“Not like you haven’t been in the position before.” Fang smirked.
“I do have the coded message on how to stop him.”
“Then it’s settled. You handle Moreci, and I’ll get the remaining innocents on board the emergency ship. I have every confidence you can accomplish your objective. And, if everything goes right, we can have a tea at the end of this. Here, take my gun.”
Coyle strapped on her utility belt and checked her weapons. “Why don’t we go over what we’re facing?”
“We’re facing a horde of ghouls who want to tear us apart,” Fang said.
“Check.”
“There are just under two hundred passengers to rescue.”
“Check.”
“We have a madman who’s going to use an ancient book to erase a major city.”
“Check.”
“This same madman is infused with aurorium, making me completely useless.”
“Check.”
“We’re stuck a thousand feet in the air.”
“Check.”
“And just about everyone else wants us dead.”
“And check.” Coyle added, “Anything else?”
“That should do it for now.”
Fang opened the door, and they stepped into the cavernous space of the engineering bay, walking side by side. Flames and smoke poured out of the destroyed engines behind and above them. Iron scraped against iron, littering the metal floors with sparks.
Fang inspected her daggers and slammed them into her sheaths. Coyle filled the gun with fresh ammunition and slipped it into a side holster.
They stopped for a moment and looked at each other.
“Ready to save a world that hates us?” Fang asked.
“What else is new?” Coyle answered.
Chapter 34
Starboard ballroom
Dawn’s Edge
May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day.
Amen.
Coyle turned the corner. Two guards stood outside Moreci’s door, their weapons at the down-ready position, ready to kill anyone who was a threat. Was she a threat? Absolutely, but they wouldn’t know until too late. Just like Moreci.
The two guards nodded to her. She ignored them and, before stepping through the door, caught the last bits of the conversation inside.
“What’s the word?” Moreci asked.
“All four engines have been ruined or close to it,” another man answered. “Bolt is dead. Veiul just reported Coyle and Fang are dead, and she’s on her way back.”
“Well, that’s not terrible news. When can we get the engines working?”
“As soon as we gather the engineers. Ah, she’s returned,” said a tall, older man.
She caught Moreci’s gaze and smirked.
“Veiul,” Moreci said. “I take it you ended your quarrel with Fang?”
“She died in the most horrible fashion,” Coyle said.
“Oh?”
“Aurorium-tipped daggers.” Coyle darted a glance through the room and spotted what she was looking for.
“How unfortunate,” Moreci said. “And you kept your disguise as Coyle? Marvelous.” He looked at his pocket watch and nodded to the other man. “Cavin, get the men working on the engines.” He turned and looked outside.
Coyle stepped closer to the book. It rested on a shelf in front of the wide, tilted windows. She opened it and casually flipped through the pages. Every one of them was marked with what appeared to be nonsensical writing, but it was authentic fae script in different sizes and colors. She knew the message she was given had to do with the book.
In ageless artifacts dwell.
Repeat the faithful creed,
Mirror cast the spell
Something about a mirror casting a faithful creed. Or was she to use a faithful creed for something? She flipped through the pages, one after another. Moreci didn’t bother her, but she wasn’t in a library. She couldn’t sit here all day until she found what she was looking for.
“Bolt didn’t make it,” she said. “He went quickly.”
“Good enough.”
“At least he carried out the last of the plans. And now we’ll have to wait until our engines are fixed.”
“It’s too bad about her, though. Coyle would have made some excellent company.”
She turned to him and crossed her arms. “How so?”
“Intelligent, gifted in knowledge, a hunger for things unknown. She reminded me of myself.”
“I’m all those things and more.”
“Are you?”
She lowered her chin and glared.
“Show me, then. We’ve time for an interlude up here in the clouds. The people of Chicago will be the first of a long line of alternate creations on our schedule, but they can wait.”
She looked outside. Clusters of homes pocked the landscape. People going about their business, living their lives. People who should be protected against Moreci. She side-glanced him. The devil was so close he made her skin crawl. But she couldn’t be fearful, couldn’t fail all these people. This was it.
Time’s up.
She pulled her pistol out and pointed it at him. His eyes widened in shock as he realized what was happening.
“Coyle!” he spat. Then his eyes narrowed into slits. “This means Fang is alive, then. And the both of you are working in tandem.” He slammed his fist on the shelf next to him. The two guards threw the door open and pointed their weapons at her. “Step away from the book, young lady. You don’t know the power.”
The guards stared, ready, waiting for the order to drop her.
She looked him over. He was a dangerous boy with a bad temper. He had destroyed scores of people on the ship and intended to destroy more. Fang was right. Sometimes the trash needed the incinerator. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
“Fang wants me dead,” he said, and motioned to the guards. They lowered their rifles. His shoulders relaxed. “She can’t kill me, so she sent you. But you can’t kill me, either. You’re not that type of person. I know you all too well, Coyle.”
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“Sherlyn Coyle. You have a nose for evidence and an admirable way of presenting it,” Moreci said. His tone was cheerful, given the circumstances.
Coyle’s shoulders hunched. Butterflies crowded her gut. She wanted to shoot. And yet her finger remained frozen.
“I’ve been studying you ever since you solved Trevin’s murder. And when I first laid my eyes on you, I thought you were pretty in the right light. Not in a radiant, beautiful sort of way, but there
