Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

did not yet know where the landau was, but she could only accomplish one thing at a time.
    “Thank you for your assistance, Master Willie. Your help has been invaluable.”
    For the first time, a smile broke out on his face, and she saw a dimple wink on each side of his mouth. He hugged her knees and she dropped to his level, carefully putting the cage on the floor before she hugged him back. When she tried to rise again, he hung on. “What is it, Willie?”
    His grip tightened.
    “You don’t want me to take the bird? No. You don’t want me to go outside again? But I must. It is clear that a few of my possessions are secreted upon the persons of your friends, and I intend to retrieve them.”
    He shook his head, as if her guess was incorrect, and held her immobile with the force of his affection. “What is it, dear? I don’t understand.”
    He released her and ran to the largest rag-pile, where he busied himself making the hollow in it larger, as if to accommodate a—
    “Willie, is it that you want me to stay here?”
    Beaming, he nodded, and sat himself in the hollow he had made, patting the space next to him. Unaccountably, her eyes filled with tears.
    “But my dear, I must go. I must find a place to lay my head this evening, and then continue my search for employment. I appreciate your help deeply, and someday when I can, I will repay you, but I cannot stay.”
    The smile faded from his face, and even the pathetic hen in the cage made a sad sound. Compassion warred with practicality. It was one thing to rescue a hen that was probably on its last legs anyway. It was quite another thing to rescue a child—or a number of children. Some things were just beyond her means and ability at the moment. She had never realized the power in a child’s tears—especially when this particular child had so little, and she was about to take even that away.
    “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Grasping the hen’s cage, she went outside.
    The members of the gang—oh, for heaven’s sake, the children—had pulled themselves into a knot on the steps of the rope-maker’s establishment opposite. When she appeared, they stirred uneasily. Well, they didn’t know she had nothing but a cardigan in her satchel, did they?
    “Thanks to Master Willie’s assistance, I now have most of my things,” she said, taking up a schoolteacher’s stance before them. “I now require two books, a parcel of pencils, a ring, and a pearl necklace, and I also require the whereabouts of my landau.”
    They shifted, making themselves smaller on the steps. Snouts gulped audibly and climbed to his feet, brushing the fronts of his patched trousers. “We—we gots a proposition for you, lady.” Then he peered through the gloom. “Izzat my Rosie you got there?”
    “If you mean this unfortunate scrap of poultry, then yes. I am in the process of rescuing her.”
    “But she’s mine. How’m I gonna eat?”
    “I suspect you’ll develop the same skills as your companions, Mr. Snouts. You have starved and degraded this poor creature until it’s a wonder she’ll give you anything but a sound pecking.”
    “’E caught ’er in t’market in Poultry Street,” Tigg said. “’E were gonna eat ’er but t’Mopsies talked ’im out of it.”
    The Mopsies glared at her, as if she’d singlehandedly undone all their good work. “You may rest assured no one will eat her whilst she is in my care,” she assured them. “Now. My property, if you please.”
    “Our proposition first,” Snouts said.
    “Mr. Snouts, you are hardly in a position to bargain. I am the one with the poisonous chemicals.”
    “McTavish.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “My name’s McTavish. Snouts is just a handle.”
    “And a fair one it is,” Tigg snickered.
    “’At’s enough! I’m doing a spot o’ business ’ere, can’t you see?” He turned back to Claire. “Our proposition is, we give you back yer stuff if you stick aroun’ an’ teach us ’ow to make them chemicals and such.”
    Willie crept up behind her and wrapped his arms around her knees. Snouts McTavish nodded. “Willie likes yer, so ye must not be like them toffs wot beat us off their fancy carriages.”
    Memory flared. It had been the day she’d driven Gorse home from school—the day she’d caused the explosion in the laboratory. “That was you. You stopped my landau in front of Pilkington’s Hotel. I gave you all the change I had.”
    Snouts shrugged. “So those’re our terms. For every