Chasing the Star Garden: The Airship Racing Chronicles (Volume 1) (25 page)

Byron looked down at me, kissed me on my forehead, and stroked my cheek. “Don’t forget me,” he whispered.

“Never.”

He pulled me into a tight hug, and I soaked up his warmth, knowing it would be the last time I would ever feel him like that. From now on, my heart belonged to Sal. It was time to leave the past behind.

Chapter 33

T
here was complete mayhem on the airship towers in Athens when the
Hercules
arrived at port, the
Bacchus
in tow. I couldn’t find Sal anywhere. The platform was flooded with Greek soldiers, English ex-pats, and travelers trying to dodge trouble. In the midst of all that confusion, Celeste found me.

“We need to get the Aphrodite off the ship!” she said, wringing her hands.

“Have you seen Sal?”

She shook her head. “Oh my god, Lily. It’s like we are in the lion’s den! How are we going to smuggle her out of here?”

I smiled at Celeste. The
Bacchus
had already been pulled into a docking bay, and a repair platform had been cranked out underneath. Byron was shouting instructions to his crew.

“Stay with Byron. He will see her safely transported.”

It was not until that moment that Celeste realized my role in her quest was done. “Lily! I… I don’t know what to say.”

I shrugged. “It was fun.”

“Your broken nose doesn’t look like much fun,” she said then smiled.

“I like you like this,” I said, grinning at her. “Natural joy suits you. You should try it more often.”

She laughed and pulled me into a hug. “I am happy, but Roni won’t be. Her ship! Can you send word when you reach Venice? Let her know we’ll be making a few minor repairs? I spoke to her crew. They want to stay in Athens until the ship is fixed.”

“Of course.”

“I’m afraid the Dilettanti may still follow you,” she said as she released me.

“I sense that Byron might be able to handle that as well. After all, what can I tell them? I don’t have the kaleidoscope,” I said, and then pulling the kaleidoscope from my bag, I handed it to her. “And I don’t know the whereabouts of any ancient sculptures.”

“Just… please… be safe.”

Celeste pulled me into a hug again.

“Celeste?” I heard Byron call.

We turned then to see him waving her to the
Bacchus
.

“May the Goddess of Love bless you,” she whispered in my ear then disappeared into the crowd.

I waved to Byron.

He lifted his hand, smiled at me, held my gaze for several moments, then turned back to the ship.

My transport to Venice had already been arranged. Now I just needed to find Sal. I worked my way through the platform traffic to the tower where the European ships were debarking. From a distance, I saw Sal talking to the pilot of a Swiss ship. I was puzzled.

I walked down the platform toward him. “Sal?” I called.

He turned, spotted me, then spoke a word to the pilot who nodded. Sal walked across the platform toward me. As he neared, he kept his gaze on the landing. My stomach began to knot.

It was not until he was standing in front of me that Sal looked me in the eyes. The expression on his face was one I had never seen before. He looked anguished.

“Sal? What’s wro-”

“I’m taking a transport to Zurich,” he told me.

“What?” I searched his face. While he tried to pull on his mask, he could not. He looked like a man destroyed. “I don’t understand, Sal. I thought we… Look, Byron and I-”

“My Lily,” he started. He reached out to take my hand but pulled his hand back. “Lily, I can never be a Byron. I will never drop out of the clouds and save you. I’m just a tinker and that is… not enough,” he said then turned to go.

“Sal? Wait! Please!” I said and walked after him. I grabbed his arm, but he did not turn toward me.

“I understand your choice,” he said, his voice cracking. He shook my hand off and strode down the platform. Nodding to the Swiss pilot, he boarded the transport. The ship pulled up her anchors and lifted out of the dock. Moments later, Sal was flying away from me. I stood on the platform all alone. Only Asclepius, astride across the night’s sky, was there to see me weep. I had gone on a quest to find the Goddess of Love only to return home empty-handed. And I had been discarded-again.

Chapter 34

T
wo months later, I stood on the pilot’s platform looking out across the green grounds of the Champs de Mars below the Paris airship towers. Thunder rolled in the clouds overhead. Cloud-to-cloud lightning cracked ominously. A cool fall wind blew across the field. Behind me, Angus swore under his breath.

I looked up at Etienne. He had sucked in his lips and was tapping his finger on his chin.

The crowd below was waving the Union Jack and chanting “Star-gaze-r-Star-gaze-r-Star-gaze-r.”

“No pressure,” Jessup joked sarcastically.

On my other side, Alejandro Fernando was arguing vehemently with his team.

“Attention!” a voice crackled from a huge brass horn at the Marshalls’ platform behind us. We all turned. “L’équipe Américaine s’est retirée!” Cutter’s team had withdrawn.

The mainly European crowd cheered jubilantly.

“Well, that’s a great fucking vote of confidence!” Angus swore.

Angus was right. While Cutter had taken first in New York and London, I had deftly trounced him, and everyone else, in Valencia. I’d come in a full mile before him. Apparently racing sober, something I’d never done before, significantly improved my piloting skills. Cutter’s team was banking on me to fail.

I saw Cutter and his crew following behind his well-shod sponsors who had, no doubt, made the final decision not to risk the
Double Eagle
. They headed toward the observation platform. To describe his expression as angry would have been an understatement. He gazed over at the pilot’s platform and flashed me a thumbs up.

Despite their certainty that I would botch it, I knew better. What Cutter didn’t know was that my team had been in almost continual training since Venice. Well, that and the fact that I was, in fact, sober. I spent the first month home killing my habit. It hadn’t been pretty. Every ounce of me wanted to bury my broken heart under a bottle of absinthe and in an opium fog, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Not then and never again.

As if constant sweating, vomiting, headaches, body pain, and irritability were not enough, Angus had hauled me to his little cottage in Scotland where there was nothing to stimulate me except the trees. I suspect I sobered up quickly just to get back to London before I died from boredom.

Sal had not come back. When I returned to London after the stint in Scotland, I went to Tinkers’ Hall. His stall was still closed. In that moment in Athens, I didn’t fully understand why Sal had left me. As I reflected later, I realized that what had really happened was that the deep wounds inside both of us had rubbed against one another. Sal, who had been schooled his whole life that he wasn’t good enough, had felt eclipsed by the blinding sun that is Byron. When I had not followed Sal to the deck of the
Hercules
that night, he must have assumed the worst. I wish he had trusted me to do right by him, but after a lifetime of being dismissed as worthless, what else would he expect?

I went to Zurich to set things straight. I’d hoped to find him at the workshop of Master Vogt. Sal had been there, but by the time I’d arrived, he’d left for Rome. Something told me Sal was sorting things out. I went back to London. I would wait. If he came back, he came back. If he didn’t, my heart would heal in time.

To my great relief, Byron had understood my decision. His letters still came as regularly as ever. We were still the greatest of confidants even though we were no longer lovers. And through Byron, I learned that the Aphrodite had been safely stowed. In that, I felt a sense of peace.

I looked again at Etienne. “Well?” I asked him.

He blew air through his lips. “It’s Paris.”

Lightening cracked on the horizon before us.

Etienne sighed. “Mon dieu… we’ll probably die, but let’s race,” he said, raising the French flag, wagging it in the air.

The French crowd below burst into a loud cheer.

Etienne kissed me on both cheeks. “Be careful,” he told me then headed to the
Étoile
.

A light rain began to fall. Lightning cracked again.

I turned to Alejandro and stuck out my hand. He was the only one close enough to me on the points’ board, besides Cutter, to be a threat. “Vaya con Dios,” I said with a half-smile.

Alejandro sighed, kissed my hand, and turned to his team.

Angus raised the Union Jack.

Alejandro’s crewmate waved the Spanish flag.

The crowd below screamed.

“Fly low,” Angus said as we made our way to the
Stargazer
. “We’ll need to win on speed alone.”

The announcer started listing the teams still in the lineup: France, Spain, England, Italy, Austria, and Germany. All good crews, but no one was better than us.

I looked up at the sky. There was a strange yellow hue on the horizon. My scalp tingled with the feel of electricity. Maybe Etienne was right. Maybe we would all die. Lightning cracked nearby; thunder rolled toward us in waves.

Angus and Jessup strategized as we walked down the platform.

“The new configuration has us running faster than anyone else,” Jessup said. “Low and tight. It’s a straight shot to Le Mans.”

“Lily! Lily!” I heard someone call from the notables’ platform. Had Byron come?

I scanned the platform. To my shock, Sal was trying to push his way to the front of the crowd.

“Sal?” I whispered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Angus and Jessup exchange a glance.

“Sal!” I yelled. I rushed across the platform. “Let him through!” I called to the guards.

They released him.

“Lily,” he more breathed than said as he grabbed me by both arms. “Lily… I am so sorry. I crossed paths with Byron in Rome. He told me… Lily…”

I’d waited months to hear those words.

“Mademoiselle Stargazer, we need you on your ship,” a Marshall said from behind me.

“Please, come later,” I told Sal, taking his face into my hands.

Lightning crashed nearby. It made the ground shake.

“Here,” Sal said, pushing a bundle toward me. I recognized the harness and roll of silk. “Let me put it on you,” he said and quickly dropped the harness around my shoulders and under my arms, belting it around my waist. He pulled the belts tight. I relished the feel of his hands on my body. “The chute at the back will open if you pull here,” Sal said, guiding my hand to a pin on the vest. “It should lower you safely down. God forbid, Lily. But this weather… please be careful. Lily…”

“It’s okay. I love you, Salvatore,” I whispered.

“My Lily.” He pressed me against his chest. Sandalwood.

“Mademoiselle Stargazer?”

“I’m coming!”

“Good luck. Be careful,” Sal called.

I walked to the deck of the
Stargazer
with tears in my eyes.