by Amy Ewing
The sprites were still swarming about the stage—Gwendivere had fled, James was swatting at them frantically, and the front rows of the audience were beginning to realize something was amiss. She looked up and saw Leo and Agnes’s father in another box across from her and he was gesturing to her, a man in a suit beside him with something long and metal pointed at her. There was a whizzing sound by her ear and a dart with a little feather sticking out of it sank into the wood near her right wrist.
“Now, Errol, now!” she cried. A webbed hand reached over her shoulder and splayed across one pane of glass.
“Forgive me, my friend,” Errol said, and as the lightning flashed over his scales in a brutal surge of energy, Sera felt an agony unlike anything she had ever known, a pulse of unbearable heat shooting through her body, burning in her veins and scalding her heart. She might have screamed, she couldn’t be sure, but the next second every pane of glass had shattered and the entire ceiling exploded in a deafening crash that rained down shards like razors of crystal upon the audience. The confusion turned to shrieks as people began to run toward the exits.
The pain in Sera’s body dulled and she managed to pull herself up onto the roof of the theater, Errol still clinging to her back. She could feel the glass cutting into her skin where it was left jagged and poking out of its iron casing. The roof of the theater was warm on the soles of her feet, and she looked down to see chaos below. Sprites chased theatergoers this way and that, women shrieked and cried, men tried to bat them away in vain, and on the stage, Boris swayed gently. Sera could hear her humming.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and her voice came out like the wind.
The Arboreal turned her three eyes upward. “Go,” she said, and then the hum turned to a whistle, almost like a call. The sprites flocked to her, billowing around her as the whistle grew ever more shrill and urgent, and they began to burst, one by one, like fireworks, and where their sparks settled on the Arboreal, fire flared up.
“Boris!” Sera cried. “No!”
But the tree was already alight, her topmost leaves crowned in flames that quickly snaked down her branches, charring her beautiful silvery bark, turning her blue-green leaves to ash. She made no sound or cry as she burned, but from somewhere in the theater, Sera heard the sound of Xavier McLellan screaming, “Put it out, you goddamn fools!”
“Tree was very brave,” Errol said sadly. “But we must run now, Sera Lighthaven.”
Tears streamed down Sera’s cheeks, but she knew he was right. There was no time to mourn for Boris. They had to get to the ship. She stood and steadied herself, adjusting to his weight now that she was on her feet. Quickly she tied the skirt of her dress up so that it sat around her thighs, leaving her legs free.
“Which way, Errol?”
He sniffed, then pointed. “That way.”
The world was so different up here—peaks and plateaus, shadowy towers and glowing windows. If her life weren’t in danger, Sera would marvel at the strangeness of these human dwellings, each one unique, made of unfamiliar materials.
As it was, she slid down to the lip of the roof, where a wide gutter ran, pelted to the end of the building, and jumped.
Errol’s terrified wail was sucked away by the wind. Sera landed on the opposite roof, which was a bit lower than the theater and mercifully flat. She sent up a prayer of thanks to Mother Sun and kept running. The next roof was shaped like a triangle, with strange flakes of wood decorating its surface. They made for easy hand- and footholds until she jumped to the next roof.
Shiny tile.
Bare concrete.
One even had a golden spire like on the temple.
Sera felt the weight of the theater, of the crate, of all that time locked up melting away. She ripped the crown out of her hair and tossed it aside, reveling in the feel of the wind against her cheeks, humid as the air was. Errol was miserable, judging by his moans, and after one particularly plummeting leap, she heard a retching sound and felt something slimy on her shoulder. But Sera did not mind. She was free. She was out under the sky again. Somehow, impossibly, their plan had worked. She heard wailing sounds in the distance that seemed to be growing closer but paid them no mind.
At some point, a sharp scent hit her nose, and Errol’s limp form went rigid with excitement.
“The sea, the sea!” he cried. “Can you smell it, Sera Lighthaven?”
“Yes,” she gasped. It was salty and tangy and reminded her of the taste of tears. She moved faster now and at last took a great leap onto the roof of a very noisy establishment with lots of music and laughter spilling from its windows. She found herself gazing at a vast expanse of blackness. The smell was stronger here, with a fishy undertone. The roof overlooked a broad thoroughfare, which was mostly empty at the moment. On the opposite side were vessels the likes of which Sera had never dreamed of—hulking monsters with huge pieces of fabric hanging off them, draped in thick ropes, wooden poles as tall as trees.
No sign of Leo or Agnes.
She jumped to the next roof, and the next, and the next, her sharp eyes piercing the darkness, searching . . .
“Do you see the ship, Errol?” she asked. When he gave no reply, she began to worry, but suddenly he cackled.
“There,” he said.
Sera had run out of roofs. She dropped to the ground, sending a jolt up her spine, and ran like lightning toward the wooden beast Errol had pointed out—it was smaller than the others, which was maybe why Sera thought it looked friendlier.
And then she saw them, her two friends, waiting for her on the dock.
42
Leo
“YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO BE HERE UNTIL TOMORROW,” Vada said. “And you told me passage was for a girl, not a boy.” She pointed at Leo. “He is a boy.”
“I know. The other girl is coming,” Agnes explained. “And . . . he needs to come too.”
Vada took a long drag of her cigarette. “No, Agnes,” she said. “You ask too much.”
“I have money,” Leo said. “Four thousand krogers. Please.”
Sirens began to wail in the distance, and both he and his sister jumped.
Vada frowned. “Is that about you?” she asked.
“Um, yes, I think maybe it could be,” Agnes said. She needed to get better at lying.
“We’re trying to do a good thing here,” Leo said. “We’re trying to help someone.”
“That is no matter to me.” Vada walked down the gangplank and turned to speak only to Agnes. “My mother is back, with the rest of the crew. She was displeased with me already, and now you ask that I bring along three passengers chased by policemen? I think not.” She reached into her vest and handed Agnes a thick wad of krogers. “I spent some already, but take the rest. It is yours. I cannot help you.”
“You must, please,” Agnes said. “You promised. She . . . she needs us.”
“You still have not told me who this ‘she’ is. You say she is not Pelagan.” Agnes shook her head. “Nor Kaolin.” Another shake. Vada threw up her hands, exasperated.
“Vada?” A voice came from within the schooner.
“Shit,” she muttered, putting out her cigarette on her boot. A woman appeared on the deck, flanked by several other sailors, women with weathered faces and grim expressions.
“Who are you talking to?” the woman demanded, before catching sight of Agnes and Leo. “Ah. Is this the Kaolin girl who tricked you into allowing not one but two berths?”
“I didn’t trick anyone,” Agnes insisted. “I paid fair and square.”
The woman strode down the gangplank, the sailors trailing behind. They were all lean and muscular, Leo noted, with scuffed boots and worn leather vests.
“And we have more,” he added. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a fistful of krogers. The sirens grew louder.
“Did you bring Kaolin lawmen down on us, girl?” the woman hissed.
“Mama, she is wealthy and well dressed. How was I to know she would bring the police?”
&n
bsp; “It is your job to protect this ship while I am away, not sell it to the highest Kaolin bidder.”
“But they are Byrnes, Mama.”
Vada’s mother scoffed, “Her? A Byrne?”
Leo had never been so grateful to have his mother’s face. “We are,” he said, stepping into the light so the woman could see him. “I am Leo McLellan and this is my sister, Agnes. Our mother was Alethea Byrne.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “By the grace of the goddesses,” she murmured. “You are indeed a Byrne. I would know those eyes anywhere.” She frowned. “She can come. You stay. We don’t take Kaolin men on this ship.”
“But—”
“Please,” Agnes begged. “Our father will kill him if we leave him behind.”
For the first time that sentence did not seem like an exaggeration to Leo.
“Agnes!” a voice called, dancing across the wind. “Leo! I’m here, I’m coming!”
“Sera,” he gasped, his knees melting with relief. He whirled around as one of the sailors muttered something in Pelagan.
Sera raced up to them like a silver-gold blur and stopped short, panting. “I’m here,” she said. “We made it.”
Her dress was torn and dirty, the pile of curls on her head coming undone, and she had tied her skirt up, leaving her long legs bare. Leo had never seen a woman look so wild and untamed. The sirens grew closer.
Errol slid off her back, his filaments flashing as he crawled to the edge of the dock. Several of the sailors cried out at the sight of him, and he slipped into the water with a loud plop.
“He is happy to be back in the sea,” Sera said. Then tears filled her eyes. “Boris is gone, though. Her sprites turned to fire. She asked them to, I think. She burned herself to give us time to escape.”
Leo did not quite understand the tightness in his throat, the ache in his chest. He had never thought of the Arboreal as anything but a tree. Or maybe he had. Maybe his feelings toward Sera had radiated out, to Errol, to Boris. Maybe he was seeing everything differently now.
Agnes seemed to know what to do better than he did.
“Oh, Sera,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around the girl, and Sera’s shoulders trembled for a moment before she pulled herself together.
“So this is a ship,” she said, staring at the schooner in wonder.
Leo turned back to Vada and her mother. All the enmity in the sailors’ eyes was gone, replaced with expressions of reverence. But not for him or for Agnes. It was Sera they were staring at.
“This is her,” Agnes said boldly. “This is the friend I told you about. She’s special, and she needs our help. So you must—”
To Leo’s immense surprise, Vada’s mother dropped to her knees, Vada and the other sailors quickly following suit, falling to the ground like dominoes.
“Thaeia,” Vada’s mother whispered, touching her forehead with two fingers.
“Thaeia,” the others repeated, making the same gesture.
“What are they saying?” Leo whispered to his sister, knowing she spoke some Pelagan. But it was Sera who answered. He should have figured. She could talk to everything.
“They are calling me goddess,” she said.
Agnes gasped. Leo shook his head slowly back and forth. “What?” he said dumbly.
Vada’s mother stood. “Thaeia,” she said, “I am Violetta Murchadha, of the island of Feinlin. I have sailed the seas between Kaolin and Pelago since I was only a child before her first bleeding. I have weathered tempests that would make grown women weep. I would be honored to bring you to Pelago. The Maiden’s Wail does not look like much, but she is as sturdy a ship as any you will find, even by Pelagan standards.”
“My goodness,” Sera said. “That is very kind of you.”
The sailors looked at each other, confused, and Leo remembered they would only hear gibberish.
“She said that’s very kind of you,” he explained.
“How is it that a Kaolin man can understand the words of a Pelagan goddess?” Violetta said, aghast.
“I think that’s a story best saved for when we are far away from Old Port,” Agnes said.
One of the sailors said something in Pelagan, and Vada snapped back at her. Then Violetta began barking out orders, also in Pelagan, and the sailors darted up the gangplank.
“What’s happening?” Leo asked.
“That one said it is bad luck to start a voyage at night,” Sera said. “And then the younger girl said, do not be an idiot, Saifa will protect us. And then Violetta told them to ready the sails and some other things I didn’t quite understand.”
Errol’s head popped up from the water, his filaments flashing red and gold.
“Errol is ready to leave,” Sera announced.
Vada appeared on the deck, her arms folded across her chest. “Well?” she called down to them, and Leo got the sense that she was teasing his sister and it made him feel protective of Agnes in a way he couldn’t quite explain. “Are you coming, little lion?”
Agnes’s lips twitched and she looped her arm through Sera’s. “Ready for a sea voyage?” she asked as they walked up the gangplank.
Leo felt a small sting of jealousy until Sera turned back to him. “Come on, Leo,” she said, holding out her hand. He hurried forward, then stopped, reaching into his pocket and taking out the star necklace.
“Here,” he said. “It’s time you had this back for good.”
Her eyes sparkled as she took the chain and slipped it around her neck. She tucked the pendant beneath the satiny folds of her dress.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Then she curled her fingers around his and they boarded the ship together.
The Pelagan sailors were expert and quick. Not ten minutes later, they had hoisted anchor and cast off, the lights of the Old Port docks slowly fading in the distance, the wail of the sirens swallowed up by the sea.
Leo watched the only home he’d ever known disappear into the darkness, and he felt ready to embrace this new life he’d chosen, no matter what fate had in store for him.
43
Leela
THE STAIRS WERE COLDER THAN ANYTHING LEELA HAD ever felt before. It was a cold that burned.
They were steep and spiraled, so that she had to grip the walls with her hands to make sure she did not fall.
Mother Sun, she prayed. Where are you taking me?
She could not suppress her wildest hope—that Sera was down here, wherever here was. After all, Estelle had come back after Kandra thought she was dead. And Leela had heard Sera’s voice twice now. She had not been imagining it. Plus, those visions, and the way the moonstone was reacting to her . . .
Colored lights began to shine at her feet as she descended, and when she finally reached the bottom of the stairs, she gazed around in wonder. Great columns rose up, glowing blue from the inside. There were paths that wove through them, emitting pale green light, snaking around pools of crystal-clear water that studded the floor; through them Leela could see straight down to the planet below. There was no sound of birds or hum of insects. There was no life at all. What was this place?
Then she looked up.
It was as if she was upside down. A forest sprawled across the ceiling, lush trees and wildflowers and brambly bushes growing toward her. It was disorienting, like standing in the sky. Leela followed one of the green paths. As she moved out away from where she imagined the temple must be above her, the trees grew shorter and stunted, the wildflowers withered, and the bushes became thorny and brittle. Whatever this sky forest was, it was dying.
The silence around her was unnerving, as was the crumbling foliage above. The farther out she traveled, the worse it became, until the ceiling was nothing but ash and mold.
Swish, plop. Swish, plop.
The sound was so faint, she could hardly hear it over her pounding heart. But then it came again.
Swish, plop.
It sounded like it was coming from near the stairs. She hurri
ed back along the path, avoiding the clear pools—something told her they were dangerous, that they were not to be touched. Had Sera somehow fallen into this vast underbelly she’d never known existed? Was Estelle here, too?
She had passed the staircase, the swishing and plopping growing louder, when she heard a voice that made her blood run cold and her knees lock.
“Eat up, my beauties,” the High Priestess said. “I need you to be strong for me now.”
It took all of Leela’s willpower to find the courage to move. She crept forward, trying to keep out of sight behind the glowing blue columns without stepping off the path into one of the pools. She came to a wide, circular space, and it seemed like it was the exact size and shape of the temple. They must be right beneath it. The pools vanished, replaced by icy circles with markings carved onto them. Instead of dead trees and bushes, frost-covered vines hung in great boughs, heavy with a strange fruit Leela had never seen before—round, plump orbs of pure gold. She peered around one of the columns, wondering where the High Priestess was among these vines, when she had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out at what she saw.
The tether was slicing up through the open space, glowing brighter than the columns around her. It burst through the largest pool of water Leela had seen in this place and was planted firmly in a cone of moonstone protruding from the tangle of ice-white vines above. There was a red-orange light in the moonstone’s center, and it pulsed like a heartbeat. The High Priestess was circling the pool, muttering to herself. Then she stopped, crouched down, and passed her hand over something on the floor Leela could not see. Swish. She held out her other hand and one of the golden fruits fell into her palm. She dropped it into whatever she was crouching over. Plop. Then she passed her hand over the ground again.
She repeated this pattern several more times, crouching in various places that made no rhyme or reason to Leela, dropping fruit and then making the same gesture.