Aether Spirit by Cecilia Dominic

was without having to face the memories of the accident?
    “In a sense, yes,” Radcliffe said. “A new power source.”
    Claire nodded as bits and pieces of overheard conversations floated through her brain. Were they from before she left Boston or on the continent? The content said Boston. “They talked about the coal shortage in the north, even with limiting what we export to England. You still haven’t told me exactly what it is.”
    Patrick walked to a desk on the other side of the room and lit a lamp. Now golden light diffused through the laboratory—it was too wondrous to be a mere workshop—and made it all seem friendlier. The sounds of him making tea added a level of familiarity to it. Now she knew without specific memory that her father had been a tinkerer, and he had made tea when he and she worked together. She only wished she could know what they’d worked on.
    “I’m not sure how to explain it,” Radcliffe said. He moved some boxes off of a low bench and gestured for her to sit. “Now let me see your hand, please. You’ve been rubbing it. Did one of the crates catch it?”
    “Yes, but I’m all right.” She cradled her left hand in her right one. It did ache, but she didn’t want him to see the ropes of white and dark pink that had turned her once beautiful hands into a horrifying mess.
    “If you’re not comfortable taking your gloves off, I can feel the bones through the kid. I’ll be gentle.”
    Had O’Connell mentioned her hands to Radcliffe? The light smoldered in his gray eyes, and he emanated relief, probably that he wouldn’t have to touch her scarred skin. She didn’t blame him, but he was an army doctor. Hadn’t he seen worse? She almost wanted to take her gloves off to shock him, but she wanted him to tell her about the glowing orb that had its own feelings, and she wouldn’t allow him to distract her from her questions. She held out her hand. He felt it and turned it this way and that, asking if his manipulations hurt. She murmured yes when they did.
    “Probably just a bruise,” he told her. He released her hand, and she placed it with the other one on her lap.
    “Good. Now that you’ve confirmed I’m not injured, would you please tell me what that thing is? Just explain as best you can.”
    “Well, you’re familiar with aetherics, right?” O’Connell asked. He handed her a mug of tea. “Here, this will settle your nerves from your accident.”
    “Thank you.” She blew over the top of it. The heat she felt through her gloves was of the stinging kind, not the tingling warmth of the thing in the glass sphere. “And aetherics is a branch of physics, is it not?”
    “Yes, that’s correct. And aether has posed some challenges to those who work with it like stability.”
    Claire set the mug on the bench between her and Radcliffe. “You mean to tell me that’s a stable aether mass? How is that possible?”
    “The music of the spheres,” O’Connell replied. He pulled a chair up to join them but didn’t block Claire’s view of the glass sphere and its contents. “A talented aetherist found the right combination of frequencies to make it stabilize. We’ve been experimenting with its light properties, but so far, no one’s had any luck with turning it into power. You’re the first who’s felt anything temperature-wise.”
    Claire shrank back and picked up the mug, holding it to her chest. “I didn’t do anything.”
    “Or did you?” O’Connell frowned, and the indirect light gave his expression fearful shadows.
    “That’s not true,” Radcliffe said. “Amelie Lafitte said she felt warmth during her treatments with it.”
    Claire sipped her now adequately cooled tea so she wouldn’t blurt out “Who is Amelie Lafitte?” She recalled how the hysterics at Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris had been treated like favored pets by Charcot and his ilk, but she didn’t want to think that Radcliffe had seen his patients the same way.
    She also wondered at the stab