Aliati and Kirit shepherded Hiroli towards the cave while storm winds surged.
The junior councilor’s eyes grew wider with each bolt of lightning. Storm-panicked, she flew erratically, paying little attention to the changing wind currents. Only with the others’ whistled encouragement did she make it to the cave.
When Hiroli landed in a shivering sprawl on the ledge, we pulled her inside. Ciel helped her out of her wings. The other two spiraled close again, but the wind blew them off course at dangerous angles. On her next approach, Aliati crashed into the tower wall above us, then slid down its side. She dangled feet-first over the cave edge, wings dripping.
We caught her and helped lower her into the cave.
“That must have hurt,” Wik whispered.
Shards of light broke around us, and thunder crashed repeatedly, drowning out Aliati’s curses to the tower, Hiroli, and the wind.
Meantime, Kirit fought hard to avoid getting blown away from the tower. Finally, she tucked her wings and crashed deliberately below the cave. She landed with a thump in the undergrowth, her wings snagging on the clinging nettles there.
In the city, “cloudbound” meant to disappear. No songs marked the lost, no Remembrances.
In our storm-struck cave, “cloudbound” meant that the city had disappeared. No one would help us. We were all we had left.
Doran anchored a spidersilk tether for me, and I handed him my satchel with Maalik safe inside before descending the tower’s overgrown wall to reach Kirit.
“All right?” I shouted in the lashing rain. I laced my fingers into broadleaf ferns growing on the towerside to avoid skidding down the slope. Kirit did the same as she crept towards me, grimacing. Her replacement wings dragged behind her, the yellow silk streaked with dirt and leaves.
“I’ll live,” she said, shivering hard enough to make her teeth chatter.
Her footwraps torn and filthy, Kirit began to climb. Rain soaked her gray robe, the hem dragging damp against the tower. Finally, she pulled herself over the ledge and disappeared into the cave.
Lightning cracked, filling my nose with burnt air. Unwilling to be singed next, I scaled the tether quickly. Kirit and Wik reached over the edge and caught my arms.
When they dragged me back into the cave, I stripped my soaked wings from my shoulders, then peeled off my outer robe. I wrung that out by the cave mouth. Four useless tower marks spilled from a pocket. I leaned my wings on the wall, next to the others’ frames.
We’d led our group of Lawsbreakers to safety without losing anyone, but safety felt wet, dark, and tremendously cold.
I paced, trying to warm up. Ceetcee beckoned me over to where she huddled with Beliak, Ciel, and Moc, but I didn’t want to drain their warmth. Besides, I couldn’t sit still.
My pale under-robe wrapped damp around my shoulders, a mildew taint strong in my nose. There was no getting warm here, no being dry.
Aliati, her palms and the left side of her face scraped raw, watched Hiroli jump at each new roll of thunder and shook her head. Then she helped Djonn settle, exhausted, against a wall and began searching through their satchels for anything dry.
“We left so much in the ghost tower that we’ll need down here. Flint, lanterns, oil. Food.”
“I have flint,” Djonn said. “I lost only my toolbox, not the important things.” He reached his hand to a pocket and fished out a chunk of ancient flint and a striking stone.
Aliati pulled a dry robe from her satchel and gave it to Hiroli. She took the flint from Djonn. “Now all we need here is dry fuel.” She laughed hollowly. “And to figure out where we are.”
Where was here? My eyes met Aliati’s, and I didn’t have to speak the question aloud. Bigger than the ghost tower cave, this one was also colder and darker. After being buffeted by the storm, I wasn’t really sure where we were, either.
Aliati finally said, “No scavengers have ever come this far. We’re running on rumors and myth.” “The Horror of the Clouds.” “The Bone Forest.” Those were the myths. They got us here. But there aren’t any songs about how to survive here.
I’d gone into the clouds seeking answers, hoping to undo the damage I’d helped create on the council. Now I’d stranded us farther from the city than even scavengers were willing to go.
“We’ll make do,” Ceetcee said from where she sat. She huddled, wrapping her arms around herself and the twins. She began to hum The Rise, then thought better of it, switching to “Corwin and the Nest of Thieves.” Very slowly, Ciel joined her, weaving the new verse in. The littlemouth clinging a nearby wall glowed softly when the girl sang.
As the two began to make up more verses and rename songs, Kirit joined them, and even Doran, once he picked up on the words. The cave echoed with Ciel’s and Ceetcee’s high notes, Kirit’s rough ones, and Doran’s, cautious and deep.
We waited for the rain to stop, singing, and even laughing. The others sat, but I could not stay still, instead I paced a damp circuit of the cave.
Kirit watched me from where she sat huddled miserably in Wik’s robe. “We need to go back. To finish this.”
“Maybe,” Doran said teasingly, “if we’d waited to confront Dix together, we’d be above the city right now.” The words hung in the air; though they’d sounded playful, he hadn’t been teasing at all.
“That’s enough,” I said, though I, too, wished she’d waited, or that I’d moved faster to stop her. Doran shrugged and got up to search for fuel.
“We’re hungry, cold, and out of sorts,” Aliati said, glaring at all of us. “No need to make it worse.”
Wik shifted uncomfortably, unable to lean against the wall thanks to the lashes on his back. Djonn watched pain cross his face. “Dix didn’t give you anything for the pain?” he asked, a tinge of jealousy in his voice.
Wik grimaced. “You’re the artifex Dix was looking for. Where were you?” He sounded like a Singer of old, demanding answers.
Djonn waved his hand and reached into his satchel. Hummed Ciel’s verse from “The Nest of Thieves.” “Into the clouds. And I took Dix’s precious lighter-than-air plans with me.” He held it up so that it reflected the next lightning strike, shining light around the cave.
The wind filled our silence with hollow sounds as we took in Djonn’s theft—both the brazenness of it and the danger.
Hiroli roused from where she’d been half asleep near Doran. “She’s going to want that back.”
“I think you’re right,” Djonn said, nodding. “Though she can’t read it. No one knows how to but me.”
Doran watched Djonn wave the plate in the cool air. “We should put that someplace safe.”
Without another word, Djonn tucked the plate back in his robe. “Done.” The two stared at each other for a long moment. The cave suddenly felt much smaller and more uncomfortable.
The rain kept falling, and cold gusts whistled through the cave. I knelt by Ceetcee and Beliak. He’d closed his eyes, and his skin was hot to the touch. I pulled a half-empty water sack from my satchel and set it near him. Clinging to the damp side of the sack were the broken pieces of my father’s message chip. I pressed them between my fingers, wishing Naton could help us now.
In the quiet, Wik asked Moc about Laria. The boy shook his head, refusing to answer. Wik turned to Hiroli next. “They didn’t hurt you?”
Hiroli looked at the bone floor near Djonn’s feet. “They couldn’t. I’m council, and they knew I didn’t know where Nat had gone, or anything about the plates. They kept me in a foul alcove anyway, filled with webs. Dix didn’t want me telling anyone that she had Moc.” She swallowed. “When they fed me just before Allmoons and I got woozy, I started to worry.” She turned to us and smiled. “But then you found me.”
Wik frowned, as if he could still taste the drug. “People can share a Law or a song easily. But Dix wants to possess those brass plates, or at least what they represent. They’re trouble.” He looked about to say more, but winced instead and tried to find a more comfortable place to sit.
The temperature in the cave dropped again. “You could say that about any metal,” I said.
Aliati nodded agreement.
“Perhaps.” Wik shrugged as if he didn’t really think so.
Now that I was dry, I wrapped my arms around Ceetcee and Beliak, trying to shield them from the cold air. But my thoughts were far away, in the towers above the clouds, and Laria in particular. Even if we were safer now, not everyone was. We’d told the silkspinners about Rumul, and they’d confronted Dix. Friends from the northwest quadrant had sounded alarms and distracted her blackwings. Doran’s guards had started fights to draw them away into the night. We’d rescued our friends. But then we’d left those above defenseless against the retribution of Dix and her blackwings. And we’d left others we loved up there too. Macal, guiding the northwest. Those who had spoken against the Conclave.
“Who’s with Elna?” Was she alone, after Doran had promised protection?
“My daughter and her mother,” Doran replied. “Both good fighters, if it comes to it.”
That didn’t ease my mind. Doran looked troubled too. “They’ll hold their own,” he said. “And Elna’s stronger than you give her credit for.”
It wasn’t his right to tell me about my mother, but I held my tongue.
The cave air grew thick with lost opportunities and broken chances. If Kirit had gone along with the plan. If Hiroli hadn’t been captured. Ciel. If Doran had been able to keep hold of the city while we’d been searching for answers. If I’d been faster.
If Dix hadn’t found the brass plate among Rumul’s effects. I began to pace again.
“Hiroli and Moc, you were at Laria for days,” Doran said. “You must know something more.” I remembered Dix leaning over Rumul’s body, interpreting his whispers, and shuddered.
Moc looked bleak. “They promised me wings. I offered to help find Nat in trade for new wings, I think.” He put his head on his knees.
“That was the drug, Moc,” Djonn said. “It makes you helpful. Compliant.” He looked down. “I know—it did the same to me.”
Hiroli blinked. “I heard Dix talking, a couple times.” She smiled grimly. “They thought I was sleeping. She told visitors Kirit was colluding with rogue Singers now, that she’d infiltrated the Spire on purpose years ago.”
I growled and began to pace the cave. “That’s ridiculous. Kirit was taken by the Spire. Used by them.” As my father had been. Between my fingers, the broken pieces of Naton’s drawings clicked together, useless, but comforting.
Hiroli massaged the bridge of her nose, trying to remember. “Dix said the northwestern quadrant had planned insurrection a generation ago. That Ezarit had schemed with an artifex to gain power. Kirit had seen the plan through.”
That could be only one artifex: She meant Naton and the holes he’d drilled in the Spire. “She’s saying Ezarit set that up, then sacrificed her daughter to the Spire? She’s cloudtouched.”
Hiroli waved a hand back and forth as if pushing the idea away. “She’s convinced the southwest towers and some in the east. Everything that’s happened since? It’s proof Ezarit didn’t deserve to lead the city.”
“Don’t speak that way of the dead, even if you’re just repeating,” Aliati said before the rest of us could. Hiroli bowed her head.
Kirit kicked Wik’s robe away and stood, fist curled around a knife handle, looking ready to head back to Laria and fight again. “Dix is the one killing the Spire. She’s bringing on a collapse.”
Wik growled. “Doran, you heard these rumors too.” He tugged at Kirit’s hand, trying to get her to sit back down.
Doran shrugged, but began to walk the cave as well, limping on his injured foot. There was little space for the two of us. “I heard, but didn’t believe them.”
Beliak began coughing and shivering harder. Ceetcee lifted the bandage. The wound had darkened and puckered. “Bone dust,” she whispered. “This is bad.”
“Kirit survived an infection. Beliak will too.” He had to. But even Kirit blanched at the threat of a bone dust infection. She’d been sick for months, with all the medicine the city could provide. Down here, there was no medicine. But Ceetcee nodded, her eyes hopeful.
Would others succumb to the fever as well? So far none had, but without food or warmth, we’d all sicken. The scratches I’d received at Laria throbbed, but my old wounds from Spirefall were painful too. The dust and deep clouds were affecting all of us. Kirit was right. We needed to go back.
A loud boom rolled through the air, nearly overhead.
Bright light illuminated the cave, throwing enormous shadows behind us. Our wings, propped fully spread against the cave walls to dry, glowed and rippled. Hiroli jumped again. “We need to find a safer place,” I finally said. Home. The city.
Aliati looked at me and shook her head slowly. “We’re safer here than anywhere else. So few suspect this cave exists, and it’s too deep in the clouds to scavenge. I didn’t think about looking for it until Ciel’s song.”
It struck me then. “This is the nest of thieves?”
“I think so,” Aliati said. “Though it’s pretty small.”
Doran snorted. “Dix’s guards won’t stop until they find us. We have her brass plates, her artifex … Kirit. And now Ciel too.”
“Don’t,” Wik began. Ciel nestled closer to Ceetcee.
“I’m not saying anything that we’re not all thinking.” Doran ignored Wik. “Ciel took something from Dix. So did Djonn. Dix will be looking to—”
“Enough!” Wik shouted, reaching for a blade that didn’t exist. He grabbed a fistful of robe instead.
I stepped between them, blocking Wik’s view of Doran. “No more of that. Not right now.” If this kept up, we wouldn’t make it through a single night without becoming our own enemies.
Aliati made a calming gesture with her hands, smoothing the air. “I think they can try looking for us, but it will be like finding a skymouth in the open air.” Ciel nodded and relaxed. Doran toed the dust on the cave floor. But Wik looked out into the storm, as if blackwings might appear there any time.
Kirit regarded Aliati. “Are you planning on living down here the rest of your life? Don’t you want to go back to the city? To help people fight? Dix could drain the city of heartbone to make more lighter-than-air. She could kill towers, enslave more fledges.”
“You don’t know that,” Hiroli countered. “Besides, before, Dix was just doing what she’d been asked.” Hiroli jerked a thumb at Doran. “Following orders.”
She wasn’t helping the situation. I frowned at her, but she didn’t notice.
Doran sat down slowly. “Dix isn’t following my orders now,” he muttered. “She lied to me too. My needs momentarily matched hers. Then she wanted more power.”
Momentarily. “Do you really think that she’s done with you? She’ll keep using you to gain favor in the city. She’ll try to rescue you, to save the council leader from the Lawsbreakers. Will you go along with that to survive?”
I wanted to shake my former mentor until his teeth rattled. He’d taken advantage of the council’s situation to build his position—whether it was purely to speed the city’s healing or to speed his rise to power didn’t matter. He’d used Dix to build more advantage, and she’d played on his weaknesses, pretending to be loyal to him. She’d outplayed him. Now he was acting wounded. “You built a fire, and the wind changed. You got burned. Will you return to try again?”
Doran looked at the floor. “I know. I shouldn’t have trusted her. I learned to trade by building nets of people. In politics, that’s like getting consensus before a vote. But building consensus means you rely on loyalty when the vote comes around. Dix used that. Used me. Can I tell you how awful that feels?” He looked at me. “Nat, you of all people should understand.”
The Singers had used me once, and Elna and Naton. I did understand.
Ceetcee looked up from where she tended Beliak, then looked away, shaking her head. But Kirit spoke. “You’re singed, but you’re still playing the game, or hoping to.”
It wasn’t a question, but Doran nodded anyway. Kirit spun her blade on the bone floor, thinking.
Not for the first time, I worried Doran’s manipulations would eventually burn us too.
* * *
Stomachs growled. Our group shivered in silence. The cave wasn’t a large space, and each time elbows or knees connected or rainwater dripped in the wrong place, soaking a drying robe, tension bloomed. Like the clouds outside, the mood in the cave grew darker. When Aliati began picking the lichen from her robe and staring at the mess of ferns and moss left on the cave floor from our ascent, I prepared myself for more grumbling. Instead, she knelt by Djonn, propped against the wall, his eyes closed tight. She nudged his arm. “Does skymouth hide burn?” She stared at the sole sack of lighter-than-air we had remaining, suspended above Djonn’s sling chair.
“Try this instead.” I hurried to find the dried hide at the back of the cave.
She made a frame of bones from the cairn and placed the carcass on top. The flint sparked, and slowly the hide caught and smoked, but the fire was close enough to the cave mouth that it didn’t smother us.
I peered outside, eyeing the smaller cave. With the rain easing, I could search it for more fuel, as well as food.
Aliati’s small fire didn’t do much to warm the space, but it did cheer us. Ceetcee helped strip leaves from the lichen stems. It sounded like tiny wing rips, seam by seam, leaf by leaf. Aliati took Ceetcee’s water sack and held it outside in the slowing storm to fill, then put the stripped lichens inside and swung the sack over the fire on a bone batten from the wing.
She caught me staring at her. “Thieving isn’t a scavenger’s only skill.” Her face broke into a grim smile as she swung the water sack, warming it above the fire. “We also start fires. Bring me your robe.”
I hesitated, picturing my robe aflame, but when I obliged, she pulled more broken fern stems and green lichen from the hem, where they’d caught, damp. She added these to the sack with the lichen Kirit had pulled from her robe. We busied ourselves picking through the sparse vegetation we’d dragged in from outside.
“Why not these?” Wik asked, pointing to the pile of yellow-colored lichen Aliati had set aside on the floor.
She shook her head, dropping the greens in the sack. “Yellow’s poison. Good to know it’s out there, though.”
Wik raised his eyebrows. “Indeed.”
Outside, lightning flashed again, but farther away, while Aliati cooked. I remembered the same feeling of anticipation watching Elna bake apples or graincakes as a child. Finally, Aliati pulled the sack of rainwater and greens away from the fire to let it cool. My mouth watered, even at the bitter smell that came from inside. The others edged closer as well.
She picked a bone shard from the pile by the cave mouth, rinsed it clean in the rain, and lifted green shoots from the water so they steamed in the air. After a few moments letting them cool, she held the trailing greens out to me.
I took a piece eagerly and chewed. Coughed into my hand so no one would see the expression on my face as I kept chewing. “Good!” I finally said around the mouthful of greens. They were bitter to taste and tough, but all we had. They might have been good with goose, possibly. Or even something smaller, like dirgeon. They could have been good with anything. If we had anything, which we didn’t. My stomach growled.
“We’ll get more food from outside soon, but this will help,” Aliati said, smiling at me. “I’m not a great cook. I don’t know many cooking songs.”
Ceetcee eyed the greens cautiously, then nodded once. “We’ll have to make our own songs.”