by Heidi Heilig
My eyes go wide. The Maiden—life? I take a breath to ask, but the silence is broken by a shout from up above. “Avions!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
They skim over the green tangle of the jungle, fast and sleek: a flock of avions. Far too many to fight off—five . . . no, six—soaring north from Nokhor Khat. Has Pique changed his mind about attacking La Rêve with Theodora aboard?
Racing to the deck, I am already urging the ship’s soul to flee. But it’s pointless—the avions move far faster than La Rêve can sail. What else can we do? Jump into the waves and scatter? Swim for the distant shore? The specter of the pilot bobs up in my memory: the body in the water, wreathed in unquenchable flame. But after a moment at the rail, gripping the cracked wood, I frown. The avions are keeping their course over land, moving parallel to our ship.
A glimmer of relief—but what are they after, if not us? Half a dozen is too many to use for spying. As I watch, they bank in unison, just as living birds would, wheeling above a spot in the jungle. Unease grips me as avions gambol over the fluffy green clouds of the tree line. They are so graceful—even beautiful, until the fire comes.
Like a sudden storm, flame rains down. It spirals and tumbles through the air like silk ribbons; it uncoils like my mother’s hair as she lets it down her back. Black plumes of greasy smoke billow up to meet it. Fire licks the treetops as embers rise to the darkening sky.
“What are they doing?” I frown, puzzled, as the avions circle back, passing through the smoke with another gout of flame.
The Tiger reaches into one of his pockets, pulling out a folded scrap of the oily armée paper: a map. He peers at it for a moment, his expression darker than the drifting ash. “Putting on a show,” he says at last.
I cock my head, trying to understand. “We already know what the avions can do.”
“Yes,” he agrees softly, passing me the paper. “This is about what the armée is capable of.”
I search the map, trying to place us along the jagged line of the coast between the mountains of the Coffret and Nokhor Khat to the south. Camreon must see the confusion on my face, for he reaches over to point at a dot inland. “San Thak,” he says. “A village too unimportant for the armée to name.”
“A village?” My stomach drops as I look back at the conflagration. We are far enough out to sea not to hear the whoosh of hot air or the crackle of flame or the distant screaming of the people as they burn. The jungle hides the huts and fields and the lights of the souls, gold or blue. But though the wind is blowing in from the water, I swear I can smell the sooty reek of smoking hair.
Whirling, I reach for one of the ballast stones, but Camreon puts his hand on my arm to stop me. “There are three stones and twice as many avions,” he says.
“Then I’ll take them down three at a time!”
“It will be over before the first stone reaches them,” he says. “Besides, the souls inside may be too tired to come back, and what if we need them later?”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “You want me to do nothing?”
Cam’s eyes are flat. “Sometimes that’s all you can do.”
I feel dizzy, sick; the scar on my shoulder seems to burn. I wrap my arms around my stomach, as though I can hold myself together if I squeeze. “This is my fault.”
“No.” The answer makes me turn—not Cam’s voice, but Theodora’s. She stands there at the top of the stairs, watching the flying machines. “It’s mine.”
“Your brother is the one giving the orders,” Cam says.
“Or Pique,” she shoots back, her voice too loud.
“It’s all of us,” I snap, before they can continue bickering. “But without the Aquitans, none of this would have happened.”
“It’s true,” Leo says. I hadn’t seen him come above. He sighs. “At least now we know what the consequences are.”
I swallow, still tasting smoke. “Will they come again?”
Cam sighs. “Unless the general gets what he wants.”
Longingly, I look back at the ballast stones, but already the avions are wheeling away from the conflagration. They leave a plume of black smoke behind as they turn toward Nokhor Khat. Cam was right—they were too far away for me to stop them. “Show’s over,” he says, following Theodora below. Leo goes too, but I stay on deck, watching the smoke until it disappears over the horizon.
The guilt chases me long after. I stare at the water, the setting sun igniting the waves. I should have done something, though I don’t know what. A laugh bubbles out of me—how could Le Trépas claim I served the Maiden when Death seems to follow me? I’d be a fool to trust a word he says. But as my laughter fades, I look back at the ballast stones. What if he was telling the truth?
If there is a way for me to pull souls from their skins, I could have freed all of the arvana from the avions before we’d left Hell’s Court. I could have taken all the souls from my fantouches without having to burn them. I could have killed Pique too, just by reaching out to touch him. The thought is darkly comforting.
Is it worth it to try my blood on the stone? To learn what I can do?
Do I dare not try it?
The pin is in my hand; I kneel beside the stones. With a wince and a hiss, I prick the pad of my smallest finger. Blood wells up, and I mark the stone with a symbol I have only seen but never drawn. A circle with a short tail, like a staring eye, or a bullet wound. Death.
Pulling back, I steel myself, but it is less shocking than I fear. The soul simply uncoils from the stone, stretching golden wings. It hovers for just a moment before turning toward the open sea; with a start, I race to the tattered sails. Tearing off a piece, I write life on the silk and wave it like a signal flag. The soul circles back reluctantly—afraid of Le Trépas, or of me? But I am patient, and at last it dives into the fabric. I watch it flutter, marveling. Could the spell really be so painless?
“I’ll never get used to that.” Leo’s voice makes me whirl. He stands behind me on the deck, his expression a mystery.
“The best acts are ones that amaze over and over again.” I clear my throat, my voice still hoarse from cursing. The silk trembles in my hand; gently, I fold the fabric, hushing the soul inside before I tuck it into my pocket.
“Would you mind an encore?” Leo approaches. He gestures with a piece of canvas covered in his neat handwriting.
I wet my lips as his last note comes back to me: au revoir. “You have a letter for me to send?”
“To my brother.” He passes it over and leans on the rail, looking out at the silent shore. Night’s curtain is falling, soft as velvet, with no stars and no souls in sight. I toy with the cloth, curious, but unwilling to pry. My silence speaks for itself, and after a while, he fills it. “It’s true what you said. None of this would have happened without the Aquitans. Then again, I wouldn’t be around to see what might have been instead.”
Hearing my words repeated back to me, shame echoes where anger had been. “You’re not one of them, Leo. They’d be the first to tell you that.”
“I’m not exactly one of ‘us’ either.” He shrugs one shoulder, giving me a half smile. “But if I have to pick sides, I’ll stand with you.”
His voice is soft and earnest, but something in me pulls away. I turn back to the ballast stones to cover my confusion. Marking the note with life and the second stone with death, the soul leaps from the ballast to the canvas, and soon it is winging across the water, back the way we came.
“Is it difficult?” Leo says then as we watch the letter go. “Being surrounded by the dead, I mean?”
“You are too,” I tease gently. Leo’s lips quirk. “At least, when Le Trépas isn’t near. It’s actually stranger without them. Somehow the world is less alive without the spirits around.”
Leo nods slowly, but does he understand? “I suppose if they need you, it’s only fair you need them.”
“It is best when it goes both ways.”
“It is.” He pauses then, hesitant, and at his look, I bra
ce myself. “I am always happiest being needed,” he adds.
“I know,” I say softly, and what I wouldn’t have given for this moment weeks ago. The pounding of my heart, the earnest look in his eyes, the soft breeze and the sickle moon, and all of it before he’d run from me. Au revoir—until we meet again. What next? “That’s why you came back when you knew I needed the elixir.”
He blinks at me—is he surprised that I have guessed? “I came back because I needed you too,” he says, and the words strike a chord in me. But there is a note that doesn’t ring true.
“I don’t need you,” I say, but that too feels wrong, and not just because of the hurt in his eyes. “I can’t. You left when I needed you most.”
“I know.” He drops his eyes, ashamed. The silence grows between us—I half wish he would make excuses, or find some explanation. But I know them all, don’t I? His maman, and how he lost her to her own madness. His father, who he lost, in part, to mine. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I shake my head.
“I can’t blame you.” I squeeze his hand, running my thumb over the callus on his third finger—the one he’s earned from bowing his violin. “But I can’t let myself need you anymore either.”
“Then . . .” His voice trails off; he looks out at the water as though he can’t bear to face the thought head-on. “What now? Should I stay away? Keep apologizing? What do you want?”
I hesitate, suddenly unsure. Can I have him near without learning to rely on him? Then again, is it fair for me to demand what I can’t offer? I don’t know exactly how long the elixir will last, or what will happen when I run out. But neither does Leo, and he came back.
Would he stay?
“I want you never to leave again,” I say at last.
He looks up, hope in his eyes. “I won’t,” he says, too quickly, but I am cautious—I have to be.
“Don’t tell me,” I say. “Just . . . show me.”
“I will,” he says fervently, wrapping his arms around me. He holds me so tightly I feel for a moment he will never let me go. It is exactly what I want—exactly what I need. “One day at a time.”
I am the one to pull back, looking into his eyes as he does into mine. I have kissed him before—once on a whim, twice on a dare. But now? The kiss we share is a promise, and he tastes like seawater and gunpowder and the distant perfume that drifted backstage at Le Perl.
We only part when Tia clears her throat. “There’s dinner downstairs,” she says, half delighted, half disgusted as she stands at the top of the stairs. “If you’re still hungry after that.”
I flush, but Leo laughs; together, we make our way belowdecks.
To my surprise, the dining hall has been converted into a miniature workshop. There, a pile of nails pulled from some of the old crates downstairs. Here, a stack of tin cans, drained and cleaned through narrow holes punched in the tops. “What is all this?” I say, watching Papa. He has left off his carving to drop nails into the cans.
“Grenades,” La Fleur says primly. “Or they will be, when they’re finished.”
“Grenades?” I turn to Camreon, unable to keep the admiration off my face. “I should have known the Tiger would have a plan.”
“They aren’t my design,” he says, looking up from his work shredding carpet into fiber. “They’re Theodora’s.”
I blink, surprised, but La Fleur only makes a face. “Well,” she says, in a tone that sounds like she’s about to apologize. “I had hoped these would be a collaboration.”
“With me?” The surprise is short-lived. “You’ll need to animate them.”
She nods. “To get them to the avions, yes. But . . .” She hesitates, her eyes traveling to the satchel at my side. “We also need a bit of explosive.”
“What?” I clutch the strap as I understand her meaning. “No.”
“I know it doesn’t look like a lot in the jar,” she says quickly. “But just a small piece of lytheum produces quite a bit of the elixir.”
I narrow my eyes. “And how much do you need?”
“I don’t have to use all of it,” she says, which is not an answer. “What if we only made . . . say, ten? That would put a dent in Pique’s next volley.”
“You keep blaming it on Pique,” Cam mutters, but Theodora ignores him.
“It would still leave you . . . oh, another month’s worth. And I know where the source is. After this is over, we can go get more. Please, Jetta.” There is desperation in her voice. My reluctance feels selfish. Hadn’t I wanted to do something?
Still, I hate that she’s asking. Better that she take the elixir away than make me give it up. “What happened to the elixir being a prerequisite?” I mutter, but I pull the bag from my shoulder and set it down roughly beside her. Then I turn to the little makeshift fireplace where the food is warming. Picking out a can of turtle soup, I wrap my hands around it, but it doesn’t comfort me as much as I want it to.
“One last thing?” Theodora’s voice is tentative, reluctant. I turn back, smothering a sigh with difficulty.
“What?”
“We’ll need more souls. You only have three birds left in the ballast stones, isn’t that right?”
“Two now,” I say tiredly, taking a small sip of the soup. “But I can keep looking for more as we sail. Or you could put me down ashore. With Le Trépas on the ship, it wouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to gather more.”
“That’s a last resort,” Cam says. “We don’t know when the avions will be back. I don’t want them catching you there while we’re out here.”
“Well,” Theodora says again. The tone of her voice makes my heart sink—as does her glance down the hall at Le Trépas. “It’s possible there’s another way to summon souls.”
“Blood and symbols?”
“His blood,” she says, softer now. “And a piece of something dead.”
My lip curls. “Like what?”
“Hair. Teeth. Bones.” She shrugs, uncomfortable. “I never dared to test it.”
“And you want me to?”
“Only if you’re willing.” She gives me a look; when I sigh, she nods, satisfied. I take another sip of the soup and start toward the back of the ship. But when I pass Papa, he sets down the tin he’s working on and covers his mouth with his hand.
“Jetta,” he says softly, the name soft as butter in his mangled mouth. But his tone is so reproachful he needn’t say more. Excuses bubble up in me, followed by apologies. But I can’t give up now.
“We have to stop them, Papa.” I take a breath—how to explain? Had he seen the avions circling San Thak? Smelled the smoke of the burning village? But he didn’t have to, did he? “You know exactly how cruel the armée can be.”
“I do.” His fists clench in his lap, the scars of the missing fingers whitening over the stumps of the knuckles. “But . . . he is too.”
“I won’t forget,” I say, and he does not protest further. Instead, he turns back to his work, pushing nails into the tin.
Despite my bravado, I am not eager to visit Le Trépas. Akra too—what will he say to see me back so soon? Don’t listen to him—don’t let him pull your strings. But this is for the villages. For the rebels. For the rebellion.
“I saw the smoke,” the monk calls when I approach. “It seems like the young general is eager to fill his father’s shoes.”
“I’m not here to talk about the armée,” I say tersely. I have no love for Xavier Legarde, but I know it’s harder for Leo and his sister. “Theodora says there’s a way to summon souls with your blood.”
Akra narrows his eyes, but Le Trépas only lifts his arms to press against the carcan. “Let me out and I’ll show you.”
“Not a chance.”
“You expect me to simply share my secrets?” He sighs, almost theatrically. “If you weren’t my daughter, I’d send you packing.”
I bite down on the words—“I’m not your daughter”—lest he follow through on his threat. “But you won’t,” I say, and he shakes his head.
> “No.”
I wet my lips, afraid to ask the obvious question. Afraid to learn the answer. “Why not?”
Le Trépas raises an eyebrow. “Haven’t you ever wondered why you lived when so many others didn’t? Why the gods intervened on your behalf?”
“Maman intervened,” I shoot back. “Not the gods. And that isn’t an answer to my question.”
The monk smiles. “I don’t have all the answers, Jetta. But I believe you have a higher purpose.”
Gritting my teeth, I take a deep breath through my nose. I can’t tell if the monk is playing at mysticism or madness, but either way, I can tell he’s not in earnest. It’s not worth it to argue with him, as long as he tells me the truth about the spell. “So how do you do it, then?” I say. “How do you summon souls?”
“My blood and the symbol of life,” he says, as though the answer is obvious.
“And something else,” I say pointedly. “Something dead.”
“Yes,” he says. “But you do the same, don’t you? Aren’t most shadow puppets fashioned out of leather?”
I frown. “Theodora said you can’t make fantouches.”
“I can’t,” he says. “This isn’t creating life. This is calling the dead. The material you choose will summon a similar soul. Is there flesh in the soup you’re drinking?”
I grimace at the tin, my appetite gone. “We need birds, not turtles.”
“Then fetch me a feather,” the monk says.
“Where do you expect me to find a feather on the ship?” I mutter, but Akra shakes his head.
“This is a bad idea, Jetta.”
“I know,” I say—I can feel it. A mounting sense of dread. But hadn’t I felt the same way at the thought of using the symbol of death? “But so is ignorance.”
So I set off toward the corner of the dining hall where Papa’s mattress lies. Digging my hand into the hole in the covering, I pull out a handful of damp feathers. When I bring them back to Le Trépas, he raises an eyebrow. “So many?”
“You didn’t say how many we needed.”
“As many as you need spirits,” he says. “Count them out.”