Black Bottle

elevated her to the status of a goddess, or in the case that Sena was insane …

Taelin had not actually planned for such a contingency.

Nevertheless, she equivocated only a few moments over Alani’s invitation. Though she initially had no one to entrust her shelter to, speaking with clergy from Hullmallow had quickly produced a solution. She dropped the keys to St. Remora off with Hazel Nantallium on her way to the Hold. The trip to Sandren would only be three days. She packed light.

*   *   *

THE three airships were leaving Isca late, under snowfall, far past noon. They had waited for her.

The Bulotecus, the Odalisque and the Iatromisia were all relatively small. Taelin surrendered her flight bag to one of the handlers. He knocked a finger against his brow and smiled at her while chiding playfully that the daylight would leave without her if she didn’t hurry. Taelin boarded the Bulotecus, which was the High King’s vessel—though he was not on board.

She had overheard from men on the platform that he would be on the Odalisque with Sena.

Taelin glanced around the swank quarters, impressed with the decor. As the airship uprooted itself from the castle, she found a bar and poured herself a sherry, which she finished before leaving the glowing cabins for the observation deck. Her boots gripped the textured steel and her lungs filled with cold air. She reached for the icy railing to steady herself and gazed down.

Gray towers, drifting with snow, fanned below her: a rolling parallax that accentuated the third dimension and made her stomach pitch. The sky, identical to tarnished silver, burped uneven flurries. The flakes swirled past her, vanishing into the fissures of Isca’s gaslit abyss.

Taelin slid her crimson goggles down over her eyes, enjoying their power, then hugged herself and shivered from the beauty of the moment. As the craft ascended, the buildings became phantoms, the streetlamps: dreamlike phosphors. She felt the wind increase as the engines’ hum modulated toward crescendo. Then, all at once, Isca City disappeared, and the void swallowed Taelin whole, churning like a ghastly white stomach.

“Hi!”

Taelin spun around. The voice was high and bright as someone banging a toy cymbal. “I’m Specks.”

A thin boy, pale as the snow, dark brown hair windswept to the side of his face, hovered spare inches above the Bulotecus’s deck. His legs hung useless as crumpled straws. “Do you like snow?” he asked.

“I’m from the south. I’ve never seen snow before. But yes, I like it. You’re floating—”

“Yeah,” he said, face beaming. “It’s ticky!”

“How old are you?”

“Seven.” He was small for seven. His thin right arm was shod in a heavy leather bracer that pulled that side of his body down, forcing an uneven slope to the hang of his shoulders. The bracer ticked and Taelin noticed a drop of blood under Specks’ feet.

“Oh, gods … you’re bleeding.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. I’m a holomorph.” He seemed proud to say so. “That’s what the doctors say.” His left hand held a small cup of something warm and steamy, which he lifted to his mouth and drank.

Taelin crouched down in front of him. “Can I look at that?” she asked, gesturing to the bracer.

“Sure.” He extended his arm with visible strain.

The bracer was made of thick chrome-tanned leather. Adjustable straps with copper buckles ensured that it remained cinched tightly to his arm. There was a compact engine stitched into the thing, also made of copper and steel, barely larger than a pocket watch. It gave off the whispery sounds of fine clockwork. A tiny chemiostatic cell powered it and outlined, in green, a spigot that jutted from the side of his wrist.

From the spigot, a drop of blood beaded and fell.

The purpose of the contraption was mysterious at first until Taelin listened carefully to the ticking. Like tapping codes for the blind, the little engine pinged out a stream of numbers, over and over, ringing off the duralumin railings of the zeppelin deck. The sound was subtle, thought Taelin. She supposed you could get used to it.

At the end of the long series of precise pings and ticks, which Taelin now guessed was a complex but automated equation, the valve on Specks’ arm snicked open, then shut again, and another drop fell.

“You are a holomorph, aren’t you?” she whispered, genuinely amazed. “This thing keeps you floating?”

“Yes, ma’am. My dad says my legs are in this arm.”

“What are you doing here?”

“My dad works for the king and we don’t have a mom so I comed with.”

“I see. What does your dad do?”

Specks showed teeth, a sly smile that he seemed to have been saving up. “He’s the captain of this ship.”

“And I see you’re quite proud of him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Taelin looked around but they were alone, plowing through the snow in the empty clouds over Stonehold. “Who looks after you while your dad is flying?”

Specks’ eyes got wide and serious. He nodded his head up and down as he spoke. “I know the rules. I stay safe. I don’t need no babysitter.”

Taelin felt a smile creeping into her face but she didn’t want to belittle him. She brushed a whip of dark hair from his cheek and said, “No. Of course you don’t. But who’s this?”

A plush toy peeked from a backpack over the top of Specks’ shoulder. It was dark brown and ferocious with black plastic eyes and felt teeth and Taelin shook it gently by the ear.

“That’s Rot. He’s a sarchal hound. He’ll bite your hand off if you’re mean to me. But not really. And not you anyway. Cuz you’re not mean.”

“He’s all the protection you need then.”

“Yep.” Specks pointed at the bright glitter of Taelin’s necklace, which was eye-level as she stooped in front of him. “What’s that thing?”

“That’s what protects me,” said Taelin.

“It looks like a light,” said Specks. “But…” He had noticed how strange it was.

“It’s a special necklace that my grandfather found.”

“Ticky,” said Specks. “Do you want to come see the other animals what my dad gave me for my birthday?”

Taelin smiled and took his hand as another drop of his blood hit the metal decking and turned to ice.

*   *   *

STOIC but afraid of what his speech to the assembly might mean for the future of the Duchy, Caliph scowled at himself in the stateroom’s beveled mirror. Dim hooded lamps to either side barely exuded a woody-orange luminescence.

Behind him, Sena knelt on the bed, outlined by a vast circular window. Her arms moved gently around her head as if she was putting something on. “We could waste some time,” she said.

Her words affected him instantly, like a spell.

Up until this moment he had been looking past her, to where the night sky boiled and the Odalisque’s six water-cooled engines lit the ship’s chrome undercarriage like wet actinolite. Caliph’s skin grew clammy as he listened to the extension shafts spin, powering them toward Menin’s Pass. He tried not to think about last year’s war or the cold spar sliding under his heart.

Startling him, diverting his fear, Sena’s voice hit the back of his neck. She was right behind him. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.

He felt her arms encircle him, which was more than a little unnerving. So he turned from the mirror and choked up a laugh. “Afraid? Why would I be afraid? Everything’s going to be fine.”

Her finger tapped him on the chin. “No, it’s not.” His skin crawled.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Caliph.” It started to sink in that her words were too precise, too