Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(2)

“Allison,” I said, forcing a smile onto my lips. It felt more like a wince. “I apologize for leaving town, but I must do so immediately.” I motioned up, to the airship.

She followed my finger and started—as if she hadn’t yet noticed the enormous balloon.

“So,” I continued, in the proper tone that etiquette demanded though my brain shrieked at me to make haste, “if you will please excuse me, I must go. Good day.” I turned back to the first rung.

“Is this some sort of joke?” She stomped quickly to my side. The feather on her hat bobbed in the breeze. “You cannot possibly leave! Do you realize how far I have come?”

“I am truly sorry.” I was not sorry at all. “But I cannot stay—”

“Then bring me with you,” she blurted.

At those words I froze. It was such an absurd, unexpected request. And so impossible—even she had to realize that.

“Please,” she begged, her harshness shifting to desperation “Do not leave me here, Eleanor. I have traveled all the way from Philadelphia to see you because I bear news that I must give.”

“Then tell me your news.” My words sounded distant beneath the growing boom of blood in my ears. “And then return to the hotel.”

Allison’s lips suddenly pressed tight. She shook her head.

“Allison, tell me what happened so that I may go.” Another headshake, and this time, tears shone in her eyes.

I leaned closer, and the world seemed to slow. Her feathers left black trails in my vision. “Who is it, Allison? Who died?”

She still would not reply. “Who is it, Allison?” Horrified by my violence yet unable to stop it, I grabbed her arms and shook. “Who? Tell me!”

“Eleanor!” Joseph’s voice crashed down from above. “Control yourself!”

But I could not. All control had slipped through my fingers as quickly as the splintered hole in my gut had opened.

I knew exactly who had died—and with her death, there was no one left for me in Philadelphia.

“Your mother,” Allison rasped. “Just like Clarence. Just like the other boys.” Her chest shuddered. “Eleanor, your mother was murdered. Decapitated.”

“Ah.” I released Allison. De-cap-i-tated. Such a strange word. It knocked around meaninglessly in my skull. . . . And in a cold, slow clench, everything went numb.

No thoughts. No sounds. No pain.

I twisted back to the ladder, and I climbed. Allison shouted after me, but it was gibberish. All I saw was the next rung. All I heard was my heartbeat. When I reached the open gondola hatch, Joseph tried to speak to me—Daniel too. But it was all still gibberish.

A quick scan of the airship showed a metal room the size of my bedroom back in Philadelphia. It was crammed with sandbags and pulleys, with familiar crates that held Daniel’s latest inventions—and presumably supplies.

A cargo hold, I thought vaguely, aiming straight ahead, toward a narrow hallway of wood-plank walls.

“Empress.” Daniel’s hand reached for me. “Talk to me.”

But I couldn’t even look at him as I walked past.

My feet reached the hall. Doors hung open on either side, spaced close together, while at the end of the hall was a glass-walled room with an enormous steering wheel. The pilothouse.

“Please,” Daniel called after me. I remained silent. All I needed was a moment alone, to remember who I was—and to remember what I was doing. . . .

I drifted past open doors. On the left, a tiny galley. An even tinier washroom. A cabin with two bunks. On the right, three more cabins . . . and then finally, a fourth with only one bunk inside.

I stumbled in, my fingers brushing against the doorframe, against the left wall. I gaped at the tiny porthole opposite me. The buildings of Paris were just visible outside, their beige fronts and gray roofs melting together. I looked down at the wooden floor instead. But it looked equally as fuzzy. It did not help that the gondola listed and swayed with the wind.

I felt sick.

Footsteps pounded in the hall outside. “Empress. Eleanor. Please—”

I toed the door shut. Then I locked it. But Daniel would not go away.

“Please talk to me.” His voice was muffled through the door. Through the roar of blood in my ears. “Please, Eleanor.”

“I just need a minute,” I mumbled. “A minute alone.” I stared at the closed door and barely managed to choke out a final word. “Please.”

I turned around, and a fresh numbness engulfed me. My posture deflated; my knees buckled; I slumped to the floor. I planted my hands on the wood, and stared vaguely at the swirls and grooves in the planks.

No. No. I refused to believe Mama was dead. Not her—not my dragon mother.

I needed proof. I would not accept this until I had evidence.

Or . . . until I had said good-bye.

I leaned right, curling into a ball against the low bunk.

Daniel pounded on the door. Then Joseph. Then Oliver. I ignored them. Even when Allison’s voice began to mingle with theirs, even when the engines started to rumble and the airship’s gondola swayed more wildly, even when my ears popped painfully from the rapid change in altitude, I stayed firmly curled on the floor.

Until eventually, I had fallen asleep. And when I had opened my eyes again, the floorboards had been replaced by a golden, glowing dock.