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Just to make sure that you were real

Just to make sure that I can still feel you

- from "Destiny Rules" by Fleetwood Mac

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The Kétsas approaches Oroszvár Mansion from the east. As explained by Deryn, this allows the airship to hide in the morning sun, which prevents it - hopefully - from being spotted for that small, crucial while longer.

It's a large estate, mostly forest, set between the curve of the Danube, a village, and a number of farms. Earlier, Alek had been concerned that Volger's intelligence was incorrect, and they were going to find a true castle, rather than a mansion.

But no. From the bridge, he can see the building clearly. Three wings, traditionally arranged: a central rectangle, with two projecting wings on either side, framing a courtyard with a lavish fountain. There are no defensive features on the mansion's white walls; the crenellations running around the grey roof are merely decorative.

To make up for the lack, Princess Stéphanie has fortified her lawns.

"Two walkers. Stormwalkers, with the imperial crest." He lowers his binoculars, personally offended. It's a sentimental attachment, not based on anything rational, but Cyklop Stormwalkers are his favorite. How dare she. "I'd like to know how the princess acquired those."

"It will be investigated," Volger says on his right. He gestures, and his secretary makes a note.

"Six anti-aircraft guns," Deryn reports from Alek's left, looking through her own binoculars. She whistles. "That'll be a bit of a gauntlet to run."

She sounds pleased, not concerned. Alek glances at her, then at the officers on the bridge. None of them seem worried, either.

Madness may be a prerequisite for serving aboard an airship.

Then again, he is having rather a difficult time being properly concerned about this attack. Last night he had faced a future without his mad British airman; this morning he carries her promise to stay beside him. It makes all the difference.

Currently, however, he is staying beside her. Deryn was invited to join Captain Hummel on the bridge for the attack. Meanwhile, Alek, Volger, and the latter's secretary are taking up valuable space and being politely ignored while they do.

"I may also need to replace half my generals before this is over," Alek says to no one in particular, returning his thoughts to the Stormwalkers. His father's cousin Archduke Friedrich will return to command if asked - assuming Friedrich isn't on the side of the coup. He turns to his air combat advisor, wondering how many generals she can pull out of her collection of acquaintances. "Perhaps -"

He hasn't the chance to finish, as the first anti-aircraft shell explodes off their starboard bow.

Alek flinches instinctively, though none of the officers so much as blink. Captain Hummel gives a quiet command to the helmsman, and the airship adjusts course slightly.

Deryn clicks her tongue. "Someone's nervous," she says, scornful. "We're still out of range of those archies."

"Launch gyrothopters," Hummel orders.

Alek repeats it in English for Deryn, who looks more interested about that than she had about the shelling. He supposes she hadn't any opportunity to observe gyrothopters during the war, since they would have been attached to pilots trying to kill her.

More explosions come, closer to the airship and closer together.

"You'll want to grab hold of something," Deryn says. She herself isn't holding onto anything except for the binoculars and her cane, although she's braced her hip against a bulwark. "The next few will likely hit us."

"You're very sanguine about this," Alek says. He takes her advice and grips a sturdy-looking pipe.

She shrugs. "It's always terrifying. But it's like an old friend now, aye?"

The gyrothopters cut across the scene, rotors reflecting sunlight in bright flashes, firing their machine guns at the anti-aircraft guns. First one, and then two more, of the gun crews break off attacking the Kétsas to return fire at the gyrothopters.

The remaining three guns continue to fire. As predicted, the airship takes a hit, and then another, shaking the floor beneath Alek's feet, and machine gun fire rakes across the lower edge of the gondola in a ghastly staccato. He grimaces, wishing he was sitting behind the controls of one of the stolen Stomwalkers, which thus far seem to be unmanned. "I'd prefer to meet this old friend on the ground."

"Very wise, Your Majesty," Volger says.

"Sodding walker pilot," Deryn says to Alek. Her grin turns it from an insult into an endearment.

He tightens his grip on the pipe rather than put an arm around her waist. The crew has turned a blind eye, but there's no need to test their discretion. When this is concluded, he'll be receiving a lecture from Volger, no doubt, about allowing Deryn to sleep in his cabin.

Alek hadn't planned to. Quite the opposite; he'd made all sorts of resolutions about keeping his distance, speaking to her only about official matters, letting their relationship - whatever it may be - fade naturally into a professional sort of friendship.

Those noble intentions had lasted until she'd appeared at the meeting wearing one of his own suits. Defiant. Fearless. Carrying herself like an empress.

And God's wounds, he does like her in trousers.

"Could use some strafing hawks," she says now, eyes back on the fight, "but they're doing all right out there."

Yes, for war. There are motionless figures slumped around one of the anti-aircraft guns. Another disappears in a blinding boom as the gyrothopters release bombs, which also stymies the walker crews trying to reach their machines. The gyrothopters themselves have taken some damage. One has been shot down, and one is damaged and struggling to remain aloft, but the others now dart away. Circling for a second run, perhaps.

"Open fire," Deryn murmurs, watching them go.

At the same moment, Hummel orders, "Open fire," and the airship does just that. Its guns also send vibrations through the floor of the bridge and through Alek's chest. One of the anti-aircraft guns erupts in a gout of flames and smoke.

That's three; half down.

Movement in the courtyard draws Alek's attention away from the fighting. A liveried servant has run out of the mansion, frantically waving a white flag. Or rather, half a bedsheet tied to a broom handle.

"Hold your fire, Captain!" he tells Hummel, who immediately repeats the order to his crew, and the airship ceases fire. Meanwhile, more servants in livery have emerged from the mansion, shouting urgently at the men on the ground.

The anti-aircraft guns fall silent, and the two walker crews pause, then turn back and begin arguing with the servants sent to stop them.

"Your Majesty," Volger says, warningly.

Alek knows it could be a trap. Anyone who would attempt to overthrow a lawful government cannot be trusted to be honorable. Still, he is honorable, and the mansion is outgunned. "We'll see what they're up to."

"Someone's coming out," Deryn says.

Two women are walking out of the mansion, one in front of the other. Both are tall, slender, well-dressed, and have the perfect posture that comes from years of ruthless, royal training. The one in front has her hands clasped before her - no, tied, which makes more sense when Alek notices the pistol being held to the back of her head by the woman behind her.

"Is that the archduchess?" he asks Volger. He's never met Elisabeth Marie, who is fifteen years his senior, and anyway, at this distance, it's difficult to make out fine details.

"Yes," Volger says after a fraught moment. "And the princess."

"Motherly as a crocodile," Deryn says, indignant, "holding a pistol on her own daughter!"

"You mistake my meaning, Miss Sharp," Volger says coolly. "The archduchess is holding the pistol."

Alek looks at him, stunned, and then at the women standing beside the courtyard fountain. "She's taken her mother prisoner," he says, for he feels it needs clarification.

"So it would seem."

Deryn whistles again. This one is approving.

The same information is being repeated more officially by the officers on the bridge. Hummel looks pleased. "Your Majesty," he says, crossing to join Alek's group, "we have a radio message from the mansion. They are surrendering. Shall we land?"

"Of course," Alek says. They'd selected a number of potential landing sites during the meeting last night; the nearest is in a farmer's field a short walk away. To Volger, he asks, "Are we safe in doing so?"

Volger makes a disdainful noise. "Princess Stéphanie won't risk it. She knows her daughter has killed before."

And he refuses to divulge more in the presence of Deryn and the officers, citing a matter of state secrets.

Very well. Alek glances at Deryn; she nods, and a warmth suffuses his chest that has less to do with the morning's victory and more to do with being understood so well.

Forever, she'd said. He means to hold her to it.

"I want the princess secured in the brig, along with her husband, if he's present," Alek tells Hummel. "Captain Sharp will take custody of the archduchess."

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Count Elemér is not at home, which the expeditionary party discovers after trekking across the newly-plowed field where the airship has moored (the farmer is at home, and too agog to be unhappy about the disruption to his field). Hummel politely refuses to let Alek join the party, which is only reasonable, if frustrating. Instead, Alek is tailed by two burly airmen while he descends to the ground, then speaks to the awestruck farmer and his family until part of the expeditionary party returns with the princess and archduchess. The rest of the party will stay at the mansion until soldiers from Pressburg arrive to relieve them.

Archduchess Elisabeth Marie fairly marches up to him where he stands in the airship's shadow. Tall. Slender. Well-dressed and well-coiffed, though somewhat bedraggled by the morning's adventures. She crackles with rage - and something more, something distinctly imperial.

"Your Majesty," she says loudly, clearly, sweeping into a deep, formal curtsy, as if she was being presented to him at court, rather than ankle-deep in mud and fertilizer. It's a difficult position to hold, but she holds it, head bowed, graceful as a dancer.

Her mother the princess directs her gaze to the horizon. Face expressionless. She's also flanked by two burly airmen, but for a very different reason, and her wrists are still bound.

"You may rise," Alek tells Elisabeth Marie.

She rises, only to step forward and kneel at his feet. "Your Majesty," she says again, in a carrying voice, "I am your loyal servant."

Alek dislikes people humbling themselves at his feet, but he understands the need for public pageantry, even if the public, at present, is merely a ship's crew and one family of common farmers. He extends his hand; the archduchess grasps it and presses a ritual kiss to the finger where he ought to be wearing a state ring.

Presumably, the ring is still in his baggage, traveling from London with the rest of his imperial trappings.

"Archduchess," Alek says, also in a carrying voice. "I am grateful for your continued loyalty."

Elisabeth Marie climbs to her feet, shoots a venomous glare at her mother, and allows herself to be taken aboard.

Alek personally sees the princess escorted to the brig while Volger contacts his people to track down the missing count. Meanwhile, Deryn - who had used her time stuck aboard to change into women's clothes - shows the archduchess to a cabin.

Alek would much rather be with Deryn, learning how the archduchess managed to turn the tables so comprehensively. However, he has unfinished business with Princess Stéphanie.

The Kétsas has no brig per se, merely a small storeroom that has been emptied for the purpose. A cot is the sole piece of furniture, and there will be two guards posted outside the door at all times.

Alek stands in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back, studying the princess as she sits on the edge of the cot. Her posture is perfect, her face impassive, her attention fixed on some indeterminate middle distance. There is silver streaking her dark hair, fine lines around her eyes and mouth, and a heavy bruise coming in at her temple.

The archduchess must have struck her.

It occurs to him that Stéphanie is of an age with his mother, and that makes him sad. Not for his mother's absence, but for the princess, whose relationship with her daughter is so hopelessly fractured.

"Am I truly such a poor emperor?" he asks.

The princess makes no answer. Indeed, she seems not to hear him at all.

Silence hangs around them, thick and stifling. He waits for several minutes, curious to see how long she'll ignore him. The guards outside shift and shuffle. The engines change pitch and the entire gondola rocks as the airship takes flight.

The princess remains motionless.

Where did she learn that? Growing up with a monstrous father? Trapped in a miserable marriage with Kronprinz Rudolf? In the years since, unseen and unwanted?

He's not sad for her, he realizes. He pities her.

"There will be a trial," he says. "No executions, however."

Now she looks at him - a look to freeze the blood. He has been weighed, the look says, and found sorely wanting. "Your mercy will not buy you favor."

"No," he agrees. His supporters will be unhappy, and his opponents will be emboldened. "But I have no taste for vengeance."

The princess' mouth curls in disdain. "As weak as your father."

Alek laughs. It's genuine, and her sneer falters into uncertainty. He gives her a small bow, in return for the greatest compliment she could have paid him, and then he leaves. The guards shut and lock the door behind him.

Volger intercepts him on his way to find Deryn. "The count decamped yesterday for Györszentmárton, likely to take sanctuary in the abbey there."

"Let him," Alek says, more than willing to defer that problem to a later time. "But keep an eye on him."

Volger lifts an eyebrow, the words As though I haven't already arranged it remaining unspoken yet clearly audible. He moves to the next item. "The embassy in Paris reports that Lieutenant Ackermann has survived his most recent surgery. His doctors are optimistic."

More good news. And there is Deryn, emerging from the archduchess' assigned cabin, leaning on her cane, bright and soft in her pink shirtwaist and grey skirt. She smiles when she sees him; he smiles back, then quickly schools his expression, feeling foolish. "Thank you, Volger," he says.

Volger makes a noise that Alek - very generously - interprets as respectful acknowledgement, and a gesture that Alek - again, very generously - interprets as a respectful bow. "We will rendezvous with the Socialists in Vienna. Their mission also went well, it seems."

He walks past Deryn, who rolls her eyes at his back.

"How is the archduchess?" Alek asks her.

"Angry as a wet hen," Deryn says, watching Volger walk down the corridor and enter the captain's quarters, leaving them momentarily alone. Then she steps closer and kisses Alek full on the mouth.

He's surprised, but not unhappy. He can't imagine a situation where kissing her would make him unhappy.

Forever, he thinks.

He sighs when she releases him, though it's for the best. "Angry, you said."

"Aye." Deryn makes a face. "She was all right with her ma kidnapping her, but she's pure dead furious about her children."

"Apparently so," Alek says, thinking of the bruise on the princess' temple. "How did she do it?"

Deryn's voice and expression become admiring: "She hid a pistol in her luggage when she was first taken. Not much of a kidnapping, is it, to let her bring along a change of clothes? Anyway, she stuck it in her ma's face when the Kétsas showed up. Told the servants they had three minutes to stop the fighting or she'd pull the trigger. They believed her."

Alek believed her too. "And she's killed before?"

Deryn shrugs. "Didn't get to that part."

Blast. He'll have to ask Volger after all.

A few officers come down the corridor; rather than force them to shuffle past, Alek steers Deryn into the nearby officers' mess. Since they're in the mess, they might as well sit down and eat something, or at least drink some coffee.

Alek fetches two cups. He doesn't like the brief, tight look of pain that flashes across Deryn's face as she shifts position in her chair. The morning sun slices through the portholes, thick and golden, reminding him of that first morning aboard a British airiest, bound for Calais. He'd been exhausted then, as well - another night of very little sleep. He'd also found himself thoroughly beguiled. That hasn't changed.

Quietly, he asks, "How is your knee?"

She shakes her head and takes a long drink, watching him over the rim of the cup. It's not an answer - or perhaps it is. "I'd do it again, you know."

"Absolutely not," he says, too quickly and too vehemently, feeling sick at the very idea. Before she can take offense, he puts on a deliberately arrogant tone and adds, "Women have no place in war, after all."

"Get stuffed, mein Kaiser," she says pleasantly.

He catches her hand and presses a brief kiss to the back of her knuckles. "It may be just as well that we didn't meet five years ago. I had… definite opinions about women and their roles."

He tries to release her hand. Instead, she laces their fingers together and rests their hands on the table's surface. An easy, simple, affectionate grasp. He shouldn't want to cling to it like a drowning man. She's already promised him forever, after all.

"What changed?" she asks.

"I inherited an empire," he says, wry. "A struggling one. A - a dying one. My God, it was awful, Deryn, you can't imagine. My granduncle had refused to allow aid from charity organizations in 'enemy nations,' and the people were starving. Inflation was soaring, the military was collapsing, every faction was trying to break away..."

He trails off, overwhelmed all over again by the memory of those first few desperate, terrifying, whirlwind months, when it seemed like the thread holding Damocles' sword was growing thinner every minute of every day.

A boot nudges his foot. Not gently. He starts and looks at Deryn, who's regarding him with sympathy. "They were lucky to get you," she says, echoing - deliberately, he's sure - her words last night, when she'd also told him in no uncertain terms not to abdicate.

For some reason, it makes him embarrassed, and he looks away. "The luck was my cousin - Franz Joseph's daughter - ah, Archduchess Marie Valerie -"

Deryn mutters something about too many bloody Archduchess Maries.

Alek smirks. "Be that as it may, after he died, she held the empire together until I could reach Vienna, and then she stayed as an éminence grise for the first year. All unofficially, of course."

"I'll bet Volger hated it," she says, smirking herself over the rim of her coffee cup.

Volger had indeed; éminence grise is much more his sort of role. However, Marie Valerie had possessed knowledge and connections they desperately needed, and Volger is, ultimately, a practical man. "He would never turn away an ally."

She snorts. "Aye, I'm proof enough of that, I reckon."

He squeezes her fingers. There's no reason not to mention the other woman who had come to his aid, except for a sudden, superstitious fear that Deryn may find herself trapped in a similar role. "And Frau Schratt had been privy to all of his correspondence. She helped as well."

"Schratt?" she asks, tilting her head, frowning slightly at the unfamiliar name.

"Katherina Schratt," a new voice says from the doorway. It's Archduchess Elisabeth Marie, no longer disheveled, although her dress has been hopelessly stained by the mud. She continues in French, "An actress by trade, but best known for being my grandfather's… companion."

Alek lets go of Deryn's hand - hasty enough to look guilty - and stands, although he doesn't have to do either. "Archduchess."

She waves him off with one slender, pale, effortlessly elegant hand. "She's lovely," she says to Deryn, crossing the room to join them. "Kind. Steady. I imagine that's why they lasted so long together. My grandmother the empress was an exquisite creature, but one could never call her steady. She and my father were much alike in that way - constantly seeking peace, yet incapable of finding it."

Alek draws a chair out for the archduchess, then fetches her a cup of coffee as well.

"Thank you," Elisabeth Marie says. She resembles her mother, though her mask is brittle and cracking at the edges. Dark smudges around her eyes speak to sleepless nights. "It's been quite a while since an emperor waited on me."

"We're en route to your children," Alek tells her, as it seems the most important thing. "The Socialist Party rescued them this morning."

"Yes, so Miss Sharp informed me." Elisabeth Marie smiles at Deryn. "My mother was following the news very closely. She was livid to hear that a common British girl was swaying public opinion in Emperor Aleksandar's favor. I think she rather hates you, dear."

If Deryn is surprised to hear that she's made a personal enemy of the former Crown Princess of Austria, she doesn't show it. In fact, she looks smug.

"You may call me Alek," he says to the archduchess. When her eyebrows lift, he adds, "We are cousins, after all."

"Then you must call me Erzsi." This reciprocation is standard, even expected. What he doesn't expect is the deliberate way his cousin gestures to include Deryn in the invitation. Her Socialist beliefs in action, perhaps. Regardless, it warms him. Frau Schratt had never been invited to address the imperial family by name.

"Deryn. Volger said you killed someone," Deryn says, straightforward as ever. This time, straightforward enough to make Alek wince.

Erzsi makes a noise of amusement, although her expression becomes serious. "That was a mistake. Not an accident - but a mistake."

"You don't have to explain," Alek hurriedly says.

Another dismissive wave. "Silence hasn't eased my guilt; perhaps confession will. Both of you have killed, haven't you? I daresay you know how terrible it is."

Alek exchanges a glance with Deryn, who says, "The nightmares are the worst."

Erzsi flashes a tight, small smile. "Just so. Well. I broke into my husband's apartments at the palace and found him in bed with his mistress. So I shot her. Louise Zeigler, another actress. Poor girl. I ought to have thrown her a parade instead, but at that point I still thought that swine was worth having."

There is a short silence. Alek breaks it by saying, "I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry for mentioning it," Deryn says, frowning.

"No need for that," Erzsi says. She's exhausted, and Alek wonders how heavy the guilt of murder is, when one cannot justify it with self-defense. "Her death was my fault; the marriage was my fault. The divorce is my fault, according to my husband the prince. Heaven only knows when it will actually go through."

"Very quickly," Alek says, "once he's convicted of treason."

Erzsi's smile is grim. "There is that."

Before anything more can be said, the ship's doctor pokes his head into the officer's mess, bows to Alek, and asks for Deryn to come with him. Apparently he's heard from his Darwinist colleague and has to conduct another, more specific exam of her knee.

Alek helps her stand, though she scowls the entire time, and she limps out of the room as though she intends to commit murder herself.

"I like her," Erzsi says, returning to German as he returns to the table. "She's an original."

Original can be an insult in aristocratic circles, but he knows Erzsi is sincere. "She is that," he says, and drinks his coffee instead of waxing poetic about Deryn.

She will not be welcomed by his court. They'll try to eat her alive. And if he can't offer her the protection of marriage...

His granduncle had kept company with Frau Schratt for over thirty years. Alek doesn't want that; more to the point, he doesn't want that for Deryn. Imperial mistress is a shadow life, one with greater and lesser freedom all at once.

A lifetime ago, aboard a British airbeast, he'd compared her to Lola Montez. He knows better now.

Surely the Angel of the Airships will rise higher.

Erzsi is tapping one long, pale finger against the side of her cup, pensive. "Of all the petty, useless rituals of court, the demand to make an 'equal marriage' is possibly the most ridiculous. And dangerous, should you choose poorly."

"I haven't given much thought to my marriage," he says, lying through his teeth. He's thought of nothing but since the train to Lyon. He's thinking of it right now.

"My grandparents, my parents, myself - we all married someone suitable, and were miserable for it. God willing, I shall not make that error again." Erzsi looks directly and pointedly at Alek. "God willing, Your Majesty, you shall not make it at all."

Forever.

He manages a smile. "That's my hope as well, Your Highness."

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Note: There's going to be (sigh) another two chapters, at least, before we get to the epilogue. I'm telling you, this thing wants to be its own novel.

Now! Actual notes.

Archduke Friedrich was appointed supreme commander of the Austro-Hungarian military during WWI. He was a modest and hardworking dude, so good on him.

Princess Stéphanie and Count Elemér took sanctuary in the archabbey at Györszentmárton (today called Pannonhalma) during WWII; she died there in 1945.

Erszi's account here of Louise Zeigler's murder omits some big details. When Erzsi stormed into Otto's apartments after learning he'd brought Louise into the palace, his valet tried to stop her. She shot at the man (with her gold-handled revolver - by some accounts a gift from Otto) and missed. The valet ran. Then she burst into the bedroom and shot Louise in the chest. Otto wrestled the gun away from her and Erzsi collapsed, sobbing. Louise, 27, died of her wound. The media coverage was sympathetic to Erzsi, and she was never charged or punished.