Thunderstruck

  Stopped him from leaving.

  They both stood still, staring at her hand on his arm as if she had been possessed and lost control of her body. They had only touched a few times during his time aboard, and she remembered every contact viscerally. They embraced during their brief initial encounter, she slapped him when she learned he’d dueled, she reached out blindly and was held up by him on the Tempest, and she urged him to sit when she’d suggested the Witches not be freed.

  But this was the only time she had stretched out a hand intentionally to hold him.

  To keep him.

  The coffee cup chattered on the saucer in her other hand and she stared at it, mystified. When had she put them back together?

  She blinked rapidly, feeling the prickle of tears at the edges of her eyes. Her confusion mounting, she let her fingers slid from his arm—

  —but he caught them and wrapped them in his hands. He stared at her more intently now, his eyes searching her face in a way that made her more self-conscious than she thought she could be.

  The cup and saucer rattled so much she thought her hand might break off if she didn’t regain control.

  But Rowen was holding her other hand …

  He stepped closer and everything happened at once: the cup fell, he released her to grab it, she reached for it at the same time, and their heads collided like two clumsy schoolchildren reaching for the same toy.

  She groaned, pulling back and holding the side of her head, the saucer still in her right hand.

  He straightened, holding the cup, his hand dripping with coffee and his cheek red from the impact. He was smiling in that bashful but roguish way of his that made her heart thunder.

  She licked her lips and froze, stunned again when she realized she tasted him there, on her mouth. Her eyelashes fluttering, her mind replayed the comical not-quite-kiss, the less than romantic squashing together of the corners of their lips as their skulls plowed into each other. Her hand flew to her mouth and she blushed.

  “Are you all right,” he asked, grinning at her. “I never intended to clunk heads with you—and my skull is quite thick, as people gladly say.”

  “I’m … I’m fine,” she said, stepping back. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed their accidental kiss. Or perhaps he had but he knew that the better part of valor was not to mention it. Or perhaps he wasn’t thinking about the press of her lips at all.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t think about it either. Her tongue darted out and tested the spot her lips met his. She was mortified. What did she taste like anyway? Sweat and dirt and the potential of rain? She handed him her saucer—no, she pressed it into his stomach, so he grabbed it—and she turned away, focusing on the large stormcell mounted to the post and bristling with silver wires like a crown of thorns.

  “You’re a wreck,” he whispered, stepping around so he was in her line of sight. “Are you not sleeping? Because if you’re sleeping well than the only reason I can imagine you being so jumpy is because a handsome young man confronted you bearing gifts.” He winked at her.

  Jordan kept her expression as blank as she could and said, “I haven’t slept well in weeks.”

  Rowen’s face fell at the smack to his ego. “Ah. We must fix that. You must sleep enough, drink enough water—eat enough,” he added, “to stay strong.”

  “—so I can keep both ships afloat.”

  “No,” Rowen said, his tone sharp, “so you can keep yourself afloat. So to speak.” He sighed. “Jordan. Do you not understand how very important you are?”

  She allowed her gaze to flit to his eyes, his beautifully changeable eyes, today a shade between cornflower and gunmetal. Silver specks snapped like lightning bolts in their depths before she dared look away. That was the trouble with Rowen: he was captivating.

  “I’ve heard the talk. I’m important to the Wandering Wallace’s plan to take Philadelphia,” she said grimly. “I might be the Stormbringer—I might not,” she added hastily—”but to him I’m a valuable pawn on this chessboard only he clearly sees.”

  “I don’t care about the Wandering Wallace,” Rowen said. “I meant to me. You are important to me.”

  She looked away.

  “Do you not see that?”

  “Rowen.” She groaned. “Rowen. Things have changed. Big, sweeping things,” she added. “Things that can never be undone. Although you are important to me,” she admitted sadly, “I cannot be important to you. You cannot allow that. I am a Witch. You are the son of a high-ranking soldier. You might be redeemed, might return home. I might no longer have a home to return to. You cannot risk your future based on our past. What was it really?”

  “It was everything,” he murmured, brows drawn tight together. “There will never be so much of a change between us that I will not know you are the most important woman in—”

  “Hush!” She stomped her foot. “Don’t finish the sentence. Please. Don’t. I can’t be what you want me to be. Not today, not tomorrow. We do not share a future beyond this revolution. You cannot ruin your life over me. I’m not worth it!” She crossed her arms and added, “I doubt I ever was.”

  “—the world,” he whispered. “You are the most important woman in the world to me. No matter what you do or say … That will not change.”

  She faced him, hearing challenge ring in his words. “Don’t be a fool,” she hissed.

  He said, “I leave for Philadelphia with Jack this morning.” He scrubbed his brow with a fist. When his hand dropped she saw his eyes were dark and gray and cold as steel.

  Her heart clenched. She had never seen his eyes turn that color before. She swallowed. Held her ground. She could not allow him to want her. Not at all. She was ruined but he might recover from everything. If he let her go. So she dredged the word up, hating herself as she pushed it from her lips, and said, “Go.”

  He blinked.

  Suddenly Caleb was between them, one hand on Jordan’s shoulder and one on Rowen’s chest as he slid them apart. “Now, now, princess,” he said, “mind your manners.” He turned to face Rowen, slowly walking him backwards and saying under his breath. “She said it herself—she’s not sleeping well. That takes a terrible toll on a person’s personality.”

  “Are you apologizing for me?” Jordan called.

  “No, no,” Caleb said, pulling back as far as he could, “why apologize for perfection?” But Caleb slapped Rowen on the chest and turned him to face the dining table where Jack sat, working on another gun. Jordan swore he whispered something else to him before Rowen walked away, signaling to Jack they’d best be on their way.

  Caleb faced her, smiling. “Well, you’re not at your most charming this morning. Perhaps a nap is in order?”

  “I thought you would understand,” she whispered. “I cannot encourage Rowen’s affection. I must push him away.”

  “Why on earth do you believe that?”

  “Can’t you see what I am? What I’ve become?”

  Caleb’s voice dropped. “Darling girl. What we see and what you see seem worlds apart. I see a beautiful woman only starting to understand her true power. A woman who is fighting to let that beauty inside come out—almost as much as she’s fighting to keep it in.”

  “There’s no inner beauty,” she scoffed.

  “Yes there is. I saw your foot tapping when Rowen sang. I heard you start to hum. There’s beauty and love aplenty inside you yet.”

  “No.”

  “You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?”

  “It won’t be difficult if you just go along with me.”

  “Ha! The mantra of every spoiled child wanting a pony for Christmas.”

  “I can’t let Rowen ruin his life over me. I won’t. I won’t let him be ruined because I am.” She swiped at her face as tears raced down her cheeks, but Caleb stepped up to her, obscuring everyone’s view of her, and whisked her tears away with a light touch. Jordan trembled, her eyes itching and her nose filling as she sniffled. “You have to understand …” she whispered so so
ftly the words might have been nothing but a wayward breeze whispering past, “I love him too much to let him be ruined by me.”

  “Ah.”

  Shaking, she looked up in time to watch Rowen and Jack cross from the Artemesia to the deck of the Tempest.

  And disappear from sight.

  “I love him, Caleb, but it can’t matter now.”

  ***

  Aboard the Tempest

  Caleb nearly vaulted across the bridge to catch Rowen’s attention. “Might I have a word?”

  Both Rowen and Jack turned. They looked at him, expressions flat.

  “Only Rowen, please.”

  Jack snorted and walked a distance off.

  Rowen faced Caleb, his eyes glowing and his face still flushed with rejection.

  “Oh. You …” Caleb’s eyes went to Rowen’s.

  “I what?” Rowen asked.

  Caleb’s mouth moved, but no words came out.

  “I. What?” Rowen repeated, shoving a full breath between the words.

  Caleb stammered, “You don’t understand.”

  Rowen peered down his nose at the other man, stepping forward to force Caleb back. “Enlighten me.”

  “She’s different from how you remember her, yes?”

  Rowen grunted. “I am also changed. And I know about the Making.”

  “Knowing and understanding are different things, friend.”

  A growl built in Rowen’s throat and he slammed a fist into his open palm. “Get to the point. I know the Maker hurt her. I respect her wishes to not rid the world of him. I know Lightning Kissed her and marked her in a way never seen before. I know and in time will understand because I love Jordan. I know that, too. I love Jordan. I’m not sure I understand that either, but in time I will.”

  “There is more, Rowen,” Caleb whispered. “You can understand the impact of torture because you have been a fighter: you know physical pain. And losing Jordan—you know emotional pain, too. But, she has suffered something you haven’t.”

  Rowen’s brow furrowed.

  “Have you not wondered about the Artemesia’s lack of a captain?”

  He squinted at Caleb, his gaze tracing each narrow scar lining the other man’s face. “I presumed the Wandering Wallace had relieved the ship of its previous captain …” He blinked. “The Wandering Wallace and Maker have been clear this ship is Jordan’s, not the Wandering Wallace’s. Why?”

  “Because she deserves more than a ship, considering what that captain did to her,” Caleb said, his voice going low and hoarse.

  Rowen blinked hard once. Twice. His mouth and throat grew dry and he smacked his lips together. The promenade held a portrait of the captain. He had seen it—pictured the man alive. But what he pictured that man doing …

  … to Jordan.

  The sound that rose from his throat was not one he’d ever made before and he turned, tearing away from Caleb.

  “Rowen!” Caleb shrieked, racing after him, begging, “Don’t tell her I—”

  But Rowen spun around and Caleb slammed into him, breathless. “Don’t tell her what? That you cared enough to tell me the truth?”

  Caleb’s head hung. “She will hate me.”

  Rowen’s eyes went dark and he pounded across the bridge, Caleb close behind. If Jordan saw them, she gave no sign, said no word. In a grim silence they descended in the elevator and, when its door opened, Rowen stormed off down the hall without a word, Caleb running behind.

  Rowen stopped in the promenade, facing the portrait of the Artemesia’s previous captain, facing the image of the man who had hurt Jordan worse than even the Maker or any direct blast of lightning could.

  Ripping the portrait off the wall, he snapped its broad wood frame across his thigh, grinning as the canvas puckered and wrinkled, paint cracking and peeling, the captain’s smile snapping into pieces that fell to the floor and were ground into the carpet under Rowen’s heavy heel.

  He shouldered past Caleb, making his way to the nearest balcony and shoving the door open. The wind whipped around him, ruffling his hair and blowing strands of it into his face. He sputtered, narrowing his eyes against the wind and the humidity hugging close. He dragged the canvas and its splintered frame to the railing and, looking into the swirling mass of clouds, hurled it overboard with a grunt.

  For a moment it floated there, stretching out kite-like to glide, and Rowen’s gut knotted.

  Then lightning found it: a dozen slender bolts attacked like hunting dogs taking down quarry.

  On fire, the captain’s image curled, smoked, and burned its way through the clouds.

  Behind him, he heard Caleb step back and out the door, leaving him alone on the balcony with only Jordan’s conjured storm.

  ***

  Aboard the Tempest

  Nearly thirty minutes and one ship different, Jack stated, “That was ugly,” as he led Rowen below deck and to the hall where the pods connected to the Tempest’s sleek body.

  “That seems obvious. And it should be equally obvious I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Of course not. The girl you love gutted you in public. No man wants to talk about that.” He withdrew the key that hung around his neck and paused outside a particular door. “Which is why I think you need to talk about it. The things we don’t want to talk about are generally the most important things to talk about.”

  “Let’s go—put some distance between us and the Artemesia,” he muttered. “I need to think.”

  Jack shrugged, twisting the key in the lock. He shoved open the door and waved Rowen inside. “This will be a tight fit.”

  One chair was set nearly dead center in the pod with only an arm’s length around it on all sides. Directly before it was the main window—twenty individual window panes were cobbled together giving the appearance of peering out from behind the single eye of a gigantic insect. “Okay, big boy,” Jack said. “Stand in the back and try not to move around. The shifting of your weight could impact the angle of our flight. Or crash us.”

  Carefully, Rowen picked his way to the back of the chair, placing his hands on either side of its headrest.

  “Lovely,” Jack said, reaching behind him to pull the curved door shut. He sat in the chair and pulled two belts across him, buckling them on either side of the seat. He wiggled in the chair before reaching out and flipping a set of switches.

  “Hang on,” Jack suggested, “I’m setting us loose and hitting the engine.”

  “Should I be strapped in?” Rowen asked, looking for his own set of belts and buckles.

  Jack merely said, “Just stay calm and hang on.”

  Rowen knuckled into the chair and gritted his teeth.

  Jack wrenched a lever back. A crack like thunder ripped through the pod, setting Rowen’s teeth on edge.

  And then they were falling.

  Rowen screamed and held on as Jack laughed maniacally. His stomach wedged in his mouth, his hair flying up in a non-existent breeze as gravity tore them away from the Tempest and they tumbled toward the ground. Through the insect-eye window Rowen saw the space the pod had snuggled into, the boards and painted sides of the Tempest. The pod fell through the clouds, puncturing them and whistling away from the world he’d come to know.

  He was still screaming—the sound a thin wail—as the window showed blue sky and the last shreds of the clouds peeled away from them, leaving thin fingers of fluff pointing the way they’d come. Jack continued laughing and pulled back another lever and slammed down a series of buttons. There was a growl and a stutter.

  “Shite,” Jack said. He repeated the series of moves.

  The growl resounded, the pod shivering as the engine roared to life. With a sudden pop the pod jerked upward as wings unfurled. Jack turned a small wheel.

  The noise of the engine became a thin whine. It coughed. And went silent.

  The pod was silent except for the string of curses Jack shouted.

  And the roar of blood in Rowen’s ears.

  Jack pounded on the con
trol panel.

  There was a whine, but Rowen thought it was more likely from Jack than the engine.

  “Damn it!” Jack shouted. He spun a wheel and there was a new noise—like a flag caught but flapping in the wind, buzzing. The wings had adjusted. Jack spun another wheel and they tilted as the rudder adjusted and the pod spun a half turn away from the Tempest. Jack leveled out the pod’s snub nose, his hands flicking across the controls, pressing buttons, turning dials, and flipping switches.

  Jack turned in his seat and appraised Rowen. “You’re not going to vomit are you?”

  Rowen shook his head.

  “When you do, aim for the side, don’t bring it over my head.”

  Swallowing hard, Rowen insisted, “I’m fine. Just … startled.”

  “If that’s what you do when you’re startled, remind me to never throw you a surprise party.”

  Rowen grunted, unimpressed.

  “This is the tricky bit,” Jack said. “Now the engine’s failed, we need to keep enough air under us to get us to glide all the way to Philadelphia. If we lose too much we plummet before we’re ready.”

  Rowen squealed, “Before we’re ready? It sounds like I should expect to plummet one way or the other.”

  Jack laughed, but the sound wasn’t convincing. “We don’t plummet quite as much as dive. Coast. Nose a path.”

  “Ah.” Rowen’s jaw clenched. He looked out the windows and along the nose of the pod, realizing how carefully reinforced it was. Bolts, rivets, and curving sheets of glossy steel led them on. “Nose a path,” he repeated. “Vomit to the side, you said,” he muttered, his stomach shifting in his gut.

  Jack chuckled grimly. “Aye. To the side. Brace yourself, man, it’s going to be quite a ride.”

  ***

  Aboard the Artemesia

  Jordan sat at the very end of Topside’s bowsprit, her bare feet kicked out over the ship’s edge, toes dangling in midair, arms looped over the rail with her wrists crossed, her head tucked just beneath. It was oddly comfortable, this pose, these moments that seemed somehow out of both time and space. This passed as her leisure, rare moments she stared into the dark swirling void of her storm—the thin moments when she could push the Artemesia to glide and give herself space to wonder.