Calm down, I told myself. He’s not that big, not as bulky as Xavier. I shifted his weight in another heaving motion, just enough that I could scramble out from under him. His eyes were glassy now, no life left in them at all.
Still, I couldn’t release the knife. I collapsed against the corner of the cell, sticky dagger clenched in my bloody fist. My body was shaking, and my mind was shifting from thought to thought, none of them making it to completion. Seconds or minutes or a lifetime passed before hurried footsteps pounded down the stairs. The general came bounding into the brig, followed by Xavier. They both stopped short when they caught sight of me.
“Bordel de merde,” Xavier breathed, shock etched in the dark lines of his face. The general’s face was inscrutable as always as he eased open the cell door and approached me slowly, as one would a wild animal.
“Ms. Kensington, I need you to give me the dagger.”
I tightened my hold with trembling hands and shook my head. Xavier stepped over Jethro’s body to crouch down beside me. He placed his hand carefully over my free one.
“Addie, I’m so sorry. I came as soon as I heard he had taken you. I swear, I didn’t know.”
“He said the Master ordered.” The words came flat from my lips.
“He lied,” General Noble said with conviction, disgust curling his upper lip. “I need you to give me the dagger and speak of this to no one. I will handle this.”
I didn’t know if I believed him, didn’t know if it mattered. I let the weapon fall to the floor with a clatter. They continued talking, but it was as though their voices were coming through water.
“Son, we came down here to find this man disobeying direct orders, so I dealt him a swift justice. That is all you will say when asked.”
“It was clear self-defense. Why should that matter?” Xavier said.
“She’s a woman, and he is one of the Court. It will matter.”
“You lead them.”
Is that bitterness in Xavier’s voice?
“Just order them not to hurt her,” Xavier continued. “You know, the way you ordered them to hurt Clark.”
“It isn’t that simple, and now is not the time for that conversation.” A weather-worn hand grasped the hilt of the blade. “Come,” he said to Xavier. Then, to me, “We will try to get you a change of clothes, but I can’t promise you anything at this point.”
Did I care? I wasn’t sure. I concentrated on the gentle motion of the ship beneath me. We still hadn’t taken off. All of that must have happened in a matter of minutes. The thought was unfathomable.
Together, Xavier and the general hauled the man off and shut my cell door, leaving me alone with the murky thoughts in my head and the crusting blood on my hands.
The Protector
Had anyone asked him, Xavier would have sworn that the general had been framed for the explosion. There had never been a shadow of a doubt in his mind of that fact. As loyal as he was to the man who had rescued him from a suicidal mission and given him another family, though, his top priorities were his brothers. His own grief couldn’t outweigh the role he needed to take on now.
His brother wasn’t handling it very well,
Gunther had retreated into himself a little more and stayed out of Xav and Clark’s arguments even more than usual. But Clark… Clark couldn’t see past trying to clear their fathers name. It became his reason to wake up in the morning. His reason to exist. And Xav knew he needed to stop Clark before he got himself hurt, or worse. It was up to Xavier now to try to curb Clark’s reckless nature.
It wasn’t going very well.
“If we haven’t found answers by now, Clark, you aren’t going to. You need to let this go and let yourself grieve. Move on.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Xav. You had a ‘real’ family, but Father was the only parent I had, and I will be damned if I walk away and let him be remembered this way.”
Xav stormed out of the house before he lost his temper and punched his brother in his big fat mouth. Like any of this had been easy on him. He rounded a corner, still fuming and distracted, and ran smack into General Noble.
Chapter Nine
CLARK
“Jayce, I swear, if you vomit on me, I will open the door and push you out of this cage,” Nell threatened.
Jayce glared, but his green face ruined the effect. I had never minded heights, but this entire journey was getting under my skin. Somewhere in the middle of the windy, rickety trek across a bottomless chasm punctuated by the constant high-pitched whining of an airsick cat, I even lost my patience with Gunther.
“Now would be a great time to tell us how you know all of this. It’s not like we have anything else to do.” I grunted through the exertion. Locke and I were on either side of the lever in the center of the metal cage that was apparently bringing us to the other side of the world.
“I’ve been here before. Some things you never forget,” was all Gunther said.
“I had actually gathered that much.”
“I was born here. I made the trip in reverse before the general found me.” The general, he had said. Not Father.
We hadn’t talked much about Jayce’s revelation, but that was proof enough that it was weighing on him.
“I thought you didn’t remember anything from before we found you.”
“I never said that.”
I opened my mouth to argue but closed it when I realized it was true. He had never explicitly said that. We had assumed from the way we had found him, bloody, infected cuts and catatonic, that he had been so traumatized, he lost his memory. He had never told us he couldn’t remember, though. By the time he had begun speaking, we were so thrilled, we never asked him about his past. At least, I never had.
His increased reticence as we neared the other side made more sense now. Did he remember his real name? I had given him the name Gunther after a hero in a story, and he had taken the general’s last name, like we all had. Looking at his face now, I didn’t have the heart to ask. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this wasn’t a place he would have chosen to return to. Still, one thing didn’t make sense.
“And you remember all of this from being five years old?” I added a few signs to emphasize my point.
“I never said that, either.”
I was starting to wonder if I had ever known either of my brothers.
At long last, we reached the other side–Hobatsi Island, according to my brother. Gunther once again led the way, taking us through a passage that spit out into a busy plaza. Hobatsi had gotten the better end of the deal, the scorching gales apparently dying down somewhere in the chasm before reaching the smaller island.
A few well-placed questions pointed us to a ship dealer in no time. We had brought jewels and gold, along with the currency that was now useless, so at least we weren’t without assets. Still, we had to be frugal. We had no idea where this journey would take us, or how long we would need to support ourselves with these funds.
The ships in the distance caught my eye. The water behind them was greener than it was blue, and a few of them were topped with huge balloons.
“What is that?” I asked Gunther.
He looked around until he saw what I was looking at.
“Oh, that. It’s a mechanism of channeling hot air. It allows the ship to hover above the water for short periods of time.” He sounded bored, but all I heard was flying ship.
“Let’s get one of those,” I said, a little excited in spite of myself.
“There’s a steep learning curve, and it takes a crew of at least twenty to man them.”
My face fell, but he continued.
“I think you’ll be happy with what we get. Some of the ships here run on diesel. If we can get a smaller one, it will be fast enough to allow us to catch up to them within a few days.”
Of course, that was the priority, and a ship that fast did sound enticing. But once we had Xav and Addie back, I would find a way to explore the flying ships.
We p
assed children with jutting bones and adults with suspicious faces. Was this whole side of the world this way? Or were we in their version of Fourth Sector? Though these people looked even more hopeless than those.
Several pickpocket attempts later, we finally reached the docks. Gunther went to examine the vessels that were sea-ready. He pointed to one named The Seaductress, if the slanted blue writing on the side was anything to go by.
I chuckled. Who names a ship?
Shaking my head, I strode to the nondescript wooden building that housed the seller. Nell followed, but the others waited outside. Locke was laden down with bags and Jayce’s makeshift leash, and Gunther was carrying a rucksack and Shensi.
The counter was manned by a portly man with a sly face. His skin was fair, though this small island seemed as varied as Central on that front. I struck up a conversation, getting a feel for him before delving into the matter of which ship we had chosen.
Nell’s face went red when he named his price for the small boat. “That’s ridiculous. You’re just being a crook now —”
I placed a hand on her arm to hush her. The thieving girl must have had no experience with haggling in her time, but I had grown up island-hopping on the Naval ship. Talking the village shopkeepers down on the outrageous prices they listed for tourists was just one part of my varied education. Normally, I enjoyed the game of the barter, but the jarring disparity between the hungry children and this overfed man had me scrambling for my usual casual nature.
“I see,” I told the man. “Well, that’s unfortunate. You see, we can only spare a quarter that amount.” My voice was filled with mock remorse.
The man smiled, recognizing the game. He lowered his price by ten percent.
“Look,” I said, “we both know how you come by your goods. Even half that price would be twice what you spent… obtaining them.” I smiled as his expression soured.
Ten minutes later, we were ready to be on our way with a fully-provisioned, diesel-powered vessel at a quarter his original price. The victory was hollow as we passed more begging children on our way to the vessel. I hardened my face. This was their world. We just had to find a way to survive in it.
No one looked twice at Jayce in his chains of rope when we made our way to the ship. That told me we would get nowhere by questioning the locals, which meant we had nothing but Jayce’s word to go on. My jaw clenched. We had a means of travel, but now we were stuck relying fully on the intel of a man I would happily feed to the sharks. And that intel seemed flimsy at best.
“It’s time to tell us where we’re going, Jayce,” I said once we boarded the boat.
“I told you, all I have are coordinates for headquarters.”
“Why would they take her there if their goal is to find Levelia?” Locke questioned.
“They need to collect more forces,” Jayce responded.
He didn’t look like he was lying, but the duplicitous man had fooled me before.
“Whether he’s lying or not, we need a map,” suggested the ever-practical Locke. “We can rule a few places out, deduce where they’re going. See if it adds up with his claim.”
Nell turned back toward the market we’d previously come through.
“Not you, Ms. Silbeque. We need to preserve our funds. I’ll go. You can secure the prisoner on the boat.”
She scowled. I got the feeling the beautiful, graceful woman wasn’t used to being inferior at anything. I nodded and took over Jayce’s rope, heading to our new means of transportation. The ship was smaller than many on the lot, but still larger than the one we had left behind, if not as luxurious. There were four separate cabins below decks, each complete with a secured mattress and desk. The kitchen and head took up the other half of the space on the lower level. Up top, there was a single space with the captain and first mate’s chair, and room enough for a small cot.
I was dragging Jayce to a cabin, despite his protests, when a thump sounded on the decks above.
That was fast.
After tossing my rucksack on the floor in a cabin that Jayce was not occupying, I jogged back up the stairs. Nell and Gunther were still on the upper deck, but the unfamiliar blonde man standing across from them was most definitely not Locke. He was holding out his hand, and Nell was eying him suspiciously.
“What’s going on?” I asked, keeping my tone even.
“A man said a boy with red hair and goggles would be coming through the docks, along with a cocky looking bloke with dark hair. Assuming that’s you,” the man said in an accented voice.
“What of it?” I took on a defensive stance, though my mind was reeling. How could anyone have known we would be coming through here when we didn’t know it ourselves?
“He paid me to give you a letter. Said it was a down payment, that you’d be giving me the other half.” Then the man named a sum I seriously doubted anyone had quoted him.
Nell was already digging in her bag. I suppressed an eye roll, leveling a look at the man. With perfect timing, Locke and his stormy countenance boarded the boat. The man backpedaled, evidently seeing he was outnumbered and realizing we were not the easy marks he had thought.
“On second thought, maybe I misunderstood him.” He thrust the letter at Gunther and leapt off the side of the boat.
“Do we need to go after him?” Locke asked.
I shook my head. The blonde man had already disappeared into the crowd anyway.
A gasp escaped Gunther’s lips.
“I know where we need to go,” he said, not looking up from the letter.
“What? How? Who is that letter from?”
I wasn’t sure why I was talking when he clearly wasn’t looking at me. I went to stand next to him to read with him. As soon as I saw the opening line, my eyes drifted to the signature to confirm what I already knew.
“Well?” Nell asked. “Who is it from?”
I hesitated before answering, scanning the words for sign of a subterfuge. If it was true, he had taken a great deal of risk leaving it in a stranger’s hands. So, either he was lying, or he was desperate. Was he in trouble? Was Addie?
“It’s from Xavier. And we need to go, now.”
The Protector
“Your brother will wind up dead if he doesn’t stop digging into things better left alone, Xav.” Those were his father’s first words to him after over a year of pretending to be dead.
Xav could only stare, his mind reeling with the implications of the man standing before him. General Noble had aged this past year in a way that even years in the sun on a Naval ship hadn’t accomplished. His tanned skin was leathery, and the lines at his eyes were deeply furrowed.
For all that, his expression remained stony. His eyes were solid hematite, boring into Xavier’s without so much as a flicker of emotion. There was no sadness, no remorse. Xav couldn’t make sense of the emotions coursing through him before the man he had called Father spoke again.
“I won’t show up to warn you again, Xavier. If you want to keep Clark alive, you will keep him ignorant. He cannot know I’m alive. He cannot go searching for answers about the explosion. Do you understand?”
Xavier managed a nod, and the general was gone before he could utter a single word.
Chapter Ten
ADELAIDE
I was staring at a tear in my dress, wondering when it had gotten there, when Xavier’s familiar light footsteps interrupted me. I never thought I would be the kind of person to notice the cadence of a person’s footsteps, but there was little else to go by in this cell. He was carrying a stein of water, a rag, and a tray of crackers. As he neared my cell, the purple under his eyes and stubble on his chin became evident. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all the previous night.
That makes two of us.
The night had managed to bring a modicum of clarity, if not rest, and enough awareness to spur curiosity about my fate.
“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked, ignoring the food in his hands but taking the water and rag.
; “I don’t know. Nothing, yet. The general is telling people he killed Jethro, but the men are still unhappy, suspecting it was in your defense.”
“Why would he do that?” I poured water on the rag, scrubbing futilely at my arms and the front of my dress. I accomplished little more than making the blood splotches spread.
“I don’t know.” Xavier studied the bloody planks of my cell. “I thought he was a good man, once.” The words came out no louder than a whisper.
I didn’t respond. Feeling sorry for Xavier was the last thing I wanted, but I had thought my father was a good man once, too. I didn’t know what to think anymore. The difference was my misconceptions hadn’t nearly gotten Xavier killed. My expression hardened, and Xavier looked away.
I took tiny sips of my water. Unfamiliar steps sounded on the stairway.
“Is this the little slut my brother was killed over?” The voice was harsh, ragged.
Fantastic. There’s another one of them.
I could muster neither fear nor rage, only a blank, endless nothing. I didn’t bother to glance at the man who walked in, but Xavier’s large shadow moved in front of me.
“Do I need to tell,” he hesitated before spitting out the title, “Master Yomi you’ve gone against his wishes?”
“There are some,” the other man said, “who wonder at his loyalty. Wonder if he’s who he claims to be. Master or not, he can’t restrict me from my right to face my brother’s murderer.”
I looked up at that.
“She didn’t kill him. Master Yomi did.” Xavier’s voice didn’t waver, but the man’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Tell me, Xavier, does a stab to the side of the neck sound more like a trained man’s blow or a woman’s?” He turned to me. “I will see that justice is served, one way or another.”
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