“What are you doing?” the driver demanded. “Get away, you’ll hurt yourself.”

The right half of his face was bright red, already burned.

“I’m going to lift this off of you. As soon as you can, you crawl out.”

“You’re mad! You can’t lift—”

She could, and she did. She squatted and gripped the edge of the frame, her fingers finding purchase on a thin lip of trim. The man’s jaw gaped as she pushed with her legs, lifting the heavy vehicle from his pinned body. She glanced down at him. “More? Or are you good?”

“G-good,” he replied, scurrying out from beneath the vehicle. Once he was clear, she lowered the carriage back to the street. The gathered crowd chattered around her, gasped and applauded. She heard the click of a camera and turned her head—a photographer had set up not ten feet away. He could stop to take photographs but not to help? What sort of man was he?

“I don’t suppose you could help us out, could you?” asked a voice above her head.

Mila looked up. A man’s head poked up through the door of the overturned carriage. He offered her a shaky smile. “We can’t quite climb out.”

“Oh, of course.” Bracing her palms on the carriage, she hefted herself up, opened the door and offered her hand to the man and young boy inside. She hauled the boy out first, then his father, and assisted them both to the street. She hopped down with the boy in her arms.

By then, the authorities had arrived. Mila gave the boy to his father, and slipped into the crowd. She was followed by a few people, including the photographer.

“Miss!” he called. “Miss, a word, please?”

She whirled on him. “Leave me alone. You didn’t even try to help.”

He looked at her as though she were mad. “Why would I?”

What a disgusting waste of humanity. An embarrassment to his kind. She turned her back on him and rejoined the girls at the boardinghouse. People watched her, but no one else approached. The girls stared at her.

“Well,” said Marissa with a grin. “I think we’ve found what you’re good at.”

* * *

From the number of poor people in London, Mila had thought getting a job was a difficult endeavor. Even Jack didn’t have a job. It turned out, however, to be quite simple to gain employment. All she had to do was walk into the office of Mr. Anders, the manager of Pick-a-dilly Circus, and pick up his desk.

With him and all the girls from Mrs. Rhodes’s sitting on it.

“I’ll be jiggered!” the man exclaimed from his perch, little round glasses sliding down his thin nose. “You start tonight! Go talk to Elsie about arranging the act.”

Mila peered up at from beneath their feet. She had lifted the desk almost completely above her head. “Should I put you down first?”

“A sound notion,” her new employer replied with a chuckle. He looked like a baby sparrow.

The girls giggled in glee as they escorted her to the main performance area where a petite, voluptuous woman with impossibly red hair piled on top of her head was arguing with a man easily twice her height.

“That’s Georges,” Millie whispered, leaning across her sister to do so. “He’s from France and just over ten feet tall!”

“Millie thinks he’s cute,” Henrietta added.

Her sister flushed. “Well, you like Elsie.”

Henrietta blushed, as well, and Mila stared at them both for just a second before looking at the man and woman about whom the twins spoke. The world was much more complex and incredible than she’d first thought. People came in all shapes and sizes, and apparently love didn’t care if the object of your affection was the same sex as you or not—though she’d read text that tried to make her believe otherwise.

And how extraordinary were Millie and Henrietta? On the way there someone had called them freaks. Mila wanted to punch the woman, but Millie just smiled and said, “Yes, and it’s contagious.” Then she pretended to sneeze on the woman and her companion, who scurried away, making all sorts of disgusted and fearful noises. All the girls had laughed, linked arms and continued on their way.

The moment Gina’s arm looped through hers, and Henrietta took her other, Mila knew what it was to have friends. To belong. She would do anything to protect these girls and that feeling.

“I wish I knew what they were saying,” Marissa whispered. “They sound angry.”

Mila glanced at her. “She’s saying that he has no romance in his soul, that he’s an embarrassment to Frenchmen everywhere and ought to be ashamed of himself for that abysmal performance.”

The girls all stared at her. “You understand French?”

Right, that wasn’t normal either. But these girls didn’t know she had begun life as a highly complex machine with a enhanced logic engine capable of infinite learning. “Yes,” she said. “And he just told her that she’s heartless because his routines are nothing but a study in passion.”

Beside her the twins sighed. Gina snorted. It was that rude noise that interrupted the fierce exchange going on just a few feet away. Elsie turned around and stared at them. “Oy, what do you lot want?”

Mila’s brows shot up. It was hard to believe that such flawless French could be followed by such a typical cockney accent. Then again, Jack could speak Latin. He would do that sometimes around the house. He said it was to keep both of their minds sharp.

“This is Mila, Elsie,” Gina said. “Mr. Anders just hired her.”

“To be wot?”

“The World’s Strongest Girl,” said Millie.

“Woman,” corrected her sister.

Elsie ignored them. “’Ow strong are ya?”

“Strong,” Mila replied with a shrug. She had no idea if there was a limit to her strength—it had never been tested.

Georges picked up a large pair of iron manacles and tossed them at her. She caught them easily—which seemed to surprise the giant. “What do you want me to do with these?”

“Put ’em on,” Elsie instructed. “Then try to break free.”

“That seems like a waste of time.” Mila grabbed the thick links of chain in either hand and pulled until the iron snapped apart. Easy. She tossed the ruined restraints back to Georges. “A ruin of good chain, too. Anything else?”

“Mon Dieu,” said Georges. “Elle est fantastique!” He then brought her a large steel bar—solid—and made a motion that she should try to bend it.

Mila bent the bar in half. She liked the way it felt in her hands, all that metal helpless against her will.

Georges grabbed her head in his huge hands and kissed her soundly on either cheek, laughing and praising her in his native tongue. He called her magnificent, beautiful—a gift from God even.

“Now, that’s wot I’m talkin’ about!” Elsie enthused and clapped Georges on the hip—she only came up to just above his waist. “Give this girl an act, Georgie boy! Meanwhile, come wiv me, girlie. We’ve got to get you outfitted. You start tonight.”

Her friends cheered and hugged Mila, who grinned happily and allowed herself to be pulled into the wardrobe area to try on costumes.

Jack had said the world could be dangerous. He never said just how wonderful it could be, as well!

* * *

Finley watched Griffin as he slept. There was little else for her to do.

That was wrong. She could hunt down Lord Felix, but he wasn’t worth leaving Griffin’s side. Wasn’t worth leaving her father, even though he’d tried to talk her into doing just that. Truth be told, she was a little afraid of facing Felix and his girls again. There wasn’t much in the world that frightened her, but those girls did. She didn’t want to end up one of them.

She glanced at the stranger with the familiar face. Her father. She didn’t know what to call him—Papa seemed to personal. She didn’t even know how to talk to him. She loved him by virtue of who he was, but he was a total stranger. He didn’t seem to know what to do with her either.

“How much longer do you have before you’re forced to wake up?” he asked.

“No idea,” she replied honestly. “Soon, probably.” She wasn’t worried. Emily would make certain she did what she was supposed to. She was just going to sit here and guard Griffin while he regained his strength.

“He means a lot to you.”

She didn’t look up. “Yes.”

“His father was a good man. I was honored to call him a friend.” He stretched out his legs from the chair where he sat, across from her own. Griffin was between them on a settee. “You know, it’s odd that you and Griffin found one another again. You played together as children.”

That made her look up. Her astonished gaze met his twinkling one. “We did?”

He nodded. “The former duke and duchess, God rest their souls, used to invite your mother and me over from time to time. They didn’t care one wit that we weren’t of the same social circles. They believed in playing with children, and spending time with them. They would ask us to bring you with us so that Griffin could play with another child. Sometimes his steward would bring his son, as well.”

Good lord, she and Griffin and Sam used to play together? She would have been very young—three at the most. “I wish I could remember it.” And then, before she lost her nerve, “I wish I could remember you.”

“Yes, well...” He rubbed the back of his neck. He looked so young. Far too young to be the father of a girl almost seventeen, but then, he was frozen for all eternity as the father of a toddler. A man who probably intended to have more children. A man who should have been given the chance to have more children—normal children.

“It’s all right,” she said when he didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Finley Jayne Sheppard, had I known I had passed my affliction onto you, I would have tried harder to be a better man and a better father. But I...I thought you and your mother would be better off without me, so I fell for Garibaldi’s trickery and died when I should have fought. I should have fought for you. I should have killed Leonardo when I had the chance. Instead, I gave up and I am so very sorry for that.”

What could she say to that? She couldn’t say it didn’t matter because it did. She couldn’t say it was all right, because it wasn’t. “I wish you had been around to teach me how to handle my other self.”

“Yes. I wish that, as well.”

“But he taught me.” She gestured at Griffin. “He helped me when I thought no one could. He believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself.”

Her father smiled. “You love him.”

“Yes.” There was no shame in admitting it. No fear. “I do. What am I supposed to do?”

“Help him when no one else can. Believe in him when he doesn’t believe in himself.”

She scowled. It was callous to throw those words back at her in such a blasé tone. “Don’t mock me.”

“I’d never mock you.” In fact, he seemed offended by the accusation. “Griffin King is quite possibly the most powerful Aethermancer on the planet. If he cannot defeat Garibaldi, no one can. What he needs from you is strength and support.”

“I don’t know how.” If she cried she was going to slam her head into the wall for being such a sissy.

Her father reached across the tea table and took her hand. “My dear girl, you braved death itself for him. You already know how.”

Yes, she supposed she did. She closed her fingers around his. Helplessness wasn’t an emotion she experienced very often, but it almost always attached itself to a situation that involved people she loved. Her feelings for Griffin made this time even worse. “Thank you.”

He smiled, amber eyes crinkling at the corners. “I am so very proud of you, and so thankful for the opportunity to tell you.”

Oh, damn. There came the tears. Her father rose out of his chair and came around to kneel before her, gathering her into his arms. Finley wrapped her own arms around his neck and hung on for all she was worth. She was hugging her father. Her real father. Silas Crane, her stepfather, was a good and wonderful man, but this man was part of her. This man, flawed as he was, was the one who set her on the path that brought her to the best friends she’d ever had. To Griffin, who had helped her realize her potential and start becoming the person she wanted to be.

This man had died because he thought it would make the world better for her. If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.

He held her until her tears dried—it didn’t take that long. Then he ran a hand over her hair, kissed her forehead, stood up and left the room. Finley watched him go until she realized why he had left.