Of Silk and Steam
Page 80

“Will can lead that force,” Leo murmured.
Will scowled. “If you think I’m—”
“We need you to do it,” Blade repeated firmly. “I know you wanna stay at me side, but this is war, lad. We need someone we can trust and that the Nighthawks would recognize and obey. Get ’em to the enclaves where the second and third lot o’ Cyclops are, and suit up. I’ll meet you at the Tower.”
Will wavered. He’d been Blade’s second-in-command until he received his promotion to verwulfen ambassador. Leo could see the sense in Blade’s words, but Will would be fighting the protective instincts of a verwulfen—everything that told him to protect his master.
“I’m going too,” Lena said.
That refocused Will’s attention. “Like hell you are. This is war, Lena. You need to be at your sister’s side.”
“How do you plan to work the Cyclops?” she asked with a sweet little smile. “Rosalind showed me how they work when she was trying to recruit me to create them. You don’t have time to figure that out. Does he, Duchess?”
“Time is of the essence,” Mina replied.
“And I know how to work this,” Lena added, lifting her frequency-altering device. “There will be more metaljackets.”
“Still no word on ’ow we’re gettin’ past the wall,” Kincaid said.
Leo smiled. “Leave that to Mina and me.”
Mina arched a brow at him.
“Care to take that trip to Paris?” he asked, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet.
She understood immediately. “I assume we’ll be making a brief stopover.”
“Courtesy of the good Mr. Galloway.”
* * *
“What about me?” Charlie demanded, when the leaders were giving out the orders.
“Us,” Lark corrected, though she looked decidedly less enthusiastic than Charlie.
Leo paused at Blade’s side, checking over his weapons. Blade stilled, shooting the lad a hard look. At his questioning glance, Leo shrugged. He didn’t want the boy in the melee any more than Blade did, but Mina’s words made him wonder what the right course was.
“You’re stayin’ ’ere,” Blade said.
“I’m not a boy,” Charlie shot back. “Not anymore.”
Blade grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and wrenched him onto his toes. “I’m ’bout to lead most of me men on the Tower. It’s war, Charlie. I might not come back. Me nor Rip, nor Will… And your sister’s lyin’ in ’er bed with me daughter, unable to move if anyone takes this chance to attack. You’re stayin’ ’ere, and if she gets ’urt, I’ll thrash you to a bleedin’ pulp. You understand me? That’s your duty.”
Charlie’s mouth worked sullenly. “I’m a blue blood.”
Lark grabbed his arm. “We’ll stay,” she promised. “We’ll keep an eye on ’em.”
Blade nodded and let Charlie go. “Don’t disappoint me.”
“Good luck,” Lark called.
Twenty-five
Lord Matheson’s manor was closer than Galloway’s, in the end.
Leo strode across the deck of the pleasure dirigible, leaning on the rail and eyeing the glittering sprawl of London below. They’d roused Bennett Whitcomb, the pilot, out of his bed at the air dock, and he was white-faced and nauseous behind the wheel. A dozen of Blade’s best men and a few of the mechs strolled the deck, staying relatively silent. Weaponry gleamed at their sides.
Mina’s glorious red hair whipped behind her in the wind at the prow. She gathered fistfuls of it, knotting it into a loose chignon at the base of her skull. Leo stepped up behind her, plucking the pins from her hand. “Here,” he murmured. “Allow me.”
Her brandy-brown eyes glanced up at him when he finished. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Fire burned out of control in some parts of the city, and the cry of the mob was fierce as they passed over the Theater District. Covent Garden thronged with howling humanists, and he could just make out the tramping gallop of the Trojan cavalry through the narrow streets. People were screaming. His fingers dug into the rail.
“It will be over soon,” Mina murmured, resting her hand over his. “We cannot avoid the loss of life, not entirely, but we can make that loss worth it.”
A subtle shift of his hand and their fingers laced together. Mina looked down, then squeezed his fingers. Together in this. No matter what happened, he knew they would fight back to back if necessary.
Moonlight gleamed on the Ivory Tower in front of them. “Here we are,” he said, steeling his nerves. “Are you ready?”
“Are you?”
Leo slid a hand around the base of her neck and drew her face up to his. The crush of her body against his chest was brief, his lips tingling as he kissed her. Then he forced himself to let go.
“Take the gates!” he roared at the men behind him. They’d all been briefed on the layout and the resistance to expect. “Then we take the Tower!”
“Aye!” a handful of bellows echoed through the air.
Grabbing one of the grappling guns that Kincaid had supplied at the enclaves, Leo climbed onto the rail of the dirigible. Sinking the hooks into the rail, he leaned over the edge as the airship sailed over the high walls surrounding the Tower. Mina echoed him, her expression tight and focused. Leo counted under his breath, listening to the startled cries of the Coldrush Guards below as they realized what was happening.
“Here we are,” he said, looking at her. They were near the gatehouse.
Bullets whizzed past. Leo instinctively leaned closer to her, dangling backward out over the airship with his heels on the rail and the grappling hook holding him there.
“Three, two…one!”
Both of them sailed backward, dropping down into the melee at the gates.
* * *
Blade’s forces spilled through the narrow gates as they opened, a Cyclops smashing a fist into one of the Coldrush Guards as Leo dragged Mina toward the stables. Blade’s men and the Nighthawks were a distraction; he and Mina needed to get to the queen.
Rosalind and Lady Peregrine hurried at their heels, along with a force of Nighthawks that were pouring through the south gates. Once inside the Ivory Tower, they’d separate—the Nighthawks to the dungeons to rescue their leaders, and Mina and Leo up toward the throne room.