At last, Djer turned to Jake with the full focus of his intense gaze. “You asked how earlier.”

Jake nodded. “How can we rescue my friends and sister?”

“With the pyramid locked down, the best opportunity is at the games in the morning. In fact, it’s our only chance.”

“But that doesn’t answer how,” Jake said.

Djer offered a smile of approval. “Nothing slithers past your sandals, does it, young man. How, you ask? The answer is simple: with a little help from above.”

A fist pounded on the door. From the way the boards shuttered, it certainly wasn’t the boy. Djer unlatched the door and pulled it open. The red-bearded giant whom they’d met in the alleyway lumbered inside. But he was no longer weaving—his gaze was dead steady.

He must have faked being drunk earlier.

Confirming that, the giant cocked an amused eyebrow at Jake.

He was the inn’s gatekeeper, checking on whoever came snooping at the door. The shock must have been plain on Jake’s face. A chuckle that sounded like grinding boulders flowed from the giant.

Djer frowned at the interruption. “What is it, Grymhorst?”

The giant stepped aside. “Heard from Riku that you were looking for these two.”

A pair of men moved past Grymhorst and entered the room: one tall and stately, the other squat and square. Jake knew them both.

Horus, the skymaster of the windrider, and Politor, the head mechanic.

Jake recalled Djer’s explanation of the rescue operation.

With a little help from above.

Jake smiled, finally understanding.

It wasn’t a bad plan.

21

A BAD PLAN

Dawn came rosy and cold.

Wrapped in a thick leather cloak, Jake shivered as he stood atop the deck of the windrider, the Breath of Shu. It was the same ship they’d traveled aboard to reach Ka-Tor yesterday. The damage to the ship from the air battle with the harpy horde had been repaired; but a few scars remained, including those of the flesh.

Skymaster Horus manned the ship’s rudder, but he carried his arm in a sling. They’d lifted off an hour before sunrise under the guise of testing the repaired boat. While this was mostly an excuse, Politor still scurried above and below the deck, making sure all was in good shape.

And Jake now understood why.

He stared over the rail. Ka-Tor lay two miles below, still shadowed by the night. He could make out an outline of the city, lit by fires set along the walls. Politor had told Jake that it was rare for a skyship to travel so high. It took an extraordinary amount of fuel to heat the balloon and drive the ship to this height. To keep them here, the crew continually pumped the bellows and dumped bushels of the ruby-skinned gourds into the balloon’s furnace.

At this height, the air was thin and cold. Jake’s head pounded with a headache, a symptom of altitude sickness from lack of oxygen, or maybe it was from the fitful sleep he’d had. Jake had been plagued by nightmares of his mother being attacked by a giant grakyl, one that spewed fire. When awake, he just stared into the dark, plagued by worries of Kady and his friends.