Aeralis (22 page)

“Go,” I said, when he hesitated longer.

Borde vanished through the portal next, and it was just me. I lifted my eyes to the hole in the roof, where starlight glittered. The glowing red eyes of a Watcher stared down at me. It was drawn to the energy. A growl rumbled in its throat, and snow spilled through the hole as it shifted its claws.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the eye of energy, and the wind and cold fire closed around me in a shocking embrace.

~

Darkness swirled around me, and I was falling, falling, falling. I hit the ground with a violent thud and rolled sideways. My vision swam, my head swarmed with pain. A groan forced its way through my lips, and I lay still.

“Lia?”

Gabe’s voice hovered somewhere above me. Gentle hands wrapped around my shoulders and helped me up. I struggled to my feet and tried to see, but my head was still spinning. I choked back vomit and leaned against Gabe.

“Where’s Ann?” I managed. “Is she all right?”

“She’s here,” he said. “She’s a little sick because she hasn’t made several jumps like you.”

“This isn’t considered sick?” I croaked. My head throbbed as if I’d been kicked by a horse, and nausea made my stomach curl.

A voice laughed near my elbow. “You’re doing fine.”

Borde.

“I’ve made dozens of test jumps,” he said. “I don’t feel the effects anymore. Soon, you won’t either.”

I cracked open one eye and saw him standing by a swirling circle of light cast by the activated PLD. The glow of it danced on the walls and painted our clothing and hair blue-green. We were in what appeared to be the basement level of Korr’s house. Stone walls covered in a web of pipes and whirring mechanical systems surrounded us. The PLD clung like an insect to one of the pipes, bound to it by wire. Another device, smaller and slimmer, connected it with the pipe, and a blinding light glowed in the seams where they touched.

I scanned the rest of the room and spotted Adam, his back to a wall and his head down. Beside him, Ann was curled in a ball of misery, her eyes squeezed shut. Someone knelt beside her and offered her water. Raven. A set of spiral steps led upward to a door, where light poured down in a swath of blinding white.

As I looked, a figure in black stepped into the doorway at the top of the stairs. Korr. He surveyed us, then the PLD. His mouth curled in satisfaction at the sight of us.

“I see you were successful,” he said. “It tempers the fact that you decided not to share the truth about who the real Falcon is.” He glared at me, then at Borde.

Aaron must have talked, or perhaps Korr was even cleverer than I had considered. It didn’t matter now, though.

I met Korr’s eyes despite the pain hammering in my skull. “When do we talk plans for the revolution?”

A faint smile touched his lips. “I must say, I’m impressed by your gall. Not surprised, but impressed.”

“Well? The plans?”

“As soon as you’re able to walk,” he said, and left the room in a swirl of his cloak.

~

After the effects of the jump wore off, we met in the dining hall. Korr looked at Borde with undisguised suspicion as soon as the scientist entered the room at my side. “This is a tactical meeting,” he said. “What’s he doing here?”

“We need him in order to carry out the plan to overthrow the Dictator.”

Korr turned his head and pinned me with a glare. “
We
?”

Fear of his refusal caressed cold fingers down my spine, but I pressed on. “I need something that the Dictator took from Falcon,” I explained. “It’s in the palace. I have to retrieve it before the coup takes place.”

“So let me make sure I have this correct,” Korr said. “You talked me into helping you rescue Falcon in exchange for his services to me, but it turns out he wasn’t Falcon after all, a fact that you hid from me after you discovered it, and now that you’ve found the real Falcon, you need something else from me?”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m prepared to offer something you’re going to want very, very much.”

Korr raised one eyebrow an infinitesimal amount. His lips twisted in a disbelieving scowl, but I had his attention. “Oh?”

I leaned forward and steepled my fingers, mimicking one of his favorite gestures. “Let me tell you how.”

He listened as I laid out the plan Ivy had crafted. My heart thumped against my ribs, but I kept a tight smile on my lips. I couldn’t let him see how frightened I was of the possibility that he’d refuse. My expression was hammered steel, but beneath the table, my legs felt as gooey as unbaked bread. When I’d finished, I sat back and crossed my arms.

Korr took his time responding. Finally, he shifted in his chair and said, “You must do exactly as I say if I am to say yes.”

“Did I mention I procured those extra soldiers for you, too?”

He sighed.

I exhaled quietly. “You won’t be disappointed. We all want the same things, Korr.”

He held my gaze for several moments longer, and I refused to look away or blink. When he nodded finally, I detected a glimmer of respect in his dark eyes.

“You’d better practice your jumping,” he said. “And those extra soldiers of yours, too. We make our move in three days.”

TWENTY-THREE

SILK WHISPERED AROUND my ankles and diamonds lay cold on my neck and wrists as I paced the floor of the library, waiting for Adam, reviewing the steps of what must be done that night in my head. My stomach churned and my skin prickled. Tonight I was going to a gala.

A gala for a dictator.

The door opened, and Gabe slipped inside. “Lia—”

He caught sight of me.

“Oh,” he said, and stopped in the doorway, whatever he was about to say forgotten.

Raven had helped me color my hair black with hair polish, and she’d lined my eyes with paints. The dress I wore was long and sleek, with a low back and strings of pearls that formed delicate sleeves on the edges of my shoulders. I wore borrowed jewelry, and it felt too hard against my skin. I was used to wool and string, not this strange mixture of soft and sharp that left me feeling vulnerable and wild at the same time.

“It’s me,” I said with a nervous laugh.

Gabe looked different, too. His hair was slicked back from his face. He wore an ankle-length black coat edged with gold thread and glittering buttons. Gloves covered his hands, and he held a silk hat in his left one. He was the biggest risk tonight—he could be recognized—but even Korr had agreed that he needed to be present for the coup, considering that he was one of the surviving members of the royal family. We’d have to keep him from being spotted by anyone who would know his face.

He looked magnificent, but upon closer observation, bruise-like shadows lined the places beneath his eyes, and tension pinched the skin between his eyebrows.

“When was the last time you slept?”

He made a noncommittal noise as he brushed my question aside. “I’ll sleep when we’ve finished this.”

The plan ran through my head on a continuous loop. I chewed my lip and went to the window. Below, steamcoaches lined the drive, waiting to carry us to the palace.

Gabe tapped the brim of his hat against his leg.

“You look stunning,” he said after a moment. “Like Aeralian nobility.”

My stomach twisted and clenched with sudden terror. I turned away from the glass and crossed to Gabe’s side. “What if they all see right through me?”

“They won’t. The plan’s going to succeed,” he said.

The library door opened again, and Adam entered. He noted our clasped hands.

“Ready?” His voice was terse.

“We’re ready,” I said, pulling my hands free.

Adam turned and went into the hallway without another word, and Gabe and I followed. Raven met us on the landing, dressed in purple velvet and wearing flowers in her hair. She took Adam’s arm.

We walked in silence to the steamcoaches. There were three of them, black and glistening like they’d just emerged from the river. Steam rose from their engines and dissipated in the rain. Korr emerged from the house with Ann on his arm. He didn’t speak to us, and we didn’t speak to him. Any talk was superfluous at this point; we’d all rehearsed our parts in the plan until we could recite them backward in our dreams.

Korr handed Ann into the first steamcoach and climbed in after her. Gabe and I took the second, and Adam and Raven the third.

The inside of the steamcoach smelled like wet leather and cigars. I sank back against the seat and stared out the fogged window at the rain. The coach lurched, and we were heading toward the palace. My fingers knotted in my lap.

Gabe watched me from the opposite seat, a distant expression on his face. “Here we are again,” he said, preternaturally calm. “About to face a future that might hold death or dismemberment. Nothing is certain between us, as usual. You look calm as a snow bank. And I’m about to tell you I love you.”

I lifted my head.

Half of his mouth turned in a bitter smile. “But I know the rest of this story, don’t I? You’ll run off to have another adventure, and we’ll be separated, and somewhere down the road we’ll meet again and do it all over again.” He paused and rubbed the space between his eyes. “When does it stop?”

“Gabe—”

“I know,” he said. “This is hardly the time or the place.”

The steamcoach stopped before I could reply, and my heart stopped with it. The doors opened, and a coachman handed us down onto a walk of paved marble. Light blazed around us, making diamonds out of the raindrops as they fell from the black sky. The palace ahead glowed, a sentinel against the storm. Gabe offered me his arm. I curled my fingers around his bicep, sucked in a breath of steamy, rain-soaked air, and stepped with him toward the palace.

Guards lined the covered walkway, their faces as still as if carved from stone. They held guns across their gleaming uniforms, and their eyes were covered with shades. In a flash of memory I saw the Cages, the bars gleaming with ice, the air swirling with snowflakes, the perimeter just patches of gray trees, white snow, and blue snow blossoms. I felt the bite of the wind beneath my cloak, and shivers skittered down my spine. Then I was back in the present, surrounded by light and marble and the scent of rain and the heat of the steamcoaches, but the soldiers’ attention lingered on me, and the sensation of being watched was the same.

Ahead of us, a line of nobles and dignitaries ascended steps into the palace. Hedges lined the steps to the palace entrance, all of them cut into sharp, straight lines.

“When my father owned this palace,” Gabe murmured angrily, “those hedges blossomed. Now the Dictator has them cut down almost to nothing.”

The interior of the palace was ornate, but an air of severity hung over the marble and delicate wrought iron. No rugs or furniture decorated the halls and vast foyer, and simple state flags hung from the balconies on the second and third stories of the hall. The structure echoed with the vastness of a long-empty tomb.

Gabe’s jaw flexed.

Korr and Ann entered behind us, and a hush filled the room as people turned to look. Korr had a reputation. He dropped a low bow, acknowledging their notice of him as though it were reverence and not revulsion, then he strode toward the main ballroom with Ann at his side. I almost missed the sidelong glance he gave her as they entered the ballroom. His gaze was naked, vulnerable, as if he were seeking her support for the arduous task ahead.

Adam and Raven didn’t look at us as they followed Korr and Ann to the main ballroom along with the other guests.

Gabe and I drifted toward one of the side doors. We had a device to find, and not much time to do it.

“This way,” Gabe whispered, and together we slipped through the crowd toward the far wall of the room. We reached a door half-hidden behind a banner, and Gabe eased it open as I stood in front of him, pretending to adjust my flowing skirt. He grabbed my wrist, and I slid behind the banner and joined him in a narrow corridor, much plainer than the grand entryway we’d just exited. Wood panels lined the ceiling and walls. The hum of the crowd’s conversation snapped to a murmur as he shut the door behind us.

“This is a servants’ hall,” he explained. “I used to hide here to escape my lessons when I was small. Cat was the first one who showed it to me. It will lead us downstairs to the basement level.”

We descended a spiraling set of stairs and reached a landing. I stopped in astonishment. Another hall intersected with the one we’d just exited, this one wider and made of stone. Dozens of doors and staircases, large and small, spun away in all directions, a maze of steps and shapes.

“The main artery, they called it,” Gabe said wistfully. “This place used to bustle with activity. Servants carrying trays and blankets and messages back and forth.” He shook his head and glanced around. “This way.”

He stopped at a place between two doors and pulled back a panel, revealing a door that led to another staircase, this one so narrow we could only walk single-file down the steps. “This one’s a secret. I imagine even the Dictator’s guards don’t know about it. The story goes that a prince had them built so he could sneak down to the basement without anyone knowing—not even the servants.”

“Why didn’t he want anyone to know?” I asked.

Gabe shrugged. “The legend claims that he harbored a secret affinity for murdering people.”

“Oh,” I said.

“We should hurry. The Dictator must be making his speech now. We don’t have much time. This way is longer, but we’ll bypass the guards.”

I followed him down the staircase. The temperature changed as we descended, and the air became colder and damper. The gaslight was dimmer here. I heard music far away, sounds of the party. The smell of dust and dampness wafted toward us.

The stairs ended in a dark corridor. Gabe went first. We crept around a corner and entered a room lined with shelves.

“Where are we now?” I whispered.

“The archive room.”

Borde had drawn us a picture of what the Alice device looked like. It was cylindrical, similar to the PLD but thinner, longer, and with more mechanical knobs on the sides. It’s appearance was alien, insect-like.