“Are you sure—”
I was out the door and before Detective Atwood could even finish.
“Are you always so impulsive?” He laughed as he caught up to me in the hall.
“I prefer to think of it as proactive.” I smiled at him and reached up to tug my hood further over my face as we passed the half-empty room of officers from before. “Are you honestly not going to try to stop me?”
“Considering I don’t even know if there is a crime scene yet, I have no real reason to stop you,” he said. “Besides, maybe you’ll recognize things your friend mentioned.”
The hint of challenge coating his voice had me raising my head higher. “Maybe I will,” I said before throwing my own challenge back at him. “Do you often visit possible crime scenes on your own?”
“I’m not alone now, am I?” He winked at me.
I looked down, refusing to give him the satisfaction of another blush.
“Besides, I don’t have a partner at the moment.” His tone wasn’t as flippant as before, but before I could ask anything else, he added, “You can ride with me on my hovercraft if you want. Otherwise—”
“I’ll do it.” I tried to tamp down my excitement, but judging by the amused glint in his eye, I didn’t succeed. Papá never let me ride on hovercrafts, claiming they were too dangerous and not something someone of our status did.
I followed Detective Atwood to an alley running along the side of the station. Even this late at night, the Seventh Chime was alive with movement. People bustled down the street, passing in and out of the gas lamps’ warm glow. In the Upper Chimes, it was more common to have the aether lamps with their blue glow, which was brighter and also easier for airships to spot, but in the rest of the city, gas lamps were far more common.
Detective Atwood pulled a green, glowing orb from his pocket. In response, the engine of a small vehicle lit with the same green. It looked like the motorbikes used at the races in the Lower Chimes except its sleek, streamlined exterior had been painted over with black and the usual steam engine was gone.
“How does this work without an engine?”
“Oh, it has an engine.” He tapped a little glass box holding small charging panels in the front with wires that connected under the seat where I imagined the elusive engine hid.
“It’s solar powered?”
“And lunar.” He climbed onto the seat that didn’t look big enough to hold both of us, at least not at a respectable distance. “It doesn’t last as long, but I prefer the silence when I’m on duty.”
I studied the predicament with a frown.
Detective Atwood turned to face me. He wasn’t smiling, but I got the distinct impression he was laughing from the suppressed amusement in his gaze. “It’ll be a little cramped.”
Riding a hovercraft was one thing, but riding it while holding onto a Blue Cape on the night of my engagement party was unquestionably a terrible idea. But that also made it that much more appealing. One more rebellion against Papá.
“That’s all right.” I eased onto the seat behind him, trying to keep space between us, an impossible task. My knees pressed against his legs somewhat inappropriately, and my leather pants suddenly felt more like a second skin than a covering.
“You might want to hold on.”
“Where?” My heartbeat quickened.
“On to me.” His voice still had that laugh in it.
“Oh, right.” My heart jumped to my throat. This definitely wasn’t proper, but anyone who saw us would assume I was just another witness riding along with a Blue Cape. This ride would mean nothing; it would be like snuggling a tree.
Detective Atwood pressed a button with his left thumb, and the hovercraft lurched forward. I jolted back, then wrapped my arms around his waist to keep from falling off.
A tree with impressive biceps and a muscular stomach.
I flushed and forced my thoughts to Desmarc as the hovercraft coasted almost soundlessly over the cobblestones, especially compared to the clattering steamcabs. We glided under an arched bridge and through an empty intersection as we headed toward the Epoch Clock, the tallest edifice in Chronovale. It stood directly in the center of the city on the spot of land where the Steele River split but wasn’t part of any Chime. It was like the center of a wheel, with the twelve Chimes branching out from it like spokes.