The Nightmare Garden

3 The Dance of the Air

WE WALKED PERHAPS half a mile, to a clearing down a gravel path off the main road. Skip and his friends kept in tight formation around us. I found it a bit ludicrous—they had no idea who the real threat was. Conrad, presumably, had a Weird like I did, some kind of elemental magic that allowed the Graysons to conjure wind and flame and everything in between. But he had never shown it to me, and I hadn’t brought it up.

It’d be much better if Skip kept thinking of Conrad as criminal but basically harmless, just a stupid human overstepping his bounds. This goal in mind, I walked with my head down, the same ache in my feet that had been there all day twinging in my worn-out boots.

“There’s going to be a weight issue,” said Skip’s short friend. “The dirigible wasn’t built for nine. Or more like ten, including the portly dame.”

“Excuse you!” Bethina snapped. “I’m not an ounce overweight!”

“You’re too heavy for the sky,” Skip said bluntly. “That’s just simple math.”

“Better than being a walking cadaver, like some of us,” I piped up. Skip looked at me, then at Dean.

“Keep a gag on your girlfriend, Deano, unless you want me to do it for you.”

Dean looked at me and, no doubt seeing the murder in my eyes, brushed his hand against mine. “Not the time,” he muttered.

I took a deep breath and then leaned a bit closer to him, so that the sides of our hands stayed in contact as we walked. Dean caught my eye again and gave me a sideways smile.

“You three can walk back to the pickup zone,” Skip told the other Erlkin. “I’ll stay with the prisoner.”

“That’s fifteen miles!” his friend protested.

“You don’t like it, go live in the woods with the slipstreamers,” Skip snapped. “You have your orders.”

We came within range of the dirigible, and surprise made me stop and stare. Far from the metal-walled zeppelins I was accustomed to, the Erlkin’s dirigible looked like it shouldn’t fly at all. It consisted only of a metal cage slung under a balloon with bronze-colored ribs holding it in place, the red skin of the balloon rising and falling like the sides of a sentient creature.

The cage looked delicate, the wire thin and woven intricately, and Skip opened the retractable door with a crank handle. “Get in,” he ordered, shoving Conrad. My brother fell to the floor of the cage, and Skip kicked him hard in the gut.

“Hey!” I shouted, lunging for Skip. Dean grabbed me by the sweater and yanked me back.

“No, Aoife,” he hissed through gritted teeth. I struggled against him for a moment before going still. I’d always had a temper, and it was coming out more and more now that I didn’t have the admonition to be a “proper young lady” hanging over me, as I’d had at the Academy. I gave Skip the worst look I could muster, but I smoothed my hands over my skirt and stood down.

“I’m fine,” I told Dean. “He’s not worth it.”

“You’re a firecracker,” Skip sneered. “Time was, Dean knew just what to do with a girl like you.”

I crouched next to Conrad, cradling his head in my lap as Skip got Cal and Bethina on board and reeled in his mooring lines. “Bastard,” I said to him, stroking my brother’s hair. Seeing Conrad hurt brought back the old feelings, the feelings of the girl who’d do anything for her strong, loyal brother. Conrad coughed weakly.

“I’m fine, Aoife,” he said. “We’ll get this fixed. Just a misunderstanding.”

Once we’d all boarded, the craft rose from the forest floor with a bump. I looked at the ground drifting away below my feet and tried to focus on the construction of the Erlkin’s craft to still my temper and the fear that once we reached Windhaven, we’d be in even worse trouble. The cage was made of fine silver mesh and iron bones that echoed in the wind, giving an empty bong when I tapped my knuckle against it. Hollow bones, like a bird’s, light and strong. The Erlkin were better engineers than the Fae, that was for sure. The Fae feared anything with moving parts, treated it like it was some object from beyond reason if it mimicked their magic in any way.

Except I was in an iron cage, and even now I could feel it pressing on my mind, stirring in my blood and bringing on light-headed fits.

I tried to breathe, to think of orderly numbers and figures, the physics that allowed us to rise from the ground and drift above the treetops. Tried not to think of my dreams or my mother, as impossible as that might be.

“How far?” I asked Dean.

“Not much longer,” he announced. “The faithful of the fold never venture too far from Windhaven. Isn’t that right, Skip?”

Skip said nothing, just kept his hand lightly on the rudder of the dirigible, until we were far enough off the ground that all I could see were the tops of trees, rising through the fog like the blackened fingers of dead hands.

“Not far now,” Skip said, but his tone didn’t fill me with hope.

When Windhaven came into view, it wasn’t a sight that anything in my life, including my visit to the Thorn Land, the home of the Fae, had prepared me for.

The fog parted like the sea before the prow of an old-fashioned ship, and I saw gleaming towers of iron suspended high above the ground.

The distinctive burnt-paper scent of aether reached my nostrils, and as Windhaven got larger, I realized it wasn’t merely suspended—the entire city was flying along before us, moving above the Mists like a great raven casting its shadow across the ground. Iron didn’t poison the Erlkin, I knew—Dean had been just fine spending his life in an iron city surrounded by machines. Good for Dean and the Erlkin. Bad for Conrad and me. My stomach dipped along with the craft.

As we drew closer, I saw that Windhaven’s structures were built on an oval platform supported at the thinnest and widest points by giant fans whirring so loudly that even now, hundreds of yards off, they overwhelmed my ears. At the base of the city a giant aether globe hung by flexible cables, supplying Windhaven with light and communications. It looked small as a marble, or a twinkling star in a vast sky, against the grand scale of the flying city.

A mass of radio aerials flew from the highest tower at the apex of the buildings, which were largely curved but didn’t look as if they’d come together in any particular order. It was, for lack of a better description, a flying scrapyard, albeit one held aloft by engineering that made me dizzy with its genius.

I saw a cluster of spindly docking arms radiating from the back of the flying structure, in the dead spot for drag near one of the giant fans. Some were already occupied by crimson-sailed dirigibles similar to ours. Skip steered us toward an empty berth.

The arm extended toward us, long, flexible cables seeking out the iron ribs of the balloon.

“Magnets,” I said to Cal, analyzing how everything worked out of habit. We’d both been students at the School of Engines before I’d found out he was actually a ghoul and I was actually, in the eyes of the Proctors, an abomination.

“It’s boss,” he murmured, distractedly keeping one hand on Bethina’s where it clutched his arm in a death grip.

The magnets clamped on and reeled us in, safe against the docking arm. A thin ladder that looked like it couldn’t support even its own weight locked onto the outside of the dirigible’s cage.

“I’m not climbing that,” Bethina said instantly.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” Skip said shortly. “Once the city climbs up to night flying altitude, the temperature will drop enough that you should freeze to death in an hour or two. You probably won’t feel a thing.”

Cal put his hand on Bethina’s shoulder. His stringy body was vibrating, and I could tell it was taking everything he had not to change and launch himself at Skip’s throat.

I was thinking it would be a toss-up who clocked Skip first—Cal or me.

“Come on,” Cal soothed Bethina. “It’ll be okay. I’ll be right behind you.” He opened the door and helped her out onto the ladder. She was sheet white, her knuckles the color of bone where she held on to the metal, and I didn’t envy her. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but I had plenty of other fears to fill that void, and being so close to iron was making every one of them stir and raise their heads.

Skip turned to Conrad and pulled a key on a flexible chain from his belt. “I’m going to unlock you to climb up. There are more of us at the top than you could hope to overpower, and if you pull anything you’re going off the side.” He smacked the cage for emphasis, and it rattled. “It’s a long way down.”

“You can lay off the lanternreel-villain talk,” Conrad told him. “I’ll be a good boy.”

Skip curled his lip and looked at Dean. “And what about you, Nails? You going to be a good boy?”

“Doubt it,” Dean told him. “Never managed it before.”

Skip snorted before he manhandled Conrad onto the ladder and followed him up.

Dean helped me out, his hand warm on mine even though the breeze whipping along the docking stations was icy cold. “Why does he call you Nails?” I asked.

“Long story,” Dean said. “Not one I’m going to waste time telling, either.”

I looked up the ladder at the dark, arched mouth of the entrance to Windhaven. The lump of fear in my chest hadn’t dissolved, and in fact felt like it had grown. “Is this in any way a good idea?”

“No,” Dean said. “Probably the opposite, as a matter of fact, but I don’t see that we’ve got much of a choice on this one.”

I didn’t either, so up I went. As we climbed, we went from breathless open space to a tiny tunnel. Skip was waiting at the top of the ladder, snapping the cuffs back on Conrad, and as soon as we were all on our feet on the platform, we marched down the tunnel to a hatch leading to Windhaven proper, marked with a symbol in the shape of a wheel and spokes with wings attached.

More Erlkin dressed in uniforms like Skip’s waited at the hatch, and he handed Conrad off to them before turning to me. “We’ll keep your friends in holding until we determine their status. You too. Nails, you’re free to go.” He gave Dean a look I couldn’t identify. Not anger, not contempt, but not pleasure, either. “I’m sure Shard will want to see you.”

An Erlkin even taller than Skip took my arm. “You come with me, girlie.”

I glanced back at Dean as they led me away. I was smart enough to know that I had to stay calm and passive with this many edgy Erlkin around, so I didn’t fight, but it was hard to take my eyes off Dean. Dean was constant, and he was safety. Separated from him, I didn’t know how long I could hold off the madness dreams. Besides, I didn’t want to leave him and the gleam of his silver eyes, the blush that sat on his lips, full for a boy’s, and the feeling of his strong hands gripping mine.

Dean didn’t look at me. He was staring into the middle distance, and I could tell he was seeing something I couldn’t see at all.

I didn’t get to view much of Windhaven as the Erlkin marched me to my cell. They kept me belowdecks, and we passed through a series of hatches lit by spitting aether globes, the walls pitted with rust and painted with more of the strange pictograms like the wheel-shaped symbol that marked the entry. I reasoned it was the Erlkin language, and these must be shorthand for directions to the various levels of the city-ship. I tucked them away in my memory to write out and puzzle over later. I was good at symbols and riddles, and the sooner I didn’t have to rely on an Erlkin to translate, the sooner I’d be able to escape Windhaven if I had to.

I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I had the bad feeling it was going to, and rapidly. The Erlkin didn’t seem overly friendly now, when they thought Conrad and I were only human. Who knew what would happen if they ferreted out our secret?

The cell wasn’t nearly as cell-like as the one the Proctors had shoved me in when they’d caught me, after I’d escaped Lovecraft. It was more like a deserted classroom, plain metal tables with stenotypes arranged around the perimeter of the room, and a chalkboard with numbers—latitude and longitude—written on it. It looked as if the room’s rightful occupants had just stepped out.

The Erlkin pulled out a chair for me and sat me in it with a hard push. He dropped my bag next to me, after searching it and removing my engineer’s toolkit and anything else I could use to escape. Luckily he didn’t find my notebook, which I’d tucked away in a hidden pocket.

“Stay put,” he said. “Someone will be in after a while.”

“How specific,” I muttered. “Will it be before my hair turns gray?”

The Erlkin sneered at me and closed the hatch. I heard a rumble and saw the rods at the top and bottom lock into place. It would take a blast to dislodge the door now. I was stuck in here until they decided to let me out. If they ever did. Unless I used my Weird.

I had discovered in Lovecraft that I could move machines, that they responded to my blood as my blood responded to iron. But to use my Weird was to invite pounding headaches, hallucinations and nosebleeds. I drummed my fingers against the nearest desk. The Erlkin hadn’t actually hurt anyone yet. I had to save my strength for when we were really in danger. Being on the run had taught me that, if nothing else.

Windhaven moved slowly, but it did move. I could feel the barest vibration of motion from where I sat at the bare desk, spatters of ink coating the pale surface.

I searched the drawers and found a mechanical pencil. It would have to do. I flipped open my battered notebook and sketched out the symbols I’d seen from memory. Underneath I scribbled Erlkin symbols as seen at Windhaven.

My father had never run into the Erlkin, except once. They’d taken him into the Mists, like they had Conrad, before the Fae could get to him.

But were they the same smugglers who had gotten Conrad into trouble? Or had it been someone else, someone who had allowed my father to escape the Fae? I didn’t know, nor did I know where my father was now.

I started an entry on the next page. Writing at least gave me something to occupy my mind, rather than fretting over what would happen when the door opened again. Fretting rarely did anyone any good.

Third entry:

The Erlkin seem hostile at best, but they helped my father escape so the Fae couldn’t force him to do what they eventually made me do—break the Gates, allowing the Fae and their nightmare creatures to flow freely through the Iron Land and attempt to eradicate the iron, then annex the land to the Thorn. And they helped Conrad, or at least a certain group of them did.

They don’t love the Fae any more than they love humans or other trespassers, that much Dean told me. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Straight out of Proctor propaganda, when it encouraged us to inform on each other, to collude to send heretics to the castigator for punishment.

Who’s worse? The Proctors or me? They fought the power beyond their understanding with lies and terror. On the other hand, I’ve read enough from my father’s books about the Brotherhood of Iron to realize that at least I’m not entirely alone in my struggle. The Brotherhood was my grandfather’s cadre of scientists, magic users and scholars. They fought that same power by keeping their society absolutely secret, accepting the occasional casualty and adhering to ancient rules that neither the Fae nor the Proctors are playing by any longer. My father himself fought it … or did he? I still don’t know why he broke with the Brotherhood, only that Draven has a score to settle with him.

And then there’s me. I didn’t even try to fight the power. I set it free, and in the process I shattered the world.

Not shattered—cracked. I’ve cracked the mask, and the true face is showing from underneath, and it is horrible, ugly and crawling with maggots, something no human eye should be forced to look at.

Where is my father? He got me out of Lovecraft, but he could be dead now, for all I know. If he didn’t get out before the blast, before the cataclysm, he could be gone, like all the other poor souls.

Gone. My mother can’t be gone. I can’t have unwound things that badly. I’ll get out of Windhaven and go back and find her, no matter what Conrad says. I’ll do what I have to.

Somehow.

The sound of the hatch wheel spinning alerted me, and I jammed the pencil back into the drawer and my notebook back into my bag. When the hatch opened, I was sitting primly, my ankles crossed and my hands folded, like the star of any comportment class.

A single Erlkin entered, and I tried not to stare. She was nearly as tall as Skip, with twin braids running from her temples down her back, thin and tight as bullwhips. Her clothes were a simple olive drab jacket with a double row of silver buttons and tight military pants tucked into steam ventor’s boots like the ones Dean wore, steel toes gleaming and the leather spit-polished.

“Aoife Grayson, I gather,” she said. She gestured at me with a long-fingered hand. “Stand up.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, more in surprise that she was being so businesslike about taking me prisoner than anything else. “Why?”

Her lip twitched, and I could tell she wasn’t used to being questioned when she gave an order. “Get up, you wretched girl,” she said, and grabbed my arm, hefting me easily out of the chair. I wasn’t big, and she was, and strong besides. “I just want to get a look at you.” She took my chin between her thumb and forefinger and turned my head from side to side. “Skinny,” she said, “but not too skinny. Not a pale-faced wreck, either. That hair—that hair is most definitely human.”

I flushed, even though my grooming or lack thereof should have been the furthest thing from my mind. My black curls had been a gift from my father—my mother had hair as sleek and golden as a lion’s pelt. Back at the Academy, my hair had been one of my primary worries. Things sure did change. “I’ve been in the wind.”

“And a sense of humor,” the Erlkin marveled. “You pass very well. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a sweet little human.” Her grip on my chin tightened, and I felt her fingernails dig into my skin. “But you’re not, are you? You’re a filthy quicksilver-blood changeling.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught your name.” My voice rose on the last word, but I tried to keep the fear there and not let it creep into my face. She knew what I was. Who I was. And I had no idea what the Erlkin did to people like me.

The woman smiled. It was cold, like watching the steel of a switchblade pop out. “I’m Shard. Dean’s mother.”

I stayed frozen, not making eye contact. After a time, Shard tilted her head. “Got anything to say for yourself, Aoife?”

The first thing that came to mind made my stomach drop out, as if Windhaven had begun to plummet from the sky. It was a horrifying thought, but it was entirely possible, seeing as Dean shared half his blood with the Erlkin, just as I shared mine with the Fae. “Dean told you about me. What I am.”

“Hmm?” Shard shook her head, her smile softening a degree so that she no longer looked like she was about to eat me. “He didn’t tell me a thing, dear. I smell it on you, like sewer filth.”

I twitched back a step from Shard. She could have passed for human. Though her features were sharp and ethereal, she didn’t have the predatory quality shared by most of the Erlkin I’d seen, with bones jutting from their faces like they’d been specially made to frighten anyone who looked at them. But she was more terrifying than Skip and his cronies by an order of ten. “I … smell? Strange?”

“I was a tracker, dear,” Shard said. “I spent my days chasing down fugitives and slipstreamers. You stink like a Fae, but you don’t look like one. You’re a changeling. Half-breed is probably the right word.”

“I don’t like that word,” I told her angrily. How dare Shard pass judgment on my family? She didn’t even know us. I was guilty of being gullible and trusting, it was true, but I wasn’t the enemy. Shard let go of my face, giving my cheek a pat that stopped just shy of being a slap. I flinched, and felt like the worst sort of frightened, shrinking girl.

“I don’t give a damn what you like, dear. You brought the shadow of the Fae here. You and that brother of yours.” She folded her arms and regarded me. “You’re lucky Nails is taken with you. Otherwise, you’d be over the side of Windhaven without a second thought.”

With that, she opened the door and gestured me out of the makeshift cell. “Come on,” she snapped, when I hesitated. “We’re not barbarians. Get moving and clean yourself up. That Fae stench is bad enough without your generally unwashed state on top of it.”

Shard led me up another ladder, down another set of halls and to a hatch that was less rusted, and painted with a number rather than one of the cryptic symbols. “You should be comfortable here.” She appraised me. “You’re the size of one of my lieutenants. I’ll have some clothes sent over for you.”

She opened the hatch and waited until I was inside, when she promptly shut and locked it again.

It was a better class of cell, but I was still a prisoner, and I had no idea what was happening to Dean, Conrad and the others. I slung my bag down and took in my new surroundings, sitting on the carpet and wrapping my arms around my legs. I was alone—I felt I was entitled to have a few seconds of pure panic and shaking before I got myself together and tried to find a way out.

Shard hadn’t outright condemned me, but it was clear Conrad and I weren’t welcome. The sooner we were away from these hostile Erlkin, the better.

I breathed in, breathed out and willed my heartbeat to slow down. After a moment, I stood up and examined the room. I would cope. I’d use my brain and get us out of here. It was what I did. Iron or not, I had to keep myself together for just a little longer.

The room was cramped, the ceiling following the curve of Windhaven’s hull, the base of the floating city that held up the spires above, and the bunk barely looked long enough for me to fit into. There was one empty closet and a desk barely larger than a single sheet of paper. A thin door opened onto a water closet with a steam hob and copper covering the walls in one corner, sloping down to a drain so that I could wash standing up.

Otherwise, it was only me and my things.

First things first—I took out my notebook and pried the cover off the air-shaft vent above the door, standing on the desk to reach it. I slipped the notebook inside and slid the vent cover back in place. Knowing that no one would happen upon my writing if they searched the room while I was gone made the tightness in my gut relax a little. I’d gotten very good at hiding things, living under the Proctors—searches for contraband had been practically weekly at the Academy, and with a brother who was a wanted heretic, who sent me letters that I couldn’t bear to throw away, a foolproof hiding place in my dorm room had been essential.

Next thing—I had to find a way out of here under my own power. I wouldn’t be at the mercy of the Erlkin when they so clearly mistrusted me. Besides, I couldn’t waste time at Windhaven—I had to keep my plan in motion. Evade my pursuers, go back to Lovecraft and get my mother.

Once she was safe, I could come up with a cunning plan, like the heroine of some adventure play, to set right what had happened in Lovecraft. I could find a way to outsmart the Fae and reverse the shattering of the Iron Land’s Gate, the only protection ordinary humans had. I might even find a way to stave off iron madness a little longer.

I wished Dean were in the room with me. He was good for telling my ideas to, no matter how far-fetched they were. Dean was a believer in doing the impossible, which he was usually convinced needed only a little push from my brain and his charm to become possible. He had more confidence in me than I did, most days. I could have used his hand in mine, his wiry arms around me, the shine of his silver eyes. I could have used a moment pressed against his chest, smelling leather and tobacco.

I had begun to need Dean. But he wasn’t here. So I was going to have to do this one on my own.

Portholes were an obvious choice. I checked the one above the bed. It was latched but not locked, yet when I looked I saw only the slick riveted side of the hull above and below and small pieces of iron to the side, on flexible springs. Designed, I thought, to increase or decrease drag and enable Windhaven to turn. It really was a miraculous thing, this flying city. Not my city, though. Not where I needed to be.

At any rate, the small rudders were too far away to be of any use. The wind would peel me off the side of the craft and toss me to the swampy ground of this place before I could even think of grabbing for one.

That left the door. The idea made sense on paper, but in reality, the place was lousy with Erlkin on the other side. Plus, I had no idea about the layout of the underside of Windhaven, the myriad tunnels and hatches that comprised the bulk of the flying fortress, so if I did manage to get out, I’d be running blind.

Still, I went to the door and eased my forehead against it. My Weird responded to the locks and the mechanisms in the wall, to the gears that vibrated throughout Windhaven.

It would be easy to slip the lock, and I splayed my fingers against the metal. Pressure built in my skull, my mind aligning itself with the thing that lived in my blood, which could talk to machines and make them its disciples.

When the hatch wheel unlocked and started to turn, I let out a small sound and jumped back onto the bed just as the door swung open.

An Erlkin about my size came in, holding a uniform over her arm. “You Aoife?”

I nodded. “Who are you?”

She curled her lip at me. “Captain Shard told me to bring you clean clothes.” She tossed them onto the bed next to me.

“Thank you,” I said, with a game smile. I really wanted to return her glare, but I was the prisoner, and I wanted the Erlkin to think I was harmless. Well, less harmful than Conrad, anyway. At least until I figured out how much trouble we were actually in.

“Half-breed,” the Erlkin spat at me, and then left, the hatch slamming shut behind her retreating back.

I slumped on my bed next to the clothes, shoving them aside to give myself space. The hull vibrated gently, and I leaned into it. I was exhausted, and being in a place that wasn’t an abandoned farmhouse or the crook of a tree was lulling me to sleep.

I tried to stay awake and think of more plans to get Conrad out of trouble, but sleep stole my senses, and soon I was deep under the waves of dreaming.