Sunlight spilled into the Gearhart conservatory as boldly as a stage-hand who had missed his cue. Dew-trembling orchids dangled from copper trellises; mechanical thrushes—wound and set for the breakfast hour—trilled arpeggios above a polished teak table laid for two.
At that table I waited, buoyant as a cork in champagne. The city's dawn broadsheets—The Mechanist, The Daily Gear and the ever-salacious Chap Watch Courier—lay in a papery drift about my chair, every headline shrieking some variant of
RARE CHAP'S MIDNIGHT MARVEL: WHISTLE BREWS CAFFEINE STORM!
My name—my invention—splashed across front pages! Surely the day could hold no finer augury.
A door hissed; Duchess Euphemia Gearhart sailed in, upholstered in mauve silk and triumph. Behind her, two foot-bots trundled, bearing a domed silver cloche almost as wide as the table.
"Good morning, my golden goose!" she sang. "Ready for the sustenance that powers progress?"
I rubbed my hands. "Absolutely. Could drink a gallon of my own brew, in fact."
"Splendid." Effie tapped the cloche. The bots whisked it away—revealing not eggs, not kippers, not even toast, but a stack of parchment as thick as a doorstop, ribboned in crimson and sealed with the royal cog crest.
"Contracts," she said, beaming.
My stomach, having prepared itself for bacon, executed a mournful pirouette. "Before coffee?"
Effie lifted a china cup, let the aroma waft tantalising inches from my nose, then whisked it beyond reach with the adroitness of a stage magician. "Sign first, sip later. We must strike the patent office while the iron is hot and the city still buzzes."
Across the table Mabel sat rigid in valet-mode, optic lenses blank. Only a sub-audible tick suggested she recorded everything.
I thumbed the top document. Patent Application—Representative Signature. My name appeared in delicate copperplate beneath Effie's, prefaced by the damning phrase Ward of.
"Aunt," I ventured, "shouldn't the inventor's name lead the procession?"
"Nonsense, duckling. Guardians file on behalf of their charges; Article Nine, Subsection Delta. Quite impossible otherwise. Now—" She produced a fountain pen the size of a bayonet. "—make your mark."
"After coffee," I insisted, and snatched the cup. Effie's eyes narrowed; nevertheless she surrendered. The brew steadied my hands and, alas, sharpened my wits. I read.
The contract assigned every royalty, trademark and manufacturing right to Euphemia Gearhart, acting in benevolent stewardship, while granting yours truly—generously—one percent of net profit for "personal haberdashery and wholesome recreation."
One percent. Enough, apparently, for a nice cravat.
"I object," I said. "Strenuously, categorically and—"
"Object later. The landau waits."
Effie's steam-landau hurtled through the capital like a shot pheasant still determined to fly. Pistons clanged, tyres squealed, and morning pedestrians leapt for safety with impressive verticals. Newspapers, freshly inked, slapped against the windows; buzzing camera-drones hovered to capture the heroic inventor in transit, but succeeded only in photographing my rising panic.
Inside, leather upholstery creaked beneath Effie's satisfied wriggle. "Public demand is a soufflé, Harold—magnificent when hot, flat when cooled. We must serve at once."
Mabel, wedged beside me, deployed a discreet periscope from her bonnet, surveying the street. "Velocity exceeds municipal recommendation by sixty percent," she murmured. "Probability of litigation: moderate."
"Let them sue!" Effie cried happily, and the landau braked to a halt outside the Patent Registry—an austere granite block whose façade bristled with pneumatic filing tubes like organ pipes awaiting their tune.
Registrar Ms. Philomena Gudgeon greeted us in a vestibule thick with ink fumes and the clatter of clockwork type-arms. Steam-cooled spectacles fogged each time she blinked; otherwise she might have been carved from ledger parchment.
"Application?" she inquired.
Effie flourished the Guardianship Proxy 14-C. "Filed under Duchess Euphemia Gearhart for the welfare of Harold Forsythe, Minor Male."
"Minor?" I spluttered. "I'm twenty-three!"
"Age of fiscal majority for gentlemen is thirty, dear," Effie cooed. "Imagine the danger if chaps could sign willy-nilly."
Ms. Gudgeon consulted a brass-bound codex. "Indeed. Male wards must secure guardian co-signature; patent ownership defaults to said guardian." Her gavel hand twitched. "Shall we proceed?"
I turned to Mabel. "Surely the provisional seal from Lady Brasswell—"
"Outranked by bloodline guardianship," Mabel intoned, recording light blinking red. "Apologies, sir."
The registrar tapped a pen. "Time is money, Duchess. Filing fee increases each minute."
Effie poised her bayonet pen over the docket. "Harold, darling, do stop fussing. Auntie shall invest your one-percent wisely—compound interest, goose feathers, the works."
"One percent," I echoed, voice climbing. "For inventing, assembling, and nearly being drowned in foam?"
Effie's smile iced over. "Two percent, but only because I cherish you."
My protest detonated. Words like exploitation and indentured rattled the rafters. Clerks froze, quills mid-scratch; Ms. Gudgeon raised a single eyebrow—her version of a riot whistle.
Mabel swivelled her head to Effie. "Proposal: defer percentage discussion until nephew acquires independent Gentle-Crafter licence, at which time equitable renegotiation may occur."
Effie chuckled. "Licence? The dear boy? He'd be swallowed whole by the Guild's mathematics." Nonetheless she signed, blotting her signature with a flourish that sprayed ink across my sleeve.
The gavel fell. Filing tubes hissed. Somewhere inside the walls, my ownership vanished down a pneumatic throat.
Outside the filing room Ms. Gudgeon calculated fees. Effie settled them with banknotes crisp enough to slice butter, then produced a delicate cheque. The amount: One hundred crowns — an "advance against royalties."
"Buy yourself a cravat embroidered with espresso beans," she advised.
I folded the cheque once, twice, and slid it, unanswered, into my pocket.
Mabel's optics whirred. "Congratulations, sir—you have been professionally pick-pocketed, and received a thank-you card for the privilege."
The press chamber resembled an aviary wherein every bird wore a press badge. Reporters fluttered, pens poised, cameras wound. Effie mounted a dais, prototype kettle in hand. Its brass still bore scorch marks like campaign medals.
"Behold," she proclaimed, "the Gearhart-Forsythe Whistle-Brew—revivifying the weary, alerting the city to hazards, and entirely harmless to even the frailest male!"
On cue the kettle shrieked its operatic note and emitted a perfect foam heart that floated above the crowd before dissolving in sugary rain. Flashbulbs popped. One journalist swooned, revived by a single sip of lingering vapour.
Effie's grin might have powered a small district. Mine, by contrast, had curdled.
From the wings Chief Forewoman Agatha Rivet appeared with the singed original, placed it reverently on a velvet cushion, and whispered as she passed me, "You were robbed, lad. Hold fast."
Effie basked in applause until she judged the ink dry on public opinion, then shepherded me through a side door into an alley perfumed by roasting beans from the city roastery.
I sagged against a wall of warm brick. Mabel stepped beside me, projecting a tiny hololith of the filing scene—Effie's signature, my protest, the gavel's fall.
"Evidentiary record archived," she said. "Recommend obtaining full Gentle-Crafter licence. Ownership follows craftsmanship."
"And study for months under Effie's thumb?" I asked.
"Better a thumb than an auction hammer," Mabel replied, with what I chose to interpret as encouragement.
Back at the guest wing I found the dregs of breakfast—cold toast and colder humility. Yet inspiration brewed stronger than resentment. From a bureau drawer I retrieved the Guild Examination Timetable, pinned it above the desk, and underlined the earliest sitting in three savage strokes.
"If they wish a cash cow," I muttered, grinding leftover espresso grounds into the inkwell, "they'll have to milk a fully fledged bull."
Mabel clicked approvingly, dimmed her optics, and engaged study-assistant mode. Charts, schematics and logarithm tables unfurled like battle plans across the carpet.
Outside, evening editions already rattled their presses, trumpeting the duchess's triumph. Let them. By the time the next headline rolled off the gears, I would be hammering Latin participles and heat-flux equations into submission—one step closer to a licence no guardian could sign away.
And somewhere in the registry's brass bowels, a patent bore Effie's name today—
but tomorrow, by cog and by coffee bean, the city would learn to read the fine print.