“And we’re not flying,” Rose said. “Did we stop to supply or repair?”
“A little of both, I suppose,” Mae said. “You haven’t had a bite to eat in far too long. Let me see if there’s something left for you.” Mae patted her hand gently and made a motion to move.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” Rose asked.
Mae stopped as if she’d suddenly been caught by ropes.
“No.”
“I never did think you lied very well, Mae,” Rose said softly. “I can feel it. The thing that is inside my shoulder is digging under my skin, twisting. I can taste it in the back of my mouth. Like hot, sour ashes.”
“You are not dying,” Mae insisted. “We need to get you to the sisterhood. I’m sure they’ll have a spell, a magic, a way of helping you heal, of keeping you strong. Many of the sisterhood are far better with herbs and tinctures than I am—why, sister Adaline alone is an amazing healer.”
Rose studied Mae’s face. “You are the strongest witch to ever come out of that coven,” she said gently. “It’s why they fear you, you know. Why they are tugging so hard on the reins to get you to turn back to them. They know how powerful you are, Mae.”
“Rose…”
“If you can’t break this pain, send healing to this wound, then I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I can’t think of another witch capable of doing more for me.”
Mae’s eyes were sad, but there was that determined set to her. Rose had seen her plenty of times like that before. Times when Mae refused to give up on someone she cared about.
“I’d like to know,” Rose continued, “as one friend to another. Am I dying?”
Mae hesitated, before she nodded once.
“Yes. You are not well. But there is more than just the sisters or my skills to hang our hopes upon. The Madders told Cedar that if we find the Holder we’ll be able to extract the tin key in your shoulder. And I am positive that once we remove the key, you will mend up and be good as glim again.”
Rose managed a smile even though she didn’t think Mae believed what she was saying. Still, hope was hope, and it did the soul good to hold to it. Even if it was a lie.
“Rest while I get you some food. You need to keep your strength up.” Mae patted her hand once again and then walked out of the room.
The tea and compress had done a welcome job of pushing the pain far enough away that Rose didn’t much care about it. Though she probably should. It was strange to think that right here under the cover of a mountain she couldn’t find on a map, she might be living one of her last days.
She drew the fingers of her good hand along the rough blanket edge, wishing she had something to touch, to turn, to keep her hands and her mind busy and away from dark thoughts.
There were so many things she had wanted to see—the big cities, New York, Philadelphia, Paris. There were people she’d wished she had met, family out there, somewhere she’d run out of time to find. And so many things she had wanted to experience. Flying her own airship, falling in love with a man who loved her back, adventures.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Probably wasn’t going to have any of those things now. The look on Mae’s face had told her what she suspected. She had only a few days left, and likely she’d spend each of those getting weaker and weaker.
Such a thing. Here she had set off on the trail looking forward to each new wonder she would discover, all the while not knowing she was just riding hard and fast toward a meeting with her death. Wasn’t at all how she’d expected her life to turn after leaving Hallelujah.
The sound of footsteps stirred her from her thoughts.
“Didn’t think you’d be awake, Miss Small,” Captain Hink said as he strolled toward her cot.
Well, she could be certain of one thing. It wasn’t just the low light of the airship that had given the man a handsome swagger. He was just as good-looking now as then.
“Mrs. Lindson woke me to see to my shoulder,” Rose said. She realized that her shoulder, neck, and a good portion of her chest were bare except for where bandages wrapped around them.
She was sitting half naked in front of an airship captain. It was such a thing she’d only secretly dreamed about. But not like this. In her dreams she’d been bathed, fresh, and certainly not wounded.
The captain’s gaze roamed briefly over her bare skin before lingering on her bandage and then returning to her eyes. “It’s nice to see you feeling good enough to be sitting,” he said as he walked off into the shadows of the room a bit, then returned with a chair into the warm wash of lantern light.
He put the chair next to her cot and sat there, next to her. “Sorry for the landing. Not the smoothest flight I’ve ever offered a passenger.”
“Oh, no, it was wonderful.”
“Wonderful?” he asked. “That medicine Mrs. Lindson gave you must be clouding your memories a bit. Maybe I ought to give it to all my passengers.” He smiled and it put light in his eyes, and an ease in all the rest of him.
Captain Cage was wide at the shoulder, with hair the color of gold and a face that looked like it would fit in just fine with those heroes of Nordic myths. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, which only gave him a sort of devil-may-care air, which she should not find so heart-stoppingly handsome.
But he was. And so far, had been kind to her too.
“I’m just sorry I couldn’t enjoy it,” Rose said. “I’ve always fancied what it might be like to pilot an airship, to harvest glim.”
“Well, I can tell you just what it’s like,” Captain Hink said. “Have you ever ridden a horse so fast it’s taken your breath away?”
Rose nodded.
“It’s like that but with more power. Steam train will almost give you the feel of it, except instead of barreling down a track, you’re shooting for the sky, with no rattle of the earth in your bones, and nothing but the soft green fire of glim burning in the sky around you.
“Up there, glim seems so strong and real. You think maybe you could lean out the window to feel the drag of it across your fingertips, taste it on your tongue, or catch a whiff of fragrance. But there’s no sensing it that way, no sense to it at all. Glim is a feast for the eyes only, though some say they’ve heard it ring like an angels’ chorus of bells on the wind.”
He shrugged and slouched in the chair a bit, relaxing into this. “We catch it with nets.” He spread his arms out wide. “Long-armed outrigging that drags through the sky, gathering glim on the strands, like pollen on a bee’s butt. Those strands draw the glim down to finer threads, where it collects like liquid in large glass globes. Can’t box glim up in too small a spot. It’s always looking for a way out, a way back to the sky, I reckon. Keep too tight a hold on it, and it will burst its cage.
“I’ve always thought glim and those who harvest it are much the same in that way. Too much of the need for the open sky in them. But then, I suppose you’ve heard all about how glim is got. Didn’t mean to rattle on.”
“No, it’s fine. More than fine,” Rose said. “I’ve heard some of how it is harvested, read about it in the papers. But that’s all. If you don’t mind, Captain—”
“Lee,” he said.
“If you don’t mind, Lee,” Rose said, liking the sound of his name on her lips, “I’d love to hear more.”
“More about glim,” he asked quietly, “or more about me?”
Rose held his gaze steady, glad she wasn’t blushing from that look he was giving her. A look she was giving him right back. “Both.”
He nodded and leaned in a little closer to her. “I’d be happy to oblige you on both accounts, Rose.”
She liked the sound of her name on his lips too.
Mae stepped into the room. Captain Hink leaned away, but his smile, and the heat in his eyes, did not dampen as Mae walked over to the bed.
“Captain Hink,” Mae said. “Thank you for keeping Miss Small company. I hope you haven’t tired her out too much before her hot meal.”
“Not at all,” Rose said. “He’s been telling me about glim.”
“Has he?” Mae said. “That’s certainly an interesting subject.”
“Just so,” Captain Hink said. “Of course, not much is known as to the whys of glim: why it gathers above the mountains, why it has such restorative powers, or even where, exactly, it comes from.”
