by Gareth Ward
Velvet raised her chin. Her lips formed a smile, but there was a sadness in her eyes. “You really think so little of me? You think I’d push Zonda to her death?”
Is that what he thought? He supposed in the heat of the moment he must have. Now it did seem ridiculous. “You’re saying it was an accident?”
“I’m saying there’s a safety net.”
The balloon narrowed towards the bow. Sin glanced past the curve of the envelope to the gymnasium floor far below. “I can’t see nothing.”
Velvet unclamped a foot from a cable. Sin tensed, lowering his body, ready to counter any attack. She held up her hands, placating. “Keep calm, I just want you to check the winding gauge.” She turned and straightened her leg.
Sin grasped her boot and twisted it sideways, squinting at the coloured dial. “Amber. Nearly red,” he said.
With a ballet dancer’s poise, Velvet withdrew her leg and re-clamped it to a line. “They had us practising all morning and nobody rewound the boots at luncheon. Stoneheart’s going to keep us running up and down until somebody falls off.”
“That don’t make no sense. What’s the point?”
“Because Stoneheart’s a bully. You wouldn’t believe the stories Mother’s told me.”
Sin knew the Baroness wasn’t the type to idly gossip, but he was still sceptical. “Stoneheart wouldn’t deliberately kill a candidate. The Major would never allow it.”
“Ergo, there has to be a safety net. So you can get off your high horse and get out of my way, because I’m not going to be the one still traipsing up and down when their clockwork runs out.”
Behind him, Sin heard Stanley approaching, his unwieldly gait easily recognisable.
“You need a hand, brother?” shouted Stanley.
Sin met Velvet’s gaze and his heart jittered. Her brilliant blue eyes were cold but sincere. He stepped aside. “No. We’re all good.”
The finished candidates waited with Stoneheart at the stern-hatch. The clockwork on their boots still ticked down, keeping them clamped to the ratlines, but it was the constant operation of the toe switches that acted as the biggest drain of the spring’s power.
Only two recruits remained plodding back and forth. They were both from the same wing, so in one sense the loser was irrelevant: the East Wing would get punishment duties whoever came last. However, if Velvet was correct, the candidate who had to complete a final solo run was in for a nasty surprise.
Slow and steady, Zonda puffed towards the group. Step for step, Jasper matched her, his face fixed with an expression of fear and exhaustion.
“Come on, Zon. It’s a walk in the park,” shouted Sin.
Zonda looked up and her foot slipped from the cable. Now secured by only one boot, she wobbled precariously. Ignoring her predicament, Jasper strode past and into the lead.
Almost in a parody of flying, Zonda flapped her arms to regain her balance. She thrust her boot onto the ratline and locked the clamps, but the damage was done. Jasper was now only a handful of steps from victory.
Sin’s hands clenched into fists. Zonda was always sticking up for Jasper, and yet here was the little creep, smiling because he was about to beat her. Jasper took another step and his smile turned to a frown. His boot made a pathetic twang and lifted from the cable. He looked down at his foot and pushed it back onto the line. It refused to grip, instead slipping along the tarnished litanium. A second twang issued from his other boot and he pitched sideways.
“No!” Zonda grabbed for her friend, but Jasper’s final steps had placed him just out of reach and her fingers flailed an inch too short.
Releasing his clamps, Sin surged forwards to help. Stoneheart grabbed the harness ring on the back of his suit and held him in place. “Stand down, COG Sin,” she barked.
Ignoring her command, Sin tried to twist free, but Stoneheart’s grip was like iron. “COG Sin, you will stand down.”
Sin stopped struggling and re-clamped his boots. It was too late. Jasper was gone, tumbling down the envelope.
“Hook a line,” Zonda shouted to Jasper. His last hope was to snag his safety cable onto a ratline.
Sin and the other candidates echoed her call. “Hook a line.”
Jasper didn’t react. Paralysed by fear, he disappeared over the edge.
An explosion of steam erupted from far below, and a gigantic inflatable steambed billowed across the gymnasium floor.
Sergeant Stoneheart released her grip on Sin’s harness. “Let that be a lesson to you all. If you let your boots run down in the real world, there will be no soft landings.”
Velvet raised her eyebrows at Sin, and winked.
The iron clang of sledgehammers on metal rang around the grassy slopes on the far side of the ornamental lake. Forming the focal point of the palace’s gardens, the sizeable body of water made for a relaxing vista. When your wing wasn’t tasked with driving two hundred iron stakes into the ground as punishment duties, that is.
Despite the chill of the late September afternoon, sweat soaked Sin’s shirt. He raised his heavy hammer and slammed it down onto the flattened head of the iron stake. Vibrations ran up his arm, paining the scar from where Eldritch had stabbed him. He recovered his hammer and Zonda took her turn, reluctantly swinging the considerable weight.
“What do you reckon they’re for?” asked Sin.
Zonda lowered her hammer and leaned on the solid Hickory handle. “At first I thought trees, only no sapling needs such sturdy iron, and they’re spaced too close together.”
A matter of yards away, Stanley and Mercy Goose hammered at their own stake. Mercy was the daughter of Olympic athletes and she had the wiry strength of a distance runner. She hefted her hammer with a look of determination, perspiration dripping from her narrow, angular nose.
“Also, why would the positioning need to be so pinpoint accurate?” Zonda gestured to Vanbrugh’s Grand Bridge, which spanned the narrowest part of the lake. On it, Lottie Brazil flicked her long dark ponytail over her shoulder then peered through a theodolite. Taking the serious approach she applied to all COG tasks, Lottie was ensuring the stakes were placed with geometric precision. She was the only candidate who had completed an official COG mission, one on which she had broken her arm. Although the break was now healed, it was perhaps the reason she’d been given the less physically arduous task of overseeing the stakes’ alignment.
“Maybe it’s marking out a new building.” Sin struck another blow to the stake, ignoring the fact that Zonda was missing her turns. She wasn’t really a fan of robust physical effort. “MacKigh keeps complaining about the state of the house of a thousand deaths. He says it’s dangerous and someone’s going to get hurt.”
A solidly built boy in a chequered shirt stopped hammering his own stake and shouted in a plummy accent: “Less talking and more working. We’ve got another fifty of these blighters to get done before sundown.”
Although there was no official rank structure among the candidates, Esra Trimble had emerged as a spokesman for the East Wing. He had the assured confidence of nobility and was a natural leader. Even Sin had overcome his ingrained animosity towards the wealthy and developed a grudging respect for the Lord’s son, who had proven to be both capable and fair.
“Esra, what do you reckon these are for?” asked Sin, resuming his hammering.
“Pointless punishment. We’ll probably have to take them all out tomorrow.”
“Least Jasper might help us then.” It irked Sin that the boy who was responsible for them losing to the West Wing remained in the infirmary for observation and so avoided the punishment. To be fair, even if Jasper hadn’t come last, Zonda would have, so they would have been in the same predicament – but when it came to Jasper, Sin saw no reason to be fair.
With the sun now set and their punishment complete, the East Wingers relaxed in their common room, the battered leather sofas and chairs accepting their tired bodies with a soft embrace.
An eclectic selection of books filled the bookcases, r
anging from military strategy to gothic romance. Since having learned to read at COG, Sin voraciously devoured books. After all, he had fourteen wasted years to catch up on. Sin had showered on returning from the lake, then finished reading Popham’s Precise Semaphore, a text Hawk had set them for homework. Now he stood below the common room’s high arched windows, a red and yellow flag in each hand. His arms progressed rapidly through a series of positions while across the common room Zonda transcribed the letters, scribbling in a notepad that rested on the skirt of her frilled dress.
Flt sut soiled, snd nu 1 qk. Msg nd.
With measured disdain, Zonda eased her notepad shut. “That’s sooo juvenile. I’m not even going to repeat it.”
Stanley, who’d been simultaneously transcribing the message, sniggered. “Flight suit soiled, send new one quick. Message end,” he read back.
His cheeks glowing red, Jasper looked up from his own copy of Popham’s Precise Semaphore. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny,” said Stanley.
“It’s meanarooney.” Zonda slapped her pencil down and folded her arms. “It’s pointless practising if you’re not going to take this seriously.”
Sin held the flags out to his side in a gesture of innocence. “I am taking it seriously. Hawk said we should consider the types of message we might need to transmit. Being on a real airship is going to be far more frightening than today, so we should be prepared.”
“I could have died,” said Jasper bitterly.
“You could have saved yourself, but you froze.” There was a hard edge to Sin’s voice that matched the look in his eyes. He pointed a flag at Jasper. “You’ll freeze again when someone needs your help, and that’s not right.”
Jasper slammed his book shut. “You’ve got some nerve lecturing me on being a liability.”
The semaphore flags clattered to the floor. Sin’s fingers bunched into fists. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.” Jasper stood, clutching his book. “We all have secrets we don’t want aired in public. Yes, I fell from the balloon and soiled myself, that’s my dirty little secret. Perhaps you’d like to share yours? After all, honesty is the best medicine.”
Sin’s heart raced, and blood surged through his veins – blood that was no longer pure but tainted blue. Blood that, without his injections, could send him into a seizure at any time. But there was no way Jasper could know that.
“I didn’t think you’d want to tell. Not so brave after all.” Jasper slung his book on the shelf and stormed out.
A frigid silence hung over the common room. Every pair of eyes was staring at Sin.
“Blimey O’Riley, what was all that about?” asked Stanley, breaking the tension.
Sin shrugged. “Dunno. Guess he’s embarrassed about brown-trousering his flight suit.” His gaze flicked to Zonda. A crease as deep as a rigair boot’s sole lined her brow, a sure sign she was angry at him. He retrieved the flags and signed a message. Sry a rny.
Zonda gave the tiniest shake of her head. She dropped the notebook and pencil into her reticule and without any further acknowledgement marched from the room. Sin thrust the flags at Stanley. “Sorry mate, practice will have to wait. I think I’m in trouble.”
“Brother, you’re always in the cark. Only the depth varies.”
Sin hurried after Zonda. He hated it when they fell out. It didn’t happen often, but when it did it was invariably about Jasper. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, Zonda had a soft spot for the boy, and that irked Sin beyond reasonable measure.
He caught up with her outside her room. “Look Zon, I’m sorry. That got well out of hand.”
Her gaze met his, her green eyes a mixture of fury and something else.
“It’s not me you need to apologise to.” She ducked into her room and slammed the door.
There was no way he was going cap in hand to Jasper. Sin raised his fist to knock, then thought better of it. They’d just row and he’d make it worse. He moped along the corridor, kicking his heels. Let her sleep on it; things might be better in the morning. And if they weren’t, he’d have to make them better. Soon, they were heading to Coxford on the mission to capture Eldritch. It was a dangerous assignment, and they needed to work seamlessly as a team or the consequences would be fatal.
Sin reached his room and pulled a large iron key from his pocket. His hand stopped halfway to the door. It was already ajar. He opened his mouth a little, an old thief’s trick that sharpened the hearing, and moved his head closer to the gap. Someone was rummaging through his drawers, searching his desk. Was this how Jasper knew his secret? Had the cowardly sneak broken into his room? Sin eased the door silently open. If he caught Jasper in the act, he’d have all the justification he needed to give the stuck-up yellow-belly a bloody good hiding. His nostrils flared and his jaw tightened. He strode into the room spoiling for a fight.
The ragged, coated figure of Noir leaned over the desk inspecting one of the drawers. Sin’s anger died and his throat constricted; a cold tingle spread down his arms to his hands. Although the magician was COG’s top operative, he gave Sin the creeps.
“What are you doing in my room?” Sin had wanted to sound indignant and threatening. The trembling whine of his words sickened him.
Noir’s head lifted, his inspection complete. “Whatever I want.” A smile touched his thin, dry lips. It bore no warmth. “Do take a seat.” His voice rasped like the death rattle of a consumption patient.
Sin lowered himself into a leather armchair, grateful to take the weight from his trembling legs.
The magician eased backwards, perching on the edge of the desk. He reached into the air and a silver florin appeared at his fingertips. In place of the King’s head the florin was embossed with a top-hatted skull. Noir rolled the coin across the back of his knuckles. “A little bird told me that you and COG Chubb are going after Eldritch.”
The mission was supposed to be a secret from everyone, including Noir. Sin’s grip on the leather arms of the chair tightened.
With a flick of Noir’s hand, the coin vanished. “My sources are correct, I see.”
A knot bound Sin’s stomach, amplifying rather than constraining the churning sickness within. Noir wasn’t there to confirm what he already suspected, that’s not how he worked. There was always a price to pay, a favour to be asked, blackmail to be done.
Toad-like, Noir’s tongue flicked across his lips. “I would be terrifically pleased if Eldritch were to escape your attempts to capture him.”
Sin’s mouth became suddenly dry. “Those aren’t my orders.”
“I’m not expecting you to disobey orders.”
Relief washed over Sin. Maybe this was something new? Perhaps the Major had changed their remit?
Noir cocked his head to one side. “On a mission such as this, so many things can go wrong. The quarry may accidentally be made aware of the hunters. Weapons can be incorrectly loaded and malfunction. In fact, when you think about it, your chances of failure really are excruciatingly high.”
Sin’s unease returned. The Major hadn’t sent Noir. This was all part of the magician’s own scheme. Was Noir the one who had helped Eldritch escape in the first place? What other reason could he have for wanting their mission to fail? Sin guessed it didn’t matter; he took his orders from the Major, not Noir.
“The mission ain’t going wrong,” said Sin, more bravely than he felt.
Noir theatrically raised a hand, palms outwards, showing it was empty before making a fist. “It would be such a shame if you were to be expelled from COG for a second time.” He turned the fist over and uncurled his fingers. Resting in his palm was a vial of blue liquid.
Sin’s heart thumped painfully in his chest. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not betraying the Major,” he said, trying to buy some time so he could think of a way to get the liquid back.
“You wouldn’t be betraying the Major. Letting Eldritch go is in COG’s best interest. You have
my word.”
Sin snorted. Magicians were bigger liars than thieves, and Noir doubly so.
“I’m deeply hurt by your lack of trust.” Noir gave the vial a shake. “Trust is so important. You need to trust that Nimrod is manufacturing your medicine properly and that it hasn’t been tainted.” The contents of the vial morphed into a toxic green slime. “And of course, not all contamination is so easy to spot.” He clicked his fingers over the vial and in an instant the liquid returned to normal. “In fact, you never know what you might be injecting.”
Sin hugged himself and shivered, his blood running cold.
Noir stood and placed the vial on a table next to Sin. “I’ve so missed our little chats,” he rasped, and stalked from the room.
Bleary eyed, Sin shuffled into the combat arena with the other candidates. His mind churned, a turmoil of thoughts and emotions triggered by Noir’s visit. Should he tell the Major? He’d hoped sleeping on it might bring an answer, but his night had been restless and he’d woken tired, still trying to fathom what to do. Noir had kept secrets from the COG Committee before, something that at the time had seemed wrong but had resulted in the successful unmasking of Eldritch as a traitor. Could the magician be correct again? Was he to be trusted? Sin’s gaze sought out Zonda. She stood with Jasper on the opposite side of the arena. Clearly, Sin was still in her bad books.
Captain Hawk paraded in front of the class, the metal teeth of her rigair boots leaving tiny scuff marks in the white sand. “Thanks to the might of the Britannia Navy, piracy at sea is a rare occurrence. Alas, the same does not apply for the air. So, you must be ready to defend yourselves against sky-pirates.”
Sin’s grip on his training cutlass tightened. How many of them were really ready? Himself, Stanley and Skinner Grundy could certainly hold their own. Recruited from the streets, they lacked the finer points of swordplay but they knew how to fight mean and dirty, to do whatever it took to survive, just like a pirate. Velvet was technically skilled, but that was a whole world away from battling for your life, something she’d discovered when they’d been cornered by Eldritch on their last mission. As for the rest of the candidates, he doubted they had any idea what a real fight was like. The fear, the adrenaline rush, having your entire existence at stake, chips all in, loser gets nothing. And if you won, there was still a price to pay: dealing with what you’d done.
