They thought I was here to save them.
Hope lit from face to face, joyous disbelief. I saw the panic of the guards, and it fed me like nectar. My animal heart expanded, seeing them so afraid; I wanted more of that. Much more.
I wanted, suddenly, not just to save one man. I wanted to tear this entire camp apart. I was savage with want.
“Huzzah! Huzzah!”
After all, I was a weapon, wasn’t I? I was a weapon of fangs and claws, of fantasy and fury. I was the accumulation of all that men feared, and despite the fact that I couldn’t breathe fire, I could still render this prison to ash. Turn it to dust, into a ruin again, instead of a place where people suffered and died, because I was sick of hiding, and I was sick of war, and I was sick of death stalking me and threatening me and filling me with dread.
Let it come. I was ready.
I wove higher, waited for a searchlight, dove down again. I pulled free a long span of fencing, until the barbed wire sliced apart in my claws.
Another tent ripped open, more men spilling out, roaring encouragement. The guards around them yelling and pushing, trying to regain control.
Another tent. Another.
We played that game until I had all the soldiers in sight beneath me, pointing their guns at me. Little bursts of light popped from their barrels like embers in a fireplace, but tat-tat-tat fast, because they were no longer using their rifles, but machine guns.
go, go, go, go!
Heat punctured my wing—my good wing—ripping swiftly into pain.
All my bravado evaporated. Instantly I was me again, only Eleanore, in trouble far over her head. I Turned to smoke and the pain dulled, but I’d been shot. Again.
I retreated through an unglazed window atop the nearest tower, slinking into darkness. I Turned to girl against the wall and mashed my hands against my mouth, because even though I no longer had wings, the wound was crippling, bowing me in half, and there was a scream in my throat that I knew I could not afford to release.
Tears filled my eyes. I bent my head into my palms and pressed them away.
My face prickled hot, but the rest of me was cold as the rock wall at my back; my skin began to creep. The scent of meat and decay filled my nose.
It was only then that I knew that I wasn’t alone.
I lifted my head.
There was a man in here, flat on a cot. Just one man; the rest of the chamber was barren. He was swathed in bandages that had seeped through with gore, holding himself very stiff and still, just like the mummy soldiers back at Tranquility who only moved once they recognized that no matter how immobile they tried to be, the agony was still going to come.
I looked at the man. The faint gleam of his eyes confirmed that he was looking back at me. Neither of us spoke.
Beyond the slit of the window, the stars sparked. The moon threw us light the color of bone.
It was Aubrey. Exactly like Armand back in that bell tower, I felt him, the dragon locked inside him, faded as an echo. Somewhere beneath this mess of blood and linen was Lord Aubrey Louis, Marquess of Sherborne, ace fighter pilot, his father’s obsession and his brother’s salvation.
Sssss. Sssss.
His breath wheezed in and out like he was struggling to breathe through a tube, a horrible, scratchy thin sound. The bandaged chest jerked up and down. The fingers of his left hand were curled against the blanket at his waist, and all his nails were black.
I lost myself then. Only for a moment. An awful mixture of rage and bitterness rose up inside me in a blind wave, obliterating all of my careful control, all at once, and I began to tremble.
We’d come all this way. We’d risked so much.
For nothing.
There was no way in hell this man was going to be able to ride my back home. I’d be surprised if he could even sit up.
Jesse, goddamn you, why? Why?
I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes, digging my nails into my palms to stop the shaking. I waited for the wave to recede. When I was able to open my eyes again, Aubrey attempted to speak.
“El …”
He ran out of air. Moonlight made a slick, cool sheen over the wreck of his face. He drew in a slower breath.
“ … leanore,” he finished. “At last.”
And he smiled at me.
Chapter 31
The night had shattered. A clamor shuddered up through the stone walls sheltering us, fed by gunfire and cries far below. I gave a final glance to the moon, then went to my knees beside Aubrey, combing my hair over my chest.
“You knew I was coming,” I said.
“Yes.” A small rush of a word, imbued with every sort of meaning: faith, trust, wholehearted relief.
“The stars,” I said.
“The … boy.”
“The boy in the stars. Jesse. He sings to you.”
A bare nod.
I cocked my head, genuinely curious. “And you didn’t think you were going barmy? Or maybe trapped in a nightmare?”
The sound he made this time was more like a laugh. The fingers with the blackened nails twitched.
“Worse … than this?”
Good point.
“Is Jesse, perchance, singing to you now? Telling you what we should do next?”
His brows drew together, his lips pulled into a grimace. I took that as a no.
I sighed. “Listen. Here’s the rub. I can’t hear him. I’ve come here with Armand—yes, he’s below. Don’t try to move yet. I’ve come with Armand, and he’s alive but injured, and you’re alive but injured, and”—I tugged at my hair, frustrated—”damn it all, so am I. So I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now. This place is crawling with soldiers, and I stirred up something out there, but I’m not sure what, if it’s enough to sneak you out or not, and now … now …”
I ran out of things to say. The bleak cold of the floor was seeping into me, congealing me, skin to muscle to joints.
“Heard … you’re something.”
I looked at Aubrey. The grimace had relaxed back into a smile. His hair was blond; his eyes were gray. His lashes were long and thick, just like his brother’s.
“Scales,” he said. “Wings. Helen of the skies. Like to … see that.”
A Helen of the skies. Like Helen of Troy, whose beauty had moved armies. But all I could move was me.
I shook my head, forcing myself to return his smile. What I really wanted to do was curl up and cry because I was chilled and leaden and at a loss for any clever way to go on. I might try to drag him down the stairs to the bottom of the tower, but there were probably more guards between here and there. I could try to Turn to dragon to get him out, but the window was too small for anything but smoke to fit through. And even if I did succeed at any of that, there was still the matter of maneuvering Aubrey onto my back and getting both of us safely out range of the gunfire. And the aeroplanes. And maybe even zeppelins; nothing would surprise me at this point. For all I knew, the Germans had already constructed their own mechanical dragon and we’d have to dodge that as well.
The riot sounds outside were growing louder and louder, and I was worried about Armand, even though he wasn’t technically inside the prison, because what if the dogs or the guards found him anyway, while he was still unconscious? What if—
“I’m a pilot, you know,” Aubrey rasped.
“I know,” I answered, distracted.
“Know the hazards. Good hands.”
I studied him, trying to understand.
“I can hold on,” he said. “Let’s … clear out.”