Clockwork Fairy Tales: A Collection of Steampunk Fables Read Free

other, the skeletal limbs of their full-length cages creaking in place, as he knelt at the side of the ballroom, wiping the tools with an oily rag before putting them away.
    A fluttering murmur arose from the noblewomen. Without glancing over his shoulder, Anton knew that the last of their number had arrived. Every New Year’s Eve, the dowager’s arrival at the ballroom was the culminating event of the preparations, the signal that the festivities were soon to commence. Carefully timed, as though the old woman had some preternatural sense of when all the others had been bolted and strapped into place, ready to admire and obsequiously comment as she assumed her rightful position among them.
    The doctor set to work, with no need of greeting or command. One of the senior maids in the dowager’s retinue took the wrap from her shoulders, the sable fur powdered with snow not yet melted in the ballroom’s heat.
    Another waited upon the dowager, who had not accompanied her the year before. When Anton closed his tool kit and stood up, keeping close to the paneled wall, he spotted Gisel. That was when his heart sped and his breath caught in his throat. Not at seeing her face—when had that ever made him other but happy?—but at discerning the fear inscribed upon it. She stood behind all the others, her own gaze downcast, arms close against her ribs, red-chafed hands locked upon some bundle glistening white. The pulse at her throat ticked even faster than his, impelled by whatever terror it was that she felt.
    “There.”
Herr Dr.
Pavel stood back from the dowager, his intricate labors done. “The evening is yours, madam. Enjoy it as you wish.”
    “Not yet,” said the woman, now surrounded by the same metal struts and linkages as the other guests. “There are still the best adornments to be put on.” She turned and looked past theknot of chambermaids, to the one farthest behind them. “My pearls—”
    Gisel scurried up to the dowager, her hands opening to cup the circled strands.
    “Don’t dawdle, child. The ball is to commence at any moment.”
    The reason for Gisel’s fear was quickly evident to Anton as he watched her struggle to fasten the pearls around the dowager’s neck. The articulated metal bands came up high enough on the woman, as with all the other noble guests, to make the task more than merely difficult—close to impossible, in fact. His own hands tensed into useless fists as he watched the girl attempting to draw the pearls through the narrow space between the dowager’s wrinkled throat and the inside of the ironwork assembled about her.
    “What is the matter with you?” The dowager fidgeted in discomfort, a soured grimace evidencing her dislike of another human being so close. “Is such a simple task beyond you?”
    The woman’s sniping words didn’t help. Gisel became even more flustered, her face draining white and her hands shaking with anxiety. Beneath her fingertips, one of the gleaming strands caught in the angle of a metal hinge. She tugged at the graduated length, attempting to free it. The silken thread inside snapped—the tiny, precious spheres flew in all directions, bouncing and clattering on the ballroom floor.
    “Cretin!” The dowager’s face was a wrinkled mask of fury as her bony hand slapped Gisel. “Idiot! Look what you’ve done.”
    “I’m sorry—” Gisel was already down on her hands and knees, trying to gather up all the scattered pearls. Futile—some of them had rolled and vanished into the grooved apertures through which the various machinery from the cellars below protruded, scalding vapors hissing along the jointed armatures. “I didn’t mean—”
    “The smallest of them is worth more than you.” The point of the dowager’s heeled boot caught Gisel in the ribs, hard enough to evoke a gasp from her. “Twenty of such as you!”
    Anton wouldn’t have thought there was so much strength in gtheold woman. As he watched, another kick brought a spatter of blood