Marlow's Menagerie of Marvels, Page 2

the way.

  She reached up from the water to touch his face, and he lifted it from the platform to look at her. Siren tried not to betray her fear, because she knew the Marvels were still watching. But Angel smiled at her the same way he had when they had first met – apologetic and encouraging at the same time. Red welts marred his dark skin, with the promise of later bruises. He didn't move much, which made Siren's eyes burn with tears.

  “Where is pain?” she signed, hoping he would just point with his wing rather than try to make an excuse.

  Angel made small movements with the metal feathers. “No pain. Pretty girl.”

  Siren couldn't smile. “Great pain. Stop escape.”

  “No,” Angel signed, before she could finish. Siren saw the determination in his face, the flicker of cheer that had kept her believing in hope for four years. “I am strong. You are smart. We protect them. We escape together.”

  Siren looked up at the eager and fearful flock of children hovering nearby, waiting for her guidance. She swallowed her own fear and nodded to them all.

  “Sleep first,” she signed to Angel, who obediently closed his eyes at her touch.

  When night fell, the great cage was dark as a shadow, but as soon as early dawn light began to filter in through the glass ceiling, Siren was wide awake. So was Angel. He stood in front of the fountain like a heavenly statue, his welts darkened and widened, but his expression refusing to crack. Owl turned his glowing glass eyes to Angel's back, where Sparrow had loosely knotted one end of a long purple curtain around his waist.

  Siren waited at the edge of the water, unable to do anything except pray that her plan would work. She had come up with it one day while exploring her underwater domain, looking for a weakness. Siren had quickly found the sealed off tunnel that Marlow must have used to fill the tank. It took a lot longer for her to scrape and saw her way through the metal as it rusted over the years, but it was ready. She merely had to give one more sharp strike to the weak point, and the tank would empty in a quick and violent rush, carrying her out to the sea.

  Sparrow and Owl cleared away, and Angel leapt into the air. Like he was practicing his performance, he swooped in an easy circle through the golden hoops around the edge of the cage. Dozens of eyes watched the curtain trail behind him in a purple streak. Angel soared to the centre of the birdcage and alighted on the fountain tower, bracing himself against a flat edge. The loose knot gave way, and he tugged the curtain around his leg instead to control the tension. Even from his height, Siren saw him turn his face down to her. She gave a nod, and Angel pulled.

  The curtain went taught through all the rings, and Siren heard what she had been hoping for: the groan of straining metal. She imagined Angel straining too – probably not helped by the beating he'd suffered hours before – and a thrill ran up her spine as his form relaxed against the tower.

  Some of the Marvels soared up to grab the length of the curtain and help. Siren longed to join them. None of them could match Angel's strength, but five or six could make a difference. Together they pulled again, unable to groan their effort like the cage.

  Siren watched with her pulse echoing in her ears, as if her will alone could break the metal joints.

  It was enough. There was a dull crack, and the Marvels drooped in the air until they saw their success. Angel's looped rings had threatened to buckle the entire cage around the middle, and finally one of the bars had been pried from its place. The Marvels cheered silently, as Angel renewed his effort to pull the bars wide enough for a body to fit through.

  Seconds after the first break, however, the alarm bell gave a piercing ring. Some of the Marvels froze in fear, and Angel didn't have spare strength to sign to them. Siren smacked the surface of the water to be heard and seen.

  “Fast!” she signed frantically. “Fly!”

  They did, just as they had promised they would. The little ones dove for the jagged gap in the bars while Angel held it open through his pull on the curtain. The alarm bell continued, and lights began flashing around the tent that concealed the great cage from the outside world. The guards were on their way. Siren tore her eyes away from the gap in the cage to see dozens of men crowding around the outside edge, shouting and banging on the bars.

  Marlow himself ran forward, and Siren heard what must have been a very angry kick against the outside of the heavy doors. She allowed herself a grim smile. Marlow's single key hung around her neck, freshly plucked from his ruffles when Siren had rescued him from his dip in her pool.

  Marlow gave a cry of rage. “To the airship, you fools! Fifty pieces of silver per head – or I'll have one of yours for every one I lose!”

  The guards abandoned their fruitless assault on the front door, and Siren swam away from Marlow's sight.

  Above, Angel held the bars open as the Marvels squeezed through the gap one at a time. The going was painfully slow as the cage cracked further and the noise echoed around the outside tent. Siren tried to reassure herself that the guards would never get the airship launched in time. The Marvels would be gone long before that, following her instructions to head for the mainland and freedom. They had gone over the plan a hundred times – the people who might take them in, the places they might hide in, the distant lands that were too far out of Marlow's reach. The Marvels knew to fly as fast as they could, to look out for each other, and to escape no matter what.

  But when Siren heard a familiar crank of machinery, her skin turned to ice. At the very top of the cage, in the hanging booth on the ceiling, someone had started the fountain.

  Horrified, Siren watched the tower start to revolve and contract. Angel tried to hop out of the way, but couldn't let the curtain give slack. With a screech, the fountain stopped, and Siren saw why. The end of the curtain, wrapped tightly around Angel's leg, had caught in the mechanical arms.

  Angel's form still pulled with all its might, as the Marvels frantically pushed each other through the gap he was making, but Siren knew what would happen next. Angel was stuck; he could pull, but he couldn't fly away.

  Only a handful of Marvels remained in the cage now. Tiny pieces of glass from the ceiling began to crack and shatter as the framework shuddered. The plan had worked so well that the whole structure was threatened, and the more Angel pulled, the less stable it became.

  A different noise distracted Siren from Angel's plight; it came from below the water, rippling against her body like a whispered warning. The cage was losing its strength, and with it, the seal on Siren's tank. The rusted metal could be broken wide open with a single swift punch – or if the structure around it failed first.

  Glass shattered on the rocks and the stage around her, and Siren dodged out of the way, trying to see what was going on at the top of the fountain. Angel remained there, signing with his wings to urge the last two Marvels out of the cage. Above him, Siren saw Nathaniel Marlow in the control booth, leering down at Angel as he tried to pull the mechanisms back to life.

  Siren dove through her tank to the edge of the fountain as Marlow kicked out one glass pane from the booth and shouted down below.

  “Fly away, little bird,” he snarled, as Angel struggled with his hold on the curtain. “Before I grind your bones together!”

  The fountain jerked, still caught against Angel and itself. Siren seized the edge of her shell throne, gripped the nearest spout above it, and took a deep breath before pulling herself up out of the water.

  She had left the water before, to sit on decorative rocks and preen for the audience, or to play with the Marvels at the edge of her pool. Sometimes she even hung from the golden hoops, if Marlow felt it would impress his high-paying guests.

  Siren had never climbed the fountain before. She had never had such motivation.

  Her breaths were full and heavy as she pulled her weight from one fountain spout to the next. She was strong, far stronger than when she had been bound to a chair, and yet her muscles burned with the effort of supporting her mechanical tail. It scrap
ed uselessly against the shaking sections of the fountain, while her arms and shoulders dragged her upwards.

  Glass still fell from the ceiling, and Siren ducked her face away as pieces fell against her skin. Above her, Angel collapsed against the tower. She knew he would never have stopped unless the Marvels had all escaped, and Marlow's roar confirmed it.

  Far down below, a crash and a gurgle shook the foundations of the cage. Siren heard water rushing down an open pipe, and rocks breaking against the force of the torrent. She didn't look down. She was ten feet from Angel, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold on. Her whole body was shaking like the fountain itself.

  As her arms began to cry for relief, Siren wrenched her body as high as she could manage, fighting the urge to go limp on the metal arm supporting her.

  Angel was trying to saw the curtain with his wing, but the edge was too dull. He pulled against the curtain to come to her side, and for a moment all Siren could do was cling to the tower and reach for him.

  “You!” Marlow shouted, spotting her at last from the booth. “I should have known this was your doing!”

  He kicked out another one of the panes of glass with his boot. Angel's wing fanned out over Siren's head, and the pieces clattered against it. Siren ran her aching hands over the tower edges, scraping them against the broken