The Ruby Airship

by Sharon Gosling

  “You were right,” she whispered.

  “About what?”

  “Yannick.” Even saying his name made Rémy feel sick. “You knew he was the thief. You knew he was rotten. But I didn’t listen.”

  Thaddeus shook his head with a faint smile. “I didn’t know,” he told her softly. “I just suspected. But even if he’d been the best man on Earth, don’t you think I would have come after you anyway?”

  “He’s not the best man on Earth,” Rémy said, almost choking on the words. “That’s someone else entirely.”

  Thaddeus ran his fingers lightly up and down her bare arms, smiling down at her. “I’m just so glad you’re alive,” he said. “There was a moment, when I found you, that I thought you weren’t.”

  She laughed softly and then shut her eyes, because laughing hurt. When she opened them again, Thaddeus was leaning forward, and for a second, Rémy thought he was going to kiss her. Her heart jolted, and she realized that she wanted him to, more than anything she’d ever wanted before. She looked up at him, holding her breath.

  Someone cleared their throat, cutting through the moment as surely as if it were a knife passing through butter. The intruder was J, who stood in the doorway, looking at his feet.

  “Sorry, lady and gent,” he said. “But Augustus and the rest are about to head out. Thought you’d like to know.”

  “Augustus!” Rémy exclaimed, stepping away from Thaddeus fast enough to make her head spin.

  “Whoa,” said Thaddeus, putting an arm out to steady her. She leaned on him as they headed for the door.

  Even though she’d remembered what had happened, it didn’t prepare Rémy for the sight outside. The road was littered with the blackened hunks of ash and wood; the only signs left of Le Cirque des Secrets. Rémy blinked, eyes full of tears again as she took in the ugly mess that the Comte’s men had made of her friends’ homes. Milling between them were the circus folk, some with bandages and slings concealing injuries, though others had mercifully escaped from harm. Some were on foot, but others were on horseback. At least none of them had been killed in the inferno. The folk on foot led horses or pulled handcarts loaded with whatever they had managed to salvage from the flames. Behind them, with her keeper, Constance the elephant stood calmly, waiting to be off. Farther away was the lion’s cage, its two occupants pacing within, still disturbed by the lingering smell of the fire.

  Augustus dismounted when he saw Rémy, a grin on his face.

  “Little Bird,” he said in French, “how glad I am to see you up and about.”

  Rémy tottered down the gangplank and into the old clown’s arms, where she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Augustus. This was my fault. You’ve all lost everything, and it was my fault.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” muttered Augustus, pulling back to look down at her. “There is enough badness in the world without you taking the blame for something you did not do. We are all whole, and that is something to be grateful for.”

  “But Claudette — and Amélie! They —”

  Augustus ticked one finger beneath her chin and smiled, glancing up at Thaddeus. “Claudette and her chick will be back with us before you know it,” he said. “This policeman of yours has a plan, ma cherie, and that is why we must be off at once. We have a long way to go on horseback if we are to accompany this wonderful machine.”

  Rémy sniffed, confused again. “Plan? Machine?”

  Augustus smiled at her again and then turned to remount his horse. “Thaddeus and J will explain everything.” he said. “Meanwhile, we will take Dominique with us. She will be safe with the other horses.”

  “Dominique!” Rémy exclaimed, seeing her beloved pony among the gathered animals. Hearing her mistresses’ voice, the little palomino whinnied and stepped forward. Rémy petted the creature’s soft nose. “I will see you soon, girl. I promise.”

  Dominique whickered gently into her hand as Augustus began to lead the homeless circus folk out into the road. They turned toward the southern end of the valley — the direction the Comte’s men had taken. Rémy watched as Dominique joined them, trotting off into the dust.

  Rémy turned around, putting her hand up to her bandaged head. “So,” she said, to Thaddeus. “What plan? And,” she added, for the first time taking in the contraption behind him, “what on the good green Earth is that?”

  {Chapter 32}

  INTO THE UNKNOWN

  Thaddeus watched as J showed Rémy around the airship. He’d thought the boy had the right to be her guide, given that he’d built it himself. Besides, though the burns to his legs weren’t nearly as bad as they could have been, they were still causing him pain. Seeing Rémy, wounded but walking, made up for everything, though. He shouldn’t have been surprised, of course. She was strong enough to weather anything — that was one of the things he loved so well about her. It was also one of the things that made her infuriating, but Thaddeus wasn’t fool enough to believe that he could have one without the other.

  He sat on a boulder a few feet away from the open gangplank, watching the circus procession as it disappeared up the long road away from the forest. The horses were now nothing but tiny moving points against the dust of the road and the incessant green of the trees. He admired these people’s resolve in the face of everything they had already lost and everything they still stood to lose. Around him loomed the silent shells of their lives and livelihoods, and yet still they were determined to save Claudette and Amélie and willing to take his word for it that they would not be alone in the attempt. He hoped fervently that their trust was not misguided.

  They had released the caged pigeon while Rémy had lain sleeping in his bunk. Thaddeus had no idea whether it would reach Dorfmann, or even if it did, whether the German would be willing and able to help them.

  “Penny for your thoughts? There, that’s one English saying I learned in London.”

  Thaddeus looked up to see Rémy standing over him, a faint smile on her lips. Behind her, J was clambering up to join Dita on the roof, where she was checking to see how well their repairs had survived. Thaddeus made to stand up, but Rémy waved him back down and crouched beside him, wincing slightly.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Not too terrible, considering,” she said lightly, though the dark smudges under her eyes told him she should get more sleep. Then she nodded over her shoulder at the airship. “Thaddeus — this ship is amazing. I can’t believe you and J flew it all the way from England.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if you are both crazy, or just brave.”

  Thaddeus smiled. “I know. It still seems like a bit of a dream to me, too. But without it — and J — we wouldn’t be here now.”

  “It’s good to see that ruby finally found a good home, too,” Rémy added dryly, evidently thinking about the argument they’d had about the jewel back in London.

  Thaddeus gave her an awkward smile. “Great things are often born out of difficult beginnings,” he told her. “That’s what I like to think anyway.”

  Rémy gazed out over the scene of ruin before them, her look of sadness more shocking to Thaddeus than the vivid gash and bruise still marring her forehead. He was used to seeing her angry and defiant, but he’d never seen her so readily near tears as he had over the past few hours. He wondered if that accounted for the moment in the airship just after she’d woken up, when he’d almost felt as if they were standing across that blasted chasm again, yelling hopelessly to each other.

  “Augustus said you had a plan,” she said quietly, dropping to sit cross-legged on the grass beside him. “Please, Thaddeus, tell me it’s a good one.”

  He sighed. “Augustus is an optimist, I’m afraid. It’s not really a plan. Well, unless you call ‘let’s go and get our people back’ a plan.”

  Rémy smiled grimly. “I’ll take it. If it means finding Claudette and Amélie, I’ll take it.”

  Without
thinking, Thaddeus took her hand and squeezed her fingers. Rather than pulling away, as she may have done just days before, Rémy laced her fingers through his.

  “While you were asleep, Augustus told me what he knew. Once Yannick had revealed that he knew who she was, Claudette realized it was only a matter of time before the Comte closed in on her. Even if Yannick hadn’t betrayed her himself, she thought it likely that he’d tell someone else who would — the reward was too great to pass up. She came clean to the whole circus — they held a meeting, where she told everyone the truth — and told them that she and Amélie would leave alone if that’s what they wanted. But they didn’t.”

  “Of course they didn’t.” Rémy said softly. “She’s family. She always has been.”

  “They thought about sailing to Italy, but the circus couldn’t afford the passage. So they settled on trying to get over the mountains into Spain. Claudette thought she’d be safe there, safer than going north with winter coming . . . as long as they got over the passes before the snow closed them. In Spain, the circus could carry on touring and earning money. The only snag in the plan was that this area here, where we are now, is the Comte’s territory. They traveled as quickly as possible, and they also stopped all communications with anyone outside the circus. That’s why Claudette stopped writing to you.”

  Rémy nodded, tears filling her eyes again. “But it wasn’t enough. Because of me.”

  “Not you,” Thaddeus said firmly. “Because of Yannick. As Claudette expected, he went to the Comte and told him who she was. But he didn’t know Claudette’s plan to get into Spain. Augustus thinks the Comte refused to pay out the reward until he had Claudette in his clutches.”

  “So Yannick had to find her,” Rémy concluded.

  “Yes. News about what had happened to Gustave and Le Cirque de la Lune was common knowledge, including the fact that Little Bird had disappeared but had last been seen in London. Knowing how close you and Claudette were, he came looking for you.”

  Rémy shook her head. “Mon dieu, and he manipulated me so easily, Thaddeus,” she whispered. “I was just too pig-headed to see it.”

  “You weren’t to know his real motives,” Thaddeus soothed. “It does you credit that you would be so loyal to your friends, even ones you haven’t seen for years.”

  Rémy looked up at him mutely for a moment, the expression in her eyes so strange that Thaddeus couldn’t understand it. “I should have been loyal to you,” she said eventually. “I just let . . . stupid things . . . get in the way.” Her fingers strayed to her throat as she spoke.

  “You’re not wearing your necklace,” Thaddeus realized. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her without it.

  She smiled wanly. “It was stolen.”

  “By Yannick?” Thaddeus asked in disgust. “I swear, when I find him —”

  “I don’t know if it was him or not,” sighed Rémy. “He swore it wasn’t. But then, he hypnotized me to get me to do what he wanted, so . . .” She shrugged.

  “I’m so sorry,” Thaddeus said. “I know it was a gift from your mother.”

  Rémy looked out over the forest, a slight frown creasing her forehead. “You know,” she said softly, “I’m not sure that I am sorry it’s gone anymore. Without it, we might not even have found ourselves in this mess.” Then another flicker passed her face, something like a mixture of realization and fear.

  “Rémy? What is it?”

  “My pack!” she said. “I was wearing it when we were attacked. Where is it? Is it lost? Please say it isn’t lost.”

  “Don’t worry,” he told her. “You had it when I found you. It’s in the airship — I stowed it in one of the cupboards for safety.”

  She blinked, relief flooding her eyes. “Did you look inside?”

  Thaddeus frowned. “No, of course not.”

  “No, I didn’t mean —” Rémy stopped and started again. “I didn’t think you would have, but I wouldn’t have minded. It’s just . . . there’s something in it I want to show you. Something I want you to see, and talk to you about.”

  “Do you want me to get it for you now?”

  Rémy was silent for a moment, frowning as if considering the question. Then she shook her head. “No. I think I have to wait until all of this is done. But you’re the one I want to show it to. And I wanted you to know that.”

  Thaddeus had no idea what she meant, but her words touched him. It made him regret that he had to turn the conversation to more disturbing matters. “Rémy,” he said, “there’s something more I have to tell you. About the Comte de Cantal.”

  He watched her face darken with concern as he told her of Desai’s list and the meeting he himself had witnessed in London.

  “Mon dieu,” she whispered, once he had finished. “And I thought all of that was done with.”

  “So did I,” said Thaddeus grimly. “All we can do is hope that he doesn’t have many of Abernathy’s devices already. And if we can stop him buying the submarine, then . . .” Thaddeus trailed off, seeing Rémy’s thoughtful face. “Rémy? What is it?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe nothing.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  Rémy pulled a face. “A couple of days ago, I found Yannick with one of those message-sending machines that the Professor made. He said he’d stolen it from the workshop, but what if he’d actually had it all along? I thought I’d heard him talking into it. He said he wasn’t, but what if he was lying? What if he did know how to use it — because it had been given to him by the Comte? It would explain how those soldiers knew exactly where to find us.”

  Thaddeus sighed. “It would. I don’t like the sound of that at all. If de Cantal has devices like that, what else does he have?”

  Rémy rubbed a hand over her face. “And this is the man who wants Claudette — dead or alive,” she said. “What — what if we’re already too late? What if he’s done something to her? What if . . .”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “He put out posters, didn’t he? He made his search public, which means he wants her return to be public. I don’t know what he’s planning, but it’s not to cut her throat in the dark. He couldn’t just produce her body and use it to claim the inheritance — it’d be too obvious that he killed her.”

  Rémy shivered. “Those soldiers — the ones that attacked the circus. Thaddeus, we’re no match for them. There aren’t enough of us. And what if he has more?”

  “I know,” Thaddeus said grimly. “I know.”

  * * *

  They waited until dusk had painted the skies first pink and then a faded violet before cutting the guide ropes and taking the airship skyward. Thaddeus was at the controls, Rémy leaning beside him to see the earth drifting away beneath them as they rose. The sensation was like nothing she’d ever felt before — a weightlessness without weightlessness, the pit of her stomach rising and dipping with excitement and a tiny lick of fear. The trees below looked like children’s toys, the river and road like strips of discarded ribbon.

  “Strange sensation, isn’t it?” Thaddeus said, watching her face. Rémy nodded, wordless, eyes fixed on the horizon as they drew level with the mountain pass and then lifted above it.

  Thaddeus turned them southeast and in the distance, glittering, she saw lights. They outlined a mountain that, in the darkness, seemed like a prism reaching for the stars. It was immense and intricate, a network of yellow stars that seemed to be harnessed to the Earth, as if some great power had pulled them out of the sky. She couldn’t imagine what they were — how they burned so brightly or what had created them. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to find out.

  “What’s that?” she asked nonetheless, her voice hushed as if they’d wandered into a cathedral by mistake.

  “That,” Thaddeus said, his voice unusually harsh, “is Mont Cantal, and it’s where we’re going.”

  {Chapter 33}

  A FEARFUL
DESTINATION

  They flew on through the night, the darkness hardening around them like obsidian. Overhead, the stars battled to outshine the ones that grew ever larger in the airship’s sights. The city of Mont Cantal loomed out of the landscape like a huge monolith to an unknown god. The lights, which Thaddeus could now see were great torches of yellow flame, had burned all night, and that achievement alone made him take a breath. What kind of mind could have constructed this place, he wondered. What was the architect afraid of, that he made it look so spectacular, and yet so forbidding? He thought of the underground empire that Abernathy had built beneath London. Here, the wonder wasn’t hidden away: it was on the surface for all to see. The policeman couldn’t decide if that worried him less or more.

  Augustus had been right to describe Mont Cantal as impenetrable. Thaddeus himself could not imagine how anyone could ever enter its vast walls unbidden, let alone reach the castle itself. The city was such a part of the mountain that in some places it was difficult to tell where the rock ended and the buildings began. A great wall had been built at the base, between two huge natural cliffs that formed permanent stone sentries. Behind this wall, the city was formed of three distinct sections. The largest was at the foot of the mountain, directly behind the wall and between the two cliffs, a higgledy-piggledy collection of buildings that alone would look like any city. This one, though, was set around a deep, clear lake, filled from a fast-flowing river fed by a great waterfall that cascaded from above.

  A winding path had been hewn out of the rock itself, just wide enough for two carts to pass, leading to the city’s second level. Here there were fewer buildings, constructed so closely against the mountain that Thaddeus had no doubt that part of them must be formed of caves that led deep inside the rock. The houses here were white-washed and neat, clearly owned by more affluent citizens than the ones below. This part of the town had an elegant square with a clock tower circled by cobbles. Yet another road, narrower and more winding than the first, led from this city-hamlet to the great castle that oversaw it all. High above his people, the Comte had constructed a forest of gleaming white towers and spires. These were so tightly packed and bound so closely by another great wall that it seemed impossible for anything but a shaft of light to penetrate beyond the narrow windows that peppered their sides.