Strange and Ever After

  I pressed the glass to my eye . . . and a thousand tiny turrets appeared. At the foot of a white mountain, Cairo was a sprawling city of towers, domes, and layered, flat-roofed buildings.

  I swung the glass farther left, to the east and toward the desert. Arid, lonely, and empty. Swinging right, to the west, I saw beyond the Nile, to fields of brilliant green and a rocky plateau with three sharp pyramids rising to the sky.

  Suddenly, a cloud spun across my field of view. A cloud of darkness and death in the shape of a wild hound.

  The Hell Hounds were here.

  Everything inside me froze. Blood, pulse, thought. Just as when the Hounds had found me on the boat to France, they had somehow entered the earthly realm once more—and I had no doubt they were after us. . . .

  My brain—and my body—roared back to full speed. Faster, even. “We need to land!” I snapped down the spyglass. “Now, Daniel!”

  He winced. “We’re almost there, and I think I can navigate—”

  “No.” I thrust the spyglass to him. “Now!”

  Daniel glanced to Joseph—and Joseph nodded. “Do it.”

  With a spin of the steering wheel and a wrenching of levers, the airship lurched left—to the east bank of the Nile—and began a descent.

  We would not be fast enough—not to outrun the Hell Hounds. But what I could not figure out was why they were here. On the boat to France, Marcus’s spell had called them through. Had he done that again?

  “El!” Oliver’s voice bellowed through the airship. Then he charged into the pilothouse, his eyes huge. “Is this your doing? Are they here because of you?”

  “Is who here?” Joseph demanded. “And why is it Eleanor’s fa—”

  His words were cut off by a single, long howl.

  A hound’s howl.

  My stomach punched into my lungs. I doubled over. And beside me, Oliver whispered, “God save us all. It’s the Hell Hounds.”

  No one moved. A frantic glance to the front showed Daniel looking puzzled while Joseph had paled to near-deathly white.

  “Hell Hounds?” Daniel asked. “You mean those creatures that killed Madame Marineaux?”

  “Those are the ones!” Oliver answered, while I shrieked at Daniel: “Land the airship!”

  “I’m trying.” Daniel twisted back to the wheel. “Everyone hold on!”

  But no one had time to hold on. The storm rammed into us. The airship snapped sideways like a kite, and I reeled into the wall.

  “Right lever!” Daniel yelled, spinning the wheel left as Joseph hurtled for the levers. “Now left lever, halfway!”

  I staggered around to Oliver. “What do we do?”

  “Figure out what they want,” he yelled back.

  I lifted my right hand. That was how Marcus had set the Hounds on me before—by casting a spell on my amputated ghost hand. But the fingers were not glowing, and no pain coursed through me. “It isn’t me. Could it be you, Oliver?”

  My demon wrenched out his locket—the necklace that kept him magically trapped in the earthly realm. But the locket was not glowing either.

  Lightning cracked, flashing over miles of farmland. Thunder rumbled through the metal. It was close—far too close.

  “What’s happening?” Allison cried, running in from the hall and pushing past Oliver.

  Behind me, Daniel kept bellowing commands at Joseph—“Middle lever, down!”—and spinning the wheel as hard as he could against the wind. But then he jolted back as if struck . . . and he began to shout.

  “Oh shit, oh shit—get it off me! Get it off!” He yanked at something around his neck. Something that glowed bright blue.

  I lunged for him. “What is that?”

  His eyes met mine, wide with panic. “Monocle.”

  “Oh God.” I snatched at the chain and tried to snap it off his neck. It held fast. “Oliver!” I screamed. “Help us!”

  “Why is it stuck?” Daniel cried. “Why can’t I get it off?”

  Oliver paled. “It must be bound to you. A spell.”

  “But Madame Marineaux is dead!” I argued. “How can the spell still work?” Even as the words fell from my mouth, I knew the answer. The monocle might have come from Madame Marineaux and the Marquis, but just like Jie’s hair clasp, it must have been bewitched by Marcus. And now whatever spell it contained was calling the Hell Hounds to us.

  Daniel gaped, first at Oliver, then at me. “How do I get it off?”

  Oliver shook his head. “You don’t. Only the spell caster can break a spell like this.”

  “Will we die?” Allison screeched.

  Jie clambered into the room. “Should we put on parachutes?”

  “Yes.” Daniel stumbled toward the hall. “Everyone put on a parachute. Joseph, you take the wheel while I go back and pull the sandbags to the—”

  Another gale hit the airship, and everyone went flying across the pilothouse. I hit the glass with a thud, and before I could scrabble back to my feet, my nose was filled with the stench of grave dirt.

  Against my will I gagged. We were out of time. After all this, the Hounds were going to pluck us from the sky, and there was nothing we could do.

  Daniel rounded back on Oliver. The chain clenched in his fingers, he yelled over the roaring Hounds, “This is what they want?”

  Oliver nodded.

  “And they’ll rip through the airship trying to reach it?”

  “Yes!”

  “So if I’m not here—”

  “Distraction!” I screamed. “We can distract you, and that would break the spell!”

  “And then we might be able to get the monocle off,” Oliver finished, nodding faster.

  I grabbed Daniel’s chin and made him look at me. “Sometimes you can stop a necromantic spell with distraction. Think of something else!”

  “Like what?” His eyes were so wide, his pupils dilated fully.

  “Anything! Just think of something that isn’t the Hell Hounds!”

  “Hurry!” Allison shrieked. “They’re coming.” She pointed out the window. I dropped Daniel’s face as everything inside me went blank with fear. For there they were. Four curs galloped amid a gray squall, growing larger and closer each second.

  Then a new sound filled the gondola—a blast of wind. The howls and the thunder were suddenly doubled in volume, and I knew before I even looked down the hall what I would find.

  The hatch in the cargo hold was open, and Daniel stood on the edge. He glanced back only once, and his eyes met mine.

  “No!” I launched myself after him. But I was too slow, too far away.

  Daniel jumped.

  And that was when I realized—in a half-formed thought that flitted through my mind before I’d gone two steps: he had no parachute.

  And I could not let him die.

  I skittered back, yanked a parachute off the hook, and then sprinted. Each kick of my legs brought me closer to the open hatch—and just before I reached it, I swung the parachute on.

  Then I jumped too.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was weightless. I wasn’t falling! I wasn’t moving! I was lost in an endless, gray world of clouds.

  And Daniel—I couldn’t see him anywhere.

  But then I broke through. The lush vegetation of farms opened up before me like a jungle. Wind slashed into my face and forced its way into my nose, my mouth, my eyes—I couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe—and I knew, with horrifying certainty, that I was falling.

  Fast.

  I forced my eyes to stay open though tears poured from the sides, and I searched for Daniel. How could I have lost him so easily?

  Then there he was, off to my left, arms flailing out to his sides. His hands clawed as if he grasped for something—anything—to slow his fall.

  I closed my arms into my body and aimed, willing myself to fall faster. Faster.

  I risked turning my head. But I instantly wished I hadn’t—the Hell Hounds were there. Gray storm clouds with jaws of death. They careened straight for Da
niel.

  I had to reach him first.

  I would reach him first. Faster, faster, faster! He was so close now. Through my watering eyes, I could see his hair lashing.

  And I could see the monocle glowing.

  I slammed into his back and threw my arms around his chest, clinging as tightly as I could.

  A scream ripped from his lips—and was instantly lost behind us.

  “It’s me!” I shrieked in his ear. “Eleanor!” And in that moment he was distracted. The blue glow died; the spell lost its hold. I gripped the monocle and yanked, snapping it free.

  Then, with all my strength, I slung it into the sky.

  But the Hell Hounds’ open jaws were still cycloning for us.

  “Parachute!” Daniel roared.

  My fingers wrapped around the canvas cord, and in a single move I squeezed Daniel tighter and ripped the parachute open.

  Fabric whipped out, billowing wide. In a neck-wrenching movement, we tore backward, our bodies yanked straight up, shooting us above the Hell Hounds.

  They screeched beneath us, a gust of wind bursting up as their thunderous jaws snapped onto a dim, glowing chain.

  The wind blasted us, swelling into the parachute with a roar. We rocketed even higher, pushed off far from the Hounds’ fury.

  But not before I saw the glowing chain—and the Hounds—explode in a flash of blinding blue.

  The instant the Hounds were gone, Daniel cried out, “I can’t believe you, you stupid, stupid girl!” He was shouting in my ear, and I realized from the shudders in his chest that he was sobbing. “Stupid, stupid Eleanor—why?”

  His arms came backward, and I felt his hands clasp behind my back; but he couldn’t get much of a grip at this angle. So I squeezed tighter and wrapped my legs around his waist. “Can these parachutes hold two?”

  “No!” he screamed. “You just killed yourself too!”

  “Isn’t there something we can do?” The only thing keeping Daniel alive was my arms—and my strength was draining fast.

  It wouldn’t matter that I had just saved Daniel’s life, and he had saved the airship—

  The airship!

  I wrenched my head up, hoping to see it, but my entire, watery vision was filled with white fabric. And my ears were filled with the creaking parachute lines. It was the only sound over our heavy gasps for air.

  “Can Joseph land?”

  “We have other things to worry about right now!” Daniel tried to look up.

  “Stay still!” I clutched him more tightly. “If you squirm, I’ll drop you!”

  “You need to drop me anyway!”

  “Absolutely not.” We were alive, and that was not something I was going to give up.

  “Let go,” Daniel shouted, but I noticed he made no move to break free.

  “I didn’t catch you so I could drop you again.”

  “Well,” he growled, “this parachute isn’t gonna hold us much longer. We’ll start falling faster real soon. Got any more genius ideas?”

  “Not if you keep insulting me,” I hissed in his ear. “I just saved your wretched skin, Daniel Sheridan. The least you could do is thank me.”

  “I’ll only thank you if we get to the ground alive.” There was a new note of terror in his voice, and I realized by the quickening whistle of wind in my ears, by the growing funnel of air in the parachute, that gravity had taken its hold once more. I looked out over the land—yellow rock, jagged hills in the distance, and far to the east, the muddy Nile. I had no idea where we were now or how we would find the others, but I’d be damned if I’d let my heroic jump go to waste.

  Screwing my eyes shut, I focused on my spiritual energy. If I could strengthen myself, why not the parachute? Necromancers transferred spells to inanimate objects—that was the purpose of an amulet—so surely I could find some way to make this work. . . .

  My arm muscles scorched with strain. My fingers were weakening. I made myself inhale deeply—stretch my lungs to the limit—and draw in a full breath. My power spiraled up from the tips of my body.

  And from something warm that pulsed in my pocket. The ivory fist. It was feeding me magic. But I did not have time to dwell on this. I simply gathered and grabbed at all the power I could.

  A trickle of blue warmth turned to a rush and then to a torrent. I gathered it in my chest, letting it whorl around my heart as I called up more . . . until my well of power was pressing against my lungs, pushing out my oxygen. Until soon enough I would have nothing left to breathe.

  “Daniel,” I said, surprised by how calm and smooth my voice was—not that it much mattered. We had picked up substantial speed now, and the air cut into my face and eyes. “Daniel, I need you to hold on as tight as you can. I’m releasing one hand.”

  He nodded, and I quickly checked that my left arm wouldn’t give out—but it was fine. I felt shockingly strong. My legs too—they squeezed his waist with unrelenting power. The magic had not only refreshed my strength but increased it.

  I released my right hand, instantly grabbing hold of a parachute line. Then I willed every ounce of power I had into it. Stronger, stronger, stronger. Hold us a little longer until we reach the ground.

  Instantly, the magic responded. It slipped from my fingers, and though I didn’t look up to watch, blue flared in the top of my vision.

  “What did you just do?” Daniel demanded—though he had the good sense not to squirm. “Why . . . why are we fallin’ slower?”

  For two heartbeats I remained silent. I waited for the rest of my magic to twine itself around the parachute, to hold the cloth open and keep the strings from snapping. The ground below—leafy farms and distant desert—was still so far away.

  At last I yanked my arm down and clutched Daniel’s chest once more, and the heady perfection of the spell bubbled over me as it always did.

  “Empress?”

  Daniel’s voice pierced my happy warmth. “Hmmm?”

  “What did you just do?”

  “Magic. To keep the parachute intact.”

  He didn’t answer, but I felt the muscles in his back tighten. Yet if he was worried about the necromancy, I didn’t care. I had saved his life—what did it matter how?

  In the back of my mind, though, something nagged—something bleak that wanted my attention, but I gave it none.

  Because, for heaven’s sake, we were flying! The slightest wind gusted over us, and hawks glided at eye level. My heart swelled with joy, and I couldn’t keep from grinning. I was flying! And I had saved Daniel’s life, and he had saved the airship.

  It didn’t take long before the ground stopped looking like indistinguishable plants, and the sugarcane leaves and patches of scrubby forest came into focus. Even a clay farmhouse in the distance. Then, faster and faster, the ground approached—and I realized that despite my stroke of genius that would get us to the ground, we weren’t going to arrive softly.

  Daniel seemed to have the same thought, for he suddenly started shouting, “Steer left—left, Empress!”

  “How?” A wicked-looking sycamore was directly beneath us, and the clicks of insects were doubling in volume each second.

  “Left, left! You need to pull—” His words broke off as the leaves raced toward us . . . and then we were on them. I had no choice: I dropped Daniel into the sycamore, and he immediately grabbed a branch. But without his weight, my speed decreased and spiraled even more sharply right.

  Then I plummeted between two acacia trees. The thorns sliced into my skin, but I barely noticed—I was too busy trying to grab hold of a branch to stop my fall.

  Then my parachute strings snagged, and with a final, gut-wrenching jerk, I stopped moving altogether.

  The ground was a solid ten feet beneath me.

  “Daniel,” I yelled. “Are you all right?” He didn’t answer, and panic stole my breath. With my fingers flying, I unfastened the sack’s harness. “Daniel? Dan—” My yell became a yelp as I plummeted to the earth.

  I hit with a thump. Shock jolted
through my legs. I toppled forward onto my hands—and they sank into the soft, rich soil. Bugs hummed everywhere, and the humidity was so intense, it seemed to muffle all sounds.

  “Empress!” Daniel’s voice cut through the air and the insects. He was alive—we were both alive.

  But what about everyone else? Now that we had landed, what of the airship? I dragged myself into a kneeling position, lowered my eyelids, and felt for Oliver. Felt for the bond of power that connected us. . . .

  There it was, tugging in my gut. I reached out along it, trying to gauge where the demon might be.

  South. Southeast, actually. At least two miles . . . but not moving. He wasn’t in the sky anymore, and I could only hope that meant he was safe.

  For half a breath our bond shimmered more brightly, and a fresh surge of magic pulsed through me. I smiled. Oliver was looking for me too—I could follow our connection until I found him.

  Just as I opened my eyes and leaned back to dust off my hands, footsteps beat on the dark earth. I twisted my head left, knowing who came.

  And then there he was, his face jubilant. Cheeks flushed and eyes bright, Daniel sprinted to me. Before I could tell him to slow, to give me a moment to breathe, he had me in his arms. He spun me, laughing and crying.

  One twirl, two twirls, and the leaves blurred into a world of green and yellow.

  But just as suddenly as he’d picked me up, he lowered me onto my toes and clasped the sides of my face. “Empress,” he said, his voice stern—though tears pooled in his eyes, “that was the stupidest, stupidest thing you have ever done.”

  I gave a hoarse laugh. “I saved your life.”

  “I know—oh God, I know.” He tugged me into an embrace, so tight I could barely breathe. “But please, don’t ever do something that foolish again. Ever. Do you hear me?”

  “You’re only mad because I’ve rescued you more times than you’ve rescued me.” I laughed again, this time more deeply. I still burned with the power I’d cast on the parachute. It was a happy drunk that made me bold—made me draw back and flick his chin, like he always did to me.

  But he grabbed my wrist and pulled me to him. Our bodies met. “That’s not true.” His voice was suddenly rougher. Lower. All sign of his tears were gone. “How many times have you saved me?”