“These are a little chewy,” Chime commented.
“Save the guts,” Moon told him, “If we throw them in the water, they might attract something bigger.”
Chime glanced warily down at the waves washing against the pillars. “How big?”
Jade dropped onto the platform. Moon embarrassed himself dramatically by scrambling sideways and almost leaping off into the water before he could stop himself. It wasn’t that it was her; he had never reacted well to being startled while eating. When he was alone, it was when he was at his most vulnerable.
Jade stared at him warily. When he self-consciously sat down again, she said, “I wanted to ask you something.” She knelt gracefully and unfolded a leather packet. “I know all groundling cities are different, but do you have any idea how many of these I should offer?”
Moon leaned forward, frowning in consternation as big, lumpy, white objects spilled out of the packet. It took him a moment to realize they were pearls, huge ones. He flicked one with a claw, and it caught the light, reflecting soft iridescent blues, reds, greens. They had to be from the deepwater kingdoms, further out into the seas than Moon had ever ventured. “It’ll depend,” he told her. If the Yellow Sea groundlings traded with any waterlings, they might already have access to pearls like these. But this was still something they could trade anywhere along the Crescent Coast, to the Kish empire, the Hurrians. He was trying to remember the prices in Kishan coin that the Abascene traders had charged for passage on their ships, and mentally convert it to what the pearls were probably worth. And account for the fact that they were bargaining for flying boats that had to be worth more than any ordinary barge. “Start with five of the medium-sized ones. That’s probably low, but not insulting.”
Jade had begun to look impatient, but now her expression cleared. “I see. Thank you.”
Still chewing on lizard meat, Chime asked her, “What if they don’t want to trust us with their boats? If they say no, we’re stuck.”
Jade weighed the pearls in her hand thoughtfully. “Stone doesn’t think they will.”
Stone isn’t always right, Moon thought, but kept it to himself. If this didn’t work, they would have to move the court the hard way, and he wondered if Jade had thought about that. Moving a large group over land wasn’t impossible, just difficult and dangerous; groundlings did it all the time. He was about to say this when he caught something on the wind.
It was just a faint trace of other, of something that wasn’t sand, salt, or dead fish and lizards. Moon pushed to his feet, just as Jade said, “Did you smell that?”
Moon took a deep breath, his mouth open to draw the air past the sensitive spots in his cheeks and throat. “It’s gone now.”
Jade stood, the strong wind catching at her frills. “At least there’s no mistaking the direction.”
Chime twisted around, looking worriedly out to sea. “Was it Fell?”
“Probably,” Moon said, at the same time Jade answered, “Maybe.” Moon turned to look inland. With the wind off the sea so strong, anything could come at them from the land. His eyes caught movement against the darkening sky, but it was only Branch and Balm, circling high above the beach.
Jade said, “Fell wouldn’t be out at sea, not unless there was something they really wanted.” She was right about that; Fell would be just as vulnerable on long flights over water as Raksura.
“So they’re after us?” Chime looked up at her, his face uneasy. “Pearl wouldn’t tell them where we were going. Would she?”
“She’s not that far gone.” Jade sounded weary and disgusted. “And Stone wouldn’t let them in to speak to her. It has to be a coincidence.”
“A coincidence.” Moon couldn’t help himself. “Like Sky Copper being destroyed before they could accept Stone’s offer of alliance.”
Jade’s frills stiffened and she said, flatly, “I didn’t know you took that much of an interest.”
I didn’t know I did, either, Moon thought. He didn’t have another answer. He looked back toward the beach, watching the waves rolling up. After a moment, Jade hissed, picked up her bundle of pearls, and jumped off the platform.
Chime sighed pointedly, as if the effort of putting up with them was almost too much. “I’m not going to say anything,” he began, “But—”
“Don’t,” Moon said. “Just don’t.”
Something woke Moon, late into the night. He opened his eyes and didn’t move, trying to sense what it was. He was on the middle platform, lying on his side in groundling form to conserve his strength. The wind was cool, the dark sky streaked with clouds. Something warm leaned against his back, and something heavy lay across his waist. It took him a moment to identify it as Chime’s tail. Bemused, he thought, That’s... different.
Moon was fairly certain Chime had gone to sleep as a groundling and, from his steady breathing, Moon could tell he wasn’t awake. He shifted in his sleep? Moon had never done that, but then, much of the time his survival had depended on not doing that.
Chime was also still partly a mentor. He sensed something that made him shift in his sleep.
Moon eased up on one elbow. He hadn’t been included in the discussion about who stood guard when, and so had left the others to it. Now he saw Balm perched on the edge of the highest platform in her shifted form, leaning against one of the slender pillars, looking out to sea. The line of her body was tense, as if she searched the sky for something.
Clouds covered the waning moon, reflecting some of its light. The constant motion of the waves made it hard to pick out movement. Moon couldn’t scent Fell, but there was a strange odor on the wind, a slightly bitter tang.
Balm hissed a warning, flattening herself to the platform. An instant later a dark shape moved across the clouds. Moon dropped flat, and felt Chime jerk awake beside him. Moon squeezed his tail, whispering, “Don’t move.” Chime went still.
Moon didn’t shift, afraid it would draw the thing’s attention. Upper air predators often had frighteningly accurate eyesight, good enough to pick out a small loper in tall grass. If this thing was nocturnal, it might hunt by sound, movement, or strange senses unique to itself.
Time stretched, made more painful by the fact that flattened to the metal platform, Moon couldn’t see where the thing was. But it must be moving away. The strange scent slowly faded out of the wind.
Finally, Balm called, “It’s gone. It went north.”
Chime slumped in relief. Moon sat up and took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders to ease the tension. He heard the others moving, a rustle of wings as someone shifted. A head peered down at them from the platform just above, and Chime waved at it to show they were all right. Sounding shaken, he asked, “Did you see what it was?”
“Not a Fell.” Balm leaned down from the higher platform to answer him. “The body was long and narrow, like a snake. A big snake.”
“Stone didn’t say anything about big predators,” Jade’s voice came from above, more thoughtful than worried. “Maybe it’s only here during the warm season.”
Moon tugged on Chime’s tail, which at some point had wrapped firmly around his waist. “Could you...?”
Chime twitched in embarrassment. “Oh.” He let go of Moon and shifted back to groundling. “Sorry.”
Moon shrugged off the apology. “You shifted in your sleep. Is that normal?”
“No, not that I know of.” Chime looked warily out to sea. “You think I shifted because I felt it out there? Because I’m a mentor?” He lifted his shoulders uncomfortably. “But it was just an animal—albeit a big animal. I don’t know why it would cause that reaction, unless there was something magical about it.”