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  One of them extended an arm a tad too far when thrusting, and Orion took the moment to grasp the man’s wrist and pull him close. Orion twisted the arm over until the hand opened, and he practically handed his sword over as a gift, which Orion obliged. Orion smashed the pommel of his dagger into the side of the helmet, which sent the dazed man to the floor. He thrust forward in an arc and found a home for his new blade in the meat of a thigh.

  A high-pitched scream blasted from beneath the iron helm. It did not match the size of the man. Something was wrong with this scenario, and he knew it. “I demand to know who you are!”

  With their target distracted, the man on the ground picked himself up and lunged at Orion. His bulk knocked Orion into the wall, his head crashing against the hard stones. Orion’s forehead bled from a cut. It wasn’t big, but it quickly covered his face in hot, red liquid.

  “You idiot. We’re not to kill him!”

  “He stabbed me! Oh God, he stabbed me!” The wailing attacker sounded less like a man in battle and more like a boy. A boy… he knew?

  “You’re Gerald,” he guessed. “Which makes you two—”

  One of the attackers reared back and kicked Orion in the ribs. “Let’s go.”

  Orion was left lying on the floor, wheezing against possible broken bones. He wiped at his soaked hair and face and wondered. Orion said to himself, “Declan Ahearn’s henchmen.”

  He grabbed at the wall and used the rough-hewn edge of the cobbles to pull himself up. His side ached and his face throbbed. He bled profusely from his facial wound. He knew who they were. But why had Declan sent them for him, and why must he not be killed?

  Breathing in short gasps, he picked himself up mostly to full standing. He realized his pain meant he needed more healing magick. What to do about his assailants, though? Calling to the guard and searching the castle would be the wrong strategy. After having had a moment to think, it became clearer the boys from the upper class had been doing someone’s bidding. It had to be someone powerful, to cause them to do harm to the queen’s great-nephew.

  Could it have been Blaylock making his move against the royals? Orion knew he had been planning an overthrow and had manipulated the people—and somehow his queen—into believing the Brotherhood was Éire’s rightful protector. Orion knew differently. They were bloodthirsty, tyrannical zealots who believed in the return of some long-dead warlock. Who else could it be, if not the Brotherhood?

  Orion knew one thing. He had to get to the queen.

  Fast.

  Differences of Opinions

  THE PROFESSOR, a ruddy-faced portly gentleman by the name of Coolidge, slapped his books down on the edge of his desk with an authoritative crack. It awoke any student who might have used the passing period to sleep. Gavin was one of those bored students most days. He had been daydreaming about being the captain—a dashing one, of course—of a grand skyship, sailing over the oceans, carrying food to the hungry or something as noble. As long as he was in the air doing what he loved, he would be happy. He had been lost in his thoughts when the professor’s books shattered the illusion.

  “Now I have your undivided attention, Mr. Johnson, what is the perceived social threat to the nation from those members of society who do not share commonly held beliefs?” Coolidge asked Lucas.

  Gavin looked across to Lucas and wondered what was going on behind those pained, clever eyes. Was he cross with Gavin for worrying about them getting caught and about what people would do if they were discovered?

  “Um, there would be, I guess, chaos if people did whatever they wanted?” Lucas replied. His thin face and raised cheekbones made him look about as out of place in the political wing as Gavin always felt.

  “‘Um’? Are you asking me or giving me a proper answer, Mr. Johnson? This is not one of your little logic puzzles, and my class is not practice for some award,” Coolidge taunted. “I do not believe the future policy makers of this great nation and all its holdings will be led by those who say ‘Um.’”

  Gavin glanced away from the pained, embarrassed look that spread across Lucas’s face but quickly found himself drawn to Lucas’s profile again, wondering what kind of life he could have with him. But that was exactly the kind of dallying thought that had him worried to begin with. What if Lucas grew tired of him and told? Someone like him, the councilman’s son, a homosexual? It simply wouldn’t do.

  He sat there, a little terrified about the power Lucas held over him and possibly his future. He knew what would happen. Everyone would hate them so, if they only knew. Inside he wasn’t sure how he even felt, if he agreed with them or not. But why should he be punished for being—

  “Mr. Haveland,” Coolidge said, startling Gavin out of his thoughts. “Please tell us what are the inherent dangers, as a logical conclusion, from what your classmate explained.”

  “Sir, there is no real threat in having differences in a community. The only real danger comes from the fear of those in power and what they will do to stop individuality,” Gavin responded before he could weigh out an acceptable answer, a little annoyed about having to sit so far from Lucas to avoid suspicion.

  Professor Coolidge looked as if he were trying to perform vast calculus problems in his head for a moment and grew redder by the tick.

  “You are such a moron, Haveland,” Wish Jeter said, and the class laughed. Coolidge ignored the interruption.

  “I would expect much deeper, more serious thought from you, the son of our head councilman. The very idea you propose, that our governing body is afraid of thinking, is preposterous.”

  “Sir, you know as well as I that there are many areas of conversation that are not allowed, and that by not permitting free thought or free choice, we are—”

  “Well, I think, young man, that you are on the verge of violating the rules of this esteemed department. Again.” Professor Coolidge turned his nose in the air and walked away from Gavin as if to say his rebuke and warning should be enough to end any further demonstration of free thought.

  “That is exactly my point. A man cannot express his opinions in a free forum if one believes something different from his peers,” he, for some outlandish reason even he couldn’t fathom, continued. “Is that what politics is? Blind agreement to power?”

  This last statement brought jeers from several students and the professor back across the room. He grabbed Gavin by the tie ends and pulled him up out of his seat. Gavin’s big black boots with the metal clasps caught on the edges of the wooden chair and caused him to spill onto his backside, tie still clutched in the professor’s giant hands. He choked and turned red while trying to right himself. All the other boys pointed and laughed at him.

  “Enough!” Professor Coolidge yelled. “I demand silence in my classroom. And you, young man, I do not care what your parentage is. You will not disrupt my classroom with your air pilot talk and this… this ridiculous costume you insist on wearing.” He referred to the boots and brass goggles around his neck, the pants and vest with multitudes of pockets. Gavin never dressed in oxfords and dress shirts and most certainly never left his red blazer on if he wasn’t forced to wear it. His tie was never squared away under his shirt, but always billowing away, ends flapping, which led to this catastrophe.

  “You are out of compliance on dress and comportment. Deliver yourself to the chancellor’s office at once.”

  Gavin stumbled forward as the professor ushered him toward the door out of class. He was being forced into this life of political servitude, lies, and official public releases. He had never once actually said yes to his father—not when they toured the campus, not when he was enrolled in classes in the Department of Political Administration. He definitely knew he had never fit in, not in one conversation, not one gathering, and had not one real friend. At least not in this wing of the school.

  “Don’t worry your fat waddle over it. I will not be returning to your class of memorization and brainwashing.” The crowd of sixteen-year-olds gasped in unison. He knew, and they knew,
he had gone too far.

  “Mr. Haveland, you do not have to worry about returning to my class. I will see to it that you are removed from the Political Administration program altogether.”

  Gavin did not wait around for the rest. Instead he ran. He ran through the hall and down the stairs, past the gargoyle statues looking over the entryway, past the long lawns of freshly cut grass. He darted like a bat out of hell away from the hulking school with its menacing statuary and enormous bell towers that could be heard halfway across London. It was loud enough to remind everyone in the city where their future leaders resided.

  His heart lightened with every stretch of his sore leg muscles, lessening the dread and worry. He soared across the lawns and down busy streets until he found himself in front of the Houses of Parliament. The Gothic architecture and tall towers on each end were built to impress, and to terrify. It often did the latter to Gavin, although now he reckoned it was never the thousands of glass windows and pointed spires of the towers that scared him, but the man inside. It was his father’s place of work, where he had demurely taken many a tongue-lashing from the all-powerful man.

  Standing there with adrenaline coursing through his young veins, full of indignation and surety, Gavin thought to himself it was time to say “No more.” He was done with politics. It was finally time to tell his father he was leaving the field he had chosen for Gavin. He leapt up the first set of stairs when the monstrous bells of Big Ben began to announce the time in grand bongs across the sky.

  Big Ben’s clockwork gears sprang to life, sending the entire tower on its 360-degree trajectory as it did at every hour, projecting the sounds of the bells in every direction. Landa’s father had designed the giant wheels and programs to make it work. The towers all turned completely around, some faster than others, as a defensive measure against Irish warships. They did this every day, although since the English armada had been deployed above the Irish Sea, there had not been an attack on British soil.

  The last attack was ten years ago. That may, Gavin thought, also have something to do with the shielding, or whatever the Irish called it, that had been magicked along the coast of England to prevent travel to Ireland.

  It did not deter him. He sprinted toward the entrance, only slowing to show the guard his identification card to grant him access. He threw open the double doors and entered the hallowed halls.

  He was going to enroll in an airship program. He had been thinking about joining the Department of Airship Training for years. Landa—oh, where was Landa now when he could use her passion?—had told him to talk to his father about it so many times, but he never had the courage to do it. Until now.

  If he had stopped to wonder why he all of a sudden had the desire to bring his entire world crashing around him with this defiance and proclamation, would he understand it? Was it the thought of Lucas always just out of reach or too dangerously close? Excitement from the crash that morning? Harassment from his classmates? The pain in his heart, the only place where his mother still lived?

  Now he would march right in there, past the guards and stuffy chambers and halls of secrecy, and tell Mr. Jacobson Haveland he was finished being a puppet.

  The Once and Future Queen?

  QUEEN SIOBHÁN was sitting propped up in her royal bed when Orion slipped into her chambers. He had attempted to get around the guards always stationed outside her room, but in his weakened state, there was little chance of that. Normally he would have cast a spell of blindness. That took far too much power. His magick was put to the limit keeping the pain from his face and ribs from deterring him.

  He had circled back around to the secret entrance behind the tapestries in an antechamber, climbed into the entryway, a small half circle of a door, and crawled the maze of hallways. They must be memorized to navigate them, which he had done as a small child. He wasn’t sure if the Brotherhood knew of the passages and would soon be on him, so he made his way quickly just the same.

  Orion paused after slowly sliding open the bookcase hiding the passageway. He poked his head out to see if he had made it thus far undetected. The queen sat alone.

  Siobhán, despite her aged appearance, presented as regal even in sleep. The thick fabric bunched at the corners and the lace draped all the way around her giant four-poster bed provided just the right haze. Orion envisioned her as a much younger woman whose vibrant, luxurious long red hair flowed over her shoulders. Her beauty was lauded in minstrel song, her prowess feared in many lands, and her people loved her dearly.

  He gently pushed the veil of time back in his mind to reveal the queen as she truly looked. He gazed upon her with love. Her once bright red hair was now faded to dull, her disheveled locks split. Her face was shriveled and furrowed in every crevice, curve, and edge. Her mouth puckered in an eternal grimace of someone who’d received the kiss of death but failed to die.

  Orion glanced above her bed to the portrait of the queen standing against the stone gray walls of her castle on the west coast. The rocky shores and walls of the Cliffs of Moher were proudly illuminated behind her flowing locks and vibrantly gleaming red cloak of mastery. The young queen.

  Orion collapsed in on himself a bit, squeezed down to clamp off the coming tide of emotions. A tear escaped and rolled from his face to hers. The queen stirred, momentarily terrified before he grasped her hands and reassured her.

  “It is your Orion, Great-Aunt.”

  “Ugh. I dream of great dragons. Can you see them?” Siobhán startled.

  “Shhh, dear Aunt. I’m here to protect you. I will sleep in here tonight,” he said to reassure her against a threat she did not know, and him of a worry he knew to be beyond his control.

  “Dear, magnificent ancient one,” Orion said, looking up from the timeworn old woman before him to the young new queen in the portrait above the bed. “What things must have been like before the Brotherhood, before my father’s death, back in a time when… ugh….”

  Orion clutched at his side, shifting to a more comfortable position in a red velvet chair next to the bed. He continued to stroke her hair.

  “I can imagine the fields of your youth and the wild magick of the people transforming Éire into a place of wonder. And yes, your dragons. They have been gone so long. No one knows what’s become of them all.” Orion’s sighs grew deeper, the excitement of the fight wearing off, giving way to broken things and blood-loss fatigue. “What could have become of our lands, if not for endless war with England and relentless control from within? What could you have done without the interference of the Brotherhood of the Mage—”

  Queen Siobhán stirred in her bed, sitting more upright as her eyes bored into Orion’s with fierce intensity. His body trembled under the magnitude of her stare. “The Mage must be stopped,” she commanded in the strongest whisper she had mustered in some time.

  “Hush, now, hush,” he said as he tried to ease her back into bed. Some misaligned bone poked heartily at his sides, and he gasped in pain. The queen’s countenance changed from one of panic to compassion and then to determination. She reached for him in a quickness he had not found in her in years.

  “Aunt Siobhán,” he said. She did not hear him. Her blue eyes had turned a purple hue before she closed them to focus. She murmured something in ancient Gaelic that he had not heard before. The words must have been healing magick, because as soon as she began, his body started to knit itself back together from deep inside his chest. His forehead closed up, and the sting of the cut that had been there faded away.

  Siobhán collapsed unceremoniously into her bedsheets, exhausted from the effort. Orion jolted up with ease to grasp her, to soften her fall so she would not hit her head. She settled back into the deep sleep of the drugged.

  “You never cease to amaze me, dear aunt,” Orion said. He tested his newly healed ribs with his fingertips, smiled, and closed his eyes to rest.

  Landa, Destroyer of Things Great and Small

  LANDA LEANED over the brass barrel of her experiment in the school l
ab. Her hat butted into the gearbox as she pushed her head forward, trying to put the last cylinder in place to test her behemoth. She pulled off the hat, stripped it of her goggles, placed the goggles around her neck, and leaned back in to put the finishing touches on her machine.

  With a gurgle from deep within the beast, the giant moved upward, revealing telescoping legs that kept unraveling themselves. The same thing happened with the arms of the machine, if one could properly call corrugated metal, arms. It had no head, but did have grease eyes Landa had drawn on the barrel to give her creation a sense of whimsy.

  Earlier, after that big lummox Wish had targeted Gavin, she needed a little cheering up. She worried after that boy, even though he was her age. She worried about him often. She knew he had secrets, that he pushed himself hard to please his father to get space enough to fly with her. She hoped someday he could be true to himself. It would also be good if his daredevil tomfoolery did not get her killed in the process.

  “Oh my,” exclaimed one of the students as he joined several others—all boys—in backing away from the experiment.

  Head Instructor Levithan rushed over to the scene. “What is it?”

  “He’s Goliath! Now, wait for it,” Landa teased.

  The legs lurched forward, carrying the monstrosity toward the door.

  “It is remarkable. What is it doing?” Levithan asked.

  “If my calculations are correct, Goliath will navigate the doorway without guidance,” she explained. “My thesis is based on a series of complex program sheets inserted in a certain calculated order to achieve step-by-step instructions.”

  The whole class had stopped what they were doing to come watch the cylindrical machine lurch across the workshop floor. Goliath reached the doorway and started to shrink in height, clicking and clanking each centimeter of the way.

  “Yes! It works,” Landa cheered. “My autonomous robot works.”