Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] (26 page)

“You’ve saved so many lives,” she murmured. “Including mine.”

“It’s time to face the world again. And if I’ve got you beside me”—he brushed back a strand of her hair—“I’m ready for anything.”

She looped her hands around his neck. But instead of kissing him, she pulled him down so his forehead touched hers. Her eyes remained open, too, their gazes holding. He felt himself falling, falling, from a height greater than anything he’d known aboard an airship. But there was nothing frightening about this fall. There would be no crash, no slam into the unyielding earth. It would go on forever, all rushing air and dizziness, and he welcomed it.

She must have known. Seen inside his mind. Because she murmured, “Together, we’re going to fly.”

H
e discovered that she wasn’t just speaking metaphorically. Kali was intent on making the
Persephone
fly again. She reasoned it would take as much time to get the airship skyworthy as it would for her to build a seafaring vessel—and it’d move faster, too.

“And Mayhew’s got to get himself an airship, too,” she reasoned. “Unlikely that he’s got one lined up already.”

“They’re not exactly easy or cheap to come by,” Fletcher agreed. Any airships that weren’t part of a country’s aerial navy belonged to Man O’ Wars who had gone rogue, their ships stolen from the nations they once served. Even Captain Mikhail Denisov, the rogue turned protector of those caught in war-torn regions, had taken his ship from the Russian Imperial Aerial Navy.

“We’ll have enough time to get our downed lady up in the sky,” Kali said eagerly, hauling her tools from her makeshift workshop to the turbines.

As they gathered everything to begin repairs, the thought of being back amongst the clouds made it feel as though he were the one filled with ether, not the tanks he helped Kali remount onto their supports. Anticipation and unease mixed within him, like a scientist’s experiment combining emotions instead of chemicals. He assisted Kali throughout the day and into the night—lifting and carrying metal and wood and bundles of heavy pipes, handing her tools while getting an education as to what those tools were and what they did—and as he did, he kept peering out portholes at the sky above the horizon, or looking up if they were topside.

He studied the sky, watching the clouds and how the wind moved them. Once, he’d read the sky as often as some men read their newspapers—maybe more. He’d be a captain again soon. A true captain, back in the sky, in command of a ship. He’d need his sky literacy once again.

It had been his home for so long. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the sensations, the freedom, until the prospect dangled before him.

It wouldn’t be easy, returning to combat. But he had to. This was his purpose. To defend his country. If he’d helped in some way to save Kali’s life, and the people of Liverpool, then perhaps being a Man O’ War had more uses than for destruction. From the sky, he could protect the land and the people.

There was only one reason why he could even consider flying again: Kali. He wouldn’t have believed the
Persephone
could be capable of flight, yet Kali never doubted herself or her ability. She worked without slowing, stopping just long enough to eat the food he forced on her. And she directed him with complete confidence when she gave him a hammer and nails, telling him to patch up the lower decks that hadn’t been crushed.

He wanted her to stay behind, where it was safe. But an airship couldn’t run with just one crewman. He could fly it, yes, but if anything went wrong with the ship, he’d need an engineer. And, damn it, he knew of only one engineer.

When she thought he wasn’t looking, shadows of wariness flickered across her face. This would be her return to the world, too. Sooner than she’d planned, that much he knew. But whatever fear hounded her, she didn’t allow it to stop her work. Or her determination.

Four scampered from chamber to chamber, both afraid of and intrigued by all the activity. Eventually, the rat became acclimated to the pounding of nails and hiss of the welding torch, and perched on Fletcher’s shoulder as he labored on filling spare tanks with ether. The main tanks loaded quickly—as if the ship were a starving creature finally given sustenance.

He stroked the rat’s furry head as another tank topped up. As the ship awakened, it fed from him more, drawing on his energy. But it gave back to him, too. The currents of power moving through the
Persephone
resonated in his own body. He felt like a lit fuse.

Never more so than when they could work no longer, and he and Kali retired to bed. It was there that he showed her, in ways words couldn’t, what she’d come to mean to him. That he couldn’t understand how he’d managed any kind of existence without her. That the feel of her skin was his oxygen. And her breathless words of encouragement and cries of pleasure gave him more strength than any telumium implanted in his body.

He kept a lantern burning as they made love. He could see well enough in the dark, but he wanted her to be witness to what they gave each other, how their entwined bodies—scarred, marked—were beautiful and exactly right.

“Will this all change?” she asked, as they lay, sweat slick and tangled. Her head rested upon his chest, and her fingers traced all over his body—implants, flesh, tattoos—as if committing him to memory. “When we go back, will it all go away?”

He pulled her even closer, needing the press of her body to his. “I don’t know,” he said, though it killed him to say so. Beyond the possibility of flight, the future was unseen, hidden behind banks of dark thunderheads. Would he be called upon to return to duty? Would he ever see Kali again?

And Mayhew lurked out in the shadows, a madman with a thirst for Man O’ War blood. It was certain the lieutenant would kill civilians in his quest for vengeance. Could he be stopped?

So much unknown. Like one of those old maps with monsters drawn in the areas where the cartographer’s knowledge failed. Monsters did lurk, but whether they could be defeated, that wasn’t certain.

“We’ll find our course as we go,” Fletcher said, stroking his hand down her arm.

She lifted her head to gaze at him. “You don’t strike me as the sort of man who travels without a clear direction.”

“I wasn’t . . . once.”

“Something’s changed.”

He allowed himself a smile, and despite everything—all the uncertainty, all the looming danger—the smile felt real. “When a ferryman brought a wary, clever woman to this heap of rock, everything changed.”

I
n the morning, Kali immersed herself in running a litany of tests on the
Persephone
. Easier to focus on all the technical elements that needed attention than to think of what lay ahead. As she checked the airship’s turbines, their roar drowned out the voices of doubt crowding inside her mind. Yes, Eilean Comhachag was never meant to be her permanent home, but she felt like a bird shoved from the nest before she was certain she could fly.

She wanted more time to put to rest memories of that day in Liverpool. More time to build strength—any kind of strength. More time alone with Fletcher.

She’d get none of this. They would have to leave the island. Today.

The turbines worked just as they should, and she moved on to the ether tanks to ensure that they had no cracks and could be called upon to vent as necessary. Venting ether, Fletcher told her, enabled the airship to move at heightened speeds. But it only lasted a brief while, and meant that the ship would drop precipitously. Yet it made for an effective tool in battle when one needed swiftness.

Surely, though, they wouldn’t need to vent the tanks. Not for their brief trip to the nearest telegraph station to alert the navy, and then flying the ship to the dockyards in Greenwich for greater repairs. And then . . . she didn’t know what then. Neither did Fletcher. A vast unknown. For herself, for him. For them.

They’d want him back on duty. A Man O’ War couldn’t be away from his ship for long, and he was too valuable in the ongoing war.

If they saw each other at all when they returned, it could only be for brief periods of time. Which would be worse? Having him for only a handful of days after months apart, or not having him at all? Both options would hurt—they hurt
now
, just thinking of them.

She glanced over to where he was finishing hammering the bow of the ship into a semblance of order. It had splintered apart in the crash, and needed to be as aerodynamic as possible for the upcoming flight.

Her eyes weren’t on the repairs, but on Fletcher. He’d shed his coat, and worked in his shirtsleeves, muscles straining against the thin fabric, his braces framing the wide architecture of his back. She knew him well enough to know that he had to hold himself back and not use the full measure of his strength when working on fixing the ship, otherwise one hit of the hammer would cause the entire bow of the ship to break off.

And yet this was the same man who’d made love to her last night with such tenderness and reverence, she’d nearly wept. Her body heated as she remembered that last night hadn’t been only soft caresses and whispered endearments. No, he’d shown her the full measure of his desire, the wildness he tried so hard to contain. And it had been . . . The erotic poems of her homeland could never equal what she and Fletcher had shared last night. She’d felt like the incarnation of Rati, the goddess of passion.

There’d been more than lust and desire last night. In his touch, in hers. An aching yearning for something that might never be. Back in the world, they might spend months, years apart. If he returned at all.

Even now, as they both readied the airship for its first flight since the crash, Kali wanted to cross the deck and press herself against Fletcher, feel the movement of his body, the steady rhythm of his heart.

Instead, she continued with the rest of her tests. Each minute they spent on the island meant Mayhew was closer to obtaining his own airship. A minute closer to unleashing his madness on an unsuspecting world.

She’d lived through death and devastation before. There wasn’t a chance in Hell or Naraka that she’d knowingly let that kind of destruction happen and not try to stop it. At least with the war, there was a terrible sort of sense to it. But Mayhew would bring only meaningless chaos. It wouldn’t be a far leap for him to go from killing Man O’ Wars to leveling towns and cities, simply because he could.

After Kali finished the last of her checks, she approached Fletcher, standing in the rebuilt forecastle. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he stared out at the moor rolling around the ship, and the tall hills to the southwest.

She knew he heard her coming, but he didn’t turn when she approached. Instead, she stood beside him, taking in the land, the place that had been her home these past months.

“Everything’s tested well,” she said. “We can leave at your discretion.”

“A minute more,” he answered, voice distant. They both seemed to understand that there’d be no return to Eilean Comhachag once the
Persephone
took to the air.

This place had been theirs, but no longer. Her chest ached, and she had the absurd impulse to run and hide somewhere. The marshland that lay between her cottage and the ship might do—but he’d find her, and the time for hiding was over, anyway.

For a brief while longer, they had each other. But only fleetingly.

“It’s time,” she said.

He did turn to her then, one dark brow raised sharply. “Eager to put this place behind you?”
And me
? was the unspoken addition.

“He’s out there,” she replied. “There’s no luxury of self-indulgence. And . . .” She made herself gaze directly into the unforgiving blue of his eyes. “I can’t draw this out longer.”

The anger cooled in his eyes. Something that looked suspiciously like heartache took its place. He unfolded his arms and wrapped them around her. His hand stroked down her hair, and he ran his mouth back and forth over the crown of her head. She let herself be held, her own hands pressed tight between the hard jut of his shoulder blades.

There might not be another chance. It wasn’t wrong to need him like this—there would be plenty of time later to be on her own, independent. Even if they continued their relationship once they returned home, they’d never have this kind of time again. But for this small moment, she could have this. Have him all to herself.

And then it was over. By a silent, mutual agreement, they separated, then walked without touching to the pilot house.

Below deck, she had reexamined the fruits of their combined labors. She’d learned volumes about the design and functioning of an airship these past weeks, but it’d been fortunate that most of the controls within the pilot house hadn’t needed too much repair. Just a matter of making certain the connections to the different parts of the ship still worked.

Now in the pilot house, she noted again how one panel controlled the ether tanks—the main tanks on the support beam, as well as the auxiliary ones below decks in the aft of the ship. There was a dial that controlled the levels of the buoyant gas in all of the tanks, and separate dials to adjust the levels in each one, giving the ship its lift and balance. Gauges atop the panel showed the level of ether in each container.

The other main control for the ship was the steering—a wheel mounted atop a column that moved back and forth in its yoke. The wheel controlled the louvers of the engines—louvers she and Fletcher had had to rebuild using pieces of bulkheads from inside the ship. Beside the wheel was the throttle, which regulated how much power went into the turbines.

And all of it was fueled by Fletcher. The batteries absorbed energy from him, and those batteries powered the turbines. The process even created the ether that enabled the airship to fly.

“The more I worked on this,” she murmured, “the more I realized Dr. Rossini’s genius.”

“Genius that drove her mad,” he noted.

“Everything has its cost.” She knew that now, more than ever.

They were silent for a moment, each absorbing her words. Then, “Ready?” he asked.