by Carrie Patel
Geist had told her that she had Sato to thank for resurgent obsessions about her homeland. But that wasn’t even what concerned her the most.
The streets hummed with tension, much in the same way Recoletta’s had in the months since Sato’s takeover. Nouvelle Paris was a city divided and ripe for trouble – she saw it in the way strangers kept to their own side of the street and in the way they whispered and watched one another, as if everything were part of a conspiracy. She smelled it like the reek of nervous sweat.
She wondered how much of this Sato had instigated and how much he had merely accelerated.
Still, seeing the Continent’s fear of the Pesteland gave Malone an understanding of the discomfort Geist’s crew had displayed around her.
And now the startling view was giving her a new appreciation for her time aboard the Glasauge. At least it had inoculated her from her fear of heights.
Malone was stationed in a small cafe with a good view of the mooring platform. A headache scratched behind her eyes, and exhaustion numbed her fingers. She’d been awake and on the move since leaving the boat the day before, and now she was running on desperation and adrenaline. She’d been at the cafe for the better part of an hour, sipping tea that had long since gone cold. It was stronger and heavier than the stuff she was used to in Recoletta, but nonetheless a welcome change from the caffee.
The local police – the gendarmerie, Geist had called them – were milling about the berth, just as Geist had expected. Most of them were in plain clothes, but Malone would have recognized their alert postures and strategic placement anywhere.
She wondered if she’d ever been so easy to read. Arnault probably would have said so.
The thought of him brought a sudden and unexpected pang of guilt. She swallowed it back with another gulp of over-brewed tea.
She smelled a rich, familiar musk. As if someone were wearing Lachesse’s perfume. She scanned the cafe crowd again and saw only the same set of strangers. Or maybe the many strangers here were starting to blend together.
But activity around the mooring station was picking up. The gendarmes passed by one another to exchange quick, hushed orders. Something was happening.
Malone shifted and squinted into the clouds. A dark shape was forming in the midst of them. The gendarmes were shuffling and fretting like anxious hens.
She couldn’t shake the feeling she was missing something.
She passed a hand over her jacket pocket where a small electric lamp was tucked away. She had been selected for the dubious honor of signalman, both because none of the guards patrolling the mooring would recognize her in connection with Geist and because she was the one who could best recognize Roman Arnault and Jane Lin.
And, more importantly, because she was the only person Jane and Arnault might be inclined to trust.
When she saw them step from the ship onto the tower, all she had to do was flash her lantern three times and one of Geist’s people would trigger a riot on the tier below while another two would approach the guards. Meanwhile, she would approach Roman and Jane and guide them down the tower and through the hole Geist’s men were supposed to leave.
Assuming everyone was in place. Assuming everyone pulled off their roles at just the right time. Assuming Jane and Arnault trusted her enough to follow.
And perhaps that was the part that bothered her the most. She’d already seen Geist’s people pull off meticulously planned and spectacularly ambitious feats. But reaching out to Jane and Arnault, offering them a refuge only to betray them, felt wrong.
Still, if that was the price of safety for Recoletta and the buried cities, it was a fair trade. Even if it didn’t feel like one. She supposed Lachesse would have agreed.
Malone finished her tea and rose to move into position, the amber-and-musk scent fading behind her.
By now the stiff, formal patter of the Continentals was familiar enough that she could snatch bits of conversation like hors d’oeuvres from passing trays. She listened for anything out of the ordinary, any sign the crowd around her knew what was happening. Instead, people talked about work, friends, loved ones. All the blessedly dull things that now felt distant.
The airship grew larger on the horizon. A part of her hoped it would sail on by.
Malone leaned against a support pillar and watched the crowd for several minutes. She’d seen one of Geist’s people hanging around here earlier, but now the man was nowhere to be seen. She had to give them credit – they were professionals.
The minutes ticked by. The airship grew larger by the moment – what had started as a clenched fist had swelled to blot out a third of the sky. And it only grew faster, yet the minutes stretched on.
Malone felt as though she could hear her heartbeat tapping along beneath the murmur of conversation. She wanted this plan – this terrible, desperate plan that she had suggested to Geist – to be over and done with.
It didn’t help that her headache was worsening. What had started as a blunt scratching had progressed into full-on pounding, a steady, painful rhythm that synced with her racing heart.
She took a deep breath. The heavy scents that clotted the air only added to the headache – machine smoke, unwashed bodies, overripe fruit.
Malone started, searching for Geist’s other two people. They were still nowhere in sight. She circled around to the other side of the support. Still nothing.
Yet there, discarded at the base of the pillar, was a plain leather valise. Malone pried it open, already knowing what she would find.
Two dozen or so wrapped bundles of explosives, and attached to them a clockwork mechanism that ticked alongside Malone’s own racing pulse. Geist’s people must have brought these, set the timers when the airship appeared, and made their exit.
Malone looked. The approaching airship was banking, surrendering its ample flank to the tower. It couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes away from docking. And there was no telling how many bombs had been placed on this platform or the others.
There was still time to run. All she had to do was make her exit, and Jane and Arnault – and the threat they posed to the buried cities – would be gone. She could disappear here or find her way back home, but this would all be over.
Maybe that was what Lachesse would have called “doing what was necessary.”
Still, Malone couldn’t. And if she acted quickly, she might just be fast enough to make a difference this time.
She ran toward the edge of the platform, waving one hand and holding the valise in the other. “Hey! Turn around, go! Run!”
People standing near backed away, blinking at her and murmuring to one another.
“Get away, fast!” she shouted. The crowd around her was dispersing with the rising song of panic. If only she could get the airship to do the same.
Rough hands gripped her arm. Malone sucked a breath through her teeth as someone snatched the valise away.
“Wass are you doing?” asked a man who was now inches from her face. One of the gendarmes.
“Turn them around,” Malone said. “There’s a bomb, probably several–”
But the gendarme was already addressing one of his fellows. “Move her away. She is crazy, probably–”
“Look in the bag!” Malone said.
But they weren’t listening to her. And already a long, metal walkway was extending toward the hovering airship.
The gendarmes were still murmuring, as if she were a drunk party guest. “– will have my head if this is spoiled by some lunatic–”
The airship’s main door opened. Any minute now.
“It’s Roman Arnault,” Malone said, as if suddenly remembering the magic words. “Geist knows he’s here. He’s trying to kill him, you idiots!”
The two men blinked at her, moving from annoyance to surprise.
And then alarm.
One of the gendarmes turned to the others. “Search the platform, now! Aral, signal that airship–”
Malone tried to pull away, but the first gend
arme only tightened his grip.
“Oh, no,” he said. “You will stay here.”
Chapter 24
Reunion
Jane had spent the remainder of the airship trip in the berth, alone but for the steward standing guard outside. Since the ordeal, the airship’s crew had smothered her with brittle courtesy – it was hard to know whether she was an honored guest or a pampered prisoner. They wouldn’t allow her to see Roman, but they assured her the “senure” was enduring even more careful ministrations. They hesitated even to permit her out of her compartment, though they offered to bring her anything she might conceivably desire.
Yet the one thing she wanted right then – besides Roman’s presence – was sleep, and neither she nor her dutiful guards could summon it.
But it wasn’t long before the sun rose, and shortly after that they reached the outskirts of Nouvelle Paris.
It was everything the port town had been, but larger. Jane watched the maze of asymmetrical rooftops and winding streets below, waiting for them to end. It almost reminded her of looking out at the sea her first day on Salvage.
Then the motion of the airship – and the motion in it – changed. Footsteps pattered about in the hall and on the decks above and below. The rooftops rose like a tide. The steward waiting outside the curtain would tell her nothing, but it was obvious enough – they were docking.
At last, two women pulled back the curtain to escort her out.
“Where’s Roman?” Jane asked.
The woman on her left stiffened and compressed her thin lips. “The senure will be accompanied out also. You will see him once the gendarmerie are assured of everyone’s security.”
Jane suppressed a sigh of exasperation.
They waited in front of the door. Jane heard the bump and scrape of the walkway being attached and the moorings cast and tied off. After opening the door, the two women held her arms all the more tightly. As if she had anywhere to go.
A small crowd of people was milling around on the mooring platform. Jane didn’t take the time to scan their faces – her attention was pulled down.
Down, to the rooftops and spires that now seemed like blades and spears raised toward her. To streets like the grating in an abattoir floor.
She was only dimly aware of one of her escorts squeezing her shoulder. “We must go.” The voice was barely more than a whisper over the blood rushing in her ears.
But she went. One foot after the other, staring at the slats in the walkway, not looking at – not even thinking about – the spaces between them. One foot and then the other. The gangway couldn’t have been more than forty feet long, but she didn’t dare glance up to see how far she had to go.
One of the guards was behind her, the other ahead. Jane timed her stride with theirs, following the regular motion of the gangplank, pairing every few steps with a deep breath.
Then the walkway began to shake.
She held to the railings. “Stop! Stop!” she yelled, but the shuddering continued. Someone was shouting.
Several someones. She looked up to see one of her escorts sprinting full bore toward the tower. The crowd on the platform was rushing around as if the place were on fire. A few were yelling and gesturing at the sky, waving their hands as if in farewell.
Away. Go. Flee. That’s what they were saying.
Except for a discordant but familiar melody that rose above the rest.
“Jane. Jane. RUN.” While everyone else waved and shouted at the ship, someone else was waving and shouting at her.
Jane looked back. Almost halfway down the gangplank, her other escort had just reached the outer hatch and was pulling it shut.
Suddenly, she found that she could move. Very, very fast.
She ran down the gangplank. Racing toward the tower even though some part of her animal brain recognized that it was a dangerous, hectic place to be, but knowing still that it would likely be the only solid ground in a matter of seconds.
As fast as she was moving, it still didn’t feel fast enough.
She raced toward the figure and the sound of her name. Toward the platform and safety. Toward–
A heavy boom thudded through the air. The walkway shook, and Jane instinctively ducked and gripped the rails.
A second later, the ground fell away.
Jane held to the railings as tightly as she could while the gangplank swung toward the tower and screams raked furrows in her throat.
She slammed into the side of the tower. The force knocked the wind from her and nearly pried loose her grip. But she held on, steadying her feet against the uprights.
And held on, frozen, wishing now that she only had the clawing waves and endless deep beneath her.
Someone called her name again. Jane looked up and saw Liesl Malone.
She was both certain that it was her and that it couldn’t possibly be her, because Malone was supposed to be back in Recoletta, doing whatever it was that people did when they weren’t running for their lives and falling out of airships.
But the only thing that mattered was that the woman was there, shouting her name and reaching toward her.
So Jane climbed. Rung by rung, raising one hand toward the next upright and then following with a foot, not thinking about what awaited her on the tower or why parts of it seemed to be aflame.
When she was at last within reach of Malone’s improbably strong arms, she felt herself hoisted up and onto the platform. Only then did she realize how exhausted she was, how close her muscles were to total failure.
Jane was pulled away from the edge, and she felt Malone’s lean-muscled limbs wrap around her back. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you,” the woman said into her hair.
Jane shivered. She didn’t know if it was an assurance or a threat.
Chapter 25
A Common Enemy
It was the worst possible scenario for Malone – she and Jane Lin were in the custody of the Continentals, and Roman Arnault was still at large. The airship he’d been in had pulled away from the tower when the trouble started, bearing him and every other person onboard to parts unknown.
On the brighter side, the gendarmes had found and disarmed most of the bombs. Casualties had been minimal, she was told. Thinking back to Sundar, Lachesse, and the dead inspectors, it was a bittersweet relief to have figured things out in time to save so many. Still, no one would tell Malone much else.
But she was telling them plenty. About how Roman Arnault was a man of great importance, even in Recoletta. About how she had gone to retrieve him when she’d learned he’d been taken by the pirate city of Salvage.
Geist, as she explained it, had come to Recoletta as an envoy of the Continent, claiming a mission to escort Roman Arnault safely home. Malone had believed him and had followed in good faith. Even when their airship was shot down, even when they’d fled and snuck into Nouvelle Paris, Malone swore she’d believed his explanations that he was acting against rogue elements, trying to reach Arnault before they were alerted to his presence.
It wasn’t until the mooring tower that her instincts had overruled Geist’s deceit, and she had realized the attack he was planning.
Most of the events were technically true, and yet Malone was surprised at how easily the lies about their meaning rolled off her tongue.
And at how readily the gendarmes believed all of it.
But she was telling them what they wanted to hear – about Roman’s prestige, the awe in which the yokels of the buried cities held his family, Geist’s incomparable deceit. They were eating it up without even bothering to question aspects of her story that should have raised their doubts.
At first, she was quietly appalled at herself. But the deceit quickly became routine.
It reminded her of so many Cabinet meetings under Sato and of all the reasons she’d been so eager to leave politics. All the reasons she’d never wanted to be a part of them in the first place.
She felt as though she were getting whiplash from how many different sides she’d
played over the last few weeks. From preparing to execute Arnault to letting him go, then chasing him and Lin across the sea only to inform on the people she’d been running with. And that wasn’t even counting everything that had happened around Sato.
She liked things simple. She liked to know whose side she was on and what she was up against. Now, things were anything but simple, and none of the sides seemed to fit. All she knew was that she couldn’t side with a bunch of people who would destroy a tower and an airship full of innocent people.
Though what that meant for the people of Recoletta and the other buried cities, she couldn’t rightly say.
Perhaps Lachesse had been wrong about her and her willingness to do what was necessary. She was starting to think that maybe she was fine with that.
The gendarmes had taken her and Jane to a lavish apartment. Like everything on the Continent, it appeared to have been built from something else. The wide, cruciform halls and the balconies that lined them were ancient, the tile worn and cracked.
But the apartments that nestled within and branched off them were another matter entirely. Pale, uniform bricks looked as young and clean as an infant’s flesh next to the blotchy, weathered gray of the old stonework. And the space inside was vast – much larger than she would have guessed from the modest entrance outside.
And this, she was told, was the temporary residence of Julius Rothbauer. She and Jane were introduced to him in the evening, the same day as their arrest.
Rothbauer did not appear to be in mourning for his family or his estate so much as for the world as a whole. He seemed exhausted – like he’d been worn out, used up, and left to harden. Malone suspected that if he had been present for Geist’s attack, he would merely have withdrawn into his layers of finery like an irritated turtle retracting into its shell.
Even so, she could see the resemblance to Augustus Ruthers. The same energy that had been like a bonfire blaze in Ruthers was a graying ember in Rothbauer – dangerous, but in a way that was easy to disregard until it was too late.
