glove from her right hand and stretched it toward Mirabilis, palm forward. Squinting at the stone, he reached into his waistcoat pocket for his pince-nez. He perched the eyeglasses on his nose and leaned forward to peer more closely.
“Extraordinary,” he said.
“A piece of Native Star,” Stanton said. “A fragment of the Mantic Anastomosis.”
Mirabilis removed the glasses and let them dangle between his fingers. He looked between the two of them.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later, Emily and Stanton had told him just enough to make it obvious that they needed more than fifteen minutes. They had not, however, gotten around to telling him about their ride in the Cockatrice when Tarnham thrust his head in through the door, his face harried and harassed. From its perch on his shoulder, the ferret peeked through the door as well, beady eyes glimmering.
“Sir, things are terribly unsettled out here!” It was clear that Tarnham was being jostled from without. “Everyone’s in an uproar about this Cockatrice nonsense.”
“Cockatrice?” Mirabilis looked at Stanton, lifting a bushy white eyebrow. “What Cockatrice?”
Stanton opened his mouth to explain, but Tarnham broke in, exasperated.
“These two set down a Cecil Carpenter Cockatrice on the main green just as neat as you please. Disrupted the whole proceedings! Police everywhere … the whole place is about to come to blows.”
“Mr. Stanton?”
“I simply helped an American citizen exercise his right of free speech.” A smirk lifted the corner of Stanton’s mouth.
But Tarnham, whose head was still poked through the door, assumed a far sourer expression.
“That’s not all, sir. There’s folks outside positively demanding to be let in, not the least of whom is—”
“Senator Argus Stanton!” came a bellowed roar from just outside the door. Tarnham’s face disappeared for a moment, but apparently whatever stalling tactic he’d attempted had failed miserably. A large man pushed through the door, trailing four magnificently upholstered women in his wake.
The senator looked exactly like Stanton would look if he were thirty years older and weighed a hundred pounds more. His large bones were covered with sturdy flesh, and he seemed the sort of fellow that had a tooth-rattling handshake. The women behind him sidled in nervously, as if they were afraid that something might touch them. The one Emily supposed was Euphemia was nearly as tall as Stanton. The oldest woman, certainly Stanton’s mother, was small and sleek as a pit bull.
“Dreadnought!” the big man boomed.
Stanton winced, then turned slowly, his hands clasped behind his back. His face was set in an odd kind of sneer, like a boy resigned to be beaten for doing something admirable.
“Hello, Senator,” Stanton said, and then, inclining his head toward the women: “Mother.”
The sneer on Stanton’s face became blank astonishment when his father stormed forward, clasping him in a bear hug and slapping him on the back.
“Wonderful, wonderful!” the senator roared. “Dreadnought, my dear boy! You saved his life! You saved the life of the President of these United States!”
“What?” Stanton winced away from his father’s embrace, outrage overcoming agony. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“You brought down that backwoods nutcracker! That half-baked hick! I hear that Cockatrice was filled with enough bombs and ammunition and hell knows what else to blow up the President, the first lady, and every other fine Republican servant of the people on that platform! That goddamn atheist wanted the life of our duly elected leader, and you kept him from fulfilling that fatal intent—”
“I did no such thing!” Stanton bellowed. “Hembry’s a harmless Illinois moonshiner … He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”
“Everyone’s been howling about how corrupt our boys are … Well, I guess this gives those atheists and bomb-throwing anarchists a black eye right back!” The senator positively glimmered with glee. “There’ll be a big trial. You’ll testify of course … and meanwhile there’s so many places I can take you around …” The senator smoothed a big hand through the air, as if painting the headlines on the sky: “Dreadnought Stanton, Son of the Senior Senator from New York, Spirit of the Next Hundred Years of the Republic!”
“I don’t want to be the spirit of the next hundred years of the republic!”
“Goddamn it, boy, if I say you’re going to be the spirit of the next hundred years of the republic, then you’ll be the spirit of the next hundred years of the republic!” The senator balled a fist, looking for something he could pound for emphasis. Finding nothing, he chopped the air brusquely. “You’re a protector of the common American, an