The doors led to a ramp, and the magisters got all the machines moving up it. The ramp ended in a barnlike building. The magisters gathered around the machines and did the silencing spell Henry had performed on his roadster, and then at Henry’s signal, the mechanics opened the doors, and we went out into the street.

Henry and I rode on Bessie with Alec at the head of the line. It had seemed as though we’d been underground for hours, but it was still pitch-dark, just past three in the morning. The city slept as the machines moved silently through the streets.

There weren’t any barricades this far uptown because the police and soldiers assumed all the other barriers would have stopped any rebels, and they were focusing their efforts downtown in the rebel stronghold. It looked like we might be home free, until the scouts who’d traveled ahead returned, reporting that the bridge leading off the island to the north was guarded.

Alec turned to Henry. “Now what do we do?”

“Let me take a look,” Henry said. He climbed down off the engine, and I went with him. I felt like he was my responsibility, and I wanted to make sure he neither came to harm nor did anything foolish. We went down the riverbank to where we could observe the bridge unseen. Henry took a pair of field glasses from his coat pocket and studied the bridge. “They’re only guarding this end,” he said. “Looks like half a dozen men.” He put the glasses in his pocket and turned to head back to the machines.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked as I hurried to catch up with his rapid, long-legged stride.

“I think so.” When we reached the machines, he gestured for everyone to gather around him. “It will take at least two of us to entrance that many guards long enough for us to get by. I think the rest can move the machines magically so they make no noise, but it will be a strain. We won’t be of much help beyond the bridge.”

“We’ll be fine from that point,” Alec said.

“Why don’t we just shoot the soldiers? Or conk ’em on the head?” Mick asked.

“Because then they’d know someone had been past, and they’d know to look for us,” I said. “This way, no one will know the machines left the city.”

Henry gave me an appreciative look. “Yes, Verity’s right,” he said. “If they find dead or injured soldiers, you’ll have a manhunt. They won’t realize they’ve been entranced, so you’ll disappear—as if by magic.”

“I don’t suppose you could just wave your hand and make us disappear,” Colin said with a grin.