Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) by Jacqueline E. Garlick

country, into the unknown.
    Where are we going? Where is he taking me? My head cranks around. Good Lord, what have I done?
    I rest my chin on the back of the seat, face pressed to the window glass, trembling, as I peer out from beneath the flapping carpet at the last sliver of Gears. The horizon fades into the rolling cloud and my stomach drops like a stone. My eyes warm at the thought of the stranger and I release a terrified breath. Who is he? What is he? I swallow. What was I thinking?
    I spin around and throw my head against the cushioned seat. Whatever happens now, I must be brave. Mother would want that from me. I must get through this on my own. I must not reveal who I am, or why I’ve come. I must stay solely focused on the machine. I’ve come all this way to use it, and use it I shall. I’ll let no one stop me.
    Once I’ve used it, things will be different. I will no longer be the leper I’ve been, but a lamb, with a new life just beginning.
    The light in my pendant catches my eye. It’s pulsing emerald light bathes the dark carriage in an eerie green glow. Something sparks, like a bolt of lightning within the tiny vial and I gasp. I roll the vial over in my fingers and it sparks again. It’s a charge—no, a tiny, bottled, candescent arc.
    The vial starts to pulse more quickly than before. The power of it warms my skin. How can the key to my future—to everyone’s future—be held here, in this tiny vessel of glass? And why does it contain an arc?
    Mother would have told me if she knew, wouldn’t she?
    She must not have known. But why wouldn’t Father have told her? I move my eyes to the ceiling, remembering.
    Perhaps there wasn’t time.
    Or perhaps it was too dangerous for her to know.
    I think about Father’s notebook, tucked safely down the side of my boot. He’d used Lumière as code in order to hide the Illuminator’s whereabouts from Smrt. What could he have hidden inside this glass?
    I turn to the heap of metal sitting next to me, concealed behind the drape. Just as I’m poised to pull back the curtain, a surge of silver prickles in my veins. A lightning bolt of it this time, rising steadily, yanking at my breath. Burning bread. I smell burning bread. My warning, the only warning I ever get before the silver drags me under. It’s a grand mal seizure this time, not just a petit one like the one that struck me back at the hedges. I’ll not escape its venomous strike.
    No. Please. No. I clutch the seat, trying to quell my fear. I’ve never gone through a grand mal seizure alone. My mother’s always been there. The petit ones I can handle, I’ve trained myself how; but a full-blown seizure without assistance, or anyone to hide the fact…
    I may not even survive it.
    I start to tremble, the silver invading, first my lips, then my entire jaw. It won’t be long now. I can feel it, the heaviness inside my organs, the softening of my limbs. I can try to fight it, but it’s no use. The demon that lurks within me controls me now.
    Clinging to the last fragments of my consciousness, I panic, clawing at the seat. What if the stranger overhears me moaning and stops, only to discover me collapsed and gyrating about on the floor of his carriage, mouth agape, tongue exposed—frothing?
    What then?
    What if he thinks I’m Mad—or worse? What if he deems me a Cantationer possessed of demonic thought, and hands me over to the authorities for the practice of Wickedry, before I’ve even had the chance to wake up?
    I can’t let that happen. He can’t see me. He must not hear.
    With the last shred of my strength, I tear my gloves from my hands, ball them, and stuff them in my mouth just as the silver pulls me under. My body quakes. I writhe down the seat onto the floorboards, my face mashed against the red velvet cushion, buttons etching lines into my cheeks.
    Inside the heavy smoke that muddles my brain I see him—my father—standing next to my machine.
    The Illuminator.
    The one he invented solely for