“Dismembered?” Pip’s mouth formed an O of disbelief.
Noting the girl’s distress, Aunt Io abandoned her musing and said, “No fear, child. If he’s in pieces, we can still put him back together. But we may have to transport the parts back to my workshop in order to do a proper job.”
Charlotte was revising her opinion about how much comfort Io could be relied on to provide.
“You really think you can fix Grave, no matter what they’ve done to him?” Pip asked, clearly still shaken by the idea that her friend might be found in parts rather than whole.
“If my theories about how he operates are sound, then yes,” Aunt Io told her. “I will admit, however, that a key component of Grave’s existence lies beyond my grasp. Or the grasp of any tinker, I’d wager.”
Io clucked her tongue, pensive. “Ingenious mechanics are at work, but that’s not all. You’d better ask your friend from the Sisters of Athene about the . . .” Io began to wave her arms and wiggle her fingers while she made bizarre humming sounds. “You know. That sort of thing.”
“Magic?” Charlotte asked.
“Whatever you want to call it.” Io stopped her mummery. “All I know is that what keeps your friend alive is more than machinery. I can work with the machinery—and the alchemy—that affect him. If there’s a problem with the other side of things, I won’t be of much use.”
“I don’t think what they’ve done has affected that part of Grave,” Charlotte said. “Despite being vivisected, he didn’t appear to be in any pain. And he spoke to me.”
“Yes,” Io said. “Highly unusual.”
Charlotte thought it very possible that there could be no better description of Grave than “highly unusual.”
“But what are we if not ready to meet a challenge?” Io said, smiling at Pip and Scoff. “We’ll be an exceptional team.”
“Don’t you even want to know what the mission is?” Charlotte asked.
“Details always prove frivolous, my dear.” Io stood up. “All that matters is the heart of the mission. Of course there are preparations to be made. Gather your things. Don’t dally!”
“It’s not a matter of details,” Charlotte said. “Pip is too young. I won’t put her in that kind of danger.”
“Charlotte!” Pip objected, quickly blushing as she caught the childish whine in her voice.
“It’s not just rescuing Grave,” Charlotte told the girl. “The French are about to launch an air siege on the city with the aim of destroying it. I don’t know how much time we’ll have. We could very well end up in the middle of a bombardment.”
“Danger is danger. I need to work as swiftly as possible,” Io countered, with a dismissive flap of her hand. “And that means I must have assistants who understand the instructions I give them. You, my dear, are no tinker. But Pip is.”
“You don’t understand.” Charlotte frowned. “I was allowed to return here only after committing to carry out a mission for the Resistance. I have to do that before I can rescue Grave. The risk involved—”
“Risk is risk.” Io flung her arms wide. “Without risk, no great deed would ever be done.”
“I can help, Charlotte, and I want to,” Pip said. “It doesn’t matter what the mission is. If you’re fighting, I fight with you. That’s what we do.”
Charlotte saw flint in the girl’s eyes and then she saw herself at Pip’s age.
It’s time. Charlotte felt the pang of the bittersweet realization. I can no longer try to protect her.
She smiled at Pip, knowing what an important moment this would be for the girl.
Pip’s eyes widened when Charlotte didn’t offer further objections. A grin lit up her face. “Thank you!”
Aunt Io caught Charlotte’s eye, giving her a nod of approval. “With a bit of luck, we can be on our way before this dreaded attack everyone has been going on about.”
The alarms began to sound.
“Ah well.” Io smiled wistfully. “The wheel of fortune is ever turning.”
28.
MOSES HAD LAUNCHED himself out of Birch’s pocket at the sudden flood of noise, and now darted around the room, swooping from corner to corner and squeaking along with the blare of the alarms.
“At least we have a pleasant place to wait this out,” Io shouted over the din. “A benefit of having quarters on the interior side of the tower. A bit stuffy, but less vulnerable in the event of a siege. Though sieges are quite rare, and breathing stuffy air is something one has to deal with every day.”
Aunt Io moved toward her kitchen. “Please make yourselves at home. I’ll get that tea ready now.”
“Stay with Io,” Charlotte told her friends. “And as much as you can, try to prepare for our mission. I have no idea how long this attack will last.”
“Where are you going?” Birch asked.
“To find Ash and Jack,” Charlotte said.
Outside Io’s quarters, the Daedalus Tower was a chaos of sound and movement. Soldiers rushed to their battle stations, while support crews gathered to create supply lines and triage sites. Charlotte ran up a flight of stairs and stopped on the landing. She leaned out over the rail, trying to spot her brother or Jack. But it was Caroline Marshall whom she saw first; Ashley was a few steps behind their mother.
Charlotte hurried back to the main corridor and wove her way through the current of bodies. Ash and Caroline flicked in and out of her vision as Charlotte dodged men and women who were hurtling past, intent on their goals and pausing for no one.
Ash caught sight of her. “Charlotte! Here!”
When she drew close, Ashley grabbed her arm and pulled her alongside him. He kept moving forward, and Charlotte realized that wherever they were going, their mother was leading the way. When Caroline reached a staircase, she began to climb swiftly, to the second story, then the third.
“Mother, wait!” Charlotte called.
Caroline turned, stopping midflight on the staircase.
“Where are we going?” Charlotte asked.
“The Command Turret,” her mother answered.
Charlotte began to shake her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I should be in one of the gunwells,” Charlotte argued. “So should Ash. We can help with the defense.”
“It’s been made clear that your status within the Resistance is contingent upon your execution of the mission,” her mother said. “I won’t discuss the matter any further.”
Charlotte fell into a bitter silence.
“As for Ashley,” Caroline said, “I’ve requested that he remain with me. I don’t feel the need to explain my reasons to you.”
The tightening around her mother’s eyes provided a hint as to what those reasons might be. No matter how steely a mask Caroline Marshall tried to wear, Charlotte could see the grief behind it. Caroline wanted Ash with her because he was her son and she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.
Charlotte looked into her mother’s eyes and saw something that had been absent when they’d first been reunited, something Charlotte hadn’t realized she desperately wanted: fear for her daughter’s safety, doubt of her own beliefs, but most of all, love, a mother’s love. Charlotte nodded, now understanding that Ash had stayed at their mother’s side for this reason.
Caroline gave Charlotte a tight smile and turned her gaze to Ashley.
“The Command Turret it is.” Ash tried to keep his tone light. “Lead the way.”
• • •
The Command Turret stood at the center of the east wall. Ash, Charlotte, and their mother ascended the spiral staircase inside the tower for what felt like ages. When they emerged from the enclosure of cylindrical iron walls onto the observation deck, where metal had been exchanged for reinforced glass, Charlotte gasped.
Every part of the city seemed to be moving. The air pulsed with vibrations as
long-dormant machines came to life, readying themselves to meet the encroaching attackers. Running as she was, Charlotte had no time to observe New Orleans’s transformation from city of gaudy delights to war machine. But out of the corners of her eyes, Charlotte caught glimpses of telescoping barrels as they shot out from turrets, rendering once unadorned metal columns spiky enough to rival a porcupine’s back.
A cluster of French officers and a few from the Resistance were gathered around a map table. Brass speaking tubes dangled from the ceiling, ready to carry orders from command to other stations in the city.
The British fleet had massed on two fronts, southern and eastern. Imperial warships gathered on those horizons like approaching storm clouds. Charlotte could name the ships by their signifying characteristics: Cyclops, with its massive single cannon; Scylla, whose broad body supported numerous snakelike arms, each of which had a gunner at its tip; Colossus, the spherical vessel from which small fighters like Dragonflies could be deployed. Behind the gunships Charlotte spotted transports, which housed infantry who would parachute to the ground when the order was given. No doubt there were Rotpots aboard the transports as well, ready to snatch fleeing civilians. These were the invading force that would overrun the city when its walls had been breached.
Could the Iron Wall be breached?
Charlotte didn’t doubt that the heavy gun of any Cyclops could eventually break down even a wall as stout as that of New Orleans.
But the walls wouldn’t matter if any Imperial ships made it past the blockade of antiaircraft fire that would assail the attackers as long as there was ammunition to feed the hungry weapons. Should that line of defense fail, New Orleans could simply be bombarded from above, annihilated with terrible ease.
The panoramic view from the observation deck made Charlotte simultaneously feel omniscient and helpless. She could see everything, but do nothing. Her heart quaked at the great mass of ships drawing ever closer. So many. There were so many ships. Here was the might of Britannia that had quashed Napoleon in Europe and now looked to overrun the world.
Charlotte found it difficult to imagine how this force could be stopped.
She was startled out of her dark thoughts by the eruption of artillery fire, but at a much greater distance than any coming from the turrets that guarded the city walls. She tracked the sound until she saw bursts of light shooting from within the cover of the swamp just past the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Flashes from the ground were soon mirrored by those from the sky as the warships returned fire.
The surface of Lake Pontchartrain began to stir. At first its waters simply shimmered and trembled, but the mild disturbance erupted into violent agitation as the whole of the lake began to bubble and froth. Tall spouts of water leapt high above the lake’s surface. From within each spout objects shot into the sky like bullets from a gun barrel. At first the projectiles appeared to be metallic cylinders, but as they hurtled forward, large pieces of metal sloughed off like discarded cocoons. When the outer casings had fallen away, the crafts hidden inside came to life.
“Wasps,” Ashley breathed.
Smaller than a Dragonfly, a Wasp was broken into three segments, head, thorax, and abdomen, mimicking its namesake. The pilot guided the ship from a narrow cockpit, while the gunner commanded a 180-degree range at the tail. The two operators were separated by the machinery at the center of the craft. Their engines filled the air with a high-pitched, buzzing whine as they swarmed toward the British ships.
British Dragonflies began to drop from the Colossus ships, moving to engage the rebels’ Wasps. Charlotte knew that Dragonflies were valued for their speed and maneuverability, but it quickly became clear that the Wasps were both swifter and more nimble. They darted through the sky, forcing the Dragonflies to give chase and drawing them dangerously close to the larger warships. Some Dragonfly pilots knew better than to play this game, but others tried to mimic the sudden spins and hard banks of the Wasps to disastrous effect, temporarily losing control of their crafts and becoming vulnerable to enemy fire; in the worst cases, they rammed their own warships.
Charlotte sipped the air in small, shallow breaths while she watched the Wasps and Dragonflies battle for dominance of the skies. Her racing pulse and quick breaths came from a certainty that had fixed itself in Charlotte’s mind.
Jack was piloting one of those Wasps. She was sure of it.
When the notion first occurred to her, Charlotte tried to dismiss it. After all, hadn’t she and Ash been denied an active role in this battle? But that reassurance quickly melted away, because Jack was different. He was a skilled pilot. A former officer in the Imperial Air Force. And the Resistance thought he was misguided, led astray by base passions, but not a traitor like Charlotte. He would be an incredible asset against the British attackers.
He was out there. Flying. Risking his life.
Whenever Charlotte saw a plume of smoke trailing from a Wasp as it fell from the sky, she thought her heart would stop. Her hand was a fist pressed against her breastbone as she whispered a prayer to Athene, goddess of war, to lend her aid to Jack Winter.
Standing beside Charlotte, Ash watched the battle unfold, his face pale and stern.
“He’ll be all right,” Ash murmured. And Charlotte realized he was speaking to himself, not to her. She didn’t want to lose the man she’d fallen in love with. Her brother didn’t want to lose his best friend.
“Eastern front, prepare to engage.” The tinny voice echoed through the observation deck.
Charlotte forced herself to turn away from the southern field of action and look east. While she’d been watching the Wasps and Dragonflies, the warships approaching from the east had drawn frighteningly close.
“Take these.” Caroline Marshall put two small nubs of wax into Charlotte’s hand and gave another pair to Ash. “Put them in your ears, like this.”
Caroline fitted the bullet-shaped piece of wax into her ear, blocking the canal. Charlotte did as her mother said, and the world became muted. A moment later, she was incredibly grateful for that.
The turret began to vibrate and hum. She could hear whirs and rumbling.
Artillery fire burst from the turrets along the eastern wall. The blasts seemed deafening even with the protection of the wax plugs. Each shot reverberated through Charlotte’s skin, traveling through her flesh until her bones rattled.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Charlotte had to steady herself by gripping a rail.
In the distance, incendiary petals blossomed when the guns found their targets. Dragonflies exploded in the sky and dropped to the earth. Smoking wounds marred the pristine hulls of Cyclops, Scylla, and Colossus alike.
But the airships encroached farther upon the city.
An enormous crash sent shock waves through the turret. Charlotte was thrown off her feet, as were most of the occupants of the Command Turret. She crawled to one side of the deck and pulled herself up. Where one of the gun turrets on the eastern wall had stood was a cloud of thick, oily smoke.
“The Cyclops is in range,” one of the officers said.
“Countermeasures,” their commander responded.
A grinding sound rose from beneath the turret. Charlotte pressed her forehead against the glass and looked down.
The base of the eastern wall was suddenly pocked with dark circles from which metal spheres rolled. When the spheres hit the ground, legs sprouted from their round bodies, and like spiders, they skittered forward, stopping only when directly beneath a British warship. Projectiles shot from the top of the spiders’ bodies, barbed shafts like harpoons, strong enough to pierce a warship’s hull. With the harpoon embedded in the ship, the spider rose swiftly in the air as if on a silk thread, and the bottom of the sphere opened to release a figure, a person, who appeared doomed until a parachute bloomed overhead, slowing their descent. If the f
ormer occupant of the spider reached the ground safely, he or she began a desperate retreat toward the wall. The abandoned vehicle continued its ascent until it reached the ship. Its legs dug into the hull, and it clung there. Until—
BOOM.
Where the spider had attached itself to the ship, only a gaping hole remained. Vessels shuddered and twisted in the air. Some began to drift toward the ground, while others barreled to their demise.
A fist tightened around Charlotte’s heart as she watched the spider operators fleeing the battlefield. She wondered what type of person could muster the courage to volunteer for this assignment: there was the hope of escape, but though survival aids were in place, the chances of making it back to the wall were terribly slim. Many of the spider pilots were dead before they reached the ground, their parachutes or their bodies riddled with gunfire from Dragonflies. Others were shot down as they fled toward the city.
And yet the spiders continued to emerge from the wall.
“Incredible,” Caroline murmured. “I thought the claims they made about these new craft had to be exaggerated. I was wrong.”
Charlotte watched as a spider’s harpoon pierced the hull of a Scylla and began to follow its thread toward the bottom of the ship. This spider’s pilot didn’t make it to the ground, but he wasn’t shot down. He fell directly into the path of a Dragonfly, his body crashing through the vessel’s cockpit, sending the aircraft into a death spiral. Oblivious to its pilot’s fate, the spider continued to rise, latching itself onto the ship.
The smaller fighters had caught on to the spider’s method of destruction and sought desperately to interrupt the cycle of attachment and eruption. Destroying the spiders without hitting the warships proved almost impossible, however. One Dragonfly hurtled toward a spider that was ascending to a Scylla and managed to shoot it down before it could reach its target. But the gunfire triggered the explosive in the spider. Shrapnel from the blast pierced the Dragonfly, killing its pilot, and the out-of-control aircraft smashed into the side of the Scylla it had been trying to save.