inside his cold-mask as the Jenny ’s stern-lantern, a tiny flake of warmth in that great cold, dwindled and dwindled, and merged at last with the Aurora.
17
Tom made his way back along the under-tier walkway with a horrible, empty, kicked-in-the-stomach feeling. It was several hours since the Jenny Haniver had taken off. Mr Aakiuq had tried to contact Hester by radio, but there had been no reply. “Perhaps she’s not switched it on,” the harbour master said. “Or perhaps it’s not working: I never had a chance to test all the valves. And there is not nearly enough gas in the envelope — I only filled it to check the cells were sound. Oh, why did the poor child have to take off so suddenly?”
“I don’t know,” Tom had replied, but he did. If only he had understood sooner how much she hated it here. If only he had spared a thought for how she must feel, before he started to fall in love with this city. If only he hadn’t kissed Freya. But his guilt kept twisting round and turning into anger. After all, she hadn’t thought about his feelings. Why shouldn’t he stay here if he wanted to? She was so selfish. Just because she hated city life didn’t mean that he wanted to be a homeless sky-tramp for ever.
Still, he had to find her again. He didn’t know if she would take him back, or if he even wanted her to, but he couldn’t let it end in this horrible, messy, broken way.
The city’s engines were purring into life as he hurried up into the cold of the upper tier. He went towards the Winter Palace, stumbling along in the same flailing track that he had made earlier. He didn’t want to see Freya — his insides curled up like burning paper when he thought about what had passed between them in the Wunderkammer — but only Freya had the power to order the city to turn back and pursue the Jenny Haniver.
He was passing through the long shadow of the Wheelhouse when the door slammed open and a frantic, silk-robed apparition came blundering at him through the snow. “Tim! Tim, is it true?” Pennyroyal’s eyes were wide and bulging; his grip on Tom’s arm sharp as frostbite. “They’re saying that girl of yours has left! Flown off!”
Tom nodded, feeling ashamed.
“But without the Jenny Haniver…”
Tom shrugged. “Maybe I’ll have to come with you to America after all, Professor.”
He pushed past the explorer and ran on, leaving Pennyroyal to wander back towards his apartments muttering, “America! Ha ha! Of course! America!” In the Winter Palace, he found Freya waiting for him. She was perched on a chaise longue in the smallest of her receiving-rooms, a chamber no larger than a football pitch and lined with so many mirrors that there seemed to be a thousand Freyas sitting there, and a thousand Toms bursting in wet and dishevelled to drip melted snow on to her marble floor.
“Your Radiance,” he said, “we must turn back.”
“Turn back?” Freya had been expecting all sorts of things, but not this. Flushed with delight at the news of Hester’s leaving, she had imagined herself comforting Tom, reassuring him that it was all for the best, making him understand that he was far better off without his hideous girlfriend and that it was clearly the Ice Gods’ will that he remain here, in Anchorage, with her. She had put on her prettiest gown to help him understand, and she had left the top button undone in a way that revealed a tiny triangle of soft white flesh below the hollow of her throat. It made her feel shiveringly bold and grown-up. She had been expecting all sorts of things, but she had not expected this.
“How can we turn back?” she demanded, half-laughing, in the hope that he was making some sort of joke. “Why should we turn back?”
“But Hester…”
“We can’t catch up with an airship, Tom! And why would we want to? I mean, with Wolverinehampton out there behind us somewhere…” But he wasn’t even looking at her; his eyes were shiny and sliding with tears. She fumbled the top of her gown closed, feeling embarrassed and then quickly cross. “Why should I risk my whole city for the sake of a mad girl in an airship?”
“She’s not mad.”
“She acts mad.”
“She’s upset!”
“Well, I’m upset!” shouted Freya. “I thought you cared about me! Doesn’t what happened earlier mean anything? I thought you’d forgotten Hester! She’s nothing! She’s nothing but air-trash and I’m glad she’s dumped you! I want you to be my, my, my boyfriend! I hope you understand just what an honour that is!”
Tom stared at her and could think of nothing to say. He saw her suddenly as Hester must; a plump, spoilt, petulant girl who expected the world to arrange itself to suit her. He knew that she was right to refuse his request, that it would be madness to turn the city round, but somehow her rightness made her seem even more unreasonable. He mumbled something and turned away.
“Where are you going?” demanded Freya shrilly. “Who said you could go? I have not given you permission to leave my presence!”
But Tom did not wait for permission. He ran from the room, the door crashing shut behind him, and left her there alone with all her reflections, which turned their heads this way and that in the trembling mirrors, looking blank-faced at each other as if to ask, What did we do wrong?
He ran through the long corridors of the Winter Palace with no idea where he was going, barely noticing the rooms he passed or the faint scratching and scrabbling noises which came sometimes from the ducts and ventilation shafts. Ever since he fell out of London, Hester had been beside him, looking after him, telling him what to do, loving him in that fierce, shy way of hers. Now he had driven her away. He wouldn’t even have known that she was gone if it hadn’t been for that boy…
For the first time since the Jenny Haniver took off, Tom thought of his strange visitor. Who had he been? Someone from the engine district, judging by the way he’d been dressed (Tom remembered layers and layers of dark clothes, a tunic smeared with oil and grease, black paint crackling off its brass buttons). And how had he known what Hester was about to do? Had she confided in him? Told him things she had not told Tom? He felt an odd jab of jealousy at the thought of Het sharing her secrets with someone else.
But what if the boy knew where she had been going? Tom had to find him; talk to him. He ran out of the palace to the nearest stairway and down to the engine district, hurrying through the thunder and fog of the Scabious Spheres to the engine master’s office.
Skewer and Gargle were waiting for Caul when he came scurrying back from the air-harbour, breathless and jumpy from running. They were ready inside the hatchway with guns and knives in case the Drys were on his tail, and they bundled him through and would not let him speak until they were quite sure no one had followed him.
“What were you thinking of?” asked Skewer angrily. “What did you think you were doing? You know it’s forbidden to leave the limpet unguarded. And as for talking to a Dry! Didn’t you learn nothing in the Burglarium?” He put on a strange, whining voice which Caul guessed was supposed to be an impression of him. “‘Tom! Tom! Quickly, Tom! She’s leaving you!’ You fool!”
Caul sat on the floor of the hold, back to a bale of stolen clothes, failure sluicing over him like meltwater.
“You’ve blown it, Caul,” said Skewer, with a sudden smile. “I mean, you’ve really blown it. I’m taking charge of this ship. Uncle will understand. When he hears what you’ve done, he’ll be sorry he didn’t put me in command right from the start. I’m sending a message-fish away, tonight, to let him know all about it. No more snooping for you, you Dry-lover. No more midnight expeditions. No more mooning over margravines — oh, don’t think I haven’t seen you going gooey-eyed each time her face comes on the screens.”
“But Skewer-” whined Gargle.
“Quiet!” said Skewer, cuffing him hard around the head, turning to kick Caul down as he started up to protect the smaller boy. He looked flushed and pleased with himself. “You can stay quiet too, Caul. From now on, we’ll run this limpet my way.”
Mr Scabious, whose home on the upper tier held too many unhappy memories, spent almost all his spare time in his office, a narrow hut squeezed into a gap between two tier supports at the heart of the engine district. It
