Kalam buried his face in Moon’s shoulder for a moment. Moon said, “I know they killed Magrim. Was anyone else . . . ?”
Kalam stepped back, and pressed his hands to his face briefly, a gesture of apology. He looked up and said, “Kellimdar died, and three others of the crew, Viandel, Hith, and Semdar.” He sounded wounded, and bewildered, and angry all at once. “Do you think the Hians will kill my father?”
Moon took a sharp breath. “I think they wanted hostages.” He hoped that was what they wanted.
Niran stepped out of another doorway, with Lithe and Esankel, the Janderi navigator. Frustrated, Niran said, “We searched this Hian person’s quarters but she left nothing behind.”
Kalam said, “We’ve known Vendoin for five turns, since I was a child. How could she do this to us?”
Moon didn’t have the answer to that. It had sounded as if all the Hians, not just Vendoin, had been planning this ever since Callumkal and the other Kish-Jandera scholars had found the map to the city. He pushed off the wall and started forward again. “The Fellborn queen said the other Fell flight heard groundlings talk about a weapon in the builder city. Did Callumkal know about it?”
“No, no one did. No one . . . It must have been the Hians.” Kalam lifted his hands helplessly, trailing after him. “And the Raksura. Why did you hide it from us?”
Moon stopped and faced him. “We didn’t know it was there until we found it. We didn’t know what it would do, and we were afraid of it.” It was the bare truth, and he hoped it was enough for Kalam. “There was a spell; it tricked us into taking the weapon back to the sunsailer. We just wanted to get rid of it in the ocean, where the Fell wouldn’t find it.”
Lithe watched Kalam carefully. “It wasn’t why your people wanted to get into the city?”
“No, I swear it.” Kalam lifted a hand in helpless frustration. “I’ve seen my father’s work, I’ve traveled with him, I’d know if there was any idea about a weapon. If it is a weapon.”
“Vendoin believed it was,” Esankel said, wearily. “I’m sure she believed it. Would she have done all this if she hadn’t?”
Moon looked away. He was standing by the doorway to the other room the Raksura had been using and found himself looking at Delin’s bag, tucked under the bench next to Stone’s pack. Delin. Delin who had gone through Vendoin’s things and then became even more insistent that the object from the city should be dropped into the ocean as quickly as possible. He pointed at the pack. “Delin looked through Vendoin’s notes when she was up in the steering cabin. Maybe he copied something. He was suspicious, I think. I didn’t realize it at the time . . .”
Niran snarled, “Of course he was,” and went to snatch up the pack. “I’ll send this up to Diar so we can examine it all. Perhaps grandfather left us some clue or message.”
Moon knew Niran’s fury was mostly terror at what might happen to Delin. He turned away and went down the corridor to the hatch.
Guarding it was a young Golden Islander. She said, “They’re on the stern deck.”
He nodded to her and stepped outside into the night. The cool salt-scented wind was like being dashed with cold water. The outside lights had been dimmed and shaded to help conceal the boat’s position from the Hians and the Fell and whatever else might be after them. The reassuring shadow floating above them was the wind-ship.
Jade and Malachite stood near the stern railing, their spines outlined by the faint moonlight. Jade was still in her Arbora form, and Malachite had her wings.
He heard Jade say, “I shouldn’t have done this. I’ve done everything wrong.”
Moon stopped in mid-step. He hadn’t thought Jade would take it that way. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought it. Of course she would. Queens thought they were responsible for everything.
With just an edge of sarcasm to her cool voice, Malachite said, “So you should have ignored the dreams and the augury and waited like an animal in a trap.”
“Waited for help.” Jade looked toward the water and the silver glimmer of the ship’s wake. She added, almost not grudgingly, “Waited for you.”
Malachite’s spines took on a skeptical angle. It had to be for Jade’s benefit. Malachite seldom betrayed any recognizable emotion unless it was deliberate. “Was I in the augury?”
“No, but—”
“All this is hardly over. We’ve seen nothing of most elements of the vision.” Malachite flicked a spine. “Moon.”
Moon moved forward and Jade turned toward him. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and just folded himself into her arms.
When he looked up, Malachite was gone. Jade muttered, “She’s up on the roof of the second deck, looming over us.”
“I thought you two were getting along better.” Moon buried his face in her frills. “When Root wakes up, we have to tell him about Song.”
“I’ll do it,” Jade said. Her grip on his waist tightened, almost enough for him to feel her claws. “I don’t know why she died, and not the rest of us.”
Moon knew. The Hians had dumped her and Root on the floor like garbage, with no concern for what might happen. The poison had made Song sick and she had choked on her vomit. Even Rorra, a sealing, had been aware of this danger and had crawled around half-conscious making sure the others with her had been propped up.
Chime staggered out of the hatch and headed for Moon. Jade let Moon go and he caught Chime, who stumbled and wrapped his arms around him. He muttered into Moon’s neck, “Stone told us about Song, and the Hians.”
“Are you all right?” Moon asked him.
“I feel sick, and you smell terrible,” Chime said miserably.
Jade patted Chime’s back. “Let’s go inside.”
When they got back up to the common room, Lithe, Rorra, Kalam, and Shade were in the corridor. Shade was telling the other three, “I thought you all should talk.”
Inside the room, Stone sat on the bench. His face was drawn and exhausted. Raksura didn’t show age the way most soft-skinned groundlings did, but there was something in Stone’s face right now that revealed the weight of many, many turns.
The others were awake, sitting around on the floor, still bleary and sick, the scale patterns visible on their skin. Root was curled up in a ball, his head in Briar’s lap, and she was stroking his hair.
“They killed Song, and stole the Arbora and Delin.” Root sat up suddenly, his face etched with pain. “They took the weapon I found and we don’t know where they are.”
“Root—” Moon began. “You didn’t find the weapon—”
“It found you,” Jade said firmly. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Briar’s fault.”
“I told you that,” Balm said. She sounded as if she was barely holding on to her own composure. Briar looked wretched. “Listen to your queen.”
“But we can’t find them,” Root persisted. “They stole Merit so we couldn’t find them.”
Then Stone said, “But they didn’t know about Lithe.” He watched the group just outside the door.
Lithe was saying, “But it’s the moss, correct? The moss is from the same plant, and the two have an affinity.”
Moon’s heart thumped, and he stepped closer to listen. The others fell silent.
“Yes, that’s it,” Kalam said. He gestured in frustration. “But Magrim was the only one who would have been able to use our moss varietal to find theirs.”
Rorra explained, “Magrim was a horticultural, which is someone who can manipulate the stored sunlight in the moss for different tasks, like making it release light, produce the lift for a levitation harness or an air-going sailer, or to draw water into a motivator. The rest of us can tend those things and keep them working the way they should, but he knew how to make them.”