“Give us some light, your divine princeliness?”
“Certainly, Mr. Sharp,” Alek said, pulling out his command whistle. He gave it a studious look, then played the tune.
The glowworms behind the airship’s skin began to flicker, and a soft green light suffused the corridor. Then Bovril joined in with the whistle, its voice as shimmery as a box of silver bells. The light grew sharp and bright.
“Good job, beastie,” Deryn said. “We’ll make a middy of you yet.”
Alek sighed. “Which is more than you can say for me.”
Deryn ignored his moping and opened the rookery door. As the ruckus of squawks and shrieks spilled out, the imperial clutched her arm tighter, its talons sharp even through the leather of the falconer’s glove.
She led Alek along the raised walkway, looking for an empty space below. There were nine cages altogether, three underneath her and three on either side, each twice as tall as a man. The smaller raptors and messengers were a blur of fluttering wings, while the strafing hawks sat regally on their perches, ignoring the lesser birds around them.
“God’s wounds!” Alek said from behind her. “It’s a madhouse in here.”
“Madhouse,” Bovril said, and leapt from Alek’s shoulder to the handrail.
Deryn shook her head. Alek and his men often found the airship too messy for their liking. Life was a tumultuous and muddled thing, compared with the tidy clockwork of Clanker contraptions. The ecosystem of the Leviathan, with its hundred interlocking species, was far more complex than any lifeless machine, and thus a bit less orderly. But that was what kept the world interesting, Deryn reckoned; reality had no gears, and you never knew what surprises would come spinning out of its chaos.
“SECRETS IN THE ROOKERY.”
She’d certainly never expected to help lead a Clanker revolution one day, or be kissed by a girl, or fall for a prince. But that had all happened in the last month, and the war was just getting started.
Deryn spotted the cage that the rook tenders had emptied, and pulled the loading chute into place above it. It wouldn’t do to put the imperial in with other birds—not while it was hungry.
In one swift motion she snatched the hoods off and pushed the beastie into the chute. It fluttered down into the cage, spinning in the air like a windblown leaf for a moment. Then it came to rest on the largest perch.
From there the imperial eyed its fellow creatures through the bars, shifting from foot to foot unhappily. Deryn wondered what sort of cage it lived in back at the czar’s palace. Probably one with gleaming bars, with fat mice served up on silver platters, and no smell of other birds’ clart thickening the air.
“Dylan,” Alek said. “While we have a moment alone…”
She turned to face him. He was standing close, his green eyes glinting in the darkness. It was always hardest meeting Alek’s gaze when he was dead serious like this, but she managed.
“I’m sorry about bringing up your father earlier,” he said. “I know how that still haunts you.”
Deryn sighed, wondering if she should simply tell him not to worry. But it had been a bit tricky, what with Newkirk mentioning her uncle. It might be safer to tell Alek the truth—at least, as much of it as she possibly could.
“No need to apologize,” she said. “But there’s something you should know. That night I told you about my da’s accident, I didn’t quite explain everything.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, Artemis Sharp really was my da, just like I said.” Deryn took a slow breath. “But everyone in the Air Service thinks he was my uncle.”
She could see from Alek’s expression that it made no sense at all, and without her even trying, lies began to spin from her tongue.
“When I signed up, my older brother Jaspert was already in the Service. So we couldn’t say we were brothers.”
That was blether, of course. The real reason was that Jaspert had already told his crewmates about his only sibling, a younger sister. A brother popping out of thin air might have been a squick confusing.
“We pretended to be cousins. You see?”
Alek frowned. “Brothers don’t serve together in your military?”
“Not when their father’s dead. You see, we’re his only children. And so if we both…” She shrugged, hoping he’d believe it.
“Ah, to keep the family name alive. Very sensible. And that’s why your mother didn’t want you signing up?”
Deryn nodded glumly, wondering how her lies always got so barking complicated. “I didn’t mean to mix you up in a deception. But that night I thought you were leaving the ship for good. So I told you the truth, instead of what I tell everyone else.”
“The truth,” Bovril repeated. “Mr. Sharp.”
Alek reached up and touched his jacket pocket. Deryn knew that was where he kept his letter from the pope, the one that could make him emperor one day. “Don’t worry, Dylan. I’ll keep all your secrets, as you’ve kept mine.”
Deryn groaned. She hated it when Alek said that. Because he couldn’t keep all her secrets, could he? He didn’t know the biggest of them.
All of sudden she didn’t want to lie anymore. Not this much, anyway.
“Wait,” she said. “I just told you a load of yackum. Brothers can serve together. It’s something else.”
“Yackum,” Bovril repeated. Alek just stood there, concern on his face.
“But I can’t tell you the real reason,” Deryn said.
“Why not?”
“Because…” she was a commoner, and he was a prince. Because he’d run a mile if he knew. “You’d think less of me.”
He stared at Deryn a moment, then reached out and took her shoulder. “You’re the best soldier I’ve ever met, Dylan. The boy I’d have wanted to be, if I hadn’t wound up such a useless prince. I could never think badly of you.”
She groaned, turning away and wishing an alert would sound, an attack of zeppelins or a lightning storm. Anything to extract her from this conversation.
“Listen,” Alek said, dropping his hand. “Even if your family has some deep, dark secret, who am I to judge? My granduncle conspired with the men who killed my parents, for heaven’s sake!”
Deryn had no idea what to say to that. Alek had got it all wrong, of course. It wasn’t some musty family secret; it was hers alone. He would always get it all wrong, until she told him the truth.
And that, she could never do.
“Please, Alek. I can’t. And… I’ve got a fencing lesson.”
Alek smiled, the perfect picture of a patient friend. “Anytime you want to tell me, Dylan. Until then, I won’t ask again.”
She nodded silently, and walked ahead of him the whole way back.
“Rather late with my breakfast, aren’t you?”
“Sorry about that, your countship,” Deryn said, plunking the tray down on Count Volger’s desk. A splash of coffee sloshed out of the pot and onto the toast. “But here it is.”
The wildcount raised an eyebrow.
“And your newspapers as well,” she said, pulling them from beneath her arm. “Dr. Barlow saved them especially for you. Though I don’t know why she bothers.”
Volger took the papers, then picked up the soggy piece of toast and shook it. “You seem to be in rather a lively mood this morning, Mr. Sharp.”
“Aye, well, I’ve been busy.” Deryn frowned at the man. It was lying to Alek that had put her in a huff, of course, but she felt like blaming Count Volger. “I won’t have time for a fencing lesson.”
“Pity. You’re coming along so well,” he said. “For a girl.”
Deryn scowled at the man. Guards were no longer posted outside the Clankers’ staterooms, but someone passing in the corridor might have heard. She crossed to shut the cabin door, then turned back to the wildcount.
He was the only person on the airship who knew what she really was, and he generally took care not to mention it aloud.
“What do you want?” she said quietly.
“Aye, we got a message this morning. From the czar.”
Volger looked up. “The czar? Are we changing course?”
“That’s a military secret, I’m afraid. No one knows except the officers.” Deryn frowned. “And the lady boffin, I suppose. Alek asked her, but she wouldn’t say.”
The wildcount scraped butter onto his half soggy toast, giving this a think.
During the month Deryn had been hiding in Istanbul, the wildcount and Dr. Barlow had entered into some sort of alliance. Dr. Barlow made sure he was kept up with news about the war, and Volger gave her his opinions on Clanker politics and strategy. But Deryn doubted the lady boffin would answer this question for him. Newspapers and rumors were one thing, sealed orders quite another.
“Perhaps you could find out for me.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Deryn said. “It’s a military secret.”
Volger poured coffee. “And yet secrets can be so difficult to keep sometimes. Don’t you think?”
Deryn felt a cold dizziness rising up inside, as it always did when Count Volger threatened her. There was something unthinkable about everyone finding out what she was. She wouldn’t be an airman anymore, and Alek would never speak to her again.
But this morning she was not in the mood for blackmail.
“I can’t help you, Count. Only the senior officers know.”
“But I’m sure a girl as resourceful as you, so obviously adept at subterfuge, could find out. One secret unraveled to keep another safe?”
The fear burned cold now in Deryn’s belly, and she almost gave in. But then something Alek had said popped into her head.
“You can’t let Alek find out about me.”
“And why not?” Volger asked, pouring himself tea.
“He and I were just in the rookery together, and I almost told him. That happens sometimes.”
“I’m sure it does. But you didn’t tell him, did you?” Volger tutted. “Because you know how he would react. However fond you two are of each other, you are a commoner.”
“Aye, I know that. But I’m also a soldier, a barking good one.” She took a step closer, trying to keep any quaver out of her voice. “I’m the very soldier Alek might have been, if he hadn’t been raised by a pack of fancy-boots like you. I’ve got the life he missed by being an archduke’s son.”
Volger frowned, not understanding yet, but it was all coming clear in Deryn’s mind.
“I’m the boy Alek wants to be, more than anything. And you want to tell him that I’m really a girl? On top of losing his parents and his home, how do you think he’ll take that news, your countship?”
The man stared at her for another moment, then went back to stirring his tea. “It might be rather… unsettling for him.”
“Aye, it might. Enjoy your breakfast, Count.”
Deryn found herself smiling as she turned and left the room.
THREE
As the great jaw of the cargo door opened, a freezing whirlwind spilled inside and leapt about the cargo bay, setting the leather straps of Deryn’s flight suit snapping and fluttering. She pulled on her goggles and leaned out, peering at the terrain rushing past below.
The ground was patched with snow and dotted with pine trees. The Leviathan had passed over the Siberian city of Omsk that morning, not pausing to resupply, still veering northward toward some secret destination. But Deryn hadn’t found time to wonder where they were heading; in the thirty hours since the imperial eagle had arrived, she’d been busy training for this cargo snatch-up.
“Where’s the bear?” Newkirk asked. He leaned out past her, dangling from his safety line over thin air.
“Ahead of us, saving its strength.” Deryn pulled her gloves tighter, then tested her weight against the heavy cable on the cargo winch. It was as thick as her wrist—rated to lift a two-ton pallet of supplies. The riggers had been fiddling with the apparatus all day, but this was its first real test. This particular maneuver wasn’t even in the Manual of Aeronautics.
“Don’t like bears,” Newkirk muttered. “Some beasties are too barking huge.”
Deryn gestured at the grappling hook at the end of the cable, as big as a ballroom chandelier. “Then you’d best make sure not to stick that up the beastie’s nose by accident. It might take exception.”
Through the lenses of his goggles, Newkirk’s eyes went wide.
Deryn gave him a punch on the shoulder, envying him for his station at the business end of the cable. It wasn’t fair that Newkirk had been gaining airmanship skills while she and Alek had been plotting rebellion in Istanbul.
“Thanks for making me even more nervous, Mr. Sharp!”
“I thought you’d done this before.”
“We did a few snatch-ups in Greece. But those were just mailbags, not heavy cargo. And from horse-drawn carriages instead of off the back of a barking great bear!”
“That does sound a bit different,” Deryn said.
“Same principle, lads, and it’ll work the same way,” came Mr. Rigby from behind them. His eyes were on his pocket watch, but his ears never missed a thing, even in the howling Siberian wind. “Your wings, Mr. Sharp.”
“Aye, sir. Like a good guardian angel.” Deryn hoisted the gliding wings onto her shoulders. She would be carrying Newkirk, using the wings to guide him over the fighting bear.
Mr. Rigby signaled to the winch men. “Good luck, lads.”
“Thank you, sir!” the two middies said together.
The winch began to turn, and the grappling hook slid down toward the open cargo bay door. Newkirk took hold of it and clipped himself onto a smaller cable, which would hold their combined weight as they flew.
Deryn let her gliding wings spread out. As she stepped toward the cargo door, the wind grew stronger and colder. Even through amber goggles the sunlight made her squint. She grasped the harness straps that connected her to Newkirk.
“Ready?” she shouted.
He nodded, and together they stepped off into roaring emptiness….
The freezing airstream yanked Deryn sternward, and the world spun around once, sky and earth gyrating wildly. But then her gliding wings caught the air, stabilized by the dangling Newkirk, like a kite held steady by its string.
The Leviathan was beginning its descent. Its shadow grew below them, rippling in a furious black surge across the ground. Newkirk still grasped the grappling hook, his arms wrapped around the cable against the onrush of air.
Deryn flexed her gliding wings. They were the same kind she’d worn a dozen times on Huxley descents, but free-ballooning was nothing compared to being dragged behind an airship at top speed. The wings strained to pull her to starboard, and Newkirk followed, swinging slowly across the blur of terrain below. When Deryn centered her course again, she and Newkirk swung back and forth beneath the airship, like a giant pendulum coming to rest.
The fragile wings were barely strong enough to steer the weight of two middies. The Leviathan’s pilots would have to put them dead on target, leaving only the fine adjustments for Deryn.
The airship continued its descent, until she and Newkirk were no more than twenty yards above the ground. He yelped as his boots skimmed the top of a tall pine tree, sending off a burst of needles shiny with ice.
Deryn looked ahead… and saw the fighting bear.
She and Alek had spotted a few that morning, their dark shapes winding along the Trans-Siberian Trailway. They’d looked impressive enough from a thousand feet, but from this altitude the beast was truly monstrous. Its shoulders stood as tall as a house, and its hot breath coiled up into the freezing air like chimney smoke.
A large cargo platform was strapped to its back. A pallet waited there, a flattened loop of metal ready for Newkirk’s grappling hook. Four crewmen in Russian uniforms scampered about the bear, checking the straps and netting that
held the secret cargo.
The driver’s long whip flicked into the air and fell, and the bear began to lumber away. It was headed down a long, straight section of the trailway aligned with the Leviathan’s course.
The beastie’s gait gradually lengthened into a run. According to Dr. Busk, the bear could match the airship’s speed only for a short time. If Newkirk didn’t get the hook right on the first pass, they’d have to swing around in a slow circle, letting the creature rest. The hours saved by not landing and loading in the normal way would be half lost.
And the czar, it seemed, wanted this cargo at its destination barking fast.
As the airship drew closer to the bear, Deryn felt its thundering tread bruising the air. Puffs of dirt drifted up from the cold, hard-packed ground in its wake. She tried to imagine a squadron of such monsters charging into battle, glittering with fighting spurs and carrying a score of riflemen each. The Germans must have been mad to provoke this war, pitting their machines not only against the airships and kraken of Britain, but also the huge land beasts of Russia and France.
She and Newkirk were over the straightaway now, safe from treetops. The Trans-Siberian Trailway was one of the wonders of the world, even Alek had admitted. Stamped flat by mammothines, it stretched from Moscow to the Sea of Japan and was as wide as a cricket oval—room enough for two bears to pass in opposite directions without annoying each other.
Tricky beasties, ursines. All last night Mr. Rigby had regaled Newkirk with tales of them eating their handlers.
The Leviathan soon caught up to the bear, and Newkirk signaled for Deryn to pull him to port. She angled her wings, feeling the tug of airflow surround her body, and she briefly thought of Lilit in her body kite. Deryn wondered how the girl was doing in the new Ottoman Republic. Then shook the thought from her head.
The pallet was drawing near, but the loop Newkirk was preparing to grab rose and fell with the bounding gait of the giant bear. Newkirk began to lower the grappling hook, trying to swing it a little nearer to its target. One of the Russians climbed higher on the cargo pallet, reaching up to help.
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