The Madders did not whoop and holler as they usually did during death-defying stunts such as these. Bryn was, however, grinning like a cat in a bird’s nest, and so were Alun and Cadoc, who dangled from their own grappling ropes not far from them.
Rose was pressed against Bryn’s side, locked there. She squinted her eyes against the icy wind to see where the airship was dragging them.
They were dashed away from the wagon and the chase below at an alarming speed. And since they had exited so quickly, the horses kept running a good block or so farther into town before slowing down.
Blinded, and expecting gunfire, the lawmen had followed a little more cautiously, but had not seen them fly free from the wagon. And she knew the weight of four people wouldn’t do much to make the airship fly any differently. Not with the load of cargo roped below its envelope, and the cable doing part of the work to push the airship to its intended drop point.
The airship sped nicely above even the tallest of the city’s buildings, ensuring it wouldn’t get buffeted by a stray wind into a chimney or spire.
But the Madders’ ropes were so long, they dangled between buildings, about five stories up from the ground. No one looked up, except a dog or two that barked. Everyone in the city was too busy rushing, and too used to simply stepping aside for the cable as it passed to notice anything amiss.
“How do we get down?” Rose asked.
“You might not want to know, Miss Small.”
“I most certainly—”
“Now!” Alun yelled.
Bryn glanced up and shifted his grip on the gun.
Shifting his grip actually caused a cutting device to snap the rope.
Rose grabbed Bryn’s arm tighter as they fell.
A flat rooftop was coming up fast. Too fast. She didn’t know if they’d hit it, or if the force of breaking the rope while they were being towed by the airship cable would mean they had overshot the roof completely and would fall to their deaths in the street.
“Out!” Bryn yelled as he pushed her away just a bit.
Rose readied herself for the landing. Just like falling out of a tree. Just like falling off a fence. Just like falling off a cut rope from the bottom of a cable airship.
She hit the roof on feet, then knees, lost all contact and rolled, caught by Bryn’s larger mass and momentum until she lost track of which side of her was up and which was down.
Pain shot through her arm, and she screamed.
Then the world stopped.
And she was still on it.
The airship fans faded away off to her left. She opened her eyes.
She was lying flat on her back, scuffed, bleeding, and sore, her stupid skirts untucked from her belt again.
A shadow moved next to her: Bryn, pushing up on hands and knees and shaking his head to try and clear it. Somehow he had unhooked his arm from the harness that bound them together in enough time that they fell separately and landed, mostly, whole.
“Miss Small?” Bryn asked in a dusty voice. He coughed, tried again, “Rose, dear?”
Dear? In all the time she’d known the Madders, she’d never heard one of them address her with such familiarity.
“Is she all right?” Alun asked from farther off. “Is she breathing?” He was concerned. Truly concerned.
On the one hand, it warmed her heart to hear the Madders’ worry for her. On the other hand she had knocked her noggin pretty hard. She could just be imagining their concern.
“I’m fit as a fine,” she slurred. That wasn’t right, was it? Fine as wine? Fiddle fine? “Whatever is fine, I’m that,” she said.
She blinked several times to get the focus back into her eyes. Sky up there, heavy with unspilled snow. Then a round, bearded face with a round nose and round eyes that were clearly narrowed in pain.
Alun Madder bent down over her.
“Rose, are you all in one piece?” he asked.
“I am. I think.” She moved to sit and yelped again.
“What is it?” Alun asked.
“Her arm,” Cadoc said from far enough away she didn’t know how he had guessed at her injury.
“Can you bind it, brother Cadoc?” Alun asked.
“No,” Rose said. “It’s…”
But then Cadoc was there, helping her sit. And then Cadoc gently took her arm in his big, wide calloused hands, as if lifting a bird’s broken wing.
She whimpered, but he was as careful as could be, assessing the break. He withdrew two smooth wooden dowels from inside his coat, steadied her arm with both sticks, wrapped a length of cloth around it all, then used a wider, soft cloth that smelled of lemon balm to sling her arm against her chest.
“Now, you will not want to move your arm, Rose Small,” he said kindly. “Well, you may want to move it but you should not. There is healing that must be done, bones that must latch and clasp and mend. It has been a fine arm for you. It will be a fine arm again. If you let it rest. If you let it heal.”
“Thank you,” she said, still feeling a little woozy.
“Always happy to help one of our own.”
He was standing and walking away before she could really get her thoughts in order about that statement. She was one of their own? How?
“How much farther?” Alun asked.
Rose glanced over at Alun and Bryn, who were standing at the edge of the rooftop.
“Just there.” Bryn adjusted the monocle over his eye, then pointed. “Far as we’ll go.”
“It will have to be good enough, then,” Alun said. “Do you have your breath, Miss Small?”
“I can walk.” She proved it by strolling over to them.
“I hope you’ll consider a jog or two,” he said as he pointed to the iron ladder that clung to the edge of the building, “once we hit the ground.”
“I’ll be fine,” Rose said.
Bryn nodded, and started down the ladder.
“You next, Miss Small,” Alun said.
Rose walked to the edge, tucked her skirt back into her belt so the ruffles wouldn’t be in her way, then crouched and eased her foot down to the first rung.
It took more effort with one bad arm, but Rose knew how to climb a ladder and did so swiftly.
Once her boots were on solid ground, she took several deep breaths to steady her heartbeat. She had never minded flying. Falling, she didn’t enjoy.
“Come, now, Miss Small,” Alun called as he started down a dark alleyway at a slow lope. “We’re almost there.”
“Where?” she asked as she tried a few faster steps and mercifully found that her arm could bear the jostling.
“Edge of town. Beyond that if you’re willing.”
“Willing? To find the children?” she asked.
“Yes, that. Which we can do if you make us a promise.”
The alleyway opened up onto the unpaved road that cut across the north end of town.
“Brother Bryn?” Alun asked.
Bryn flipped the spread of lenses up and away from the monocle, then snicked them into place, one by one.
“Promise?” Rose asked. “Why do you need a promise from me? You’ve already promised Father Kyne you’ll find the children, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes, that promise remains exactly as he stated it. We are not to leave the city until we find the lost children. It’s a problem.”
“A puzzle,” Cadoc said distractedly.
“A predicament,” Bryn added.
“And we Madders have discovered, over time, that even the most devious problems are quickly solved by a simple promise,” Alun said.
“Right,” Rose said. “Just as this Small knows that no promise is simple when it’s made with a Madder.”
Bryn laughed and Cadoc chuckled.
Alun gave her a wide smile and a wink. “You are a clever girl, Rose Small.”
“It’s there,” Bryn said. “A hollow, the Strange pocket, on the other side of those trees.”