She struggled against the soldier as he pulled her toward the door, searching the bridge until she found Braith again. He stared at her with his hands curled into fists, knuckles white, but he did not move, did not speak. There was nothing he could do for her now; he knew it as well as she did. Yet his eyes held on to hers with a raw determination that sparked a flame of hope in her chest.
This fight wasn’t over yet.
Petra’s guard shoved her into the cell furthest from the brig entrance and slammed the metal gate shut with a bone-shuddering clang. She staggered inside, bracing against the opposite wall with her bound hands as the key turned in the lock behind her. She whirled around, but her guard was already stalking away, taking the lantern with him.
She pressed against the bars. “Wait! Where are we going?”
He shut the brig door behind him without reply, locking her in darkness with a resounding clunk as the handwheel secured the deadbolts back into place.
She was alone.
A bell sounded somewhere beyond her prison, and she felt the ship shift and creak around her as it left the ground far behind, still no idea where they were headed—or why. She slammed her palms against the metal bars, wincing against the pain in her wrists, rubbed raw by the hard iron.
“Dammit!”
She pushed away from the cell door and pressed her back against the opposite wall, an ache spreading through her chest as she closed her eyes and slid to the floor. She had no idea what Julian had planned, why she was aboard this ship, what fate he intended for her. She was alone and in the dark, with no idea where she was headed or what she would find when she got there.
She hugged her arms around her knees and sighed.
All she could do now was wait.
Hours passed in dark solitude.
The ship groaned all around her. Intermittent footsteps trailed overhead. Doors creaked open and slammed shut as soldiers traversed the airship’s many halls, and underneath it all, the heavy thrum of the ship’s distant propeller engines pulsed through the wooden floor like a familiar heartbeat, reminding her achingly of home.
It must have been late afternoon by the time she heard someone outside the brig again. Footsteps approached, then muffled voices, a scuffle. Something slammed against the door with a hard thud, and then the handwheel spun open.
Petra clambered to her feet as the heavy door creaked wide and lantern light spilled into the room, revealing a familiar face.
“Braith?” She gripped the iron bars of her cell, curling her fingers around the smooth metal. “What are you doing here?”
Braith barely made a sound as he hurried down the narrow hall, lantern held aloft. “I’m here to get you out,” he whispered, withdrawing a short iron key from his pocket.
He hooked the lantern on the wall, the flickering light casting a dim glow throughout the brig as he slipped the key into the lock and retracted the deadbolt. The hinges creaked loudly as he pulled the door wide and stepped inside the cell, quickly dispatching the manacles on her wrists.
The iron cuffs fell to the floor with a clatter, and he took her hands in his—warm and firm as he looked over her wounds. He glanced up at her, worry etched across his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She couldn’t help but smile, relieved at the sight of him. “I am now.”
“Then let’s get out of here.” He held tightly to her hand, his firm grip anchoring her to him as he dragged her from her cell toward the open brig door.
She followed carefully, aware of the sounds of footsteps on the deck above. “Braith . . . What’s going on?” she whispered. “Why am I here?”
He stopped at the door and peered down the hallway with a frown. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I intend to get you off this ship before we find out. We’re about a mile out from London now—our best chance to get you clear of whatever the lieutenant-general has planned.”
Braith pulled her forward and they stepped out of the brig, tiptoeing past an unconscious soldier outside the door, a reddening welt coloring his brow. Hurried footsteps sounded ahead, and Braith quickly redirected their steps, dragging her down another hallway, another flight of stairs. He opened a narrow door and ushered her inside.
“Quick. In here.”
They ducked into a storage closet, filled with shelves of spare uniforms. The two of them squeezed together in the tight space, neither of them daring to breathe as another set of footsteps came and went.
When they passed by, Braith let out a relieved sigh.
“Why are we going to London?” she asked him, her voice low.
“To pick up reinforcements,” he said. “Pilots for the quadrupeds.”
Her heartbeat quickened. “So it’s war?”
“Seems that way.”
“But how? Why? What happened?”
“There was an assassination a few days ago,” he said darkly. “Some British dignitary on a diplomatic mission from the queen was killed en route to Paris, supposedly by French soldiers stationed near Calais.” He tensed as another pair of footsteps neared the storage closet, his hand resting on the grip of his pistol. Only when the footsteps faded into silence did he relax. “It was all over the papers,” he continued. “After that, there were threats of retribution unless France paid recompense and claimed responsibility for the attack. When they didn’t, Parliament urged the queen to declare war and send a military force against them before they attacked us from across the Channel.”
“Is that where the ship is headed next? After London?”
He nodded. “There’s said to be a force of French soldiers there, war machines in tow, planning to head across the Channel into England.”
Petra’s breath fell short. “Then we’ve failed,” she said weakly. “I failed.”
“This wasn’t your fault, Petra. You can’t blame yourself for—”
“You don’t understand. The quadrupeds, they’re—” She bit down hard on her bottom lip. “Braith, they were never repaired. Yancy got the repair order to his father, but Julian found out somehow. He stopped the report from ever reaching the Royal Forces.” She shook her head, her throat tight. “They’re all going to fail.”
He swallowed hard, his face pale. “You’re certain?”
“Julian said as much before he put me on this blasted airship,” she said, a cold fire blazing in her chest. “He thinks I was trying to sabotage them, and he was right. I did. I sabotaged it, without him ever knowing. All because I was stupid enough to think that I could stop him, that I could stop this war. I was wrong. And now . . .” She pressed her lips together. “Men will die because of me, because of what I’ve done.”
“No, Petra, you didn’t know. You couldn’t—”
“I should have known!” she snapped, a deep ache settling in her chest. “I should have known.”
“You did what you could to fix them. You can’t fault yourself for—”
“Don’t try to justify it, Braith,” she said wearily. “It’s my fault the army is defective; you know it as well as I do. I never should have sabotaged the design.”
Braith exhaled a deep breath, and she was aware of his steady heartbeat, the two of them pressed so close together in the confined space that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest. “There may be another way to fix them,” he said, his voice soft. “It may not be too late.”
She glanced up. “How?”
A bell rang somewhere above.
“We’re about to land,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her toward the door. “We need to get to an exit and get you off the ship before the rest of the soldiers come aboard.”
Petra grabbed his arm. “Braith . . . tell me how to fix them.”
He met her determined gaze and let out a heavy sigh. “There are engineers here in London,” he said quickly. “If I can convince th
e lieutenant-general to repair the fault, the military engineers stationed here could come aboard and implement the repair before the quadrupeds are deployed. It’s a few hours from here to our drop point in France. That should be plenty of time to fix them all.”
The airship landed with a heavy thud, and a shudder rippled through the hull.
“You think that will work?” she asked, barely daring to hope.
“It might, but first we need to get you off this ship,” he said, laying his hand on the door. “This is the last place you need to be right now.”
“But I can help,” she said, holding him tightly by the arm. “I know the quadruped better than anyone. Let me stay. Let me fix this.”
He pressed his lips into a frown, his expression softening as he looked into her eyes. “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
“But—”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Petra. Not about this.”
He clasped her hand then, tightly lacing his fingers through hers, and before she could utter another word of protest, he opened the door into the vacant hallway and hauled her forward. They hurried down the hall and swept down a flight of stairs, steadily heading toward the base of the ship. She recognized the familiar passages—they were close to the cargo bays now—but then Braith took another turn and opened a panel in the wall, revealing a narrow flight of steps leading down to a hatch in the hull wall.
He guided Petra inside and closed the door behind them before heading down the stairs. When they reached the hatch door, he let go of her hand and gripped the heavy handwheel in the center of the door, and then slowly, painstakingly, it started to turn.
“There shouldn’t be anyone on the ground near here,” he said with a grunt of effort. “Once the way is clear, head straight for the fences to the south of the airfield. Keep your head down, talk to no one, and you should be safe. Once you’re free of the airfield, make your way into London.” He paused and handed her a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Go to this address. There’s someone there who will help you. Just tell them I sent you.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
He hesitated. “No,” he said, lowering his hands from the door as he turned around to face her. “The lieutenant-general will be looking for me soon, and I need to get back to the bridge before he realizes you’ve escaped.” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I have to stay.”
“Why?”
“Someone needs to make sure the quadrupeds are repaired.”
“Then let me stay too.”
“Damn it, Petra. No,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re planning to do with you, but you can’t be on this ship when we get to France. We’re about to go to war, and I don’t want you anywhere near it when we do. You’re an engineer, not a soldier. You don’t belong here.”
“And you?” she said, taking a step closer. She hesitated, the question she most feared to ask on her lips, too afraid to hear the answer; though she was certain she already knew. There was only one reason he could be on this ship; she had feared it the moment she saw him on the bridge. “You’re going to pilot one of the quadrupeds, aren’t you?”
He deflated slightly. “Yes.”
“Braith, you can’t.”
“I don’t have a choice,” he said more firmly. “I swore an oath, Petra. This is what I signed up for—for good or ill.”
Seconds ticked by in silence, her heart twisting painfully in her chest at the thought of him in one of her machines, moments away from malfunction.
“I don’t want you to die because of me,” she said, her voice cracking.
His expression softened, and he slowly raised a hand to her cheek. “I’ll be all right, Petra.”
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
A pale smile lifted the edge of his lips. “I learned from the best.”
He turned the handwheel the last few clicks, and the hatch cracked open behind her. Sunlight spilled onto the narrow staircase, and she could hear shouting outside, the indistinct sounds of men preparing for war.
She curled her hands into fists, unable to tear herself away. “Just make sure you fix them,” she said, her trembling voice full of conviction. “Fix the quadrupeds, Braith. Whatever it takes.”
“I will. Now go,” he said, pushing her toward the open hatch. “Go! I’ll come find you when this is over.”
Petra clenched her jaw, fighting back tears. “You better.”
She turned away, hating herself for running away, for leaving him to fight her battles for her. There was no guarantee that he would repair the quadrupeds in time, no guarantee that he would survive, and she couldn’t . . . she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, not now.
She stopped and turned back around. “Braith—”
But then the hatch door swung open and sunlight flooded the corridor, blindingly bright. Petra shielded her eyes against the afternoon sun, barely making out the dazzling red uniforms and glinting rifles in the open doorway.
Braith let out a curse behind her, grabbed her arm, and dragged her away from the open hatch, scrambling back up the narrow stairs, but then the door above them slid open, revealing more soldiers between them and escape, the ends of their rifles aimed to kill.
They were trapped.
CHAPTER 16
Petra stood again in the brig, arms folded tightly across her chest as she glared at the pair of British soldiers now guarding her prison cell, their gleaming rifles ready at hand.
She and Braith had been separated the moment the soldiers found them trying to escape the airship. Lieutenant-General Stokes had ordered her back to her cell, but Braith . . . she had no idea where they had taken him, if he remained on the ship or somewhere in London, if he was even all right. She should have been quicker to leave. It was her fault they had been caught, that Braith’s plan to help her escape had failed.
She gritted her teeth, cursing her selfishness, her stupidity. If she hadn’t been so reckless, so determined to do anything to stop the war, this never would have happened. But she had meddled. She had tried to sabotage the quadruped, tried to stop Julian’s plans, and now Braith was being punished for it—because he had dared to trust her, despite everything he had been told.
And she had let him.
For an hour, the airship stayed anchored outside of London, but no one came to escort her off the ship. No arrest. No threats. No transfer to a mainland prison to await sentencing. Nothing.
Finally, a bell rang, and the ship suddenly shifted around her, the walls groaning heavily as the warship lifted off the ground. She pressed her hand to the wall, feeling the subtle change in the ship’s engines as it turned away from London, the mechanical vibrations pulsing musically through the wood.
To France, then.
But why? Why send her to France with the warships?
What was Julian planning?
An hour after the ship departed, there came a knock on the thick metal door. “Another prisoner for the brig.”
Petra stepped across her cell and pressed close to the iron bars, curling her fingers around the smooth metal as one of her guards went to answer the door. The other stepped closer to her cell, holding his rifle steady as his compatriot turned the handwheel and opened the heavy door. The hinges creaked loudly as three red uniforms entered the brig—one of them Braith, held fast between the others. His hands were cuffed, and a shallow cut bled beneath his left eye, his bottom lip swollen and bruised. He winced with every step, his breathing hitching as his guards dragged him down the hall.
Petra clenched her jaw, gripping the bars of her cell until her knuckles turned white. She remained silent as they shoved him into the cell next to hers. He fell hard against the opposite wall and slowly slid to the floor. Then the deadbolt slammed shut with a deafening clang, and the guards exchanged a few muted words before all four sol
diers left the brig and closed the door behind them with a heavy clunk.
They were alone.
She hurried to the other side of her cell, crouching low. “Braith?” She leaned against the bars, taking in his disheveled, sweaty hair, the shallow scrapes on his jaw, the rumpled disarray left of his uniform. “What happened?”
Groaning with effort, he lifted himself off the floor and turned so his back rested against the wall, breathing hard. He glanced up, the tempest gone from his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I should have gotten you out.”
She swallowed hard and gripped the bars between them, watching the stuttering rise and fall of his chest. “What did they do to you?”
He shrugged. “The usual,” he said with another wince, lifting a hand to the cut on his cheek. “The lieutenant-general gave me what for and then chained me to a post for a couple of hours for good measure.” He shifted against the wall, gingerly pressing against his upper ribs. “I’m no stranger to it, but . . . he can throw a hell of a punch, the lieutenant-general.”
“Braith, I’m so sorry.”
He actually laughed. “It’s not your fault.”
Petra pressed her back to the wall, settling in the corner of her cell. “Yes, it is,” she said quietly, an ache spreading through her chest. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for what I did. It’s my fault we’re here, my fault you were punished. Because of me—”
“Petra—”
“You never should have trusted me, Braith,” she said, shaking her head. “I never should have let you.”
“Petra, I’m here because I chose to be,” he said. “More than once, I made the choice to trust you, to help you, even when it went against my orders—especially when it went against my orders. But I made that choice myself. I didn’t have to keep your secrets. I didn’t have to trust you. But I did.”
“Why?”
He inhaled a deep breath, wincing slightly as he let it out. “Do you really have to ask?”
She swallowed hard. “Braith . . .”
“I don’t regret the choices I made,” he said. “Not for a second.”
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