The Star Thief

by Lindsey Becker

“We have to tell the others he’s close by,” Honorine said, pointing back up toward the Carina. It was no more than another point of light in the starry sky. Though she wanted nothing more than to fly on and find Francis and her father, instead, she and Corvus soared back into the Ether.

  Honorine clung on like a burr as Corvus set down at the edge of the redwood forest, where the Mapmaker, Lord Vidalia, and the rest of the Mordant crew had gathered at the base of the mainmast tree.

  “Nautilus!” Honorine blurted out as she slipped less than gracefully from Corvus’s back onto the mossy deck. She took a moment to draw in a breath, her heart pounding with the excitement of the flight and from nervousness at having seen the Gaslight so close by. “He’s right down there, right this moment!”

  “Did you see an airship?” the Mapmaker asked at once.

  Honorine shook her head. “No, just the Gaslight,” she said. “And I thought the Nighthawk sank.”

  “That was his flagship,” the Mapmaker continued. “But he has others. No doubt they are already deployed, seeing how close we are to a possible destination. He’s been making his way across the Atlantic, but recently his ship has changed course. The only logical destination is South America.”

  “And who do we think is still there?” asked Lux.

  “There are two who I think we can reasonably say are still there, and still free,” said Astraea. “Libra and Eridanus.”

  Scorpio shifted about on his eight scuttling legs. Lux nodded. Sirona crossed her arms.

  “He’s going there for both of them, we assume,” said the Mapmaker. “And here’s the sticky bit. Libra is most likely in the Andes, on the far western coast. Eridanus is on the other side of the continent, in the Amazon River Delta.”

  “Which one is he going after first?” Lux asked.

  “Well, if he’s in the southern Atlantic,” Honorine piped up, “then the Amazon is closer.”

  “And how would you know that?” the Mapmaker asked.

  “He had an absolutely gigantic map of the whole world on his library wall,” she said, gesturing at Lord Vidalia sitting on a stump across the grove. “I had to dust it for years. The Amazon River runs across the continent, but the delta bit is on the eastern coast. So that would be the first place Nautilus will reach when he gets to South America. And if I were him, I’d go to the closest place first.”

  As soon as she said it, she felt her stomach churn nervously.

  If I were him.

  The Mapmaker rubbed his chin, the blue of his eyes dark and rolling, like deep ocean waves. Eventually, he shrugged and dropped his arms to his sides.

  “It makes sense, I have to say,” he said. “Though Libra is much less protected in the mountains than Eridanus is in the delta. Still, we’ll sail for the Amazon and make our way from there.”

  He nodded at Honorine, and she nodded back.

  “Fast as we can manage,” the Mapmaker instructed. The Mordant began to disperse back into the woods with the meeting at an end.

  “Honorine, please stay,” he politely requested, taking a seat on a mossy stump. Over his shoulder, Honorine spotted Lux’s pale white silhouette, watching for a moment before disappearing into the trees.

  “It’s machines with you, isn’t it?” he said aloud, though he seemed to be asking himself and not Honorine. “Or perhaps technology in general.”

  Honorine tucked her hands into the pockets of her tunic, her fingers folding over the mechanical bee.

  “It’s what I’m good at,” she said. “Always have been.”

  “Just like your father,” the Mapmaker said with an implied that’s what I was afraid of at the end. He leaned back, drawing a long breath before he spoke.

  “You saw what happened to Leo,” the Mapmaker said, “when he was captured by Nautilus’s great machine. And you’ve been on his airship. You’ve seen his creations. What did you think of them?”

  This was a dangerous question. Honorine thought of the Nighthawk with all of its gadgets and instruments.

  “I’m asking for your honest answer,” the Mapmaker pressed. “You liked what you saw? You found it interesting?” His eyes were nearly glowing with furious bright light.

  Honorine’s cheeks flushed. Her fingers tangled nervously on her lap.

  “There’s no need to be afraid,” he said, though his posture and his stare indicated that there was every reason. “I want you to be honest with me, Honorine. Tell me what you thought of Nautilus’s work.”

  “It is… fascinating,” she replied. “I’ve never seen anything like Nautilus’s machines. They are incredible.”

  The Mapmaker nodded.

  “That is no fault of your own. And there was a time when even I saw his work as no more dangerous or threatening than a steam engine or an electric lantern or a windup toy. But now… he has built something new. He has something on that ship that is not just a curiosity or an advance in technology. It is a weapon.”

  “He has cannons,” she said quietly. “And bullets made from the same stuff as Lady Vidalia’s omen stones.”

  “No, nothing like that,” the Mapmaker said. “Those novelties of his are an annoyance, but they cannot do any real damage to us. His new creation, though, is something entirely different. Lord Vidalia warned me that Nautilus had envisioned such a weapon. Something he could use not to track us down, but to capture and imprison us. I never thought it would be possible to build. But he did, and he has it on the Gaslight. Because ever since that ship began sailing, the Mordant have begun disappearing.”

  “Well, he’s not the only inventor in the world,” Honorine said. “If he can build a machine to fight you, perhaps we can build a machine to defeat him.”

  The Mapmaker sneered, though he tried to hold it back.

  “No,” he said forcefully. “No more machines. Not now, anyway. Use what you know to help us, Honorine. You’ve seen what he builds, and how they work. Now think of a way to stop him.”

  “Without using any new machines?” she asked.

  The Mapmaker drew a long breath and rose to his feet.

  “I would prefer that we just worry about the ones already out there for now.”

  Honorine sat on a white sand dune with the little copper bee lying quietly in her hand. She lifted it up to her eyes, waiting for it to twitch or glow, or make any sudden motion at all.

  “I don’t know what that is, but I suspect it has something to do with your remarkable discovery of Nautilus’s ship,” said a lupine voice.

  Startled, Honorine looked up and saw Lux walking slowly up the dune toward her. His white coat reflecting off the pale sand made him so bright she could hardly stand to look at him. She shaded her eyes as she held up the bee.

  “It came from his ship. They track down Mordant,” she said, “and report back to… a hive.”

  “And can you tell how long that one was on our ship, before you found it?”

  Honorine shook her head. “I don’t think it was long, but I don’t know for sure,” she said. “And I can’t tell if this is the only one.”

  “Well, Scorpio should be able to help with that,” Lux said. “And what are you going to do with the one we know about?”

  “I’d like to study it,” Honorine said, turning the bee over and examining its stone eyes. “But the Mapmaker does not seem to like that plan.”

  “He’s wary of anything with a hint of Nautilus’s hand in it,” Lux said, his ears splaying back in distaste. “And I can’t say I blame him. But I do think that continuing your studies could be helpful. Just… be discreet.”

  “You want me to lie to him?” Honorine asked. “That seems pretty dangerous, too.”

  “There is a difference between lying and simply not speaking about something.”

  “It doesn’t seem much different,” Honorine said. Lux tipped his head and squinted, then padded across the white sand and stopped very close to her. Even though he was kind and clever, and slept by her side while she was in her hammock, it was still intimidating to look
a wolf in the eye.

  “I shouldn’t tell you that there’s nothing wrong with lying. But I will tell you that I find no harm in lying to the Mapmaker in certain instances. Because I didn’t come along with him for his sake. I came to find you.”

  Honorine frowned. “You came where to find me?”

  “On the Carina,” he said. “Two years ago, when the Mordant first began disappearing. The Mapmaker began a mission to gather us all up, but most of the others didn’t want to come along. A few came out of loyalty to the Mapmaker, but as for myself and Astraea, we came because we had promised to keep you safe if you ever turned up again. And I knew as soon as Nautilus was back on the trail of the constellations that you were out there somewhere, and you needed someone to protect you.”

  Honorine looked down at the sand shyly. “I suppose there’s none better than a wolf,” she said, staring down at her feet, drawing little crescents in the dry sand with her toe.

  “And as it turned out, the Mapmaker was right,” Lux said. “Those who stayed out there were quickly captured.”

  “What do you think happened to them?” Honorine asked. “Are you sure they are still alive? Could Nautilus have… killed them?”

  Lux shook his head. “Even with all his tricks, Nautilus cannot kill a Mordant. There is only one thing that can. A Bellua.”

  He said the word with a growl that made Honorine’s skin prickle.

  “What is that?” she asked. “It’s not in any of Lord Vidalia’s books.”

  “He knows it is far too dangerous even to mention the Bellua.” Lux paused every time he said it, as if the word curdled in his mouth. “They are very ancient and very dangerous. In the way that the Mordant can inspire learning and art and culture, the Bellua inspire war and destruction. One of the duties we perform has been to keep watch over them so that they stay in a place where humans cannot travel to, where they will never be found.”

  “Like the Sea of Ether?” Honorine asked.

  Lux curled his lip as he considered.

  “No, nothing like this place. Where the Bellua reside is dark and deep, one of the oldest and most dangerous places in any world. People once called it Hades.”

  “The underworld,” Honorine said.

  “But not the land of the dead of the old myths. The true Hades is a place only the Mordant and the Bellua can go. There were once a handful of gateways between this world and that one. Over the millennia, we’ve managed to destroy most of them. But one still remains, and that one we guard.”

  “Then what happens if Nautilus captures all of you, and there’s no one left to guard the gateway?”

  “That… is exactly what we’re trying to avoid,” Lux said. “And there would be consequences far beyond the Mordant. Nautilus may have machines that can stop us, but I am certain he has nothing that would work against a Bellua.”

  Honorine felt something on the ship change, as if the Carina herself didn’t like the mention of the Bellua, either. First, the deck bobbed a bit, sending dry leaves scuttling and the lanterns overhead swaying. The Carina had never so much as quivered before. Then a wind rushed over the ship, not from the sides, but from below, rising up through the trees, as the Carina descended. Honorine’s stomach lurched as she rose to her feet, wobbling about as the deck trembled.

  “Ah, there you are!” called the Mapmaker, striding through the trees toward her. “Come this way! You’ll want to see this!”

  He waved for her to follow as he marched toward the front of the ship. The sinking slowed as Honorine picked her way through the pines and into the orchard. The Carina began to glide again in a more forward direction, and thunder began to rumble in the distance, growing louder as she approached the pointed prow of the ship. There stood a slender maple tree, its trunk twisted into a spiral from growing against the wind, its branches curved up around a large, single lantern.

  The Mapmaker and Lux stood under the tree, looking over a rising landscape of tumbling black clouds and flashing lightning. Far in the distance, a tiny sliver of a moon cut a shimmering gash in the night sky.

  “That’s quite a storm!” Honorine said, hanging on to the twisted maple tree with one hand while peering over the railing of the ship as far as she dared. A ghostly coastline stretched out before them, covered in mossy green. It was dark and silent up and down the coast, except for a wide bay straight ahead, where water from a rambling river poured out of the jungle and into the ocean. Huge, stony mountains rose up on all sides of the bay like a wall.

  The constant thunder intensified, rattling her bones.

  The sky above the treetops flashed with shots of white and blue light, over and over again, barely spaced enough to tell one flash from the next. The thunder and lightning never ended, but the air was dry and warm. No rain fell from the flashing, thundering clouds.

  “Does the lightning ever stop?” Honorine called.

  “No, not while Eridanus resides in the river,” said the Mapmaker.

  “So this is a good sign?”

  “Very good indeed,” the Mapmaker said as the Carina dropped again in altitude. “But we will still have to be swift. When the Carina touches down, we will be vulnerable to Nautilus’s attacks. We must find Eridanus, get her on the ship, and get back in the air as quickly as possible, which won’t be easy, as she might not want to come along.”

  “Why not?” Honorine asked. “Doesn’t she know what’s happening? What Nautilus is doing?”

  “I only know she is stubborn, and she’s never really seen eye to eye with me on many matters. This one being no exception. That’s why I’ll need you, Honorine, to help me.”

  Honorine looked up nervously. The Mapmaker’s eyes were pale and stormy, reflecting the flashing lightning.

  “This is your chance,” he said, “to prove that you are on our side in this fight.”

  Honorine nodded and wrapped her arms around the slender maple. She would do everything she could to rescue Eridanus before Nautilus could find her. She didn’t want the Mordant being imprisoned. But she still wasn’t sure, even as the Carina rushed toward the sea, that she truly was on the Mapmaker’s side. He had a temper. He could be cold, and vindictive. Lord Vidalia sailed with him, but only to keep the Mapmaker from harming Francis. Lux generally stayed out of sight when the Mapmaker was around and had told Honorine directly that he wasn’t there out of loyalty. Astraea spent much of her time challenging or outright arguing with the Mapmaker. And it was hard to tell with Sirona and Scorpio. She wondered if he had any true companions at all.

  “Brace yourself,” the Mapmaker warned as the keel of the ship brushed over the water. It was a jarring transition, slipping through the air to cutting through the waves. Salt water splashed up and over the deck as the ship settled firmly on the water, racing directly toward the bay and the sharp mountains and the storm, which was now above them in the sky.

  Honorine had never been terribly concerned about thunderstorms or lightning, but then, she had never seen a thousand bolts of lightning striking the earth every minute as she sailed directly into them.

  “How close are we going to get, exactly?” she asked, having to shout a little over the building roar of thunder.

  “Pretty close,” Lux said as the ship cruised directly toward a curtain of endless lightning shooting straight into the water, churning the muddy waters of the river and the blue water of the ocean bay into a wild froth.

  Honorine clung harder to the tree. Lux sat down beside her.

  “Don’t close your eyes,” he said. “You won’t want to miss this.”

  When the ship grew close enough, the endless lightning began to spread out over the sky, grasping the tips of the branches as if it could feel. The curtain of lightning then began to part, surging up and down all around them, arching over the ship to allow it safe passage through.

  Honorine let go of the tree. Her hair flew out around her, the electricity in the air making everything feel fragile and brittle. The hem of her silk tunic fluttered in the delicate wind
generated by the flashing lightning.

  In a moment, they were through. The curtain closed behind them, cutting off the view of the river and the forest and the towering mountains.

  Behind the wall of electric bolts, the water was a calm and flat pool, and the light inside was strangely steady and pale, the thunder outside muffled. Honorine could still feel the low timbre rattling in her ribs, but she could also hear the water flowing around them and the Mapmaker speaking to Lord Vidalia somewhere at the port-side railing.

  At the center of the pool stood a mound of huge, rounded granite boulders flecked with clear crystal and carpeted with cascading moss that was in turn speckled with tiny white star-shaped flowers. Among the stones grew a small cluster of hemlock trees with great, drooping branches, laden with brilliant green needles, each one tipped with a point of faint silver-white light. From the center of the mound of stones bubbled a spring of clear water that trickled down through the moss into the pool within the lightning.

  The Carina came to a gentle rest at the edge of the stones.

  “Be quick,” said the Mapmaker as Lux jumped up onto the railing of the ship, balancing on his white paws. “We don’t know how close Nautilus may be.”

  Lux looked back toward Honorine. “Perhaps she should come with me,” he suggested.

  The Mapmaker furrowed his brow.

  “Eridanus will not want to leave,” Lux added. “But when she sees the girl is with us, she may be more agreeable.”

  Astraea ruffled her feathers. “You’re sure?” she asked.

  “I want to help,” Honorine said. “Isn’t this an opportunity to earn my place on your ship?”

  Then she gave the Mapmaker a beaming smile. He looked back at her quizzically, then gave a short, amused laugh.

  “Right this way,” Lux said as he bounded from the ship to a round boulder over Honorine’s head.

  The Mapmaker helped her up onto the railing near the closest mossy rock, and she hopped across, putting her feet down on solid ground for the first time in weeks.

  The stones were large and quite rounded, and also very wet from the trickling water. Honorine managed to struggle gracelessly upward, crushing the delicate flowers and scraping swaths of moss from the granite stones. When she arrived at the summit, her hands were covered in grass stains, and bits of moss and hemlock needles were mashed into the knees of her leggings. At the top of the pile, she found Lux waiting next to a basin of dark stones and a pool of perfectly clear water filled with bright white water lilies.