“Damn it!”

  My elbows sagged, relief weakening my feeble muscles. The basket’s base was less than a foot thick. Nathan had drilled a hole all the way through, and the vial and its hazardous contents were gone.

  Nathan extricated himself and hammered me with a brutal blast of wind. I toppled to my side, pinned by his magic. With steady, stomping strides far heavier than Mom ever tread, he bore down on me.

  “This could have been easy. Painless, Harry. But you deprived yourself of my mercy.” He towered over me, staring down Mom’s nose, curling her lip in disdain. Malice surfed through her blue eyes, and Nathan squatted, bringing Mom’s face too close. “However, it’s going to be so much sweeter to know you’re awake, helpless to your fate.”

  Using harsh bands of elements, Nathan half dragged, half levitated me to the railing. I clutched the top rail, afraid he planned to heave me overboard, but he dropped me to my feet instead. Leaving me pinned in place with magic, he stalked to the rear of the basket.

  I peered at the ground far, far below us, my plan to signal for help dying. The city sprawled across gently rolling hills, a collage of green-leafed canopies, wooden roof shingles, and snaking cobblestone roads. Air buses and wagons had shrunk to the size of my hand and people smaller than my fingers. A wave or a scream, it didn’t matter; neither would be discernible from this distance.

  Craning my neck, I strained to locate the distant warehouse district, hunting for Quinn’s golden shape glinting in the sunlight.

  A pegasus and rider surged above the city, angling for the Pegasus Express building. Another flew in the opposite direction, speeding away with the hour’s most urgent deliveries. A flock of pigeons coasted between rooftops. Several hawks swooped on gentle currents. Plenty of flying carpets skimmed closer to the ground, moving squares of colors with detached shadows.

  No winged quartz lion stirred the air above Terra Haven.

  Despair constricted my lungs. Please be all right, Quinn. Please be alive.

  Fresh tears blurring my vision, I peered past the bow. The fair sprawled beyond the city wall, a chaotic hodgepodge of vibrant tents and garishly painted vendor wagons forming a new town in the dry fields. The cheerful colors, the organic lines of the makeshift roads, and the dust shimmering in the air like visible excitement radiating from the people below reminded me of Seed Town.

  The everlasting tree blooming and obtaining my seed felt like the events of another life. My question . . . The story of a lifetime. I had envisioned writing an article that would positively transform the world—not destroy mine.

  Perhaps I could still complete my goal. I could save these people. I could have a positive impact, even if I didn’t survive to write the story. Nathan’s clumsy flying had gotten us pointed in the right direction—or rather, the wrong direction—but he hadn’t mastered the craft’s full speed. I still had time.

  I grabbed for the elements, gasping out loud when I bridged the void and seized a drop of magic. I wasn’t enough to light a candle, but it was a start. When Nathan returned with rope to bind my wrists to the railing, I didn’t fight him, biding my time.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  Nathan tsked. “This is why you’re a terrible journalist. You ask predictable questions.”

  “I had more front-page stories in my first month at the Chronicle than you did all year.” The taunt left a bitter taste on my tongue. I would trade every headline-topping story for a chance to go back and save Quinn. But Nathan was ruled by his pride, and I could think of no surer way of distracting him than by disparaging his journalistic skills.

  Nathan yanked the rope, searing its coarse fibers across my flesh. Blood welled in the abrasions, a whimper squeaking up my throat before I could cut it off. He smiled, his cruelty shining bright through eyes in which I had previously only seen love. Hatred for this petty man clawed at my gut with near-physical pain.

  “You never were and never will be better than me, Harry,” Nathan said, tying off his binding and coating it with a hard knot of earth element. “History will prove it. Now think, Harry, and if you ask me a smart question, I’ll answer.”

  I ground my teeth. He craved the excuse to gloat. I needed the time. But it galled to give him what he wanted. “Why are you doing this?”

  “There it is. Well done, Harry. I did this for you, to help you learn, because you didn’t listen.” Nathan tried to pull off a scolding, parental tone, but his anger overshadowed it.

  Behind his back, I channeled a crosswind into the propeller attached to the side of the envelope. The elements hiccupped and sputtered in my control, slapping against the canvas. Any competent dirigible captain would have investigated the abnormal noise, but Nathan was oblivious. On my third attempt, the magic caught the propeller’s spell, and it shifted, pointing crosswise to the other propellers. The deck vibrated subtly as the dirigible slowed, the sensation absorbed into the gyrations of the cargo ramp against the basket.

  I kept my gaze on Nathan’s, even though it meant watching Mom’s lips contort into a snarl.

  “I told you to go slow and respect seniority, but you were too full of yourself. You hoarded leads that should have gone to more experienced writers, people who actually earned their positions at the Chronicle.”

  Blindly, I batted at the rudder with magic, my clumsy elemental efforts bucking against the underside of the basket. The brass wheel affixed to the stern finally rotated. My hair fluttered around my face as the winds shifted. I waited for Nathan to notice, but rage blinded him to the altered currents. Slowly, we drifted off course.

  “But a brat like you couldn’t understand hard work. Your elite parents handed you the job. You didn’t have to do a thing.” Mom’s blue eyes cut through me. “I started with nothing. Nothing. Orphaned. Starving. I clawed my way up from the blight. I made something of myself. Carved out a place for myself among the Fire Eaters. Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? You never thought to research your competition. Another lesson you skipped over.”

  The puzzle pieces clicked into place. The Fire Eaters who attacked the jail after Nathan had sent me there, dangling a lead I couldn’t resist in front of my face; the Fire Eaters whose antics plagued Grant and his team all week, thwarting their efforts to track down the phoenix eggs; the Fire Eaters who kidnapped me and Wetherill—they had been acting on the behest of a boyhood chum.

  “I slogged my way through an apprenticeship in the print room before I was promoted to the writer’s bullpen. I deserve to be called a journalist, because I did the work. I’m smart too. I kept in contact with people from my past. That’s right, Harry, I have connections too. Yours might get you into good parties and drop jobs in your lap, but mine are more useful. Mine got me the most exciting stories this city has seen in a decade.”

  “Interesting,” I said in the most bored tone I could summon. “It’s bad to use connections to get a job or an interview, but it’s smart to use criminal friends to fabricate stories for your own gain. I wish I had my notebook with me so I could write this down.”

  Nathan’s fists clenched, his rage writhing across Mom’s face. I braced for a punch or slap of magic, but his expression settled on a sneer.

  “You’re no better than me, Harriet Kylie Grayson. Using your middle name isn’t much of an alias. You wanted someone to recognize you. Poor little rich girl exposed. You made yourself the story. It didn’t turn out like you thought it would, though. I wasn’t about to let you tarnish the Chronicle with your fame grubbing.”

  “My fame grubbing? What do you call what you’ve been doing?”

  “Journalism. It’s called journalism, Harry. Note how I haven’t been the focal point of any article I’ve written.”

  I had never written an article with myself as the subject either. Everything in the papers recently had been written about me. If I never saw my picture in newsprint again, it would be too soon. But Nathan’s attention was drifting, so rather than argue the point, I brought the conversation back to his favorite topic: him.

  “What I don’t get is why you had a doppelganger spell made of my mom and not me.”

  “You? Use your brain, Harry.” Nathan hammered his finger between my eyebrows, the blunt tip pounding hard enough to bruise.

  I jerked my head aside, wishing I dared to redirect my magic upside Nathan’s head.

  “You’re a nobody, and nobody cares what you do. Charlotte Grayson, however, is practically an honorary full spectrum with a national business. Anything horrible she does, like steal illegal spells from an FPD package shipped by her own company, gets national attention, and I get national syndication.”

  There it was. Nathan’s real reason. His need for recognition. His need for fame.

  Bile churned in my stomach. I recognized the spark that drove Nathan. It lived in me too. It existed in the heart of my question to the everlasting tree. It prompted me to chase Grant up to Zipporah’s nest and trapped me in her debt. It squirmed beneath my desire to rush toward danger so I could inform the public—the operative word being I.

  If not for Quinn, Mika, Grant, Mom, even—ironically—my everlasting seed, I might have fallen down the same dark hole as Nathan, more concerned with getting a story—the story—than maintaining my integrity.

  No. I wasn’t Nathan. I would never be Nathan. We might have the same spark, but Nathan had allowed it to turn dark, to let it drive him instead of inspire him. To consume him. I wouldn’t allow that to happen to me.

  If I survived.

  I slapped air element at a second propeller, battering the canvas with feeble handfuls of magic. My control was improving, my power returning, but far too slowly.

  “Your mom’s life was enjoyably easy to destroy. I mean, tracking down idiots to steal the firebirds took effort, but when I realized I didn’t need to use a middleman . . .” Nathan ran a hand through his hair, forgetting the elaborate illusion. Mom’s fingers passed through the knot of hair at the back of her head without mussing a strand. “It was so simple. No one questioned me going through the files in Charlotte’s office. I literally walked out with banned spells and phoenix eggs tucked in a bag, and Airstrong’s security waved and smiled at me.”

  “Our employees are a polite bunch,” I said. It had to kill him that he couldn’t publish any of this part of his treachery. Gloating to me was his only outlet, his only chance to revel in a bout of navel-gazing splendor in front of a captive audience. The best I could do was refuse to provide Nathan the reaction he desired. Anything to keep him angry and focused on me.

  “They’re a bunch of idiots,” Nathan snapped.

  My magic finally connected with the second propeller, flipping the spell in the opposite direction. Now only four propellers pointed in the same direction, and the other two ran counter. The envelope’s wooden frame groaned, our speed decaying.

  “The world is full of idiots. They only see what they expect to see. It makes them malleable.” Nathan giggled, a sound that had never emerged from Mom’s throat. It sent a shiver down my spine. “Full spectrums are the worst. They expect the world to revolve around them. They think everyone cares about their opinions. Look at Luther Wetherill. A nudge here, a word there, and he became the perfect lens through which I could sharpen my story. His greed and jealousy were mine to use to whip the masses into a frenzy against Airstrong. All along, I manipulated him like a marionette, and he believed he was in control.”

  My lip wanted to curl at his characterization of Terra Haven’s citizens and the paper’s subscribers as the masses. It wasn’t just me who was beneath Nathan in his eyes; it was everyone.

  Nathan stalked to the gate at the front of the dirigible, glanced down, frowned, then examined the propellers. Muttering under his breath, he adjusted the spells I had so painstakingly redirected. The ship righted itself, and a breeze pulled the sour stench of Nathan’s sweat past me. With my arms tethered to the railing, I had to wrench a shoulder to see past the bow. Despite my efforts, the fair sprawled perilously close.

  “I don’t know what you have planned, but you don’t need to do it,” I said, attempting to use reason despite my doubts about Nathan’s sanity. “You’ve proven you’re a better journalist. I don’t even work at the Chronicle anymore, and you have a book deal. You don’t need to—”

  “Do you think I’m a fool, Harry? I saw that minotaur article. I saw you talking with Dahlia. You’re homing in on my position again. You’ve learned nothing. You don’t even recognize an incomplete story arc.”

  “What?”

  “Act one: Airstrong heiress recovers the missing firebirds and restores her parents’ reputation. Act two: Airstrong heiress tracks down the thief of the banned spells and saves her parents from going to jail. Or did she?” Nathan winked. “Act three: Charlotte’s dastardly plans to sell the phoenix eggs backfires and nearly kills her. Airstrong heiress makes off with the stolen phoenix eggs in a last-ditch effort to spare her parents from going to the executioner’s block. But this time, she can’t hide her parents’ thieving ways. This time, her heroic efforts turn tragic as she loses control of the eggs over the fairgrounds, killing dozens.” Nathan tapped his chin. “No, I think ‘in the largest act of mass murder this nation has ever experienced’ sounds better. More headline grabbing. It’s the conclusion that will have my book flying off shelves across the nation. Around the world!”

  All the moisture evaporated from my mouth, and I had to clear my throat twice to get the words out. “How many phoenix eggs are on this ship, Nathan?”

  How many were on this delicate dirigible jouncing across cross currents with an open envelope hatch, lowered ramp, and saboteur hostage adding strain to every cable, board, stitch, and nail holding it together?

  Nathan’s gaze flicked to the cargo hold inside the envelope. “All three, of course. This is the story’s finale, right? I don’t want to waste this opportunity for the story of a lifetime.”

  22

  Numbness swept my body, terror stealing what little strength I had regained. My chance of surviving a single phoenix’s hatching had been negligible, but three? With the eggs in such close proximity, when one hatched, it would trigger the others. The dirigible would be annihilated—along with anyone on it. Yet Nathan didn’t appear concerned. What was I missing?

  “What’s stopping the eggs from hatching right now?” The egg Nathan had planted at Airstrong and the one the Fire Eaters had left in Wetherill’s hangar had hatched spontaneously. All the eggs were from the same clutch, maturing at roughly the same rate, meaning this ship could explode at any second.

  “I timed it,” Nathan said with a shrug.

  “What?”

  “Did you think I left an egg at Airstrong only for the story? It was a trial run to see how long it would take the phoenix to hatch after I removed the egg from the furnace. Last night at Luther’s confirmed the time almost to the minute.” He lifted a watch from a pocket hidden beneath the illusion spell and checked the time. “I have a little more than— No, let’s leave that a mystery for you.”

  Oh, you idiot. He was basing his countdown on the speed the eggs cooled. Once the shells’ outer temperatures dropped too low, the phoenixes would be forced to hatch to survive. Only, the egg at Airstrong had been tucked against a brick wall on a tile floor, both surfaces radiating the egg’s heat back at it, prolonging the cooldown. In the warehouse last night, the egg had been surrounded by a small wall that reflected the egg’s heat. Up here, in the chilled atmosphere hundreds of feet above the ground, with wind stealing the heat from the shells, they would cool immeasurably faster.

  I scrapped my plan of distracting Nathan. Whether Nathan knew it or not, we were out of time, and I wasn’t ready to give up and die.

  Channeling a mixture of air, fire, and water, I shot the magic straight for the propellers. Desperation and my panicked heartbeat strengthened my magic, and though the mixture lacked my usual finesse, the propellers spun with gusto. The dirigible tilted, pivoting in place. A flick of air brought the rudder into alignment. In seconds, the ship altered course by twenty degrees and picked up speed. Another tweak to the propellers on the opposite side, and—

  A cudgel of wood element swung toward my head. I blocked it with a shield of fire, and pain burst behind my eyes. I wasn’t quick enough to avoid Nathan’s next blow, taking a hit to my shoulder, then another to my back. Gritting my teeth, I erected a trembling ward around myself and braced for the next blow. It never came. Instead, Nathan tested the ward with a flick of magic. My spell bowed and flexed, my hold on the elements weak. Nathan’s cruel smile curved Mom’s lips.

  “Nice try, Harry, but it’s not going to work.” He sauntered closer, within arm’s reach if my hands weren’t bound. “I’ve been five steps ahead of you this entire time. You could have learned so much from me, junior journalist. Such a shame you won’t get a chance, but at least you can die knowing you’ve met the best journalist ever to grace the Chronicle.”

  “Journalist? Hardly. You’re a fraud. Nothing more than a muckraker and a criminal.” I feigned a punch of air toward Nathan’s face. He flinched, and I shot magic to the far propellers, righting the dirigible’s slow turn and doubling our speed.

  Nathan’s magic bludgeoned my temple. Pain roared through my skull, deafening me. My legs buckled. Rope bit into my arms, yanking my shoulders hard in their sockets as I fell.

  When I blinked, Nathan stood at the far end of the basket. I squinted against the needles of light stabbing my brain. The black iron cauldron holding the phoenix egg glowed orange with heat. I glanced up the ramp, searching for the other eggs. I could hear them sizzling.