Akash laughed. It was a clear-ringing sound, all bells and confidence. “You’re a good friend to him.”
Daphne raised an eyebrow at her reflection in the window. “Friend.” It was strange to think that she and Danny Hart had become friends. But it would be cold—and untrue—to deny it. “I suppose we are friends.”
Akash smiled. He had a strong jaw with a hint of dark stubble, and his aviator goggles sat perched above a nose slightly too large for his face. He’d offered her a pair before they’d taken off, but she had politely declined, wanting the full experience—glare and all.
She remembered Danny’s warning that the rebel airship could be coming for her. She sat with her back straight, eyes often searching the surrounding expanse of sky. But there was no sign of that behemoth ship.
For now.
She watched Akash fly the craft with ease, like it had become more routine to him than walking. Lights blinked along the control panel, and Akash occasionally asked her to flip a switch.
“Would you like to try?” Akash gestured to the controls.
Daphne reined in her rush of excitement, keeping her face carefully blank. “Why not?”
“Excellent. It’s really not too difficult, once you understand the basics. Now, let us say we want to go higher. If you—”
She pulled the center stick up and the plane pitched higher. She leveled it out and then gently pressed on the rudder bar, yawing them in a zigzag pattern. Releasing the center stick, she glanced over at Akash. His mouth was still open as if to give her instructions, but all that came out now was an incredulous laugh.
“You know how to fly?”
“Not by myself, but I’ve sat in cockpits before.”
“Amazing, Miss Richards. I never would have expected someone like you to know about planes.”
“Oh?”
He must have heard the frost in her voice, for his smile slipped. “I’m sorry. I meant no offense. It’s just that here, in India, our women are not pilots. They may work on the rail lines or as ghadi wallahs, but even then, those women are often treated with disdain.”
“I understand.” It seemed that no matter where she went, working women would always invite scorn.
Akash nodded. “I tried to teach my sister how to fly, but she stuck up her nose at it. I’m fascinated by her work with clocks, but she never seemed to be at all interested in my planes. At first, I was hurt, but when I thought about it more, I suspect she wanted to avoid the scandal of being both a ghadi wallah and a pilot. She hears enough talk as it is.”
Daphne thought of the looks Meena drew in the cantonment, the same looks Daphne herself had drawn when she walked down the halls of the Mechanics Affairs building. She felt a kindred frustration with the Indian girl, an anger that, despite constantly being buried, still grew roots.
“How did you learn how to fly?” she asked.
“Our father has a close friend who’s in the good graces of the British officers. He learned to fly some years ago, and the British took him on as a messenger. He invested here and there, and came to own a small plane. When I was younger he took me and my sister up in that plane. Meena cried, but I loved being in the air, so he gave me lessons.
“I started working when I was ten, first for a merchant in the city. Then, when I was eighteen, as an aerial messenger for the cantonment officers. When I turned twenty last year I realized I’d saved enough to get my own craft.” He patted the side of the Silver Hawk fondly. “With a little investment from uncle-ji and father, of course.
“And you, Miss Richards? How did you come to know so much of flying?”
She stared out the window at a shimmering river below, a serpentine vein in the earth’s skin. “My father was a pilot. He took me up whenever he was off-duty.”
She had always been happiest in the air, far from the ground and the worries that found her there. Her mother had balked at the notion of both her husband and daughter going up in an aircraft. Daphne remembered, even now, the crescent shapes her mother’s nails had left in her skin, anxiously digging into her cheeks and arms.
After a brief pause, Akash asked, “Is he no longer with you?”
“He passed a few years ago.”
“I am very sorry.”
“It’s all right.” She kept her lips slightly parted, wanting to tell him: He was one of you. But she couldn’t make herself say the words. It would feel like a lie, somehow.
An awkward silence brewed in the cockpit. Daphne listened to the low murmuring of the soldiers in the back, wondering how much of the conversation they had heard.
“Urdu bol sakte hain?” Akash asked suddenly. Do you speak Urdu?
“Sirf thodi si.” Only a little.
“Kyaa aap ko yahaan achchhaa lagaa?” Do you like it here?
“Haan.” She paused to think of something else to say. “Meri Urdu … kharaab hai?” My Urdu is not very good.
“Not at all! You are very good already.”
“I need to practice.”
“We are practicing now.”
They spent the rest of the trip speaking in fragmented Urdu and Hindi, Akash laughing at her accent and gently correcting her botched words. They tried to muffle their laughter when, at her insistence, he quietly taught her a few swear words. Daphne didn’t want Crosby to overhear and have a conniption.
They landed outside Lucknow half an hour later, just before sunset. Daphne was disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to go to the clock tower today. She had an itch in her belly that begged her to go as soon as possible. But when she climbed out of the Silver Hawk, ignoring Crosby’s offered hand, she could tell that time was running smoothly. She could sense the fibers weaving in and out, straight and orderly. Time didn’t feel sharp here as it had in Khurja.
Still, her scalp prickled when she remembered the report that suspicious people had been seen near the tower at night.
Horse-drawn carts called tongas were waiting for them. Akash hung back to take care of his aircraft as Lieutenant Crosby led Daphne to their transport. As if Crosby could read her restless thoughts, he told her, “We’ll get you to your rooms and settle you in. You can see the tower in the morning.”
She knew it would be useless to protest. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into one of the tongas accompanied by Crosby and a sepoy—Partha, the one who was often in Captain Harris’s company—and it took off for Lucknow. Craning her head around, she spotted Akash watching them trundle away. He waved.
Well, here I am, she thought as they rolled toward the massive city. No airship attack. She found that a little strange, but decided not to dwell on it, fearing doing so would somehow make it come to pass.
She had heard Lucknow called the Golden City of the East. Looking at the metropolis stretching before her, she could easily believe it. Sunset illuminated the endless rooftops, the light striking the tops of large, gleaming buildings in a display of dazzling colors. The roar of the crowds could be heard even at a distance. The river she had spotted from the plane ran through the city, dividing it in two.