Steamed (36 page)

“No!” I shrieked, then took a step closer to William. That’s all I could manage, what with Jack holding tight to my waist. “William, you seem to be missing the point.”

The crowd, which had been watching us with bated breath, gasped again in surprise.

I hurried to correct my faux pas. One did not ever tell an emperor that he was missing a point. “I am not here to see the executions. I am here to be hung because Jack and I were trying to see you earlier today, but you were . . . and we were . . . er . . . and then some very rude men came barging into our secret passageway and arrested us, saying we were there to assassinate you.”

“People try to assassinate me all the time,” William said, waving away the very idea. “I never counted you amongst my enemies, though, Octavia. I must say that I’m very disappointed. My father would be disappointed, too. He thought the world of you.”

“I am
not
your enemy,” I said firmly. “In fact, I will prove our friendship to you by telling you something of the gravest import.”

Jack glanced curiously at me, understanding slowly dawning as he saw what had just at that moment struck me—a bargaining chip.

“Octavia,” Jack said softly, rubbing his hand on my back. “You don’t have to.”

“There’s no other way, Jack. Not if we all want to survive.”

“It’ll cost you everything,” he warned.

“We’ll be alive,” I answered with a grim smile. “At this point, I’m willing to consider that a victory in itself.”

“This is all very intriguing and mysterious, but I’m afraid I have a rather tight schedule today,” William said, consulting his pocket watch. “Delightful as it is to see you again, Octavia, I’m afraid I must ask that the executions proceed so that I might dash off and be married.”

“Would you like me to do this?” Jack asked me.

I thought for a moment before shaking my head. “No, it’ll be better coming from me.”

“Executioner!” William waved over the three hooded figures. “You may as well get started.”

“William, we would have a few words with you.” His personal guards moved forward as I took hold of William’s sleeve to stop him from returning to the crowd. “I assure you that what we have to say will be worth a little delay.”

William’s cool blue eyes assessed me for the span of three seconds. “My dear Octavia, surely we have said all that can be said?”

“Not if you wish to live out this day,” I answered, taking Jack’s hand.

William might be many things—his strong suit was not mental agility, and he tended to be distracted by shiny things, much like a magpie—but he was no fool.

“Very well,” he said, sighing and gesturing toward the antechamber from which we had just emerged. “We’ll use this room. I don’t suppose you mind if we carry on with the other executions?”

“Actually, I mind very much. In fact, your survival depends on you not hanging anyone.”

“No hangings?” He looked incredulous. “This is a royal wedding, dammit! I can’t have a royal wedding without hangings!”

I took him by the arm and, with Jack on my other side, marched both men into the antechamber. William’s guards followed, but I knew them to be trustworthy, so I ignored them as best I could. “Jack and I have information that will be vital to you. We are willing to impart this information to you if you will grant everyone here pardons.”

“No,” William said, and, to my utter surprise, turned around and walked out the door.

“No? Did he just say no?”

“He said no,” Jack answered. “Here, you! Emperor! You can’t say no!”

I followed Jack when he charged out after William, who turned at the admittedly undignified address.

“I just did,” William said.

“Well, stop it,” I snapped, pushed beyond the limits of my patience. “What we have to tell you is important, William. Very important.”

“Not important enough to ruin my executions,” he answered.

“Not when it has to do with a Moghul warship that is unlike anything ever seen?” I asked.

William, in the act of returning to the audience, stopped, and slowly turned to face us. “What Moghul warship?”

“If you want to know that, and just what it has to do with the safety of you and your duchess, then I would suggest you call over the warden and tell him that all of us standing here awaiting the hangman have been pardoned.” I folded my hands and waited for his response.

He looked over the line of prisoners, clearly weighing the enjoyment to be had in watching us all hang (William always did have a morbid sense of fun), against the need to stay au courant with news of his enemy.

He considered for an entire minute, then shook his head and said, “No. It’s just not worth it, Octavia. I’m sorry that you tried to assassinate me and now must hang, but really, it is your own fault, and perhaps next time you won’t be so hasty to attack an old friend such as me.”

“William!” I shrieked, and would have jumped on the man to throttle some sense into him, but the guards and one of the hangmen grabbed me, pulling Jack back when he tried to assist. “Are you completely out of your mind?”

He struck a pose and thought about the question for a few seconds. “Not entirely, no.”

“Argh!” I screamed, so frustrated I could spit, if I did that sort of thing, which I don’t. Instead, I did the next best thing—I gave William a piece of my mind. “I really wish I had been an airship pirate, because I would have made it my life’s ambition to plunder every damned one of your ships!”

He looked shocked. He actually looked shocked at my statement. “Octavia! I am aghast!”

“Atta girl, sweetheart,” Jack said, giving me a thumbs-up. “Tell him what you really think.”

“And when we were done plundering your airships, we’d blow them up!” I yelled, waving my hands around in wild abandon.

William staggered back a step as if he’d been struck.

“While we were wearing our goggles!” Jack added.

“Yes! With our goggles on!” I paused to throw Jack a quick glance. “One day we really must have a discussion about your unhealthy obsession with goggles.”

He grinned and winked.

“Octavia, I have never been so shocked—what?” One of William’s private guards whispered into his ear. He looked furious and directed the bulk of his fury at me. “Bloody hell! Now do you see what you’ve done? You’ve wasted all my execution time! I have to go to the cathedral without seeing a single prisoner die! Of all the selfish acts I’ve known you to perform, Octavia, this is the most selfish. I hope you’re happy that you’ve completely ruined my wedding day!”

With a flourish that would do a Shakespearean actor proud, he spun around on his heel and plowed through the avid crowd to the grand gold-and-silver steam carriage that waited for him outside the prison gates.

“You actually dated this guy?” Jack asked in a voice rife with disbelief.

“I was young at the time,” I said, wanting to cry and scream and shoot someone, all at the same time. “And very stupid.”

“I’ll say.”

I glanced at Jack.

He coughed. “I meant, we all make mistakes.”

“I doubt if yours are going to cost you your life.”

“Yours aren’t, either.” He gave me an odd look as the guards bundled us toward the platform. “Haven’t you noticed—”

“Prisoners to the scaffold!” the warden cried, waving an imperious arm.

“Jack, I really want to say—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted as we were shoved up the stairs. My guard stopped me behind a rough- looking rope noose. I glared at it for a moment before transferring my glare to the man whom I had more or less murdered with my own folly and inability to carry through a plan.

“I’m trying to apologize,” I snapped, then realized that my final moments would be spent in anger and irritation. I took a deep breath as a musty-smelling black bag was shoved over my head. Someone pulled my arms behind me and bound them. “I just want to say that I’m sorry, Jack. Sorry that I couldn’t rescue your sister—”

“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me!” a voice called out from behind me. “I’m going home! Maybe I’ll have
two
chili lime salmon tacos. . . .”

“—sorry that we were captured, sorry that William is such an ignoramus and that he wouldn’t know a good thing if it came up and bit him on the bottom—”

A gasp of shock was heard from the crowd, who no doubt were enjoying the scene greatly. They were hushed and expectant, as if they were holding their collective breath in anticipation of our deaths.

“—and most of all, I’m sorry that I haven’t told you the truth about me. Jack, I—”

“I love you, Octavia Pye,” he interrupted me.

The rope was drawn over my head, and tightened behind my neck.

“I love you now, but not nearly so much as I’m going to love you five minutes from now.”

“Poor man, his mind has snapped under the strain,” I murmured to myself as I felt the attendants stepping away. I sent up a little prayer that death would be instantaneous and painless for us both. “Poor Jack. Poor, adorable—”

The floor dropped out from under my feet.

 

“
I
don’t know why you’re mad at me, Tavy. I
tried
to tell you.”

“You did no such thing!”

“Duck!”

I ducked, then spun around and fired the Disruptor at the prison guard who was heading for us.

“I was going to knock him out,” Jack snarled, his fists covered in blood as he gestured toward the man I shot. “You didn’t have to kill him!”

“I didn’t kill him. I shot him in the leg, which you can see for yourself if you would take the opportunity to—” Jack shoved me to the side, landing a hard right to the jaw of a guard who just emerged from the prison antechamber.

“Well, thank you for that!” he snapped.

“Why are you angry with me?” I yelled, jumping up onto the top of the platform and shooting at the next two guards who streamed out of the prison.

“I’m not! You’re the one who’s mad! And why? Just because you didn’t notice what I did.”

“Captain! Over here!”

I glared at Jack as he knocked out the last guard. “I was a little busy at the time, if you didn’t notice! I was trying to save our lives!”

“And yet if you’d just opened up your eyes, you would have seen that the so-called executioners were not what they seemed.”

Jack grabbed my arm and hustled me toward the gate. I thought up several scathing replies to his comment, but the truth was, I
had
been so distraught and determined to get William to see reason that I hadn’t paid attention to our surroundings as I should have.

A guard bearing a bayonet charged at us. Before I could fire, a figure hobbled across my line of sight and cracked the guard over the head with a stout staff. “Ye try that again, me laddie, and ye’ll be wearin’ me lance up yer peewaddin!”

“What’s a peewaddin?” I asked Jack as Mr. Piper shooed us forward, toward the gate.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think a lance would be very comfortable shoved up it. This way.”

I shook my head to clear the confusion. My crew, my very own crew that I had left sleeping in France, had somehow managed to get to the prison, disable the regular hanging attendants, and take their places with the intention of rescuing us. It fair boggled the brain.

“Over here!” Hallie yelled, waving at us from the street. Mr. Christian, still clad in the executioner’s outfit, held his Disruptor at arm’s length as he swept the area for any lingering guards. “There’s a carriage here for us!”

Mr. Ho and Mr. Mowen slammed shut the door to the prison antechamber, racing toward us with their black hoods stuffed unceremoniously in their trouser pockets. Mr. Mowen limped heavily, and was somewhat hunched over and battered about the face, but appeared hale enough otherwise.

“Quick,” Mr. Ho said, panting a little. She looked excited and thrilled. I boggled a bit more at the fact that they were helping us. “Hurry, Captain. We don’t know how long the barricade will hold them.”

“You came to save us?” I asked Mr. Mowen as we ran, telling myself I could boggle later, when speed wasn’t such an issue.

“Of course,” he answered, wheezing. “You’re the captain.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” I mumbled as we dashed out of the now-empty prison courtyard. There were a couple of inert forms (Jack knew several nonfatal ways of disabling people), more that were moaning and crawling toward the guardroom door (barricaded handily by Mr. Piper and Dooley), but no corpses. The crowd had bolted the second the first shot of aether had been fired, their fascination with the rescue having been overthrown by an urgent need to get away from aetherfire, the other prisoners following immediately on their respective heels. As we ran, I was aware of a sting around my neck, and touched it gingerly. “I can still feel the rope.”