Page 53 of The Falconer

Gavin grimaces and I know he must be hurting, too. ‘Keep running,’ he says.

New Town is laid out in a symmetrical, grid design. Easy for travel, but there are no narrow closes to hide in, no underground passageways, nor dark wynds to cloak us from view. That makes it exceedingly impractical for escape. The street is too long and straight to outrun them.

‘We need to split up,’ I gasp between breaths.

‘What?’ Gavin glances at me in surprise. ‘No. That’s—’

‘Go down Young Street,’ I say. ‘Meet me at my ornithopter in the centre of Charlotte Square. They’ll follow me.’ I have to draw them away from Gavin before they surround us again. My lightning pistol only holds eight capsules – not nearly enough to defend us if that happens.

One glass jar in my bag was thick enough to survive the howls. I pour its contents in a line as far as it’ll go across the road. Fire bursts from my palm to ignite it.

‘That buys us a minute,’ I say. ‘Now go!’

I barrel off towards Rose Street.

‘Damn it, Aileana!’ Gavin calls after me. ‘You can’t see them!’

I don’t need to. Kiaran told me that theseilgflùrwould be a hindrance, that I needed to learn to fight without it. Now is the perfect time to test that.

But as I race down the street in the direction of my home, the dull smoky taste of faery power saturates the inside of my mouth and constricts my breath to a wheeze. They’re close. And I’m not fast enough to outrun them.

That’s when I see the clock tower, the electrical heart of New Town. In the absence of any narrow closes to duck into to slow them down, and without anyseilgflùron me to defend myself, it’s the only way I can reach Charlotte Square alive. I hurtle towards the door and crash my foot through the wood, sending splinters of oak and dust flying.

I bolt inside and dash up the stairs. Each step is punctuated by the click of the rotating metal gears that generate New Town’s power. Electricity buzzes around me, like millions of agitated bees.

Think!

Up, and up, and up another flight of creaky wooden stairs towards the clock’s illuminated face. I run through a plan in my mind, as quickly as I can. The clock tower has only two entrances – the one I already came through, and another on the side of the building that faces Princes Street at the bottom of the tower’s shaft. If I can reach it, that’ll split up the faeries and force them to take the long route around the road to find me. It might buy me a few minutes to run, and that’s the best chance I have to make it to the ornithopter.

Over buzzing electricity, the clock’stick tick tickonly makes me move quicker, more frantically. I shove through a door, over the bridge that connects the two sides of the tower. I have no idea how quicklycù sìthcan run, but I’m sure I haven’t bought myself much time.

Up another flight of stairs, and then I reach the top, finding the narrow wooden platform to be much smaller than I expected. I teeter on the edge and my arms flail. Acù sìthhowls outside.Calm, I tell myself.Be calm.

With a narrowed gaze, I scrutinise the working gears below me, how they weave and circle each other in a regular pattern. The rope of the driving weight hangs from the ceiling to the bottom of the shaft. If I don’t catch the rope when I jump, I’ll have a few short seconds to fall and pray that I don’t break something when I hit the lower cog. If I take longer . . . well, that won’t be a pleasant outcome either.

I look behind me.Tick tick tick. Time is running out. The taste of faery power is so pungent in my mouth that it hurts to swallow. I tear more fabric from my petticoats and wrap my single bare hand. The taste grows, a burning dryness that spreads inexorably down my throat.

Tick tick tick. I’m gasping for breath now. If I don’t jump soon, the others will be waiting outside the other door to tear me to shreds by the time I get down there. I don’t have a chance of fighting them blind; there are too many.

Something snaps at my dress. Invisible teeth or claws shred the material around my thighs. I cry out and kick reflexively. My boot connects with the faery I can’t see and it yips in response.

Tick tick tick. Too late to change my mind and run back down the steps. So I whirl and throw myself off the platform.

Chapter 19

My grasping fingers close around the rope of the driving weight. Friction burns through the fabric wrapped around my hand and I grit my teeth as I slide down, coming to a halt above a massive rotating gear. My legs dangle in the air, toes barely brushing the thick metal below me.

The biting pain in the palms of my hands is almost enough to slacken my grip. The muscles in my arms bulge with the effort of keeping me in place as I stare down at the turning cog below my feet. It moves in and around smaller cogs, revealing a small opening during each rotation. Beneath it is another flat cog that spins.

In . . . around . . . out. There’s the opening. I follow the pattern until I memorise it, until I’m certain I’ll get the timing right. At the precise second the opening appears, I release the rope and let myself fall.

The moment I’m airborne, I close my eyes. The first person I think of – completely without reason – is Kiaran. Of his rare almost-smile, and those brief, extraordinary glimpses of vulnerability that he shows when he momentarily loses control.

My body crashes hard onto the metal cog in a graceless heap.Hell and blast, it hurts.

I struggle to my feet and stand unsteadily at the edge of the cog. As the cog rotates, I notice another opening below through which I can see the wooden floor at the bottom of the clock tower. Another drop, not terribly far at all. I scan the walls of the shaft to see if there is anything to help me climb down.

A series of metal bars project from the tower’s interior wall. When the gear circles again, I leap. My hands close around one of the bars, and I swing my body to the next, then to another, and drop to the wooden floor in a crouch. My teeth click together hard from the impact.

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