Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

It wasn’t a new question, and he had no new answers. Though the space was quiet and dim, there was tension in the air of the sickroom. Tobias likened it to a hunter with a drawn bow—muscles quivering, breath held, gaze sharp on the target. But when would the string release, and where was that arrow going to land?

There was no telling when the wait would end. Imogen had been like this for nearly a year, sunk deep into this artificial sleep. She was lovely to look at, her long, straight hair the gold of a summer wine, or sun on ripe wheat. And yet that beauty was like a photograph, factually accurate but capturing little of the woman who was his sister. It didn’t show the flash of Im’s eyes as she teased him, or the flight of her fingers as she played the pianoforte. The real woman had been stolen away. Surely magic was involved—otherwise, she would be dead. But why wouldn’t she wake? And if she did, what would happen?

Tobias rose, apprehension driving him from his chair. He wasn’t even sure what the hunter and his arrow meant in his analogy—bad luck, retribution, fate—but he knew it didn’t bode well. He crossed the room to look out over the back garden of Hilliard House. The light was fading, and he was restless with worry that the damned bolt would end his sister’s life. He had tried to protect her, to rescue her, and he’d failed. There were fairy tales about maidens struck down by poisoned apples and wicked fairies, but he suspected it was something even darker that had wounded Imogen.

And yet suspicion was useless. The concrete facts in the case could be counted on one hand. Imogen had tried to elope. The sorcerer Dr. Magnus had plucked her from the street and taken her to his black, dragon-prowed airship, the Wyvern . Two other ships had pursued Magnus through the skies over London: a pirate vessel named the Red Jack , and Keating’s ship, the Helios . Tobias had led a rescue party from the latter and had got Imogen back. The mission should have been a success.

But it was at that point in the narrative that everything gave way to conjecture, leaving any real evidence far behind—and there was no way to know if what he saw and heard had been true. No one else was there that night except Imogen, and she couldn’t help him now.

Tobias’s memory of that night was never far, like a hidden stream that flooded the space between conscious thoughts, biding its time until it could drown him in nightmares. It didn’t take much to hurl him back to that hell:

Last November aboard the airship Helios

FLAME CURLED THROUGH the blackness, unfolding into the night sky like the petals of a fat crimson peony .

The explosion was beautiful, Tobias thought wildly, in the way that a tiger is beautiful right before it makes an hors d’oeuvre of one’s head. His gut twisted, but ordinary fear seemed a paltry response to the occasion. The charge had detonated just off their bow, close enough to feel the heat and the slap of air pressure. There were at least two airships intent on blowing the Helios to bits—and he didn’t fancy a fiery plunge to the spangled gaslights of London far below .

Another roar shook the deck, deafening passengers and crew. Imogen stumbled into him, her footing lost. Tobias grabbed his sister, as much to support himself as her. He thought he heard the crack of wood, and it couldn’t have been more terrifying had it been his own bones. The entire ship was shuddering, propellers useless against the blast .

“That’s a bit close!” he barked at the captain, but the man was bawling orders to the gunners and paid him no mind. Tobias had played his part in the fight already, and had gone from mission commander to irrelevant annoyance in the time it had taken to rescue his sister from the enemy and return to the ship .

“Come on.” He dragged Imogen closer to the cabins, looking for shelter. But then another strike hit, knocking them both off their feet. Tobias hit the deck, the force of impact shooting up his arm and into his shoulder. Imogen collapsed in a heap beside him. Ignoring the pain, Tobias put his arm around his sister’s shoulder, drawing her to a sitting position. They sat huddled in the shelter of a locker, drawing their feet in to stay out of the path of running airmen .

It felt as if they were Hansel and Gretel, hiding from the monsters. The comparison wasn’t as far off as he’d have liked. “What did Magnus want with you?” he shouted over the cries of the crew .

Like him, Imogen was tall, fair, and gray-eyed, but she’d gone from slender to frail in these last difficult months. She shook her head. “I don’t think he cared about me. I was bait. He counted on a rescue.”

Tobias understood. Besides him, someone else had come to save the day—the infamous pirate vessel, the Red Jack. Captain Niccolo—Nick—had personally delivered Imogen from danger, a noble gesture that might cost him all. He’d put the miraculous navigational device aboard the Red Jack within reach of his foes, and now both Magnus and the captain of the Helios were intent on taking the pirate ship prize .

“Tobias!” Imogen gripped his arm, surprisingly strong in her panic .

Tobias tightened his protective hold. “What is it?”

She pointed upward. A net of ropes attached the balloon to the wooden gondola beneath. In the heat of battle, the ropes looked as flimsy as a spiderweb—and they were on fire. Imogen’s eyes flared with horror .

Tobias pushed down the panic that crawled up his throat, forcing logic around his thoughts. It was like stuffing an octopus into a teacup. His breath was already coming a little too fast. “The fire is not as bad as it looks.”

“Oh?” Imogen’s voice steamed with sarcasm .

“Look, there are already men up there putting it out.” Or at least they were trying—little ants with little buckets in the vast tangle of rigging. “Warships like this one use aether distillate, which has better lift and is much less explosive than hydrogen. The ship is far safer than you would think.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said grimly, “but at the rate this is going, we don’t have much time to talk. You need to know what I learned aboard Magnus’s ship before we shower down in gory droplets over Buckingham Palace.”

Tobias opened his mouth to reply, but then grabbed her as the Helios fired on the Wyvern, the recoil jolting the deck. Grit and soot crunched between his teeth and his ears sang with the noise of explosion. More airmen stampeded past, their uniforms tarnished with ash and sweat. He saw them hauling out the huge, copper-sided water guns, pointing hoses at the burning rigging, but the wind of the ship’s movement was fanning the flames .

The Wyvern was turning, gun ports swinging into view. The black ship was hard to see against the starry sweep of the sky, but the red eyes and smoldering jaws of the dragon-shaped figurehead leered like a demon in the dark .

“Ready harpoons!” the captain bawled, and the gunners scrambled. The flaming projectiles they called hot harpoons could turn a ship into a bonfire in minutes. It meant a ruthless, horrible death for the crew .

And those harpoon guns were only a dozen yards away, the sweating gunners muttering prayers to whatever dark gods they worshipped. A misfire with a harpoon would kill anyone who came too close .

“Let’s go,” Tobias said, jumping up and pulling his sister toward the cabins. He’d meant to ensure Imogen was safely away from battle as soon as he’d set foot on deck, but there hadn’t even been time for that before the cannonades had begun .