She had tossed and turned for four hours and had gotten little sleep. So in the end, she had gotten up and gotten dressed to go down to the laboratory to work.
She had lit a single lamp as company. The lamp only granted a small pool of light around her. It was still quite early in the morning and the small windows of the basement were still dark.
Simkins and the rest of the staff had done an excellent job of clearing all of the debris left after the two housebreakers had done their best to destroy everything they could lay their hands on. Only a few glass vials were left on the shelves. There was less one glass distillation apparatus. The microscope was righted back on its stand, although the barrel was sadly scratched and the lens missing. The more hardy metal instruments were also put back into their places. There were all the materials that Simkins had obtained for her on her list.
Zan found a good chunk of wood on a shelf—a heavy bit of cedar approximately the size of a good quality atlas. Then she scrounged around for nails, a hammer, some tubing, and several small pulleys that looked more like wooden spools than gears. She had also pulled out a new notebook, dated it, and made a few sketches from memory of what her uncle had devised. After finishing the drawing, she studied it with a close eye and made a few minor changes.
Then she started building.
The morning light had begun to stream in through the window when the first pulley was being affixed to a strip of wooden stand. The lamp had then spluttered out, but she paid no attention to it. The door to the basement banged open and there were footsteps on the stairs. She did not look up when the person stopped in front of her work bench.
“You haven’t had breakfast yet, have you?”
She tapped in one more nail in her project before looking up. Caradon was looking at her, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. The edge of his mouth threatened to curve upward and in his hands was a breakfast tray with enough food for two. He placed it on an empty spot on the table and pulled up a chair across from her.
“No,” she replied to his question. She put aside the hammer and took one of the scones on the tray. “How is your arm?”
“It’s fine. I had a fresh bandage applied this morning.”
“Good. It would be a terrible thing to have a wound get infected.”
His half smile turned into a grin. “So you do care about me.”
Zan ignored his comment. Instead, she bit into the scone as Caradon poured the tea. She swallowed the first mouthful and said, “Why didn’t you let one of the staff bring all of this down?”
“I wanted to bring it down myself. Besides, doesn’t a hostess eat with her guests?”
“Is that a not so subtle hint that I am a particularly bad hostess? I must remind you that I failed to attend any of the hostess classes when I was being taught etiquette.”
“You’re not a bad hostess,” he replied. “Just a very absent-minded one. You must do this often—working and then forgetting meals.”
“Mrs. Philomon always complains about that.” She accepted a cup of tea and took a sip. She looked down at the unfinished project, brooding. “Do you still have that rosary made of black stone?”
“Yes.” He took it out of his coat pocket and placed it on the table top. She picked it up to examine it in the morning light. “Tell me what you’re thinking. What was it all about at that amulet store last night? Did your uncle purchase something that had relevance to his notes that were taken?”
“Probably.” She put the rosary down and concentrated on eating. “You do recall that my uncle was making a sort of electricity machine? It was more like a generator, really, because it collected electrical charge.”
He nodded.
She showed him the notebook with her sketch. “Basically the machine consists of two pulleys, one at the bottom and one at the top. While these rotate, they turn around a band of material. In my uncle’s prototype, it was made of rubber. At the bottom, the rubber band brushed against some grounded metal needles. The basic premise is that the metal needle is negatively charge. Like charges repel each other so all the charges try to get as far away from each other as they can, hence the charge pushes itself off the point of the needle. The rubber band is positively charged which helps attract the negative charge. The band is being moved by the pulleys so the negative charge moves up here to the metal dome where all of it is collected.”
“All right. I think I get it. But where does the metal needle get all of this negative charge? You said that this was a generator. Negative charge can’t just come out of thin air.”
“The negative charge is from the ground where the needle is connected. The ground is an enormous reservoir of negative charge.”
“Then what are the resin needles that your uncle had ordered for? Was he testing different materials for whether one was better at attracting negative charge from the ground?”
She shook her head. “No. Metal is best for doing that. I’m guessing that my uncle was after something different. Electricity isn’t the only form of energy in nature, you know. What do you think facilitates us in our change? What do you think powers that summoning we saw at the Temple?”
The scone paused halfway up to his mouth. He put the pastry back down again. “Last night, you said that you were looking for places where there was a great energy reservoir. Was your uncle trying to build some sort of magic generator? Why didn’t he tell me? I was his patron. It could revolutionize everything. Alchemists and soothsayers would see a boom in trade. Sorcery would actually be made practical because for the first time, we will be able to control magic.”
“Uncle Elliot was getting paranoid there, at the end so he made the big show of burning his notes. But his paranoia wasn’t for naught, because someone knew about his research and realized the implications. It’s just that I still don’t know who.”
“Whoever he is, he’s dangerous. He wasn’t above hiring a couple of goons with pistols.”
She sighed. “Well, I’m not giving up. I’m going to work some more on this today and then go to the Academy.”
“The Academy?” he said, eyes narrowing. “Tonight?”
“Today at noon. There’s a lecture there every time this week, and I know that Henry Tarlton will be attending. I have a few more questions that I hope he can answer for me. I suppose you’re tagging along this time as well?”
“Of course,” he replied, with an arrogant lift of his eyebrow. “I have some of my own business to attend to this morning, however, so I must leave you after breakfast. I will meet you back at the Academy. At noon.”
