Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper

by Jeff Seymour

  I tell him about the ambush and how it went wrong, and how Salyeh and Tian Li followed Silvermask’s goons back to Arachnya House. He listens intently, nodding and asking questions, but I start to sweat because the clock in the corner is ticking down and he still hasn’t promised to help yet.

  “But how do you know it’s the right house?” he asks.

  “What?” I sputter. “They saw those goons go in there!”

  Salawag nods. “Of course, of course. But what if that was just where they stash their vehicles? Or worse, someplace they were going to rob?”

  Now it’s my turn to stand there with my mouth open. I hadn’t thought of that. None of us had. We were so sure.

  “I want to believe you.” Lord Salawag frowns. “I really do. There’s nothing I’d love better than to find Silvermask and put him away for good. But I can’t ask the police to go that deep into Bleak Forest without definitive proof. You have to understand, they’d be risking their lives. There would undoubtedly be violence.” He taps his finger on his lips. “Hmm. Hmm, hmm. And Silvermask does seem to always be one step ahead of you. How can we be sure this wasn’t all a trick?”

  My mouth goes dry. The clock keeps ticking. I’ve got less than two minutes left to convince him, and this might be my only shot. “I can show you,” I croak.

  “Hmm?” he asks.

  I nod toward his gills. “You’re a skylung, right? Can you use the Panpathia?”

  He coughs. “A little, I admit. But not very well. I never liked it much.”

  That seems like somebody not liking bacon or chocolate to me, but I guess there’s all types in the world. “Well, what if I could get in there and find the kids? If I contacted you over the Panpathia, would you be able to see what’s around me? Would you be able to see Aaron?” My hands start sweating just thinking about it, but that clock keeps ticking, and it’s all I can come up with.

  “Yes,” he says. He taps his lips some more. “Yes, yes. I believe I could. But you’d be in terrible danger. Would you really do that?”

  I nod, still sweating. “I would. I will, I promise. Are you usually in your office? It’ll be easier to find you if I know where to look.”

  He snorts and finishes his coffee, setting his cup down on the table. The undersecretary sweeps it up in seconds. “Yes. Most days I’m here from morningdove to evening star.” He laughs. “I work longer than the sun this time of year!”

  The undersecretary coughs quietly, and I realize the clock has just about ticked my time away. Lord Salawag gets up, and I do the same. He walks to the door with me as I crutch out. “Remarkable. You are truly a remarkable person, Nadya Skylung.” He waves to Thom and the others as the under­secretary closes the doors behind me. “Good luck!” he calls out. “Be careful! I hope to see you again very soon, triumphant!”

  The doors boom shut. Markus fastens his glare on me right away, as though now that my business is concluded, me and my party should kindly get on the elevators and shove off, thank you very much.

  Thom, Tam, and Rash stare at me suspiciously. My gills burn. They’re not going to like what I did. Except Rash, maybe. He seems to enjoy adventure.

  “‘Good luck’?” Thom asks. “What did he mean by that?”

  Markus clears his throat meaningfully, and I crutch toward the elevators, my heart sinking into my shoes. “C’mon,” I say. “I’ll tell you on the way up to the roof.”

  CHAPTER 19

  IN WHICH NADYA MAKES A FATEFUL DECISION, AND HAS AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.

  I’m wrong about Rash liking the plan. Even he thinks it’s too dangerous.

  “Look, Nadya,” he says when I ask him for help. We’re putting away the gliders after getting back to Gossner’s workshop. Thom already told me he thinks the plan is terrible, and Tam, who’s now disappearing inside, was worryingly quiet about it. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, but this is too big a risk. You’re talking about flying into the hideout of the guy who’s trying to kidnap you, finding the kids, getting on the Panpathia—which if I understand it is like shining a big old searchlight around and yelling ‘Here I am!’ to Silvermask—convincing the Lord Secretary to help you, and then sneaking out without getting caught.” Rash folds up the wings on my glider and leans it against another, then pulls a tarp over the whole set. “I’ve seen you do some incredible things, but I don’t think even you are capable of this. And I know me and the Dawnrunners aren’t.”

  My mouth dries out as we head toward the stairs to the workshop. Somewhere down there, Raj is pacing, worrying, self-quarantined. “There’s no time to come up with a better plan,” I protest. “We don’t know what’s happening to Aaron and the kids, and we don’t know how long it’ll be before Raj loses himself to the shadow. I know it’s a big risk, but we have to take it!”

  Rash wipes the sweat off his face, then takes off his prosthesis and stretches his shoulder out. “Sorry,” he says. “But there’s got to be a better way.”

  The reception I get downstairs is pretty much the same. Pepper, who’s working on some kind of boiler gadget, tells me it’s too dangerous. Alé, supervising Pep while propping her hurt ankle up on a table with an ice pack under it, shrugs, as if to say, Sorry, but I’m not going anywhere. Tian Li and Salyeh are back at the Orion with Nic, which I count as pretty even, since they might help, but Nic would definitely be against the plan. I don’t bother trying Gossner. Instead I keep wheedling and needling people all morning, until when we’re all at lunch, Thom finally loses his patience after I accuse him of giving up.

  “We’re not giving up, Nadya!” He rubs his forehead and tosses the crust of his sandwich down. “We’re just not going to do things the way you want.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “I thought you’d learned by now that’s important sometimes.”

  I did learn that, last month when we were fighting the pirates. And Pep’s been trying to teach it to me again. But . . . “This is different,” I say. “This isn’t about the best way to do something. This is life and death, and we have to move fast.”

  “What about Sal and Tian Li?” Tam asks around a mouthful of noodle soup. It’s the first thing he’s said since we started. He slurps down his noodles and peers into the workshop, where Gossner’s kids are working and laughing like everything’s normal. “Maybe they’ve got something cooking. Sal said he thought he could figure out who Silvermask is, right?”

  My stomach shrivels. Tam was my last hope, and it sounds like he’s going to come down on Thom’s side.

  “So why don’t we get in touch with them and see what they think?” Tam clears his throat and taps his spoon on his bowl. “Sorry, Nadya. But it kinda is like last time, you know? We need everybody working together or we’ll never pull this off.”

  Everybody watches me hopefully, except for Pep. She looks away, like she doesn’t even want to see me right now. The fire in my heart cools. I almost give up. I almost give in.

  I’m scared too, y’know? I don’t want to go into Silvermask’s mansion. I don’t want to risk facing him. I want Nic and Thom and Gossner and the adults to solve this problem for me, the way things are supposed to work.

  Down below, I hear Raj crying softly. The last time I let my fears stop me, it was a disaster. I’m not gonna do it again.

  “Sure,” I mumble. I look down at my crutches and the Lady, wiggle my leg a bit because it’s falling asleep. “We can wait a little longer, I guess. Maybe Sal and Tian Li will have a better idea.”

  Everybody but Pep smiles. Everybody but Pep looks relieved. Pep, on the other hand, looks up for the first time in ten minutes and frowns.

  My heart tumbles toward my ankles like a flightless bird rolling down a hill. Because I know what I have to do now, and even I don’t really think I can pull this off alone.

  * * *

  • • •

  We send a message to the Orion, but Sal and Tian Li don’t respond before bed. S
o I wait until everybody’s asleep to make my move. It’s a little hard to extricate myself from the big nest of blankets by the boilers, but I manage it eventually. I almost trip over Pep, and my heart twangs. Her face is scrunched up like she’s having a bad dream, and she twitches every few seconds, sending her curls fluttering. We were so close just a few weeks ago. I want to burrow up against her and cry my heart out because this is so darn hard and I want my best friend.

  But if I do that, I’ll never get out of here, and we’ll never rescue Aaron and never save Raj, and I’m pretty sure I’ll feel like I’m responsible for that the whole rest of my life.

  I know this is a big risk. I know I could end up like Brittany Brikowski. But there’s a risk to me of doing nothing. If I just sit here safe in Gossner’s tower while Aaron and Raj suffer, it’ll be like I’m drinking poison, and that poison will sit in my soul the rest of my life. Eventually it’ll do what the pirates and Silvermask and even the Malumbra haven’t been able to: It’ll eat my heart, and I won’t be Nadya Skylung anymore.

  I don’t blame them for not wanting to risk their lives on this rescue mission. They’re taking care of themselves and each other, and in a way I’m glad. But if I don’t do this, I’ll lose myself as surely as I would if Silvermask got hold of me. At least if I go, there’s a chance I won’t.

  I leave Pepper behind and start the long, painful crutch up the stairs to the roof where the gliders are. The lifts are too loud and there’s nobody to help me use the swings so I’m on my own, starting now. I take it slow, place the crutches carefully. I’ve got a long way to go and a lot to do, and I’ve gotta stay stealthy. I can’t get caught now, and I can’t burn my arms out like I did on the bicycle. Like Rash said, getting in is only half the battle—once I’m there, I have to get out again.

  Gossner’s workshop after dark is kinda eerie. The electric lights of the city cast strange shadows through the window, even on a clear, moonlit night like this one. Kids cough and groan in their sleep, and the platforms they’re on squeak and pop as they move. Every once in a while somebody gets up to use the bathroom, and their footsteps make my heart race until a door closes and I hear a flush a little later.

  But eventually I reach the door to the roof. I pause to rest, looking back at the stairs I climbed and all the sleeping kids below, searching for my friends, my allies, the people trying to keep me safe, who I lied to and am running away from.

  “Kinda hard, isn’t it?” says a voice by the door.

  My heart leaps into my mouth, which is good because if it wasn’t there blocking the sound I’d probably scream, and then I’d be in even worse trouble than I am already. I turn around, and Tam moves into the moonlight coming through a window to our left. He shakes his head. “I knew you’d try this, Nadya.” He sighs, then looks down at all the stairs I climbed. “I was sorta hoping you’d change your mind partway up though.”

  My heart slows down, but I’m still breathless from the climb, my hands are sweating, and my wrists are sore. “Well, I didn’t,” I say. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

  Tam jerks his head up like I smacked him. “I’m gonna come with you, of course.” My jaw drops, and he frowns. “Goshend’s teeth, Nadya.” He rubs the back of his head. “Did you think I’d rat you out or something?”

  I wince. “Kinda. I mean, you were on everybody else’s side this afternoon.”

  Tam rolls his eyes. “I knew you wouldn’t give up. I was trying to help you roll the wool over Thom’s eyes.”

  My guts feel like a cloud frog diving for the bottom of the pond. “Sorry,” I say. “I should’ve known I could trust you.”

  Tam sighs. But after a second, he shakes his head and shrugs. “Heck, at least you know now.” He holds up a key and twirls it around his finger. “The door’s locked, but I got the key from Alé.” He grins. “She says, ‘Good luck. Wish I could join you.’ She’s down keeping a lookout. And she wanted to pass this on too.” He tosses me her rod, the one she used to beat up the Shadowmen who attacked us on the zip lines.

  My stomach warms back up. “I gotta find a good way to thank her when all this is over,” I say, hitting the button that telescopes the rod and swishing it through the air a couple times. “She’s been a huge help.”

  Tam nods. “Yeah. We’ll think of something though. Together, right?” He raises an eyebrow.

  I smile. “Yeah. Together.”

  Then Tam unlocks the door to Gossner’s roof, and together we walk through it.

  CHAPTER 20

  IN WHICH A PERILOUS NIGHTTIME FLIGHT IS UNDERTAKEN.

  Tam and I get everything set up together, just like he said. I check the straps on his glider, and he checks the straps on mine. We map out the route in our heads, remembering the thermals we used this morning. Thermals are different at night, Rash said, but a couple of these should be permanent. One’s the exhaust from a power station by the river, and another’s the hot air coming off the decomposing garbage at an enormous landfill. They should get us enough altitude to glide all the way into Bleak Forest.

  We decide Tam should go first, since we won’t be able to see each other very well or communicate much, and he’s slower. I wouldn’t want to leave him behind. Our plan is to land on the roof of Silvermask’s mansion and find a way in from there. Tam’s brought some lock picks, which I’m glad for. Breaking in with a hammer or something might be too noisy. Silvermask’s compound is probably pretty quiet.

  Once we’re strapped in and my crutches are cinched tight to my harness, Tam pulls a blue button about as big as my palm out of his pocket. “Here,” he says. He hands it to me.

  “What’s this?” I ask, turning it over. It’s a glass bead with some kind of metal on the back. Steel, maybe, or brass.

  “It’s a locator,” Tam says. “I made it today while you were bugging everybody. It’s in case we get separated.” He pulls another one out. “Listen.” He presses his button, and the one he handed to me chirps. He shakes it, then walks halfway around me and presses it again, and it chirps a little differently. “Gossner showed me how to make machines talk to each other. I don’t understand it all the way yet, but if you put an electric charge through the right kind of metal, you can send out some kind of wave. Other pieces of metal get hit by the wave and react.”

  He takes a deep breath. He sounds excited. “There’s a couple electromagnets and a copper wire inside the button. When you press the button, the wire moves by the electromagnets, which creates a charge and makes some of these waves.” He pulls the back off one of the buttons. There’s a whole mess of stuff in there. “See these little glass tubes? They’ve got metal dust in them. When the waves hit the dust, it sticks together. This little nub here stores electrical charge, and when the metal dust sticks together it completes a circuit and makes this little brass foot rub the back of the case, which makes the chirp and shakes the dust loose in the glass tubes, resetting the locator. So if the locators are close enough when you hit the button, they make each other chirp, and if you listen real careful, you can tell which direction the other locator is in by how the chirp sounds, because the wave hits one glass tube before the other.”

  I stare at Tam, dumbfounded. “You just . . . whipped this up?”

  He scratches the back of his head. “I’m kinda surprised it works, actually,” he mumbles.

  He’s a genius. There’s no doubt about it. I lunge forward and give him a hug. It’s awkward in the gliders, but it works.

  “Wait!” a voice shouts behind us.

  Pepper runs toward us from the door to the workshop. “I’m coming with you,” she says as I let go of Tam. I feel like dirt. She’s totally going to get the wrong idea about that hug.

  She’s puffing real hard, like she ran the last few flights of steps, and she starts strapping herself into one of the gliders. “I watched you guys learn to use these things, and I’m sure I can fly one.”

  Tam st
ares at her for a second, then shrugs, looking relieved. When Pep finally turns to me, all I get’s a scowl.

  “Um . . . ,” I say. My stomach twists. She’s still mad at me, and I’m kinda worried about her coming along. Tam and I work real well together, and I know I can count on him. Up until last week, I’d have said I could count on Pep too. But I feel like me and Pep need to get back on the same page before we do anything as serious as flying into Silvermask’s mansion.

  Unfortunately, we don’t have time for that.

  “Nadya!” Thom bellows from the door to the workshop. “What in Goshend’s holy name do you think—”

  I don’t hear him finish. He rushes toward us, and then Pep, Tam, and me are bumping into each other and all three of us half jump, half fall off the balcony together.

  The initial drop is terrifying. You’re supposed to launch real careful with one of these gliders, but we had to get out so fast we didn’t have time to take a gentle step. I end up between Pep and Tam, my back to the ground and my face toward the sky, looking at Thom’s stricken face in the faint glow of the streetlamps.

  Luckily, Rash taught us what to do if we ever got caught in a bad position and the gliders stopped flying.

  Nose down, he said, and once you’re moving fast, level out again.

  Tam noses down above me, and I don’t see what Pep does because I have to roll over to get myself oriented. Once I’m facing down, I push up with my foot on the tail of the glider, which tilts the nose down, and dive straight toward the street. The wall of Gossner’s tower rushes past beneath me, all windows and electric lights. On the ground, the cars race by like mice scuttling after crumbs. The wind’s a sharp, cold bite in my ears. I count to two, then tug down on the tail loop and straighten out. Goshend be good, I’m moving fast enough that the wings fill with air and I glide toward the river, following the street.

  I’m breathing so hard I might pass out, so I focus on taking normal breaths and look around for Tam and Pep. I see two bat-wing shadows up ahead and figure that must be them, and I angle off behind them.