The Key of Astrea

Endeavor

Jenny was afraid that Jack could hear her pounding heart over the crashing waves. Is he a spy for some foreign government, or a corporate competitor? No, Lin and Aindriu said he checked out. Or maybe Jack is about to kill me to protect his secret. She pictured him pushing her off the edge of the platform and into the ocean, and shivered.

Jack walked down the ramp and stood on the landing pad.

Well, Jenny thought, if he's going to pretend like nothing happened, then I'm going to do the same. Jenny took a deep breath to calm her nerves and followed him. As soon as she stepped off the ramp, it closed behind her. Jack leaned in close to Jenny, as if to say something, but something roared overhead and interrupted him.

Jenny covered her ears and looked up. An aircraft's lights swirled against the backdrop of stars. A minute later, it touched down on the opposite end of the platform. Jenny saw two men climb down a ladder, followed by a tall man in a suit the color of vanilla ice cream. The man caught sight of them and approached. Jenny saw that he was handsome, with high, sharp cheekbones and dark hair. He must have been over two meters tall. Like Rygelus, from the tree house, Jenny thought. It was impossible to place his age. He may have been thirty or three thousand, for all Jenny could tell. He looked familiar.

"Are you Lance LaGrange?" Jenny asked.

"Yes, and who are you?" he asked in a rich baritone voice. An aura of gravitas stormed around him, making Jenny feel small and insignificant.

"I'm Jenny Tripper, though I hardly know who I am, I've changed so many times since I woke up this morning." To think, Jenny thought, I attended my mom's funeral, entered two parallel universes, inhabited Astrea's body, escaped from giants—twice—and flew here.

Jenny held out her hand, which he shook. His hands were like steel wrapped in velvet, and the nails on each of his six fingers were carefully manicured. He's the second person I met today with six digits, Jenny thought. I wonder if it's less rare in this universe. Maybe it's as common as being left-handed.

Lance smiled. "Miss Tripper, it is good to finally meet you in person."

"It's my pleased—I mean, I'm pleasure to meet you." Jenny felt her face flush with heat.

Lance smirked, then turned to Jack. "You must be Mister Spriggan."

"That's right." Jack took his hand.

"Firm grip," Lance said. "I like that. It will be good to have another pilot on board, especially one with his own plane. We'll have need of it for supply runs."

Jenny saw movement from the door of Lance's plane, then Sadi stepped out into the night air. Jenny's blood turned cold. She could still feel the burning pain in her mouth from Moonlighter's attack. She backed toward the stairwell as Aindriu followed Sadi out of the plane. "I, uh, need to go."

"Oh." Lance looked from Jenny to Sadi and back. "Do you have some better place to be?"

"Um, no, sir. Not better. It's just that Lin is waiting to show me to my room." Jenny continued to back away. "It was nice meeting you. Good night."

Jenny held her cheek as she hurried across the undulating bridge to the concrete structure. She ran down the stairwell and found Lin waiting for her in the control room. She slowed her pace and caught her breath. While she waited for her heart to slow down, she ran through the night's events in her mind. Should I tell her about the conversation on Jack's plane? Now that I think about it, it wasn't that odd, and Jack didn't act surprised to see me. I bet he was talking to his old boss or someone in Cabin. It makes more sense than other things that happened today. Jenny yawned and stretched her back. I'll sleep on it before making a decision. All I want to do right now is get these boots off and lie down.