The Turncoat's Gambit Read online

  Pip laughed, then blushed and gave Birch a guilt-touched smile. Birch smiled back, masking his disappointment. Important or not, Birch doubted he’d enjoy whatever Coe had to discuss, especially when he’d just shaken his foul morning mood at the promise of some quality tinkering.

  “I won’t attempt to argue with an authority such as yourself,” Coe said to Io. “A good morning to you both.”

  He bowed again, then looked at Birch. “If you’ll come with me.”

  Birch took off his work apron and goggles, hanging them on one of the hooks at the end of the workbench. He followed Coe out of the workshop and into the long corridor of the Daedalus Tower. Despite his regrets about the Catacombs, one of the things Birch had come to appreciate about his new environs was that even outside the tinkers’ shop, the scent of metal suffused the air. The sensory reminder that a new project was never far off helped take the edge off any homesickness for the New York Wildlands.

  Coe led Birch up a staircase to a part of the Tower where he’d never been. Birch knew that the area they approached housed the quarters and meeting rooms of the Resistance officers. How any of that might be relevant to Birch escaped him. Not only was he a new arrival, but he was a tinker—not a soldier and certainly no military strategist.

  Nevertheless, when Coe opened a heavy door and said, “After you,” Birch quickly went inside, curious about what awaited him.

  “Good morning, Birch.” Caroline Marshall wore a military uniform similar to Coe’s, and her dark hair had been pulled into a severe plait.

  “Thank you for coming.” Ashley’s smile was too grim for Birch’s liking.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Birch said to Caroline.

  Like Ash, Caroline wore a smile that was polite but stiff. “I apologize for stealing you away from the workshop. It has been reported to me that you spend every day with our tinkers.”

  Birch nodded. “It feels closest to home, I suppose.”

  Caroline’s answering laugh was brittle, and Birch felt rather uncomfortable. “Home or not, the Resistance recognizes those who put their skills to use. Your presence in the workshop signals your value to our cause.”

  It seemed the reports sent to Caroline Marshall had failed to mention Aunt Io’s insistence that Birch undertake projects of his own liking, rather than those with the most utility for the Resistance.

  “Ashley speaks highly of you,” Caroline said. “Of your loyalty to him and Charlotte and your bravery. Your actions saved the lives of precious children.”

  “Thank you,” Birch said, supposing it was quite a good thing that the leaders of the Resistance weren’t upset about the destruction of the Catacombs, even if he remained ambivalent about his choice.

  “For these reasons, we’ve asked you to join us.” Coe gestured to a chair beside Ashley.

  Taking a seat alongside Caroline so that the two officers sat opposite Ash and Birch, Coe continued. “We have a troubling matter to discuss. You likely already know what it is.”

  When Coe waited expectantly, Birch said, “You mean Charlotte leaving?”

  “Not just Charlotte,” Caroline said. “My daughter took Grave with her.”

  “Jack has allied himself with this foolish escapade as well,” Coe added.

  “And Meg.” Ash said her name under his breath. Neither Coe nor Caroline acknowledged him.

  Birch didn’t know who to direct his question to, so he asked the room. “Do you know why she left?”

  The two officers exchanged a long look.

  “I’m afraid Charlotte has received some misleading information,” Caroline answered. “She came to believe Grave was no longer safe in New Orleans.”

  “But where would he be safer?” Birch blurted out.

  Coe nodded, his smile pleased. “Exactly. The Daedalus Tower is without question the best place for Grave—and Charlotte—to be, which is why we are concerned that Charlotte has been purposefully led astray. Without the protection of the Resistance, Charlotte has rendered Grave vulnerable to the Empire. Resourceful as she may be, it is only a matter of time before they are captured.”

  Birch’s hands felt numb. Why would Charlotte do such a thing? It made no sense.

  Observing the fear that had gripped Birch, Caroline said, “We are all afraid for them. Our highest priority is to find them and bring them to safety.” She paused, folding her hands as she rested her elbows on the table. “And to expose the turncoat who is responsible for Charlotte’s ill-advised departure.”

  “Turncoat?” Birch looked to Ashley for an explanation.

  “We don’t know who it is,” Ash said quietly.

  Coe tugged at the collar of his jacket and cleared his throat. “But we have our suspicions.”

  Birch didn’t think he wanted the answer, but he still asked, “Who?”

  “I’m sorry to say I believe this is the work of my brother,” Coe replied.

  “Jack?” Birch’s voice cracked. “But he lived with us. He knows us.”

  “And that puts him in an excellent position to manipulate you,” Caroline said. “After considerable discussion, I’m inclined to agree with Coe. Jack has had motive and opportunity to lure Charlotte away from us. At first I thought he simply chased after her for personal reasons, but it may be that more sinister goals motivated him.”

  Birch stood up so quickly his chair tipped over, landing on the floor with a clatter. “What motive? Jack is one of us.”

  “I believed he was,” Coe said, standing so he could rest his hand on Birch’s shoulder. “And I wish the pieces hadn’t fallen into place, revealing the likelihood of his treachery.”

  “What pieces?” Birch asked.

  Coe shook his head, sighing. “My brother always felt he had to live in my shadow. I was older, of course, but I also received accolades he was denied. My rank, my appointments. Our father is a hard man. He gives little praise, and he had more generous words to spare for me than for Jack. When we became involved with the Resistance and Jack volunteered to seek out allies away from the city, I thought he would find the independence and confidence he’d always lacked. For a time, I think he did. But it wasn’t enough.”

  “You don’t know that.” Ash fixed a hard glare on Coe. “You weren’t with us in the Catacombs. Jack was happy.”

  “I’m sure a part of him was,” Coe replied. “And you’re right. I wasn’t there. I’d remind you, however, that you weren’t there for our childhood. I know my brother. It pains me to suggest that he’s working against us, but I have to accept that possibility.”

  Ash didn’t respond.

  Birch’s discomfort was only increasing. “Why now? What would make Jack turn on us?”

  “Because he knows we’ve reached a tipping point,” Caroline answered. “The French have agreed to ally with us in an offensive campaign against the Empire with the aim of driving them into the sea. Forcing them from this continent for good. Jack knows this, and if he brings our strategies to the Empire, he’ll be the greatest war hero of our time. Greater than Benedict Arnold.”

  “It would be the kind of acclaim he’s always wanted,” added Coe.

  Their words were dissonant in Birch’s head. He wanted nothing more than to be rid of them and out of this room.

  Ash made a sound like a snarl. “That’s not true.”

  “Ashley.” Caroline spoke in a soothing tone. “We’ve spoken about this.”

  “It’s not Jack,” Ash told them. “There’s no way he’s a turncoat. No matter what you believe about the things he wants, he would not betray us to the Empire.”

  “If not Jack, then who?” Coe asked.

  Ash closed his eyes, his brow knitting as if in pain. “Meg.”

  5.

  CHARLOTTE HAD ANTICIPATED nothing less than a hazardous and unpleasant return to the sea when Captain Sang d’Acier deemed the time and place i
deal for the change. To her surprise, the ship’s transition proved much less frightening than when it had launched into the sky. The Perseus made its descent gradually, floating down through cloud banks until sea foam at the crest of the waves lapped at the ship’s keel. When their captain shouted his order, the crew sprung into action. Levers were pulled, ropes guided and tied off, and flying gear stowed while the equipment required for sailing was reclaimed from stowage.

  When the Perseus settled into the water, it felt like sinking into the cushions of an overstuffed settee. Sailors scrambled up masts to remove the harpoons and cables that had served as ribbing for the sails during their flight and set to work patching each puncture site. Though the deck was crowded with gruff pirates bustling from task to task, Charlotte couldn’t tear herself away. She took care not to be a hindrance to the workers, but watched the ship’s transformation as closely as she could, mesmerized by the quick, skillful turnaround.

  The late-afternoon sun blazed at the ship when it took to the waters once more, scattering diamonds across the tips of each ocean swell. As soon as Charlotte determined she wouldn’t cause too much of a disruption, she made her way to the stern.

  When she neared the tall brass ship’s wheel, Lachance greeted her. “How do you fare, mademoiselle?”

  “I’m well, thank you,” Charlotte answered. “I’ll confess I much prefer returning to the water to leaving it.”

  Lachance laughed, a sound both smoky and sweet. “With the benefit of time and a fair wind, this ship can be as graceful as any dancer and as gentle as a mother lulling her babe to sleep. Taking to the air required haste, I’m afraid.”

  “Haste for which I remain grateful,” Charlotte said.

  In the distance, off the port side of the ship, Charlotte could spy the dense green of a coast—the reason she’d sought out Lachance.

  “Where have we landed?” she asked.

  Lachance nodded toward the shoreline. “Spanish Florida. Once we cleared the Bahamas, I took us down.”

  Linnet appeared on the stern, still rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “Did you rest well, ma sirène?” Lachance asked with an unapologetically wicked smile. “I trust you found my bed to your liking.”

  “I was going to compliment you on your landing,” Linnet replied. “But since you’ve shown no manners of your own, I won’t bother. How are you, Charlotte?”

  “Fine,” Charlotte said quickly.

  There hadn’t been an opportunity for them to speak in private since escaping the Cerberus patrol, and she was full of questions for Linnet. Shortly after the Perseus had climbed into the skies and out of its enemies’ reach, Charlotte had spent a few hours belowdeck in a bunk. When she’d awakened, Meg was still asleep in the opposite bunk and Grave was sitting in a hammock strung between the far posts of the bed. He was awake, of course, but completely still and utterly silent. Charlotte had invited Grave to join her in the fresh air, but to her surprise, he had declined, insisting he preferred the cabin to the deck.

  “The ocean,” Grave had said. “I don’t like to look at it.”

  Once on the deck, Charlotte found her only company to be the pirates. She’d assumed Jack and Linnet had found napping places of their own below, but now it seemed Linnet’s place of respite had been in the captain’s cabin.

  “I was just asking Captain Lachance about our landing site,” Charlotte added, trying to fill the awkward moment with words unrelated to Linnet and the pirate captain’s odd relationship.

  “Spanish Florida,” Linnet said. She didn’t look at the coast, but kept glaring at Lachance. “The Royal Navy won’t patrol this coastline.”

  “Then Spanish Florida is a safe place for us to stay?” Charlotte asked.

  This time Lachance’s laugh had a sharp edge. “No. We will sail along their coast, but our destination is north of the Spanish border.”

  “You’re taking us back into Imperial territory?” Charlotte couldn’t fathom what wisdom there could be in this decision. “Why not the French islands?”

  “The Spanish resent visitors,” Lachance told her. “Even those who trade with them know that their visits will be brief or they risk being thrown into prison. Spain guards its remaining territory like a jealous lover. Any outsiders are suspect, viewed as potential conspirators in league with the French or the English. They forget that the French and English are too busy tangling with one another to care about Florida. Yet, their lunacy only grows. You’ll soon see how it has been made manifest.”

  Letting that somewhat cryptic description pass for the time being, Charlotte instead asked, “Surely the French islands, then.”

  Lachance flashed her an indulgent smile. “The allure of les îles I do not deny. Do you know the reason pirates flood the islands?”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “While they are within reach of the law,” Lachance told her, “it is a long reach. Many things can evade the sight of authorities. Many things can happen without consequence—at least not ‘official’ consequence.”

  “Wouldn’t that help us?” Charlotte replied.

  Linnet answered, “At first glance it might seem that way. But the lawlessness of the Caribbean could work against us. If word of the Empire’s hunt for the Perseus gets out, which it undoubtedly will, people of all sorts will be looking for us. Pirates, spies, bounty hunters. All of them will expect us to hide out in the islands.”

  “So you’re taking us somewhere you think they won’t expect us to hide?” Charlotte asked.

  Lachance nodded.

  “If it works, it’s brilliant,” Linnet told Charlotte. “If it doesn’t, well, at least it was a clever idea.”

  “Merci, ma sirène.”

  Charlotte frowned at being left out of this exchange. “Where?”

  “Beaufort Inlet,” Linnet said. “Cornwallis Province.” She began to laugh under her breath. Lachance was grinning at her.

  “And why is that clever?”

  Linnet put her arm around Charlotte’s waist. “Oh, kitten, you have not spent enough time with pirates.”

  “I haven’t spent any time with pirates,” Charlotte snapped in frustration. Then she glanced at Lachance with chagrin. “Before now, I mean.”

  “A tragedy,” Lachance replied.

  “Beaufort Inlet is notorious among pirates,” Linnet told Charlotte. “For it was there that Captain Edward Thatch ran aground.”

  Lachance removed his hat with a flourish and then bowed his head.

  Charlotte’s brow furrowed. “Edward Thatch?”

  “You’d likely know him by the name of Blackbeard,” Linnet said.

  “Oh!” Charlotte had heard tales of Blackbeard, but she’d always thought of him as a creature out of folklore and not a real person.

  “It would not be an exaggeration to say Blackbeard was, and still is, revered for holding the laws of the sea above the laws of men,” Lachance told Charlotte. “His demise raised a keening among pirates that would have drowned out the fiercest gale.”

  Linnet moved away from Charlotte to snatch Lachance’s hat from his hand and plop it back atop his head. “The second bit of what you said is definitely an exaggeration.”

  “Have you ever heard pirates keen?” Lachance straightened his hat. He returned his attention to Charlotte. “When the Queen Anne’s Revenge struck that shoal, it was the beginning of the end of Blackbeard’s reign.”

  “Pirates believe that to sail into Beaufort Inlet is to invite certain doom,” Linnet said. “No captain will go near it.”

  Charlotte looked at Lachance. “But you will?”

  He shrugged. “I have never been superstitious.”

  “It is unlikely that anyone would look for us there,” Linnet said. “And the Royal Navy pays little attention to the Outer and Inner Banks of the Cornwallis Province. Charleston boasts the height of colonial leisu
re, and the islands up and down the coast are home to fishing towns. In no way is the region a locus of power. Quiet and isolated. That’s what we want.”

  Charlotte agreed with the rationale of this plan, but she wondered what it would mean for her life. From the moment she’d decided to flee New Orleans, Charlotte’s mind had focused on the present alone. Now the future loomed in a gray fog of uncertainty. When the Perseus left them on the Cornwallis coast, what then? Would they hide among the fishing men and women indefinitely, cut off from the rest of the world? Would she be able to tolerate such a life?

  Suddenly disconsolate, Charlotte stayed quiet. She’d made her choices. How could she voice these doubts? Especially when they sounded so selfish.

  “Aha!” Lachance’s abrupt exclamation made Charlotte jump. “There it is!”

  “It’s bigger than the last time I saw it,” Linnet observed in a flat tone. “I wonder if they’re almost finished.”

  “It has no head,” Lachance replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It cannot be near completion if there is no head.”

  Linnet cupped her hand against her forehead to shade her eyes. “That’s true. It does need a head.”

  The object of their scrutiny stood at a great distance from the shoreline. That fact, along with how high it rose above the surrounding trees, revealed that it was overwhelmingly massive.

  “That’s the Doomsday Machine,” Charlotte murmured.

  “Yes. Spain’s hope is that once completed, it will deter England and France from invading if those two empires should ever turn their enmity from each other and toward Iberia,” Linnet said.

  “Can it really do what they claim?” Charlotte asked.

  Linnet shook her head. “I have no idea. I don’t think anyone knows, probably not even the Spanish. But I hope we never find out.”

  The Doomsday Machine was a colossus made in the image of Hephaestus himself. Currently headless, the god of forges grasped a hammer in each hand, and according to Spanish claims, if activated, these hammers would break the very crust of the earth, sending ripples of destruction along the eastern seaboard and not ceasing until Florida was severed from the rest of North America.