Nigel stood in the doorway of the main sitting room. He was from Africa but had lived most of his life in England before moving to America at twenty. He had a handsome face and wore a handlebar mustache waxed to points at the ends.
“Seems a little empty around here,” Westie said as she brushed Jezebel’s fur from her trousers. Though the house was full of souvenirs, she could see bare spots where some of his inventions used to be. Instead of the display case full of mechanical limbs, there was a rectangle stamped out of the clutter, showing the green-and-gold damask wallpaper behind it. In a corner, the chest of nonsensical inventions he liked to tinker with was missing.
“I needed the copper,” Nigel said.
She looked curiously at him. He rarely recycled copper and found it difficult to part with any of his inventions, even the ones that never worked.
“For Emma?” she asked.
In his younger years, Nigel’s inventions had been transportation-inspired because of his love for travel: airships and land engines, mostly. After he took Westie and Alistair into his charge, his creations became more prosthetic and medically geared.
But something had changed recently. All he’d worked on for the last year was a heaping pile of copper parts that seemed to have no function other than taking up space in the great room. He called it Emma—Earth-Magic Mechanical Amplifier.
Westie didn’t know much about his new invention. He had told her once what the machine did, something about pulling magic from gold or some such nonsense, but she hadn’t cared enough to pay attention.
“Of course,” he said.
Westie looked toward the hallway just as Alistair walked around the corner. Paying attention to Westie instead of where he was walking, he bumped into a wall, knocking down a shelf of novels. She would’ve laughed had her heart not seized at the sight of him. He wore a mask that enabled him to speak, made of clockwork bits that rotated when he breathed. It was lined with leather to keep the metal from touching his skin, and it covered his face from the bridge of his nose to the bottom of his chin. His high-collared shirt hid scars on his neck. Every inch of him was covered except for the top half of his face.
As he looked at Westie with large eyes as blue as a broken heart, a dormant ember stirred within her.
“Hello, Alley,” Westie said, hoping her dirty face would conceal the blaze in her cheeks.
He nodded without speaking.
“How did it go?” Nigel asked Westie.
She’d been looking for the cannibals who’d killed her family since she was fourteen. In the beginning Nigel didn’t approve of her leaving for weeks without knowing how to use weapons properly or fight, but he never stopped her—even after he’d taught her those things, he still didn’t like her being gone. When he looked at her this time, there was hope in his gaze, like maybe she’d finally given up.
“Could’ve gone better,” she said. “Maybe next time.”
Nigel released the breath he’d been holding. “I see. Well, anyway, we’ve missed you around here. You’ve been gone too long. The road is no place for a teenage girl.”
After two months away, Westie had forgotten what it was like to have someone worry over her. It came as both a relief and an annoyance.
“I’m no girl. Women my age are married and sprouting children.”
Nigel shrugged his lips and shoulders together like a ventriloquist dummy with one string for all motions. “Perhaps you should be doing the same.”
Westie glared at him. “Maybe you’re right. I reckon I ought to stop turning down the suitors lining up, waiting to take my copper hand in marriage. Imagine the wedding night.” She grabbed two walnuts from a decorative glass tray on the table beside the door and crushed them together into a fine powder with a gentle flex of her metal fingers.
Nigel gave her a thoughtful look and sighed. “I fear I’ve done you a great disservice by letting you run wild all these years. It’ll be difficult finding proper suitors for you with those manners.”
She let the walnut dust slide from her fingers onto a Turkish rug and looked at her copper machine. “Manners don’t have a thing to do with it.”
“Have you been keeping up with your lessons?” he asked.
She patted the leather satchel slung across her chest. “Right here.” Ever since she’d gotten kicked out of school, Nigel had been her teacher—a rather relentless one at that.
“Wonderful.” Westie pretended not to notice Nigel holding his breath and leaning away from her. It had been some time since her last bath. “Then I suppose you’ve earned your prize.” He turned to his assistant. “Alistair, would you be a saint and fetch Westie’s reward? It’s in my study. Oh, and some drinks, if you will.”
With a nod Alistair disappeared.
A gray-haired Chinese woman wearing a maid’s uniform walked in holding a broom and pushed Westie to the side to sweep up the dust at her feet. Confusion twisted Westie’s features as more and more servants buzzed in and out of the room. The only time Nigel hired anyone to clean was on special occasions.