Clockwork Princess

Wayland
,
    I have but this moment received tidings of the gravest import, which I hasten to impart to you. An informant, whose name I cannot at this time disclose but whom I vouch for as reliable, has relayed to me details that suggest to me that Miss Gray is no mere passing fancy of Mortmain’s but a key to his main objective: to wit, the utter destruction of us all
.
    He plots to construct devices of greater power than any we have yet before seen, and I deeply fear that Miss Gray’s unique abilities will aid him in this endeavor. She would never intend harm to us, but we do not know what threats or indignities Mortmain will offer her. It is imperative that she be rescued at once, as much to save us all as to aid her
.
    In light of this new information, I once more implore you to gather what forces you may and march upon Cadair Idris
.
    Yours sincerely, and in sincere distress
,
    Charlotte Branwell
    Tessa woke slowly, as if consciousness were at the end of a long, dark corridor and she were walking toward it at a snail’s pace, her hand outstretched. Finally she reached it, and swung the door open to reveal—
    Blinding light. It was golden light, not pale like witchlight. She sat up and looked around her.
    She was in a simple brass bed, with a deep feather tick spread over a second mattress, and a heavy eiderdown quilt on top. The room she was in looked as if it had been hollowed out of a cave. There was a tall dresser, and a washstand with a blue jug on it; there was also a wardrobe, its door hanging open just enough that Tessa could see that garments hung inside. There were no windows in the room, though there was a fireplace in which a cheerful blaze burned. On either side of the fireplace were hung portraits.
    She slid from the bed and winced as her bare feet encountered cold stone. It was not as painful as she would have expected, though, given her battered state. Glancing down, she had two quick shocks: the first was that she was wearing nothing but an oversize black silk dressing gown. The second was that her cuts and bruises seemed to have largely disappeared. She still felt slightly sore, but her skin, pale against the black silk, was unmarked. Touching her hair, she felt that it was clean and loose around her shoulders, no longer matted with mud and blood.
    That did leave the question of who had cleaned her, healed her, and put her in this bed. Tessa remembered nothing beyond struggling with the automatons in the small farmhouse while Mrs. Black laughed. Eventually one of them had choked her into unconsciousness and a merciful darkness had come. Still, the idea of Mrs. Black undressing and bathing her was horrible, though not perhaps as horrible as the idea of Mortmain doing it.
    Most of the furniture in the room was grouped on one side of the cave. The other side was largely bare, though she could see the black rectangle of a doorway cut into the far wall. After a brief glance around she made her way toward it—
    Only to find herself, halfway across the room, brought up bruisingly short. She staggered back, gathering her dressing gown more tightly about her, her forehead stinging where she had smacked it on
something
. Gingerly she reached out, tracing the air in front of her.
    And she felt solid hardness in front of her, as if a perfectly clear glass wall stood between her and the other side of the room. She flattened her hands against it. Invisible it might be, but it was as hard as adamant. She moved her hands up, wondering how high it could possibly go—
    “I wouldn’t bother,” said a cold, familiar voice from the door. “The configuration stretches all the way across the cave, from wall to wall, from roof to ceiling. You are completely immured behind it.”
    Tessa had been stretching upward; at that, she dropped to her feet and backed up a step.
    Mortmain.
    He was exactly as she recalled him. A wiry man, not tall, with a weathered face and a neatly clipped beard. Extraordinarily ordinary, save for his eyes, as cold and gray as a winter snowstorm. He wore a dove-colored suit, not overly formal, the sort of thing a gentleman might wear to an afternoon at the club. His shoes were polished to a high shine.
    Tessa said nothing, only drew the black dressing gown closer about her. It was voluminous, and concealed her whole body, but without the underpinnings of chemise and corset, stockings and bustle, she felt naked and exposed.
    “Do not panic yourself,” Mortmain went on. “You cannot reach