Free Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) by Kristin Bailey

I could barely see him in the dim light.
    “What if this wakes the groom again?” I asked.
    “Well, we did have an invitation.”
    I let out a chuckle, and a little rebellion took hold. I felt the medallion, then took my grandfather’s master key from around my neck and fitted it into the lock. The key was all I had left of my grandfather, and it had the power to unlock any Amusement, so long as one knew the song it played and could complete the musical phrase the key started.
    I listened to the song coming from the key, but I already knew Rathford’s musical code by heart. I turned the thin dial around the edge of the seal, playing the notes to release the lock.
    Immediately the floor beneath us shuddered with a low rumble. Then it dropped with a sudden lurch. I clung to Will’s forearm as the noise reverberated through the carriage house. I could feel the shaking in my bones. We sank deeper and deeper into a pit, taking the large coach with us.
    Once we had lowered at least ten feet, we heard another piercing neigh, then a shout. I rolled to the edge of the sheet and peeked up from beneath it. We were now at least twentyfeet beneath the ground, and sinking ever faster. The groom stood at the edge of the pit with his mouth agape and his lantern swinging helplessly in his hand.
    “Oi, oi!” he shouted, turning this way and that, as if he didn’t know where to look for help. A grinding noise of old gears coming to life filled the pit. I had to cover my ears as the hole closed above me. Two dark panels slid together, reforming the floor of the stable and plunging us into darkness.
    I felt Will’s body crawl next to mine as we continued our descent in pitch black. Then I heard a familiar whirring.
    Spinning wheels with flint edges rubbed against strikers, showering sparks in the darkness. It was an eerie sight, like fountains of raining stars.
    Braziers beneath the flint wheels caught fire and lit a large chamber deep beneath the carriage house. We were in a room cluttered with the remains of half-formed inventions and large mechanical parts. One of Rathford’s mechanical lions lay on his side with a panel in his chest open and parts spilling out. Though I knew in my head it was only a machine, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was staring at a dead beast, some poor creature brought low on a safari to prove the manhood of a stuffy blue blood paying to feel the thrill of adventure.
    Dust and cobwebs had settled on everything, giving the room a ghostly quality. The platform we were on lowered five more feet, until it became a seamless part of the floor.
    As soon as it settled, I scrambled out from beneath the coach, with Will close behind. Looking around, I quickly examined the structure of the gears and rails set into the walls on either side of the platform that we had descended upon.
    “It’s going to be difficult to explain away a disappearing coach,” I said.
    “If we put it back, maybe they won’t notice it was missing. It’s the same mechanism as the lift in the Foundry,” Will said, stepping quickly to our left.
    “I think it will be difficult to forget watching it sink through the floor. There!” Just beyond him was a large lever. He grabbed it, and I helped him pull. The lever was stiff from lack of use, but together we managed to break it loose.
    The floor rose once more. Will and I watched the covered coach ascend the shaft, disappearing into the ceiling. It continued its upward progress until the gears in the lift stopped turning and fell silent.
    “Perhaps he’ll think this was all a dream?” Will offered.
    “I sincerely doubt that.” My heart was pounding, and the bubble of laughter began deep in my chest. It felt so naughtyto be sneaking around this way, and in this house. I placed my hands over my mouth, trying to hold back my mirth as Will’s eyes crinkled in the corners. Then he too joined me in conspiratorial laughter.
    I tried to take a few deep breaths to compose myself, but it was no