Birch’s mouth twisted. “Oh no, that would be disastrous.”
“I was joking about the gun, Birch.” She offered him a kind smile before narrowing her eyes at her brother. “But not about being knackered.”
“Go to bed then.” Ash went to draw himself another cup of cider. “It’s not as if you care what I have to say anyway.”
He sounded so tired that Charlotte felt a pinch of guilt.
“I didn’t mean any harm, Ash.”
“I know that, Charlotte. Get some sleep.” He threw a brief smile at her before tilting his cup at Birch. “Cider?”
“Not for me,” Birch said as he adjusted his goggles atop his forehead. “I’ve many hours left in the workshop tonight. We can’t have the Pisces breaking down on your run.”
Ash coughed up a mouthful of cider. “No. We wouldn’t want that.”
Stifling a giggle, Charlotte slipped out of the refectory. She took a sloping tunnel to her right until she reached her door. The round wooden door was set within an iron frame that had been fitted to the small cave’s opening. Once inside, she shrugged off her coat and tossed it onto her bed, happy to let the cool cavern air brush across the bare skin of her arms. Though they worked with the original shape and composition of the caves, the Catacombs hadn’t been left without improvements over the years.
Charlotte’s favorite remained the tangle of pipes that slithered out of the rock wall, their nozzles dropping into small basins that had been carved from the rock itself. Placing a stopper in the drainage pipe that channeled water out of the Catacombs and into her bedroom, Charlotte let warm water fill the basin and went to her wardrobe. She opened the door, smiling as always as the clockwork gears sprung to life. On the inside of the door, a mirror descended. Metal stars swirled around its perimeter, shifting into the patterns of diverse constellations as they circled the mirror. On the inside of the opposite door, a whimsical melody ebbed out as steel pins struck a turning metal cylinder. In front of the device, two tiny mechanical dancers spun to the allegro from E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Quintet for Harp. The wardrobe had been a gift to Charlotte from Ash, Jack, Meg, and Birch on her sixteenth birthday. Its arrival had rendered her speechless and made her wonder even more than usual about Jack, though speculating about him was a regular pastime for Charlotte.
Jack had arrived suddenly a little less than a year before, returning with Ash, who’d been on a scouting run. Thinking of that day, Charlotte made a mental note to remind Ash that he was the one who had set a precedent of bringing home strays.
Of course, it had been different with Jack. She couldn’t deny that. While the boy she’d found today claimed to have no memory of his former life, Jack had been running from his. He’d shown up in the hard, scorch-marked leather uniform of New York’s Foundry laborers. When Jack had begged for asylum, Ash had welcomed him in without question. The two boys had become fast friends, which meant Jack was constantly within nagging distance of Charlotte.
For the first two weeks, Jack and Charlotte had been at each other’s throats. Her brother instantly had a new confidante, which left Charlotte feeling excluded and unimportant. When she’d complained to Ash, he had told her that Jack was a welcome addition to the Catacombs, an asset in ways she couldn’t appreciate, so she’d better get used to him. Naturally she’d retaliated by hazing Jack relentlessly. She gave him incorrect directions so he’d get lost in the tunnels. She sent him to Birch’s workshop when she knew the tinker was working on the most volatile and incendiary experiments.
But Charlotte’s efforts only seemed to invite more teasing and attention from Jack. Their banter would escalate to shouting and finally Charlotte’s shrieked declarations that one of them would have to leave the Catacombs because she couldn’t bear another moment of his presence.
When Ash determined that neither his friend nor his sister was going to back down, he declared that they must find a way to reach détente, or he would force them to share a room—permanently. Charlotte was aghast, while Jack merely laughed until his face went purple.
She’d fled to her room, hoping to wait out her brother’s obvious bout of madness. Jack had surprised her by showing up the next morning with a peace offering. From within his long leather coat he produced a square steel box, its lid etched with flowering vines. Too startled to do anything but open the box he offered, Charlotte’s breath was snatched away when music poured out, the tinkling sounds flowing all around her as she watched a tiny steel garden of leaves, shrubs, and flowers grow. The plants retreated when she closed the lid and grew once more when she opened it.
The song, Jack told her, was called the Moonlight Sonata and was by a German composer named Beethoven. One of the metalsmiths Jack had worked alongside in the Foundry kept the scraps of metal and had a secret craft of creating extraordinary musical devices that he sold on the black market. The man had given the piece to Jack to use for bartering when he’d fled the fires and smoke of the Foundry, but Jack had found Ash and been brought to the Catacombs before he’d had to trade the box.
Charlotte had been taken aback by the extravagance of Jack’s gesture. With the music still chiming in her ears and metal flowers growing beside her fingers, Charlotte tried to refuse the lovely trinket, but Jack insisted this gift would be a peace offering.
From that moment, Charlotte had decided two things. One, that Jack was much more than he’d first appeared to be. And two, she could share the Catacombs with him after all.
They hadn’t exactly become friends, but their rivalry had transformed from hostility to an unorthodox form of entertainment. The longer their banter went on, Charlotte discovered that as irksome as Jack could be, she missed him when he wasn’t around to provoke her. And she enjoyed honing the sharpness of her tongue at Jack’s expense.
She listened to the music in the box constantly, carrying it with her through the Catacombs' tunnels so she could hold it to her ear. The song haunted her as she tried to contemplate how the rippling notes could be so beautiful and so sad at the same time.
Ash, pleased that his insistence on a détente had worked, teased Charlotte about her sudden change of heart. He suggested more than once that the box was, in fact, hexed, and the more Charlotte listened to its music, the more she’d been under Jack’s thrall. Though she wanted to prove her brother wrong, Charlotte loved the tinkling music too much to give up her habit of frequently carrying the box in her pocket when she was in the Catacombs so she could listen to it when she pleased.
Observing her delight in the contraption, Ash conspired with Jack to bring more mechanical music into Charlotte’s life. The pair had found a broken-down, discarded wardrobe in the Heap during one of their scavenging runs. They’d dragged it back to the Catacombs in the middle of the night and stashed it in Jack’s room, knowing Charlotte would never set foot there. Ash and Meg had refinished the wood surfaces, while Birch repaired the mechanisms in the doors.
On the morning of her sixteenth birthday Charlotte had awoken to a rippling melody, but not the one she’d grown so familiar with. All four of them were standing beside the resurrected wardrobe, waiting for her reaction.
Charlotte took in the scene and promptly burst into tears, horrifying them all. But her tears were happy ones, and they were reassured when she leapt from her bed and grabbed Birch, who blushed like a rose when Charlotte made him waltz around the room with her. Ash then asked Meg to dance, and the four of them spun around the room like the wooden dancers twirling in the door. Jack simply watched them and smiled.
Now several months gone, her birthday was the last truly happy day Charlotte remembered. Relative peace with Jack had given way to ongoing conflicts with Ash. Their fights had grown more frequent and gained intensity. And they both knew why, but neither was willing to speak of the matter.
Charlotte’s sixteenth birthday had passed. That meant Ash’s eighteenth birthday was approaching.
Charlotte sighed
at the thought and left the wardrobe doors open so the music would continue. Taking a soft cloth from one of the shelves, she returned to the basin and turned off the taps. Her chest was tight with thoughts of Ash coming of age. When he turned eighteen, he would leave the Catacombs. Leave her. And no matter how often or how vehemently she pleaded, he wouldn’t agree to let her go with him.
She moved the warm, damp cloth over her shoulders and down her arms, wishing that the soothing motion would wash away her anxious thoughts along with the grime of the day. Charlotte splashed water on her face, blotted away the moisture, and unbound her hair from its usual twist. Her russet hair reached to the middle of her back, and she used her fingers to work out the tangles.
Deciding that was all the effort her weary self was willing to put into grooming for the day, she reached around for the laces of the corset that bound her soft, sleeveless blouse to her torso. She loosened the stays and began the tedious process of freeing herself from the embrace of boning and leather.
Still working at the laces with her fingers, Charlotte walked back to the wardrobe and pulled open a wide drawer so she could return the corset to its place among its sisters. She ran her fingers over the varied textures of leathers that ranged in hue from the tawny shade of a fawn to embossed leather as dark as obsidian.
A sudden voice behind her made Charlotte give a yelp of surprise.
“Getting ready for bed, are we?”
4.
CHARLOTTE WHIRLED AROUND to catch Jack staring at her from where he stood in the doorway.
Charlotte’s hands froze on the laces of her corset.
“What are you doing here, Jack?”
He gazed at her for a moment and then said, “Your brother sent me.”
She waited for the polite reaction, which would have been for Jack to apologize and leave or at least turn his back. Instead, he chose simply to lean against the door frame and let his eyes roam over her.
“Do you mind?” Charlotte straightened up.
“No, not at all.”
She scowled at him. “I’m trying to get undressed.”
“You know I’m quite good with knots.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Need a hand?”
“No, not at all,” she parroted. Charlotte stared him down and carefully worked out the tangle of lacing at her back.
Jack didn’t balk, but remained perfectly still. A smile twitched at one corner of his mouth.
“I see you’re good with knots too.”
Unwilling to lose this dare, Charlotte pulled the corset away from her body and dropped it. The stiff boning clattered against the stone floor. When Jack still didn’t move, Charlotte glared at him but determinedly moved her fingers to the buttons of her blouse. A ripple of satisfaction passed through her veins when his eyes widened ever so slightly. She knew it was hotheaded of her, but she couldn’t resist the temptation of outdoing Jack. Though she wanted to laugh, it would ruin the moment, so Charlotte held her breath and slipped one button free, then a second. Jack’s skin began to pale, then his cheeks started to go pink. His changing expression made her hesitate. His face was no longer full of mirth, but instead was fighting shock . . . or maybe horror. The thrill Charlotte had been feeling boiled up into anger.
How dare he! Thinking he could spend every other moment teasing her and making suggestive remarks, but when she took up the gauntlet, he looked at her as though she’d done something awful.
Her cheeks were hot, and likely redder than his, which made her angrier still. She opened her mouth, ready to box his ears with her indignation.
“Holy Hephaestus!” Ash appeared behind Jack, who jumped at the sound of Ash’s voice and knocked his head on the top of the door frame.
“Bloody hell.” Jack rubbed the top of his head. “Can’t we make the doors any taller? This happens to me at least once a day. I’m going to have a permanent lump.”
Charlotte put her hands on her hips. “Bring the falls down on us so poor Jack doesn’t bump his head? Don’t you listen to anything Birch says?”
“Only when he’s telling me how not to blow myself up,” Jack quipped. “Or suggesting that he’s going to teach that bat of his to scout for us during night patrols.”
“I think you should keep up the head injuries. Horns would be a natural look for you.”
Ash shoved Jack back from the door. “Why are you standing in front of Jack with only half of your clothes on?”
She blushed but said, “This is more than half. You can’t see anything.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Ash told her. “I’d hate to have to gouge Jack’s eyes out. He’d be much less helpful in a fight if he were blind.”
“Eye gouging? Really, Ash?” Jack laughed. “You know eventually someone’s going to peruse the goods Charlotte has to offer.”
“Peruse my what?” Charlotte began to look around for something to throw at Jack’s head, giving him a second bump to match the first.
“Jack—” Ash’s voice made her stop her search for projectiles and gaze at her brother instead. She hadn’t known Ash could growl his words, but apparently he could. And very well.
Jack continued without heeding Ash’s tone. “You might want to rethink your position, because I’m sure it will be someone she likes, and if you blind the poor fool, she’ll be cross with you.”
“I will most definitely like him, and he will not be a fool.” Charlotte rose on her tiptoes so she could glare at Jack over Ash’s shoulder. “Which means it will not be you.”
“Is that the reason just a moment ago I could see your—” Jack coughed, glancing at Ash. “Never mind.”
“I expect more of you, Jack,” Ash said. “She’s just a girl.”
“She’s not just a girl—she’s your sister. And that means you think she’s five years younger than she really is. Wake up, friend.” Jack laughed, but covered it with another cough when Ash glared at him.
“She is standing right here, and she does not appreciate being talked about like a child,” Charlotte said, lifting her chin.
Ash turned to her. “I know Jack can be irritating, Charlotte, but you shouldn’t let him draw you into his pranks.”
“If he weren’t so irritating, I wouldn’t have been so tempted to give him a taste of his own medicine.”
Jack returned to lounging against the door frame. “Ummm, irritating Jack is standing right here too.” He fixed his eyes on Charlotte, mischief filling his gaze once more. “And is that what that was? My own medicine? Interesting.”
“Shut it, Jack.” Ash whirled on him. He grabbed Jack by the collar and shoved him down the hall. “The only reason you’re not bleeding right now is that I know that you know better than to insult my sister.”
“He insults me every day!” Charlotte protested.
Jack started to reply, but Ash cut him off. “You’ll stay bruise free if you shut that trap of yours. Get down to the dock and see if Birch needs help getting the Pisces ready for tomorrow’s launch.”
For a moment, Jack’s face twisted as if he would argue, but instead he mock saluted Ash, saying, “Whatever you think is best, sir,” and walked away.
Ash sighed, shaking his head.
“You should have punched him,” Charlotte offered. “He needs a good punch.”
“I’m not sure what Jack needs, but I’m absolutely certain you don’t know.” Ash frowned. “Tell me again why you were undressing in front of him?”
The way her brother posed the question made Charlotte squirm. “I wasn’t undressing in front of him.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Well, if you have to be literal about it, I suppose I was.” Charlotte spread her hands, exasperated. “But it was only because he walked in without knocking and then wouldn’t admit he’d done anything wrong.”
“So you decided the best thing to do was to keep taking your clothes off
?” Ash asked.
Charlotte refused to give in to her brother’s obvious attempt to shame her. “I know what you’re trying to do, Ash, but it wasn’t like that. You know how Jack is.”
“Yes,” Ash said. “I do know how Jack is. And I’m sure he was goading you one way or another. But, Charlotte, you must understand—no matter how well you think you know Jack, he’s still a man.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Her brother’s voice faltered. “I mean . . . it’s difficult to say. You don’t know as much about men as you think you do. Mother hasn’t been here to speak with you—”
“I know about men and women, Ash. I’m not a little girl, no matter how much you refuse to accept that. Jack was right. You do think I’m five years younger than I am.”
Ash straightened, shaking a finger at her. “So you think young women of your oh-so-mature age have license to strip in front of any man who bursts into their room?”
“It wasn’t any man, it was Jack!” Charlotte spat. “And it was just a stupid game.”
“I don’t know if it was only a game,” Ash said coldly. “But it was most certainly stupid. And childish. If you want to prove that you’re an adult, then act like one. I’m of half a mind to leave you here tomorrow.”
Charlotte felt angry tears creeping into her eyes. “You would never talk to Jack or Birch like this! They’re always joking and pranking.”
“Jack and Birch aren’t my sisters.” His voice was gentler. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“You think Jack would hurt me?” Charlotte blinked her tears away, looking up at her brother’s face. “But I thought you trusted him.”
“I do. And he wouldn’t hurt you. At least not . . . purposefully.” Ash choked a little on the words.
She was surprised to see crimson creeping up his neck, coloring his ears.
“I shouldn’t be the one to—” He met her puzzled gaze and quickly looked away. “I’ll ask Meg.”
“Ask Meg what?” Charlotte crossed her arms, fully prepared to sulk. “Are you really not going to let me come tomorrow?”