Braith faltered. “You don’t have the authority.”
“Oh, but this order doesn’t come from me,” he said, withdrawing a parcel from his vest pocket. “I have the transfer order right here. Signed by the lieutenant-general himself.”
Petra paled, her throat dry as she looked from Julian to Braith, the realization of what he intended slowly sinking in. “No . . .” She met Braith’s eyes, and her heart crumbled at the defeat, the sudden fear in his ashen gaze. She shook her head. “You can’t.”
“Take her away.”
Her guards jerked her forward, leading her away from Julian and the quadruped—and Braith. She twisted in their grasp, refusing to go willingly, refusing to let Julian dictate their lives as he pleased. Braith didn’t deserve to die because of her, because of what she had done.
Tears burned her eyes, streaming down her cheeks as she fought against the two men holding her. But she could not escape, could not change what her treachery had bought them.
As she struggled, she spied Yancy among the other engineers, his arms folded tightly across his chest. He met her eyes briefly and nodded, a resolute frown on his face, and she stilled, one last feeble hope rising in her chest. If he could carry the repair order to his father, convince him to file the report with the Royal Forces, they might still have a chance.
He was their only hope now.
CHAPTER 15
Days passed in lonesome solitude, reminding Petra of the time she had spent locked away in the first-quadrant jail the previous summer. Only this time, there would be no trial. There would be no escape. No one had come to visit since Julian’s men deposited her in the tiny cell, not even Julian himself. She was starting to go mad from the isolation, left to pace her windowless cell for hours on end, lying awake on the floor night after restless night, wondering what was going on beyond the walls of her prison.
There could be a war raging between Britain and France by now and she wouldn’t know. Braith could be piloting a faulty quadruped into battle—he could die—and she wouldn’t know. She had no idea if Yancy had succeeded in delivering the repair to his father, or if the vice-chancellor was able to convince the Royal Forces to repair the fault in the existing machines—or if they had even listened. For all she knew, the sabotaged army was deploying at this very moment, minutes away from shutting down and trapping those soldiers on the battlefield.
For a week, she had paced her prison, worrying, waiting, a thousand plans formulating in her mind of how to free herself, repair the quadrupeds, save Braith from the front lines, and somehow stop Julian’s war, but she was stuck in this godforsaken cell like a rat in a cage, unable to do anything more than kick and scream and fruitlessly interrogate her guards any time they brought her daily meal or changed her chamber pot. But they would tell her nothing of the war, nothing of Julian, their footsteps heralding nothing but stoic silence.
She heard them now, as familiar to her as the low thrum of the subcity below, and she slammed her fists into the door at their approach.
“Let me out of here, you bastards!”
“Now, now, Miss Wade,” came a smooth, familiar voice from the other side. “There is no need for such hostility.”
Petra scrambled away from the door. “Julian?”
“Open her cell,” he ordered.
There was a jangle of keys, and the door to her cell slid open with a clank. Two Guild coppers swept into the cramped room, cuffing a set of shackles around her wrists before leading her out the door and into the hall.
Julian was there waiting for her.
“You tell me what’s going on,” she said, curling her hands into fists. “Tell me right now, or—”
“You are being transferred,” he said.
She faltered. “Transferred? Where?”
“I would not want to ruin the surprise,” he said, gesturing down the hall with a sinister smile. “Shall we?”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
“No. You do not.”
Her guards shoved her forward, and they headed up the stairs from the prison cells, stopping only to unlock the bolted security door to the Guild’s police force offices. Stark yellow light glared overhead, the electric bulbs sizzling in their metal housings, unforgivably bright compared to the dim light of the prison hall. Without pause, Julian steered her across the first floor, guiding her down familiar halls and across the main workshop, eerily empty.
Their footsteps echoed harshly across the lobby floor, heading purposefully toward the University entrance. The doors cracked open on their approach, and Petra blinked against the startling brightness of the early-morning sky, the sun barely rising over the city walls. Clumsily, she staggered down the stairs into the square, driven like a mule in front of her two guards.
Her destination was a steam-powered vehicle sitting idle in the middle of the square, another handful of Guild coppers flanking either side.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, twisting around to face Julian. She struggled against her captors. “What are you planning to do?”
But Julian said nothing, regarding the waking city with a serene expression, even as she was unceremoniously forced into the back seat of the car, the door slammed behind her. The hard manacles cut into her wrists as she tumbled onto the leather seat, the sting of fresh blood burning her skin. Julian opened the opposite door and slipped inside, leaning forward to rap against the driver’s window before settling comfortably in his seat.
The car pulled away from the University with a putter and turned down Chroniker Main. Petra forced herself upright and jiggled the car door handle, but it would not budge. She curled her hands into fists and reared back to strike at the window with the iron manacles, but a hand reached out and gripped her by firmly the wrist.
“I would advise against that,” said Julian.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, jerking her arm away.
He said nothing, peering out the window as the first-quadrant shops slipped past the rumbling steam-car. They drove past the cafés near the square, then through the shadows cast by the Towers Hotel, rolling by the Guild offices and the public police station. They continued on to the greenery of Pemberton Square, where she and Emmerich had once spent their summer afternoons, and further still, the morning stalls and rotund fountain vanishing behind another row of buildings as the car approached the city gates.
With a hiss, the vehicle rolled to a stop, just in sight of the harbor.
“Did you think I would not discover your last pathetic attempt to thwart me?” asked Julian. His voice was light but it cut through her with the deadliness of a knife.
She swallowed thickly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I do not know how or when you managed it, or what lie you offered the vice-chancellor to persuade him to your cause, but no matter. War is upon us. Nothing you do will change the outcome. You have failed.”
A chill crawled down Petra’s spine, a hard fist crushing her chest as she realized what he meant. She had failed . . . Lyndon had failed.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” she asked, her voice breaking. “I wasn’t trying to sabotage your army. I was trying to fix it. There’s a malfunction in the regulator, a rotational disparity that will lead to system-wide failure within minutes of the machine’s activation. If you don’t repair them, they will fail.”
“So you say. Though I don’t suppose you care to explain how such a malfunction slipped past the notice of your engineering team,” he said coolly, turning in his seat to face her. “Because if such a malfunction does exist, that would mean you sabotaged the quadruped project of your own volition, and that, my dear, would make you a traitor.”
Petra glared back at him, breathing hard.
“I offered you the opportunity to cooperate,” he went on, withdrawing back to the window. “Yet you will never
give up this misguided rebellion of yours, no matter how many times you are beaten; I see that now.”
The guards at the city gates waved them forward, opening the wrought-iron gates to let them through. The steam-car rumbled loudly and then lurched forward with a putter, rolling steadily through the city gates and onward to the harbor docks.
“It seems I must show you the futility of your efforts,” he said, the pleasantry now gone from his voice. “Threats, it seems, are not enough.”
The car rolled to a stop at the edge of the furthest pier, and Julian stepped out of the car, graciously holding the door open for her.
She shrank away, her jaw clenched, throat tight.
“Come now, Miss Wade,” he said. “It will do no good to put off the inevitable.”
Hesitating a moment more, she swallowed against her pounding heart and followed him out of the vehicle, her wrists still bound by the thick manacles. The roar of the ocean waves assaulted her ears, crashing against the jetties on either side of the harbor. Wind whipped over the shore, catching her disheveled braid in its early-morning gust as Julian took her firmly by the arm and dragged her away from the steam-car and down the pier.
That’s when she saw the airship.
It hovered over the harbor waters, the sigil of the Royal Forces painted on its wooden hull, the prow tethered to the end of the pier. And there at the end of the dock, a group of redcoats waited.
There was only one reason he would bring her here.
She planted her feet and tried to twist out of his grasp, fighting against his steady pull, but he was too strong.
“Oh, no, Miss Wade,” he said, dragging her toward her fate. “It is too late for escape now. I warned you what would happen should you defy me again.” He shoved her toward the group of soldiers, and she stumbled to her knees. “I am not a man to tolerate disobedience.”
Petra glanced up, her eyes trailing over the polished boots and crisp uniform of the nearest soldier, standing at attention, his hand poised in salute.
“Deliver her to the lieutenant-general as soon as you arrive,” Julian ordered.
The soldier nodded. “It will be done, sir.”
Petra climbed to her feet and turned around, the seaward wind spraying her cheeks with mist. “You aren’t coming with me?”
Julian smiled handsomely. “I’m afraid I have more important matters to attend to at present,” he said, his voice carrying over the crashing waves. “Though I do regret the necessity of my absence. I would take such pleasure in seeing you break.”
She swallowed hard, a shiver crawling up her spine. “Where are you sending me?”
“You will find out soon enough.” He held her gaze a moment more. “Goodbye, Miss Wade.”
Then he turned and left.
Petra took a few steps after him, but two soldiers grabbed her and pulled her back, their hands strong and firm. She struggled, but they dragged her away, toward the airship and up the swaying gangway, the plank tethered precariously between the ship and the dock.
“Make ready for takeoff,” shouted one of the soldiers, handing her off to another red uniform. “We leave as soon as the passenger is secure.”
“This way, miss,” said the soldier.
She jerked away from her captor and ran to the deck rail. “Julian, you bastard! Where are you sending me?” she shouted, clinging to the rail as another soldier restrained her. “You can’t do this!”
Two soldiers peeled her away from the railing, dragging her backward.
“Julian!”
But her voice was ripped away by the wind and crashing waves.
He did not look back.
Julian returned to the steam-car and climbed inside, pulling away from the docks in a skitter of gravel as she struggled against her captors. Then she stumbled through an open door and the bright morning sky disappeared behind paneled hallways as the soldiers dragged her belowdecks. They threw her into a small cabin, shut the door, and slid the bolt behind them, locking her inside. She banged against the door, but no one answered.
Less than a minute later, the ship creaked around her, bobbing gently as it untethered from the dock and rose into the sky, snapped up by the wind.
They were airborne now, any hope of escape gone.
Tears stung her eyes, and she dashed them away with a closed fist, bitterness roiling up her throat as her failure ate through her chest. The quadrupeds would fail. Julian would have his war. And she was trapped on a Royal Forces airship, heading God knew where, and there was absolutely nothing she could do. She had failed. Utterly.
She pressed her fists into the door until her knuckles cracked and then shoved away, her chest burning as she found a seat in the corner of the cabin. She slid to the floor and tightly hugged her knees to her chest while the airship creaked and groaned around her, steadily carrying her to her fate.
Their destination was Hasguard.
The airfield was in a frenzy when they arrived—a chaos of Royal Forces soldiers scrambling from airship to airship, supply lorries zipping across the muddy pasture, hangar doors thrown wide open. Petra stared at the churning field from the edge of the airship deck, held fast between two soldiers as the ship prepared for landing. There were no civilians milling about the airfield now—no lace fans or feathered hats, no satin skirts or long coattails—just the red and navy colors of the Imperial Royal Forces, a swarm of ships and soldiers, all preparing for one thing . . .
War.
The ship shuddered to a halt as it landed on the soft grass, and her military guards led her down the gangway to the landing dock, where an omnibus awaited them. They boarded quickly and sped across the bustling airfield, eventually rolling to a stop in the shadow of a colossal airship. Her heart sank as she stepped out of the vehicle and recognized Rupert’s design—its scarlet hull and brass ornamentation at its prow. Another seven of the massive warships sat alongside the first, identical from bow to stern, each equipped with an army of her faulty quadrupeds.
She clenched her jaw as she climbed the steps to the landing and boarded the deadly ship, led between two Royal Forces soldiers. She stumbled ahead of them, the narrow halls familiar. She had walked this passage just a week ago, with Rupert at her side and no idea of what lurked in the cargo hold beneath her feet.
She had no such illusions now.
The soldiers pushed her up a flight of stairs and down another hallway, and she winced at the ache in her wrists, stinging from the scrapes and bruises wrought by the heavy iron manacles. A fire brewed in the pit of her stomach, arcing through her every nerve. Julian would pay for this. He might have his war, and there might be nothing she could do to stop him now, but she’d be damned if she went down without a fight.
If she survived this, she would find a way to make him answer for what he had done—for the automaton, for Emmerich, for every threat he had given her, for the quadruped and the army now sitting belowdecks, for every life lost because of his greedy machinations . . . for Braith.
She would make him pay.
At last, they came to the bridge, and Petra was ushered inside the low-ceilinged room, the curved walls lined with windows from port to starboard, overlooking the whole of the airfield—still busy with activity. The late-morning sun beamed through the glass, highlighting dust motes in the air. An array of gauges and instruments stood at either side of the wide deck, a display of lights, wires, switches, and tickertape manned by a small team of military engineers. Near the front of the ship stood the captain’s wheel. A handful of men in red uniforms were standing at the forward windows, a few of them in deep conversation over a thick stack of paper.
But it was the soldier standing off to the side of the others that drew her eye. He stood with his back to her, the sun reflecting harshly off the side of his face as he peered out the dusty window, his copper-gold hair almost luminescent in the
sunlight. She’d know him anywhere.
The soldier next to Petra cleared his throat. “Lieutenant-General, sir?”
One of the men huddled near the captain’s wheel glanced up at the address, his shrewd gaze cutting from the soldier to Petra as he straightened to his full height, towering well over the rest of the men—the same bearded officer she had seen the last time she was at Hasguard.
“I see Julian sent the girl,” he said, the distaste apparent in his voice.
A few of the other men shifted their attention in her direction, but she had eyes only for Braith. He slowly turned around, and his gaze held hers like an anchor in a storm, no words between them, just worry, fear, helplessness. Then he noticed the manacles on her wrists, the disheveled state of her hair, the rumpled clothes he had last seen her in a week ago, and he pressed his mouth into a tight frown, his expression suddenly hard as steel.
“I suppose I should welcome you aboard my ship,” said the lieutenant-general, drawing her attention away from Braith. “I am Lieutenant-General Stokes, First Ardian of Her Imperial Majesty’s Royal Forces. For as long as you remain on this ship, you are under my authority.”
“Then maybe you can tell me why I’m here,” she said, raising her chin.
“All in due time,” he said, turning toward the soldier beside her. “Take Miss Wade to her quarters. She is to be guarded at all times until we arrive at our destination. No visitors.”
“Sir.”
“What destination?” asked Petra, resisting the soldier’s pull on her arm. She glanced between the lieutenant-general and the other officers, their faces dour. “Where are we headed? Where are you taking me?”
Lieutenant-General Stokes arched his brow. “The brig, for now. Where you will stay until I have further need of you. That is all you need to know at present—and this: attempt any sort of sabotage while you are aboard this ship, attempt to thwart our mission in any way, and your disobedience will be swiftly punished.” He gestured to her guard. “Take her away.”
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