“Then why are you letting this continue?”
Danny tried to swallow and almost couldn’t manage. “Because I lo—I—” Danny angrily rubbed his cheeks with a quick motion of his wrist. “I can’t control what I feel.”
They sat in silence as clouds rolled across the sun, briefly sheltering them from its glare.
Christopher moved off the bed and knelt before him. “I’m sorry, Danny. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He rubbed Danny’s head, mussing up his hair. “You don’t have to make a decision now. We can discuss it when you come back. Let’s have a nice dinner as a family, and your mum and I will see you off tomorrow morning. I’m sorry.”
Danny shook his head. “I’m sorry, too.” Sorry I can’t change the way I feel.
That night he dreamed of fire rolling across a barren desert. It consumed the ground, traveling toward a looming palace of white and gold. Between the fire and the palace stood a tower.
He watched helplessly as tongues of flame licked up the sides of the tower. A golden figure was trapped inside, pounding on the glass of the clock face, screaming for help. Danny screamed back. He tried to get up, but he was chained to the earth.
The tower burned.
The airship sat brooding in the middle of the tarmac where the auto had dropped him off. It made a horrific noise—a continuous, roaring breath, like a dragon stuck in a never-ending yawn—that traveled directly into his stomach, which had hardened into a ball of dread.
Danny saw other ships and dirigibles across the busy hub of the aviators’ playground, simply marked DOCKING AREA 3. Sunlight glinted off the airship’s metallic wings, which slanted across its great, hulking body, over the steam turbines and the generators. Twin propellers peeked out on either side, almost as tall as his parents’ house.
It was a monstrosity.
“It’s beautiful,” Daphne said. They had come together from the Mechanics Affairs building.
“Beautiful?”
“You don’t think so?”
“Aesthetically, I like the dirigibles better, but I hate all airships.” Perhaps it had to do with his familiarity of the open gearwork of clock towers, but he preferred seeing how a machine ran over trusting that it would. “How’s that thing even supposed to stay in the air?”
“The engine, for one thing. And see the wings? See how they’re sloped? It’ll deflect the air downward, creating a lifting force that helps the ship stay up.”
“You like these things, do you?”
“Very much.” She glanced at the auto that was pulling up behind them and grabbed the handle of her trunk. “I’ll see you inside.”
Doesn’t she have anyone to see her off? he wondered as his own farewell committee—his parents and Cassie—climbed out of the auto. They could have said their goodbyes at the house, but Cassie and his father had wanted to see the airship take off.
Cassie threw her arms around him. He stumbled and held her close, pretending not to hear the choked sound his mother made. Ladies shouldn’t embrace men they aren’t married or related to, she would probably complain during the auto ride home.
“I’ll miss you, Dan. Will you write?”
“If I have the time.” She pinched his arm. “Ow! Yes, I’ll bloody write.”
When she stepped back, her eyes didn’t match her smile. Danny tried—and failed—to remember the last time they’d been apart so long.
She chucked him lightly under the chin. “I’ll keep an eye on everyone,” she promised.
“I know you will. Thanks, Cass.”
His mother was next, already in tears. She made him promise to be safe, and to look out for snakes, and eat only British food, and to boil his water before he drank it.
“Mum, for the love of God …”
“Just say you’ll be careful. And don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“I will. And I won’t.”
Then it was his father’s turn. Christopher shifted from foot to foot, giving Danny a weary smile, and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Make sure you pay attention, and take plenty of notes. I want to hear everything when you get back.” Danny nodded, and something like an unspoken truce settled between them. His father drew him into a hug. “I love you, Ticker. If anyone can find out what’s behind these attacks, it’s you.”
Danny fought to swallow. “Thanks, Dad.”
And then he was pulling away from them, floating off like a balloon until its string went taut. As he walked toward the roaring airship, that string tightened, then tugged itself free. He was about to drift into the sky and land in an entirely new world.
He paused on the gangplank to turn toward Enfield. Taking the small cog from his pocket, he pressed it to his lips.
Daphne was waiting by the door, where a crewmember took his luggage.
“Our cabins are this way,” she said.
As they moved along a hallway, Danny realized the airship didn’t look nearly as big on the inside. Maybe it was all the machinery clogging up the place. There had to be someplace for the cargo and engines, as well as cabins for the crew and the other passengers. Those passengers were mostly soldiers, by the look of the olive green uniforms he spotted down a metallic hallway.
Daphne stopped at a door with a round porthole. Below it was a small, handwritten sign that read MR DANIEL HART. The door to the left was marked MISS DAPHNE RICHARDS.
“Aren’t you going to settle in?” Danny asked when she turned to leave.
“Think I’ll have a look around, first.”
Danny was more than happy for a moment alone. He had a sneaking suspicion he might toss up his breakfast when the airship took off, and it would help his pride immensely if Daphne weren’t around to witness it.
Inside, he discovered his cabin was similar to a train carriage, with two green, plush benches situated on either side. His trunk had been hoisted onto a wire rack above. He’d barely stepped through the doorway when a man sporting curling sideburns and a finely trimmed mustache called out to him.
“You must be Mr. Hart, the mechanic. I’m Captain Eckhart, and I’ll be flying the Notus today.”
The man gripped his hand and Danny noticed a set of wings tattooed on the captain’s wrist, the symbol of Caelum, Gaian god of the sky; it matched the symbol drawn on the airship’s hull. Danny listened politely as the man rambled on about the Notus, silently begging him to leave.
When the captain finally departed, Danny closed the door and sat by the round window, staring out at the tarmac. His parents and Cassie were probably still out there, but he couldn’t see them from this angle. He turned the small cog around in his fingers, pressing channels into his skin with its spokes. If he concentrated, he could sense Enfield: the smell of cut grass and the warmth of sunshine on brick.
The door opened a minute later and a flushed Daphne barged in, nearly slamming the door behind her.
“You’ve got your own cabin, you know,” he said.