The song had been a bent and broken thing, uncanny, almost right.
Maybe, just maybe, the vines and the Greys were only symptoms of the real problem in the Once-City. A ship with enough power, willing to burn enough bones, could push through the soupy morass of the Greys.
Maybe the real problem was with the hearthfire at the heart of this place, though how massive it would need to be to power a whole city, Kindred couldn’t imagine.
“Brilliant!” Seraph cried, slapping a hand down on the table in front of him. “I told you all, didn’t I? That dive was no accident! She can help me with the hearthfires of the ships and in dealing with our other issues.” He winked at Kindred conspiratorially.
Ebb-La-Kem opened his mouth to speak, but Seraph continued. He had the clever tendency, Kindred realized, to take a breath two or three words before the end of a sentence, which allowed him to continue into the next without a pause.
“We have some problems, of course; typical things: bone efficiency, fibrous constraint, heat and breath regulation, all things I’m sure you’ve worked with before on your ships. How many builds would you use on an average voyage? Average time for a single hearthfire to burn? Any familiarity with—”
Ebb-La-Kem cleared his throat and gave Seraph a pointed look. Kindred got the distinct impression that Ebb-La-Kem’s role on the Council was mostly dedicated to keeping Seraph in check.
“We can discuss it later,” Seraph said. “I’m just excited that you’ll bring your expertise and help me work with the hearthfires.” He beamed at Kindred.
The Council returned to its deliberations, and Kindred tried to ignore the looks of the other crew. Finally, Ebb-La-Kem cleared his throat and spoke.
“Do your ships not normally sail with two hearthfire keepers? Your expertise promises much, Kindred, but is there another who might help with this? Our hearthfires can be particularly unpredictable here; should you suffer an accident, might there be another who could step in for you?”
Kindred cast a glance sideways at the crew next to her, at Scindapse, whose eyes had widened in fear as she stared at the ground.
“We lost our other keeper on the journey here. It is just me,” Kindred said, turning back to the Council, before adding, “but I will be more than enough.”
Seraph laughed and slapped the table again.
“Very well,” Ebb-La-Kem said. “Conditioned on each member of your crew helping in the ways previously specified, and assuming your keeper can deliver on her promises, the Council is willing to offer a required time of fifty days of labor followed by the delivery of a ship. Are we agreed?”
Quixa looked among the crew, including Kindred for a long moment, before nodding.
“Agreed.”
Somehow, despite everything, Kindred felt excitement. What would pirate hearthfires look like? What did those ships find out in the fields of forever? And did they know something of what lay below?
“Wonderful,” Ebb-La-Kem said. “Most agreeable. Well, then, that wraps things up. One of The Word’s city guards will lead you to the housing we have set up for you, and instructions will be provided for each of you to follow your tasks.”
Ebb-La-Kem paused for a moment, sitting up straighter in his chair and making eye contact with each one of them before continuing.
“Your old lives are done. You are no longer Arcadians. Welcome to the Once-City. Welcome, new citizens.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“We’ve assigned you to Cruel House.”
Finally, pausing his nonstop narration, Seraph gestured with a grand smile at the house behind him. Kindred looked up at the towering three-story building, one of the few made entirely of wood and stone. Farther up, the sunlight lanced through the apertures cut into the outside walls and was redirected down by the many reflective shields hung from the ceiling. Over time, it had bleached the building until it had become a pale brown, like dirt sapped of all moisture. Windows dotted the front of the house, and the door was only a hollow frame.
“This place has a long history in the Once-City! There are several speculations, each stranger than the last, about when exactly Cruel House was built. Some argue that . . .”
Since leaving the Hanged Council’s chambers, and seeing Little Wing taken off to the house of healing, Seraph had talked about everything from history to the Sea, of his time on the Hanged Council, of life in the Once-City. He had spoken of everything, it seemed, walking beside Kindred and occasionally asking her questions. When did she begin sailing? How long had she been keeping the hearthfire? Did she regularly perform controlled dives? Was it her captain’s orders or her own?
A ripple of discomfort moved around the faces of the others at these questions, the loss of their ship—the only real home the older women had known for some time—still too near. Seraph spoke as if they were all friends, citizens together for longer than half a day, and even as Kindred was pulled nearer to him by his questions and her answers, she felt the distance grow between her and the crew.
“We’ve dealt with ships below Sea level, of course,” Seraph said, grinning at Kindred, oblivious to the pain around him. “The Once-City is, after all, perpetually below the Sea. But the way you managed it! Elegant and precise and amazing! Once we’re through getting you settled, you can talk me through the theory.”
This was their walk to Cruel House, a hundred questions and a thousand answers, and though she felt some of the stabs of sadness in thinking of The Errant, shattered at the bottom of the Forever Sea, she couldn’t help but also feel a growing sense of possibility. Here she was, walking the streets of a fabled city floating farther out in the Forever Sea than she had ever been, in a place that seemed on a fundamental level different than Arcadia.
Below the Sea. Among the Sea. In spaces that opened themselves to the world outside.
And so she listened to Seraph speak, interested in this place and finding, to her surprise, she was interested in him, too. Had she ever tried compass plant in build? No, she hadn’t; she’d only just today realized it still existed. Would she like to join him as he experimented with it in the next few days?
She found she did.
None of this was the linear path of progress espoused in Arcadia. This was not serving her time, gaining experience, building her credentials to get her own ship, to grow her riches, to buy bigger and better. Kindred felt herself pulled by some inchoate thing inside, something that felt impossible to separate from the world just outside, closer than it had ever been. She breathed in the prairie wind, out the prairie wind and listened to the heartbeat of this new world.
Soon enough, they stood before Cruel House, which sat at the edge of the first level, backed nearly all the way to the outside wall. So close, in fact, that standing there, Kindred could hear the sway of the Sea as it brushed against the Once-City, could see its dance just through one of the apertures cut high above.