Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

And then, for one step, the wind eased. Was the sandstorm lessening? But it slammed back into her at her next stride.

  Jasper pulled her on, but she resisted. She backed up a step, and the wind lessened again, as if blocked by a structure. On the other side of her, Jasper likely hadn’t felt it at all. She switched direction, stepping into the soft spot in the wind and tugging Jasper with her.

  Yes. The wind was blunted here.

  Though they couldn’t speak, Jasper recognized it, too. Movements energetic, he strode in the new direction. Ten steps more, and their outstretched arms hit a low wall.

  Relief shuddered through her. Now, if they could just find the door! She risked peering through one slitted eye, but it didn’t help. Jasper released her, and they moved in different directions, feeling along the wall like blind men. Oddly, it seemed to be made of metal and glass, not stone. She scratched her fingers along the windows but couldn’t find any catch.

  Nor could she find a door. Telling herself there must be a way in somewhere, Leah eased around the corner and back out into the howling wind.

  She flinched as sand flayed her raw shins. The layer of cloth she’d used to protect her nose and mouth pulled away, and she inhaled sand, coughed on grit. She sank to her knees and retracted her head into the robe, forming a small tent around herself.

  Maybe she’d just stay here and become her own miniature sand dune.

  Jasper touched her shoulder. “Leah!”

  Reluctantly, she poked the top of her head out. Through a veil of tears, she saw that Jasper had opened a door.

  Drifted sand kept it from opening more than a foot, but she squeezed her body inside. She had to duck down because the ceiling was quite low. She took one step, then fell to her knees in the narrow space, coughing and hacking, eyes running with tears, trying to flush out the grit.

  Moments later, Jasper staggered inside and slammed the door shut. He collapsed onto a cloth-covered chair. He seemed more exhausted than hurt.

  Leah scrubbed at her eyes, but her hands were filthy, and it didn’t help much. When her vision finally cleared, she saw a cramped little room with three rows of high-backed benches.

  It sparked her memories of Holly’s world. They weren’t in a shed but rather an abandoned vehicle. A van, perhaps, or this world’s equivalent. With a jolt, she realized that the only reason they’d been able to get the door open was because the vehicle rested a foot off the ground. A regular door would have been buried in two feet of sand. She shuddered at the thought of finding shelter but dying while trying to dig a way in.

  The wind howled anew. The sandstorm drew a curtain across the sun, creating a dim, cave-like interior. The van protected them from the vicious onslaught, but grains of sand still leaked in along the cracks.

  “We’ll need to open the door every so often,” Jasper said.

  “Why?”

  “If we let the drift outside get too high, we won’t be able to get the door open again when the storm stops,” Jasper said grimly.

  And when would that be? Both Dorotea and Elect Harmon had been convinced that exile Above was tantamount to death. But Burt had mentioned scavengers… The Unskilled boy had said regular storms only lasted a few hours, but monster storms could last a week. They had no food or water.

  She desperately wanted to rinse the grit out of her mouth. What she wouldn’t give for a delivery of a cold bottle of water from Holly! No chance of an ice mirror here. She shivered.

  “You’re cold,” Jasper said. “Here, sit by me.”

  She scooted closer to him, and he put his arm around her. He was warm, though not as toasty as Gideon’s furnace heart. Leah let her head rest against his shoulder. Her throat ached. Tears slid from her eyes. She kept silent, but one of her teardrops must have fallen on Jasper because he shifted. “Don’t cry. We’ll make it through the storm.”

  But the storm wasn’t why she was crying at all. Her heart keened, full of grief. Gideon, why did you have to die and leave me all alone?

  Jasper kissed the top of her head. Then he kissed her forehead, her cheek…her lips. He paused and looked into her eyes, then kissed her again, more firmly. And she let him, because it felt good, and she was so tired of being sad, and Jasper might not be Gideon, but he was the next best thing, and he was right there.

  She touched his face, so like Gideon’s, his mirror image’s, then wound her arms around his neck and opened her mouth under his.

  After all, she was alone, and it wasn’t like he was in love with Dorotea. They weren’t hurting anyone…

  Except she was wearing Dorotea’s body. The thought seeped in like black poison, ruining her fantasy. Leah didn’t belong on Stone. Dorotea did. Dorotea belonged with Jasper, even if she was too stupid to know it.

  Leah drew back a little but couldn’t bring herself to leave Jasper’s embrace. Emotion clogged her chest.

  “The wind’s dying,” Jasper murmured.

  She listened and discovered he was right. The sky had brightened, too, enough that she could see her reflection in his luminous golden eyes. Jasper stared at her as if she were everything wonderful, as if he loved her.

  But her heart belonged to Gideon.

  Without letting herself think about it, or even pause to extract promises, she Called her otherself. If she didn’t do this now, she might never have the courage again. Dorotea, take your body back.

  Her reflection melted into the more haggard face of her own body.

  A push followed, and she fell forward—

  She landed with a thump back in her own body in the Mirrorhall.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Prisoner—

  In Which Audrey Hides Under the Bed

  Air World

  Audrey slowly pried the window open, trying to minimize the creak of the wooden frame.

  Her first escape plan—climbing out the window and down the mooring rope—had never made it past step one—freeing herself from the handcuffs. She’d spent a fruitless hour trying to pick the lock with a hatpin before the fading light made it hopeless.

  Her second plan had begun with her silently dragging the bed a crucial foot closer to the window. Now she could reach the window, but opening it with only one hand was proving troublesome.

  Once she raised it a few inches, she jammed her elbow into the opening and Called. “Zephyr! I have a message for you.”

  The wind didn’t stir.

  Her heartbeat picked up, and she Called again. “Zephyr, heed my voice and answer!”

  A soft breeze drifted by her ear. “I cannot. The Phantom has forbidden it.”

  Oh, had he? Anger and betrayal burned in her stomach like a lump of undigested meat. “I’m Admiral Harding’s daughter. I’m sure he’s asked you to find me.”

  Still air with no hint of a breeze.

  “Please, Zephyr,” Audrey said, willing to beg. “You’ve served our family for years.”

  Another tickle in her ear. “I’m sorry,” Zephyr whispered. “Your father is powerful, but I dare not cross the Grand Current’s son.”

  So Leah had been telling the truth about The Phantom’s father.

  Audrey slumped, out of arguments. So much for her second escape attempt. Defeated, she lay down on top of the blankets. She fell asleep trying to concoct a third plan.

  Audrey woke in the middle of the night with a pressing need to visit the water closet. Only, of course, the handcuffs prevented her from even leaving the bed. She wondered if the dirigible even had a privy or only chamber pots.

  She wasn’t desperate, but neither could she wait until morning. Audrey opened her mouth to call for help, then closed it.

  Maybe she should use this as an opportunity to escape. Qeturah/Queenie had the key to her handcuffs, but she was too smart to enter the bedroom without a blunderbuss. Audrey didn’t fancy wrestling her for it; she wasn’t about to risk having a hole blown in her stomach. In order to get the keys and escape, she needed to take Qeturah by surprise.

  After a little thinking, she opened
the window all the way, jamming a spyglass in the frame to keep it from closing again, then hid herself under the bed.

  She worked the shackle as far down on the bed frame as she could and pulled the blanket over it to conceal it. At first glance, it should appear as if she had somehow escaped out the window.

  Any sort of search would immediately turn up her pathetic hiding place, but if Qeturah rushed to the window to peer out, Audrey would have a precious moment in which to act.

  She judged the chance of success worth the risk.

  Wetting her lips, Audrey uttered a short cry and banged her heels on the floor, trying to sound as if she’d fallen. She waited in tense silence.

  Footsteps approached, followed by the click of a latch. A man swore—not Qeturah, but Billy. Audrey froze. Funny, Qeturah was the one set on shattering the entire world, but Audrey was much more afraid of Billy.

  Heavy boots rushed to the open window, just like she’d planned.

  Her paralysis broke. Audrey kicked Billy’s ankles with all the coiled strength of her legs. His feet shot out from under him, and he crashed to the floor. Audrey kicked him again, but only caught his thigh.

  He cursed a blue streak and reached under the bed. In moments, he’d pulled her out, spitting and scratching. He wasn’t carrying a blunderbuss, but his face was a mask of anger. Looming over her, he drew back his fist.

  Audrey reared up and head-butted him. Her skull connected with his chin. The contact hurt Audrey, but had an even better effect on Billy. He sat back, moaning and clutching his jaw. “You broke ma toof.”

  Audrey raised one leg and rammed her boot heel into his forehead as hard as she could. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  She was steeling herself to search Billy’s pockets, when The Phantom threw open the door. He grabbed Billy’s shoulder and flung him away from Audrey. “Did he hurt you?” he demanded, voice raw. A deadly tension gripped him, as if he were one step away from killing Billy.

  Audrey realized suddenly that her skirts were rucked up and that she’d been squirming on the floor. He was asking if Billy had raped her. “No,” she said shakily. “I, er, hurt him. I was trying to escape.” The words came out somewhat apologetic.

  The tension eased from The Phantom’s shoulders. “You should never have been left alone with him.”

  Limbs trembling, Audrey picked herself up off the floor. The handcuffs bit into her wrist so she sat on the bed. And stared. He’d come back. Did that mean he’d changed his mind about helping Queenie and come to rescue her, or was he just keeping her safe from Billy?

  Either way, she was grateful. “Thank you, Piers,” she said.

  The Phantom glided closer and brooded over the bed. When he spoke, his voice rasped. “How did you know?”

  Whoops. “I realized you were The Phantom yesterday.” She held her breath. Would he be angry?

  “No. Not that. How did you know?”

  Audrey blinked. Know what? And then his face unblurred, showing Piers’s features clearly though his skin was still washed out and eerie. Lines of grief carved his forehead and bracketed his mouth. “You found her,” she guessed. “Your mother’s body.” Queenie.

  He opened his mouth, then closed it, and shook his head in mute frustration.

  Audrey reached out with her free hand and gently pulled him to sit beside her on the dark blue blankets. “I’m so sorry.”

  She saw tears in his eyes, and then he faded back into The Phantom, hiding his emotions. “I found her where you said. In an abandoned building next door to the shop’s last mooring. I smelled—” He stopped.

  Audrey squeezed his hand. Queen of the Thieves notwithstanding, she could see that he’d loved his mother. Her own throat tightened in response. Lady Bethany must’ve been frantic by now.

  “So how did you know?” he asked. “And who is that witch impersonating my mother? You don’t have to whisper,” he added. “She’s gone, flown the coop. Billy was the only bullyboy on guard duty.”

  So Audrey told him everything she knew, everything Leah had related to her. “I didn’t really believe her at first. But now? Shattering our world doesn’t seem that far-fetched.” Her father’s bad experiences with his otherself didn’t mean Leah was a liar.

  A small silence fell. The Phantom shifted. “I should take you home.”

  Audrey didn’t think he should be alone, but he’d take it the wrong way if she said so. “Tell me about her,” she said instead. “Your mother. What was she like?”

  “Bold,” he said after a moment. “She said what she thought, straight out, no shilly-shallying. She made her own way, without being dependent on a man, and she was proud of it.”

  Proud of being a thief? Of course, she hadn’t been a common criminal, but rather the Queen of Thieves.

  And not having a husband or father or brother being the main breadwinner was rare. Audrey thought of Grady’s mother, who was honest and a hard worker—and who couldn’t feed her own children.

  “She didn’t like the nobility,” Piers continued. “She called them parasites, but it was her grandest ambition for me to take my place among them. She told me my blood was just as good—better. She taught me to talk right and boxed my ears when I lapsed into lower-tier talk.”

  “She did a good job,” Audrey said.

  “How can she be gone?”

  The look in his eyes was so lost it broke her heart. “I don’t know.”

  And then he was holding on to her as if he were drowning, his shoulders heaving with ugly sobs. These tears couldn’t be mopped up with a lace hankie. They soaked her shoulder. Audrey’s own throat ached at his naked pain, and she ran her fingers through his hair. She didn’t know what else to do, how to offer comfort.

  She kept thinking about her father and the war and the dreadful specter of his zeppelin going down in a ball of flame.

  At last Piers shuddered and lifted his head. “Sorry. You must think me a weakling.”

  “No. Not at all. Strength shouldn’t mean being unfeeling.” That was her father’s mistake. “I would think less of you if you didn’t grieve.”

  He took a deep breath. “I should get you home.”

  Audrey studied him warily. “What are you going to do?”

  He didn’t answer. “We can use the front door. I’ll fly you—”

  Audrey pressed her fingers to his mouth, stopping him. “What are you going to do? We can’t just let Qeturah shatter the world. We have to stop her.”

  He shrugged. “Easy enough. According to you, all I have to do is stay alive.”

  “There’s more to her plan than that,” Audrey insisted. “Why would she bother to start a war otherwise? She could’ve killed you with a knife in the back or a drop of poison at any time.”

  He started to pace. “I don’t know! I can’t think right now.”

  She sympathized, but they didn’t have time for him to come to grips with his grief. War was coming. “Well, you need to think carefully. You’re in a lot of trouble. You didn’t know what Qeturah was planning, but you helped her. You’ll be labeled a traitor, too.”

  He shook his head. “No one knows who I am, and I have no intention of stepping into your father’s trap—thanks for the warning, by the way. Unless you’ve changed your mind and are planning to expose Piers Tennyson?” He sounded more curious than offended.

  “No,” Audrey said truthfully. “But don’t you want to undo the harm you’ve done? Come with me. We’ll talk to my father together. If you help him, I’m sure he’ll get you a pardon. Maybe even offer you a job.”

  “As what? Courier?”

  A better idea popped into her head—the perfect solution. “Espionage agent.”

  “Spy, you mean,” he scoffed. “Just how is stealing secrets from an enemy more noble than stealing from the rich? Seems the same to me—except an agent of the Crown is paid far less and is more likely to get shot.”

  Heated words filled Audrey’s throat. How could he not see th
at stealing was morally wrong and spying was an honorable duty? But he’d laugh at her if she said any of that.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I can see how you’d be daunted. Spying is a much greater challenge than pinching earrings off vain girls.”

  “I never said I couldn’t do it,” he said, affronted. “Just that I don’t see the point.”

  “The point is to keep you out of jail.” She huffed in exasperation.

  “As if a cell could hold me,” he grumbled.

  “Wouldn’t you like to have a real title and house?” she asked. “Top-tier instead of low?” She indicated the dirigible with a sweep of her hand.

  A tinge of pink flushed his transparent cheeks. “Sipar would pay for my services, too. What do I care who wins? Do you think it makes a jot of difference to the poor whether it’s the Queen or the Siparese Emperor whose arse sits on the throne?”

  Her fingers turned cold. “If you really believe that, then you’re a fool. Listen to me: Sipar doesn’t want to take over Donlon. Sipar intends to destroy us. The only reason Donlon exists is our mastery of the Grand Current and the advantage in trade it gives us. Without that, Donlon will die. Sipar would have no reason to support a city so far away, and we don’t produce enough food to supply our population. The rich have gardens, but what do the poor have?”

  “Scraps,” he said harshly. “That’s all the poor ever have.”

  Audrey ignored the twinge of guilt she felt, reiterating her point. “If Donlon is conquered, the rich will buy new homes and fly away. The poor will stay and starve. That’s the ugly truth.”

  “You may be right,” he said after a long silence, “but it doesn’t make me eager to help the nobility. I’ll return you to your father, but that’s it.”

  Audrey rattled her handcuffed wrist. “If I could trouble you for the keys?”

  Instead of hunting through Billy’s pockets, Piers jimmied the lock open in under a minute. She rubbed her wrist, reluctantly impressed. She supposed thieves practiced that sort of thing.

  “Come on.” He stepped over Billy and led the way into the shop. Audrey followed more slowly, less familiar with the dirigible’s layout. By the time she reached the doorway, he stood casually on the bottom step, hanging out over thin air.