“No one can, captain. No one at all.”
“And just how in the pits do you know where she is? She has the Larkspur, doesn’t she? Could very well be halfway to the ass-end of the world by now and we wouldn’t know it.” She snapped, then cursed herself for losing her temper. This wasn’t Tibal’s fault. None of it was. He just wanted his friend back. And so did she, truth be told. Honding was a mad moron, but he’d risked himself to come to her aid. She couldn’t let him fall into Thratia’s clutches, not now. Still, the thought of working side by side with the doppel made her skin crawl, her irritation mount.
He gave her a small, weary smile. “Had a lot of time to think, captain, while you two were busy trying to get yourselves killed. We’ll find her. Only one place she could be, truth be told.” He brushed past her and went about resetting the rigging.
She wanted to ask, but her pride wouldn’t let her. One place she could be… But where? Ripka’s head ached, and she couldn’t tell if it was from exhaustion, dehydration, or just plain frustration. She should be able to come to whatever conclusion Tibal had. Should be able to see it. Pits below, hadn’t her perception gotten her accused of hiding sel-sensitivity?
Tibal pulled and slung ropes, heaved on gear handles and swiveled strange levers as if they were extensions of himself. Ripka went cross-eyed watching him, and resisted an urge to bury her face her hands.
“Help me with this thing, will you, New Chum?” he said.
The steward, who had been watching their argument in placid silence, bowed stiffly to her and moved to crank a gear shaft which seemed to be connected to one of the flier’s rear propellers.
She had little knowledge of selium ships of any sort. Her closest experience was riding along the anchored back of the city’s ferries. At the front, back, and center edges large, fan-blade propellers were mounted. Ripka followed the contraptions as best she could, and guessed that they were connected to a singular drive shaft just behind the helm where a dashboard of cranks and levers were. It just looked like gibberish to her.
Feeling useless, she watched as Tibal made way for the steward to join him at the helm and both of them heaved to. The fans thrummed to life, spinning far faster than Tibal and the steward were turning the cranks. The flier slid forward, smooth as silk. Once they fell into a rhythm the land began to slip by in a rush, the wind whipping her hair into her face relentlessly.
“Can I help?” she called above the cry of the wind to the steward. He looked around the flier and pursed his lips.
“Sure, you can haul up the tie lines.”
“Right,” she said, but it stung. She had hoped he’d chalk up her flustered expression to the effect of the wind, because she was feeling significantly unmoored and had no desire to explain herself. Watch Captain Leshe, only good for hauling up ropes. Just her luck.
She tried to look confident as she made her way to the first rope, but the flier had a bit of a wobble in its movement that made her knees feel like jelly. By her fourth step, Tibal was chuckling. She glared at him, and tried to stride firmly the rest of the way. It just made matters worse.
“You get used to it,” he called. “I’d let you get your legs at a slower speed but we don’t have much time to mess around here.”
“I’ll adjust,” she said with a forced grin and a little sting of water in her eyes. Tibal just nodded. Ignoring the eyes on her back as she knelt beside the edge of the ship and began hauling up the dangling rope. By the third loop, she wished she hadn’t volunteered herself at all. She was not finished by the time they reached the cliff side. The flier slowed in smooth increments, giving her the sensation that they were all sliding to a stop.
Ripka stared at the half-coiled rope in her hands and grunted. She tossed what she held aside and shoved herself to unsteady feet. Under Tibal’s watchful eye she scrambled back to the dangling rope ladder and climbed down, desperate for solid land beneath her feet.
As soon as her toes touched down, she nearly sprawled straight onto her face. Down here the ground seemed absurdly still, and she had to grip the ladder to keep from pitching over the edge of the cliff.
“You all right, captain?” Tibal poked his head over the edge and squinted down at her.
“Oh, just wonderful.” She heard laughter above, but chose to ignore it. She’d pay them back later.
“See any signs of him? Any, you know… bits?”
The slight catch to Tibal’s tone stilled her indignant anger. There weren’t any bits belonging to Detan that she could see, but there was a whole pit-full of blood splashed around. Someone had fallen and rolled in it, smearing it across half the ledge. The stench of charred flesh and burned hair still clung to the open air, making her stomach lurch.
Wary of toppling into the mess, she took a step forward, still clinging to the ladder, and approached her crumpled coat. Detan’s singed hat lay beside it. She knelt, clenching her jaw as she let the ladder go, and examined the ruddy ground.
In this spot, the blood was minimal. A small pool had spread down where his calf might have been, but there was nothing up above, where an injury might have meant death. She reached out and scooped up the limp and filthy hat. Beneath it, the bloody print of a man’s hand was splayed. Bright and rusty and primal.
“He’s all right! He left a print!”
She heard a whoop of relief from above and stood, not bothering to disguise the shake in her legs. It had been a long, long, morning, and some things her pride was just going to have to forget about. Things like going to the doppel who killed Galtro and Faud and asking for help.
Hobbling back to the ladder, hat tucked under one arm, she wondered if Detan would understand if she killed the doppel instead. She reckoned he would.
She just wasn’t sure if she could forgive herself after that.
Chapter 37
By the time he woke he was no longer grinning, but his jovial state wasn’t the only thing to have changed. He sat on the deck of a large ship, larger even than the Larkspur had been, his back pressed against the wooden rail that wrapped around the ship’s deck. His hands were chained above him and were already going numb. He gave them a few experimental shakes to get the blood flowing, and heard a grunt beside him.
He wasn’t the only poor creature chained to this ship.
A half-dozen souls were attached to the same chain he was, each with their wrists cuffed above their heads and their feet bound before them. The man he’d disturbed had been sleeping beside him, about three steps away, and looked at him with red-shot eyes.
“Don’t fuss too much, lad, or they’ll come and make sure you don’t,” the withered man whispered.
“Who will come?”
The old man spat brown liquid on the deck before him. “Imperials. Who else?”
Footsteps sounded down the deck, and the old man shut his eyes and let his head loll. Detan craned his neck and saw the now familiar form of that whitecoat, Callia, come round the cabin in the center of the ship with a parasol in the crook of her arm to protect her from the sun. A young girl trailed along beside her, matching the dignitary stride for stride.
The child was dressed in the same manner as Callia, in a floor-length shift the color of a clouded, pale sky, with her hair braided into elaborate whorls. She couldn’t have seen more than twelve monsoons, but she kept her chin up and looked down her nose at him, lips pressed together with contempt. For all her contrivance – her walk, her clothes, the braids in her hair and kohl around her eyes – her skin was the shade of wet sand, her eyes hazel and her hair chestnut. A child of the Scorched.