Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories Read Free Page B

he says. "It reminds me of midnight feasts I used to have with my sisters, when we would raid the pantry at night."
    Rose smiles back at him, but she is aware of the eyes watching from the shadows—small shapes that dart and flicker when she looks at them. Cordelia and Ellen. She mentally damns them both to the pit of hell and goes back to smiling at Jonah. He is all pleasantry, filling her wineglass, and then his own, and proposing a toast to their winning the war. Rose has forgotten what the war is about or who they are fighting, but she drinks the wine nonetheless: it tastes dark and bitter, like cellar dust, but she pretends to like it. She drains her glass and he fills it again, with another toast: this one, he says, is for women like her; the war would be won already if all damsels were as valiant as she. Rose discovers that even though the wine tastes bad, it fills her with a pleasant glow when she drinks it.
    On the third round of toasting, with the bottle nearly empty, he stands up. "And last," he says, "a toast to some fortunate future day when, perhaps, once this war is over, we might see each other again."
    Rose freezes, the glass halfway to her lips. "What did you say?"
    He repeats the toast. His eyes are bright, his cheeks flushed. He looks like a recruitment poster for airship pilots: Seeking young men, hardy, handy, and brave...
    "But I thought I was coming with you to the Capital," she says. "I thought you were going to bring me with you."
    He looks startled. "But, Rose, the way back to the Capital is through enemy territory. It's much too dangerous —"
    "You can't leave me here," she says.
    "No, of course not. I had planned to alert the authorities when I returned, and they would send someone for you. I'm not callous, Rose. I understand what you did for me, but it's too dangerous —"
    "Nothing is too dangerous if we're together," says Rose. She thinks she may have heard someone say this in a novel once.
    "That's not true at all." Jonah seems agitated by her refusal to understand. "It will be much easier for me to maneuver without worrying about you, Rose. And you aren't trained for anything like this. It just isn't possible."
    "I thought you loved me," says Rose. "I thought we were going to the Capital so we could get married."
    There's a horrified silence. Then Jonah stammers out, "But, Rose, I'm already engaged. My fiancee, her name is Lily — I can show you a chromolithograph —" His hand strays to his throat, where a locket hangs on a chain. But Rose has no interest in this girl, this fiancee with a flower name like her own. She stumbles to her feet and away from him, even as he moves toward her. "I think of you as if you were my own little sister, Rose —"
    She runs past him, runs up the stairs and into her father's study, slamming the door behind her. She can hear him calling out for her, but after a while, he stops calling, and there is silence. The sun has begun to set outside, and the room is filled with reddish light. She slips to the floor, her head in her hands, and begins to weep. Sobs rack her body. She is aware of the touch of hands on her hair and someone stroking her back. Ellen and Cordelia surround her, petting her as if she were a crying child. She sobs for hours, but they don't tire; it is Rose, finally, who wearies first. Her tears slow and stop, and she stares at the wall, vacantly, gazing into nothingness.
    "He was supposed to fall in love with me," she says aloud. "I must have done something wrong."
    "Everyone makes mistakes," says Ellen.
    "It's all for the best," says Cordelia.
    "I never liked him, anyway," says Ellen.
    "If only I could do it again," Rose says. "I'd be different this time. More charming. I'd make him fall in love with me and forget everything else."
    "It doesn't matter," says Cordelia.
    Dawn is lightening the room. Rose gets to her feet and goes over to her father's desk. She rummages through the drawers until she finds what she is looking for, then returns to