Venturess

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Part II

  5

  6

  7

  Part III

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Epilogue

  Sample Chapters from TIDES

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH on Social Media

  ✷

  Clarion Books

  3 Park Avenue

  New York, New York 10016

  Copyright © 2017 by Betsy Cornwell

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhco.com

  Hand-lettering by Leah Palmer Preiss

  Cover illustration © 2017 by Manuel Sumberac

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Names: Cornwell, Betsy, author.

  Title: Venturess / Betsy Cornwell.

  Description: Boston ; New York : Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017] | Sequel to: Mechanica. | Summary: An indomitable inventor and her loyal (and royal) friends cross the ocean to the lush world of Faerie, where they join a rising rebellion.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016032623 | ISBN 9780544319271 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fairy tales. | Magic—Fiction. | Inventors—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ8.C8155 Ve 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016032623

  eISBN 978-0-544-31929-5

  v1.0717

  For the teachers at Moharimet Elementary, Berwick Academy, the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Smith College, and the University of Notre Dame for helping me become a writer; Sara Crowe and Lynne Polvino for their care of and faith in my work; the Mechanica street team for their boundless creativity; Anna, Alex, and Trish for being comrades in arms; and Richie, for every day, and for “a kind of love called maintenance”: thank you

  The famine queen stood tall and proud.

  On either bank the people bowed.

  From Passage West came a Fenian yell:

  “Rule Britannia, rule in Hell!”

  The grass grows green on the other side

  And mighty ships sail out the tide

  To far-flung harbors across the sea,

  Far away from Passage, my love, and me.

  Oh love, will you go, will you go, will you go?

  Or love, will you stay, will you stay, will you stay?

  —John Spillane, “Passage West”

  Part i

  THE furnace rumbling in my horse’s belly warmed my feet, and puffs of smoke from his nostrils drifted over me as we cantered toward the palace. Snowflakes melted and hissed on his flanks.

  My patron, Lord Alming, had teased me the first time he saw the saddle I’d designed for Jules. He couldn’t understand why on earth I would want to ride in the open air when I could stay warm and dry inside the glass carriage I’d already built.

  But I missed Jules when I was inside the carriage, and there was something weirdly impersonal about pulling levers to direct him, as if the levers were reins and Jules no more than a normal horse. After all, I needed only to tell him where I wanted to go, and he would take us there.

  I didn’t need reins when I was riding Jules either. I had fitted retractable handles into a slot between his steel shoulder blades just in case, for my own comfort until I got used to riding again.

  But I knew he would never try to throw me. Whose best friend would do that?

  Riding had been Jules’s suggestion, not long after last year’s ball; it was the day I left the Steps to start my own workshop, in fact.

  I had walked out of the house that used to belong to my parents with my head held high, the little mechanical insects Mother and I had made buzzing around me in a protective swarm. Mother’s books and journals, which she’d left in her workshop after she died, were boxed and stacked inside my carriage. Even with my sewing machine and dress form wedged on top of them, the small compartment was barely half full; it had been years since the Steps had let me keep anything of my own—​at least anything they knew about. I carried the ball gown Jules and the insects had made for me over my arm.

  Lord Alming had been waiting for me in his own elegant barouche; I was to ride with him to my new workshop and apartments in Esting City, and Jules, pulling my carriage, would follow.

  Stepmother had been there at the door when we first arrived at the house. I’d steeled myself for her icy cruelty as Lord Alming helped me out of my glass carriage, but she’d held her arms out to me and smiled, wide and beatific.

  “Nicolette!” she’d cooed, grasping the hand Lord Alming wasn’t holding. She’d pressed my palm to her own cheek. Her large gray eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and her face took on the glowing expression of a painted saint. “I am so happy for you,” she’d said, with never a glance toward Lord Alming, even though this act of hers was for his benefit.

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from her; I’d felt a bone-deep revulsion that rooted me where I stood. My throat felt too thick and full to speak. I sensed Lord Alming watching me.

  I’d torn my gaze away and glanced back at Jules, where he stood in the drive with steam rising around him in the cold morning air. His immense metal strength reassured me, and I could do what I’d intended: ignore Stepmother completely. I squeezed Lord Alming’s hand and led him forward, sweeping past her and into my parents’ house. The huge manservant who had accompanied us followed silently.

  Stepmother had stayed with us, hovering like a malevolent bird as I made my way up the main staircase and down the winding corridor that led to the servants’ quarters. My bedroom there was spare and small, and it had already been ransacked, the threadbare quilt tossed in a corner, the thin mattress overturned.

  But I’d always known Stepmother went through my things, and the journal I’d come for was still safely hidden in the spring-loaded slot I’d installed under the bed. I relished the small hiss she made as I took the book out.

  “I wish you could have trusted me, Nicolette,” she’d said in a sweet but weakened voice. I watched not her but Lord Alming, to see if her virtuous charade was having any effect on him.

  He’d given me a look of such disbelief through his monocle that I couldn’t help laughing. And when Stepmother would have followed me into the cellar, down to my mother’s secret workshop, he’d waved his hand, and his manservant had stepped forward to block Stepmother’s path.

  “I won’t be gainsaid in my own house!” she’d said, more weakly still; but she didn’t struggle. She couldn’t unleash any real venom in front of Lord Alming.

  When everything had finally been packed into my carriage, when I was walking at last out of that house and toward the happily-ever-after I’d built, Stepmother caught me by the wrist. She brought her other hand up to my cheek and turned my face firmly toward her, so that I had to look.

  “My darling girl,” she’d said, as if intoning a prayer, “I wish you a joyful life, today and evermore.” Her words were just loud enough for Lord Alming to hear.

  I’d pulled away, and my legs started to shake as I walked toward th
e carriages. It wasn’t her obvious attempt to play mother in front of Lord Alming that had disturbed me; it was that I’d suddenly known that she meant what she said. That even after everything she’d done to me, and everything she’d stood back and let my stepsisters, Piety and Chastity, do, she somehow believed that she wished me well now. I’d known that, when she said her real prayers that evening, she would tell the Lord that she’d tried her best to do right by me—​and that at least part of her would believe it.

  I’d started to feel dizzy. I’d nearly stumbled as I kept walking away.

  But Jules had stepped forward, pulling the weight of my laden carriage behind him. His bright glass eyes looked into mine and he pricked his ears and tilted his head to the side, beckoning me to come toward him. As soon as I got close enough I put my hand on his neck and leaned against him; I’d felt so sick by then that I didn’t think I could have made it even one more step on my own.

  “Ride,” Jules had huffed, blowing steam against my cheek.

  I’d pulled back a little to look at him. “Are you sure?”

  He’d flicked one ear in annoyance. Jules meant everything he said; using his voice box caused him pain, and he never spoke unless he had to. No one else even knew he could speak.

  I was too shaken to do anything but agree. I’d called to Lord Alming that we’d follow behind him, and I hoisted myself up onto Jules. My arms wrapped around his neck, I felt strength flowing into me with every step that he took. I turned for one last look at Lampton Manor and glimpsed my stepsisters’ beautiful faces framed in a first-floor window. As soon as they saw me looking, they ducked out of sight. The edges of my skirts were smoking and singed by the time we got to Esting City, but I haven’t ridden in the carriage since.

  A few days later, after we’d settled into my new workshop, I’d brought back a tooled leather saddle from Market.

  When Jules balked at it, I’d sighed. “Well, what would you have me do? Ruin all the beautiful clothes you and the buzzers make for me every time I ride?”

  He had snorted like laughter and picked up a piece of fabric left over from another gown. It was a lovely claret color, a rich brocade.

  I’d had to laugh too. “I should have expected nothing less from a horse who designs gowns,” I’d said. Jules had the final say on all the dresses we created, even my own wardrobe. He led my mechanical insects through all the sewing and tailoring, just as he’d done when he was no bigger than my hand, though now he was as huge and solid as any draft horse. He loved the work, and I’d long since admitted that my horse somehow had better taste than I did.

  In fact, the dress I’d be wearing to the palace that night was another of Jules’s creations. It was a lovely, ethereal periwinkle silk, embroidered with small white starflowers that drifted down from the bodice and all around the bustled skirt. I had asked for a pale gown, since the one I’d worn to last year’s ball had started such a popular trend of dark purple dresses among the ladies of the court. They all absolutely had to have the adjustable glass slippers I’d designed too, but I didn’t mind that. The huge success of the slippers had allowed me to pay off the mortgage on my very own workshop, and I had nearly enough money saved to make a reasonable offer on Lampton Manor.

  I didn’t want to make a reasonable offer, though. I wanted to make an offer Stepmother could never refuse.

  But while the slippers’ sales had held strong, ever since King Corsin had officially declared war on Faerie again, I’d had a hard time selling my other inventions. Before the declaration, the Fey rebellion had grown stronger and more organized until they were close to winning back their independence. Our armies had since put Faerie under martial law and regained control of much of the continent, but waging a war was expensive, and Esting’s once-decadent courtiers had far less money to spend on my beautiful clockwork trinkets now that their funds were needed to help quell the rebellion.

  My workshop was near the heart of Esting City, and Jules and I reached the palace in only a few minutes. Its blackstone walls loomed like huge shadows, lit at intervals by the bright glow of gaslights in the evening gloom.

  I suddenly remembered how I had looked and felt exactly one year ago, riding up to the palace doors in my glass carriage. I saw myself as if in a vision: I had been shivering inside my old, patched, oversize work coat and thinking of Fin, the boy I daydreamed about, waiting for me in the ballroom. I didn’t even know he was the Heir then. There were so many things I didn’t know.

  Watching that ghostly girl, I wished for a moment that she—​that I—​could stay in the glass bubble of Jules’s carriage, heart beating fast, hoping to dance with a boy I’d met more times in my imagination than I ever had in waking life.

  By the time I’d walked out of that ballroom last year, I’d left those fantasies behind. I didn’t live there anymore, in that place where I dreamed of a hazy, perfect future. I lived in my happy ending now, but it was nothing like those simple dreams.

  For one thing, I couldn’t approach the palace anonymously this time. As soon as Jules stepped into the halos of gaslight, guards emerged and bowed to us, and a groom I didn’t recognize hurried toward Jules.

  “The guards will send word to announce you within, my lady,” the groom said. “I shall see to your mount.”

  He reached mechanically for Jules’s reins and his hand closed on nothing but air.

  I smiled at his baffled expression; he must be new. “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll bring Jules to the stables myself. Please don’t announce me.”

  “But my lady—”

  Jules and I were already off.

  We knew the way to the stables blindfolded. Jules crunched nimbly through the three or four inches of snow on the ground, and I pulled down the hood of my fine cloak and took a deep breath. My vision of the girl in the carriage had faded away, and my nostalgia for her had gone with it. I always had thick cloaks and fine dresses now, and my back and feet were never cold nor my stomach empty, as hers had so often been.

  Whatever complications I faced here in my happily-ever-after, I had saved myself from real hardship. I must always remember that.

  As we reached our destination, a tiny, lithe figure came jogging out to meet us. The stable hand’s red hair was almost bigger than she was.

  “Hello, you beauty!” Bex cried.

  I grinned. I knew she wasn’t talking to me.

  “So Nick’s brought you back at last, hey? Oh, I missed you so much!” She approached Jules and held her hands under his nose for him to sniff, a huge smile painted across her freckled face.

  “Honestly, Bex, it’s only been a few days,” I said, dismounting. I had to fairly leap down; I’d built Jules bigger than even a quarry horse. He rose like a shining glass-and-steel mountain next to diminutive Bex, steam crowning his head like clouds.

  “So long?” With considerable effort, Bex arranged her face into an expression of dramatic woe.

  Jules huffed smoke at her and nosed through her pockets.

  “Only apples in that one,” she said, “but I have what you’re looking for right here.” Bex slipped her hand inside her coat and came out with two big, dusty nuggets of black coal. She opened the hatch in Jules’s side and dropped them into his belly.

  Jules whinnied his thanks, a screeching-springs noise that always made me wince and smile at the same time.

  “You two will be all right till I come back, then?” I asked.

  Bex and Jules both nodded. Jules had never spoken in her presence, or in anyone’s presence but mine, but she’d figured out long ago that he could respond to human speech in a way that no other horse could.

  Most of the kingdom thought Jules was just a fine simulacrum, with no life of his own at all. But he was alive, and all I knew about the Ashes that gave him life was that they had to do with illegal Fey magic. I guarded Jules’s secrets closely.

  But I trusted Bex with him, at first because my friend Caro did, and later on her own merits. Bex was sharper, harder-edged, and more m
ischievous than Caro, but they shared the same golden optimism and the easy honesty that comes with it.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind missing the party?” I called as Bex and Jules walked into the stables.

  Bex’s laugh cracked through the darkness. “And lose the chance to ride this lad? Don’t worry, Nick, he’ll be right here when you’re done waltzing.” She looked back at me, her eyes reflecting just enough of the reddish glow from Jules’s furnace that I could see her wink. “Just kiss my girl for me, will you?”

  ✷

  I took the back way in, through the huge, labyrinthine underground servants’ quarters that supported the palace in every sense of the word. I had no desire to walk down those wide marble steps at the front entrance, where the aristocrats would get to inspect me at their leisure, the way I’d done at last year’s ball. I still felt a little embarrassed by my own naiveté back then. Waiting to be kissed by my prince, when I didn’t even know he was a prince yet.

  I knew the palace now, and I knew which of the servants’ hidden doors would let me out just behind the orchestra pit in the ballroom. From there, I could peer around the curtains and assess the lay of the land while remaining well concealed.

  It was easy to spot Fin: He lounged on a throne opposite the main staircase, chatting with a young man who clearly wasn’t holding his interest. He looked like the picture of a bored Prince Charming from any story book, except for the snap of good humor in his eyes that even his mask couldn’t quite conceal. King Corsin sat at a small distance in an even bigger throne. A tall platinum crown rested heavily on his brow, and he was dressed in grand military regalia, yet despite his finery, he seemed faded and worn, almost beneath notice. The somber, black-robed Brethren advisors that flanked him had more presence than their monarch did.

  I wanted to say hello to Fin, but any public interaction between us was highly scrutinized these days. In fact, I had to be careful when I showed myself in public at all, which was why I was so relieved that Fin had agreed to make this second annual Exposition Ball a masquerade. My mask gave me at least some sense of anonymity, of armor for the broken heart I’d had at last year’s ball.