“I did,” the Wytch King agreed. “I helped Archie Grayson, because the enemy of my enemy is my ally, and Archie has never crossed an Erlkin widdershins, which is more than I can say for most of your kind.” He took his seat again, leather and springs creaking under surprising weight. “But you’re not your father, little miss. And if the Fae and that human-shaped stain on the world who calls himself Grey Draven have their say, you’re never going to follow his footsteps through the Gates either.”
This time, the chill I felt had nothing to do with his stare. “How do you know him?” I demanded. Were we in even worse trouble than I thought? Had Draven somehow snowed the Erlkin into an alliance to bring me in, use me as the bait he needed to lure my father?
“We do not voluntarily shut ourselves in a cocoon of superstition like the Fae, Aoife,” said the Wytch King. “Don’t look so alarmed. I’ve heard of what happened in that iron city, the one called Lovecraft. Draven’s made sure your face is plastered across every newsreel there is, and your name spoken hourly on the aether waves. Your disappearing act has become something of an embarrassment to him now that he’s used the disaster to rise through the ranks, according to my spies.”
I had never imagined that Draven would use the destruction of his own city, the city he’d been responsible for, to leverage a promotion with the Proctors, but in retrospect I felt stupid for being so naive. Of course Draven would seize the chance—a supposedly mad terrorist attacks his city, and he, stalwart, picks up the pieces and puts on the brave face. Of course the Proctors would promote him, give him all the power he needed to hunt down the person responsible: me. It fell into place like the worst sort of war machine, efficient, sleek and deadly.
“Draven’s in charge of the Proctors now?” I whispered.
The Wytch King chuckled. “The director, from what I hear. Head of the whole business, making sweeping changes. There’s chatter that he’ll be president someday.”
I felt numb, dizzy, as if I were plummeting. Draven had the ear of the current president of the War Council. Only Inquisitor Hoover, who’d founded the Bureau of Proctors, stood above him.
If I’d thought getting back to Lovecraft would be hard before now, it had just taken on a whole new dimension of impossibility. Never mind the city—I wouldn’t be safe anywhere in the Iron Land where the Proctors had eyes.
Dean squeezed my hand gently, and I could tell by the lines between his eyes that his thoughts had followed the same track. I just felt worse—not only had I destroyed Lovecraft, I’d catapulted Draven into a position of even more power.
Somewhere, that ugly Fae Tremaine was laughing himself sick, I just knew it.
“So, my dear,” said the Wytch King. He raised his fingers and licked my blood delicately from his nails. “I wouldn’t be so anxious to escape Windhaven just yet. Once your brother has had his day in court, you’ll be free to go. Until then, well …” He tilted his head. “Silver-tinged Fae blood or no, it will be very interesting to have humans aboard. Very, very interesting.”
He gestured us out, and with prodding from Skip, we exited the king’s chamber.
Back in the hall, I looked at Dean and asked a question I already half knew the answer to, hoping he’d say something different. “Do we want to be interesting to the Wytch King?”
“Hell no,” Dean said. “Not one little bit.”
“I didn’t think so,” I told Dean with a sigh, before we separated, the brush of his fingers on my cheek the last thing I had to remember him by before Skip took me by the arm.
I let him take me back to my room, playing the part of the good little human girl, even though I was more determined than ever to be anything but. Anything but the Fae spy the Erlkin believed me to be. Anything but the simple, pliant girl Grey Draven wanted to think I was. That wasn’t going to fix anything, wasn’t going to find my father and free Conrad. And it wasn’t going to save my mother.
After I calculated that enough time had passed for most of Windhaven to be asleep, I tried the hatch of my room again. Using my Weird here was rolling the dice—the madness could find a way in as easily as my gift—but I felt the lock give quickly when I applied the force of my mind to it. My nose didn’t even start bleeding, as it had been wont to do in the past. I felt a brief boil of nausea in my guts, and thankfully, that was all. I was relieved. Knocking myself down would defeat the whole purpose of using my gift in the first place.
I didn’t know precisely where I was headed, I just knew I couldn’t let the Erlkin treat me like a prisoner any longer. And the more of Windhaven I saw and mapped in my mind, the easier it would be for me to get Conrad and escape when the time came.
I was sure it would come to that. I had a feeling, heavy in my chest, that arriving under the purview of the Erlkin had irretrievably left me in their web.
Windhaven’s lower decks appeared to be constructed like those of a seagoing ship, with layers of hulls and corridors stacked next to one another, like a heart with chambers too numerous to count. Brass ladders led from one level to the next, and I began to see repeats in the Erlkin symbols—numbers or levels, in diminishing order as I climbed, fewer and fewer spokes filling in each wheel.
The highest landing I could reach was blocked by a brass hatch, a skull and crossbones stamped straight into the metal. Not a fool, I pressed my hand and ear to the hatch and heard the howl of the wind from the other side. I wagered if I opened it, I’d be swept off Windhaven and meet the ground quickly enough, so I turned and went back down the stairs to the corridor. A series of arrows marked a symbol shaped like a lotus flower, and I followed them as the corridors narrowed around me, until only one hatch remained straight ahead.
It opened before I could put a hand on it to test what was on the other side, and I found Shard’s thin, elfin face and burning eyes glaring down at me. I flinched. This was the exact opposite of what I’d had in mind when I snuck out.
“It took you long enough,” Shard snapped. “How did you get out?”
I backpedaled a step. Her glare felt like a slap. “You were watching me?”
Shard pushed the hatch wider. “We can see all of Windhaven from here.”
I stepped into the room and gasped. Below my feet, the ground fell away, and clouds drifted below the belly of Windhaven. The walls and floors of the room were glass, bulbous petals of glass riveted to the walls along brass veins.
Rising from the glass in the center of the room like the stamens of this odd frozen flower was a pilot console replete with dozens of dials and four rudders that steered the four great fans. To one side sat a bank of dials and knobs marked with more of the strange symbols, and to the other was a wall filled with screens that twitched and danced with images.
Like the lanternreel screens back home in Lovecraft, but writ small. Dozens of them, showing rooms and halls and the exterior hull of Windhaven.
“The aether feeds images from all over Windhaven,” said Shard, “and sends them to the screens here. So yes, we saw you escape, and yes, I saw you with my son.”
She turned to me, but I refused to look away. “And?” I asked her, brash as the criminal she believed me to be. “Have you decided that I’m not a Fae spy? Or are you going to toss me off Windhaven without a parachute? Either way, make up your mind soon. I’m bored being locked in a tiny room on this floating lug nut.”
Shard moved her hand lightning quick and smacked me across the face. It wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, but my cheek stung where she’d struck. I flinched, feeling all my bravery disappear with the pain. I’d tried to act like Dean, but I didn’t have his nerve. Most of my bravery was like fast-burning aether—a bright flame with a quick flare, and then nothing except ashes.
“I hear you managed to impress the Wytch King,” she said. “So you’re probably not a Fae spy, I’ll give you that much. But what you are is a rude, impetuous little girl who can still bring the Fae to us, and for that alone, we’re not letting you leave.”
“ ‘We’?” I said. “You speak for all of the Erlkin?” I wasn’t sure exactly how much power Shard wielded aboard Windhaven, and she certainly didn’t seem to agree with the Wytch King’s assessment of me. This could go either way.
“You’re important to my son,” Shard said, her voice softer. She looked out the front of the bubbled glass, at the fog drifting back from the prow of Windhaven. “And Nails is important to me. I already lost him once when he chose his father over me.” Her eyes drifted back to my face, and I could tell by the coldness in them I was no more substantial to her than the fog outside. “I won’t let it happen again. Not now.”
“I—” I started, but Shard waved her hand.
“Go back to your room, Aoife. Nobody but Windhaven crew is supposed to be up here.”
