Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

anonymous donation to the school’s pitiful science department and make restitution for what she had removed. But for the moment, necessity was most certainly the mother of invention, and on that principle alone even Professor Grünwald might approve.
    After bundling her treasure in a used cardigan and then into a leather book satchel, both abandoned in the Lost and Found, she strapped the satchel to her back and retraced her steps. Half an hour later, she stepped out of the alley mouth opposite the rake-roofed home of the rascals who had stolen her things.
    No small boy waited for her. Her lips thinned. Well, if he had not taken her seriously before, he most certainly would now.
    Keeping to the shadows, she hurried around the corner of a half-timbered warehouse that might have seen active commerce in King Henry’s time and removed the vials from her satchel. Their noxious contents gurgled in her hands once she’d refastened the satchel on her back. Since it and the cardigan were her only possessions, she was loath to leave them lying on the street—and the satchel had the advantage of providing storage while allowing her hands free movement.
    Thank goodness she’d put on this navy merino suit this morning. The fog breathing off the river was damp and chill, and droplets were already condensing in her hair. The dark color also allowed her to blend into the shadows as she crept from corner to corner of the building. A rat’s entry chewed into a board welcomed the first vial. She smashed it into the floorboards. “That’s for my notebook, you miserable wretches.” A board missing altogether was a fine entry point for the second. “And that’s for my pearl necklace.” At the third corner, she could find no way in except for a window, so she tossed it through and heard the satisfying tinkle of glass. “My coat, thank you very much.” She ran for the front entry as the first noxious tendrils of smokelike gas began to curl out from between the boards.
    She wrenched open the front door. “And this—” She threw it with all her might. “—is for my landau!”
    Someone yelled as the gas did its work, and then pandemonium broke loose. Claire retreated, smiling in satisfaction, as half a dozen figures staggered out in various stages of undress—or not—good heavens—that creature was wearing her coat! Claire flew across the street and tore it off a very short individual who was trailing its lovely panels in the dirt. He—or she, it was difficult to tell—spun in place, both hands mashed to his eyes as he shrieked in pain. Shrugging on her coat, Claire felt as Queen Elizabeth must have at seeing the first of the fire ships succeed so brilliantly against the Spanish armada. It was almost enough to make a person dance a hornpipe.
    But she restrained herself, for there in front of her was one of her pretty embroidered waists, being used as a nightdress over a pair of ragged combinations! She dashed over, grasped the hem of it, and pulled it over the filthy girl’s head. Weeping with pain, the child turned to her, instinctively seeking to be comforted, but she hardened her heart and stepped away. Finally, the spindly person with the enormous nose staggered out, his face contorted in misery, carrying the waif who had directed her here. The latter’s unhappiness was acute, from the sound of the roars emanating from under the coat covering the lad’s head.
    “Ever’one all right?” Snouts croaked, eyes screwed shut in pain. “Mopsies?”
    Two cries answered him. One was the girl Claire had relieved of her waist. An identical copy wrapped itself around the first, and they both burst into fresh tears.
    “Jake?”
    “I’m gonna die, Snouts. Jus’ kill me now, eh?”
    Ah. Jake, the unfortunate burn victim. His difficulties were only increasing the longer he retained Claire’s acquaintance.
    “Tigg?”
    “’Ere, to my misfortune,” wailed the boy who had been wearing Claire’s coat.
    “’Oo’s got Weepin’ Willie?” came another voice, belonging to a boy of about twelve who cowered in the gutter, his ragged jacket over his head.
    “I gots ’im,” Snouts reported. “Can’t you ’ear the racket?”
    “What happened? Who’s set upon us?”
    Claire stepped out of the shadows, even though none of them could see yet. “I have.”
    Silence fell, broken only by the sobbing of Weepin’ Willie and the Mopsies.
    “’Oo’s that, then?” Snouts tried to crack his eyes open, which only resulted