'Landing isn't. And what will you do when you get to the top of the Engine Room? Do you plan to limp all the way up the stairs to the Tower, and then even farther up to the signal flags?' Alister's voice was gentle. 'Neither of us wants you to suffer like that. It has to be Cristof or me, and you know how hopeless my brother is in the air.'
'Cris, can't you hit him or something?' Taya asked, irritated.
'I am hopeless in the air,' Cristof pointed out. He looked down at her, holding a metal feather. 'But I'll hit him, if that's what you want. I'm reasonably talented at fisticuffs.'
'You can barely see me,' Alister scoffed. 'And that's another thing. Without your glasses, you'd never be able to maneuver past all the cables running to the Engine.'
'Stop it, Alister.' Taya felt one of the feathers slide out of her wing, and then Cristof handed it to her as he replaced it. 'Neither one of us trusts you, and neither of us is going to let you go free.'
'So you'll go get help and leave us down here, alone together?' Alister raised an eyebrow. 'Blind as a bat, light as a feather — I could throw Cris between those gears and watch him get crushed to death.'
'Don't believe him.' Cristof was tightening the screws against her back.
'I don't,' she said. A flash of annoyance crossed Alister's face and he stood, walking to the edge of the gear and looking out at the chasm as they rotated.
'Here.' Cristof took the feather from her, sliding it into his bundle of broken feathers, and then picked up one of the robes Alister had left behind. With effort, he hacked out a chunk of the heavy silk with his utility knife and packed it between her suit and her wound. 'Do you really think you can fly?' he asked, in a low voice.
'I'll do what I have to do. We can't let him go up there on his own.'
Cris combed his dark hair with his fingers, leaving it standing on end. 'We could
I don't trust him not to escape, but he'd probably send out a distress flag before abandoning us. He has that much honor.'
'Do you want him to get away?' Taya searched Cristof's angular face. His eyes narrowed, but she knew his irritation wasn't directed at her. He was irritated with himself.
'Part of me does. If he hadn't killed anyone… if he hadn't killed Caster…' His jaw tightened. 'I can put on your armature and fly up. It doesn't matter if it's not a good fit or if I can't see well. All I have to do is get up to the nearest catwalk, and then I can find stairs, or a lift. You don't need to go.'
Taya's leg hurt too much for her to muster a smile, but she gripped his hand briefly, reassuringly.
'I know. But I'll be all right, and it'll be faster.' She glanced over his shoulder at Alister. 'You know, before all this, he kept pestering me to bring him a pair of wings. I bet if I had, he would have kept them and gotten up here a lot faster after the accident.'
Cristof nodded and straightened, walking around her to begin working on the wings again. Each bent feather he removed was bundled with his broken armature, the whole thing kept from floating away by the safety line tied to his harness.
'What happened when you fell?' she asked, after a moment. 'I was afraid you were going to float to the bottom of the mountain.'
'I hit a crosswire and hung on for dear life.'
Her lips curved at his sour, self-deprecating tone. It seemed like something reassuringly familiar in this whole bizarre situation.
'Then what happened?'
'I sat there and panicked for a while. It seems I do panic, under the right circumstances. Then I screwed up enough courage to start moving. I was closer to the Engine than to the walls, so that's the way I went. I was hoping to find a platform, but there wasn't anything there. I could see one above me, though, and the Engine didn't look too hard to climb, so that's what I did. All that ondium you put into my suit helped. When I got to the next catwalk, I bundled up my wings and began unscrewing every counterweight attached to the catwalk floor that I could find. At first I thought I could make myself light enough to float back up to you and Alister, but then I realized that if I did that, I wouldn't be able to control my ascent, so I just counterweighted myself enough for an easy climb.'
'That was smart,' Taya said, looking over her shoulder. Her strained muscles twinged, and she winced and rolled her shoulders, looking forward once more.
'I have moments of lucidity,' he said, dryly. 'When I'm not falling to my death.'
'I wanted to go after you, but Alister wouldn't let me.'
'I know.'
'I feel bad about it. You came after me when you heard shooting.'
'That was not one of my moments of lucidity.'
She laughed, remembering his awkward plummet.
'It was brave, Cristof. It was really brave.'
He made an impatient sound and stepped back. 'All right, I think we're done. Unless the mechanism itself took damage, you should be able to fly in that.'
Taya lifted a hand, and Cristof helped her to her feet. She stood, favoring her injured leg, and brushed his blood-smeared face. She wanted to kiss him again, but not here, not with Alister so close. Instead she looked into his eyes, hoping he could read her impulse. 'Thank you.'
He shrugged, looking down at his suit and pulling open a pocket. 'We'd better give you more counterweight. It'll make walking up the stairs easier, and I need to be heavier so Alister can't throw me around.'
'You don't really think he'll fight you when I'm gone, do you?' Taya took the metal bars from him and began sliding them into her suit pockets and harness slots.
'He might, but—'
'Ready to fly?' Alister interrupted, striding back. He picked up his discarded robes, looking unperturbed by the missing fabric, and slid them over his shoulders. 'I still think this is unwise, Cris.'
Cristof waited until Taya signaled that she was light enough, then turned to his brother. 'You have less faith in Taya than I do.'
'Maybe I just care more.'
'Are you going to be all right with him?' Taya asked, looking from one to the other.
'If you leave, there will be nobody to stop me from killing him and calling you a traitor,' Alister warned her.
'He's not going to kill me, Taya. Go.'
Taya delayed another moment, but she knew she had no choice. She had to trust that Cristof knew what he was doing, just as he trusted her. Pushing back her misgivings, she limped to the edge of the gear. Alister started to move toward her, but Cristof stepped between them, his utility knife in his hand.
Giving them one last look, Taya slid her arms into her wings and tested them. Everything opened and closed correctly. She crouched, flinching with pain, and kicked off.
Strained muscles and her wounded leg made her flight awkward and slow. She caught thermals and glided as often as she could. She was worried about what Alister and Cristof were doing, but she didn't dare push herself into a faster flight.
She had almost reached the top of the Engine Room when she saw two other icarii sweeping back and forth across the face of the Engine.
She tilted her wings to acknowledge them and made an effort to fly up to the topmost catwalk. There she let herself collide with the rail, sliding one arm loose to grab it and clamber over. She fell to the floor, whimpering. Tears of pain streaked her face and she shrugged out of her wings to wipe them away.
The two icarii landed next to her, locking their wings and pulling off their flight goggles.
