“If we cut through the Dowager’s Quarter and then follow the path of silence toward—” Little Wing had begun when the captain cut her off.
“No.” The captain cut her hand through the air, final. “We flee.”
“But—”
“We will not be crushed beneath the foot of this Collective. Arcadia is dying from the inside, and I do not plan on being here when it finally goes.”
The captain turned to Legate.
“You’re welcome to come with us.” She said it in a way that implied she knew Legate would say no, and he obliged her.
“This is home. If Cantrev wants to take it from me, I will fight. Others will fight.”
Kindred thought of Mick, of his workers ready for this battle, and nodded.
“Good luck.”
“And you.”
As they moved back through the smoke, Captain Caraway whistled into the chaos, pulling her crew to her, and they emerged, some bleeding, some injured, but they emerged.
And for the second time that morning, Kindred ran through the streets of Arcadia. She could only imagine what those pulled awake must have thought: smoke from a fire beginning to poison the sky, city-wide bells only beginning to ring. And the crew of a ship—or most anyway; some had not made it, and for that, later, there would be a reckoning—racing through the snaggle-angled streets, bloodied and soot-covered and running for their lives.
The blaze would cost the city a heavy price—or it would have before the Collective, Kindred reckoned. Now, with those in charge of the water in their pockets, the councils could probably get the water to put out the flames for nothing, for the low cost of not putting chains around hands, for not throwing bodies in jails.
They would put out the fire, Kindred was sure. Some might even haul in sand to smother the blaze, but for something as lithe and quick as this fire? It would need water hauled fast from wells and rolled out in barrels, private stores appropriated for the public good. But how many more would go thirsty because of it? How many rations would be quartered, halved?
Cantrev’s guards were still clustered on the deck of The Errant as Kindred and the rest of the crew returned. Little Wing was first to the deck, and with the rest of the crew right behind her, she made short work of them.
As she leapt aboard, Kindred felt a hand on her shoulder.
“For saving our collective asses,” Captain Caraway said, her bleeding, swollen face straining to smile, “I officially revoke my order to stay back.”
Kindred felt a flash of something like joy as the Captain left her to the hearthfire.
* * *
“Prepare to set sail!” Captain Caraway shouted.
Kindred cast a glance back toward the city, but apart from the smoke and the now-distant alarms, she saw no evidence of pursuit. At least, not until she looked at the towers and saw the mages there frantically preparing their fires.
“The mages, Captain,” Kindred said, running for the hearthfire, feeling its weak call, the tiny remnants of heat and spirit left in the bowl. She didn’t know whether Rhabdus had fallen in the fight or was still rushing back, but there was no time to find her. The ship needed to sail, and for that to happen, Kindred needed to light the fire.
“Right,” the captain said, “once the hearthfire is up, light the fore and starboard casting fires! And hurry up!”
“Aye.”
Kindred tossed aside the hearthfire cover, exposing the ash and splinters of nearly cooled bone to the air. From the bone closet she pulled out the lengths of white with little thought. They needed to move, only to move. This would not be precision work.
She sang as she worked, stilling her spirit, calming her shaking hands, forcing her actions into music and forcing music into her actions. It was a children’s song, a silly thing she’d stolen from the Marchess, but it was how Kindred learned to stoke a nearly dead fire, how to begin a voyage: in innocence, in purity, in honesty.
“To light, to light, to light the fire,
First ash, then bone, then flame,
Stir the ash, stir and stir,
Grey on fingers, grey on hands,
Ash on tongue, ash on teeth.”
Kindred raked her hands through the ash, covering her fingers, her hands with it, feeling the grains pack hard under her fingernails. A gentle rain of grey fell as she lifted first one hand and then the other out of the rich bed, touching tongue and teeth, tasting the bitter dregs of their previous journey, seeing the images of their travels as the ash caught in her saliva and disappeared into her body.
“Now bone, oh bone, a gift to burn,
Let captain’s words alight, arise,
For wind, a gift, a flame,
Now bone, oh bone,
Light, light, light.”
Her hands stilled, motions smoothed by the music, Kindred took two of the bones—long and thin, probably bones from an arm—and crossed them in the now-disturbed ashes. She pulled the knife from her robe and poked a finger, eliciting a tiny bubble of red.
A ghost wind stirred the ash, swirling it into a tiny whirlwind dancing around the crossed bones. The fire called, desperate to flare into being, and Kindred obliged.
As she sang the final words—light, light, light—she touched her pricked finger to the bones, to their convergence point, bloodying the perfect white.
For a moment, the red of the blood paled, as though it were taking on the color of the bones, leeching from them instead of into them, becoming bone-like.
“Burn all, burn all,” Kindred sang, voice low and haunting.
The circle of pale red caught, blossoming a viridian flame that spread greedily along the lengths of bone.
“Hello, old friend,” Kindred whispered.
The Errant rose from the chains of the cradle.
A cheer came from the crew as they rushed about the deck, tying and untying, pulling and pushing.
The captain rushed past Kindred.
“Take us back, away,” she roared. “And where is Rhabdus?”
A high-pitched whine cut through the jubilatory sounds on deck, and then Kindred was pulling herself up from the deck, which was pitching in the grasses of the Sea. She looked up at a great gash in the foredeck mast. Blue scintillas of arcane energy still burned in the wood where the spell had struck.
The mages had begun their assault.
“Casting fires!” The captain shouted. “Little Wing, Stone-Gwen, Cora, to me!”
Coals from the hearthfire were the easiest and safest way to light a casting fire, but this hearthfire had no coals yet, at least none hot enough. It would have to be the fire itself.