Mikey peeks around me, frowns, and grips my hand tighter.
Bella sighs. “While I would like to see you left behind, I don’t want to wait around here any longer.” She reaches into her leather satchel and holds out a clenched fist. Her tiny gloved fingers open slowly. Gold powder shimmers in morning rays of sunlight like fairy dust. Speechless, I look at Bella and back at Pete.
“It looks like gold,” Mikey says, running a finger through the sparkling powder. “Did you find a pirate’s treasure chest?”
“Sort of. You’ve heard of the Bank of England, right?” Bella asks.
Mikey nods.
“Well, this is only a bit of the thousands of gold bars beneath the building. Cogs says the gold is too soft to make anything practical. He ground the gold bars into powder for me so when I scavenge, I dust the path ahead of me to decide how far I have to jump. All I need is a bit of moon or lamplight to reflect off it.” Bella pulls the lever on the straps of the rocket pack and her wings eject, sputtering to life. From far away, I didn’t realize how truly remarkable they were, but up close I’m awestruck by their beauty. Her wings are made of copper piping intricately designed with sweeping loops, brightly polished cogs, and a stunning mechanical clock. A thin film covers the mechanisms in each wing, and as the early morning light hits it, the coating shimmers in a show of bright colors.
“Who’s Cogs?” Mikey asks.
“He’s a Tinker, a boffin of sorts. Our chief engineer, to be exact,” Pete says. “Cogs is a smart chap who fiddled in robotics and electronics before the war. He’s in charge of operations in the Lost City.”
Shouts erupt in the distance. The familiar squeal of gears grinding against one another from the Marauder’s Steam Crawlers echoes through the labyrinth of buildings. Pete stands taller in the window, searching the streets. His forehead wrinkles. “It’s time to go,” he says, adjusting the straps of his pack over his shoulders.
“I don’t know,” I reply, hesitant as I turn toward Mikey. He stares at me with an anxious expression and pulls his teddy into his chest, fiddling with the single button eye. “How can I trust you?” I ask Pete.
“What more is left here for you but faith?” Pete says, extending a hand to me from the open window. The sunlight halos him an amber glow.
“And a little bit of pixie dust,” Bella adds, pouring the rest of the gold into my hand.
The shouts from the street grow louder. I swallow the lump of fear in my throat, torn between taking my brother and running for safety on our own or joining Pete and Bella. Mikey tugs at my hand and waves a finger at me, gesturing for me to come closer. I bend toward him.
“Can’t we go with them, Gwen?” he whispers. “They have all of our food anyway.”
He has a point. If I reject their offer, they’ll leave with our supplies and we will have nothing but what is in my pack. If we go with them and the Lost City is real, Mikey will have a safe place to stay while I rescue our sister.
I turn back to Pete and Bella, who both stand in the window, silhouetted in the sun’s early glow. Bella’s glittering wings flutter. “Pete, they’re getting close!”
“So, are you coming?” Pete says, leaning toward me.
I peek through the window. Shadows creep between the warehouses. The metal clang of military vehicles crawling along the broken streets echoes through the maze of buildings. Steam rises between the buildings and the vehicles let out an ominous hiss.
Bella’s eyes flash with worry. “Pete? We have to go!” she urges, waving my brother toward the window. I lift Mikey, and Bella helps him through the opening. As I reach for Pete’s outstretched hand, I hesitate.
“Wait. What was the second rule to surviving?” I ask.
Pete smiles, his perfect white teeth flashing with confidence. He places his goggles back over his brilliant green eyes, and I see my worried reflection stare back at me in the lenses. He pulls me into the window frame with both hands, drawing me close enough that I can feel his breath against my cheeks.
“Rule number two: I am always right.”
Smeeth’s breath crackles in a wet wheeze as he struggles to keep up. As if the fires, ash, and dust in Everland weren’t bad enough, the cigars he insists on inhaling have only made his asthma worse. But I say nothing. Maybe he’ll kill himself before I have to do the dirty deed myself.
“But, Captain, you were scheduled to return to the Bloodred Queen six months ago with a progress report. Why are we still chasing orphans? We’ve gained nothing from them.”
“Those orphans, or rather one orphan in particular, are vital to my plan,” I say, marching through the ornate palace hallway to the front entrance, stopping at a window.
Smeeth wrings his hands. “They were never part of the objective. Your mother will have all of our heads if we don’t return to Lohr Castle soon.”