4
rattleshack—daniel attempts humor, with foreseeable results—harder— creeping damp—spit, fire! spout, rain!— alice is more sinned against than sinning
The better part of valor is deception. Alice, standing beside Daniel in the A.U.N.T. stable yard, looking at the tiny, decrepit cottage that was to fly them to Hampshire, convinced herself she felt not in the least nervous. She also convinced Daniel of this, thanks to the tranquility of her countenance. She convinced the steward who kept handing her insurance disclaimers to sign. And she even convinced herself that she really had convinced them, despite her pallor and the way her pocket fluttered from the tapping fingers inside.
“Just keep all the windows shut and don’t go above thirty miles an hour, and you should—er, you will be fine,” the steward said, handing Daniel the key. Behind him, the cottage’s window shutters clattered in the mild breeze and a roof tile fell off. A false flag of piratic nature flapped mournfully, more gray than black.
“What happened to the chimney?” Alice asked, eyeing the cracked brickwork uncertainly.
The steward muttered something about an agent, an opossum, and a stick of dynamite.
“I thought this was a top-priority mission,” Daniel said.
“It is,” the steward replied. “Agent J over there is on a less important mission.”
They looked behind them to where a young man wearing a black tuxedo and desperate expression was trying to kick-start a chicken coop.
“Now,” the steward said, flicking through the papers on his clipboard. “I think we have everything in order. I just need to check your luggage.”
“Why?”
Daniel’s tone would have daunted most men, but the steward was not much more than half a heart and a stack of checklists, and the only thing that daunted him was running behind schedule. “I need to ensure you’re not carrying items that might jeopardize the mission. Unauthorized weaponry and so forth.” He waved his pen in peremptory fashion. “Open your suitcase, please.”
Daniel shrugged. Crouching down, he laid his suitcase flat on the ground and opened it. The steward gasped.
“You cannot be serious!”
Alice peered into the case and almost smiled to see its contents. There must have been two dozen books crammed in.
“What about clothing? Personal accessories?” the steward asked.
Daniel indicated the duffel bag hanging from his shoulder.
“Surely that’s inadequate?”
“I agree,” Daniel said, “but I couldn’t fit in any more books. Hopefully Starkthorn Castle has a decent library.”
The steward shook his head with disapproval, then turned to Alice, flicking his pen at her. “You now.”
She laid down her suitcase and opened it.
The steward rattled the pen against his clipboard.
“Hm,” Daniel said, looking over. “Pocket editions. Wise choice. And is that a first edition of Crime and Punishment I see?”
“Yes,” Alice answered. “I brought it along for a little light entertainment. After I’ve finished, you may borrow it if you wish.”
He flashed her a warm smile. Stunned, Alice was trying to decide how she ought to respond when the steward’s officious voice, tapping like his pen, demanded attention.
“So did you bring any clothes, Miss Dearlove?”
She lifted the duffel bag at her feet.
The steward regarded it incredulously. “My wife needs three times that space just for her unmentionables.”
“I’m good at folding things,” Alice said. She heard a snort of disagreement from Daniel but dared not look at him again lest he completely overwhelm her with another facial expression.
“I will just do a final check of your disguise,” the steward said, “then you can go.” He surveyed her critically. “That hat is not big enough.”
Alice set a hand against the yellow structure balanced at a pert angle upon her intricately curled pompadour. “It has three feathers and a papier-mâché butterfly,” she argued.
The steward sniffed again, unconvinced. He jabbed his pen at her dress. “Pink! It was supposed to be fuchsia. And do you call that a bustle?” Tucking the clipboard under his arm, he snapped his fingers and a young assistant dashed forward with a tape measure. The steward set it against the protruding rear of Alice’s skirt. “Six inches. Entirely unsuitable for a pirate—you couldn’t even fit a pistol in there. And you!”
Daniel stared stonily at the steward, but it was to no avail. “You look far too good, Agent B. Your suit is impeccable, your posture unbowed by years of trying to manage a histrionic wife.”
Daniel glanced at Alice. “She does not look particularly histrionic to me, hat notwithstanding. And this suit was made by a tailor from Panama, charming fellow, much in demand with pirate gentlemen. Besides, I’ll have you note my earring.”
He turned his head to better display the small silver ring in his left ear. Seeing it, Alice felt a surge of something indeed like histrionics in her blood. The steward muttered again but reluctantly signed them off, and without further ado, they entered the cottage.
Inside they found a single room furnished with one rather grimy sofa and a crate serving as a table. A bench held tea supplies and the kind of biscuits found in offices everywhere—plain, dusty, and inevitably soft when you bite into them. A wooden chair stood in front of the steering array. The wheel itself was missing two spokes and had been attached to the floor with a rusted bolt and strips of old adhesive tape. The window in front of it lacked curtains, latches, or any indication of ever having been cleaned.
“How are we supposed to live in this for a week?” Alice asked, already scratching in anticipation of fleas. “There’s not even only one bed.”
“We’ll stay in the castle,” Daniel said as he inspected the navigational tools. “Most of the attendees will do the same, although they’ll park their own houses nearby in case of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Alice lifted the kettle, noting the incantation etched into its copper surface, which enabled it to boil water without the aid of a stove. That was a relief. She might contract tetanus over the next few hours in this shack, but at least there would be tea.
“Any kind of trouble they can think up,” Daniel said. “And pirates have good imaginations.” He opened a door, then regarded with some bemusement the handle, which had come off in his grip. Reattaching it without much success, he looked warily into the room.
“Water closet,” he reported, grimacing. “Considering its state, let’s just say we’re fortunate to have only a short journey.”
“Fire extinguisher,” Alice added, lifting the lid of the crate and peering inside. “Although it looks too heavy to lift, and”—she jiggled a loose switch on the side, causing a clatter inside the scratched and dented metal body—“I think it’s broken.”
“Even O’Riley’s battlehouse wasn’t so dilapidated,” Daniel said. Seeing her expression, he smiled gently. “Don’t worry. I can fly most things, and if it comes to the worst, we’ll ditch the cottage and get some bicycles instead.”
“Our suitcases won’t fit on bicycles.”
His smile tilted. “It was a joke, Miss Dearlove. A tactic to ease your nerves.”
“I don’t have nerves.”
“That’s all right, I don’t have a sense of humor. Well, I’d better get us up.”
He moved toward the wheel, and Alice shifted out of his way. But the space was more limited than either of them appreciated, and as he passed by, Daniel inadvertently brushed his hand against hers.
Three seconds later he realized this had been unfortunate, mainly due to the fact he was lying on his back with her booted foot on his chest. He blinked dazedly up at her, and she winced.
“I do beg your pardon,” she said. “I am averse to being lightly touched.”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“May I help you up?”
“Perhaps that would be unwise, since it would require touching.”
“A strong grip is fine,” she said, holding out her hand. “Indeed, the stronger the better. I imagine it is a by-product of combat training. Do let me help.”
He took the offered hand and she helped him to rise, although he was significantly more athletic than her, and whatever assistance she provided was by way of appearance only. Once he was on his feet, she expected him to release her hand, but he went on holding it, harder and harder, his face entirely quiet as he watched hers for a reaction.
She swallowed dryly as her fingers turned scarlet.
“You are remarkably tough for such a delicate woman, Miss Dearlove,” he said.
“Fiddlesticks,” she whispered. The bones in her hand began to burn in a most thrilling manner.
“Pardon me?”
“I may seem delicate, but most people are overly careful because of it. They are gentle.” She shuddered.
“So,” Daniel said musingly. “No light touches. No jokes. No sugar in the tea.” He regarded her a moment longer, then took a step closer, twisting her arm so their clutched hands pressed against her heartbeat. His eyes had become almost silver. His expression was classified. “Shall we have an agreement, Miss Dearlove? I will not be gentle with you. Does that sound good?”
Licking her lips, but knowing it was futile—knowing all her words were ash—Alice nodded. Something creaked behind him, and they blinked at each other. Alice’s stomach tingled as she recognized her own secret, silent language in Daniel’s eyes. She nodded again in response, and he took half a step back, lifting her hand in his. She hauled up her skirt, set a foot against his thigh, and in one seamless movement he pulled her off the ground and spun them both around.
She kicked with her free leg, smashing the square heel of her boot into the man who had been creeping toward them. With a cry, he stumbled, then collapsed to the ground. Daniel released her, and Alice leaped over the body to land easily on the dusty wooden floor. But even before she had turned with her gun in hand, Daniel had his own drawn and was aiming it at the man beneath them, who cowered behind spindly arms.
“I say! Don’t shoot!”
Sighing in annoyed unison, Alice and Daniel uncocked their guns.
“A word of advice, Dr. Snodgrass,” Daniel said. “Do not approach A.U.N.T. field agents without announcing yourself first.”
“Yes,” Snodgrass said meekly, clambering up and rubbing his chest where Alice had kicked him. “I see that now. Jolly good. My apologies.”
“Why are you here, Doctor?” Alice asked as she slipped her gun back into a secret pocket of her skirt.
Snodgrass held out a folded piece of paper. It trembled in his hand while Alice and Daniel regarded it expressionlessly. Realizing neither was going to take it, Snodgrass attended to the unfolding himself. “My assignment notice. See, here is Mrs. Kew’s signature. I have been included on the mission as technical adviser, posing as your valet. I brought along several clothing brushes and a specially designed shaving set for the purpose.”
“I’m going to die from my jaw catching fire, aren’t I?” Daniel said to Alice.
“I’m afraid so,” she agreed.
“How droll! Hahahaha,” Snodgrass trilled—and only survived doing so because there were agency regulations against assassinating a colleague for the crime of being damned annoying.
“Very well,” Daniel said in a tone that made clear it was, in fact, not very well at all. “There are sixty-five miles to Hampshire and it looks like a storm is coming in. I hope you don’t get airsick, Doctor.”
“I say. Not at all, what.”
Alice sat rigidly on the sofa, gripping her mission briefing notes with white-knuckled hands and trying not to listen to Snodgrass vomiting in the water closet. She was not new to flying. She had even survived going up in Lady Armitage’s battlehouse. They say a pirate’s house is an embodiment of their soul; in Lady Armitage’s case, this meant unstable, untrustworthy, and inclined to bunny hop wherever it pleased. But flying with her had been a gentle cruise compared to this journey. Rain battered against the little cottage. Turbulent air caused it to shudder and drop, taking Alice’s stomach along with it. Kitchen utensils clattered, navigation tools slid back and forth across their shelf, and something beneath the floorboards moaned as if a resident ghost wished he was even deader.
“Uughgghhh,” Snodgrass cried out. Alice found herself agreeing with him.
At the window, Daniel sat with one booted foot propped on the wheel, calmly reading Dickens and every now and then looking up to murmur a phrase of the flight incantation as his foot tipped the wheel slightly one way or another. His casual air of competency would have set Alice’s nerves afire with ardor were they not trembling so much that any flame would have been immediately extinguished.
She had asked him earlier, out of concern for the long flight time, why he was not using the momentum automatica phrase to keep the cottage moving on its own. Standing beside him at the wheel, arms crossed, she’d been seeking something to criticize and this had been the best she could manage. The man flew like a pirate, albeit with a complete lack of swagger or hat feathers.
“Although the wheel is only a conduit for the incantation’s magic,” he’d said, “this one is so decrepit I doubt it could manage the momentum automatica. But there’s actually no need for the pilot to incantate without pause. One phrase can carry a house quite a distance.” He’d given her a glancing smile. “Would you like to take the helm for a while, Miss Dearlove?”
“No, thank you.”
“Fair enough. It is difficult weather.”
She had bristled at the insinuation. What exactly he’d been insinuating, she hadn’t known, but bristling had certainly seemed called for. “I could fly. If I wanted to. But I am disinclined to judge speed or distance.”
“Disinclined.”
She had paused a moment as dignity wrestled with pedantry. “Unable.”
“It is simply a matter of mathematics.”
“ ‘Simply mathematics’ is an oxymoron.”
Daniel had stared into the middle distance with a mildly perplexed frown, as if trying to calculate how someone might not enjoy maths. “But you do know the incantation?”
“Of course.” Alice’s reply had been so defensive, she’d managed to fit a whole rampart, catapult, and cauldron of boiling oil into two words. “I wrote my third-year essay on Beryl Black. My analysis of her error in sharing the incantation with her book club, and the schism that followed when they split into pirates and witches, won me an award.”
“Hm. Did you include Jemming’s theory of Willful Contradiction?”
“Naturally.”
“My dismantling of that theory, and the real forces behind the pirates choosing to use the magic for flight and the witches for telekinesis, won me an award for my third-year essay.”
They’d stared at each other without blinking. Anyone walking between them at that moment would have suffered third-degree burns.
“We’re about to hit a flock of birds,” Alice had commented mildly.
Daniel had reached out and turned the wheel without looking.
“I graduated with honors,” he’d said.
“I graduated with honors and my portrait hung in the student hall.”
“Would I recognize it, or were you in disguise?”
At that, the strangest sensation had rippled through her throat. For one wild, disturbing moment, Alice had thought she might actually laugh. Lifting her chin disdainfully, she’d turned to glare out the window.
“I do know the incantation,” she’d said, returning to their previous point of conversation, “but I cannot seem to get it from my brain into action. There is just too much—” Too much feeling involved. Too much energy infused with air, ocean, and feral power. She could barely breathe contemplating it; actually performing it left her a jittering wreck within minutes. Even when she applied the most basic aereo incantation to a mere teaspoon, she ended up dizzy, nauseated, and struggling to assure herself she was not a small piece of tableware. Making a house go aereo might just crush her mind.
But how could one explain that, especially to one’s prime rival, without sounding peculiar? So she’d walked away, made tea instead.
Tea she now wished she had not drunk as the house lurched again, wind screaming through a gap in the window frame, tiles clattering overhead as they broke away and tumbled down the roof. From the water closet, Snodgrass wept. Daniel turned a page in his book.
Alice supposed she ought to study the mission dossier. She’d already memorized its essential elements: her name was to be Alice Blakeney, also known as Atrocious Alice. Daniel was hereafter Blakeney the Bad. (The steward’s assistant had tried calling him Dreadful Dan, and Daniel had just looked at him until the poor boy nearly dropped his clipboard.) They’d received their party invitation from Frederick Bassingthwaite’s butler, an undercover A.U.N.T. agent, on the premise of having recently returned from Amsterdam and being in need of new friends to visit, entertain, and hopefully one day assassinate. Married three years, they enjoyed such hobbies as—
Alice winced. Under no circumstances was she going to say her hobby was tilting at windmills. Once the storm had passed, she would have to discuss a more literate backstory with Daniel.
Suddenly the cottage dropped what felt like a thousand feet in one second. Snodgrass wailed. Alice clutched the edge of the sofa in a manner that was not at all due to fear—her hand simply felt most comfortable gripping the upholstery until turning (hopefully not appropriately) ghost white.
“It’s fine,” Daniel said from the wheel.
“I know, turbulence,” Alice managed to answer through clenched teeth.
“Actually, that was a pirate flying past a little too close.” He stood with the kind of casual, unhurried movement that sets off alarm bells in an observant watcher’s mind; laying his book on the chair, he set both hands to the wheel.
“Miss Dearlove,” he said lightly. “Would you be so kind as to brace for—”
Crash!
The house shook violently. Suitcases tumbled across the floor; the kettle fell. From the water closet came a splashing sound, and Snodgrass screamed.
“—impact,” Daniel concluded.
Alice clambered from the sofa, and while the house tipped from side to side like a seesaw being operated by viciously competitive toddlers, she stumbled across to the flight window. Daniel glanced at her as she lurched against the wall.
“I recommend you return to your seat,” he said in a calmly conversational tone. “You will be more comfortable there while I deal with—”
The sky flashed. Not lightning, Alice realized, seeing a large, ornate conservatory looming outside. Cannon fire.
“—this spot of bother,” Daniel said.
“People in glass houses should not throw cannonballs!”
“True,” Daniel agreed. “Unfortunately, pirates aren’t very keen on shoulds. Hold on.”
Alice assumed he meant to take a moment of silence to regather his thoughts, but in fact he meant literally hold on. Swinging the wheel starboard, he intoned several phrases of the flight incantation, and the cottage veered sharply. Something shattered. The sofa tipped upside down and skidded across the room to smash against a wall.
“Perhaps you would not have been comfortable there after all,” Daniel remarked.
Alice, clutching the windowsill for dear life (and Dearlove, for that matter, since she feared if she let go she would suffer the same fate as the sofa), stared amazedly at the man. His face was entirely serene as he wedged a bootheel against one of the wheel spokes so as to force the wheel around even as it strained against the pressure of magic. The wheel groaned. The air seemed to twist and heat. Snodgrass crawled out of the water closet, soaking wet and with blood streaking his forehead.
“What is happening?” he wailed.
“Just having a small disagreement with a pirate,” Daniel explained. “Nothing to worry about.”
Crash!
Chimney bricks clattered over the roof and rained past the window. A cloud of black ash and dust billowed from the fireplace. Peering over the windowsill, Alice saw the conservatory’s cannon smoking.
“If this is a small disagreement,” she said, “what would happen in a large one?”
“We’d die,” Daniel said. He removed his foot from the wheel, and spokes seemed to blur as the wheel spun back. A string of Latin words urged it faster, faster; Alice could have sworn she saw the wood sparking. A rumble shook the house—
“That was thunder,” Daniel assured her.
He had barely finished speaking when another rumble sent shutters slamming across the window, then back again, leaving cracked panes in their wake.
“That one was gunfire.”
“Bother,” Alice said. She drew the pistol from her dress pocket, but Daniel shook his head.
“That won’t have the necessary range. Dr. Snodgrass, did you pack any weapons in your suitcase?”
“Unnghghugh,” Snodgrass replied.
Daniel and Alice exchanged a dry look.
“I’ll go,” Alice said. She reeled across the room, pushing herself from chair to bench to upturned sofa until finally reaching Snodgrass’s suitcase. She wrestled with the latches, wincing as the lid suddenly flung open. A clutter of metal objects and underclothes tumbled out. Alice immediately snatched what appeared to be a rotary egg beater.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked Snodgrass.
He peered up from where he had coiled himself against the kitchen bench. “You can’t use that while in flight!” he cried. “It will be disastrous!”
Taking that for a positive reply, Alice clambered to her feet once more and staggered back to the window.
“Don’t try it!” Snodgrass shouted desperately. “I say, don’t try it!”
“Before you do,” Daniel said, “show me your petticoat.”
Alice rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake,” she murmured. “Men!” Nevertheless, she lifted her skirt to reveal the heavy, lace-trimmed petticoat beneath.
Daniel’s mouth twitched with what might have been a smile or merely a consequence of speaking wild piratic magic.
“Satisfied?” Alice asked.
“Absolutely,” he said.
Flinging her hem down again, Alice turned and unlatched the window, then pushed it ajar. Cold rain pelted her; the wind howled. Grimacing at the force of it, she leaned against the side of the window and took aim with the egg beater.
The pirate’s conservatory hung above the cottage, silent and steady despite the storm. Alice found she could not line up the egg beater effectively at this angle, so she hoisted herself onto the windowsill and leaned out. The sky was a tumult of darkness. The ground was so far below as to be but a dream.
Propping her feet against the far edge of the window, wedging herself as securely as possible, Alice took a deep breath. Then she let go of the windowsill and turned the beater’s rotary handle.
A stream of tiny missiles shot from the end of the beater, flaring with storm light as they flew. Hitting the conservatory, they triggered a series of explosions with unexpected force. Flames burst through the gloom; glass shattered. The conservatory lurched and began to topple sideways. Daniel steered the cottage away, but the beater’s incantation jostled with the flight incantation, causing an imbalance. The cottage veered right into the conservatory.
As a fierce jolt went through her, Alice dropped the egg beater, sending it plummeting hundreds of feet to earth. Instinctively she reached for it. Daniel shouted something, but she did not hear him, for her balance went the same way as the egg beater and then she herself followed, tipping headfirst out the window into the storm.