But then panic jolted through me. My hand shot into my pocket to search for . . .
My breath whooshed out, relieved. The ivory fist was still there . . . though a fist no longer. Tracing the feel of its carvings, I could tell the fingers had further unfurled.
I had no idea what it meant, and I wasn’t in the mood to contemplate it. “Fine, Daniel,” I declared. “I’ll do as you say, and I will walk. But you follow me. I know where Oliver is—I can sense him through our bond.”
Daniel’s face tightened, but he did not argue. So with an unhappy inventor on my heels, I felt for Oliver—closer, ever closer—and set off at a steady march through the fields of sugarcane.
It took us almost an hour to find Oliver—and the balloon. Endless fields of sugarcane, dates, and cotton . . . endless mosquitoes and flies. Endless heat. Hawks glided overhead, while lapwings fluttered everywhere like butterflies.
I was desperate for water within minutes—especially seeing all the canals from the Nile that separated farms in place of hedges. But I doubted it was drinkable, and there was no one to ask. The fields were abandoned—likely to avoid the afternoon heat—and the few veiled women still out tending the crops did not seem open to conversation.
My arm began to hurt by the third farm—not badly, but it did throb as blood seeped out. The magic had already worn off. I was desperate for more, but too ashamed to use it with Daniel there. I tried, albeit halfheartedly, to speak—about the landscape or the bugs—but he only gave me one-word answers. He did not seem angry with me. Only sad. And silent.
But he did check on me several times, to rewrap the wound or to inspect me for other injuries. I think he could tell the magic had faded, but neither he nor I knew how to make amends. So silence it was until we finally crested a hill and reached a sprawling village of flat-roofed buildings and sycamore trees. In the distance, ruins crumbled—Greek, by the look of the ornate columns thrusting up amid fields of grass and dust.
But what caught my eye was an obelisk that jutted out of the ruins. Much like the one in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, it towered over everything—even the small city. Sycamores grew all around it, and draped over one gnarled tree was a sprawling heap of white fabric. It billowed in the breeze like a sail.
The airship.
Daniel and I pushed into a jog. People were clustered around the covered sycamore . . . and the gondola behind it. As we approached, I could see that it lay in the grass like a ship run aground.
A whoop sounded—Jie’s voice. Then Joseph’s. In moments they were racing through the knee-high grass toward us.
Never had I seen them look so happy. But it was not to me that they ran. It was to Daniel. They flung their arms around him in a frenzied embrace, and I saw tears pouring from Joseph’s eyes. Jie’s as well.
“Foolish man,” Joseph cried over and over. “Foolish, foolish man! I could never forgive you—or myself—if you were to sacrifice yourself like that. Foolish man.”
Daniel pulled back, his eyes shining and head shaking. “My life’s nothin’ compared to yours.”
Jie punched him in the arm—hard. “Don’t ever say that again, yeah?” Then she yanked him back into a hug.
For a moment, hurt wrangled through me. Were they not happy to see me? Or at least grateful I had saved Daniel’s life?
But then Joseph’s tear-filled eyes—and Jie’s too—landed on me, and there was no denying the gratitude in their smiles.
So I grinned back before turning my gaze to the balloon to find Oliver. He lounged against the gondola, his eyes firmly on me. Even from here I could see his nonchalance was an act—and not only because of the flush in his cheeks, but also the absolute stillness in his face. Grass waved around his legs, and his curls kicked up in the breeze.
I lifted my fingers in a tentative wave . . . and a subtle, tender warmth bathed over me. Oliver’s happiness. His relief.
My smile grew. It was good to be alive.
Then Allison appeared around the gondola and spotted me. She bounced on her toes and clapped—looking beyond ecstatic that I was returned.
I gave the Spirit-Hunters a final look. They were still caught up in their tearful reunion, so I jogged the rest of the way through the shimmering grass. The locals noticed me soon enough, and after pointed fingers and chattered words, several children darted at me.
“Baksheesh!” they cried, pushing their open hands to me. “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!”
I smiled, my face bunching up in confusion, and scooted onward until I finally popped out before Oliver, Allison, and the gleaming gondola.