The next morning, they woke up early to take Flynn’s newly repaired ship out for a test flight. Flynn had urged her to sleep in, but there was no way Molly was missing the chance to get out of the city, even if it was only for an hour or two. For the first time since they’d arrived in Ballonet she felt like she could actually breathe.
The rising sun lit the jagged peaks of the mountains scarlet and orange and glistened on the streams in the valley below. Molly tipped her head back onto the worn velvet seat cushion and closed her eyes. The heavy rhythmic turn of the propeller blade, the soft hiss of wind against the sides of the balloon and the vibration of the engine rumbling up her legs through the floorboards was as soothing a lullaby as any she’d ever heard.
“I told you Esther does good work,” Flynn said smugly.
“You were right. The engine’s running lighter.” It wasn’t working nearly so hard to keep them aloft. “And that worrisome grinding noise is completely gone.”
“They replaced the levitation capacitors and a few filters. Esther said there was dust an eighth of an inch thick on some of the gears.”
Molly opened her eyes and turned her head to smile at Flynn. “I bet she’s not used to seeing that on Scraper craft.”
“She was appalled. Esther’s flown over border territory, but she’s never once touched down. I think she pictures it as a dirt-crusted wasteland just based on the state of our engine.”
“She’s not far off in her imaginings.”
Flynn’s smile was sharp and sweet. He looked just like the old Flynn. Her Flynn. He leaned forward to turn a small brass knob, and the shutters on the side window retracted, giving them a brilliant view of the black rock and pine-clad slopes of the surrounding mountains.
“You should let me fly for a bit.”
“It’s my turn.” He shot her a sly look. “Besides, if I let you have the wheel, you’d put Ballonet at our backs.”
She stretched her legs out and put her boots up on the freshly scrubbed navigator’s table. “Would that really be so bad? We could just keep going. Everything could be like it was before.” Her and Flynn against the world, surviving on luck and cunning. “Don’t you miss it at all?”
“Smugglers don’t live long lives, Molly. I want a family. Kids. A home. I told you before, that means turning respectable. You don’t really want to be scavenging through Reaper-infested towns for the rest of your life, do you?”
“I gave respectable a try last night, remember? It didn’t work out so well.”
He snorted. “One night, and I hate to break it to you, but masquerading as my wife while I engage in spy work does not count as respectable.”
She held up her hands. “See how bad I am at it?”
“I could teach you.”
“That’s almost worse—that I have to get lessons in respectability from Cassius Flynn, the scourge of the western skies.”
He reached over, knocked her boots off the table and flicked a piece of mud onto the floor. “You’re the one who tried to make that name stick. Most people have already forgotten it.”
She didn’t believe that. If the crooks on Stormking put up statues of their heroes, Flynn’s likeness would be standing in the town square. “I rather liked Cassius Flynn, scourge of the sky.”
“Quitting smuggling doesn’t change who I am.”
That was where they were different. Scavenging, smuggling, wiggling her way out of trouble—that was the only life she knew. Who was she without it?
A thump sounded from the engine compartment below. Molly sat up, her gaze locking on Flynn’s. His oh-shit expression echoed her sentiments exactly.
He nodded. “I heard it too.”
She pushed up from the chair. “I’ll check.”
She grabbed a parachute from the hook on the wall and tossed it to Flynn. He caught it easily and raised his brows.
She shrugged. “Just in case.”
She left the spare hanging beside the door. She wouldn’t be able to squeeze through the hatch wearing it on her back, one of many design flaws on Flynn’s old, pieced-together ship. Or maybe it wasn’t a flaw. If you were down fiddling with the engine when the ship started to crash, or worse, if the engine blew while you were down there, you were unlikely to need a parachute anyway.
The small square door to the engine compartment was set into the floor of the cargo hold. Molly knelt down, grasped the iron ring and hauled it open. Clear, cold air wafted into her face. You wanted a cool engine and the lower compartment wasn’t insulated at all. Molly pulled her goggles down before slipping through the hole in the floor.
It was deafeningly loud in the small space. The engine purred like a contented cat. Wind whistled through the holes on either side of the ship through which the cables controlling the sails passed. The cables were attached inside the ship to a contained contraption of gears and levers that was connected directly to Flynn’s control panel.
There were so many moving parts that at first Molly didn’t see the child hiding behind the ladder, curled up under one of the tarps they sometimes used to secure cargo. If not for the bright silvery hair peeking out from beneath the canvas, Molly might have missed her altogether.
“Penny!” Molly shouted over the wind. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Penny poked her head up from beneath the tarp. Her face was flushed a guilty red underneath all the smudged oil. The girl tucked the tarp up to her chin like she wanted more than anything to pull it over her head and ignore the fact that Molly was standing there glaring at her.
Molly moved toward her and nearly tripped over a wrench that one of Esther’s workers must have left behind. The engine still sounded sweet and fine. Molly suspected the falling wrench had been the source of the thumping sound they’d heard. She hoped that was all it’d been.
Grabbing Penny by the collar, Molly hauled the girl to her feet. It was too noisy to question her down here, so she pulled her around to the ladder and gestured for her to start climbing.
After one quickly aborted attempt at defiance that Molly shut down with the glare that made seasoned outlaws back away, Penny scrambled up into the cargo hold. Molly followed behind, closed the door to the hatch and pulled Penny up to the cockpit.
“Did you find what made that noise?” Flynn called over his shoulder.
“Oh, I found it.”
Flynn swiveled his chair about. His eyes widened at the sight of Penny. “Stowaway?”
“It would appear so.”
Flynn grinned. “I’ve been hijacked before, but this is a first.”
“I’ve stowed away before,” Molly admitted. Once, when she’d been much younger and stupider.
Flynn looked from the frightened girl to Molly. “I bow to your greater experience.”
“I’ve never been on this side of the equation.”
Flynn smiled and turned back to the controls. With a sigh, Molly sat Penny down in her seat and looked her over. “You’re a right mess.”
Penny shrugged. “I’ve been crawling around in your engine room for the last hour. It’s not the cleanest place in the world.”
“Did you make that noise we heard?”
Penny winced. “The wrench slid off the edge of the gearbox. I didn’t think you’d hear it.”
The girl shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Molly figured that so long as the ship wasn’t falling apart, she could delay the interrogation for a few minutes. “You sit tight.”
Molly went to the back to grab a thick woolen blanket from the chest. And then stopped off in their makeshift washroom to wet down a few of the rags stored there. When she got back to the front, she groaned. Penny looked pathetic, skinny and dirty, dressed in boys’ trousers that were too short. Her bare feet swung several inches above the floor.
Neither her age nor her state had stopped her from flirting with Flynn. Penny had the same starry-eyed look women always got when Flynn paid them any attention. The girl was asking him about the modification he’d made that let him close the main door from the pilot’s seat. It allowed for a quick getaway when seconds counted. Molly wondered if she got that same expression on her face when she looked at Flynn. Probably.
Kneeling down in front of Penny, she said, “Let’s see your face first. Did you use the grease for war paint?”
“Once you get a drop or two on your hands it just spreads all over.”
“I haven’t noticed that your aunt has that problem.”
Molly cleared most of the grease from around the girl’s eyes and mouth. She reached for a clean rag to start on Penny’s cheeks. Penny winced and tried to pull away. Molly caught her chin to hold her still.
“Aunt Esther says if you give people any kind of excuse to forget you’re a lady, then they will. I swear she spends the last hour of every workday scrubbing grease from under her nails.”
Part of Molly wanted to laugh at Esther’s foolish vanity, part of her was sympathetic and part of her wanted to chide Penny for speaking ill of her aunt. Instead, she said, “Give me your hands. We’re not getting the grease out from under your nails, but maybe we can get enough of it off that you won’t ruin the upholstery.”
Penny presented her hands, and Molly cleaned her up as best she could. Molly made her drink half a flask of water and then she wrapped the girl up in the blanket. Penny’s skin felt too cold for Molly’s liking, but at least she didn’t look like she was going to pass out.
“Now,” Molly said, straightening from her crouch and leaning her hip against the back of Flynn’s chair. She pasted a stern look on her face as she addressed the girl. “Tell us exactly what you’re doing here. Your aunt is probably worried sick about you.”
Penny’s small, pointed face pulled in a grimace. “Aunt Esther never lets me fly. What’s the point in fixing airships if you never get to use them?”
Molly didn’t really have a good answer for that.
“Besides, one of the piston rods was missing.”
Molly’s blood went cold. “Missing?”
Penny lifted her chin. “I found it on the floor in the hangar under the tool cart. Don’t worry. I fixed it.”
They would have died as soon as they reached altitude and changed gears. “Flynn?”
“I heard,” Flynn said, his voice grim. “Penny, was your aunt the only one working on our ship?”
“No.” Penny looked from Flynn to Molly, her eyes round. “You can’t think Aunt Esther would make that kind of mistake! It was probably Roberts or drunk old Henson. He should have been fired years ago, but he took on Aunt Esther as an apprentice when no one else would do it, and you know how sentimental she can be.”
Molly hadn’t noticed. She crouched down to look Penny in the eye. “Why didn’t you tell anyone when you found it?”
“I’m not a tattle-tale! Besides, why get anyone in trouble when I knew how to fix it? You never would have known if you hadn’t decided to take off before everyone woke up. When Aunt Esther goes to a party, she’s never up until noon the next day.”
Molly glanced at Flynn. He dipped one shoulder in a shrug. “It could’ve been an oversight.”
“I’ve never heard of any of Esther’s ships crashing right out of her shop,” Molly said. Such a thing would have killed Esther’s reputation as surely as it killed Molly and Flynn.
Penny’s blonde curls bounced as she shook her head. “Aunt Esther’s never had any of the ships she’s worked on crash. Ever. She checks them all herself before she clears them for flight.” Her shoulders sagged. “You’re not going to get Aunt Esther in trouble, are you?”
Flynn’s expression softened as he looked at the girl. “We’ll need to talk to your aunt to figure out what happened, but you won’t be in trouble. You saved our lives. We owe you a debt.” He reached down and pulled the belt buckle from beneath her chair. “Here. Buckle up. I think you’ve earned your first flight lesson.”
“Flynn…” Molly began, but trailed off at his sharp look. He shook his head and looked pointedly at the little girl who was snapping herself in.
“We should get back.”
Flynn raised his brows. “I never thought I’d see the day you were in a hurry to touch down in a Federation city.”
“I’m not.”
“Buckle up, Molly. I’m going to show Penny why they call this ship a cloud cutter.”
“Flynn!”
Flynn grinned at Penny. “I have made a few modifications. I imagine you’re just the sort of person who will appreciate the extent of my genius.”
Molly tried one last time. “Her aunt has to be worried sick about her.”
Flynn looked at her, really looked at her. “Feeling overprotective?”
It was unlike her, that was true. She wasn’t a cautious sort of person, and she liked a good ride as much as the next pilot. But Penny was just a baby, a little thing. She deserved to have someone looking out for her. Flynn frowned. “A half-hour won’t do any harm.”
Penny looked pleadingly at her, her face flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. There really wasn’t much harm. If the ship had been tampered with in any other way, they would have run into problems before now. And Esther did keep a pretty tight leash on her young niece. Scrapers always clipped the wings of their young women. This was probably the biggest adventure that Penny would ever get in her life. How could she deny her that?
“A half-hour and then we go back,” Molly said grudgingly.
Flynn looked at her a moment longer and nodded. “A half-hour.” He turned his head to look at Penny and smiled. “I guess that means we’ll have to fly extra fast.”
Penny whooped and listened attentively as Flynn started to explain the controls.
Molly staggered back when Flynn hit the lever to trigger the levitators. A soft whoomph sounded below as the valves opened. Molly sat down on the bench built into the side of the ship.
She hooked a hand through a hole in the netting on the wall as the ship started to rise. Fast. Flynn hadn’t been joking when he said he was going to make it fast. Her belly fluttered at their sudden rise in altitude. They hit a cumulus cloud and the ship shook until they broke through the top.
Her ears popped, and she pulled her tinted goggles down over her eyes to compensate for the glare of the sun. She watched as Flynn directed Penny to put her hands on the steering wheel. The girl looked nervous. Her back was straight, her narrow shoulders tight and tense. Flynn asked her a question, and she nodded bravely. He reached over and flicked the switch to transfer control of the ship to the second’s station and then leaned back in his chair.
The ship swayed slightly from a gust of wind. Penny jerked at the wheel but recovered quickly. Molly couldn’t hear what Flynn said to the girl. She could only hear the low murmur of his voice, but she recognized the tone—warm, confident, lightly amused. It was the same voice that had given her the courage to walk through all sorts of trouble and come out laughing on the other side.
Flynn would be a good father. He would be a good husband. She already knew he was a good partner. And Molly loved him so much. So damned much. Sometimes it felt like her heart might burst from it.
The foolish man still wanted to marry her…at least she thought he did.
When had she become such a coward?
So he was a Scraper, educated and charming and well connected. So what if he wanted to reestablish his connections with Scraper businessmen in order to build a respectable business? He was still spying for the forts. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten whose side he was on.
He hadn’t been upset that she hadn’t fit in at the ball. He hadn’t even really expected her to fit in. That had stung, but maybe she’d been looking at it the wrong way. Maybe he really didn’t want her to be like all those other Scrapers.
Penny looked up at him with adoration shining in her eyes. He’d made another conquest there. The girl grinned and turned the wheel to send them into a wide, swinging turn. Flynn laughed. He looked more carefree than Molly had seen him in ages. Her heart flipped.
He glanced back at her and his expression sobered. “What is it?”
When had he started looking at her like she was a rattler? Just to throw him off balance, she told him the truth. “I was thinking you’d make a good father.”
His eyes widened. “Were you?”
She lifted her chin toward the controls. “Do I get a turn?”
“Later,” he said, imbuing the word with all kinds of promises. “You get my full attention later.”
“Good.” She couldn’t wait.
Esther was waiting for them when they climbed from the ship, her blonde hair curling like a messy halo around her face, her skin pale and her eyes frantic. Molly had never seen Esther look so undone. She felt a moment’s regret that she hadn’t insisted on skipping the flight lesson.
For some reason, Penny hid behind Molly when her aunt started to yell. It took several minutes for Flynn to calm Esther down and for Molly to coax Penny forward so that Esther could wrap her startled niece up in a hug.
Esther sobbed a ragged breath as she lifted Penny off her feet. “I thought someone had taken you.”
Molly had heard that some people kidnapped Scraper children in order to sell them back to their relatives. It was the kind of thing her father’s gang might have gotten involved in if they’d had a ship and had been more familiar with the sky cities.
Esther put Penny down and glared at Molly. “I did not give you permission to take her on a test flight.”
Her fault, was it? Molly narrowed her eyes. “Maybe if you hadn’t sabotaged the ship, you wouldn’t have been quite so worried about it.”
Esther’s back stiffened. “Sabotaged the ship?”
“Aunt Esther!”
Penny pulled on her aunt’s sleeve, but Esther shifted her glare from Molly to Flynn. “What is she talking about?”
“It wasn’t their fault, Aunt Esther!” Penny moved to stand right in her aunt’s path, lifting her chin bravely. “I found the piston under the tool cart and climbed aboard to make sure you hadn’t missed something. It didn’t take long to make it right, but by the time I was done, they were already rolling the ship out to the landing pad. I should have jumped.”
“You should have done no such thing,” Esther said, her face going pale. “I checked the engine myself yesterday. It was as good as new.”
Penny shook her head sadly.
Esther searched her niece’s face. “You repaired the ship.”
“I did.” Penny blushed. “I thought about going to wake you, but I knew how to fix it. I wanted to show you that I knew how.”
Esther shook her head. “Did you see anyone else about the hangar this morning?”
“Not a soul,” Penny said. “And you know…if I had taken the time to wake you up, then Flynn would have taken off with a bad piston, so really, if you think about it, it was the right decision after all.”
A slight smile touched Esther’s stern mouth. “Don’t push your luck.”
When Penny’s expression fell, Esther placed a hand on her niece’s shoulder and bent to look her in the eye. “You did well.”
Esther spoke to her niece for a few moments and then sent her off for breakfast. When she turned back to face them, her expression was strained.
“The ship was in order when I cleared it last night.”
“Who else had access to it?” Flynn asked.
Esther sagged a bit. “All of my employees, but they’re a trustworthy lot.”
“Not un-bribable.”
“Who is?” She looked over the field. “I built out here to prevent people from breaking in, but it’s not impossible. The yard is fenced, but that wouldn’t keep someone out who was determined to make trouble.”
“Who?”
“Someone with a grudge? Someone who wants to hurt Stark? You know your enemies better than I do.” Esther looked toward Molly. “The news of your new bride will have spread by now. People will wonder if you intend to reconcile with your stepfather. The terms of your father’s will aren’t a secret. If you die, Stark doesn’t get his money and his business goes under. There have been rumors going about that he’s struggling.”
“And Founders have never played nice.”
“More than one family has grown desperate,” Esther said. “No one wants to be left behind once the southern territories reopen. I did not sabotage your ship, Flynn. I will speak to my people, but that’s likely to be a waste of time. You can join me if you wish.”
Flynn considered it and then shook his head. “I’ll conclude my business here tonight and then we’ll leave. I’m not even going to try to fight an unknown enemy. Whoever it is, they’re unlikely to follow me to the border.”
If he stayed on the border.
“I’ll look the ship over personally before you take off,” Esther said.
Flynn nodded grimly. “So will I.”