The Academy’s lecture hall was located at the rear of the building. It was a large auditorium containing a stage that could fit a fifty piece orchestra rather comfortably and benches for the audience that resembled church pews down to the minute scrollwork at the ends although for some reason, they were far less comfortable than their siblings down at the Cathedral. One could hypothesize that the hardness of the benches were due to their newness. Or the wood could have been different despite the same shade of varnish. Whatever the case, it kept people awake, mostly. Ten minutes into the lecture, there were already a few heads lolled back, snoring.
Halfway through the lecture, Zan was glad that she had declined Tarlton’s offer to sit with him and his assistant on the second row in favor of a back row seat. She found the lecturer—an old, bent man with a ragged beard and a stiff coat that was obviously only used for such occasions—to be a mumbler, a bore, and pointlessly unoriginal. He was demonstrating some sort of contraption that was a rehash of experiments that had been new two years ago—there was a box consisting of a series of Leyden jars and metal switches hooked to some sort of motor powered by steam. And all of that was hooked up to a broiler which was emitting a bit of black smoke. The people in the front row were coughing loudly and the lecturer kept mumbling, oblivious to his audience’s health.
A familiar forest scent came into the edge of her awareness. Someone slid into the seat next to her. A masculine hand came to rest on top of hers. “Hello, my little baggage. Sorry I’m late.”
She turned her hand and lightly sank her claws into his palm.
“Ouch.”
She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Don’t surprise me like that.” Then she took her hand away from his. “You didn’t miss much,” she continued. “Tarlton wasn’t much help. I also went to the Museum in hopes that I would finally get a glimpse of my uncle’s work, but the place was swarming with policemen when I got there. Apparently some sort of robbery took place last night. And the Museum director is still out of town.”
“You still are going to build the machine you started this morning?”
“Yes. I sent Simkins to get the rest of the materials that I needed today. I hope to get it up and running soon.”
“What do you expect that it would do?”
“I did have it tested earlier, but I think I had the wrong materials because the results were rather abysmal.”
“You shall figure it out. So what is this lecture about?”
“I wouldn’t bother trying to understand it because I don’t think that old man knows what he is talking about. Or if he does, he is the only one. That machine of his is a monstrosity. And what sort of machine uses energy like coal and steam to make electricity? The way he has it rigged up is terribly inefficient.”
“Not to mention particularly hazardous to your health,” Caradon observed as a man on the front row let out a series of particularly loud hacking coughs as the broiler belched out a particularly nasty bit of smoke. The man finally got up and ran up the aisle and out of the auditorium, holding a handkerchief to his face.
“That’s the sort of thing that will end up as an unworkable curiosity in history books a century from now,” Zan sniffed. “But I suppose there will always be idiotic patrons willing to pay for moving parts.”
“I suppose you could think of a million ways to improve that contraption.”
“Of course! Why for one, I could…”
But Zan never got a chance to elaborate on her ideas. The broiler must have blown a gasket because more smoke and another stream of steam erupted from it. The small door where the coal was supposed to be shoveled in blew out in a bang and the broiler began spitting out bits of flaming coal. One flew into the box with the Leyden jars and glass shattered. The old man stopped his mumbling and began waving his arms frantically as the box began to go up in flames. Another bit of flaming coal fell into the audience. Someone screamed. Someone’s hat became a blazing inferno.
Caradon and Zan hastily got up from their seats and exited the lecture hall with part of the audience while the remaining people began shouting for calls to the fire brigade and for water.
“That’s the fifth time for the past six months that this has happened,” complained someone passing by them. “I think the Academy should begin investing in having a representative from the fire brigade or the fire marshal come attend these lectures as a precaution.”
“Quite right,” another person agreed. “Science is a dangerous business. It’s a wonder that no one has had his hand amputated by some machine or other already.”
Caradon pulled Zan into a shallow alcove in the hallway just outside the lecture hall to wait out the crowds as they streamed through the doors. “What are you doing?” she said, as his hand tightened on her elbow when she made to move out.
“It’s best not to get trampled in the panic,” he replied. “I think it’s more sensible that…”
“Why Mr. Caradon! It’s such fortunate luck that I’ve found you here attending today’s lecture!” A small ratty man with spectacles squeezed into the alcove with them. Zan remembered the man from another lecture—he was some sort of chemist specializing in flammable liquids. “I’ve been trying to contact you all week, but your staff informed me that you were busy. Why, I have an excellent proposal for you.”
As the ratty man pulled Caradon out of the alcove with surprising strength, he gave Zan a hard glance. “Stay right there. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Zan crossed her arms over her chest as she watched Caradon disappear into the crowd. Stay? She supposed she would obey his instructions for once. She didn’t relish walking out of the alcove into the disorganized milieu in the hallway. Since the lecture hall doors were wide open, she could hear what was going on inside despite the murmur of the crowd. Someone evidently had called the fire brigade and yet someone else had found a source of water to help put out the flames. The person who had his hat burned to a cinder because of the flying coal was loudly complaining the destruction of his clothes to the architect of that horrible invention.
“Miss Hu. This is certainly awkward circumstances for a meeting, isn’t it?” A tall figure had detached himself from the crowds and was walking toward her in the alcove.
Suddenly, Zan felt very hemmed in. She edged outward to the corner of the hallway and the alcove and dropped her arms. “Mr. Southmore. It is indeed a surprise to see you here. I did not imagine that you would take such interest such scientific affairs.”
“Oh, I’m very interested in the subject of electricity in all its forms,” the Church’s emissary replied, smiling congenially. She noticed that the scratches on his face from her claws were merely faint lines. Perhaps he had put on some sort of concealing makeup? “I had considered in putting Mr. Featherington onto my payroll, but as you and everyone else has witnessed, his experiment did not go quite right, did it?”
“It was a disaster,” she agreed.
“Fortunately, I did convince another electricity expert to accept my patronage.” Southmore widened his smile to show white teeth. Zan felt distinctly uncomfortable under his regard. “Mr. Pendergrast was particularly amendable. But my offer to you is still open, Miss Hu, along with my generous terms.”
“Since your terms include the fact that I continue my uncle’s research instead of doing my own, I don’t consider them very generous at all,” she replied. “So I will have to say again, I must decline. Unless you can manage to match what Mr. Caradon has offered to me….”
“Caradon again!” Southmore’s usually amicable expression twisted into something dark and ugly. “That bastard? That whore’s son? Mark my words, Miss Hu, you are making a terrible mistake.” He moved his right arm in a sweeping motion to emphasize his point, but her gaze was caught at something dark and shiny that dangled on his wrist. It was a bracelet with a cross of equal arms made of some sort of black stone and encircled with silver. Why didn’t she notice that before? “Caradon will only use your own work for his own ends.”
“I haven’t seen any evidence that he would….”
“He’s a spy! An enemy of the crown! You wouldn’t be so naïve as to believe that he is merely a shipping magnate? A merchant? The Church has eyes everywhere, Miss Hu. If it’s been found that Caradon is doing anything outside the law, it is possible that you may also be implicated because of your association with him.” With that threat, the emissary turned on his heel and stalked down the hallway with his cloak flapping out behind him.
Zan leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath as she watched the crowd slowly thin. What had that been about—and why would the emissary accuse her patron of something that he himself was guilty of? And why was he so eager to patronize her uncle’s work. And finally, was that bracelet charm she saw on his wrist really there or just her imagination?
“Are you all right?”
She jerked, startled, but came face to face with Caradon who was looking at her puzzled.
“You seemed particularly deep in thought.”
“I was,” she replied. “Just thinking about a particular problem. What happened to that little man who wanted to talk with you?”
“He was trying to get potential patrons to back his work,” he told her. “I told him I wasn’t particularly interested in his line of research.”
“Oh.”
In a lower voice, he said, “Besides, I saw Southmore approach you. You must tell me exactly what he wanted.”
“But it was nothing!”
“No it wasn’t.” His eyes gleamed as he took her by her elbow and propelled her down the now nearly empty hallway. “Anyways, how about some lunch? There is this quaint café on Market Row…”
