act. Think first. She thought she could persuade the omnimaton to get Julio out of the cell, but what then? She had seen no indication of individual volition in any of the omnimatons she’d encountered so far, but the tasks they performed had to involve some level of decision making. “Can these things think for themselves?”
“Not as such. They seem to have some measure of comprehension, but no free will or individual motivation. Why?”
“Say an omni is in the middle of a task, and Kantelvar orders it to do something else. What happens when the interruption is over?”
“It goes back to what it was doing before. Where are you going with this?”
Isabelle chewed her lower lip and muttered, “He didn’t actually order it to keep you in the room.”
“I would think that was implie—wait, where are you going?”
“I have an idea!” Isabelle called over her shoulder as she squeezed by the omnimaton into the abandoned bedroom suite. She ripped the fine linens from the bed, took an ancient tapestry from its hanger, and rushed back into the cell, making a pile against one wall. She made more trips into the bedroom, clearing the way with Gretl’s Omnioculus amulet, bringing back more sheets and clothes from the bureau, antique chairs, paintings by the old masters. She heaped a thousand years of irreplaceable history into a pile as high as her waist. Even with just one arm to shuttle this mostly once-living material, it couldn’t have taken her more than a few minutes, but under the omnimaton’s soulless watch it felt like a year. Thank the Builder the machine seemed utterly disinclined to question her motive for this redecorating project.
Julio, on the other hand, watched her frenetic gathering in evident alarm. “What in the name of Torment are you doing?”
“Getting you out of here.” She met his gaze. “Do you trust me?”
“Do I have a choice?” His voice almost squeaked.
“You could opt to be Kantelvar’s vessel.”
“That is not a choice.”
Once more, she darted into the bedroom, pausing only to listen for some noise heralding Kantelvar’s approach. She could hear nothing but the hammering of her own heart. She snatched an alchemical lantern from the wall and returned to the cell.
Julio’s silver eyes went wide. He surged against his chains. “What? No! Are you mad!”
“No, just desperate.” A very fine distinction, as it turned out.
Isabelle backed up to the far corner of the room. She pulled the glass stopper out of the lumin gas reservoir with her spark-hand. The hyper-volatile liquid quickly began to vaporize, spewing a jet of vapor, like steam from a teakettle, but colder than ice. She hurled it at the wall above her pile of kindling.
The glass shattered. The phlogiston core ignited.
The bright green flash knocked her on her backside and punched the breath from her lungs. Purple sparks rained down around her. She dragged herself up in time to see flames erupt from the heap of oil paintings and cobwebbed tapestries. Black smoke billowed and spread across the ceiling.
“Mad witch!” Julio screamed, or something like it. Isabelle’s ears rang with the bang.
The omnimaton sprang into action. Emitting an ululating, earsplitting shriek, it began stamping at the spreading flames. Isabelle faced the omnimaton and jabbed a finger at Julio. How would it react to her as the fire starter? In the Saintstongue she shouted, “Do not permit him to come to harm!” Could it even hear her over the racket of its own alarm cry?