The Star Thief Page 6

  “Southwest, outside town limits,” she replied. “No movement since our crew landed, as far as we can tell.”

  “Very good,” Nautilus said with a crisp nod. “You keep me informed of any changes.”

  There was no bother with introductions, and Honorine shuffled along behind Nautilus as he made his way to the next station, on the far side of the deck. This one featured a strange kind of desk, arranged in a wide arc. The top was covered in rows of what looked like fluted phonograph horns, manned by a scrawny fellow with spectacles and rumpled hair, wearing copper cuffs over his ears and moving vulcanized rubber-coated wires between countless tiny switches on the desktop.

  “Jacques,” Nautilus said, causing the scrawny fellow to twitch and pull off one of the copper ear cuffs. “Status?”

  “Solid contact with the Gaslight,” Jacques replied.

  “Good,” Nautilus said. “Are they ready to hunt?”

  Jacques picked up a disk of silver metal with a patch of thick wire mesh in the center, and spoke into it. “Requesting status on the Sidus Apparatus.”

  After a short pause, he set down the disk and looked up at Nautilus.

  “Full power, ready to go ahead,” said Jacques. “Do we have a target?”

  Nautilus looked out over the railing at the rolling sea of treetops lit yellow in the fading moonlight.

  “We’re going after the lion.”

  Jacques paused for a moment, his eyes widening.

  “The lion,” he repeated in a solemn tone. “Aye, Captain.” Then he began relaying orders and moving wires and adjusting levers.

  Nautilus turned back to Francis and Honorine. “This next part is going to get a bit rough. Francis, we need you at your post. And Honorine”—he looked down at her, brow raised and head tipped—“we need you out of the way.”

  And then he was off, calling out orders to another section of the ship.

  “He’s right,” Francis said.

  “Well, he was a bit rude about it,” Honorine replied as she watched Nautilus vanish into the bustling, crowded deck. “I know how to stay out of the way, and I could probably be a bit of help around here.”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t know that yet,” Francis said. “Plus, he’s the captain, and he has no manners when we’re in the middle of a hunt. Which he’s right about, you know—this is going to be pretty bumpy.”

  Just as he finished his sentence, the flames overhead blazed hotter, and the Nighthawk bobbed up higher into the night sky. Honorine was the only one on deck who wobbled a bit as the ship moved beneath her.

  “We can watch from over here,” Francis said as he led her down a short flight of steps onto the main deck of the airship. It wasn’t a terribly large area to begin with, and space was tight. Most of the deck was covered with large machinery, larger guns, and thousands of ropes, many strung with hundreds of electric lightbulbs like drops of dew on a spider’s web. Where there weren’t machines and cannons in the way, there were crew members tending to them, both men and women, all in blue coats, and all working with single-minded determination. Some of them worked the machinery that kept the Nighthawk aloft and sailing; others were involved with charting measurements or tending to much more delicate machines that seemed to have no use for the art of sailing. Arms swung and boots stomped, and Honorine ducked twice to avoid being hit by large things on swinging booms.

  “This ship is incredible,” Honorine said as she watched ropes slide through pulleys and great brass dials churn like the gears of a clock. For a moment, she forgot to be overwhelmed by the sudden strangeness of her situation and was absorbed in wonder at the fantastical machine and the realization that she was, in fact, flying through the air under a great balloon.

  “Don’t get lost, now,” Francis said as he made his way toward a raised platform surrounded by a wooden railing on the inner side. On the outer side, facing the open air, the railing had been fitted with a large panel made of a sheet of copper between two panes of thick glass. On closer inspection, Honorine saw that the copper was worked into little interlocked hexagons, like a honeycomb. In many of the chambers sat mechanical bees.

  “This is my own little project,” Francis said. “Nautilus didn’t think much of it at first, but it’s been very useful lately.”

  “You made these bees?” Honorine asked. “I’ve seen them before.”

  She drew the mechanical bee from her pocket and held it out on her palm. The little brass shell lay curled and still, with the legs drawn in protectively and the wings folded neatly behind it. “It’s one of these, isn’t it?” She pointed at the glass honeycomb.

  “It is,” Francis said. “Where did you get it?”

  “I found it on my windowsill,” Honorine said. “And it wasn’t the only one. There was one in the east parlor a few weeks ago.”

  Francis looked completely stunned.

  “You found it?”

  “Yes,” Honorine said with a grin. “It’s incredible! It flies, Francis! I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re a genius!”

  “And you’re a Mordant,” Francis said.

  The lower half of Honorine’s face remained stuck in a bright, excited smile. The upper half went a bit scrunched with surprise.

  “I’m what now?”

  Francis shook his head and then put a hand to his mouth.

  “You have to be!” he said. “But that’s just impossible! But there’s no other way!”

  He was stammering a bit, holding his hands to his head and staring at Honorine as if she were a ghost.

  “Francis, what are you talking about?”

  “I made those bees to track the Mordant,” Francis said. “That’s all they do. We came here tonight because the bees came back with information—there was a Mordant here.”

  “But there is!” Honorine said. “You just saw Lux! Er, the wolf. I’ve seen others, too.”

  “Tonight you have. But you said you saw another bee weeks ago.”

  “Yes,” Honorine said. “But I lost it. And then it turned up again outside my window.”

  Francis picked up the bee from her hand.

  “That was a different bee,” he said. “It came back with information that it had located a Mordant, one the bee couldn’t recognize. A Mordant without a constellation. I was sure I knew who it was. You see, there’s only one Mordant without a known constellation. He calls himself the Mapmaker.”

  “Oh!” Honorine said brightly, thinking she was about to say something quite helpful. “He is here.”

  Francis looked as if he might fall right out of his boots.

  “How do you know that?” he asked, his eyes wide and wild.

  “I saw him,” Honorine replied, gesturing over her shoulder in the general direction of the house. “Just before you found me with Lux. I spoke to him in that old greenhouse they use for making fertilizers.”

  “You saw him, face-to-face?” Francis asked, shocked, and then even more shocked still. “And you survived?”

  “Well, clearly,” Honorine said. “I’m not dead, am I?”

  “The Mapmaker doesn’t allow anyone to see him,” Francis said. “He kills any humans who get a look at him. And you talked to him?”

  “Well… yes,” Honorine said. “So he doesn’t kill everyone. He let Sam go, too. But maybe only because Astraea made him. Or because Sam didn’t know who he was.…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “I’ve known you my whole life—I thought we were friends.”

  “We are,” Honorine said. “You’re my dearest friend. Francis, I’m not a Mordant.”

  “But the bee found you.” He turned it over in his hands, making painstakingly light adjustments to minuscule controls in the mechanical insect. “The Mapmaker talked to you and let you live. That’s why he came here. Not to find some old journal of my father’s. You’re… one of his kind.”

  Honorine began to shake her head, but Francis held the bee out to her.

  “Take it,” he said when she hesitated. Honorine held
out her hand, and Francis set the little copper bee back in the middle of her palm. The yellow stone eyes immediately shone with light.

  “You see?” Francis whispered. Then he took her other hand and pressed it to the glass covering the copper honeycomb. The bees inside immediately began to move, vibrating in their individual compartments, starting with the ones closest to her hand. The eyes of every single one began to shine.

  Honorine pulled her hand away and furrowed her brow.

  “The eyes,” she said, pointing at the glowing bee in her hand. “Are they made of the same stuff as your mother’s omen stones?”

  “Yes,” Francis said, with a nod. “But—”

  “You’re wrong, then,” Honorine said, with a swift shake of her head. “Those stones don’t glow around me. I’ve never seen them glow before tonight.”

  “You didn’t let me finish,” Francis said, returning the bee to the hive. “Yes, this is the same kind of stone. Part of one I… borrowed… from Mother, even. I’ve been working with it, refining the properties, to make it more reactive. Whatever it is the stone detects in you may be faint, but it’s there.”

  Honorine stepped back from the hive, and the bees grew quiet, though their eyes continued to glow. Then she leaned closer again. The bees, in unison, began to buzz until they shook the glass panes around the hive itself.

  “Why don’t you sit up here with me,” Francis said, “before someone else sees this.” He climbed up onto the railing of the platform and gestured for her to come sit beside him. “Just… stay here, out of the way, and enjoy the view for a moment. I have to think.”

  Honorine needed a moment as well. What Francis was saying couldn’t be true. And yet, the Mapmaker had said that Nautilus would be looking for her once he figured out who she was. And Nautilus was hunting the Mordant.…

  With all the events of the night so far, this was just a bit too much. While Francis stared at his bees, Honorine took a moment to clear her mind, looking up from the blinding light and overwhelming clutter of the ship out over the dark, calm landscape.

  From this height, the whole country below looked like a great map. The dizziness and the ill stomach Honorine had felt on the ladder had vanished. She felt strangely comfortable at this precarious height and exhilarated by the view. She had never seen so much of the world all at one time, roads and forests and towns rolling out ahead of them, topped with endless black sky to the west.

  In the distance lay a stony ridge where the ground suddenly fell away into a steep seaside cliff. Beyond that, there was nothing but rolling ocean all the way to the end of the world.

  “The sea,” Honorine whispered. Her heart trembled in her chest. She hadn’t expected to be so drawn to the sight of the ocean, but there it was, as big and dark and endless as the sky.

  Farther out on the calm water sat a massive, idling steamship, rising from the water like a sheer black cliff. The railings were lined with lights in glass globes, and from the center of the deck rose a huge, glittering crystal dome, lit from within by sparkling golden light.

  “That’s the Gaslight,” Francis said. “Our main ship.”

  He looked perplexed, and anxious and just a bit angry, staring down at the floor with an expression of deep thought.

  “Francis, what’s wrong?” Honorine asked. She stood up and leaned against the railing. “I’m telling you the truth. I’m not a… I’m not one of them.”

  “But what if you are?” Francis asked, looking around suspiciously at the rest of the crew. “And I brought you here!”

  Honorine’s heart tensed in her chest.

  “Why shouldn’t I be here?” she whispered. “What are they doing on that ship?”

  Francis’s eyes looked pleading, apologetic, and even a bit scared. He was still fumbling about for a reply when something moved over his shoulder, out in the sky past the rear of the ship. Something even more impossible than all the impossible things she had already seen that night.

  “Francis?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is that… a… What is happening…?” She couldn’t even get out all the words she had intended to say. All she could do was point toward a particular spot off to the northeast, where the forest they had just passed over a moment ago was now, unmistakably, rising up from the ground and floating into the sky.

  Maybe step back now,” Francis replied, reaching out toward her. But she gripped the railing tightly, unable to look away as the patch of woodland—trees, roots, and all—continued to rise above the rest of the forest until it was completely silhouetted by the faint violet light of dawn just starting to break on the distant horizon.

  “Carina!” shouted Salton from across the ship, and the Nighthawk lurched once more, sending Honorine crashing to the deck.

  “What… is a Carina?” Honorine asked, wide-eyed, as Francis reached out to help her up once more.

  “The Carina,” Francis replied. “The Mordant ship.”

  The mood on the Nighthawk changed at once from excitement to high alert. Crew members rushed about, turning levers, adjusting dials, spooling and unspooling lengths of rope. They were moving swiftly forward, past the forests and farms, over the last proper town before there was nothing but black water on the horizon. But the Nighthawk started sinking. Behind them, the patch of forest in the sky was moving unmistakably in their direction. As a shadow passed over them, Francis and Honorine looked up at the same time to see the gas flames begin to dim and sputter.

  “We’re losing heat,” Francis said, and the Nighthawk dropped lower still.

  “Bloom!” Nautilus called from somewhere near the front of the ship. “Why are we losing altitude?”

  “Fuel lines are good, Captain!” Bloom called back. “Might be close to your lion.”

  “What’s happening?” Honorine asked as the ship dropped again. She and Francis both hung on to the railing to keep from being tossed about by the careening airship.

  “Well,” Francis said as he hugged the banister, “Leo Major can have a curious effect on fire. If he’s nearby, he’s probably trying to bring us down.”

  “The lion is putting out the fire?” Honorine asked as the flames above dissolved into a faint flicker.

  “LION!” came a sudden bellow from across the ship, just as a roar like thunder rumbled below them, rattling pennants on the Nighthawk and shaking Honorine’s bones.

  A blaze of golden light shot into the fading night as the form of the gigantic lion rose up at the edge of the cliff, directly between the Nighthawk and the Gaslight out at sea.

  “We’re going to fly right into him!” Honorine said.

  “No,” Francis said, shaking his head, his mouth breaking into an eager grin. “Keep looking! You don’t want to miss this!” He leaned out to get a better view, letting go of the railing in his excitement.

  “Leo Major, sighted!” Jacques shouted from his station of Victrolas. “Gaslight confirms Sidus Apparatus coordinates!”

  “We’ve got him now!” Francis shouted.

  The lion moved along the cliff, its golden light spilling out over the black ocean like a sunrise. A cold sense of panic slipped down Honorine’s spine, tightening every muscle in her little body.

  “Wait, what are you going to—” she began to ask, but her voice evaporated into the wind as a sudden bright light burst forth from the Gaslight ahead. Between the burning glow of the lion and the sharp rays of electric light flashing through the ship’s greenhouse dome, Honorine could hardly focus her eyes to watch. The light from the Gaslight grew brighter, and suddenly the lion began to flicker, his tail, then his paws, then his mane dissolving into bursts of golden sparks that swirled frantically on the wind, as if trying to stay together.

  “Hold steady!” Nautilus ordered as the Nighthawk’s flames continued to sputter and the lion’s shape did likewise, evaporating into a cascade of sparks that were quickly snuffed out by the draft of the Nighthawk as it raced through the space that had been full of fiery lion only a moment before.

/>   “Sweet merciful heavens,” Honorine sputtered through her shock and surprise. “What on earth was that? Where did he go?”

  “To the Gaslight!” Francis replied excitedly. With the lion subdued, the flames of the Nighthawk roared back to full power, and the ship began to rise at once, nearly tipping Honorine over the side.

  “Hang on,” Francis said. “All we have to do now is get back to the ship before they can catch up with us.”

  Honorine turned back to the impossibly levitating forest ship, which was now looming larger and closer to the increasingly small-feeling Nighthawk. As they sailed over the edge of the cliff and out toward the open sea, struggling to move faster and gain back some altitude, Honorine caught a glimpse of the crow sweeping overhead, a bare blue outline against the sky.

  “Corvus,” Honorine said, tugging at Francis’s sleeve. “Crow, right ahead of us!”

  “Salton!” Nautilus called out from the front of the Nighthawk. “Ready the guns!”

  “Why guns?” Honorine asked. “Can’t they do whatever they did to the lion?”

  “It’s too soon!” Francis shouted. “The Gaslight can’t adjust for the crow that quickly!”

  “He’s right above us!” Salton announced, reaching for a rifle mounted on the railing.

  They could hear feathers and claws brushing against the balloon silk.

  “Steady, men! Stay on course!” Nautilus called out.

  The airship was very close to the water, which at first was a relief to Honorine, for it seemed safer to crash into the sea than onto the dry, hard ground. Then the dark water began to bubble and churn as something huge and glowing faintly red slithered up from the depths.

  “Francis!” Honorine said, hanging dangerously far over the rail. “There’s something down there as well!”

  “Nautilus!” Francis shouted. “I think we also have a sea serpent!”

  Nautilus rushed across the deck to confirm Francis’s sighting.

  “Bloom! More altitude!” he barked.

  “Aye, Captain!” Bloom replied.

  “I don’t have a clear shot, sir,” Salton warned, his hand on the trigger of the rifle.