Steelhands - Jaida Jones [179]
“And once we’re inside?” I asked, feeling the same thrill of excitement I always did when Adamo was outlining our new strategies. It wasn’t the same as planning for a night in the air, but the amount of risk did come close.
“What was your job?” Laure asked. “When you were flying?”
“Reconnaissance,” I replied.
“Then we sneak in there and do some reconnaissance,” Laure said. “Get the lay of the land, make sure there are no traps set up, lead the way for the others to come in after us and start unlocking some cell doors. And after that, we have Adamo on our side, not to mention a few pissed-off Margraves—and Antoinette, who by Royston’s account knows everything there is to know about what th’Esar’s up to.”
“And she’ll probably be able to enlighten us,” Royston concluded, “as to what the hell is going on there.”
“Now, I don’t want to get too detailed on what’s going to happen once we’re in there,” Laure added, “because we don’t know what we’re going up against, or even what we’re gonna find. If we overthink it, then it’s bound to make us panic when it doesn’t go according to plan.”
“Oh, are we not meant to be panicking already?” Toverre asked. I thought he’d been pale when we met, but he was looking positively white now, if a little green around the edges. It made sense; as an airman, I’d been trained in war, and even I was feeling anxious. This young man was no more than a civilian, a student. He was probably hoping our plans wouldn’t include him—and, in my opinion, they probably shouldn’t. “Silly me, then. Never mind. Carry on.”
“Nobody has to come who doesn’t want to,” Laure said, with a pointed look in his direction. In spite of her attitude toward the rest of us, this seemed almost like an act of kindness—as though she was letting him off the hook.
She was equally unqualified in terms of background, but in terms of her nerve, she might have even been leagues ahead of the rest of us. Excepting, of course, Ghislain.
“Well,” Raphael said, slapping his hand against his leg and startling me with the sudden sound. “If I wanted to do a foolish thing like sleep after a few days of vomiting, I wouldn’t have joined the airmen.”
“I’m sure there was a veritable plethora of jobs open to you at the time,” Luvander agreed. “Perhaps you could’ve been a stain-cleaner at the ’Fans. Or the city drunk.”
“So long as you save enough energy to muck out my boat after, you can tag along,” Ghislain said, standing.
“Well if everyone’s going,” Toverre said, looking distinctly put out about the whole thing. “Perhaps you’ll need someone to … To stand watch.”
“You can always stay here,” I said, as it seemed no one else was going to. “It wouldn’t be ignoble. Whenever a group of us went out on raids, there were always some who stayed back in case the others didn’t … Well, that was just how it was done,” I amended, realizing that perhaps talking too much about the gravity of the situation would have a sobering effect on our little rescue mission.
“No, it’s all right,” Toverre said miserably. “Don’t try to spare me or my dignity. What kind of wretched creature would I be if I let my fiancée attend this melee without following along to protect her? I merely hope you know, Sir Ghislain, that you are not the only one who wishes I was a velikaia.”
“Sir Ghislain,” Raphael repeated. “Do you know, I rather like that? It sounds very impressive, not to mention romantic. Almost like something out of a roman.”
“Enough talk,” Laure said. I noticed that she’d put on her hat and coat while we’d been talking to one another, and felt the slightest niggling of guilt. We all should have been doing just that.
What we really needed was the air-raid bells to snap us out of it. That’d jump-start the whole crew into action in no time.
“Are my gloves dry yet?” I asked. Toverre handed them to me, pinching them by the thumbs, which weren’t stained, and dangling them between us like dead fish rotting on the line. “Thank you,” I said.
“You are welcome,” he sniffed in reply.
I slipped them on, looking around for something I might