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The late-summer sun beat on my back and shoulders, raising sweat along my hairline. I abandoned the security of my Thunder Cloak, packing it away in my saddle bags and choosing, instead, to ride in only my muslin shirt and long indigo skirt—the customary attire I’d been wearing since joining the Fantazikes.
The Tippany family and I had said goodbye before, so this time we avoided making a fuss. In fact, their farewells were almost curt enough to sting. Puri handed me a bag of rolls and a hunk of cheese, gave me a brief hug, and disappeared into the Charosvardo’s cool interior. Melainey paused in her chores long enough to drop off a packet of books from her personal collection. Emorelle watched with a detached gaze as Timony bowed and pressed a kiss to each of my cheeks. “I am certain we will see you again soon enough,” he said with a wink. Then he marched away, heading for the hold of his ship.
Emorelle patted my shoulder, but her expression seemed grim enough to raise hairs along my arms and neck. “Safe travels,” she said, her voice thin and brittle. She departed without a backward glance.
Niffin and Malita made no appearance at all, and I left my horse waiting near the Charosvardo’s starboard bow while I went looking for them. Oddly, I found them together, both packing another set of saddlebags strapped to a bay Rhemony, standing patiently outside Justina’s ship. Malita wore Fantazike attire as well, but while I preferred keeping my hair in a braid, she favored wearing a scarf wrapped around her close-cut curls, and today she had chosen a bright-yellow one that complemented the ochre undertones in her brown skin.
“What are you two doing?” I asked, brow furrowed, hand on my hip.
Niffin’s mouth slit into a grim line. His broad-brimmed hat shaded his pale skin from the sun. “Coming with you.”
His words stunned me stupid. “Wait... What?”
“Justina’s orders.” His nostrils flared. “Since there is now a treaty between the future queen of Inselgrau and the Fantazikes, she decided you needed an ambassador to go with you and make everything official. And also to help you keep your head attached to your shoulders long enough to reclaim your throne.”
I pointed at him. “And that ambassador is you?”
“Apparently.”
Huh. Now I understood the undercurrent of hostility swirling among the Tippany family. “I don’t want to offend Justina or imply that I’m not grateful, but I don’t want to start out on the wrong foot with you, Niffin. Your family and your clan have already given more than I could ask for. If you don’t want to come, I’ll talk to Justina—”
“No.” His posture stiffened, and his violet eyes blazed with a cold purple light. “If this is what Justina wants, then I will honor her orders.”
I returned his haughty gaze. “I won’t begin on the path to my throne by forcing people into my service or asking others to do it for me. Maybe my ancestors operated that way, but the old ways are dead, if you hadn’t noticed. If you come with me, you come of your own free will or not at all.”
He adjusted a buckle on the saddlebag’s flap, snugging it tight. “I understand, and I appreciate that you would give me that option, but I respect Justina’s authority, and I choose to obey her.”
“What about your family?” I glanced at the Charosvardo’s gleaming balloon and considered the household living beneath it. How it must have pained them to prepare for takeoff, knowing they were leaving their son behind to venture into uncertain danger with me, an outsider and exile who’d, too often, found herself in the crosshairs of powerful enemies.
“If my mission with you is successful, they will be honored by my actions.” He set his foot into the stirrup and hauled himself into the saddle.
“And if we’re unsuccessful?”
He held out a hand to Malita, and when she took it, he tugged her into the seat behind him. “If we are unsuccessful, I think my family’s honor will be the least of my worries.”
“Malita, are you sure you want to come with us?”
She glanced at me over Niffin’s shoulder. “What can I do? I cannot stay with them.” She pointed at the airships. “I cannot walk to Nri. I cannot get home alone.”
Unable to offer Malita an alternate solution, I set aside my qualms. I’d have plenty of time to worry about her while we travelled. “You know we’re taking a ship, right?”
Niffin patted his pocket. “Justina made sure I have the necessary supplies to perform my duties.” By supplies I assumed he meant money, which relieved me because I certainly had none to spare.
Mounted and ready, we waited at the field’s edge and watched as the Fantazikes lifted off, one by one, rising into the skies like shimmering silver fish gliding through a vast blue ocean. We watched until they turned to distant dots in the sky, until the last speck of the armada disappeared and only the three of us remained.
Adaleiz stamped a foot as if eager to get moving. Without a word, I pushed my heel against her side and clicked my tongue. Malita and Niffin’s horse, Khosha, matched Adaleiz’s stride, and we sauntered away, leaving the emptied fairgrounds behind us.
Separated from the bustling, loud, and vivid Fantazike community for the first time in weeks, I felt alone and weighed down by trepidation. My heart seemed heavier than usual, as if filled with sand, but I kept my thoughts to myself, suspecting Niffin wouldn’t have much sympathy for my worries. He’d left his family before, tracking the bandits who’d kidnapped Malita from her village, but he’d known then he would eventually return to his clan.
***
We reached Petregrad before noon and found the Burya, the small steamship on which Gideon had booked my passage. After purchasing Niffin’s and Malita’s fare, we led our horses away from the docks, heading into the heart of the city.
“So,” Niffin said, “we are to call you Liesl, now, if I overheard your conversation with the ship’s purser correctly?”
“If I’m going back to Steinerland, it’s best if I’m as invisible as possible. I have a feeling no one in Dreutch will be rolling out a welcome mat for Evelyn Stormbourne.” I glanced at Niffin’s distinctively colored eyes and thought of the crimson hair hiding beneath his broad-brimmed hat. The pedestrians around us noted him, ladies leaning close to whisper to each other behind their hands as they passed. Traveling with a Fantazike was like traveling beneath a spotlight, but how did I ask him to camouflage himself without wounding his pride?
“You must change more than your name,” Malita said, as if reading my mind. She gestured at my skirt and blouse and at her own distinctive attire. “Niffin and I will change, too, yes?”
“Buying a new outfit and accessories is on my long list of things to do today.” I pointed down the street at a tall marble building with a wide staircase rising to a pair of heavy red doors—the Banka Mirovoy. “First, though, is to collect the funds Gideon arranged for me.” Although his note had told me which bank to visit, it hadn’t explained where he’d gotten the money. Either he didn’t want me to know, or he was protecting his source—possibly the same source I was on my way to meet in Steinerland. “Then lunch, then shopping.”
“Shopping?” Niffin said drolly, rolling his eyes as I tied Adaleiz’s reins to a hitching post outside the bank. “Not my favorite pastime.”
I gestured at his vividly colored eyes. “You’ll draw attention—you can’t help it.”
His brow furrowed. “What do you expect me to do?”
I marched up the bank’s wide stairs, and a doorman swung open one heavy red door for me while my companions waited on the sidewalk. Pausing, I glanced back at Niffin. “Have you ever considered the aesthetic possibilities of shaded spectacles?”
I ignored Niffin’s haughty snort and crossed the bank’s threshold into the cool, quiet interior. My skirts swished across the black-and-white tiled floor, and I pinned my gaze straight ahead, ignoring the inquisitive and arrogant looks from my fellow bank patrons. My attire was appropriate but humble, and compared to the bank’s customary clientele in their expensive gowns and fine hats, I looked like a wren among peacocks.
After a brief exchange with a short, bald bookkeeper with a drooping mustache, I exited with a pouch of coins large enough to strain my skirt pockets and make my head spin. I wondered how Gideon had arranged to give me such a large sum of money. Who was our mysterious benefactor? Or had Gideon robbed someone for my benefit? I pushed the unlikely and unsavory thought aside. When it came to my stalwart protector, there had always been more to him than he was willing to show me.
Once a spy, always a spy...
Gideon was like the wooden nesting dolls popular among Varyngan children. Every time I removed one of his outer layers, I found there were still many more yet to be revealed.
