The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [23]
“Tavis. Thought you said you didn’t have any scratch?”
I made a second half-dollar join the first. Conrad had liked sleight of hand, though the Proctors frowned on something so close to what heretics considered magic. Tavis was practically panting. “We need a guide out of Lovecraft,” I said. “All the way to Arkham. I have money for that, and you seem like you know how things work around here. Or do you have a big mouth and nothing else?”
The first thing you learned in the School of Engines—if you want to understand how something works, ask the one who does the dirty job. Gear scrubbers and steam ventors and their foreman were in the pits. They knew their Engine intimately.
“I do, at that,” Tavis said. He pointed past the pipe fire to a blue tent. “You want old Dorlock back there. He’s a guide, best damn guide in the Rustworks. He could guide steam back into water. He could—”
I held up a hand, and dropped the two coins into his. I wondered what a pair of silvers bought in the Nightfall Market, besides bad manners from a shyster kid. “That’s fine. And for the record, I like my hair this way.” Truly, I hated it and toyed with chopping it into a modern style daily, but like I said, sometimes I don’t know when to leave it. Besides, I had a feeling Dorlock wasn’t as easily put in his place, and it might well be my last chance to feel in control of things tonight—or ever. Once I found Conrad, I’d have to face running off. I might be expelled. I didn’t think beyond that, because beyond expulsion was a cell in the Catacombs, shock therapy to burn the madness out of me and finally, a place next to my mother. If I lived.
“Sure there isn’t,” Tavis snorted, brandishing his worn wares again. “And hey, townie,” he said to Cal as we started into the crowd. “You watch your girl. She’s got an edge of the pale on her, that one, and it’s like honey in a beehive down here.”
I shuddered, feeling like something rotten had touched me. Cal rolled his eyes. “Stupid little runt.”
“You mean, you don’t feel the urge to be my white knight?” I teased, nudging him in the ribs. “Thought that was your dream job.” This was my idea, and I wasn’t about to let Cal see that second thoughts had started the moment we left the Academy. A good engineer stood behind her plans as sound until they’d been tested and proved otherwise.
“Like you said, Aoife,” Cal grumbled, sounding for all the world like Professor Swan, “grow up.”
An edge of the pale. If I’d had more coins to spare, I’d have asked Tavis what he meant. But my mother’s money was precious, and I needed every penny of it for this man Dorlock.
We skirted the fire and approached where Tavis said the guide lived, my feet slower with each step. Still, I grasped the tent flap firmly and pulled it aside. “Hello?” I peered into the tent, which smelled like a barbershop mixed with cheap liquor. “M-Mr. Dorlock, sir?”
“Hello!” The voice boomed back, sonorous and clearly used to the stage. Dorlock was entirely bald and sported a handlebar mustache, like a circus strongman. Somehow I had expected our guide to be thin and shady, dark as the shadows he slunk through. But Dorlock would stand out at a Hallows’ Eve carnival.
“Why look at you, young lady!” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you ripe as a peach!”
If I were to treat him mathematically, take his measurements, he’d be extraordinarily large—a rolling tub of a man boiling over with cheer. I didn’t see what was so funny.
“We need a guide,” I said. “We need to leave Lovecraft. Tonight.”
Dorlock laughed, his kettledrum stomach trembling. “Doesn’t waste any time! Going to grow into one of those modern women, I fear, always in a rush!” He reached out to pinch my cheek, and I ducked. I’d grown an aversion to being touched a long time ago. Nuns will do that to a person.
“Please, sir,” I protested, trying to keep myself stiff and ladylike, like Mrs. Fortune. “Can you help us, or not?”
“Of course,” Dorlock boomed. “Of course, of course.” He crossed his bare arms over his leather vest and matted chest hair. I tried to look only at his face. “It’s