was a metallic tinge to the air as they stepped out onto the platform. The city of Bazeppe smelled like coal dust and machinery. Steam swirled around them, thick and masking everything from view.
It cleared to show a retinue of lictors in scarlet and gold livery lined up like toy soldiers on the platform. They saluted as Isangell approached. A gentleman in a bottle-green striped suit and top hat stepped forward to make a formal bow. He had a bristly moustache, and his monocle almost popped out as he straightened.
‘High and brightness, you honour us with your presence. I am Jenkingworth, Minister of Mechanism, and on behalf of the Duc-Elected Henri of Bazeppe, I welcome you to our fair city.’
Isangell bowed her own head graciously. ‘I am glad to be here, Minister.’
The station gates jerked open as if pulled on strings and Minister Jenkingworth led them towards an unlikely contraption. ‘If you would like to take your seat, high and brightness?’
Ashiol reached out a hand to Isangell before she could move. ‘What the saints is that?’ he asked, curbing his tongue against more violent swearing.
Minister Jenkingworth smiled broadly. ‘Why, Seigneur Ducomte, that is an automobile. One of Duc-Elected Henri’s personal fleet, as it happens. His pride and joy. It took a long time to source the racing-green paint, but the effect is rather splendid, don’t you agree?’
‘Isangell,’ Ashiol said in a low voice, ‘you can’t step into some random mechanised cabriolet you know nothing about. It looks dangerous.’
‘Nonsense,’ Isangell said defiantly, and allowed the Minister to hand her into the machine. ‘We don’t want to insult Duc-Elected Henri,’ she added, smiling brightly.
Glaring and grumbling, Ashiol followed her. The whole damned city smelled like metal and thunderstorms. The hairs on the back of his neck spiked up and it was all he could do not to snatch Isangell up and abduct her back onto the train and away.
‘What marvellously impressive factories,’ Isangell said as they jerked along in the ‘automobile’, which had a growl like a wounded panther. ‘The smokestacks are so very high.’
‘We pride ourselves on our industry,’ the Minister said, as if it was the culmination of his life’s desires to explain the history of Bazeppe to a pretty young demoiselle. ‘Our clock factory is the finest in the known world.’
‘Goodness,’ said Isangell, while Ashiol muttered darkly to himself and tuned out the educational ramblings.
The lands around the city were flat enough that you could see much further than you could from the shambling urban hills of Aufleur. The buildings were taller, for the most part, and there was a pale greyness to them. Steam was everywhere: funnelling out of factory stacks, rising from the urban outline and clouding the air around them.
Ashiol roused himself long enough to hear Minister Jenkingworth promise Isangell something called a ‘princessa clock’, which was apparently all the rage with the demoiselles this year.
Isangell demurred and told him that clockwork mechanisms were considered unlucky within the city bounds of Aufleur.
‘Good gracious, how do you live?’ the Minister said in surprise. ‘No, no, I’m sorry, that was dreadfully rude. Religious compunctions are the backbone of society, of course.’
Ashiol could not help but be reminded of the endless tick, tick, tick of his stepfather’s clock collection. Diamagne would have loved this fellow.
After a circuitous route designed to show Isangell the glories of the city, with Ashiol gritting his teeth at every bump and jolt in the road, they arrived at a wide tree-lined avenue leading up to a grand Palazzo. There were statues everywhere: along the road, and the stone edgings of the Palazzo, and overlooking them from the roof. They all gleamed metallically in the wintry sunshine.
Finally the fucking inhuman rattletrap juddered to a halt, almost flinging them out in the process, and Ashiol could breathe again. He stepped out, and allowed Minister Jenkingworth to help Isangell, relinquishing his own role as consort with a combination of resentment and guilty relief.
As they walked towards the Palazzo, every statue came to life, saluting in jerky, automated fashion. Ashiol jumped and swore, while the Minister blithely pretended he hadn’t heard the stream of profanity. Fucker.
‘Don’t mind our saints,’ he said, leading Isangell forward. ‘They don’t bite, ha-ha, though you wouldn’t want them to, would you. Don’t fancy a pair of bronze choppers sinking into your leg.’
Bronze. The statues — the saints — were bronze, but articulated: an army of clockwork men with faces as flat and emotionless as those of Isangell’s maids and lictors. Ashiol was so