of her.” The last sentence had a stilted, or maybe rehearsed, cadence. Had Ms. Worgavic had Retta memorize it?
“You think the other founders are that open-minded? Who are they anyway? Anyone I’ve heard of?”
Retta shook her head. “I’m not going to give you any free information, Lokdon. You’d have to give us a lot of information before we’d start to think you might be on our side and trustworthy.”
“Then it seems we’re at an impasse,” Amaranthe murmured.
“It’s better to be with them than against them. Trust me. I know what it’s like to be on the outside. Not only is this a chance to end your suffering, but you heard Ms. Worgavic. This is a chance to ensure you have a part in creating the future.”
“Why do you care if I join or not?” Amaranthe asked.
“Back in school, you didn’t look at me with soul-shriveling contempt. And you held the door open once when you saw that I was carrying a bunch of books. Human kindness was rare at Mildawn.” Again, the words sounded rehearsed, and they didn’t mesh with Retta’s earlier bitterness over their different school experiences. She had to be here, fishing for information, at Worgavic’s behest.
Amaranthe sighed and tried not to feel like she’d wasted her limited energy talking with the girl.
Retta leaned back from the slit. “Think about what I said. I’m sure you’d make friends easily in Forge, and it wouldn’t take long for you to go from suspicious stranger to trusted ally. Winning those people over, it’d just be a new kind of challenge for you.”
“I’ll… consider it,” Amaranthe said.
Retta nodded, apparently accepting that as a small victory. Amaranthe wished she felt like she’d won some victories.
A faint tremor pulsed through the floor.
“I have to go. It’s time to land.”
“Land? Land where?” Amaranthe hadn’t even known for certain that they’d been flying. She wondered how far they had gone. More precisely, she wondered how many miles separated her from Sicarius and the others. Escaping might only be Step 1 in reuniting with them. She sagged under the weight of the idea of a thousand-mile trek.
“The closest unpopulated area to our meeting spot.” Retta lifted a hand to close the slit to the crate.
“Wait,” Amaranthe blurted.
Retta paused, her hand hovering. “What?”
Yes, what indeed?
Amaranthe rifled through her thoughts, trying to think of something she could say to convince Retta to help her. Something to instill guilt? Would that work? “If I… don’t make it, and if Forge wins… whatever you do with this new future you and Worgavic are crafting, please ask yourself if you’re truly making the world better or if you’re simply replacing one group of ruling elite for another. And, if you’re the one responsible for making this aircraft accessible to Forge, please don’t let them use it to hurt people. With this much power in one’s hands, it’d be easy not to bother with governments at all and simply create dictators.”
Retta frowned, disappointment entering her eyes. Yes, she’d thought Amaranthe would give in and divulge Sicarius’s secret. She hadn’t expected a lecture, and she probably didn’t appreciate it.
The window covering slid shut, plunging Amaranthe into darkness again. She sighed. Hadn’t she been better at this once?
Chapter 7
Twilight deepened as the boat glided upriver, angling toward Rabbit Island where an ancient castle perched at the top of a tree-cloaked pinnacle, its grounds ablaze with gas lamps. Nice scenery, but Maldynado barely noticed it. He kept sneaking peeks at Yara, who sat on the bench beside him, her athletic form quite striking in the sleeveless blue velvet dress. A cape warmed her shoulders on the chilly night, but, from time to time, it drooped, revealing sleek, smooth skin, skin he’d seen for the first time when she had been changing back in the junkyard. Not that he was puerile enough to sneak behind a heaping debris pile to peep, but sometimes a man happened to be passing by on some other errand and accidentally glimpsed feminine flesh.
“When I volunteered for this duty,” Books said from behind Maldynado, where he hunched over bicycle pedals, powering the boat’s paddlewheel, “I didn’t realize this island was up stream.”
Maldynado, who lounged on the padded passenger bench, his arms draped across the backrest, said, “I assumed that your big brain had a map of the entire empire stored in there.”
“As a resort for the indolent wealthy, Rabbit Island isn’t worth a mention on many maps.”
“I think that means there are holes in his memory,” Maldynado told Basilard.
Basilard and Sespian manned the oars on either side of the boat. Akstyr sat behind Books, somehow having wrangled the non-physical position of tiller-man.
“Ssh,” Sespian whispered. “We’re getting close. There are guards up there.”
Even as he spoke, someone moved on the dock, and metal-the barrel of a rifle-glinted in the lamplight. Maldynado picked out six guards pacing near the gangway of a wood-paneled, brass-bejeweled, three-story steamboat. The Glacial Empress. Twilight’s deepening made it hard to tell, but some of that brass might have been gold.
“There are more guards on the steamboat too,” Sespian whispered.
“Guess I’d better make a bigger distraction than I’d planned.” Maldynado patted the bulging side of a satchel slung over his shoulder.
“Just don’t light the entire island on fire,” Books murmured.
The men rowed the boat into the cove with the dock. A few yachts and private water taxies shared moorage with the steamboat. Akstyr aimed their craft toward an open spot alongside the main pier.
“Ready to meet the family?” Maldynado let his arm drop from the backrest to drape around Yara’s shoulders.
“Touching,” she said, though she kept her voice low.
“Yes, I imagine we should do quite a lot of that tonight,” Maldynado whispered, “though with lips instead of hands, don’t you think? To make our relationship look realistic.”
Maldynado hadn’t had many women growl at him, at least not outside of the bedroom, but the noise that escaped Yara’s throat sounded like it qualified.
“Now, now, my lady,” Maldynado said, aware that the guards could probably hear by now. “You know it’s only proper to save the growling for… later.”
Two men in crimson-and-black uniforms, those of some private guard service, stepped up to Akstyr’s chosen docking spot and turned up gas lamps perched on the poles. The brighter light nicely illuminated the rifles cradled in their arms. Maldynado did a double-glance. They were repeating firearms. It seemed Forge had been busy supplying its allies with the latest models from their secret weapons manufacturing plants.
Sespian lowered his face. The beard and new clothes disguised him well, but avoiding scrutiny was a good idea. He ought to loosen those white knuckles too; he was gripping the oar like he might turn it into a cudgel at any moment. He must hate having his fate in a Marblecrest’s hands. Maldynado would show Sespian that he was trustworthy.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he drawled to the guards.
“This is a private island, comrades,” one man said. “Unless you have an invitation, you won’t be permitted to get out of your boat.”
“I’m here on family business.” Maldynado waved toward the castle-turned-resort. From this lowly angle, trees blocked the view of most of the structure, but a couple of lit towers stood out against the night sky. A wide, well-lit cobblestone road wound its way up the hillside. “My sister-in-law, Mari Marblecrest, was supposed to arrive today. Did she make it safely? I would be remiss if I didn’t come to see her.”
The guards exchanged looks. One fingered the trigger of his rifle.
Maldynado stood, so he could take action if he needed to, but also so they could see his fine garments and the arrogant chin tilt he assumed. He hoped they’d believe him warrior-caste based on looks alone. By law, commoners who weren’t soldiers or enforcers with orders to do so were forbidden from lifting a hand, even in
