“I can,” she said, already shifting the clouds. “Turn right, mover.”
Her winds changed direction, pushing in from the port side, as Emily turned the sail to veer us east around the massive wall of water approaching. We bounced along the rising waves, the winds blowing my hair loose. The wave grew horizontally with us, looming closer like the great hand of a god, ready to swat us down.
Thunder reverberated in the sky. Mr. Seward heard it, leaping back right before the bolt of lightning streaked down. He lost control of his wave, but its momentum carried it. We still weren’t going fast enough. I didn’t know how Miss Rao was planning to outrun it.
Until we veered behind a massive ship that shielded us from the attack. She’d steered us into St. Katharine Docks. Emily threw us off the skiff and up onto the soaked deck. I mouthed an apology to a shocked sailor and peered past him at our destination. We’d gone a bit off course, but we weren’t too far. I could see a path along the crowd of boats.
“This way!” I shouted, grabbing Rose’s hand.
Emily pulled the three of us up into the air and over the five-foot gap down to the barge below. Behind us, Miss Rao and Miss Chen made the leap, propelled by a heavy gust of wind.
Mr. Seward, however, followed as well. More tendrils of water rose up around the barges, some battering our bodies like quick punches and others attempting to drag us into the water. Miss Chen and Emily did their best to divert the attacks as we hopped from boat to boat, heading ever closer to Traitors’ Gate. Crates toppled around us, leaks sprang up and swung at us, and suddenly the air was full of fire. We coughed through the smoke and dodged the growing flames, desperately looking for the source.
On the next barge, Mr. Jarsdel was waiting for us.
Rose waved to him for help. “Mr. Jarsdel, please—”
“You won’t manipulate me again!” he cut her off.
A blast of fire erupted from his palms, giving us the choice of staying put and burning or jumping into the water and drowning. The former seemed slightly more manageable, so I pushed Rose behind me, but before the flames hit, a third option presented itself. From an adjacent barge, Emily redirected Mr. Seward’s water attacks in front of us, blocking the blast of fire, the steam hissing inches from my face.
Before Mr. Jarsdel could attack again, Miss Chen broke a mast above him. Using his hands like twin rockets, he thrust himself off the barge and retreated onto the roof of a low dockside warehouse.
Rose and I hopped across two more barges and a rowboat and rejoined the others at the end of the wharf. Traitors’ Gate loomed ahead like a beacon.
“Ev! Mr. Jarsdel hates me! He wants to kill me!” Rose gasped. She had a giddy grin on her face. “My power must wear off!”
“Rose, I’m happy for you,” I said, feeling a blast of heat come far too close to my head. I pulled her forward. “But we might want to survive this to tell Catherine.”
“Yes, that,” Rose said.
“Keep running, charmer,” Miss Rao said.
That’s when I noticed how windy it had gotten. The smoke from the burning boats swirled around us at Miss Rao’s command, giving us the perfect cover to escape. We pounded toward the tower, wayward shots of fire and desperate tendrils of water flying into our path, but we pushed forward, refusing to let the plan go even more astray. We had to sneak in and address the rest of the Society before they attack—
A blast of electricity struck me before we could reach the entrance. It burned my chest and knocked me flat on my back on the stone wharf. Miss Rao was on her knees next to me, blood dripping from two spikes embedded in her chest. Lanterns and dimly lit faces dotted the top of the tower’s outer walls. I made out the face of our electricity-producing friend. The other Society members were already awake and ready. And they weren’t going to give us a chance to sway them.
Acid and electricity assaulted us from the front while smoke and needles came from behind. But Miss Rao’s winds were stronger and more concentrated now, encircling us like a protective shield.
I set my hands on her shoulder and took deep breaths, attempting to heal both our wounds as quickly as possible. She wrenched out the spikes and climbed to her feet, the winds growing stronger, sweeping up the renewed fire attacks from Mr. Jarsdel and the surges of water from Mr. Seward. Miss Chen, Emily, Rose, and I were trying to catch our breaths in the safety of the hurricane’s eye, but its sheer power kept stealing them away.
“Do you still plan to sneak in and talk to them?” Miss Rao asked.
Her face showed no smile, but I could sense the sarcasm.
“Sneak? No. Are we still breaking in? Yes. If you can move this to the west, we are going to link arms and move with it.” Everyone did so, forming a circle. The wind was roaring around us, and I shouted to be heard. “Miss Chen, break the gate when you can see it, and we will get inside as planned. Go!”
Miss Rao nodded tightly, and I held her arm, hoping my healing was at full capacity. We began to move, step by step, to the lip of the wharf, while the attacks rained down above us. Miss Rao gritted her teeth as fire and acid joined the storm, and Miss Chen grunted as stray drops fell on her shoulder. Without a free hand, I pressed my back into hers, healing the burning wound quickly and pushing her into view of the wooden gate.
“And what about when we get inside?” Rose yelled. “How will I get them to listen to me long enough to stop them from killing us. We have certainly lost the element of surprise.”
Below us, the great gate splintered and cracked apart to form a small hole. Miss Chen concentrated hard on the wooden columns and iron bars in the center, ignoring the fire licking at us through Miss Rao’s winds.
“I know how,” I said, following the streaks of fire up to its source. “Emily, the moment Miss Chen is through, can you grab Mr. Jarsdel and keep him pinned him to the ground?”
She strained to see through the congested whirlwind and the darkness along the wall, but his flames made him easy to find. “Yes, there he is!”
“Good,” I said. “He will use his blinding powers to break free. Everyone else, be ready to shut your eyes!”
Miss Chen pushed harder now, the metal cracking and exploding like dry twigs. We inched closer to the edge.
“Now, Emily!” Miss Chen shouted.
Mr. Jarsdel’s fire blasts disappeared and his body crashed to the ground next to our circle. I shut my eyes, trusting in Emily. She huffed out a heavy breath and groaned with effort as she held him in place. Even through the roar of the winds and attacks, I could hear Mr. Jarsdel screaming and straining on the other side to be freed.
A few seconds later, a bright light flashed beyond my eyelids. I opened my eyes to peer through the whirlwind, finding the assault had stopped. Mr. Jarsdel had blinded everyone attacking us.
Emily yelped in shock. “Evelyn? Where are you?”
“I’m here,” I said, taking her hand. “Your sight will heal in a minute or two. You did it perfectly. Just hold on; we’re going to jump.”
The arched entrance sat a few feet below the tower wharf. Miss Rao kept her fierce winds shielding us, while we hopped down over the edge, landing gently in the cold, dark water. I tugged at Emily’s arm as we clambered over the broken remains of Traitors’ Gate and up a set of stairs.
At last, we were in the Tower of London, huddled in the outer ward, the street between the inner and outer walls. Miss Rao shrouded us in fog and Miss Chen glanced at a few lanterns above, shattering and extinguishing the only sources of light. The defenders panicked.
“Dammit, they’re inside!”
“I still can’t bloody see!”
“Find them!”
Cursing and shuffling echoed down from the battlements as the Society scrambled to turn their attention to the inside to find us. Which is when we decided to make their task a little easier.
“Rose, ready?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “Yes.”
I grasped her hand and held it tight.