Leviathan

“It spills the water out, making the beast lighter,” Deryn said, nodding. Just like the sandbags on Da’s balloons.

“Very clever, laddie,” the coxswain said. “But cleverness is no substitute for air sense, which is Service talk for keeping your barking head. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Deryn said. She couldn’t wait to get off the ground, the flightless years since Da’s accident suddenly heavy in her chest.

The coxswain stepped back and blew a short pattern on his whistle. As the final note shrieked, the ground men let go of the Huxley’s tentacles all together.

The straps cut into her as the airbeast rose, like being scooped up in a giant net. A moment later the feeling of ascent vanished, as if the earth itself were dropping away… .

“ASCENDING.”

Down below, the line of boys stared up in undisguised awe. Jaspert was grinning like a loon, and even the boffins’ faces showed squicks of fascination. Deryn felt brilliant, rising through the air at the center of everyone’s attention, like an acrobat aloft on a swing. She wanted to make a speech:

“Hey, all you sods, I can fly and you can’t! A natural airman, in case you haven’t noticed. And in conclusion, I’d like to add that I’m a girl and you can all get stuffed!”

The four airmen at the winch were letting the cable out quickly, and soon the upturned faces blurred with distance. Larger geometries came into view: the worn curves of an old cricket oval on the ascension field, the network of roads and railways surrounding the Scrubs, the wings of the prison pointing southward like a huge pitchfork.

Deryn looked up and saw the medusa’s body alight with the sunrise, pulsing veins and arteries running like iridescent ivy through its translucent flesh. The tentacles drifted in the soft breezes around her, capturing pollen and insects and sucking them into the stomach sack above.

Hydrogen breathers didn’t really breathe hydrogen, of course. They exhaled it: burped it into their own gasbags. The bacteria in their stomachs broke down food into pure elements—oxygen, carbon, and, most important, lighter-than-air hydrogen.

It should have been nauseating, Deryn supposed, hanging suspended from all those gaseous dead insects. Or terrifying, with nothing but a few leather straps between her and a quarter mile of tumbling to a terrible death. But she felt as grand as an eagle on the wing.

The smoky outline of central London rose up toward the east, divided by the winding, shimmering snake of the River Thames. Soon she could make out the green expanse of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. It was like looking down on a living map: the omnibuses crawling along like bugs, sailboats fluttering as they tacked against the breeze.

Then, just as the spire of St. Paul’s Cathedral rose into view, a shiver passed through the rig.

Deryn scowled. Were her ten minutes up already?

She looked down, but the line leading to the ground hung slack. They weren’t reeling her in just yet.

The jolt came again, and Deryn saw a few of the tentacles around her clench, coiling like ribbons scraped between a pair of scissors. They were slowly gathering back into a single strand.

The Huxley was nervous.

Deryn swung herself from side to side, ignoring the majesty of London to search the horizon for whatever was spooking the airbeast.

Then she spotted it: a dark shapeless mass in the north, a rolling wave of clouds spreading across the sky. Its leading edge crept forward steadily, blackening the northern suburbs with rain.

Deryn felt the hairs on her arms tingling.

She dropped her gaze to the Scrubs, wondering if the tiny airmen down there could see the storm front too, and would start to reel her in. But the proving ground still glowed with light from the rising sun. From down there they would see only clear skies above, as cheery as a picnic.

Deryn waved a hand. Could they even see her well enough? But of course they’d only think she was larking about.

“Bum-rag!” she swore, and glared at the roll of yellow cloth tied to her wrist. A real ascender scout would have semaphore flags, or at least a message lizard that could scamper down the line. But all they’d given her was a panic signal.

And Deryn Sharp was not panicking!

At least, she didn’t think she was… .

She stared at the blackness in the sky, wondering if it were only a last bit of night the sunrise hadn’t chased away. What if she had no air sense at all, and the height had gone to her head?

Deryn closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to ten.

When she opened them again, the clouds were still there—closer.

The Huxley trembled again, and Deryn smelled lightning in the air. The approaching squall was definitely real. The aerology manual had been right after all: Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

She stared again at the yellow cloth. If the officers below saw it unfurl, they’d think she was panicking. Then she’d have to explain that it hadn’t been terror, just a coolheaded observation that rough weather was coming. Maybe they’d commend her for making the right decision.

But what if the squall changed course? Or faded to a drizzle before it arrived at the Scrubs?

Deryn clenched her teeth, wondering how long she’d been up here. Weren’t ten minutes almost up? Or had her sense of time gone crook in the vast, cold sky?

Her eyes darted back and forth between the rolled-up yellow cloth and the approaching storm, wondering what a boy would do.

FIVE

When Prince Aleksandar awoke, his tongue was coated with sickly sweetness. The awful taste overpowered his other senses; he couldn’t see or hear or even think, as if his brain were drenched in sugary brine.

Gradually his head cleared—he smelled kerosene and heard tree branches thrashing past outside. The world rocked dizzily around him, hard-edged and metallic.

Then Alek began to remember: the midnight piloting lesson, his teachers turning on him, and finally the sweet-smelling chemical that had knocked him out. He was still in the Stormwalker, still moving away from home. All of it had really happened… . He’d been kidnapped.

At least he was still alive. Maybe they planned to ransom him. Humiliating, he supposed, but better than dying.

His kidnappers evidently didn’t think Alek was much of a threat. They hadn’t tied him up. Someone had even thought to put a blanket between him and the rocking metal floor.

He opened his eyes and saw shifting patches of light, a grid of swaying shadows cast by a ventilation grill. Neat racks of explosive shells lined the walls, and the hiss of pneumatics was louder than ever. He was in the belly of the Stormwalker—the gunners’ station.

“Your Highness?” came a nervous voice.

Alek pulled himself up from the blanket, squinting through the darkness. One of the crewmen sat bolt upright against a rack of shells, wide-eyed and at attention. Traitor or not, the man probably had never been alone with a prince before. He didn’t look much older than twenty.

“Where are we?” Alek said, trying to use the steely tone of command his father had taught him.

“I … suppose I don’t know exactly, Your Highness.”