Klara crept up the spiral staircase at the rear of the hold, her knife at the ready. The airship’s layout was like Vera’s Revenge, just larger—much larger. And newer.

  Only the creak and groan of wood and the distant roar of engines and harpoon cannons met Klara’s ears. She’d imagined she’d hear a lot more yelling and the sharp crack of gas rifle fire. She could only hope the silence was a good sign, not a sign that her team had already died.

  There was nothing she could do about that now. They’d have to take care of themselves. Her job was to find Pozharsky. But where in the depths were they keeping him? It didn’t make sense that he wasn’t in the hold. Unless… no. They couldn’t have known they were coming. Klara kept climbing. They’d try the mainframe next.

  “Do you think they knew we were coming?” Mikhail whispered.

  Klara sighed and shrugged. It seemed unlikely. Uncle Yuri had flown in high, so Vera’s Revenge’s grey mainframe left them invisible against the cloudy sky.

  She had always assumed that the patchy grey was the only paint Uncle Yuri could afford. However, when she’d rescued Mikhail from Voronina a week ago, she’d thought Uncle Yuri had fled because she failed to see the mottled grey hulk of the airship on the cloud-covered plateau.

  Uncle Yuri had known exactly what he’d done to Vera’s Revenge with the paint. And his crew were suspiciously well-practised at assaulting airships with harpoon cannons…

  Klara suspected that her accusation about Uncle Yuri being a smuggler was wrong. He was definitely no smuggler.

  He was a sky pirate.

  Still, him and his crew’s experience certainly made this job easier.

  Klara reached the top of the stairs and peered through the open doorway. An empty corridor lay beyond. Narrow doors lined the walls. Cabins? Or perhaps cells? At the end of the corridor, a narrow ladder led to the deck above. Presumably the mainframe.

  She crept into the hallway, Mikhail on her heels.

  On reaching the first door, Klara carefully tested the handle. It was unlocked, so she pushed it open, tensed and ready.

  The cabin was vacant. Four bunks lined the back wall with trunks at the foot of each. Crew or soldier quarters. Klara withdrew and continued down the corridor, checking each room. They were all the same. Empty.

  They reached the last door and Klara pushed it open and her blood iced over like the tundra at dusk.

  A lithe, red-headed woman lounged on one bunk, her back propped against the wall, hands tucked behind her head. She wore a white coat that bore incredible similarity to the coats worn by the men who had ambushed Klara and her squad in the Veter River.

  “Hey, Klar,” Zinaida Voronina said.

  A muffled gasp sounded behind Klara as Mikhail stepped up.

  “Mikhail!” Voronina said, “I was so hoping to see you again.”

  “Where’s Dominik,” Mikhail demanded, pushing into the room and pointing a quivering, gloved finger at Voronina.

  The woman swung her feet off the bunk and rose with predatory grace, a lust for blood in her eyes. “He’s dead, kid. Well, he will be soon. But he told us a very interesting story about that mother of yours.”

  Klara finally recovered and yanked Mikhail behind her and raised her knife, blade still down, though she could never win against Voronina, the woman who had been thrashing her in sparing for years. “Why, Voronina?”

  “Voronina?” Voronina asked with a pout. “What happened to ‘Zin’?”

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  “You tried to kidnap my brother.”

  “And you very heroically rescued him. Well done, by the way, you did a fine job at terrifying my father. Just between us—because of that—he, ah, the new Grand Master has declared the Sentinels rebels and has ordered them to be relieved of their duty defending Serovnya. A more… suitable group will take that task.”

  Klara blinked, the cramped cabin spinning. “He can’t do that,” she said, her voice weak even to her own ears. “The Sentinels have bled and died for this honour, he can’t take that from them!”

  Voronina snorted and rolled her eyes. “Actually, he can. And the he authorised me to use lethal force to remove the Sentinels if they refuse to quietly surrender the gate forts.”

  Klara shook her head, suffocating beneath her half-mask. She ripped it off, dropping it to the pale timber deck as she drew a deep breath of the cold air. Immediately her head cleared.

  “I know the technology we—they, the Alchemists—have,” Mikhail said, “but there’s no way they have the training or equipment to force the Sentinels out of their forts.”

  Voronina’s lips quirked up in a vicious grin. “The apprentice knows all the Alchemist secrets, does he?”

  “Enough!” Klara bellowed. “Where is Pozharsky?”

  “You never were the brightest, Klar,” Voronina said. “He’s not here.”

  “We know you loaded him onto this airship,” Klara said.

  Voronina chuckled, but her eyes hardened. “See, that’s the thing about spies, Klara. They’re only useful so long as their secret remains hidden. Once they’ve been exposed by, say, requiring all Alchemists take truth extract… it’s remarkably easy to, how shall I put this, persuade them to change sides.”

  Klara gritted her teeth. How many spies had been compromised? How long had their information of the Alchemists been skewed? “Then why? Why get a message to my father that Pozharsky is here?”

  Voronina rubbed the back of her neck, almost looking embarrassed. “You’re here for the sake of friendship, Klara. Despite everything, I still consider you a friend. A stupid friend who believed the lies force-fed to you by the Sentinels, but a friend nonetheless.”

  With a speed extract boosted movement, Klara reversed her grip on her father’s blackened knife and pointed the tip at Voronina. “We are not friends, traitor.”

  “See, now that just hurts, but whatever. You stuck up for me for years, so in a small way, I feel owe you. I’m paying that debt today.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Sentinels are finished, Klara. The Alchemist Guild will take over guarding the gates in the coming months… You’re here so I can tell you to run, Klara. Take your adorable little squad and leave Serovnya.”

  Klara’s grip tightened on the knife. Her arms trembled. The cabin blurred and she let her breath out in a sharp hiss that misted before her. How dare she!

  “We should go,” Mikhail said, resting a hand on Klara’s shoulder.

  “Listen to the kid,” Voronina said. “If you want to live, run. I know you’re good at that.”

  Klara shrugged Mikhail’s hand off and addressed Voronina, “I will never run from you. I’d rather die.”

  Voronina gazed at the floor a moment and her jaw worked. When she looked back up, a steely fire burned deep in her eyes. “This is your last chance, Klar. I don’t want to kill you, but if you don’t leave, I will.”

  The world lurched to a crawl for Klara as Voronina’s leg came up in a lightening fast strike. Klara barely got her left arm up to block Voronina’s roundhouse kick. Even as she moved, she knew it was a bad way to block.

  Despite the protection of strength boosted muscles, her forearm snapped from the force of Voronina’s kick.

  Klara screamed. Agonising pain flaring through her left arm. A decade of training took over, and she jabbed at Voronina.

  Faster than a snake, Voronina stepped into the thrust.

  The blade slammed into her chest—

  —and snapped.

  The jolt rocked Klara’s arm, numbing her fingers. She could only stare at the shattered blade. What the depths?

  A grin split Voronina’s lips. “Surprise.”

  Zin followed through with a jab, but hands grabbed Klara’s coat and yanked her out of the room. Zin stumbled, her fist hitting only air.

  “Come on!” Mikhail yelled, dragging Klara down the corridor.

  Klara glanced back. Behind them, the airship burst to life. Alchemist soldiers flooded down the ladder. Zin stood motionless in the doorway to the cabin, watching.

  Klara’s eyes locked with her old friend’s and hate burned in her gut. Finally, she got her feet under her and they picked up the pace, sprinting to the stairwell. She managed to slip the broken blade into its sheath as they hit the spiral stairway at speed. She grabbed the railing with her right hand, yanking her around the bend and following Mikhail to the hold.