Chapter 37 · Gold on the Iron Hull

"Do not let go of me!" Lyra shouted as the deck dropped under their boots.

Cassian caught her wrist before the next lurch threw her into the open shaft. His other hand slammed against a split copper line. Boiling coolant sprayed across his glove and turned the steel around them white with steam.

"I am not letting go," he snapped. "You are the one pulling us overboard."

"Then stop standing on the wrong side of the ship!"

"The whole ship is the wrong side right now."

The ironclad rolled hard to starboard. Loose tools shot across the deck. One struck the gun housing with a sharp clang and vanished into the black water below.

Cassian locked his boots against the raised seam in the hull. The pressure in the copper line shoved against his palm like a living thing. His glove split. Heat punched through the leather.

Lyra twisted toward him, her pale face turned to the windless dark above. She could not see the deck, the ruptured lines, or the dead engines. She felt the ship through her feet and the strange painful tremors that ran along her bones.

"The bow is dropping," she said.

"I know.