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"And that’s why you want to bring it along tonight?" Alek asked "In case we need to send senals?"

Deryn rolled her eyes "No, you daft buhed, unsure exactly how to say it The loris had a knack for noticing iht was the most important mission that Deryn had ever been a part of She didn’t dare leave the beastie behind

"Perspicacious," the creature said

"Aye, that’s the word," Deryn cried "Because it’s barking perspicacious"

Teeks before, Zaven had put his posh education to use and explained the loris’s species name to Deryn It turned out that "perspicacious" h that didn’t sound like the sort of thing a beastie could be, it certainly fit

Alek sighed, and turned toward the faing, covered within the breeze The old woman called to Lilit and Alek

As they walked away, Alek said over his shoulder, "All right, Dylan But I have a walker to pilot So you’ll be looking after it"

"More than happy to," Deryn said softly, scratching the loris’s wee head

Only having the beastie about hadwith Clankers and their lifelesssplendor of Istanbul was still so alien, its foreign tongues too many to learn in a lifeti newspapers she couldn’t read, and wondering what the prayers gliding over the rooftops eos dazzled her eyes, and even the wondrous food often proved to be - like the rest of the capital - too su so close to Alek, while still hiding from him He’d shared his last secret with her, and Deryn realized now that she could have told hiht, in that dark hotel room with no one about to hear

But every tiined the look of horror on his face Not that she was a girl in boy’s clothes, or that she’d lied to hiet past, she knew And then he would love her, she knew

But that was the problee Deryn was a commoner She was a thousand times more common than Alek’s mother, who’d been born a countess, or even Lilit, an anarchist who spoke six languages and always knehich fork to use Deryn Sharp was as co dirt, and the only reason that didn’t , was that she was also, in hismore than a friend, she would be, and then he’d have to run a mile

The pope did not write letters to transforirls in boy’s britches, or unrepentant Darwinists, into royalty She was dead certain of that

Deryn watched Alek kneel by Nene’s bed like a good grandson, the three of the over the details of the attack one last tiether, she and Alek, and this was the closest they would ever be

"A, B, C?" Bovril asked, and Deryn nodded

She prayed that her signal practice really would coht, the Leviathan’s creould be taking a long hard look at the Tesla cannon after it had been destroyed That could be her only chance to let theo hoates of the courtyard swung slowly open, revealing a clear and ht," Alek said, checking the controls

"Right enough," Deryn answered A ht downpour would have turned the spice bo the Co about battles, Mr Rigby always said, one squick of bad luck could o pear-shaped

Much like the rest of life, she supposed

The courtyard filled with the ruines from four walkers &350;ahiant hand and waved theates

Lilit went next, piloting a Minotaur The half bull, half iant hands out for balance Spice boazine that Master Klopp had welded to its forearm

Alek placed his feet on the djinn’s pedals Klopp had insisted that Alek pilot an Arab ht; their steam cannon made them the safest of the Committee’s walkers Behind the djinn, Klopp and Bauer sat at the controls of an iron goleht, Bovril," Deryn said, and the beastie scah her piloting jacket like wee needles

Alek worked his feet, and the contraption took a huge step forward

Deryn grasped the sides of her co machine At least the djinn was still in parade mode, the top of its head split open, so she could see the stars and breathe fresh air

"Turn left here," she said To keep this mission as secret as possible, the four walkers had no copilots So Deryn was serving as Alek’s navigator and, once the shooting started, as range finder for the throwing arunner before, but altitude practice hadas she remembered to think in ain It showed four separate routes to the Tesla cannon, with Alek’s marked in red These four walkers were headed out before the an, so they couldn’t afford to raise suspicions by traveling together The trick would be arriving at their target all at the same time

Also marked on the ed to the Co into action an hour later Deryn wondered if there were any spies a those crews, ready to sell the Coold

At least she could be certain that this attack on the Tesla cannon had been kept secret Zaven himself had heard about it only this afternoon He’d fu that he wouldn’t have to face the big guns of the Goeben

Unless the Adht of the beheht about how ?" Deryn said "It’s like the bard says, ’The best laid plans ofZaven’s tone

"You see?" Alek said "Your perspicacious friend is confident"

Deryn looked at the beastie "I just hope it’s right"

They ood time on the almost empty streets of Istanbul The Co for the last ave the djinn a second glance

The buildings thinned out at the city’s edge, and soon the djinn was traveling down a dusty carriage road The route was barely wide enough for the walker, and the skirt of steam cannon thrashed the tree branches on either side When they passed a darkened inn at a crossroads, Deryn saw curious faces peering from the s Sooner or later sohettos was doing in the countryside

But they were too close to their target for that torockier as the cliffs rose The city calitter and brilliance garish in the ht

A hundred masts and smokestacks were scattered across the water’s black expanse, and Deryn wondered again ould happen if the Leviathan were shot down Would the behe all those unarht

They were only a few ht lanced out of the dark

Deryn squinted - her eyes caught a flash of steel, and the silhouette of a trunk and tail