I returned to the Iron Rose in the small hours of the morning with a new promise upon my soul, and with a very important clue regarding the shipment that Miss Hawkins intended to stop. This was fortuitous, as Evie had also returned with the news that Miss Hawkins had yet to learn the information I had gleaned from the abbess.
I informed the crew that our fuel shortage would soon be remedied, but I spared them any further explanation as to how. To be fair, even I wasn’t quite certain how Gentleman Sharper intended to pull off the caper.
We soon found out together.
Every hour upon the hour, a different goblin visited our platform with a small canister of aether. I had Mr Finch check the contents to verify their quality; he assured me that while the aether was of varying grades, it was all definitely ship-worthy. I couldn’t be sure, of course… but I suspected that Gentleman Sharper had sent his people to syphon small amounts of aether from several different ships, generators, and factory machines. Bite by stolen bite, we used the illicit canisters to fill the Rose’s fuel tank.
By the time the sun (or the vaguest suggestion of it) had fully risen in Morgause’s murky sky, our tank was full, and our engine room even had a few spare canisters of precious Seelie aether. All of which left me plenty of time for breakfast while I plotted out my next movements with some of the crew.
The abbess had been kind enough to mention Barsby’s pier, and the name of the ship he’d ridden in on: the Last Laugh. Miss Hawkins had given Evie the slip, he told me, but not before he’d overheard her searching for a ship called the Erebus—a ship which I assumed belonged to Barsby’s Imperialist client. As such, we had the upper hand: We knew where the Unseelie aether was now, rather than where it was later going to be. All we had to do was case Barsby’s ship, pinpoint the Unseelie aether, and blow it halfway to Arcadia before he could react.
It was all terribly simple. Mostly because the plan was light on details.
“One big problem,” Lenore observed, from her place in the seat across from me.
“Just one problem?” I asked her sceptically. “That would be a first.”
A handful of us had gathered in the galley to discuss our plan of action. Lenore was already kitted out for violence—she carried her rifle, along with at least two pistols I could see. Strahl stood stiffly nearby, mostly because his clattering armour made it difficult for him to sit. Evie and Little had settled into chairs closer to my side of the table, so that we could keep the volume of our conversation low amidst the other crew that lingered in the galley with us.
“Fine,” Lenore said. “The first big problem we have is that Barsby knows what most of us look like. I don’t think he saw me in New Havenshire, but I did help with the cargo for a bit, so we can’t rule it out. We need to case Barsby’s ship, but no one at this table is fit for the job.”
I sighed heavily, searching through crew in my head. “We could ask Mr Billings,” I suggested. “He’s relatively new, and he’s got a forgettable sort of face.” I mentally apologised to the man for the description, accurate as it was.
“Mr Billings is still prone to panicking under pressure,” Lenore said grimly. “We’re training it out of him, but I’m not sure I’d trust him with something like this just yet.”
Light footsteps sounded behind me; I turned and watched as Mary sauntered openly towards our table. Gone was the bleak black dress of a mourner; instead, she sported breeches and a flat cap, beneath which she’d tucked away her hair. Before, when she’d had her back to me, I hadn’t even recognised her. Mary pulled out a chair on my other side, settling into it with a smug-looking grin that said she’d been eavesdropping.
“Gosh,” Mary said, “it seems to me like you need someone good at sneaking around, Captain.” She crossed her legs and casually smoothed one of her trouser legs. “Someone Mr Barsby’s definitely never seen, who’s good under pressure—”
“No,” I said quickly. “Absolutely not.”
Evie cleared his throat delicately. “Er,” he said. “But why not?”
I shot him a dirty look. “You’re supposed to be on my side of this, Halcyon,” I told him.
“I am?” Evie asked, bemused. “I must have forgotten that discussion.”
Lenore scowled at Mary. “I don’t think so, young lady,” she said. “If that man catches you snooping on his shipment, he’s not going to be lenient about it just because you’re young.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “I know how the world works,” she replied. “You all keep trying to pretend like I grew up in a nice little house in the Rustlands, with a dog and a fence. But I used to steal from some real bad people. None of ‘em ever caught me, but I’d have lost more than my hand if they had.” Mary shot me a level look. “Besides… we all know the sort of things you did before you were sixteen, Captain.”
I winced. Obviously, Mary was right—I’d been a pickpocket for most of my early life, and then I’d joined the Imperial Navy. Surely, trying to keep Mary out of the thick of things must have made me seem like a hypocrite. But that was exactly the problem. Mary had faced so many of the same difficulties I had faced, and some part of me desperately wanted to offer her a better life than I’d had.
For just a little bit, I wanted her to be… well, not safe, per se. But safer. Sixteen was still too young, I told myself. I’d think about it again when she was… seventeen.
“What I did was make a lot of mistakes,” I told Mary. “I know you had to deal with some dangerous things while you were growing up, Mary—but just because you did deal with them doesn’t mean you should have had to deal with them. I don’t want to put you back in that position.”
Mary groaned audibly. “I am literally begging you to let me do this, Captain,” she said. “I am so tired of everyone else talking over my head and telling me to stick to cleaning guns. If you don’t give me something useful to do, then I swear, I will steal something to do.”
Little shrugged at me. Mary is crew, he signed. And she’s definitely the best person for the job.
I rubbed at my face in frustration. “Would you like to join the conspiracy against me as well, Mr Strahl?” I asked.
Strahl shook his head. “No one needs to be taking any advice from me on the matter,” he said. “I’m a man of terrible judgement.”
Mary smiled primly at me. I shot her a withering glare.
I didn’t want to say yes. Every iota of my being rebelled against the idea. But I was cornered, and Mary knew it.
“...fine,” I said. “But all you’re doing is casing the ship from a distance. You are not sneaking inside. Get us what details you can, and then come right back again.”
Mary’s eyes glittered at me. “You know, Captain,” she drawled, “I’d be much safer out there on my own if I had a gun.”
I groaned into my hands.
* * *
Mary left to survey the Last Laugh with a tiny two-shot pistol up her sleeve and a brilliant smile behind her gas mask. I spent the next hour trying to argue myself into believing I’d made the right decision by sending her.
I stalked the quarterdeck of the Rose after Mary’s departure, while Mr Finch advised me on the best method by which I might destroy an entire shipload of Unseelie aether. My muddled mood was further compounded by the filthy state of my ship. Morgause’s grimy fingers had smeared across the hull, and the furled sails were stained with black patches of soot.
“Unseelie aether is very unstable,” Mr Finch told me, as I paced nervously past him. Over the railing to my right, I could see dockworkers coming and going within the Aviary’s bustling platforms. “Technically, a violent enough physical blow might be enough to set off such a concentrated load—but I wouldn’t want to count on that, myself.”
“What if we just… opened a canister and ran?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it eventually just eat through the other canisters and…” Even though I’d suggested it, I shuddered just a little bit at the idea. I could still clearly picture the poor watchman on the pier in New Havenshire, screaming as his face rotted away. It had only taken one canister of Unseelie aether to do that. I tried to imagine what might happen if something were to rupture every canister in my hold at once. I envisioned that black cloud from the docks eating through the wood of my ship, roiling down its corridors like a bleak wave of rot. The Unseelie aether had moved so quickly and so unpredictably—my crew would have nowhere to escape.
Barsby, I knew, had three times as much Unseelie aether as we did.
Mr Finch shook his head, aghast. “There’s no telling when the other canisters would rupture. Besides, someone could come along and close the valve. Far too many uncertain factors.” He rubbed at his chin. “You will need to open one of the canisters and allow it to seep into the environment. But once there’s enough ambient Unseelie aether, I’d recommend that you use a spark of Seelie aether to start an explosive chain reaction.”
I thought through the implications, putting together the pieces in my head. “One of us is going to have to get up close and personal with that shipment, if we’re going to pull this off,” I muttered darkly. “Fantastic. And we’re certainly not going to want to introduce any Seelie aether while we’re within the blast radius. Any thoughts on how we could apply that Seelie aether from a distance?”
Mr Finch frowned, contemplating the problem. “An aethermancer could do it using only their will,” he mused. “Miss Hawkins is probably planning something of the sort, herself. The best alternative I can think of would be to use aether rounds—but aether rifles are rather outside of our budget, I think.”
I thought briefly of the guards outside of Colridge & Smythe—but stealing anything from the bank’s security forces would have been a separate heist all on its own. “This would all be far easier if Miss Hawkins had just stayed and worked with us,” I grumbled. It couldn’t be helped, though—Miss Hawkins had done an excellent job of disappearing into Morgause’s teeming streets. Even if I’d wanted to try convincing her again, there was no way I could possibly find her in time. “What about the equipment she left with you?” I asked Mr Finch. “Can you use any of that?”
Mr Finch blinked. “Oh,” he said. “Yes, I think I could do that. I could rig one of her aether batteries to overload. I wouldn’t be able to time it very well, but I could ensure at least a thirty-second delay once you’ve started the circuit.”
I nodded at that. “I’ll need you to get that sorted as soon as you can,” I told him. “We’re leaving as soon as Mary gets back.”
Mr Finch straightened. “It’s a simple enough task,” he sniffed. “It’s a bit… cruder than I normally prefer. But give me five or ten minutes, and I’ll have you something that can do the job.”
“Something that does the job is all I need,” I assured him. I paused to consider something. “Walther, you know how much of that vile stuff they have. How big would the blast radius be if all of that Unseelie aether detonated at once?”
Mr Finch paused, scrunching up his nose in thought. Slowly, however, the academic question gave way to reality, and he swallowed visibly. “Very… very large,” he admitted quietly. “Certainly large enough to destroy the entire hangar.”
We spent a moment absorbing the implications of that answer together.
At the very least, whoever was transporting that aether would be caught in the resulting destruction. I wasn’t willing to waste guilt on anyone who knew what that Unseelie aether was… but what if there were oblivious people involved? We hadn’t known what we were carrying at first, after all. If there were any innocent dockworkers present…
“Perhaps we could inform the local authorities of the contraband instead?” Mr Finch asked weakly.
I pressed my lips together. “I guarantee you, the grims have already been bribed to look the other way,” I told him. “At best, they’ll demand a bigger bribe from the buyer. At worst, they’ll confiscate the cargo and sell it on the black market—at which point, we’ll have a whole new problem on our hands.”
Mr Finch deflated. “We could… try shooting down the client’s ship once it’s left Morgause airspace,” he offered instead. “Once it’s taken the cargo on board.” Even as he said the words, I knew he didn’t believe them.
“How much firepower do you think an Imperialist faction is going to bring with them?” I asked grimly. “On the off chance that they load the aether onto something small and nondescript, we can reassess then. But we’ve got to have a plan in case we’re wildly outgunned. We’ve only got a small window to get rid of this stuff before it’s on its way out of Morgause with some really awful people.”
Mr Finch sighed heavily. “It’s just… there are so many variables,” he said softly. “And most of my experience with Unseelie aether is purely theoretical. I can’t really say how big this explosion is going to be, Captain. What if it’s even worse than I’ve calculated? If there are ships in the hangar, and the Unseelie aether somehow manages to reach one of their aetheric cores… it could be exponentially worse. It could threaten the entire Aviary.”
The fear in his voice wormed its way inside of me, chilling my heart. I knew he was speculating, guessing at worst-case scenarios—but wouldn’t I be doing the same, in his position? Mr Finch’s university had once asked him to develop weapons, and he had been so uncomfortable with the idea that it had turned him into a spy. But we were trying to stop something even worse right now, weren’t we?
I tried to imagine the echoes of Old Pelaeia, weaponized against an unsuspecting city. The idea was suitably terrifying.
“We’re going to have to be very careful how we detonate that aether, then,” I said bleakly. “Is there any way to minimise the risk?”
Mr Finch looked away. “If we can set off the reaction while the cargo is in transit,” he said, “the chances of it reaching a ship’s aetheric core will be smaller. But once it’s loaded onto a ship…” He trailed off. “Do you remember what happened to Ironspine when that pirate ship crashed?”
I suppressed a violent shudder at the memory. “I doubt I could forget,” I said. I straightened, trying to project more confidence than I felt. “We can’t let that cargo reach another ship, then,” I declared. “Which means that I need you to rig this device yesterday, Mr Finch.”
At the end of the day, I suppose my chief engineer had more faith in me than I had credited. At this, he nodded sharply and departed—and I was left alone, with only my dread for company.
Were these the sorts of decisions the Imperial officers made in the war? Weighing countless deaths against the threat of an unpaid Tithe and an Unseelie invasion? Had some officer once told himself that he was razing Pelaeia in order to save all of Avalon?
What if Kura Coal had been right about me? What if I was still more of a bluejacket than I cared to admit?
I clenched my jaw against the idea, and headed for the longhorn. I called Lenore and Strahl up to join me, even as I gestured urgently at Evie and Little, across the deck. Once everyone had joined me, I explained the refined plan.
“Someone give me a better idea,” I said bluntly, once I had finished.
Strahl shook his head. “I’m pretty sure I said I was a man of terrible judgement,” he reminded me.
“I’d prefer an aether rifle,” Lenore said shortly.
“I’d prefer that too,” I told her. “Can you get your hands on one in the next hour or so?”
Lenore scowled and fell into a brooding silence. I cast an imploring look at Evie and Little, desperately hoping they might conjure up a brilliant idea. Instead, they shared a look, and then a wince.
“I’m sorry, Wil,” Evie murmured. “I wish I had something to suggest.”
Little grimaced. Sounds like your plan is the plan, he signed.
I’d really hoped that someone would have a better idea.
Mr Finch returned carrying two bulky packs, affixed to a leather belt. I recognised one as a rectangular aether battery. The other one connected to the first by a pair of winding cables. A short antenna stuck out of the contraption; I assumed it was one of the spare parts for our longhorn.
“I’ve made it as simple as possible,” Mr Finch explained slowly. He flicked the second pack open, revealing the slapdash device within. A crude switch had been attached to it. “Set the battery close to the Unseelie aether. Flick this switch. Run.”
“Run?” Evie asked.
“Only if you like being alive,” Mr Finch assured him. “This device should slowly build up aether and release a brief discharge. Under most circumstances, it would be relatively harmless. But next to a large cache of Unseelie aether—”
“Like a spark in a tinderbox,” I finished grimly. “Boom.”
Mr Finch handed the belt over to me—but I saw him shuffle nervously as he did so.
I didn’t blame him. I was nervous too. The device was relatively light… but it felt as though it weighed a hundred tons.
“Captain!” Mary’s voice rang out across the distance. I turned and saw her racing up the steps of the gangplank, tearing at the gas mask on her face. I hurried to the railing to look down at her. “Barsby—” She paused, gasping desperately for breath. “Barsby is loading up the cargo in longboats! He’s getting ready to take them to a hangar! I heard him say they’ve got an hour ‘til the client arrives!”
My immediate instinct was relief—Mary was safely back, and clearly unharmed. But as her words penetrated more fully, I sucked in a breath. “We need to move, then,” I said. “Do you know which hangar he’s heading to?”
Mary had barely managed to catch her breath… but at this, she quickly straightened and pulled her gas mask back on. “I heard them talking about it,” she said, in a muffled voice. “I’ll show you—let’s go.”
She turned on her heel before I could respond, sprinting breathlessly down the gangplank. I cursed beneath my breath as I hurried to follow her. Mary knew I would just order her to remain on the Rose if she told me which platform we were headed to.
Strahl and Lenore took up after me, sporting enough weapons to start a small scale war—but they weren’t the only ones. Little soon fell into step next to me, clearly intent on accompanying us.
“Um, Sam,” I pointed out carefully. “You’re my first mate. You’re supposed to run things when I’m not on deck. If I’m gone, and you’re gone, then… who’s going to watch the ship?”
Evie is staying, Little signed at me. He and Holloway can manage things between them.
I recognised the cold anger in his dark eyes. I had nearly managed to forget how easily Little bottled up his rage… but Barsby always had brought out the worst in him, even before that ugly business with the bounty hunters.
I drifted my gaze over Little’s attire, noting the heavy boarding gauntlet on his right hand. He’d holstered his telescopic staff on his right hip; on his left hip, I saw a trench knife and a heavy bore revolver.
There was a damned good chance that Little might lose his temper at the wrong moment. I wasn’t entirely certain I wanted to take that risk, given the would-be bomb I currently carried.
Little must have seen my hesitation. His face darkened, and he shook his head. Barsby keeps causing us trouble, he signed firmly. I don’t know why you keep bothering to protect him.
I blinked at that. Protect him? I repeated the gesture, using muscle memory to ensure I’d read it properly. “I’m not protecting Barsby,” I said. “He’s turned on us a hundred times now. What possible reason could I have to protect him?”
Little tightened his jaw. I don’t know why you do it, but you do, he snapped. Maybe you want to believe Barsby can learn. But he isn’t like us. He doesn’t care about the suffering we caused, Wil. He will never care, no matter how many times you try to reason with him. He isn’t traumatised. He’s just a rotten person.
I winced at the observation. It wasn’t entirely off the mark, I realised. Some part of me was… worried. It wasn’t that I thought Barsby deserved to live, after all of the people he’d lied to, cheated, and betrayed. It seemed only too clear that his past actions would eventually catch up with him. But the idea of being what caught up to him felt… wrong, given our history together.
It was a stupid sentiment. And I didn’t have the right to impose it on anyone else.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “But Sam…” I met his eyes directly. “We’re there for that Unseelie aether. That has to be the priority. You know what’s on the line.”
Peace for Pelaeia, Little signed grimly. I know. We destroy the aether, and if Miss Hawkins is there, we make sure she comes back alive. Barsby is the last priority.
I nodded once—and turned back for the gangplank. “Halcyon Seymour!” I called back. “The deck is yours until we return!” I saw Little sign a last goodbye to his husband, over my shoulder. “Keep us ready for a hasty departure!” I added. “We’re off to ruin Barsby’s day.”
* * *
Mary led us on a wild chase—always careful to stay just far enough ahead of us that I was more preoccupied with keeping up than catching up. We had to take some very dubious stairs in order to move down the platforms of the Aviary, and the necessity surely slowed us down; but it still took us only a quarter of an hour to reach Barsby’s hangar.
We got there just in time to see two large flatbed longboats full of cargo driving out of it. I cursed under my breath.
“Cargo’s out in the open,” Strahl observed grimly. His breathing was only slightly heavy, despite the fact that he’d been running about in full armour. “We could—”
“No,” I told him flatly. Even as we watched, the longboats lurched to a halt in front of the milling throng of travellers in the Aviary. One of the pilots yelled at the crowd to move aside; the only person to respond was a hobgoblin swathed in a giant, tattered trench coat, who offered back a rude gesture.
A calculated risk was one thing. If we blew up that cargo here, though, we’d be guaranteeing the death of several innocent people. None of us had the stomach for that. Or… maybe Strahl had the stomach for it. I wasn’t sure why that idea jarred me so badly. He’d told me a hundred times now that he wasn’t a good man.
Thankfully, I was the one giving the orders.
“We’ll follow them to their destination,” I told Strahl in a low voice. I glanced at one of the many wall-mounted clocks in the Aviary. “We’ve still got time before the client arrives. People always underestimate how long it takes to navigate Morgause airspace, too—maybe the other ship will be late.”
“We’re going to be a little obvious following that convoy, don’t you think?” Strahl asked bluntly.
Mary’s small form darted through the crowd ahead of us. She paused just long enough to wave her hat, in case we’d somehow managed to lose track of her.
I sighed heavily. “Mary just volunteered to tail them for us,” I muttered. “At least… I’m fairly certain that’s what she’s signalling.”
Mary stayed close behind the convoy, offering a healthy buffer between us and Barsby’s entourage. My guts clenched every time the crowd jostled at the longboats… but someone in that convoy clearly knew how dangerous their cargo was, given their gradual pace.
They were being too careful. The clock was ticking. Any hope we might have had of reaching the hangar before the client arrived was dwindling by the second.
The pedestrian traffic dwindled slightly as the longboats spiralled down the Aviary’s ramps, moving closer to the ground level. Here, the hangars were larger—likely reserved for massive cargo haulers and transport companies.
As pedestrian traffic grew thinner, Mary was forced to fall further behind the convoy, while the rest of us widened our gap in turn. Mary’s cap disappeared around a corner, several dozen feet ahead of us.
By the time we’d followed suit, both Mary and the convoy were gone.
I stared at the open space around us, as panic seeped in at the edges.
Worst-case scenarios danced through my mind. Had Barsby’s men noticed their tail? Had they dragged Mary into a hangar with them in order to interrogate her? I searched the area frantically for any hint of where our youngest crew member had gone.
A flash of blue caught my gaze. Someone had tucked a familiar book against the wall just next to a large pair of closed hangar doors. I reached down to pick up Jack Blue’s Last Laugh.
The book had been intentionally set aside in order to draw my attention. There was no way that Mary could have pulled that off so neatly if she had been unwillingly dragged away. Rather, I realised, she had slipped in after Barsby’s people just before the doors closed. It was exactly the sort of thing that Jack Blue would have done.
Wait. I knew I’d heard the name Last Laugh before. I stared down at the book, now feeling slightly aghast.
Had Barsby named his ship after a Jack Blue novel? Did that mean he was fond of the series? The idea seemed strangely unfair. Selfish villains shouldn’t have been allowed to enjoy reading about literary heroes. Were Jack Blue a real person, he was exactly the sort of swashbuckling meddler who would take pleasure in thwarting Barsby’s current plans.
Not that I was a fan of the books, of course—I’d just read them to Mary a few too many times. It was only natural that I’d have opinions on the matter.
“What’s that?” Strahl asked me. The question interrupted my brief moment of indignation.
“Mary’s book,” I muttered back. “She left it here as a marker. This is Barsby’s hangar.” I glanced around for any sign of another entrance.
How are we getting in? Little signed.
“You could use the service entrance,” Mary offered from behind us.
Several people swore in surprise. I spun around with my hand on my blunderbuster, before my mind caught up with my body.
Mary stood her ground calmly. I had the distinct impression that she was grinning at me from behind her gas mask. “There’s a side door,” she informed me. “I unlocked it from the inside and left it open.” Smug satisfaction radiated from her posture. “Admit it. You’d be hopeless without me.”
I had to suppress an instinctive glower. Just as I’d expected—I’d given Mary an inch today, and she’d taken an extra mile at every opportunity. Just because she’d escaped unscathed this time didn’t mean that she’d survive the next harebrained risk—
Oh, I thought, suddenly glum.
Even if we weren’t related by blood, Mary was still a chip off the old block.
I sighed heavily. “Good job, Mary,” I told her softly. I offered her battered old book back to her.
Mary stared at me as though I’d grown an extra head. The pause stoked an odd guilt inside of me. I’d been so intent on protecting her for so long now that I suddenly couldn’t remember the last time I’d praised her for something. Every exchange between us had become some variation on the word ‘no’.
I stuffed the feeling down, promising myself to examine it again at a later date. For now, the clock was ticking, and I needed to focus on the present.
I waved the book at Mary. “Am I keeping this?” I asked her lightly.
Mary snatched the book away from me, tucking it into one of her many pockets. She spun about on her heel, now striding directly for a side door near the edge of the hangar. “This way,” she mumbled. There was a touch of bashful satisfaction in her tone, though she did her best to hide it.
Strahl headed swiftly past her. Lenore followed, with an approving nod at her protégé. I hurried to catch up with them, with Little close on my heels.
“Be ready to run at a moment’s notice,” I warned Mary in a low voice. “I suspect we’re about to cause a very big, very nasty explosion. I’m not strictly sure what the blast radius will look like.”
Mary straightened with sudden seriousness. Teenage rebellion aside, she was still a junior gunnery lady, with a healthy respect for explosive reactions. She offered me a curt nod, as we headed in after the others.
We entered in through a shadowy corner of the hangar, behind an old set of empty crates. Immediately, I noticed that the enormous building had been outfitted for two ships, rather than just one. A pair of jutting piers lanced into the smog beyond the open hangar—but neither of them currently sported any docked ships.
Barsby stood near the building’s closed double doors, issuing orders to his cronies as they slowly piloted the pair of cargo-laden longboats deeper inside. He looked every bit as stylish as he had in New Havenshire, in his coat, his half-cloak, and his hat—but his maimed arm hung in a sling, and he walked with a slight limp.
We sneaked along behind the empty crates into a closer position, listening in on the conversations that trickled through the air. Barsby stumbled away from his people, heading to a slightly more deserted spot just next to our position. As I watched, he began pacing and mumbling to himself. His steps were sluggish; I strongly suspected that he had dosed himself with either drink or medication in order to dull the pain of his arm. After a moment, I realised that he was rehearsing a speech. As I strained my ears to hear the words better, I caught a polite introduction. And… an apology.
I frowned deeply. Barsby was an arrogant man. He wasn’t prone to bowing and scraping.
Little prodded at me, nudging his head back towards Lenore, who flashed her fingers silently. Finding a better vantage point, she signed. Makes the rifle more persuasive.
I nodded at her, watching as she crept her way to a different set of crates. Mary, Strahl, and Little remained with me, careful not to draw attention.
Something is wrong, I signed at them. Barsby is very nervous. He’s expecting trouble.
Barsby is right to expect trouble, Little signed ironically. We’re here, aren’t we?
Barsby pulled a rolled cigarette from his pocket and stuck it between his lips. He turned back to rejoin his men. “One of you, bring me a light!” he snapped.
What’s the plan, Captain? Strahl signed.
In the heartbeat between his question and my reply, everything changed.
An inbound ship had started to approach the hangar. The distant droning of her engines grew abruptly deafening as she swooped down towards us, breaching the haze outside like a shadowy leviathan. She was a scarred warship with a fire-blackened hull—an ironclad beast, much younger than my ageing Rose. She must have been wholly steam- and aether-powered, because she didn’t have a single sail to her name. Cannons bristled along her hull, and I saw no fewer than six outflyers tethered along her belly.
Slowly, the great ship entered the hangar, venting aether from exhaust ports to soften her landing. Her engines finally rumbled down to a more bearable volume—and then, they died entirely, leaving the ship to float almost a dozen feet from the floor.
From my vantage point, I saw a great wolf burned into her bow. Its eyes stared out from either side of the ship, glaring viciously; its jaws hung open, as though to swallow the sky.
“Cinderwolves,” I whispered.
Little stiffened. I couldn’t see Strahl’s face—but I did see him reach down to grip at his revolver. Mary looked between us quizzically.
The Cinderwolf Brigade had once been the best force of soldiers the Emerald Spires had to offer the Imperium. The very best among them had served as an honour guard for the emperor himself. Rumours suggested that said honour guard had been mysteriously absent when the Sovereign Majesty had plummeted into the capital below—in consequence of which, half the world assumed that the Cinderwolves had been responsible for the flagship’s sabotage and the emperor’s untimely demise.
One would think that sort of thing would endear the Cinderwolves to me. But if they had involved themselves in the empire’s defeat, then they certainly hadn’t done it out of charity. In the following decades, they’d turned themselves into a small private army, available for just about any dirty business you could imagine… if, of course, you had the resources of a small province at your disposal.
Before us in the hangar sat the Cinderwolves’ flagship, the Conflagration.
I hunkered down with Strahl and Little, flashing my hands so emphatically that some part of me worried Barsby and the mercenaries might hear me. We can’t fight them directly, I signed. I’ll have to sneak onto one of the longboats to set the battery. We may not get all of the Unseelie aether, but we can get most of it.
Quiet nods greeted me all around.
We’ll cover you if they catch you, Little signed back. Once you set the battery, start running and don’t stop.
The Conflagration lowered a large gangplank, and a small parade of jackbooted, gas-masked Cinderwolves headed out to meet Barsby in perfect marching order. Their oilskin greatcoats flapped in the wind over battered, blackened breastplates. All of them were armed to the teeth with rifles, sabres, and belted firebombs. I noted two aethermancers in their midst bearing fuel tanks upon their backs; silvery pipes fed from those tanks into pyrokinetic foci in their gloves.
The only policy the Cinderwolves knew was scorched earth. I hadn’t realised they took that policy quite so literally.
One of the Cinderwolves strode ahead of the others, making their way towards Barsby. The figure was a human of average height—but their presence far outweighed their size. They wore an open-faced helmet decorated with an aether-grey horsehair plume, overtop a gas mask stylised to remind of a snarling wolf’s face. Their oilskin greatcoat was more resplendent than the coats of the other Cinderwolves, but its hem was tattered, and there were dark splashes upon its breast that would probably never wash out. As the figure moved, I caught a glimpse of scorched, battle-scarred lamellar beneath their coat.
Bright golden-tassel epaulettes stood out upon the figure’s shoulders—one of the few untarnished accessories they wore. A smattering of medals swayed upon their coat, pinned just over their heart.
“Death be victorious,” Strahl swore behind me. His voice was a barely audible hiss, but it still startled me sharply. He was staring at the Cinderwolf who’d stepped forward to meet Barsby. “I know him,” Strahl added, in a low voice.
I knitted my brow at him. “How?” I whispered. “We can’t even see his face.”
Strahl leaned forward, speaking even more quietly. “The medals. You see the one with the bloody wing?”
I squinted at the Cinderwolf’s medals again, trying to pick out the one that Strahl was describing. There was one that matched his description—a single, tattered wing stretched wide, with its tip dipped in scarlet.
“He’s wearing the Order of the Crimson Pinion,” Strahl muttered. “See the second wing on the other side of his coat? He’s the only one who wears both wings.” His face darkened. “That’s Captain Cristoforo Altera. He coordinated the ground assault on Pelaeia. He runs the Cinderwolves now.”
A chill stuttered through my veins. “The Cinderwolves are mostly Emerald Spires,” I breathed. “They’d never work for Carrain. If they’re here now, then that means—”
“—the Cinderwolves are fighting against Carrain,” Strahl finished. “And the Spires have their fingers in Barsby’s business.”
At that moment, something else caught my attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a pale figure flash across the hangar, hurrying towards the crates just behind us. The soft purr of aether-powered foci drifted over the air towards me.
I shot Strahl a wary look and ducked around the side of the crates, craning my neck to get a look at the newcomer.
“Hawkins?” I whispered.
The ghostly figure had disappeared behind cover… but I soon heard a sound of deep frustration.
Miss Hawkins reappeared from cover just long enough to scurry towards me. Her dress and wig were gone; she wore instead a grey shirt and trousers which I suspected might once have been a different colour. Her short, ghostly-pale hair was pinned close to her head. I had just enough time to register the small arsenal of foci upon her person before Miss Hawkins yanked me up by my lapels, nearly pulling me off my feet.
“What in the name of the Four Winds are you doing here?” Hawkins hissed. “I told you to leave, Captain!”
“Fancy seeing you here, Miss Hawkins,” I rasped back in a tiny voice. “It just so happens we have business of our own in this hangar. I would have told you sooner, but you made yourself rather difficult to find.”
Miss Hawkins narrowed her eyes dangerously. “We?” she demanded through gritted teeth.
I pointed just around the corner of the crates. Hawkins craned her head back to look.
Strahl pressed a gauntlet over his faceplate, vaguely embarrassed. Little smiled sheepishly. Mary waved excitedly.
Miss Hawkins couldn’t possibly have looked more horrified. “You all need to leave,” she insisted. “Now.”
“I have a great deal of respect for your abilities, Miss Hawkins,” I told her in a low tone, “but you cannot handle all of those people on your own. Those Cinderwolves are hardened war criminals, and they’ve got aethermancers of their own.”
“The Cinderwolves?” Hawkins snarled. There was a manic edge to her voice. “You think the Cinderwolves are the problem? Captain… they’re just the hired help!”
Even as we spoke, a second ship swooped in to dock at the hangar. She was a dark, nimble craft, smaller than the Iron Rose—somewhere between a personal ship and a streamlined racing zeppelin. Her name, written upon the side in ghostly white, was the Erebus.
As the new ship slowly descended, Captain Altera consulted with another of the Cinderwolves who’d been examining the crates upon the longboats. I knew from their posture that they’d discovered the shortfall of Unseelie aether.
The captain snapped out an order to one of the other Cinderwolves, who snatched Barsby by the shoulders and forced him to his knees.
The Erebus lowered its gangplank.
Captain Altera snatched off his gas mask. The man beneath was black-haired and olive-skinned, with a sharply defined jaw. Threads of silver ran through his hair—but they only served to highlight how gracefully he’d aged. That such a horrible man could be so classically handsome only proved how terribly unfair the world could be.
“According to Mr Barsby,” Captain Altera called out, “there’s been a complication.” His rolling Spires accent rang against the walls of the hangar.
A tall, gaunt figure strode down the gangplank of the Erebus.
Every inch of the man’s tattered coat was a faded aether-grey. His long arms were sheathed in sleek, silver foci, far better cared for than his ragged attire. Even mighty Morgause’s blackened touch failed to stain that awful figure; the falling ash turned pale where he walked, leaving flakes of false snow in his wake. Deep within his cowl was a pale, skull-like wooden mask… one that apocryphal stories suggested had been fashioned from the corpse of a Gallowwood dryad.
Wraithwood raised one hand, signalling the small army of Cinderwolves to surround Barsby.
“I do so hate complications,” he said.