Tin Swift(120)

Ansell turned, his round face grim. “We don’t have power, Miss Wright. We don’t have steam. We can’t go back. There is nothing we can do to help them. So we wait for them to find us in the next couple hours. If not, we’ll let air out of the envelope, slow as we can, bring the ship down, and walk out of these hills.”

“But Rose—,” Mae started.

Ansell just pressed his lips together, shaking his head, and turned away.

Rose couldn’t walk, and the three of them couldn’t carry her. If they brought the ship down, she’d have to be left behind.

They were no longer the rescuers. They were in sore need of being rescued.

“Mae?” Rose said softly.

Mae jerked. She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, the sisters’ voices filling her thoughts, but Ansell was now sitting staring out the fore windows and Miss Wright was staring out the aft. Someone had pulled a blanket over Mr. Theobald and moved him to one side of the space.

Mae rubbed her hands down her dress and walked over to Rose, her boots strangely loud in the quietly rocking ship.

“I’m here,” Mae said.

Rose opened her eyes. “Maybe I could help,” she said. “Fix the boilers?”

Mae took her hand. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. Any of us, right now.”

“Ship coming,” Joonie said. “Straight over from the compound.”

Ansell jumped up and jogged over to peer out the window. “What kind of thing is that?”

Joonie bit her lip and shook her head. “Nothing I’ve seen before. Wait. That’s glim light in glass. A single globe high. It’s okay, Mr. Ansell. That’s a friendly ship.”

“Lots of people can get their hand on glim,” Ansell said, pulling a gun down from the overhead storage.

Joonie put her hand on his arm. “It’s a signal among the people I work for. Miss Dupuis knows it.”

“You think she’s aboard?”

“She must be.”

The sound of fans grew louder as the ship neared.

“There!” Joonie said. “That’s Mr. Hunt.”

Mae’s heart lurched. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath, wondering if he was alive.

“We’re coming aboard!” he yelled, from where he hung half out of the craft.

Ansell strode over to the door. “Is the captain alive? We lost the boiler.”

“He’s alive,” Cedar yelled. “Stand back while we secure the ship.”

Ansell got out of the doorway. A cannon boomed, and ropes fell like rain around the ship. No, not rain, it was a net with weighted bolos on the edges catching at the ship.

Clever.

Ansell stepped up to the door and latched the net onto the hooks worked into the frame. Then he tied two extra lines from the netting to bars inside the ship. The net formed a sort of rope walkway between the two vessels.

Mae shifted so she could see out the door. Cedar Hunt strode into the room, bloody, burned, but whole, and Mae felt as if she’d just seen the sun rise.

Then Bryn Madder strode in behind him, his tool belt and pockets bulgy with metal and devices, his goggles strapped across his forehead. “Heard there’s a blown gasket or two?” he said. “Mind if I take a look?”

“Back that way,” Cedar said.

“You know him?” Ansell asked, eyeing the bull-shouldered short Madder.

“Yes. And he’ll treat the ship right, Mr. Ansell.” Cedar paced over to Mae.

“And the captain?” Ansell asked.

“He’s still breathing, but hurt badly,” Cedar said. “Mae, can you help him?”

“The captain?” she asked. “I can try. Of course. But I won’t leave Rose. Cedar, we can’t leave her behind.”

Cedar’s eyes went hard. “Who said we’re going to leave her behind?”

“I…” Mae looked around the room. Someone had said it. Surely they had. But she couldn’t remember. There were too many voices in her head, too many words screaming at her, pulling at her.

Cedar’s hand gently touched her face. “…need you to stay with us, Mae. Just a bit longer.”

She blinked hard, trying to focus on him. His touch, his words. “I’m fine,” she said. “What do I need to do?”

“I need you to tend to the captain.”

“Bring him here,” she said.

“Mae, the ship isn’t steady. It’d be better if you came over to the Madders’ craft. Better if we all boarded their ship.”

She heard him, his voice a low rumble beneath the sisters’ constant shriek. But he wasn’t listening to her.

“Captain Cage needs to be here,” Mae said, not sure that her voice was rising above the sisters’. “He needs to be on the Swift. He’s tied to her. Bound because I bound him, tied him. His ship’s dying. He’s dying.”