She dropped to her knees with a grunt. What was that song Rowen and she heard in the Below when they sneaked away together—one Rowen made her swear never to mention or repeat? A pretty tune … something about courage being the key to freeing yourself.
She rolled the words around in her head, seeking the tune that bound them together.
No storm that ever strikes
Shall leave me helpless and afraid
And if darkness lingers heavy
I’ll be fearless and brave
But if ever I am wary
If ever I am scared
I will listen to the wind
For the answer’s always there.
Philadelphia
Lady Astraea closed the door to her bedchamber and slipped the stone out of her gown’s neckline.
She remembered little from the night of Jordan’s birthday party. She recalled the party itself, the accusations, the smashing of her silhouette, the long walk to her quarters, and she remembered knitting something she could no longer find. But the hours after that? It seemed time had been stolen away from her that night—as surely as Jordan had been stolen by the Wraiths and the Wardens.
She had woken to find herself in bed, stiff and cold, in the darkest part of night. Her head throbbing, she had nearly fallen off the mattress in the effort of rising. Behind her eyes strange images had floated and merged: a man wearing an odd mask, her servant John, knitting needles so sharp …
And storms—huge sweeping storms that welled up from inside her and leaped into the sky.
She had clutched her bedcovers to stop from falling to the floor, but they only slowed her descent. She found herself on her rump at her bedside, staring at the closest stormlight lantern.
A stormlight lantern that still glowed.
The tiny crystal exuded a blue and steady light, a sweet and strong glow, and she had let go of the tangle of bedding and reached for it with trembling and hungry hands. Clumsy trembling hands … She had knocked aside the lantern’s globe, shattering it on the bedside table, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was that glowing blue crystal.
She pried it loose from the lantern, pressing it so tight in her hand it left an imprint when she uncurled her fingers.
But it felt good against her flesh, warming her. The cold of the storms growing inside her stilled at its touch and she felt peace instead. So she slipped it into the top of her gown, nestling it not far from her heart. With the utmost care she got rid of the broken bits of the globe’s glass and hid the body of the defunct lantern under her bed.
She lay back down then and slept—her dreams warring with one another. But since that night the blue stormcell had not been far from her touch.
Aboard the Artemesia
Curiosity brought the Artemesia’s captain to the darkest region of the ship, the workers’ quarters, and the place the new Witch was held. He intended to walk past her room on his way to inspect the sailors’ quarters but the ship swayed under his feet, pitching him against the wall by her door. The ship rumbled around him, and he braced himself, his hands high and flanking the small window in her door.
As he looked down the hallway, his mind raced. Surely the Conductor was not dying at this very moment, the ship readying to plunge them all to their deaths …
He could risk a rough ride up the elevator behind him to see for himself or—his gaze snagged on the ship’s intercom system. He could call the sniper and have him investigate.
A flash of movement in the Witch’s room caught his eye and he froze, mind spinning as he understood why his ship was rolling and heaving in controlled airspace.
The Witch—Jordan Astraea—tore through her room, hurling things, stomping, arms flailing in rage. Her hair had come loose and her chest heaved with effort. He drew his gaze away from her to stare outside her cabin’s window. The clouds had grown inky, the only light the shimmer of lightning as it raced through them, sparkling against the darkest black he’d seen in years.
She dropped to her knees, wrapping her arms tight around herself, and knelt in the middle of her room, rocking.
He pressed his face to the glass and shifted so it was his ear pressed flush to its cool surface.
She sang a snatch of a soft chorus, a thing he’d heard another Weather Witch sing once.
When there is no one there to guide you
And no one there to help
Your courage is the key
To freeing yourself.
The clouds changed from a soul-eating black to navy blue and then royal, the color softening and brightening. Pelting rain slowed to intermittent spatters on her window. The lightning slowed, the frequent booms of wild thunder coming with less intensity, softening as his Conductor regained control. One last bolt of lightning thrust a finger of searing white across the sky and fizzled, smacking against the far side of her window.
There were few things Captain Kerdin knew at that moment. First? That the most powerful Witch he’d yet seen was aboard the Artemesia. Second? She was beautiful.
And most importantly—third: she was his to do with as he pleased.
Chapter Five
The final end of Government is not to exert restraint but to do good.
—RUFUS CHOATE
Philadelphia
The lighting in the Council’s private chambers was some of the finest on the East Coast. There was no flicker or flare except during the brief period of the Hub’s re-energizing Pulse, and the light remained ambient and perfect for both reading and writing.
Still, as warm as the glow was, it did nothing to alleviate the shiver crawling along the heavyset man’s spine. George scratched his chin and shifted his weight, leaning on the cane he carried and listening as Councilman Loftkin reminded him of his mission.
“Wherever you hear rumblings of the existence of steam contraptions, whenever you catch sight or scent of it … If you hear of people buying large amounts of coal—uncharacteristic quantities … Or copper piping or…”
“If the people want to do it enough, you will not stop them,” George pointed out.
Loftkin rounded on him. “The poor, the uneducated, they can do nothing without someone feeding them ideas. So we destroy the idea at both top and root. Everywhere we hear people mention the possibility of steam power we must remember that by destroying such fancies we insure the future of an empowered ranking system. You do your duty diligently and with a clear vision of our purpose. Never forget that what you do now determines the future.”
“And my family?” George looked down, his fingers flexing around the cane.
“You will be provided for so long as you do your duty diligently and I remain in power.”
“And…” George cleared his throat. “My son…”
“Ah, yes. An interesting predicament you find yourself in—supporting the Council so loyally and yet with a child exhibiting magicking ability. And he is so very close to sixteen.”
George switched the brass-handled cane from one hand to the other, reassured by the weight of it. His eyes flicked around the room, marking each exit. And the lack of guards of any sort—human or automaton. He licked his lips and narrowed his eyes.
Loftkin watched him consider the softly spoken words. “Considering the good you do on the Council’s behalf, certain things can be—overlooked with a certain amount of prejudice. Even forgotten.”
George heaved out a sigh. “That is reassuring. My boy … He is all I have now his mother is gone.”
“Yes, pity that,” Loftkin said with a shrug. “And she was the one who passed witchery to your son?”
“Most certainly so. But—” He looked away, his knuckles tightening around the cane’s head.
“But?”
“Nothing,” George said, his gaze stuck to the floor between them.
“Mmhmm. I have found that lodged within the heart of nothing frequently resides a most important something. A something of substantial proportions. Sometimes incendiary ideas are couched in very small words.”
Loftkin stepped forward, examining the other man, his face lifting and lowering as if he sniffed the air around the man, scenting for lies.
George laughed, the sound sharp and unnatural. “There is nothing of import within my nothing, merely the passing thought that my son’s mother was a good woman. Certainly nothing incendiary.”
“She was a Witch. And a good woman,” Loftkin said, his eyes as thin as his lips. “One might think you approved of her being what she was.”
“Approved of her being a Witch? Certainly not.” He swallowed so hard the sliding of his Adam’s apple nearly choked him. He took a step back from Loftkin and when he adjusted the cane in his hands it was to grip it in both, between himself and the man who suddenly seemed his adversary.
“Hmm. I see.”
“But as a wife, she was a fine woman. Witchery was her ruin. As it was meant to be.” George lowered his head.
“Well.” Loftkin turned away with a sweep of his coat. “So long as it does not become the downfall of your son. Do right by me, George, and I will do right by you and yours.”
“Yes, Councilman Loftkin. Of course I shall.”
Aboard the Artemesia
Back in Marion Kruse’s cabin, four people sat, at once all together and miles apart. Bran kept his bags close at hand and Meggie sought solace burying her face in her stuffed oddity, Somebunny.
Marion pulled the blanket and finely stitched quilt off his bed, throwing them on the floor in front of the door and settling onto them. “That was quite interesting,” he said of their recent dining experience.
Over the Artemesia’s intercom came the voice of the ship’s announcer. The only news the airborne liner received readily came through his accounting of the day’s events worldwide.
Marion leaned back, resting his head on the door’s lower panel and listening as the announcer reported brief bits of what was deemed worthy. The war in Europe dragged on, magick devastating both wealthy families and the poor; another explosion of an experimental and illegal steam engine had blown apart a building in Philadelphia’s Below—and were they all not fortunate the government actively sought to destroy such devices? In Washington, where Watchmen were less plentiful, a fire had started due to a steam mishap. And lastly, the Merrow had slunk out of the briny deep and slaughtered the worker of Boston’s lighthouse, spreading what they didn’t eat of him around the building’s base as a bloody warning.
Meggie sank into Maude’s lap, her eyes wide. “I remember the lighthouse’s keeper,” she whispered.
Maude looked to Bran, a strange expression passing between them.
“He came inland once,” Meggie announced. “I met him at the Boston Museum with my papá. He wanted to see the Feejee Mermaid and so did I.”
“No, love, that’s not possible,” Maude began, but Marion leaned forward, bracing his hands on the floor.
“And did you?” Marion asked, staring at the child fallen so deep into memory that her eyes had gone glassy. “Did you see the Feejee Mermaid?”
“Yes,” Meggie insisted. “I saw her…”
Both Maude’s and Bran’s mouths dropped open but Marion ignored them and Meggie continued, her voice soft and halting.
“She was no mermaid, no—not like the beauty Hans Christian Andersen wrote of—she was dreadful, so stiff and scared and small. Like a baby…” Meggie shivered. “I remember.”
Bran reached out and, grabbing her shoulders, shook her. “Impossible. You cannot remember something that never happened. Your mother was never in Boston and neither were you.”
The bag holding Sybil’s skull clattered at Bran’s side and he grabbed it.
Maude took another tack, her voice shaking as she assured Meggie, “The Wandering Wallace will sing soon, pet, and I shall tell you a story, and then? Off to bed.”
“But, Papá … I remember…” Meggie insisted. “The museum’s tall columns, the sound of glass bells, the mermaid’s huge and horrible head. Her teeth. The fear on her face…”
“Hush now, hush,” Bran said, releasing the bag to put a hand on his daughter. Meggie had never been to Boston. But Sybil …
Marion sat back against the door, watching.
Bran shifted to block the other man’s view. “You are only imagining those things, not remembering,” he said.
Marion rose and stretched his arms wide. “Why say that?” he asked, rolling his head on his long neck, his dark hair falling across his eyes.
“The child’s never been to Boston,” Maude said. But she snapped her mouth shut.
Marion’s dark eyes narrowed.
Maude stumbled over the next words. “She has suffered fright after fright and has surely heard some person’s grim accounting and repeats it now. Dear fawn might shatter if you continue to feed her fancies and take so little care of her.”
The rain outside drummed harder on the airship’s windows.
“She is simply imagining a different place—a distant place, an escape,” Bran said, eyes locking with Maude’s.
“Well, if that is imagining Boston’s museum then she has the most amazing imagination of anyone,” Marion retorted, “because she describes it exactly as it, in fact, is.”
Meggie’s eyes widened. “Why do I remember if I was never there?”
“Yes, tell us, Maker,” Marion said. “Tell it true.”
“You overheard…”
“No,” Meggie insisted, “Papá, I saw it. But with another—Papá?”
“Dear little dove, I am your papá—no one else. And you’ve never been to Boston. And the Feejee Mermaid—she is a hoax—a fraud, a fake.”
The rain ran loud as a waterfall over their windows, making even the lightning nothing but a distant smear of stuttering brightness. “No, Papá,” she cried, “she was real. A real Merrow, but only a baby…”
“Why would you lie to your child, Maker?” Marion asked.
“See here,” Maude said, her head snapping up and her eyes fixed and fierce on Marion. “It’s that—you—who have done this to her. You scare her. You have us, every one, in your grasp. You have control. Why scare a child by buying into her fears?”
A storm brewed behind Marion’s eyes, but he turned and stepped away from them, sliding down the door to slump on his blankets. “I was a child once, too.”
Across the intercom came the voice of the Wandering Wallace as he sang The Nightingale to the Artemesia’s passengers as a lullabye.
“Gather in close, little dove,” Maude said, wrapping her arm around Meggie. “Have I told you yet of the Frost King and the little princess?”
Sniffling, Meggie shook her head.
Maude brushed the pale curls back from the child’s forehead and began the evening’s tale.
Bran knew Marion watched the three of them: Bran moving to stare out the window, his bags on his lap, fingers back in some journal within them, Maude nearby soothing Meggie in her lap as she told her story.
Did Marion’s stomach twist remembering how someone told him tales, seeing Maude do the same for Meggie? Did he hate his Maker more for ensuring that Marion would never again know that innocence, though he could watch it in the eyes of the Maker’s daughter?
Aboard the Tempest
Rowen’s room was modest: wood floor, ceiling, and walls with two lanterns flooding the space with light. Suspended between two of the walls like a giant spider’s web hung a single hammock. Slung across it were a wool blanket and a thin muslin shirt. He closed the door behind him. A pitcher of water and an empty basin stood on a low crate in one corner and a chamber pot resided in the other.
Rowen moved aside both pitcher and basin and sat on the wooden box, tugging off his boots. He sighed and wiggled his toes, crossing one leg over the other to give the ball of one foot a solid rub. He scratched his chest and yawned. These were simple quarters, far simpler than any he’d stayed in before. He scanned the space again. At least the place was clean.
Snatching the pitcher, he sloshed some water into the basin. He stretched up and th
en reached down to his waistband to undo his belt and tug the tail of his shirt free. He pulled it up and over his head, bending over to toss it toward the hammock. It caught there and hung and he turned back to the basin. He scooped water up in his hand and splashed it across his face and chest, pawing at himself as he scrubbed with only water and the force of his own fingers. He moved on to his armpits, washing them with greater focus before he rinsed his hands off in the basin.
Grabbing the other shirt with damp fingers, he looked at it carefully. It would be snug, but clean, so he picked up the discarded one, turned it inside out, and toweled off with it. Still damp, he struggled a moment with the new shirt, feeling it stick as it crossed his broad shoulders. He worked it down and over the rest of him and then pulled off his trousers.
He stared at the wet and filthy shirt he’d just used as a towel. He had never done his own laundry, but he had dallied a few times with the girls he’d jokingly referred to as his washing wenches. He’d teased them as they worked and it had always resulted in laughter and wet clothing, which Rowen always felt meant it had been a successful day.
With a grunt, he crouched in front of the basin and pressed the shirt into the water, squeezing and swirling the fabric around. How had they done it? He pulled it up, wrung it out and then fished it back into the water, spun it around again, and once more wrung it out. Satisfied, he spread it out and hung it on a peg. He’d been on the road for too long without any true time to pause and refresh, and although this was not the place he had hoped to recuperate, still it was something. He couldn’t get to Jordan without the assistance of the Tempest’s crew and Elizabeth was firm that there was nothing to even discuss until morning came.
He picked up the basin, looking for a place to be rid of the filthy water. In the corner near the chamber pot was a funnel feeding into a pipe. Above it was a sign scrawled with: Water, yes, piss, no.
He chuckled and sent the dirty water rolling out of the basin and into the funnel.
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