Alek didn’t move. “If I give myself up to your captain, he’ll never let me escape again.”
“But if you don’t signal the Leviathan for help, Klopp is a dead man. We all are, once those walkers get here!”
Alek stared at her another moment, then sighed and turned to the controls, placing his hands in the saunters. The hiss of pneumatics filled the air, and then the great arms scraped slowly along the ground, exactly matching Deryn’s stance.
“S …,” the perspicacious loris said.
Deryn swung her left arm across herself. This letter was harder for the iron golem, half lying in the dirt as it was, but Alek managed to bend its elbow just enough.
“H!” Bovril announced, and kept up as Deryn continued. “A … R … P …”
By the fifth letter the Leviathan’s huge kraken spotlight had found them, and together they repeated the sequence twice more before the giant arms’ last squick of pressure hissed away into the night.
Alek turned from the saunters. “Wie lange haben wir, Hans?”
Bauer shielded his eyes from the spotlight’s glare. “Zehn minuten?”
“We still have time to get away, Dylan.”
“Not with only ten minutes, and there’s no need to run.” Deryn put a hand on Alek’s shoulder. “After what we’ve done tonight, I can tell the captain how you introduced me to the Committee. And how if you hadn’t, the ship would’ve been shot down!” She said it all fast. Breaking her silent promise to leave him behind was as easy as breathing.
“I expect they’ll give me a medal,” Alek said drily.
“Aye, you never know about that.”
The spotlight began to flicker then, long and short flashes. Deryn was out of practice with Morse code, but as she watched, the familiar patterns came back into her mind.
“Message received,” she said. “And the captain sends me greetings!”
“How very polite.”
Deryn kept her eyes on the flickering spotlight. “They’re getting ready to pick us up. We’ll have Master Klopp to a surgeon in half a squick!”
“Then you don’t need me and Hans anymore.” Alek held out his hand. “I have to say good-bye.”
“Don’t,” Deryn pleaded. “You’ll never make it past all those walkers. And I swear I won’t let the captain chain you up. If he does, I’ll break the locks myself!”
Alek stared down at his offered hand, but then his dark green eyes caught hers. They gazed at each other for a long moment, the rumble of the airship’s engines trembling on Deryn’s skin.
“Come with me,” she said, finally grasping his hand. “It’s like you said the night before you ran away, how all the parts of the Leviathan fit. You belong there.”
He looked up at the airship, his eyes glistening. He was still in love with it, Deryn could see.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t run off without my men,” he said.
“Mein Herr,” Bauer said. “Graf Volger befahl mir—”
“Volger!” Alek spat. “If it weren’t for his scheming, we’d all have kept together in the first place.”
Deryn squeezed his hand harder. “It’ll be all right. I swear.”
As the airship drew closer, a whisper of wings came from overhead, steel talons glinting in the searchlights. Deryn let go of Alek’s hand, and breathed deep the bitter almond of spilled hydrogen—the dangerous, beautiful smell of a hasty descent. Ropes tumbled from the gondola’s cargo door, and seconds later men were sliding down them.
“Isn’t that a barking brilliant sight?”
“Beautiful,” Alek said. “If one isn’t chained up inside.”
“Nonsense.” Deryn banged his shoulder. “That blether about chains, that was just an expression. They only locked Count Volger in his stateroom, and I had to bring him breakfast every day!”
“How luxurious.”
She smiled, though the thought of Volger sent a squick of nerves through her—he knew her secret. The man could still betray her to the officers, or to Alek, anytime he wanted.
But she couldn’t keep hiding from his countship forever. It wasn’t soldierly. And besides, she could always toss him out a window if it came to that.
As the airship came to a rumbling halt, Bovril clung tighter to her shoulder. “Breakfast every day?” it asked.
“Aye, beastie,” Deryn said, stroking its fur. “You’re going home.”
FORTY-TWO
“S-H-A-R-P!” said Newkirk from the mouth of the cargo bay. “Blisters, Dylan, it’s really you!”
“Who else?” Deryn replied, grinning as she took the boy’s offered hand. She pulled herself up in a single heave.
“And you found the missing beastie?”
“Aye.” Deryn hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the wreckage-strewn battlefield. “One of my many accomplishments.”
Newkirk looked down. “You have been busy, Mr. Sharp. But save your bragging. There are German walkers coming, and the bosun says you’re wanted in the navigation room.”
“Now?” Deryn glanced back at the rescue operation. Klopp was rising through the air, trussed to a stretcher, while Alek and Bauer waited on the iron golem’s shoulder.
“The bosun says right away.”
“All right, Mr. Newkirk. But make sure you get those Clankers up safely.”
“Aye, don’t worry. We’ll not let the bum-rags slip away again!”
Deryn didn’t argue with the boy. It didn’t matter what Newkirk thought, as long as the officers knew that Alek had come back of his own free will.
Clanker or not, he belonged here.
On her way to the navigation room, the airship hummed and rumbled beneath Deryn’s feet, the corridors full of scrambling men and beasts. Bovril took in everything with eyes the size of florins, awed into a rare silence. The beastie belonged here too, it seemed.
The lady boffin waited in the navigation room, staring out at the lights of Istanbul across the water. Deryn frowned—she’d expected to find the captain. Of course, with German walkers on the way, the officers would be up on the bridge. But why had she been ordered here instead of to a battle station?
Tazza leapt up from the floor beside Dr. Barlow, running over to snuffle at Deryn’s boots. She knelt to cup his nose with her palm.
“Good to see you, Tazza.”
“Tazza,” Bovril repeated, then chuckled.
“A pleasure to see you too, Mr. Sharp,” the lady boffin said, turning from the view. “We’ve all been quite beside ourselves with worry.”
“It’s brilliant to be home, ma’am.”
“Of course, it stands to reason that you’d make it back safe and sound, resourceful lad that you are.” The lady boffin’s fingers drummed the sill of the window. “Though I see you’ve caused a bit of trouble in the meantime.”
“Aye, ma’am.” Deryn allowed herself to smile. “It was a bit of trouble, knocking out that Tesla cannon. But we got it done.”
“Yes, yes.” The lady boffin waved her hand, as if she saw towers wrapped in lightning topple every day. “But I meant that creature on your shoulder, not this tiresome battle.”
“Oh,” Deryn said, looking at Bovril. “You mean you’re glad to have it back, then?”
“No, Mr. Sharp, that is not what I mean.” Dr. Barlow let out a slow sigh. “Have you forgotten already? I went to great pains to make sure that the loris hatched while Alek was in the machine room. So that its nascent fixation would be directed entirely at him.”
“Aye, I remember that,” Deryn said. “How it’s like a baby duck, latching on to whoever it sees first.”
“Exactly, which was Alek. And yet here it is on your shoulder, Mr. Sharp.”
Deryn frowned, trying to remember exactly when Bovril had started riding on her shoulder as often as Alek’s. “Well, the beastie seems to like me just as much as it does him. And why wouldn’t it? I mean, Alek is a barking Clanker, after all.”
Dr. Barlow sat down at the map table, shaking her head. “It wasn’t designed to bond with t
wo people! Not unless they’re …” She narrowed her eyes. “I suppose you and Alek have rather a close friendship, haven’t you, Mr. Sharp?”
“Mr. Sharp,” Bovril repeated, then giggled.
Deryn gave the beastie a hard look, then spread her hands. “Honestly, I don’t know, ma’am. It’s just that Alek was busy driving the walker tonight, so Bovril started off on my shoulder, and I suppose that—”
“Excuse me,” Dr. Barlow interrupted. “But did you just say Bovril??”
“Oh, aye. That’s its name, sort of.”
The lady boffin raised an eyebrow. “As in the beef extract?”
“It wasn’t me who named it,” Deryn said. “They taught us all that in middy training, about not getting attached. But this anarchist lassie kept insisting on calling it Bovril, and the name sort of … stuck.”
“Bovril,” the beastie repeated.
Dr. Barlow stepped forward to peer more closely at the loris, then shook her head again. “I wonder if this excess of bonding is Mr. Newkirk’s fault. He never quite kept the eggs at an even temperature.”
“You mean, Bovril might be defective?”
“One never can tell with a new species. You say an ‘anarchist lassie’ started this Bovril nonsense?”
Deryn started to explain, but found herself wavering on her feet, and plonked down into a chair. It wasn’t exactly good manners, sitting in a lady’s presence, but suddenly all that had happened tonight was hitting Deryn hard—the battle, Zaven’s death, the narrow escape of the Leviathan from a fiery end.
More than anything else, it was a relief to be home. To feel the ship beneath her feet, real and solid, and not burning horribly in the sky. And Alek aboard by now as well …
“You see, ma’am, when I found him, Alek had taken up with this Committee for Union and Progress, who were dead keen to overthrow the sultan. I didn’t approve of them, of course, but then we found out there was a Tesla cannon being built. Knowing that it could destroy the Leviathan, I had to make sure it came down. Even if that meant joining up with anarchists—or revolutionaries, whatever you want to call them.”
“Very resourceful, as always.” The lady boffin sat across from her, reaching down to scratch Tazza’s head. “Count Volger wasn’t far wrong, was he?”
“Count Volger?” A squick of panic went through Deryn at the name. “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, what exactly wasn’t he wrong about?”
“He said that Alek had fallen in with unsavory elements. And also that you would be able to find our missing prince.”
Deryn nodded slowly. Volger had been sitting right there, of course, when she’d heard the clue about Alek’s hotel. “He’s a clever-boots, that one.”
“Indeed.” The lady boffin stood up again and turned to stare out. “Though he may be wrong about this Committee. However unsavory their politics, they have performed a valuable service for Britain today.”
“Aye, ma’am. They helped us save the barking ship!”
“They seem to have toppled the sultan as well.”
Deryn hauled herself up and joined Dr. Barlow at the window. The ship was under way again, heading back across the water. In the distance the streets of Istanbul were still alight with gunfire and explosions, and Deryn could make out swirling clouds of spice dust in the war elephants’ searchlights.
“I’m not certain he’s toppled yet, ma’am. It looks as if they’re still fighting.”
“This battle is quite pointless, I assure you,” the lady boffin said. “A few minutes after the Goeben was destroyed, we spotted the Imperial Airyacht Stamboul lifting off from the palace grounds, flying a flag of truce.”
“Truce? But the battle’s hardly begun. Why would the sultan surrender?”
“He did not. According to the Stamboul’s signal flags, the Kizlar Agha was in command.” Dr. Barlow smiled coolly. “He was taking the sultan to a place of safety, far from the troubles of Istanbul.”
“Oh.” Deryn frowned. “You mean he was … kidnapping his own sovereign?”
“As I said to you some time ago, sultans have been replaced before.”
Deryn let out a low whistle, wondering how long this meaningless battle would go on. Out the window the dark water of the bay was still churning where the Goeben had gone down. She wondered if the behemoth was still down there, picking through the jumble of steel and oil for its supper.
The spotlight came on again, cutting into the water to bring the beastie to heel. The Breslau would be next on the menu.
“If the Committee’s really winning,” Deryn said, “then Germany will be the only Clanker power left!”
“My dear boy, there is still Austria-Hungary.”
“Right, of course.” Deryn cleared her throat, silently cursing herself. “Don’t know how I forgot about them.”
Dr. Barlow raised an eyebrow. “You forgot about Alek’s own people? How odd, Mr. Sharp.”
“Mr. Sharp,” came a voice from above them.
Deryn looked straight up, and her jaw dropped.
Two small eyes were peering back at her from the ceiling. They belonged to another perspicacious loris, its tiny paws clinging to a message lizard tube. It looked almost like Bovril, except for missing the spots on its haunches.
“What in blazes?”
Then she remembered—there had been three remaining eggs. Bovril’s, the one smashed by the sultan’s automaton, and another that she’d forgotten all about. It would have hatched in the last month, of course.
Dr. Barlow raised a hand, and the other beastie swung from one paw like a monkey, then dropped. It encircled the lady boffin’s arm, sliding down to her shoulder.
“Mr. Sharp,” the new beastie said again.
“Mr. Sharp,” Bovril corrected, then they both began to giggle.
“Why does it keep laughing?” asked the lady boffin.
“I’ve no barking idea,” Deryn said. “Sometimes I think it’s cracked in the attic.”
“Revolution,” Bovril announced.
Deryn stared at it. She’d never heard the creature say something out of the blue before.
The new beastie repeated the word, rolling it around on its tongue happily, then said, “Balance of power.”
Bovril chuckled at the phrase, then dutifully parroted it.
As Deryn watched with growing astonishment, the creatures began to jabber, each repeating what the other said. The single words became a torrent of phrases in English, Clanker, Armenian, Turkish, and half a dozen other languages.
Soon Bovril was reciting whole conversations that Deryn had shared with Alek or Lilit or Zaven, while the new beastie made declamations that sounded just like Dr. Barlow talking, even a few that had to be Count Volger!
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Deryn whispered, “but what in blazes are they doing?”
The lady boffin smiled. “My boy, they are doing what comes naturally to them.”
“But they’re fabricated! What’s natural to them?”
“Why, only becoming more perspicacious, of course.”
FORTY-THREE
The next morning Alek was allowed to visit Volger.
As his guard let him into the wildcount’s stateroom, Alek noticed that the door wasn’t locked. Alek himself had been treated politely the night before, more like a guest than a prisoner. Perhaps the tension between his men and their Darwinist captors had thawed a little in the last month.
Count Volger looked comfortable enough. He was at his desk eating a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and toast, and didn’t bother to stand when Alek arrived. He simply nodded and said, “Prince Aleksandar.”
Alek bowed. “Count.”
Volger went back to scraping butter onto a piece of toast.
Standing there waiting, Alek felt like a schoolboy called in for punishment. He had never been to school, of course, but somehow adults—whether tutors, parents, or grandmotherly revolutionaries like Nene—all wore their disappointment in the same way. Surely headmasters weren’t so different.
Finally Alek sighed and said, “It might save time if I began.”
“As you wish.”
“You want to tell me that I’m a fool for having been captured again. That it was mad to involve myself in Ottoman politics. By now I could be safely hidden in the wilds.”
Count Volger nodded. “Yes, there is that.”
The man went back to scraping his piece of toast, seemingly intent on covering every square millimeter with butter.
“In not taking your advice, I risked my life and the life of my men,” Alek continued. “Dr. Busk says that Klopp is recovering well enough, but I led him and Bauer into an all-out battle. Things could have turned out worse.”
“Much worse,” Volger said, then fell silent again.
“Let’s see … Ah, I’ve also thrown away everything my father left me. The castle, all your plans, and finally his gold.” Alek reached inside his piloting coat and felt for a hard lump sewed into a corner of the lining. He tore the fabric, pulled out what remained of the gold, and tossed it onto the table.
After a month of buying spices and mechanikal parts, the bar had been mostly shaved away. All that was left was the round Hapsburg crest stamped at its center, like a thick, roughly made coin.
Volger blinked, and Alek let himself smile. At least he’d finally provoked a reaction.
“Did you finance this revolution entirely on your own?”
“Only the finishing touches—a little spice on top.” Alek shrugged. “Revolutions are expensive, it seems.”
“I wouldn’t know. I avoid them on principle.”
“Of course,” Alek said. “That’s what you’re really angry about, isn’t it? That I overturned the natural order and deposed a fellow royal? That I forgot that revolutionaries want to overthrow all aristocrats, including me and you?”
Volger took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully, then poured himself more coffee. “There is that, too, I suppose. But there’s one thing you’ve forgotten.”
Alek wondered for a moment what his final failure might be, but then gave up. He took a cup from the windowsill, filled it with coffee, and sat down across the desk from Volger.
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