What a title! Moira tries to hang on as her luck goes from bad to worse.

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The Toymaker’s Opera is an alternative-world steampunk adventure. It is a story about a poor fortuneteller, a living automaton, a mad Baron, and a city that dreams. It is a story about the price of friendship and happiness, about legacy and talent, blood and luck. But most of all, it is a story about the things that have no price.

The Toymaker’s Opera

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fog

Moira

The Sheer had many mouths. From the bathhouses and boilers the city blew hot steam into the street. Factories churned out choking smoke, coating the towers with layers of soot and time. Pipes and ductwork ran coursing through the streets, spread across the Sheer like iron ivy. It was impossible to follow even one vent to its source. After half a block the pipes would disappear, twisting down into the darkness, burrowing through solid rock towards the center of the city. And in the middle of the night, since as long as anyone could remember, sometimes, if you listened very closely, you could hear the sound of music and beyond that, weeping and a roar like the distant sea.

But night or day there was one sound every citizen of the Sheer strained to hear, the one that could strike fear into the heart of anyone, whether they had lived there one day or a thousand.

It started softly; the low sonorous rumble of vibrating iron that rose, slowly, to a hum that undercut all conversation. Pipes shook, ductwork groaned, and all the time that sound grew louder and louder, and higher and higher until it filled the Sheer like a fever spike. And then, whether it broke at once or went on for days and days without easy end, the crying of the pipes would be cut short; ancient metal screaming in protest as all the vents reared open and spat the Phage into the streets.

The Phage was beautiful; a cobalt fog that shrouded the city in a veil of poison. It was as unpredictable as the moods of the ocean, arriving on the clock every month for three, or stuttering out in short gasps of blue death every few hours for days on end. It could last for weeks, shutting down all foot traffic and causing the flotillas to hover as far away from Skyman’s Wharf as they could get. To be caught in the Phage, even for a few minutes, was enough for the unearthly mist to do its deadly work.

No one knew where it came from or what created it; any parties sent to search the bowels of the city never returned alive. The Phage had been a part of the Sheer for as long as anyone could remember. Some Verandi claimed to recall that the fog and the city had not always been one and the same, one killing while the Baron’s nutcrackers stalked the streets in muted silence, cleaning away the bodies of those too slow to escape the mist. Claimed, but could not prove, and so their rumors remained just that, and nothing more.

But whether it was true or not that there had ever been a time before the Phage, the simple fact remained; there had never been a gap between one Phage and the next that was longer than three months.

Heat pressed on Moira like a wall. She walked numbly down the open lane of the Faid Faran, clutching her last half penny in her fist. It had been a long day. First she had gone down to the bank to confirm the new market rate for tithe on her apartment and been admonished for not knowing how often it changed. Sophia had only ever vaguely mentioned that tithe was adjusted on the solar holiday, which Moira had stupidly assumed was only Solstice. The Vernal and Autumn Equinoxes had never been spoken of.

Moira clenched the half penny harder, berating herself. She should have known enough to check. Of course Sophia had said nothing about it, since her Keeper had never expected Moira to leave in the first place. And their argument just before Moira had stormed out hadn’t exactly been the best time to brush up on all the finicky rules of owning an apartment.

The furnaces of the Faid, titanic gods or demons in their own right, stretched tall and iron-black into the darkness. They sat with glowing, open mouths, greedily swallowing coals or wood or bodies. Pumps churned scalding water up from the reservoirs and away, feeding the washhouses, dye vats, and running under the floors in the baker’s district. A funeral, barely audible above the roar of the flames, processed ahead of Moira. Ombolan mourners screamed and beat their breasts while children ran in and around the small group, shouting and waving their arms to frighten away evil spirits.

No matter what time of day or night there was always a funeral in the Faid. There was no other place to take the dead, after all.

Moira turned her face away from the bracing heat. She hurried on her way, taking care to avoid the mourners. Each step threw up fine ash that clung to her hair and skin. No matter how little money she had remaining food was a necessity she could not ignore. The market in the Faid was the cheapest in the whole city, and for good reason.

She traded in her half penny and her only pair of breeches to the owner of the charcuterie and received a pitifully small soup package in return. Too hungry to care how rude it might seem, Moira pried open the waxed paper and ran her hands along the dry soup bones, mushy greens, hard seed garlic, and suspiciously soft potatoes. “If this is all you can offer,” she said, biting every word, “give me back my breeches.”

“Suit yourself,” the ancient shopkeeper snapped, snatching the parcel out of her hands and returning the payment. “If it isn’t good enough for you, my Lady can go elsewhere.”

Moira didn’t have enough energy left to fight. She took her coin and clothes back, and trudged on, passing the funeral as they stopped in front of Arvid’s furnace to see the dead into the next world.

A Yuan man took pity on her, perhaps, and passed her a heavy sack of rice when she tried his stall farther on. Moira felt down into the sack, checking for a false bottom or stones that might be used to replace food with volume. Finding neither she nodded to the shopkeeper. Thousands of warm grains of dried rice hissed against her hand as she withdrew it. Moira secured the sack in her shopping bag and turned around. Carefully, for she could hear yet another funeral starting its procession in the distance, she made her way past the bright, open eyes and gaping maws of the furnaces, keeping close to the wall of the tower.

Ash-covered stone turned to brick as she climbed the Thieves’ Stair up out of the heat and back to Medtown.

Moira had just reached the corner of Seance and Charms when a familiar voice struck out of the darkness.

“She can’t’ve gone far; spread out, find her!” The sound of boots and running feet accompanied the order. Too close.

“Gray!” Moira gasped, and slapped a hand over her mouth. They must have arrived at her apartment only moments ago to find the windows dark and the door locked. She didn’t hear the crunch or splintering of wood that would indicate that they’d broken in. There was no point destroying that barrier with the Phage on everyone’s’ minds; almost three months now since the last one, a record and not a good one at that.

Another shout. “Hey, you!”

So much for small blessings. Moira took off, deeper into Medtown, barrelling past Gray’s men–nutcrackers by the feeling of their kidskin gloves grasping at her arms and clothes. She shoved them aside, heart pounding.

One of them grabbed the strap of her shopping bag, nearly choking her as it yanked on the cord going over her shoulder. The sack of rice bounced hard against her hip. Another nutcracker gripped a fistful of her hair.

Something wasn’t right. All around her, as the rest of them closed in, she heard ragged breathing. Suddenly, saffron spirals of energy flared in quick succession through her second sight. Moira threw out her hands, touching velvet coats and brass buttons. But no chest block.

Her face, a second ago pale with fear, flushed hot with temper. “Oh no you don’t!” she shouted, and kicked out blindly.

One foot hit the side of a man’s kneecap. He went reeling, freeing her hair.

Moira twisted, ducking out from under the still-held strap of her shopping bag. Trying to trick her, trying to use her remaining senses against her; the very idea made her want to spit. She struck at the men who surrounded her, hitting arms and ribs and the faces of their masks. And all the time Gray was yelling at them to hold her, to keep her still.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you think I couldn’t tell the difference?” Moira was hot now. Arms swinging wildly she emerged from the cluster and launched herself down the boulevard.

A hand caught her skirt. Moira heard the seams rip and saw Gray’s coalescing fury as he bore down on her. “Little girls should mind their manners,” he snarled, tugging at the fabric to bring her around. “I wonder how much those pretty cards of yours are worth–”

Moira slapped him as hard as she could. The blow struck him soundly on the ear, the edge of her palm just clipping his mask. Gray fell back with a yelp of pain.

She gathered her skirt and ran flat out down Charms. The nighttime crowd was just beginning to bloom in the streets and Moira went straight on, one arm held in front of her, the other held stinging to her chest. She grabbed unsuspecting people and threw them behind her, anything, anything to get away from Gray.

Shouts and angry cries cut a path behind her. Gray’s men were gaining.

Moira took a sharp turn, pulse hammering like a blacksmith’s strike in her ears. She shouldered her way into the covered market, not caring who she might upset. Curling lavender smoke on her right announced Tabitha almost at the same moment that the woman herself called out to Moira.

“What’s got tha in a hurry mah gel?”

Frantic, Moira dashed to her stall. “Tabby, you’ve got to help me!”

“Of course, child. Anythin’,” the older woman added, “so long as it’s not nutcrackers.”

Moira could have kissed her. “Oh, thank you!” With Tabitha’s assistance she ducked behind the stall’s cloth partition and sank, wearily, to sit upon the cold stone. Boxes and crates of goods stood in neat stacks to either side of her, fragrant bundles of sage and sandalwood nearly overwhelming.

Moments passed as her heartbeats slowed and her anger was replaced by tears that she couldn’t stop. First tithe and now this. And just when she had dared to hope; just when she thought she could manage on her own. Moira pulled up her knees and put her head in the crook of her arm. All for nothing.

Thankfully, Tabitha asked no questions. She continued with her business as if Moira was not there. Perhaps she could see Gray’s men, still working their way through the crowd.

In the distance Moira heard him say, “Fall back to the corner, we can wait. Little bitch will have to come home eventually.” Slowly, the voices of Gray and his men faded away, allowing the babble of the market to return.

Moira bit her lip. Waiting for her. There was no way of getting around this one. But if she didn’t go back then she’d be giving up her cards, her only means of income. Thoughts raced around her head in circles, twisting back upon themselves; gruesome nightmares of what might happen if Gray did capture her. Plenty of places in the Sheer would buy a body, no questions asked. Heretic mages by any other name or practicing surgeons could always use human flesh, visitors to Philandry who preferred real Ophelias over fake ones, and that wasn’t even to mention the odd noble who would buy organs or limbs from the Auction House for the novelty of it. And if Gray didn’t kill her outright she could just as easily vanish into indentured service; perhaps swallowed by the thunder of the mills, quickly losing her fingers to their swift-moving looms, unable to see the rhythmic chomping of the machinery. He didn’t have to keep her in the Sheer, either. There were plenty of slave brokers looking for fresh stock; men who would see her to the back-breaking work of rowing a galley ship, the shame of serving some bloated Rimsean pasha, or the indignity of being handed over to the Empire.

“And who might you have with you today?” someone said to Tabitha, the voice carrying over a hum that had begun to weave its way through the crowd.

Moira started, jerked out of her darkening reverie. She wanted to listen closer but her fear of Gray overcame that desire for a moment and she held her breath, staying as still as possible.

“Just the gel,” Tabitha said softly.

“Is she well?” the other person asked, concerned and quiet.

Separated by the cloth partition at the back of Tabitha’s stall Moira breathed a sigh of relief. It was only Mrs. Marshall. Moira wiped her eyes and let the two women talk while she made herself presentable.

“Baron’s been in town,” Mrs. Marshall said, her voice carefully neutral.

Tabitha snorted. “Oh, aye. Ah’ve heard that one’s been poking about in fancy lady’s shops, buyin’ jewels and silk and suchlike.”

“I hear he’s been prowling down Wrightsward way; visiting Augusti if my dressmaker is to be believed. Goddess knows what he wants with a toymaker.”

Tabitha continued taking out sage smudges and holy wood, placing them just so on her display counter. “To build him a wife, Ah think, some woman willin’ to sit through all those stuffy operas he likes so much.”

“That’s disgusting, Tabby–oh, good evening, Moira,” Mrs. Marshall greeted her when she appeared next to Tabitha. “Having some trouble?”

Moira nodded. “Mother’s debt collectors have decided they won’t take no for an answer anymore.” She told them about her previous encounter with Gray, about reaching for his mask in a last-ditch effort to save herself.

To her surprise Mrs. Marshall laughed boldly and said, her vanilla sun of a personality twinkling, “I bet that taught him a thing or two about messing with you.”

“I…I suppose it did.” Moira blushed, infected by the other woman’s confidence. Mrs. Marshall was right, she realized, or Gray wouldn’t have stayed away so long. That thought brought a little steadiness back to her heart, and Moira was able to take a breath that filled her all the way. She gathered her courage. “Mrs. Marshall?”

“Hm?”

There was nothing for it. Losing pride was better than her life. “Do you think, possibly…” Moira wetted her lips and plunged ahead. “Does your shop need–”

A scream shattered the market. It cut off in a high shriek. “Someone stop him!”

Voices raised in fear. Shouting filled the air. In a moment everyone was yelling at once, the crowd converging at the entrance to the market.

“What on earth?” Tabitha said at the same time that Moira demanded, “What is it? What’s going on?”

Mrs. Marshall, the taller of the three women, paused as she craned to see. “Oh Goddess,” she said. “Oh no.”

Moira clutched the counter of the stall. It couldn’t be Gray. “Please, tell us,” she urged.

Shakily, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing, Mrs. Marshall told them. “There’s a nutcracker–he’s not in very good repair, got an arm missing I think. He’s, yes, he was weaving all over a moment ago.” She lowered her voice, hard and sharp. “He’s trying to pry open one of the vents. Some folk are attempting to stop him, but–”

“Say no more.” Tabitha started throwing her money tin and her smaller items into a handcart before Moira heard it.

There, just on the edge of perception, the hum of vibrating iron. As she listened the sound began to rise, passing in and out of tune as it did so.

“Phage,” Moira breathed. “Oh, muses.”

Mrs. Marshall grabbed her arm. “Quick, come with me.”

For a moment Moira hesitated. If she ran she might get to her apartment in time but she would also run the risk of finding Gray there waiting for her still, despite the danger. As she debated the crowd around them surged, seeing things that she could not. In the distance the anguished scream of metal mixed with the cries of “It’s the Phage!”

Moira made up her mind. The Marshall’s shop was closer. “Let’s go!”

“RUN!” Mrs. Marshall yelled, her rich voice bellowing with the air of unquestionable command. She took Moira’s hand in a firm grip and yanked her out of Tabitha’s stall.

No time to catch her breath, no time to think. Moira sprinted behind Mrs. Marshall, holding one elbow up to keep from knocking into customers and seers alike. Terror lent her a second wind and she trusted in the warm hand that held hers, putting all her faith for once in someone else.

Grates and vents screeched as they opened. The crowd broke into a stampede, running pell-mell for the nearest open doors, squalling when they couldn’t get in. Arms and legs rammed against Moira, shoving her in every direction. In the back of her throat she could taste it, an earthy tang as the poisonous Phage filled the streets.

“Steps!” Mrs. Marshall pulled Moira’s arm up.

Moira raised her foot just in time to not fall flat on her face. She stumbled, feeling the incline ahead of her. “I can’t–”

“No time,” Mrs. Marshall cried, hauling her forward with a strength Moira wouldn’t have guessed the slim woman possessed. She bundled Moira up the steps and through the front door of her shop.

A slight trip on the doorjamb had them both sprawling onto the wooden floor. “Quentin!” Mrs. Marshall bodily grabbed the back of Moira’s shirt and heaved them both deeper inside. “Hurry!”

“Oot of the way!” Her Wharite husband clattered past them. He kicked their feet away and slammed the door closed, leaning heavily against it.

Moira felt Mrs. Marshall’s grip go slack and and they lay there together, breathing hard. When Quentin offered her a hand she waved him off. “A moment, please,” she croaked.

The two women stayed on the floor, gasping. Outside the screams quickly subsided as the Phage claimed its victims. It was a sound Moira knew well and she put her sympathy away. There was nothing any of them could do.

“Well,” said Mrs. Marshall as she staggered to her feet. “With any luck this will convince Gray that going after you is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Moira sighed and sat up. “If only. Even if the Phage got him once of his associates would still come. Mother’s debt isn’t something I can avoid.”

“Does thee want work?” asked Quentin as he pressed a hot cup of drinking chocolate into her unresisting hand. “Ah’ve got plenty.”

She opened her mouth to refuse on principle before she remembered herself. “Yes,” Moira said. “Thank you.” If she waited long enough, if she worked hard enough, maybe, just maybe, Gray might think the Phage had killed her and leave off his vigil. It wasn’t much of a comfort, but then again it was all she had until Sophia’s spell took hold. All she could do was work and wait and hope.

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Disclaimer: As this is not the finished version the author reserves the right to change this and any following chapters in full or part; including but not limited to grammatical, editorial, stylistic, or plot-related changes. The author does not expect, however, for this version to differ vastly from the version that will be published in the near future.

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