“Your move,” I say to Olivia.
“I know.” She smiles.
Three days out, and I’ve become used to the daily climb up toward the Imperial suite.
But today for some reason I don’t go there directly. What I said to Vespa was true. This was far too easy. And though I can’t really understand quite why, I’m fairly certain that even now as we glide over the Euclidean Plain, we’re being watched.
I haven’t explored the ship much, but today I take the long gangway beyond the hold toward the engines. I want to see how they work, if the rumor about the mythgas is true. Piskel is warning me away and wanting me to go back to what’s familiar.
I look him straight in the eye as he floats in front of my face. “Little brother, in the pocket or lock it.” I try not to be rude, but he can be so irritating! He pouts for a moment, then swan-dives into my pocket as I hold it open.
The burned-bone smell gets stronger the closer I get.
A dark shape moves over near the hatch that leads to the engine compartment.
Trying not to be overly suspicious, I call out to who I assume is a crew member.
“Good morning . . .” I choke on my greeting, though, when gold facial markings flash in the dim everlanterns.
Uncle Gen. Or what was Uncle Gen once upon a time.
“What are you doing here?” I say.
“I might ask the same of you.” There is a hiss to his speech that was never there before, reminding me that he is truly not my kin anymore.
I wish my heart wouldn’t break every time I see him.
He climbs slowly from the rigging and comes to face me.
Piskel briefly sticks his head out of my pocket, sees who it is, and dives back in.
I grit my teeth and ask again. “What are you doing?”
“I thought you said you would never speak to me.”
“I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to.”
He puts back his hood, and I immediately wish he hadn’t. He no longer has hair, just gleaming gold markings over black skin. There is what looks like a metal port at the base of his neck in the same place where I was bitten. I do not want to know what it’s for.
“Why?” I say.
“I have told you. This was the better choice. Ximu made me see that this is a better fate for our people.”
“How? How is this possibly better?”
It seems for a moment that he might lose his temper, as sometimes the old Gen would. Especially when Nainai was nagging him. But he doesn’t.
“She will return our ancestral home to us. She will make us kings . . .”
“When? After she stops treating us like meat sacks to feed her spiderlings?”
“Only those who defy her are treated so. The rest of us will become more than you can possibly imagine.”
“As warrior slaves? I doubt it.”
“No,” he says with the first trace of eagerness I’ve heard in his voice. “No. An army is already waiting . . .” Then he stops himself, as if perhaps he told me a secret he wasn’t supposed to. “We just need the key,” he says.
I shake my head. Those words sound so familiar. Find me the key.
The key to what? And where?
“She has sent me to ensure that she gets it,” he finishes.
“And so you’re doing that by sabotaging the engines?” I ask, looking aside at the engine hatch.
“Just dumping fuel,” he says. “If you don’t have enough fuel, then you’ll be forced to land. The Queen is very near Euclidea. I will meet her there, and you and your Empress will go with me.”
Clan mothers help me, but I already know I can’t kill him.
Uncle Gen has always been an excellent wrestler. The only way this is going to work is if I’m faster than him. So I don’t answer. I just put my head down and barrel into him with my shoulder, trying to knock him down. I wish I had the ability to cast some magical sleeping spell on him or to make him disappear.
But he opens his arms and takes me down with him. He seizes my hair until my eyes water. I kick and jab, and we roll across the gangway and down between the struts while Piskel squeaks and vacates my pocket.
Bless that sylph, for he’s in Uncle Gen’s face, blinding him and stinging him with curses like a mad wasp until my uncle lets go of me to deal with him.
I sit on his chest and draw my knife. Piskel buzzes close, threatening him.
Uncle Gen laughs. “You wouldn’t dare, boy.”
“I’ve done it before,” I say, thinking of cousin Raine with a twist in my heart. “I’ll do it again if I have to.”
“Not this time,” he says.
In one great heave he throws me off. The next thing I know, he’s out through the hatch.
Breathless, I follow him and look out. He’s floating down and away clutching a crimson sail, presumably spun of spidersilk. He manages to get close enough to the ground before one of the dragons swoops from its position at the fore to investigate. I don’t see whether they come into conflict or not. The humming engine soon obscures my view.
But now, even though I don’t quite understand it, I realize what he wants. Not just me, but Olivia. And it seems to me more, much more, than just the attempt of one sovereign to overcome another. He wants Olivia alive.
I climb wearily upstairs. When I enter the Imperial suite, it’s obvious to everyone that something’s wrong. They stop what they’re doing and stare at me.
I find it hard to tell them the truth. I don’t want to tell them that one of my own clan is leading the xiren against us. Or that he got away from me.
“What’s happened?” Bayne asks.
“Xiren. Trying to tamper with the engines. I stopped him, but he got away.”
Piskel looks between me and them, and then seems to decide it’s in his better interest to let this go. The basic facts are correct. I just didn’t elaborate.
“You said you thought this was too easy,” Vespa said, coming to me and handing me a bit of cordial from the suite’s cabinet of spirits. “I guess you were right. Sorry I doubted your judgment.”
I nod. “Hopefully there are no more of them on board.”
“We must be vigilant,” Bayne says. “If we can just make it to Scientia . . .” He doesn’t finish. There’s really nothing more to be said. With each passing day we’re that much closer to Scientia and the uncertainty that waits for us there.
Olivia writes a quick message to the Captain and sends it off with her maid. “At least he’ll be aware of the situation. Let us hope the crew finds no more of them on board.”
There’s a long silence as the room settles around me, and I relax under the welcome influence of the cordial.
Olivia goes back to studying the cipher. It looks as though she’s trying to correlate numbers and letters. I see that she’s written out several possibilities on a pad but hasn’t quite solved it yet. She flips her pen for several seconds before she says, “Bayne, may I have your advice?”
He turns. I’m not sure she’s ever willingly asked for this, though he’s often given it.
“Majesty?”
“Have you any notion of how your family might react once we land? I can gauge nothing from the envoy, the Captain, or any of your family’s servants.”
Bayne sighs. “I think of this nearly every moment, Majesty. The truth is, I really have no answer.”
“Have none of them given you any sign?”
“It has all been very quiet, Majesty. Almost eerily so. If I didn’t know better, it feels as if they were expecting just this sort of thing to happen, so that they could place themselves in the proper position to aid you. But that all seems like far too much conspiracy and would require foresight I doubt my father has.”
“Hmm.”
“Why, if I may ask?” Bayne says. “Are you close to translating the cipher?”
“Possibly,” Olivia says. She clutches at her neck, as if the pain keeps her from thinking. “But it could read a few different ways, unless I’m misunderstanding. I th
ink it’s how the numbers are broken in sequence and what they symbolize.”
Vespa has returned to her cozy chair and is knitting with some yarn and needles she found in a basket in her room. Piskel assists by counting stitches. Or trying to. We are all doing our best to cover up the xiren with other problems.
I examine the patterns of numbers over Olivia’s shoulder, but inside I’m worrying at the problem of Gen, the fact that I cannot bring myself to betray him though he has certainly betrayed me and all our clan by siding with Ximu. And I wonder, as I stare down at the rows of ones and zeros, whether he can ever be restored to what he was once before. We restored those wights and wraiths we could match up after the Rousing; surely we can reverse the Queen’s dark magic as well.
Vespa clears her throat as if to get my attention and says, “Well, what do we actually know?”
“About?” Bayne asks.
“The Grimgorns. The Ambassador said they had a new Artificer, yes? And that they wished to swear fealty to Olivia personally. It seems that they are still using myth, if the things in this ship are any indication. What can be deduced from that?”
“It feels a bit hostile to me,” Olivia says, gazing down at the cipher. “As if I’m under house arrest.”
“My parents have always been manipulative and self-interested, it’s true,” Bayne says slowly. “But I can’t imagine they’d actively seek to hurt anyone.”
“Bayne, they disinherited you!” Vespa says.
Bayne’s lightning gaze flicks out at her. “Thank you for the reminder.”
“I just mean—they do hurt people. They hurt you!”
“That’s . . . private,” he says. “They could have had me killed or locked away in an asylum any number of times. Even when they knew what I was, they didn’t ever really threaten me.”
“Except with a marriage you didn’t want . . . ,” Vespa retorts.
Olivia and I look at each other, and I suspect our faces mirror our thoughts.
“We are not talking about me,” Bayne says, exasperation leaking into his voice. “We’re, as you so rightly pointed out, trying to deduce what we know, so that we can move forward with any plans for the future. The problem is that we never really had a choice as to whether we wanted to come here. We had to leave. The ship was our only way out. We took it.”
It amazes me how much like an old married couple these two sound with their sniping and bickering. And yet neither of them will give in to the other. I find it strange.
Olivia is humming to herself. It’s almost as though she’s not listening, even though she’s the one who started this conversation. I watch her as she pores over the numbers. She scratches absently at the bandage, and I can see that the skin all around it is red and raw.
“What do we do, then?” Vespa asks.
“My feeling is that we test the waters when we arrive in Scientia. I don’t doubt that my parents are trying to manipulate things to suit their own ends. But I can’t believe they quite expected anything like this. I believe they’ll be as surprised and taken aback as we were. The news that we’ve awoken potentially more Umbrals besides Ximu should be spread far and wide. Perhaps even the Lords of the other Cities will want to convene to decide what course of action might be taken. Precisely because my parents are manipulative and self-serving sorts, I’m quite certain they’ll do whatever they can to protect Scientia’s interests.”
“But am I part of that interest, I wonder?” Olivia says softly.
“They would be foolish indeed, Majesty, to do away with you openly. And I doubt it would be to their advantage to do so, not now. But it’s true we shouldn’t rule out that you may be in danger. You have been since we freed you from your predecessor. This situation, albeit complex, is nothing new.”
“I’m not sure that’s entirely comforting.”
When I see Olivia’s running low on ink, I find another bottle, uncap it, and hand it to her. It’s startling to me that she was never trained in statecraft. She certainly was never intended to rule.
I feel I must try to reassure her if I can. “I think Bayne’s just saying that we’ve gone through much to get here. We may go through more, but we’re building our strength. We know more than we would have otherwise if we’d not all gone into the spider’s web.” I shudder to think about it, remembering Uncle Gen’s surety that we would all be kings. Olivia looks at me as if she feels the same awful sensation I do in the pit of my stomach.
“True.”
“We will just have to be careful,” Bayne says. “I don’t trust my parents, but I’ll take this situation over being stuck in the caves of that demon any day.”
Vespa nods and Piskel trumpets his agreement.
“Besides,” Bayne says with the ghost of a smile, “there may yet be those loyal to me there. There are many favors I can call upon to be repaid, if necessary.”
“All may yet be restored?” Olivia asks. The hope in her voice is almost painful.
“All may indeed be restored,” Bayne says.
I want to see it—Olivia crowned and in some beautiful palace, ruling us all with just peace. But nothing of the sort enters my vision.
All I see is a white palace aflame and a silver army marching to some uncertain end.
CHAPTER 16
On the fifth day approaching dawn, the Sullen Harpy was beginning its long, careful descent toward Scientia. Vespa had heard Syrus mutter off and on about how the ship was going to crash horribly throughout the voyage, but when questioned, he would never answer directly as to what he was talking about. He had stopped mentioning it after the xiren had been discovered. Perhaps he felt he’d averted disaster.
But what if the poison had indeed given him the gift of sight, as it was reputed to do?
If such a thing was going to happen, it would have to happen in a hurry, she thought. They were very nearly there.
This dawn she watched the sun spread seeking fingers over the mountains that loomed to the north and east. Far away a white jewel floated on the bosom of a raised hill—Scientia, she guessed.
Bayne came to stand beside her.
“Did you ever think you would see it again?” she asked.
“No. No, I did not.” As ever, it seemed there was so much under the surface of his words that she could barely trace all the emotions there.
She wanted to ask him how it felt. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine. Being in the Museum and seeing the destruction had been difficult, even as she owned that the Museum’s very existence had been founded on dubious principles.
“Are you happy?” She regretted it as soon as she’d said it.
The blue fire of his gaze lashed her before he said, “I don’t know what that means.”
“I wish you did.”
“I do too,” he admitted with a sigh.
She decided to leave that one alone and said instead, pointing toward the distant white walls, “That’s where you grew up, then?”
“Yes,” he said.
The hill was densely packed with tiers of buildings and walls. “Where are we supposed to land?”
He pointed to a spit of land that thrust out into the scarlet waves of the Winedark Sea.
“There.”
Vespa blanched. “Why?” was all she could say.
“Because it would be a long walk to the palace otherwise.” He shrugged. “It can get a bit blustery, but it should be fine.”
She could already feel the sea wind buffeting them as the Sullen Harpy nosed into it.
“Landing one of these is definitely not for the fainthearted,” he said.
“I can see that,” she said.
“Sir, madam,” the purser called to them. “Best go prepare for landing. It can get a bit rough. We should be fully down in an hour at most.”
“Thank you,” Vespa said.
Bayne helped her back up to her cabin and then returned to the one he shared with Syrus. She could already feel the ship bucking and being buffeted by the sea wind. Though she’d wanted to see
how by all the false saints they were going to get the ship properly moored, in some ways she would be just as happy not to know.
Vespa wished she had the dream book to study while she waited. She’d left it in the Imperial suite where they spent the evenings trying to understand the cipher, while ignoring the growling of their stomachs. Supplies were so low that only the children had been fed this morning.
She hesitated, but it was an hour of waiting with nothing to do. Might as well go seek out the book Syrus had brought her and see if it yielded any answers. In the latest dream, she’d been in the chamber filled with gold, looking for something she couldn’t find.
Vespa went out into the corridor and, as she turned the corner, the airship tilted, and someone fetched up hard against her.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Then the person looked up, and the golden shadowspider markings shimmered on his forehead.
“Xiren,” she whispered. Another one.
He looked just as surprised as she was. He hesitated, and then there were voices of crewmen coming upstairs. He dashed down the corridor away from her.
Vespa considered trying to stop him with a blast of etheric energy, but she knew how poor her targeting skills still were. Add that to the fact that they were on a ship full of volatile mythgas, and so she shouted instead.
Bayne came out of his room just as she was weaving as best she could toward it.
She told him what she’d seen and which way the xiren had gone.
“All right, then. Get back in your room and lock it tight.”
Part of her wanted to heed his advice, but she just couldn’t.
“Business associates, remember?” She smiled. “I can help you.”
He nodded then, and they stumbled as best they could in the direction she’d indicated.
Vespa realized as she ran that she didn’t really know much about what the xiren were capable of, despite the few things Bayne and Syrus had been able to find out about them. If they could change into spiders, would they be so small that they could easily hide? And if that were true, could the ship literally be crawling with xiren agents?
The thought definitely made her flesh creep.
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