“I suppose we’ll be able to recover our things after all,” Daphne said. Her hair was a mess, and there was a scratch on her cheek. Danny’s shoulder and chest still hurt, and his hands were rubbed raw.
When she felt his gaze, she looked away from the Notus and met his eyes. He swallowed. The pills felt trapped at the bottom of his throat.
“Thank you,” he croaked.
Her lips thinned and she turned back to the falling airship. “You’re welcome. It’s your own fault, though. Who’s daft enough to run for their things when they’re told to evacuate a crashing airship?”
“Me.” For some reason she laughed that clear, throaty laugh of hers. His lips trembled.
“Who was that man, anyway?” she asked again. “Why was he about to shoot you?”
“I don’t know.”
“He wasn’t Indian, was he?”
“No.” The skin Danny had seen between goggles and kerchief was white. “He spoke like us. English.”
They watched as the Notus skidded along the ground. Great clouds of dust rose up in a desert storm as steam billowed into the air with a hiss. The balloon deflated, blanketing the airship as if it were a funerary shroud.
Danny felt woozy and detached; the pills were already starting to work. “I wish I could have seen his face when you hit him with that pipe.”
“Me, too.” Daphne laughed again, quietly, and this time he joined her. Then he laughed again, louder. She did, too. They couldn’t stop. Danny had to put a hand over his mouth when the other survivors turned to glare at them. The attendant hurried back to offer Daphne the same pills she’d given Danny.
They sat in the dirt and laughed, hysterical, grateful, tired, alive.
Military autos from the base came to retrieve the soldiers and crew. Danny and Daphne climbed into the back of one, the night veiling their blank, weary faces. Daphne had refused to take the pills, instead slipping them in her pocket. But she was now just as quiet and calm as Danny.
They jostled in their seats as the auto rumbled over bumps and pits. Danny closed his eyes and reached for his pocket before remembering that the cog wasn’t there. What would Colton have done if Danny had died today, on the first leg of his journey? He recalled his mother’s concern, the insinuation that Colton could not control his emotions. His father’s claim that he always put Colton’s welfare before his own.
And it was true. The first thought blazing across his mind hadn’t been pain or death—it had been what that pain would do to Colton.
But I didn’t die, he told himself firmly. Not today.
The image of the strange man swam behind his closed eyelids. Had he been trying to save Danny, or hurt him? Had he been singled out or chosen only because his idiotic actions had put him in harm’s way?
He may have dozed off, for when he next opened his eyes, the plain outside had changed from an arid yellow to a grass-stained green. Trees were scattered on either side of the dirt road, swaying gently with the breeze. The auto rattled on toward the cantonment. Beyond that, Danny saw the dark forms of city buildings like slumbering giants.
The British private driving the auto pulled up inside the perimeter of the cantonment, past the stone wall. Squat buildings lined the road, many windows still lit. Soldiers, British and Indian alike, meandered outside under the pale moon.
“Took a hell of a time, but here you are,” the private said. “Welcome to Agra.”
The last time Colton had gone to London, he’d been mostly unaware of his surroundings. He was therefore completely unprepared for what awaited him.
Upon entering the city proper, he was greeted with the smell of ash and sweat. And the noise. He first mistook the crowd for a roaring beast lying in wait for him, but it was only people jostling up and down the street, yelling, mumbling, hawking. More people than he’d ever seen before, a frightening, teeming swarm poised to discover who he really was at any second.
Colton ducked into a foul-smelling alleyway, clutching the front of Danny’s overcoat. He waited for the throng of people to disperse, thinking maybe they were all going somewhere together.
No such luck. The crowd was unending.
He slowly made his way through the twists and turns of the streets. There was so much to take in—the autos, the machines, the smoke, the shops. Behind windows, automatons worked as clerks. Outside, vendors called out that newspapers were only one shilling. A little boy chased a dog down the street, his mother calling after him. A constable directed traffic at an intersection. Pigeons congregated in messy areas, flew into the air when someone walked by, then settled back about their business.
Colton kept his head down and his hands deep in his pockets. That’s what Jane had instructed him to do. She’d been quite clear on what he was not to do: talk to anyone; stop for any reason; buy anything except a hansom cab ride (they had given him money just in case, but he didn’t know how to use it); or get distracted from his goal.
But London was so huge. He kept stopping to stare, whether it was watching a chimney sweep on a rooftop or a street performer juggling. If he caught someone looking at him oddly, he ducked his head and moved along.
Most confusing of all, however, was that Colton could no longer use the senses he’d always relied on. In Enfield he could see and hear everything, but here he felt disconnected, isolated. Was this how humans normally felt? It must be terribly lonely.
It took him a while to realize that street names were written on signs above his head. After that, it was much easier to figure out where he was. At one point, he found himself in a place called Piccadilly Circus, but it looked nothing at all like a circus; at least, not the sort he’d heard of. It was merely an intersection between large buildings with a statue of a winged man in the middle. If this was London’s idea of a circus, it was a boring one.
He had to stop several times to sit on a bench, or on the curb, or somewhere out of the way. He was weak, but his strength gradually improved as he drew closer to Big Ben. London’s time wrapped around his body and hugged him, familiar and calming. It might have been Big Ben himself, welcoming him. Colton longed to pay London’s clock spirit a visit.
No. No distractions.
Mayor Aldridge had given him Danny’s London address, and he was at the point of collapse by the time he tottered through Lambeth and reached Danny’s street. He remembered this place also. The snow had been falling in soft, quiet flakes, the street darkened by night. Danny had leaned over him, worried and pale.
Colton hesitated outside the gate. He had met Danny’s mother before, and though odd, she’d been pleasant enough. His father was another matter entirely.
Maybe I should go to the mechanics’ office. It was right across from Big Ben.
But he had promised to seek out Christopher Hart first. There was no telling what the Lead Mechanic would want to do with him.
Colton opened the gate and approached the front door. From what Danny had told him, the Harts worked during the day and were home by evening. Above, the sky was red with dusk.