Behemoth

and the thin screams from inside the gondola.

“Everyone saw how he’d saved me,” Dylan said, reaching into his pocket. “They gave him a medal for it.”

He pulled out a small decoration, a rounded silver cross that dangled from a sky blue ribbon. In the darkness Alek could just make out the face of Charles Darwin engraved upon its center.

“It’s called the Air Gallantry Cross, the highest honor they can give a civilian for deeds in the air.”

“You must be proud,” Alek said.

“Back in that first year, when I couldn’t sleep, I used to stare at it at night. But I thought the nightmares were over and done with, until what happened to Newkirk.” Dylan looked at him. “Maybe you understand a wee bit, how it comes back? Because of your ma and da?”

Alek nodded, staring at the medal and wondering what to say. He still had dreams, of course, but his own parents’ death had happened in far-off Sarajevo, not in front of his eyes. Even his nightmares couldn’t compare with what Dylan had described.

But then he remembered the moment when the Tesla cannon had fired, his horror that the Leviathan would be engulfed in flame.

“I think you’re very brave, serving on this ship.”

“Aye, or mad.” The boy’s eyes glistened in the glimmers of wormlight from beneath Alek’s jacket. “Don’t you think it’s daft? Like I’m trying to burn to death, same as he did?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Alek said. “You’re honoring your father. Of course you’d want to be on this ship. If I weren’t …” He paused. “I mean, if things were different, I’d want to stay here too.”

“You would?”

“Well, maybe it’s silly. But the last few days, it’s like something’s changing inside me. Everything I ever knew is upside down. Sometimes it’s almost as if I’m … in love …”

Dylan’s body tightened beside Alek.

“I know it sounds silly,” Alek said quickly. “It’s quite obviously ridiculous.”

“But are you saying that … ? I mean, what if things were different than you thought? If I were … or have you guessed already?” Dylan let out a groan. “Just what are you saying?”

Alek shook his head. “Perhaps I’m putting this stupidly. But it’s almost as though … I’m in love with your ship.”

“You’re in love,” Dylan said slowly, “with the Leviathan?”

“It feels right here.” Alek shrugged. “As if this is where I’m meant to be.”

Dylan let out a strange, choked laugh as he put the medal back into his pocket.

“You Clankers,” he muttered. “You’re all cracked in the head.”

Alek pulled his arm from the boy’s shoulders, frowning. Dylan was always explaining how the airship’s interwoven species sustained one another, how every beast was part of the whole. Surely he could understand.

“Dylan, you know I’ve always been alone. I never had schoolmates, just tutors.”

“Aye, because you’re a barking prince.”

“But I’m hardly even that, because of my mother’s blood. I never mixed with commoners, and the rest of my family has always wanted me to disappear. But here on this ship …” Alek laced his fingers together, searching for the right words.

“This is one place where you fit,” Dylan said flatly. “Where you feel real.”

Alek smiled. “Yes. I knew you’d understand.”

“Aye, of course.” Dylan shrugged. “I just thought you might be saying something else, that’s all. I feel the same way as you … about the ship.”

“But you’re not an enemy here, or hiding what you are,” Alek said, sighing. “It’s much simpler for you.”

The boy gave a sad laugh. “Not quite as simple as you’d think.”

“I didn’t say you were simple, Dylan. It’s just that you’ve got no secrets hanging over you. No one’s trying to throw you off this ship and put you in chains!”

Dylan shook his head. “Tell that to my ma.”

“Oh, right.” Alek recalled that Dylan’s mother hadn’t wanted him to join the military. “Women can be quite mad sometimes.”

“In my family they’re a squick madder than most.” Dylan pulled Alek’s jacket from the wormlamp. “Full of stupid ideas. Mad like you wouldn’t believe.”

In the sudden wash of green light, Dylan’s face was no longer sad. His eyes had their usual spark, but there was an angry gleam in them. He tossed the jacket to Alek.

“We both know you can’t stay aboard this ship,” Dylan said quietly.

Alek held his gaze a moment, then nodded. He would never be allowed to serve on the Leviathan, not once the Darwinists understood their new engines. They would take him and the others back to Britain for safekeeping, whether or not they learned exactly who he was.

He had to escape.

“I should get back to my skulking, I suppose.”

“Aye, you should,” Dylan said. “I’ll go up and watch the eggs for you. Come back before dawn, though, or the lady boffin will have both our heads.”

“Thank you,” Alek said.

“We can only stay in Constantinople twenty-four hours. You’ll have to find whatever you’re looking for tonight.”

Alek nodded, his heart beating a little faster. He reached out a hand. “In case we don’t talk again, I hope we’ll stay friends, whatever happens. Wars don’t last forever.”

Dylan stared at the offered hand, then nodded.

“Aye, friends.” He stood up. “Keep that lamp. I can find my way in the dark.”

He turned and climbed up into the blackness without another word.

Alek looked down at his hand, wondering for a moment what had happened, why Dylan had turned suddenly cold. Perhaps the boy had let more of his feelings show than he’d meant to. Or maybe Alek had said the wrong thing somehow.

He sighed. There wasn’t time to think about it—he had skulking to do. Once the Leviathan started back for Britain, there wouldn’t be another chance to escape. He had to be off this ship in less than two days.

Alek picked up the wormlamp and started for the hatch.

TEN

Deryn had never seen a Clanker city before.

Constantinople rolled past below, the hills filled to bursting with humanity. Pale stone palaces and domed mosques squashed against modern buildings, some rising up six stories tall. Two narrow arms of sparkling water carved the city into three parts, and a placid sea stretched away to the south, peppered with countless merchant ships under steam and sail, flying a dozen different flags.

A pall of smoke hung over everything, coughed up from countless engines and factories, veiling the walkers striding the narrow streets. The muddled air was empty of messenger birds; only a few biplanes and gyrothopters skimmed the rooftops, skirting stone spires and bristling wireless aerials.

It was odd to imagine Alek being from a place just like this, full of machines and metal, hardly alive except for