Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] (6 page)

Her feet demanded she turn around and go back to her cottage. Fletcher hadn’t invited her. He’d made it clear enough that he wanted to be left alone. But she kept walking, hunching her shoulders against the creeping chill. She’d survived a city being destroyed all around her. She could manage something as minor as a stroll across a moor.

The land rose up, a small hillock hiding the next expanse of moorland. Unused as she was to so much exercise, her breath rasped in her throat while she climbed the low hill. But when she reached the very top and looked down into the vale below, she lost her breath completely.

An airship had crashed into the moor.

I
t hadn’t been a recent crash. Gorse and grasses poked through cracks in the airship’s hull. The ship itself was mostly intact. Some time ago, it had plowed into the moor, stern first, digging a massive trench behind it. The front of the airship had broken off, its figurehead and bowsprit were only jagged shards of wood after gouging through the rocky soil.

To see something as incongruous as an airship in the middle of a moor—she must be dreaming. But the cold air in her tight lungs and the growing wind scraping at her cheeks proved she was awake.

It was a British airship, or had been, before it had crashed. Her experience in Liverpool had taught her that this vessel had the layout of a British ship, with its central support curved in an arc from stem to stern. The ether tanks that would be mounted to that support had broken off, and lay upon the deck. The turbines had partially cracked off, but were still attached to the stern of the ship. The ship wouldn’t be going anywhere.

“The hell are you doing here?”

She whirled and found Fletcher standing just behind her. He loomed out of the fog. It amazed her that such a big man could move so quietly—though her attention had been focused on the mysterious airship, and nothing else.

“Pray God the Queen never visits you,” she snapped. “You’d run her off with your abysmal manners.”

“She won’t come here,” he answered flatly.

Kali glanced back and forth between the massive man and the crashed airship. “It’s yours.”

He gave her a terse nod. His eyes were chips of cold blue quartz, his mouth a hard line. He had an ether rifle slung across his wide back and carried a canvas sack stained with blood. Supper.

“I’ve never seen the inside of an airship before,” she said. She’d observed them from the outside, locked in fiery combat, the sight wonderful and terrible, but she knew nothing about the interior of one of these vessels. The navy let no one outside of their ranks learn the layout of the ships, or indeed, much of anything. All nations’ navies guarded their ships carefully. They were the key to winning this endless Mechanical War..

Airships had torn her life apart. But airships had kept her and Liverpool from total annihilation. Terrible beasts they were, but fascinating.

“It’d be rude not to offer me a tour,” she said.

Fletcher said nothing, only glared at her. Yet she felt something, an almost palpable pulse of energy traveling between him and the airship.

Gods and goddesses. He’s a Man O’ War.

The captain of the airship, and its source of power and ether.

She took an involuntary step backward. His mouth twisted, as if he expected her reaction.

As extraordinary as the airship was, it was just a thing. Seafaring craft had existed in different forms for thousands of years.

But Man O’ Wars—nothing like them had existed until less than a decade ago. They were combinations of man
and
machine. At some point in the past, Fletcher had undergone the procedure to turn him into this amazing hybrid. Telumium plates had been embedded in his skin, with filaments of the rare metal threaded around and into his heart. Not every man could become a Man O’ War. They needed to have an
aurora vires
rating of Gimmel or higher. It took an extraordinary individual to make this transformation. And Fletcher had done so.

He muttered something now under his breath. A curse. Realizing the moment that she understood what he was. Beneath all his wild hair, he looked angrily resigned.

So much for keeping secrets.
No way to hide this one: he was the Man O’ War captain of a British Aerial Navy airship.

“Don’t much care if I’m rude or not,” he growled. “You’re not getting aboard.”

She ought to leave it at that. Just turn around and head back to her cottage.

“I saw these ships in action over Liverpool. But this is the closest I’ve ever come to one. I’m an engineer. How can I not see how they work?”

Fletcher exhaled. Then nodded. He strode ahead.

Kali followed, her heart throbbing with dread and determined excitement.

H
e had to be a fool. Or mad. He was certain the moment Kali set foot inside the ship, his haven would be gone.

Yet she’d been at Liverpool. She had a right to see what had helped tear her life apart—though she hadn’t phrased it in exactly those words.

He paced ahead. He should’ve known the moment he saw her that his burial on the island was over. She’d drag him back to the realm of the living—to the danger of everyone.

Even worse, when he’d spotted her moments earlier, a jolt of pleasure hit him. As if he’d actually wanted to see her again. Signs of life within him that he didn’t want. Easier to be dead, numb.

“What’s her name?” she asked behind him.

“
Persephone
.”

“Pretty.”

“Wasn’t me that gave the name to her.” They’d gotten closer to the airship, and as they did, he felt it pulling upon him, that slight gripping sensation through his body, as
Persephone
drew on his implants to feed its batteries. He’d grown so used to the sensation, he barely felt it anymore.

The keel had been smashed into the ground, and half the hull had been buried with the impact. But that still left the other half aboveground, its portholes and gun ports staring out at the moor. As he and Kali reached the ship, she frowned at the remainder of the hull. Twenty feet of airship towered above them.

“There’s no door,” she noted.

“Don’t need one.” He leapt and grabbed onto the railing at the quarterdeck, then pulled himself up. Standing on the top deck, he braced his hands on the railing to look down at her. Her mouth had dropped open and her eyes were round as cannon shot.

“I’d heard Man O’ Wars were strong, but . . .” She shook her head.

“Nothing to twist your wrench about. We can all do that.” They’d taken him and other recently-made Man O’ Wars and trained them for nearly a year before letting them out into the world. Strength like theirs, unchecked and unknown, proved a greater liability than asset. Still, there had been mishaps and accidents.

He could leave her down there. Keep her from boarding and preserve the solitude of his crypt. Instead, he picked up a rope and tossed one end down to her.

She looked at the rope, smiling darkly. “I used to be damned good at climbing. Not so agile anymore.” She rapped her knuckles against her prosthetic leg.

“Grab one end. I’ll pull you up.”

For a moment, it looked as though she’d refuse. Beneath the spice hue of her skin, she’d gone ashen. But she gripped the rope, then looked at him and nodded.

He pulled. She weighed so little, and his strength was so great, that she practically soared up the side of the ship. She actually let out a small gasp. And then suddenly she flew over the rail. Right into his arms.

She let go of the rope and grabbed onto his shoulders for balance. At the same time, he dropped his end of the rope and wrapped his arms around her to hold her steady. They pressed against each other, chest-to-chest, their faces mere inches apart. Her warm, startled breath fanned across his face. Close as they were, he caught all her scents: wool, tea, machine oil, cool air, and warm woman.

Pulling her up the ship hadn’t raised his pulse. Now it thudded through him.

They stood like that for . . . he didn’t know how long. Time drifted like the mists as he held her—the first woman in his arms in a long, long time. And he didn’t know how long before the Battle of Liverpool she’d been embraced by a man, but the three months since must’ve felt lengthy to her, as her pupils were wide and dark, her breath not slowing, the flutter of her pulse in her neck speedy.

“Down, please,” she rasped.

“Let go,” he answered.

She seemed surprised that she continued to hold onto him. So they both unhooked their arms from each other awkwardly, and she slid rigidly down the length of his body. Tender and romantic, it wasn’t, yet he’d had no choice but to feel her curves on her way down, and realize she didn’t wear a corset.

As soon as her feet touched the deck, she stepped backward and made herself busy looking around. Looking everywhere but at him.

He’d no idea what to say. He hadn’t been good at protocol before, and three months of living death hadn’t helped his skills.

“Welcome aboard the
Persephone
,” he finally muttered.

She walked the length of the deck, studying everything. The ship hadn’t landed evenly, so the deck had a small tilt to it. As she examined the telumium panels mounted into the rail, her fingers tracing the punctures from ether bullets, he hovered close.

“You don’t need to worry that I’ll steal anything, Captain Fletcher,” she said over her shoulder.

“I said not to call me
Captain
.”

She faced him. “But you’re the captain of this ship.”

“
Was
the captain. Now it keeps me alive and I keep her from becoming an aviary.” Yet even as he spoke, a bird landed on its nest, built on what had been the central support. “Seen enough?”

“Not yet. Besides,” she added, hefting her satchel, “I’ve brought you a present, and it’d be the height of rudeness for me to leave before I gave it to you.”

“Present?” When was the last time he’d gotten a gift?

Her mouth curled. “I thought it was something you could use out here, all alone.”

“Tell me what it is.” He reached for the satchel, and she held it out of his reach. Which wasn’t entirely true, since taking it from her would’ve been absurdly easy. Yet something odd was happening in his chest. Something that felt vaguely familiar. Enjoyment.

“No present until I see it all.”

He raised a brow. “We’re talking about the ship, right?”

His odd enjoyment gleamed brighter as she actually blushed. Good to see that he unsettled her as much as she did him.

“The ship,” she confirmed.

He debated a moment longer—there’d be no turning back once she went below decks and brought her bright energy into the place that he haunted—but he could see the bright curiosity in her eyes, and it pleased him.

Saying nothing, he walked to the companionway and she followed. The stairs leading below were mostly intact. Despite her insistence that she could manage, he offered her his hand as she descended the steps. To his surprise, she actually took his assistance. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and he didn’t need to, and he tried not to think about the pleasure of holding her hand again, feeling its delicateness combined with strength. But he let go as soon as they reached the bottom of the companionway.

The passageway sloped to the right, but Kali walked carefully along it, keeping one hand braced against the bulkhead. He followed her gaze as she stared at the metal plates mounted along the bulkheads, small brass canisters were attached to some of them, and copper tubes leading away from the cylinders.

“Batteries,” she said. “They power the turbines. And they draw their power from . . . you.”

“I run the turbines at night when I’m on the ship to drain the batteries,” he explained. “Keeps ’em from topping off.”

“
That
’s what I hear at night.” Her fingers ran along the copper tubes. “I don’t know what these do.”

“Take ether generated from the batteries to tanks.”

She frowned. “You’re not flying anywhere.”

“Most of the ether I release from the storage tanks, but I keep some of it saved for my weapons.”

Kali fell quiet, and as they moved along the passageway, he watched her studying his ship. She winced at the damage the airship had taken, not just the splintered wood and bent metal, but the holes left by ether cannon blasts, the open cabin doors revealing quarters and other work and living spaces that had been smashed apart by enemy fire.

He nodded toward a cabin’s open door. A large hole had been torn in the exterior, and the small room was empty. “These were Mayhew’s quarters. A lieutenant who liked to tinker. Always spending his free time holed up in there, messing about with wires and gears. Nothing like what you do, though.” He peered at the bare cabin. “All his tools and supplies are gone. You could’ve made use of them.”

She patted her tool belt. “I wouldn’t have come to this island without being well supplied.”

Next, he pushed open the door leading to what had been the officers’ wardroom. It still had some of the furniture, and an exterior wall, though the glass was missing from two of the portholes, and all the framed prints that had once hung upon the bulkheads now lay in a pile in a far corner beneath a film of dust.

“This is where the officers ate,” he said.

Stepping to the table, she opened her satchel and removed a muslin bundle. Opening the bundle, she took out a small clockwork cricket. She turned the key, and the little mechanical insect hopped cheerfully. Its belly glowed softly, and every few moments, it chirped.

“Should I bother asking if that’s your design?” he asked wryly.

“If it’s ingenious,” she replied, “it’s mine. And I didn’t bring anything that I didn’t build or create.”

He scooped up the cricket. A whimsical little thing. Purposeful in its jauntiness. The light from its belly illuminated the roughness of his palm. “This is my present. A child’s toy.”

Now she shrugged. “A little company is always welcome.” She looked at the broken chairs, the debris littered across the floor. “There were no other survivors.”