Golden Braids and Dragon Blades: Steampunk Rapunzel

Chapter 11: The Princess and the Agent

“This way,” Ewan said. Leading me by the hand, Ewan raced toward his auto parked outside a tavern near the airship towers.

I stared back at the platform. I didn’t see Mother anywhere.

Ewan opened the door for me. He reached down and set his hand on mine, taking the wicker crate from my hand.

I gazed up at him.

He gasped. “Rapunzel, your eyes.”

My heart was slamming in my chest. All my nerves were on edge. Whenever I got upset, the same thing always happened. The colors in my eyes began to swim wildly, and I heard this strange buzzing in the back of my head. It was like a thousand voices were speaking at once. “Kaleidoscope eyes,” I whispered.

Ewan stared at me. A moment later, he shook his head and looked down at the carrying case. “I’ll secure them in the back. They’ll be safer there. I promise.”

Reluctantly, I let go of the carrier. From inside, there was a hiss.

“I promise I’m just trying to protect you, Estrid. Don’t fireball me when you get out of there,” he said then set the crate into the narrow space behind the front bench seat. He reached out for my other bag.

I clutched it against my chest and shook my head.

“All right then.” He motioned for me to get in.

I slipped inside. The front seat of the vehicle, a bench for the driver and passenger, was covered in leather that was a soft camel color. Ewan jumped inside. He flipped a number of switches and suddenly the engine rumbled.

Not far behind us, there was a loud scream.

I looked back to see the dragon bloods working their way toward the vehicle.

“Ewan.”

“Hold on,” he said. Kicking dust and gravel behind it, the auto sped off, heading into the city. In the crate behind me, Luna meowed nervously.

“It’s all right,” I said, leaning back over the seat to comfort her. I stuck my fingers in through the open slat and felt a little head press against them.

The auto turned sharply to the right, my body sliding along with it until I was right alongside Ewan. I struggled to slide back to my side.

“Careful,” Ewan said. Reaching around me, he pulled a harness around my waist and fastened it.

“Those men. They were—”

“Dragon bloods. Like you. Well, like you, but not like you.”

“How did they find me? How did you find me?” My mind whirled like it was moving a million miles an hour. Mother was gone. The other dragon bloods were trying to abduct me. I was in an auto screaming down the streets of London. And to think, I’d spent the last nineteen years in a cave. I’d experienced more life in the last twenty-four hours than I ever had before.

“After I left you, I spotted Dormad in the village. Then I realized why. He wasn’t up to his usual thieving. He was tracking you. Well, not you, but whomever that woman was you were with.”

“My mother.”

“Mother?”

“Well, she’s not really my mother. She’s my faerie guardian. A Seelie.”

“Well, this just gets more interesting by the minute. But, yeah. Her. I tracked him. Apparently, he was hunting her. We all ended up here. That catches us up again, I think.”

Ewan maneuvered his auto around the carriages and horses, dodging gentlemen in top hats and fine ladies carrying parasols. A whole world I had only ever read about in books came alive before my eyes. The sights, sounds, and smells of the city filled my senses. I looked overhead to see the airships floating by.

I was in London.

And was running for my life.

Ewan quickly drove down one narrow row then another, finally pulling his auto up outside an unremarkable row of townhouses. The machine heaved a sigh of steam when he turned the engine off.

Slipping out, he grabbed the crate, lifted it carefully, then came around and opened the door for me. Offering his hand, he helped me out of the vehicle. We climbed up the steps to the door of the building. Above the door, carved into the stone, were the letters R and M encapsulated by a circle. A man sat on the stoop outside reading a newspaper.

I glanced up and down the street. From what I could tell, this was a residential neighborhood. It was completely peaceful and silent.

“Thomas,” Ewan said.

“Ewan? This is a surprise. And a guest?”

“Yes. I need to talk to Agent Hunter. Urgent.”

“Urgent, eh? The dirty dozen giving you trouble?” The man chuckled which made Ewan frown. The stranger then shifted his foot oddly, and the door to the building clicked as though it had unlocked. As I studied the man’s foot, I spotted a lever hidden just under his shoe. I also noticed the butt of his pistol sticking out from inside his jacket and the knife on his belt. This gentleman was certainly not a nondescript servant lingering over a newspaper while he waited for his master.

“Come with me,” Ewan said gently. Taking me by the hand, he led me to the door.

We entered into the foyer of a quaint townhouse. A narrow staircase led upstairs. Lace curtains on either side of the door offered a soft view of the outside. It was silent inside save the soft sound of classical music on a scratchy-sounding paleophone playing somewhere in the house. The walls were papered with pale blue brocade in a floral design which was dotted with yellow birds and red butterflies. On one side of the room was a quaint parlor, the type in which the Bennet sisters might spend a sunny afternoon pining over Bingley and loving/detesting Darcy. On the other side appeared to be a gentlemen’s study or library.

A maid dressed in a traditional black and white uniform appeared from somewhere in the back.

“Agent Goodwin,” she said with a smile then motioned for us to follow her. “This way.”

The serenity of the place seemed so at odds with the urgency of the situation; I didn’t know what to think. She smiled and led us through the parlor where a woman wearing a red cape sat poring over a journal. She flicked her eyes toward Ewan.

“Agent Goodwin,” she said, wrestling a smirk off her face.

Ewan pretended not to notice. “Agent Harper.”

The maid guided us through the small alcove that led to the kitchen. But to my surprise, she stopped and opened the door to a broom cupboard midway. Inside, a mop and broom leaned against the wall.

She nodded to Ewan.

Still holding my hand, he guided me forward.

“Ewan?” I whispered.

“It’s all right,” he said. We wiggled into the closet, a tight fit for two people and three dragons. Holding my crate in his arms, he nodded to the maid. “Have Thomas take my auto around the back?”

The maid nodded. “Of course, Agent,” she said then closed the door. When she did so, I heard something inside the wall click and then a lamp flickered on.

“Whoa,” I whispered.

“You like that? You’ll love this.” He set the crate between his feet. “Hold on,” he said, taking me by the waist. He steadied me and the crate all at once.

I almost protested his overly familiar move when a moment later, the closet shuddered then began to drop. Quickly.

I gasped.

“It’s all right,” Ewan said. “It’s lowering us below the city.”

“Why?”

“I need to get you out of harm’s way as fast as possible. This was the safest place I could think of.”

The light on the wall flickered. I looked up at Ewan. He’d told me himself his job was to hunt people like me. To track them down and arrest—or kill—them. For all I knew, he was taking me to a cell somewhere. Me and my dragons could be in terrible danger. But if so, why was he looking at me like that? No. I was safe with Ewan. Everything in his eyes said so.

“Why are you helping me?” I whispered.

Ewan smiled. “Your hair.”

“My hair?”

He grinned playfully. “Got a thing for girls with long hair. Let’s just say you take the prize. Can’t let anything happen to a girl with hair like yours.”

“Very funny. But seriously?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Because I’m afraid Estrid would be very angry with me if I didn’t.”

I huffed. “Ewan.”

“Article 7, Item 22. All agents assigned to any division of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Services, under the auspices of the Rude Mechanicals, are required to rescue damsels in distress. Most particularly, princesses. I mean, you carry the blood of Pendragon, which kind of means you are the heir to our entire realm.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“And because… Well, just because,” he said with a soft smile.

The closet shook as it reached the bottom of the shaft.

The dragons in the crate meowed.

Ewan opened the door. Taking me by one hand and carrying the crate in the other, he led me into a corridor. There, stretched out before us, was a massive room filled with people busily working at their desks, red-robed agents rushing to and fro. Mechanical automatons walked with halting steps from station to station.

Ewan bowed theatrically. “Princess Pendragon, welcome to headquarters.”