The Star Thief

by Lindsey Becker

  The air crackled, and the water rippled. Then, with a rush, the water began to rise over the boulders, fast and wild, splashing with silver light and sending a spray of droplets and sparks out over the pool. Through the spray rose a creature unlike anything Honorine had ever seen before.

  She resembled a horse, mostly, with long legs, an arched neck, a tail like an ox, and a wet, dappled gray coat that danced with light. Instead of hooves, she had three wide, webbed toes. Her face was long, with huge, dark eyes, no visible ears, and a tapered snout with nostrils on the top, like a crocodile’s. But her most surprising features were curving golden horns covered in blunt spines like coral, and a spiny fin, jet black and speckled with silver spots, running down her neck and along her spine all the way to the tip of her tail, which raised and lowered like the dorsal fin of a fish.

  She was one of the most beautiful creatures Honorine had ever seen. She seemed to be made of raw power, but also gentleness, as if she could be quiet as a summer morning or wicked as a thunderstorm, depending on her will. She was the living embodiment of water.

  “Eridanus,” Lux said with a bow of his head.

  The beautiful water horse nodded back.

  “Lux,” she replied before turning to Honorine. “And who might you be?”

  “Honorine,” she replied, remembering to give a little curtsy.

  “Nautilus Olyphant’s daughter,” Lux said very plainly. Honorine almost blushed. She had never really been formally introduced to anyone before, and never as anyone’s child. It still didn’t seem true, even though Eridanus nodded again in agreement.

  “And she came here with the Mapmaker,” Eridanus said, looking down the rolling mound of granite boulders toward the Carina, where the man stood with Sirona and Astraea.

  “Scorpio and Corvus are with us as well,” Lux said. “And we are nearly the only ones left.”

  “Left where?” Eridanus asked.

  “In the world,” Lux replied. “It seems that Nautilus has found a way to track us down and capture us.”

  She did not seem surprised. “That would be why it has been so quiet lately.”

  “And why you need to come with us now,” Lux said.

  Eridanus raised her head, the fin along her spine rising as well.

  “I don’t ever leave,” she replied. “This is my home. And I protect this place.”

  “But Nautilus is on his way,” Honorine said, then leaned closer and lowered her voice, as if it was dangerous to speak of such things out loud. “I’ve seen what he can do.”

  But Eridanus looked calm and unconcerned.

  “He can’t enter this grotto,” she said as lightning crashed all around them. “I’m perfectly protected here. There is only danger in stepping outside.”

  Lux pinned his ears back and looked up at the boiling clouds overhead. Honorine could feel his restlessness bubbling up again, making her anxious. They couldn’t waste time here, and they couldn’t leave without Eridanus.

  “It’s lovely that you’re protected here,” Honorine said, looking back at the elegant water horse. “But what about the others? Nautilus has them captive on a great steamship, and he’ll never let them go. We need help to set them free.”

  Something small and bright splashed into the pool behind Eridanus, sending a tiny ripple under the water lilies. Eridanus glanced back with a twitch of her head.

  “She’s right,” Lux said as yet another something fell from the sky, this time missing the pond and cracking on the rocks. “There are only two others left, besides those gathered here right now.”

  “Two?” Eridanus asked. Her head rose, but her fin folded tightly to her body. “You must be mistaken.”

  Lux shook his head. “At the very best, Libra and Sagittarius remain, but we might not even have them before the day is through.”

  “Even more reason to stay here,” Eridanus said. “Where we will be safe. All of us… and let the Mapmaker sort out this business with Nautilus once and for all.”

  “The Mapmaker said there was no such thing as safe,” Honorine replied. And then a third object fell from the sky, bouncing off the rocks at the rim of the pool and tumbling across the moss to rest right at Honorine’s feet.

  It was another of Francis’s bees.

  “And maybe he was right,” Honorine said as she picked up the little copper machine, hot from the lightning. Its tiny crystal wings fluttered, too cracked to fly.

  “That’s from his ship!” Lux growled as Eridanus stared down at the mechanical bee. “He knows you’re here.”

  “He’s always known that,” Eridanus replied.

  “He has other machines,” Honorine said urgently. “Ones he’s using to hunt down the Mordant, and he’s building new ones all the time. Maybe he has a way around your protections now.”

  “You made promises long ago,” Lux said. “Now it’s time to keep them.”

  Eridanus looked almost annoyed with him and then looked back at Honorine.

  “I did,” she said finally. “So I will go. But not to help the Mapmaker.”

  “Of course,” Lux said. “And you have me as your ally. I am not here for him, either. Now, there’s no more time to waste.”

  They started back toward the Carina. Though she was much more agile and better at climbing, Eridanus went slowly, patiently waiting for Honorine to keep up. That was, until a swarm of bees came falling through the dome of thunderclouds overhead. They fell broken to the ground like hot copper buckshot. Honorine yelped angrily as one hit her shoulder, and covered her head as she and Eridanus rushed the final few feet to the Carina.

  Eridanus bounded gracefully over the railing. Lux grabbed Honorine by the back of her tunic and lunged onto the ship, where she tumbled to the floor, landing in a puff of white sand and dry leaves.

  “Nautilus is here,” Lux said. “Just as Honorine predicted.”

  “We can see that,” Astraea said. “Hold on to something, and get ready to fly.”

  The Carina began to slowly ease back from the fountain of stones, turning about to sail the way they’d come in.

  “When we get into the open, we’re going to move quickly,” the Mapmaker warned. Honorine grabbed hold of the railing.

  The curtain of lightning began to part to let them out to sea. But instead of open ocean and a path back to the sky, they saw the shining black broadside of Nautilus’s steamship idling in the water—directly in their way.

  The Carina, already building up speed to take off on the open water, slammed to a halt, tossing Honorine to the sandy deck again. As she pulled herself back to her feet with the help of a handful of Lux’s fur, she caught sight of the Mapmaker, his hands held out to his sides, palms angled toward the sea. He gave a short, powerful wave of his arms, a gesture that looked like half a wingbeat, and the water rose up before them, reflecting the flashing lightning as it swelled, lifting the entire bulk of the massive steamship and pushing it far out to sea. Honorine watched the ship sway and tilt as it was carried away on the crest of a wave that towered like a mountain rising from the black water, until the curtain of lightning closed again, sealing the Carina on the other side.

  “Well, now we know Nautilus’s whereabouts,” Lux said as the Mapmaker turned back, his face dark in the shadows, but his eyes bright as two chips of ice shining in a northern sea.

  “We’re not going that way,” the Mapmaker said.

  “The river,” Eridanus said.

  “It’s the best course,” Astraea said as the Carina swung around, skirting the edge of the rock pile and sailing away from the ocean, toward land. The lightning parted, revealing a wide, snaking river of dark water, twisting away into a chasm between soaring mountains covered in dense jungle. Creatures moved up and down the riverbank, revealed only by rustling leaves and swinging vines. Things breached in the water, creating sprays of mist before disappearing back into the darkness. On a deep wash of pale sand, a band of black caimans rested, perfectly still, until they sensed the Carina nearby, then they bolted int
o the water.

  “Are they coming for us?” Honorine asked as she watched the reptiles slither through the brackish river, only eyes and snouts and the tip of a waving tail cutting above the water.

  “Don’t worry about the caimans and the crocodiles,” said Astraea, her wings rising over her shoulders. “Worry about that.”

  Around the bend, the broadside of an airship hovered just above the water, its name visible in looping gold script that reflected the light from the Carina’s lanterns. The Black Owl. They were staring down a deck lined with cannons, so close that the starglass ammunition was already glowing in the round mouths of the barrels.

  “Duck,” Astraea commanded as the cannons fired near-simultaneously, heaving a dozen shots toward the Carina. They ripped through leaves and branches, knocking down one knotted old apple tree and blowing a hole in the railings at the front of the ship.

  “Eridanus!” Astraea shouted as the Carina plunged into a wall of thick yellow-green smoke.

  She stepped into a little clearing among the trees, lowered her head, and raised her spiny fin. The air trembled and came crackling to life as a controlled thunderstorm began to form ahead of them, only as wide as the river.

  “Scorpio!” Astraea called next. Honorine barely dove out of the way in time as the huge arachnid charged out of the trees and crashed into the water before scuttling off into the jungle.

  “Will he be all right out there?” Honorine asked as he faded into a trail of bowing treetops.

  “He’ll be fine,” Lux said.

  Up ahead, the thunderstorm sent down a sheet of rain that cleared the green smoke, revealing the airship with cannons already reloaded.

  “Watch your heads!” Astraea shouted before the second volley of shots screamed past, taking out more branches and crashing through the deck. The Carina sailed through another wave of smoke as the airship attempted to turn away and lift higher over the river. But Eridanus sent her storm to hover above it, drenching it and forcing it lower, away from the blinding lightning.

  “If that strikes the balloon, it’ll explode,” Honorine warned.

  “Yes, we’ve seen that before,” said Lux as they chased the airship around a bend in the river, headed toward what looked like a huge white sail floating eerily in the distance. As they drew closer, Honorine realized that it was, in fact, a gigantic web being woven by thousands of huge spiders.

  “That is going to keep this ship busy while we make our exit,” Astraea said.

  As the airship hit the web and stuck fast, the Carina began to lift out of the water. The storm, full of momentum, rolled on, dissolving into a patter of rain.

  Honorine held her breath as the Carina soared up into the air, then shouted in delight as they cleared the top of the airship and sailed past it. Even Lux gave a short howl of approval as they continued to rise over the river.

  Just as they rose above the treetops, a last volley of cannon fire shot toward them, hitting the underside of the ship and blasting through the deck. One shot came up through the deck at a strange angle, taking out a railing, and Sirona along with it.

  The rest of the crew gasped as shards of broken cannonball turned her into a burst of green sparks. Honorine leaned over the side, watching them drift back down into the jungle.

  “It’s all right!” Astraea called. “We’ll pick her up when we come about!”

  The ship was starting to turn, to bank away from the river and head out over the jungle. They dipped low again to gather up Scorpio as he raced out of the trees and onto the riverbank, and then leaped aboard the ship.

  “Tell the Mapmaker to turn back to starboard!” Astraea said. “To recover Sirona.”

  Scorpio scuttled away immediately, back into the forest of the Carina, toward the helm of the ship.

  “Stay back from the rail!” Astraea instructed, though it looked more like a hole to Honorine. But the grapevines were already growing back, curling over themselves and twisting along the outer edge of the deck, which filled in with tree roots that rose up to meet the vines.

  The ship pitched suddenly as it banked hard toward the fading cloud of green sparks that had been Sirona just a moment before. Honorine slipped on the sandy deck, sliding right toward the hole in the railing, which finished closing just in time to keep her from tumbling over the side.

  “Keep an eye to starboard!” Astraea shouted.

  “There!” Honorine shouted back, pointing at a glowing green light shining through a fan of huge green leaves.

  Lux leaped over the side of the ship, landed with a spray of sparks, and took off at a gallop, turning into a bluish-white streak crashing through the trees.

  “Wait!” Honorine said as she flung one leg over the rail, her heart thumping. It was too dangerous for him to go, too! He could be captured by Nautilus any time he was off the Carina.

  “Honorine, don’t you move!” Astraea shouted, which wouldn’t have stopped her. What did was a blinding flash of golden light, followed by a burst of huge green sparks that blossomed out of the jungle like a firework. It looked almost exactly like when Leo had been captured.

  “Sirona!” she shouted into the jungle. And then, “Lux!”

  For a moment, there was only silence. Then, from under the trees, Lux came bounding back, ears flattened to his head.

  “Up!” he shouted. “Take us up!”

  He made a mighty leap and landed on the deck, skidding to a halt and leaving long burn marks on the wood. The Carina’s nose swung up sharply, just in time for a perfect view of a charred patch of ground a few feet from the riverbank, where Sirona had been standing just a moment before.

  “He has her,” Lux said. “Nothing we can do now. We have to get away.”

  While Eridanus called up another storm to shield them as they launched into the sky, the Carina and its passengers left the jungle behind.

  The Mapmaker was right. Nowhere was safe. And now Honorine was aware of it with every breath and every thump of her heart. Even tucked away aboard the Carina, thousands of feet above the earth, curled in a plump armchair in Lord Vidalia’s study, she still felt as if she were down on the banks of the river, searching for Sirona, always too far behind to save her.

  The crew had scattered the moment they were out of Nautilus’s reach in the Sea of Ether. There was little to say as they focused on sailing for Libra before it was too late.

  Honorine spent nearly all her time in Lord Vidalia’s study. She hadn’t seen the Mapmaker since they left the Amazon, and she was growing ever more anxious about the next, inevitable encounter with Nautilus. Lux and Lord Vidalia assured her that there was little she could have done to prevent losing Sirona. But Honorine felt there must have been some way she could have helped. And the next time, she was going to be ready. She wasn’t going to watch anyone else be stolen away.

  They needed her. And she needed them. What would happen if one of Nautilus’s cannonballs or Francis’s stone bullets hit her instead of a full Mordant? She wouldn’t just burst into sparks like Leo or Sirona. She couldn’t be sure she would survive the way they could.

  How could she stop Nautilus? Did she even have any ideas on how to begin?

  In any tally she took, the answers were no. At least, not while she was on the Carina. She couldn’t stop Nautilus from using a machine she had never even seen before. The longer she sailed with the Mordant, the more she began to think—though she would never tell the Mapmaker, or Astraea, or even Lux—that the only way for her to be useful was if she was on the Gaslight. Time, measured or not, was running out, and it wasn’t just Honorine’s own life on the line. It was Francis’s, if the Mapmaker decided not to protect him any longer. It was the rest of the Gaslight’s crew, if Nautilus couldn’t be stopped. It was any chance to one day be reunited with her mother, or even know her name. And if there were murderous beasts lurking behind a fragile gateway that only the Mordant could guard, it was the lives of everyone on Earth.

  When they landed to look for Libra, Honorine wanted to be
ready. She wanted to take action and be useful. And the only way she knew how was to start building something. The Mapmaker might not like the idea of more machines, she thought, but he could hardly object to anything she made that could prevent Nautilus from capturing another Mordant. The first step was to take apart one of Francis’s bees and figure out exactly how they worked.

  She was deep into the project, surrounded by a table of dissected copper insect carapaces, when she heard a familiar but unexpected fluttering from across the room.

  “Ah, there you are. Hard at work.”

  Honorine looked up, past Lord Vidalia asleep in his armchair, to see Astraea at the bottom of the steps, staring uncomfortably into the room.

  “Astraea,” Honorine said, setting down a disarticulated bee wing. “I’ve never seen you down here before.”

  “This place reminds me of being underground,” Astraea replied. “I don’t like being underground.”

  She stepped cautiously up to the table, examining the bits of wings and legs and striped copper abdomens arranged in neat little rows.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, holding her wings stiffly and her hands tight to her chest as she leaned in as close as she dared.

  “I’m trying to find a way to help,” Honorine said. “We’ll reach Libra soon, and if Nautilus is there—again—I want to be able to do something this time.”

  Astraea raised an eyebrow. “And this is going to help?”

  Honorine sighed and let her hands drop to her sides. The bees were surprisingly complicated in their construction, and she did not have the energy or the inclination to try to explain any of it, especially to Astraea, who not only had no interest in machines, but she also seemed to distrust them quite thoroughly.