The Conjurer's Riddle Read online

  ALSO BY ANDREA CREMER

  The Inventor’s Secret

  The Nightshade Series

  Rift

  Rise

  Nightshade

  Wolfsbane

  Bloodrose

  Snakeroot

  Invisibility (with David Levithan)

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2015 by Seven Crows Inc.

  Map illustration © 2014 by Rodica Prato.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cremer, Andrea R.

  The conjurer’s riddle / Andrea Cremer. pages cm.—(The inventor’s secret ; 2)

  [1. Science fiction. 2. Government, Resistance to—Fiction. 3. Voyages and travels—Fiction. 4. Refugees—Fiction. 5. New Orleans (La.)—History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C86385Con 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2015000377

  ISBN 978-0-698-17254-8

  Jacket image by Anna Lucylle Taschini

  Jacket design by Theresa M. Evangelista

  Version_1

  In honor of Harriette Pine and Charles J. Olsen III

  Contents

  Also by Andrea Cremer

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  This is the patent age of new inventions

  For killing bodies and for saving souls.

  All propagated with the best intentions.

  Canto I of Don Juan, Lord Byron

  THE SUN RETREATED at the approach of dusk, but the dimming light did nothing to obscure the thick plumes of smoke that rose unceasing in the distance. Charlotte couldn’t see the flames, but her mind found it far too easy to conjure images of fire consuming all that had been her home. Even if the Catacombs hadn’t been completely destroyed, oily clouds so dense and unrelenting signaled devastation beyond recovery.

  Every step Charlotte took was hard-won. As her small troupe of exiles retreated deeper into the thick forest, her party enclosed by trees, Charlotte wondered if she’d made the right decision. Linnet had offered refuge courtesy of the abundant resources of Lord Ott. If they’d stayed on the Aphrodite, they wouldn’t have been forced to scuttle the Pisces in the shallows of the river. Ott would have provided shelter and food while they strategized the wisest course.

  But in making those choices, Charlotte would have acted under the assumption that Birch and the young children in the Catacombs were lost. Returning to the Floating City meant abandoning any hope that her friends had survived. Tantamount to those assumptions was that forsaking the Catacombs required Charlotte to reject the carefully structured plans of escape in the instance of a catastrophe. Plans that her brother, Ashley, had required Charlotte to study each day until she could, without error, recite each exit from the caverns and route to the rendezvous point.

  Charlotte recalled her meticulous studies with a brief, rueful smile. However prepared she had been to execute this plan in the moment of crisis, her knowledge didn’t make traversing the rugged ground along Esopus Creek any easier. The waterway offered a helpful guide, for which Charlotte was grateful given the density of the woodlands, but she knew the farther westward they progressed, the more difficult travel would become.

  Remaining on the Aphrodite might have been the easier choice, but Charlotte had to see this commitment through—just as Ash would have. And now Charlotte headed up an odd quartet—Pip, the tinker’s apprentice and the youngest of their troupe, Scoff, sometime alchemist and proprietor of an unpredictable apothecary, and finally Grave, who was perhaps the strangest of them all.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Charlotte made brief eye contact with Grave. The lantern light made his tawny irises flare. The skin of her arms prickled at the otherworldly sight, but when Grave returned Charlotte’s gaze with a slight smile his alterity diminished and all felt right again. Unusual as Grave could be, Charlotte had grown fond of him, trusted him.

  Only a short time ago, Charlotte had encountered him in the New York Wildlands. A boy with no memory, whom they came to call Grave. Much of Grave’s past remained in the realm of impossibility as far as Charlotte was concerned. She’d had no time to ponder the strange tale an inventor, Hackett Bromley, had spun for them. He’d spoken of the death of his son leading to blood as iron and to bone as steel—how could that be more than the ranting of a madman? Charlotte had only begun to accept Meg’s insistence that an unseen world existed beyond that which Charlotte knew, and that Meg—like her mother—could commune with these elusive spirits.

  Charlotte’s mind could have been lost for hours contemplating the bizarre path that Grave’s life, and purported death, had set her upon. But her thoughts strayed elsewhere, provoking her anger and causing her distress. Secrets beyond Grave’s had been discovered in the Floating City. Trust betrayed. Hearts broken.

  Slipping her hand into her skirt’s pocket, Charlotte traced the paper edge of Jack’s letter.

  I’ve ended my engagement.

  There had been moments when those words made Charlotte’s pulse quicken with hope. But that sweet possibility was fleeting, soon overtaken by a cold fury. Each day of her adventure in the Floating City had revealed so much of Jack—and too much of the way she was drawn to him. On the airship, he hadn’t kissed her, but then at his childhood home, he had. And more.

  Tell me the truth, Charlotte. Do you love me?

  Yes.

  No matter how much she wanted to steal that admission back and bury it forever, Charlotte had bared her heart to Jack. In turn, he’d blackened it with his deceit.

  Something unseen scuttled across the path ahead of her, low brush rustling as it passed. Charlotte trudged on without hesitation. Any creature of the wilds that posed a threat—bear, wolf—would balk at the size of their group, and Charlotte couldn’t afford to waste time worrying over every porcupine or fox that crossed her path. A cool breath of wind caught the hem of her cloak and Charlotte pulled the garment tighter around her body as she gave in to her brooding thoughts.

  Jack had ended his engagement, but the awful truth was that he had been betrothed to another. He’d knowingly caught Charlotte’s affections in a web of lies. Only Jack’s brother, Air Commodore Coe Winter, had the courage to show Charlotte where things
truly stood between her and Jack.

  Coe’s intervention, while revelatory, had thrown Charlotte’s mind, and her heart, into confusion rather than clarifying her sense of things. Coe himself added to that muddle of hope and doubt, desire and repugnance. Jack’s elder brother had more than suggested he craved an intimate relationship with Charlotte. She simply didn’t know if she could banish Jack from her heart, only to make room for Coe.

  Charlotte broke from her meandering thoughts when she heard Pip sniffle again.

  “Stop it.” Charlotte didn’t turn around to look at the girl. She smarted at the coldness of her own words, but held fast to her belief in their necessity. They couldn’t afford to lose any time. If Pip fell apart, Charlotte worried it would take far too long to convince her to carry on.

  Another voice, quiet and soothing and much deeper than Charlotte’s, reached her ears. She took some comfort in Scoff’s attempt to calm Pip. She’d also taken to glancing back every so often, vigilant of any sign that Scoff might try to dose Pip with one of his concoctions. While Charlotte allowed for the possibility that an elixir held the potential to ease Pip’s suffering, the risk that Pip could grow horns or turn blue seemed more likely. Thus, Charlotte’s role had become one of surveillance and enforcement. She discovered quickly enough she held no fondness for either.

  In the small space of hours that had passed since Charlotte left Linnet to join Pip and Scoff in the Pisces, she’d developed sympathy for Ash’s often-brusque tone. When she’d thought of herself primarily as Ashley’s younger sister, Charlotte had chafed at his sternness and the irritating frequency of his reprimands. Now she understood them more than she liked. With each difficult mile, Charlotte grew more weary, not only from the effort of trudging along this seldom-used, grown-over path through the thick forest, but also because of the constant heightened awareness required to do all she could to give her little troupe safe passage to the rendezvous point.

  Every so often, self-pity tried to creep into Charlotte’s heart and nestle there, whispering of her faults and all that she lacked compared to Ash’s experience and certitude. She chased that fear and despondence away the very moment she began to feel its effects, rendering any emotional encumbrances null with memories of Ashley’s charge.

  You were made for this, Lottie.

  Charlotte could hear Ashley’s voice as clearly as if he walked beside her. She could not fail him. Bolstered, she called over her shoulder to Pip and Scoff.

  “Courage, poppets. We’re nearly there.”

  Her voice, tinged with cheer, belied the chill in her blood. If they arrived at the meeting point only to find it empty, Charlotte didn’t know what her next move would be. The Pisces provided minimal supplies—neither Pip nor Scoff had anticipated this journey. Linnet had offered what aid she could, but the four refugees could only carry so much without sacrificing speed in travel due to weighty goods. Charlotte had despaired when she deemed it prudent to abandon Pocky—the gun had never been intended for ranging—but she took some comfort when Linnet promised safekeeping for Charlotte’s favorite weapon.

  Little time could be spared to wait for the others to appear. Charlotte knew they had food enough to last a few days, but if Rotpots and crowscopes scoured the woods for anyone fleeing the Catacombs, it would be too dangerous to stay in one place for more than a night.

  If there still are others who survived that explosion and escaped injury to make it this far. Charlotte shivered at the thought. Other questions, should she think on them too long, would cause much worse than shivers. What caused the explosion? An accident? An attack?

  Shadows engulfed the last of dusk’s murky light, erasing the already muddled boundaries of the path. Charlotte reached into the roomy pocket of her skirt and fished out the torch Linnet had provided. With each turn of the handle’s crank, sparks jumped from the fine webbed metal on the interior of the torch’s glass-globed head. When the wicks of the beeswax candle within the globe caught fire, Charlotte stopped cranking. The torch offered gentle light, enough to guide her steps, but not so bright as to signal and draw forth enemies.

  Pip’s snuffling and broken breath no longer accompanied their hushed footfalls. The path rose sharply and despite her impatience, Charlotte forced herself to take more care in her steps. Thick, twisting roots served as poor replacements for true footholds as they climbed to the top of the ridge. When she crested the rise, Charlotte turned to hand off the lantern to Grave, so Scoff could keep his focus on Pip.

  Charlotte crouched down and then crawled slowly forward, belly nearly touching the ground. She stopped when she could spy the rocky outcrop below. Now that the lantern was away, Charlotte let her eyes adjust to the lack of light. After a few moments, she could just barely differentiate the mossy gray boulders from the niche they clustered around. She stared at the crevice, watching for any sign of movement. Any glimmer of lantern light. She saw nothing.

  Though her stomach tightened like a fist, Charlotte knew hope wasn’t lost. If Birch followed protocol, then staying out of sight, staying silent would be his aims. She turned away from the ridge’s edge and crawled to her companions.

  Pip and Scoff looked at her, tight-lipped but silent. Grave’s face didn’t reveal any emotion, but he stayed quiet like the others.

  “We can go down,” Charlotte told them. “It looks safe enough.”

  “The others?” Pip whispered.

  Charlotte reached out and squeezed the girl’s fingers. “I don’t know yet.”

  Pip swallowed hard, but she nodded.

  “Shutter the lantern.” Charlotte waited until all three of them were again cloaked in darkness. “We’ll descend along the western slope. Move slowly and with great care; it will be difficult to make out loose stones and uneven ground.”

  Moving along the lip of the ridge in a crouch so she could see as much of the ground’s features as possible, Charlotte led the way to the far side of the rise that lay above the clustered, overgrown boulders. The western slope proved more forgiving than the steep climb they’d made from the eastward approach, and they made it to the bottom with nary an incident.

  “Wait here.” Charlotte motioned for the others to tuck themselves behind the first stone they reached. “I’ll whistle for you if all is well. If not . . .”

  “We know,” Scoff told her. “We’ll run.”

  “You too.” Charlotte faced Grave. “Stay with them. Keep them safe.”

  “I will,” Grave answered.

  “Good.” Charlotte’s blood rushed through her veins as she crept forward. She kept her back against the rough stone, dagger held low and ready.

  Charlotte closed on the hollow, edging along the rock as it began to curve inward. She stopped, mouth dry and breath making her chest rise and fall too quickly. She listened, but couldn’t hear anything beyond her own thumping heart . . . except . . .

  A soft scrabbling sound came from above and over Charlotte’s left shoulder. Very slowly, she turned and set her eyes high on the boulder face. Something small was coming toward her, crawling along the rock. Charlotte had to hold her breath so she wouldn’t scream as the thing came closer, its claws clicking and scratching as it moved. What had been a featureless blob began to take form. Large ears compared to a small head and body, and very long limbs. It was very near now; Charlotte could hear metal scuff on stone when its limbs dragged across the boulder’s surface.

  The scream building in Charlotte’s throat died away, to be replaced by a tremulous hope.

  Looking at the little beast, which had stopped and seemed to be waiting, Charlotte dared to whisper. “Moses?”

  The creature tilted its small head before launching from the boulder into the air above her. The rapid beating of its wings stirred her hair as it sailed past and disappeared into the niche.

  Charlotte wrestled with the impulse to give chase. Knowing how reckless such an action could prove, she con
tinued forward at the same, agonizingly slow, pace until new sounds brought her to a halt. Quiet footfalls stopped on the other side of the massive rock that framed one side of the hollow.

  “Charlotte?”

  A dizzying wave of relief made her rock back on her heels when she recognized Birch’s voice.

  “Charlotte, is that you?”

  “Yes.” Charlotte’s answer came out as a croak, even as she sheathed her dagger.

  Birch’s head and shoulders peeked from behind the rock. Moses crawled up the front of Birch’s shirt and into its front pocket.

  “Merciful Athene.” Birch stumbled out of the niche and took Charlotte’s hands, gripping them tightly. “I didn’t know if you’d come. There was no way for me to get word to you. To tell you what happened.”

  A dozen questions wanted to roll off Charlotte’s tongue, but there were other things to attend to first. She summoned her trio of companions with a low bird whistle. When Pip saw Birch she ran forward, arms flailing. Moses scrambled onto Birch’s shoulder just in time to avoid Pip’s crushing hug.

  “Mawligh nunf gubba doo” came out between Pip’s sobs and unintentional mouthfuls of Birch’s shirt. “Tirgle onay pucklegin.”

  Birch patted her green hair and smiled.

  Scoff hooked his thumbs through his suspenders, giving Birch a nod. “Good to see you, mate.”

  Though he sounded calm enough, Charlotte noticed Scoff’s muscles quivering. While he’d been consoling Pip, he’d buried his own anxieties. Only now did Charlotte realize how distressed Scoff had been.

  Charlotte stepped aside in surprise when Moses took off from Birch’s shoulder to swoop at her. But the bat flew past her to settle on Grave’s folded arms. He’d approached so quietly Charlotte hadn’t even noticed him standing mere inches behind her, and it caused an unsettling hitch in her breath.

  “What happened? The Catacombs—” Pip had surfaced and now peered at Birch with wide, glistening eyes.

  “It—” Birch started, but Charlotte stopped him.