“Tell me about her,” Rose said, looking around.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, watching Rose as she held on to the metal bars and slowly walked toward the rear of the vessel.
She looked over at the captain, a big smile on her face. “Everything. I want to know her like a friend.”
He paused, studying her. The intensity in his gaze near took Rose’s breath right out of her chest.
Then he smiled, just so much that it curved his lips. It was an intimate sort of smile. As if he was intending to take his time and show her pleasure she had never known before.
“Let’s start in the boiler room,” he said. “It’s always a bit warmer there.”
Rose realized she was shaking. From the cold, yes, and the pain, and the effects of the coca leaf. But also with excitement. She was standing in an airship. With a handsome captain.
If she weren’t aching and cold, she might think this was a dream. A pleasant one at that.
Captain Hink paced up near her and wrapped his arm around her back, helping to guide her to the back of the ship. “This way.”
He opened the blast door, then turned a small gear, which struck a spark against flint. The burnt sulphur smell tickled her nose, as light caught across a network of glass globes around the metal rafters of the room.
Rose stopped full and put her hand to her heart, unable to speak. The lights were beautiful, catching flame in the burnished copper and brass of the big iron boilers.
Pipes, flues, and tanks filled the room, mahogany and teak adding their own beauty among the valves and compasslike gauges, even more lovely than when Molly had brought her back here.
“I’ve never imagined,” she began. “Well, I’ve imagined, but I was wrong.”
“Thought it might be a bit fancier?” he asked, turning his shoulders so he could walk into the room, his thumbs tucked in his belt.
“No. She’s more wondrous than I’d hoped. I can’t seem to make my eyes big enough to take it all in.” She smiled, and found Captain Hink smiling right back at her.
“Molly has a cot here.” He pointed to the snug bed in the corner of the room. “Why don’t you sit before you lose your knees?”
“You don’t think she’d mind?”
“Molly? Might be a bit hardheaded, and Lord knows she doesn’t listen to orders well, but she has a heart the size of the seven seas. I hear Gregors are built that way.”
Rose got herself over to the bed and was out of breath from that much activity. “I knew a Gregor,” she said, puffing a little. “He was just the same.”
The captain strolled to a boiler, and out of habit touched it, checking for heat, before leaning back against it.
“So this is the heart of the ship,” he said, looking around the room. “Molly’s the pulse that keeps it beating. Up front, I stand as the brains. Seldom is my navigator, that makes him the eyes. And Ansell and Guffin, I suppose, are her wings. We run a small crew, but we like it that way. Less chance of us stepping on top of each other and wanting to finish our disagreements with guns.”
“How long have you been harvesting glim? Three years?” she asked.
He looked down at his boots and shook his head. “That’s about right.”
“What did you do before that? Transport? She seems a small ship for that.”
Captain Hink took a deep breath and then started walking toward her. “I haven’t told you all the truth, Miss Small. Plainly, there hasn’t been time.”
He sat himself down beside her. So close, his shoulder brushed against hers. He rested his arms out over his knees, and loosely carded his fingers together.
“I’ve been running glim for three years. Several years before that I was a soldier in the war. And since the war, I’ve also been working for the president of the United States.”
“You’re a statesman?” she asked, confused. Didn’t make any sense for a statesman to be out in the wilds hopping skies for glim.
But then, Mr. Hunt was from the universities back east, and had been a teacher before hard times fell upon him. Maybe Captain Hink’s story was the same.
“Not so much a statesman. I’m a lawman. U.S. Marshal.”
“Really, now?” Rose said.
He tilted his head to get a better look at her. “You don’t believe me?”
“I just think if a fellow were trying to impress a girl, being an airship captain, a glim pirate, and a U.S. Marshal just might do the trick, unless maybe you’d like to add doctor, lawyer, or war hero for good measure.”
She was trying not to smile but couldn’t help it. He looked so confused.
“I suppose war hero might be true too,” he said, “or not, depending on whose side you believe. But I swear on my sweet mama’s grave. I was a U.S. Marshal long before I took to flying or harvesting glim.”
“Yes,” Rose said, keeping her expression serious. “Of course you were.”
He frowned and blew out air. “It’s”—he gestured with his hands, as if trying to catch a fleeting thought—“true,” he finally managed.
“Then why don’t you wear a badge?”
“I have a badge.”
“Can I see it?” she asked solemnly.
He dug in the inner pocket of his coat, hesitated a moment, then drew his fingers out. In his hand was a tin badge shaped like a star.
“Oh,” Rose said. She really had thought he was teasing her, trying to impress her. “So should I call you Marshal Captain Hink now?”
“I’d rather you not. And it would be Marshal Cage if you did.”
“What about ‘Lee’?”
“That’s one of the names I answer to.”
“How many names do you have, Captain?” Rose asked.
Hink hesitated. “I’d hate to tarnish your opinion of me, Miss Small.”
“Over a name or two?”
“Not that, as such.” He took a breath as if bracing for something, then let it out. “I have one name for each man who might have been my daddy.”
Rose pressed her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Not at all. I had it coming.” He grinned wickedly at her.
“My mother was a woman of some adventure, if you understand what I’m saying. Wonderful woman, and I loved her very much. But she once told me she wasn’t quite sure which of her suitors had fathered me. So she gave me a name from each of them, in case they ever came back to claim me.”
“Your mother was a…”
He raised one eyebrow and nodded encouragingly, as if daring her to use a word to describe his mother.
“She was alone to raise you?” she asked.
From his look, that was not at all what he had expected out of her. She liked being able to surprise him.
“Some other adults lent a hand now and then, but yes. She raised me alone.”
“And did your father return?”
“No.”
“So how many…names do you have?”
“Four.”
“Four?”
“Lee Cadwaller Hink Cage.”
“That’s an impressive list.”
“It’s done me no harm.”
He stared a little too long, then finally turned his gaze back to the star in his hand.
“Don’t normally have to reveal all my secrets just to get a woman to kiss me. A well-timed smile usually does the trick.”
Rose’s face warmed from that comment, but she tried not to let it show. “I can’t imagine those were all your secrets, Captain—”
“Lee,” he said.
“Lee,” she repeated. “Surely there’s one or two surprises left to you.”
“Might be at that,” he said softly.
Then he repocketed the star, and before she could come up with the next thing to tease out of him, he was shifting sideways to her, one hand firmly at her back so she could lean against it if she needed to, the other gently brushing a strand of her hair from her cheek.
And then, without asking, without a wo
rd, without permission, he lowered his mouth to hers.
Rose stopped breathing. Stopped thinking. She’d been cornered by boys and kissed before. It was always rough, not always innocent. But she’d never had a man do this.
Lee held her lips with his own in a sort of embrace, moving slowly, as if showing her the steps to a dance she should follow. She moved with him, and shivered when his tongue dragged delicious warmth along her lower lip.
And then she paid no mind as to what came first and what came next. She opened her mouth to him, wanting that warmth inside her. He tasted like bourbon and something pleasantly richer.
The heat of his mouth sent flames over her skin and she wanted to stretch into that feeling. His lips were soft, but insistent. His stubble scratched along her cheek and only made her want more of his skin, more of his body against hers.
He seemed willing for that too. His hand slid along her thigh, cupping the outer curve of it before he slid his palm over the crest to rest upward on her hip.
That wasn’t where she wanted him touching her. That wasn’t the only place she wanted to be touched.
She couldn’t seem to get near enough with these layers of clothes between them.
Unthinking, she lifted her left hand, her wounded shoulder.
Pain shot white-hot through her, stealing her breath, vision, and body.
When the pain and white pulled away, leaving her aware of her body again, of her own skin and thoughts and breath again, she heard her own screams.
She clamped her teeth together, trying to breathe instead of moan. The pain was getting less. Of course it was getting less. She’d be fine. Just fine. In a minute.
And beyond the rattling of her thoughts, was Lee’s voice.
“You’ll be fine, Rose,” he was saying in a constant string, as if reciting the words of a hymn. “Almost there now, and we’ll get your medicine, nice soft bed, blankets, and sleep. This will all be a dream, a bad dream, but you’re going to wake up, and you’ll be fine, Rose.”
She tried to focus on the world around her. Black. No glittering brass or deep rose-colored wood of the boiler room. And it was cold. They were outside again. He was carrying her back to the cavern.
She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. His words fell around her like a gentle net, holding her close, keeping her there, anchored in her own thoughts, in her own skin, away from the clawing pain.
Distantly, she heard the sounds of other voices. Mr. Hunt’s low growl, Mae being calm as ever. She wanted to tell them not to fuss over her so, but by the time she got the words together, she was lying down on the cot again, and Mae was urging her to drink as much as she could out of the cup she held to her lips.
Rose drank the cup dry. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’m going to repack your shoulder as soon as that starts working,” Mae said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be asleep soon.”
Mae moved to set the cup to one side and she could see Cedar Hunt and Lee Cage both standing at the foot of her bed, facing each other, and neither one of them looking happy with the other.
She didn’t know what they were all worked up about. Yes, she was wounded and the pain had been something awful. But she didn’t plan on giving up breathing anytime soon. There was too much of life she still wanted to see in the time she had left. Too much of it she still wanted to feel.
“Take your discussion outside, please, gentlemen,” Mae was saying. “Rose needs a little rest now.”
Rose didn’t know if they did what Mae said or not, for she was falling down and down into darkness and was asleep before she could hear what either of the men answered.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Cedar paced outside in the afternoon sunlight, taking a short break from helping with the repairs on the Swift to get a drink of water. He’d been in to see Rose and Mae. Rose hadn’t woken since Captain Hink had brought her back to bed, clear out of her head with pain.
Being around Mae, who was helping organize the supplies for the ship and taking care of Rose, just made him restless.
What they needed was for this ship to get off this rock, get moving, and get them as near to Kansas and the coven as they could be. They needed to hunt the Holder, and he needed Mae in her right mind. Permanently.
The wind shifted, coming down from the northeast. Cedar paused, lifting his face into it. There was a feel to the air, the slightest scent of the Holder.
It was just a moment, almost too faint before it could be acknowledged.
And maybe he was wrong. Wishing for something he wanted so badly did not make it true.
Still, he waited for that faint song to rise on the wind, the faint scent to return, but there was only silence and the stinging smell of snow.
Miss Dupuis strolled out of the caverns toward him. She wore a chocolate brown and plum dress, cinched in tight at the waist with ruffles beneath the hem giving the skirt shape. A hat sat jauntily to one side of her head, and her hands were covered by close-fitting brown silk gloves. Cedar hadn’t seen a woman in such formal wear since his days back east.
Her man, Otto Theobald, and her woman, Joonie Wright, were not at her side.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hunt,” she said, stopping beside him, her eyes cast to the Swift, where Captain Hink hollered at his crew to work faster. Beyond that, the expansive Coin de Paradis had her envelope fully inflated, looking like she’d leap to the sky at any hard wind.
Cedar thought that might be true if it weren’t for the ropes knotted around metal hooks jutting up out of the rock that kept her tight to the earth.
“Afternoon, Miss Dupuis. Will you be leaving soon, I suppose?”
“No.”
Cedar gave her a look. “You’ll be staying here, then?”
“No. Or rather, I hope that isn’t the case. I was wishing to have a moment to speak with you, Mr. Hunt, but you have been a busy man.”
“Not doing anything now,” he said.
“Yes. Good. Would you be willing to take a short walk with me?”
Cedar glanced at the ship. The Swift was nearly ready to fly again in his estimation. Cedar and the others had been working since Captain Hink had roused everyone out of bed before daylight. The crew had put themselves to the task of repair with a single-minded determination.
Pounding rivets and hauling metal and timber had done Cedar’s temper some good. Enough to entertain a short walk.
He figured what little needed yet to be done on the ship was more suited to Captain Hink’s and the crew’s expertise.
“Of course.” Cedar motioned with his hand for her to walk with him, and started off down the path that led around the bend in the terrain.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you, Mr. Hunt,” she said. “There was a very specific reason Captain Beaumont brought myself and my companions here through the teeth of a storm.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. We came here with great haste because you were here.”
Every nerve in Cedar’s body flashed cold and a rush of wariness swept through him.
“Oh?” he said again.
“We are of a joint acquaintance, you and I,” she said. “The Madder brothers. Perhaps you know them, yes?”
“We’ve met,” Cedar said.
“They informed me, all of us, that they were looking for you. With great need. I believe you owe them a favor.”
“Did you speak to them recently?” Cedar asked.
“Yes.”
“So they found their way safely out of Vicinity?”
“Yes. But they had to see to some repairs of their equipment and knew it would cause a delay. So they sent messages to locate you.”
It didn’t come as a great surprise that the brothers had found a way to send a message to people who had airships at their disposal. There seemed to be no pot the Madders wouldn’t stick their clever fingers into.
“Messages to whom?” he asked.
She paused, and stared out across the dark
peaks of mountains that stood like fortress walls in the distance, cotton-topped with mist.
“We are here to see that the Strange do not take over this new world,” she said.
“You hunt the Strange?” Cedar asked.
She turned her gaze back him. “We search for them. Sometimes we find them, or find the people they have harmed. There are very few in this world who can see them. Fewer still who can hunt them.”
She slid a smile his way. “Theobald, myself, and Joonie can see them. You, however, can hunt them, or so I am told. That is a very rare gift. So rare that the Madders sent us to find you. Any of us who could travel quickly.”
“Find me? For what?” Cedar asked.
“A gift such as yours? You are our ears, our eyes, and our teeth. You can destroy the Strange where we simply try to control their spread, close their trails, break their weapons. You can find the Holder, as if it were a fresh blood trail, and keep it safe from Strange hands. You are one of us, Mr. Hunt. And we want you to join our cause.”
“I don’t know what you think you know of me, Miss Dupuis, but I am no one’s servant. I neither follow nor pledge to any man’s cause.”
“You carry upon you a curse from the gods of these lands,” she said with a nod. “I can see the beast within you, as can Mr. Theobald. You have given your pledge to find the Holder for the Madder brothers. Will you turn from that now?”
Cedar wondered if he already had. He’d promised Captain Hink he’d find the Holder, just as he’d promised the Madders he would find it. But the weapon could be given to only one man. And he didn’t know whom he should trust with it.
“That agreement is between me and the Madder brothers.”
“They are great men,” she said. “Steadfast in this fight. But these times have been…difficult. We have lost so many.”
She searched his face, perhaps looking for sympathy there. He had none to give her.
“The Madders may prefer secrets and riddles,” she said, “but I prefer to be clear. I am going to ask you plainly, Mr. Hunt. Will you join us? Become a protector of this great land, this great world and see that the rising tide of Strange is turned back?”