The Sweetest Dark

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“What is what?” asked Armand. “I don’t hear anything.”

I hadn’t taken my eyes from Jesse. “There’s more than one. Two at least, right?”

“Two,” he said. “I hear two.”

Armand stood. “Two what?”

I sent him a look. “Zeppelins. Headed this way.”

He stared at us, silent. And, really, what could he say? Sorry my father doomed us all? Nice knowing you?

“All right, all right.” I chafed my hands nervously up and down my sides, rumpling the shirt. “I can—I can fly up there. Turn to dragon. Claw them open, make them crash.” Instinctively, I turned to Jesse, almost plaintive. “Can’t I?”

He took up my hand. I swear I saw the stars brighten around him, a sparkling, silvered nimbus. “Perhaps.”

“Well, I have to. That’s all there is to it. I have to.”

“No,” burst out Armand. “They have guns! Bombs! They’ll fill you with holes before you can blink!”

“Not if I’m smoke.”

“Smoke can’t tear apart a dirigible! We need to wake the others and evacuate the castle. Get everyone out before they make it here.”

“No time,” said Jesse. “We’ve only a few minutes. Look.”

And, yes, I could see them now in the distance, two round, dark blots against the purple sky, steadily enlarging.

Thup-thup-thup-thup-thup …

… shoom-shoom-shoom …

“Hold up, what’s that?” I ran to a merlon, tilting past it to scan the empty sea. The wind snapped my hair into a banner, a cheerful long flutter beyond my face. “Do you hear that, too? That swooshing sound? Is it a ship?”

“A submarine,” replied Jesse, matter-of-fact. “A U-boat sent ahead. They do that with the airships when they can. It’s about ten leagues out. Headed this way.”

I think the word despair is much too small to encompass the magnitude of all it defines. For me, right then, despair meant that everything within me—my organs, my spirit, my hope—plunged down into a place of utter density, of blackness so heavy and bleak I had no idea how to lift any of it up again.

I can’t do this. I’m just Lora Jones. I can’t even remember how to tell a shrimp fork from an oyster fork. I can barely find middle C. I can’t save Jesse and Armand and the castle. I can’t defeat them all.

But I had to. We were going to die unless I did.

I pulled back from the merlon. I stood with my hands at my sides and made certain my face was scrubbed clean of any expression before I turned around to them again.

Jesse had decided to sit. The darkened figure of the duke stretched out flat behind him; the ruby from his ring was making a warbling noise, small and sorrowful.

“Is the tide high enough right now for a torpedo to make it inside the grotto?”

“Aye. I think so.”

“But they won’t know about the grotto,” protested Armand. “How could they know?”

“It’s been there for ages, Mandy. Longer than the castle, even. It’s part of the geography of the island. How difficult could it be to find out about it?”

One strike. I’d bet that was all it would take. One lucky strike, and the grotto, the columns, the foundation of the castle itself, would shatter. And down we’d all go.

My heart was thudding so loudly I thought I might retch. Armand had taken my hand and was crushing it in his. His heart beat nearly as frantic as mine.

Blood and muscle. Muscle and blood.

Jesse only watched us both from the limestone as his leg leaked a slow, slick puddle along the fitted grooves. I freed my hand and dragged off the shirt.

“I’ll start in the air,” I said, far more steadily than I thought I could, considering. I knelt to tie the shirt around his thigh, cinching it tight above the wound; he stiffened but let me finish the knot. “The air first, the airships, and then—then I’ll dive.”

“You can’t swim,” broke in Armand. “You told me that you can’t.”

“Maybe I can now. If I’m a dragon.”

“Don’t be an idiot! If you can’t swim, you can’t swim, Eleanore! You’ll drown out there, and what the bloody hell do you think you’re going to do anyway to a U-boat? Bite it open?”

I stood again. “Yes! If I must! I don’t hear you coming up with a better—”

“You’ll die out there!”

“Or we’ll all die here!”

“We’re going to find another way!”

“You two work on that. I’m off.” I fixed them both with one last, vehement look, the Turn rising inside me.

Remember this. Remember them, this moment, this heartbreak, these two boys. Remember that they loved you.

Armand had reached for my shoulders. “I forbid—Eleanore, please, no—”

“No,” echoed Jesse, speaking at last. “You’re not going after the submarine, Lora. You won’t need to.”

Armand and I paused together, glancing down at him. I stood practically on tiptoe, so ready to become my other self.

Jesse climbed clumsily to his feet. When he swayed, we both lunged to catch him.

“Armand will take me to the shore. I’ll handle the U-boat.”

“How?” demanded Armand at once.

But I understood. I could read him so well now, Jesse-of-the-stars. I understood what he meant to do, and what it would cost him.

I felt myself shaking my head. Above us, the airship propellers thumped louder and louder.

“Yes,” said Jesse, smiling his lovely smile at me. “I already sense your agreement. Death and the Elemental were stronger joined than apart, remember? This is our joining. Don’t waste any more time quarreling with me about it. That’s not your way.” He leaned down to me, a hand tangled in my hair. His mouth pressed to mine, and for the first time ever I didn’t feel bliss at his touch.

I felt misery.

“Go on, Lora-of-the-moon,” he murmured against my lips. “You’re going to save us. I know you will.”

I glared past him to the harsh, baffled face of Armand. “Will you help him? Do you swear it?”

“I—yes, I will. I do.”

I disentangled Jesse’s hand, kissed it, stepped back, and let the Turn consume me, smoke rising and rising, leaving the castle and all I loved behind me for the wild open sky.

Airships aren’t actually powered by air. They have propellers and engines that run on fuel, much like a water-bound ship, and they stay aloft by means of the hydrogen gas trapped inside the cells of their great elongated balloons.

I knew that much from the reports in the London papers, but what I recalled most about them, watching them float over St. Giles to let loose their unholy fire, were the windowed gondolas that hung beneath the balloon part, filled with crew. And the bomb bays positioned behind those, filled with death. When the ground-defense searchlights landed on them just so, you could clearly see the figures of the men behind the glass.

I remember thinking that the Germans must have had a very fine view of all the neighborhoods they were obliterating.

In every raid, I witnessed the return fire from the rifles and pistols of the watchmen stationed atop the buildings. A short-lived torrent of lights, insignificant as matches lit and dying. If any of them had managed a hit, I’d never been able to tell.

The zeppelins simply flew too high. If there weren’t enough aeroplanes assembled nearby to dog them back to sea, they wiped out everything in their paths until they ran out of bombs.

No aeroplanes were coming to our rescue tonight.

Only me. A thing of smoke and tentative skills. I wasn’t even certain if my wings were meant for flight. I hadn’t exactly had any luck with it the one time I’d tried.

I could glide, though. Probably.

Maybe.

Should worse come to worst, I could smoke up to them, Turn to dragon right there, dig my claws in, and hang on. That might do it.

Looked like I was about to find out.

What I hadn’t thought about, what I’d completely managed to forget about, was that I wasn’t exactly skilled at maintaining my transformed shape, either. The reminder came to me rather forcibly as I was streaming my way east, over the channel, and felt myself beginning to solidify.

No. No!

Yes.

Several thousand feet up in the air, I Turned back into a girl. Screaming, cartwheeling, everything topsy-turvy purple as gravity reclaimed me and I plummeted down to the water.

fly! sang the stars, weighing in past my screams. fly, beast!

It was a damned near save. I was girl and then I wasn’t, managing the Turn so close to the sea that the foam from the cresting waves splashed up through the smoke of me.

Good thing I didn’t have a real heart just then. It would have stopped entirely.

I bobbled there, terror-riven, until the sounds of the airships drew me upward again.

Smoke, smoke, I thought fiercely. Just—keep—going—

Above me, still so far above, the dirigibles grew larger. And larger. And even larger. I’d seen them only from a distance; I’d never gotten any closer to one than the top floor of Blisshaven. It’d been obvious to me then that they were huge, but I hadn’t comprehended how huge they were, how chillingly titanic, until I was a wisp alongside one of the balloons, barely as wide as a seam, trying my best to slink up the curving surface of its fabric so that I could Turn on its top.

Bigger than buildings. Bigger than cathedrals. Bigger than anything.

Don’t look down. Dear God, whatever you do, don’t …

Contact with its skin nearly undid me. It felt alive with the resonance of the engines, alive and cold, reptilian. I couldn’t believe how quiet they were from below. From here, spread thin like wrapping paper against the monster machine, it seemed the noise would gel me back into a girl and shatter me into pieces.

It took an eternity to reach the top of the balloon, and once there, it was practically all I could see. Still arched above me was a bowl of amethyst, but below me there was only zeppelin. The other airship thumped to my left; I heard it, but again, couldn’t see it.

All right. I was ready.

I Turned—into a girl, not a dragon–and was immediately knocked backward by the wind. I tried to scream once more, but my lungs got no air, and my fingers had no purchase along a material that felt more like solid steel than fabric. I was rolled toward the tail fins in seconds. A few seconds more and I would fall again, this time maybe into one of the propellers.

At the narrowed stern of the balloon, I Turned back to smoke and got sucked instantly into the ship’s wake.

I tore apart. It was like when I had flown to the stars and been caught in the high winds, but much, much worse. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t right myself. I felt sick and dizzy and, in the end, had to give up. As the airship receded, the wake grew weaker, finally enough that I could rip myself free and drift.

The Germans were getting away. Both of them, both dirigibles, flying away from me utterly unscathed, closing in steadily on the castle. I hadn’t managed to stop even one.

I fervently hoped Jesse was having better luck than I.

It would have been so much simpler if he could have walked, or run, by himself. If he could have sent Armand on his way with the duke, instead of leaving the duke insensible on the rooftop and relying upon his son for steady steps and eyes that saw clearly.

But that wasn’t his fate, so Jesse told himself he should just stop wishing for it. Facts were facts. His left leg was useless. His sight was dimming. He could tell by the smell and the black guttering spots in his vision that they were leaving a trail of blood all along Iverson’s pristine floors.

He didn’t think Armand had taken note of that. Perhaps his sense of smell wasn’t as keen. Not yet.

No one else awoke. There was that slim blessing, at least. With Jesse’s arm slung around the other boy’s shoulders, they made it all the way to the main doors without rousing a peep from anyone. Just the two of them, and the castle allowing their passage, and the blood-smeared footprints seeping into runners and following them down the corridors.

That was good. That was better than if there’d been a fuss. He wasn’t certain his head was straight enough any longer to come up with even feeble lies to explain this.

Tomorrow morning, Jesse knew, was going to bring enough truth for everyone.

I was smoke atop a dirigible again, this time the one farther out from the shore, as if that might make a difference. I centered myself on its field of gray skin, fighting to stay apace with it. Fighting my revulsion of its living, pulsating power beneath me.

I Turned to dragon and dug in.

Dragon claws. As it happened, even though they looked like gold, they weren’t gold. Not the actual metal. Gold was soft, and my claws were anything but. I learned that as soon as I began to back up: My front talons sliced through the fabric of the balloon as if it were lukewarm butter, leaving a series of black, gaping slits.

Gas gushed past me, unscented and colorless, but I could still see it, how it bent the purple air and then began to suffocate me, flooding my nose and throat and lungs.

I flapped my wings and tried to pull free. One talon was caught and I yanked and yanked, choking, enlarging the gash.

The dirigible began a mild descent.

At last I got loose, shredded fabric rippling up to the stars. I skidded awkwardly to my right, wings outstretched, landing again, digging in again. The hydrogen was stored in separate gas bags. I wasn’t sure if emptying only one of them would be enough to fully bring the ship down.

The second set of slits was even longer than the first. Two of them combined in a sudden rupturing of material. The black maw of it gaped beneath me; when the ship listed hard aside, I nearly tumbled in.

Something zinged by me. With the gas in my face, I thought at first it was a gull or a gannet, but it wasn’t. It was a bullet.

It was followed by a volley of about a million more.

“Why—the beach?”

Armand was out of breath. They were outside, nearly to the motorcar. By now he was carrying practically all of Jesse’s weight, and even though he was strong—much stronger than he should have been, than a human boy his age would have been—Jesse weighed almost fourteen stone. He was heavy, and he wasn’t helping. His legs at this point were just meat.

“Grotto’s closer,” Armand noted, still gasping.

“The water,” Jesse said. His mouth felt so dry. He knew it was the blood loss parching him. That thinking about water or ale or tea or anything wasn’t going to help, but it did seem to sharpen his mind some. “Water,” he said again thickly, trying to clarify. “Distance. Must see it.”

“Care to let”—they stumbled over a groove in the path; Armand heaved them both back up—”let me in on—whatever the hell it is you’re—planning, Holms?”

“No,” said Jesse.

Armand only grunted, pulling them on.

The other airship had machine guns. They had veered in close and were firing them at me. Perhaps I’d panicked them enough that they weren’t even thinking about the fact that they were helping to annihilate their comrades.

The zeppelin I had wounded—like an animal, like a vicious keening animal—kept listing. That’s all that saved me. I was too slow to duck a bullet; they pocked into the skin of the balloon and left fresh new holes for the hydrogen to escape, and I was rolled out of range. By now I could hear the shouting of the crew in the gondola far below, trying to understand what was happening. For all they knew, their allies had turned on them. Perhaps even some of the gunfire was striking them, although, as far as I could tell, none of the men in this ship were firing back.

The night sky was diminishing. The writhing sea rushed to meet us. I withdrew my claws and opened my wings and let the channel winds have me, jerking me away from both ships, and the wounded one sank and sank.

I wanted to watch it go all the way down. But the men in the other ship had spotted me, had trained their weapons back on me. I had to dive fast away from them and then up, up, because I thought—I hoped—they wouldn’t have the means to fire at me once I crested the side of their balloon.

I heard the first zeppelin smashing into the water behind us and couldn’t help but glance back. Their bombs began to explode, one after another after another, deafening, and then everything was blue fire, white fire, and I was blinded.

I flapped around like a bat amid a stream of bullets, graceless, falling.

My front right leg was struck. My left wing.

smoke! shrilled the stars.

Of course. That worked.

As smoke, I was able to get my bearings again. I had ended up somewhere between the sinking wreckage of the first ship and the slipstream of the second. I narrowed into a dart and raced back to the untouched ship, something livid and pitiless waking within me.

I don’t think I’d felt much of anything beyond desperation up until then. There had been no time. But as I sped toward that second dirigible, I realized I was more than desperate.

I was enraged. I’d been shot three times tonight, and I was going to make these men pay for that. For what they planned to do to the castle and to my country. For St. Giles and London and the orphanage. Everything.

They imagined themselves the dragon-slayers, but the dragon was going to slay them instead.

The zeppelin in the water had nearly finished its burn. By its dying light I could see the airmen in the second’s gondola with their guns poking out, more shouting, everyone searching the skies around them for the mythical beast that was no longer visible. I smoked up to them, right up to one of the windows, and examined the face of the man staring straight through the mist of me.

Youngish, square-jawed. Attractive. Navy-blue uniform with loops of brassy braid. White hat. Brows knit with worry.

Yes, do worry, I thought, and boiled up to the top of the balloon.

Same plan, same results—at least at first. I Turned to dragon in the exact center of the fabric field and jabbed my talons deep. The hydrogen surged out; the ship began to descend. I shifted over, ready to do it again, when the zeppelin made an abrupt left turn, throwing me free.

No doubt they’d seen everything I’d done to the first ship. They’d figured out how to counter.

I used my wings, but it hurt where the bullet had pierced me. Hurt like someone was twisting a dagger into my flesh. So I Turned to smoke to find a new place to dig in …

Only I didn’t. I Turned to girl again instead.

...

The Atalanta couldn’t make it all the way to the water. The slope accessing the shore was too steep, and Jesse found himself remotely grateful that Armand had sense enough to pull the brake before they rolled. It left them to slide down the scrub and rocks themselves, which actually meant Jesse sliding and Armand attempting to keep them both upright.

The beach was wet pebbles and seaweed. The pebbles clicked and clacked as Armand dragged him to the breaking surf.

There were things he wanted to say, Jesse realized. Important things. Things that seemed to matter. But it was too difficult to keep them in his head; the black dots in his eyes from before had engorged into tunnels, and all he could see now was a small wavering window directly before him. He might have been in pain. He should have been. But mostly what he felt were the pebbles beneath his body, cool and smooth.

“Leave me,” he was able to say.

Armand’s face filled the narrow window of his vision.

“Not bloody likely.”

He felt it now, Jesse knew. Whether Lord Armand wanted to or not, he felt their bond. Dragon protects star. Nothing to be done about it.

Almost nothing.

“Get back,” Jesse said, making it a command. He had life enough for that. “Get back into the auto, Armand.”

“No—I …”

But it worked, as Jesse had known it would. The other boy’s face left his view. His footsteps ground into the pebbles, halting, retreating.

It filled Jesse with an unexpected warmth. And hope. Things might … things might work out, after all… .

He focused upon the lip of seawater in front of him. He focused on moving his arm. His hand.

...

The ship careened drunkenly from side to side. I bounced off its unbroken skin, into the air, then the skin again. The curve of the balloon was so immense that I slid down its side, trying to Turn to smoke or dragon or anything but a girl who could not hold on to a dirigible.

I managed smoke, but only long enough to find myself back down at the gondola. Then I was me again, a girl again, pressed naked and bloody against the glass, dropping. My right hand hooked the rim of an open window. Pain knifed through my arm, and I screamed.

My fingers released—and then a hand smacked around my wrist. I dangled in place, my legs kicking out to the infinite distance below, and when I looked wildly up I saw the German officer of before, the attractive one, leaning out the gondola window to hold on to me. Staring dumbfounded back at me.

His eyes were brown.

He shouted something, lost to the wind.

I snarled at him and Turned to smoke, flinging myself just high enough to Turn back to dragon and slice a long, vertical slit down the side of the balloon.

I met a girder beneath the fabric. I assumed it was a girder; as my claws raked its length, it squealed like steel and sparks leapt from our union, dazzling my eyes.

Sparks. Hydrogen.

I pushed off with all my might just as the balloon combusted, but the fire still got me.

I curled away from the airship—singed, falling—Turning and Turning. Within seconds I couldn’t tell what I was. There was only the wind rushing past me and the fireball descending next to me, fabric in flames and red-hot steel.

And the brown-eyed man, tumbled from the gondola. Three others like him, all of them shrieking as they hurtled to their deaths in the waiting sea.

I swooped toward him. I reached out for him.

Shiny talons curved around his wrist; I was pulled sideways from his sudden weight.

It seemed I was a dragon, after all.

Below us, all the sea flashed bright. Brief as a comet, glittering light spreading out miles in a fantastical, brilliant bloom. Night turned by Jesse into golden day.

Then it was over. The channel plunged to purple-black again.