The Nightmare Garden

trio—the girl’s mother, I guessed—and she cried out as she fainted.

“Mother!” the girl screamed.

Dean caught the Proctor across the jaw with a hard punch, and the man went down for good.

I took the girl by her shoulders. “You’re strong,” I told her. “Help your father carry her inside. Trust me, you need to get out of here.”

Her eyes widened as she got a good look at my face. “You’re …,” she started, then slapped my hands off and scrambled away.

She didn’t have to say it. I knew. Aoife Grayson, terrorist. Destroyer of the Engine.

As the girl and her father got her mother up and out the back door of the barn, I saw black shapes approaching from the front. My chest clenched. I’d hoped we could escape unnoticed, but I should have known better when Grey Draven was involved.

I could tell, even from my distance, that the weapons were new. The guns were copper, and midway along the barrel was a green glass bulb in which some kind of substance churned. The end narrowed to a point, like a needle. Some kind of fine ammunition, or perhaps gas, or …

“You like my toys?”

Grey Draven walked through the row of Proctors and into the barn as if it were perfectly usual for him to be walking through a field in the first hours of the morning in full dress uniform. “Hello, Miss Grayson,” he said, tipping his head at me. “And the infamous Dean Harrison. It appears I get two for the price of one today. Already worth getting out of bed for.”

They hadn’t found Cal and Bethina. My stomach plummeted in relief. Cal would be dead if Draven got his hands on him. But my friend knew how to hide, and I knew he’d keep Bethina safe. He fancied her too much to let anything happen to her. They’d get away and tell my father what had happened, so at least he wouldn’t always wonder.

“You sure came a long way from your cushy new job in Washington to chase a couple of kids,” I said to Draven. Keep him talking. Keep him thinking it’s just the two of you.

“Oh, I think we both know you’re no innocent child, Aoife,” Draven purred. “As for my new job—one of the perks is I get to do exactly as I wish. Including kit out my men with the best.” He extended his hand to the two men at the head of the troop. “A little something I’ve been working on. I call it the needle pistol.” He took one from the Proctor standing nearest and aimed. A thin bolt of light arced from the pistol to the barn wall, leaving a smoking hole. “Pretty impressive,” he said. “And I’m not even a genius. Imagine what your father could do for us.”

“Is that what this is about?” I asked. “My father?”

“You’ve got me wrong, Aoife,” Draven said. “I don’t want to hurt your father. I never wanted to. I want to use him, his knowledge of the Thorn Land and his uncanny mind, for my own ends.”

“Against his will,” I countered. Draven shrugged, as if I’d caught him out in a white lie.

“One way or another. We need him, now more than ever.”

I shook my head. Draven could sugarcoat it any way he liked, but at the end of the day he’d still be a brute, a kidnapper and a liar. “I’m not helping you, Mr. Draven,” I said. “Either let me go or try to take me to jail again. We all remember how well that worked last time.”

Draven stepped forward and raised his hand as if to slap me across the face. I didn’t flinch from his dark gaze. I wasn’t afraid of him anymore, I realized in surprise. I’d seen so much worse, Grey Draven didn’t even rate at this moment.

Dean made a move toward Draven, and two Proctors jumped at him and held him back. Draven waved the pistol. “Now, now, Dean. Don’t get hotheaded. Your little girlfriend here needs to learn how to speak to her betters.”

He dropped his hand. “This is hardly the place I wanted to have this conversation. Come. We’ll retire to the ship, where it’s warm.” He smiled at me, and it was worse than anything he could hit me with. “I do enjoy a few creature comforts, don’t you?” He brushed the backs of his knuckles down my cheek and I shivered in disgust.

“I can take them or leave them,” I said. The Proctors shackled Dean while Draven took me firmly by the arm.

The airship grew bigger and bigger as we approached, until it blocked all but the barest edge of the sun. I could see scrolling letters along the prow—Dire Raven.

“Beautiful, isn’t she? I had her specially built,” Draven boasted. “She’s triple armored, with two pressurized hulls. Her balloon is ultralight. Five bladders inside, and backup batteries so we never lose power.” He touched the hull lightly as we climbed the folding steps to the hatch, unctuously opened by yet another uniformed Proctor.

“Much better than that hulk your father flies,” Draven said. “What’s he call it, again? The Bad Memory?”

“You know damn well what it is,” I said. Draven pursed his lips.

“This little rebellious act you’ve got playing now is not amusing,” he told me.

The Dire Raven was enormous in comparison to the Munin, and we passed through two decks before we reached a small room wrapped with windows. We were in the prow of the craft, just under the helium bladders, in a sitting room done in black, red and gold. Even more patriotic than Draven’s old office, when he’d only been Head of the City and not one of the most powerful men in the country. Dean glanced around, and I could tell he was as nervous as I was. I hoped Cal and Bethina knew to run as soon as they spied Proctors, to not wait for us. I knew they’d be safe in Innsmouth, especially when Draven was distracted with us, but I still worried.

Draven sat in an armchair and put one foot up on an ottoman, drawing my focus back to him. He pulled over a rolling metal cart and poured himself a drink from a metal decanter. All metal, I realized, so that nothing would shatter during a rough ride. The Dire Raven was full of iron, and I could already feel it starting to eat away at my edges. If I stayed here for more than a few hours, I was going to be out of my mind. Calm down, Aoife, I told myself. Don’t panic over the disaster that hasn’t happened yet. “It’s early, but you understand how hard my job has become these days,” he told me, placing the decanter back on the cart.

“I still don’t know what you want from me.” I stood straight and tried to appear calm. Inside, I was trembling worse than a bare twig on one of the trees outside. Draven could kill me, torture me, or do worse to Dean while he made me watch, and I couldn’t do a thing except beg. Using my Weird inside this iron ship would be suicidal, and trying to fight off the Proctors and escape would be suicide, period. The Proctors might all have been part of a lie, but they were still men, men with guns, and Draven gave them orders.

“I don’t think you’re that stupid, so do us both a favor and drop the ingénue schoolgirl act.” Draven tossed back his drink. “Your father had a little spat with the Brotherhood, and I don’t blame him. They’re unrecognizable from the stalwart society my grandfather helped found. And I don’t care about them—right now I exist to put the status quo back in place. And you’re going to help me.” He narrowed his eyes over the top of his cup. “You and that clever little trick you do.”

Draven refreshed his cup, this time filling it to the brim with hot tea to cover the amber liquid at the bottom. “At first I thought another Grayson with uncanny powers would just complicate my life. But you had to be too smart, too bright a penny. So I adapted.”

“Like the reptile you are,” I spat.

Draven raised his cup to me. “Too right. To Mr. Darwin, and his proof that a clever creature like me will always survive.” He blew on the tea. “And you too, Aoife. If you’re as clever as you think you are.”

“Is this going anywhere?” I sighed.

Draven sipped and set the cup aside, never taking his eyes from me. “You are going to fix the Gates. Convince your father to help. Or I’ll cut your friend Dean’s throat so that his blood pools all over this lovely carpet. That’s how strongly I feel about this, Aoife.” His tongue flicked out over his lips like a lizard’s while I shot a glance at Dean. His face was pale, his expression mirroring the panic I felt.

Draven sat back and raised one eyebrow. “Don’t mistake my current civility for a lack of conviction.”

For a moment I just listened to my heart raging, my blood boiling through my ears with an enraged thrum. I knew that Draven didn’t want to fix the Gates the way I did. I knew that he didn’t want my father and me for anything except the power over Thorn we could grant him. He could act like we had the same motives, but we didn’t.