The Guild Conspiracy (23 page)

“You're lying,” she whispered.

A pale smile lifted the edge of his lips. “I learned from the best.”

He turned the handwheel the last few clicks, and the hatch cracked open behind her. Sunlight spilled onto the narrow staircase, and she could hear shouting outside, the indistinct sounds of men preparing for war.

She curled her hands into fists, unable to tear herself away. “Just make sure you fix them,” she said, her trembling voice full of conviction. “Fix the quadrupeds, Braith. Whatever it takes.”

“I will. Now go,” he said, pushing her toward the open hatch. “Go! I'll come find you when this is over.”

Petra clenched her jaw, fighting back tears. “You better.”

She turned away, hating herself for running away, for leaving him to fight her battles for her. There was no guarantee that he would repair the quadrupeds in time, no guarantee that he would survive, and she couldn't . . . she couldn't bear the thought of losing him, not now.

She stopped and turned back around. “Braith—­”

But then the hatch door swung open and sunlight flooded the corridor, blindingly bright. Petra shielded her eyes against the afternoon sun, barely making out the dazzling red uniforms and glinting rifles in the open doorway.

Braith let out a curse behind her, grabbed her arm, and dragged her away from the open hatch, scrambling back up the narrow stairs, but then the door above them slid open, revealing more soldiers between them and escape, the ends of their rifles aimed to kill.

They were trapped.

 

CHAPTER 16

P
etra stood again in the brig, arms folded tightly across her chest as she glared at the pair of British soldiers now guarding her prison cell, their gleaming rifles ready at hand.

She and Braith had been separated the moment the soldiers found them trying to escape the airship. Lieutenant-­General Stokes had ordered her back to her cell, but Braith . . . she had no idea where they had taken him, if he remained on the ship or somewhere in London, if he was even all right. She should have been quicker to leave. It was her fault they had been caught, that Braith's plan to help her escape had failed.

She gritted her teeth, cursing her selfishness, her stupidity. If she hadn't been so reckless, so determined to do
anything
to stop the war, this never would have happened. But she had meddled. She had tried to sabotage the quadruped, tried to stop Julian's plans, and now Braith was being punished for it—­because he had dared to trust her, despite everything he had been told.

And she had let him.

For an hour, the airship stayed anchored outside of London, but no one came to escort her off the ship. No arrest. No threats. No transfer to a mainland prison to await sentencing. Nothing.

Finally, a bell rang, and the ship suddenly shifted around her, the walls groaning heavily as the warship lifted off the ground. She pressed her hand to the wall, feeling the subtle change in the ship's engines as it turned away from London, the mechanical vibrations pulsing musically through the wood.

To France, then.

But why? Why send her to France with the warships?

What was Julian planning?

An hour after the ship departed, there came a knock on the thick metal door. “Another prisoner for the brig.”

Petra stepped across her cell and pressed close to the iron bars, curling her fingers around the smooth metal as one of her guards went to answer the door. The other stepped closer to her cell, holding his rifle steady as his compatriot turned the handwheel and opened the heavy door. The hinges creaked loudly as three red uniforms entered the brig—­one of them Braith, held fast between the others. His hands were cuffed, and a shallow cut bled beneath his left eye, his bottom lip swollen and bruised. He winced with every step, his breathing hitching as his guards dragged him down the hall.

Petra clenched her jaw, gripping the bars of her cell until her knuckles turned white. She remained silent as they shoved him into the cell next to hers. He fell hard against the opposite wall and slowly slid to the floor. Then the deadbolt slammed shut with a deafening clang, and the guards exchanged a few muted words before all four soldiers left the brig and closed the door behind them with a heavy clunk.

They were alone.

She hurried to the other side of her cell, crouching low. “Braith?” She leaned against the bars, taking in his disheveled, sweaty hair, the shallow scrapes on his jaw, the rumpled disarray left of his uniform. “What happened?”

Groaning with effort, he lifted himself off the floor and turned so his back rested against the wall, breathing hard. He glanced up, the tempest gone from his gaze. “I'm sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I should have gotten you out.”

She swallowed hard and gripped the bars between them, watching the stuttering rise and fall of his chest. “What did they do to you?”

He shrugged. “The usual,” he said with another wince, lifting a hand to the cut on his cheek. “The lieutenant-­general gave me what for and then chained me to a post for a ­couple of hours for good measure.” He shifted against the wall, gingerly pressing against his upper ribs. “I'm no stranger to it, but . . . he can throw a hell of a punch, the lieutenant-­general.”

“Braith, I'm so sorry.”

He actually laughed. “It's not your fault.”

Petra pressed her back to the wall, settling in the corner of her cell. “Yes, it is,” she said quietly, an ache spreading through her chest. “We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for what I did. It's my fault we're here, my fault you were punished. Because of me—­”

“Petra—­”

“You never should have trusted me, Braith,” she said, shaking her head. “I never should have let you.”

“Petra, I'm here because I chose to be,” he said. “More than once, I made the choice to trust you, to help you, even when it went against my orders—­
especially
when it went against my orders. But I made that choice myself. I didn't have to keep your secrets. I didn't have to trust you. But I did.”

“Why?”

He inhaled a deep breath, wincing slightly as he let it out. “Do you really have to ask?”

She swallowed hard. “Braith . . .”

“I don't regret the choices I made,” he said. “Not for a second.”

“Even now?”

With a weary, stitched sigh, he slowly edged toward her cell and settled against the wall beside her, just on the other side of the iron bars. Then he reached out his hand. “Even now.”

She glanced down at his outstretched hand, his wrists just as scraped and bruised as hers beneath the heavy manacles he wore. Delicately, she placed her hand in his, and their fingers entwined—­as naturally as anything could. His touch didn't send shivers over her skin or make her breath fall short, not like the rush she felt with Emmerich. It just . . .
was
, like breathing, or a heartbeat, steady and constant and familiar, as if it had always been. She leaned her head against the wall, a painful ache twisting her chest as she listened to Braith's unsteady breathing beside her.

“What now?” she asked, her voice thick.

“I don't know,” he said quietly, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “Once we reach Amiens, they'll ready the ship for battle, deploy the quadrupeds, and then . . .” He trailed off into silence, both of them aware of what would happen when the quadrupeds were deployed.

“But what are they planning to do with us—­with
me
?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “The lieutenant-­general never said, but . . .” He dropped his gaze to their joined hands and cleared his throat. “Whatever happens now, I've got your back, and I . . . I'll fight for you, to whatever end. All you have to do is ask.” He glanced up at her then, his eyes bright in the shadows of the brig, studying her face with surprising gentleness. “I'm on your side,” he said softly. “Always.”

She offered only a pale smile in reply and held tightly to his fingers, the only thing keeping her from sinking into the pit of despair that threatened to swallow her whole.

Whatever happened now, at least she had Braith.

It made facing the darkness ahead easier to bear.

S
ometime later, they heard footsteps outside the brig. Braith let go of Petra's hand and slowly pulled himself to his feet, still wincing with every movement. She stood next to him, gripping the bars of her cell as the handwheel set into the brig door started to turn.

“We must be over France,” whispered Braith.

Petra leaned close and reached for his hand, not ready to face this alone. Their fingers entwined, both of them holding tightly to the other.

“It'll be all right,” he said, his voice low. “This isn't the end. Not yet.”

She swallowed thickly. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I'm not ready to give up on living yet. You shouldn't either.”

The door creaked open on squealing hinges, and suddenly his touch was gone, her hand cold where his had been. She mechanically flexed her fingers and curled her hand into a fist, mustering the last of her inner fight as she raised her eyes to the redcoats now standing in front of her cell. She may be afraid, but she'd be damned if she let them see it.

One of the soldiers approached her cell, producing a key from his pocket. “You've been summoned to the bridge,” he said, quickly unlocking the door. He pulled the door wide and gestured one of the other men forward while he moved on to Braith's cell. “Both of you.”

Petra and Braith had a moment to exchange a wary glance, and then she was being ushered from her cell and out of the brig, shoved step by step down the now-­familiar passages to the warship bridge.

Lieutenant-­General Stokes was waiting for them.

He stood at the front of the cabin, his back to them as they entered. The orange glare of the setting sun bathed the bridge in reds and golds, the fading light slipping steadily across the green countryside—­what Petra assumed was northern France. Ahead, a river snaked through a wide stretch of trees and dark ponds, and thin lines of road wound through farmland and open pastures, the brief image of a small town highlighted by the setting sun. And then the sun dipped below the distant horizon, plunging the land in shadow.

Their guards dragged them to the front of the bridge, stopping at the wide windows overlooking the dark landscape below.

“Your prisoners, sir.”

The lieutenant-­general turned briefly, his shrewd gaze sweeping over the two of them before he turned his back to them once again. “Remove their shackles and leave us,” he said to his officers. “Report to your stations and await my command. We will arrive at our destination shortly.”

“Yes, sir.”

The soldiers removed Petra and Braith's manacles and then left the cabin as ordered, shutting the door solidly behind them.

“I apologize for the strict measures,” said the lieutenant-­general, turning away from the window. He walked the perimeter of the deck, carefully observing the flickering lights and spill of tickertape emitting from the nearest dashboard, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. “But given your previous actions against the Guild and the Royal Forces, your containment during our flight was deemed necessary for the success of our mission.”

Petra rubbed the bruises circling her wrists. “And what mission is that?” she asked, flexing the stiffness out of her hands.

“A matter of military concern,” he said dismissively, glancing up from the table of mechanical instruments. “You are here to observe, Miss Wade. Nothing more.”

“Observe?” She narrowed her eyes. “Observe what?”

The lieutenant-­general straightened. “The results of your hard work, of course,” he said icily, continuing his path down the line of tables mounted to the floor. “This mission would not be possible if not for you, after all.”

She shivered at his words, a cold chill stealing up her spine.

“We're ten minutes out, sir,” said one of the nearby officers, sitting in front of a display of flickering gauges and instrument panels.

“Good,” said the lieutenant-­general, turning toward another officer. “Signal the other ships. It's time to give the order.”

Petra turned toward Braith. “We have to do something,” she hissed, a last desperate plan shaping in her mind. “Now. Before it's too late.”

“But how? What can we do?”

She pressed her lips together. “Tell him of the fault. Beg him not to deploy the quadrupeds. Beg him to fix them. I don't know . . . but we can't just stand here and do nothing,” she whispered. “We have to stop this.”

“Petra—­”

“I have to try.” She left Braith behind and stepped between the lieutenant-­general and the communication's dashboard. “Wait,” she said, her voice desperate. “Don't give the order. Not yet. The quadrupeds, they're—­”

“Step aside, Miss Wade.”

“They're faulty,” she said. “If you deploy those soldiers—­”

“I will not ask you again.”

Braith stepped forward and gently pulled her away. “Petra . . . it's too late.”

She wilted at his touch, at the sound of defeat in his voice. “No . . .”

The lieutenant-­general spared her one last withering glare, stalked to the other side of the cabin, and plucked a black telephone from the wall. He drew the receiver up to his lips, and his voice pierced through every single deck with alarming volume. “This is Lieutenant-­General Stokes, First Ardian of Her Imperial Majesty's Royal Forces,” he said, his heavy voice transmitted through the entire ship by the electric speaker system. “We are presently approaching our designated target. Estimated time to arrival . . . eight minutes. Man your stations and prepare for deployment.”

Petra's heart sank, seeing her last chance to set things right slipping through her fingers. She pulled away from Braith. “Don't do this,” she said, curling her hands into fists as she approached the lieutenant-­general. “The quadrupeds aboard your fleet will fail unless you fix the fault. If you send those men to battle now, they will die.”

“Stand by for my command,” he finished crisply, his voice ringing with authority. He returned the telephone receiver to the wall and faced her. “A wasted effort, Miss Wade,” he said. “You will not sabotage this mission.”

“I'm not trying to sabotage anything! The quadrupeds are faulty,” she explained, panic twisting around her chest like a vice. “There is a defective axle plate in the quadruped's base, one that will lead to systematic failure in the quadrupeds if it isn't removed. You have to stop them from launching.”

“I will do no such thing,” he said dispassionately. “I have my orders. I intend to follow them.”

“If you send those machines into battle, your men will die!”

The lieutenant-­general's expression did not change. “This is war, Miss Wade. Men die. That is the way of things.” He turned toward the control dashboard. “Status report.”

“Signal received, sir,” said one of the officers. “The other ships are preparing for deployment. Five minutes from drop point.”

“Good.”

The darkening sky provided a cloak of concealment as they neared their destination. Ahead of the ship, Petra could see the dim glow of a sprawling camp on the other side of a copse of trees, numerous tents, shanties, and heavy lorries parked alongside. Standing sentinel at the forward of the camp was an army of humanoid machines, beautifully constructed, like brass titans out of ancient myth—­so unlike the clunky, heavy design of her quadruped.