The Tank: Chapter Seventeen, Part Two, aka THE END!!!

Notes: THE END! IT'S THE END! THE END OF THE TANK, HOLY CRAP! And it's not as perfectly HFN/HEA as I usually go, because I think I need one more story in this world to round it all out. However! It's still hopeful, and will hopefully satisfy you :)

What comes next? Honestly, for the rest of this month it will probably be vignettes and excerpts as I take some time for massive edits on the book I've contracted with Entangled, coming out in 2021. After that...I don't know yet! Something very different. We'll all find out in June :)

Thanks for sticking with me, darlins! I love you and appreciate you coming to read my blog stories.

Title: The Tank: Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

***

Chapter Seventeen, Part Two

The room was dark, only barely illuminated by the remains of the fire in the grate. It was intimate, which fit the mood, but not a warm, tender intimacy like Camille had just shared with Anton. This was an intimacy forged from blood and duty, and despite the bond that flowed between him and his half-brother, Camille felt cold within it.

“You have your instructions?”

“I do.”

“Good.” His brother swirled the brandy in his rounded glass moodily before taking a sip. “We need a to make an example of the Dévoué, preferably one that will serve to inspire our own aristocracy back into line as well. I need a list of suitable targets within two months, at least ten, no more than twenty.”

“Understood.”

He sighed in a long-suffering manner. “You needn’t be so petulant about it.”

“Petulant, Laurent?” Camille half wished he had his own glass of brandy at the moment, so he could have the satisfaction of throwing it into his brother’s face. “I’m not petulant.”

Laurent scoffed. “I see it in every line of your face, every movement of your body. Don’t blame me for your lover’s inability to choose his friends wisely, Camille.”

“I don’t blame you for that,” Camille said, making an effort to keep his voice even. “I certainly do blame you for putting him into a position where he had to give up both his freedom and his research to further a cause he has next to nothing to do with, though.”

“He did so voluntarily.”

“Because you threatened to kill a woman he loves like a sister as a spy!”

“She was a spy,” Laurent said simply. “Letting her go without some sort of punishment or appropriate governmental exchange would weaken my position in court, which is something neither of us can afford. Proulx wasn’t the only man in a position of power with doubts about the monarchy, and you and I are both very vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life in Paris, brother. You know I had no choice.”

“You had to act,” Camille agreed reluctantly. “But you didn’t have to force his hand.”

“I didn’t even know he had anything to offer,” Laurent pointed out. “But I’m grateful for all of us that he did. If this works, Camille, we will buy peace for the entirety of the French Empire for years with it. Tell me you see that.”

“I see it.” But you will buy it at the cost of Anton’s heart and soul. Nothing he could say would dissuade his brother once he had the bit between his teeth, though. “I will go now.” He stood up and pulled on his cloak.

Laurent stood up as well. “I need regular messages, weekly if you can manage it.”

“I shall.”

“And return here within two months’ time.”

Two months… It was barely enough time to do what Laurent wanted from him, and far too much time to be separated from Anton. Camille’s heart yearned to rejoin him, to kiss him awake and fill him with pleasure. He was the first thing that Camille had ever wanted for himself, with no regard to family or duty, and the only thing he’d wanted to keep separate from those heavy responsibilities. Now they were inextricable, and he felt sick with the weight of that knowledge.

Laurent touched his arm with one chill hand. “I will ensure he’s taken care of,” he assured Camille. “No harm will come to Mr. Seiber while he remains with us. You have my word.”

Camille knew it was the best his brother could do. “Thank you.” After a moment’s wavering, he leaned in and embraced the other man. Laurent seemed startled, but clasped him back for a moment.

“Carry on then, Lord Lumière,” he said once they were parted.

“As you bid, Lord Jourdain.” Camille put on his tall hat and nodded, then left his brother’s cozy study and headed along the cold, empty corridor to the front of the Institute, where a carriage was waiting for him. He didn’t stop to take one last look at Anton. He couldn’t—he couldn’t bear to leave him again.

He stepped into the cold pre-dawn air, handed his valise over to the footman waiting for him, and got into the simple black coach. It rattled as it set off down the road for Paris, and the train that would take him north.

Camille closed his eyes, bit his lip, and tried not to think of Anton.

He failed.

Be well. May God and my brother keep you safe until we see each other once more.

For if they did not…Camille would burn the world down.

The Tank: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

Notes: Anton reveals all! One more full chapter to go after this, darling ;)

Title: The Tank: Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part Two

The entire room went silent. Anton was very aware of the fact that the reactions of the men around him were vastly different, ranging from dismay to curiosity to cold appraisal, but he didn’t let himself respond. It was time for them to come to him, to see that he had something to bargain with. It wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he wasn’t going to let Caroline be murdered for her own foolishness, either. She would pay a price for getting caught as a spy when she returned to England, he was sure of it, but by God she would return to England and be there for her family, and for Anton’s mother, who Caroline loved like her own.

“To my knowledge, you’re not an engineer,” Lord Jourdain said at last. “Nor are you a weapons expert of any kind. Your gifts are solely thaumaturgical—indeed, you specialize in spells relating to the dead. Your skillset seems irrelevant in the theater of war.”

“So are your tanks,” Anton said bluntly. “They’re little more than firework flingers right now, as I understand it. They can’t fire solid shot, and you don’t have the facilities up and running to make shells that they can fire. You’re looking at the prospect of a slow but seething revolt, one that will attract all manner of people to its banner, and your show of force is utterly ineffective. It won’t take long for people to realize that they have nothing to fear from your tanks.”

Lord Jourdain folded his hands. “We will have new models and sufficient ammunition developed within the year.”

“Developed, but not in mass production,” Anton countered. “Not in the numbers you need. You need something quickly, that can get the point across to your enemies that you’re not to be trifled with. Something powerful, that strikes fear into their hearts. You thought that something was the spell Montgomery carried around in his head, a weapon that always kills, bullets that never miss their target. I say you are not being imaginative enough.”

“And you are?”

“I am.”

“Anton, no,” Camille said softly behind him. Against his better judgement, Anton turned and looked at his lover. His handsome face was exquisitely pained, like Saint Sebastian pierced through the heart by arrows fired at his emperor’s orders. “Don’t give them this. They will only corrupt it.”

Anton opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself, but the truth was that Camille was right. The empire would take his spell and use it, and it would bring them victory. It would also cause a terrible amount of pain, of mental and emotional agony to those who witnessed its effects, and possibly bring about a number of deaths on its own.

But what would the Dévoué do, as they sought to amass their own power? What would the bored, unruly aristocrats who longed for conflict do? How many deaths would they bring about as they sought to throw down their emperor?

In the end, Anton had no way of weighing the balance of the lives that would be changed by his decision. All he was certain he could do was save one life, one person. He would do that, and gladly be damned.

“Let me show you.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a small wooden sphere. “Or at least, let me show you, Dr. Grable. The lords, given their afflictions, will not see what we see, but you will be able to recite the truth of it to them.” He looked at Lord Jourdain. “Has anyone ever died in this room?”

The man’s flinch was slight, but decidedly there. “Yes.”

“Then here will work fine.” Not giving himself a moment to reconsider, he twisted the globe in his hands, feeling its heat expand against his fingertips as the chemicals inside mixed together. He dropped it on the floor, and a second later his alchemical equation flared to life across the surface of the wood, a brief burst of glowing silver. A second later the ball dissolved completely, particles of ash and metal and blood rising into the air. For a moment, nothing happened. And then…

The woman who swirled up out of the smoke was beautiful, but her face was anguished. She knelt on the floor in front of the desk, facing away from it, holding a small paring knife or letter opener in her hands. She opened her mouth with a despairing scream, and a moment later drew the blade across her own throat.

It seared like fire, and Anton clutched his neck with a gasp. Dr. Grable did the same. She bled and bled, crying but unable to moan with her ruined throat, and in under a minute she was dead.

“Good God in Heaven,” Dr. Grable murmured, his face as pale as chalk. “I have seen spells like this before, Seiber, with the freshly dead, but never felt them like this before. How is it possible?”

Anton coughed a bit, just to remind his body that his throat still worked. “A happy accident, one that won’t be easy to reproduce without my assistance,” he said hoarsely. “And I won’t give it unless Caroline is freed and allowed to return home.”

Lord Jourdain looked at Dr. Grable with surprise on his face. “What did you see?”

“A woman slitting her own throat,” Dr. Grable growled. “When did that happen?”

Lord Jourdain went very still for a moment. “Almost a decade ago,” he said at last. “This spell replays deaths? Even ones as old as that?”

“Even older, depending on the strongest miasma in the area,” Anton confirmed. “Death leaves a much more powerful trace than most people give it credit for.”

“And you contain that spell within your simple wooden ball?”

“I do.” He looked Lord Jourdain straight in the eye. “Will you trade a useless spy for ammunition that will allow your tanks to function as intended now, today even? I have more of these in my holdall. With proper packaging, they could be deployed over very long distances. And when they land…” He shrugged. “It isn’t physical annihilation, but it’s certainly incapacitating for a time.” And horrifying.

“You agree to stay here and work with us on this matter until we are secure in the results and manufacture of your spell and do not require your continued services?” Lord Jourdain asked.

“Within reason, yes. I won’t stay here forever.” Except he might, if it meant Caroline going free, but he wasn’t going to admit that yes.

“Nor would we want you to,” Lord Jourdain said dryly. “You’ve proven far slipperier than I ever imagined when I first set eyes on you. God only knows what you could get up to here on a permanent basis.” He sat back in his chair. “Agreed. In exchange for your spell, and your assistance in adapting it to suit our tanks, I will have Lady Cuthbert on a ship back to England within a day’s time.”

“Unharmed.”

“Unharmed, naturally.” Lord Jourdain smiled. “Welcome to your life for the foreseeable future, Mr. Seiber.”

And what a future it is.

The Tank: Chapter Sixteen, Part One

Notes:  The big reveals, the little reveals, the cliffhanger reveals! Three more weeks and we're done with this one, darlins. Buckle up!

Title: The Tank: Chapter Sixteen, Part One

***

Chapter Sixteen, Part One

It was only Anton, Lord Jourdain, Dr. Grable and Camille who met in the administrator’s office a short while later. Lord Atwood had lost all interest in the proceedings once the death had been meted out, and Caroline was escorted to her own rooms, to be held under lock and key until Jourdain made decision about her. At least it wasn’t the Hole, but Anton wasn’t inclined to be charitable at the moment.

“What does he mean by assistance?” Anton demanded of his mentor as soon as the guards left. “What did you have to do with this charade? How long did you know this was going to happen?” A sudden thought left him cold. “Did you…have you been planning this since Zurich? Did you know what was going to happen on our journey?”

Dr. Grable held up peaceable hands. “I had no notion back then,” he insisted. “I truly thought we were coming here to assess the production and figure out where the saboteur was here. I wasn’t brought fully on board until a short time ago.”

“But there was no saboteur.” Anton turned to Lord Jourdain. “There wasn’t really a saboteur, am I right? It was part of your ruse.”

“Indeed,” he said, as unruffled as ever as he sat down behind his large, mahogany desk. It was topped with white marble, struck through here and there with gold veins. Suitable for a child of the emperor, Anton thought, because that was who he was seeing here. Not a simple lord, not a societal outcast, not even the powerful keeper of the empire’s intellectual secrets. This was a man who bowed to very few people, and certainly no one in this room. This was a man secure in his personal importance, so secure that he hadn’t hesitated to manipulate them like pawns on a chess board. Or perhaps, more aptly, daisies in a daisy chain, because Anton certainly felt all knotted up right now.

“I needed to accomplish several things in short order,” he went on. “First and foremost, I needed to unseat the simmering rebellion rising in the aristocracy’s ranks, fomented by none other than the more military-minded Vicomte Voclain. To do so, I needed an excuse to get him here. I was going to use the tanks as my lever—he has been asking about them for months, and his brother didn’t see fit to check him—but then, well, Wilhelm was murdered. It was unplanned, but  most convenient.”

“You knew about the cardinal, then,” Anton said. “What he thought about you, what his plans were.”

“Of course. Anyone who’s ever met dear Hrym knows the boy is terrible at keeping secrets. It was simplicity itself to coax the content of his confessions out, and coupled with other things I’ve heard and seen in these corridors, it was no surprise. I was a bit shocked he took matters into his own hands,” Lord Jourdain added, “but then I met the cardinal’s chosen assassin and, well. He made a grave mistake there.”

“But what does this have to do with Caroline? Or me?” Anton asked. “Or, or Camille, for that matter?”

Lord Jourdain sighed, and Dr. Grable winced. Anton couldn’t see what Camille did, since he was standing behind him, but he assumed it was similarly pained. “You really must learn to be more discreet,” Lord Jourdain admonished. “Calling him by his given name? Far too familiar. If Cardinal Proulx could see through your façade, imagine what someone with direct authority over you might do.”

“It’s not my business,” Dr. Grable said in a kind tone that grated on Anton worse than a harsh warning would have. “But you really should take more precautions if you’re determined to carry on with a man, especially one as scrutinized as a lumière.”

Still nothing from Camille. Anton ignored the silence for now. A revelation was brewing inside of him, something big—something that Camille knew to be wary of. Anton just had to figure out what that was.

“Honestly, it all had very little to do with you,” Lord Jourdain said. “Certainly, it was a stroke of luck your knowing Lady Cuthbert, but that is down to the foresight of your mentor, not any of my doing.”

And suddenly Anton knew. He knew what Camille had been doing in Zurich. He turned to look at him, and received a carefully blank face in return. Anton wanted to knock the moustache off this cold, calculated man.

“You were there for Caroline.”

Camille shook his head. “I was there on a personal matter—”

“You were there for Caroline! You knew, somehow you knew that she was a spy and you were following her even then!” It was the only explanation Anton could think of that made sense.

“No, Anton.” Emotion finally cracked through Camille’s stiff exterior—regret, pain, unhappiness. Anton stuffed his urge to comfort down deep inside. “I was there to see you.”

“You…what?”

Camille sighed. “A personal matter, I said. Remember? I had not seen you in nearly a year, I had just finished a hellish stint chasing Montgomery and his ilk through countries and across mountains, and I…I wanted to see you again. Lady Cuthbert’s presence was entirely coincidental.”

Anton stared, stunned and disbelieving, at Camille. He stared back grimly.

“It appears Mr. Seiber isn’t the only one in need of a reminder on how to remain discreet,” Lord Jourdain said dryly. “Brother, really.” He straightened some papers on his desk. “Your personal quandaries will have to wait. There is still the matter of what to do with Lady Cuthbert.” He smirked, just a hint of it around the lips, but more than enough to set Anton’s blood to boiling. “She is a comparatively decent prisoner for trade, but given that she was betrayed by someone on her own side, well…” He shrugged slightly. “Perhaps she would best serve as a warning.”

Anton felt his blood go completely cold. “You can’t mean killing her.”

“I can, and I do. She is a spy and a thief, Mr. Seiber.”

“She is a mother, a wife, a member of the peerage!” Anton protested. “She is precious to them!”

“Not as precious as she is to you, perhaps.” Lord Jourdain tilted his head slightly. “Another lover?”

“No! Not anything like that. Just an old friend.” Anton swallowed hard. “My oldest friend. You must let her return to England.”

“Absolutely not.” His voice was final. “There is nothing you could offer me to allow that. She must pay, one way or another, for her attempt on our sovereignty. She will stay here for the time being, while you and Dr Grable go—”

“I can fix your tanks.”