Mechanized Masterpieces: A Steampunk Anthology Read Free

never wanted this to happen, Edward. I never expected it to end like this.”
    I peered at him. “What are you not telling me?” He heaved a sigh and I felt the last piece of the puzzle drop into place. “You have been in on it all along,” I whispered. “You took his part.”
    “No, Edward. I never took his part. Anything I did, I did for you.”
    “For you , you mean to say!”
    “No, junge . For you.”
    “How much? How much did he pay you to get me away from Yvette so Rowland could marry her? How much to properly merge the Fairfax and Rochester fortunes?” He hesitated, tongue-tied, and I slammed my fist on desk. “How much, Heinrich?!”
    “The matching funds. If I could get you to Jamaica, he would match whatever other investors gave you—gave the corporation.”
    “ The matching funds ? His club dues are more than his precious matching funds! You should have asked me, Heinrich. I could have got you better.”
    “You have no idea what it meant to have Rupert Rochester invest in us. He is respected, known for his perspicacity. His endorsement gave us gravitas . That he would not invest in his own son’s inventions—it damaged our cause more than you can imagine. But what harm could a trip to Jamaica do, eh? How much good would come of it . . . at least, so it seemed to me.”
    I snorted, then flopped to a chair and dropped my head into my hands. A storm raged within. I gripped my hair fiercely, clinging to something—anything—to keep from going under.
    My friend sat beside me and placed his hand upon my shoulder. “ Mein sohn ,” he ventured after a long moment, “no one could see you together and not know she loved you. That day—the day we left—when you were together in the cockpit, with the door locked and Rowland so frantic to get inside . . . I thought you had secured her promise. By my life, I thought you were secretly engaged.”
    The pall of his words settled over me and I looked up. I could not deny the overwhelming sadness in his eyes, a mere glimmer of the grief my new clarity gave me. “No, Professor . . . No. She would not hear me. She sent me away.”
    My anger vented, the resentment seeped from me. In the fog of my self-deception, I believed with all my heart she would wait, but the cold, stark truth revealed my folly, and I could not begrudge Herr Rottstieger his own.
    I leaned back in my chair and pushed the hair from my face. I heaved a sigh. “What now?”
    “What do you want to do?”
    “Besides hurl myself from the highest cliff?”
    “ Junge  . . .”
    “What is there for me now, professor? Everything— everything I have done has been for her, for our future together. What good are my dreams without her to share them?”
    “Edward, without you, I would be nothing but another iron monger, an engineer forging the inventions of other men without enough mettle to build my own. But with you—I became bigger than myself. Like all the men you employ, who now earn a fair wage and can send their children to school instead of into the fields, I flourish because of your dreams. If not for yourself, junge , soldier on for these people. They dare to dream because you live yours.”
    I could not say how deeply his words sunk into my heart then, but they have since become my mantra—more or less. Then, as now, I felt the caveat: I lived the dream I managed to scrape together from the rubble of my castles in the air. But that had to be enough. I had to prove to them all—to my father, the blasted blighter, to Rowland, to Yvette herself—that they had not inflicted the mortal wound to my soul that then bled bitter tears—and bleeds still.
    I rose to my feet and moved to collect the scrap of paper, but my hand hesitated over the desk, distracted as I was by an envelope edged in black sitting on the blotter. I glanced at Herr Professor. “Heinrich? Have you lost someone?”
    His brow furrowed with concern. “Nein, junge . That came for you this morning.”
    He must