Only a week after Clan MacLeod had taken prisoner three cabin boys and a physicker, little things began to disappear around Pelaeia.
The northerners immediately blamed us—especially me. A few of the locals argued with Dougal in hushed tones before I found myself shut away entirely, closeted with a very apologetic-looking Elfa.
A day later, we heard shouts from the general direction of the grounded HMS Caliban. One of the northerners appeared, hissing something urgent towards Elfa. She glanced at me in turn, nodding towards the ruckus. “Come with me, William,” she said. “I could use your help.”
Elfa strode for the HMS Caliban, while I hurried along behind her. The northerners had started taking our old ship apart, in order to use it for scrap. As we crossed the bloodstained deck, I had the unsettling impression that I was walking across a dead, decaying corpse, rather than across a vessel.
We descended through silent, empty corridors, into the very core of the engine room. Rust and condensation streaked down the surrounding pipes; bullet-holes pocked the hull, and dried blood covered the floor. I was surprised to find Holloway already there, along with a few burly northerners. All of them were staring at a storage compartment set into the bulkhead, half-hidden behind a set of twisted, buckled pipes.
“Just yank th’lad out!” one of the northerners snapped.
“I tried,” another one hissed back. “He bit me!”
Something moved inside the compartment, but I couldn’t make out many details. Elfa shuffled me forwards and cleared her throat.
“Perhaps,” she said, “one of the other boys ought to say hello?”
Holloway and the northerners glanced back at me. The physicker smiled worriedly, kneeling down to speak with me in a careful tone. “It seems we’ve got a friend in there, William,” he said softly. “He’s scared, I think, and not coming out. Do you think you might be able to squeeze past those pipes and convince him?”
I glanced at the mess of pipes. I was just small enough to fit through them. I nodded uncertainly, and Holloway reached out to squeeze at my shoulder.
I had to take off my coat to crawl through the damaged pipes. By the time I’d reached the boy inside, I was already shivering with the cold.
The boy’s eyes were sunken and bright with fever; sweat plastered his golden hair to his head. He’d scavenged a bloody uniform from a dead engineer and a scarf from somewhere in Pelaeia. He was shaking, flinching, terrified. In his trembling hand, he clutched a single piece of bread.
It took me a few moments to realise that I recognised him. Once, Barsby had been Vice-Admiral Wakefield’s favourite aide; the man’s constant praise had fuelled Barsby’s youthful self-importance so much that he regularly lorded himself over the rest of the youths on-board. Barsby had talked often of the shining naval career that he would someday have, once he became a proper soldier.
The boy in front of me was no longer self-important. Rather—he was ragged, and scared, and crying.
“Barsby?” I said softly. “It’s me, Wil.”
I had to repeat myself a few times. Barsby kept staring at me, as though the words didn’t make sense to him.
“W-Wil?” he croaked finally. His voice was parched. His eyes fixed on mine. “I don’t want to die, Wil,” he whispered.
“You’re not going to die,” I promised him quietly. “I’m still here, Barsby. You’re not alone.”
I don’t think the words ever registered with him. Not really.
* * *
A sharp wail screeched through the air, like a thousand nails on a chalkboard—followed by a hollow crunch. A dreadful cloud blossomed and then burst into a nauseous, feverish shockwave. Cinderwolves doubled over, retching into their masks.
A jolt of blue aether shuddered through the cloud like lightning, igniting the gaseous nightmare into a violent, burning mass. The strange fires melted through steel, and I heard a twisted moan as the deck near the edge of the platform began to sag.
Wraithwood spun to face the strange detonation. The movement brought him mask-to-face with Strahl.
My bosun drew his sword again, whipping it down in a rapid two-handed blow. The sword’s edge glowed white hot, and I knew that he had triggered its aetheric battery.
Wraithwood parried Strahl’s attack with a lightning-quick motion, sparking aether along both blades as they kissed. My bosun’s weapon slammed into the metal-plated floor, sinking deeply into the ground.
Wraithwood dismissed his silver sword with a sudden burst. Aether gathered around his fist—and lashed out in a vicious backhand. The discharge plucked Strahl from his feet, sending him backwards to land in a limp pile on the floor.
“Bring him with us!” Wraithwood commanded one of the Cinderwolves.
I snatched up my blunderbuster, desperately searching for a last-minute plan—but alarms blared suddenly through the Aviary, throwing me off-balance once again. Blinking yellow hazard lights flashed on every wall, just in case anyone had missed the deafening klaxons.
Wraithwood shot a wary look at the cloud of hideous untamed aether, slowly expanding towards the docked ships. I knew he was trying to calculate how much time he had to kill us all.
In that moment of hesitation, Hawkins saved us both.
Miss Hawkins fired the blast that she’d been gathering. The recoil propelled her across the greasy floor, slamming her into me. I let out a surprised yelp as we both slid towards the side door.
As I came to a stop, I found myself staring dazedly up at the ceiling, unable to move for several seconds. Just as I regained my will to move, however, Little’s strong, familiar hands plucked me off the ground and settled me onto my feet.
“Upsy daisy, Cap’n,” Lenore chuckled, from behind some nearby boxes. At some point during the chaos, she’d descended from her perch in order to join our retreat; her rifle remained balanced atop a crate, pointed towards the cloud of clashing aether.
Miss Hawkins pushed herself up from the floor with agonising slowness. Little reached out to help her—but by the time he’d grasped her arm, she was already upright. Blood dripped down her face where Wraithwood’s sword had caught her. A long, awful slash ran from her jaw to her scalp; the blow had missed her eye by less than an inch.
She was alive. She was standing. For now, the rest was immaterial.
“Mr Strahl is on the other side of that mess,” Lenore observed crisply. “What’s our move, Cap’n?”
Little glanced at me, silently echoing Lenore’s question.
My throat tightened up. I knew the answer I had to give. Some part of me wanted to flail for a different option—to pull another wild plan out of thin air. But we were barely standing, and the deck had been thoroughly stacked against us.
That was why Strahl had intervened in the first place. He’d known it was a sacrifice play.
“Fall back,” I said hoarsely. The words felt like a bitter betrayal.
Little blinked. Even Lenore rocked back a bit, as though the words had struck her in the chest. But neither of them stopped to argue. Instead, Lenore snapped up her rifle, backing slowly towards the door.
“The Unseelie aether—” Hawkins rasped.
I grabbed her arm and hauled her back with me. Despite her lingering protest, she offered no real resistance. Some part of her knew that it was over.
Deeper inside the hangar, Wraithwood’s tattered grey form rocketed up to the catwalks in a single leap. He spread his hands out before him, as though grappling with invisible strings. Fresh nausea rippled through my stomach as the roiling cloud of aether… paused.
Very slowly, the aether’s loud shriek changed pitch, descending into a low groan.
I didn’t wait to find out just how much control Wraithwood had managed to exert over that cloud. I pushed the hangar door closed behind us.
The Aviary’s corridors were a chaotic mess. Flashing lights and blaring klaxons overwhelmed my senses. Even so, it was difficult to miss the air-carriage that had parked itself directly next to the side door from which we’d emerged. Its door was open and waiting, though I couldn’t make out what awaited us inside.
“Fire on deck two,” an alarmed male voice called out over the Aviary’s vox. “Fire on deck two! Please evacuate to the nearest—”
The carriage’s worried driver gestured me over urgently. Strands of wiry grey hair peeked out from beneath his driver’s cap, evoking a permanently harried expression. Morgause’s grime had settled into the deep lines on his face, beneath the thick goggles that covered his eyes. A long, well-trimmed moustache trembled at the edges of his lips, humming in time with the panic in the air around us.
“Are these your friends, little miss?” the driver called down to the carriage. His voice was high-pitched, but he made it carry over the din through the sheer force of his lungs.
“Yes, Mr Saito, that’s them!” Mary’s voice trickled out of the carriage.
The driver scrunched up his face as he looked down at us. “Lookin’ like trouble, innit?” he observed. “Best we take off. Dockin’ bay ninety-four?”
Irritation flared within me as I realised that Mary had disobeyed my orders again. But I didn’t have time to indulge the feeling. Lenore had already hopped up onto the driver’s seat next to him, while Little helped Miss Hawkins up into the carriage. “Ninety-four!” I acknowledged, as I hauled myself inside.
I pulled the door sharply closed behind me. “Mary,” I started hotly. “I told you to—”
The carriage lurched forwards. I planted my free hand against the roof to prevent myself from falling into someone’s lap, just next to me. I looked up from my awkward position at the company I’d just joined.
Little sat across from me in the carriage, still holding Miss Hawkins up against his shoulder. He’d pressed a kerchief against her face in an effort to staunch the bleeding there—but the material was already soaked through with blood. Mary sat primly next to them both, with her palm-pistol casually levelled in my direction. For just an instant, I thought she was aiming at me… but in fact, her gun was pointed at the dark, scowling figure just next to me.
Barsby offered me a thin, long-suffering smile. “Hello, William,” he said acidly. “Heading my way?”
* * *
Silence stretched uncomfortably in the air-carriage as our driver hurried us on. Mr Saito threaded through the traffic like a needle, shouting in three different languages at the pedestrians blocking our way.
I trembled with adrenaline as I sat next to Barsby, squeezing my free hand into a fist on my lap in an attempt to control my racing heart.
“I told you to hurry back to the Rose,” I accused Mary quietly.
Mary still had her gun trained on Barsby. She kept her eyes on him as she spoke to me. “I was going back to the ship,” she said. “I almost ran right into Mr Saito’s carriage. He said a nice young lady like me shouldn’t be wandering around in this part of town. So I asked him for a ride there and back again. It occurred to me, Cap’n, that there’s not much use in having the Rose ready to go if we’re waiting on you to get back there.”
I blinked at her very slowly. Presently, it dawned on me that Mary had done something incredibly reasonable with the looser leash I’d given her.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I wondered why I was surprised. Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten that I was trying to protect a girl who’d protected herself for several years already.
“I… see,” I managed. “That was… thank you, Mary. We needed this.” Again, the flash of uncertainty on her face made me curse myself. Privately, I promised myself a long, hard look at our relationship as soon as we were out of immediate danger.
“Typical,” Barsby muttered, just next to me. “You didn’t even plan a getaway. Were you planning on running from Wraithwood on foot, William?”
I grimaced at him. “And… what is he doing here?” I asked Mary.
Mary offered me a sunny, insincere smile. “Oh, he must’ve thought he’d hitch a getaway ride with me,” she answered. “I thought that was a swell idea, so I asked him to stay. Politely.”
“Oh, please,” Barsby spat at her. “If I’d wanted to leave, I would have. We both know you wouldn’t really shoot me—”
Mary’s small pistol cracked within the confines of the carriage, blowing a tiny hole in the seat between Barsby’s legs. She smoothly inched the pistol upwards once again, until it was once more pointed at Barsby’s chest.
“You don’t know me, mister,” Mary told him pleasantly.
Barsby stared at her with a new hint of wariness.
“Start talking, Barsby,” I ordered him. Fury rose in my chest; I had to grit the words through clenched teeth. “What were you thinking, taking a job from Wraithwood?”
Barsby shot me a bitter, condescending smile. “Oh, come now, William,” he replied. “When men like Wraithwood offer you a job, it’s never a polite request. Everyone involved in this job knew what would happen if they said no… or if they failed.” Barsby rubbed at his neck and swallowed hard. “The money was just a bonus. I was supposed to be filthy stinking rich by now—rich enough to retire in comfort for the rest of my days. Instead, here I am. With you.”
“You are… such a pathetic coward,” I said. My voice trembled. Never before had I loathed Barsby quite so much as I did in that moment… and I’d had plenty of reasons to hate him before.
“Cowards live, William,” Barsby said, without an inch of shame.
I swallowed down my fury with great difficulty. There would be time for recriminations later; right now, I needed information. “You knew the cargo was Unseelie aether,” I observed to Barsby. “You were expecting it, back in New Havenshire. Did someone tell you?”
Barsby stared back at me in icy silence. I knew then that he was about to push his luck, Mary’s gun be damned.
Miss Hawkins struggled back to a stiff, upright posture, fixing cold grey eyes upon the man across from her. Blood dripped freely down her chin as she rasped at him. “If you don’t answer, I’ll take your other hand, here and now. See if I don’t.”
Barsby jerked his gaze to her, suddenly wide-eyed with fear. It was a twin expression to the one he’d worn while dealing with Wraithwood. I wondered, suddenly, if I ought to be more concerned about that than I was.
“Wraithwood told me about the Unseelie aether himself,” Barsby stammered out. “He said Red Reaver traffics in the stuff—said he wanted a whole ship-load of it, and he didn’t care how. So I… I called in some very big favours with some very bad people. They did the stealing. I handled the logistics.” He shrank back against the carriage seat, as though searching for a way to put one extra inch between himself and Hawkins. “That crew’s expecting money Wraithwood never gave me, now. A lot of it.”
“Wait,” I sputtered, holding up a hand. “Red Reaver traffics in Unseelie aether?”
Miss Hawkins had rallied admirably in order to pry this answer from Barsby—but the effort had cost her greatly. The steel in her spine now collapsed abruptly. She leaned heavily against Little once again, shuddering with pain.
A hint of scorn leaked back into Barsby’s manner at the sight, and he raised an eyebrow at me. “Red Reaver’s ships run on Unseelie aether,” he clarified. “You can’t have failed to notice, William.”
I remembered the hideous screaming engine of the Red Reaver’s Revenge. Somehow, though Red Reaver’s pirates were foolish enough to keep Unseelie aether on their ship, it hadn’t occurred to me that they might be foolish enough to run an entire ship on the stuff. Was it really any wonder that old Ironspine had howled so badly at the death of that vessel?
The greater implications of what Barsby had just said trickled in at the edges of my mind… and I blanched.
“Red Reaver has a steady supply of Unseelie aether,” I said slowly. “She didn’t just find a cache or a small bubble of it. She’s got enough to run her ships on it.”
Little met my eyes over Miss Hawkins’ head. Quiet horror had dawned in his expression.
“Either Red Reaver has an Unseelie sponsor,” I whispered, “or else there’s been a Breaching.”
Mary frowned at me. Unlike the rest of us, she’d never lived under the Avalon Imperium; she’d certainly never worn an Imperial uniform or sworn an Imperial Oath. She hadn’t had officers reminding her at every turn just what the Avalon Imperium was supposed to guard us all against.
“My money’s on a Breaching,” Barsby said with a shrug. “Or it would be, if I had any money. Thanks again for that, William.”
I stared at him. “You’re awfully calm about this, Barsby,” I said. “You know just as well as the rest of us what a Breaching would mean.”
“The end of everything the Seelie once created,” Barsby replied flatly. “That includes you, me, and all the other children of Avalon. The Unseelie will tear us all apart and dance on our remains.” He shrugged. “If the Imperium hadn’t fallen, we’d be on the front lines against those monsters right now. Ironic, isn’t it, that we’ll live a little longer this way? If there has been a Breaching, then it won’t happen all at once. It might take years for the Unseelie to tear open a rift large enough to cross with an army.”
I drew in a shuddering breath. Wraithwood’s latest atrocities had just taken on a fresh new meaning.
Centuries ago, the Avalon Imperium had fought back a Breaching and sealed the tear into Avalon. But that had been the Imperium at the height of its power, with a strong, well-unified army and a full complement of Wargears and Silver Legionnaires.
There was no Avalon Imperium now. There was no grand army. Many of our wargears were broken or missing, and even more of the silver swords had disappeared. If we were very lucky, we might have as much as a decade before a horde of twisted nightmares from the Evernight descended upon us. It was barely enough time to rebuild even a semblance of our former defences.
“Maybe the Imperialists have a point after all, William,” Barsby said softly. His eye gleamed as he spoke; he was goading me, just because he could. “I know you’d rather die than admit it, but—”
“Wraithwood wants you dead,” I told Barsby coldly. “That’s the only reason I’m not killing you myself. With luck, maybe he’ll expend a little spare effort hunting you down.”
Barsby scoffed. “You wouldn’t kill me, William,” he said. “You’ve never had the—”
“You hired yourself out to Imperialists.” I cut him off sharply. The dark, ugly anger inside of me rose into my throat and leaked into my voice. “People have already died because of you, Barsby. And even more will die before this is over.”
Barsby’s face flared with rage. “I was looking out for myself—”
“—and by doing that, you sat down at the table with butchers,” I hissed. “You don’t get to have it both ways, Barsby. You can’t screw over other people by looking out for yourself and then ask them to look out for you. You chose your friends—and now, they want you dead.” I looked at Mary and jerked my head sharply towards the carriage door. “Let him out.”
Barsby cleared his throat and offered a nervous, placating smile. “We haven’t stopped,” he noted.
“I’ve decided that’s your problem and not mine,” I told him. I paused. “Huh. That is freeing, isn’t it? I should learn from you and ignore other people’s problems more often.”
“Very clever, William,” Barsby snarled. “You’ve made your point—”
Mary grabbed the handle with her left hand and pushed the door open. Bustling traffic milled in the Aviary outside. The klaxons were still blaring. Barsby clung to the doorframe with his one hand as he stared down at the rushing ground, ten feet below us. His remaining eye quickly scanned for a safe place to toss himself, but judging by the look on his face, none was readily apparent.
Good.
I locked gazes with him. “If we ever cross paths again and I find you with those Imperialists,” I shouted over the din, “I’ll kill you myself.”
Barsby’s face split into an ugly glower. “I wish I could be there to see what Wraithwood does to you when he gets his hands on you, you little—”
Little carefully tucked Hawkins into a corner of the carriage, and then stood up. Barsby shut his mouth abruptly—but my first mate grabbed the handlebars on either side of the doorframe and planted a firm boot into Barsby’s chest, shoving him out of the carriage.
Barsby fell with a rasping scream.
Little offered a single, silent gesture towards the open door. I’d tell you what it meant, but the translation isn’t really fit for polite company.
Little closed the door.
“Thank you, Mr Little,” I told him.
Little turned my way and flicked a casual salute. He settled himself back into his seat, leaning over to check on Miss Hawkins.
Now that Barsby was gone, Mary stashed her tiny pistol, fixing her eyes on the groaning aethermancer next to Little. “So… you’re really a Silver Legionnaire?” Mary asked softly. Her expression was torn halfway between worry and wonder.
Mary must have stayed in the hangar long enough to have seen that silver sword. I sighed quietly, knowing full well where this conversation was about to lead.
“No,” Miss Hawkins replied in a trembling voice. “Never that.” Her iron will had now dissipated into exhaustion.
Mary shot her a quizzical look. But the answer had done much to soothe my fresh worries about the woman across from us.
“Miss Hawkins has a silver sword,” I said, in order to spare her the extra conversation. “She was trained by a Silver Legionnaire. But she never took an Oath to the emperor. That matters.”
It was a crucial distinction. It mattered to me more than ever, now that I’d seen Miss Hawkins next to a real Silver Legionnaire.
Miss Hawkins wasn’t cruel enough or amoral enough to lay claim to that title.
“You didn’t know,” I observed to Hawkins now. “Or else you just weren’t thinking. It didn’t occur to you what would happen if you blew up that Unseelie aether in the ship’s hold.”
Miss Hawkins grimaced, reaching up to press the kerchief more tightly against her face. “In the ship’s hold…” She struggled with the concept, as though trying to put the pieces together. She had the requisite knowledge available to her, though—and a moment later, I saw the implications hit her. She caved in upon herself with an awful gasp. “Oh,” she whispered. “Rot and ruin.”
I sighed heavily. “You could have blown up half the Aviary,” I assured her. “But you didn’t. That’s what matters.”
“Because you’re a hero.” Somehow, Mary managed to speak the words with a perfectly straight face. “Have you… ever read The Strange Adventures of Jack Blue, Miss Hawkins?”
And there it was.
“I don’t believe that I have,” Miss Hawkins mumbled back. “Why?”
A small window slid open between the passengers’ cabin and the driver’s seat, saving us all from the ensuing conversation.
“Did you just toss a man out of the carriage, Cap’n?” Lenore asked me.
“I did not,” I said truthfully. “Mr Little did that.”
Lenore arched an eyebrow at me. “Suppose he deserved it?” she guessed.
My gaze drifted back towards the carriage door. “He probably deserved worse,” I said quietly.
Part of me felt guilty at the thought. I remembered Barsby’s first words to me when I’d found him, all those years ago: “I don’t want to die, Wil.”
I’d made a silent promise to Barsby that day—that I would help him, that I would be there for him. But he hadn’t wanted any of that, no matter how much I thought he needed it.
I should have listened to him that day. I should have really heard the words he’d said. If I had, I might have realised that Barsby didn’t want comfort, or friendship, or anything else of the sort.
Barsby didn’t want to die. It was the only thing he would ever care about. And while I couldn’t help but sympathise on some level, I also knew that he would let the world burn if it bought him even one more second.
* * *
Mr Saito dropped us off at the Rose. Though we were in a hurry, I made sure that he left with a very generous tip, given the new holes in his carriage and our preference that he forget our names.
While I paid off our transportation, Little helped Miss Hawkins aboard, with Mary hovering close behind him. By the time I rushed up to join them, the Rose was already humming with intention, ready to cast off. I gave the order, and we rose into the choked skies about Morgause.
Our once-pristine sails were a smoky, filth-streaked mess. The hull was in a similar state. A thin layer of grime coated every surface; even the wheel’s spokes were greasy. The ship’s wood stank of ash and soot.
I charted a vague course southward towards the coast. Soon enough, I’d have to figure out where we were actually headed—but we needed out of Morgause now, before someone connected us to the trouble in the Aviary. Once we were underway, I left the deck in Little’s capable hands, with orders to alert me if trouble decided to follow us.
It had occurred to me that I needed answers. For once, I knew precisely where to find them.
I headed swiftly into my cabin, pulling the door closed behind me. “Syrene,” I called out. “We need to talk!”
The wood beneath my feet rippled like vaguely disturbed water. A path snaked its way towards the bulkhead. Syrene stepped from it slowly, melting into view.
I was shocked at how gaunt Syrene had become while we were in Morgause. Her form was even leaner and more brittle than usual; a cascade of dead, ugly plants spilled from her head. Anxiety roiled off of her, stealing my breath and setting my heart racing.
“Why is Strahl gone?” she asked. Her melodic voice felt deeper and less friendly than usual.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself against the disquiet she radiated. “We ran afoul of the people Barsby was working for,” I said. “They recognised Strahl. He… decided to buy us time to escape.” My own fear rose within me as I thought of Strahl in Wraithwood’s tender care—but I fixed my gaze upon her, forcing myself to think through my cloying panic. “You’re bonded to Strahl. He found you once when you were hidden. Can you feel where he is, too?”
“We can,” Syrene said. Her black eyes went distant, focussing just past my shoulder. Her anxiety banked itself to warm embers, rather than a roaring flame. Her posture relaxed, and I knew then that Strahl still lived. She returned her uncanny gaze to me. “Who has taken him?” she asked.
I swallowed. My throat felt dry. “Wraithwood,” I said. “Him and the Cinderwolves.”
Syrene’s hands clenched. Her wooden, claw-like fingers rasped against her palms. In the half-light of my cabin, she reminded me of the feral barghests that haunted the Coalditch district. “Wraithwood dares,” she hissed. “He will suffer.”
“Why?” I asked her. “Why would Wraithwood take Strahl? They clearly know each other, and not just in passing.” I stared down Syrene, dredging up the courage to ask her the question I had avoided for so many years. “Who is Strahl, Syrene?”
Syrene ignored the question. “We must retrieve Strahl,” she said. “We will direct you—”
“No,” I said. “Not yet. I want to know the truth, Syrene. I have carried both of you on this ship without question for years now. But I’m not doing this blindly anymore. You’re asking me to take on Wraithwood—and I will do it, Tuath help me. But I want to know what I’m dealing with first.”
Syrene fell silent. The air between us vibrated strangely for a moment as her emotions churned. But still, she said nothing.
I clenched my jaw. “Syrene—” I started.
“We cannot say,” Syrene told me. Her many black eyes focussed upon me, dark and intense. “Strahl has forbidden us.”
“Strahl has… forbidden you?” I asked. The idea was ridiculous. Mortals did not forbid faeries from doing anything. “You owe him a debt, then? He asked you to keep his secret—”
“No,” Syrene said quietly. “There is no debt. Only obligation.” The words made her deeply uneasy; a few more of the petals on her head withered, and I knew that she was skirting the edge of the promise she had made to Strahl. She caught a newly dried flower as it drifted from her brow, shivering with discomfort. “Ask no more questions on this subject, Captain. Please.”
I drew in a deep breath. I couldn’t ask about Strahl directly… but Syrene had left me an opening on purpose. I could ask her questions on other subjects. “Wraithwood wants Unseelie aether so he can conjure up an army,” I said. “He’s working with Imperialists. Barsby thinks they’re trying to resurrect the Imperium—or something like it, anyway. He thinks there’s been a Breaching.” I watched Syrene’s mask-like face, though I knew I would see nothing of her emotions there. “If there had been a Breaching… would you know it, Syrene?”
Syrene tilted her head at me. “There has… surely been a Breaching,” she said softly. “We have seen too much evidence now.”
My heart dropped into my stomach. The confirmation was overwhelming. It was exactly what I’d hoped not to hear.
“The Imperium will stop the Breaching,” Syrene told me. “That is why the Imperium exists. But we must find Strahl.”
Words failed me. I blinked at the faerie. She was so sure of herself, so calm. I could feel the confidence radiating from her.
“The Imperium is dead, Syrene,” I said slowly. “There is no emperor. There is no royal house or grand army. The Silver Legionnaires and the wargears are scattered and broken. All that’s left are a bunch of ruthless criminals ready to crush the rest of us into compliance all over again.”
Syrene met my gaze evenly. “There is hope then,” she said, utterly missing my sarcasm.
I stared at her. “The return of the Imperium is not a good thing, Syrene,” I said. “People turned on it for damned good reasons. It failed its people. It fed on its people, like some awful machine.”
“The Avalon Imperium was never meant to serve its people,” Syrene told me calmly. “It was created to serve us.”
The simple words drove the breath from my chest.
Given Syrene’s verbal eccentricities, she could have been referring to herself, personally. But I knew that she wasn’t. She was talking about the Everbright. The holy Tuath Dé.
Like a longhorn flicking on, I suddenly knew with absolute certainty who was to blame for our current predicament. Dougal MacLeod had said it to me, several years ago. I’d argued with him at the time… but Syrene had just confirmed everything he believed, right to my face.
“Then you failed us,” I told her flatly. “All of you.”
Syrene tilted her head again. “We made you,” she said. “You are our shield. If you break, you will fail us. But we cannot fail you. That is… impossible.”
Black, incredulous rage rose up within my chest. For just a moment, I managed to forget that Strahl was still missing, that Wraithwood had what he wanted—all I could focus on was the horribly indifferent faerie in front of me.
“You don’t own us!” I burst out. “We’re not… toys, Syrene! We’re living, thinking people!”
Syrene was unmoved. “We made you,” she repeated—as though I might not have heard her the first time. “You belong to us. It is your purpose to defend us. We gave you aether. We armed you with wargears and silver swords—”
“—and we turned them on each other!” I yelled at her. “And you said nothing! You gave your children loaded guns and let them murder one another with your gifts!” I was so angry, so miserably furious. My hands shook at my sides. Bile had started creeping up my throat. “You took sides. You helped the Imperium force the world to heel, and people still rebelled, they still overthrew your puppets.”
“Foolish,” Syrene said. “Without an Imperium, the Unseelie will destroy you. Your world will burn.”
My hackles rose. “The world is already burning,” I said. “It burns in your name. And frankly… I don’t see much of a difference between you and the Unseelie right now.”
Nothing I’d said so far had fazed Syrene—but this elicited a dark, sudden fury. She straightened her withered body to its full height, towering over me. Her abnormally long fingers splintered into razor-tipped talons of polished wood. Immortal terror buffeted my soul, trying to worm its way inside me.
I hated her so much in that moment, I forgot to be afraid.
“Remember your place,” Syrene hissed at me.
I laughed.
Syrene jerked back in confusion. She was used to people cowering before her when she exerted herself. Like the Imperium itself, I realised, she didn’t know what to do when her servants decided they would rather die than bow.
“Look at you,” I said. “You don’t even understand what you’ve made. You’re like a child shaking your fist at the sky, demanding for the rain to stop and the sun to rise. You can be as frightening as you want, Syrene—but that won’t change the fact that I hate you. It certainly won’t change the fact that you’re a foolish, petty tyrant.”
Syrene stared at me, flexing her wicked claws. I waited for her to leap upon me, to tear me to pieces… but as the seconds dragged on, I remembered belatedly that she had sworn to obey my authority so long as she remained upon my ship.
She couldn’t harm me. Not right now, anyway.
“I’m not abandoning Strahl to his fate,” I told her. “It’s not his fault you’re a cruel little sapling. I’m going to follow Wraithwood. I’m going to stop him—somehow, I don’t know how—and I’m going to save Strahl. You can help me do that, or you can flee this ship to go and sulk. The choice is yours, Syrene.”
I met her stare, perfectly unyielding. For once, my hate buoyed me, and I didn’t fear it. I remembered the wailing echoes of Pelaeia—the ghosts of the Imperium, victimised by the Seelie Tuath Dé and their monstrous gifts to the mortals of Avalon.
Syrene looked away first.
“We will remain,” she replied quietly. Her words were tight. “We will follow Strahl’s trail.”
“Good,” I said. The word was so chilly, it nearly blistered my lips. “Go chart us a course to follow him, then.”
Syrene turned away from me, melting back into the bulkhead. The wood rippled behind her, and then stilled.
I wondered for a moment whether she intended to follow the order. But the Rose soon began to alter its course.
I let out a breath, releasing the fist-sized clump of rage that had laid anchor in my chest. It didn’t help much.
You were right, Dougal, I thought. Our gods are evil. What are we supposed to do with that?
More than ever, I wished he was there. I wanted to commiserate with his justified rage. I wanted to tell him that I finally understood, that he was no longer alone in his fury.
But Dougal was gone. Even now, his clan was probably sending him off with a kind word from an oblivious halcyon. The injustice of it all was so keen that I couldn’t even get my mind around it. I knew I would have to work my way up to it over time, digesting the awfulness in small, bitter bites.
Somewhere at the edge of my awareness, however, I became aware that our heading seemed… odd. I pulled out my compass, staring down at the arrow inside of it.
We were heading east by southeast.
But Pelaeia was north of us.
I had no doubts that Syrene knew where she was going. But why would Wraithwood be headed in that direction? He had his Unseelie aether, and his infernal device. Pelaeia had a seething concentration of echoes ready to enslave, and barely any defences capable of holding him off.
I headed to a cabinet and pulled out a drawer, snatching up a map of the continent. I unrolled it over a table, pinpointing our location over the duchy of Mavra. I traced a path east by southeast… and my blood soon ran cold.
I remembered the capital city yawning beneath my feet as I clung to the rigging of the HMS Caliban. I remembered the screams that rose from below as the citizens of Galtir realised their impending doom. I remembered the unprecedented aetheric explosion of the Sovereign Majesty, great enough to engulf several city districts.
Wraithwood didn’t want a scattering of ragtag rebel echoes and their wailing children. No—he had set his sights much higher than that. He had pointed himself towards the site of the Imperium’s last stand: an aether-irradiated wasteland where hardened soldiers and citizens alike had died. A city full of dead Imperial heroes ready to carve out a brand new empire.
Wraithwood was headed to Galtir.