“My very best friend,” Jordan repeated. “But it was crafted by a strange little woman from the Below…”
On one of the most special days of her life as a young lady she had worn a very special gown—so special she hadn’t even realized … A gift from her very best friend.
A gift designed by a most peculiar modiste with a reputation for churlishness and oddity. Jordan jumped to her feet. It was the modiste! She had planned things out to bring her family down by first destroying both Jordan’s and her mother’s reputations.
Meg clasped her hands together and her face lit as if fired from within as she hopped from foot to foot. “See? Accidents happen! The lady is a lady, not a Witch.”
Jordan’s heart soared in her chest, exhaustion turning to elation. She was Grounded. She had been a victim of some other Weather Witch, but she was Grounded. Her mother’s name might yet be restored and the Astraeas returned to their appropriate rank.
The Maker winced at the oversimplification. “So you are not an abomination…?” He smirked. Standing, he rested his hands on his hips. The smile fell away from his face. “But you are a failure. And I can have none of those to my name. I have no choice.”
It seemed a most frighteningly desperate apology.
“I will never say a word…”
“Yes. Yes you would. You are bred to a certain standard. Your type talk if only to complain and bring down those around you.”
“No,” she insisted. “Release me and I will find my family and move us all quietly away. We will live out our days in solitude in the countryside and I will never ask nor want for more than this—just my freedom…” Her heart, so briefly flying with relief, tumbled into her stomach.
“Papa, please,” Meg asked, slowly realizing that not being a Witch could also be bad.
“It would be so much easier if you were a Witch … and there is the little matter of this morning’s strange display of magicking…”
Jordan threw her hands into the air. “I am Grounded! There must have been another Witch there.”
“He would have needed to be touching you or your dress or chain.”
“He or…” Jordan’s eyes widened and she turned slowly to the little girl still standing between them both. The little girl with big, soft eyes who wanted nothing more than for Jordan to go free and for her papa to be blameless—who wanted nothing more than for everyone to be happy. And the word tumbled out to damn and doom them all in far different ways. “…
Meggie gasped, hands flying up to clap over her mouth, her tiny heart-shaped face stretched and stunned. Her eyes went from Jordan to her papa and then to the board with its thick restraining belts and buckles and finally her gaze fell upon the array of her papa’s sharp tools that she cleaned daily—tools she never asked about, never dared to wonder aloud about what he used them for or why they always came to her sticky and covered with a red so dark it was brown …
He caught the child—his child—as she fell, weeping. The water nearly poured from her then, a deluge from her eyes and ten tiny rivulets running from her fingertips. Clouds moved in above her and liquid crept out of the very stones and crawled across the floor to pool at her feet and await her command.
“Oh. Oh no,” he whispered, “Meggie…”
“Papa,” she whispered, eyes wide as she stared at her fingertips and the liquid that leaked from them. “Papa … what is happening to me? I have no control…”
He shuddered but forced himself to take her tiny hands in his own. “You’re…”
“An aba—abom—abomination?” she asked, raising her eyes to ensnare his before they darted away to hide under trembling and thick eyelashes.
He dropped her hands to place a finger under her quivering chin and tip it up, again raising her eyes to his. “No. No, darling girl,” he said, fighting the tears stinging at his eyes. “You are still my bright and pretty daisy, Meggie—my dear little dove…”
Jordan fell to her knees then, her stomach rioting as realization struck. This sweet child, this tiny innocent had been damned by her own doing … Jordan bent, her broken heart racing, her stomach rebelling as she imagined every cruel thing that had been done to her being done to a child, by her father. She vomited until nothing remained in her stomach and her body shook with dry heaves, her head aching as everything came into awful focus and the pain of all the torture, and the torture of all the exhaustion of the uncertainty, took over, wrapped round her like the whip from before, and tugged her into the darkest place her mind had ever been.
Above them the cloud cover tripled, pulling in like a shroud to cover Jordan and protect its Conductor. Lightning danced from one black and roiling mass of clouds and reached out to embrace another.
The Maker gasped, cradling his child in his arms and trying to wipe away the tears that flowed from her and seemed to be never-ending. “You cannot,” he said to Jordan. “You
“No,” she insisted, seeing what he saw high above. “No. I am Grounded,” she whimpered before collapsing.
He watched one set of clouds, Jordan’s clouds, whisk away to nothing and he simply knelt with Meggie, rocking back and forth as he stroked her face and said the only soothing words he knew. “It will be all right,” he promised again and again like a mantra. But it was a lie. It was all a lie.
Jordan Astraea could not be a Witch. It was a scientific impossibility based on her heritage and Bran’s knowledge. Impossible. And yet, the storm had come when she realized Meggie was a Weather Witch … If Jordan Astraea had, against all scientific reason, been Made a Weather Witch out of sorrow …
His work, his proud tradition, the idea that the little dove quivering in his grasp would not be discovered and that only those of a certain taint in their bloodline could be Made … He shook as hard as Meggie then, knowing the truth of it. That anyone—if taken far enough into the darkness—could be turned and Made.
And if anyone could be a Witch …
Then all of society’s structure was at risk. The New World would not be saved through his effort, but ruined. And that was how Bran Marshall would forever be remembered.
Unless he could regain control. Somehow.
The airship was the easiest solution to most of his problems and Bran called down to the kitchens for Maude, wiped the last of the tears and mucus from Meggie’s face, and set her in Maude’s welcoming arms with the instruction, “Take her, pack two days’ clothes and meet me with the bags in the library. I will not be long—I just need to clean up a bit of a mess.”
Maude only nodded. Carefully she began the descent down the stairs and Bran waited until he could only see a bit of her before he closed the door and made his next call.
It was not long before the Wardens emerged from the doorway to lift the dead weight of the unconscious Astraea girl and carry her downstairs, across the street, and up the steps of the Western Tower, Bran following behind and watching her the whole time. She only began to rouse when they reached the top landing and stood by the broad doorway that led onto the balcony and to the ship beyond.
So close, they could hear the great airship groan as it shifted and pulled against its cables. It flexed within its own odd netted exoskeleton, the ribbed and articulated sail-like wings stitched in Fell’s Point tucked up along the basket manufactured in Boston’s glass- and metal-crafting shops and outfitted with Philadelphia’s finest lumber. Bran paused on the balcony, wondering just where inside the airship’s gut the Conductor completed training. He spent less time wondering how.
The captain stepped out, dressed in a fine woolen suit adorned with big brass buttons that were as polished as his glistening black boots. “Welcome, Maker, to the
“Yes,” Bran assured. “She is quite capable and freshly Made—full of vim and vigor.”
“Better than being full of piss and vinegar,” the captain joked. Touching Jordan’s cheek, he turned her face back and forth, examining her. “She looks as if she has yet to receive Lightning’s Kiss.”
“True enough, but I do not doubt it will come.”
“Are you sure she is quite ready? She looks a bit out of sorts…”
“Her breakfast disagreed with her. And she was so suddenly ill it is possible her memory of the morning’s events may even be tainted. If she says strange things, just disregard them. She will train up quite nicely. Of that I
