Somewhere, that ugly Fae Tremaine was laughing himself sick, I just knew it.
“So, my dear,” said the Wytch King. He raised his fingers and licked my blood delicately from his nails. “I wouldn’t be so anxious to escape Windhaven just yet. Once your brother has had his day in court, you’ll be free to go. Until then, well …” He tilted his head. “Silver-tinged Fae blood or no, it will be very interesting to have humans aboard. Very, very interesting.”
He gestured us out, and with prodding from Skip, we exited the king’s chamber.
Back in the hall, I looked at Dean and asked a question I already half knew the answer to, hoping he’d say something different. “Do we want to be interesting to the Wytch King?”
“Hell no,” Dean said. “Not one little bit.”
“I didn’t think so,” I told Dean with a sigh, before we separated, the brush of his fingers on my cheek the last thing I had to remember him by before Skip took me by the arm.
I let him take me back to my room, playing the part of the good little human girl, even though I was more determined than ever to be anything but. Anything but the Fae spy the Erlkin believed me to be. Anything but the simple, pliant girl Grey Draven wanted to think I was. That wasn’t going to fix anything, wasn’t going to find my father and free Conrad. And it wasn’t going to save my mother.
After I calculated that enough time had passed for most of Windhaven to be asleep, I tried the hatch of my room again. Using my Weird here was rolling the dice—the madness could find a way in as easily as my gift—but I felt the lock give quickly when I applied the force of my mind to it. My nose didn’t even start bleeding, as it had been wont to do in the past. I felt a brief boil of nausea in my guts, and thankfully, that was all. I was relieved. Knocking myself down would defeat the whole purpose of using my gift in the first place.
I didn’t know precisely where I was headed, I just knew I couldn’t let the Erlkin treat me like a prisoner any longer. And the more of Windhaven I saw and mapped in my mind, the easier it would be for me to get Conrad and escape when the time came.
I was sure it would come to that. I had a feeling, heavy in my chest, that arriving under the purview of the Erlkin had irretrievably left me in their web.
Windhaven’s lower decks appeared to be constructed like those of a seagoing ship, with layers of hulls and corridors stacked next to one another, like a heart with chambers too numerous to count. Brass ladders led from one level to the next, and I began to see repeats in the Erlkin symbols—numbers or levels, in diminishing order as I climbed, fewer and fewer spokes filling in each wheel.
The highest landing I could reach was blocked by a brass hatch, a skull and crossbones stamped straight into the metal. Not a fool, I pressed my hand and ear to the hatch and heard the howl of the wind from the other side. I wagered if I opened it, I’d be swept off Windhaven and meet the ground quickly enough, so I turned and went back down the stairs to the corridor. A series of arrows marked a symbol shaped like a lotus flower, and I followed them as the corridors narrowed around me, until only one hatch remained straight ahead.
It opened before I could put a hand on it to test what was on the other side, and I found Shard’s thin, elfin face and burning eyes glaring down at me. I flinched. This was the exact opposite of what I’d had in mind when I snuck out.
“It took you long enough,” Shard snapped. “How did you get out?”
I backpedaled a step. Her glare felt like a slap. “You were watching me?”
Shard pushed the hatch wider. “We can see all of Windhaven from here.”
I stepped into the room and gasped. Below my feet, the ground fell away, and clouds drifted below the belly of Windhaven. The walls and floors of the room were glass, bulbous petals of glass riveted to the walls along brass veins.
Rising from the glass in the center of the room like the stamens of this odd frozen flower was a pilot console replete with dozens of dials and four rudders that steered the four great fans. To one side sat a bank of dials and knobs marked with more of the strange symbols, and to the other was a wall filled with screens that twitched and danced with images.
Like the lanternreel screens back home in Lovecraft, but writ small. Dozens of them, showing rooms and halls and the exterior hull of Windhaven.
“The aether feeds images from all over Windhaven,” said Shard, “and sends them to the screens here. So yes, we saw you escape, and yes, I saw you with my son.”
She turned to me, but I refused to look away. “And?” I asked her, brash as the criminal she believed me to be. “Have you decided that I’m not a Fae spy? Or are you going to toss me off Windhaven without a parachute? Either way, make up your mind soon. I’m bored being locked in a tiny room on this floating lug nut.”
Shard moved her hand lightning quick and smacked me across the face. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but my cheek stung where she’d struck. I flinched, feeling all my bravery disappear with the pain. I’d tried to act like Dean, but I didn’t have his nerve. Most of my bravery was like fast-burning aether—a bright flame with a quick flare, and then nothing except ashes.
“I hear you managed to impress the Wytch King,” she said. “So you’re probably not a Fae spy, I’ll give you that much. But what you are is a rude, impetuous little girl who can still bring the Fae to us, and for that alone, we’re not letting you leave.”
“ ‘We’?” I said. “You speak for all of the Erlkin?” I wasn’t sure exactly how much power Shard wielded aboard Windhaven, and she certainly didn’t seem to agree with the Wytch King’s assessment of me. This could go either way.
“You’re important to my son,” Shard said, her voice softer. She looked out the front of the bubbled glass, at the fog drifting back from the prow of Windhaven. “And Nails is important to me. I already lost him once when he chose his father over me.” Her eyes drifted back to my face, and I could tell by the coldness in them I was no more substantial to her than the fog outside. “I won’t let it happen again. Not now.”
“I—” I started, but Shard waved her hand.
“Go back to your room, Aoife. Nobody but Windhaven crew is supposed to be up here.”
“I care about Dean,” I blurted. That was a truth I didn’t have to question, ever. Dean, aside from Nerissa and Conrad, was always first in my thoughts. “Just as much as you do. He saved my life. I’m not trying to lead him astray or get him in trouble, but he should be able to have his own life in the Iron Land if he wants it.”
“No, he should not,” Shard said shortly. “Saying that just proves how young and unsuited for Nails you are.” She gestured at one of the Erlkin arrayed around the deck, checking gauges or watching the rudders and the aether screens. “Take Ms. Grayson back to her room. If she won’t stay in it, move her to a holding cell.”
“Yes, Commander,” said the Erlkin, and moved for me. Before she could close her hands around my arm, an alarm began to whoop from the flight console.
“Commander!” the pilot shouted. “Contact on the aether waves! Bearing one-zero-two!”
“Show me,” Shard said tensely. The Erlkin she’d snapped at darted back to her station.
“This ping,” said the pilot, pointing to a radio screen. A large, wavering blob appeared and disappeared under the stroke of the aether detector. “Huge.” She flipped another switch. “And closing in fast.”
I felt the fear return, smooth and cold as an iron ball in my stomach. Whatever was out there in the fog, I knew from the prickles all over my exposed skin that it wasn’t going to be a friendly encounter.
“We’re being hailed!” another Erlkin at the side console shouted.
“Put it through the aethervox,” said Shard. A moment of static blanketed all other sound, and then a voice I thought I’d only hear again in my nightmares barked out of the cloth-covered speakers mounted at the apex of the glass bubble.