Shana Abe - The Deepest Night

“Like a raccoon?” I’d seen a drawing of one once. It had looked like a rat with a sharp, pointed nose.

He laughed. “Not really. Just like … markings, I suppose. You’ve never seen your own face?”

“No. How could I have?” I’d barely noticed even my human face. Mirrors weren’t exactly a vital part of my existence. I used them to ensure that I was free of smudges and that my hair was pinned tightly enough to avoid Mrs. Westcliffe’s censure. That was about it.

“Belle of the ball,” he assured me. “No wonder the other girls at Iverson snipe at you.”

“Right. That’s why.”

I eased back down. Gradually the room melted into that greeny gray darkness, and Armand’s breathing slowed. I watched the air condense into night. I listened to the insects in the forest clicking their tiny dusk songs. Frogs. The water bird by the lake, piping alone.

“Are you going to marry me, Eleanore Jones?” Armand asked, his words barely breaching the dark.

Yes. No.

How could I, and how could I not?

“Ask me again later,” I answered at last. “Ask me when this is all done, and we’re back in England, and the sun is shining.”

Ask me then, if I’m still walking in this life beside you.

Always she astounds me. Lora-of-the-moon, changing her fate yet again.

I can’t believe I never realized she’d do it. I’d thought I’d tested her depths, known her true heart. There can be no sound reason I never anticipated this future, except, perhaps, that I didn’t want to.

Her life for his.

And now all will be different. The path she was meant to forge ahead alone has been bent.

I am a furnace with the force of my desire, a fire so hot I melt my own limitations.

I need to reach them. I need to change the coming day.

But they’re so entwined now. Because of her sacrifice, they’re bonded in a way I never was with her, absorbed in each other’s songs. Mine becomes harder and harder to distinguish.

I watch from my impossible distance, knowing the sun will exhaust me before I see these next few hours through; that I’ll vanish from the sky before I know how it concludes. I spin a spell and sing the only song I need this dragon whelp to remember, the only command Armand must obey: don’t leave her.

Armand had discovered the name of the village by the lake, consulted his maps, and figured out where we needed to go next. I munched one of the apples (very tart) as he suited up: the leather coat and gloves, the compass, the knapsack and goggles. The pistol in its holster, which I was starting to think would be better off in my hands than his. But since I wouldn’t have actual hands for our flight, I let him keep it.

I took my dragon shape by the shore of the lake, the moon looming over us, a sharpened scythe imprisoned in rings of misty platinum and mauve.

Mandy climbed up and ran his hands down my neck before finding my mane. He felt too light to me. I knew it to be an illusion—he weighed the same as ever—but I wanted him to be heavier. Solid and substantial like a boulder. Like a mountain, so I’d never have to worry about anything harming him ever again.

I gazed at the stars and thought, Don’t take me now. Not while he’s riding the clouds with me. Let him stay safe, please.

safe, beast. tonight he is safe.

It would have to do.

We left the lake and lodge behind. I went up, up—the lambent lights from the village quite festive from here—making a wide, easy circle before heading in the right direction.

Northeast, toward Prussia.

Mandy had calculated that we could reach the prison camp by dawn. We weren’t going to attempt to infiltrate it yet; we’d wait a day, hide and rest up, assess our situation. See if we could figure out exactly where Aubrey was being held before charging in.

I flew as high as I dared. With the moon out and no ocean or heavy cloud cover to protect us, we slipped along the wind, silent but painfully visible. Our route wouldn’t take us over any major cities, but still I did my best to avoid any pockets of civilization below. I didn’t know enough about guns to know how high a bullet could be shot. Only that it hurt like the devil when they struck you.

A few hours in, I realized the land below me had changed from forest and roads to roads and clearings. But these clearings weren’t farmers’ pastures or plowed fields. They were too narrow for that, parallel strips that went on and on, bare of any vegetation. I puzzled over them, slowing some, and by the time I glanced ahead and noticed the aeroplanes stationed at their ends, Armand was already pressing his knees into me and wrenching at my mane.

It was an airfield. I’d never seen one before, of course, but it—

We’d been spotted. An alarm sounded; I heard it clear as the bell Mrs. Westcliffe liked to peal at Iverson to herd students from one room to another, only this was shrill and awful and went on and on and on. Figures of men spilled out from structures I hadn’t even noticed, swarming the aeroplanes. A searchlight flashed on and pinned us in white light.

Bad luck for me—I’d been looking at its tower when it lit. I was blinded. Armand was pulling me left, left, and I veered that way without being able to see what I was doing, if I was getting free of that light or just moving into another one.

I heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. The tat-tat-tat-tat! that I knew meant machine guns unloading their drums.

I supposed I’d find out the range of their bullets after all.

I climbed. The peaceful silence of before had been devoured, eaten up by the clanging of the alarm and the gunfire and the wind that now scoured me, fighting me. I felt Armand tucked close to my neck and heard him shouting, “Go! Go!” and God help me, I was.

Then came the worst sounds of all: engines sputtering to life. Propellers spinning, hacking the air.

I grimaced, trying not to imagine them hacking me instead.

My vision began to filter back, shapes and colors returning. We’d left the airfield behind and were over roads and pasture once more. I didn’t think the searchlights had caught us again—hopefully we were too far beyond them—although I could still hear that blasted alarm.

And then the aeroplanes taking off.

I looked back. Two, three … five of them right behind us. Armand met my eyes, then twisted to look back, too.

Six. Seven.

And they were getting closer. The wind had turned against us and it made all the difference, but I’d wager it meant nearly nothing to the engines of those planes.

Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

Bullets strafed by. One zinged off a barb on my tail, sending me into a spin.

I spiraled out of it, ducking and dodging, dipping and soaring. At one point Armand lost his seat entirely and was floating over my back, holding on with just his hands, but I couldn’t stop, because the aeroplanes were roaring closer and closer, and they were relentless.

I should Turn. I should go to smoke. But I didn’t know if Armand would, too—if he could, even, but I didn’t know, and since I didn’t know, I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t leave him and just let him fall and bloody well hope he figured out what I meant for him to do before he ended up a smear on the ground—

There! There was a town up ahead! Surely the pilots wouldn’t continue to fire over their own people?

I slitted my eyes and straightened for speed, the wind screaming now, gunfire puncturing the night in wide-open arcs to the left and right and above.

So I dropped lower, and the dull yellow burn of the streetlights was just there, and the first of the buildings swept into view. I flew over rooftops so close my talons scratched sparks from their shingles. I couldn’t tell if the pilots were still firing, but it didn’t matter; I had to slow, so I opened my wings and fought the rush of the world whipping past us.

Not all the streets were lit. I aimed toward a section of shadows, finding a lane of cobblestones, plowing into them.

More sparks; the lane ripped apart. A brick wall hurtling toward my face, too late to avoid.

I angled my head and took the blow, and everything flashed white like the searchlight, then black.

I opened my eyes, or thought I did. Everything was still black.

Maybe I’d gone blind.

Maybe I was dead.

But someone was holding me. Someone who smelled of pine trees and sea salt and desperation. His lips were pressed to my temple. His breath blew ragged against my hair.

“Wish I’d had a cannon for a tail,” I mumbled, and passed out again.

The next time I regained my senses was much more unpleasant. The world was no longer so opaquely black, but murky and dingy and sickeningly blurry. Somewhere nearby dogs were barking, an entire army of them, with a weirdly jabbering chorus of human voices lacing through. My head felt as if it would split apart.

All of me, all of me, hurt.

Armand was gone. I lay alone on something itchy and hard.

Had we been captured?

I rolled to my side, made my way up to my elbows. Beneath me was a shabby felt blanket spread over a stone floor. A stale breeze swirled by, and I sneezed, cramping my stomach and sending everything even blurrier and more nauseating.

Where was Armand? What were they doing to him?

I tried to stand. The world tipped sideways, and I found myself on my hands and knees with my head hung down, gasping.