Thaddeus couldn’t fathom how, but the gate they had been led through when they had entered the cells was open. Not only that, the passageway that led to it from the palace’s lowest level was empty. Thaddeus looked around, wondering if he was mistaken and they were actually leaving by a different route, but Desai clamped a hand to his shoulder, urging him onward.
“Hurry, we have lost much time already,” his friend muttered.
“But how —?” Thaddeus began, only to be cut off by a shake of Desai’s grizzled head.
“I will explain later. For now, we must take full advantage of the lull. It will be only minutes before our time is up.”
“There’s four guards on the airship,” J pointed out as they approached the gate. “What do we do about ’em? We ain’t armed.”
“All we have is the element of surprise,” said Desai, adding, “Four of us, four of them. We take one each and do our best — this is our only hope.”
“’Ang about,” J protested. “You can’t make Dita fight! She’s half the size of any of ’em!”
Dita slapped J’s arm, hard enough for the sound to ricochet off the stone walls around them. “Speak for yourself, dirty boy,” she said in a loud whisper. “I will take mine down quicker than you will yours!”
“Pfft,” J spat back, “I’d like to see you —”
Thaddeus, already through the gate, turned on the two bickering youngsters. “Now is not the time!”
“Thaddeus is right,” said Desai. “Do what you can, all of you — and do it … now!”
They burst from the archway, crossing the courtyard at a flat run. The moonlight bounced off the white flagstones beneath their feet, sending shimmering bursts of shadow undulating across the marble as their running bodies blocked its shine. Desai was ahead, moving far faster than Thaddeus would have thought possible. They were lucky that the guards were positioned in such a way that only two were facing their position. Desai was on the first before he could even level his rifle, and Thaddeus was close behind with the second. Their cries echoed across the courtyard, bringing the other two swinging around the airship, lifting their loaded guns as the sentries on the four corners of the palace walls turned to see what the commotion was about.
Thaddeus wasn’t much of a fighter — he’d always avoided the brawls his fellow street children had reveled in when growing up — but there had been plenty of times he’d needed to be handy in a scuffle as a copper on the streets of London. The guard moved to discharge his rifle, but the weapon was too cumbersome to be useful in a close-quarters fight. Thaddeus swung his left arm in an arc that knocked the weapon far enough away that the shot, when let loose, flew wide, striking one of the outer walls in a shower of glinting marble dust. Before the soldier could regain his balance, Thaddeus had punched him hard in the lower gut, finishing with a hard jab of his locked elbow to the man’s chin. He went down and Thaddeus grabbed the gun as another shot echoed out of the dark. The sentries on the wall had seen what was happening and were responding accordingly, shooting down at them from above. Thaddeus swung around, trying to reload the rifle. He saw that Desai had dropped his guard, too.
Together they ducked around the airship as more rifle bullets tore up the stone around their feet. Dita and J were struggling with their guards — Thaddeus felled J’s with a blow to his solar plexus as the boy struggled to swing the rifle away from the airship. Dita writhed in the grip of the last man as he lifted her clear off the ground, her legs kicking out but too short to do enough damage. J dragged the gun around and slammed its butt into the final guard’s knee. The man yelled in pain and dropped Dita. J lost no time in whacking him over the head and he slumped to the ground, out cold.
“Get her up, J!” Thaddeus rasped, struggling for breath.
J ran for the airship’s ramp, pulling it down and scrambling inside just as more noise began to echo across the open courtyard. Desai fired another rifle bullet in the direction of one of the sentry posts and began to reload as Thaddeus turned to see more soldiers pouring out of the barracks toward them. He hefted his rifle up and fired above their heads. The soldiers ducked for a second and then kept coming, wielding swords rather than guns. Thaddeus felt a movement and looked down to see Dita beside him holding another rifle, a look of grim determination on her face as she sent a bullet into the surge of men coming at them.
“Desai, there are too many!” Thaddeus yelled. “Dita, get inside …”
A rifle bullet whistled past his head from the wall again, narrowly missing Thaddeus and smacking into the wooden body of the airship. Thaddeus glanced at the damage — minimal, thank god — and then heard a hissing sound above him. He looked up to see the balloon filling, replacing the gas he’d released to land a few hours earlier. His heart pounded in relief as the craft, buoyancy restored, began to lift off.
Thaddeus, Desai, and Dita leapt for the ramp, rushing up it and into the ship as she lifted away from the cold white marble. Within seconds they were rising out of reach of the soldiers on the ground, although rifle bullets still thudded against the airship’s wooden hull.
“One of those bullets hits the balloon and we’re all done for!” J yelled, sitting at the airship’s controls as he brought her about. “She’ll go up like a firecracker!”
As if someone outside had heard him, a rough yell echoed from the palace. Thaddeus, in the process of pulling the ramp up, paused and saw through the chink still left open, the jeweled man leaning out of a high window just above them, screaming at his men below.
“Do not harm the ship of the sky,” he was shouting. “Death to any of you who damage her beyond repair!”
Thaddeus’s blood ran cold, not at the man’s commanding voice, but at the sight of who else stood at the window with him. It was Rémy, her throat caught beneath his crushing fingers. She was gasping for breath, struggling against his grip but obviously losing the fight.
“J,” he shouted to the front of the cabin, “hold the ship still!”
“What?” J shouted back. “Are you mad?”
Thaddeus dropped the ramp. It fell back on its hinges, jerking the airship sharply to one side. The airship was still rising, the end of the open ramp just feet from the palace walls, almost close enough for anyone to reach out and grab them, but not quite. Thaddeus could see soldiers crowding against the lower windows, aiming to do just that — leaning out as far as they could but still unable to touch their fingertips to the escaping craft.
They were almost level with the jeweled man’s window, his long fingers still digging into the moon-pale skin of Rémy’s neck. Her struggles were becoming weaker, her knees buckling.
“Put her down,” ordered the man, his eyes glinting cruelly in the moonlight. “Put the ship of the air back down, or I will squeeze every last breath out of this whelp before you can turn away.”
At that, Rémy forced herself around to face Thaddeus, her eyes defiant though she could clearly hardly breathe. She moved one arm and something sailed toward Thaddeus, dropping with a thump onto the airship’s wooden floor.
Her puzzle box.
Thaddeus leveled the rifle in his hands at the jeweled man’s head. “Let her go,” he said, more calmly than he felt, “or I will take your head off, here and now.”
The man grinned, showing his teeth in a show of hateful, swaggering arrogance. “You would not dare. You might hit her. Desperation, my friend. It is a sign that you have already lost.”
Thaddeus moved the rifle just a fraction to the right and fired. There was an almighty sound as the bullet ripped into the stone window frame beside the jeweled man’s head, shattering a hole in the white marble and filling the air with shards as sharp as razors. The jeweled man screamed and raised his arms to shield his face, letting Rémy go in the process. She sagged against the window, gasping for breath.
“Jump!” Thaddeus shouted at her, the airship still rising. “Rémy, for pity’s sake, jump!”
Rémy, still gasping, threw her legs over the window frame and leapt wildly at the ramp, which was now almost above her head. Her fingers slipped, grasping at the wood, searching for but not finding purchase. Thaddeus dropped the rifle and lunged for her, throwing himself down stomach-first on the ramp and grabbing at her wrists.
The airship rose into the air, over the roof of the palace and away. As Thaddeus dragged Rémy to safety, the last thing they heard was the jeweled man.
“Follow them!” he screamed, leaning out of his window, his face bleeding where the splinters of his fine marble palace had struck him with a thousand tiny pinpricks. “Don’t let them get away! Follow them! On pain of your deaths, follow them!”
“Are you all right?” Thaddeus sat on the floor beside Rémy, stroking her hair out of her face. “Rémy?”
She looked up at him, nodding faintly, still trying to catch her breath. There were red marks on her throat where the jeweled man’s fingers had tried to choke the life from her body. “D’accord,” she whispered hoarsely, “d’accord.”
He pulled her toward him, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against his chest. “You have got to stop trying to get yourself killed,” he told her, and had the vague idea that it wasn’t the first time he’d told her such a thing.
He heard her laugh, her breath on his skin warm through his shirt. “You worry too much. Anyway, you say that as if it is always my fault.”
He sighed and pulled back. “Well, that time was, wasn’t it?”
Rémy shrugged and looked around for the puzzle box, still lying on the floor of the airship. “I had to get it back, Thaddeus. I had to.”
She got to her feet and he followed. The airship bumped a little in a sudden breeze, and Thaddeus saw Desai grip the back of J’s chair as he stared at the controls in wonder.
“This is — this is remarkable,” Desai was muttering. “I have never experienced anything like it.”
“She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” J said proudly, rubbing the airship’s control panel with affection.
“It is a wonder,” agreed Desai, and then looked a little wobbly as another puff of wind bumped against the airship. “Oh dear. I think perhaps this mode of travel takes some getting used to …”
“Don’t worry,” Dita assured him airily, “you will soon get your air legs, Mister.”
Desai looked at her curiously and then held out one hand. “I do not believe we have met, Miss …”
“Dita,” Dita told him, shaking his hand. “I am pleased to know you, sir.”
Desai smiled. “And I you, Dita. Rarely have I seen someone so small acquit herself with such aplomb,” he told her, and the little girl glowed in the light of such praise.
“Chitchat is all well and good,” muttered J, “but would someone care to tell me where we’re headed, like? If those fellers are comin’ after us, it’d be nice to know, because I for one could do with somefing to eat and some shut-eye.”
Thaddeus moved to look out over the darkened landscape. They were flying over dense jungle, the moonlight strong but not enough to show them any safe landing spots. “Our map is still back in that clearing where they attacked us,” he said, “and I don’t know this area at all. Desai, can you help?”
His friend frowned. “Well, let me see. What direction did we take out of the palace, J?”
J leaned forward and tapped the compass on the control panel. “I headed due north.”
“North,” Desai repeated thoughtfully. “In that case, yes — I have a very good place for us to head for. Turn her west, J, and follow that heading until you see a river. Once we see that below us, we follow it to its source. It shouldn’t be far to fly in this magnificent machine.”
“You think that’ll be far enough to stop them finding us?” Thaddeus asked.
Desai smiled a little mysteriously. “They may find us, my dear Thaddeus. But I guarantee they will not be able to reach us.”