Ebb-La-Kem frowned—he seemed to do that a lot. “All in time. For now, be glad of what your crew here have earned!”
Morrow Laze sighed heavily. “Get on with it, Ebb. I haven’t time for this.”
“Fine!” Ebb-La-Kem said. “Your other crew, the ones who failed, will be taken care of, given the same food and clothing and amenities to which all Once-City citizens are entitled. They have either been assigned to long-range vessels or given a spot on the crews of our dew-skimming ships. To fail the test suggests a person cannot or will not thrive in the Once-City. You Arcadians fear the Sea, and we have seen—too often—those who fear the Sea go mad while living here. But even despite that, we will take care of your crew by giving them the life on the Sea they desire, only working for a different flag now. They will live on the Sea—either aboard a vessel sailing for the horizon or living in the quarters on the dew-skimming ships, riding out each morning to resupply our water stores. The Once-City will use their labor, just as it will use yours.”
“What do you mean?” Long Quixa asked.
“This situation is complicated,” Ebb-La-Kem said. “Though true citizens of this place, your arrival has also brought danger to our great city. Danger and the threat of great violence.”
“What danger and violence have we brought?” Kindred asked. She thought of the pirates who had chased them into port so many days before and the pirates who had threatened to destroy them as they neared the Once-City, who might have done so had Kindred not plunged The Errant into the Sea.
Silence, rife with unspoken meaning, filled the room as the members of the Council exchanged pointed looks. Finally Ebb-La-Kem spoke again, ticking the items off on his fingers.
“A shipful of Arcadians, long a group antagonistic toward our people”—Ebb-La-Kem nodded at Little Wing—“and several of whom could not pass our simple test. A captain with a record even we have heard of. A chaotic train of enemy ships moving through the thorny pass. A ship crashing into our dock and causing damage to the exterior of our home as it sinks.”
Ebb-La-Kem finished with his voice raised, all semblance of the courteous lord gone now. The other Council members were nodding along with him—all except Morrow Laze, Kindred saw. He stared up at the ceiling, as if bored.
“So, you can see that not all is as simple as it might be. What is it to be done about the damage to our city? How to make up for this? And what—”
Too long being trapped in her cell, of listening to her crewmates wail and scream and go silent, all of it had made Kindred bold.
“That’s all nonsense,” she said, aware that Long Quixa was looking at her, trying to get her attention, but Kindred looked straight at Ebb-La-Kem. “We Arcadians were running from Arcadia. One ship couldn’t damage this place, not in any serious way. And Cantrev’s warships never docked here—we led them near the Once-City, but if they didn’t dock, they won’t be able to find it again, not once it moves. There’s no way Cantrev’s ships will be able to restock, gather more ships, and make it back before the Once-City is away. They’ll be looking without any help in all of the Forever Sea.”
Most of the councillors were exchanging looks of annoyance. But The Word, their strange green eyes unblinking, watched Kindred with interest, and Morrow Laze had dropped his gaze from the ceiling to consider her as well. At the other end of the table, Seraph was openly grinning at Kindred.
“Ridiculous!” Ebb-La-Kem said, though he had lost some of his righteous anger, and he ran a hand through his hair, disturbing the careful waves of it. “You have brought danger to this place, and that’s simply all there is to it!”
Something odd was going on.
“What our hearthfire keeper is trying to say . . .” Long Quixa began, already trudging into an apology, damage control.
But Kindred wasn’t listening. Memories that seemed a lifetime away but were only days old moved through her mind: The Errant rising from the deeps, hearthfire already beginning to sputter, warships making contact behind and the Once-City ahead, her first look at that fabled place. A tree rising from the Sea, prairie antithesis, its bark and bulk home to a patchwork panoply of vibrant flowers, their vines reaching from the Sea like fingers, reaching—
Reaching.
Kindred’s breath stopped up in her throat.
The Greys, a rash spreading over the Sea, circling the Once-City, poisoning its grasses save for a few carefully maintained paths through.
She made eye contact with Seraph, who nodded at Kindred, watching her figure it out.
Vines with impossible colors winding their way around the tree, vines growing up from the Sea. The Greys, circling like a cage.
“You’re stuck here,” Kindred said, her voice cutting into Quixa’s attempts at apology. Ebb-La-Kem flinched as Kindred spoke, and she saw a ripple of eyes widening as the other councillors turned to stare at her. “We’re all stuck here.”
Seraph laughed.
“The Once-City doesn’t sail anymore, does it? All those stories about the dreaded Once-City cutting through unknown swaths of Sea beyond the horizon—they’re not true anymore, are they? It doesn’t matter at all if Cantrev hasn’t actually docked here—they don’t need the special magic you get from that to find the Once-City, because it’s not moving anymore. You’re here, waiting to be found.”
Ebb-La-Kem opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Clever,” Morrow Laze said after a sigh. “How did you know?”
“The vines. The Greys.”
Morrow Laze nodded, his eyes going up to the ceiling again.
“I told you she was good! Didn’t I tell you?” Seraph said, turning to the councillors around him, all of whom seemed too shocked by Kindred’s deduction to engage with him.
“The City floats adrift with anchor down,” The Word said, their voices sending chills up and down Kindred’s skin.
Kindred felt the blood stop up in her veins as she thought of the ramifications. Cantrev and the other warmongers on Arcadia had always been reluctant to attack the pirates, because they believed the Once-City was always on the move. In addition to navigating the Roughs, they would be sailing out into a Sea that, as far as any mapmaker in history was concerned, went on forever. It was impossible if a person trusted the stories about the Once-City—stories that had apparently been true for some time.
But now Kindred and everyone else aboard The Errant had given Cantrev enough information to call the Once-City’s bluff. They knew where the Once-City was, and even if they only came back in an effort to track the Once-City, they would find it again.
“Now you see,” Morrow Laze said, leaning forward, angry eyes the color of storm clouds. “It will only be a few span before they return.”