8

Liquid bubbled gently in the glass flask suspended above the flame. Behind my father’s hunched form, tubes snaked into decanters and looped over beakers that hissed and steamed with colorful fluid. He sat at his workbench, the smell of his laboratory always so mysterious to me despite it being on the third floor of our home. I stood just inside the door with my new notebook clutched in sweaty palms, the scratch of his handwriting the only other sound in the quiet room. He shifted on his work stool, a creak sounding as he turned to wink at me over his shoulder.

“Ready for your first lesson, Charlie?”

“Yes, Papa.” I shuffled in the room, unsure of where to stand. The first time I’d ever been allowed on this floor and I stood like a dumbfounded statue.

“Come, sit.” He tapped the stool next to him.

Hurrying over, I climb up, aware of a faint taste in the air. Fragrant and sweet, it reminded me of jasmine my mother used to grow. I folded my hands in my lap, waiting as he adjusted a burner flame and jotted down a note. He must have caught the look on my face because he paused, his bushy brows furrowed. “I thought you wanted to learn, Charlie?”

“I do, Papa,” I assured him. So excited that I was finally allowed entrance to his inner sanctum, I fidgeted in my seat, conflicted. “But Aunt Sadie says girls do not need chemistry. Not like we need French or drawing. She and I had a tiff just now.”

He nodded, running his palm over his graying beard. “Perhaps that was correct before the quakes, but the world is different now. We are all different now.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. My mother’s death only two years ago still felt fresh, raw. I struggled every day to remember the exact color of her eyes or how her laugh sounded. I wasn’t sure I wanted any more change. In fact, I often wished for things to go back to what they were. Though our home was nearly repaired, evidence of the quakes was still evident in the fissures splitting the plaster overhead. Glancing around at the whirling apparatuses, simmering concoctions, and glinting glass of my father’s laboratory, I felt overwhelmed and swallowed hard. Maybe my aunt was right. I seemed out of place here. “Papa…perhaps—”

“Your painting the other day,” my father said, pulling a tray with small vials filled with clear liquids in front of us. “You wanted the ocean?”

I nodded, eyes filling. My attempt at a shore scene, one remembered from my younger years, had frustrated me to tears. “I could not get the water right. Mama loved the sea.”

Handing me a pair of laboratory goggles, he poured one vial into the other and mixed the two liquids with a glass wand. The most brilliant cerulean hue swirled forth from the clear fusion. My mouth fell open.

“And the garden. The one your mother so loved to read in, do you remember it?” He took a third vial, pulled the stopper and handed it to me. The scent drifted out, and in a flash the memory of her warm skin against my cheek rocked through me and tugged tears to my eyes.

“Lavender and rose,” I whispered. “How—”

“Chemistry is the poetry of the universe, Charlie. It harbors the secrets of love and life, death and wonder.”

“But I thought it was electricity, the great machines that Mr. Tesla—”

“They are just the workhorses,” my father chuckled. “But this is ethereal, a fundamental truth. Fire, the heat that powers those machines, that is a chemical reaction.”

Pouring a fine powder onto my palm, he blew it toward the flame. It ignited in a shimmering cloud that fell to the table like fairy dust. I gasped with awe, marveling at the magic my father understood.

“I want to be a poet of the universe,” I whispered, completely enthralled.

My father smiled. “So you will, Charlie, but never forget, my sweet; something so powerful must always be respected…”

****

The light, soft at first, brightened as I fought back from a fitful slumber. Opening my eyes, I squinted in the pale glow, fighting against the confines of my bodice to draw breath. Clouds, dense and shining with muted light, hovered against the window. Droplets on the window pane trembled with an unseen wind and then streaked off to the side. Sitting up straight, I winced at the crick in my neck. Something seemed odd, missing somehow, and then I realized I no longer heard the ever present hum of the Tesla Dome. Never without it, the near silence of the skies unnerved me.

“My blessed stars!” Forehead pressed to the window, I stared with astonishment. Peering into the clouds floating past the glass, I was startled at the blue spark that flitted along the edges of the mist.

“Residual charge,” Ashton’s voice made me jump. “Static electricity jumps from the atmosphere to anything not properly grounded.”

I hadn’t noticed him enter.

He looked tired, my father’s journal tucked in the crook of his elbow.

“Did you discover anything?”

“Nothing I can understand.” He scratched at the fine stubble of his jaw. “The pages are traced with a raised pattern but it looks to be a design I cannot fully discern. I do not think it is writing or even a drawing. And the paper. It seems to be infused with a metal of some kind. Woven threads between the layers, I believe. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

“I tried all night to think of anything that might be useful and still I don’t understand why my father gave it to me.”

“We will figure it out, Miss Blackburn.”

“It seems we have no choice.” I turned to the window. “So is this Outer City?”

“No, we’re just below it.” Ashton moved next to me and pressed his fingertips to the glass. “This firmament, it’s the boundary between the sky cities and the top of the Tesla Dome.”

“How long did we travel?” I smoothed my hair, frowning at the errant curls brushing my neck.

“Lizzie took a convoluted route; doubling back several miles before ascending to be sure we were alone in the sky. We hover over the Atlantic a few miles off shore.”

“But we’re going to Port Rodale?”

“There are many ports to Outer City, better to keep any followers guessing as to which one we’ve chosen.” His dark eyes searched my face. “I cannot express to you the danger you court if you do not trust me, Miss Blackburn.”

“I understand,” I assured him.

“Do you really?” He half turned to face me. “Do you truly understand what is at stake here?”

“I understand what it has cost me so far.”

“Yes.” Ashton chewed his inner cheek. It was such a youthful mannerism, and I realized then that his unlined face could belong to someone no older than nineteen. In the frenzy of the night and the dark of the cabin I had not realized. “I am sorry. I meant only that…”

“It is all right. I know what you meant. I am just so worried for my father and aunt.”

“Of course.” He kept his gaze on the window without further comment.

I reached for the tea Lizzie had brought me last night only to freeze at what was visible through the window. Murky mist swirled in an eddy slowly revealing the prow of another ship as it moved past us, half shrouded in the clouds. Tattered flags strung across the battered vessel’s deck bore a blood-red fleur-de-lis against a black backdrop. A herald I’d learned about in my lessons. A hated flag. A feared one.

The teacup trembled against the saucer and yet I could not tear my gaze from the ship. The clouds parted and revealed a man at the bow, his hand on the railing. A leather cap and brass goggles obscured his face, save for the scar that snaked across his forehead. I gasped as tiny sparks snapped from the ship to the Stygian, spitting and crackling as they sped along the side railing.

Ashton put his hand over mine to still the clinking porcelain.

Three bell rings tolled before the ship sank deeper into the glowing haze. Ropes netting the black iridescent balloon creaked in the wind before slipping into the depths again.

“Was that?” I turned to Ashton, breathless. “Those were pirates. There are pirates here. You said they were just stories.”

“I said mostly. And they prefer to be called privateers.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, catching my gaze with his own. “You’ll be fine.”

I jerked my hand away and he fixed me with a puzzled frown. Boys my age were…well, they played at being men. They spouted stories from their chaperoned gap year. Trips to museums and days spent idly being pampered in the sanatoriums near the old capitol. But Ashton…

Everything about him threw me off balance and that was something I did not need right now. Not with my father’s fate resting in my ability to get what I needed from Ashton. It did not help the way he burst into my life at the moment I most needed someone. I reminded myself that Ashton made it clear his intentions and mine did not quite correspond. I wanted my father back at any cost. He and I seemed destined to part ways and badly at that. For now, I needed him to help with the journal. To find Collodin. I wanted nothing else from Ashton Wells, of that, I was sure.

“Are we nearly there?” I strode to the other end of the small room.

He turned and called out the doorway. “Lizzie.”

Carrying an armful of material and clanking buckles, Lizzie entered, breathless. “This is what I have.”

“Will they fit?”

Lizzie’s gaze went to me. “They can be made to fit our needs.”

“Made to fit what needs?” I backed up hitting the wall with my bustle.

“If I’m to stash you up here, you can’t look like you’re from down there. No one but armed security soldiers venture into Outer City from the ground. Least of all, a debutante in a ball gown.” Ashton walked over to me and lifted the end of one of my bodice ribbons between his thumb and forefinger rubbing the silk. “You’re hard to overlook.”

“And what if I refuse to wear these bizarre articles?” I said, hoping to hide a sudden taut pull in my middle. “I’ll remind you I never agreed to confinement or stashing or anything of the sort.”

“Then, as with the gloves I offered you last night, you can choose to go bare.” He said it softly, but a smirk pulled at his mouth.

“They’ll be fine.” I yanked the ribbon from his grasp, mortified when I took in the astonished look on Lizzie’s face.

“Very well, Miss Blackburn,” Ashton said and pulled the window shade down.

I nodded, avoiding his gaze as he left.

Lizzie dropped the bundle on the chair, smiling.

“May I ask why you are so amused?” I bristled. “Did I do something wrong?”

“It appears quite the opposite,” she said quietly. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him behave that way. Ashton rarely smiles.”

I waited for her to explain, but she held up a metal link spreader instead.

“Shall we?”

I crossed my arms.

“I am not the enemy,” Lizzie said softly. “We are not the criminals.”

“What are you then, if not traitors to the Union?”

Her jaw tightened.

“We are a group called Defiance,” Lizzie said. “And we refuse to be crushed under the foot of the very kind of government we fought off not long ago. Have you not noticed, debutante, what your country has become?”

“Oh, and your Defiance,” I said. “All of you know how our country should be?”

“I know how it should not treat those who are weak,” Lizzie said. “I know what it looks like when too few have too much power.”

“Protesting ill treatment with violent outburst is ludicrous. You injure your own.” I tried to reach for the link spreader, but she held it aloft. “I can do this myself.”

“It does not even appear as if you can think for yourself.”

“What of the explosions?”

“You do not understand.”

“I—I do not know your quarrel, nor do I wish to become a part of it,” I cried, covering my ears. “My father was taken from our home. He is old and they b-behaved so horridly.” Tears spilled, my entire body trembling with grief and worry. “I just want his safe return. He is all that I have in this broken world, and I want him back.”

Silence followed and I raised my eyes to Lizzie’s gaze. Where I expected anger or disgust, I saw only pity.

“Yes, I suppose that is all I would be able to think of if I were in your position. I am truly sorry for what you have been through.” She raised the link spreader and favored me with a noble effort at a smile.

“You won’t yell at me again?”

“I think if you cry any more you may very well dehydrate.”

I let out a shaking sigh and nodded. “I think you are correct.”

Lizzie set to work undoing the ribbons and hooks that held the chainmail bodice together.

Steadying myself, I grasped the side of the table as Lizzie yanked. All at once, the bodice fell open and the deep breath my freedom afforded sent a wave of dizziness through me. “I think I might faint,” I whispered, bracing my hands on my knees as the room stopped spinning.

“It’s no wonder,” Lizzie said and clicked her tongue. “You’re bound up good like a trussed-up goose.”

My skirts untied, I stepped from the pile of ruffles, shivering in the cold. “What…what are we to do now?”

“Well,” Lizzie handed me a blouse, “Ash has it under control. He always does.”

“You’ve known him long?”

Lizzie murmured her assent. “Here, over your head like this.”

Soft and filmy, the peasant-cut blouse skimmed my torso, hugging my form and flaring out in fluttering sleeves. “It’s barely there.”

“Well, that’s the point isn’t it?” Wrapping a leather over-bust bodice around my middle, Lizzie fed the straps into the side buckles, pulling them tight. “You have to be able to move. All that metal and skirting makes it easy for a lady to fall flat on her face. Folks wear more practical things up here.”

“I can get accustomed this.” I finished the final belt before stepping into the skirt held open by Lizzie. “It’s different, certainly. Easier to breathe.”

“You’ll not want to go back to those binding clothes, after traipsing around in this.” Showing me how to button the waist, Lizzie gathered the ruching of the skirt until it hovered just over my shins. I tugged at the hem, unaccustomed to the exposure. “Don’t worry, stockings and boots will cover you up.”

“I was wondering.” I ran my hand along the dark chocolate cotton. It was airy and smooth, like the muslin curtains in the kitchen at home.

“This chain here,” Lizzie pointed to a length of links banded around my waist and held up a small section of material. “You can secure this pouch to hold goggles, whatever you don’t want to lose.”

“I saw something on Ashton’s wrist…” I thought of the chain he wore. “It had strange writing.”

“It has something to do with his faith,” Lizzie said, fussing with the straps on my skirt.

“The Order is a religious society?”

“No, not all of them, but back when The Order began, the soldiers, the ones that wielded the sword, they were set apart, vested.”

“They sound akin to knights.”

“That is not entirely wrong,” Lizzie stepped back, yanked on the bodice. “But they are the soldiers of The Order.”

“I thought they were peacekeepers.”

“Ashton told me once, that not all battles are fought with the sword.” She shrugged, scrunching her nose. “He said the most vital are won on bended knee.”

“Swords and warriors?” I struggled to understand. “How long ago did this begin?”

“The Order of the Sword and Scroll is older than most empires.”

“Is that what you were talking about last night? The mandate?”

“They are almost from another time, debutante.” She regarded me with hands on her hips. “All of the members of The Sword and Scroll are, but even more so the ones like Ash.”

“And this Order, it is not a part of your…Defiance?” I asked, hoping my curiosity would not offend. “You said something about them not approving of Mr. Wells consorting with your kind?”

“There are those within The Order who sympathize,” Lizzie said, her gaze sliding from mine. “But we are different in many ways. The Order directs and advises kings, and, at times, has worked to overthrow them. They are apart from kingdoms and governments, and I suspect, consider themselves above laws as well. Defiance members are Union citizens. We fight to right our own country from within.”

“Older than empires? How could my father be a part of this without me knowing?” I whispered. “We went to church services, but…”

“Well, from what I know, your father was a scribe. A man of books in The Order,” Lizzie stood back, nodding at my outfit. “Like I said, not everyone in The Order espouses the same ideals. There is a lot of trouble within from what Ash tells me.”

“What does it mean?” I asked, my fingers going to the chain around my bodice. “The shackle…the mandate?”

“His life is not his own,” She held up her wrist. “The chain is a reminder that he is a servant by choice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Not many do,” Lizzie said and shrugged. She caught my gaze. “Ashton is a singular individual. He is both noble and ruthless and that does not earn him many friends, but he will do what is right. At least what he believes is right.”

“And you don’t always agree with him?”

“Sometimes what is fair and what is just are not the same.” Lizzie answered quietly. “That is where we often disagree.”

“He wants me to trust him and I do not know if I should.”

“Oh, you should…but what you ought to ask yourself is if you think you are able.”

“Why do both of you speak in riddles?”

“Ash does not compromise. He will not deviate from what needs to be done. No matter the cost. Are you able to live with that?”

I thought of my father, how quickly Ashton made it clear he was not a priority. I’d given over the journal, convinced I could persuade him to take me to Collodin. Now I doubted my actions. My gaze went to my father’s pocket watch on the side table.

Lizzie dug in the pile of clothing and I watched her silently, my mind troubled.

“And now these.” Holding up a pair of black wool stockings and dark brown boots, Lizzie motioned to my feet. “You’ll lose your footing with those high heels.”

Sinking into the chair, I held up my foot only to stop at Lizzie’s irritated expression. “What?”

“The point of this style of clothing is for you to be able to not only move, but to dress without servants.” She dropped the boots and stockings. “Best you learn that right now.”

I closed my mouth on my apology as Lizzie turned and exited the room. Sighing, I reached to unbutton the boots, only to realize with surprise the ease with which the leather bodice bent. I quickly kicked off the heeled shoes and rubbed my sore feet. Unfastening and rolling down my silk stockings, I pulled the wool up the length of my leg, reveling in the warmth.

“Not so bad.” I slipped into the boots, buckled the four straps, and wiggled my toes in the generous space. The modest heels felt solid, less precarious. I stood, feeling at once more steady and more at ease on the listing ship. Securing the pouch to the chain at my waist, I dropped in my father’s watch and the lorgnettes before turning at a knock.

“Are you ready?” Ashton asked through the door.

“As I’ll ever be.”

He walked in, his assessing gaze traveling over me. “I think you’ll pass.”

“Pass for what?”

“For riff-raff.” He moved, holding the door open. Pulling a pair of goggles from his coat pocket, he offered them to me. “We’re almost there.”

“Already?” I took the goggles, puzzled.

“For the sun. It’s much brighter up here than under the dome once the sun reaches its apex.”

I held them up to my face and smiled, surprised. The blue lenses made everything sharper, brighter in color. Depressing a small lever, a magnifying lens slid down over the right eye. “Remarkable.” I tried to pull the strap over my head. “This part…”

“Come here.” Ashton pulled the strap apart, and secured the two ends at my nape like a necklace. He stood so close and smelled of soap and leather. I stilled when the scruff of his chin brushed my temple. Stepping back, he lifted the goggles, and his fingers skimmed the hollow of my neck. I startled at his touch, pulling away.

“I can…I think I know…” I fumbled with the glasses. Sure I was pink to my eyebrows, I struggled to pull the strap free.

“They go just…” He reached again, slowly, and then placed them atop my head like a tiara. “Like that. You pull them down when you need them.”

“I would have gotten it eventually,” I muttered.

“I’m certain you would have.” He glanced down at me and I noticed the slightest dimple at his chin. A befuddled look crossed his features, and I wondered what he was thinking.

“Thank you,” I whispered, far closer to him than society would allow.

He stepped back, his arms crossed. The momentary warmth in his gaze was replaced by the stony resolve I’d seen before. “I think I know someone who may be able to help with your father’s journal. He lives in Rodale. I will go to him once I have you settled.” Ashton tucked the small book into the open utility bag at his side.

“My father entrusted that book to me,” I began, but Lizzie called from outside the room.

His gaze narrowed before he turned to leave.

I caught up, following him out to the passenger car. “You intend to take me with you to this…this man, correct?”

“No.”

“Mr. Wells!” I tugged on his sleeve, stopping his progress.

He turned, brow raised. “I told you my reasons for hiding you up here. You are a very potent form of leverage, Miss Blackburn,” Ashton said as he continued to the helm where Lizzie stood.

I followed, fuming. With the journal and his likely connections Ashton did not need me at all and, therefore, would not include me in any plans. I doubted that he would acquiesce to taking me to Collodin. I, however, had no intention of cowering in some corner waiting for word about my father that might never come. Deciding to level the odds in my favor, I eyed the journal just inside the utility bag. If Ashton could be as ruthless as Lizzie said, then so could I.

“So that is it, then? You’ve decided and that is all?”

“I’m glad we understand each other.” He pulled my father’s weapon from the bandolier crossing his chest, set it down, and reached for a conventional revolver on the counter. “Tracer guns do not work outside the domes. Only the Union Soldiers’ weapons do.”

“How can that be?” I glanced at the antique weapon, the snub-nosed bullets visible in the round chamber in its middle where the energy cycling works should have been. “We have every right to bear—”

“Unless you have an energy source calibrated to the Tesla Dome’s pulse, your tracer gun does not work outside the city.”

“Well, what is the pulse sequence?” I did not like this old gun. They were unreliable according to my father.

“They won’t tell us. It is a secret for ‘our own protection’ as the Governors have assured us.” Lizzie looked at me as if I were a stupid child. “You can have a weapon, the law is clear, you just cannot have the means to fire it.”

“We have weapons though,” I argued. “My father’s tracer gun at our home—”

“Was a service weapon given to him by The Order and unregistered,” Ashton explained. “If they had known about it, they surely would have altered the pulse before attacking.”

“They can simply render our weapons useless with the turn of a dial?” I raised a brow. I had not known this. “Maybe it’s for the safety of everyone. Perhaps, the concern is the arming of outlaws.”

“Like you? Needing protection against your own government outside the city?” Lizzie asked softly. “Still feel safe?”

I did not know what to say as I grappled with gall at my own ignorance about how much things really had changed since The Great Calamity.

“You’ll need this out there.” Ashton’s face held sympathy.

I hated that I appeared so uninformed in front of him. “But you said it was safe.” I eyed the primitive gun and doubt shook my resolve.

“No, I am very sure I did not.” Ashton reached for a thick belt lying on the nearby shelf and laced it through a small holster. In one swift motion he whipped it around my waist catching the end in his other hand before cinching it. “I said you’ll be fine. Two different things.”

The spine of my father’s journal poked through the utility bag at his side and I remembered my earlier misgivings about leaving it in his possession. Panic made me act. “What about a dagger, then?”

“Truly?” I met his doubtful gaze with indignation.

He lifted his hands in surrender. “Very well, then.” He turned, looked for the one on the counter, and I slid the journal from his pouch.

Lizzie caught me, raised a brow, but said nothing.

“Do you even know how to use one?” He asked, holding the knife between us with a concerned expression.

“I—I …” I stammered trying to hide the journal behind my back. “No, I guess not.”

“Trust me, Ms. Blackburn.” Donning his own pair of brass eyepieces, Ashton pushed them up, pulling his dark hair back and revealing a smattering of freckles along his widow’s peak. He seemed young then, despite his commanding presence and the way he burst in full heroic fashion into my life. The burden he seemed to carry darkened his otherwise handsome gaze. “You’ll be fine as long as you follow my lead.”

“It’s apparent, Mr. Wells, that I have no alternative.”

“Ash,” he corrected. “There is less formality up here. You want to not appear as if you don’t belong.”

I nodded. “Ash.”

“This is a terrible idea,” Lizzie said from the helm. “Of all places.”

“I’ve no other choice.” Ashton looked at Lizzie, his mouth in a grim line.

I watched the exchange with worry. Neither of them spoke, but the tense set to his features revealed volumes. Using the moment, I pushed the journal into my leather bodice, adjusting it just as he turned back. Grasping my father’s pocket watch, I squeezed it, willing myself the courage to do what I must.

Sometime later, I found Ashton standing on the side deck. His head bowed, one hand clasping the other, he whispered.

Although I should have given him privacy, I stood rooted to the spot. I wondered why a man so accustomed to danger, so seemingly sure of his own abilities, would need to pray. His thumb traced the links of his shackle as he murmured. My mother had done that. Her delicate fingers would slide over the pebbled surface of her Bible as she prayed.

His life is not his own.

As I wondered what Lizzie meant by that, it occurred to me that I had prayed more in the past day than in the years since my mother’s death. That I only turned to prayer when I had needed something did not sit well with me, but I had no idea why.

“It doesn’t matter to Him why you start.” It was a moment before I realized Ashton was speaking. He was not looking at me, his gaze out over the billowing sea of clouds. “Just that you do.”

“Pardon?” I bristled that he might have guessed my thoughts.

“It is in our nature to crave His voice.” The hardness to his features softened somehow as he looked at me.

I did not know what to say to him. He seemed so clear in purpose where I struggled with anger and confusion. Deciding that saying nothing was better than saying something that would make me seem foolish again, I merely nodded.

He left it at that.

As the Stygian rose above the blue haze, the atmosphere around me weighed heavy with the smell of ozone, and I shivered in the dampness. A low rumble shook my insides as we ascended. Not prepared for the sight, I gasped when we slipped through the wispy bonds of mist to reveal a riotous landscape of various crafts, suspended bridges, and hovering walkways. The sun shone on the bustling port. Brighter than I ever remembered seeing, the warmth of its rays took me by surprise. A decade since the quakes and the dome shielded me from it, memories of lying on the warm grass as a child hit me. But this revelation paled against the strange scene before me.

Floating planks zig-zagged between listing vessels. Their pilots and crew hoisted supplies and crates on creaking booms. East and west, north and south, thundering blades atop four massive towers cut powerfully through the air anchoring the port. The whole city hung like necklace chains from tower to tower. Large buildings lined the edges of a floating marketplace in the center.

Each building roof held rotating propellers and lighter-than-air ballasts buoyed the underside of the larger buildings. Slips for airships and supply blimps splayed outward from the line of buildings suspended in the air by bulbous silver balloons. The list and sway of everything sent a wave of nausea through my middle.

My hand went to Ashton’s elbow, closing around his arm in trepidation. Realizing my misstep, I tried to release him, but his fingers slid over mine holding them in place.

“It’s all right, Charlie,” he whispered. “I think that name suits you better, you know.”

“My father agrees,” I countered, deliberately bringing him up to quell the guilt over stealing back the journal.

Ashton’s jaw hardened, but he let the comment go.

Below us, women and children dressed in leather and flowing cloaks hurried between the slips and along the paths to the storefronts. Ladies in kimonos and men in the rustic breeches of plantations bustled together without regard to color or class.

Despite my anger and worry for my father, the sprawling, suspended town took my breath away. I took in everything. “This is…” my comment faded as a small skiff overflowing with fruit and vegetables sidled past. The occupant stoked the small flame under the air balloon holding it aloft. A cauldron bubbled atop a makeshift burner at the far end of the small craft.

“Fresh stew for the morning meal,” the man called. He pressed a button on the side of his goggles and tiny wipers cleared away the steam gathered on the lenses. “Best price in the port.”

“Thank you, no,” Ashton answered as the breakfast boat passed. He slipped my father’s cloak over my shoulders and nodded to Lizzie at the helm who cast a worried look in our direction.

“Where’s Lizzie going?” I swallowed against the rising anxiety. “Will she come back?”

“Nothing to worry about.” Ashton undid the button on his coat, pulling back the side to rest behind the weapon at his hip. He held my gaze, his eyes reflecting the brilliant sunlight. “Welcome, Charlie, to Outer City.”