Burning Up

jagged towers of stone that ripped out the wooden bottoms of every deep-keeled boat. Ice locked the town in winter. In the spring, giant eels seethed in an electric, twisted mating dance, and in the fall, the herring spawned in the fjord that drained into the cove drew young megalodons who churned the waters in a season-long feeding frenzy. The only route into the town was by airship or the fjord; only a fool would sail in by ship.
    But he hadn’t sailed. And the woman Ivy had assumed was his rival was his friend, instead.
    She stepped around the rope ladder, resisting the urge to grab each rail and rip it down. When she opened the door, the bell’s jingle welcomed her into the shop. A blue curtain split the ground level room in half. The small window in front showcased the automata she’d built—the practical egg-crackers and handwashers, the fanciful singing birds and jumping frogs—and the dresses sewed by her shopmate, Netta. Seamstress and blacksmith, they both pulled in more coin with repairs than with sales off the shelf . . . but even the repair money was barely enough to keep food in their bellies.
    No thanks to bloody Mad Machen.
    Only last month, she’d treated an emaciated man who still bore the marks of a whip. She’d made him a new foot, and listened to how Mad Machen had attacked his merchant ship, forced the man onto his crew, used him until he couldn’t walk anymore, then left him to die in a dinghy. Mad Machen . . . who’d been tearing up the coast of the North Sea, searching for the redheaded blacksmith from London who’d cheated him.
    The man had given her hair and guild tattoo a significant look. Though the work she’d done on his foot could have fed her for a year, she hadn’t asked him to pay.
    It wasn’t the first time she’d heard the story, received that look, and hadn’t been paid in return. Mad Machen had a habit of dropping men into dinghies near the cove. For months now, Ivy had suspected he knew she was there, and his revenge had been keeping her frightened and waiting. She should have run then—but she simply hadn’t wanted to run again.
    Black hair pulled into a bun at her nape, Netta came up to the front, and the friendly smile of greeting she wore warmed when she saw Ivy. “Back so early, and without a pint to show for it. That Klaas has a tighter fist than a sailor a year out to sea.” She tsked , shaking her head, then moved over to the window. “We have a fish pie today, thanks from the widow Aughton. Now, look at all the busybodies standing about. What’re they sticking their noses into today?”
    “Me.” Ivy ran her hand through her hair, trying to think. “I don’t know when I’ll return, Netta.”
    If she returned.
    “What are you going on about? I—” Netta froze, staring out the window. “That man, is he . . . ? Oh, Ivy—run. Run!”
    “I tried that,” Ivy said, starting for the stairs. Every step was like twisting a screw through her chest. Downstairs, the bell chimed merrily as the door opened again. She didn’t look back.
    Full of light, with a window overlooking the cove, her room appeared larger than it was. She crouched in front of the chest at the foot of her narrow bed, retrieving a small steel box locked with a rotating combination. She dialed in the sequence, and the box unfolded, clicking as it reshaped into a fat squatting man, his left and right eyes reading a one and a six. Sixteen coins. She pressed his hand down, and thin electrum deniers spit from the smiling mouth into her palm one at a time. When the eyes showed a zero and an eight, she flicked the hand up—leaving half for Netta to pay their rent, so that she might have a shop to return to.
    Someone began to climb the stairs—a heavy, uneven tread.
    Ivy hurried to her wardrobe. She had a real satchel this time, made by Netta from mismatched pieces of fabric. Ivy filled it with her few changes of clothing, then looked around. Two tattered books lay on the nightstand—children’s primers that Netta had taught Ivy to read. Taking those was like admitting she wasn’t coming back. She left them where they were.
    “Bring that with you.”
    Mad Machen’s gruff voice came from behind her. Slowly, Ivy turned, her gaze sweeping up from the floor—stopping at his legs. From just above the right knee on down, he no longer filled out his trouser leg and boot. A prosthetic. One he’d had long enough that he didn’t need a stabilizing cane, but he wouldn’t be running after