Thistle in the Sky | #NONC2022 | ✔

Chapter Thirteen

For a too-long moment, Farah stood frozen. Too many memories of the inside of the Verulux coursed through her mind, which leaped to worst-case scenarios with the alacrity of a gunshot. The Ariomma was under attack. It had to be, unless this was a warning shot, but no one fired a warning shot somewhere no one would see it. Farah retreated until her back was against the staircase, knife outheld. The fog-clouds pressed in around the gondola. Anything could be out there, and even if there had been a lookout on top of the envelope, they wouldn't have been able to see it.

She hadn't heard a gun firing. Only silent weapons could make this enemy even more dangerous than they were already. Daring a glance over her shoulder, Farah scoured the gondola floor for any sign of the bullet that she already suspected she wouldn't find. Like on the Verulux, whatever had punched the hole in the window had left no other mark on the room. No ricochet, no exit hole, and no ammunition.

Ship rules told her to alert the crew. Farah's mind spun. The odds of them believing her stacked in her favor—theoretically, at least. The glass scattered the floor inside, meaning the window had been hit from outside the ship... but the window right next to it opened with a simple latch. She was the only one here. And the only two people who could confirm similarity to whatever took down the Verulux were Endah and Baskoro. One of those wanted her dead. The other planned to use her as a pawn to discredit Jhaṛa's position as captain of the ship. Either of them would immediately twist these circumstances against her. And if they'd been listening to Esfandiar, they could argue too that she'd done it to turn the crew against one another.

There was nobody she could trust. The crew could not know she saw this, let alone that she was near this room when it happened. Farah lowered her knife with a shaking hand. Then she bolted back up the stairs to the catwalk beyond. She did not stop again until she was safe at the very back of the ship, so alone, she could hear no other minds except Kaz's. He was somewhere out by the engines.

Farah's stomach twisted. Kaz had said before that he wanted to befriend Mega, the ship's mechanic. He stood a good chance of it, too. Mega was tough and strong-minded, but she valued hard work and people who were willing to get their hands dirty, and Kaz was eager to please. His heat-manipulation ability also gave him an edge in the engine room, where half the equipment was hot enough to put off steam if you spat on it. Or so Farah had heard.

She wanted to tell Kaz about this. Keeping secrets from him went against every promise they'd ever made to one another. But if Kaz heard about this, he would take the matter straight to Jhaṛa. Maybe even Jhaṛa and Baskoro. Farah could try to explain to him why she didn't want them to know, but he would fight her on that—he always did. He wanted to believe that everyone around him was as kind as he was, until they came after his sister, by which point it was too late.

If they'd been on land with somewhere to run to, Farah might have weighed the balance of options differently. As it stood, there was nothing she could do. She returned to the crew's quarters, curled up in her bunk, and gripped her knife under the blankets until Endah arrived. Farah's skin tightened. There was something off about the second pilot's thoughts. She was cloaking them, letting her mind spin in random directions in a chaotic pattern that Farah could never parse; each thought was gone before she could lock onto it and try to figure out what it meant.

"Go clear the envelope," said Endah dismissively. "Jhaṛa's orders."

I don't care if you actually do it.

It wasn't a thought. It wasn't anything clear at all—just an impression, but one that struck Farah just below the breastbone with enough force to knock her off-balance. Endah was many things, but uncaring about whatever ship she was responsible for steering wasn't one of them. And already, she'd turned and left. The impression lingered in her departing thoughts. If she checked the crew's quarters again and Farah was still there, Endah would not report her to anyone.