Iron Lights

Chapter OneBeing called a madwoman is, on the whole, preferable to being burned as a witch. I looked forward to those occasions when male and female convicts were permitted to exercise at the same time, and I could converse with the man who shot me. Police Officer Dry—Mr Dry, now—and I had plenty in common. We were both born in London, we both earned our sentences, and we were both obsessed with my sweetheart, Matilda Newry. Skrrr-clang! The steel doors opened, releasing us into the exercise yard. ‘Has she written to you?’ Dry asked me, narrowing his cold grey eyes. Even with an impending state visit from Queen Victoria, ‘she’ always meant Matilda. I massaged a length of tin between my fingers, feigning nonchalance. ‘Perhaps.’ He snorted loudly, drawing curious glares from the other convicts shuffling around the dusty rectangle the wardens called a yard. Unfortunately, the magical potential of the tin in my hand had activated the previous evening. It gave my true feelings away with a loud parp of distress. Dry smirked, winning a point. Tin’s ability to communicate is a great wonder, but it deserves its uncouth reputation: it has no subtlety whatsoever. From the other side of the yard, my friend Fei Fei rolled her eyes at me. She didn’t understand why I talked with Mr Dry at all. Sometimes, neither did I. ‘Perhaps,’ I said again. ‘Mail is slow throughout Victoria, so it’s entirely possible Matilda has written to me since she went away. Little wonder her letter hasn’t arrived yet, since crime in these parts is out of control.’ Dry raised his eyebrows. ‘You can stand here, at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and blame the police for slow mail? That is hardly fair, Miss Muchamore.’ ‘I can hardly give your precious police force credit for catching me, since I appeared as expected at the door of Parliament, along with tens of thousands of signatures on the grand petition for women’s suffrage.’ I suppressed a shiver, remembering how frightened I was that day. ‘And what is more, that impressive battalion of police utterly failed to stop me’—I waved generally at myself, indicating my small stature and misbehaving red hair—’giving said petition to the relevant gentleman … which led directly to universal adult suffrage in this great colony.’ Dry clenched his teeth in a manner I found highly amusing. ‘In fact, if it wasn’t for sweet little Emmeline Muchamore getting shot,’ I said, ‘my own dear Matilda might not have been included in the victory for women’s suffrage.’ Dry wasn’t the only man to hate the original residents of Australia. I wondered what I would have done if the parliamentarians had spent longer thinking about who they wished to exclude from political rights, and was glad I didn’t have to live in that world. ‘So here we are, thanks to love and courage and magic.’ Dry flinched, but rallied bravely. ‘May I at least accept the credit for being the first man with the excellent sense to shoot you?’ I laughed aloud, and he tried not to smile in return. ‘You are not even that, since I was shot during the Eureka Stockade Battle some years ago—and not by you.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘You are more like that troublesome native wretch every day.’ I was stunned into silence at the compliment, and looked at him properly for the first time since beginning our conversation. Dry had grown gaunt in prison, and his few clothes were thin from being scrubbed too often and too long as he fought to keep his appearance as tidy as possible. He made a pathetic enemy nowadays, and I had to remind myself that he had framed Matilda for a double murder before we’d brought him down. In a darker world, men like Dry would have made sure natives could never have a true political voice. Not as long as white men lived, or as long as their children and their children’s children readily took on the burden of hatred. Even now, Dry wanted Matilda dead. He watched me in silence, having pity enough not to continue our verbal sparring when I’d lost the heart to go on. It was the only kindness he had ever shown me. ‘You look wretched,’ I told him, and fished a spider from my pocket to give him. He jerked back in shock and then stepped forward again like a skittish horse. ‘What have you done to it?’ I held my palm flat, so little Ethel—not so little, since she filled my hand—could be seen clearly. She was a lovely fawn colour, covered in dark blond hair with a ring of activated tin around her thorax. ‘I fed her a little silver, so now that tin belt is biologically bonded to her. She can understand you.’ For some reason, Dry didn’t reach out to accept her. Ethel was an exquisite gift, and I hoped she didn’t mind having a new owner. If she didn’t like it, she could always return to me. Unlike my clockwork rats, who had abandoned me just because I exploded them sometimes. ‘Ethel can fetch food for you, or other small items,’ I explained. ‘If you’re in trouble she may even choose to fight for you.’ Dry didn’t take his eyes off her. At last he coughed. ‘I don’t need your charity. And I certainly don’t need your abominations.’ I withdrew my hand, letting Ethel climb off onto my shoulder. ‘Once again you show how inferior you are to my actual friends.’ ‘Matilda … likes those things?’ he asked, and then swallowed. ‘Of course she does. It’s a native, just like her. Horrid, even before you added your own fiendish twist.’ Ethel raised her front legs, pawing at the air like an adorable puppy. Dry touched his forehead in farewell, having long since lost his hat, and moved to the other side of the yard. I sighed and walked carefully around the well-worn perimeter to join Fei Fei. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, speaking in the Cantonese she had taught me. ‘Better than him.’ ‘Good.’ Fei Fei repinned her hair, trying and failing to keep it under her prison-issue bonnet. My hair was too curly to behave, and hers was too straight. ‘Matilda hasn’t abandoned you. If she didn’t love you anymore she would tell you to your face.’ ‘Thank you,’ I said mechanically. We’d had this conversation many times. Matilda and I met Fei Fei when we broke her out of a different prison, saving her life in the process. She was healthy now, and had chosen to return to prison due to her own sense of honour. I wasn’t sure if she’d given herself up in order to salve her conscience after her crimes, or simply to keep an eye on me. Either way, I was glad to have a true friend on the inside, especially during the early days when I was bedridden and recovering from my latest injury. Being away from Matilda was far worse than being shot. My arm was healed now, but my heart never stopped hurting. I knew exactly why I’d begun taunting Dry: because sometimes he said her name, and I was addicted to the sound. It was not yet clear whether I would be freed before Mr Dry or not. If he completed his sentence first, he would immediately set out to find and arrest Matilda. I hated the idea of Dry attacking her without me standing by her side. My heart juddered in my chest at the thought. I pretended fascination with the high stone wall so I could privately vent a little steam through the emergency valve in my chest. All hearts are magical, but my own is made of brass and silver and steam. It’s not always reliable, but what heart is? I reminded myself firmly that Matilda could take care of herself, and my heart settled down to its usual steady ticking. Sometimes the endless monotony of prison is just what the doctor ordered. It was almost time to return to my blessedly dull cell, but my heart had other plans. Brass is justifiably famous for sifting and selectively amplifying sensory details, but my heart has been inside me since I was a child. In my unique experience, it refines more than the usual five senses. So I knew enough to pay attention when some indefinable instinct told me to linger in the yard as long as possible. Fei Fei was heading for the inner door, but she paused and looked back at me, quirking one eyebrow at my behaviour. Now that I knew something was afoot, I noticed several of the prisoners were taking an uncommonly long time to walk indoors—including Dry, who was beating a path to intercept mine. I gave Fei Fei a shrug and met him halfway, wishing my heart was clever enough to stop juddering when I was obeying the commands it gave me. ‘Ready?’ Dry asked me, and half knelt, pretending he had a stone in his shoe. This wasn’t my first prison escape, and my treacherous mind began to tell me all the things I could do if I was able to leave the prison behind me. I could start my life over. I could eat proper food, and buy some fresh crinolines. I could make myself some more corsets. I could earn an honest living, and set up another laboratory—a better one. I could go to Melbourne’s echo of the Grand Exhibition (called, without irony, ‘The Grand Expedition’), and perhaps even set eyes on Queen Victoria herself. I could find Matilda … wherever she was. No. I shook my head so hard it hurt my neck. It had not been an easy choice to accept my prison sentence after being an outlaw, but when I saw my friend Lizzie—fish-seller, thief, and friend—after her sentence was finished, I understood that she had earned her freedom. Unlike me, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder anymore. I wanted that kind of freedom, for me and for Matilda and I together. If I wanted it, I had to earn it by staying where I was. Two guard towers braced the large gates, top-heavy with the winches that controlled the sole entry point of the prison. As I looked up, wondering if Dry had bribed a guard, one of the towers exploded. My heart shot scalding steam from both vents as I threw myself to the ground, instinctively taking Dry with me and sheltering him from the rain of bricks and splinters peppering the yard. We clung to one another, and sat up only when the yard was utterly still. His face was covered in grey dust, and although he was speaking I couldn’t hear a word over the ringing in my ears. ‘You?’ he mimed, pointing at me. ‘No!’ I said, but I couldn’t even hear my own voice. I mimicked his gesture. ‘You?’ He shook his head and then got to his feet, putting out his hand to help me up. I took his hand but didn’t rise. There was a ragged gap in the wall where the tower had been. The gate remained firmly closed, even though its chains hung like silver ribbons. Several prisoners were already running through the tower hole, half blinded by the dust still falling but determined not to waste their chance. I couldn’t hear their footsteps, but I felt them through the ground. Fei Fei paused in the jagged hole and waved back at me, smiling with a lightness I hadn’t seen on her face in months. Then she ran away. Her conscience was clear now, and she was free inside and out. It occurred to me that Matilda might have blown up the tower, but I dismissed the thought at once. Two men were dead. She would kill in battle or in self-defence, but not for me (thank goodness). Dry tugged on my arm, still trying to help me up. He wasn’t the ringleader of this prison break, but he wasn’t ignorant either. I realised belatedly that although I wished him well, I didn’t want him free. Matilda could handle him, but I wasn’t so sure about the rest of Victoria. I tightened my grip on his hand and kicked out with my leg, hitting his ankle hard. He yelped in pain and fell full-length in the dust beside me. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, and I couldn’t tell if his voice was hoarse with dust or genuine hurt from my betrayal. ‘We can be free. Both of us.’ I shook my head, unable for the moment to verbalise my reasons. But I knew I was right, so I continued to cling to him as he tried to pull away, and failed, and then punched me in the face with his other hand, cursing my foolishness and faithlessness. Tears made dirty rivers on his grey-powdered face, and sprang from my own bruised left eye. Dry knelt before me, weeping and cursing and trying to pry off my fingers one by one. I carried a sliver of activated iron in my left shoe, and its magic made my physical strength greater than his. He was still kneeling when the guards came and hauled both of us back to our cells.