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  “Dug.”

  “My portion in the mines will have been done during my morning work shift, the raw stones sent up the ventilation shafts before lunch time. I meet you at half past evening fifth.”

  Talis nodded. “Right, at the gates to Lippen. Tonight, Nisa will be finishing her accounting for the last time before the gala. Tomorrow, I’ll swap the vacuum at the dock end of the pneumatic tubes. Assuming I put those pieces together properly, Dug and I will be hiding a bin full of skimmed docking fees.”

  Sophie paled at that statement. “Please don’t joke, Captain. You don’t know how it pained me to leave the assembly of that to you in the first place.”

  “Not half as much as it pained me, but of the two of us, I’m the one who can get away with fooling about behind the harbormaster’s office.”

  “Talis, Sophie has to leave in five minutes.” Dug, as ever, kept them focused and on task.

  “Right, thank you, Dug. You and I meet at half past fifth, take our usual weekly walk above ground to pine over the winds, disconnect the office-end of the vacuum, and walk back into Lippen at evening eighth, as usual.”

  Sophie grinned, chiming in. “Then come back and take out the trash.”

  “Right. We walk the garbage pail to the dumpsters, unhook the vacuum detour, come home, and turn in. The missing dock funds aren’t spotted until three days later when Nisa and her banker get jolly with the numbers.”

  Tisker had perked up. Nothing cheered a thief like visualizing the narrative. “By which point, we’re nowhere to be found, having walked out the city gate for a midday stroll through the trees, fished our grapple packs from the vent shafts, shouldered our bags, and met Bill at the cove on the windward coast.”

  “Bless Lippen and the annual shareholders’ gala.”

  Sophie raised the cup of water she’d been nursing. “And bless the Rakkar paper money. I could line my petticoat in banknotes and barely feel the weight of it.”

  Everything was in place or otherwise ready. Most of all, Talis knew her crew was. The air took on a vibration, as though they were all about to rise from their seats and get on with it.

  Sophie, with minutes to spare before she had to go help Kirna, tucked her completed gadgets back under the table and adjusted the drape of the cloth hiding it all. Tisker put his pocketcraft aside.

  “Wait, Soph.” His voice rang against the concentrated quiet of the room. He fussed under the bed, retrieving a lumpy, paper-wrapped parcel from its hiding place.

  With no explanation or apology, he put it on the table, careful to avoid a spot of oil left from Sophie’s machine. Dug darted a hand out to wipe it up with a cloth and gave Talis and Tisker a look as he leaned between them and Sophie. His question clear in the tilt of his chin, lift of his eyebrows, and slight pursing of his lips.

  Sophie’s eyes grew large, but not with curiosity. She knew the lumps under the wrapping for what they were. Her hands caressed the brown paper, then she slid two fingers beneath the folded edge, barely applying enough force to pull it open. She preserved every slip of paper that came into her life these days, out of habit. The drafting pad inside was too precious to be real.

  Dug watched without comment, the same calculations of value reflected in his eyes. Talis stiffened her spine. Braced to defend Tisker’s purchase if need be. But really, she braced herself to admit that if Bill didn’t show up, they weren’t going anywhere just yet, even with their gadgets completed.

  Sophie looked around at everyone, but Talis shrugged. “Joyous Wind Festival, Sophie. All Tisker’s doing.”

  Sophie unwrapped the drafting supplies with trembling hands and lifted the contents within like brittle icicles, liable to melt or snap if handled too much. “Tisker . . .”

  Tisker fiddled with a piece of the wrapping that had torn loose, suddenly shy. “We’re almost done here, Sophie. You need a new hobby.”

  Talis cleared her throat and tilted her chin at the paper. “Your mechanical beasts are born and ready. While we wait for the gala, and then while we’re underway back to Subrosa, you’ll have more spare time than you’ve been used to. So show us the boat we’re gonna spend this money on.”

  “I do have a couple of ideas.” Sophie rolled one of the kit’s pencils back and forth over the newsprint pad, staring intently at it as she spoke. She looked as though she wanted to start drawing right that moment.

  Of course she did. “But not now. We’ve kept you. Getting you fired isn’t part of the plan.” With careful movements, Sophie wrapped everything back up. She gave Tisker an extended, wordless hug, and then another for Dug, and one for Talis. Her hair tickled Talis’s nose and the corner of her eye. As she pulled back, Sophie gave her shoulders a squeeze, then slipped out the door.

  Silence filled the space where Sophie had been. The three of them trapped in their own thoughts. After a short time, Dug and Tisker left for their own evening shifts.

  Alone, the room felt like a cage again. Blank walls, loud echoes.

  There was nothing left to do but clean up and try to get some sleep. But the usual thoughts kept her awake long after she turned down the natural gas lamps. The darkness of the room pressed against her eyelids like a physical force. As the stone beneath her ticked away the minutes of evasive sleep, she became aware of the weight of the island above her and tossed on the thin mattress, trying to find a position where comfort and exhaustion could win the battle over anxiety. Rest was too precious a thing to waste. But sleep eluded her.

  She was still awake when Sophie returned in the middle of the night, tiptoeing between the bed and the three bedrolls Talis had laid out for everyone, to slide the new supplies out from under the bed. She set them up at the table and closed the lantern shield as much as possible so as not to wake the others.

  Talis fell asleep to the sounds of Sophie’s pencil scratching against a fresh sheet of newsprint, the glow of the lantern’s light against the stone warming the backs of her eyelids.

  In the morning, the folio was open on the table, exposing a full page of faint pencil marks, a tentative outline of a new galleon-style hull. Longer and sleeker than Wind Sabre’s.

  Talis, Dug, and Tisker stood around it, no one daring to speak, but the excitement was palpable in the air between them.

  Sophie slept on her cot on the floor, bundled in her thin blanket, snoring softly.

  Chapter 7

  A hesitant knock sounded at the door to Illiya’s private chambers.

  “High Holy Mother?” a muffled voice asked from the other side.

  Illiya groaned in annoyance and rolled over to face the door. “What is it, Jeska?”

  “You asked me to wake you early this morning.” The junior priestess sounded more apologetic with each word. “The glow pumpkins are about to change; Onaya Bone will be arriving soon.”

  Damn. Illiya rubbed her eyes, carefully keeping her clawed fingernails away from her delicate eyelids, and wondered if it was too late to return to her mercenary career. Or to start a new one. Perhaps as a xercoles rancher. That sounded nice and simple.

  But that would leave poor Jeska in her unenviable position.

  Illiya took pity on the younger woman. Initiates of the Temple of the Feathered Stone observed a vow of silence, leaving a scant few to address visiting congregation and special guests. Oh, to be an initiate again! It was left to the junior priestess and senior acolytes to offer fealty and assurances to their goddess when she visited for progress reports.

  “Thank you, Jeska. I’m up.”

  Jeska sighed an appreciative acknowledgement, and Illiya heard her retreat down the sandstone corridor.

  The High Holy Priestess of the Temple of the Feathered Stone rolled off her cot with an unseemly string of muttered phrases from younger days and stumbled wearily toward her wardrobe. She was running low on clean, pressed ceremonial garments, so often had Onaya Bone appeared in the aud
ience chambers of late.

  Minutes later, Illiya had scrubbed her face and forearms with wet sand, splashed herself smooth again with bracing spring water, and dressed in all the finery of her station: flashing iridescent cloak over a sheer purple tunic, gold-painted sandals laced past her calves, and half her weight in turquoise and labradorite jewelry. Opulence befitting her fifteenth audience with the goddess in as many days. She swept her feathered tresses away from her face, backcombing the loose hair behind her crown so the plumage would stand more erect. She dabbed golden powder along the angular features of her warm brown skin and lined her dark eyes in darker kohl.

  Finally, before departing her chambers, she took a heavy pull straight from an expensive bottle of aged whiskey at her bedside, whispered a blessing for the distillers whose talents got her through her days, and went to face her maker.

  The door to the grand audience chamber loomed before her. Illiya inhaled, lifted her chest higher, rolled her shoulders back, and pushed through the door with appropriate urgency.

  An unnaturally large raven hunched atop a gilded perch set before the room’s great stone hearth. Her four piercing magenta eyes formed a diamond over her keel bone, supplementing the two angry oaken ones above her dangerous beak. Behind her, the archive of codices rose in stepped tiers, a soft golden backdrop to the bird’s silhouette.

  “You keep me waiting too long.” The goddess’s raven throat played havoc with her usual molasses and cream tones. Her visits were so direct, and so brief, she never bothered to transform back to her bipedal form anymore. Illiya wished the visits could wait until she’d had some tea and breakfast. Even waking early this morning, she had not been able to reach the audience chamber before Onaya Bone.

  Illiya bowed her head. “My deepest apologies, Bone Mother. Allow me to crawl back into the embrace of your patience. How may I serve you?”

  Onaya Bone scoffed, a racking cough from harsh raven lungs. “You may serve me by doing your duty. I have waited for you to carry out my orders, and still I wait. What excuses have you to offer me today?”

  Illiya’s stomach churned acid, and she regretted the pull of whiskey. Or regretted she had not taken another.

  The goddess had appeared two years prior and demanded near impossible feats from her subjects. None were unwilling to attempt the tasks, but they were monumental.

  “Our engineers are working to the best of their abilities. The tasks you have set are complex. There will be trials and errors in developing any new technology.”

  Onaya Bone combed her serrated beak over the long, graceful flight feathers of one wing. “Why haven’t you made use of alchemy?”

  Illiya wrung her hands, a show of obsequiousness for the goddess, but privately, it was a vent for her frustration. “Your subjects are skeptical. I was asked to leave and never speak of it again, My Lady. Perhaps if you would go to them yourself and—”

  “Impossible. The battle at Nexus is unending. I can barely spare the time to remind you of your duties.” Onaya Bone reared back, flapping her wings in strong whuffs of air.

  The myriad other ravens in the roosts of the room were startled into raucous flight, winging about the high-ceilinged chamber in an infinity loop of black feathers and noise, cawing their loud displeasure at the goddess’s sudden movement and their neighbors’ overreactions. Illiya and Onaya Bone waited for them to settle down again so they could continue. Loose feathers drifted and spun back to the floor, and the lesser ravens began to preen themselves to clear the indignity.

  Inhaling through her nose, Illiya forced herself to sound confident as she continued. “You might send Ketzali. I could announce him to the gathered pilgrims as your Voice, and you could reassure them there will be no action taken against those who practice alchemy in your name.”

  Onaya Bone ruffled her feathers, flashing purple and green as she resettled them. She ignored the suggestion. “Where are we on the simula?”

  She was obsessed with the alien devices. Empty shells, shaped like people, which could hold a soul and give it form.

  Taking a deep breath, Illiya tried to force down her outrage. “Still unsuccessful. We have lost three salvage teams to the security systems aboard the Yu’Nyun ships. One team located a wreck that was in-operational and safe to explore, but there was extensive damage, and if any simula had been aboard, they were in a compartment that was lost.”

  Illiya was curious about only one simula, and it was not the empty ones Onaya Bone wanted so badly. When the first simula, a being who called herself Meran, had walked into the heart of Talonpoint and subdued a mob with barely a word, demonstrating the power of the gods with skill that rivaled theirs, she had made quite an impression. Illiya’s priestesses had fielded requests from their congregation, from the silk-dyers of the mountains to the accountants of the cities, to pray to Meran as well as Onaya Bone ever since. Much of Illiya’s attention was given to managing the heretical crisis that threatened to lead her people astray.

  She could not tell them that the combined powers of the Gods-who-remained were not enough to subdue Meran and purge her from Nexus. She could not share her indignation with her people that their goddess was made to suffer and to do battle day in and day out, all to protect them from this stranger whose body was alien and whose mind was stranger still.

  Onaya Bone stared at Illiya with all six eyes. Her silence served as a loud enough condemnation, but she gave it voice anyway. “Your salvage crews are pathetic. Hire your friend Talis to do the job.”

  “You want me to involve outsiders in this delicate matter, Your Grace?” Until now, her goddess had forbade her from contracting any help beyond the temple’s resources.

  “I want you to succeed in this. I will speak to her myself, if you are so hesitant. This must be done. Do you have some progress, at least, to report on the new fleet, for all your engineers’ difficulties?”

  Illiya tensed. “We have not been able replicate the seals. We have tried tar and resin and oakum, but the new lift systems leak air no matter what we do. Each prototype has been forced to turn around before we exceed the boundaries of Peridot’s atmosphere.”

  Onaya Bone made her avian equivalent of a dramatic sigh, clacking her beak together and then shaking to clear a quiver that began somewhere between her wings. Illiya kept her mouth shut to contain her protests. Onaya Bone’s own children willingly volunteered and sacrificed themselves to do as their goddess bade them, to fetch her the alien devices and develop entirely new technologies to travel beyond Peridot. To find the ring Onaya Bone had hidden outside the breathable skies while she kept up the effort to cast Meran from Nexus again.

  It was not Illiya’s place to challenge Onaya Bone’s assessment of the situation, but the reports she’d gathered about Meran confused her. The woman seemed to only want to help a just cause. Illiya had read between the lines. Only the gods took issue with her. “Perhaps if we were to appeal to this woman, Meran. If there were a possibility to cooperate—”

  The raven barked a laugh. “She has been plotting this coup on Us for the entirety of the seventy-five generations since we last confined her. It is imperative we collect the remaining rings and keep her from fully restoring herself.”

  “But she defended Nexus against the aliens and the Veritors, wouldn’t she—”

  The goddess lifted her chest and beak in indignation. “She emerged out of lost memory, and it is to that same forgotten realm she will return. I will defeat her, rest assured, but only after you do as I ask.”

  Onaya Bone began to stretch her wings, the familiar motion indicating the conversation was over. She would have the last word, and then fly off. “The next time we speak, I expect you to report some progress. Work harder, my child. Work faster, so that we may restore Peridot before the aliens, the Veritors, and Meran destroy everything.”

  Her commands issued, Onaya Bone lifted off her perch and winged through the ravens’ gate
, a large hole in the center of the domed ceiling, which led through an air vent and out to the desert landscape above.

  Illiya watched her leave, sucking her tongue against her back teeth in thought.

  Onaya’s people were accustomed to speaking with her, seeing her. Since the aliens arrived, she had been less and less present, appearing only in the communion chamber for the first year, and now not at all. It was not enough, as Onaya Bone claimed, to let Illiya pass on her messages. The people needed to speak to her. To see her.

  Or, they needed a goddess they could speak to and see.

  “Leave me a moment,” she said to her acolytes and stood still as the half-dozen silent women scuffed out of the room on flat sandaled feet. When the large iron door closed behind them with an ominous thud, she untangled her fingers, unclasped her hands, and strode across the room with a renewed purpose.

  She had to serve her goddess. Perhaps even if that meant breaking her explicit commandments. In her mercenary days, Illiya had often gotten the best results by ignoring direct orders and finding her own way through a problem.

  The petrified wood door to the communion chamber grated on its oiled hinges, sand finding even those tight joins and adding friction to the movement. Illiya had accepted the discomfort of Fall Island’s omnipresent granules, but of late, they seemed more abrasive than usual.

  In the warm glow of candlelight beyond, the chamber was a rainforest of prayer cloths, hanging from the ceiling in knotted chains that formed thick vines that Illiya pushed through on her way to the room’s dominant feature: an ancient two-way communication screen. The pride of the temple, it was the largest example of ’tronics Illiya had ever seen. Pre-Cataclysm technology, fished out of flotsam and ancient ruins, and restored by the clever hands of Vein engineers on commission, under direct order of Onaya Bone herself. It allowed the Bone goddess to remain in contact with the Temple of the Feathered Stone even as she worked in her laboratory within the heart of Nexus. It had allowed the goddess to remain present, even at a distance. Though Onaya Bone now made personal visits, she seemed less accessible somehow.