Sixth, no crew would be chasing her because there was no crew.

Rue realised all of this even as she grabbed for the break lever, hauling back on it as hard as she could with a strength mere moments before she would have believed impossible. If only she had a second person to cool the boiler, to rake back the coals. Alone, her best option was a mechanical one. She hoped the lever wasn’t too old. Her arms screamed in pain almost as loudly as the brake screamed in reality.

The Ganesha head slowed. The brake locked down, no longer requiring Rue’s measly strength. The engine shuddered against it. Freed suddenly, Rue dived for the firebox. Grabbing the rake, heedless of her own safety, she pulled the coals out into the slop grate, although part of her knew it would not be sufficient to cool the boiler. A few embers fell to the floor of the cabin, scorching Rue’s bare legs. She hardly noticed.

The firebox was empty and the brake had managed to slow the elephant head, but not enough. With relentless precision Ganesha crawled towards the last pole, after which the cable dangled down like a limp snake.

Rue slammed open the door and looked for a second parasol parachute – nothing. At a complete loss of what else to do, she grabbed her sparkler and dipped the fuse into the slop grate, aiming for a still smouldering coal. It lit. She leaned out of the door and threw it as hard as she could up into the air.

She heard its loud bang and the forest below lit up with a flood of yellow light. Everything was in sharp and sudden relief, the vibrant green of the trees extending endlessly in every direction, every leaf painfully clear. Rue could see the end pole with its builders’ scaffolding, obviously in the middle of construction, coming relentlessly closer.

And then Rue saw something she wasn’t expecting. The face of an extremely unfriendly-looking monkey pressed upside down to the window of her cabin.

Rue screamed and backed away from the door, slamming it shut.

The monkey creature swung over the top of the elephant head with consummate skill, performing a flip that put him on the other side of the door. A door he proceeded to rip off of its hinges and discard casually into the jungle below.

Well, I call that unnecessary. The door has a perfectly good handle.

The creature swung through the opening to land gracefully on the floor facing Rue.

He was much bigger than a monkey should be and stood fully upright like a human, but with more muscles than any human Rue had ever seen – except maybe one strongman at a carnival. He had very long arms and an extremely articulate tail. He was wearing a loincloth of expensive blue silk, a breastplate of beaten gold, and a great deal of jewellery.