Then Lithe stepped forward, watching the kethel. She said, “I’m like her, too. And I want you to prove to me that there’s no ruler controlling you.”
The kethel eyed her cautiously. “How?”
Lithe said, “Let me look into your mind.”
Jade’s spines twitched and then stilled. Moon hadn’t known it was possible for a mentor to look into a Fell. He glanced at Chime, who flicked one spine in a gesture of dubious assent. Moon guessed that meant it was theoretically possible, but no one had ever before been in a position to try it and live.
The kethel flinched a little, then bared its teeth. “Not in my head.”
Moon knew what it meant. After those cautious questions about how much control over Raksura queens had, it was obvious. He said, “That’s not how it works with us. A mentor can’t control what you do, or think. She can look into your mind, and see if there’s a ruler there hiding from us, but that’s all.”
The kethel hesitated, then looked at Stone. Stone folded his arms and said, “That’s true. Let her look, or leave here and don’t come back.”
A long fraught moment of silence passed, where Moon saw Rorra rest a hand worriedly on the fire weapon slung over her shoulder. The strange Janderi looked bewildered. Then the kethel said, “Then do it.”
Lithe stepped forward. “Sit down.” Her voice was hard, she didn’t flinch as it stared at her. This was her battle to fight, just as it was Shade’s.
“Why?” the kethel asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
Stone said flatly, “Because that’s the way you do it.”
The kethel hesitated again, then sat down heavily on the deck. Lithe stepped forward and crouched in front of it. She looked tiny next to the kethel. Moon was glad Stone stood so close, that he, Jade, and Shade were all in arm’s reach. But the kethel just sat there, radiating hostility.
At some point, Delin, Niran, and Diar had come down from the deck and stood in the doorway, watching. Moon was shocked at how bad Delin looked in this light. The gold of his skin was blotchy, and the lines in his face were deeper. He looked smaller. Moon hoped Lithe was able to do this fast, so they could get Delin some food.
Lithe said, “Just look at me.”
The kethel met her gaze. Then the stubborn set to its face relaxed and its expression went still.
Chime whispered, “She’s got him.”
It was always strange to watch, even though Moon had experienced it himself. When a mentor looked into your mind you felt nothing. It sounded like it would be a traumatic process, but it was like falling instantly asleep and then waking again. Keeping his voice low, Moon said, “How did she know she could do it?”
Shade’s expression was conflicted. “She’s done me, and the others at Opal Night. I guess it’s not that different.”
After what seemed a long time, long enough for the groundlings to stir uneasily, Lithe sat back. She was frowning. Released, the kethel gasped a breath and stared in confusion. Lithe pushed to her feet, saying, “There’s no ruler, no influence.”
Rorra eased forward a step. “How can that be? We know the flight has rulers, we’ve seen them.”
Stone eyed the kethel thoughtfully. “It told us it killed the dominant rulers in its flight. I guess that’s true.”
The kethel looked up, still wary, but the confusion was gone. It climbed to its feet, clearly off-balance. “They were young. The progenitor was dead.”
Jade said, “So Consolation sent you here to take the weapon back from the Hians.” Moon managed not to react, wondering when exactly Jade had spoken to the Fellborn queen long enough to learn her name. That was probably a part of the thing she had to tell him that she knew he wasn’t going to like.
The kethel focused on Jade. “She told you her name.”
“She did,” Jade said. “We saw her on the way here. She brought us news. But she didn’t tell us about you and why you’re following our consorts.”
“To help you,” the kethel said. Then it looked at Lithe, and added, “To get help from you. A place to live. And she sent me to learn from the consorts.”
“Learn?” Lithe said.
The kethel said, “If no one who knows things will come live with us, then I need to learn.”
There was a moment of silence while everyone digested that. Moon looked helplessly at Stone, who sighed and rubbed his eyes.
Jade hissed out a breath. She told the kethel, “Go up on deck, and wait. We need to talk. And if you touch anyone on this wind-ship, we’ll kill you.”
The kethel threw a sideways glance at Shade and Lithe again, but Moon thought it seemed relieved at the dismissal. It turned and went out of the room, up the passage to the stairs. There was a shudder of relief, mostly from the groundlings. A Golden Islander at the back of the room sat down heavily. Jade told Balm, “Get the other warriors and watch it, but be careful. Tell them not to get within arm’s reach.”
Balm flicked her spines in grim assent and followed the kethel. Shade shook himself, shedding tension, and shifted back to his groundling form. Lithe frowned absently at the doorway. She said, “That was a very strange experience.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Moon told her. He shifted to his groundling form and felt the weight of bruises and sore muscles settle over him. He blinked and scratched his head, trying to shake off the sudden urge to just lie down on the floor and sleep.
Still upset, Shade said, “How do we know it’s really from the half-Fell queen’s flight? It could be . . .” He folded his arms, uncomfortable. “A spy.”
“This is too smart for rulers. They’d never think of something like this,” Stone said wearily. “And I doubt a kethel from a normal Fell flight would be able to pull this off. It has to be the half-Fell queen who sent it.”
“And the way he—it—talks about her,” Moon said. He gave Shade a nudge to the shoulder. “It’s not lying about that, at least.”
Shade seemed to reluctantly accept that. He put an arm around Lithe’s shoulders and she leaned into his side.
Niran helped Delin over to take a seat on a stool, and Diar said, “It presents an interesting problem.”
Jade turned to Diar. “If you don’t want it on the boat, we’ll understand,” she said. “But it’s here, and I think it’s better if we can keep an eye on it.”
Diar grimaced, obviously reluctant. “I agree. But it’s a complication we don’t need.”
Delin tugged on Niran’s sleeve. “Do you know where we are?”
Niran said, “I took a star sighting when the clouds cleared. We should still be near the southern coast, exactly where we were.” He lifted a hand helplessly. “Except of course, we know we must have moved.”
“You took a what?” Jade asked.
“Groundlings can look at the stars to tell where they are,” Moon told her. “I never knew how it worked.” It wasn’t something Raksura needed to know.
Delin nodded, absently threading his fingers through his tangled beard. “Then Merit’s theory is correct. We were taken up into the air, and are on the cloudwalls.”
“The what?” Rorra said, her brow furrowed.
The Janderi woman said, hesitantly, “It’s that mass of flying islands, very high in the air, that we saw on the way here. But it’s unreachable by flying craft.”
Rorra looked aghast. “I thought that was a cloud bank. Cloudwalls are supposed to be mythical. My people called them Cloud Reefs.”
Rorra must be rattled. It was the first time Moon had heard her admit that she actually had people, and hadn’t just sprang into being as a fully grown adult right before meeting Callumkal and becoming his navigator.