The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives)

by Courtney Grace Powers

  “She should be with the others. Gid sent her looking for you.”

  Before Nivy could more than raise an eyebrow, Reece’s knees suddenly tried to buckle, as if someone had turned off the faucet tapping the last reserves of his energy. Gid caught him under the arm as he staggered, hooking it around his shoulders to ease him back up with what must have passed for gentle for a Pan. Crashing face first to the stone floor probably would have hurt less, but Reece nonetheless appreciated the gesture.

  “Wow,” Nivy said, and Gideon and Reece looked at her. “They really did nobble you.” Though he kind of thought that went without pointing out, Reece nodded, and she helpfully slid in under his free arm, relieving some of the strain of his stretched bruises. “Do you know who interrogated you?”

  Reece screwed his eyes up as he tried to remember what he could about the dim room where Nekoda had made him feel like an Eleven getting his lunch money beaten out of him. There had been raised seating around the edge of the room where The Heron had skulked, a low ceiling with naked hanging photon globes, and… “There was a woman with her head shaved on one side. She took point when Nekoda was done, had me blindfolded and taken back to the cell.”

  “Canter,” the kid hovering behind them spoke up, and Nivy nodded, looking grim. As Reece and Gideon glanced at him, the boy adjusted his hat, tipping back his head to keep it from slouching down again. He had a small scar on the side of his neck—a faded puncture wound, from the looks of it. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Mose. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance…Reece and Gideon, is it?”

  “Yeah,” Reece said, yelping when Nivy tried to shift his weight. “Careful, careful!”

  “Pleasure,” Mose repeated over the noise, unfazed. He fell into step beside them as they waddled down the dank tunnel like the losers of a five-legged race. “As I was saying, it sounds like you were set upon by Canter and her cronies.” He quickly glanced at Nivy like he’d made a fatal slip, but she hadn’t even blinked. “She’s Second of the Martial Guild.”

  “Martial. You mean like…married?” Gideon asked.

  He flushed as Mose gave him a withering look. “That would be marital. No, the Martial Guild is in charge of The Heron’s militaristic endeavors. Theirs is a more…aggressive approach. Had you been taken by Asa, or Illie, from the other guilds—”

  “They’d still be questioning him,” Nivy said dryly. “Or arguing over him. Keep your voice down, Mose.”

  Canter, Asa, Illie, Mose, Nekoda…the names all ran into a bland soup in Reece’s muddled head as he squinted at the rectangle of fuzzy white light marking the end of the corridor. He tucked his chin in to peer down and over at Nivy. New clothes and neat hairdo aside, she looked the same. But he was having a hard time reconciling this Nivy with the one he’d shared the helm with since setting into The Voice. That Nivy had always looked just a little out of her element, not unsure of herself, but of everything else, like she was constantly aware of the risks of turning her back for even a second. This Nivy walked with easy self-assurance. She walked like she could navigate this place with her eyes closed. Like she’d finally come home.

  He’d known this was coming; he just hadn’t prepared for it. Nivy belonged here. When she remembered that for herself, they would lose her.

  He tried to contort his grimace into what was no doubt a misshapen smile as she looked at him. “So…the guilds. They run The Heron?”

  “Those committed to the rebellion, yes. There are three. The Martial Guild, The Laborers Guild, and The Guild of Rule. The military, the people, and the politicians.”

  “You’ve built your own government.”

  “Trust me,” Nivy said with a snort, “it’s not as impressive as it sounds. Each guild has two leaders, a First and a Second, who are voted into power. Together, the six leaders are responsible for all major decision making in the Underground. Canter is one of The Six.” She stared into the light for a moment. It turned the shadow of her hood into a hard visor across her eyes. “She’s also one of the few who knew about my mission to retrieve Aurelia and the book, and what they both might mean.”

  What Reece really wanted to do was demand why she would entrust that information to a woman who had struck him as a complete psychopath, but he cleared his throat and curbed his tone as they neared the door. He could now hear voices and footfall over the hum of machinery, but beyond that, he didn’t know what to expect of the underground: a tumbledown town like Leto City, or another thriving Neserus. “Is she a friend of yours?”

  “She had something to gain from what I could learn on Honora.” Nivy’s expression was withdrawn, cautious. “I needed someone to get me far enough out from The Ice Ring to launch my capsule. She flew me three weeks away from the nearest Stream and made the return journey alone.”

  “When I first met you, I asked what Stream your planet was near, and you said none,” he remembered. She paused just inside the doorway, forcing Gideon to do the same before he could stretch Reece into two.

  “As I remember it, you asked if there was a Stream near where I came from. I came from somewhere out in The Voice. There was no Stream.”

  “You lied.”

  “I told the wrong truth.” She rolled her eyes at his look of wounded disbelief—which was only partly put on—and sighed. “How was I supposed to specify? There was so little I could explain in full. Was I really going to waste the time correcting you on the things that didn’t matter?” He opened his mouth, but she must have anticipated his very clever reply, because she headed it off with a flat, “Don’t be stupid,” and stole out from under his arm and into the light with a smirk, like she’d been waiting a long time to say that.

  The first thing Reece noticed about the underground base with its sharp angles and smooth black walls like coal was that it was familiar, though he didn’t know why. The second thing he noticed was the birds.

  The door to their prison cell was one of hundreds pointing out into the giant, bustling center of Heron operations. Its identical doorways ran in neat rows up its tiered levels, and almost every doorway had its own arching bridge, which divided and intersected at random with the bridges next to it and across from it, which dissected again and then again, like the zigzagging, multiplying tunnels of ant farms Reece had learned about in his Animalogy class. Some of the bridges were carved from slabs of black stone worn smooth from years of shuffling feet, but others were wood and iron like old drawbridges, and there were even a few classic rope bridges strung in the mix. It was as if someone had taken one of his childhood forts in the woods at Emathia and pumped it with Vee serum so it filled out exponentially.

  Weaving between the bridges were messenger hawks with red-streaked tails and wicked, half-moon beaks, carrying scrolls in either their talons or the leather pouches on their stubby legs. They swam in the shafts of snow-diluted sunlight leaking through the hive’s glass roof, swooping between datascreens fixed on poles of all different heights. The screens flickered soundlessly, encoded information flowing from one into another as fast as the birds could fly.

  It was a strange mash of qualities, clean and sharp and gritty and rustic, old and new. Reece couldn’t tell which aspect had been here first: the elegant black stone with its airy openness and faintly translucent screens, or the unpolished parts that were clearly all Heron, like the clutter of the bridges and the loudness of the birds.

  It came to him as Nivy turned them down a dark hall with small orange lanterns flanking its stone floor like a runway—what the glistening black walls and sharp tiers of the complex brought to mind. His skin crawled. It couldn’t be coincidence, The Heron’s base resembling The Kreft’s ships. He glanced at Gideon. He was glaring around at the ceiling and walls suspiciously, as if he’d made the same connection.

  At the end of the tunnel, they spilled out into a smaller chamber of the same design as the last, except in this one, there was no overhead window; just more runway lanterns edging the railed bridges. Reece couldn’t see any hawks, but he could
hear them out in the dark. A rustle of wings, a click of claws, the occasional unnerving screech. He wished he was wearing his coat, so he could turn his collar up around his neck.

  “How big is this place?” he asked.

  Mose chirped cheerfully, “There are several caverns of this size, but most of the room goes into housing the generators providing the complex with power, so living space itself is small. We’ve been trying to expand, but it’s too cold to expose whole sections of the complex to the weather outside for long periods of time, and we’re blocked in by the mountains to the west.”

  Reece’s eyes followed an elderly couple as they passed by hand in mittened hand. He’d half expected all The Heron to be like Nivy, dark, on edge. Soldiers or spies. Granted, he saw a fair number of both, striding along with globes of light in one hand and screens like sleeker datascopes in the other, but most of the people were ordinary to the point of looking out of place in the dark stronghold. He saw a lot more fur and leather than usual, in waistcoats, riding chaps, and even a few over-the-shoulder sashes, but most of The Heron’s clothes were dusty grey and draped and tied rather than buckled and buttoned. “So what about The Heron living on the topside? In Ketswitch and other places like it? Do they not get the choice to live here?”

  “No.” Nivy sounded regretful as she answered from up ahead. “If all The Heron on Ismara suddenly disappeared…stopped working and providing resources for The Kreft…it would only be a matter of time before our location was pinpointed. Those on the topside keep up their act of normalcy to protect our operations. They can visit in small stints, seek medical attention or sanctuary if they’ve been targeted by a patrol, but the complex itself is usually limited to Heron who have an active hand in the rebellion. And their families.”

  The way she said that last part—hesitantly, then trying for nonchalance—made Reece and Gideon exchange a look. Reece’s chest suddenly felt tight and swollen. He thought he knew the answer to his question, but he nonetheless had to ask, “Do you have family? Here?”

  Nivy stopped at a crossroad between two bridges and made a fuss out of looking back and forth, stalling, from the looks of it. “My brother was killed on a mission nine years ago. But I have parents. You heard about them. Asa and Illie.”

  One of the most beloved children of the rebellion—that’s what Eldritch had once called Nivy. Reece hadn’t even considered the possibility the old creature was being literal, but hadn’t Mose said Asa and Illie were two of The Six?

  “It isn’t like that,” Nivy said suddenly, watching Reece. “I barely know them. Illie was a prisoner of war most of my life, and Asa…” She trailed off, distracted, but this time, it wasn’t an act. Reece followed her stare and saw a small cluster of Heron carrying a litter up the nearest ramp. A girl with wild blonde hair was with them, giving rapid-fire instructions in a voice that commanded deference.

  “Scarlet,” Reece called in surprise. Mostly at the hair.

  Scarlet looked up, and even in the grim shadows of the starry lights, he could see how chalky white she was, her gently scooping nose red-tipped from the cold. Someone had lent her a grey coat to cover up her bright green one, and even then, she was shivering. “Reece,” she sighed, sounding relieved, and hurried over. “Thank goodness. They just showed up at the ship! I didn’t know what to do…they said Nivy had sent them but had no idea who you were, and—”

  “She tried to club me with an umbrella,” one of The Heron holding the litter complained.

  “Parasol,” Scarlet corrected acidly. “Anyways, Hayden has been unconscious all night. He isn’t doing well, Reece. And what in the world happened to your face?”

  “Hospital wing,” Nivy said instantly, and Scarlet choked, startled. Nivy pointed her fellow Heron down a corridor and ordered in a low voice, “Get him there, fast. He’s a refugee brought from Orion if anyone asks. Give him anything he needs.”

  She’d barely finished talking before her friends started off at a brisk, determined walk, holding the litter surprisingly steady. Reece could only see a slender slip of Hayden’s pale face, he was so buried under a mound of leather coats and fur mantles.

  Gideon suddenly growled in the back of his throat before following through with a curse that made Mose jump so high, his hat fell over his eyes. “Where’s Po?” he demanded.

  Scarlet blinked, tearing her eyes off the backs of the disappearing Heron. “Why are you asking me? She went with you!”

  “She went lookin’ for Nivy! She should’a ended up back at Aurelia!”

  “Maybe she did, after we had already gone.”

  Gid cursed again, and Reece interpreted for Scarlet’s sake, “She’s been gone since last night. She should have made it in plenty of time.” He turned to Nivy and Mose, who had started forlornly shaking his head. “What?”

  Nivy shrugged, not uncaringly, but like she was at a loss for the first time since coming here, and didn’t like the sensation. “She might have been picked up by other rebels in Ketswitch. Maybe she got lost and stopped off at an inn. If there was a Kreft patrol last night…” She grimaced. “We have ways of finding out if the patrols picked anyone up after curfew.”

  The worst part was…Reece didn’t think that was what she most afraid of. “So?” he prompted sharply.

  She looked at him. “It snowed last night, Reece. Heavily. It’s hard to see more than three feet in front of you in blizzards out here. If she was still walking when it hit…”

  She didn’t need to finish. Gideon was silent now, staring uncomprehendingly, like Nivy had spoken in Northern. Reece had to think he looked similar. The thought of Po in her happy red boots, wandering through a blizzard in the dark, blinded, alone, freezing…slowly realizing she was never going to make it to the cave and Aurelia…

  Either Scarlet didn’t have as same morbid imagination as the rest of them, or she really was the bravest of them all, something Reece had suspected since the flooded changing room in Neserus, when she’d been prepared to let herself drown before taking him down with her. “We need to send out a patrol,” she said levelly. “They can divide and cover the ground between Ketswitch and the cave in pairs. Someone else can comb the town itself.”

  “Mose,” said Nivy. The boy snapped to attention, thrusting his chin up importantly. “Go tell Illie what’s happened. Gather as many volunteers as you can on the way, so they’re ready to go when she gives permission to send them out.”

  Reece nodded at Gideon as Mose took off down the ramp. “Go with him. You can track her from where you last saw her.”

  He wasn’t a total ginghoo; he knew Gid would have gone anyways. But this way, they could skip the part where Gideon angrily insisted he was going whether or not Reece wanted him to, which he did. Gid not only had Reece’s blessing, but his trust that if anyone could find Po, he would.

  For a second, Gid looked surprised, maybe even a little unsure of himself. He shifted his weight, touched his hip where his revolver should be. Then he gave Reece a short, grateful nod and tore after Mose.

  It was nice to know after all his failures that Reece could still do some things—even just the little things—right.

  “We need to hurry,” Nivy said, picking a bridge and storming across it so Reece and Scarlet had jog to catch up. “We won’t have long now before The Six send for us, and I don’t know what they’ll do with you when they do. Send you back to Honora, if we’re lucky.”

  Nivy and Scarlet had nearly made it to the other side of the bridge before they looked back together and realized Reece had stopped dead in his tracks. He had thought, judging by the light in the last room, that it was mid-morning. But here, with the small receding lights on the stacked bridges resembling stars, he could suddenly believe it was the middle of the night.

  “Reece?” Scarlet called.

  Reece barely heard her. “If we’re lucky?” he repeated, hands on his hips.

  Nivy had the nerve to not even blink at his testy tone, like she’d expected as much from him and was ready to we
ather it in her usual silence.

  He scowled at her. “Don’t act like you don’t know why that would upset me.”

  “Reece…”

  “I mean, it isn’t like my crew flew halfway across the bleeding galaxy, nearly died a dozen times, and lost Mordecai for this mission or anything.”

  Nivy turned about to face him fully, and though she didn’t move more than that, he got the sense that she was poised to attack, as dangerous as the hawks in the dark. “I thought I was part of your crew,” she said, deadpan.

  “You are! You…” People on the bridge parallel to theirs weren’t even being subtle about stopping to stare. Irritated, he ducked over to Nivy and whispered, “You are. And that’s exactly why you should know that I can’t just turn tail and leave. Not after everything I put them through to get here.”

  Nivy’s eyes darted over her shoulder to Scarlet, hovering with her pale hands clasped and shivering over her stomach. Po was missing. Hayden was incapacitated. Mordecai was dead, and Gideon had been orphaned all over again. Honestly, Reece didn’t even know if they’d make it back to Honora on the meager morale they had left between them.

  “Reece,” Nivy began again, “I understand, but I—”

  “Yeah, I can see that. Since you think it’d be lucky for us to get sent packing, now that I’ve kept my promise to get you here.”

  Reece had wondered if he’d be able to tell when he’d gone too far, or if Nivy’s cool focus would keep her in check like it usually did. As it turned out, now that she had her voice back, she was a lot more…outspoken. The heat crackling in her eyes could have boiled a stew as she said evenly, “And if you’re unlucky, you’ll be dead. Do you get that? The Heron aren’t like you. They’ve been fighting this war for five hundred years and are finally making headway. Do you think they care about collateral damage?” She took a deep breath and looked away. Reece was grateful; he’d forgotten how piercing her stare could be. “Remember when you asked me why they hadn’t sought out help?”