Behemoth

butterflies.

Alek was down there somewhere, she supposed. Unless he’d already headed into the wilds of the empire, where the Air Service maps showed only mountains and dusty plains on the way to the Far East.

When the Kizlar Agha returned to his duties, Dr. Barlow joined Deryn at the railing. “Are you quite sure you weren’t bumped on the head last night, Mr. Sharp? You look unwell.”

“No, I’m feeling brilliant,” Deryn said, gripping the handrail tighter. She wasn’t going to spout off about her father’s accident again. Best to change the subject. “It’s just that I had an odd chat with Count Volger over breakfast … about our missing beastie.”

“Really? How enterprising of you.”

“He said he saw it last night. The beastie must’ve hatched before Alek left, and the daft boy took it with him.” Deryn turned to Dr. Barlow and narrowed her eyes. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, ma’am?”

“The possibility had crossed my mind.” The lady boffin shrugged. “It seemed the only logical explanation for the creature’s disappearance.”

“Aye, but it wasn’t just logic, was it? You knew Alek would try to escape before we left Istanbul, so you put him on egg duty last night.”

A smile appeared behind Dr. Barlow’s veil. “Why, Mr. Sharp, are you accusing me of scheming?”

“Call it what you like, ma’am, but Alek was always complaining that you rearranged the heaters when he was watching the eggs. Made it hotter for him than for me.” As Deryn spoke her suspicions aloud, more pieces fell into place. “And you never wanted me to visit while he was on egg duty. So that when the beastie hatched, it would be just him in the machine room, all alone!”

Dr. Barlow looked away and said sternly. “Are you certain you weren’t bumped on the head last night, Mr. Sharp? I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about the beasties inside those eggs,” Deryn said, staring at the cargo box. “What are they, anyway?”

“They are a military secret, young man.”

“Aye, and now we’re taking one to this sultan fellow. A Clanker aristocrat, just like Alek!”

Deryn stared straight at Dr. Barlow, waiting for a reply. It was the rudest she’d ever dared be with the lady boffin, but between the sleepless night and this morning’s realizations, anger had taken control of her tongue.

It was all starting to make sense. Why Dr. Barlow had been willing to keep Alek’s secret from the officers, and why she’d put him on egg duty almost from the start. She’d wanted one of the eggs to hatch while Alek was alone in that room.

But what on earth was the beastie’s purpose? And why hadn’t Alek simply left the barking thing behind?

After a moment of cold stares between them, Dr. Barlow broke the silence. “Did Count Volger say anything specific about the creature?”

“Not really.” Deryn shrugged. “He may have mentioned something about strangling it to keep it quiet.”

Dr. Barlow’s eyebrows shot up, and Deryn smiled. Two could play at this game of keeping secrets.

“But I think he was just trying to be clever.”

“Indeed,” Dr. Barlow said coldly. “There appears to be a lot of that going about.”

Deryn held the woman’s gaze. “I’m not trying to be clever, ma’am. I just want to know … Is Alek in danger from that beastie?”

“Don’t be absurd, Mr. Sharp.” Dr. Barlow leaned closer, lowering her voice. “The perspicacious loris, as it is known, is quite harmless. I would never put Alek in danger.”

“Then you did try to make an egg hatch while he was in there with them!”

Dr. Barlow looked away. “Yes, the loris was designed with a high degree of nascent fixation. Like a baby duck, it bonds with the first person it sees.”

“And you made it bond with Alek!”

“A necessary improvisation. After we crashed in the Alps, it seemed that we wouldn’t reach Istanbul in time. I didn’t want to see all my years of work wasted.” She shrugged. “Besides, I’m quite fond of Alek, and wish him every advantage in his travels. To those who listen carefully, the perspicacious loris can be quite helpful.”

“Helpful?” Deryn asked. “How, exactly?”

“By being perspicacious, of course.”

Deryn furrowed her eyebrows, puzzling over what “perspicacious” might mean. She wondered if she could trust the lady boffin’s words at all. Dr. Barlow always seemed to have a larger plan than whatever she let on.

“But it wasn’t just to help him,” Deryn said. “Alek’s an important Clanker, just like the sultan, and that’s why you wanted him to have this loris beastie.”

“It is as I said yesterday.” Dr. Barlow gestured at the beaklike prow before them, at monstrous heads belching fire. “Unlike the other Clanker powers, the Ottomans have not forgotten the web of life. And I think that in his short time with us, Alek may have become amenable to reason as well.”

“Reason?” Deryn swallowed. “But what does some newborn beastie have to do with reason?”

“Nothing, of course, as per my grandfather’s law: ‘No fabricated creature shall show human reason.’” The lady boffin waved her hand. “Take it as a figure of speech, Mr. Sharp. But one thing is certain—this war will make a mess of Europe’s royal houses. So it’s possible that young Alek may one day be as important as any sultan, proper royalty or not.”

“Aye, that’s what Count Volger was saying too.”

“Was he?” Dr. Barlow drummed her fingers on the railing. “How interesting.”

Just ahead, the strait was shining in the noon sun. Almost directly below were two huge buildings of marble and stone—mosques, of course, their domed roofs like giant shields arrayed against the sky, their minarets thrusting up like spears around them. The plaza between the buildings was crowded with people, their faces turning upward as the Stamboul’s shadow slid across them.

The Kizlar Agha shouted orders, and the propellers shifted on their long, spindly arms. The aircraft began to descend toward what looked like a park surrounded by high walls. Inside it were dozens of low buildings, all stitched together with paths and covered walkways, and one great cluster of still more domes and minarets, almost another city within the palace walls.

“Perhaps we should keep an eye on Count Volger, then,” Dr. Barlow said.

Deryn nodded, remembering the wildcount’s offer to tell her more about the beastie if she brought him news from outside. He was certainly open to an exchange of information.

“Well, ma’am, he did say he’d give me fencing lessons.”

The lady boffin smiled. “Then, dear boy, you shall have to learn to fence.”

EIGHTEEN

The Stamboul descended just inside the palace walls, in an overgrown garden the size of a cricket field.

The Kizlar Agha stood at the airship’s prow, shouting directions to the propeller men, making adjustments all the way down. Deryn soon saw why—there was barely room to land an airship. But the craft settled precisely at a spot where five paths crossed, as soft as a kiss, like a gaudy pavilion completing the garden’s design. The fronds of palm trees around them shivered in the wash from the airship’s propellers.

The gangway dropped, and the Kizlar Agha led Deryn, Dr. Barlow, and the two crewmen with the egg box down into the sultan’s garden.

A hundred windows looked down upon them, but all were covered with metal lattices that shimmered gold in the sunlight. Deryn wondered if there were people watching them through the narrow slats, courtiers and advisers,