CHAPTER 1: USUAL GAMBLES

  Elias Vice had never relied on a sky rift if he didn’t have to. It was the Sirens card up their sleeve, the advantage their upstart venture had over their more established peers: The Two Worlds Trading Company could make a mockery of time and space, entering a portal from one dot on the world map only to exit out another—miles away and yet minutes apart. But as every collector knew intimately well, power always came with a cost.

  Every jump The Sapphire Spirit made in secret was a gamble, an opportunity for the wrong eyes to see something they were not supposed to see. And yet sometimes, especially in business, one had to take a calculated risk.

  Such was the case now. Sultan Atakan had initiated his annual signing of new contracts in Azir—pitting hopeful bidders against one another before an audience of their competitors in his airy throne room—and it had been, as it always was, a nerve-wracking, bladder-bursting affair (though they had ultimately won the day with a new contract in hand). It was, in short, a date they absolutely could not have missed.

  Problematically, it happened to occur a mere twenty hours before another date they absolutely could not miss. Their client in the United North had a hefty materials shipment destined for Sailor’s Rise that, were it to show up even a day late, could cost its factory-building recipient many, many relics. Their commitments were made. The dates were unmovable.

  And while The Two Worlds Trading Company was now the proud owner of not one but two fine sky-soaring vessels, their other airship, The Crimson Voyager, was equally tied up. Briley immediately agreed with Elias’s assessment of the situation, and Bertrand—Bertrand accepted a metaphor invoking his favorite card game. “Sometimes you need to play your pirate king with an imperfect hand,” Elias had said with a resigned yet satisfied shrug.

  On the bright side, the situation had brought them all back together again: Elias, Bertrand, Briley, Gabby, Iric, and, of course, their most universally loved crew member—Islet had spent most of the journey dosing off in the great cabin.

  Indeed, the business so often pulled them apart these days. Usually, at least one of them would go with The Crimson Voyager, while another senior team member inevitably stayed back in Sailor’s Rise to handle logistics, clients, potential clients, and everything else that came with running a medium-sized business in a big city. While Elias, Bertrand, and Briley still each owned thirty percent of the company, they had extended five percent stakes to Gabby (who was contractually entitled to as much) and more recently Iric, as both employees had proven to be invaluable to the continued success of The Two Worlds Trading Company.

  Elias retained the title of chief proprietor, Bertrand chief business officer, and Briley chief operations officer, but their executive team had grown to five, with Gabby as its chief mechanic and Iric as its chief foreman. In other words, it was a lot of senior leadership for a single ship, but there was a good reason for this.

  While The Two Worlds Trading Company now employed roughly twenty employees, only the five currently aboard The Sapphire Spirit were privy to the company’s greatest secret. A secret first revealed to them over two years ago now: that their chief proprietor was a collector, a rogue Valshynar, and one with an even rarer gift at that, a gift allowing him to see pathways to the future he desired—pathways through the myriad sky rifts that connected the Great Continent.

  Sky rifts were a death sentence for any normal sailor, but for this unlikely quintet, the gates of hell made for a familiar shortcut.

  “Between those mountains over there, I think.” Elias pointed, checking their map against reality.

  With one hand on the wheel, Briley squinted in the direction of his index finger. “We haven’t taken this one before.”

  “We’ve made longer jumps,” he replied. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Their crew of five was gathering on the deck, eager to watch their entry into the sky rift as if it were a rare lunar eclipse. It was late enough for one, albeit with better visibility than most nights. A full moon was casting its blue light over the endless expanse of mountains and valleys far below, painting the continent into a foreign planet.

  “How long has it been since we last sailed together, all of us?” The question was Iric’s.

  “Eight months and ten days, give or take.” The precise answer was Gabby’s. “That was the last time we traveled through a sky rift.” Gabby, they had quickly learned, possessed a razor-sharp memory for highly specific details. At sixteen, she seemed to grow more adult by the day. At twenty-one going on twenty-two, Elias knew that he wasn’t much older than her in the grand scheme of things, and yet he still marveled at the speed at which she matured. Had he also grown up so fast, or was Gabby merely an old soul? Perhaps they were all old souls of circumstance aboard The Sapphire Spirit.

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  “The better question is: when was the last time you visited Saint Albus, Iric?” Bertrand asked.

  The elder northerner shrugged. “It has been some time.”

  “A year and seven months,” Gabby inserted. “He usually finds an excuse not to go.”

  “I have no desire to go back,” Iric stated firmly. “That is not an excuse. It is a fact. My sister is in Sailor’s Rise. My friends are on this vessel. What is left for me in my frigid homeland?”

  “A brother you don’t speak to,” Gabby added again. In addition to her sharp memory, their youngest crew member also loved saying the quiet part loud. She had grown up as a child surrounded by adults and learned to cut them down to her size accordingly. Blunt dissection was also a character trait she shared with her adopted father, Jasper, who had passed away a year earlier. Even in his absence, Gabby remained a proud Lowtowner.

  “Speaking of pirate kings”—Bertrand was referencing Elias’s earlier metaphor—“I worry we may have some real ones on the horizon.”

  Briley peered through their telescope before handing Elias the brass instrument. “Shit,” she said. “Bertrand is right.”

  “Think we can beat them to the sky rift?” Bertrand inquired.

  Briley shook her head. “Probably not.”

  “I don’t like witnesses,” Elias sighed.

  “Maybe they’re friendly pirates,” Bertrand offered.

  They had yet to meet any friendly pirates.

  Elias checked that his Leefield was ready and loaded. He primed the pistol’s flash pan, snapped the frizzen into place, fully cocked the hammer, and then did the same with his second pistol. Two shots, ready to be fired. Of course, strangers were innocent until proven guilty, or at least he still held himself to that higher standard.

  Iric unsheathed his hatchet.

  Bertrand and Gabby had disappeared below deck, presumably to ready the cannons, while Briley held the wheel, keeping them a safe distance from the approaching vessel.

  It was a bigger pirate ship than most, though it possessed all the unsightly trappings of one. More specifically, it looked like a ship built out of other ships, like an awkward monstrosity composed of reassembled cadavers, given a second, unnatural life (which also happened to be the plot of a new novel Gabby was devouring in the engine room).

  The men aboard were all men, none of whom evidently owned a razor blade or even a wet rag, by the looks of them. Not that Elias was judging people based on appearances. Again, his higher standard. He would, however, judge people by the weapons they carried, or by the fact that these ones were approaching them without invitation, brandishing their pistols, biting their bottom lips like cannibals ogling an unexpected feast.

  When one of them took aim, Elias shot first. With his Leefield, he put a bullet through the head of the would-be shooter, who toppled backward into another, rather surprised pirate. With his second loaded pistol, Elias ignored the other attackers and—guided by green lines that flickered through his vision like sparks flying from or with his movements—took out their pilot.

  Another pirate was quick to run for the unmanned wheel before receiving a spinning hatchet in his back. Elias saw Iric sigh from the corner of his eye. The northerner had liked that axe.

  In the same moment, The Sapphire Spirit began to ascend suddenly and sharply. The remaining pirates fired back as Elias and Iric took cover behind the bulwark and Briley behind the barricade that surrounded their wheel, still clinging to her lever, sending them skyward.

  By the time one of the pirates made it to their own wheel without a bullet or axe to stop him, it was too late for them to match The Sapphire Spirit, just as planned. And when their enemies finally fired their cannons—abandoning any notion of acquiring an impeccable new airship—Elias heard their iron projectiles whoosh under the hull.

  Bertrand and Gabby returned fire from a deadlier angle. The first cannonball crashed through their attacker’s bulwark, blew open a wooden crate, and blasted a man off the edge of the pirate vessel as others hollered and took cover. The second cannonball did even more damage than the first.

  With his weapons fully reloaded, Elias peered down at their pursuers, feeling almost sorry for them, if not for the fact that their survival was at stake. He shot down two more.

  The pirates were finished. The few injured survivors gave up their chase as The Sapphire Spirit returned to its course.

  The crew had plotted this maneuver for when they were next attacked—as it was not the first time, nor even the second—but they had never actually executed it until today. Elias was impressed. With himself, with everyone for successfully doing their parts in a timely matter, and especially with Briley for concocting the scheme. He shot her an approving glance, nodding with both eyebrows raised, as Bertrand and Gabby returned to the deck.

  “Fucking hell,” Bertrand exhaled. “I suppose that could have gone a lot worse.”

  It could have, indeed. They had taken no damage, and the entire ordeal had been wrapped up rather decisively in a matter of minutes. Only one thing still nagged at Elias. While the ramshackle pirate ship had created a healthy amount of distance from them, he could not be certain it was quite enough. He could not be certain they wouldn’t see something they were not supposed to see.

  But the traders aboard The Two Worlds Trading Company had not a second to spare for alternate routes. Only one sky rift would get them to Saint Albus in time.

  Between the mountains they had marked on a map, Elias spotted the first signs of a sky rift as the others looked to him for clues before they too could see them.

  Had a normal crew sailed this course, they would not have noticed the subtle changes on the starry horizon. They would not have realized the calm breeze had faded to a fatal stillness, nor observed the faint lines forming in the air like spider-web cracks on a dropped glass.

  For their eyes were not as sharp as this sailor’s. And this was not a normal crew.

  The impact made no sound. It rattled no boards. The rift simply swallowed their ship as the ocean swallows a fish. A dark shadow fell over them like the closing of a curtain.

  Elias yawned and stretched like a bird taking flight in the lonesome aura of their oil lamps. It was his turn to take over navigation. He was tired, exhausted even, but sleep was a lender he had borrowed from before. And so he did so now. It was just business as usual.