Then the ship hit the double-world storm, and the Hindenburg’s nose began to drop. Vari looked at the controls around him, baffled, so he turned to Speedo. “I command you to take me to the City of Souls!”

“You command squat,” said Speedo, finally sticking up for himself against those who would order him around. “This is my airship, and you are just a passenger. Got it?”

The nose dipped farther, and Vari nodded nervously.

Speedo, who had been a true master of the airship’s helm, quickly took the controls, adjusting the elevator wheel until the inclinometers were level and the ship had stabilized. He paused then, but only briefly. He now had his ship back—and although it meant abandoning his claim on the deadspot, he resolved not to return to Mary. Not now, not ever.

“We need to get more altitude, and we can’t do that in this storm,” Speedo told Vari. “We’ll go back over the deadspot—it’s quiet in the eye. Then, by the time we reach the far side, we’ll be high enough to make it through the storm.”

Speedo turned the ship around, and it began to rise as it crossed back over the deadspot.

Jix knew something had gone terribly wrong when he saw the Hindenburg soaring overhead with its gangway still open and the occasional warrior tumbling out. He looked back to take stock of the limited number of warriors with him now. There were thousands upon thousands of souls to fight Mary Hightower, but that meant nothing if they all were aboard an airship that was flying away.

Now, Mary’s children were coming out of hiding all around Jix, and there were lots of them—many more than the warriors who actually made it out of the airship. It looked like Mary’s children realized that too, because they didn’t seem frightened anymore. In fact, they were closing in.

Johnnie-O never got to the gangway before the ship took off. He got close, but something along the way stopped him. It was the statue of the king. Johnnie remembered how, when he and Charlie had first flown over the deadspot nearly a month ago, the airship had filled with sparks and silent lightning. Now, however, all the electrical charges seemed to be focused around the statue, creating pleasing patterns of light. Pleasing, at least, to him. Johnnie-O found himself mesmerized, unable to look away, and while the warriors had been frightened by it, sticking close to the stairwell wall on their way to the gangway, Johnnie could not stop looking at it.

Old thoughts began to play in his head. “It’s gotta mean something, don’t it, Charlie? The fact that I’m not a complete blithering idiot like you?” Although Johnnie-O didn’t know what the meaning was, he couldn’t help but think that his destiny, like Charlie’s, was somehow tied up with this statue.