An automaton-like stance was taken by all wearing the bright ruby rings the Wandering Wallace had secretly sent as seemingly harmless gifts, whether the Councilmen’s wives or a handful of others, including a single Wraith and Lady Catrina Hollindale. In sharp contrast to their body language, not far from the Councilmen and leaning like recalcitrant schoolboys, stood Mikah Vanmoer and a second sleeper in a body also not her own.
Lady Marsham peered out through Lady Astraea’s eyes, her body language, with her lounging attitude and the brazen tilt of her hips far different than that of Jordan’s mother. Marsham slowly dug the tip of a narrow stiletto beneath the nail of her index finger, whistling a tune with disinterest as she worked out the dirt she’d somehow gotten under her nails.
“My friends,” the Wandering Wallace addressed the stiff line of people, placing his hands behind him and going up on the balls of his feet to sway back and forth a moment, “prick your finger.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, they did as he bade, blood welling up on delicate fingertips like perfect beads of red.
The Councilmen straightened, eyes wide or very narrow, but either way, the Wandering Wallace knew he had all of their attention focused on him.
“What do you want?” one councilman grated out, taking a slow step forward.
“A changing of the guard, so to speak. I want to make a difference by fixing this broken beast you call government. It is very near one hundred years since we declared our independence from England and yet can we truly say we are any better than when we were firmly under old George’s thumb? We subjugate others—the Indians, the Africans, the Witches—and each time a new set of immigrants comes pouring onto our shores, hopeful as they are. We are a country built on lies and you perpetuate them!”
The Councilmen stood as still as their statuesque wives, but now all their eyes were narrowed. Wary.
“You would replace us,” Loftkin hissed.
“Of course! We would be mad not to.”
“Then wait for election results. Let this go peaceably and without incident. Elections are the proper way to make such changes. If the majority agrees with you.”
“Ha!” The Wandering Wallace chortled, the sound sharp and short. “You own these people, body and mind! You lie to them through newspapers and headlines read over airship communication arrays. The idea of me convincing such obedient citizens to vote you out is preposterous!” He shook his head. “My power has its limits so I will do this my way. The risk is one I accept. As are the rewards.
“My friends,” he said firmly, “knife points at your wrists …”
Marion and Evie stepped forward, aghast, but Tsu stayed still and the Wandering Wallace raised his hand.
“All these good men need do is step down. Abdicate their thrones, so to speak. Then no one will be hurt. But sometimes greedy men need additional convincing.”
The room filled further as Jordan, Caleb, and Rowen came in through the side door and Lord Gregor and Lord Morgan pushed their way in through the front, Stache following them, watching and waiting for fresh orders.
There was an uneasy moment as more eyes scanned bodies, faces, and weapons, the situation newly assessed.
Loftkin nearly shouted with joy, seeing Gregor Burchette. “Tell them to drop their weapons!”
“Yes,” Jordan agreed, looking at the Wandering Wallace and the people standing stiffly behind him. “Instruct them to drop their knives.”
Gregor shook his head at Loftkin. “I daresay this man’s concern is a valid one. And this Council is long in need of a significant change.”
“What?” Loftkin roared.
“Step down. I will rally no troops—good men all—to your defense. Not any longer.”
Tsu drifted to the long table, unrolling papers and setting them before each outraged man.
The Wandering Wallace pointed his raven’s beak at the papers. “Sign those and go home. Let them serve as your most noble of resignations.”
The men looked at the hostages, and the host of others crowding the chamber, and picking up the provided pens, they set to signing.
***
Philadelphia
“Truly?” A woman’s voice suddenly asked. Lady Marsham stepped forward in Lady Astraea’s occupied body, her hips swaying and her eyes cold. “You call this a rebellion—a coup? Will this give you the revenge we are all due?”
Jordan’s gaze found her mother, as did the gaze of her father. “Mother—”
Marsham leapt behind Catrina, disarmed her neatly and pressed her own stiletto to Catrina’s throat. “In every life a little rain must fall, in every rebellion a little blood must spill …”
“Do not,” Jordan stepped forward.
Rowen’s hand grasped her arm. “She is not …”
“She is not my mother,” Jordan agreed.
“Marsham,” the Wandering Wallace said calmly. “Let the girl go. There is no need for violence.”
In silent agreement, Marion shifted his weight.
“Marsham?” Jordan asked, her eyes narrowing.
The woman ignored Jordan, and rolling her eyes hissed, “Oh, I think there is. Let me gut just one little fishy—this most troublesome one. She has been a thorn in the side to everyone. I can see it in the deepest bits of my hostess’s brain. I see it—I see it all. This girl is the reason Jordan was taken and Made. She was the wedge between Jordan and Rowen’s blossoming relationship and I doubt anyone will truly miss her …” She pressed the blade more firmly to the flesh of Catrina’s throat.
“Drop the blade,” Jordan commanded, fingers flexing at her side as she tasted the air in the room—tested it. “Or I will …”
“Or you will what?” Marsham snapped, whipping the weapon straight for her head.
“Miss Jordan!” came the deep and booming warning from John, the freed slave who worked for the Astraeas because of their reputation for generosity.
It seemed word of revolution had spread to all.
A rogue wind caught the knife and held it, halting it inches from the eye of its intended target.
The remaining knives were wrenched free of ruby ring adorned fingers and hurled at Jordan with equal spite.
They, too, stopped and hung before Jordan, quivering in the air. With a snort and a wave of her hand she cast them to the floor, sticking their points two inches deep into the broad wood boards.
“You must teach them all respect, Wallace!” Marsham shrieked. “Lay them low so they understand true power!”
Jordan watched the Wandering Wallace, her eyes wide as she pulled every bit of moisture out of the goblets and tankards in the room, broke it apart and forced it to reshape …
A wet wind delivered a stinging backhand to the woman wearing Lady Astraea’s face, knocking her away from Catrina with a yelp, and onto her rump.
The Wandering Wallace rushed past Jordan, tugging a knife from midair and he leaped onto Marsham, growling, “I should not have brought you back …” And he dug the blade into her flesh.
“The stone!” John shouted. “Here …” He tossed something that sparkled with light and life, the Wandering Wallace catching it with a deft hand before his strong sense of decency made John look away.
The Wandering Wallace dug one soul stone out, throwing it wide of Marsham’s grasping hands as the woman beneath him shuddered and died.
Again.
The body convulsed even as he slipped the fresh gemstone into the hole in her chest and pressed the wound closed with his hand.
She was still.
He jumped back from her and looked to Jordan. “You must bring her back. Call lightning in a pulse and restart her heart …”
Jordan’s breath ragged, she reached for lightning, but found nothing. She flexed her fingers, thought with spite of Catrina lying so close, of her mother, replaced callously by the Wandering Wallace’s political desires …
Betrayal surrounded her.
Her breath caught, her eyes blurred and the fire in her soul—that bit th
at connected to whirling weather and simmering storms was snuffed.
Smothered.
Dead as her mother.
“Quickly now …”
She tried again, but there was nothing left to draw from anymore—she was filled only with sorrow, made hollow by exhaustion.
She felt someone else’s fingers fill the spaces between hers and Rowen’s lips brushed her ear and he began to sing, to fill her head with hope. “Your courage is the key—”
She lost herself in the notes of his voice and choked out the words, “—to freeing yourself—” and light burst from the fingers of her free hand, and finding her mother’s body, it lit her like a freshly falling star.
She sat up, hand over her heart—over her soul stone—and Jordan and Morgan rushed to embrace her, but not before Morgan used the metal tip of his cane to crush the wayward crystal that had once possessed her.
Kneeling and wrapping his arms around his wife he whispered. “I knew it wasn’t you … I knew the truth all along—deep inside—but I am such a dense, proud old man. God,” he said, “how glad I am to have you back!”
***
Philadelphia
The Wandering Wallace adjusted a pocket watch he held in his hand, and all who had stood so stiffly moments before relaxed, the light fading from their ruby rings as a new light—that of independence—returned to their eyes.
Jordan stood and took a long step back. “This evening I learned the Wildkin are swimming for the north. Gathering their forces and leaders. The War has reached a head and we all risk more lives being lost,” she said solemnly to the crowd. “But there is hope! This war is a contrived military exercise—a way the Council diverted our attention from real issues—issues that would have changed your lots in life—improved your stations. Now is the time to rally and end this war—make a peace with the Wildkin and allow us to focus on the things that matter—the things that will improve our lives here and now.”
Gregor pointed to the Councilmen and shouted, “Take them into custody for crimes against their own people!”
Though there were no guards, people in the crowd moved swiftly and the Councilmen were dragged from the room, Gregor Burchette following and sparing only a glance for his son. And a smile.
***
Aboard the Artemesia
“What a fine, fine job you have done keeping my ship so well,” Jordan proclaimed when she and most of the others returned to the Artemesia. The Wandering Wallace, Marion, Stache, and Miyakitsu remained behind to work on things of government import, and the greater part of the army (now mixed human and mech) had returned to the Tempest, readying to meet the Wildkin, peaceably if possible.
Meggie beamed up at her.
“It went well?” Bran asked.
“Amazingly well,” Jordan admitted. “Miraculously well!” She swept the clouds back around them and closed her eyes, raising the Artemesia into a sky that was only now beginning to lighten.
Not far away, Evie, Jack at her side, was again raising the Tempest.
“North,” Jordan said.
At her feet, Rowen sat by Caleb and together the three of them sang their way north to intercept the Wildkin and end a war that never should have been.
***
Philadelphia
It was shortly after the Wandering Wallace welcomed Morgan Astrea back onto the Council and appointed Gregor Burchette, and Marion Kruse as well, that he traveled to the menacing and medieval looking Eastern State Penitentiary to speak to past-Councilman Yokum.
It only required a brief conversation seated in the skylit solitary confinement cell for the Wandering Wallace to make his decision as to Yokum’s future.
Seeing him freed, and seeing that other substantial changes were already in the works, the mood in Philadelphia quickly became one of celebration. It was merely two evenings after the bloodless coup that, as the Wandering Wallace worked late on Philadelphia policy, he heard the sweet sounds of a violin encouraging the singing of a crowd somewhere outside the Council Chambers.
Setting down his pen, he replaced his favorite and most fearsome mask—that of a dragon—and he stepped out onto the street and was immediately swept up by the raucous crowd, bumped along until he was nearly face-to-face with the musician.
She bent and swayed in time to the music, just one more part of a living, breathing song. Until she saw the masked man before her. The bow scraped across the violin’s strings, delivering an unholy noise, and she dropped her arms, staring at him, her mouth agape. “Is it you?” she asked, stepping down from a wooden crate. A small dog took her place, dancing around on its hind legs. “Come, Zeeke,” she instructed, and the dog stopped and cocked its head in curiosity. “Wallace,” she whispered, “my son, is it truly you?”
He nodded, and grinning at him, she thumped the bow against her chest, giving a whoop of joy.
“I have searched for you—but it seems I am never where you are when you are! Oh, my beautiful, beautiful boy!” she exclaimed. “And you are the one who did this?” she asked, swinging her bow out over the heads of the crowd. “You have set straight this city?”
“With help from the finest of friends,” he nodded, suddenly shy.
“Oh, I knew you were clever. I knew you were good!” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “But do prove it to me,” she begged. “Take off the mask you wear and let me see my sweet son’s face!”
He hesitated, but she said, “What man who is proud of the person he has become—of the things he has done—and who owns up to his past mistakes and looks to a better future for all should go about masked? We all have scars,” she reminded solemnly.
With a nod and a racing heart, he removed the dragon’s scaled and glittering head and hood and stood there, scarred and bare to the gawking crowd. But his mother screamed in joy again, and, reaching out, grabbed his face and covered it in kisses.
The crowd roared their approval. And it was then he knew that as this new man, this bold and honest man, he would need to have a bold and honest talk with Tsu about her origin. And their future.
And he realized he finally owed his friends beautiful handcut invitations to quite a celebration.
***
Maine
They were amassing in the waters far below when Jordan cleared the clouds away. Finding the spot that teemed with the greatest volume of Merrow, she set the Artemesia down on an island thick with trees. The Tempest followed suit.
They tempted fate still more by making their way to the water’s edge, past scraggly wild blueberry bushes, Jordan wearing a cloud like a cloak to keep her raw power ready. She had been unable to convince the Maker, Maude, and especially little Meggie to stay aboard the Artemesia, so she let her frustration spark out in tiny bursts off lightning. At the lapping water’s edge Jordan gathered her courage, pushed down her memory of the one Merrow attack she had witnessed, and announced, “We wish to speak to a representative of your people.”
The water thrashed in response. She cocked her head and corrected her perception. Not precisely the water, but something within it and something—no, Jordan thought—someone rose from the water.
Droplets cascaded down the Merrow’s long hair and skin like thousands of silver beads and dripping diamonds danced in starlight, and she remained calf-deep in the waters just offshore, her body supple and shimmering and so very close to human that Jordan’s breath caught in her throat.
Close to human, but not so heavy. Not so hairy nor so apelike.
Beautiful.
As horrifying as the other Merrow had been, so equally gorgeous was this one.
Jordan found herself strangely jealous of the creature, who seemed more than human with her glittering and glistening scales and muted facial features, which were more like Miyakitsu’s than anyone else’s. Where Jordan had hair, this creature had long strands of stuff that at first glance seemed to be different varieties of seaweed, as if a section of the ocean floor had grown into her scalp allowing plants to root and join with her. Spine
s flashed like silver needles along her sleek back, and she rustled like a porcupine, perhaps deciding if she greeted friend or foe.
Where Jordan had hands, she had webbing that ran between long slender fingers, giving her something akin to fins at the end of each well-muscled arm. Where Jordan had legs, she had a long and curving tail that held her upright in the slowly rolling surf but twisted like a serpent’s end, coiling in the water and changing into a fluke that seemed almost tattered. But Jordan stared at the appendage and saw the edge was not tattered at all but deckled like the edge of an elegant paper. Along its edge pearls glittered, piercing her tail’s fluke alongside silver and gold rings large enough to be bracelets.
This was no simple soldier Merrow.
This was nothing like the Merrow who attacked the horses on Jordan’s way to Holgate.
This Wildkin sported no gaping mouth with rows of sharp and protruding teeth or eyes set in the sides of her head rather than the front … All across her shimmering skin designs seemed delicately etched—flowers and grasses and tree leaves—things of the land decorated her flesh, sparkling over her skin and scales like they were as ephemeral as tracery drawn in the morning dew.
This was a creature that evaded Jordan’s ability to describe her. She stood before them all, commanding their attention. And—
—their awe.
Throughout the surf, slipping in and out of waves like serpents, other Merrow swam, fleshy snakes undulating barely below the surface of the water.
Jordan only caught glimpses of them—of faces and fins as they split the surface and dove below again. She thought among the spines and skins she also saw the tips of spears—of weaponry crafted of black volcanic rock and shattered sea shells strapped to narwhal horns.
They were so utterly amazing.
So foreign.
So deadly.
So wickedly and wondrously primitive.
Jordan lowered her hands, letting sparks of lightning fall and smolder in the damp grass by her feet. This was the moment then—the reason she and the rest of them had disembarked from their ships—in hopes a leader might be reasoned with.