“Wonderful, and how did you learn about Adamo’s location in the first place?” Luvander said, turning his gaze to me and trying to communicate something to me with his eyes. “More importantly, I don’t know how Adamo would feel about us using a civilian as a diversion.”
I wasn’t as thickheaded as some of the other airmen had always assumed I was, but if what Luvander was attempting to convey was what I thought it was, then I was a little disturbed. Surely this young woman was too young for Adamo—though stranger things had happened, I supposed.
“Oh, bastion, not that,” Luvander said with a groan, upon seeing my expression change. “What about you? Our diplomat? Why don’t you go in there and be diplomatic?”
“You mean Balfour?” Royston asked. “They would arrest him on the spot. There were people looking for him, according to his landlady.”
“Yes,” Luvander agreed, “but he’s one of us. We send him inside, and then he gets in contact with Antoinette, then perhaps some other things happen—and then you start with the explosions.”
“This is ridiculous,” Laure said. She drew herself up to her full height—puffing out her chest the way Adamo did, though it looked less pigeony when she did it—and straightened out the front of her dress. “You lot are an embarrassment, and I, for one, can hardly stand to look at you. Th’Esar’s already made his move, and he did it in public. If there’s nobody we can go to for help, then we make a stink. Adamo’s a hero, isn’t he? And don’t you think the people of Thremedon would be a mite ticked to learn one of their heroes is locked up without any good reason? They’d be pissed, same as how we’re pissed. We oughta be able to use that.”
“They’d need to hear it from Owen’s mouth before they believed anything,” Royston said. “But I do agree, that is a sensible way of thinking.”
“It’s an Adamo way of thinking, is what it is,” Luvander said.
“So here’s what I think,” Laure said. “We fake ’em out. You do your explosion bit nearby, just close enough so they think we’re making our move but we’ve got it wrong. Still, they’re gonna have to come check it out, or else they’ll look real suspicious—and while the place is left mostly unguarded up top, Ghislain here knocks the remaining heads together and the rest of us get inside.”
“And once we’re inside?” I asked, feeling the same thrill of excitement I always did when Adamo was outlining our new strategies. It wasn’t the same as planning for a night in the air, but the amount of risk did come close.
“What was your job?” Laure asked. “When you were flying?”
“Reconnaissance,” I replied.
“Then we sneak in there and do some reconnaissance,” Laure said. “Get the lay of the land, make sure there are no traps set up, lead the way for the others to come in after us and start unlocking some cell doors. And after that, we have Adamo on our side, not to mention a few pissed-off Margraves—and Antoinette, who by Royston’s account knows everything there is to know about what th’Esar’s up to.”
“And she’ll probably be able to enlighten us,” Royston concluded, “as to what the hell is going on there.”
“Now, I don’t want to get too detailed on what’s going to happen once we’re in there,” Laure added, “because we don’t know what we’re going up against, or even what we’re gonna find. If we overthink it, then it’s bound to make us panic when it doesn’t go according to plan.”
“Oh, are we not meant to be panicking already?” Toverre asked. I thought he’d been pale when we met, but he was looking positively white now, if a little green around the edges. It made sense; as an airman, I’d been trained in war, and even I was feeling anxious. This young man was no more than a civilian, a student. He was probably hoping our plans wouldn’t include him—and, in my opinion, they probably shouldn’t. “Silly me, then. Never mind. Carry on.”
“Nobody has to come who doesn’t want to,” Laure said, with a pointed look in his direction. In spite of her attitude toward the rest of us, this seemed almost like an act of kindness—as though she was letting him off the hook.
She was equally unqualified in terms of background, but in terms of her nerve, she might have even been leagues ahead of the rest of us. Excepting, of course, Ghislain.
“Well,” Raphael said, slapping his hand against his leg and startling me with the sudden sound. “If I wanted to do a foolish thing like sleep after a few days of vomiting, I wouldn’t have joined the airmen.”
“I’m sure there was a veritable plethora of jobs open to you at the time,” Luvander agreed. “Perhaps you could’ve been a stain-cleaner at the ’Fans. Or the city drunk.”
“So long as you save enough energy to muck out my boat after, you can tag along,” Ghislain said, standing.
“Well if everyone’s going,” Toverre said, looking distinctly put out about the whole thing. “Perhaps you’ll need someone to … To stand watch.”
“You can always stay here,” I said, as it seemed no one else was going to. “It wouldn’t be ignoble. Whenever a group of us went out on raids, there were always some who stayed back in case the others didn’t … Well, that was just how it was done,” I amended, realizing that perhaps talking too much about the gravity of the situation would have a sobering effect on our little rescue mission.
“No, it’s all right,” Toverre said miserably. “Don’t try to spare me or my dignity. What kind of wretched creature would I be if I let my fiancée attend this melee without following along to protect her? I merely hope you know, Sir Ghislain, that you are not the only one who wishes I was a velikaia.”
“Sir Ghislain,” Raphael repeated. “Do you know, I rather like that? It sounds very impressive, not to mention romantic. Almost like something out of a roman.”
“Enough talk,” Laure said. I noticed that she’d put on her hat and coat while we’d been talking to one another, and felt the slightest niggling of guilt. We all should have been doing just that.
What we really needed was the air-raid bells to snap us out of it. That’d jump-start the whole crew into action in no time.
“Are my gloves dry yet?” I asked. Toverre handed them to me, pinching them by the thumbs, which weren’t stained, and dangling them between us like dead fish rotting on the line. “Thank you,” I said.
“You are welcome,” he sniffed in reply.
I slipped them on, looking around for something I might have been able to use as a bell. There was nothing in the house, save for a little clockwork timer on the table next to Luvander’s stove. Just as I appraised it, wondering how insane I’d have to be to set it off for a certain effect, Luvander seemed to catch my eye, then reached out for it.
It dinged only once, its tone hollow and tinny. But to us, it actually meant something.
“Let me just turn down the stove,” Luvander said, putting a lid on his bubbling creation. “If all goes well, perhaps we’ll get a chance to eat it. If not …”
“If not, it’ll soon be able to run the hat shop for you,” Laure promised. “Now let’s go get the Chief Sergeant.”
THIRTEEN
TOVERRE
I’d always known my Laure had a rousing speech or two in her though I’d never dreamed she’d be commanding her own private army.
Even with my incredibly active imagination—not to mention the amount of time I devoted to dreaming up adventures such as this one—I had never dared to imagine something quite at this level of intrigue and excitement.
For me, it was too much. I was well aware that my flights of fancy were just that, and I did not particularly believe I had the constitution for adventure. Yet there I was, with one suddenly dumped unceremoniously into my lap, and the potential consequences of our actions all too real. I could only hope that we weren’t all arrested and executed for treason—but no one seemed to be in the mood to contemplate our darkest possible fate just yet, and I couldn’t exactly blame them. If we’d thought about it with any depth of foresight, we’d never have left the hat shop at all—a last attempt
of our instincts to achieve self-preservation.
Outside, it was dark, the moon obscured by thick clouds, and it was snowing heavily enough that it had discouraged most of the usual foot traffic at this hour. Everyone with a brain in their skull was indoors, not sloshing about through the streets getting slush in their boots. Now and then we passed by an open window, and I could see families within, sitting down to dinner; a young man reading a book; an older woman petting a kitten. They were so caught up in their sensible, everyday routines that no one looked out the window and caught sight of us—if they had, I didn’t know that they’d be able to recognize those in our party, wrapped up with scarves and hats and winter coats as we were.
There was simply no telling how fast the rumor would travel once someone realized the airmen were together again, traveling in a group with a single purpose like they hadn’t done since the war.
It was bound to cause a scene, and despite my own love of dramatic scenarios, even I understood the need to forgo it, just this once, in favor of keeping to the shadows.
With all the snow, Miranda had fallen hushed and still. Bright windows were illuminated in all the houses, and every now and then a smattering of laughter would spill out from a nearby café or restaurant, but for the most part, the city felt like ours alone. Fat white flakes spiraled down from the clouds, the strong wind blowing them sideways, and I had to very nearly close my eyes entirely to keep from being blinded by them. Ghislain, Royston, and Laure had taken the lead, and I found myself scurrying along in their wake, doing my best to step in the footprints Ghislain had left behind, which were deep and very wide, so as not to become too tired slogging through the snow.
I didn’t have the constitution an airman did. And why should I? It wasn’t as though I’d been given the same training. Almost from the start, my feet were freezing—I’d have worn thicker socks if I’d known we were going to be tramping through a veritable blizzard—but I kept my hands shoved into my pockets and my head tilted down. We were all going to have fevers come morning—if we even saw morning at all.
But I was hardly the worst off of all of us, even though Raphael had claimed to be in the peak of health. He looked more like a ghost resuscitated after months spent in the grave than anyone seemed willing to acknowledge.
Surely his comrades—who’d known him longer—should have known better and asked him to stay behind? Then it would have been less conspicuous that I remain with him, to see to his needs.
But I had to do this, to stand beside Laure during this important hour. Even if I was not directly involved, she was, for a variety of reasons. I would never be able to live with myself afterward if I didn’t fight with her despite the fact that I could hardly consider myself an asset to the cause.
For the most part, we didn’t talk; the silence was heavier than the snowfall. Yet I knew, given my company, it could hardly last. And, soon enough, I was proven right.
“Let me guess: You’re wondering why my statue’s so much better-looking than I am,” Raphael said.
I hadn’t been thinking anything of the sort—for once—but I didn’t feel that explaining myself would make it any better. I didn’t want my concern to seem like pity, and my lips felt half-frozen in place, too cold for a real protest.
“I much prefer real features to granite ones,” I said, with a sniff to keep my nose from running. I cursed my own foolishness in not remembering to bring my handkerchief—I’d left it in Luvander’s back room, I realized, after polishing all his silverware. This was the first and only time I’d ever allowed myself to be so careless.
“How very gallant of you to say so,” Raphael said. “Though perhaps it’s just that you haven’t met the right feature made of granite, if you don’t mind my saying.”
I was about to ask him what he meant by that when he slipped in a patch of black ice and I was forced to catch him by the arm to prevent him from falling.
The fact that I was able to catch him at all, not to mention support his weight, was a clearer indication than anything else that he could have used a few solid meals—and that we should have eaten some supper before we embarked on our trek across the city.
“All right there?” Luvander asked, looking over his shoulder. “Don’t tear my spare jacket, Raphael. It’s my second-favorite, and I like it so much better than I like you.”
“I had no idea it was such a precious garment,” Raphael said, taking care to brush the snow off his shoulders. “Never you mind, everything’s fine. Thank you, by the way.”
“It’s no trouble,” I said, releasing him carefully but resolving to keep a closer watch on him.
Laure would certainly be cross with me if I allowed a member of her rescue party to become injured. And considering her mood at present, I wasn’t about to do anything to draw her wrath nor lose a member of a group that would soon be devoted to looking after our well-being.
We must’ve looked like a strange procession to anyone who might’ve been spying out their window. The seven of us had very little in common—even the airmen, as I’d been surprised to discover, who were as ragtag a group of different personalities as I’d ever seen—but we were just the right amount of foolish to go wading through a snowstorm in the middle of the night to break one man out of a royal jail hidden below the city.
After Raphael’s brief attempt at conversation, no one else said anything at all. The mood was somber—as though we were heading to a funeral. I didn’t know whether it was the sudden realization of the important mission now facing us or simply because no one wanted to get a mouthful of snow. Whatever the reason, I soon lost track of how long we’d been walking, concentrating instead on the heavy rhythm of Ghislain’s footfalls in front of me as I hopped from boot print to boot print like a snow rabbit.
“We’re nearly there now,” Royston said, drawing us down a corner and off the road proper.
Indeed, I could see the shadowed outline of a building up ahead. It looked too small to be a prison, but I remembered what Royston had said about the true facilities lying underground. This, then, was in all likelihood some sort of guardhouse, not to mention part of the cover-up. A modest, simple building housing nefarious deeds done in the deep. This was hardly the city of my dreams.
In any case, that was where we’d be launching our invasion once Margrave Royston began his diversion. I felt a ripple of anxiety run through me and did my best to quell it.
“I suppose it’s up to me to go first,” Royston said. “I hate that. I’ll wait for you to get closer—perhaps the building next to it?—so you can see when they vacate the area and make your move.”
“I’ll go in first,” Ghislain said, a certain relish in his voice that made me wonder anew about his character. “Crack some heads to clear the way for team reconnaissance.”
“This is just like the old days,” Luvander said, breathing on his hands. “Only on the ground, and without Ivory around to set fire to everything in sight.”
“It’d come in handy here though, you must admit,” Raphael said. To me—because I was standing so close to him and had made such a careful study of him early, in case he should slip again—it seemed to pain him more than the others to talk about his comrade. One of the ones who did not make it back from the final battle, I thought, and bowed my head just briefly in hopes we did not follow him this evening. “Nothing creates a diversion like a whole mess of things bursting into flame. You don’t even need a dragon for that. Just a match.”
“I will go first,” Royston confirmed. “And I’ll do my best not to catch anything on fire, myself.”
“Then me,” Ghislain said. “When it’s clear on the first level, I’ll give a signal.”
“How will we know what it is?” I asked, nervously polishing one of my buttons with the fingers of my glove.
“You’ll know,” Ghislain said.
“And then the rest of us slip in,” Laure agreed, rounding on the group. “Are you lot going to be quiet once we’re in there? Or am I going to be the one who’
s gotta explain to Adamo we got pinched because someone wouldn’t shut up about his fish-god dick or how much eggplant stew he was gonna eat when he got home?”
“I hardly think that’s necessary,” Luvander said.
“We are trained professionals,” Raphael pointed out.
“And professional blabbermouths, too,” Laure said, as Luvander made a stitching motion over his lips, then pretended to throw away his invisible needle. “Anything new from Antoinette?”
“Nothing,” Royston confirmed. “It’s just the same sense of anger, only much louder here. We’re in the right place.”
“All right,” Laure concluded. “Margrave, it’s your turn.”
“I am so distressed,” Royston said, echoing my sentiments exactly. But, unlike me, he was able to square his shoulders and leave the comfort of our company, slipping off into the night. The snow soon obscured him as we slipped silently through the fall to stand in shadows closer to our target.
I hoped that all the snow wouldn’t prove a distraction to our distraction. Would it be possible to see the explosion Margrave Royston engineered when it was falling so heavily?
If I’d waited but a moment, I wouldn’t have had to ask.
I felt it under my feet, the reverberations of the shock rippling over the cobblestones, even though they were buried under so much snow. The noise itself came later—loud enough it nearly knocked me off my feet—and I could see the flash of something bright in the distance. I wondered what Royston had done and whether or not he was all right.
Then I turned my thoughts to myself. I was going to need them.
“Cue mass panic,” Raphael murmured, so quiet that I might have been the only one to hear him. Everyone else was too busy focusing on the door to the building in question—as lights came on in the windows, and the door itself opened an instant later, a few men running out into the night.
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