A sensation of metallic cold on my forehead jolted me back to my senses and I held back my fist, which was only inches away from Nightingale’s face. I saw the mother-of-pearl handle of Nightingale’s tiny pistol in great detail, down to tiny cracks cobwebbing one of the larger panels, and felt acutely its barrel pressing against my brow, cutting a cruel red circle into my skin. My anger could not find release and pounded inside me, like a wave on some oceanic shore, my impotent rage that could not even find a simple relief accessible to any tavern brawler. How I wished then to break that beautiful, haughty face, and the impossibility of doing so boiled in my eyes and spilled as tears.
“Well,” Nightingale said then. “Will you behave now?”
Out of the corner of my tearing eye I could see her left hand rise and motion to her entourage to stand by. “Yes,” I whispered. I had to struggle to meet Jack’s gaze, and shook my head ever so slightly. I saw his fists tensing too, and had no doubt that he could shatter his stocks if I gave a signal; surely he was strong enough. Only he would never endanger us — at least, that was what I was hoping for.
Jack gave a slightest nod that he understood, and I took a very slow step back, eager to end the contact between my flesh and Nightingale’s pistol. My forehead burned where the steel had touched it.
“There is nothing you can do,” Dame Nightingale said simply, and let her pistol arm hang limply along her side. “You are outnumbered, and your friend Bartram here knows as well as I do that if he tries any of his tricks, I will not hesitate to shoot you and your barbarians.”
“Unless we can bargain.” My mind, still clouded with anger, was starting to clear and to cast about for possible solutions.
Chiang Tse, quiet until then, stepped closer to me and whispered, “What do you mean?”
“The ship,” I whispered back. “Surely, you have more.”
“But… ” he started.
Nightingale looked at him, bored. “Dear boy,” she said. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t know what she speaks of. You have nothing we want. Rather, nothing we do not have.”
“That is not true,” Chiang Tse said. “I heard about the robbery in the Crane Club. You want our inventions.”
“We have some models,” Nightingale said, smiling. “Remember — we don’t really need anything from you; Britain won that war.” And yet, I noticed her eyes stray toward the dragon airship resting behind us, twin streams of steam coming from the symmetrical holes in the side of its hull and making the wings undulate up and down.
Chiang Tse noticed too: he hooked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the ship. “Not even that?”
“We do not want blueprints; we already have them.”
“Then it won’t make any difference,” I told Chiang Tse. “It’s only the matter of time before the British can build their own.”
Chiang Tse frowned. “But Sasha, we cannot give them such weapons. Our very survival—”
“—is a matter completely separate from the one at hand,” I interrupted. “Don’t you remember? You owe your life to this man, you owe him the very alliance between our countries.”
He shook his head, but then smiled, as if remembering something. “If you put it that way… What are matters of military security when you can save the man who risked so much for you?”
“Exactly!” I gave a quick sideways look to Nightingale. “If we have Jack on our side, the loss of one ship won’t matter.”
“I know there will be a war sooner or later,” Chiang Tse said, and looked at Jack with new appreciation. “I suppose he would be valuable.” He then turned to Nightingale. “Will you trade with us? That man for the airship. We’ll even provide an engineer to fly it.”
The English muttered among themselves.
“You won’t be in trouble?” I whispered to Chiang Tse.
He shrugged. “These things have a way of sorting themselves out.” He winked at me, amused at something I was missing.
Nightingale turned away from me for the first time since we got there, and consulted in lowered voice with her contingent. Her mind must have already been made up, for she didn’t pay attention to Jack, and he hobbled toward me.
“Jack,” I started.
He shook his head — rather wobbled it side to side, which was as much movement as his stocks allowed. “We’ll talk later,” he said. “I’m just glad to see that you are alive and well.”
“You too,” I said. “I wish they had not kept you in these wooden blocks.”
“Well, they bloody well had to, didn’t they?”
“You probably do not remember me,” Chiang Tse cut in.
“I do,” Jack said. “You are welcome.”
I could not believe that I had persuaded Chiang Tse to give up the airship — a beautiful, powerful machine — to his enemies. And yet, I couldn’t see another way; I only wished I would have the same clarity of vision every day of my life, the same ability to see through the conjecture and the imagined complications we tended to pile on top of everything, to see right to the heart of the matter: there was a man we both owed our lives to, and something we could trade for his salvation. It wasn’t even a difficult choice once you looked at it that way — and I was glad that Chiang Tse was able to see it my way.
I brushed an unbidden tear from my eyelashes. “I guess I better go to the airship and get my aunt and her things. Does anyone know when the next train arrives?”
“You’re close enough to Moscow,” Dame Nightingale said. “There is a train every hour or so. And do send your people to fetch the rest of your belongings from the ship — we are not thieves, we just want the airship.”
“You’re accepting our offer then?” Chiang Tse said.
“Of course. You didn’t think that he—” she gave another head toss in Jack’s direction—“is important, did you?”
“Of course he is,” I said. “He’s important to you, enough to chase him all the way to Siberia.”
Chiang Tse pulled on my sleeve. “Sasha,” he said mildly. “Let’s not prolong the pointless argument.”
“I am sorry,” I said to her. “We appreciate your willingness to negotiate.”
“I hope your engineer doesn’t mind taking us to St. Petersburg and then London,” she said. “It seems like the emperor has had quite a change of heart, and I fear that soon we won’t be welcome at his court.”
“Of course,” said Chiang Tse. “Wherever you have to go.”
I bit my tongue, said nothing, only nodded. “Do you have the key for those stocks?”
Nightingale tossed the jangling knot of keys to me. I fumbled the catch, and they sunk into the snow by my feet. I dropped to my knees, my reddened, clawed hands digging in the snow. Who knew how deep the snow was, how far those keys had fallen? I had my arms up to my shoulder in snow, when I heard Nightingale’s abrupt laugh. My fingers touched the steel and I drew a gigantic breath of relief.
“Don’t let him out until we’re gone,” she said. “And forgive us for not waiting.”
By the time I pulled the keys out of the snow, the steam of the airship had grown to two forceful streams. Aunt Eugenia and the rest of our companions had disembarked with speed that precluded dignity — I saw a man tumble in the snow, and recognized the engineer, Tang Wei.
I turned to Chiang Tse. “But he… ”
“We sent a different engineer,” Chiang Tse said as the English turned their backs on us in their hurry to get aboard.