I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. The tat-tat-tat-tat! that I knew meant machine guns unloading their drums.
I supposed I’d find out the range of their bullets after all.
I climbed. The peaceful silence of before had been devoured, eaten up by the clanging of the alarm and the gunfire and the wind that now scoured me, fighting me. I felt Armand tucked close to my neck and heard him shouting, “Go! Go!” and God help me, I was.
Then came the worst sounds of alclass="underline" engines sputtering to life. Propellers spinning, hacking the air.
I grimaced, trying not to imagine them hacking me instead.
My vision began to filter back, shapes and colors returning. We’d left the airfield behind and were over roads and pasture once more. I didn’t think the searchlights had caught us again—hopefully we were too far beyond them—although I could still hear that blasted alarm.
And then the aeroplanes taking off.
I looked back. Two, three … five of them right behind us. Armand met my eyes, then twisted to look back, too.
Six. Seven.
And they were getting closer. The wind had turned against us and it made all the difference, but I’d wager it meant nearly nothing to the engines of those planes.
Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets strafed by. One zinged off a barb on my tail, sending me into a spin.
I spiraled out of it, ducking and dodging, dipping and soaring. At one point Armand lost his seat entirely and was floating over my back, holding on with just his hands, but I couldn’t stop, because the aeroplanes were roaring closer and closer, and they were relentless.
I should Turn. I should go to smoke. But I didn’t know if Armand would, too—if he could, even, but I didn’t know, and since I didn’t know, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t leave him and just let him fall and bloody well hope he figured out what I meant for him to do before he ended up a smear on the ground—
There! There was a town up ahead! Surely the pilots wouldn’t continue to fire over their own people?
I slitted my eyes and straightened for speed, the wind screaming now, gunfire puncturing the night in wide-open arcs to the left and right and above.
So I dropped lower, and the dull yellow burn of the streetlights was just there, and the first of the buildings swept into view. I flew over rooftops so close my talons scratched sparks from their shingles. I couldn’t tell if the pilots were still firing, but it didn’t matter; I had to slow, so I opened my wings and fought the rush of the world whipping past us.
Not all the streets were lit. I aimed toward a section of shadows, finding a lane of cobblestones, plowing into them.
More sparks; the lane ripped apart. A brick wall hurtling toward my face, too late to avoid.
I angled my head and took the blow, and everything flashed white like the searchlight, then black.
I opened my eyes, or thought I did. Everything was still black.
Maybe I’d gone blind.
Maybe I was dead.
But someone was holding me. Someone who smelled of pine trees and sea salt and desperation. His lips were pressed to my temple. His breath blew ragged against my hair.
“Wish I’d had a cannon for a tail,” I mumbled, and passed out again.
The next time I regained my senses was much more unpleasant. The world was no longer so opaquely black, but murky and dingy and sickeningly blurry. Somewhere nearby dogs were barking, an entire army of them, with a weirdly jabbering chorus of human voices lacing through. My head felt as if it would split apart.
All of me, all of me, hurt.
Armand was gone. I lay alone on something itchy and hard.
Had we been captured?
I rolled to my side, made my way up to my elbows. Beneath me was a shabby felt blanket spread over a stone floor. A stale breeze swirled by, and I sneezed, cramping my stomach and sending everything even blurrier and more nauseating.
Where was Armand? What were they doing to him?
I tried to stand. The world tipped sideways, and I found myself on my hands and knees with my head hung down, gasping.
Very well. I’d sit first. That seemed … not entirely unreasonable. I leaned back carefully, making it to one hip, and that was when I realized I was wearing the calico dress I’d bought a lifetime ago back in England. Back when I’d been so secretly thrilled to have something as simple as a new dress all my own, and never once really thought for a second about the consequences of what I was about to do next, promises made, lords to save …
I exhaled past my teeth and covered my eyes with one hand. It helped to tamp down the nausea.
Armand was beside me suddenly, supporting me by the shoulders, urging me back to the ground.
“Stay there. Don’t try to stand.” He was speaking in a voice so low it was nearly a hiss. “I don’t think anything’s broken, but I couldn’t be certain, and you took a nasty blow to the head.”
“Where … ,” I began, but couldn’t seem to finish the thought.
“A warehouse. A vacant one, at least so far.” His hands pressed me against the blanket. “We’re a couple of blocks from where we came down. They haven’t searched here yet.”
“We need to …” Why couldn’t I think straight?
“We will. Just—just rest a moment, all right?”
All right.
I lay back and covered my eyes again, listening to him pad away. He was moving swiftly, doing something with the knapsack, I could tell, because I heard the tins clinking around inside it.
A match was struck. I heard it, smelled it. I lowered my hand and turned my head and saw him crouched in a corner far from me, a pile of papers before him writhing with flames.
He was burning the maps.
As soon as the last one crisped to ash he stood, scattering the soot with the sole of his boot. Then he returned to me.
“I’ve stashed the rest of it. We’ll come back for it later. Right now we need to disappear. Do you think you can Turn to smoke?”
I groaned. The sound of the dogs barking grew louder and louder.
“Then, can you stand?”
“I …”
“Come on, Lora. Come on, love. We have to get out of here.”
“Out there?”
“Yes.” He was pulling me to my feet. “They might not know where that dragon machine went, but they heard the crash and they’ll be looking for its pilot. We can’t be discovered hiding.”
“I need … stockings. Shoes.”
He’d dressed me in the frock but had forgotten that part. I wasn’t wearing my chemise, either. If we were going to step out of this place with any hope of blending in, at the very least I shouldn’t be in my bare feet.
He ran back to the knapsack, which he’d stored on a shelf beneath more of the felt blankets, and returned with my shoes.
That was fine. The thought of bending over to slide on stockings made my throat close with sick.
I shoved my feet into my pumps. I leaned against him and we made our way to the door, which was big and rusted and looked like it would squeal to the heavens if jarred. I heard people beyond it, rapid footfalls.
Armand was whispering in my ear as we walked. “You’re my wife. You’re shy, you’re pregnant, and you’re ill, got it?”
“Yes.”
“Ja,” he corrected me.
“Ja.”
“Hell. Your accent is atrocious. Just nod, okay?”
I pushed a lock of hair from my cheek, glancing up at him. He paused, taking me in, then moved behind me. He gathered all my hair past my shoulders and began quickly to braid it.
“If anyone talks to you, asks you questions or anything, you look at me. That’s it. Don’t try to answer. Act like I’ll beat you if you answer.”