by Ryan Muree
Everyone but those living inside it.
“There’s something else,” Emeryss admitted. “If you’re all willing to let me stay on until you can take me to Neeria, I’d like to learn how to cast—from you. I’m afraid that’s the only way I can stay out of Stadhold.”
Adalai beamed as Grier huffed.
The team’s silence was deafening, however. Every set of eyes on her asked the same thing: Was she serious?
“I understand how that sounds,” she continued, “but I’ll send a message to Stadhold tomorrow morning and tell them that I ran away so you’re not held responsible.”
Vaughn sucked in through his teeth. “I hate to be that guy, but that’s not exactly possible. The Messenger we have is the latest model, and it requires you to use your own ether to activate it. You wouldn’t be able to, you know, since you can’t—”
Kayson whacked him in the back of the head.
Emeryss shrugged it off. The world had always been designed for Casters. She’d make do. “Fine. If I can’t use the Messenger, I’ll figure out a way to tell them. Grier can tattle on me for all I care.”
Kayson groaned. “You’re asking an awful lot of us. Regardless of how stupid Adalai can be, you stowed away. We have to hide you and then take you home. And now, you want to learn how to cast?”
“If you let me stay and take me to Neeria, I’ll keep my identity a secret. I’ll practice every technique you think will help me, and I’ll scribe books for you as payment. Any book you have, I’ll refill it. I’ll give you whatever I can find, and Adalai can tell you, the books from the drawing room were filled with rare sigils. I make those. I can do that for you in return.”
The light behind their eyes when she mentioned rare sigils was almost priceless—or at least worth training her.
Adalai held up her arms. “I’m all for it. We save and protect and free Revelians. You’re Revelian, not Stadholden.” She waved a limp arm in Grier’s direction and looked back at Emeryss. “I’ll teach you everything I know, but can you… cast, though?”
The sound Caster, Sonora, clicked her tongue while the old woman, Urla, shook her head. “Uncouth.”
Adalai ran her fingers through her hair, leaving a trail of purple-pink ether through the strands, turning it from jet black to bright orange. She was waiting for an answer, and she was right to ask. Adalai’s team was taking a risk by letting her stay with them, and Adalai was the only one—probably in the entire world—seeming interested in actually helping her attempt it.
“I don’t know, but I hope so. I’ve been trying for… a long time.” She couldn’t confess she’d been trying to cast since ruining her mother’s reading books by pretending they were grimoires when she was little.
The crew shot more wary glances between each other. It was hesitation, but not a flat-out refusal. They couldn’t turn down a Scribe handing them the highly coveted sigils they needed. But if she wanted to reach Neeria and get her best chance at casting, she had to convince Adalai.
“I’m a great Scribe. If you can train me, you’d be the first to turn a Scribe into a Caster. Wouldn’t that be worth a promotion or something in the RCA?”
Adalai straightened, lifting her small frame a little higher.
The very young girl, who’d been silent and calm in her seat throughout the entire ordeal, leaned forward. “It’s impossible. You’re wasting your time.”
“Shut it, Tully,” Adalai bit. “She’s a freaking Neerian—”
“Exactly,” the girl said. “It’s not possible.”
“But she’s the Neerian Scribe. She’s rare, just like us. The way I see it, if anyone could learn, she could, and if anyone could train her, I could.”
Emeryss smiled.
“Then you’re responsible for her.” Urla hobbled out of her seat and toward the exit behind Grier.
He didn’t so much as tap his toe or bite his thumbnail. Nothing of the usual tells that he’d been thinking something. He was a blank slate.
“Are you serious, Urla?” Kayson called after her. “We’re going to have their Librarian and General Orr on our ass the moment they find out.”
“Orr doesn’t have to know.” Adalai held her arms out. “And if it makes the Librarian mad, it’s more proof she’s holding Scribes hostage in there. It’ll be great. Right, Emeryss?”
Emeryss nodded, fresh air and hope filling her lungs, her heart, her spirit.
It was a chance. A real chance to go home and to cast. She could do it. Going home just required a little more patience, and as far as casting went—she had been close to pulling the ether off the page a couple of times. Now, surrounded by Casters, they could tell her how to think it through, how to manipulate it.
Adalai approached from behind and knocked her recently healed shoulder gently against hers. “Luckily for you, we have a spare cabin.”
Grier’s dark eyes lifted to Emeryss. The anger hadn’t vanished, but it had parted long enough to see his hurt. His voice came through deep and tender. “Emeryss, the library’s consequences will be heavy-handed.”
She inhaled deeply. “You did everything you were supposed to do. This was my decision for me. Go back to Stadhold after we land, Grier. I chose this.”
He shook his head, worry etched in every crease of his forehead.
All that time she’d teased and flirted, she’d always thought they were at least friends, closer than other Keepers with their Scribes. But even though the last several moments had put all that into question, something in her wanted to reach up and smooth those wrinkles out for him, tell him it would be okay, and that their time of fun had ended. No one had prepared him for a Neerian Scribe who would want to leave. He could go back, do his job well, and live a safe life like all the Keepers before him.
“You-you’re the best Keeper any Scribe could ever ask for, and I promise to tell the Librarian the truth. I don’t want you penalized when you return. Your family will be proud of you risking your life to stop me.”
He blinked slowly. “Emeryss, please…”
She moved to follow Adalai, but before she could reach the corridor, his voice rose with a tremor. “I’m not leaving your side.”
Emeryss froze.
“Keepers have an oath,” he continued. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “We swear our lives to protect Stadhold and to protect our Scribes. If a Scribe is in danger, I must be ready and willing to do everything to protect… you.”
Adalai crossed her arms. “So?”
His eyes were full of intent—that undercurrent showing through. “If you can decide to leave, then I can decide to come with you.”
Emeryss shook her head. “Grier, you don’t—”
“Yes, I do.” His cheeks had flushed a little.
Adalai glowered at him and turned back to Emeryss. “Well, I’d say welcome to the Zephyrs, but he definitely ruins the mood. Let’s go see your cabin. Bad news though. We only have one spare room, which means you’ve got to share a bunk with Mr. Goody-Goody.”
Emeryss bit her lip and followed her.
She’d made it out of the library, she’d be going home, and she’d get her best chance at learning how to be a real Caster. And Grier was coming with her.
Chapter 5
Branson’s hangar — Mukdur — Ingini
Clove tore off her insulated gloves and tossed them onto a shelf in the empty cargo hold of her airship, Pigyll. As the bay doors opened, she took a reluctant breath of what could only be described as stewed swamp air—or good ol’ fashioned Branson Hangar cologne.
It was one of the few hangars this far south in Ingini, plunked down in the middle of a swampy bog. The air had a yellow-green tint to it and stunk of mold and acid. Not to exclude the ripe stench of sweat from the unwashed crewmen Branson kept around.
I will string Branson up by his toes—no, his ankles. He’ll squirm and scream, and I will get all of my money, she promised herself.
Branson was the first shipping boss who’d taken her on when she’d
started out at just twenty-one. He’d given her her first route, and within two trips he’d given her another. Here she was, four years later with four easy routes under his label that paid decently enough. It was the only reason she’d kept at it.
She groaned as the humidity hit her in the face and made the whole place instantly a hundred times worse.
Branson was lucky that what he lacked in professionalism and manners, he made up for in loyalty. He might have tried to stiff her a few coins here and there, but he wouldn’t be a shipping boss if he didn’t. Otherwise, he paid on time with a bit of wrangling and tough talk. It was easier dealing with him than her other three shipping bosses, to say the least.
The hangar’s crew nodded to her when she stepped out. They were mostly illiterate duds—no ability to Ingineer ether at all. Good for moving crates of supplies on and off airships and not much else, they kept to themselves. Which was the way she preferred everybody to be.
The hangar itself matched its low-quality residents. Metal panels were missing from the arched roof, and the crawling moss and water-rot had worked its way into the structure, leaving dark scars in the wood frame and the lingering threat of crumbling in the slightest rain.
Branson had said he liked it better that way, said it kept him low-profile and safe. She’d told him he was just lazy. He’d claimed he was smart, and that this way, none of the other shipping bosses assumed he had too much money.
Little do they know, he’d said, I’ve put it all in the fixtures. That meant in his desk paneling, behind the peeling wallpaper, even in the cushion under his own bony ass. He’d laughed at her when she’d asked what would happen to his fortune in a fire.
“Ya need a wash?” One of Branson’s men with greasy blond hair falling into his eyes had walked up. She couldn’t remember his name—not even sure he had one. He held out a rotted black hose.
She turned toward Pigyll, shielding the light breaking through the sky’s haze with her hand. “No, I think you’ll ruin my baby’s paint job if you use that water.”
The man chuckled.
“This bogweed better hand over the money without any problems. I’m in no mood,” she snarled, and then wiped her palm on the pant leg of her swamp-green jumper, leaving a dark smudge. Even though she’d invested in decent gloves, it seemed ether still leaked through.
Waste of money. She could have eaten six meals instead of getting those useless gloves.
The crewman smiled at her without teeth. “Oh, I’m sure he will. He always pays you.”
She pushed her frizzy dark hair out of her face. The stupid ties never held all the strands for long, and she was too busy to worry about it.
Her twin brother, Cayn, strode up beside her in clean black pants and a well-fitted, khaki-colored button-up. His brown hair had been coerced into a nice, gentle wave—not one strand out of place—and his jaw had the perfect amount of stubble.
Where she was short and stocky, he was tall and trim. His skin had a rich sunglow all the time, where hers had variations of orange. It bothered her, sure, but he used those good looks to bring in money well enough on his own. Better him than her.
“Spirits, I hate how bad this place smells. You ready?” he asked.
“He owes me a lot this time, and he better have it. He sent a message that said he had something important to talk about, and it better not be ‘I can’t find your money in the cushion.’”
They entered the main corridor for Branson’s office by way of some flickering, rusted, yellow ether-lanterns. Their boots strained the metal grating separating them from the gray water drainage below.
“We know what to do with him if he doesn’t have our money.” Cayn patted the side of his leg where his ether-gun dangled.
She half-laughed. “You might be a good shot, but you’re too pretty. You’re about as threatening as a wet noodle.”
He smiled with two perfect rows of teeth. “Might? I’m a damn good shot.”
She’d never admit to him how right he was. His head was plenty big enough already, and to be honest, having him around was a huge help. Even wet-noodle, handsome guys with a gun were threatening in a pinch. But really, he could kill anything from hundreds of feet away. He had the eye to be a killer, and he could make heavy coinage if he’d ever join a troop to fight Revelians.
“It does no good to be a great shot if you don’t want to pull the trigger.”
He shook his head. “I pull it when it counts. I’d rather make love, not war. And then make love again.”
He could make all the love he wanted, as long as it kept food on the table, a roof over their heads, and them out of the ether mines.
Branson had two large men posted outside his office entrance, both sweaty, dirty, and wearing torn and mildewed tank-tops with green work pants. Their bodies were probably molding as quickly as the wood.
They pounded three knocks onto the thin metal door soldered together with airship scraps.
“Come in,” he called from the other side.
She smacked the door open and entered the bog-rat nest that was Branson’s office.
His voice had depth, resonance, power. His shape, however, was about as threatening as Cayn’s—all bones and skin. The thin, greasy white shirt and worn-in, skintight pants didn’t help. He was completely bald—by choice—but seeing every nook and cranny of the man’s ill-shaped skull was not doing him any favors.
From behind his cluttered desk, he drew in a breath through his inch-thick roll of swampgrass. The smoke of which was a thin blue line from his mouth to the ceiling.
Cayn took a relaxed stance beside her as she crossed her arms. “All crates delivered. Pay up, Branson.”
His beady eyes settled on her—all of her. “Aw, Clove, I missed you, too. No hello? No how do you do? No nice to see you?”
“Eat a swamp hopper, Branson, and pay up. I’m not here for games.”
He pulled the lump of grass from his mouth and crushed the lit end into the pitted surface of his desk. “But I wish you were. It feels like ages since I saw you last.” He coughed and smiled with cracked lips and green-stained teeth.
“It was just three weeks ago. Pay up.”
He dug into his right pocket and nodded for her to come closer. “You get my message?”
“Yup.”
“You don’t want to hear it?”
“I’m waiting for the catch.”
“Catch? There’s no catching you. I’ve tried.” He smirked. “You, uh, think about my proposal?”
And there is the catch. She laughed at him and bent over to put both hands on his desk. “No. Not once. I already answered you.”
“You could be my sweet, little hangar queen, though. We could conquer the shipping world together,” he whispered. “What are we? Two, four years apart?”
Cayn snorted behind her.
“Try twenty-three years apart, and no, I’m not interested in being your anything.”
Branson grinned. “You ’member how I paid off half your debt for that airship?”
She squinted at him and leaned in. “Remember how I paid it back in my first ten trips, and when you tried to claim I owed you more, I nearly chopped off your hands?”
He laughed. “Damn, I missed you. I missed this! Us! We’re so good together.”
“No. I’m too good for this.”
He laughed until he choked, then coughed and drank some yellow alcohol from a tumbler. “You’re not better than any one of us, girl. You’re just as lowly as we are.”
She pulled back and crossed her arms again. “I won’t be a shipping pilot forever.”
“Yeah, well, you think you’re high and mighty? You think you should be a fancy Revelian at fancy parties? Here, I’ll help you out.” He pulled the wad of silver coins from somewhere in his pants and tossed them on his desk.
She picked up every one of them, slimy as they were, and counted the sum.
It wasn’t that she wanted to be a Revelian—she wanted to be left alone. She wanted a nice litt
le speck of land overlooking the sea, maybe in the northeast of Ingini somewhere. She wanted a little house to live in and tinker with airship parts. People would come to her for rare fixes, pay a little, and leave. Cayn could stay if he wanted, but he wouldn’t. He’d visit from time to time, and she’d be at peace, happy—alone.
“You’re short by fifty,” she spat.
He picked at his teeth with his pinky nail. “I thought you’d want the information I had instead.”
Here he goes. Even Cayn perked up and paid better attention.
“I don’t need information, Branson. I need money.”
“You wouldn’t with me.” He pulled his other hand from under the desk and held up a shiny fifty piece that he twirled between his fingers.
She tried to yank it from him, but he was quicker. “I have greater dreams than your greasy arms and eating crawling moss for dinner.”
“You sure you don’t want this information? It’s pretty good.”
She laughed. “It’s not worth that much.”
He lifted a corner of his mouth. “Fine. Five percent.”
She gestured at him. “Cayn, shoot him.”
Branson’s eyes jerked over to Cayn, taking him in from top to bottom. “Have I ever not been honest with your sister?”
Cayn shrugged. “The way I see it, you’re holding us hostage. It would be self-defense if I shot you, right?”
Branson’s throat bobbed as his eyes lazily refocused on her. “Two percent. That’s it.”
Unfortunately for her, and fortunately for Branson, information in the shipping business actually was all that mattered. Sometimes it was even priceless, not that Branson had that sort of information. But it’s how she found new leads for new clients and new shipping points. If she was out of the loop, she’d be out of a job.
Didn’t stop her from wanting to kick him in the groin for holding it over her head though.
“Fine, Branson. Two percent.”
He grinned and leaned back; his chair creaked from overuse. There was a tear in the fabric behind his head with a bulge next to it. Coins were probably stashed there.
