“You take the hammock, my lad,” Szpirglas said. “It’s sure to give you a good night’s sleep, and you need it.”

“Oh, no, Captain Anglesea, sir. You should have it,” I said, trying to hide my dismay.

“Won’t hear of it,” said Szpirglas, all courtesy. “I’ve had my fill of hammocks aboard ship anyway. I’ll be happy as a king to sleep on solid ground tonight.” He nodded at a reed mat on the floor. It was practically beneath my hammock.

“Thank you very much,” I said, feeling greasy with all the pork and rice and mango juice. “You’re very kind.” I protested no more, for I did not want to make him suspicious.

A hammock is a tricky thing to get into. Perch on the edge and it will flip you off. You’ve got to get right into the middle, fast. I hopped in backward, and the ropes creaked like the devil’s own accordion. You’d think the thing was spun from rusted gossamer. I swallowed. Getting off quietly would be next to impossible, especially with Szpirglas directly underfoot.

Crumlin was settling down into a second hammock. The room was actually his and was off the dining hall in the big lodge. It was well past midnight, and the last of the pirates had now left for their own huts and bunkhouses. I could only hope they would sleep deeply after all the grog they’d gulped.

Szpirglas looked at me and laughed.

“Do you mean to sleep in your boots, then?”

“Oh.” There they were, still on my feet. I tried to look surprised and laughed, for I had left them on in the hopes no one would notice. I would need them in the forest, and I didn’t want to waste time fumbling for them in the middle of the night.

With a heavy heart I unlaced them and carefully dropped them on the floor near the top of the hammock. I hoped I would not have to leave them behind.

“You’ll sleep better for it, lad,” said Szpirglas, taking off his own boots.

I couldn’t believe I was bunking down with pirates. Not an everyday sort of thing. It was a wonder to me they even slept; I couldn’t imagine such men at rest, their faces smooth and innocent despite the wickedness of their hearts.

“You’re an impressive lad, to survive what you did,” Szpirglas said as he doused the oil lantern. “You might give some thought to working for us, you know. Now that your own ship has been lost. We’ve need of a good cabin boy. Our last decided to leave us.”

At this Crumlin chuckled mirthlessly.

“That’s very kind of you, sir. It’d be an honor to work with the Sky Guard.”

It must have been nerves, but I almost giggled in the dark. Maybe my chances of promotion were greater if I did ship out with pirates. I was assuming there might be more frequent opportunities aboard ship, what with crew members getting shot or thrown in jail. Surely Szpirglas could use an extra sailmaker.

I lay on my back, cradled by the creaking hammock. In the darkness I could feel Szpirglas’s eyes boring into my shoulder blades. I didn’t like being parted from Kate. I wasn’t even sure where her cabin was. I’d visited the latrines earlier and tried to get a sense of the village’s layout; I imagined that Szpirglas’s hut would be one of the nicer-looking ones, but one bamboo hut looked much like another to me. How typical of Kate de Vries to get the private cabin. I hoped she was nice and comfy and feeling grateful she didn’t have to smell Crumlin’s boozy breath and whiffy socks. Probably she wasn’t at all frightened. What could be more exhilarating than a pirate capture? It was something right out of one of her books.

Crumlin was already snoring, the great yak. Below me, Szpirglas was silent, but to me it sounded like the silence someone makes when they are pretending to be asleep. There’s just something too still and rigid about it. My heart clattered so loudly I was worried it was making my hammock swing. I tried to smooth my breathing. I thought of the Aurora. I pictured the rubber hosing shuttling the hydrium from the cave and shushing it through the forest toward the ship. I imagined its whispered hiss as it filled the gas cells. I saw the gas cell slowly swelling and the Aurora growing firmer and stronger. And the hissing sound got louder and louder and my thoughts streamed off up into the air and stars and—

I had to seize hold of myself and yank myself back awake. No more calming thoughts for me now. I prayed Kate would not let herself fall asleep, for the urge was so strong. I cursed my own stupidity at guzzling so much of the pirates’ drink. It might well have been poison. And why hadn’t it been?

I was fairly certain now that Szpirglas meant to keep Kate for ransom, but he would have no use for me. Unless he meant to press me into service. But, no, I doubted his intentions for me were so sunny. If I did not escape, he would dispense with me.

Was he hoping I’d sleep, or hoping I’d make an escape so he could follow me? It was a sickening thought. He’d put me in this infernal hammock for a reason. Maybe he wasn’t sure I’d bolt, but if I did, he wanted to know about it.

I wondered how Bruce was making out. His leg would slow him down, and night might have fallen before he’d reached the Aurora. Would he keep walking through the darkness or wait for the dawn to continue?

I rolled onto my stomach. What a noise that made, but I figured they’d be even more suspicious if I made no sounds at all. Everyone shuffles and shimmies about when sleeping. I cracked open an eye and looked down at Szpirglas. His eyes were closed and his breathing calm. He seemed genuinely asleep.

In the smudgy darkness of the room, I looked about at my possible exits. There was the door that opened out into the hall of the lodge. And there was a window, big enough to get through. It was hinged at the top and held open with a bamboo stick. The door was out of the question. Earlier someone had slumped drunkenly against it and fallen asleep in the hallway. His shadow blotted out the crack under the door, and I heard his great racking snores.

It had to be the window.

My hammock was bolted to the wall, quite close to the window. I didn’t dare try to swing myself out of the hammock, for I feared the noise it would make. The hammock would have to be my tightrope.

Now was the time.

I looked down at my boots. If I stretched, I might just grab them. But I would have to lean way over, and that would make the hammock rock, and I might end up getting spilled out with a rusty pirate-rousing shriek. Even if I could snatch them up, I’d just have to hold them, and I needed both hands free now. I never thought I’d look at a pair of boots with such longing. I removed my socks and placed them quietly on the hammock; I must be barefoot for the acrobatics I was about to attempt. My feet would get awfully bloodied and bruised in the forest, but that would be a small price to pay for freedom.

Flat on my belly I dragged myself up along the hammock, toward the wooden dowel from which all the netting was strung. The hammock quietly creaked. It wanted to roll. It wanted to pitch me off and onto Szpirglas’s chest.

I would not let it.

With my hands on the dowel, I slowly knelt, bringing one knee up at a time, keeping perfect balance. I stood, feet planted wide.

The hammock sighed.

I fixed my eyes to the window.

Below me Szpirglas gave a snort. I dared not look down for fear of losing my balance. I stood, hovering above him, an acrobat. If he’d seen me, he would speak. If he said nothing, he was still asleep.

He said nothing.

I stepped nimbly onto the ends of the dowel, my feet curling around the rope and wood. There were three feet between me and the window.

I leaped. I spread my arms like wings and when I landed on the windowsill I made myself believe that my bones were hollow, that I was so light the wood would scarcely know my weight. My feet gripped the narrow sill, and my hands reached up and touched the window’s upper frame.

Lighter than air, I was.

But not light enough, for with a rattle, the stick holding the window jiggled and slipped and fell outside onto the verandah. The window started swinging down; in less than a tick it would slam shut.

I took one of my hands off the frame and caught the window with my spread fingers against the glass. The hinges gave a little whine. I closed my eyes, breathed, waited. Behind me, Crumlin and Szpirglas made not a sound.

I have walked the back of the Aurora in a gale.

I have swung across the ocean from airship to balloon.

I can do this.

Someone was sleeping outside on the verandah, just to the right of the window.

I held the window up as far as it would go and jumped through. I kept my arm up high so it would catch the window as it fell back shut, and as my feet cushioned my silent fall on the verandah, the window swung back and pincered my hand against the sill. But there was no sound: the shriek of pain was only in my head. Gingerly I took my fingers out, found the stick lying against the belly of a sleeping pirate, and propped the window back open. I padded across the verandah, climbed the railing, and sprang off, picking for my landing site a place without crackly leaves or branches. I landed in a crouch and froze, looking all around, drinking in the darkness and watching for movement.

I wanted to find Kate’s cabin, but I did not know which one it was, and I was afraid of wasting time. I would just have to hope she’d get out on her own.

I started moving, seeking out the shadows for cover.

And then I was into the trees.

I ran. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, sharp as an owl’s. I saw by starlight and moonlight filtered through the branches and leaves. The air was velvet. I could run all night, I felt that strong. I was a wolf. My feet barely touched the ground. They did not hurt. I was free of the pirates’ room. I flew through the forest. In the landing field the moon shone darkly on the moored airship and the tall grass. I would stick to the trees and run all the way around to the far side where Kate and I had first emerged. Without my belt, my trousers were a bit loose around my hips. Every once in a while I had to give them a good tug. But my lungs did not burn. I had no cramps. I kept running.

I was on the far side of the field now, and I slowed. I listened for Kate. I whispered her name. I looked around. I went a little deeper into the forest and whispered her name some more. I stared at the stars, and knew it was well past two. I pictured Kate in her cabin, peering through her window, about to begin her run.

I sat down against a tree near the field’s edge and hugged my knees and waited. Cloud blotted out the moon for a moment, and it was truly dark. She would come before I counted to a hundred. But she did not. I gave her another hundred and then stood and walked along the field’s border, whispering her name, fearing she was lost.

But she was not so helpless. She had found her way from the ship, across the island, and down the bluff into the valley quite happily. She was capable. If she’d left her cabin, she would be here. Unless she’d been caught. Unless something was wrong.

My throat felt thick. I did not want to go back to the pirate camp. I was free here in the woods. I felt I belonged to the night air, and I did not want to venture back and risk being caught. I wanted to run to the ship, my ship, and warn her and cast off.

I took a breath, stood, and started back toward the pirate village.

I decided to risk it and run across the landing field, for it would be faster. I entered the village quietly as a deer, for I feared a trap. I lingered at the edges, looked toward the bungalows. There was no one in sight. I went to the first that seemed likely and found a window and saw half a dozen men sleeping on mats and hammocks. I went to the next, and through the window saw the nurse Delilah sleeping on a mat near Szpirglas’s son, Theodore. The next hut over was the right one. It was a proper little house, with furniture and a desk and a sofa and a bed, and on the bed was Kate, fast asleep.

I skirted round the bungalow to the door and pulled at the handle, but it was made fast from the inside. I dared not knock. Back to the window I went. Luckily it was not locked. I pushed it all the way open and hoisted my belly over the sill. Headfirst I slid into the room, landing in a handstand.

I went to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. The fragrance of deep sleep was all around her. I whispered her name in her ear. She made a small sound, and her eyelids crinkled like she wanted me to go away and leave her be. I gave her a rough shake and said her name again, this time not so gently.

Her eyes opened, and she looked at me most reproachfully for a few seconds. Then her eyes flicked around the room in horror.

“I fell asleep,” she breathed.

“Come on now.”

“I fell asleep,” she said again in disbelief. “I’m so sorry.” She was fully dressed at least. I headed for the door.

“Do I have time to visit the toilets?” she asked.

I stared back at her, incredulous. “You can go in the forest later.”

“I certainly won’t,” she said.

“Suit yourself.”

“All very well for boys,” she muttered.

I turned the latch and opened the door.

Szpirglas stood before me.

“This is most improper,” he said.

I had no words.

“I thought I recognized you,” Szpirglas said, “but I wasn’t sure, and you playacted so well. I thought to myself, If they try to get away, they know who we are—and they’ve got another way off this island.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Captain Anglesea!” I said desperately.

He struck me hard across the face. “You know my real name, boy! Why didn’t you run when you first saw us at the landing field, eh? You’re protecting someone, and something.” He shoved me back and strode into the bungalow, followed by his mate. “Mr. Crumlin, rouse a search party immediately. We may have a ship to salvage. Where is the Aurora?”

“Your props tore us to shreds!” I told him. “The ship crashed. Only some of us got off.”

“No. You’re lying. Where is she?”

I stopped talking.

“Perhaps your fancy friend here will be more cooperative. What do you say? You seem attached to the girl. It might upset you to see us torture her. Tell me what I need to know and save her from torment. How does that strike you?”

He was smiling as he said this, as though it were another of his gentlemen’s jests, all in the best of fun.

“To the northwest,” I lied.

Szpirglas looked at me with disgust.

“There’s no place there where a ship could land. I see you don’t take me at all seriously, lad.”

“The ship did not land,” I said doggedly. “She ditched and some two dozen of us made it ashore.”

I saw in his face that same cold anger as when he’d shot Mr. Featherstone. His gun was holstered through his belt, and I knew he could use it on me at any moment.

“Let’s take them both to the pit, Mr. Crumlin.”

Szpirglas seized Kate by the arm, and Crumlin grabbed me in his butcher-block fists and marched me out of the bungalow. Even if I could struggle free, they’d shoot me in the back. We crossed the village and took the path toward the airfield, then turned off onto another path I hadn’t noticed before. The smell of mangoes bloomed heavily in the air. In the speckled starlight I saw huge spools of hosing near a great stony mound. Set into the stone face at an angle was a narrow metal hatch. In its middle was a round collared opening, capped right now. Crumlin grabbed the hatch’s handle and pulled it open. Hydrium hissed out loudly from the dark shaft.

The entire island seemed porous with hydrium. No wonder this place was so precious to the pirates. Hidden and with an eternal supply of lifting gas.

“Your ship was gutted,” Szpirglas said as if I’d personally insulted him. “She should have sunk.”

“She did sink.”

“I think you managed to save her somehow. Or slow her enough to land here. I applaud your captain and crew. You must have been mending her at a furious pace.”

I said nothing. Szpirglas was smiling, as though marveling at our ingenuity.

“Now, then,” he said, nodding at the shaft, “the fall isn’t much, just enough to bruise you up some. It’s the hydrium that will kill you. There’s no room for air down there. You start telling me the truth, or you both go down.”

My entire body burned with cold. Not even in my worst nightmares had I imagined such powerlessness. My legs were weak. I could not run. I could not fly.

“You first, then,” said Szpirglas to Kate. “If I’m to ransom you, I’ll need your parents’ particulars, not that pretty address in Honolulu you concocted.”

“I’ll not tell you,” said Kate, giving him one of her nostril-narrowing gazes. I was amazed she had the courage at such a time.

“Excellent,” said Szpirglas. “I’m most impressed. Of course, the alternative for you is a particularly nasty death.”

She said nothing, only looked at me. I nodded. She told Szpirglas her real name and address.

“A fancy address for a fancy girl. Very good. Now, Mr. Cruse, the whereabouts of your ship.”

“There’s no ship,” I said once more. “Only some survivors, on the island’s leeward side.”

He looked at me thoughtfully, almost sympathetically, I thought. “Take heart, Mr. Cruse, there are only three or four places on the island where one could land a vessel the size of the Aurora. It will not be hard for us to scout out.”

“You’ll not find any ship,” I said, lying in vain even now. The sickly gush of hydrium was giving me a headache.

“It’s a shame,” Szpirglas said. “I had no intention of damaging the Aurora. You must blame Mother Nature and her storm winds. I take no pleasure in killing. As it is, you must know I can never let you leave the island. I’ve got a whole village to take care of, men and women and children. My own son. This is my home. I can’t have anyone giving me away. Last year, some benighted fool in a hot air balloon came bumbling over the island and had a good long look. We had to go after him and slit his envelope and make sure he’d never see land again. He was a sick old man; I don’t think he would have lasted long anyway. I didn’t enjoy doing it, but it was not a choice I had.”

I looked at Kate, pale in the starlight, staring with silent hatred at the man who’d helped kill her grandfather. I now understood the last entry in Benjamin Molloy’s journal: Airship in the distance. Will signal for help. It wasn’t the Aurora he’d signaled but the pirates’ airship.

Szpirglas looked at Kate. “Your parents only need to think you’re alive for me to ransom you,” he said, and he gave her a shove that sent her sprawling down the shaft into darkness.

“No!” I shouted, but already Crumlin had me by the shoulders and was half lifting, half pushing me toward the shaft opening. I kicked and struggled and jammed my feet against the sides, but they battered me until finally I was dangling over the pit, and then with one great push I was sliding down on my backside. Darkness gobbled me up. The steep slope fell away altogether and there was a big drop and I hit the ground. All the breath was knocked out of me.

Only the faintest pulse of light slanted down from the open hatch, at least thirty feet overhead. Kate lurched toward me, wheezing. The cave floor was scored with countless little hydrium vents, and the gas boiled invisibly all around us, leaving no room for air. When the metal hatch clanged shut we were plunged into a blackness more total than I had ever known. I had Kate by the hand. An hour ago I was free in the forest, running through the night.

I forced myself up, staggered forward until my outstretched hand hit a wall. Too steep to climb. I kept moving, smacking at the rock. Too steep, no footholds, no way out here. A geyser of hydrium blasted me in the face, making my head spin. I tripped and fell, my nose in the dirt and—

—breathed.

Air, a little pool of it, lay silent and heavy against the earth, undisturbed. I grabbed Kate and pushed her head to the ground. She struggled at first, thinking I’d gone mad.

“Breathe,” I croaked.

It wasn’t much, just enough to keep our hearts kicking, for a little while.

“What now?” was all she could say.

I shook my head, grunted. Didn’t want to waste air on words. This was a cruel way to kill someone. Much better to be shot or thrown off a cliff into the waves.

I felt a little eddy of hydrium slip into my shirtsleeve, the fabric ballooning. Its lift was so powerful that my arm started to rise. My sluggish brain began to work.

“Take your pants off!” I told Kate.

“What?”

“They’re perfect,” I gasped. I grabbed at the waist of her harem pants and yanked them down. I heard her give a yelp. I was too breathless and too muddy-brained to explain more. The material of my own trousers and shirt was too porous, but Kate’s pants were silky, just like the ship’s impermeable gas cells. They were baggy and a bit stretchy, and they’d carry a lot of hydrium.

“Balloon,” I wheezed, and luckily she seemed to understand, because she stopped struggling and helped me peel the pants off. In the dark I worked as carefully and quickly as I could. I knotted both legs tightly at the ankles.

“This way,” I said, dragging her over to a hydrium vent. I felt its gush and held the harem pants, waist down, over it. Within seconds they were ballooning with gas. The pull started dragging me off my feet.

“Hold tight!” I gasped at Kate, guiding her hands to the waistband.

We rose very slowly, but up we floated, dangling beneath the ballooning harem pants. It was lucky we were slender, but even so our combined weight was almost too much for it. I kept pushing off against the walls with my bare feet, trying to give us a little more lift.

Lighter than air, I thought groggily, that’s our Mr. Cruse.

After a moment I felt our balloon nudge up against something, and we were no longer moving. We’d hit the top of the shaft. Now, where was the hatch? I kicked about with my feet until I hit something metal.

I prayed the hatch was not locked, but I could not recall seeing any bolt or bar on it. My lungs were ready to burst. I kicked harder, and the hatch jumped a bit, moonlight gilding the edges. I hoped the pirates had left us to our death, and we would not find them waiting for us. I’d need to kick harder to fling the hatch wide.

“Hold on,” I grunted to Kate.

I started swinging to get a bit of momentum then gave a big kick, and the hatch lurched open. Night. Sky. Air. The pent-up hydrium in the pit burst out in an eager rush, carrying Kate and me with it. Our harem-pants balloon bobbed us up out of the pit.

We collapsed on the ground, sucking air greedily. No pirates. I thought my lungs would never feel full. My heart clattered sickeningly. I looked at Kate; her lips were blue, her face white as cream. Slowly our bodies came back to themselves. I crawled over to where Kate’s pants had fallen and brought them back to her. Like a sleepwalker she pulled them back on over her knee-length cotton knickers. My body felt so heavy. Before my eyes, the night forest pulsed and shimmered. I closed the metal hatch; no sense giving notice we’d escaped.

Run, I thought. But I could not speak—I was still too short of breath. Back to the ship. Warn them. The pirates would be looking for them. We staggered into the trees. We were weak as newborn kittens—had the pirates been close at hand they could have lifted us by the scruffs of our neck and drowned us. I lurched along, Kate keeping pace at my side. Some part of my brain must have remembered the way. I was trying to calculate how long we had been gone. Since yesterday before noon. It was coming on dawn now. Almost eighteen hours. The ship might soon be refueled and repaired, ready to go aloft.

We moved, and kept moving. My feet felt shredded. Trees and leaves and birds blurred around us. It grew lighter. At the bank of a creek we crumpled together and drank. Neither of us could take another step.

“Just a few minutes,” I said. I put my forehead against the mossy ground and told myself I must not sleep, not yet. There would be sleep later, waiting for me in my cabin on the Aurora when we were aloft.

Kate was crying. She was shaking her head and dragging her hands over her face and saying it was all her fault Bruce Lunardi had been hurt, and the pirates knew about the ship now, and that she’d put us all in danger. I grabbed her hands and tried to calm her. But she shut her eyes so tightly her eyelids were just crinkled slits. She pulled her hands free, and her lips trembled and were wet with her tears.

I kissed her mouth.

I wanted to do it, so I did it.

She stopped crying and opened her eyes and looked at me.

“That kiss could get us both in a lot of trouble.”

“Worse than what we’re in?” I said.

“Do it again.”

I kissed her again, and for longer this time, and when she pulled back her head she was smiling. She looked off past me into the trees.

“That was very nice,” she said. “That was the second time I’ve been kissed.”

“You were kissed before?” I said jealously.

“Yes, just now by you, but I thought I’d count each time.”

I wanted to kiss her some more. I don’t know why, for there could be no less suitable time. Maybe it was pure relief that we were alive and away from the pirates. Maybe it was jealousy, because she and Bruce had seemed to get along so well. Mostly it was just because I wanted to, had wanted to for days.

“You ready?” I asked.

I was anxious to keep moving. I didn’t fancy another run-in with the cloud cat. We trudged on across the island, back toward the ship. My bare feet were raw and bleeding now, but it did not matter. All I wanted was to get back to the Aurora. I kept track of the time through the treetops, watching the rising sun.

“Hurry,” I said.

I was trying to feel the wind in the clearings, studying the edges of the clouds. The wind was right. The Aurora could take off without risk of being blown toward the island. She would have a good launch.

In another hour we reached the hydrium cave. The rubber hosing still ran out from the mouth into the forest, but there was no crew about. I wondered if this meant the ship had already been refilled. It made me nervous, seeing that hosing disappearing into the trees, like a trail leading straight to the Aurora.

I squeezed Kate’s arm at the sound of footfalls. We huddled down among some thick ferns and held our breath. A thin pirate flashed through the forest, coming from the direction of the Aurora. He was a natural runner, his strides smooth and long, and he ducked and veered through the undergrowth like he was well used to the terrain. His breathing came in quick smooth bursts. I watched him disappear and waited until I could no longer hear the crunch of his feet on earth.

“Hurry,” I said to Kate. “He’s seen the ship.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s a scout. He’s going back to the village to tell them. They’ll send everyone.”

She looked a little ill.

“What time is it?” I asked her.

She checked her watch. “Half past nine.”

I didn’t want to waste time taking the easy path by the stream. We went downhill the fastest way I could think of, and it was steep and uncomfortable, bumping down on our bottoms, clutching hold of roots and creepers. From time to time I cast a wary eye into the higher branches, to see if the cloud cat was prowling above us.

Light filtered in from the open beach. The trees thinned. We came out into the palms and sand. The lagoon sparkled. There was the Aurora, and my heart swelled to see her looking so well, hovering in the miraculous way of airships, eight feet off the sand. Her frame had been repaired, and her rudder, and she looked as taut and full and well fed as a blue whale.

She was snugly tethered, but there was no one about, which made me nervous. Was she about to depart? But she couldn’t, not without ground crew ready to cast off the lines.

We had to warn them they’d been spotted. We had to leave at once.

Keeping to the palms, I led us closer toward the Aurora.

Her gangways were shut tight.

The control car was empty.

I looked across to the windows of the starboard passenger lounge.

A figure moved past the glass and I could see his face.

It was Szpirglas.