purred. The fire crackled. Alberon sat looking into its violent flames, his expression distant.
‘It has been a long five years,’ he said eventually. Razi and Wynter stayed carefully silent. He glanced over at them. ‘For us all, no doubt,’ he said. They nodded. Alberon looked at Razi, his blue eyes very bright in the dancing light. ‘I will not see those five years happen again, brother. I’ve had enough talk; it is useless unless one has an iron fist to back it up with.’
Razi nodded. ‘Tell me about Lorcan’s machine,’ he said.
Alberon spread the second parchment and the two men stood leaning over the plans, absorbed. Razi said something and pointed to a section of the drawing, but his words were lost on Wynter. She remained rooted to her chair, gazing at Lorcan’s neat and distinctive handwriting, his wonderfully delicate drawings, his careful diagrams of the working parts. She had not expected this sudden rush of sorrow. It completely overwhelmed her.
Slowly, she reached and placed her finger on the parchment, lightly tracing the perfect, serrated curve of a cog wheel.
In her mind, she saw Lorcan. He was leaning over the plans for a water-carrying device, a quill behind his ear, his fingers stained with ink. His brows were drawn down in concentration, and his red hair tumbled all around him in the candlelight. He looked up, saw her, and smiled as he had always done. Hello, baby girl, he whispered. Can’t you sleep?
Wynter pressed her palm to the warmth of the paper. Da.
‘Your eyes are leaking, cat-servant.’
She put her free hand to her eyes and pressed hard.
‘My fur is quite damp.’
‘Hush,’ she said.
‘Wynter,’ murmured Razi, suddenly close by.
He crouched at her side. ‘Wyn,’ he said softly.
She shook her head, her fingers still pressed to her eyes. Razi put his hand on her back, warm and comforting. At his sympathy, Wynter felt tears surge dangerously, the kind of tears that she knew would not stop once released. She shrugged his hand away and swiped her face.
‘What is it, Albi?’ she croaked. ‘It looks . . .’ She cleared her throat. ‘It looks to be a matchlock? A gun of some type?’
Razi rose to his feet beside her, placed his hand briefly on her hair, then leaned back over the plan. ‘It seems more like – well, I am unsure what it seems like. A series of rotating matchlocks, perhaps? But if so, I cannot figure . . . where is the serpentine? I can see no spark-wheel, no flintlock. Albi, where are the damned flash-pans? It makes no sense.’
He glanced up at Alberon, who was sitting back in his chair, looking keenly at his brother.
‘Do you . . . ?’ Razi glanced downhill towards the Haun and Comberman tents. The camp was dark and still, watch-fires flickering silently in the night. He leaned forward and whispered, ‘Do you hope to mislead those others? Convince them, somehow, that we have a weapon they do not?’
Alberon grinned. ‘Politician,’ he said teasingly.
‘What is this, Albi?’ Wynter pointed to several vertical rows of strange pictographs. ‘That is not my father’s work.’
‘That, apparently, is the key to the entire thing,’ murmured Alberon. He ran his finger along the little symbols, starting at the bottom and working his way up each column from left to right. ‘I cannot read it myself, but Oliver can. He suspects it is the work of someone called Borchu.’
‘Borchu,’ breathed Razi. He frowned, obviously trying to recall something.
‘You knew this man?’ asked Alberon curiously.
‘Um . . .’ Razi searched his memory, then spread his hands in defeat. ‘I . . . I do not think so. Though I seem to recall Father using that name. I half-remember looking up from under a table, once, while he and Grandfather roared at each other. Father was in a terrific temper. They both were. One of those terrible moments between them. I think that the name came up. Perhaps this Borchu fellow was Father’s friend?’
‘Oliver claims not. He claims to know nothing of the man, except that he worked with Lorcan and that it is likely he wrote this formula. It matters not in any case. Oliver has translated it for me.’ He pressed his finger to the row of glyphs. ‘It is a chemical procedure.’
‘What does it do, Albi?’ asked Wynter.
Alberon glanced fondly at her. He leaned in. ‘It changes everything,’ he whispered.
Alberon ducked from his tent, a small box in his hands. ‘You understand how matchlocks work, sis?’ he asked, laying the box