Mortal Engines

In London, Valentine prepares for departure while Katherine watches from a nearby viewing area with the Guild of Historians. She hates that her father is going but understands he has important business. Katherine watches until the 13th Floor Elevator, Valentine’s personal airship, is out of sight and then wipes away her tears. While her father’s gone, she has her own mission to find out “who that mysterious girl had been, and why she scared him so” (95).

After setting a course for Airhaven, a flying city, Fang feeds Tom and Hester and tends to Hester’s leg. While Hester sleeps, Fang asks Tom where London is headed. Tom doesn’t know but speculates that the city seeks the abundant prey rumored to be in the Central Hunting Ground. Fang lowers the Jenny Haniver through a bank of clouds to show Tom the Central Hunting Grounds, where smaller towns hide or pick at the remains of a starved city that stopped moving. Tom realizes that there “isn't enough prey to go around in the Central Hunting Ground” (102) and that he really doesn’t know where London’s going.

Later that night, the Jenny Haniver docks at Airhaven, a magnificent loop of restaurants, shops, and citizens with the “careless confidence of people who had lived their whole lives in the sky” (106). Fang takes Tom and Hester to the Gasbag and Gondola for dinner, and none of them see an airship with the Guild of Engineer’s crest docking below.

At the restaurant, Tom and Hester join Fang at a table of her fellow aviators, including a man from the Anti-Traction League. As Fang socializes, the man tells Tom about Fang’s background as a slave and how she built the Jenny Haniver to escape. All through the meal, an announcer calls out arriving and departing ships, but Tom pays no attention until a ship bound for London and carrying only passengers is announced. Immediately after this announcement, the power goes out, and Hester’s sure it’s a trick meant to keep them from leaving: “[S]omeone's here, coming for us” (111).

Outside, there are screams and the sound of breaking glass, and then Grike steps into the restaurant, calling for Hester and Tom. Hester steps forward to meet Grike, who says he’s there to kill her. Hester argues that he wouldn’t kill her, and when Grike attacks, Fang and her friends fight him off while Tom and Hester run. They find the Jenny Haniver destroyed and highjack a hot air balloon, rising into the night until Airhaven is nothing but “a doughnut of darkness falling away behind them” (117).