Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox (Steampunk Smugglers) by Heather Hiestand Page A

marched in holding a platter. Brecon blinked
and saw that it didn’t hold their morning watery porridge, but a hand. A brass hand.
    Philadelphia yawned and rose from the cot. A piece of straw
stuck out from her braid. She rubbed her eyes with her fists. He found it
adorable and noticed her first gesture hadn’t been to rub her neck today. His
pillow had done some good.
    “Do you have everything you need now?” Two unlocked the cage
door and One handed Brecon the platter.
    He noted it was tin, not strong enough to knock down the
twins if he swung it. But he couldn’t help planning the trajectory of the disk
from his hands to Two’s bulbous nose.
    Philadelphia put her hand on his arm, as if guessing his
thoughts and discouraging them. She picked up the hand and flipped it over. “Am
I to do the cutting? I sent up a diagram. I cannot use it like this. Also, I
need a length of silk.”
    “You aren’t making a hand for a princess.”
    “I know what I need. Will you bring me cutting tools?”
    One snatched the hand from her. “I’ll have it cut up
proper-like for you.”
    She turned away. “Have him follow the diagram. Please fetch
more water as well.”
    Two made a rude noise and clanged back up the steps. Philadelphia’s
back went rigid, but she remained facing the outer wall.
    “What was the point of waking us so early?” she asked when
One had left as well.
    Brecon peered out the window to see the sun had not risen
more than an hour before. “They do not care that you like to work late. I can’t
imagine the strain your eyes must be under.”
    “I am used to electric lighting,” she admitted. “Moonlight
is not so effective.”
    He stepped closer and saw her eyes were bloodshot. His
fingers moved into her hair and pulled out the straw.
    She wrinkled her nose. “I have never been so filthy.”
    “Hazards of the trade, darling.” He grinned.
    “You must be looking forward to having a hand. Do you think
the captain will let you keep it?”
    “I am not looking forward to being electrocuted,” he
countered.
    “Oh. Yes, I see. The testing I shall have to do. Perhaps
once we show a working hand, it will be enough to allow us proper accommodations?”
    He wasn’t so eager for that. Proper accommodations meant
separate ones, and he’d already become used to the sound of her soft breathing
at night, the way the space filled with some indefinable feminine scent. All he
needed was a second cot and perhaps a fireplace for perfect comfort. But women
could never go without bathing for long. He understood that, sisterless or not.
    Well into the afternoon, the twins appeared with water and
the cut hand pieces, along with a remnant of cherry red silk. They sneered
automatically and departed.
    With a mug of water in hand, Philadelphia told him how to
sew an inner lining for the hand while she began to insert motors and wires and
screws to piece the hand back together again.
    The next morning, she inserted the battery.
    He peered at it. Though the daylight was dim as of yet, it
seemed the brass hand had a special glow. What she had created was elegant,
with a stocky palm and long, tapered fingers. It fascinated him to see his hand
molded in brass, with the knuckles held together by tiny screws. Now he knew
all that went inside, he marveled anew at her creativity.
    “You did all this to milk cows?”
    One side of her mouth tilted up. “We were losing farmhands
and needed to do something. The mere fact that Rand held a position should tell
you how close to impoverished we were.”
    “By the standards of aristocrats.”
    “Country gentry,” she said. “I think you’d have to go back
two hundred years to find a title in our family tree, maybe more.”
    “I am impressed with your skill, if not your relations.” He
stared at the thing, both what he’d most longed for and dreaded, as he never
thought he’d acquire one without being impressed into BAE service, and they’d
be as likely to hang him as bring him aboard