“No, I wasn’t,” Kazan snapped, his false mirth vanishing. “You were going to make me very, very rich. You still don’t have any idea what you’re worth!”
In all of his fright, Twist hardly noticed as a cool, soft fog wafted over the edges of the deck and the sunlight began to dim.
“I’m not worth anything!” Twist yelled back. “Please, stop this.”
“Stop what?” Kazan asked cruelly. “I haven’t even touched you yet.” As he spoke, he raised a hand. While Twist watched in horror, the human fingers gave way to vicious silver talons. “Come here, little one…” Kazan purred, his terrible grin returning.
Twist turned and meant to flee, but he stumbled down to the deck almost instantly. The mist around him had grown frigid and thick enough to nearly blind him. Before he could regain his footing, Twist felt a blow on his back, with a searing heat. Twist let out a scream as the dragon’s talons tore into him and hopelessness overtook his heart.
Completely without warning, Myra appeared kneeling just before him, in her human-looking, ghostly form. She seemed terrified as she looked at Twist and laid her cool hands on him. In his surprise at her appearance, Twist didn’t notice right away that the pain in his back was suddenly gone. The fog had cleared from the air, but it remained at the edges of his thoughts. He turned to look back toward Kazan, but the dragon had vanished. Twist was now kneeling awkwardly in Jonas’s arms, as if he’d unwittingly stumbled into the man and knocked them both to their knees.
“Twist?” Jonas asked, his voice filled with fear. “Can you hear me?”
“What…?” Twist muttered, looking around to find that Howell was rushing closer with Philippe and the two gypsies beside him. Idris and Jeffery were already standing nearby, watching Twist sadly. Twist looked back to Jonas. “What happened?”
“Oh, darling,” Myra moaned, petting at his hair and appearing about to cry.
“You take him,” Jonas said to her, letting out a relieved-sounding breath. “I think it’s over.” He got to his feet and met Howell and the others.
The moment Jonas released him, Myra moved closer to wrap Twist in her chilly arms. Too confused to protest, Twist closed his eyes and tried to relax his thundering heart and rapid breath as he clung tightly to her. The others were talking in worried tones.
“He didn’t react when I touched him,” Jonas was saying to Philippe, his voice cold. “That’s never happened before. But he was definitely talking to someone.”
“It must be the monster,” Harman said gravely. “The thing is trying to drive him mad. Once he loses his hold on reality, the monster will be able to use him like a puppet.”
Twist tried desperately not to imagine being trapped forever inside his own mind and failed miserably.
“I thought that was supposed to take years,” Luca said, frowning.
“His Sight is speeding things up,” Jonas said grimly. He looked toward Idris but didn’t quite meet his gaze. “Can’t you do anything for him? Can’t we just wish it away?”
Idris looked somewhat pained as he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I really can’t.”
“Right, whatever…” Jonas said darkly, looking away from him.
“No, you don’t understand,” Idris protested. “I honestly can’t do anything, no matter how I might want to. I don’t have the freedom to tamper with drag—”
He stopped himself short, looking to Twist worriedly. Twist let out his held breath, having braced for the effect of hearing the word “dragon” spoken. Idris paused and reworded his sentence.
“I can’t do anything to the magic of those creatures or that of faeries. It’s part of my sentence.”
“Well, if he’s reacting to a vision from the creature,” Philippe said with a sigh, “I don’t think I can do much of anything for him, either. I could give him something to calm him, is all.”
“No, please,” Twist said, drawing away from Myra to look at Philippe. The others looked down at him where he still knelt on the deck, their eyes full of anxiety. “Philippe, I don’t want to fall asleep,” Twist muttered, looking away from their fearful and pitying eyes.
“Of course,” Philippe said with a sigh.
“Don’t worry,” Harman said. “Mama’s magic can help you, even if the djinn’s can’t.”
Idris shot him a cold glance.
“How much longer will it be until we get there?” Myra asked.
“It shouldn’t be long,” Jonas said, still watching Twist with yellow eyes.
As things began to calm down once again, Twist finally managed to make sense of what had happened to him. The dragon’s influence over him was clearly growing stronger. At first, he could only torment Twist in dreams. Then, he came to him in mirrors. Now, apparently, he could take total control of Twist’s mind whenever he chose, and not even Jonas’s touch could wake Twist from the horrible vision.
Twist remained in Myra’s embrace, sitting with her now against the bow railing, for a long and silent pause while his mind fell into order. Howell and the others left them to give Twist time to relax, but Jonas remained close. He sat with his back against the wooden railing at the opposite edge of the deck, not far out of reach, watching Twist with thoughtful, gray-lilac eyes.
“I think I’m all right now,” Twist offered softly as he tried to sit up straighter. Now that he felt more like himself, his pride was beginning to ache. He could only imagine how insane he must have appeared to them all, yelling back at someone who wasn’t there.
“Don’t let go of him,” Jonas said to Myra.
“I won’t,” Myra said, letting him back away but not taking her hands off of him.
“Really, I think it’s over now,” Twist said, offering her the best smile he could.
Myra looked back at him sadly, clearly not convinced.
“No, it’s not,” Jonas said. Twist looked to him to find Jonas’s purple gaze rambling over Twist’s form. “Big Blue’s moving so much that I can see him. It looks like oil on water, running all over you.”
Myra gave an unhappy tone, reaching up to stroke the edge of Twist’s face.
“I can’t feel anything like that,” Twist said to Jonas, mostly for Myra’s benefit.
“You couldn’t feel me, either,” Jonas muttered with a frown. “The bastard is getting way too strong.”
“Did you touch my neck?” Twist asked, vaguely remembering the sudden appearance of a white fog in his vision. It was far from the usual numbing comfort that he found in Jonas’s touch.
Jonas nodded, looking grim. “You’ve never failed to respond to that.”
Twist shared Jonas’s uneasiness at the thought but did his best not to show it. The last thing Twist wanted now was to frighten Myra any more than he already had. He looked at her and gave his best smile another try.
“We’re nearly there, now,” Twist said gently. “This will all be over soon.”
“Yes, of course,” Myra responded, smiling bravely back to him. “I’m very glad that you’re feeling better now.”
“Thank you, dear. I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“Nonsense,” Myra said, her smile growing less thin. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“Holy hell, can you two be any more stuffy?” Jonas grumbled, shaking his head.
“I don’t complain about your bizarre relationships with women,” Twist muttered back.
Jonas smiled slightly. “Well, at least you’re feeling strong enough to be judgmental now.”
Twist half laughed at the comment, enjoying the lightness that it brought back to his spirit. Almost in answer to his prayers, the airship began to descend not a moment later. As the clouds drifted up above them and the air grew slowly warmer, Twist did his best to ready himself for whatever he might find in the gypsy camp below.
The Vimana descended nearly to the ground, at the edge of a wild and shadowy forest. Howell and Arabel lashed the airship to some tall, spindly trees and let down a rope ladder over the side. Zayle quieted the ship’s boiler before he
joined the others and began to climb down to the ground. Jeffery made swift work of descending, while Idris and the others followed as well. Harman went ahead, hurrying into the forest, to warn the gypsy camp of their coming guests. Luca remained behind to guide them through the seemingly empty forest.
When Twist began to climb down the rope ladder, Myra was forced to let go of him. Twist focused his full attention on climbing quickly. After spending so long in the constant contact of her full spirit on his Sight, he felt lightheaded without her touch. Having made it about half of the way down the twenty-foot descent, Twist glanced down to catch the next rung of the ladder with his foot, only to find that he was easily over a hundred feet in the air.
He looked up to find the airship seemingly miles above him now, barely visible in the clear blue sky above, while the rope ladder stretched down to him. As Twist struggled to make sense of what he saw, his eyes caught a sudden snap in the rope above him. The left rope of the ladder was beginning to fray badly, as if it were being picked apart by an unseen hand. His heart beating quickly in sudden fright, Twist looked down again, meaning to continue downward as quickly as he could, but now found himself hanging even higher off of the ground.
The huge forest now seemed little more than a small dark stain on the landscape, while clouds drifted by far under his feet. His vision swam and terror threatened to overwhelm him. There was no one else on the ladder around him now. He was alone, miles from safety, on a fraying ladder. He heard the rope moan under the strain as it began to fully tear. Twist gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. All he had to do was continue down to where the ground truly was and wait for Myra to climb the rest of the way after him. Then she could banish this nonsense from his mind.
He forced himself to continue on, taking each step diligently but gingerly, while keeping his eyes tightly closed. He heard the rope above him snap again, and again, feeling the ladder shudder each time, threatening to drop him into the abyss at any moment. Before he knew it, Twist felt himself taken away from the ladder by an unknown hand, and he stumbled onto solid ground. Twist opened his eyes to find Jonas standing before him, holding him steady.
“You made it,” Jonas said. “It’s all right now.”
“Thank heaven,” Twist gasped in pure relief.
A moment later, Myra rushed to him and took his hand tightly in hers, filling his Sight to the brim as her ghostly form reappeared to him. “What happened?” she asked Twist in a frightened-sounding voice.
“Nonsense,” Twist said tightly. “Nothing but nonsense.”
“Follow me,” Luca said. “We’ve got to get you to Mama quickly.”
Twist, Jonas, and Myra didn’t hesitate to follow him into the forest, while the others followed as well. The shadowed, cool air under the tall trees felt charged with wild energy, as if there were creatures everywhere in the low underbrush, watching intently as Twist passed. Twist tried to put the eerie, distant sounds—murmuring insects, twittering birds, hoofed and pawed strides on the mossy, verdant earth—out of his mind. The strange and watchful atmosphere of this forest could be nothing more than another of Kazan’s tricks.
Myra held tightly to his hand as they followed Luca quickly through the trees, while Jonas stayed close beside them and the others followed along. The distant call of some bird or gryphon or goblin startled Twist, and he instantly hated himself for being startled.
“Try to relax, Twist,” Jonas said. “This is almost over.”
“Do you know the woman we are going to meet?” Twist asked. “I mean, have you met her? What is she like?”
“Trying to distract yourself?” Jonas asked with a slight grin.
“Precisely.” Twist gave an earnest nod.
“Mama practically raised me and Ara,” Jonas said with a smile. “Actually, I don’t know her name. Everyone just calls her Mama, whether they’re related to her or not. She’s like a mother to everyone in the camp. Harman is actually her son, though, and he has a few siblings.”
“How old is she?” Myra asked thoughtfully.
Twist tried not to entertain the thought that his fate was in the trembling hands of an aged woman, old enough to be Harman’s mother.
“We like to joke that Mama was around on the very first day of the world,” Jonas said with a smile. “She was probably there, nagging the creator about where to put things. But honestly, I don’t have any idea how old she is. She could be over a hundred and still look no more than middle aged. The woman is timeless.”
Twist smiled to hear the pride in Jonas’s voice when he spoke of his surrogate grandmother.
“Is she the sort of older lady to bake cookies and all of that?” Twist asked.
“Heavens, no,” Jonas said quickly. “Mama is a warrior. And a wizard. She might be there to pick you up when you fall and offer wisdom when it’s needed, but she’ll also knock you into next week for being a fool. And if you get on her bad side, you’ll end up cursed before you can blink.”
“Charming,” Twist muttered.
“She single-handedly keeps the family together, fed, healthy, happy, and free. Without Mama, we’d all be in prison or dead.”
Twist quietly marveled at the way that Jonas unconsciously included himself in “the family.” No matter how independent and solitary he might seem at times or how long he might be away, deep down he knew that he belonged to a family. It wasn’t just his blood relations on the Vimana’s crew. Jonas always knew that he had a home here. A shadow of jealousy whispered at Twist’s heart at the thought. His own home was dark, cold, and empty of all but clockwork life.
“She sounds like a very good person,” Twist said, forcibly tearing himself from darker thoughts. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Neither can I,” Myra added.
Ahead of them, Luca went around the edge of a rocky outcropping. Following after him, Twist was startled to suddenly be faced with a large camp of people in a wide clearing just a few steps before him. He’d heard no human voices nor seen the curling smoke from the campfires until the moment he’d stepped around the outcropping.
A handful of wooden carriages stood among the trees at the edges of the clearing, while large tents of mismatched and multicolored cloth stood randomly about on the open ground. In the center of the camp was one large fire surrounded by stone, while smaller fires burned under pots and spits here and there as well, near basic wooden tables and chairs.
Easily fifty people milled about inside the camp, while two men stood at the wide entrance that Luca now approached. All of the people matched Luca and Harman’s unkempt looking and hodgepodge style of dress, as well as seeming to share their rugged and indefinably foreign features.
“Clever little trick,” Idris mentioned, his golden eyes wandering over the camp. “Human magic isn’t usually so clever as this.”
As they drew closer, the two men who stood at the entrance of the camp watched them approach with appraising eyes. Jeffery tipped his hat to them but got only a look of confusion in return.
“I don’t believe it,” said one of the men at the entrance—the taller one of the two, with broad shoulders and bushy eyebrows—with a smile. “Harman said you’d come back, Jonny, but we didn’t believe him!”
He reached out to Jonas. Jonas accepted the man’s swift, hearty embrace.
“Now I owe Ben a handful of coin, you bastard,” the other man—the shorter, with bristly black sideburns on his wide jaws—grumbled at Jonas.
“Well, that should teach you not to bet against me, you scoundrel,” Jonas answered brightly, throwing a playful fist at the man’s shoulder.
“Now what’s all this about a dragon?” the taller man asked.
Twist shuttered as a violent sensation rippled angrily over his skin. He snapped his eyes shut and forced his breath to slow in the wake of it. Myra rubbed gently at his back.
“That’s not good,” the shorter man said, looking at Twist in alarm.
“Sorry about that, gov,” the taller man said with a grimace.
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“How about we catch up later, then?” Jonas asked them tightly.
“Of course,” the taller one said. “Come in, come in,” he added, ushering them all into the camp.
As he stepped forward, Twist noticed that a deep line had been drawn in the dirt, directly across the pathway. He peered after it to see that the line seemed to continue on into the trees, possibly ringing the whole camp. The moment everyone had stepped across it, the shorter man reached down to touch the line with a single finger and muttered something to himself. Twist was about to mention his curiosity about this when his gaze fell on what looked like a sheepskin banner that hung from the branch of the tree at the very edge of the camp and the pathway.
“Jonas…” Twist whispered, nearly breathless in sudden, startling confusion, as he looked up at the symbol that was painted on the banner in what might have been blood.
“Yeah, that’s the charm I told you about,” Jonas said with a sigh. “Mama’s always had us keep it up at the edge of camp, no matter where we go.”
Twist pulled his watch out of his pocket and held it up to compare the symbol on the banner with the one that was engraved on the front cover of his brass pocket watch. They were identical: the image of a sun inside a square was surrounded with a ring that bore incomprehensible writing, while odd little squiggles lay around the rest in a symmetrical pattern. Jonas had long ago mentioned that he’d seen the design on the front of Twist’s watch before, but Twist had never expected the resemblance to be so exact.
“What does that image mean?” Myra asked, clearly seeing the same uncanny similarity that Twist did. The others were moving farther into the camp, prompting Twist to put his watch away and hurry on with her and the rest of the group.
“I have no idea,” Twist said. “I always thought it was just a decorative design, but Jonas said that these people believe it’s a magical charm of some kind.”
“How very strange,” Myra said, frowning. “Why would anyone put a magical charm on a pocket watch?”
Twist could only shake his head, having no explanation himself. For a flashing instant, one of his most distant memories returned to him. He could just barely remember being small enough to sleep in a crib, watching the morning light flash off of his pocket watch as it hung like a mobile over his infant self. He was certain that the engraving had always been there.
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