Cyrus asked. “Is the sanctuary truly under attack by a foreign deity?”
Again, she didn’t answer. Could she trust him?
“I’m Avel’s air warden. I need to know.”
Francesca decided to stall. “You have an order from an officer of the canonist.”
“And I am obeying it.” He studied her. “But do you know what happened?”
She looked straight ahead.
They flew two more circles. Suddenly Cyrus pointed to the north. “See that?” He seemed to be pointing to empty sky. “It’s an incoming airship. We aren’t expecting one for another ten days.”
Francesca narrowed her eyes and barely made out a white speck in the blue.
“Fran, you had better tell me everything. This is grave.”
She looked at him, but his light brown eyes were fixed on the distant airship. “Why?”
“That rig,” Cyrus said, pointing again, “is moving too fast to be anything other than a warship.”
Chapter Nine
Shannon-the-text touched his fingertips to those of Shannon-who-still-lived. Golden light flushed down the ghost’s arm as his author replaced lost text. He became aware of how each of his sentences was an analogy for part of his author’s body. He became aware that he was not his author or even his author’s mind, for there was no mind without body. And yet … at the same time he was his author. It was impossible, but it was so. He was a creation.
The ghost shuddered to know reunion with this glorious body, this frail body, infested by unrestricted growth. Here was the burden of disease and age. Here was death, so close.
The ghost withdrew his hand. “Shouldn’t we be one?” he asked, but his throat could make no noise.
“Write to me in Numinous,” his author said.
The ghost cast a golden sentence that would read, “What happened to us? I thought you were murdered.”
His author caught the words and translated them. “Murdered,” he said with a frown. “Why would I have been murdered?”
The ghost wrote a quick sentence. “I woke in a library, holding a Numinous sentence that claimed I’d been killed and needed to discover the murderer and warn Nicodemus.”
His author winced. “Last summer, Typhon’s hierophants stormed our safe house in the North Gate District. They killed some of Nicodemus’s students, nearly killed me. They stole you from me. I thought they had deconstructed you … I had given up hope.” He looked back down the hallway. “Come into the darkness before someone sees me.”
Stepping farther into the shadows, the ghost wrote another question: “But who wrote the note about your murder?”
Again his author winced. “That doesn’t matter now. We’ve found you. Come.”
From the dark came a sound like bare feet slapping floorboards. Then a commanding whisper: “Magister, we’re going now. The Walker’s preoccupied with the infirmary kites. Can you run?”
The ghost sucked in a breath. The voice filled him with memories of Starhaven and the Heaven Tree, of lessons and arguments and a fierce olive-skinned, green-eyed young man.
His author replied, “Nicodemus, come see whom I’ve found.” The old man’s voice quavered, and the ghost was touched that his author was so moved.
The footfalls sounded again.
This far into the hallway there was little light, but the ghost could still make out the figure that appeared. He was older, barefoot, and dressed only in leather pants that ended at the knees. A thin scar ran along his left side, and his long black hair was tied into a ponytail. There were other, inhuman figures in the shadows.
When Nicodemus noticed the ghost, he leapt back into the dark. “Magister, get back! Typhon’s corrupted it.”
Shannon-the-author shook his head. “Nico, don’t worry.” Again he moved farther into the dark. “Remember what we discussed.”
The old man walked on, but the ghost did not follow. His author should have demonstrated more joy or relief at their reunion. Dread filled the ghost as he understood. His author’s grief was not for what had happened; he was grieving for something that was about to happen. Suddenly the ghost knew what his author had “discussed” with Nicodemus.
Shannon-the-author turned back to the ghost. The old man closed his eyes. “Nicodemus,” he whispered, “do it quickly.”
The ghost turned to flee, but out of the dark flew Nicodemus, teeth bared and fists clenched around unseen wartexts.
Chapter Ten
When the lofting kite rose to a height above the Auburn Mountains, Cyrus moved his hands along the suspension lines, and the canopy split itself in two.
Half of the red sailcloth wrapped around Cyrus and Francesca, covering them from chests to feet. Short lateral wings formed along this encasement. The remaining cloth bulged into a round jumpchute that, blasting wind, pulled them toward the mountains.
A stiff textual shield formed within the tension lines, protecting Francesca and Cyrus from the rushing air. It was not so loud as to force either occupant to yell, but it was loud enough that both had to speak with conscious volume.
As they flew, the distant white speck that Cyrus insisted was an incoming warship grew slightly larger. Francesca asked about it, but Cyrus declined to explain until they were close enough to recognize the ship.
Meanwhile, Francesca watched the reservoir pass under them. They had flown over the main body of water and were now above the narrows—six riverlike projections that wound into the green foothills. She could make out a few single-sail fishing boats on the water.
At various points in their twisting course, the narrows expanded into wide coves. In these bobbed small lake towns, lashed-together house boats anchored in deep water to ensure they never drifted close enough to the shore to be vulnerable to lycanthrope attack.
Now, at the rainy season’s end, the fisher folk followed the water as far out as the base of the Auburn Mountains. In the dry season, Cala drained the reservoir to irrigate the canyon floor, and the fisher folk slowly migrated their lake towns toward the city. When the reservoir went dry, all of the lake towns banded together to form a small muddy township just outside the Sliding Docks. Some would find work in the Water District; others would chance a wagon ride over the Auburn Mountains to work among the fishers in Coldlock Harbor.
“Fran,” Cyrus said over the wind. “I really must know: What was attacking the sanctuary?”
She looked at him. He looked back. She had no idea what had actually happened in the infirmary. Should she tell him what she had seen? Or, at least, what she had believed she had seen? Deirdre had said that Cyrus was trustworthy, but Francesca didn’t know if she could trust Deirdre.
Besides, Deirdre didn’t know Cyrus like Francesca had known him.
The whole situation was a disaster. Usually, she would remind herself that confronting disasters was what she did. But an hour ago she had failed in a crisis, killed her patient. Worse, a demonic spell had been wrapped around her in the form of that anklet for years. The world as she had known it had broken to pieces.
And that, Francesca reminded herself, was all the more reason why she had to remain composed. After a long breath, she smiled tightly.
Cyrus had always been committed to duty. So long as her plans coincided with his sense of honor, he would make an excellent ally. But how would he react when she explained a demon might be ruling Avel? For all Francesca knew, Cyrus was a demon worshiper. She had to choose her words carefully.
“Francesca,” she said loud