Burning Up

over the side of the ship. He pulled in a final breath before it dragged him beneath the freezing water. The shouts and screams from Vesuvius vanished into a swirling, watery quiet. Overhead, Vesuvius ’s keel formed a long, dark shadow. He looked down into a nightmare.
    Ivy’s giant machine churned the water below, its enormous staring eyes lit like a furnace. Steam boiled from the tips of the eight arms spread like rays beneath an enormous rounded body, as if the hell inside couldn’t be contained. Wrapped in the tentacle, he dove past the plated body, between two arms, toward the underside of the submersible—where a kraken’s beak would be. A rounded hatch opened instead, revealing a gaslit chamber. The tentacle shoved him toward it, until his head broke the surface and he hauled in a deep, ragged breath. The tentacle loosened.
    Kneeling by the rim in a white shirt and trousers, Ivy laughed and dragged him from the icy water into a steam bath. Eben lay on the metal floor, coughing and sputtering, staring up at her. Red hair was plastered to her head with sweat, her face flushed. She was utterly beautiful.
    “Can you breathe?” she asked.
    Chest heaving, he nodded. He wasn’t sure about talking yet, but—
    Ivy bent over, gripping his wet hair to hold him still, and ravished his mouth with a kiss. When she let go, he couldn’t speak, breathe—or think. He’d never been so astonished in his life.
    She grinned down at him. “Do you think the machine is frightening enough?”
    He barked out a laugh, which sent him into another fit of coughing. Patting his back, Ivy looked around.
    “Circle beneath Vesuvius ,” she said, and climbed to her feet.
    Still catching his breath, Eben rose, shoulders bent to avoid the low ceiling. Three men—one his former blacksmith, Lambert—and two women manned the submersible from seats surrounded by forests of levers, and every surface on the bulkheads and ceiling was packed with valves and controls. A low hiss and the clacking of the four pedaling automatons sounded strangely hollow, as did his voice.
    “The heat in here—is it from a steam engine?”
    He couldn’t hear one, but it might have been shut down. He hoped to God she never fired one, not while in the water.
    Ivy shook her head. “Just a boiler and valves to circulate steam around the gas bladders in the arms—and to keep us from freezing.”
    Eben struggled for some response. What she’d put together here . . . he’d told her to do it, but he hadn’t known if anyone could. And it was beyond words.
    Ivy continued, “It needs a crew of five. Your blacksmith and Trahaearn’s steward helped me choose. They can all keep a secret, and know the area well enough to leave the local fishermen and traders alone. And they are each loyal to you or the Iron Duke.” She glanced toward a short, blond man looking through a periscope. “I’ve trained John Davies to take my place.”
    Eben recognized him. Eight months ago, Davies had been chained in the hold of a slave ship, his arm drill smashed beyond repair.
    Davies pushed the periscope up into the ceiling, and turned with his hand extended. “Good to see you again, Captain.”
    Automatically, Eben shook his hand—then looked down in surprise. It was a prosthetic shaped exactly like a hand, but it wasn’t mechanical flesh. Instead, it had been created of interlocking machines, each operating individually to resemble lifelike movement. He could feel the difference in pressure and strength in each of the man’s fingers, just as he would if the hand were flesh. If not for the hardness of the metal, Eben wouldn’t have known he was gripping a prosthetic. He’d never seen anything like it before.
    Davies grinned and lifted his chin toward one of the women. “My lady, Mary, and I have an ongoing debate. Between this and the kraken, I say this hand is the more amazing. She doesn’t agree. And Ivy won’t give her opinion, citing bias as the maker.”
    Eben felt as if he’d been dunked underwater again. He looked to Ivy, who was standing beside one of the crew, checking a valve. “You did this?”
    “It was a trade. He needed an arm more than he needed a hook, and I needed his two-seater balloon to get around the island.” She glanced over her shoulder and met his gaze. Her green eyes were bright with amusement. “You were gone more than three weeks. I had to do something .”
    And she’d done something . . . incredible. He glanced down at the prosthetic,