by Danny Lasko
A cutting burn rips up my legs and snaps me out of my thoughts. I realize my father is taking off my wet and muddy uniform I swiped from the tower guard. I squint through the pain and see my dad using both of his limbs, one to hold the slack cloth of the pants, the other to cut. Then I realize how, and I can’t believe it. He’s fastened an iron hook on his left stub.
The iron hook.
“Sorry,” he says gently. “Still trying to get a feel for this thing. Pretty primitive but looks neat, doesn’t it?”
“Dad, you don’t have—”
“I may not be able to do anything about the pain. I can at least keep you dry.”
“It’s fine. I don’t need—”
“Let me be your father, Horatio. This one time, please.”
I blink my eyes, trying to see past the pain to watch my father cut my uniform down the legs. Getting the pants cut off me is an odd sensation by itself, but having them cut by my father takes it to a whole new level. Odd because I haven’t needed his help very often. I’m sure there was the common father stuff that happened when I was a baby, but after Ames, it stopped.
“These may not be the most stylish, but they’re soft and loose and if anyone can, I think you’ll be able to pull them off.” My dad slips baggy trousers on me, of a deep silky purple that fall below the knees.
“Pirate pants.”
“Kind of fitting, don’t you think?” He pulls a white shirt over my head and tightens the laces crisscrossing over my chest. The material—linen, my dad calls it—is soft and gentle on my skin and fights against the searing pain in my feet.
“What you really need is a bath. Don’t worry,” he adds, seeing the objection about to pour out of my mouth. “A change of clothes is all you’ll get from me.”
I watch him wrestling with his new limb, straightening and finishing the clothes to be as comfortable as possible. I’ve never really thought about what my dad has had to go through. He chose to love and protect a woman who’s been hunted by the greatest opponent the Children face and was so committed, he brought her wizard high council father along, too. Then he asked to move away from the Children for fear of being discovered and putting all Children at risk, all the while having to deal with a son who had no interest in the hocus pocus fairy-tale history of the very people who have the power to save us all.
And the only thing I can say between the strangling regret twisting in my chest and the vicious attack on my ankles is “Feels better.”
“Good.” He bunches up the old uniform and throws it in a corner.
“You sure you don’t want Annie in here to fix this?” he asks, pointing at my blistering ankles as best he can with the hook. He can’t help but look at the hook and proudly smile. I’d probably smile, too, if I didn’t feel like I was dying.
“No,” I say, “just have to do it again. Don’t know that I can.”
My dad pulls a stool up next to the bed and grabs my trembling hand. I grip tightly, lay my head back, and close my eyes, trying to focus myself away from the pain. I have to be squeezing my dad’s hand enough to hurt him, but he doesn’t make a peep.
I glance over to my father, who’s busy trying to rub his forehead with the piece of his arm just above his hook, as though he’s trying to mix together the right words for whatever he wants to say. The first few times he opens his mouth, words fail to form. Finally, he gives up. Normally, I think I would care. Normally, I would want to try and guess what he wanted to say. Or what I would want him to say. I’d want him to say he was sorry. For Ames, for Allen. For not being there, ever. I want him to say he understands why I want to save Allen. I want him to tell me that he knows that all of this could have been avoided if he would have just let Peter Dawes and Dirk Hopkins on the transport. I want him to say he loves me as much as Mira and the Piper and the Children. I want him to say he loves me more. But right now, for this moment, holding the hand of my father is better than all of that.
“Horatio!” cries Annie stepping inside the cabin. “Holding hands with your dad!”
“Annie, This...don’t be a thing.”
“No, I’m serious! I’m about to cry over this.”
“What do you need?” asks my father, who’s as uncomfortable with this as I am.
“We’re here.”
Jayce and my dad heft me out to the deck and up the rail to see the lights flickering in London below. Just over 133 Gloucester Road, they tell me. I suck in the crisp autumn air, which seems to have a healing effect on my heart. The Synarch never invaded any other country by force. They didn’t have to. Instead, they let the fear invade for them. Most civilized countries are ruled by someone friendly to the Synarch or a blatant Synarch plant. No one had much of a choice. The Synarch had the technology, the power, and the plan. Without them, nations, even the world powers before the Unification, were compelled to fall in line. Most developing nations were devastated by neglect and ignorance once the Synarch suggested a “sink or swim” attitude toward them. Other nations also abandoned their support. There are a lot fewer people in this world than there used to be.
Britain is run by a Synarch plant but, according to Linus, is proud of her British heritage, so the razing that the states felt so fiercely in the first twenty years of Synarch rule never happened here. London is still the capital and a Citizen city where most of the lo-pry work but don’t live. Makes it a lot easier to move around.
“I don’t care about any of that,” I tell Linus, sliding myself down to the deck. “Heal me,” I say, turning to Annie.
“But what about—”
“Jayce will cover us, just as he did at the ship. But we’ll be fast this time. Jayce?”
“I’m up for it,” he winces unconvincingly.
“Horatio, it’s just a journal,” says Linus. “We break into the house, open the dumbwaiter, and leave.”
“Dumbwaiter?”
“It’s a—forget it. It’s in the house.”
“He’s right, son,” says Dad. “I’ll go with Linus. Annie, Jayce, stay here. Make sure Horatio, you know, stays here.”
“If there is any sign of trouble—”
“I know. We’ll get out.”
“Annie, remember,” my dad says, “I’ve installed a winch system for the rope to pull us up. All you have to do is hit this switch when we give you the signal, okay?”
“Okay.”
“What do they have to do?” I ask Annie after the two of them disappear over the side.
“Pretty much that,” she says. “According to note one, the journal is hidden behind a dumbwaiter, a sort of small elevator that goes from the kitchen to the rooms upstairs. Anyway, it’s there. They just have to find it.”
“Then what?” I gasp, still reeling.
“It’ll tell them where to go next. Can I get you anything?”
“Heal me.”
“You told me not to.”
“Changed my mind.”
Annie places her hands on my legs. But I don’t feel relief. She peers into my eyes.
“Let them try,” she says. I relax as much as my pain allows, but every second feels like an hour. They’re taking too long. Something isn’t right. Annie can feel it, too. Suddenly, our fears are realized. Sirens. Lots of them.
“It’s coming from the house,” says Jayce, taking a look.
“Do it, Annie.”
“Just give them a little longer.”
“Willing to risk that?” I ask, tasting the freedom of working legs.
“Fine.” She yanks the blades out of my ankles mercilessly. After a sharp shriek of pain, it quickly subsides into a heightened relief. So much so, I try to stand. The shattered bones remind me of how stupid that was. A new pain shreds through me. Annie hesitates but lowers her hands just above my ankles. She suddenly stops and whirls at the shou
ts behind her.
“What are you doing?!” cries Linus, climbing over the edge of the ship. Jayce must have brought him up on the winch.
“Me? What are you doing?!” I shout back.
“Just didn’t trust us, did you? You just couldn’t stay away, could you, hero? Just had to come to the rescue! Had to be the guy!”
“If you hadn’t set off the alarms, I wouldn’t have to!”
“It’s called a distraction. And look! No one nearly drowned!”
“It worked brilliantly,” adds my father as Jayce helps him onto the deck. “In, out, no one the wiser.”
“Just kills you doesn’t it?” says Linus, passing me as I crawl by.
“Enough, Linus,” says my father. That doesn’t help. If I could climb the stairs to the quarterdeck, I’d make sure Linus knew exactly how I felt about it.
“We should go,” says Jayce, peering over the side, watching the collection of law enforcement personnel gather below.
“Here it is,” says Linus, pulling out Pock’s note. “Page 233 … ah. Here. Kensington Gardens. We’re looking for a statue near a river.”
“That’s just down the street!” cries Annie, looking at a map.
The Jolly Roger crosses away from the screeching alarms, which are now starting to attract attention. It was a risk, but it seems to be one worth taking. After all, who’s going to be looking for a flying pirate ship?
We pass above a massive round building just on the edge of Kensington Gardens, aglow with warm yellow light flooding from the doorways and windows—a performance hall that looks as though it was the inspiration for the Lily Rust Theater. Even in my pain, I can’t help but notice how beautiful London is. Its stone and brick buildings, ancient in architecture compared to the sleek new styles of the Synarch’s Citizen cities, seem to empathize with the world’s woes. It’s like looking at an old man who has endured everything and yet still stands tall, hopeful. Like the pain isn’t the first he’s felt and it won’t be the last. I wish I was so sure.
“There!” shouts Linus, pointing from the wheel. Near the middle of Kensington Gardens along the banks of the Long Water, I can just make out the statue thanks to the lightening sky.
“Peter Pan,” says Annie. “Playing a pipe.”
“What do we do with it?” asks Jayce. “Do we take it with us?”
“Let the boy who never grows up play with the wind as the dawn breaks beyond,” she reads from Pock’s note. “Hook says we have to replace the pipe in the statue with Pock’s. And the wind will play the Aire at sunrise.” I nod and start to crawl over the deck to the rope. I feel Linus’s hand on my shoulder pulling me back, twisting my body, and reigniting the sharp pain from shattered bones.
“Linus!”
“He’s staying here,” says Linus, clenching his jaw. “He’ll slow us down.”
I push myself up, and the rage in my head for a moment deadens the pain in my ankles.
“Man, you and me are gonna—”
“Raysh!” calls out Annie, helping me get upright again. “Linus, you and Mr. Gaph take the music pipe and get the Aire. Jayce and I will stay here with Horatio.”
“Good.”
“Linus,” adds Annie, jamming her finger into Linus’s chest. “If you ever do something like that again, I will personally throw you off this ship and into a herd of wild horses who will trample you until long after you’ve stopped breathing, you understand me?”
My dad pulls the music pipe from its sheath on my back.
“We’ll be fast,” he says gently.
I peer down after them. Dawn’s coming. And this statue of a boy playing a pipe of his own on some kind of pedestal is waiting to play the day into existence—and with him, Pock’s third Aire. I can’t tell if it’s my overdeveloped sense of responsibility shouting at me that I’m the one who’s supposed to be retrieving it or that I hate that Linus is exploiting the fact that I can’t walk.
Linus’s silhouette pulls the stone pipe from the statue’s outstretched hand and replaces it with Pock’s. I feel the warmth of the new sun break over the eastern skyline, but it only skims off my body and isn’t nearly bright or warm enough to penetrate the dark inside.
And then, I hear the tune, a loud, light, hopeful whistle that turns into a song and nearly raises me to my feet. They’ve done it.
“Did you get that?” I ask, turning to Annie. She nods, a bright smile on her face.
“Three down,” she says. “We’re almost home.” She leaps up to watch the winch pull Linus, my dad, and the music pipe through the air when a flash of light brighter than the recent dawn washes over us from the south, instantly followed by a thunderous blast, tossing the ship from side to side. The winch cringes and creaks, then snaps from its base, snagging Annie and pulling them both over the side.
I don’t hesitate. I leap for the winch, but its weight, along with the weight of three bodies, pulls me up and over the side. But my hand slides along the hull until it catches one of the railings. With my other hand, I hold the winch, Annie dangling near my feet, my father and Linus nearly twenty feet below. And below them, a lake of fire. A shot from a Synarch cruiser hit the round building we passed over not too long ago. Its debris and flames jumped to the park, and in seconds, it’s been consumed.
“Do it!” I shout at Annie. She frees herself from the winch, latches on to both my shattered ankles, her body dangling beneath me. And I scream above the roars of fire. Immediately, I feel the relief flow from Annie’s miraculous fingertips through my body. Even the strain in my arms is gone. Annie shimmies up my body and to the ship where Jayce pulls her inside.
“Come on! Come on!” I shout to the others over the roaring of the fire below. I feel the heat rising and starting to find its way into my eyes and nostrils. I try lifting my arm to give the rope to Annie and Jayce, who are frantically trying to raise me. But it’s useless. The best I can do is to hang on.
“HORATIO GAPH!” Unseen speakers blast my name over all of London. When I look up, I see a sight that nearly makes me lose my grip on the winch—eight Synarch cruisers lined up along the Thames River. Their guns aren’t aimed at me. They’re aimed at the city. They must have figured out the sirens were because of us.
“THIS IS SPECIAL AGENT FARR OF THE SYNARCH ANTI-INSURGENCY SQUAD. SURRENDER.”
“Not again,” I whisper under my breath. I turn to my dangling duo.
“Hurry!”
“SURRENDER NOW OR LONDON WILL BURN TO THE GROUND.”
I hear sudden bursts of screaming from the distant streets below, followed by broken glass and blurred figures scurrying into dark corners and buildings.
“Move! Now!” I shout to my dad. But even I couldn’t close the distance in time to act. There has to be a way, I think. There has to be a way.
DROPTHEROPE save London. HOLDONTOROPE London burns to the ground.
“I can save them,” I whisper, my eyes bulging. “I can save them.” I look down at my father and Linus, desperately trying to escape the fiery licks of the burning trees below their feet and still hold onto the music pipe. I stretch my head up, watching Annie gritting her teeth, straining to pull me up. Suddenly, her eyes open, locking with mine. She knows what I’m thinking.
Get up, they say to me. I flash again, but there is no solution where I hold onto the rope and London is saved. If I want to save the city and the millions of people in it, I have to drop Linus and my father into the burning fields. If I save them and the music pipe, London burns. I have to choose. This world or the next.
“There has to be another choice!” I yell.
There is.
My eyes dart back up to Annie, but she isn’t talking. Neither is Jayce. Linus and my father are busy with the rope. Where was it coming from? There is, it said. Another choice.
“But somebody’s
gonna die!”
Will they?
“Yes! Either London or my father—”
DROPROPEINONESECOND Linus and father die. DROPROPEINTWOSECONDS Linus and father die. DROPROPEINTHREESECONDS Linus and father die. DROPROPEINFOURSECONDS Linus and father die. DROPROPEINFIVESECONDS Linus and father die. DROPROPEINSIXSECONDS Linus and father die. DROPROPEINSEVENSECONDS Linus and father live.
For the first time since I emerged as a soothsayer, I hesitate. Do I really trust it enough to risk my father’s life?
Let go, Horatio. It is okay to let go.
“Horatio! No!” yells my father. He sees it in my face. He must. I count the seconds in whispers.
“One … two … ”
“Horatio, don’t! Millions of lives are at stake! Our duty is to the Soul!”
“Three … ”
“Horatio! Do not drop us!”
“Four … ” I hear a screech sing through the sky and a wisp of blue soar through the air in front of me. I smile.
“Five … ”
“Horatio!”
“Six … ”
“Horatio!”
“Seven!”
“Horatio!”
I drop the rope and leap onto the ship.
“Raysh! What did you do?!” cries Annie.
“No time! To the cannons! Trust me!”
The ship is several hundred yards from the Synarch cruisers, their massive guns starting their deathly glow. It’s now or never.
“Fire!” I scream, lighting the first cannon. Jayce and Annie do the same. We keep lighting them in succession until all twenty starboard side cannons have blasted out against the tyrants. Each one of them hits its target, sending several of the cruisers crashing into the Thames. The effectiveness of these old guns shocks me. I’m beginning to wonder whether I have been wrong about Mira.
“Reload!” I shout, pulling back the cannons. But I’m rocked from my feet with a blast from the enemy. Another, followed by another. We’re getting pummeled. I’m able to load a cannon and get a shot off, but it’s not enough. We can’t load fast enough.