an hour ago. “Yes,” David said.
“There could be trouble.”
David frowned. “Just let me get dressed first,” he said. “Before you bring disaster to my bedroom.” He shut the door in her face.
“I don’t like this,” Margaret said.
“When do you ever like anything?” David replied. “We’ll have an Aerokin, we can make our way into the north. Everything is turning out for the best, wouldn’t you say?”
“I think you’re wrong. They had me followed.”
“What!” David said with more than a whit of sarcasm. “They had a strange white woman followed?”
“They said it was for my safety,” Margaret said, looking down at her bruised knuckles.
“Who did you beat up this time?”
“He had it coming. He was trying to protect me.”
David laughed. “Well, who was protecting him?”
“I took it easy on him. I don’t like being followed, David.”
“Neither do I,” David said. “And people have a tendency to want to kill us. Perhaps we should keep as close together as possible tonight.”
“Agreed.”
“The sooner we're back in the air, the better.”
CHAPTER 25
It has been stated that it was the Drifters that halted the development of fixed winged aircraft. That their Aerokin tore them out of the sky, and their spies destroyed such installations capable of the construction of flying machines. Fickle, foolish, vain: Drifters may be all these things, but they were also as ruthless as any Verger, when they perceived it to be required. Drifters: A Brief History, Madeline Maddeer
THE CITY OF DRIFT 1402 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Kara Jade knocked on the door to David’s room. “You decent?” she called. “You better be.”
“I’m ready,” David said, scrambling to hide his syringe.
Kara opened the door.
He rose from his bed, affronted. “That was locked!”
“Not to me it wasn't,” Kara said, and grinned.
David looked at her. “You’ve dyed your hair. Are those feathers?”
“Yes, and yes. Don’t want to be outdressed tonight. New jacket, too.”
“Very smart,” Margaret said from behind Kara.
Kara studied her, and shrugged. “Well, at least you’ve bathed.”
Margaret was dressed in black pants, a black blouse, and her jacket had a hood. “What are you doing? Going to rob a house afterwards?”
“We go to this damn reception, and then we leave.”
Kara nodded. “Agreed. Sooner we get there, sooner this ends.”
The reception was held within the Caress itself, a hall extending onto a balcony on the eighteenth level. When they arrived the balcony was already crowded, it was a peculiar thing to see all those heads suddenly turn and regard them as they walked into the room. A peculiar thing, and very similar to an unpleasant experience David had had on the Dolorous Grey just a few weeks ago. A dining car filled with Roilings, all ready to turn him into one of them. David cast his eye about for Witmoths. Nothing. Why would there be?
Kara Jade elbowed him, for all the tension of the moment she seemed at ease. David glanced over at Margaret. Even she looked relaxed. What? Had they been at his Carnival?
He'd slept the afternoon away, but it had been a sleep of nightmares, of Cadell demanding he run, that Mother Graine wasn't to be trusted and just where were the other Mothers? What had she done to them? Twice he'd woken just as a Quarg Hound was ready to swallow him whole, only to sink back down, dragged there by Cadell's ever-increasing will.
Even here, he could feel the Old Man looking out at the world, studying the people at the reception, tasting their fear, and the sense that all they really wanted to do was forget themselves for one night.
“We’ll be out of here soon,” Kara Jade said. “Just work through it, and don't mention — oh, no.”
“What?” David turned to her; Kara wasn’t looking in his direction.
He followed her gaze towards the edge of the party. A woman stood there- almost as tall as Margaret, which made her stand out here. There was something oddly familiar about her, and not from Cadell’s memories. David caught her eye, and the woman nodded, before turning her attention back to the bottle she held in her hands. Drift rum of course, dark, glinting like a Cuttleman’s blood. She had to be a pilot, they all were here, and pilots drank nothing else.
“Who is that?” David whispered in Kara’s ear; she stiffened, turned David bodily in the other direction, before he could even protest.
“You don’t want to talk to her,” Kara Jade said.
“Why?” David asked.
“She’s Raven Skye.”
“Raven Skye?”
Kara’s eyes boggled. David felt that he had offended her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to-”
“You must’ve heard of her.”
David shook his head.
“What cave have you been living in?”
A deep dark one, David wanted to say, but he didn’t. “Carnival, that’s a cave of a sort, I suppose.”
Kara’s jaw was clenched so tight it looked like she might snap a tooth. “She’s the pilot of the Matilda Ray.”
“What?” Now he had heard of her. “S he’s the pilot of the Tilly Ray?”
Yet again, David could see that he had disappointed her. “Typical groundling, knows a pilot’s Aerokin, but not the pilot. And don’t call the Matilda the Tilly in front of her. She’s a bit odd about it. In fact, I think we should-”
“Ah, Kara!” Raven called out, already walking towards them.
Kara winced.
Raven patted her arm. “What, you weren’t even going to talk to your sister?”
Sister? Now David looked, he could see the resemblance. Though Raven was a good decade or so older, and about a foot taller; she’d pulled her long hair back, revealing a scar that ran from her left ear, all the way down her chin.
The Tilly Ray had been the last ship to leave the Grand Defeat, she’d held the Roil back as the other Aerokin had escaped, and had even managed to pick up more refugees along the way. She’d also been the first Aerokin that Stade had turned away, and the first to land in Hardacre with her wounded. The heroic death of General Bowen and the actions of the Tilly Ray were the most famous incidents of the Grand Defeat.
It had been the Aerokin that had drawn the attention, while the pilot had kept a low profile, avoiding mention in all but the most thorough histories, and David rarely read those.
Raven must have been only Kara’s age when she’d performed her feats, and just as obstinate. David could understand why Kara might find her sister difficult to be around, two such personalities were never going to get along. And now Raven was coming over; wherever she walked, people got out of her way almost as quickly as if she were a Mother of the Sky. The whole party shifted around her like mice around a salivating cat.
Raven looked down at him. “So this is the addict, the one from the Sump?”
“The Sump?” he asked.
“Long story. But take it from me, it isn’t complimentary, addict,” Raven said. David smiled, of course it wouldn’t be; just looking at her he doubted Raven was capable of compliments.
“Raven!” Kara said.
