It moved its head back and forth, then turned away from the pod to start down the descending walkway. “Is this the thing in the sky, like the Arbora said?”
So it had been listening to their conversation. “Maybe. Probably.”
It made a little sighing noise. “She won’t like this.”
Moon knew who it meant. As far as the kethel was concerned, there was only one she: Consolation, the Fellborn queen. “What does she want?” He didn’t think it would tell him the truth, but he had discovered that following a kethel through the dark in a strange place was easier if it was talking.
There was a hesitation. “To help you.”
It seemed to feel sticking to that pat answer was safest. The next pod was just below this one and they could jump down to its walkway without the kethel having to shift. Moon tried, “What does she want in return? The weapon?”
“No.” After a moment the kethel answered, “She wants help.”
Moon suppressed an annoyed hiss. “She wants someone to tell her how a part-Raksura Fell flight is supposed to live when they aren’t Fell anymore. Is she going to keep the flight moving? If you aren’t looking for groundling settlements to eat anymore, why move?” He said again, “What does she want?”
The kethel snarled, “She wants a place for us to live.” It bit the words off, snorted out a breath, and then said nothing.
It didn’t mean to say that, Moon thought. It sounded depressingly true. If the queen was serious about not preying on groundlings anymore, the flight needed to find a place to settle.
Maybe the kethel had been trying to see how sympathetic Moon and Stone were. If the kethel could convince them that Consolation really had sent it to help them, if it could do enough that they felt they owed the flight a debt. Or it’s going to kill us and take the weapon the first chance it gets, Moon thought. He didn’t think there would be a way to tell until it happened.
Bramble was right, it had been a long day. And this had better be their wind-ship with Jade and Malachite aboard. Moon said, “Do you even know how to hunt grasseaters?”
“Yes,” the kethel said stiffly.
They crossed over two more pods and Moon began to have some idea of the size and shape of this structure. Without being able to see it in daylight yet, he thought it was like the ruin at the sea’s edge, but with all the missing pieces in place. If it was, then the causeway should be somewhere below them.
Then Moon caught a hint of sound, a faint creak. Like the creak of a wind-ship’s plant-fiber adjusting itself to the dryer air. He told the kethel, “Stop.”
It paused, turning to watch him. Past the edge of the pod, where a large gap between it and the next cast a deep well of shadow, Moon had the sense of something large. He stood still for a moment, listening deeply, squinting to take advantage of the faint starlight. He extended his wings enough to feel the light breeze. Yes, there was something there, blocking the air flow between the two pods. It might be part of the structure, something sitting at an angle where it wasn’t catching any light, but somehow Moon doubted it. “There’s a boat there, just ahead.”
The kethel turned to study the distance between pods. “It moved in and up.”
“It’s trying to hide from the Hians.” If it’s the right boat, Moon thought. “Go stand downwind.”
The kethel didn’t grumble, just moved around Moon and down the walkway a little. Moon waited for the air to clear, then tasted it deeply. There was Raksura in the faint breeze, the familiar scents of Indigo Cloud and Opal Night, of one annoyed sealing, and the slightly sour scent of the Golden Islanders’ favorite fish paste. He said in relief, “That’s it.” He turned to the kethel. “Stay here.”
“Why?” it asked.
“So my family doesn’t kill you on sight,” Moon said.
There was a moment of thoughtful silence. “Stay here,” the kethel agreed.
Moon moved along the ledge, trying to discern the shape of the wind-ship, and finally made out a deeper shadow against the dark, and the faint gleam of starlight on the glass shield of an unlit lamp. Leaping for the deck would probably be a bad idea; they might have caught scent of the kethel, and had probably heard voices, just too low to recognize. Moon hated to raise his voice when he wasn’t certain how close the Hians’ flying boat was, but there was no better way to do this. He said, in a tone nearer to his normal voice, “Hey, it’s me, Moon.”
There was a faint stir of movement from at least two points on the wind-ship. A rustle of scaled wings and a slap of a bare groundling foot on the deck. After a fraught moment, a voice whispered, “Moon? Is that you?”
Relief made his spines twitch. “Briar, it’s me. I’m going to jump across to the deck.”
There was another flurry of movement and Moon was certain he heard River whisper something and Root reply. He jumped into the air, spread his wings to keep himself aloft, and managed to land on the deck without slamming into a cabin wall.
“Moon?” Chime said from somewhere to his right, then suddenly flung himself into Moon’s arms.
Hugging while in scaled form was always tricky. Moon squeezed Chime’s shoulders reassuringly and turned his face away from Chime’s twitching spines to say, “We’ve got them, all four of them. They’re with Stone.”
Chime demanded, “Are they all right?”
“They’re fine. Callumkal’s sick—”
Kalam’s voice said, “My father is ill?” He sounded caught between relief and renewed fear.
Moon turned toward him. “We think they kept giving him that poison they used on us—”
A faint glow appeared near a doorway: Diar with a lamp that was wrapped in filmy cloth to dim its light. “Our Grandfather is well?”
“He’s fine,” Moon said. “Careful with the lamp. The Hians are here somewhere—”
Then Chime let go of him and stepped away just as Jade grabbed him. Moon shifted to groundling in her arms, and relaxed into her warmth. He had expected to feel relief but he hadn’t expected to feel it so intensely he just wanted to fold up on the deck and collapse. He and Stone had been on their own so long, hoping they were going in the right direction, hoping the others had been able to follow as planned, that nothing had happened to them. Jade hugged him hard enough to take his breath, communicating her own fear and anxiety through the scales to skin contact. He took a sharp breath as she pressed her teeth against his neck. Jade pulled back and said, “Do you know what happened? What this place is?”
“Merit thinks we’re up on the cloudwall, that island formation.” He made himself step back from her. “There’s something else I need to tell you right now.” There were actually a few things, but he didn’t want to blurt them all out in front of the warriors and groundlings.
“What?” Jade said, her voice tight with renewed tension.
“There’s a kethel here. From the Fellborn queen’s flight. It’s been following us.”
Jade let her breath out in a hiss, and he heard sharp exclamations from Diar and Kalam. Somewhere down the deck, River muttered, “Oh, that’s all we need.”
Jade asked, “Do you know where it is?”
Moon said, “It’s over there on the ledge. It walked here with me.” There was a moment of nonplussed silence. Moon added, “It’s a long story.”