Camera Obscura by Lavie Tidhar

– at peril?
      She filed it away, for now. And yet…
      Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, biting her lower lip. "There was a fat man. With the lizard."
      Milady and the Gascon exchanged glances. "What did he do?"
      "Nothing. But…"
      The Gascon sighed.
      Milady: "What did you do then?"
      And now the girl blushed. Her bluster gone, she said, "I went upstairs. There was a room… Yong Li had settled the bill in advance."
      Pipes and moving parts, water and soft brushes, warmth and cold, moving about her, settling her down, touching her–
      "And there was something else," she said. "I noticed it, later. When I was… when I was done. Coming out of the room, at the end of the corridor, a room unlike the others, the door black and half-open, for just a moment. I saw shadows flickering on a wall, light and shades, moving shapes. I couldn't make them out, and then the door closed. It was only for a moment."
      Shadows flickering, light and shades – the girl: "Like a camera obscura."
      A projection. Milady de Winter, adding it to her list. "And Yong Li?"
      "I waited at the bar. A man spoke to me. He said some of them still preferred human to machine. I said, after the last hour, I wasn't so sure I did – we laughed, he bought me a drink. Yong Li came down half an hour later. He was holding his stomach again, in pain. We left."
      Lady de Winter, reaching across the interrogation table. Her hand on the girl's, black on pale white – "I'll find him. I promise you I'll–"
    The girl, softly: "I know." A change between them.
     
    "So what do you want to do?" the Gascon said.
      Leads, possibilities, branching off into unknown paths – but which to follow? She said, "She mentioned an artist."
      "Henri," the Gascon said thoughtfully. "Yes."
      "You know him?"
      "Who doesn't? If a house has ill repute Henri will be there, drawing. For a while you could find him nearly every night at the Moulin Rouge but I did hear he was rarely to be found there now. Henri…" Looking up at her, suddenly troubled. "He was at the bar earlier. Where we found the body."
      A short man – an adult body with stunted child's legs. She'd noticed him, yes – "We should talk to him."
      If the Gascon noticed the we he gave no sign. But between them, too, something had changed – a mutual acceptance, as momentary as it may be – two professionals agreeing to work together, to put aside, if only for a while, their differences. Nothing to be stated in words, but there nevertheless–
      "He isn't hard to find."
      "And the Clockwork Room–" She yawned, and suddenly couldn't stop. Outside the window, the first rays of sunlight could be seen. All the coffee in the world, she suddenly thought, won't be enough. The Gascon said, "You can't do everything."
      "I have to," she said, knowing there was a curiously plaintive tone in her voice. "There is no one else."
      "Get some rest," he said. "You can sleep here, if you like. I'll clear a room. There is nothing to be done now that the night is ending. Even murderers have to sleep."
      "I'm not so sure…" she said, puzzled, and yawned again. And, giving in – "I'll take the coach."
     
    • • • •
     
    Morning was rising around her as the silent coachman drove her home. The morning's sounds, the morning's smells – fresh bread and greengrocers opening their shutters, the cockerels crowing, the traffic picking up – coaches and baruch-landaus, newfangled bicycles, above the last of the night's airships going back to depot, having delivered the night mail.
      Back at her apartments, no servants, no living thing – in the drawing room she paused. Grimm, curled up in the unlit fireplace, munching slowly on a lump of coal. She smiled and stroked him, briefly, and tiredness overwhelmed her. To her bath, drawing it herself, adding salts and scents and lying in the water, almost falling asleep… Washing away, gradually, the night's sights and smells and