Marrill dove. The wind rose around her, gaining strength. Her fingers closed around the slip of paper. She had it!
Then she was rising when she should have been falling. She scrabbled against the wall with her free hand, trying to hold on. Then she was scrabbling against the roof, and then against nothing.
She was completely airborne!
The wind tugged her higher and higher, flipping her head over her ankles and back again. Her stomach turned as streets and houses zoomed past in a blur below. She wasn’t just airborne; she was flying! It was exactly the same as in her dreams, the wind in her hair and the freedom to twist and spin and roll. She let out a whoop of delight and pinwheeled her arms as though she were swimming.
For a glorious moment, her heart leapt in exhilaration. But just for one moment. Because she didn’t know how to fly. She had no way to control her movements. And up ahead, coming straight at her, was a massive, looming—and very solid—wall of stone.
CHAPTER 15
Now Is When You Run
Despair spiraled in Fin’s chest like water down a drain. It was hopeless. He would be alone forever. There was no point fighting. He reached into his coat, his fingers clasping around the ruby key.
And then he stopped. He knew this feeling. He felt it every time he chased a Quay kid’s shadow up a wall, desperately hoping the other boy would stop and wait for him. He knew it each time he introduced himself to Stavik as though they’d never been more than strangers. He had lived it this very morning, when Mrs. Parsnickle looked him straight in the eye and asked him if she knew him.
How many times had it been made clear to Fin that he was alone in this world? That no one else could help him, care for him, be there for him? Every night on the edge of sleep, he closed his eyes and thought about finding his mother or learning where he came from or coming downstairs and having the Parsnickles pick him up and spin him around and treat him like a normal kid in a normal family.
This despair was nothing new. Every single day, he faced the fear that he would be this way forever and nothing would change, and every single day he beat that fear. He’d bitten down sadness before. He would do it again. Every single day, until he did find his mother, and then he would be a normal kid. He had to be.
And deep down, he knew staying here with this madman didn’t mean finding her. It meant crying about it, forever.
Which was exactly what the Oracle wanted, Fin realized. He was the one causing all of the tears; he was the one dredging up the feelings Fin normally kept choked down. Doing to Fin what he had done to the thieves. There was a magic at work here unlike any Fin had seen before.
He shook his head, moving his hand away from the pocket holding the ruby key. What had he almost done? What would the crying man do if Fin gave him what he wanted?
“You’re not going to help me find my mother,” he said with conviction.
Fin glanced around the room. All the thieves had their knives drawn now. Each took a shaking step forward in unison.
“Now is when you run,” the Oracle told him.
A shot of adrenaline wiped away the last traces of the sadness that had held him, clearing his mind. He needed to get out of there, and fast!
“Don’t have to tell me twice!” Fin said, darting for the door.
He had almost reached the stairs when Ad and Tad stepped in, blocking the oven entrance. Tad flipped a switch, and flames burst up from the floor. The heat struck Fin full on, making him wince and jump back into the den to avoid it.
Every thief was focused on Fin now. The closest things he had to friends, the men he had always wished would see him. They saw him now. And he wished more than anything they would look away.
The biggest thief—a hunched-over cord of muscle and white fuzz Fin knew as Cotton Scotton—charged first. Fin twisted away from the dagger swiping at his neck and swung around Cotton’s broad back. Another thief lunged into the empty space, slicing a stinging line across Fin’s shoulder.
Fin let out a grunt and rolled away, clutching it. He spared it one glance. Just a scratch. If not for the tears slowing their movement, he’d have been skewered.
Fin darted one way, then the other. Like any good thieves’ den, the pie shop was full of secret doors, false columns, and hidden exits. Unfortunately, each one of them was blocked by a crowd of weeping thieves. He would never get through.
“Give in, little lost boy,” the Oracle called over the thieves’ bawling. “Give in to your pain. Cry with me.”
“No thanks!” Fin shouted back. There was one exit left, one the other thieves wouldn’t even think to go near. It was the last, and best, escape route, reserved for Stavik himself. Up the rear chimney, over a smoldering fire, a hidden ladder led to the roof. It was the only option, and he had to take it.
Fin didn’t bother to think of any fancy moves or tricks. He just tucked chin to chest and charged. One of the benefits to being the youngest thief in the place was being small enough to slide between legs without breaking stride.
Of course, the problem with running for Stavik’s escape route, he realized too late, was Stavik. Fin smacked into him. Arms like clamps closed around him, lifting him off the ground. Face-to-face, they looked into each other’s eyes; Stavik’s were red from crying, the long scar down his cheek flushed purple.
“So sorry, blood,” Stavik whispered in his ear.
“Me too,” Fin sighed. Tears welled up in his own eyes. Even if it was the magic—evil magic—he almost believed Stavik remembered him.
Then he kneed the Pirate King in the groin as hard as he possibly could.
“Urfhk!” Stavik grunted, dropping him. Fin leapfrogged over the hunched form and shoved him hard in the back toward the Oracle, sending him toppling to the ground and taking some of the thieves down with him.
The dark figure stepped back quickly, but a few still grabbed at the Oracle’s robes as they fell. Each thief howled as he touched the black fabric and collapsed on the ground clutching blue, frostbitten hands.
The Oracle, for his part, watched Fin with dead eyes. “I know you, Fin,” he wheezed. “Don’t forget. I promise I won’t forget you.”
Fin hesitated just before the smoldering fireplace, a brief flood of worry washing over him. What if the Oracle really did know where his mother was? What if Fin was turning his back on his only way to find her? What if no one else would ever remember him again?
He forced himself to turn away, letting the immediate danger bury the deeper fears. He had made his choice, and no one evaded the pie shop pirates for long. He flew up the chimney ladder, not pausing to listen to them clambering after.
Soot and the stink of a hundred old fires clung to him as he burst out the top, just as the wind reached a howl. He ran to the roof’s edge and skidded to a stop. A jump from this height might break his leg or, worse, catch him in the wind current.
Ordinarily, Fin would rather ride a wind current than walk, but not here. The wind came head on into the cliff face, and that curl-over created a nasty vortex that would dash a kid against the cliff more often than not. It took a mean trick to ride it; maybe if he had some momentum, he could get through. But he didn’t, and without it, Fin was pretty sure he’d be paste.
He swallowed. Clearly, Stavik had some plan to get out of here he’d never clued Fin in on. Cliffs and other buildings, too high to jump to, penned him in on either side. The chimney full of thieves lay behind. Trying to ride the wind meant a vortex beatdown, but trying to drop would break his legs. What a great junk of options.
The wind roared again, a big one coming. Fin braced himself, steeling his nerve. He’d have to take a chance and hope the vortex was kind.
The sound of sobbing echoed behind him. A grimy hand pushed out of the chimney. The first of the thieves tumbled onto the roof, stopping only briefly to get his bearings.
Now or never. Fin closed his eyes and waited for the wind to hit.
And then, a new noise broke through the roar of rushing air. Someone screaming.
But not someone in the pie shop. Fin poked his head over the rooftop, just in time to see a little figure flying at him, tumbling head over heels on the front of the gust.
“Lucky break, chums!” he shouted to the thieves, who were already advancing on him, daggers ready for the kill. Then he launched himself off the roof, hoping his timing was right. His hand caught something. An ankle, or a bony knee? Was that toadbutter he suddenly tasted?
And then he, too, was spinning in the gust, shooting out high into the open air.
CHAPTER 16
A Curious Tour Guide
Marrill screamed, flapping her arms wildly. But the rock face just came at her faster. She closed her eyes and braced for impact.
Then something caught her leg and a heavy weight flung her sideways, out of the path of the wall. She risked opening an eye. A boy about her age clutched her ankle, and now they were toppling through the air together.
“What are you doing?” she shouted at him. The wind pushed them up, higher and higher, past the tops of tall buildings and into the clear sky.
“Saving your life!” he shouted back. Way too far below for her comfort, the crooked streets of the Khaznot Quay waited to dash them to pieces.
“You’re not doing a very good job of it!”
The wind whipped them one way, then jerked them the other. Buildings and streets and jagged rocky outcroppings passed beneath them as they twisted around each other. One second the boy was above her, the next below. She thought she might be sick. She clutched the Compass Rose tighter in her fist.
“Don’t rush a kid,” the boy said. “Give me a sec.…” They dropped again, and Marrill’s guts did a flip. The boy, for his part, used the momentum to grab for her knees. Then he wedged a toe in one of her pockets and shimmied up her like she was a ladder.
“What… umph! Are you… oof! Doing?” she demanded.
“Stop kicking!” he yelled. His face popped up in front of hers. It was grimy and smudged with dirt. “Right, then!” He looked up. She did, too. Only up was not up anymore. Judging by the cobblestones coming at them, up was down!
“Do something!” she screamed, digging the fingers of her free hand into his shoulders.
“Hold on!” the boy shouted. “And I mean tight!”
The ground came on fast. Marrill cringed. The boy held out his arms and jerked something with his thumbs, and suddenly Marrill’s brain seemed to flip in her head. They were headed up again, real up! Wings of fabric strung out from under the boy’s arms, catching the wind.
They were flying, for real this time! Gliding, actually, just above the rooftops, but flying anyway!
“It’s remarkable!” she laughed.
“It’s not built for two!” the boy responded. “Brace yourself!”
He tugged once more, twisting them to catch another draft, and that’s when Marrill’s leg clipped the roof of a building. Pain shot up her thigh.
“Ow! Oof! Ouch!” She couldn’t tell which sounds came from her and which from him as rough slate scraped across her flesh. “Ugh! Ack! Oh!” They bounced and rolled, tumbled apart, and finally she came to a rest, her head right at the roof’s edge.
She sat up slowly, testing to see if anything was broken. A few spots of skin were rubbed raw along her shin and forearms, and she’d have a wicked bruise from where her thigh clipped the roof, but other than that, she seemed to be in one piece. She checked the paper. Despite being rather crumpled, it appeared to have survived the crash intact. She let out a relieved sigh and tucked it into her pocket.
The boy crouched not too far away, tucking the little wind sails into the seam of his coat. He smacked his mouth, sticking out his tongue as if he tasted something sour.
If it hadn’t been for him, she’d be a girl-shaped smudge against the side of a cliff by now. “Thanks,” she told him. Her fingers fiddled with the ragged edges of her newly shorn bangs. “For saving me and all.”
The boy’s eyebrows jumped in surprise. “Y-you’re welcome.” He didn’t sound at all like the boy who’d been in such control—well, perhaps control wasn’t the right word—moments before. If anything, he seemed lost and vulnerable, like an abandoned animal.
Her heart dipped into that special place, where it lived already in the Banton Park Live-In Animal Rescue Reserve and took home blind owls and one-toed sloths.
He was a bit ragged around the edges. The seams of his pants were frayed, and his thick black hair had clearly been cut by someone with only the loosest understanding of what either hair or cut meant, much less the two words together. In short, he needed someone to look out for him.
Not knowing what else to say, Marrill scanned her surroundings. It wasn’t terribly difficult to orient herself. The coast was a horseshoe at the base of the mountain. Ardent had instructed her to meet him back at the ship if they got separated, so that was where she was headed.
Of course, between there and here was a maze of dangerous alleys, and she knew from experience navigating wasn’t so easy from street level. If she struck out into the city alone, she was pretty much guaranteed to run into trouble. She needed some looking out for herself.
“Um, so,” she said to the boy, twisting her fingers together. “I’m supposed to be meeting my friends down at their ship, but… I’m not really sure how to get there. Any chance you could… show me the way?”
The boy lifted an eyebrow. “Ship?” He rocked from his heels to his toes as he considered. Marrill got the feeling he was pretty good at sizing up people and situations.
Then the awkwardness seemed to melt from him, just like that. “The docks, you say? I wasn’t heading in that direction myself.…” He drew out the last word, and her shoulders drooped.
“But,” he added. She perked up again. “It is a pretty fine day for a walk, what with it being clear out and all. You do understand I’d be going out on a limb for you, pushing off all my other errands and whatnots. Which I have. Already scheduled, I mean.”
She guessed what he was hinting at. “I’m afraid I don’t have any money, or really any way to repay you.”
“Oh,” he said, waving away her concern, “it’s all about trade in the Quay.”
Marrill’s stomach tightened, and she fingered her new bangs. “So I gather.…”
But he didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. His head tilted to one side, as if listening for something in the distance. All Marrill could hear was the chaos of the marketplace—someone shouting, someone laughing, someone crying. A few someones crying, even. A frown passed across the boy’s face, so quickly she almost missed it.
Then he smiled. “Although I s’pose a good deed is its own reward, every now and then. Fills the heart and all that.” He leapt toward her and grabbed her hand, tugging her across the roof.
“My name’s Marrill, by the way,” she said as he guided her down a narrow pipe bolted to the side of the building.
“Lovely name, that. Pleuredian?”
“Um…” Marrill said, clambering after him. “No thanks?”
The boy blinked at her as she dropped to the ground next to him.
“I’m Fin,” he offered. “But look at me, going on and on. Tell me more about you. Where you came from, where you’re headed, how spacious your traveling arrangements are, that sort of thing.”
Marrill had a difficult time keeping up with his pace as he led her through the Quay, and an even harder time keeping up with his questions. “I came from Arizona,” she said. “I guess I’m headed back there, as soon as I can. What was that last one?”
“Arizona,” he said. “That sounds like a good, happy, no-crying sort of place.”
She tried to disagree, but it got lost when he grabbed her hand and ducked into a sea of carts.
“So tell me about this ship of yours,” he continued. He wove his way through the chaos expertly. She wasn’t quite as graceful. Her foot landed in something sticky and slick, and she nearly toppled into a cart of leather bags. One of the satchels snapped at her as she pushed away.
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“It’s, uh… it has sails and, uh…”
“Big? Small?” He dodged a puddle. She splashed right through it before she knew it was there.
“I don’t have much to compare it to, I guess,” she admitted.
“You could compare it to the other ships down at the pier,” he prompted.
Marrill struggled to remember. It proved quite difficult while keeping up with Fin. He moved through the crowd with practiced ease, slipping around legs, ducking under tables, squeezing through gaps. No one yelled at him or shoved him or tried to sell him eggs; it was almost like he didn’t even exist in the same world as everyone else.
“I guess it’s on the big side? I don’t really know all that much about ships,” she confessed. “In fact, I didn’t even know about the Pirate Stream until today.”
And at that, Fin ran smack into the side of a cart. A towering pile of yellow, spiky fruit toppled down, bouncing off in every direction. “My pointimelons!” shouted the stall owner.
“This way!” Fin dodged into an alley so steep that Marrill almost had to sit to manage her way down. He pushed her to the center, where a thin layer of slime flowed down a shallow gutter. “One foot in front of the other, then,” he said, showing her.
Marrill mirrored him.
“And like this,” he instructed, rocking back on his heels. He slid down the hill, picking up speed as he went. Marrill cringed, took a deep breath, and followed.
Fin made it look easy, arms held out to either side as he glided along. Marrill was more like a newborn giraffe struggling to figure out what legs were and how they worked. She stopped counting how many times she’d fallen once she reached double digits.
“So I’d imagine with a large ship it must be difficult to search for stowaways,” he said, coming to an expert stop before the alley dead-ended in a sharp little cliff. Just as she was about to career over, he grabbed her arm and swung her around onto another street.
“I mean, I imagine it would be,” he continued. “Of course, I wouldn’t know, being a bit of a landlubber myself, and not the type to stow away. Nope, Quay’s for me, that’s what I say.” He paused, chuckling nervously. She tried to focus on calming her thundering heart—surely at some point today it would burst. “But I would think, you know, that it might be hard to do,” he said. “Catch stowaways, I mean.”