“We need to see Æther Fortune and the Parastrata captain.” The Fix spits.
“What? Now?” says the guard. Then he catches sight of me, hair snarled with briny water, only half dressed in my shirt and underskirts, and he jumps as if someone has touched a bare wire to his skin.
The Fixes march us into the captain’s quarters. Men’s laughter rings through the sickly sweet smoke clouding the air. The crewemen lounge on oversize pillows of hide and silk, shouting and singing and throwing back glasses of clear rice wine. My heartbeat doubles. I’ve never been in men’s quarters before, except for the times Modrie Reller sent me in to clean, and the rooms were empty then. My father’s yellow-white hair stands out bright as a nova in a sea of dark heads. Æther Fortune sits beside him. My arms and face burn. Panic crackles beneath my skin. I try to break for the door, but they catch me and spin me around to face my father again.
My father’s eyes narrow at me like a cat’s. A hush spreads out around us.
He stands and shifts his gaze to the Fixes. “What are you doing with my so girl?”
“Your so girl,” says one of the Fixes, sticky with sarcasm. “We caught her naked in the desalination reservoir, letting young Æther Luck put his hands to her.” He shoves Luck forward.
Æther Fortune shoots to his feet. “My son?”
“We thought you’d want to talk on what they were doing there, exactly, in the full middle of night,” the Fix says.
My father’s eyes are metal. “And what were you doing with our bride, Æther Luck?”
“I thought . . .” Luck’s head drops. “We . . .”
No, I think, despair creeping over me. Don’t act the smallboy, not now.
“Speak up.” My father looms over him. “Let us hear you.”
“I . . . we were sealing our bond,” Luck says. He lifts his head and tries to stare back at my father, but I can see he’s shaken. The look on my father’s face is enough to make me want to drop to my knees and beg mercy. “We thought it wouldn’t matter so soon before the binding.”
“Wouldn’t matter?” Æther Fortune pushes forward. Blood flushes his cheeks and throat. “Wouldn’t matter?”
“I know it was wrong,” Luck says. “But I care some lot for Ava and once we’re bound it won’t—”
My father looks as though he’s going to strike him, but it’s Æther Fortune who does it. He hits Luck close-fisted across the eye. There is a snap, and Luck doubles over, clutching his face.
I stifle a cry.
“My own son.” Æther Fortune grabs Luck by the back of the neck and pulls him up.
Luck swallows, a bruise already purpling his cheekbone. “Father . . .”
“It matters to me,” he says coldly, and strikes Luck again with his ring hand.
Luck drops to the floor. His face is bleeding. He touches the cut and stares at the red smear in confusion. ther Fortune levels a kick at his ribs. Luck collapses, all the air driven from his lungs.
“No!” I try to run to him, but the Fix holds me back.
Luck’s father delivers another kick, and then another, and another. I cover my eyes, but I can’t escape the sound of it—the thick blows, the grunts. Finally, an ther crewemen puts a restraining hand on his arm.
The captain steps back, breathing hard, and smoothes his hair. “It matters to me,” he says again. “Ready the airlock.”
“Please.” I stretch out my hand and step between Luck and his father. “I let him.”
A silence falls over the room, broken only by the sound of Luck wheezing. Æther Fortune and my father turn to me slowly, and I realize what I’ve done. I should never have spoken, not at all. I know that; any so girl worth her salt knows that. My father and Æther Fortune stare at me as if one of the goats has opened its mouth and formed human speech.
I drop to the ground and hold up my hands in supplication. “Your mercy, so father.”
“You consented?” my father hisses. His eyes are cold as the Void.
I bow my head and nod, terrified and bewildered. My father looks as though he wants to cut my throat.
“So captain.” Luck staggers to his feet, clutching his ribs. “So father, punish me as you did Soli’s husband. The blame is mine, not Ava’s. We can still be bound, and make everything right.”
“And what . . .” Æther Fortune’s voice is dangerous. “What makes you think you can steal my bride, small Luck?”
Silence.
“Your bride?” Luck darts a horrified look at me.
“Yes, my bride.” Æther Fortune flexes his hands into fists. His pockmarks stand out in sickly moons over his reddening face. “The ink’s fresh, but the contract’s signed.”
Luck swallows. “I thought with it being time for me to take a wife, and you talking on how I’d need to marry before I take the captaincy . . .” His voice trails to nothing.
“So you’re taking the captaincy too, then?” Æther Fortune’s voice rises. “The way you’ve taken my bride? Is that what you are? My own son, an adulterer and a traitor?” He pushes Luck backward. One of the Fixes catches him before he hits the ground and pushes him back to his feet. Æther Fortune rounds on my father, breathing hard. “And you, with your some pretty lies about your virtuous daughter and her skilled hands. Now we see what they’re skilled at.”
“Brother Fortune,” my father says. “On me and my wives, our regrets. Our deep apologies. Let me find you another girl from my crewe. A better bride, pure, more docile. I have a younger daughter by my third wife near enough come to womanhood. You could take her now and . . .”
“I want nothing of yours, Parastrata.” Spit flies from Æther Fortune’s mouth. “Your lies or your girls or your metals. We’re done. Leave my ship.”
“So brother,” my father says a soothing voice. “Only . . .”
“Leave my ship,” Æther Fortune repeats, and it comes to me he wouldn’t need a knife to kill at all.
The Parastrata men stand tense and ready, their wine long forgotten at their feet. My father jerks his chin. His men file into two flanking columns as my father stalks from the room. He brushes past me on his way to the door, as if I’m vapor. It feels like a kick to the chest; I can’t draw breath. I glance at Luck, his eye swollen and a line of blood welling over the bridge of his nose. I want to run to him, press a cool hand to his face, wipe away the blood, but his father steps between us.
“You would have been my wife, girl.” His pale blue eyes are filled with hate. “Now you’re nothing.”
I stumble back and trip over my own skirt, coming down hard on my elbow. I scrabble to my feet. I am alone, near naked, and without my kinsmen’s protection. I see my father disappearing through the small latchdoor, his men retreating after him. One of them turns. Jerej, doing me the small mercy of waiting.
I cast a last look at Luck. He stares back, his features cracked with blood and heartbreak. He cannot save himself, much less me. What will his crewe do to him? It will be worse than Æther Ready’s fate, certain sure. It will be the airlock, like his father said, or worse.
I have no choice. I hurry after Jerej. The Æther men turn away as I push through them to my brother.
“Jerej . . .” I say when I reach the latchdoor.
He pivots and sweeps out of the captain’s quarters. I follow, running as best I can.
“Jerej.”
His boots clap the floor. He doesn’t answer.
“Please, wait for me!” My voice pitches down the curve of the corridor, and I hate the way it sounds. All panicked and girlish high as it echoes back. Jerej steps up his pace. Tears sting my eyes like chemical burn and dread lodges in my throat. “Please . . .”
I can feel the threads between Luck and me snapping with every step. I trip, skin my palms and knees, pick myself up again, and push myself after Jerej. He doesn’t stop, even when I fall. A sharp bend in the hallway swallows him up.
“Wait!”
I round the corner and stop short.
“Jerej.” My father looks at me. For a moment I
think he’s going to speak to me, and I would welcome it, even if his words hit me like a slap. But he speaks for my brother. “Take that back to the ship. We’ll collect the women and meet you there.”
“Father . . .” I say.
He turns away and gestures for his men to follow. Jerej grips my shoulder and pushes me in the opposite direction, to the exit bay. I don’t fight as he yanks me along the corridor, down the ramp. The close, once-safe walls of the Æther give way to the high, open bay. The weight of the station’s gravity drops on me once more. The concourse stands near empty now the station is observing night. Dim blue light from the few open shops falls over the grit and dung and wasted bits of food and paper littering the broad midway floor. A thin scum of debris sticks to the soles of my feet as Jerej herds me along. I cling to him, even though his grip hurts my arm.
“Jerej,” I whisper. “Please, I didn’t know.”
I pull back to slow him down. Maybe if I talk, I can keep him from locking me up in the Parastrata, I think wildly. Maybe he’ll take me back to the Æther. Maybe it’s not too late to unpick this snarl and ravel everything back right.
“I know I did wrong.” My voice shakes. “But I would never have done it if I hadn’t thought it was Luck you meant to bind me to. I swear, Jerej.”
He glances at me but doesn’t slow his pace.
“If you would speak to Father for me.” I wipe at my eyes. Doesn’t he remember us as smallones together? Watching my mother in the midst of the storm? The times he dropped his beancake at supper and I gave him my own? Shouldn’t that matter now? “Please, so brother . . .”
“I’m none of your brother.” Jerej stops and glares at me. “My sister Ava is dead. And you, you’re naught but some bad matter left over. Don’t you see what you’ve done?” Jerej stands close to me, too close, and his words are soft with menace. “Two decaturns of trade with the Æthers, gone to vapor because of you.”
“I didn’t know,” I say. “How was I to know . . .”
“You weren’t,” Jerej says. “You were supposed to keep your legs together and do as you were told.”
I drop my head and let Jerej pull me to the Parastrata’s dock. I don’t raise my eyes again until I hear the bay door seal itself behind us, and the humid air of my home ship swallows us once more.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER .8
I huddle on the floor of the utility closet where Modrie Reller and Iri dyed my hair at the beginning of the day—or was it the day before? Two days? I’ve lost track of time since Jerej sealed the door behind me. The old-fashioned vapor light built into the ceiling doesn’t cycle on and off with the rest of the ship; it burns constantly with a tik-tik-tik, like a fingernail tapping the base of my skull. Dried salt crusts my arms and legs, and the copper coils at my wrists and ankles stick to my stained skin. At one point, I fall into an uneasy sleep and dream Luck has coaxed me to the broad window in the Æther’s garden. We stand looking out at the stars.
“Did you know you can walk on them?” Luck says.
“Truly?” I say.
Luck climbs up into the window and steps out. He balances on the tiny pinprick of a star. “You just have to keep moving,” he says, and jumps to the next one.
We can’t, I say, but I follow him out into the Void anyway. I pull back my skirts and leap out onto the nearest star. It holds firm under my feet, solid as glass. I look up at Luck.
“You can run,” he says. He grins and breaks away from me, across the starry field.
I push myself after him. The stars come closer the faster I run, until they form a shining pebbled path beneath my feet. I laugh. My skirt weighs nothing and my legs carry me like water. I’m not even winded.
Winded. I stop and look down at my feet. But I’m in the Void, I remember. I shouldn’t be able to breathe at all. My blood should be frozen in my veins, my lungs sucked empty of air and collapsed. I look up to warn Luck, but he’s gone. The Void stretches out empty around me. I open my mouth to call for him, and the emptiness rushes in and siphons all the air out of me.
I wake, gasping, on the utility room floor.
After that, I try not to sleep. Instead, I hug my knees to my chest and rock and play what’s happened over and over, imagining it different. In one version, I never leave Soli’s bunk. In another, I lie and tell Luck I’ve been swimming before, go back to bed, and marry Æther Fortune. I don’t kiss Luck. I don’t hold him close in the water. I never give him the chance to love me. In my wildest version, Luck and I break away from the Fixes and flee the ship, but my imagination falters once we’ve reached the concourse, so instead I imagine Luck talking his father down, convincing him to bind us after all.
Maybe he will, I think. Maybe Soli will speak for us. Maybe Jerej . . .
The door lock clicks. I scramble to my feet and try to stamp the numbness out of them. They haven’t forgotten me. A mix of relief and dread twists in my gut. The hinges squeal as the door swings open. Modrie Reller stands on the other side. Half of me wants to shrink into the corner and half wants to run to her, to break down crying with relief at the sight of her. Modrie Reller’s face is still, blank. She holds an armful of heavy green cloth close to her chest. I recognize my good mirrored skirt, the one I wore when I was so briefly a bride, the one I left behind on the Æther.
Maybe, I think, and stop myself. The best I might get is if they’ve talked Æther Fortune into going through with our binding, though I know that’s more than I deserve. More likely they’ve found some nobody on the Parastrata willing to take me as one of his later wives, at least to smooth out the look of things. I’ll end up a dyegirl all my life, like Llell’s mother, but a fifth or sixth wife, lower even than her. And maybe someday when I’m old, my crewe will forget what brought me so low. I’ll take it, I say to myself. Anything to lift this shame off of me, anything not to be locked back in the room with the tik-tik-tik of the vapor light. I open my mouth to say it, but Modrie Reller stops me.
“Not a word,” she says. “Follow me.”
I shuffle after her, careful to keep my head down. If I don’t raise my eyes, I don’t have to look into the faces of the people we pass. They all know. Out of the corner of my eye, I see our Fixes and Cleaners turn their heads to stare as I walk in Modrie Reller’s wake. I know how I must look, my skin patchy with grime and my clothes stiff with sweat. An adulteress, a criminal, a whore. Their eyes light my skin on fire.
I follow the hem of Modrie Reller’s skirt up from the bowels of the ship. She pauses at the back door of the cleanroom, tips up my chin with her hand, and looks at me, as if she’s trying to record my face in her mind. I wrap my hand around hers, childlike. For a moment, I think she means to speak to me, but she spins on her heel and pushes the door to the cleanroom open. A broad half moon of women stands waiting for us along the tiled wall. Iri and Hannah and my great-grandfather’s other widows, Llell’s mother, Lifil’s mother and Eme’s, and all my father’s other wives. Near all the women of the ship are here.
For one bright moment, I think they’ve come to prepare me for a binding. Æther Fortune, one of the papermakers or Cleaners or Fixes, I don’t care, so long as everyone stops hating me and the world stands solid beneath me again. But then I notice there are no children. Children always come to bindings to bless the bride and remind her of her purpose.
“What’s happening?” My voice sounds high and shaky.
“Sisters.” Modrie Reller’s voice rings out over the silent tiled room. She traps my shoulders beneath her hands. “We come to prepare our daughter for burial.”
Lifil’s mother lets out a moan, then Hannah and Iri and all the rest. Together, they lift their voices in a high, keening wail. Each voice laps over the others, one woman reaching her highest pitch as her sister pauses to draw breath. The fine hairs of my neck stand on end. They close in on me as one, arms outstretch
ed.
“Please.” I try to back away. Because suddenly it comes to me what my bridal skirt means, what Jerej’s words meant. My sister Ava is dead. I remember Modrie Reller’s kiss on my mother’s cold forehead and the loose, papery feel of her skin as we washed her body, the stiffness setting into her limbs as we dressed her in her skirts and coiled bridal bands around her thin joints, the heaviness of her head as we lifted it to refasten the data pendant around her neck. The only other time a woman wears her bridal finery is at her burial. Once we’ve broken dock and sounded deep enough, they’re going to turn me out, still breathing, into the Void.
Modrie Reller catches me by both arms and holds me hard to her breast as the other women converge on me. Pale hands unclip my soiled shirt and pull at my skirt ties. I see them undress me as if I am watching from above while this happens to another girl. My clothes disappear into the thicket of hands. They pry the tarnished copper coils from my wrists and ankles, leaving only their spectral green imprints on my skin.
Iri holds a water vessel over her head, and the other women greet her with a new frenzy of wailing. Her eyes look past me as she cracks the seal and tips a stream of lukewarm water over my head.
The shock of it brings me crashing back into myself. The water soaks my hair and rinses the salt from my skin in rivulets.
“No!” I twist a hand out of Modrie Reller’s grasp and lunge into the press of women. I’m not ready to be buried. I’m not ready to meet the Void. I stumble. The other women lift me to my feet and send me back into Modrie Reller’s steel grip, wailing and crying all the louder as they do. I look up. For a single slip, shock freezes me in place. It’s Llell. She moans, but her eyes kindle with something else, and I remember and regret all the times I’ve spoken hard to keep her in her place.
The women surge forward again, swallowing Llell in their ranks. I kick at them as they wash my body with water and oil, tie me into my skirts. They leave my chest bare, but weave my hair back into thick wedding braids and bind it with copper wire. They wind fresh wire from my ankles up my calves and around and around my forearms, until I can hardly bear the weight of it. Modrie Reller lowers a headdress bangled with a few cheap coins across my brow, and suddenly the wailing stops.
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