The Deepest Night

boardwalk leading to a pier lined with glassed candles, a gently glowing path of them stretching out over the sea.

But eventually the couples were fewer and fewer, until there were none, and the candles all guttered out. Then it was just Armand and me and the deep purple night.

And that star. Star-of-Jesse, burning above us.

We waited until we were well and truly alone. Anyone stumbling across us now would hardly mistake us for newlyweds out for an amorous stroll. I was in a thin calico dress, no coat despite the brisk breeze, while Armand wore a leather driving duster, gloves, goggles, and sturdy boots. There was a compass in his pocket, a knife in one of the boots, and a pistol in a holster around his waist. He had a knapsack, too, because we’d thought it be the easiest way to transport anything else.

It was heavy. Anything else included my spare clothing, his, tinned food, water, a blanket, aspirin, iodine, bandages (expertly rolled), cotton wool, bullets, and the maps.

We took a final look around to ensure we were alone, then faced each other.

I wanted to say something but couldn’t think what. We’d already gone over our plans so thoroughly they were seared into my brain.

Off we go seemed woefully inadequate. So did Don’t forget to hold on.

Perhaps it was the same for him. He only lifted a hand to my face, an unhurried stroke of his fingers along my cheek, and smiled.

I went to smoke. He knelt down, retrieved my dress and chemise and stockings and shoes, and pushed them into the knapsack.

rise up, urged the stars (and I still could not pick out Jesse from among them). rise up, beloved beast!

And then there I was, a dragon in the sand, gleaming and actual for anyone to see. Armand climbed up quickly; he knew as well as I that we were most vulnerable like this, fixed to the earth. I felt him nestle into position. The weight of the knapsack was a new adjustment for us both, but there wasn’t time to fret about it.

His legs clenched my sides and his hands grabbed my mane. I gave a nod and took us up.

We’d decided to hug the coast as far as we could until Dover, when the span of the Channel shrank as much as it ever would and the risk of me drowning would be significantly lessened. It was the same route the zeppelins took, but there was no helping that. The moon was bright tonight, so the airships probably weren’t out. If they were, we’d just have to avoid them.

I’d been cold as a girl on the ground. In the air, though, I felt fine. The wind was my ally, its chill diluted now that I had scales. But I was glad that Armand had thought to wear gloves and a coat. It’s what the pilots wore, and after all, we were flying nearly as high as they did.

I glanced back at him. He was slanted over my neck, an extraordinary aviator indeed with the glass goggles over his eyes and his hair whipped into spikes. He released my mane long enough to give me a thumbs-up. Moonlight feathered his edges in silver; all the rest of him was purple, like the sky.

We were probably visible from the coast. I could see the rough line of the shore, the occasional inviting lights of villages or towns, but I hoped we were far enough out that anyone getting a glimpse of us would think we were a very large bird. Or an illusion.

We weren’t really liable to be anything else.

Moon above, England to the left, a deceptively velvety-looking sea below. Jesse, like Armand, somewhere behind my shoulders. My wings found their rhythm and kept it.

And time passed.

The stars changed places. The moon set.

Armand and I soared alone through the center of the universe, no aeroplanes, no zeppelins, no birds or seals or boats or fish. Just us.

It seemed a very quiet sort of war.

I felt the sun wanting to rise right as we neared the end of our passage over the sea. It was a peculiar sensation, a building, bulging pressure against the eastern horizon, like a giant on the other side of the world pressing his fist against the thin glazing of night. I’d never felt anything like it in my human shape—but then, I’d never kept my dragon shape as long as this before, so who knew what other strange drakon skills I was about to discover. In any case, the sun wasn’t up yet; heaven and earth were still thick with dark. The only way I knew we were near land again was that the scent of salt water became mixed with that of seagulls once more, a great many seagulls, and also sheep. And the stink of coal. Which must have meant people.

We had about another hour before the sky would begin to catch fire. Armand knew it too (to be fair, he had a watch). With his compass in hand he pointed the way we should go, and I veered north, following the invisible path he’d set for us.

The sea gave way to bumpy, broccoli-topped forests, quilted patchworks of fields, and somewhere over the tip of France I had my moment of grace: Only a few weeks ago I’d been the outcast charity student seated on a stage before some of the most wealthy and powerful people of the kingdom, but now I, Eleanore Jones—a girl without a true home or a past or even a middle name—was on my way across enemy lines to save the life of a man I’d never met. Because I could.

And that was power.

I was proud of it. Pride was a sin; I’d been told that over and over again at Blisshaven, at Moor Gate, even during services at Iverson. Pride is a sin, Eleanore, especially in a woman. Women must be modest and meek. Only the meek shall thrive.

I doubted meek would get me to Prussia. It was pride curled up warm inside me, ticklish and pleasing, and if that made me bad, so be it. I planned to thrive just fine without bloody meekness.

We located a rickety, leaning barn in a pasture, exactly as Armand had predicted, and settled down tight with our blanket amid mounds of sweet-smelling hay. I fell asleep right as the giant had his way and the night cracked apart, letting in the morning sun.

Everything had gone so smoothly.

I should have known it wouldn’t last.

Chapter 21

I was asleep. It was quiet and dark. Then I was awake, and it was quiet and bright.

But it was raining wood all around me. A plank struck me hard and silent on the arm; hay swirled everywhere in a straw storm, sticking to my hair, my eyelashes. Where there had been a roof overhead before— surely there had been one?—there was now only a gray cloudy sky.

Armand was standing above me, impassioned, his lips moving, but he wasn’t making any sound. It was the most curious thing.

He reached down, hauled me upright. He grabbed the knapsack and pulled me with him toward the open doors of the barn, which hitched back and forth and back and forth as though a brutal wind had them in its grip.

I began to cough on the hay. Again, no sound.

Breaking free from the walls of the barn, I realized that everything was bright because it was daylight still, and I was deaf because a bomb had just carved a crater only feet from our shelter. It was a sizeable crater, too, deep enough to prevent a man from climbing back up should he fall in. Singed rocks and dirt formed spokes around it, a black smoldering starburst.

Armand had my hand still. We were running for the woods at the edge of the pasture when the next shell went off, farther away but still near enough to send us both to the ground.

We scrambled back to our feet. The woods beckoned, hardly sufficient protection from falling bombs but