I want you to cease all protestation that you will be “mucking up my life.” You won’t be. I worry that you still believe I don’t care about you. I promise that Father was burning your letters rather than mailing them; I never received a one. I would have come for you instantly had I known his madness had progressed.
Besides, I have no life to muck up. I practice all day with the team; I go to banquets on the weekend; I shake hands with children; I sleep. And since I don’t have a mistress, I have plenty of room in my suite. Being the King’s shortshop comes with some perks. We can even get you a cat, if you’d like, though of course you’ll want to run that by your future husband. Both Rory and Thomas are eager to meet you. I told them both it would be your choice. Rory thinks he has the best of Thomas since he’s Irish, like you. Little does he know. I hope you like a man with a brogue.
All joking aside, I want to remind you that time is of the essence. We see a fair amount of soldiers at our games, and at the hotel restaurant after, and all anyone can talk about is the tension between Livingston-Monroe and St. Cloud. St. Cloud is small, weak, ripe for the taking. Those border skirmishes we saw earlier this year? That was nothing.
I hear word of a coup, a bloody one. I hear rumors that the Governor himself is in danger.
I hear word that the Livmonians plan to invade.
Word has it that we’ll be called up to play a game for Duchamp’s Fair, but neither Rory or Thomas are first-string players. After you make your choice, I am certain your new husband can get a dispensation to stay in Orleans for a honeymoon so you won’t have to return.
This is our only chance to get you out, penguin—while Father’s distracted and before the border becomes too dangerous to cross. Don’t lose heart now. I know you can do this.
I will meet you at the Orleans station with flowers in hand.
Burn this.
Your loving brother,
Ambrose
Hands shaking, Claire folded it up and returned it to the pile. She knew it wasn’t safe to keep it, or any of her brother’s letters, but she couldn’t bear to destroy the only proof of her impending escape.
Otherwise, she might begin to believe she’d imagined it.
She had taken too long. Quickly she took out the two men’s suits and stuffed them under the quilt on her bed, threw the top hats into her armoire, snatched up the shoebox and set it beside her. She was replacing the floorboard just as her father came up the stairs.
“Open this door, Claire!”
She opened the shoebox and let its contents fall to the floor, then shrieked.
“For crying out loud—” Her father burst into the room. “Another mouse?”
She nodded, hugging herself. “I heard it scrabbling and I pushed the bed to see and oh, it’s too horrible—”
“It’s dead. You scared it to death.” Grunting, her father bent to pick the mouse up by the tail. Claire opened the little box, and he dropped it in.
“I’ll dispose of this,” he said. “Margarete is crying downstairs. The ceiling fell in.”
Then it matches the broken window, Claire thought but did not say.
Her father shoved her bed back into place. It screeched, a horrible sound. “This house can go to the devil,” he said, and left.
It was the last of her fake mice. It had better be worth it.
Sunday, she thought fiercely. In two days, I will have a new life.
At two minutes past eight that night, Beatrix was waiting at her gate in shirtsleeves, a top hat, and a pair of men’s trousers.
“Tails,” she said, turning on her heel and spreading her arms like an acrobat.
Claire rolled her eyes as she lifted her brother’s old frock coat onto Beatrix’s shoulders, careful not to graze the exposed skin at Beatrix’s neck. “Your Majesty,” she said, but she was smiling.
Beatrix knew of Jeremiah Emerson’s particular madness, his theories about his daughter’s powers. She agreed with Claire that they were rot. She agreed with Claire too that it was best not to test the matter by touching each other too freely. (“What if he’s right, and then you’re responsible for my smashing success, and I need to cut you a share of my aeronautical discoveries?” Claire had laughed and replied, “I’ve snuck you enough supplies, you should give me a share anyway.”)
“Hush.” Beatrix turned with an unnecessary flourish. “You look swell, as always. I think I’ve pinpointed it. It’s the nose. The straight nose and how it looks under the hat. Very dashing.”
Claire laughed. It was an unusual point of pride for them, that Beatrix was the prettier girl but Claire the better-looking man. When the two of them ventured out at night, it was always in male disguise. Claire’s father’s position at the Fair meant that he knew people in every corner of the city, and he sent his daughter on errands often enough that her face was known to them, too. If Claire’s midnight excursions were reported back to him, he’d lock her up for a month.
Beatrix had been the one to suggest the suits. With her eyepatch and her particular world-eating stride, they didn’t do much to disguise her, but Claire thought she rather liked the feeling of control that settled over her when they walked about as boys. No dropping your eyes demurely. No blushing behind a hand. None of that punishing awareness of everyone else and what they wanted from you. You could pretend, for a moment, that the world was interested in what you wanted.
“He’s sleeping, then,” Beatrix said, meaning Jeremiah Emerson.
“He’s tinkering. He’ll tinker till dawn.”
“And then wake up to find his daughter missing.”
“I aim to be back by then,” Claire said, “unless your plans for tonight end in my death by my father’s very moral hands.”
“No last meal, then?” Beatrix’s face, for once, was serious. “You know if it doesn’t go as planned, he’ll find a way to blame you.”
Claire was pointedly not thinking about tomorrow, about the Barrage, about Sunday, about her father’s hands on her wrists. She couldn’t. If she wanted to keep her heart in her throat, she would install it there herself.
“This is the last time,” she said. “I wanted to go out one last time with you. Whether or not he kills me tomorrow, whether I manage to leave on Sunday—”
Beatrix shifted. “I want you to be safe,” she confessed. “I don’t want you to go. Why can’t I have both?”
“I know,” Claire said.
They clasped hands for a long minute.
“Well. How many offers d’you think you’ll get tonight?” Claire asked, blinking against her tears.
Beatrix knew a change of subject when she heard one. “At least three.” She tossed her cane and caught it, then slipped her free hand into the crook of Claire’s elbow. “Offers aren’t the point of tonight, though. Revolution is.”
They took off down the road, a pair of jaunty gentleman with the world at their feet.
“I maintain that ‘revolution’ is a strange word for what you all are doing,” Claire said. This was a well-worn topic for the two of them, and Beatrix tended to take Claire’s criticism the way she took everything else—with a salty smile and a shake of her head.
Not tonight. Beatrix’s shoulders stiffened under her jacket. “I maintain,” she said slowly, “that you would better understand our project if you deigned to attend any of our meetings instead of guzzling champagne at the bar.”