by Erin Johnson
“Oh snakes,” Iggy whined.
“Guess so!” Annie grinned. “Wands out!”
Pritney sneered. “Enjoy your freedom—while it lasts.”
Nate hung his head. “Bye.”
I frowned. “You’re not coming with?”
Pritney snorted. “I can barely walk. I don’t have my magic back. None of these freaks do.” She gestured at the shuffling, moaning hoard that surrounded us.
I rolled my eyes and bit my lip. “I’m going to regret this, but come on. Both of you.” I jerked my head. “We’re in this together, seeing as Horace betrayed all of us.”
Pritney folded her arms. “I am not convinced of that.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I shook my head. “Besides, you deserve to be punished but—” I looked around. A lot of prisoners lay crumpled on the floor and I didn’t know if they’d ever get back up again. The others seemed to have lost their minds, or all their teeth, or both. “I’m not sure anyone deserves this.” I cocked a brow at Pritney. “Even my worst enemy.”
She blinked and her face softened ever so slightly.
“Let’s go.” Wiley, wand raised, led the way through the crowd. Prisoners recoiled from him and Yann, and I suddenly remembered that they appeared to be guards. It helped us move through the dense crowd. When we neared the far side of the room we stopped with the balcony overhead.
“Are we gonna fly?” I frowned at Wiley.
“Nope.” He conjured several rope ladders that magically dangled from the walkway overhead. The ropes and the structure above shook with the stampeding feet of the prisoners on their way to the exit. “Grab hold!”
I scampered up one of them and then held still as Annie grabbed the bottom rungs. Wiley and Yann took the other and Nate and Pritney shared the third. They magically retracted, lifting us higher and higher until I could crawl under the railing.
“Ow!” I winced as a man ran by and stepped on my finger. I shook it off and reached down to help Annie up and over. The others clambered up as well and the tide of escaping prisoners pushed us out the exit and into the cement hallway. The blue flames that had illuminated the space before had been extinguished, leaving the hallway nearly pitch dark. Annie, Wiley, and Yann lit their wands. I held Iggy in his lighter up.
“Head left!” my little flame yelled.
I swung left and held Annie’s hand. The others followed. I didn’t like having my back to Nate and Pritney, but we didn’t have much choice.
“Where are we going, Iggy?”
“Get to the lift. We’ll take it to the top floor to the infirmary. We may be able to steal the mediship.”
I beamed, though Iggy couldn’t see it in the darkness. “You’re swimmin’ brilliant, little guy.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
I gripped Annie tighter as we squeezed past panicked prisoners running the other way. The reason for their panic marched into view a moment later. Guards wielding shields and wearing dark goggles stomped toward us in a formation that spanned the entire hallway. I froze.
“What now?”
“We hide?” Annie frowned at me.
“Those are dark vision goggles,” Pritney hissed from behind. “That’s why the lights are out—to give them the advantage.”
Wiley and Yann who brought up the rear moved closer. “Go with it, okay? Imogen and Annie, put your wand and Iggy away. Now!”
I stuffed Iggy back in my purse and Annie extinguished her wand.
“Put your hands behind your backs,” Yann’s deep voice said.
I clasped my hands, and Annie, Pritney, and Nate did the same.
“Here we go.” Wiley and Yann’s wands grew brighter. “Eyes ahead.”
I turned and faced the wall of approaching guards.
“March!” Yann barked.
I jumped and started forward. As we neared the front row of guards with shields, Wiley called out. “We’ve detained these ones, but many escapees are already loose through the inner ring. We believe these ones were key to the security breach. We’re taking them to the Bear for questioning.”
My heart pounded as I stared at the rows of officers. With their entire bodies covered and armored, they didn’t even appear human anymore. I doubted I could pull from all of them quick enough to knock them out before they took us down.
“Very good. Proceed.”
I couldn’t even tell who’d spoken but they moved past us, allowing us a narrow passage through against the left-hand wall. I didn’t breathe until the guards, four rows deep, disappeared around the gentle curve of the oval.
Annie let out a hysterical chuckle. “I think I wet myself a little.”
“You’re disgusting,” Pritney sneered.
Annie snorted. “You should see yourself.”
We made it to the lift, hit the button, and waited for what felt like eternity. Iggy turned to Pritney. “So, you two come here often?”
She bared her teeth at him. “I’ll snuff you out.”
Iggy cackled. “Ooh, this from the girl wearing a pillowcase.”
I laughed. Laughter. It felt foreign, but those “I’m gonna die” giggles just came right over me. “Nobody give her a sock.” I laughed to myself, but no one joined in. “Dobby reference? No one?”
Ding!
The lift arrived and four more guards in shields and goggles rushed out. Before I could even think, I pulled from all of them and they collapsed in a pile on the ground. I staggered back a few steps, the rush of energy almost too much for me. Annie grabbed my free hand and dragged me into the lift, followed by everyone else.
“Seventh floor.” Iggy nodded as Yann punched the button. The doors slid shut and the lift rose.
“You okay?” Annie looked me over by the light of her wand.
I nodded and brushed my bangs back with trembling hands. I caught Pritney staring at me, her eyes wide and mouth ajar.
I scoffed. “You have something to say?”
She shut her mouth and shook her head. Well, that was a first. The light for the seventh floor lit up and the doors slid open.
“Like before.” Wiley ushered us forward as he and Yann marched behind us, wands pointed at our backs. The seventh floor stood as dark as the third, but empty.
“The infirmary has its own passage up to the roof.” Iggy pointed a flame arm. “Straight ahead. Third door on the left.”
“Thanks,” I breathed before closing the lighter and stuffing it in my purse. We marched on and encountered a couple more guards at the door. I pulled from them and left them unconscious, too. Aside from just hitting them, I was the only one whose magic could work against their armor. My teeth chattered again and my nerves made me jumpy.
Thankfully, the six doctors scattered about in the infirmary weren’t wearing armor and Yann and Wiley magically put them to sleep and bound them. The single patient appeared comatose on a hospital bed. But Annie bound him to it, just in case.
We swept through the white room. Beds lined the far wall and offices spanned the space to our left. I pulled Iggy back out of my purse, though I had to hold the lighter with both hands to keep from dropping it. The shakes were back.
“There.” Iggy pointed at a metal platform on the floor, big enough for all of us to stand on with plenty of room. We rushed onto it. Wiley slapped a green button on the wall and the platform rose as a metal hatch in the ceiling slid open.
As my head rose above the roof line, strong winds blew my hair around my head. I squinted and goose bumps prickled my arms with the chill. I took a deep breath—fresh, outside air had never smelled so good. I glanced over at Nate and Pritney. Tears trickled down Nate’s face and Pritney had her eyes pressed tight and her head thrown back. Guess I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
“Da ship!” Yann pointed at a small dirigible that rested on the launch pad nearby. I found the strength to run as we all dashed across the roof.
Yann climbed in and helped Annie up into the gondola’s door, which hovered a couple of f
eet above the roof. He handed in Wiley next, then Nate, Pritney, and me. Medical supplies, tubes, bottles of glowing potions, and a gurney took up most of the main compartment.
Wiley and Nate slid into the cockpit and after exchanging some glares, Wiley took the pilot’s seat, while Nate sat to the right as copilot. I gulped. We hadn’t left the roof yet, but we’d made it this far. Hope began to glow in my chest again.
Another roof hatch flew open and Urs Volker himself emerged. He sprinted toward us, leading an entire squad of guards behind him, wands raised and ready. My heart froze as the engines to our ship whirred to life and we rose up, tugging at the ropes that tethered the ship to the roof.
“Halt!” Urs barked. His blue eyes blazed in his red face. Confusion muddled his intensity as he neared.
“What do I do?” Wiley shouted at us.
“Keep going,” Pritney hissed.
The rope tethers retracted.
“Halt or vee vill fire.” Urs shook his head at me. “Imogen Banks—vat are you doink vis zese criminals?” His men flanked him, at least twenty, all with their wands pointed at us.
I froze. It was over. No matter what, it was over. Even if we somehow escaped, I’d never work in the palace or see Hank or Maple again. The life I loved was gone. I lifted my hands, ready to surrender.
Pritney grabbed the back of my dress and I cried out as she yanked me close to her. “Go with it,” she hissed in my ear. She snatched Annie’s wand from her hand. Annie stood far enough back that Urs and his men hadn’t seen her. Pritney marched me right up to the door, the wand pressed against my temple. My chest heaved.
“Let us leave, or she dies.” Pritney grabbed some tendrils of hair that had fallen out of my bun and yanked.
I threw my head back and whimpered with pain. Pritney pressed the end of the wand hard against my exposed neck.
“Make it count,” she hissed in my ear.
I suddenly realized she was helping me… somehow. I cried out, loud enough to be heard over the whir of the engines.
“Schtop.” Urs held up his palms. “Let your hostage go.”
“Let the ship pass, and I’ll make sure she and the other one come to no harm.” Pritney jerked her head over her shoulder.
“Zer ees another hostage?”
My eyes slid to look at Pritney. She glared at him.
“Easy now.” Urs stared, unblinking, at her.
“Nate,” she ground out, quiet enough Urs couldn’t hear. “Ease us past the edge.”
“Aye aye, Prit,” he called from the cockpit. The ship drifted back.
“Lower your wands, and we’ll let the women go free.”
She shook me and I let all my fear and stress fuel my performance. Tears welled in my eyes. “Please!” I screamed. “Please don’t let them take me. Please!”
Urs’s eyes darted from me to Pritney as the ship eased backwards. “Shtay calm.”
“Annie, get up here,” Pritney muttered. “Nate, keep us low. Get ready to drop on my signal.”
Drop? What did that mean? I swallowed, the point of Annie’s wand still digging into my throat.
“Go no further!” Urs barked. Though we’d moved further away, he and the guards were still plenty close enough to hit us with spells.
“We’re over the side,” Nate called from the cockpit.
“What’s the plan here?” I muttered to Pritney.
She sniffed and grabbed the back of Annie’s dress and pushed us both forward to the doorway. “Hope you both know how to tuck and roll.” She turned her head. “Now!”
A hard push sent me flying out of the airship, Annie beside me. We fell several feet onto the hard rooftop and I landed on my shoulder and scraped the palm of one hand. Ow. I rolled to my back in time to see the last bit of the airship plummet down behind the roof line as spells flew over the top, just missing the balloon. I propped up on my elbow and looked at Annie.
“Are you okay?” I sat up and grabbed her hand and hefted her upright.
She adjusted her hat, which, though it stuck sideways out from her head, had managed to stay attached through that whole ordeal. “I’m all right.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “You, dear?”
I nodded.
Hard footsteps pounded up from behind and rushed past us. Guards in black skidded to a stop at the edge of the roof, their wands at the ready. I leaned to one side to look between them. The airship careened away, a small dot now, and disappeared into the clouds.
“It’s out of range, sir,” a guard called back to Urs Volker, who came to a stop beside me. The men at the roof’s edge lowered their wands.
I let out a soft sigh of relief. Hopefully Yann and Wiley would be okay in the company of Pritney and Nate. Even weak and emaciated and barefoot, she was scary.
“Deploy all za airships vee haf and notify za kink zat—” Urs let out a pained sigh. “Zat Carclaustra security has been breached.”
I almost felt bad for the guy. He rounded on Annie and me. “Are you hurt?” His blue eyes darted from one of us to the other and back again.
I lifted my throbbing hand and blew some gravel out of the bloody scrape. “Not badly.”
Annie huffed. “More than I can say. In all my years never have I experienced such rough treatment. What kind of a facility are you running here?”
Oh, back into character, huh? I blinked at her and had to admire her commitment.
Urs bristled as his men spread out over the rooftop and communicated with others via small devices in their ears that looked similar to the one Amelia used. “I assure you zis ees most unhert off.”
I climbed to my feet and helped Annie to hers. She straightened her skirt and readjusted her hat, which immediately tipped back over again. “I assure you, this won’t be the last you hear from me.” She jabbed at his chest. “How you can allow such slack security measures when you have precious female lives touring your facilities is beyond me. Why, I have a mind to—”
Urs lifted a hand. “You can disclose your frustration during your interrogation.”
My heart sank. “Interrogation?”
He nodded. “You vere vith zose criminals and even assuming you are innocent, vee shall need to know efery detail off your experience so vee may fint za culprits and get to za bottom off zis.”
Annie’s nostrils flared and she hefted her shoulders. “Assuming we’re innocent? How dare you! You want the details? The guards who escorted me to the infirmary took the two of us hostage and used us to stage a breakout. In fact—” Her face flushed bright red. “I wouldn’t doubt it if they somehow made me faint, because I can assure you, I am in perfect health. I had my checkup two months ago and my doctor told me I had the constitution of a woman half my age. And while this young lady and I suffered, afraid for our lives and thrown out of an airship, you and your men told us to ‘schtay calm’.” She adopted his accent. “You’ve got the details. You want more, you can talk to my lawyer, but I’m not telling you a pebble more until we’ve had medical treatment.”
She lifted a finger and cut Urs off when he started to speak. “The medical treatment of actual doctors, not your dungpit crew. And I suggest you call my friend and me a ship, because, Mr. Volker, I highly doubt the prison board will be too impressed with your performance today, and if you want to keep your job, I suggest you don’t make enemies of your donors.”
Annie set her jaw and glared up into Urs’s hard face. He narrowed his eyes at her and squared his shoulders. I watched, breathless. His throat bobbed. He blinked. And it was over. He turned to one of his officers. “Call zeese ladies oon ship.”
The guard frowned. “But you said to send all ships after—”
“Just do eet,” Urs ground out. He marched off without another word to us, barking orders at his men.
I slowly turned to Annie, tears in my eyes from a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and mirth. I hugged her tight and whispered in her ear, “You are my hero.”
She chuckled, shoulders shaking. Suddenly I realized she wasn’t la
ughing but crying. I hugged her tighter.
“See.” She gulped. “Old ladies are good for something.”
A few hours later we stood in the bakery back home in Bijou Mer. Annie and I, with Iggy in my purse, had been released after we gave simple statements, where we maintained that we’d been used as hostages and had no idea who our captors were, nor did we do a good job of describing them.
Annie threatened Henrick before we left, and he assured us that neither Urs nor his officers would be harassing us with any more questions or would make us relive the traumatizing events of the day. Apparently the story they’d pieced together was that Horace, disguised as our ship’s captain, had snuck in during the tour with some members of the Badlands Army to rescue his operatives, Nate and Pritney. They still hadn’t accounted for all the missing prisoners.
We’d arrived home and hugged Maple and Sam and filled them in on everything. But no one could relax until Yann and Wiley showed up. Maple ran into Wiley’s arms and he scooped her up and didn’t let go for quite some time. Apparently they’d docked at an island on the outskirts of the Air Kingdom.
Pritney and Nate had hijacked another ship and as far as Yann and Wiley knew, they hadn’t been caught yet. The guys had lain low for a while while the police swept the skies, but had eventually hired transport back to Bijou Mer through roundabout, hard to track stops. They’d changed back to the clothes they wore under their uniforms and had spelled their hair back to its usual state. Even Yann’s wiry beard was back. Between the haircuts and the uniforms and the dim light of the prison, I doubted anyone could identify them.
“I think this calls for champagne.” Maple collapsed onto a stool while Wiley moved to the cold pantry to find the bottles we kept on hand. “I know I wasn’t with you, but I feel like I aged ten years with worry.”
“Yesss.” Sam nodded. “I shed a skin today.”
Maple crinkled her nose at me and nodded. “He did.”
I sniffled and wiped a tear away. It seemed I hadn’t stopped crying since I got back. “I’m just so happy to be here and see you guys again.” I wrapped Maple and Sam into a group hug and pressed my head against theirs. “I love you guys.”
