Blood

by Emily Thompson

  Skye shook her head but said nothing as they began to walk to the ship. They found Jonas and Luca standing together, chatting. Jonas’s posture promised casual ease, but his blinding black goggles were sitting in place over his eyes. Harman was nowhere in sight.

  “Well, sure…” Luca was saying. “But Quay?”

  “Anything to get away from Ara,” Jonas said gravely.

  Luca didn’t seem to agree. “But was Vane still with Quay at the time?”

  Jonas gave a heavy sigh and nodded. Luca gave a sympathetic tone. As Twist approached Jonas, and the buzz grew stronger; Jonas suddenly looked to him with still-covered eyes. “Did you have fun shopping?” he asked.

  “Loads of fun,” Skye answered.

  “I liked all the colors,” Myra offered.

  “Is everything sorted out, then?” Twist asked, his voice chilly as he looked at Luca.

  “Yep, Harman’s just paying the captain now,” Jonas said, his tone remaining light.

  Twist gave a silent nod of understanding, his expression somber.

  Luca leaned closer to Jonas. “The city boy doesn’t like us, does he?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t mean any harm,” Jonas said, waving a flippant hand in Twist’s direction.

  Twist’s pride balked more at the dismissive tone of Jonas’s answer than at Luca’s insult. “For the record, no, I don’t,” Twist answered Luca flatly.

  Jonas shot him an anxious look despite the black goggles on his eyes.

  Luca crossed his arms, regarding Twist. “And what exactly have we done to offend the posh little sir who we only just met?”

  Myra’s bright emotions dimmed instantly, and her face took on the first signs of a scowl. Jonas put on a placating smile and seemed to grope for words. Twist stared back at the gypsy, unfazed.

  “That’s whom you’ve only just met. Not who.”

  Skye laughed under her breath. Luca’s dark eyes flashed with indignation.

  “Shall we board?” Twist asked Jonas. “It’s nearly six.”

  “Remind me to set your watch when we get to Africa,” Jonas said as he came closer and put a hand on Twist’s back, leading him toward the ship.

  The moment Jonas’s touch fell on him, Twist caught the distinct vibration of anxious emotions hidden in the cool white fog that lingered at the edges of his Sight. He let Myra’s hand fall from his own and walked ahead of the others, with Jonas. After a step or two, Jonas bent his low voice to Twist’s ear. “Would it kill you to be nice?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Damn it, will you just try?”

  Twist felt the unhappy murmur in Jonas’s touch and began to regret his combative words. He let out a soft sigh but gave Jonas a nod.

  “Thank you,” Jonas said, sounding relieved.

  As they boarded the airship, Twist noticed that most of the other passengers had been replaced. The Americans were all missing now, leaving only Twist, his companions, and the elderly couple from Rio from the original group. The languages he heard on the deck as the new passengers crowded aboard sounded entirely of a more Spanish persuasion to his ears. He caught sight of Harman standing with the captain. The captain seemed pleased as he shook Harman’s hand and then left him with a cordial smile. Myra clasped her hands excitedly, looking around at all of the new passengers.

  “Look, darling,” she said brightly to him, leaning close. “New faces!”

  Twist smiled to see her so pleased, even if he himself wasn’t at all excited to meet anyone new. As the mooring ropes were thrown off, and they began to drift away from the plateau, the airship didn’t rise as Twist had expected. Instead, it simply slipped out of the sheltered space around the plateau and met the wind. The sails quickly caught the powerful currents, and the engines shut off once again.

  The passengers remained out on deck for a long while, watching the mountains glide by around them. As the sun reached the very top of the sky, the mists burned off to reveal vibrant, lush green valleys below. Skye took Jonas by the hand and led him onto the netting again, where they sat together and chatted. Luca and Harman joined them after a while, leaving Twist and Myra standing together at the side of the deck.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Twist said suddenly, reaching into his pocket. Myra watched him curiously as he retrieved the bracelet and held it out to her. “I bought this for you,” he said with a smile. “I got a lovely vision off of it. It was made by a darling little girl, in the full light of the moon, while her grandmother taught her the knots.”

  “Oh, how sweet!” Myra gasped, holding it up in the light to admire the glass beads. She looked at him with surprise and delight glowing brilliantly in her eyes. “It’s very pretty. Put it on for me?” she asked, offering her wrist.

  Twist obliged, tying the loose ends of the cords together. “It looks rather nice against your copper, doesn’t it?”

  “I love it,” she said, beaming at him again. “Thank you, darling,” she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek with her cool metal lips. “It’s a lovely gift.”

  Twist’s Sight blushed with warm emotions in the instant of her touch. He wrapped an arm around her waist, holding her gently to savor the feeling. Myra leaned her head against his shoulder and turned her wrist in the light, watching the sunlight glint off of the bracelet’s colored glass.

  A while later, the mountains fell away into a lush, dense, and vibrantly green jungle that stretched out to every horizon. As the miles flew beneath the airship, the jungle only seemed to grow more and more wild and alive. Standing alone at the railing and glancing over the side carefully—trying not to think about their current height—Twist’s imagination filled the land below with all the dangerous and beautiful animals he’d seen at the natural history museum in London, on a rare outing his orphanage had once arranged for the boys.

  Twist could still remember the awe he’d felt at seeing a gorilla for the first time and how frightened he’d been to look into the massive creature’s dark eyes—no matter if it was stuffed or not. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t remember if there were gorillas in South American jungles or if they were African animals. Perhaps they lived in Asia…

  “Isn’t it pretty?” Myra’s voice wafted to him as she walked closer. “Twist bought it for me. He’s ever so sweet.”

  “It’s very nice,” Harman responded as Twist turned to look to them.

  Jonas, Skye, and Myra walked with the gypsies as they returned from the lounge with cups of hot tea. Myra was holding up her bracelet for them to see while holding a teacup in her other hand. She hurried to Twist when she saw him and offered him the tea.

  “Here you are, dear,” she said happily. “A little milk and no sugar.”

  “Thank you, love,” Twist said, taking it with a smile.

  “You’re a sly one, buddy boy,” Skye said to him with a wink. “Buying presents when we weren’t watching…”

  Twist gave her a lofty shrug and sipped at his tea to hide his smile.

  “Wow, it’s getting dense down there,” Jonas said, glancing over the side of the deck.

  “Jonas,” Twist said, drawing his attention. “Where do gorillas come from?”

  “Well,” Luca began before Jonas could respond, “when a mommy gorilla and a daddy gorilla love each other very much…”

  Skye snickered under her breath.

  “Smartass,” Jonas snapped, laughing lightly. “They find them in East Africa, don’t they?”

  “I think so,” Skye said, nodding. “My circus tried to keep one for a show once. Terrible disaster. We just couldn’t keep the thing in bananas. Gorillas literally eat tons of food every day.”

  “What’s a gorilla?” Myra asked curiously. The gypsies looked to her in confusion.

  “A huge, monstrous ape,” Jonas answered. Myra looked to him with wide eyes. “And it’s got very long teeth,” he added with great drama.

  “Oh dear!” Myra gasped.

  “Jonas…” Twist toned warningly, noticing a dangerously playful light flare to life in
Jonas’s eyes.

  “They are so strong they can—” Jonas continued, ready with a gruesome gesture, while Myra’s horror grew.

  “They are lovely, great beasts,” Twist cut in, taking her hand. “Beautiful, really.” Her fright dimmed somewhat.

  “Really?” she asked, glancing to Jonas suspiciously. “Are you teasing me again?”

  Jonas nodded with a wide smile. “You’re awfully cute when you get all worked up.”

  Myra narrowed her eyes at him.

  Luca laughed and shook his head. “You never change, Jonny.”

  “Well, if there was room for improvement…” Jonas said with a shrug and a smug smile.

  “All right, that’s it,” Skye said, taking Jonas’s arm and looking eagerly to the gypsies. “I think it’s time you give us all the dirt on this scoundrel.”

  “What do you mean?” Jonas asked, looking worried.

  “Oh, yes!” Myra said suddenly, while Twist struggled to work out Skye’s meaning. “How long have you known Jonas?” she asked them. “You mentioned he’s grown up now. What was he like as a boy?”

  “Are we really gonna go there?” Jonas whined.

  “Hush, you,” Skye spat to him. “I can’t take your sister’s word for anything. These people might actually tell us the truth.”

  The gypsies seemed intrigued by this conversation topic and agreed easily. They all got comfortable, sitting together at one corner of the wide netting; Jonas and Skye sat out on the net that hung over the jungle, and the others clustered around on the edge of the deck. Jonas continued to pout, while Skye continued to ignored his discomfort in favor of attentive glee.

  “Well,” Luca began as if reciting a great, epic tale, “I first met Jonny and Bell when they were just six years old, and I was seven. Their uncle brought them to live with us for a few years.”

  “Us?” Skye asked.

  “Our family,” Harman clarified. “Howell and his family have been our friends for generations. We used to help them smuggle things through Europe. Of course, your parents were sort of the black sheep of the family, weren’t they?” he asked Jonas. “I never even met them. Didn’t they settle down and buy land?” he asked, as if doing so were a madness akin to badger worship.

  “Yeah, well…” Jonas muttered with a shrug. Twist felt a ripple of cold in the buzz at his neck. “Something like that. I don’t really remember.”

  “Well,” Luca went on, “our camp was roaming through eastern France the night Howell showed up with his niece and nephew. We took them in, and they stayed with us for years after that.”

  “You did used to live with gypsies?” Twist asked Jonas, aghast.

  Jonas nodded silently, his eyes covered by his goggles. The buzz in Twist’s neck had grown dull, though Jonas’s posture and expression betrayed nothing. It only took a moment for Twist to work out the meaning behind Harman’s words: Jonas’s home had burned down when he and Arabel were six years old. Howell had saved them and taken them away that night. Twist had never asked about what had happened after that.

  “He was quiet at first, but it didn’t take long for him to come out of his shell,” Luca continued, giving Jonas a nostalgic smile. “Before you knew it, the three of us were together all the time. We would go poaching in the forests and pickpocketing in the towns, and took on any form of adventuring we could find, from dawn till dusk.”

  Jonas began to smile slightly, and the buzz in Twist’s neck calmed back to normal while Jonas followed Luca through the old memories. Twist’s mind turned back to his own youth but found no adventuring of any kind. He’d stopped trying to have friends long before he left the orphanage. The thought of a young Jonas in such a friendly and exciting environment only made Jonas seem somehow suddenly alien to Twist: as if he hardly knew him at all.

  “Wow, that sounds so exciting!” Myra exclaimed.

  “You must have been such a cute little criminal,” Skye said with a smile.

  “Of course I was,” Jonas said instantly. “We never got caught, either,” he added to Luca.

  Luca nodded quickly. “It was amazing! With Bell’s aim, Jonny’s eyes, and my light fingers, the town’s folk and the gendarmes never caught so much as a scent of us. Mama was so proud.”

  “We all were,” Harman added with a warm smile. “We all but adopted Jonny and Bell, you know. Sure, they had their uncle Howell all along, but they became our family too.”

  Something small and long forgotten in the shadows of Twist’s mind caught on the sentiment. For a few short years he’d thought he might be adopted by a family, like some of the other boys. But he’d soon realized that none of the families that came to his orphanage wanted a troubled, solitary, Sighted little boy. He’d thought he’d left the bitter chill of that realization buried deep and forgotten.

  Myra, watching Harman speak, gave a delighted tone. “That sounds very sweet.”

  “But of course,” Luca said, falling into a sigh, “Howell was an aeronaut to the core.”

  “Yes,” Harman added, “once the two scamps were old enough to man an airship, he bought the Vimana, packed up Jonny and Bell, and took his leave. Three of my sons joined them too, for a while. Luca was the last one to return to us.”

  Luca nodded, giving a sigh.

  “Really?” Skye asked Luca. “Why didn’t you just stay in the air?”

  “Me, I’m a creature of the land,” Luca said loftily, while his father smiled proudly.

  Jonas gave a chuckle. “I thought you left because Ara dumped you.”

  “It wasn’t just that!” Luca snapped. “And she didn’t ‘dump’ me, you know. Things just didn’t work out between us.”

  “Then why did she throw all of your things overboard while screaming that you were a pig?” Jonas asked innocently.

  Myra gasped, looking at Luca in alarm. Skye began to laugh but caught herself when Luca shot her an unhappy look.

  “You didn’t tell me anything about that,” Harman said to his son with a suspicious glance.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Luca muttered bitterly, looking back to Jonas. “Let me know when you figure out women.”

  Skye and Myra both looked to Luca warningly.

  “She never would tell me what you did…” Jonas said, blindly gazing at Luca through the opaque lenses of his goggles. “If I ever find out that you did anything ungentlemanly to my sister, and she’s not just crazy, you know I’ll tear you to pieces, right?”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Luca grumbled.

  “Good man,” Jonas said with a nod. “Are we done on memory lane now? Can we talk about Twist’s gorillas for a bit?”

  “What?” Twist asked, startled to hear himself so suddenly referred to.

  “Oh, you’re not getting off that easy,” Skye said. “We haven’t even gotten to the embarrassing stuff yet!”

  “Why were you asking about gorillas, Twist?” Jonas asked, almost pleading now.

  “I can’t remember,” he answered honestly.

  “Did Jonas have spots as a teenager?” Skye asked Luca quickly. Luca laughed again, while Harman only shook his head with a smile.

  “Damn it, man, think!” Jonas pleaded with Twist.

  Skye began to chuckle wickedly.

  “Oh, Skye,” Myra said to her with a swatting wave of her hand, her own smile only thinly veiled. “Leave the poor man be.”

  “Yeah, Jonny’s sensitive,” Luca added with a mock look of pity overlaying his smile.

  Harman’s expression turned cautious; he seemed intent on staying well out of the fray.

  “I’ll show you sensitive,” Jonas growled, brandishing a fist.

  “Temper, temper, Master Davis,” Luca purred, mimicking a vaguely posh British accent. “A gentleman doesn’t get so easily ruffled,” he added with a simpering tone.

  Jonas shot him a deadly glare despite his covered eyes. Twist felt a sudden, sharp spike in the energy that lingered at his neck. Luca’s taunts were clearly getting dangerously close to some hidden l
ine that Twist feared Jonas would defend fiercely.

  “Never tempt a pirate’s wrath,” Twist said to Luca sternly. “You’re bound to lose an eye, at the very least.”

  “Thank you!” Jonas said heartily, the dangerous energy vanishing in a blink. “Finally, a glimmer of wisdom among the ignorant.”

  “Oh, you’re calling yourself a pirate, now?” Luca asked Jonas. “Exactly how long were you even on Quay’s crew?”

  “My ancestors are an unbroken chain of pirates, right back to the sixteen hundreds. You know that. What a man does with his life is only one aspect of who he is. My roots are purely piratical.”

  “Is that true?” Skye asked, astonished. “Are you really from a pirate family?”

  “Uncle Howell was named after Captain Howell Davies of Wales, who was a notorious pirate from Barbados to the Gold Coast of Africa, and he was also my”—he held up fingers to count on—“great, great, great, great grandfather.”

  “Wow,” Skye said, staring at him in amazement. “And here I didn’t think you could get any more attractive.”

  In his shock, Twist let out half of a laugh at the absurd boldness of her statement, while Jonas’s cheeks took on a pinkish glow. Luca shook his head, looking at Skye as a satisfied smile took up her whole face.

  “I’ve got to get to know more American women,” Luca said softly. “Tell me, American girl, do your people find gypsies attractive?”

  “Not half as much as pirates,” Skye said flippantly. “Everybody knows pirates are the best.”

  Jonas rubbed at his face with both hands. “Careful, love. Keep saying things like that, and I’ll start falling for you.”

  “Start?” Skye balked. “Damn, I’ve got to step up my game. I thought I was already getting to you.”

  Jonas’s expression shifted to one of worry and shock as he looked blindly at her.

  She turned to Luca and hooked a thumb at Jonas. “This one’s locked up tighter than Devil’s Island.”

  Harman’s face took on a mildly alarmed expression.

  “On second thought,” Luca said, watching her with wide eyes, “I don’t think I could handle an American woman. Good luck, Jonny.”