Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

  “Grandson. You have done well.”

  “May I ask a boon?”

  Did Dorotea imagine it, or did the Goddess hesitate?

  “You may ask.” Her voice was grudging.

  “Not all of the humans are guilty. Give them a chance to repent. The gargoyles will tend the Cave Lords and keep the humans from putting you to sleep again.”

  The cavern trembled. “I do not trust the humans. But I owe you much for the lives of my children. I will grant your boon, but tell the humans my tolerance for them is thin.”

  Dorotea took her first deep breath in what felt like hours.

  Jasper twined his fingers with hers. “I will. Thank you for your mercy, Grandmother.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Qeturah—

  In Which Leah Goes to Jail

  Air World

  Dissonance chimed in Leah’s ears.

  She kept Qeturah pinned, face down, to the floor, but the woman didn’t even struggle. Because her plan was already coming to fruition.

  “This world is dying,” Qeturah said softly. “I have a mirror prepared to escape it. I’m willing to bring you with me.”

  Leah yanked her hair. “No. It will be worth dying myself to take you with me.”

  Not that she was willing to concede Air and Stone lost just yet.

  Two crewmen with blunderbusses barreled into the room. The promised reinforcements had finally arrived.

  Leah climbed to her feet. “Take this woman prisoner. She’s responsible for the chiming noises and the mirror people who’ve crossed into our world.”

  “Mirror people? Is that what they are?” the youngest crewman, whose skull had been shaved almost bald, asked. He trained his gun on Qeturah.

  The second crewman, an older and heavier man, gestured at Billy and the Stone family. “What about them? Are they prisoners, too?”

  The ship bucked and bobbed under their feet. The crewmen braced themselves and rode it out. Everyone else stumbled or clutched at the walls. The baby wailed.

  Leah focused on the Stone woman, Janet. “This world is no safer than the one you left. Will you return willingly?”

  “Yes,” Billy’s tattooed otherself said. He’d fallen against a porthole, and his skin had turned gray at the sight of the ground so far below.

  Janet hesitated.

  “No! You can’t leave!” Billy threw himself to his knees and clutched her skirts like one of the children.

  That did the trick. “Yes,” she said faintly. “Let’s go back.”

  Leah pointed to Billy. “He’s not a mirror self. Take him into custody, too.”

  A few nudges with the blunderbuss backed Billy up.

  The second crewman looked at her curiously. “Can you really get rid of them?”

  “Yes,” Leah said with more confidence than she felt. There was no gold here, but the Device was made of a shiny metal that was mined beneath the surface of the earth. It ought to work. She pointed to a tall tank of burnished bronze. “Cross over the same way you did before,” she said encouragingly.

  Billy’s otherself deliberately stubbed his toe and smeared some tears on the metal.

  “Hold tight to your family!” Leah called out as the ship lurched again. Billy’s otherself fell into the mirror, one arm and leg disappearing.

  Janet cried out and grabbed his remaining arm while clutching the baby with the others. “Children, hold onto me!”

  Then the whole family vanished.

  The younger crewman swore in astonishment. Billy cried out in despair.

  Qeturah sneered. “A minor victory. Most of the refugees won’t be so willing to leave.”

  She was right. Leah didn’t have the strength or authority to do what needed to be done. She needed her father for that. She needed Duke Ruben.

  No, not the Duke. Audrey’s father was Admiral Harding.

  Leah hated Duke Ruben with every fiber of her being. He had crippled her mother, threatened to blind Leah, and killed Gideon. He had never been a father to her, using her illegitimacy as an excuse to ignore her. She was not sorry he was dead.

  Holly’s father had been a selfish man, but he had seemed to love her water otherself. Leah knew little of Audrey’s father, but she suspected Admiral Harding was closer to the Duke Ruben mold than Joseph Beecher, Hollywood director.

  Did he love Audrey? More importantly, would he listen to Leah if he thought she was Audrey? Or would he dismiss her words as nonsense?

  “Take us to Admiral Harding,” Leah said to the crewmen.

  The crewmen exchanged nervous looks. “Now’s not a good time. The Admiral has his hands full just keeping us in the air. He’ll have our heads if we interrupt him for no good reason,” the younger man said nervously.

  “Later might be too late,” Leah said tightly. “That chiming sound is dissonance, and it can shake this entire world apart.”

  The older man sighed. “We’ll take you to the bridge, but the decision will be the Admiral’s.”

  The younger crewman escorted Billy straight to the brig, but Leah insisted that Qeturah come with them. She didn’t trust the other woman out of her sight. For her part, Qeturah behaved as if her arrest was a mere inconvenience.

  The ship continued to lurch and tilt and plunge downward. It never actually crashed, but Leah’s stomach objected strenuously.

  Once they reached the bridge and knocked on the door, an officer with a shiny braid on his green uniform stepped outside to deal with them. He glanced at Leah, then spoke to the older crewman. “More mirror people? The Admiral wants them confined to quarters.”

  The older crewman shook his head. “Not exactly. This one is the sorceress who caused the mirror people to come through, and this one is Admiral Harding’s daughter. She knows how to send the mirror people back.”

  “Oh, does she?” The officer’s interest was engaged. “The Admiral just tasked me with that very thing. He said to throw them overboard if necessary. Their weight is making the ship almost too heavy to fly.”

  Killing them would solve the problem, and it was just the kind of drastic solution Duke Ruben would have favored. Leah thought rapidly. Until Audrey’s father was willing to see them, she might as well make herself useful. “I’ll show you a better way,” she offered.

  It would help her case to have more witnesses.

  In total, she and the officer sent a dozen Stone refugees back to their world. All but two went willingly, terrified the airship was going to crash.

  Finally, the howl of the wind shifted into something less angry, and the turbulence calmed to nothing. The officer escorted her back to the others and onto the bridge.

  It wasn’t until an indescribable expression came over Admiral Harding’s face that Leah remembered her hair was currently a foot longer than his daughter’s. “You’re not Audrey,” he said.

  Her chin lifted. She would not show weakness. “No. I’m Leah, her otherself from Fire World. This is Qeturah, a sorceress and a murderer. She’s responsible for the people crossing through the mirror onto your world.” Leah launched into a quick explanation of the Mirror Worlds and dissonance, finishing with, “The refugees must be sent back as soon as possible, before both worlds shatter. I’ve sent back all the ones on board, but you must notify the other ships.”

  “Lieutenant Morris?”

  “She sent them back, sir,” the officer said promptly. “I don’t know about the rest of it.” He hesitated. “It did seem as if the chiming lessened a bit when she did.”

  “Describe the process to Zephyr and tell her to pass it on to her sister winds and all the long-winded they can find,” the Admiral said decisively.

  Qeturah laughed, the rich amusement drawing everyone’s eyes. “You’re very trusting,” she told the Admiral. “Why do you believe her? Because she looks like your daughter? Ask yourself how she came to replace her. I got here by killing my otherself. How do you know she hasn’t done the same?”

  Leah inhaled. “Because I’m not a murdering lunatic!
Audrey asked me here to help.”

  The Admiral didn’t even glance at her, eyes locked on Qeturah. “Don’t try to manipulate me. Morris, put her in the brig.”

  Qeturah didn’t resist as Morris pulled her away. “No jail can hold my magic,” she boasted.

  The Admiral looked at Leah. “Is that true?”

  Leah nodded uneasily. “To some degree. She has friends who can help her escape through any reflection of herself, including a puddle of water.” Or urine, the thought occurred to her.

  The Admiral raised his voice. “Morris!”

  “Admiral, sir?”

  “Before you lock her up, blind her.”

  A moment of shocked silence, then Morris said, “Aye, sir.” Qeturah shrieked with rage, but Morris contained her easily.

  The Admiral didn’t turn a hair.

  Oh yes, this man was indeed Duke Ruben’s otherself. Leah swallowed back bile and reminded herself that Qeturah deserved it. Moreover, Qeturah could not be allowed to escape and do her harm again.

  He turned to Leah. “Don’t think I trust you, either. Lieutenant, lock her up with the other one. If she resists, blind her, too.”

  They were locked behind bars when the ship crashed.

  …

  Audrey heard her father bellowing orders and shouting Mistral’s name. The gondola shuddered like a drunk before leveling out as Mistral lifted them again.

  A rickety tenement roof in Tier Four or Five loomed out of the mist. Audrey saw her chance and dropped Grady onto it. He screamed, eyes large with betrayal, but a second later, he hit the roof with an oof. He didn’t break through the shingles. He was safe.

  Audrey struggled to untangle herself but didn’t make it. The rope ladder swung her hard into the building’s wall and then kept spinning so that she hung over the abyss. Poisonous fog wet her face, and she held her breath and closed her eyes against the sting. She tried to curl her body upwards, but her strength was gone.

  “Zephyr!” she Called. Her lungs promptly spasmed in a fit of coughing that weakened her still further and nearly dislodged her grip. And what did she expect the little wind to do anyway?

  At least I saved Grady.

  Spinning through the mist…

  Regrets flooded her mind. Most of them not for what she’d done, but for what she’d never do if she choked to death in the poisonous fog or fell down the mountain. She’d never be the first woman to command her own airship. She’d never kiss Piers again, or scandalize her mother by associating with him. Never experience the thrill of flying over the city, held safe in his arms.

  Vibrations shivered down her arms as the gondola crashed to the ground. She looked up and saw the front of the gondola had lodged itself neatly between two houses on Tier Six. The back quarter dangled over a sheer cliff, a rocky face that her ladder now whipped toward. She braced for impact—

  Invisible arms closed around her and plucked her free of the ladder.

  “Piers!” She made the mistake of breathing fog again and coughed helplessly until he swept them out of the mist into clean, cool air.

  “Audrey, Audrey, are you well?” Warm lips pressed a kiss to her forehead. “When Zephyr told me where you were, I was terrified I wouldn’t get to you in time. I never flew so fast in my life. What were you doing down there anyhow?”

  “I had to,” Audrey said defensively. “Grady was in danger.” She explained about the burning sail strut and how the only way to get to him was from below. She had to drag up every word; she was cold and bone-weary, and the chiming made her brain feel thick. Then she waited, resigned, for the yelling to start. For him to tell her she’d been foolish to risk her life. That she was only a girl.

  Piers laughed. “What an incredibly brave thing to do. You’re a holy terror. Next time you decide to do something crazy, call me so I can come with you.” But his tone held admiration, and he kissed her again, this time on the lips.

  His touch warmed her inside and out. Not just the very enjoyable kiss, but the fact that he treated her like an equal. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then drew back at the sound of a zipship whirring by above them. “The battle!”

  His mouth turned grim. “I’m afraid we lost. Your father’s ship was the last to fall.”

  “Then it’s time.”

  “Yes.” Piers breathed out onto the wind and Called: “Father!”

  The Grand Current responded at once, his voice echoing in Audrey’s ears. Or maybe that was the dissonance. “Yes, my son?”

  Piers drew in a shuddering breath. “Knock the zipships out of the sky. Let none of them return to their homeland.”

  “With pleasure. Their false wind machines annoy me.”

  The sky darkened. A sudden change in air pressure made her ears pop, and then the zipships dropped from the sky like stones.

  Propellers sputtered as they plunged down. Past Donlon’s spires, past the tiers, down toward the poisonous marsh gas.

  Audrey’s stomach dropped with them. She was responsible for those deaths.

  A few zipships that had been flying outside the Grand Current tried to escape. Ghostly streamers of wind stretched out. They looked deceptively gentle, but wherever they touched, the ships spun like toys flicked by a finger. The zipships were sent spinning down, some into the abyss, but some crashed into Donlon itself, damaging buildings and streets. Audrey winced.

  It was done. Both Fleets were no more.

  “Do you want me to take you home?”

  “No. Take me to my father.” They needed to report what had happened, and there was the matter of Leah and Qeturah.

  A crew of sailors from the zeppelin were lashing down the gondola to its improvised docking, throwing ropes around chimneys and rickety fences alike. The 500-foot-long balloon envelope was still in the process of collapsing. Without Mistral working to push it into the right place, its weight would have dragged the gondola off the ledge.

  As they approached the Queen Winifrid, a lookout began to signal wildly. Audrey sighed. “Might as well land right on the bridge deck,” she shouted to Piers over the wind. “I think they’ve spotted us.”

  Piers looked apprehensive but set her on her feet as gently as a thistledown. He took on solid form.

  Her father’s first lieutenant met them. “This way,” Lieutenant Morris said, visibly restraining his curiosity. “Admiral Harding is waiting for you.”

  Audrey held Piers’s hand, partly for support and partly to be sure he didn’t vanish on her.

  At their arrival, her father broke off his conversation with the ship’s carpenter. He scowled fiercely and immediately lit into Piers. “I’m surprised you dare show your face. I ordered you to turn the Mirror weapon on. I should court-martial you for not following orders.”

  Piers crossed his arms. “Since I never enlisted, I think you’ll find that a bit difficult.” Despite his words, his skin turned slightly translucent, as if he were preparing to fly the coop. Or pass out.

  Audrey wouldn’t have it. She stamped her foot, inadvertently setting off a burst of pain in her head. “That’s enough! Piers didn’t turn off the Mirror weapon, I did. I did it to save the world, and all the refugees from Stone World pulled the Fleet out of mirror formation anyway. At most, you’d have been able to shoot two more ships. The Grand Current just killed the entire Sipar Fleet—because his son asked him to. If I were you, I’d think very carefully before threatening Piers. He’s the only living phantom, and Donlon needs him—or did you miss the fact that the Siparese almost massacred us?”

  Both men stared at her. The crew busied themselves elsewhere. No one spoke to the Admiral that way, but everything she’d said was true, and her head hurt unbearably. Chimechimechime.

  “Her nose is bleeding,” Piers said sharply. He caught her as she slid unceremoniously to the ground. “What’s wrong with her?” He sounded adorably frantic.

  Her father swore. “Quick, fetch the other one. Leah.”

  “Where’s Leah?” Audrey asked thickly. Blood bubbled at her
nose.

  “I put her in the brig,” the Admiral said.

  He might have said more, but his words ceased making sense. Audrey slid into unconsciousness, her head one big, discordant scream.

  …

  Qeturah paced up and down their cell, raging. “How dare they?” Her empty eye sockets were bloody pits.

  Leah almost could’ve felt sorry for her—what the Admiral had ordered done to her was barbaric—but Qeturah kept banging on the bars. The sound pierced Leah’s head like daggers.

  “I’ll see this world shattered,” Qeturah continued.

  On second thought, she could never feel sorry for Qeturah. Not after what she’d done. Not after what she’d tried to do to her own son’s otherselves, to entire worlds of people.

  Leah hated her.

  It gave her grim satisfaction to see Qeturah trapped—or it would have if the echoes of dissonance caused by being on the wrong side of the mirror hadn’t driven Leah to her knees.

  The message Audrey’s father sent had had some ameliorating effect. The rate of the chiming had slowed down. She judged Air world to no longer be in danger of shaking apart. But she’d become more susceptible to the dissonance. It would kill her soon.

  There were no mirrors in the jail. No cup of water, and her bladder was still empty. She curled up in a ball, eyes closed.

  Qeturah brushed by her on her next circuit. She crouched down and roughly patted her face. Leah let her, head lolling. Every bone in her body reverberated, creating a dull nausea.

  “Well, well,” Qeturah murmured. “Dead or dying. At least I have the satisfaction of outliving you. Stupid, foolish girl.” She kicked Leah, but the blow glanced off her thigh. Leah played dead.

  “I would’ve taken you with me to the True World and made you my apprentice,” Qeturah went on. “We could’ve killed Ellona’s granddaughter and substituted you—you’d have been very valuable. You would have gotten over Gideon’s unfortunate death in time. He wasn’t really your soul mate; that’s just a True World trick to make you feel that way and keep the bloodlines intact.”

  Rage spiked through Leah. She gritted her teeth to keep from protesting. Gideon had been her soul mate. She’d loved him, and he’d loved her.