Blood and Water - The Darkling

Chapter 21: Stay Busy

*Unedited

⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✷ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✷ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ☽ ☪ ☾ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✷ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✷ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆

𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖚𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖞, everyone comes back to fill me in on the plan. We stayed up late, talking through the logistics. The realities of the Fold complicate everything - where and how we will enter, whether or not it's even possible for Alina to cloak herself, let alone the others, how to isolate the Darkling so everyone else can get the hostages clear. We have no blasting powders, so we have to make our own. I also want to ensure that the others have some way out of the Fold if anything happens to my sister and me.

We leave early the next morning and cross back through Dva Stolba to retrieve the Starling from the quarry. It's strange to see it sitting where we'd left it, tucked safely away like a pigeon in the eaves.

"Saints," Adrik says as we clamber into the hulls. "Is that my blood?"

The stain is nearly as big as he is. We'd all been so tired and beaten after our long escape from the Spinning Wheel that no one had even thought to deal with it.

Natalya simply nods. Inessa's capture is weighing on her and she refuses to talk about it with me.

"You made the mess," Zoya says. "You clean it up."

"I'm still recovering," Adrik retorts, taking a place at the sails instead.

That makes Natalya speak, "You're well and healed. I saved your hand, so use it."

Adrik seems to relish Zoya and Natalya's taunts over thinking about Nadia and the others we lost and may lose.

Suddenly, I think of Baghra. The old hag would never put up with all this whining. What would she have made of everything else? What would she have made of my third amplifier and the strange dreams? What would she have made of Mal? I push the thoughts away. We'll never know, and there's no time for mourning.

Once we're in the air, the Squallers set a gentle pace and I use the time to help Alina practice bending the light as we camouflage the ship from below.

The journey takes only a few hours, and we land in a marshy pasture west of Caryeva. The town is the site of the summer horse sales every year. It isn't known for anything but its racing track and its breeding stables, and even without the war, this late in the year, it would have been all but deserted.

The missive to the Apparat had proposed that we meet at the racecourse. Tamar and Harshaw will scout the track on foot to make sure we aren't walking into a trap. If anything feels wrong, they'll circle back to meet us, and we'll decide what to do from there. I don't think the Apparat would turn us over to the Darkling, but there is also the possibility that he'd struck some kind of new bargain with the Shu Han or Fjerda.

We are a day early, and the pasture is the perfect place to practice cloaking moving targets. Misha insists on being first.

"I'm smaller," he says. "That will make it easier."

He runs out into the center of the field.

I raise my hands, give a twist of my wrists, and Misha disappears completely. Harshaw gives an appreciative whistle.

"Can you see me?" Misha shouts. As soon as he starts waving, I have to focus more on the light around him but he remains invisible.

"Misha," instructs Mal, "run toward us."

We see nothing.

I nod and release my hold, "Alina you try. It's a little more complicated than cloaking the Starling, since we are moving with it. Focus on the shifting in the light as he runs or waves. You'll feel it flow and ebb. Work on moving the light with that current."