the Book of Twist

❦❧Six - Jail Hours❦❧

I could tell my pattern of speech baffled them slightly, but I did learn a great deal about Twist from these strange people.

Indeed as the Sayre had promised, I was now an occupant of the world of Twist.

Not only that, but I was now a criminal in the bowels of Jade-Port City Jail.

And yes, Albert did indeed use the exact word 'bowels'.

The brass city I had glimpsed was one of five sprawling sky cities, levitating above the countries of Wessic and Griswold. Jade-Port happened to be a Griswolsh city, and Prince Starling was the royal heir and soon to be king. Their accents were distinctly different from my brothers, more of a slurred drawl, though I was guessing this was because they were Griswolsh. I'd heard of Wessic before; Beau and Bay eere from there. The clock tower I had woken up in apparently belonged to some crazy inventor whose name escaped Marjolaine.

"Bertrum something or other," Marjolaine said, her eyebrows knitted together like two black caterpillars in utter concentration. "I think."

Since I was now a criminal, I'd asked Marjolaine and Albert about my trial, what they were going to do with me now that I was in jail. They thought I'd been joking; only major criminals and chokers, otherwise known as the rich-folk, received trials. Petty crimes such as Albert's were given next to no attention; the police could let him out whenever they so chose to, unless the choker that had initially locked him up was still paying them. Which I took to mean that we were stuck here- and I was pretty sure that considering I'd been ordered by a Prince to be locked up and was now promptly being ignored, that included me.

Jade-Port was near the border of Wessic and Griswold, and therefore was a very important trade center, though lately it had apparently also started crawling with Imperial warships and soldiers due to tensions between Wessic and Griswold, though neither Albert nor Marjolaine went into detail.

"Even Skylords," Marjolaine breathed with awe in her voice. I cocked my head to the side with curiosity.

"Skylords?"

Marjolaine's hands flapped into her lap in disbelief from where she sat on the floor a few feet away from the bars seperating her cell from mine, her jaw slack. "Lady, is yous a hermit? How don't ya know nothin' of this?"

I fluttered a hand nonchalantly, as if brushing away the question. "I'm not from here. I'm a tourist, see, from far off. I travel. Tourist season, you know? Lovely city, Jade-Port. Shame about this whole cabbage incident."

Marjolaine's eyes zeroed in, suspiciously. "Where, then? Yous ain't from Wessic? Yous a Wessian spy or summin?"

I blinked, taken aback. "A Wessian spy?"

Here I thought I'd made it clear I was a tourist.

Albert's chuckle reached our ears. "Heel, Marjy, she ain't no Wessian. You hear 'er accent? No trace of Wessian. And she wouldn't very well get caught, would she, so close to the border. No, no spy, or a bloody terrible one. And would spies wear dresses and no shoes?" He grunted, as if proud of his deduction skills. "No, no spy here. I would know. I would know."

Marjolaine rolled her eyes. "No ones asked yous for your opinion, Albert."

I was rather grateful for his opinion though, personally, since Marjolaine had briefly looked like some sort of death-harbinger with her suspicious scrutiny.

But she did seem to take Albert's word for it, as she next gazed at me with her previous inquistive spark. "Skylords are them commmanders of them airships in the army."

"Commanders of the aerial factions, they are," Albert said with a begrudging respect in his tone. "Best of the best. Pay ain't half bad these days, too, I hear."