remembered that moment, looking over to the bank by the rope swing and feeling that icy sensation of dread.
“A couple of days later, the neighbors downriver came up to the estate. They’d found… ” Maldynado swallowed. “They’d found the body.”
Beside him, Yara let out a long, deep exhalation. Maldynado wondered if she was still feeling sympathetic toward him, or if she saw him as more of a careless idiot than ever. The latter most likely. That was the consensus his family had reached.
“Anyway,” Maldynado said, finding the silence awkward, or maybe fearing the judgment in it, “it’s not my favorite story to tell for obvious reasons. Amaranthe doesn’t even know it.” Few of his adult friends and acquaintances did. Only those people who had known him all those years ago. Deret Mancrest was one-he’d been among the boys playing on the river that day. Thinking of him made Maldynado wonder what was going on in the capital. Deret’s newspaper had reported the emperor missing before anyone should have known about the train incident. And the story had given a positive, non-alarming reason for Ravido’s troops to be entering the city. Maldynado wondered if Ravido or Father had spoken to him. Deret had always been an honorable fellow, not the sort to kowtow to pressure to publish certain stories, but Deret’s father owned the paper and had been friends with Maldynado’s father for years. When Amaranthe reunited with the team, they’d have to visit Deret. Assuming she did reunite with the team. Maldynado rubbed his face.
“So, that’s why you follow her?” Yara asked.
“Huh?” It took Maldynado a moment to remember that he’d spoken Amaranthe’s name aloud. “Oh. Maybe.”
“Because in helping her, maybe even protecting her, you’re making up for the failure with your sister?”
“I guess. Except I’ve failed Amaranthe now too. She’s probably being tortured in that big black monstrosity. If she’s still alive at all.”
“What happened with your sister was tragic, and I’m not sure there’s anything I, or anyone else, could say that would make you stop blaming yourself for that, but Amaranthe isn’t a child. From what I’ve seen, she’s the one who gets herself into these situations. Didn’t Books say she was using a homemade slingshot to hurl blasting sticks at the other craft when she was thrown from the dirigible? There’s not much you can do to protect someone who takes risks like that.”
“I suppose not,” Maldynado said, surprised Yara was trying to make him feel better. None of her usual brusque gruffness colored her tone. “But I’m worried about her, and I can’t help but wish I’d figured out how to fly the dirigible better. Giant balloons aren’t as maneuverable as you’d hope.”
A few moments passed without comment, until Yara said, “That explains one thing anyway.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“You see Amaranthe as a little sister. I was wondering why you didn’t leer lecherously at her like you do at every other woman.”
“My leers are not lecherous,” Maldynado said, relieved to have a lighter topic, one where he could shield himself with his usual flippancy. “I’m far too handsome and charming for anyone to consider my leers offensive or unwanted.”
“Please.”
“And I don’t leer at every woman.”
“ Please,” Yara said with even more disbelief. “You leer at me. And I’m… not someone people leer at.”
Something in her voice made Maldynado consider his answer before responding. “Because… you’re tall, fierce, and intimidating, so you figure that deters lecherous leerers? Or because you don’t believe you’re attractive enough to draw leers?”
“Leerer isn’t a word, you twit,” Yara snapped.
Maldynado kept himself from asking if Books had recruited her to be a fellow dictionary-enforcer. He recognized that defensive snapping as a way to avoid answering his question.
“If it’s the fierce, intimidating thing, that’s your own choice, you know,” Maldynado said. “You could be a respected enforcer even if you smiled once in a while. If it’s the other thing, well, I wasn’t positive until I saw you in the dress, but… ” He tried to find an innuendo that wouldn’t be offensive and yet wouldn’t leave room for misinterpretation either. “Any man would be happy to go spelunking in your cave.”
Yara made a choking sound. “Dear ancestors, what sort of brain could consider that a flattering comment?”
Drat, misfire. Maldynado shrugged it off. “A male brain, naturally.”
Clomps came from a stairwell outside-a lot of clomps.
“About time,” Yara whispered.
Though the top of the boiler loomed eight feet above the deck, Maldynado scooted back so his shadow wouldn’t be visible if someone coming through the door thought to look up. He missed the comfortable feel of his rapier on his waist, but the emperor had instructed them not to kill anyone anyway. They were to knock everyone out and send them to visit the reeds along the shore. Fists would do for that job. Maldynado flexed his fingers and adjusted his crouch, ready to spring.
Lights appeared through the door window-lanterns dangling from men’s arms. Maldynado counted five or six burly guards queued up and ready to enter, more than one face familiar. Yes, these were the men from the Relaxation Grotto. As before, they all carried pistols and short swords or cutlasses. Maldynado craned his neck but didn’t see Brynia. She wouldn’t have given her important tracking artifact to the security grunts, would she have? Maybe she could tell from her suite where Sicarius’s knife was located.
The exterior door opened. A gust of cold air stirred the heat inside. The first two men jumped into the boiler room, pointing their pistols, one toward the engine room and one toward the furnace area. From their position, Akstyr wouldn’t be in view yet, but if men charged down that way instead of going straight toward the knife, Maldynado and Yara would have to jump down early. Or, if anyone looked up with eyes good enough to see through the shadows…
The first two men made all-clear signs and crept inside, one heading toward the engine room and the other toward the furnace. Four more guards filed inside. Most of the group eased toward the engine room, as the team had hoped. One more headed down the aisle toward Akstyr.
Maldynado touched Yara’s arm and pointed across her, hoping she understood that he wanted her to help Akstyr. He meant to go with the original plan, assisting the others with the men in the engine room, but, before he jumped down, Mari’s buckskin-wearing shaman stepped into view outside the door. He stood, hands spread at his sides, eyes half-lidded.
Before Maldynado had decided what to do, those eyes flew open. The shaman opened his mouth, about to yell some warning.
Maldynado jumped from his perch, landed on the exterior door’s threshold, and leaped through it. The first syllable of a yell escaped the shaman’s lips, but Maldynado silenced him, catching him about the mid-section and bowling him to the ground.
They rolled across the deck, limbs entangled, their momentum slamming them into the railing. The dark water of the river rushed past a few feet below.
Remembering that practitioners had a hard time hurling magic about when they were distracted, Maldynado reared onto his knees, grabbed the man by his buckskin shirt, and punched him in the belly. His knuckles should have sunk into pliable flesh, but they smacked against something as hard as brick instead. His joints cracked, and pain sprang up his arm.
“What the-”
An invisible force rammed into Maldynado’s chest with the force of a sledgehammer wielded by a deflowered woman’s father. If his fingers hadn’t been wrapped in the shaman’s shirt, he might have flown all the way back into the boiler room. As it was, his body took to the air, dragging the shaman with him. Maldynado landed on his back, with his opponent on top of him. Bulging gray eyes stared into his; apparently, the shaman hadn’t been expecting a ride.
Taking advantage of the man’s surprise, Maldynado gripped his foe’s arms and whipped him to the side. Lacking the brawn of a fighter, the shaman flew through the air with satisfying ease, and his head clunked against the deck. Before he could recover, Maldynado hauled him to his feet and lunged for the railing. He heaved the shaman overboard.
“See how your magic-flinging butt likes that,” Maldynado growled and shook his hands. His knuckles smarted
