Read Online Angel of Brass by Elaine Corvidae - Free Book Online Page B

spectacles, and began to polish the lenses.
“It’s hard to say.”
    Something about her tone made him sit up.
“You don’t think Gibson lied about telling him, do you?”
    “No, not at all!” Molly said hastily. “It’s
just that...well, Gibson is a nobody. He’s a minor noble, nothing
more than a jumped-up secretary when he actually does attend court.
When he goes to the spymaster and says his sister-in-law is
shouting conspiracy...”
    Jin’s heart sank. “They might not take him
seriously.”
    “I don’t doubt that they’ll look into it,”
Molly said, putting her spectacles back on. “It’s just that,
depending on how many layers of bureaucracy he has to go through,
it might take a while, especially since we don’t really have any
evidence.”
    Jin held up one hand and extended his claws.
“I’m evidence.”
    “Only that Malachi is a genius. He could tell
people that you were hurt in some kind of accident and that he gave
your limbs back.”
    Jin sighed and let his claws retract. “My
word against his.”
    “Exactly.” She hesitated, then leaned over
and put a hand on his. “I don’t want to discourage you. They will help, eventually, I’m sure of it. I just don’t want you
to expect that anything will be done tomorrow, or maybe even next
week.”
    “I know.” Jin sat back, thinking. “What if we
got some sort of evidence? Would that speed things up?”
    “Maybe. What did you have in mind?”
    “The one thing I know for certain about the
conspiracy is that the resurrectionists are involved. If we could,
I don’t know, catch them robbing a grave, then track them back to
their lair, maybe we could find something.”
    Molly sat silent for a long moment, a little
line between her brows. “All right,” she said at last. “It’s a long
shot, but I suppose we should try anyway. And here I thought my
life was about to get back to normal.”
    “You don’t have to go,” he said quickly.
“You’ve already done a great deal for me. I can’t ask this of
you.”
    The line deepened. “I’m not going to just sit
here while a friend heads straight into danger. Of course I’m going
with you.”
    Even though he worried about her safety, her
words warmed him from the inside. A friend? Have I ever had one
of those before? “Oh. Thank you, then.”
    “I might even be able to find out what
cemetery would be best to try,” she said, smiling now. “Liam knows
a boy in the medical wing of the institute—Liam knows a boy in every wing of the institute, but that’s beside the point—who
might know something about resurrectionists. The trick would be
asking Liam’s boy about it without seeming suspicious.”
    “All right.”
    “We’ll talk to Liam tomorrow,” Molly decided.
“His flat isn’t far from here. With any luck, we’ll be stalking
grave robbers by midnight!”
     

Chapter 6
     
    Jin dreamed of flying.
    He knew that it was just a dream, because he
was alone: no airship, no Dr. Malachi making observations from the
deck, no smiling men watching, as if they secretly hoped that some
day they’d have a reason to hunt him the way they hunted
trespassers. There was just the wind and the air rushing against
the skin of his bare chest. The world spread out below, infinite
and unbounded. He spread his wings and felt the pure, fierce joy of
a falcon, untainted by either past or future.
    He opened his eyes and found himself
wingless, stretched out on Molly’s floor beside her bed. His body
ached from the hard boards, even though he’d slept padded by
blankets and spare clothing, and for a moment he felt such a pang
of homesickness that it took his breath away.
    Stupid, that . Despite everything, a
part of him wished to wake up in his own bed, with all his things
around him. He wanted his violin, and his books, and even the
little clockwork dancer Malachi had made for him as a birthday
present. Not that Jin had been born in any real sense of the
word.
    Most of all, I want my rig . The