The red-haired man turned a blazing look on the crowd. “We will fight with our hands. Our wits. Our swords and guns. And our machines.” He gestured and a lackey flung the canvas off the strange shape beside him. I could not see clearly over the milling crowd, but I glimpsed something shiny, metallic. Then I heard a low hum and gasps from those closer to the object. A woman near me crossed herself.
“Sooner than the Luminate can anticipate, their world will collapse. In place of jewels, we will give them stone; in place of gold—fire!”
The red-haired man threw out his arm, and the crowd drew back in alarm. I could see now the metal creature at his side. It was roughly human-like in shape, standing on two thick legs with two armlike appendages. But the face, made of sheets of metal hammered thin, bore the hooked beak of a bird of prey. As I watched, a pair of paper-thin metal wings unfurled and the entire machine erupted in flame.
It advanced on the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Ginny cried out and stumbled, falling to her knees. Beside her, a little girl began to cry.
“Stop!” I yelled, a twinge of fear feeding my anger. “Stop this at once.”
The automaton continued to press forward. In a moment it would be upon Ginny. My fury flexed and expanded, fueled by my hurt at Freddy’s disappearance, my increasing sense of helplessness in the face of my mother’s will. “Stop!” I cried again, trying to push the force of my will into the air around me.
The automaton faltered and stopped. The fire died as quickly as it had begun. Thank all the Saints that Bind, the red-haired man had heeded me after all. He sprang forward and helped Ginny to her feet, then turned to stare at me, his eyes narrowed.
I marched toward him, furious. “Is this your revolution? Is this how you hope to change the world—by frightening women and children? For shame!” The pounding of my pulse crept up the side of my face. The edges of my vision blurred and sparkled. “Not all Luminate are the ogres you paint them. Not all are so wealthy, or so powerful.”
His blue eyes drilled into mine. There was a light in them—not of anger, but of interest. “Who are you?”
Half a dozen tart replies flashed through my brain, fighting against the expanding pain. “Someone who thinks you should know better. And now, if you are quite finished, I have better things to do.”
I spun around and the park appeared to spin with me. My impressions grew fuzzy. Mama was not going to be pleased I had made a spectacle of myself in public.
Again.
My last conscious sight was of the stranger’s sky-colored eyes, open wide with surprise.
Consciousness came back to me in fits and starts. First voices, then glimmers of light. My mother’s jasmine scent floated on the air nearby.
“Anna is young, Mária. I’m sure she intended no harm.” My father.
“She is old enough to know she should not meet a man alone in the gardens at midnight. I did not teach my daughters to behave like…like a common trollop. And now this! Escorted home by a strange man—a radical, no less!—after fainting in the park.”
“Mr. William Skala,” Papa murmured. “Clever enough to be dangerous, but he did the right thing bringing my girl home.”
I heard a rustle of fabric and pictured Mama’s impatient shrug. “Something must be done with Anna. She cannot be allowed to stay here. The gossip alone would follow Catherine to every event of the Season.”
Something must be done with Anna. As if I were a particularly thorny problem, not her child. I kept my eyes closed, though I was fully conscious and my head was tilted at an awkward angle against the sofa back.
“Would you have me take her back to Arden Hall?” Papa asked.
I pictured our estate in Dorset, the green growing fields and the faint salt tang in the air on clear, windy days. I had learned to name birds there, and catch fish with James. Arden Hall belonged to the tightly circumscribed world of my childhood. London belonged to my present, and, I hoped, my future. I did not want to go.
A brief pause, as Mama cogitated. “No. There is only one thing to be done. Lord Markson Worthing must be made to marry her. I refuse to let shame and scandal spoil any more of Catherine’s debut.”
Hope surged up in me. Marry Freddy? I knew this was a routine solution to young women in my predicament, but I had not believed Mama would allow it. Somehow it seemed too much like a reward for bad behavior.
“I do not like it,” Grandmama said, tapping her cane. “I do not think he will make my granddaughter happy. Let her come with me to Hungary. I should like to see my country once more before I die.”
Hungary? That was half a world away. I could not go.
“Happy?” Mama said. “That is not my concern. If Anna is respectable, she must be happy. And Hungary is too far for an old woman and a young girl to travel alone.”
My breath slipped out in relief. I would be happy with Freddy, though perhaps not entirely respectable.
“It seems to me,” Papa said, “Lord Markson Worthing has something to answer for. What business has a grown man with courting one sister in public and encouraging her younger sister—a girl not yet out—to meet him in secret? And I mislike the Circle’s new interest in Anna. Lord Orwell wants to study her. I’ve put him off, though I’m not certain how long I can do so.”
“Perhaps you should let him. We would not want—” Mama broke off. “Anna. I know you can hear us.”
I cursed her Coremancer gift, hoping she would not read my surliness in the midst of my lingering pain. I coughed and fluttered my lashes for effect, then sat up slowly. Mama and Grandmama sat on the matched chairs by the window in the Green Drawing Room, where Freddy and I had sat only the day before. Papa stood just beyond them, one arm slung across the marble mantelpiece.
Grandmama smiled at me. “You are better?”
A legion of tiny dwarves were excavating my skull with pickaxes. “Yes,” I said, wrestling a smile onto my lips. “I am better.”
“Anna,” Mama sighed. “I need not tell you your behavior last night was shockingly inappropriate. You shall be confined to your room until we have settled things.”
I swallowed the tightness in my throat. Was it such a crime, to kiss the man I loved?
“We will do what we must to salvage things. Your father will speak to Lord Markson Worthing. The Circle willing, he will marry you.”
“Mária,” my father began. “I do not know that—”
Mama shook her head, the tight curls at the sides of her face quivering. “I will not discuss this further. We will all do what we must. You will speak to Lord Markson Worthing, and Anna will marry him.”
The door burst open. Catherine stood for a moment in the entrance, temper bringing a high color to her face. She must have been listening at the door. “Anna cost me the moment I have worked for my entire life. And you reward her for this?”
The hard contours of Mama’s face softened. “I am sorry, Catherine. If Anna does not marry Lord Markson Worthing, her reputation will be ruined—and yours, by association, will suffer.”
Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “You are making Anna marry Lord Freddy because she kissed him? Unchaperoned?”