Borderlands (19 page)

As the day wears on, we roll downriver. To keep ourselves busy, we help to clean up the
Firebird
. It feels strange to be cleaning again, after last night's false imprisonment. Actually, it feels strange to be cleaning, full stop. I didn't notice on the
Nightsong
yesterday, since that was an emergency fix-up after the storm. But on the
Firebird,
it's normal, domestic work. Dusting, sweeping, clearing cobwebs.

It's got a purpose, though. According to Silver, it will take another full day's travel to reach the Valley – even if she chooses the fastest rivers – and we'd rather not inhale random spiders and dust-mites for the entire trip.

Unfortunately, it also gives me a chance to dwell on things. Lukas's disappearance. The hunters, the storm, our mysterious pursuer in the water. I don't want to think about it – any of it. But I can't
stop
thinking about it. Memories churn through my mind, again and again, as I scrub the walls with rags and water.

It's Maisy, of all people, who finally opens her mouth. She's been even quieter than usual this morning, and I assume she's still in pain from her injury. But when she speaks, her words are clear. ‘Do you ever regret it?'

We all look up at her, surprised that she of all people has begun a conversation.

‘Regret what?' Clementine says after a moment's pause.

Maisy looks down at her scrubbing rag. She opens and closes her fingers a few times, then says quietly, ‘Leaving Rourton.'

I stop cleaning, and realise that the others have also fallen still. We stare at each other, unsure what to say. Teddy looks down. The question is eerily similar to Clementine's remarks on the
Nightsong.
But while Clementine's doubts concerned our chosen destination, she never questioned the need to flee in the first place. Clementine would give up anything to protect her sister. Sometimes, when she's in one of her bossy moods, it's easy to forget that.

By contrast, Maisy seems doubtful of their choice to leave at all.

‘I mean, an awful lot has happened,' she says ­nervously. ‘I just thought, maybe if we hadn't . . .'

‘Never,' Clementine says. She cups her sister's cheek, and pulls Maisy's face around gently to meet her own gaze. ‘
Never
, Maisy. There are plenty of things I regret in my life, but that's not one of them.'

I offer Clementine a quiet nod, trying to show my respect, but she's still looking intently at her sister. Maisy fiddles with her fingernails, all shy and awkward, like she can't figure out whether she's grateful or sorry for having spoken up.

‘I don't regret it either,' I say, when the silence has stretched a little too long. ‘We're almost there, aren't we? I mean – we're almost at the Valley. This is what scruffers dream about, the stories they tell, the songs they sing to their children . . .'

‘Very off-tune, in my grandpa's case,' Teddy adds. ‘One time, our neighbours came knocking on the door because they thought we were strangling their cat.'

The tension breaks. I can't hold back a snort, and even Maisy giggles.

‘And nah, I don't regret leaving Rourton,' Teddy adds. ‘If I hadn't nicked off before the coppers nabbed me, I reckon my head would be decorating the town square. On a spike.' He grins, clearly trying to lighten the tone. ‘And hey – it'd be a shame to rob the world of my most impressive feature.'

Clementine raises an eyebrow. ‘Meaning . . .?'

Teddy looks down suggestively, then wiggles his hands at her with a laugh. ‘These things, of course. Best damned pickpocketing hands in Taladia.'

Clementine rolls her eyes, but I can tell that she's hiding a smile. ‘If you have such wondrous hands, Nort, you can use them to get this dusting done.'

And so the hours pass, and we keep on cleaning. I haven't done this much scrubbing since I worked at the Alehouse. At least here I only have to deal with dust – not spilled beer and drunkards' vomit. Besides, it's not like we have anything better to do.

Well, apart from fretting. Fretting and planning. Now that we're free of the other smugglers, we have a chance to really toss around ideas for our next step. Teddy favours a sneaky approach – tiptoeing into the army camp in the dead of night, and maybe blasting a hole in the catacombs.

‘Oh,' he adds, ‘and nicking a few of those army uniforms, while we're at it. Those bronze buttons have got to be worth a few coins.'

‘So long as we find Lukas,' I say, ‘go ahead and steal as many buttons as you like.'

Then Clementine starts up a new conversation – about avoiding the army camp entirely and sneaking into the Valley – and Teddy launches into a spiel about making balaclavas from tree bark.

In the afternoon, we hit a real reason to fret.

It's Teddy who spots it first. He's on the back deck, emptying his dustpan over the rail. He calls us with an anxious twinge in his voice. ‘Hey, guys? You'd better see this.'

We tramp through the cabin's back door. Teddy points back down the river. As soon as I see it, my throat tightens. Another boat rides upon the water, and it's gaining on us fast. Sunlight gleams off its rails and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust – but then I recognise it.

It's the
Forgotten
.

‘Silver!' I call. ‘You've got to come and see –'

‘Can't leave the wheel right now,' she says, from inside the cabin. ‘This is a tricky stretch.'

‘Trust me, it's about to get trickier.'

Silver curses, then pokes her head out to see what we're ogling. She rattles off a string of furious swearwords, which I'm fairly sure she learned as a smuggler rather than as the king's employee.

‘Maybe Quirin wants to help,' I say feebly.

Silver darts back to the wheel, but I hear her snort through the cabin doorway. ‘Oh yes, I'm sure. He's chasing us down from the goodness of his heart.'

‘But how could he know?' Clementine says. ‘You knocked us out, for heaven's sake! How could he guess it was a ruse?'

‘Because, my friends, he's a professional liar,' Silver says. ‘He's spent his whole life making deals, breaking deals, doublecrossing and backstabbing. He probably knew right from the start.'

‘But he let us get away –'

‘No,' Silver says. ‘He let me confirm my guilt. Now he's seen you free and out on the railing, he's got all the proof he needs that I've betrayed him.'

The boat shoots forward with a new burst of speed. The jolt sends me stumbling, but I catch myself on the cabin wall. I guess Silver's cranking up the alchemy juice. This is serious. We're going to run for it.

‘Quirin's got a bigger boat,' Teddy mutters. ‘The
Forgotten
must be loads faster than this thing.'

When I stumble back into the cabin, Silver is clutching the wheel with white knuckles.

‘Do you really think we can outrun him?' I say.

She takes a moment to respond. ‘We can try.'

After three more vials of alchemy juice and a puff of golden smoke we're practically flying along the river. This boat doesn't cut through the water so much as skim across like a low-flying bird. But even if our progress
looks
graceful, it doesn't feel it. Silver twists us between rocks, around bends, into narrower and narrower stretches of river. I feel every bump, every jolt, every whoosh of sudden movement. The
Firebird
lurches left and I stumble, collapsing into the nearest wall. Another wrench, and I'm tripping over my own legs in the other direction.

Silver takes a sharp breath. ‘Quirin might be faster on open water,' she says, ‘but when it comes to turns, I'd judge we're the ones with the advantage.'

I position myself near the back window to keep an eye on the
Forgotten
's progress. I want to believe that it's falling behind, that Silver's tricks have paid off. But every time I look, my gut clenches. The larger boat still churns behind us, closer and closer. Sun glints from its body like the barrel of a gun.

‘Are we losing them?' Silver demands.

‘No,' I say, hating the word. ‘No, they're getting closer.'

The old woman rummages through her alchemy chest, and selects another vial. ‘We'll have to –'

The boat's metal frame emits a terrible noise, so sharp and twisted that it sounds almost like a human scream. There's a sickening crunch. And that's when the
Firebird
begins to crumple around us.

I stumble into Clementine, who falls with a shriek against the wall. ‘What's happening?'

‘We're in range of Quirin's proclivity,' Maisy says, looking horrified. ‘His power is Metal, remember? And this boat's made out of –'

The
Firebird
shrieks and suddenly the cabin roof is falling. It crashes down around us; sheets of metal crumple like they're made of tissue. I grab Clementine and drag her aside, just as a chunk of collapsing roof skewers the floor where we had just been standing.

‘Outside!'

We don't need telling twice. I grab the supply pack with my magnets, but there's no time to save anything else. A moment later we're out on deck, the remains of the cabin crashing down behind us. Silver is the last to flee – I think she lingered inside for one last yank of the wheel – and she stumbles out through a cloud of metal groans and dust.

‘So much for cleaning,' Teddy says, coughing.

We stagger away from the dust and press our bodies against the rail. The
Forgotten
is even closer now: barely thirty metres away. Quirin stands upon the deck, hands upheld as though to pray to the sun. But this is no prayer. He claps his hands together, squeezing tendrils of power in towards each other, and the boat beneath us starts to collapse.

I hear screaming, but I don't know if it's Teddy or the twins or Silver. Perhaps it's me, and I don't even know my throat is making the sound. All I know is that the floor beneath me is smashing. The guardrails twist like rabid snakes. And the boat begins to scrunch upon itself, a scrap of paper in Quirin's hands . . .

I glance at my crewmates. Their faces are pale and strained, coated in dust. A cut dribbles blood down Teddy's forehead, and Silver looks ready to pass out. Blood stains her clothes and I realise she's injured, but there's nothing for it.

We jump.

The water hits hard. I feel like I'm in the
Nightsong
's bunkroom again, and all the world is swallowing me. But this time it's not dark, and I'm not trapped. The river around me runs clear with daylight. I kick to the surface and gasp down a breath.

‘This way!'

I follow the voice blindly. A moment later we drag ourselves onto shore: five bedraggled bodies stumbling through undergrowth and trees.

We're at the bottom of a ditch when Silver collapses. It's like someone has cut her strings; she's a broken puppet tumbling down into the leaves.

‘Silver, what's –?'

Then I see the blood. A shard of metal protrudes from her stomach, as deadly as a spray of bullets. She coughs, fighting for breath, and more blood dribbles from her lips onto her cheeks.

‘We've got to run!' Clementine says. ‘Leave her – she can't keep up.'

Shamefully, part of me agrees. This old woman clubbed me over the head. She worked for King Morrigan. She invented the bombs that killed my family. She's a smuggler. A liar. A traitor.

But she also risked everything to help us. To help save Lukas. And as she lies here, lungs heaving and lips spitting blood, the thought of leaving her to die is sickening. I reach for her necklace and rifle through its charms, searching for the tiny silver bone.

‘Go,' Silver whispers. ‘Run. Save my . . . save him . . .'

I ignore her. I pick out the bone charm and press it against her wound. I've bonded with an alchemy charm before, but not this one – will it work the same? Is it more complicated?

I close my eyes. I press my fingers against the bone, and I think of healing. It's a bit like casting an illusion, really, to bond with an alchemy charm. I conjure an image of skin that melts back together, of veins that re-stitch, of flesh that weaves its broken cells back into the whole . . .

The air twangs. The charm flashes hot in my hand. ‘All right,' I whisper. ‘All right, I think I've got it.'

Teddy pulls the shard from Silver's stomach. It makes a horrible sucking sound and Silver moans in pain. I press my fingers into the mess – ignoring the squelch of wet flesh beneath my fingertips – and focus on the charm. Inch by torturous inch, the wound begins to heal.

‘It's too late,' Maisy whispers, staring at all the blood. ‘Danika, it's too late.'

‘No.' I shake my head. ‘No, look, she's healing.'

But deep down, I know Maisy's right. This charm might knit Silver's flesh back together, but too much damage has already been done. Silver's body is old. Her internal organs are crushed, broken. Her heartbeat is faltering. Blood continues to gurgle from her lips, like regurgitated food from a mother bird. It pours across her belly and pools with sodden fabric at her sides.

Silver struggles to raise a hand, and grabs my shirt. I gasp as she draws me towards her. ‘Look.' Her breath is barely a rattle. ‘Look up.'

I wrench my head up to follow her gaze. Above us, the canopy dances in the breeze. I don't know what she expects me to see, though – there's just a thicket of leaves and branches, lit occasionally by a tiny chink of sunlight.

‘Stars,' Silver whispers.

I look back up at the light spots. I suppose they do look a bit like stars, winking down between patches of dark. ‘Yes,' I say, mouth dry. ‘Yes, I see them.'

Silver's grip tightens on my shirt. Her fingernails dig into my skin, then wriggle around to the back of my shoulders, where my proclivity tattoo sits like ink upon my upper spine. She lets out a gasp. Blood stains her teeth, and her throat makes a terrible rattle.