Tethered (17 page)

Her gaze moved to Archimedes, standing at the bow with a spyglass in hand. This
hadn’t
been a holiday, of course. Ever vigilant, they all searched the sky for signs of the flyers…or any other airship.

Yasmeen hoped to spot other airships, first. But even if one arrived with news of Zenobia, it wouldn’t be complete freedom from Bilson’s demands.

That had been
her
one frustration—they hadn’t yet found the device. Frowning over the mystery now, she retrieved a cigarillo from her case. Every inch of this ship had been quietly
searched, including the crews’ belongings. Archimedes had even scoured the outside hull whilst flying the autogyro, and Yasmeen had personally crawled through the engines, shimmied along the propeller shafts, delving into every crevice and piece of equipment on her ship.

She didn’t know where the hell it could be—and still didn’t know who Bilson’s ally was.

Her eyes narrowed on him as he approached the quarterdeck. She nodded permission when he called out a request to join her, and when his gaze flicked to her cigarillo case, she offered him one.

He leaned closer to the windbreak to light it, then regarded her quietly as he inhaled. After a moment, he looked starboard, toward the southern horizon, where a green sliver of Madagascar was visible in the distance. “Is that the island again?”

Ah, yes. His greatest frustration, quietly expressed. He wanted to venture farther out into the Eastern Ocean, taking a longer, wider route in search of the floating city. Yasmeen had explained that his suggestion would make finding New Eden all but impossible; there was simply too much ocean, and it would be like trying to find a boilerworm in a desert. It made much more sense to wait by a waterhole, knowing they’d eventually come to replenish their stores. In the same way, it was better to let the city come to them, in a location that the flyers were known to frequent.

Of course, Yasmeen hadn’t shared that the flyers almost always approached Madagascar from the south.
Lady Nergüi
had been circling the region to the northeast—though not just to avoid New Eden. This was where she’d told Scarsdale to find them; she didn’t want to force his hired airships to search for the equivalent of a boilerworm, either.

Nodding, she blew a stream of smoke into the wind. “It is.”

His gaze narrowed on her face again. “You must despise me, Captain.”

“No.” And it was true. Nothing she felt toward him was that strong. “You amuse me.”

Oh, he didn’t like that. And what would his reply be? She’d wager a full bag of gold on a statement about his mental or moral superiority. It was the typical response from proud men who’d been mocked by strong women.

He nodded, as if he hadn’t anticipated anything else from her. “I know you want to kill me for having the audacity to go to these lengths to save my brother. I don’t expect you to understand why I would do that.”

As she’d assumed. “You know I understand exactly why, or you wouldn’t have used the device against Archimedes. Your
audacious
plan hinges on my caring enough not to throw him off my ship the moment he and his sister became a problem for me.”

“You call the man that you supposedly care for a ‘problem’?”

He truly did amuse her. She smiled, and had to give him credit—he didn’t step back, and he only revealed a bit of wariness in the sudden shift of his gaze, the tensing of his shoulders.

“My husband was a problem for you, not me. That’s why you used Zenobia. When you asked for his help, you knew he wouldn’t endanger me and my ship—so you already had your standby plan in place. And that plan put us both right where you wanted us, made us slaves to your cause…and it only worked because you knew very well that both Archimedes and I understand perfectly the risks that love will drive us to take.”

“I know
he
does.”

He glanced toward Archimedes, who was watching them from the bow. Bemusement had lifted the corners of his beautiful mouth—probably recognizing that his old friend was attempting to cut her down a bit. She saw Archimedes laugh and shake his head.

Yes, it was absolutely ridiculous.

Bilson said softly, “But I also know you, Captain. I heard all the same stories that he did whilst following your career, but I’m not as besotted or as blinded as he is. Your reputation is at stake, and that’s the only reason you’re still going along with this—so that no one discovers that
I
forced your hand.”

That made no sense at all. It would have been far easier simply to kill him if she wanted to preserve her reputation. But she allowed him this little moment, letting him think he’d gotten the better of her.

“Yes,” she agreed. “You have all the pieces lined up perfectly.
I wonder what happens when one doesn’t fall in the direction you’ve anticipated? I think you’d have nothing left—just as you won’t when we find New Eden.”

He didn’t respond, but she had never been more certain that his kidnap of Zenobia had indeed been a bluff. There was smugness in the set of his mouth, his self-satisfied posture.

“Ah, that look,” she said. “That is why you amuse me, Mr. Bilson. You’re so certain that you’ve played your game perfectly. So certain that you’ll always have another trick. It’s a pity, actually. With this ability to prepare and plan, your ability to align yourself with and understand the people around you, you could have been a fine leader.”

His brows rose. “Are you praising me, Captain?”

“I’m not blind. Only an idiot refuses to recognize the strength of an adversary.” She let him puff his chest up before adding, “But you’re a different sort of idiot. You see the strengths of the people who aren’t adversaries, and who would align themselves with you given the right incentive, but you exploit their vulnerabilities, instead. You simply poke at weak spots—just as you did when you were writing your radical handbills. Just a little boy, poking away, and needing the help of someone like Archimedes in order to actually accomplish anything.”

His jaw clenched. “Are you claiming that you’d have aligned yourself with me, that you’d have helped me? You refused, Captain. And I knew you would.”

“You took the wrong tack from the very start. You knew our strengths. My abilities, Archimedes’ need for excitement—”

“That’s a strength?”

Anyone who saw Archimedes’ willingness to throw himself into dangerous situations as a weakness truly was an idiot. If Archimedes had been stupid or reckless, that would have been another matter. He wasn’t either of those things, and he wouldn’t have lived this long if he had been. Her husband ascribed much of his survival to luck, but that was wrong, too. He survived because his mind was as quick as his body, because of his unyielding determination to succeed no matter the odds, and because he studied every situation and prepared for the danger before throwing himself into it.

But his willingness to throw himself into the fray extended far beyond “danger.” No matter the undertaking, he approached it with that same eagerness, abandoning himself to the experience—whether he was loving her, learning the workings of an airship, or simply shoveling coal.

It was a marvelous combination of traits, and she’d seen how much his wholehearted engagement with life affected those around him, how often he inspired laughter and joy, and how his involvement in the most commonplace activities seemed to imbue them with a bit of adventure.

No wonder that she loved him so. And she could
never
consider that part of him a weakness.

“It’s a strength,” she told him. But then, seeing that was one of
her
strengths. Just as she often had to do with her crew: recognizing what was best in them, and then making use of it. “Do you know what mine is? But of course you knew—that’s why you came to us. You’d listened to all of those stories about me, and recognized that I could rescue your brother.”

“And you refused to help,” he said again.

“No, we offered to help—we just refused to go. But if you’d asked how we would have gone about rescuing your brother, we’d have told you everything. We would have given you a plan, money, names. But that wasn’t exactly the way you wanted it to happen, so you forced our hand.” Smiling, she crushed out her cigarillo in her palm. “And that is where you became the idiot, trying to poke us where we’re vulnerable instead of bringing out the best in us. Archimedes, because he’s loyal, and because when a job needs to be done he prefers to do it himself—and because after studying that job, the risks to me and my ship don’t seem as dire as they first did. And me, because I’m proud, and I’ll be damned if I let someone else take a job that I could do better. So we’d have aligned ourselves with you and offered to go. If you’d only been patient, if you’d seen that in us, it would have been a manipulation worth being proud of, a game truly well played. Instead, you made enemies of two people who’d have been far more useful to you as friends.”

“You think that matters to me?” Frowning, he shook his head. “It’s not important how I did it, as long as it’s done. There’s nothing to regret here.”

Of course he would tell himself that. Expressing any regret would be too akin to admitting that he was mistaken—and justifying the means with the end was a coward’s way of taking responsibility, and the last resort of tyrants. In Yasmeen’s opinion, it took true courage to admit to being wrong. She doubted he had the ability to admit it even to himself.

And any man who didn’t regret the loss of Archimedes Fox’s friendship was a fool.

Lighting another cigarillo, she regarded him with cool amusement until he’d had enough of it and walked away. A few minutes later, Archimedes joined her, his spyglass in hand and coiled excitement in his posture. Whatever he’d seen, it must not have been one of New Eden’s flyers.

Without a word, she offered her cigarillo in trade for the spyglass. An airship was coming in from the north, flying low to the water. At a far enough distance, it would be almost indistinguishable from a sailing ship—a trick to avoid New Eden and used by many airships in the region, including
Lady Nergüi
.

Yasmeen lowered the spyglass, met his eyes, and saw the same hope that this was the message they’d been waiting for. “It might not be,” she warned him.

“Such little faith. I, on the other hand, will be waiting for you in the autogyro.”

So that they could easily travel to the other airship when it came close. “That’s a bit of a wait. It’s still a good distance away.”

“I’ll spend the time composing odes to your lips. But as I can’t kiss you now, I will settle for this.” He passed her the cigarillo, and watched her mouth as he exhaled slowly. The same taste, the same smoke. Sharing these with Archimedes was one of her favorite intimacies, a simple act that had become an exquisitely sensual ritual—yet one that could be performed in full view of the crew. “What did Bilson have to say?”

“He was telling me how heartless I am and how clever he is.”

“You always have enjoyed a good piece of fiction.” He lifted the spyglass again. “It’s
The Blue Canary
.”

One of the skyrunners in Scarsdale’s hired fleet. Fierce satisfaction
took her in its grip, and she gave Vashon the order to hail the other airship.

Bilson was about to see his pieces all falling down.

*   *   *

Yasmeen had never particularly liked autogyros.
Often wildly unstable, they forced the pilot to ceaselessly pedal at high speeds until the rotor blades overhead spun fast enough to lift the machine into the air. The Blacksmith’s were even worse—in order to create a profile low enough for an airship’s cargo hold, the pilot’s seat had been fashioned so that, instead of sitting up, he had to pedal while reclining. Yasmeen could think few other things more stupid than lying in a metal cage and endlessly pumping her legs.

Archimedes loved it, of course. He laughed with every terrifying tilt of the machine, and whooped as a bit of wind sent them spinning about. Her knuckles were white, but he grinned and pulled levers and easily righted their course. She closed her eyes, pumped her feet, and prayed until they landed safely on
The Blue Canary
’s deck.

But she smiled along with him on their return trip to
Lady Nergüi
. Three days after printing the advertisement, Berge had returned Zenobia to her home.
The Blue Canary
’s captain had passed on a letter from her, which Yasmeen read aloud to Archimedes as soon as they were in the air again. The turbulence from the rotor blades made the paper flap and fold, forcing her to straighten it after almost every line—and the words themselves forcing her to pause, laughing after almost every common. Upon discovering that they’d actually flown to the Eastern Ocean, Zenobia’s opinion of their mental capacity had apparently plummeted.

“‘Now everyone knows that my only two living relations are also the only two imbeciles in the world who have ever deliberately gone in search of New Eden. I will forever hang my head in shame. Yours, Zenobia,’” Yasmeen read, and looked over at Archimedes, who was grinning as broadly as she.

“She’s overwhelmed with gratitude, obviously. And the postscript?”

“‘P.S. I’m particularly thankful because now that this farce
is over, I won’t be forced to write
Lady Lynx and the Floating City
. What a terrible title that would be.’”

“I rather like it,” Archimedes said.

So did Yasmeen—and unfortunately, the farce wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be until they found the device. She tucked the letter into her jacket. “When we reach
Lady Nergüi
, our story will be that we only asked whether
The Blue Canary
had gotten word of any sightings.”

“All right. And should we start for home? Bilson’s not likely to kill me now—not when the signal will kill him, too.”

“But we don’t know what his ally will do.”

Perhaps that person had just as imperative a reason to go to New Eden, and less to lose if they used the device. Until they discovered who it was, however, it was impossible to know how much of a threat that person posed.

Frustration pushed her legs faster. “How the hell did they hide it so well? Where haven’t we looked? We’ve all but crawled up the asses of everyone onboard.”