Deadweather and Sunrise Read Online Free

could get her hands on one, she’d automatically be rich, and once she was rich, the whole prince-marrying business would take care of itself.
    So for the past six months, she’d been asking Dad several times a day to buy her a pony. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t smack her one and put a stop to it.
    “Egbert give ye trouble? Want me to set ’im straight?” Adonis held up a fist and cocked it in my direction. I shifted in my chair, ready to dodge the blow if necessary.
    Dad ignored them both. He ate another spoonful of stew, then set the bowl down and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He scratched his chin a couple of times through his beard in a thoughtful sort of way, then announced, “Lay out yer finest. Headed to Sunrise at first light.”
    I COULD BARELY SLEEP that night. Partly because I was so excited about the trip—visits to Sunrise Island were rare and wonderful, and we’d never gone there on a nonholiday before. And partly because the next day was my thirteenth birthday, and for the first time I could remember, I was going to spend a birthday doing something besides trudging up the far side of the volcano with my family to pay our respects at my mother’s grave.
    But mostly I couldn’t sleep because Adonis kept busting into my room to hit me with a stick.
    This wasn’t a coincidence—he was trying to make me so tired I’d oversleep, because he knew if I did, Dad would leave me behind. It had worked once before and almost worked two other times. Of course, to do it he had to stay up half the night himself, which left him so tired he was always groggy and surly the next day. You’d think that would spoil his own trip to Sunrise, but I guess for Adonis, it was worth it.
    It almost worked this time, too. The moment I opened myeyes, I could tell from the heat and the heaviness of the air that dawn had already broken. Panicking, I sprang out of bed and ran smack into the wall because I’d forgotten that I’d turned my bed sideways in the middle of the night to barricade the door.
    Once I got my bearings, I managed to get the bed out of the way so I could open the door and let in enough light to see. Then I found my best, most itchy shirt and put it on as I ran for the kitchen.
    No one was there except Quint. He was standing on top of the counter—Quint didn’t have legs, just a couple of stumps where his upper thighs should have been, so he spent most of his time standing on top of things—and prying the last of his breakfast biscuits out of an iron tray. I could tell the biscuit had set up pretty hard from the way the thick muscles on his arm had to flex to rip it loose.
    “Best ye hurry,” he said, tossing me the biscuit. “Yer dad already went up to get his boots on.”
    I knew if I wasn’t sitting in the carriage all ready to go the moment Dad came out of the house, he’d smack me one for slowing us down, so I busted out the front door at full speed, trying to work my jaws over the biscuit without cracking a tooth as I went.
    The carriage was parked out front, its door wide open. Percy was standing just behind it, tying up the back of Venus’s dress for her, and Stumpy—the field pirate who drives for us, and who in spite of his name actually has more of his legs left than Quint—was already up on the front seat holding the reins.
    I waved to Stumpy as I jumped onto the side runner and launched myself through the open door into the backseat.
    Then Adonis punched me in the mouth, launching me right back out again.
    Even before I landed on my back in the dirt, I was cursing myself for not having seen that coming. The biscuit rolled away, bouncing a couple times before coming to a stop near Percy’s foot.
    As Adonis hawed like a donkey inside the carriage, Percy bent himself over with a grunt, somehow managing to reach past his belly and pick up my biscuit without falling over. He dusted off the dirt and crunched it down as Venus wrinkled her nose at me.
    “Egbert!