Read Online The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge - Free Book Online Page B

white knight?” I teased, nudging him in the ribs. “Thought that was your dream job.” This was my idea, and I wasn’t about to let Cal see that second thoughts had started the moment we left the Academy. A good engineer stood behind her plans as sound until they’d been tested and proved otherwise.
    “Like you said, Aoife,” Cal grumbled, sounding for all the world like Professor Swan, “grow up.”
    An edge of the pale
. If I’d had more coins to spare, I’d have asked Tavis what he meant. But my mother’s money was precious, and I needed every penny of it for this man Dorlock.
    We skirted the fire and approached where Tavis said the guide lived, my feet slower with each step. Still, I grasped the tent flap firmly and pulled it aside. “Hello?” I peered into the tent, which smelled like a barbershop mixed with cheap liquor. “M-Mr. Dorlock, sir?”
    “Hello!” The voice boomed back, sonorous and clearly used to the stage. Dorlock was entirely bald and sported a handlebar mustache, like a circus strongman. SomehowI had expected our guide to be thin and shady, dark as the shadows he slunk through. But Dorlock would stand out at a Hallows’ Eve carnival.
    “Why look at you, young lady!” he exclaimed. “Aren’t you ripe as a peach!”
    If I were to treat him mathematically, take his measurements, he’d be extraordinarily large—a rolling tub of a man boiling over with cheer. I didn’t see what was so funny.
    “We need a guide,” I said. “We need to leave Lovecraft. Tonight.”
    Dorlock laughed, his kettledrum stomach trembling. “Doesn’t waste any time! Going to grow into one of those modern women, I fear, always in a rush!” He reached out to pinch my cheek, and I ducked. I’d grown an aversion to being touched a long time ago. Nuns will do that to a person.
    “Please, sir,” I protested, trying to keep myself stiff and ladylike, like Mrs. Fortune. “Can you help us, or not?”
    “Of course,” Dorlock boomed. “Of course, of course.” He crossed his bare arms over his leather vest and matted chest hair. I tried to look only at his face. “It’s all a question of payment, lassie.”
    I looked back at Cal. “I have fifty dollars,” I said. Cal’s eyes went wide at the mention of the sum. Dorlock’s eyes, by turn, narrowed.
    “Fifty United States American dollars, eh? Well, missy, it won’t buy much Uptown way but down here in the rat hole of the Rustworks, you just might have yourself a deal.”
    I felt crestfallen, realizing at the gleam in Dorlock’s gaze why Cal had looked so alarmed. It was all my money.I should have struck a harder bargain. A boy would have bargained. Conrad probably would have
made
money on the deal.
    “We’ll leave in an hour or so, to beat the sunrise,” said Dorlock. “Up and down and all around we’ll go. It’ll be a grand adventure for you two kids.”
    “I care less about the adventure than the Proctors,” I said, trying to stay firm.
    “Yeah, and we’re fifteen,” Cal interjected. “We’re not
kids
.”
    “Of course not, you’re a strapping young lad, aren’t you?” Dorlock chuckled. “Going to feed you up and get you big. Why don’t you go get something from the fires for your lady friend, strapping lad? It’s a long walk down under the ground.”
    I frowned at that. “Ghouls live underground,” I said. Not even Proctors went into the old sewers and railway tunnels, the only “underground” I knew of. The new sanitation system ran on clockwork and didn’t need tending. Nobody went underground. Nobody alive, anyway.
    Dorlock shook his head, brows drawing in like a bank of thunderheads. “You just have a head stuffed full of learning, don’t you, young lady? Worry less. You’ll get wrinkles before your time.” He laughed like he was the chief audience for his own joke.
    I opened my mouth, knowing there was murder in my eyes, but Cal touched me on the arm. “I’ll get you a weenie with chili. If these people even know