Joss looked at it dubiously. ‘Jewellery?’ he said as Qorza thrust the bracelet into his hands. ‘I’m not really the type –’
‘It’s not jewellery. It’s a protective charm. With that scar on your chest you might as well be bleeding in megalodon-infested waters. This will help ward off any entities attracted by its presence. Consider it a pocket-size version of all the work we’ve done here tonight.’
With that endorsement, Joss slid the bracelet around his wrist. ‘Thank you,’ he said, buttoning his shirt. The wisp scar had warmed him up, but even so he retrieved the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders again.
‘Come on.’ Qorza offered her hand. ‘You’re going to need to rest after a shock like that.’
She helped him up, and once she’d put the final touches on the last protective sigil she walked him below deck. Feeling like a paladero who’d suffered an ankylosaurstrike to the head, he collapsed into his hammock, so shaken that he couldn’t recall Qorza leaving the room, nor did he remember thanking her on her way out. All he heard was the snoring of his brethren, the crashing of waves against the hull, and the breathing of the ship as it carried them on into tomorrow.
Joss awoke drenched in sweat. As bad as the visions had been after first getting struck by the wisp, his dreams had been even worse. They were filled with monstrous faces baring mirrored fangs, valleys of dead thunder lizards rotting beneath a black sun, and the final sensation of plummeting helplessly through a burning sky towards a scorched earth.
His chest throbbing, he tumbled out of his hammock and took in his surroundings. Both Pietro and Hero were still fast asleep, the tundra bear luxuriating in all the rest he’d caught up on while aboard the ship. Drake, however, was awake and fully alert. He was sitting, rigid, on the other side of the hold, peering out the only porthole. Shaking off his troubled night as best he could, Joss joined his friend.
‘You look worse than I feel,’ Drake said, glancing over.
‘I had the strangest dream … It was –’ Joss stopped. ‘Wait. What do you mean?’
Drake turned back to the porthole. ‘We’re docking at Snowbridge,’ he said, his voice edgy.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘I thought we’d be arriving at Stormport and going straight on to Starlight Fields from there. I never thought we’d be coming to Snowbridge.’
‘What’s wrong with Snowbridge?’ Hero asked through a yawn, her hat still pulled down over her face.
‘My father,’ said Drake gravely. ‘He’s the harbourmaster here.’
Joss raised his eyebrows while Hero slowly pushed back the brim of her hat and sat up. ‘Your father?’ she said, sliding from her hammock to join them. ‘But you don’t speak to your father.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You haven’t spoken to him in years,’ she went on.
‘I haven’t.’
‘So this –’ she stopped, leaving Drake to finish the thought for her.
‘Is a complete disaster!’ he said as he slumped against the wall.
As the Behemoth docked, its crew immediately set to unloading. While crates and barrels were winched from the hull to be safely deposited onto the wharf, Joss, Drake and Hero were left to fend for themselves. Unwilling to abandon the warmth of the ship for the cold outside, Pietro was proving stubborn in leaving. And, to make matters worse, they had to coax him out under the watchful eye of Captain Gyver.
‘Thank you again for your hospitality, captain,’ Joss said as he hunkered into the fur-lined coat Drake had lent him for the trip. It didn’t fit quite right given how much taller his Bladebound brethren was, but he was more than grateful for its warmth.
‘If you really want to thank me, you’ll get that animal off my boat before it mauls someone,’ she replied, eyeing Pietro warily as Drake tried to cajole the bear into moving. ‘And you’ll find the person who really warrants your gratitude waiting by the gangplank.’
Looking over, Joss saw Qorza there, a red bandana wrapped around her head and a faint smile on her lips.
‘Feeling any better?’ she asked.
‘A little,’ he admitted, rubbing at the wisp scar.
‘Try not to touch it too much. Let it heal.’
Joss nodded. ‘I can’t tell you how much it’s meant, getting the chance to talk to you and hear your stories,’ he told her. ‘I hope we can stay in touch.’
‘Of course! In fact, I have something for you. Consider it a parting gift.’ Qorza handed him a disc made of copper and glass.
‘A Scryer?’ Joss asked, running his thumb over the device’s crystal projector, its seams and screws. It was thicker than the one he remembered Zeke having on the Way, its construction a little more crude. Obviously an older model.
‘I’ve loaded it with the call sign for our transmitter, should you ever need to reach me,’ Qorza said. ‘But that’s not all. Press the red button there on the side.’
Curious, Joss did so, and the disc exploded with light. Images swirled all around him, a pair of faces that, until now, had only hovered at the edges of his memory.
‘My parents …’ Joss said, the words struggling out of his throat as he stared in awe at the people who gave him life. They looked ghostly to him, translucent and serene. Both of them were dressed in what looked to be ceremonial robes of pale silk, and each was holding a beaded necklace, his mother’s white and decorated with a golden sun pendant, his father’s black with a silver lightning bolt. Smiling warmly, they each slipped their necklace over the other’s head, settling it in place.
‘Is this –?’
‘Their wedding,’ Qorza explained. ‘It’s Daheedi tradition for the bride and groom to bestow necklaces upon each other. Each pair is unique, made by the jeweller for that couple so that they mirror one another, though always with the female symbol of the sun and the male symbol of the thunderbolt. I had to hunt through my records to find the footage I recorded that day. I added a few other images, too …’
The projection flickered, and what had been Naveer and Isra’s wedding ceremony now jumped to their young son’s naming day. Joss watched as the couple knelt together on a stone step worn smooth by the sea, to dip their baby in the salt water.
‘That’s me!’ Joss’s voice was soft and wavering. He watched with rapt fascination as the waves lapped over his infant self’s forehead, his parents delighted at how calm he was. They each cooed and laughed as they raised him back up, offering a view of him to the crowd. Everyone applauded.
‘They look so happy,’ Joss said.
‘They were,’ Qorza replied as the image faded.
Tears streaked Joss’s face. They clouded his eyes and warmed his cheeks. His hands shaking, he wiped them away. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he told Qorza, who was watching him with concern. ‘Thank you. So much. For everything.’
‘I was serious, you know. Should you need anything, we’re only a push of a button away.’
‘And Captain Gyver? She’d say the same?’
‘Oh, trust me. She can put up a tough front, but –’
‘I understand,’ Joss said with a wave. ‘I have my fair share of people who put up tough fronts …’
Qorza grinned, then gestured to the pile-up that was growing behind Joss’s back. ‘I think your help may be appreciated over there,’ she said. ‘So let’s call this goodbye for now. And good luck with finding your friend.’
Joss offered her his hand, but Qorza pulled him into a hug instead. When they parted, he tucked the Scryer safely away in his coat pocket, then rushed over to help Drake and Hero get Pietro down the gangplank, paw by paw, disregarding the comments of the frustrated crew held up behind them.
The harbour was deathly quiet. With the Behemoth the only ship berthed, there was no shortage of dockworkers ready and waiting to unload the cargo in hope of a day’s pay. Their efforts were overseen by the harbour officials, who strode around the wharf to ensure that everything was done according to regulations. It was easy enough to distinguish the two
parties. While the workers were dressed in greasy overalls and rugged jackets, the officials all wore black leather gloves and impeccably tailored coats of dark navy, their brass buttons flashed in the frosty light.
‘We can hire a couple of snowskimmers for you both from Efram’s Garage and be on our way within the hour,’ Drake said as kept his head down and marched towards the harbour gates as fast as he could without breaking into a gallop.
‘Is that wise at this time of day?’ Hero asked, she and Joss both struggling to keep pace as they lugged the belongings that couldn’t be strapped to Pietro’s harness. ‘Doesn’t the sun set early here?’
‘I’ve lived here all my life. A little dark won’t be any trouble. We can navigate by the stars if it comes to that.’
‘Drake,’ Joss said to silence. ‘Ganymede! Stop. Wait. You’re not thinking things through. We need to talk about this, come up with some sort of plan –’
‘I have a plan,’ Drake shot back without slowing, Pietro huffing at his side. ‘The plan is to leave this merciless patch of ice before anyone has a chance to even know we’ve been here.’
He threw the barest of looks over his shoulder, and that one moment of ill-attention was all he needed to walk straight into one of the navy-coated officials. Both of them tumbled to the ground, Drake landing painfully on his rear while the official sprawled out on his shirtfront.
‘Ganymede!’ Hero exclaimed as she rushed over to him, helping him up while Joss tended to the official.
‘Sorry about that, sir. My friend didn’t see you.’
‘Then he should have been looking where he was damn well going!’ the official barked.
At the sound of his voice, Joss noticed Drake freeze. Brushing himself off, the official rose to his full height, his moustache twitching irritably as he spun around to confront the person who’d knocked him over. They both went pale with shock.
‘Gwendoline!’ the official exclaimed, his eyes wide beneath a bushy brow. ‘What are you doing here?’
Drake clenched his jaw, clenched his fists, clenched his entire being. ‘Hello, father,’ he said. ‘Fancy running into you here.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A HAPPY HOME
DRAKE stared blankly at Joss, looking entirely unlike himself. Though his hair was cut almost as short, his face was much younger. And his expression was pure misery. Perhaps it had something to do with the clothes he was wearing, the dress a frilly concoction of lace and ribbons.
‘I remember that day,’ the real Drake said as he joined Joss by the fireplace, perusing the collection of family portraits that were arranged on the mantelpiece. ‘There was a two-hour war of words getting me into that outfit.’
‘You had something else in mind?’
‘My grandfather’s old dinner suit,’ Drake said, picking up the framed picture to stare at it. ‘I’d had it tailored and everything. But my parents didn’t take too kindly to that idea.’
Drake’s smile was a small, fragile thing. The same smile he’d forced back at the wharf, when his father had coerced him into bringing his friends home for the evening following their brief and awkward reunion.
‘Your mother and sister would both be heartbroken to know you’d been in town and didn’t bother to see them,’ his father had said over Drake’s many protests. It was that argument that had finally clinched it. Before they’d even really known what was happening, all three prentices had been escorted to the outskirts of town, to have dinner and stay the night in the Drake family household.
As the smile faded from Drake’s face, Joss peeked over his shoulder to scrutinise the portrait more closely. Drake’s father was at the centre of the picture, stoic and sober, with the rest of the family assembled around him. Drake’s mother looked almost as upset as Drake, with strands of hair falling loose from her bun to dangle in his sister’s face. While his sister had her mother’s arm around her, Drake was standing all on his own, isolated from the rest of his family.
‘You look so …’ Joss searched for the right word. ‘Different.’
Drake scoffed. ‘You say different. I say strange. And I felt even stranger. It wasn’t long after that photo was taken that I set off for Starlight Fields to become a prentice.’
‘And to become “Ganymede”?’
Drake’s smile turned bittersweet. ‘Remember when we talked in the Barbed Forest?’ he asked, and Joss cast his mind back to the night that Drake had shared the story of his life: though he had been born a girl, he had never seen himself that way, never felt that reflected who he truly was. ‘I’ve always been Ganymede. Even when nobody else called me that. Even when the world saw me elsewise.’
Joss flushed with embarrassment to have made such a mistake. Not that Drake seemed offended. He was far too preoccupied for that.
‘This really is going to be hard. Isn’t it?’ Joss said, the gravity of the situation weighing heavily on him. Drake merely ran a thumb over his former visage, then placed the portrait back on the mantle. Pivoting, he spotted a half-assembled metal cylinder sitting atop an oily rag on a nearby sideboard.
‘What’s a gyrothruster doing in here?’ he mumbled, picking it up. While he scrutinised the device and fiddled with the mess of wires that hung from one end, Joss turned his attention to the family home.
It was a unique structure, shaped like the circular dome of a High Chamber. All of the individual rooms were clustered around the central parlour, much as the Drake clan itself had clustered around their patriarch in that picture taken all those years ago. The room was decorated with a suite of wooden furniture and stone tables, mammoth-skin rugs and embroidered tapestries, with brass lamps hanging high overhead from the timber rafters. They shed a buttery light that was complemented by the crackling fireplace, turning what could have been a large and draughty space into a cosy den.
It certainly wasn’t what Joss had expected while on the way here. On the rare occasions that Drake had spoken of his family, Joss had imagined his home to be something more like a military barracks or a boarding school. Formal and austere and, most of all, cold.
This was the complete opposite of that, and it made Joss long for his own place in the world to which he could return, a place where his memories were kept safe and the people closest to him lived in comfort and contentment. Of course he knew it was more complicated than that for Drake. A handsome home didn’t make for a happy one. But surely even an unhappy home was better than no home at all.
It didn’t look like Hero would agree. She was leaning against the doorframe at the opposite end of the room, arms folded across her chest as she stared resolutely at her own reflection in the polished floorboards. Not even the chiming of the grandfather clock stirred her, though its ticking served as a constant reminder for Joss that every moment they lingered here was another moment lost in tracking down Edgar. As restless as that prospect left him, he knew this reunion wouldn’t be rushed. Still, he couldn’t help counting the passing seconds as Drake’s father entered from the adjoining study, having excused himself earlier to go use the illumivox machine.
‘I spoke with your Aunt Glynis. Beatrix and your mother left some time ago. They shouldn’t be far off now.’ Spotting the gyrothruster Drake was holding, he nodded at it. ‘From one of the old snowskimmers. Haven’t been able to get the damn thing running.’
‘Probably just a filtration issue,’ Drake replied, still facing the sideboard as he tapped the instrument between his fingers.
‘Can’t be,’ his father said. ‘I cleaned out the housing unit.’
‘What about the secondary housing unit? Where the starter circuit’s kept?’
His father’s eyes flickered as he looked away, turning his attention to Joss and Hero. ‘Would, uh … would anyone like some coffee?’
‘I’m fine,’ Hero said.
‘Some hot cocoa would be nice, if you have it,’ said Joss.
Drake’s father grimaced. ‘I, uh … don’t really …’
‘It’s usually mother who takes
care of all that,’ Drake said on his father’s behalf.
‘Oh,’ Joss replied. ‘Well. Coffee would be just as good. Thanks.’
Drake’s father nodded, then turned to his son. ‘And you, Gwendo–’ He caught himself as Drake winced in much the same way his father had. ‘And you?’
‘Thank you.’ Drake again mirrored his father, offering him the same formal nod.
His father retreated into the kitchen as fast as his feet would carry him and Drake shot Joss a consolatory look. ‘Sorry. He doesn’t know how to be … well, he doesn’t know how to be, really.’
Joss waved away the concern. ‘What about you? How are you feeling?’
‘We don’t have to stay here, you know,’ Hero piped up from across the room. ‘We can go whenever you feel the need.’
‘Thank you. Both of you,’ said Drake. ‘But now that we’re here, I suppose I should at least try to –’
The doorhandle beside Hero clicked and rotated. She moved out of the way just as it sprang open and a young girl with honey-coloured hair came rushing into the room.
‘Ganymede!’ she cried out, rushing straight for Drake. He almost dropped the gyrothruster as she crashed into him, her arms wrapping around him in a tight embrace.
‘Oof!’ he said, the wind knocked from him. ‘Hey, kid! How’s Trix?’
‘Did you get all my letters?’ the girl asked, too excited to take in his question.
‘The ones you sent to Starlight Fields I did, but I’ve been on the road since then. Did you get mine?’
‘I did! Was the Ghost City as scary as it sounded?’
‘Scarier.’
‘And is this Joss? And Hero?’ The girl let go of Drake long enough to stare excitedly at them both.
‘That’s right,’ Drake replied. ‘Josiah Sarif of Round Shield Ranch, Hero of Blade’s Edge Acres – allow me to introduce my sister, Beatrix Drake. Trix for short.’
‘Pleasure to meet you,’ Joss said, offering his hand.
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