The Western Tower was tall but squat in comparison to the tower holding the Tanks and the Maker’s rooftop laboratory.
And projecting out of the uppermost story of the Western Tower was a heavily reinforced balcony upon which cabled tethers extended to waiting airships. Everyone had heard tales of scoundrels stealing away on an airship or a Cutter—stowaways.
Granted, most of the stories ended badly, but she was not facing a happily ever after if she remained here either, she knew. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, perhaps? She shrugged and considered. Perhaps it could work. Trying it—trying something—was at least far better than waiting around for her destiny to be assigned to her. In this she had a choice.
She pressed her face to the bars, watched the goings-on of the Grounded with more fascination than she’d ever spared anything but her clothing and her hair, and set her mind to plot out an escape plan. As soon as she could find a way to escape from her cuffs.
She could do this, she thought. She could rescue herself or die trying. And if she succeeded perhaps she could return to rescue the others. She swallowed hard and forced down the fact she really would prefer someone else doing the rescuing.
She was, after all, a lady held prisoner in a tower …
Was such a rescue not exactly the sort of mission heroes aspired to succeed at? Where then was her hero? Where was Rowen? Did he simply no longer care a whit about her?
Her good hand wrapped around the bars and she steeled herself against the idea that the one young man she had taken a vague fancy to no longer desired her company.
And that she would need to become her own hero and never again wait on rescue.
Chapter Seventeen
A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
En Route to Holgate
Rowen was still having little luck with the horses. He had seen them both a distance away as they grazed together, but they wanted no part of him—especially Silver with his battered and still bloody sides. Ransom seemed less concerned with Rowen’s occasional attempts at approaching them, but given the choice of indulging in lush summer grass or being ridden into danger?
For a hungry horse there was no choice to be made.
A bird alighted on a tree branch nearby and, appraising Rowen with a cock of its head and a quick glance from its beady black eyes, determined he was no threat and so puffed out its fluffy breast and began to warble a tune.
Rowen sighed and sank down against the tree trunk.
When he’d been a child he’d heard stories—nursery tales and lullabies of places the birds sang nothing except a single note. Of a place where there was no song in the world except a single prophecy of such dark sacrifice it leeched all the music from people’s souls. Of a time all dreams and nightmares came from a mystical dreamland tree that became poisoned and started to tear apart the world with a dark magick that brought nightmares to life. But the magick was defeated by a young man—Marnum—a hero who found that music was the earliest magick and reintroduced it to their world. A hero.
It was always some damned hero.
Some golden-haired godlike young man with all the tools he needed and all the right answers at all the right times. A hero who instinctively knew how to conquer evil and face down temptation.
Hell, Marnum would probably have kept from ruining his clothing as he adventured.
Rowen looked with disdain at his boots (covered in mud and an oozing green slime that reminded him distinctly of … something distinctly unpleasant) and his pants—he’d torn even his buckskin breeches.
He was no hero. He was a filthy, fumbling vagrant.
A man like Marnum—a real hero (even if he was just a legend)—always got the girl.
A man like Rowen … All he’d probably get was the plague.
He sniffled and rubbed at his nose. Yes. There. Right on time (since nothing else ever seemed to be). The potential beginnings of the plague. He tested out a cough, listening intently to the end of it. No wheezing.
Yet.
Well. As it was only a matter of time before he died, he might as well make the most of his death by dying in the cause of rescuing Jordan. He had no other place to return to, no one else who might wish to see him now.
He was a most unwanted wanted man.
He looked at the bird, still merrily trilling away with no concern about his proximity. And the damned thing was right. He was no threat. Except to himself.
The bird let out a shriek and dove for the bushes as something larger rocketed through an opening in the canopy and landed right on the branch the little one had been seated on. The branch wobbled beneath its weight and Rowen looked up to see a hawk scanning the area around him.
He dragged out his sword and sketched in the dirt around him a moment before he thought better of it. He already needed a good whetstone to sharpen his blade; he’d best not dull it further.
He set down the sword and tugged off one of his boots, turning it upside down to empty it. A pebble bounced out of it. And a small stick. He needed his spatterdash gaiters to better protect his feet. He slipped his boot back on.
He needed his saddlebags. He needed his horse. He needed to be ready to get Jordan when they released her. He dragged himself back to his feet and the hawk took off.
He set out to find the horses and this time succeed with getting them back and on the way to Holgate.
Holgate
It was true that Jordan Astraea seemed to be an anomaly in the world of Weather Witches. No other Witch had held out as long as she had—no other Witch had continually insisted so vehemently that she was not what Bran knew her to be.
Perhaps he was losing his touch. Perhaps the appearance of his doe-eyed daughter had caused him to go soft. He shook his head and looked at the child once again seated not far from his feet. Yes, he was gentle around her, but was he too gentle at his job? Surely not.
So Bran found himself doing something he seldom did: he dusted off the dustiest of his books and began to do some more thorough research.
He traced all sides of her family tree, pored over each family members’ physical and mental descriptions. She was, as completely and truly as any child might be, the very definition of what should happen given the union of an Astraea and a Wallsingham. And if she was exactly as she should be … she should not be a Weather Witch. There were none in either of her family lines.
Witchery could be traced as clearly as the results of Darwin’s work aboard the HMS Beagle. It was very much like the split in the evolution of a species. There were clear connections. Lines connecting Witches like a spider’s web. Except in the case of Jordan Astraea. So much of her was directly from her father, from certain physical features to attitudes. Too much of her was him for Bran to dismiss her claims of innocence. And if she was his offspring, then there seemed no way she could be a Witch.
He sat back in his chair and scrubbed a hand across his face. No Weather Witches or magicking of any discernible type anywhere in her background and all signs pointing to her background being what she claimed.
He groaned and Meggie hopped up, asking, “Are you well, Papá?”
He smiled, assuring her that most indeed he was, though the truth of the matter was that the thought of doing what he did to Make Weather Witches—doing that to an innocent who was truly Grounded—his stomach clenched. The idea made him ill.
A siren sounded, blaring from the corners of the compound’s walls and making Meggie jump into his lap. “There, there, little princess,” he said, pressing his hands over her own smaller hands. “It simply means we have airships inbound.”
The noise stopped and Meggie twisted round in his lap to look him square in the face. “Can we see the airships, Pápa?”
He nodded. “Yes, yes, I think that’s a most excellent idea. We can watch them dock tomorrow before lunch, I expect.”
She clapped her little hands together and slipped off his lap. “That sounds wonderful!”
“Good. But now, let’s straighten things up and prepare for bed.”
Meggie returned the books to any shelves she could reach and patiently held out the ones she couldn’t reach for Bran to return himself. She straightened the papers on his desk and put things in their proper drawers and then waited for her father to say it was a job well done. Which he always did, even if he still fixed a few small things himself afterward. The library’s door closed behind them and they returned to their private chambers to find Maude already preparing for bed.
“You two are late,” Maude scolded, but it was a soft and joking tone she used. She grabbed Meggie and quickly helped her change, running the brush through her hair a dozen or more times so that her hair had a gloss that made it look remarkably like moonlight. Maude cleared her throat. “It is time for a bedtime tale,” she began.
“And this time, I shall be the tale-teller,” Bran said, stepping in.
Maude smiled and sat on the edge of the bed with Meggie, delighting in the story Bran told, which included a pantomime of dancing bears and assorted animal noises. At the story’s conclusion, both Maude and Meggie were laughing and clapping.
Bran took a bow.
Together the two adults tucked Meggie in and kissed her cheek and forehead.
It was then that Bran realized something was missing. “Where is your bed?” he asked Maude.
She wove her fingers together before her and looked out from beneath her eyelashes at him. “I did consider what Meggie had suggested regarding your far-too-large-for-one bed. And considering that I hear the snoring nightly all the way in here, I think I might somehow adjust to the noise being—a bit closer?”
Bran blinked at her. “Oh. Why, yes, of course.” He motioned to the bed and followed her, curious.
She closed the door between Meg’s room and Bran’s and turned off the remaining stormlight.
Bran stood there beside the bed and in the dark, both literally and figuratively. He heard the rustle of fabric and the sound of cloth hitting the floor. “If I asked you to leave here with me and Meggie, would you?”
The noise at his bedside ceased a moment. “What? Fly away with you on some airship on a grand adventure?” Her tone was hard to read and he wondered if she was mocking him.
But hearing another piece of clothing hit the floor he realized he didn’t care at the moment. She’d know he was serious soon enough. “Yes.”
“Then yes,” she replied. “I will go away with you, Bran Marshall. I will let you fly me straight to the heavens, if you like.”
She slipped beneath the covers.
As did he.
Maude rolled onto her side to face his side of the bed.
As he rolled onto his side to face hers.
They lay in the darkness together but apart until she stretched an arm out and rested her hand on his side. He snorted at the touch of her and she said, “Hush now. You stay on your side and I shall stay on mine.”
But neither of them obeyed the mandate and neither of them found reason to complain afterward, either.
En Route to Holgate
Rowen was so close to the horses he could hear the swish and slap of their tails on their hides as they defended themselves against the last flies of the season.
Ransom’s saddle had begun to slip to the side and Silver’s was obviously annoying him as he tried to rub it off against the nearest tree. Not wanting to startle them, Rowen began to sing a song, softly at first, but then he picked up volume until both of their ears pricked in his direction and then he stepped out and stretched his hand out before him as if he held a sweet. He had seen his father use a similar trick once before and remembered his words of advice: “Act as if you have something they want and they will be yours for the taking.”
So with every move, he made his body tell a story of having something that surely a horse would want.
Ransom looked up, still working grass around the bit of his bridle to chew it. He tilted his head and ambled over to investigate and as his velvet-soft nose brushed Rowen’s empty palm, Rowen slid his other hand along the stallion’s cheek and wrapped his fingers around the bridle’s leather straps.
Ransom blew out a hot puff of air and shook his head to rattle his dragging reins but conceded to his capture. Rowen worked his way around his steed then, never fully releasing him and carefully tightening everything from small buckle to girth strap. “I promise a proper stall tonight,” he said, “but now we have a mission to complete and a lady to rescue. Surely you can broach no argument in that regard.” He climbed into the saddle and encouraged Ransom into an easy walk, glancing over his shoulder from time to time at Silver.
Silver stayed with them, only a few lengths behind and tearing at grass as he went.
In the saddle Rowen nodded in time to Ransom’s pace and eyed the position of the sun. He nudged Ransom and they moved into a trot, Silver still keeping pace.
Also En Route to Holgate
Marion’s travel, hidden in an oversized carriage, even hidden among the baggage, was far faster and on a far straighter route of main roads than the winding path to Holgate that Rowen’s solitary journey had required of him. Marion tried to get comfortable, pinned as he was between two trunks and a fabric bag that smelled of cat urine. It was no easy task and finally he gave up on that least important bit of his mission, abandoning comfort for the assurance of not being discovered.
So he bounced along, cramped but invigorated by the fact that he was moving ever faster toward completing the cycle of his destiny. That if he did this one thing, if he ended things where they had truly begun, perhaps he—and others like him—might then be free of the tyranny of their enslavement as Weather Witches. And perhaps no more children would be snatched from their parents and no more lives would be ruined for the sake of the minority’s luxury and their fear.
Holgate
Shortly after breakfast Bran and Meggie met Maude outside the kitchens. She was tidying her hair as best she could and taking off the broad apron that protected most of her outfit from the normal hazards of cooking large quantities of food in a space shared with a dozen other people. She folded the apron and set it on a stack with others to be laundered. “You should not be down here,” she said to Bran. “It is not a proper place for a Maker or a wee lady—now that she has better.”
“You stay on your side and I stay on mine?” Bran asked.
His dimples were obvious and Maude grinned a response.
“Let us go out into the town,” Maude suggested. “The weather—”
“Will be perfection for viewing an airship docking,” Bran assured. “I have seen to it.”
They left the interior of Holgate’s mightiest structure and blinked against the brightness of the sun.
“Gorgeous,” Maude said.
High above them and to their west an airship was in view, its back a long egg-shaped balloon with long frame and fabric wings on either side and a rudder like a fish’s tail. Its belly was a large enclosed basket woven out of glass and metal.
“There,” Bran said, leaning over to be closer to Meg’s perspective. “The basket holds all the cargo and most of the people,” he explained. “The big balloon above it helps to keep it floating in the sky when the Conductor can no longer do it.”
“Why would a Conductor not…”
Bran’s expression darkened. “Sometimes they simply cannot. Or, rarely, they will not. But that almost never happens.”
Meg nodded, watching the lumbering beast of a balloon slowly drift toward the tower.
People stood silhouetted at the balcony’s edge, cables tied about their bodies and linked to the side of the building. In their hands they held cables of another sort, just as heavy-looking and also linked to the tower’s fat wall, but at multiple spots. Those on the balcony leaned forward as others leaned out of the balloon’s basket and tossed tethers toward the balcony. They were caught and looped around yet another tether point and the airship slowly turned so that its snout faced them and it sidled
up to the balcony.
The waiting people holding the cables launched themselves at the massive ship, reaching up and out to grab the rope net holding the balloon and basket more fully together. They climbed as quick as monkeys, hauling themselves ever higher on the ship until they clamped their cables to the netting’s top and leaped the impossible distance back down onto the balcony.
Meg clapped her hands together and did a little dance. “Oh, Papá, that was amazing.”
He grabbed one of her hands and, swinging her arm with his, started them walking down the row of shops.
Maude looked at him suspiciously. “Don’t you have work to do on the tower top?”
“I changed my schedule. That can all wait.”
She rounded on him. “I do not recall you ever deviating from your schedule before.”
His eyes rolled heavenward as he thought about it. “That would be because I never have. But it is a beautiful day.”
“And?”
“And I would like to at least spend the morning with two of the loveliest women in Holgate.”
“And?”
“And,” he said, and sighed, shaking his head at her, “I need a little time away to think upon a particular situation. An issue that may actually be an anomaly of sorts.”
Meggie peered up at him and tested out the word herself, “A-mom-molly?”
He tapped her nose. “Anomaly. It means something very much out of the ordinary.”
Maude nodded. “And this anomaly may be a very bad thing?”
“Bad enough. But let’s not dwell on that now,” he said. “Let us search out some fun—perhaps purchase a fresh croissant, some tea, and jam and sit at the café…”
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