Viera Carnelian. Top of her class. Graduated a year ahead of him, perfect test scores and an infuriating knack for fencing. She always said she would be part of the Royal Guard. He hadn’t expected her to be the Royal Captain.
Then again, Viera Carnelian never did anything halfway.
And if she or the Messiers caught that girl, there went any chance of him finding his father. Goddess, he hated his luck. He hated it so much.
Struggling to his feet, he knew there was a servants’ entrance on the other side of the garden. Less used, the shrubbery thick with gardenias and moonlilies. The Messiers drew closer, burrowing into the Ironblood crowd like the roots of a tree.
If he could drag that girl across the garden to that exit, it would be a straight shot to the docks—
“You reported me!” The girl spun back to him, face blazing with anger.
“When would I have had a chance to do that?” he asked incredulously.
“I’m going to run you through with—”
“Sounds nice.” He grabbed her by the arm, wiping his bloody mouth on his coat sleeve. He hauled her through the nearest hedge, twigs and thorns catching on his favorite evening coat, as they plowed over rare flowers in a mad dash for the unused exit.
A hand shot out through the bushes and grabbed her, knuckle rings glinting. Erik hauled the girl against him with a snarl. “You aren’t leaving.”
She struggled, but he twisted her arm behind her back to keep her close.
Robb reared his fist back for a punch—
The girl slammed the back of her head into his brother’s face. Erik gave a cry and she twisted her wrist out of his grip. Blood poured from his nose and onto his dapper crimson evening coat. He would definitely be angry about that in a minute. Robb didn’t want to stick around for it.
“Get them!” the Royal Captain shouted to the Messiers. “Don’t let them escape!”
That sounded like a challenge.
Taking her by the hand again, Robb pulled the outlaw between a row of hydrangeas and escaped down the stairs. As they passed utility and storage closets, he grabbed his lightsword from where a servant had propped it up by the coat check and slung it over his shoulder. It was a safe weight on his back, and he instantly felt better with it on. More in control.
Because Goddess knew this was spinning out of control—fast.
“I have to find Di,” the girl was saying frantically. “I have to find him before the Messiers do!”
“Then give me the chip,” he replied.
“What?”
“The coordinates! And you can go find—”
At the end of the hallway, the marina doors yawned open. On three Messiers.
Robb shot up his arms in surrender. This is okay. This is fine—who was he kidding? He didn’t have enough luck to get away with all this.
“Surrender the coordinates,” one Messier said.
“Or what?” the girl challenged, making Robb sorry for everything he’d ever done in his life to deserve this moment.
The Messiers did not even pause as they raised their Metroids, ammunition humming brightly. “Or you will die.”
The girl paled. “Now wait a minute—”
Goddess, this was a bad day.
Reaching back, he pulled out his lightsword and slammed the superheated blade into the middle guard, carving a line down its front like it was soft butter. The Messier’s eyes flickered as he sliced through the android’s torso and it dropped in two pieces, wires sparking.
The other two Messiers swung their Metroids toward him.
He flinched—
A blur rushed past him, grabbing one Messier by the head.
Robb stared dumbfounded. It was a Metal—the girl’s white-eyed rogue Metal.
It spun the Messier around under its arm and anchored its fingers under the Messier’s chin. And pulled—one time, then again, wires snapping out of the Messier’s neck like rubber bands. Then the rogue Metal tore the Messier’s head clean off.
Oh, Robb thought, I’m going to die.
The last Messier standing adjusted its aim to the rogue Metal.
“Di!” the girl cried, stealing the lightsword from Robb’s grip. With an appalling lack of skill, she hacked at the Metal, carving a gouge deep into its chest. The Messier’s eyes flickered once—twice—before she toppled it to the ground with a kick. Robb snatched his sword back.
The girl’s Metal said, “We need to leave, Ana.”
“You think?” the girl—Ana, apparently—snapped, and turned to Robb with a glare. “I don’t need your help, Ironblood.”
He returned the glare. “You’re welcome—”
The distinct stomp of Messier boots echoed down the hallway—the heartbeat of an unrelenting monster.
The three of them fled into the marina.
The metallic smell of city exhaust flooded Robb’s nose, washing away the stuffy aroma of flowers and Ironblood perfumes, as if the garden had been a dream.
Astoria hovered at its zenith—over five hundred feet in the air, closer to the skyline than the city streets below. A terrifying height, people so small that they blended into the streets, neon signs like twinkling stars.
Her Metal overrode the marina keypad, locking the doors to buy them time. His skysailer was two docks over—but it was trackable. Everything he owned was trackable. He was trackable.
But the girl seemed to have her own plan as she fled down the longest dock into the middle of the marina, the cityscape hundreds of feet below.
“What are you doing?” he asked, following. “It’s a dead end—”
She grabbed him by his coat collar and whipped him around, forcing him to the dock ledge. His heels teetered off precariously.
Oh.
Oh, so this was her plan.
He felt light-headed remembering the window at the Academy. Remembering the moment the Umbal boy let go.
If he fell—if she dropped him—he would die before he hit the ground, wouldn’t he?
Had Aran Umbal?
“Why do you want the coordinates?” she snapped, and when he didn’t answer, she shook him.
“M-my father w-went missing,” he said, holding on to her wrists, so if he fell he’d be damned sure to bring her with him. “I think—I think he was on Rasovant’s ship.”
“You think?”
“Why do you want the ship?” he asked.
Messiers were at the door now, trying to override the lock. Any moment they’d break through, and whatever hole he dug himself into would quickly bury him.
“Ana,” her Metal said when he caught up to them, “we can ask later.”
She narrowed her eyes.
The door buckled and collapsed, and the Messiers stepped through in perfect unison. Their eyes blazed with the glory of victory. Royal Captain Viera elbowed through the line, the ammunition in her Metroid glowing like starlight.
Goddess, this day was spacetrash.
“Release the young lord safely,” the Royal Captain said, “and we will not harm you.”
Well, that was a lie.
But the girl took the bait. She swung Robb off the edge and let go of him, turning to face the Royal Captain with her hands up in surrender. Her Metal followed suit.
Robb fixed his coat collar. Seriously? They believed that?
Viera crept closer, her face as stoic as those of the Messiers who followed her. “Now lower yourself onto the ground. . . .”
Ana glanced over at Robb. “You might want to hang on to something.”
“Why?” he asked, confused, as a hum began to vibrate up into the marina. “What’s that?”
A gust of wind rushed up from the city below, sending his coattails fluttering. The docks gave a heave, skysailers bumping together with sharp thwacks. He pinwheeled his arms to keep his balance, jerking his head around to find the source of the wind.
A skysailer rose up above the docks, windshield flipped open. The pilot, his long starlight-silver ponytail whipping like a ribbon in the wind, pulled up his goggles and gave him a wink.
Robb stared.
Goddess’s spark, was he already dead?
“Down!” cried the girl, grabbing him by the arm, and jerked him to the ground as the pilot tilted the skysailer forward.
The wind howled. Roared. Scraped over them. It tossed the skysailers out of their parking spaces like toy boats and sent the Messiers and the Royal Captain flying backward.
The next Robb knew, the Metal had him up by his coat and was tossing him into the sky. To his death. One moment there was the dock—then the cityscape far below. This was how he was going to die.
He knew it.
Metals could never be trusted.
Until the skysailer came into view.
He covered his face with his arms a split second before he slammed into the backseat of the sailer with the wind knocked out of him. He scrambled to his knees, trying to catch his breath. His body shook.
The pilot glanced back at him with eyes the color of lilac flowers. Silver hair, violet eyes—a Solani. “Buckle up, little lord. Don’t want your pretty ass falling out.”
Robb pulled himself to sit up as the girl and her Metal jumped next. They quickly sat, fishing for their seat belts as if his request wasn’t an exaggeration at all. Seriously? Robb had never buckled himself into a skysailer in his entire l—
A bullet pinged off the dash.
He glanced back to the source and found Viera struggling to her feet, smoking Metroid in her grip. A thin line of blood ran down her forehead. There was a gleam in her eyes—dark, feral, resolute—that made him shiver.
She shot again.
This time the bullet struck through the grates to the engine. Red warnings flared up across the dashboard as the engine gave a whine, sputtered—
And died two thousand feet above the city of Nevaeh.
The skysailer fell straight through the marina, between the lines and lines of traffic, spiraling. Wings fluttering, wobbling, useless. A scream tore out of the girl’s throat as her Metal planted a hand over her lap to keep her secure.
The ground came at them fast.
Too fast.
And above them Astoria shrank and shrank, until it was a disk above them, shining like a silver sun.
Robb had the distinct feeling that he should’ve stayed in the garden. He shouldn’t have saved the girl. He should’ve stopped looking for his father years ago. He should’ve listened to his mother.
You will put an end to these heedless fantasies, she had said. He should have listened. And now he was going to die.
The pilot grabbed tightly onto the steering wheel and pulled up, trying to jump-start the engine again. If a bullet hit a spark plug, they were dead. Or an exhaust pipe. Or—literally anything else—they were dead.
Goddess bright, please don’t let us die—
The engine gave a start and hummed to life again. Wings fanned up, tried to catch the wind, to slow them down. They were falling too fast—no matter how hard the Solani pulled on the controls, it wouldn’t make a difference. He couldn’t force the helm back far enough for the wings to right themselves.
Numbers flashed across the dashboard.
Three hundred feet. Two fifty. Two hundred.
They were dropping like deadweight. They’d land smack in the middle of Nevaeh, a lump of splattered guts and rogue Metal.
And Robb was vain enough to want a better eulogy than My son killed himself the way his late father did—with a Metal and a misguided sense of duty.
Like hell he’d let his mother write that eulogy.
As the wind screamed up around them, he dove over to help the pilot—buckling up be damned if he was dead. He reached his arms around the Solani, who was a lot taller than he realized, to grab ahold of the steering wheel. Pressed his back against him, feeling the bumps of his spine. He smelled vaguely of lavender.
“Pull!” Robb shouted over the roar of the wind.
He and the Solani pulled back together. More. More. Until—
A loud crack burst across the skysailer. The wings rippled, bulging with air, as the aircraft finally caught itself. Slowed. Robb gripped the driver’s midsection as he reached forward and overrode the propulsion controls.
The ship shuddered, slowing to skim over punctured and rusted rooftops, leaving the floating garden far, far behind. After a moment, Robb let go. He stumbled back. Dizzy. He couldn’t get a deep enough breath, for some reason.
“Next time, we should at least trade names first,” joked the Solani. He had a charming face, long silver eyelashes, and sharp cheekbones. A nice face, he thought a moment before the smirk dropped from the Solani’s pretty lips. “Goddess, you’re bleeding!”
He became distinctly aware of the pain in his side. Why did it hurt to breathe? He looked down. Blood stained the right side of his favorite evening coat. Was—was that his blood?
“Oh . . . ,” he laughed, but it sounded more like a wheeze. “I’m shot.”
The pilot looked alarmed. “Someone catch him before he—”
Darkness ate his vision, and the last thing he knew, he was tipping over the side of the skysailer.