“What do you mean, ‘Where’s Vera’s Revenge?’ ” Mikhail yelled above the bellow of engines as he twisted to look past Klara. Sure enough, where the faint outline of a grey airship should have filled the sky, there was nothing.

  Nothing but cloud.

  “Uncle Yuri abandoned us,” Klara said.

  “Klara, snap out of it! Yuri didn’t abandon us, he’ll be around. Somewhere.” As if to prove his point, the clouds shifted beneath them, parting as a grey mass rose through the night, a hunter stalking its cumbersome prey.

  “Um… I think we need to drop,” Mikhail said, his side aching at the thought.

  “No!” Klara said, her voice strangled. “Don’t let go. Find the harpoon and the rope, we can lower ourselves down.”

  A small voice tried to convince him that they should drop, but if Mikhail was honest, he sided with Klara on this one. He looked around, immediately locating the harpoon and rope. “All right, rope it is.”

  Klara relaxed somewhat as he swung along the gondola towards the rope thrashing in the deafening wind.

  Every movement sent a hot knife into his side, making every breath an excruciating experience.

  Despite the strength extract, his arms burned. The extract only increased strength relative to his own, and he wasn’t as strong as Klara or the rest of the squad. Or pretty much anyone he knew these days…

  His fingers numbed with every movement as the cold and the weight they supported took their toll.

  Finally, he reached the rope. It slapped against the gondola beside him and he let go with one hand, snatching at it.

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  A gust of wind seized it and ripped it further away, and he cursed, clutching at the precarious ledge again.

  Sweat slicked his fingers inside his leather gloves. His palms still burned from being stabbed by crawling pronzat two weeks earlier when he’d escaped the Alchemist Guild in Kosgrad. How many more attempts could he make before his grip gave out? His hands built to hold hundreds of pounds, and strength extract did little to help the joints themselves.

  The rope swung close.

  He took another swipe at it, but it slipped just out of his reach again. Mikhail growled. Really, how hard was it to grab a rope while hanging onto an airship thousands of feet above the ground with your sister clinging to your back?

  “Mikhail…”

  “What?” Mikhail snapped.

  “I can’t hold on for much longer.”

  Mikhail tried to breathe away the terror welling in his gut.

  Once again, the rope smacked into the gondola near them.

  Curse it all…

  Mikhail threw himself from the gondola, hands stretched toward the rope.

  Klara screamed.

  Reflex triggered from the fall, warping Klara’s cry.

  But he had what he needed. An odd sense of calm washed over him as he reached out and took the rope, almost casually.

  That calm left immediately as they continued to fall, rope dropping with them, limp.

  Confused, Mikhail looked up. Above, the harpoon dropped with them. He frowned. Shouldn’t it be in the airship? a small voice asked.

  His stomach soured. The soldiers must have pushed it from the wall. Without hesitation, he wrestled his grappling pistol from its holster and aimed at the gondola they’d so recently hung from.

  Taking a breath to steady himself, he fired. The grappling bolt sailed through the air and slammed into the gondola.

  Mikhail clicked the cord lock into place—

  —and, with a jolt, the grappling pistol ripped free of his fingers.

  You fool! Of course you couldn’t hold on with Klara’s weight as well.

  Mikhail gazed down at the grey shadow of Vera’s Revenge. The jolt had pushed them off course and they now fell to the side of the airship.

  Well, this is what it feels like to fall…