Wintervale. About two hours after Iolanthe and Master Haywood’s train departed Windsor and Eton Central Station, the footman delivered a small stone bust to the room.
The prince had had such a bust in his room at Mrs. Dawlish’s, which would answer for him at lights-out when he was away elsewhere. Iolanthe dug up a similar bust in the laboratory and put it to good use: as they began their ascent in the hot air balloon, she wanted Atlantis’s attention focused squarely on Eton, seeking her frantically in the vicinity, instead of widening the scope of the search.
With all the cargo in the gondola secured, Iolanthe donned a pair of goggles that had come with the hot air balloon and handed another pair to Master Haywood. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
She gathered a fierce current of air and propelled the balloon toward the Atlantic.
Iolanthe sat in a corner of the gondola, her eyes half-closed, a pocket watch from the laboratory in hand. The watch, much like the one Titus carried on his person, worked as a timepiece. But more importantly, it also gave readings on their direction, altitude, and velocity. At one point she pushed the balloon to nearly 190 miles an hour, but that had proved too taxing even for the mage-reinforced lines that held the gondola—and for her too. After that she settled into a speed somewhere around 150 miles an hour.
Master Haywood, wrapped in an enormous fur coat, his eyes almost invisible behind the goggles, watched the skies, moving every few seconds from one side of the gondola to another, and from time to time murmuring a new far-seeing spell.
They were some three hundred miles southwest of Land’s End when he shouted, without turning around, “I see something!”
Iolanthe exhaled and gradually—but not too slowly—let up on the air currents she had been herding. The balloon, subject to atmospheric conditions, began to drift northward.
“You are absolutely certain the Irreproducible Charm is intact?”
“Yes.”
The Irreproducible Charm that had been set on her when she was an infant made it impossible for her image to be captured or transmitted outside the Crucible. As long as the charm remained intact, only those who had met her in person could recognize her.
“My God, what are those?” he shouted. “Come look, Miss Franklin!”
The act had begun, even though the enemy was still some distance away—in case anyone incoming could read lips.
Iolanthe rose to her feet, grabbed a rifle, and joined him at the side of the gondola. “Good gracious, are those Haast’s eagles?”
“Can’t be. Haast’s eagles have been extinct for centuries—and they never inhabited any islands this far north.”
They stared, agape, at the fast-approaching wyverns, the sound of whose wingbeats echoed in her ears, their brimstone odor already drifting into her nostrils. She shook without having to try.
“Christ almighty, what the hell?” Master Haywood’s voice trembled too. “Are those . . . are they . . . dragons?”
With a thump, he fell to the floor of the gondola—it had been decided earlier that he should pretend to faint at the sight of any wyverns or Atlantean aerial vehicles. The rebels Titus had met in the desert oasis had done that, and Titus had never once questioned their authenticity as caravanists. Not to mention it would also spare Master Haywood, who had been in the Inquisitory for weeks and did not have an Irreproducible Charm protecting his image, from as much of the Atlanteans’ attention as possible.
She aimed her rifle—another trick borrowed from the rebels of the Sahara—at the rider in the lead, whose steed now hovered only ten feet from the gondola.
“Come no closer or I’ll shoot!” she cried, her voice cracking. “Who are you? What are you?”
“Who we are is none of your concern. Identify yourself and your companion and state where you are headed in this vessel.”
“I am Adelia Franklin and this is John McDonald, my father’s old batman. We are balloonists traveling from the Azores to England, to claim a— Keep your beasts away from the envelope of my balloon! We cannot have any scratches or burns.”
“For what purpose do you undertake such a journey?”
“For money, what else?” she bellowed. “There is a prize of a thousand pounds for the first team to complete a thousand-mile journey without touching down before the end of the year. And we are not that far from England now. So if you would just get out of our—”
The lead wyvern rider waved a hand. Two of his subordinates urged their mounts forward, until they hovered just below the gondola. Getting