A gust of wind made the massive balloon overhead creak. The house moved slightly. I wobbled, then caught myself. Only in Faylinn, I thought, smiling at the absurdity of a floating house. It made me feel better. At least I wasn’t banished to the human world or frozen in amber beneath the cathedral. If nothing else, I had my freedom.
A squabble broke out in the house. I heard a door slam and saw Beth running through the kitchen.
“I never get to do anything!” Beth shouted. “I just want to go see him for a few minutes!”
“If Dirk wants to see you he can fly up or take the flagpole,” Mr. Larue said. “We can all have a nice visit together.”
“We don’t want to hang out with you!” Beth yelled. She stomped upstairs. I heard another door slam and a tearful shout of “Parents stink!”
I shook my head. There would be plenty of time yet for Beth to make a mess of things with boys. It was very easy to do. I only wished I’d had my parents around to protect me a little longer.
A passing memory stole my grin away. When I was Beth’s age I’d just lost my mother. Less than a year later, my father was gone, too. Stupid, stupid girl, I thought, listening to Beth stomping around upstairs. I was suddenly jealous of the Larues and the time they had with each other. The thought of having a family of my own someday had never really entered my mind, but for just a few seconds I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. A humble little house. A couple of kids. A kitchen, a fireplace, a garden to grow pretty things in. A husband who will cherish me even when my youth fades.
The bubble burst and I scolded myself. It would be a miracle if I made it to twenty. I had grown accustomed to guarding a whole kingdom. Between that and the family curse, there wasn’t any place for my vain little fantasies. A family just didn’t fit into the picture.
Sounds of stifled laughter came from a topiary behind me. The tops of two little blue heads were visible behind it.
I yawned and pretended not to notice. “Wow, something sure smells funny out here.” I sniffed the air. “Smells like…little girls!”
Alice and Harriet burst from their hiding spot. Red-faced with laughter, they ran out and wrapped themselves around my calves.
“We don’t smell funny!” Harriet squealed.
I ruffled her curls. “Maybe not. But you do look funny!”
“Huh-uh!” Alice said with a snort. “You look funny. You’ve got no points on your ears!”
“Yeah, and your hair’s the color of mud!” Harriet chimed enthusiastically.
“Girls!” Mrs. Larue shouted in mortification. She rushed out and shook her finger at them. “You mind your manners around our guest!”
“They’re not bothering me,” I said, trying to keep a straight face.
Suddenly there came a thump on the flagpole. We all turned to watch as the pulley grew taut with the weight of something coming up from below.
Mrs. Larue wrinkled her nose. “That’ll be Dirk, no doubt. The little hoodlum hasn’t got his wings yet.”
“Let’s toss out the dishwater on him and pretend we didn’t know anyone was coming up!” Alice suggested.
“No, no, that wouldn’t be nice,” Mrs. Larue said, fighting a grin.
A shape burst above the clouds and came to a jerky halt at the top of the flagpole. It was pale and black and blue and bloody all over. A ragged voice said, “Help.”
Mrs. Larue screamed.
“Bazzlejet!” I said with a gasp.
Mr. Larue came running out of the house. He stopped halfway across the patio and stared wide-eyed at his battered son.
Alice and Harriet had gone white. I could tell by their trembling lips that it was not a sight they were ready to handle. I leaned in close to Mrs. Larue and whispered, “Take the girls inside. I’ll help with Bazzlejet.”
Mrs. Larue gave a mute nod and shooed the girls into the house. Mr. Larue was already at work, pulling the house along its tether to the flagpole. I climbed up on the rail to grab Bazzlejet.
Both of his eyes were black. There were bruises all over his face and there was a crust of dried blood under his nose. His body was limp as a dead eel. I thought it miraculous that he’d managed to hold onto the pulley until I saw that he’d tied one of his hands to it with his bandana.
I unknotted the bandana and helped Mr. Larue to lower Bazzlejet onto the patio floor.
“Son,” Mr. Larue said, squeezing Bazzlejet’s wrist. “Son, can you hear me?”
Bazzlejet’s eyes were narrow amber slits beneath their puffed up lids. “Cut it,” he rasped.
Mr. Larue and I looked at each other in confusion.
“Cut what?” I asked.
Bazzlejet lifted a shaking finger and pointed to the tether between the house and the flagpole.
Mr. Larue and I exchanged another perplexed look.
“Do it now!” Bazzlejet said.
I took out my sword and went over to the tether.
“That won’t work,” Mr. Larue said, standing up. He flexed his fingers and pointed at the rope. An arc of lightning flew from his fingertips, severing the tether in two.
Free of its leash, the house began to drift easterly on the air currents.
Bazzlejet tried to say something else but he coughed.
“Just sit tight,” Mr. Larue said. “We’ll get you patched up. Then you can tell us what happened.”
A low table walked out onto the patio. Bazzlejet’s mom was behind it with her green source crystal glowing. She carried a blanket and pillow. The table stopped beside Bazzlejet. She spread the blanket and pillow atop it and stepped aside so that Mr. Larue and I could lift Bazzlejet into place.
Once Bazzlejet was secure, the table walked into the sitting room.
Bazzlejet tried to say something again but couldn’t get it out.
“What ill luck to have no Channelers in the family!” his mom said with a sniffle. “How are we going to fix him?”
“The old fashioned way,” Mr. Larue said. He was ripping a sheet into strips to make bandages. “We’ll clean and dress his wounds.”
“But look at him. He’s in pain!” Mrs. Larue yelped.
Mr. Larue set his mouth grimly. “There’s nothing we can do about that right now.”
Raspy sounds came from Bazzlejet’s throat. I leaned down close to him to hear him better. It sounded like he was saying “Pops.”
“I think he means you,” I said to Mr. Larue.
“What is it, son?” Mr. Larue asked.
“Props!” Bazzlejet hissed.
Mr. Larue looked stumped. “Say that again, son.”
Bazzlejet’s jaw was clenched and he’d turned even paler. His injuries were getting the better of him. It pained me to look at him. I was so used to seeing him grinning like a madman, surrounded by all his silly contraptions.
Then it hit me. “Props! Does your house have propellers?”
“Yes,” Mr. Larue said. “Just installed last week. It was Bazzlejet’s doing, actually. I told him we didn’t need—”
“How do you work them?” I asked, springing to my feet.
“There’s a wheel on the observation deck,” Mr. Larue said. Then he added, “They’ve never been tested!”
I was already running up the stairs to the deck. The evening air was cool and crisp but the clouds had not yet lifted. It was probably a good thing. If I picked up on Bazzlejet’s intentions correctly, it was best to stay hidden from whoever was below.
It took me a moment to locate the wheel. It was hidden behind a large planter filled with bell-shaped flowers. Partially set into the deck, the wheel was like a winch on a sailing ship. The design struck me as familiar. I slid out a pin that kept the wheel locked into place. The pin was engraved with a stamp that said “J&W.”
The wheel slid free and I began to turn it. There was a laborious creaking of wood and squeaky gears. At first it was difficult to turn the wheel, but then a latch caught somewhere beneath it and the wheel began to spin on its own.
I ran to the
back of the observation deck. Extending from the woodworks below was a long pole with three blades on it. The blades unfolded like an umbrella and began to spin. They buffeted the air with a loud WHUP, WHUP, WHUP sound.
The deck lurched beneath me. The sounds of crashing dishes came from the kitchen. Flowerpots rattled and laundry that had been drying placidly on a line in the garden started flapping like banners gone insane.
The giant balloon groaned. I looked for a steering wheel but I didn’t see anything that looked like one on the deck so I went downstairs to ask Bazzlejet about it.
Alice and Harriet were in the upstairs hallway with pillows tied to the tops of their heads. Some pictures had fallen off the wall.
“Why’s the house moving?” Alice asked.
“Is it a skyquake?” Harriet asked.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” I said. “The house is flying. Go to the window and look!”
The girls ran over to the nearest window and pressed their faces against it. “Oh neat!”
When I got to the sitting room I found Bazzlejet looking more alert thanks to the constant attention of his mother. She fussed with his pillow, re-wrapped his bandages and swabbed his face with a warm rag.
“Mom,” he croaked weakly, “You don’t have to do that.”
“Son, who did this to you?” Mr. Larue asked.
Bazzlejet was suddenly unable to speak again. I detected something like guilt in his eyes.
“The propellers are working,” I said. “How do we steer?”
“No rudder yet,” Bazzlejet said.
Startled and a little angry, I exclaimed, “You mean we’ve got no way to control this thing?”
Bazzlejet coughed and moaned in agony.
“Oh dear!” his mother exclaimed, assaulting him with a rag. “Don’t worry, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
Mr. Larue raised an eyebrow at me. Injuries were one thing, but Bazzlejet had a knack for milking the moment.
“Son,” Mr. Larue said, “I think it’s time you told us what happened.”
“Oh, the pain!” Bazzlejet groaned. “Everything’s going dark.”
“Heavens!” his mother said. “I think we’re losing him!”
I knelt down by Bazzlejet’s ear and whispered, “I don’t suppose your parents know about a certain redheaded nymph named Rosa? Or your other persona as a female maid? If you pass out now, I’m going to tell them all about it.”
Bazzlejet’s eyes flew open. “It was the duke’s men. They did this to me. I barely escaped.”
“So you snuck back into Ivywild,” I said.
Mrs. Larue gasped. Her husband crossed his arms and made a stony face that reminded me of Commander Larue. I’d received the same look many times.
“What kind of stunt were you trying to pull?” Mr. Larue asked. “You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”
“Pyxis Charm,” Bazzlejet mumbled.
I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly. “Say that again.”
“Pyxis Charm,” Bazzlejet said. “Othella has the one from W.R.A.I.T.H. and Robyn has one. There should be a third one somewhere in the castle.”
“I, um, sort of broke the third one,” I said. “It happened during the Cian Varsha.”
Bazzlejet groaned. “Wish I’d known that sooner.”
“Why do you need a Pyxis Charm?” his father asked.
“To find Othella and Chloe and Violet,” Bazzlejet said. “My orders are to protect Chloe. How can I protect her if I don’t even know where she is?”
Something stirred in me. I gently squeezed Bazzlejet’s hand. “You sweet, dumb boy. Why didn’t you ask for help?”
“You’ve done enough,” he said.
“They chased you, didn’t they?” Mr. Larue asked. “Did they follow you to the house?”
Bazzlejet made a feeble attempt to sit up. Unsuccessful, he huffed and lay back down. “I broke ahead of them. They aren’t good flyers, but they’ll come looking for me here soon enough. That’s why I made you cut it loose. At least this way it will take them longer to find us.”
“But they will find us,” Mr. Larue said darkly.
His wife shivered. “Oh dear. What are we going to do, Jules?”
A thumping noise came from the upstairs landing. Alice and Harriet were there, shoving each other for a place closest to the sitting room. Realizing they’d been caught, they both assumed looks of innocence.
“Is Bazzy gonna be okay?” Harriet asked.
“I’ll be fine, baby sis,” Bazzlejet said as loudly as he could manage. “Go up to your room. You two can be our lookouts.”
“We need a way to steer this thing,” I said.
“There are blueprints for a rudder in my room,” Bazzlejet said. “They’re rolled up under the bed.”
Mrs. Larue chewed her lip. “But we can’t keep running! We don’t have enough food or water. We’ll have to touch down eventually and the duke has guards at every settlement between here and North Embyre!”
I had been thinking the exact same thing. I could tell by the uneasy way Mr. Larue cleared his throat that he was, too. Before we could worry about that, though, we needed a way to steer the house.
Without a word I slipped out of the sitting room. Bazzlejet’s bedroom was tidy, kept clean every day by his mother. I found the rolled up parchment under his bed. It was covered in diagrams written in cheap, brown ink. I spotted the J&W stamp in one corner and finally drew a connection. I filed it away to ask Bazzlejet about later.
I set to work deciphering the blueprints. The materials for a rudder could be salvaged from other parts of the house. All I needed was a few helping hands and time. The helping hands were not a problem. It was the time issue that worried me. A shout from Alice tripled that worry.
“There’s some big, dark bumps out there!” the little girl exclaimed.
I went to the nearest window and looked out into the twilight sky. The distant tops of mountains poked through the clouds on the horizon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A reverent hush blanketed the grove. Grateful to be alone after weeks on the cramped ship, Lev made his way slowly to the shrine of the Earth Guardian.
The detour had cost them many days of slow, tedious travel up the river, but he’d insisted on visiting the shrine. The mossy ground dampened his footfalls. Flecks of dust swirled in beams of sunlight like the ghosts of confetti from some ancient parade.
A bird landed on a nearby fern, startling him. He cursed himself for jumping, then scowled at the bird. The dew-eyed creature cocked its head this way and that, studying him. Lev detected about it the presence of otherness.
“You are a long way from home,” Lev said.
The bird gave a chirp as if to say, you, too.
“If there is such a thing as home anymore,” Lev said under his breath. He passed the bird and entered the shrine quietly.
Rae the Earth Guardian sat before the altar with her short legs folded and her eyes closed, convening with some cosmic force that Lev could not perceive. He waited at a respectful distance until she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“Mother Rae,” he said, dropping to one knee.
She rose and came to him, waving him to his feet. “No need for formalities, young man. You’ve traveled far and you haven’t much time.”
“I have as much time as I need,” Lev said. If it came off as aloof, it was not intended for Rae. “I am on my own schedule now.”
Rae studied him closely. “Ah, I see. You’re using somebody else’s resources to fund your own quest. All the world to search, and you start with me. Of course, there could really be no other way.”
“How do you know that?” Lev asked.
“How do you know that the leaves will fall in autumn? The time of unrest is upon us. You’ve come seeking answers, as I always knew you would.”
Lev watched her closely. “Two years ago, you freed Ivywild from the curse of the Cian Varsha.”
“That freedom came with a price,” Rae reminded hi
m.
“The castle lost its barrier and the king passed away,” Lev said. “Some would consider that a small price.”
“Tell that to King Theobald’s family,” Rae said.
Feeling admonished, Lev stared at the floor. “I do not intend to argue the value of the loss. My point is that you were able to heal Ivywild with a sacrifice.”
“Exchange is a more apt word. The king’s magic and the barrier were exchanged to replenish the magic that was taken.”
“Call it what you want,” Lev said. “I need to know if such an exchange could be used to heal Seraph’s Tear.”
At this, Rae’s wrinkled face fell very solemn. She turned her back on him. “A city, dead for hundreds of years. What makes you think it can be healed?”
A vision drummed at the edges of Lev’s mind to the rhythm of his heartbeat. “I’ve seen it.”
Rae turned, her face completely transformed by a look of youthful curiosity. “You’re a Prophet?”
“Not a very good one,” Lev admitted. “My mother was one and I seem to have inherited her gift, at least in part. I get glimpses sometimes of things that have not yet come to pass, but they are only possibilities—things that might be.”
“Fascinating,” Rae said, drawing near. Her large brown eyes were fixed on his. “It’s a rare gift, and often misunderstood. The world as I know it is in a constant state of flux. It must be very different for you.”
“It is a burden,” Lev said, breaking off his gaze. He sought out the rosy hues of the stained glass window above the altar. “To constantly see things you cannot change, or worse, to know that you can but wonder if you should.”
“Then Seraph’s Tear…you know you can restore it?” Rae asked.
Lev sighed. “I don’t know. It is one thread among many and they are all unraveling.”
“I can’t even conceive of the magic it would take to revive the place,” Rae said. “It has been so long cursed, and a curse is not something that weakens with time. It only grows stronger.”
The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) Page 19
