The Star Thief

by Lindsey Becker

  “Andromeda!” she whispered aloud, searching up and down the deck until her eyes landed on the greenhouse dome. She had to still be in the laboratory.

  Down into the ship she ran, skipping over steps and leaping over railings, with Francis rushing to keep up. When they burst through the laboratory doors, Honorine found exactly what she was looking for, in an unexpected way.

  Andromeda was there, but not in a globe. Not captured or held prisoner, but standing in front of Nautilus, her shimmering light casting long shadows on the far walls. She looked up as Honorine and Francis tumbled into the laboratory. She did not look pleased.

  “There you are!” Nautilus said as if he had been searching for them for a very long time.

  “You have to get back to the island,” Honorine said between gulps of breath. She pointed frantically in the general direction of the erupting mountain.

  “Honorine, you look upset,” said Nautilus.

  “Yes, I certainly am!” she replied. “The mountain is erupting! The Bellua are escaping! There’s nothing holding them back because you took my mother away from there!”

  “Then that’s it,” Andromeda said, turning to Nautilus. “Your experiment is over. Set the rest of the Mordant free so we can stop this from escalating.”

  To Honorine’s shock, Nautilus resisted.

  “But none of the Bellua have even escaped yet,” he said, shaking his head.

  “The Nightmare has,” Honorine replied.

  “Well, that’s only one,” Nautilus said. “Surely Astraea and Sagittarius and the others can handle one Bellua on their own.”

  Andromeda crossed her arms and began to burn with low, intense light.

  “You want the handful of Mordant who have managed to escape your persecution to now fight and protect you? To clean up the disasters that you created?”

  “They don’t need to defend me,” Nautilus said. “I have this ship. They only need to hold back the Bellua.”

  Andromeda’s light swelled. She took a step toward Nautilus, who immediately retreated.

  “Well, it’s their duty, isn’t it?” Nautilus continued. “Isn’t that part of the job?”

  Andromeda’s light grew so bright that Honorine’s eyes had difficulty adjusting. The Mordant queen continued to advance toward Nautilus, the light now pooling and falling from her dress. She pointed her hand toward the far wall, and a trail of white fire raced across the floor in a thin line. It climbed the far wall, forming a rough circle that continued to burn hotter and brighter until a great slab of iron fell away, leaving a gaping hole.

  “You can’t expect me to abandon all the work we’ve done here,” Nautilus said as Andromeda sent the fire deeper into the ship. “You haven’t even seen what we’ve built here! At least take a look—”

  “I’ve seen enough,” Andromeda said as another layer of wall crumbled, revealing the cabin full of imprisoned Mordant. “This ends now.”

  Nautilus opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by a hideous crash from outside the ship.

  “What was that?” Francis asked. “That Nightmare thing?”

  Lightning flashed overhead, followed by a wild crack of thunder.

  “No,” Honorine said with a hesitant smile. “That’s Eridanus.”

  The ship rose suddenly and pitched sharply, knocking everyone aboard except Andromeda off balance for a moment.

  “Enough,” she said. “There’s no more time to waste here.”

  The next moment, Professor du Ciel appeared on the bridge overhead, knocking sharply on the window. She was drenched from head to toe.

  “Captain!” she said through the amplifiers inside the bridge. “There’s a rogue storm approaching, very fast. The volcanic activity is increasing exponentially, and also, well, there’s a… monster on the side of the mountain, not one of the Mordant. It’s… I think you need to see this.”

  The entire crew hurried up to the bridge. Out across the deck, a wild storm had begun circling the island, curiously staying out at sea, creating a barrier of lightning and thick black clouds. On the island, a creature that looked a bit like a squid covered in barbed hooks crawled across the beach while another beast, much more solid and stout, pounded its way around the hillside, using huge tusks to fling enormous boulders into the air, which landed with sprays of hot ash and splashes of lava.

  “And what are those?” Francis asked.

  “The Leviathan and the Rhectae,” Andromeda said in a very unamused tone. “This is not going well.”

  Far up above them, the Nightmare crawled toward the peak of the mountain, its wings catching the growing breeze.

  “Why isn’t it flying?” Francis asked.

  “It’s going after the tree first,” Andromeda explained.

  “You mean that old ironwood?” Honorine said.

  “It’s the last of the Silva trees on the island,” said Andromeda. “The last defense against the Bellua escaping. The sap of a Silva tree will harden the volcano’s lava and rebuild the old gates. We need it to lock the Bellua back in.”

  “And if that beast tears it down?” Professor du Ciel asked.

  “Then it will be a battle,” Andromeda said. “One I don’t think we can win.”

  A tiny silver streak raced across the sky toward the Nightmare.

  “Astraea!” Honorine said.

  “She won’t be able to hold him off for long on her own,” Andromeda said.

  “The storm is closing in,” Francis said as the wall of clouds met and washed over the ship, pouring a torrent of rain down over the Gaslight.

  “Eridanus is hiding the ship,” said Andromeda.

  The clouds blocked the ship from view of the shore, but also blocked the view of the Nightmare. Lightning flashed and rain splattered across the deck as winds whipped in every direction. The sailors out on the deck ran to secure the ship, to protect the exposed equipment from the sudden rain, and also to save their own lives.

  A blue light flashed brightly over the ship, but it was not lightning. Corvus swept low, landing on the deck. The Mapmaker slid from the back of the crow and stood facing the bridge and the greenhouse dome beyond.

  “That will not be good,” Honorine said. The Mapmaker raised his hands, and the ship rose and heaved under a tremendous wave, tipping treacherously back before plunging down into a spray of salt water. He raised his hands again, and the deck began to splinter, a sharp crack appearing straight across the width of the ship from starboard to port.

  “He’s going to sink the ship!” Nautilus shouted.

  “He just wants the Mordant free!” said Honorine. “Let them go!”

  Andromeda turned and leaned down beside her. “It’s time to be courageous,” she said. “I have to go back down there and get them out.”

  She pointed back toward the laboratory and the imprisoned Mordant.

  “Right,” Honorine said. “Let’s go!”

  Andromeda shook her head.

  “You stay with Francis. Keep him safe.”

  “No,” Honorine said, shaking her head. “I have to go with you! I promised I’d help them!”

  Andromeda smiled. “And you did,” she said. “You found me. Now, be brave. I’ll be back in but a moment.”

  Andromeda left the bridge, Nautilus protesting and ranting behind her, Professor du Ciel on his heels.

  Out on the deck, the Mapmaker continued to send waves over the ship, one after another, shaking railings and fixtures loose from their fittings, widening the fissure in the wooden deck.

  “He’s not going to stop,” Honorine said. “He’s really going to sink the ship. We have to do something.”

  “Well, there’s one thing.…” Francis said as he watched the Mapmaker snapping the boat in half one deck plank at a time. “There’s always the machine.”

  “No!” Honorine said with a gasp. Even though she knew he was right, and that if they didn’t act quickly, the Mapmaker would simply tear the ship to pieces, Honorine still wished there was another way. If they u
sed the machine against him, then he would be right. Honorine would have betrayed him.

  “Except that we don’t know his constellation,” Francis continued. He seemed almost mesmerized by the sight of the Mapmaker’s rampage on the other side of the glass.

  Honorine breathed half a sigh of relief and then stopped cold.

  She did know his constellation.

  The moment she thought of it, the image filled her mind—the last constellation in the room under the swamp, behind the only locked door on the Carina.

  Honorine looked out at the Mapmaker, remembering the vision he’d shown her, himself in the globe, his stars extinguishing one at a time in the dark sky. It had probably been a test to see if she would use that knowledge against him.

  “What if we do?” she whispered.

  “You know his constellation?” Francis asked in disbelief.

  “I might,” Honorine said. “But do we have to capture him? Can we just… hang on to him for a moment and give Astraea and the rest of them the chance to fight back?”

  “We can try,” Francis said.

  Honorine opened a logbook, grabbed a charcoal pencil, and jotted down the pattern of stars as she remembered them, still hoping in a small way that she was wrong.

  “I saw this on the Carina,” she explained, suddenly remembering something that Lord Vidalia had said to her on the ship. “And your father mentioned the Stolen Fire.”

  “Prometheus?” Francis asked after a moment of contemplation. “But he doesn’t have a constellation.”

  “Or maybe he does, and he’s been very good at hiding it,” Honorine said, handing him the drawing. “Of course, this might not be correct.”

  “We can give it a try,” Francis said. “It will give us something to do besides wait to be drowned or eaten by monsters.”

  As they hurried back down toward the laboratory, figures began to emerge from below. A magnificent black swan, its wings edged in silver, its eyes blazing red. A ram with curling golden horns, a blue-black hare with points of light speckled through its coat, a hunter with a bow and a silver sword, a great lizard with scales of black and gold. A chariot drawn by a team of horses with silver coats. A magnificent dove, its feathers made of swirling white and blue lights shot with streaks of gold.

  Francis and Honorine ducked and swerved as the Mordant escaped past them, out into the night air.

  “Prometheus,” Francis said with a shake of his head, “who stole the secret of fire from the gods and gave it to man. Of course! The Mapmaker is the muse of Knowledge. He was the one who first taught people how to communicate with the stars.”

  In the laboratory, they found more Mordant pouring through the hole that Andromeda had burned into the wall. Professor du Ciel stood near the controls, watching helplessly as figure after figure raced past them. She was too confused and overwhelmed to object when Francis ordered her to stand aside.

  “The machine isn’t ready,” she said as she considered Honorine’s hasty rendering. “We don’t have globes in place for these stars.”

  “Well, start anyway,” Honorine said. She headed to the wall and began climbing the rusting metal staircases toward the dome above.

  “What are you doing?” Francis called as he tried to follow her.

  “Stay there!” Honorine called back. “Tell me which ones!”

  She pointed to the globes high above. Most of them had been replaced, but some still hung in shards from the singed ends of the copper pipes. The dome above had not been fully repaired, either, and cold wind whipped in, bringing sparks and jets of sulfurous smoke.

  “There are thirteen stars in Prometheus!” Francis called up to her. “And from down here, it looks like most of the ones we need to use are broken.”

  “Wonderful,” Honorine said as she made her way out onto the adjustable ladder. With the help of Francis’s wild gestures and frantic shouting, she swung around to each of the thirteen globes that were required to light the constellation of Prometheus. Most of them were shattered, and there was no time to wait for replacements to be carried up. She had to substitute intact globes from other locations, detaching and reattaching them, but eventually, amid the gusts of wind that shook the ladder, enormous waves that almost threw her to the ground, and falling sparks that singed the back of her neck, Honorine thought she had the globes in place.

  “All right! Give it a try!” she called down.

  Francis scowled. “Not while you’re still up there!”

  “I’m not coming all the way down! I’ll need to come back up if it doesn’t work. Just hurry!”

  Something groaned in the water deep beneath the ship, making the walls shudder and the glass globes ring.

  Francis and Professor du Ciel began turning the dials and adjusting the levels. The copper pipes rattled faintly as the globes filled with gas. Soft pops echoed around the dome as flames erupted gently into the globes.

  Honorine watched intently as each one flickered to life in different shades of fire. One, two, three, all the way up to five looked good, and they continued to light.

  Then she saw it.

  Across the open dome, one of the globes right in the middle of the constellation was too loose. She had replaced the broken globe with one that was a size too large. She hadn’t tightened it enough. As soon as the gas ignited, it would come completely off, and fall.

  She began to swing the ladder out, into the most open space in the laboratory.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” Professor du Ciel shouted.

  “It’s about to light!” Francis called. “Get out of the way!”

  Globes around her burst to life as Honorine reached the loose one and grasped the sides of the glass with both hands. Leaning all her weight on the ladder, she tightened the connection as fast as she could manage.

  She could hear the gas flowing down the pipe and filling the globe, hear the tick of the ignition as it attempted to light the flame. After only two faint clicks, the Sidus Apparatus came to life, and a pulse of energy burst out through the connected globes and across the dome.

  Honorine was instantly thrown off the ladder and into the vast open space between the dome and the hard, glass-strewn floor.

  Honorine felt the solid metal of the ladder slip away and expected to fall to the floor. Instead, she dropped just enough to feel her stomach lurch into her throat, and then there was a tremendous flash and the sound of air rushing past her, though she felt no wind. And then… not much else.

  She was not on the ground, but she was not falling, either. She was looking out over the laboratory, filled with the reflections of the light from the globes. Far below stood Francis and Professor du Ciel, looking terrified.

  Then something else moved in the room. The Mapmaker sailed past her and became a whole, solid form collected out of the air from bits of electricity and cinders. He was standing on a kind of flat disk of pale light.

  He looked completely confounded, both at finding himself standing inside the ship and at seeing Honorine there, hovering somewhere above him.

  “Ah,” he said after a long moment to contemplate his situation. “So this is Nautilus’s magnificent machine. And you clever people have finally figured out how to use it against me.”

  “I’m not going to do it,” Honorine said. “What you showed me, in that vision. I won’t destroy you. And I won’t let anyone else do it, either.”

  “Yet you’d use this machine to imprison me?” he asked.

  “Or to keep you safe,” Honorine said. “Just for a little while. When this is over, I’ll set you free again. I promise.”

  The Mapmaker’s eyes grew wide, and he looked as if he was about to say something, when Honorine noticed the key still in his hand. She reached out, trying to get her fingers around it, when Professor du Ciel made an adjustment on the machine. Suddenly, he was surrounded by intense golden light drawing closer and tighter until, with a flash, the Mapmaker was encased in a small amber orb, just as the rest of them had been.

  And
then she was falling.

  Not to the floor, but into a cloud of sparks and blinding light. A moment later, Honorine felt solid ground under her feet and slowly looked up to find herself sitting on the metal grate of the laboratory floor.

  Francis and Professor du Ciel stared at her in shock.

  “What just happened?” she asked. She had the ironwood key in her hand.

  “You… well, you…” Francis said, trying to find a way to explain. “You remember when I hit the wolf with that starglass bullet?”

  Honorine’s eyes lit up. “I did the sparks thing?” She waved her hands in the air to imitate the explosion. “What color sparks were they?” She felt suddenly shocked with energy. Her heart was pounding. She could feel it in her ears.

  “Gold, I suppose,” Francis said. “It was so fast I don’t really remember.”

  “You got a bit tangled in the machine,” Professor du Ciel explained. “It didn’t know what was the Mapmaker and what was you for a moment. But we straightened it out.”

  Honorine peered into the amber orb resting in a scorched silver metal bowl, rocking slightly from side to side and giving off a faint wisp of smoke. Instead of a little figure, she saw only a tumbling knot of dark smoke swirling inside. “Are you sure you got him?”

  “I think I see a figure inside,” Francis said.

  “There wouldn’t be a physical orb unless we had caught something,” Professor du Ciel added.

  “Don’t worry,” Honorine said, wrapping the Mapmaker’s amber prison in her sash and slinging it over her shoulder. “You’re staying with me for now. And Francis,” she said, looking up at him. “Andromeda and the Mordant are handling the mountain. So I think we should go find your father.”

  Francis’s eyes popped.

  “The Carina must be here somewhere. And that was the last place I saw Lord Vidalia.”

  That was enough to persuade Francis.

  They headed out into the storm, looking for Pegasus. Who they found was Corvus, rain and sea spray flashing off his feathers. He cawed loudly at them as they approached.

  “Now, don’t be upset with me,” Honorine said as she showed Corvus the globe containing the Mapmaker. “We need to get him out of here, and we need to find Lord Vidalia. Can you to take us back to the Carina?”