Isolde's Wish by Em Petrova Page A

sharp corners with ease. He’d traversed this tunnel in the dark a dozen times since discovering it. His heartbeat seemed deafening in his ears—if the cadence detector could sense him in the depths of the tunnel, he was lost. Lost, lost, lost.
    I can’t lose my chance at the king, he thought. I can’t lose my chance with Isolde. Somehow, he had to get the king in the right place at the right time. His little fire beside the fuel barrel hadn’t been timed correctly. King Adlard had paused in the castle yard to talk to his page, and unfortunately, the explosion had occurred before the king could approach. The only thing Sadler had managed was causing a lot of smoke and a mass stampede for water.
    A piercing pain gathered in his ribs, and his breath seared his lungs. King Adlard had pulled out all the stops in acquiring the equipment needed to find Sadler—most of it invented by that bastard Millvale. Sadler knew that if he could peer through the ground, he’d see other strange steam-driven beasts and a sky bulging with flying machines, each pilot equipped with telescoping glasses.
    The last bend would see him in the castle. What would happen if he popped up in the kitchens, only to see Princess Isolde? He imagined her directing the staff or eating honey buns with pecans. He imagined her wearing a gown the blue-green color of her eyes, the bodice a laced wire-mesh corset and the skirt a full, short flare exposing her legs in high leather boots—boots of the most supple leather that gripped her calves like a second skin. He imagined a set of flying goggles perched atop her loose blonde hair and the flying machine tethered in the yard, filled with steam, ready to board.
    They could flee together. Make a getaway.
    She likes yer kisses, Sadler. She never said she’d become a fugitive with ye.
    He hoped she’d found the message he’d left carved into the oak tree in the rose garden. In the dark hours alone, he’d fantasized about seeing her emerge through the night and into the stable. He would yank her inside the hay-fuel stack with him, fill his nose with her sweet, musky scent, see her eyes darken as he lowered his mouth to hers.
    He ran harder. This is the day I find her. The day I bolt us in a room alone and watch her face as she shudders with release.
    But could he do that, really? Isolde was a maid, after all. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden pale glow at the end of the tunnel, he realized that aye, he could touch her the way he wanted. He felt as if she belonged to him.
    As he neared the exit, he listened for voices or the hiss of machinery. The steam mechanism used in a cadence detector put off a low whistle, like a teapot. Hearing nothing but the deep ring of silence, he gently pressed open the trapdoor.
    The fire had been banked for the night, and a faint orange glow beckoned Sadler. Many a night he’d spent without the cheery company of a fire. The thought of a cot of his own, with a fire and a woman to lie before it, stirred something deep and thought to be dead within him.
    Loaves of brown bread were lined up on the plank table like oversize shoes. He took one and stuffed a chunk into his mouth. Chewing slowly, relishing the flavors on his tongue, he heard a scuffling sound behind him.
    He froze. By minute increments, his eyes ticked sideways. In the doorway, mouth agape, a young page stood. He was dressed for bed in long underwear. His hair was disheveled, and he carried a pewter mug, obviously to fill with fresh milk from the larder.
    Before the lad’s mouth could clamp about his gasp, Sadler had him by the throat. He dropped the bread to take up a wooden mallet and rapped him smartly between the eyes. The page’s body slumped in his hold, and he eased him to the floor. From the corner he took the wooden three-legged stool and placed it on its side in the doorway, staging it to appear as though the page had tripped over it. Hastily he arranged the unconscious page’s limbs to look natural, with the