Chapter 6 #2
“Where is it now?” he asked, urgency slipping into his tone. His stomach lurched at the possibility that Corsair might have run off with it.
Will followed Amaya’s gaze to a painting of an owl on the wall.
“Captain! You found the study! Excellent work.” Before Will could stop him, Edmund, the Maelstrom’s relic artificer, slid past him into the small room. He did a double-take when he found Amaya standing in his path and adjusted his large, round glasses. “Pardon me. Who are you?”
“Edmund, this is Amaya Sinclair,” Will said.
“Sinclair? As in, Benjamin Sinclair? The general? The Lord Mayor of Sorrento?”
“The same,” Amaya confirmed. She looked wrung out, shoulders tense and eyes shifty.
“Maker,” Edmund said, letting out a low whistle. “She’ll fetch a nice ransom, eh, Captain?”
“We don’t hold people for ransom,” was Will’s dry response. “Bad return on investment.”
The artificer lost interest in Amaya quickly, turning his attention to the books. He ran his fingers along the spines with the tenderness of a lover before selecting the volumes that piqued his interest, stacking them on the desk.
Edmund had a unique talent for untimely interruptions, but this time, Will decided to manipulate his passionate pursuit of knowledge to conduct a small experiment. If Amaya Sinclair’s necklace bore any resemblance to the Skystone, Edmund would recognize it with little more than a glance.
Will helped the artificer along by nudging past Amaya and swinging the owl painting aside. Sure enough, a lockbox lay embedded in the wall.
The revelation tore Edmund away from his books. “Woah. How’d you know about that?”
“Intuition. Can you get it open?”
“Naturally.” Edmund’s attention shifted to the lockbox. “Just give me a moment.”
Will stepped out of the way and placed a hand on Amaya’s back, nudging her out of the cramped room. She stiffened at his touch and jerked away, which he might have expected, but he wasn’t expecting the cry that leapt from her throat the second they stepped outside.
“What now?” he asked.
“What happened?” Amaya swayed on her feet, and Will suddenly realized she’d probably never seen so many bodies strewn about, lifeless and drained of blood.
Ford and Crowe were making quick work of it, stacking the carcasses to be burned, but the residual evidence of violence clung to the deck. Amaya’s shoulders trembled.
“It’s just business,” Will explained, his voice devoid of emotion. Death and brutality hadn’t bothered him in a long, long time. “Holding another Sky Lord’s crew member captive is—”
“A breach of the codex, I know,” Amaya finished. “Phineus told me. Why does that mean you had to kill them?”
Will wasn’t sure what to say, and even less sure what to do with an emotional girl on his hands. Did he remove her shackles? Send her to the brig? Offer her a room? She seemed innocent, but that didn’t mean she was harmless.
A little, intrusive voice in his head suggested inviting her to his room, but he dismissed the thought with a surge of self-loathing. He hadn’t the time, let alone the energy, to entertain impulses like that. Or women in general.
“Captain!” Edmund burst from the study behind them and nearly collided with Amaya. She jumped aside as Edmund thrust a small assortment of papers into Will’s hands and held up a necklace—the necklace. It swung like a pendulum, catching the light.
While Will tried to find his bearings on the papers he now held, Edmund clicked the locket open. On one side was a picture of a woman and a young girl who resembled Amaya. But on the other side . . . well, her pretty eyes had some competition.
The blue stone inside glittered in the sunlight like a thousand tiny, iridescent diamonds. Will hadn’t seen anything like it before, which, unfortunately, supported his hunch.
“This is the Skystone!” Edmund cried. “Do you have any idea what that means?”
Will looked between his artificer, the shining pendant he held, and the beautiful, irritating girl.
He wasn’t sure he believed Edmund held the Skystone. He wasn’t fully convinced the Skystone existed, despite Graven’s prolonged obsession with it—but a quick look at the design sketch Edmund had given him made one thing very clear: Graven thought this was the Skystone.
Corsair must have been tasked with retrieving it for him, but he’d had to abandon ship without it. The implications of that were enormous.
Will’s mind started to whirl. Graven had sought the Skystone for as long as Will could remember. But if he’d actually found it . . .
All of Graven’s ranting and raving about seizing the relic industry for his own and bringing Veridian to its knees would be more than the delusions of a deranged pirate.
He could make those goals a reality.
A chill raced down Will’s spine.
“This is the key to unlocking the greatest treasure in history!” Edmund continued. “Just imagine, Captain. All we have to do is figure out how to use it to traverse the Aether Storm, and then we find the Skyvault! We’d make history.”
Edmund’s face lit up in a way Will knew all too well. Neither he nor the artificer would get any sleep tonight.
Will looked at Amaya. “Do you know how to use it?”
He hadn’t expected that question to annoy her, but she gritted her teeth. “No. That was the problem.”
That was a problem—a big one. No airship in existence had survived the swirling storm of energy that encompassed the Marruvian Mountains.
The harsh winds caused the floating mountains to shift in unpredictable ways that made it impossible—and deadly—to navigate.
There was no set path. If an airship was lucky enough to survive the winds, the mountains would crush it.
Will had flown by the Aether Storm a couple times, but never dared nor desired to brave it.
The miniscule chance of finding Ronan Pearce somewhere within the storm wasn’t worth the comparatively high probability of death.
A vast graveyard of airships lay in the Tamarix Desert beneath the storm—a grim, eternal resting place for both man and machine.
“I’ll have to run some tests,” Edmund said, “but I’m positive there’s Aether in this. Surely we can discern its function. And we’ll need to review the documents in more detail. But at first glance, this is rather compelling evidence.”
“Now wait just a second,” Amaya said, shocking both Will and Edmund as she stomped forward. Her fierce glare lingered on the pendant momentarily before shifting to Will. “That necklace belonged to my mother. It’s mine, and I want—”
“Actually, Miss Sinclair, I believe it’s mine,” Will interrupted.
Amaya glowered at him as he took the necklace from Edmund and dropped it in his pocket. He didn’t know what to think about all this, but he knew one thing: she wouldn’t be getting it back anytime soon.
“I bet there’s more evidence in the study,” Edmund said. Without another word, he scurried off to investigate.
The knot in Will’s stomach expanded, putting pressure on his chest. If they’d just intercepted the Skystone, Graven would be headed their way. They needed to get moving, and fast.
“Hey, uh, Lexington?” Amaya moved to stand before him. “Could I get some help with this? Please?” She shrugged her shoulders to reference her restraints.
Right. He also needed to figure out what to do with her.
Will folded his arms. “Well, since you said please. Do you have the key?”
“What? Of course not.” Her face reddened in frustration. “I should think any pirate worth his salt could unlock a simple set of shackles.”
“Careful,” Will warned, raising an eyebrow.
Maker above, she was impetuous. He almost had sympathy for her, though. She looked exhausted, hungry, and in desperate need of a bath. He skimmed the state of her dress.
“Whose blood is that?”
“What?”
“On your dress. Whose blood is that?”
The question clearly pained her. Will noticed the way her shoulders went rigid, her jaw clenched, and her dark eyebrows knit together. When she spoke, it was with slow, precise enunciation.
“When Corsair kidnapped me, he killed my best friend. His name was Camden. I . . . I tried to save him, but . . .”
Will regarded her with an analytical stare, and Amaya glared straight back. He expected her to shatter any moment, to break down and cry and beg for her life, her freedom . . . but she didn’t. She was shaken, but not yet fractured.
This girl, with her frothy dress and ballerina shoes, had a skeleton of steel.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, seeming to realize he was contemplating her fate.
“To you?” Will found her choice of words surprising. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it already.”
“Will you send me home, then? My father can pay.” She paused before adding, “I’d appreciate the chance to mourn my friend.”
Her request was so innocent, Will nearly considered granting it. But he couldn’t make a decision that implicated his crew because of Amaya’s sob story and doe eyes—not until they had answers. He hardened his mask, straightening and squaring his shoulders.
“Not yet.”