The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads: A Steampunk Fantasy Romance by Laurel Wanrow Page B

volcano because the rocks were all wrong. The formation of such a crater might be a mystery, but more mysterious still was why she’d never heard of one’s presence in the Peak District.
    Behind her, a door banged shut. Annmar whirled. Strutting from a cottage came a man in a worn tweed suit and a matching waistcoat over a pale blue shirt. He looked dressed for church, except for the railroad cap covering his gray hair. His beard stuck out in long wispy strands reaching to his watch chain. He moved quickly for a man of his age and stepped right up to her.
    “You Miss Masterson?” His accent was pure Peaks, the ends of his words clipped off.
    She nodded.
    “Mr. Fetcher said to expect you. I’m Mr. Yates.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” she said. Then, with another daring look over the crater valley, she asked, “Where am I?”
    “You’re headed to Wellspring?” He barely waited for her nod. “It’s there.” He pointed to the nearest town, one hosting three spires. A line of tracks cut straight to it. “West of Chapel Hollow, not far from Breakthrough Gap, as I’m sure Mr. Fetcher promised.”
    Her head was spinning. “Breakthrough Gap?”
    “What it’s called from the Blighted Basin side.” He gestured to the crater again and gave her a studied look.
    Annmar hastily swallowed before Blighted Basin? tumbled out. She straightened, trying to keep an unruffled demeanor. What a horrible name. Blighted didn’t fit this lush countryside at all. Not to mention, how could this huge valley be within the Peaks? Farms, villages and a town settling it? Serviced by a modern steam engine?
    “Strong artistic Knack, Mr. Fetcher said. Not surprised you worked the Proof if that’s the case. You traversed the Gateway easily?”
    The Gateway Proof. That’s what Mr. Fetcher called the blue seal. Her gaze dropped briefly to the paper packet she still clenched. She hadn’t seen a gate. Only the dark, cramped gorge… Mr. Yates gestured behind her with his chin, and she turned to look back.
    There was no narrowing gorge, no dark, confining trap of rock. No howl, just the twitter of birds. The rocky cliffs left an adequate gap, wide enough even the tiny tollbooth station was visible. The steam loader chugged around the building, her trunk perched on the top. The ash trees swayed in the breeze, and when their arching branches waved together, the lines of trees, rock and rails connected in a huge ring. For a second, the center of the circle shimmered blue. The trees shifted again, and the image snapped away like all her other imaginings.
    Annmar sucked a breath. As if in one of Polly’s stories, apparently she’d passed through a Gateway because she had the Proof, given to her by a man who liked her art and thought she was Mother, who probably would have had a better idea than her daughter what exactly was happening here.
    Nerves.
    To cover her confusion, Annmar said, “Yes,” because that’s what Mr. Yates expected. Tell the customer what he wants to hear, Mrs. Rennet always said. Though in Mr. Shearing’s case, that had proved a mistake.
    She should go back to Derby before this baffling trip landed her in some even more dreadful situation. Annmar clenched one hand around her satchel strap, the other into Mother’s shawl and forced her thoughts into order. This couldn’t possibly be as awful a situation as the one Mr. Shearing had proposed. Her fingers found her hidden half sovereigns. No employer paid gold for a farce. This Mistress Gere and Wellspring Collective offered real employment. Employment it would be a shame not to test.
    She would do this.
    Annmar took a breath and evenly asked, “When does the train leave?”
    “As soon as it’s ready. Might take them a bit with the loading.”
    “Oh.” She looked around. The steam loader drew up to a waiting rack railway. “I could purchase my ticket while I wait.”
    “You could.”
    Did he think she couldn’t pay? “How much is it?”
    “Not much. Surely less than