Roar of Sky

by Beth Cato

  She waited and waited. Minutes passed. Five, ten.

  Nothing.

  She conceded defeat. Despair weighed on her as she eased herself down the ladder. The sylphs, unbidden, rose from the nest to hover behind her. She reached the tatami mat and released a sigh of relief. At least she hadn’t broken her neck by falling off the ladder.

  She couldn’t dwell on her failure to connect with qilin. She needed a pleasant distraction.

  The metal rings of the curtain squawked as she pushed them to either side. Cy slept flat on his back, his head tilted back and his mouth agape. Wavy tendrils of hair framed his face. His legs bent to one side so that he could fit in the confines of the rack.

  Ingrid ducked her head into the space, close to his chest. Her hairpins tapped the base of the bunk above. Cy’s eyes flew open, and she almost laughed at his startled expression. Grinning back, he pried the beeswax lumps from his ears.

  “Hello!” she said.

  “Hello to you as well. Can you set this in the nook? And pass me my glasses?”

  She let her hand drift down to rest on his chest after handing him his glasses. His white shirt had been pulled askew as he slept, stretching to show more skin at his collar.

  His elbow thudded on the wall as he placed his glasses on his nose. “Fenris hasn’t made some dire statement about the fate of the Bug, has he?”

  “Not in the past few minutes.” She paused for dramatic effect. “I want you.”

  His brown eyes blinked rapidly behind his lenses. “Oh. What? But you. Your body. I wouldn’t want to—your legs—and Fenris is just up the hall—and the racks, we’d never—”

  “I’m not suggesting we take immediate action on the matter, but I thought it best to warn you of my intentions.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “I see.”

  “Do you?” She kissed him, the pressure of her lips and the touch of her tongue evoking a ragged groan from his throat.

  “But your—” he started to say against her lips.

  Ingrid pulled back. “If you say the word ‘legs’ again, I might be tempted to bite you.” She sighed, her levity fading. “Cy. I’m aware that I have new limitations, but I am willing to adapt. If one technique doesn’t work, we’ll try another. That’s the scientific way, isn’t it?”

  His lips quirked together. “You’re asking me to experiment with you?”

  “Good God. Yes. That’s it exactly.” She kissed him again.

  The airship rumbled and bounced. Ingrid’s head smacked the ceiling, and would have smacked a second time but for Cy’s hand acting as a buffer at the last second.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She withdrew from his bunk to sit on her backside in the hallway, rubbing her head. “I’m fine. Just a bump.” She braced both hands against the floor as the Bug jostled more.

  “Expect turbulence! We’re flying over those lava fields and some storm clouds!” called Fenris.

  “I had best lend some aid.” Cy helped her upright. They stood together, bodies a breath apart. Despite his statement, he seemed reluctant to move. The ship jolted again, pushing them together. His arms wrapped around her waist as she rested her head on his chest. She let her eyes drift shut, his heartbeat her lullaby.

  “I so enjoy the freedom to do this.” His words were hot and muffled against the top of her head.

  Anger and frustration caused her throat to tighten. She wanted to show affection to Cy no matter where they were. She wanted the freedom to walk along with him, hand in hand. For him to plant even a chaste kiss on her cheek in public without it being a scandal. For them to legally marry, and for that document to be irrefutable here and across the United States.

  He stroked her back, and her body melted against his. Some of her frustration faded, but only some. She had a hunch her rage at the societal injustice would never fully go away.

  “I suppose the Bug is like our own independent country,” she said. “Laws and propriety be damned.” She tugged on the hip of her pajama trousers for emphasis.

  “Almighty preserve us. Don’t tell Fenris about this simile of yours, or he’ll endeavor to make it a reality.”

  Ingrid giggled. “A crown would suit him quite nicely, I think.”

  “He’s never fancied hats, really, but I think he’d feel differently about a crown.” Cy held her close, their bodies fitting together just so. The ship rocked again, and she would have stumbled off balance except for his secure grip.

  “Cy! Are you awake? Come here! Ingrid, you too! The coast is blackened wasteland for miles and miles! It’s fantastic!”

  Ingrid wistfully sighed. “We’d better both share in this glorious vision of a wasteland.” She gazed up at him. “Please give some thought to ways we can experiment, Cy. I assure you, I’ll be doing the same.”

  His eyes gleamed with mischief. “I might need to chart out some possibilities.”

  “Be sure to share them with me later,” she whispered. She pressed her ring-adorned hand against his chest and gave him a final, lingering kiss that made her feel warm from head to toe.

  She moved toward the control cabin and attempted a sultry walk, even as she continually balanced herself on either side of the hallway as the craft lurched. A glance back confirmed that Cy’s gaze followed her all the way. By the look on his face, he wasn’t simply thinking of catching her if she fell.

  “Cy!” Fenris’s voice hit an unusually high pitch. All of the gaiety in the cabin evaporated in an instant. “Get up here, now!” The airship wobbled again.

  Cy flew down the hallway. Ingrid pressed herself against the wall as he rushed past. “What happened?” he asked briskly.

  “We’re losing pressure.” She saw Fenris gesture to dials on his right. “Take the chair.” With that, he ran past her, to the engine room.

  Ingrid remained frozen for a moment. Fenris’s face had blanched, becoming almost ghostly; she had seen him like that only one other time—when he’d been stabbed. She edged into the doorway, desperate to help, but also smart enough to stay out of the way.

  The window showed the ship at about the same elevation as before. Ocean sprawled to the right, the view below of broad swaths of black lava rock divided by brief bands of verdant jungle. There were no landing masts. No towns.

  Ingrid reached into her pocket. Kermanite crystals dissolved at her touch. Power whirled into her bloodstream, heady and delicious and wonderful. Oh, she missed this feeling, but damn it, she couldn’t let herself become intoxicated by the sensation.

  “Pipe leak!” Fenris shouted.

  “Can you shut it off?” Cy yelled back.

  “Working on it!”

  Cy and Fenris were at opposite ends of the Bug. If the ship went down, Ingrid wouldn’t be able to shield everyone. She could have screamed in frustration. She glanced at the control cabin, her heart in her throat, then hurried to the center of the crisis.

  Fenris wore elbow-length thick gloves as he gripped a valve and grunted as he slowly turned it. A low whistling sound brought her gaze up about a foot above them, where a small white plume emerged from a T-shaped joint of pipework.

  “Do you want me to seal it?” she asked.

  Fenris didn’t look up. He worked the valve with all of his slight weight. “Hell yes.”

  Ingrid didn’t need a reminder to be delicate. Demolishing the pipe would blast fatal steam over both her and Fenris, and even if she managed to shield them in time, the internal engine might very well fail completely and send down the ship.

  She braced her legs wide for steadiness and drew on her magic. The concentration of heat in her right hand felt as if she’d immersed it in a pot of simmering water. She leaned toward the pipe above her, about a foot down from the leak. Uncomfortable warmth wavered against her fingertips. Magic shielded her skin like a glove as she gripped the metal.

  Ingrid closed her eyes to block out the rest of the world. Fast-moving condensation thrummed within the pipe. Pressure was building. More and more steam rushed this
way. The weakness at the joint was expanding, millimeter by millimeter.

  She willed magic to flow from her fingertips and outward along the pipe to find the leak. The incredible power of the steam fought against her as she sealed the minute crack. So much deadly might, packed into one small conduit—a metaphor for her own life, really. She gritted her teeth and held the plug in place.

  “Keep doing whatever you’re doing!” Fenris said, gasping. “I almost have the access closed!”

  “Will the engine continue to run? Will we stay aloft?” Her voice sounded distant to her ears.

  “I already opened a secondary valve to divert some of the flow. Once this is shut off, yes, the Bug will get us to port.”

  Ingrid sensed the moment that Fenris succeeded. The thrum within the pipe abruptly slowed and stopped. She opened her eyes but maintained her grip. “I won’t let go until you give me the okay.”

  “Stay exactly as you are for now.” Fenris hesitated. “Or is this power use . . . ?”

  “I could stay here for a while. I’m not fighting the flow of steam now, so sealing the pipe isn’t taking much from me.”

  “Good.” Fenris released a relieved huff. Sweat glistened on his skin. “A few minutes is all I need.” He began to check other pipes and valves.

  “We’re holding steady,” Cy shouted. “Everyone well back there?”

  “Yes! Fenris stopped the leak,” she called back.

  “Meanwhile, you’re holding a pipe that should be burning your fingers off,” Fenris said, his voice low. “But I don’t suppose that kind of feat is noteworthy these days.”

  “We can give him the full account once he sees that I’m walking as well as before. No point in vexing him unnecessarily.”

  “A wise course of action.” He nodded. “Okay. Gradually release your seal on the pipe.”

  She did so. A tiny wheeze of steam escaped from the joint, but no more. She sagged against the doorway as she checked her hand. The skin was unblemished.

  “Crisis averted.” Fenris worked off the large gloves. “Can’t say that I’m surprised something like that happened, though. We’ve put a lot of pressure on the Bug in the past few weeks.” He gave the wall a fond pat.

  Fenris was being unusually gracious in his statement. “I’m sorry,” she hoarsely whispered.

  He glanced back, blinking in surprise. “What? Oh.” He took in her emotional state. “No need to feel guilty about it. Sure, we flew around because of you, but just think. If you hadn’t met Cy, the two of us probably would have died in the quake or conflagration in San Francisco.” He shrugged. “Here we are. We’re not dead yet.”

  She stared after Fenris as he walked to the control cabin, the long gloves flapping in his grip. He was right. They weren’t dead. Yet.

  Chapter 4

  The Palmetto Bug docked after dusk. Ingrid lurked in a pilot’s chair, restless as the men conducted necessary business on the mooring mast. Male voices carried up through the open hatch, but she couldn’t discern any words. She tugged at the side of the nearest woven privacy screen that blocked a cabin window and peered outside.

  The dock consisted of about a dozen mooring masts sized to accommodate small passenger vessels like Sprites or Portermans. She could only spy four masts from here, and judging by the presence of people, two of the other docked ships appeared to be new arrivals as well.

  She had fully expected the ground to be misted in blue because of the active volcanic vents close by, but there was no visible outflow of power at all. She wasn’t sure if she should take that as a positive sign or not.

  It’s not as though she had reason to relax, though. Soldiers were everywhere, their navy uniforms almost black beneath the blue-hued glow of the mast lights. Mrs. K hadn’t exaggerated about the military presence on the island. They hadn’t even docked near a major port like Kona or Hilo either. This was out in the wilderness. But then, that made this an even better place for the strikers to try to sneak through weapons and supplies.

  Ingrid walked to the open hatch, still surprised at the ease of the movement. Cy had finished assembling a mobility aid he’d worked on for days, something he’d once seen used by a professor at his academy years ago. Her new and rigid boots featured a thick band of elastic that attached at the toe of each boot and stretched to the top eyelets of each shaft, creating a forty-five-degree angle of taut elastic. The movement of her thighs therefore helped to pull up her toes with each step.

  The rig wasn’t a permanent aid by any means. Cy had elaborated on the many ways it could fail. And, of course, it did nothing to prevent her calf muscles from misfiring, as they were wont to do. But the device was certainly better than nothing.

  The men continued to talk down below. What if their paperwork was inadequate? What if they had to go elsewhere—or couldn’t dock on the island at all?

  Metal vibrated within the pantry. She slid open the door. “Shush. You have to be quiet and still.”

  The digestive biscuit tin, salvaged from Mr. Thornton’s airship, rattled and danced at the back of the cabinet. The sylphs had been ushered into most every enclosed food box in the pantry. The ship now hosted sylph-biscuits, sylph–saltine crackers, and sylph–coffee beans, among other products; ironic, really, since the sylphs themselves were regarded as a gourmet delight. The actual food had been wrapped and stacked, as neatly as possible, in the drawers below.

  Cy hadn’t trusted the sylphs to remain hidden and silent as strangers meddled with their orchid plants, and Ingrid had to agree. Even her imagining such a thing had sent the fairies into a buzzing fury.

  “Wait a short while longer. There. Stay quiet like that.” She straightened the misbehaving tin and wedged it behind the chunk of cheese kept on board in case of a gremlin swarm. She shut the door.

  Heavy footsteps shuddered up the mast below. She glanced down and caught a glimpse of moving figures through the steel mesh deck. Fear and relief simultaneously flowed through her. Cy had said the physical inspection of the ship should be the last stage of this rigmarole.

  She hurried over to berthing, where she had dumped the clean, spare bedding and mussed it up. She sat and had just picked up a sheet when a stranger’s head emerged through the hatch. Her heartbeat galloped. The two men were white, their hat brims pulled low, their scowls blatant.

  “You take the control cabin. I’ll go this way.” The man came all the way inside, followed by a companion, and walked toward her. “You. You’re Mrs. Harvey.”

  Ingrid glanced up, not meeting his eye, and bowed her head again. “Yes, sir,” she murmured, the very image of domesticity with laundry on her lap.

  He grunted. His pen scratched at his clipboard. “How many plants aboard? Do you know how to count?”

  Her work at the auxiliary had trained her well for these kinds of encounters. She swallowed down her impotent rage. “I believe there are . . . twenty?”

  He grunted in reply. The other man thudded around in the control cabin. Ingrid knew Fenris must be a seething bundle of nerves as he awaited permission to come on board his ship again.

  Ingrid slowly, carefully folded the bedding as the men continued to poke and prod at the ship. The inspector closest to her made a circuit of the engine room, going so far as to open some tanks and shine a flashlight into the far recesses of the chamber. The man in the control room worked his way down the hall. As he opened the pantry, Ingrid risked tapping her magic to call out to the sylphs in her mind.

  “Stay still. Quiet. Invisible. Predator is close.” The few seconds of speech weren’t enough to drain her, thank goodness.

  A subdued confirmation came from the sylphs. The man reached into the cabinet and rustled around, but apparently the kind of contraband they were searching for wasn’t expected to masquerade in digestive biscuit tins.

  “Get up, woman,” snapped the other soldier. Ingrid stood. He panned his light over the dark space in the bunk behind her, then stepped up the ladder to check the bunk above. He lifted the mattress, swiped an ar
m beneath, then let it fall into place again. He then did the same to the beds across the way. Cy had anticipated all of this. The top bunk was neatly made, every shred of fairy molt discarded.

  The Green Dragon Crescent Blade was hanging on the wall in the engine room alongside other tools.

  The inspector landed hard on the floor, then whisked past Ingrid to begin a thorough inspection of the plants. The other man was doing the same. With the laundry folded, Ingrid could only sit again, hands demurely folded in her lap, as the soldiers finished their duty. They exited the vessel without another word to her.

  She had scarcely released a heavy sigh of relief when rapid, light footsteps on the stairs announced Fenris’s return. “What’d they meddle with?” He looked up and down the hall, his slender face a mix of rage and terror, and scurried past Ingrid to the engine room.

  “The man opened some lids—” she started to say.

  “Damn it, I should probably change out all the water, clean the tanks. As if I didn’t have enough to do, patching that pipe—”

  Fenris’s frenzy distracted her. She didn’t hear Cy until he was right beside her.

  “My apologies for the wait. That process was more grueling than anticipated.” He squatted beside her, elbows propped on his knees. “Thank the Almighty that Mrs. Kealoha arranged for us to deliver freight here, or we’d be revving our engines about now.”

  “But I’ve always heard tourists were commonplace here . . .”

  “The incoming flights all seem to host whites and Japanese folks of undeniable wealth. There’s a Porterman yacht one mast over. The thing is girded in steel. The weight must make ’em fly like a pegasus with colic.” He shook his head in disgust, then lowered his voice. “As new as the Bug is, it’s designed to be more functional than pretty. We don’t look like we belong. Apparently, the riffraff usually comes in by naval ships.”

  “I’m guessing that these critical comments about the Bug weren’t said in front of Fenris, or he’d surely be under arrest about now.”