“I guess it’s more official that way.” Darcy checked the rest of the envelope’s contents. She hadn’t destroyed anything else. “Do you think this one counts, now that it’s ripped?”
“With a massive tear like that? Frankly, Patel, I think your whole career is canceled.”
Something sharp levered itself between two of Darcy’s ribs, as if the errant letter opener had slipped again. “Don’t even say that. And stop calling me by my last name. Our last name. It’s weird.”
“Pfft,” Nisha said to this. She developed new verbal ticks about once a week, which was often useful. The protagonist of Afterworlds had borrowed a lot of her eccentric cursing. “Just put some tape on it.”
Darcy sighed, sliding open her desk drawer. A moment later, the contract was taped together, but somehow it looked even more pathetic now. Like a fifth grader’s art project: My PubLisHing ContRact.
“It doesn’t even seem real anymore.”
“It’s a disaster!” Nisha fell backward on Darcy’s bed, bouncing in her death throes and pulling the blankets askew. People were always saying how much older Nisha seemed than her fourteen years. If only they knew the truth.
“None of this seems real,” Darcy said softly, staring at the torn contract.
Nisha sat up. “You know why that is, Patel? Because you haven’t told them yet.”
“I will. After graduation next week.” Or maybe later, whenever Oberlin’s deferral deadline was.
“No, now. Right after you drop those contracts in the mail.”
“Today?” The thought of her parents’ reaction sent a cold trickle down Darcy’s spine.
“Yes. Telling them is what makes all of this real. Until then, you’re just some little kid daydreaming about being a famous writer.”
Darcy stared at her sister. “You remember I’m older than you, right?”
“So act like it.”
“But they might say no.”
“They can’t. You’re eighteen. That’s, like, an adult.”
A laugh erupted out of Darcy, and Nisha joined in. The idea of the elder Patels recognizing their children’s independence at eighteen—or any age—was hilarious.
“Don’t worry about them,” Nisha said once they’d recovered. “I have a plan.”
“Which is?”
“Secret.” A crafty smile settled onto Nisha’s face, which was about as reassuring as the shredded contract.
It wasn’t only her parents’ reaction that was making Darcy nervous. There was something terrifying about her plans, something absurd, as if she’d decided to become an astronaut or a rock star.
“Do you think I’m crazy, wanting to do this?”
Nisha shrugged. “If you want to be a writer, you should do it now. Like you keep saying, Afterworlds could tank and no one will ever publish you again.”
“I only said that once.” Darcy sighed. “But thanks for reminding me.”
“You’re welcome, Patel. But look—that’s a binding legal contract. Until your book officially bombs, you’re a real novelist! So would you rather blow all that money as a writer in New York City? Or as some freshman churning out essays about dead white guys?”
Darcy dropped her gaze to the torn contract. Maybe it had ripped because she wanted this too much. Maybe her hand would always slip at the last moment, tearing what she desired most. But somehow the contract was beautiful, even in its damaged state. Right there on the first page, it defined her, Darcy Patel, as “The Author.” You couldn’t get much realer than that.
“I’d rather be a writer than a freshman,” she said.
“Then you have to tell the elder Patels—after those are in the mailbox.”
Darcy looked at the return envelope and wondered if the Underbridge Literary Agency provided stamps for all its authors, or only the teenage ones. But at least it made sending off the contract as easy as walking to the corner, which took less effort than resisting Nisha. If her little sister had a plan, there would be no respite without compliance.
“Okay. At lunch.”
Darcy lifted her favorite pen, and signed her name four times.
DON’T MISS SCOTT WESTERFELD’S NEW SERIES:
“It’s a zeppelin!” Alek shouted. “They’ve found us!”
The wildcount looked up. “An airship, certainly. But that doesn’t sound like a zeppelin.”
Alek frowned, listening hard. Other noises, tremulous and nonsensical, trickled over the distant hum of engines—squawks, whistles, and squeaks, like a menagerie let loose.
The airship lacked the symmetry of a zeppelin: The front end was larger than the stern, the surface mottled and uneven. Clouds of tiny winged forms fluttered around it, and an unearthly green glow clung to its skin.
Then Alek saw the huge eyes. . . .
“God’s wounds,” he swore. This wasn’t a machine at all, but a Darwinist creation!
He’d seen monsters before, of course—talking lizards in the fashionable parlors of Prague, a draft animal displayed in a traveling circus—but nothing as gigantic as this. It was like one of his war toys come to life, a thousand times larger and more incredible.
“What are Darwinists doing here?” he said softly.
Volger pointed. “Running from danger, it would seem.”
Alek’s eyes followed the gesture, and he saw the jagged trails of bullet holes down the creature’s flank, flickering with green light. Men swarmed in the rigging that hung from its sides, some wounded, some making repairs. And alongside them climbed things that weren’t men.
As the airship passed, almost overhead, Alek half ducked behind the parapets. But the crew seemed too busy to notice anything below them. The ship slowly turned as it settled into the valley, dropping below the level of the mountains on either side.
“Is that godless thing coming down?” Alek asked.
“They seem to have no choice.”
The vast creature glided away toward the white expanse of glacier—the only place in sight large enough for it to land. Even wounded, it fell as slowly as a feather. Alek held his breath for the long seconds that it remained poised above the snow.
The crash unfolded slowly. White clouds rose up in the skidding airship’s wake, its skin rippling like a flag in the wind. Alek saw men thrown from their perches on its back, but it was too far away for their cries to reach him, even through the cold, clear air. The ship kept sliding away, farther and farther, until its dark outline disappeared behind a shroud of white.
“The highest mountains in Europe, and the war reaches us so quickly.” Count Volger shook his head. “What an age we live in.”
“Do you think they saw us?”
“In all that chaos? I’d think not. And this ruin won’t look like much from a distance, even when the sun comes up.” The wildcount sighed. “But no cooking fires for a while. And we’ll have to set a watch until they leave.”
“What if they don’t leave?” Alek said. “What if they can’t?”
“Then they won’t last long,” Volger said flatly. “There’s nothing to eat on the glacier, no shelter, no fuel for a fire. Just ice.”
Alek turned to stare at Volger. “But we can’t leave shipwrecked men to die!”
“May I remind you that they’re the enemy, Alek? Just because the Germans are hunting us doesn’t make Darwinists our friends. There could be a hundred men aboard that ship! Perhaps enough to take this castle.” Volger’s voice softened as he peered into the sky. “Let’s just hope no rescue comes for them. Aircraft overhead in daylight would be a disaster.”
Alek looked out across the glacier again. The snow thrown up by the crash was settling around the airship, revealing that it lay half on one side, like a beached fish. He wondered if Darwinist creations died from the cold as quickly as natural beasts. Or men.
A hundred of them out there . . .
He looked down at the stables below—food enough for a smal
l army. And medicine for the wounded, and furs and firewood to keep them warm.
“We can’t sit here and watch them die, Count. Enemies or not.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Volger cried. “You’re heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. Your duty is to the empire, not those men out there.”
Alek shook his head. “At the moment there isn’t much I can do for the empire.”
“Not yet. But if you keep yourself alive, soon enough you’ll gain the power to stop this madness. Don’t forget: The emperor is eighty-three, and war is unkind to old men.”
With those last words Volger’s voice broke, and suddenly he looked ancient himself, as if the last five weeks had finally caught up with him. Alek swallowed his answer, remembering what Volger had sacrificed—his home, his rank—to be hunted and hounded, to go sleepless listening to wireless chatter. And with safety finally at hand, this obscene creature had fallen from the sky, threatening to wreck years of planning.
No wonder he wanted to ignore the airbeast dying on the snows a few kilometers away.
“Of course, Volger.” Alek took his arm and led him down from the cold and windy parapet. “We’ll watch and wait.”
“They’ll probably repair that godless beast,” Volger said on the stairs. “And leave us behind without a second glance.”
“No doubt.”
Halfway across the courtyard, Volger brought Alek to a sudden halt, his expression pained. “We’d help them if we could. But this war could leave the whole continent in ruins. You see that, don’t you?”
Alek nodded and led the count into the great hall of the castle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Scott Westerfeld is the author of the New York Times bestselling Uglies series and the Leviathan trilogy. Leviathan was the winner of the 2010 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. His other novels include The Last Days, Peeps, So Yesterday, and the Midnighters trilogy. Scott alternates summers between New York City and Sydney, Australia.
ALSO BY SCOTT WESTERFELD
Uglies
Pretties
Extras
Leviathan
Behemoth
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON PULSE
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This Simon Pulse edition May 2011
Copyright © 2006 by Scott Westerfeld
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The text of this book was set in Minion Pro.
Library of Congress Control Number 2005933890
ISBN 978-1-4424-3008-2 (trade hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-1979-7 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4391-0650-1 (eBook)
Scott Westerfeld, Specials
(Series: Uglies # 3)
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