Read A Conspiracy of Alchemists: Book One in the Chronicles of Light and Shadow for Free Online

tangled in a mooring trellis. A few of the ground crewmen were tugging at the rope to free it. “Leave it! You’ll lose a hand on that!” she shouted into the communication tube.
    She opened the throttle and the ship lurched in the opposite direction. The Water Lily groaned and strained as she tried to break free from the bonds that held her to the ground. Elle heard the crack of a splitting trellis and then, suddenly, the Water Lily was floating free. She started rising up gently as the billowing canvas balloon took the weight of the hull.
    Elle grabbed hold of both thruster-controls and dragged them into reverse to keep the ship from launching. The ship bobbed out of her berth and across the field, toward the departure pagoda. Tether ropes trailed behind her like the tentacles of an ocean creature. A woman shrieked as a flailing rope nearly hit her. Two policemen tried to grab it, but they collided with each other instead and crashed to the ground.
    “Open the cargo doors. It’s that lever to the left. I can’t hold her for much longer,” Elle called to Marsh.
    He wrenched the freight doors open. “Jump,” he shouted at Patrice.
    Patrice shoved a policeman out of the way and caught hold of one of the ropes as the ship lurched up into the air.
    The policemen pulled out their service revolvers and started firing. A bullet whizzed past the ship’s front window and pinged off the metal frame, cracking one of the lily-inlaid panes.
    “Oh no, you’re not shooting holes in my baby!” Elle steered sharply to the left. With a gush of steam, the airship glided up diagonally like a big air bubble rising through water. More bullets whizzed past, a few flew straight through the balloon. Others hit and splintered the hull.
    Marsh looked at Elle in alarm. “Helium and double canvas,” she said. “Bullet holes are too small to make a difference. Now take cover before you get shot.”
    Elle gritted her teeth. She hoped they had enough spare gas to get home. It was not a happy thought.
    She maintained the ascent path until the whizzing of bullets died away, before she eased back on the thrusters. The ship leveled into cruising position with a gentle gush of steam as they left Luxembourg airfield behind.
    Marsh finished hauling Patrice into the hold and they both collapsed against the hull, panting as the roofs and chimney pots of Paris floated by below them. Both men were looking somewhat wide-eyed.
    Marsh retrieved his hat. “Do try to be punctual next time, old chap.” He started laughing, but the laughter seemed to set off pain in his ribs. He coughed and patted his stomach.
    Patrice stood up, balanced against the hull and dusted his lapels. “Departure permit.” He handed the document to Elle. “You have no idea how far away from the departure pagoda the ship is when one is in a hurry.”
    “Was that resourceful enough for you, Mr. Marsh?” Elle asked with a little smile. She started cranking the reel that hauled up the tether ropes.
    “I think you’ll do,” he said as he settled into the co-pilot seat. He smiled at her.
    She looked away and focused her attention on the clouds ahead of her.
    “I suppose we won’t be going back to Paris for a while,” Patrice said as they watched the streets and houses of Paris slip by below.
    “That might probably be for the best.” On impulse Elle reached over and pulled the chord that operated the ship’s foghorn. The horn blared out over the clouds as the Water Lily slipped off into the sunset. “Next stop, Croydon Aerodrome.”

CHAPTER 5
    I dreamed of night-gray clouds shifting as I slumbered. Below, my saltwater sisters, the selkies, sang to me as we passed high in the sky over them.
    Perhaps I should have roused and made myself known to the girl, but I was so weary. And she had the other to rely on. He would see that she would come to no harm. Of that at least, I was sure.
    We were a proud people once. We stood at the side of the phyllomancers in the days when the