I saw what he meant when I looked down. There was a clear division between the wealthy neighborhoods and the rest of the city. The wealthy areas were well lit with soft, steady magical lights. Less-wealthy areas had flickering, dim gaslights. The poorest areas had hardly any light at all in the streets, though sometimes the faint glow of candlelight showed through a window.

Alec took a pair of binoculars from around his neck and studied the ground. Mick did the same on the other side of the ship. After a moment, Alec grunted in satisfaction and said, “Ah, there they are.” He lowered his binoculars and took a notepad and a pencil out of his coat pocket and handed them to me. “Would you mind recording my findings?” he asked.

Pencil in hand, I listened as he reeled off locations and numbers. “Light barrier at Fifty-Seventh and Columbus, six men. Same on Amsterdam.” He gestured to Everett, who pulled a lever. The ship angled to the east. Alec turned to me, his binoculars in his hand. “I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?”

“For what I said the other day, when I was more worried about your loss as a spy than about the loss of your position if you were recognized. I—I suppose I get too caught up in the cause. Lizzie says I forget to be human, that I’ll turn into one of my machines one of these days.”

“I’d forgotten all about it,” I lied. It had eaten at me, but now that he’d apologized, I hoped I could forget it.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Of course, if you ever were to lose your position, you’ve got our help, even if you’re no longer of use to us in that way. You’re our friend.”

In spite of the cold wind, I felt as warm as the inside of one of Alec’s steam engines. I blinked back tears before they could smear the lenses of my goggles. “I appreciate that.”

“Hey, you two, you aren’t on a romantic moonlight stroll!” Mick called from across the ship. “Keep your eyes open.”

Everett steered a zigzag pattern across the city, covering the entire island. Alec had a better grasp of the city’s topography than I did, always knowing exactly where we were. I only got my bearings when I saw a major landmark, like the cathedral or the Croton water distributing reservoir. The wind whipped the loose tendrils of hair around my face, and my cheeks had gone numb from the cold, but my entire body tingled with exhilaration. I was flying!