Chapter Nine

The following evening, Cay descended from Adrio's coach in front of the livery stable in the village of Sarea, part of the demesne of Lord Emaro of Hasca, in the foothills of the Elurez Mountains. Lirano had driven him here after obscuring the coach's identifying crests with dull black paint. They'd come with all possible speed, spending coin liberally to change horses several times along the way.

As he waited for Lirano to finish his business at the livery, Cay surreptitiously rolled his shoulders and bent his knees to stretch his hamstrings. He didn't know about Lirano, but he was tired from the journey, and his body ached from trying to sleep in the rattling carriage. But he knew his night's work had just begun.

It was cooler here in the foothills than in Valette. Sarea was the last village on the road up to Lord Emaro's summer home, Bortorra. It clung to the banks of a lake, cupped in the steep rocky hills. In spite of the golden light of a glorious sunset, the village seemed a poor place. Its lanes were narrow and dirty, a damp stink rose off the water, and the walls of the little shops and inns were stained gray with what appeared to be mildew.

"They say someone's up at Bortorra," said Lirano, leading two hired horses out of the livery. Lirano knew this place, for he was born and raised here in the north. He seemed to walk differently here than in Valette, his shoulders looser, his accent broader. "In summer Lord Hasca's retinue and their families are all in residence for the fishing and the cool air. But in winter, they follow the sunshine south, and all these shops should be empty and boarded up. But the man at the livery said food deliveries are going up the hill once a week."

"Do they know who's there?"

"Naught but gossip. Are you sure you don't want me to come up to Bortorra with you?"

Cay smiled at Lirano with genuine gratitude. The servant had joined him on this escapade without a second's hesitation, and his steady competence had cleared away all kinds of obstacles that Cay couldn't have predicted. "I am grateful, but no. You must stay down here and keep safe. I'll bring my lord down to you."

"Very well." Lirano patted a horse's nose. "These are good beasts. Not beautiful, perhaps, but sound and fresh. Ride the mare and save the gelding for my lord; he's a bit full of himself."

The horse or my lord? Cay kept the joke to himself. "Thank you." He took the reins. "Remember what I told you. Give no one your name, or mine, or my lord's. I have no idea what I'm going to find, but the Hasca's loyalty is to the Grup, and the people here all owe him their livelihoods. You must trust no one."

"I'll remember," said Lirano.

"With a bit of luck, we'll be back by morning."

"I'll make sure I've got fresh carriage horses ready to go."

"Good. And if I'm not back by noon tomorrow, go straight to Valette, and tell Fonsca Calareto everything."

"I'll wait a few days, my lord."

"Don't wait too long; you'll draw suspicion. And don't assume all is lost if we don't come back this way."

Lirano nodded. And then he bowed, clasped his hands together, and kissed his knuckles: a countryman's old-fashioned gesture of gratitude. "Stay safe, my lord."

"You also. And don't worry," he added lightly. "I'm cleverer than I look."

"Yes, my lord. I know."

The dun mare might have seemed a reliable beast to Lirano, but Cay soon hated her. She strode out from the village at a steady, swift pace, but once the road started to go uphill, she slowed to an amble. Unless Cay constantly urged her on, she stopped to graze. Perhaps she detected his anxiety; perhaps she objected to his inexperience as a rider; perhaps she just wanted to go home. Cay suspected she was deliberately delaying him out of a spiteful nature. Meanwhile, the gelding on his lead constantly tugged to go faster, or slower, or in a different direction, or balked in alarm at every fluttering leaf or night-bird call.

The night was cold enough to show their breaths like smoke, but Cay was sweating by the time they neared the top of the hill, cursing under his breath and feeling as though he'd carried the horses, rather than the other way around. They came around a bend, where the estate's wall and gate were silhouetted black against the dark sky. He sighed with relief.

His plan, if one could call it a plan, was to tether the horses outside the wall and approach the house stealthily on foot. There he would see what could be done. He had never been to Bortorra, and knew nothing of what he would find. He had a pocket of money, a dagger, his lockpicks, and his wits. He would (somehow) release Adrio, and they would ride back down to Sarea and away.

Easy-peasy.

He startled when, in the full dark, the sound of his horses' hoofbeats changed from the dull thud of dirt road to the sharp-ringing clip-clop of a stone-paved drive. The capricious gelding, upon hearing or feeling the stones beneath his feet, threw up his head and blew sharply out his nose with alarm, a now-familiar routine the horse would have to be coaxed out of before he would proceed.

"Come on." Cay attempted to keep his voice sweet and encouraging. "It's only pavers, pretty, you can do it."

He was apparently not convincing. The gelding huffed and executed an unexpected sideways maneuver, whisking his lead out of Cay's hand. For a moment, he stood with ears and tail high, and then, realizing he was free, wheeled and trotted back down the road toward the village. Something in his motion suggested ridicule and contempt.

Cay sat in the saddle, stupefied, watching him go.

The mare he sat upon made to follow the gelding. He reined her in and attempted to direct her toward the gate. But she had no intention of being left behind by her companion. She flattened her ears, wheeled in a tight circle, and tossed her heels in the air.

Cay hit the ground with bruising force. He lifted his head to see her cantering away, tail raised like a flag of victory.

"Fuck."

He stood, rubbed his sore shoulder, and began to walk up the road, cursing himself and picking gravel out of his forearms as he went.

Apparently Adrio was an adventuresome fellow, well-accustomed to breaking people out of prisons and spiriting them away. If Cay could get to him—and he would bribe, seduce, or kill in order to get to him—perhaps he would have some ideas.

Cay hurried as much as the darkness and the steepness of the road would allow. He paused to rub dirt on his face and hands, hoping to darken his skin and roughen any sheen of sweat, and then slipped through the iron bars of the gate and snuck up the drive to the house.

Bortorra was an ancient stone tower surrounded by irregular outbuildings. Probably, like Wind House not far away, it had once been a fortification against Chende bandit raids from the mountains and had since been renovated as a residence. The restoration had not robbed it of its military character: it was a near-cube, three stories tall, stone and mortar, irregularly studded with arrow-slits. On the third floor, the arrow-slits had been enlarged. No doubt the renovated windows marked where the living quarters were: inconvenient for the staff, but with a good view of the lake.

A light glowed golden in one of the windows on the southwest corner of the top floor.

Cay crouched in the blackness between the wall and a terra cotta pot that probably held flowers in the summer; now it was filled with a scrubby mass of weeds. No one was about; it must be nearly midnight, and the house was dark but for that one lit window.

Adrio, he thought, hugging himself and shivering against the cold. Ondrei had said he'd been kept in a bedroom, not a cellar or a dungeon. Perhaps Adrio up was up there, in that southwestern bedroom. Perhaps he was reading a book, or writing a letter. Perhaps he was perfectly fine.

Cay surveyed the building, trying to plan the easiest route from the ground floor to the southwest window. Entering through the front door and up the stairs was tempting but surely foolhardy. Up the outside of the building seemed safer. As a boy, he had scurried up and down the walls of the Six Circles of Turla like a squirrel. Most of the tower's exterior was a flat vertical plain, lacking ornaments for handholds, and there was an unhelpful overhang between the second and third stories. And he was older now, a bit out of condition, and sore from riding and from falling outside the gate.

Still. Old stones and mortar probably provided finger and toeholds, and if he could get to the top of the stables first, he could nearly halve the vertical climb. He thought he could manage it.

And then, please, and thanks to all the gods, he would see Adrio.

He snuck toward the stables, flexing his fingers and rotating his shoulders in preparation for the climb. He heard the crackle of flames from above, and orange light flickered at the top of the tower. Wondering if the place was on fire, he looked up and saw the strangest sight.

On the tower's roof, surrounded by a scaffolding, a strange, moving black shape blotted out the stars. In the fluttering light of a fire, it seemed to swell and distend in an unnatural manner, like a monstrous blister. Cay watched as the surface of the thing bulged outward, pressing up against the wooden slats of the scaffolding.

It was a balloon.

Breathing hard and slick with sweat, he hauled himself up to peek over the tower roof's low parapet. Bortorra's masonry walls hadn't been repointed in decades, if not centuries; Cay had tucked his boots and stockings awkwardly into his belt and nipped up to the top in no time at all. Now, concealed by darkness and the sheer unlikelihood of anyone being where he was, he saw a surprising bustle of people on the roof, lit by flickering lamps. There were also piles of materials: bales of cloth, stacks of wood, and so on. He climbed over the parapet and, still barefoot, folded himself into the center of a large coil of rope to watch.

Fortunately, everyone had their eyes upon the balloon.

It was a large bag of thin black fabric, held erect by a rickety-looking rectangular scaffolding. Its open mouth was suspended over a large round wicker basket, to which it was attached by lines. It was extraordinary to see, a cloth sack billowing and swelling like the throat of a frog, seeming to pull upward through some uncanny force of its own. Air, obeying the Principle of Levity, rose as if from a hot oven, filling the bag. For inside the basket, on a sort of high table, was a kiln, and two people labored there, one feeding charcoal and the other using bellows to brighten the fire. Sparks flew upward into the cloth sack, which grew and grew. Its fattening surface pressed outward on the bars of the scaffold, and before Cay's eyes, the basket beneath lifted off the ground. The upward motion was gentle at first, but soon the balloon seemed to be straining skyward like a horse eager to escape, the lines keeping it attached to the scaffold quiveringly taut.

"Good!" crowed Hob Fierar. He, and several other people, were gathered around, silhouetted against the firelight. "Beautiful! You've done it!"

Cay bit his fist against a wave of visceral hatred at the sight of the Muntegrise envoy. He indulged in a brief, violent fantasy of the balloon suddenly becoming a solid, heavy mass, falling on top of him, crushing him from life.

"No, sir," said a woman. All the workers seemed to defer to her, and Cay concluded she was the leader of this project. "It inflates, it lifts, but it all goes wrong when we try the sails."

"Show me."

The foreman called, "Lay along the sprits," and workers sprang into action, some of them climbing the scaffolds, others lifting long wooden staves and attaching them to the basket.

Cay's eyes widened.

He had drawn this. In his imaginative pictures, the balloon's basket had been shaped like a ship, with a keel and long booms stretching out to either side, and triangular sails, full with wind, stretched from the booms to the top of the bag. He watched as workers clambered up the scaffolds with unwieldy bundles of black cloth, watched the way the wicker basket wobbled in the air, and then sank from the weight of the booms and sails.

"More fire!" called Hob Fierar. The workers in the basket began feeding the fire again, the man with the bellows sweating in the firelight. Slowly, without its previous eagerness, the balloon lifted off the ground once again.

"Drop the frames," ordered the foreman. The workers swarmed down from the scaffolds, unclewing them at each joint. The scaffolds fell backward, and the balloon remained erect without support, a majestic oval of black silk suspended in the air, its sails hanging lax at its sides. But it would not rise further, though no part of it touched the ground. The servants in the basket worked furiously with charcoal and bellows, faces shining with sweat in the firelight, but in spite of their efforts, the balloon hovered there, a few feet of air between its basket and the tower's roof. They could work no faster; the balloon, burdened by wooden booms and yards of sail, would climb no further.

Hob Fierar bellowed again for more fire, but the foreman said, more quietly, "No. Enough." The workers at the kiln stopped, visibly heaving for breath. The balloon remained inflated but sank down to gently touch the roof.

"Get a drink and rest," the foreman told the workers, then turned to Fierar. "It's simply too heavy. The heat of the kiln isn't providing enough levitational force. A larger burner would produce more heat but would be heavier still."

"What can be done to make it lighter?"

The foreman shook her head. "We've already lightened the pannier. If we replace the booms with lighter wood, like balsa, they won't be strong enough. If we replace the sails with lighter fabric, like muslin, they won't hold the wind. There must be something we're missing."

"The Heir of Lodola is holding out on us," agreed Fierar, stroking his chin.

"He must be," agreed the foreman. "This isn't working."

"I will question him further. He will tell me or regret it."

He strode away and disappeared through a door.

Cay cursed under his breath and crept through the darkness to the parapet. Swinging over, he berated himself: he should have gone to the southeast bedroom, to Adrio, rather than getting distracted by the spectacle of the balloon. He could have had him away while Hob Fierar was occupied here on the roof. He lowered himself from the parapet and searched for toeholds.

Climbing, especially climbing down, could not be done in haste. Painstakingly, gritting his teeth with frustration, Cay inched downward until he was level with the lit window. The air was cold, but fortunately the south wall of the tower still held the day's heat, keeping his fingers and toes viable, and there were excellent footholds here, the mortar between the stones crumbled with centuries of weather and neglect. If he wedged his toes in, he could stand relatively comfortably, giving his hands and arms a rest.

He descended to the side of the lit window, hooked his fingers into a deep crack between stones, settled his weight on the balls of his feet, and leaned to his left to peer inside.

The room was brightly lit. It was a bedroom, small but comfortable, simply furnished with a bed and a stand with a basin and ewer. A lantern glowed brightly on a table. Adrio sat in an upholstered chair, apparently none the worse for wear. Cay, who had been prepared for anything from bruises to burns to amputations, breathed with relief. Adrio's clothes were a bit more rumpled than usual, his hair unkempt, but he appeared uninjured and even comfortable, sitting with one leg crossed over the other knee. With the air of a man welcoming a guest to tea, he was smiling up at Hob Fierar, who stood before him.

The window would be a mirror to the men inside. Cay tested all his holds to make sure they were safe, and then reached over and tugged the window with his fingertips. It was open, just a bit—Adrio always kept his bedroom window open just a bit—and he gently, quietly, pulled it open further.

It was clear why Adrio hadn't been tortured. Because Adrio was talking.

"Well, I really couldn't say." Cay could clearly hear his voice. "I never had that problem. No, I could scarcely keep mine from bolting up into the sky. But, of course, different materials have different levitational virtues. It is not the weight of the materials, as I've said before, but levitational virtues inherent in every material. My first balloons were made from linen, and they scarcely rose at all, although they were very light. Only when I switched to silk could I get it more than ten feet off the ground."

Cay listened with astonishment as his upright and honorable husband delivered this mountain of fabrication and misdirection. His face was open, eyes shining as if with sincere interest in the problem of the balloon.

"You're using silk, you said?" continued Adrio. "It's the best material I've found. What are the spars made of?

"Wood," growled Fierar.

"Yes, I know, but what kind?"

"Pine."

"That's probably it," said Adrio, nodding. "I used cedar."

Hob Fierar strode forward, seized a handful of hair at the top of Adrio's head, and slapped Adrio sharply across the face. Cay sucked in a breath. Adrio did not move, and for the first time, Cay saw his hands, which seemed to rest comfortably on the wooden arms of the chair, were bound there by the wrists.

Fury blew through Cay's mind, clearing away all hesitation. Adrio's bound wrists, his exposed neck, his courage and helplessness in Hob Fierar's hands. Cay was so angry he thought he could crush the stones of Bortorra's walls in his hands. Adrio was his, and Hob Fierar would pay for this.

"You propose to send me on a hunt for cedar?" Fierar snarled, wrenching Adrio's head back. "I suggest you stop toying with me, my lord. I will have answers from you if I have to pull them out with your guts."

Adrio clenched his fists, then stretched out his fingers, clearly attempting to keep calm. No turmoil showed in his pleasant voice. "But the answers are not in my guts. They are on my tongue, and I am telling them to you. I saw the beating you gave my friend Ondrei; I've no mind to endure the same."

Fierar sneered. "Your friend Ondrei did not test my patience with nonsense." He released Adrio's hair with a shove and straightened. "But you're right, I need not be rough with you. I need only send word to my men in Valette to bring your husband here, and I suspect your tongue would loosen."

A muscle moved in Adrio's jaw; he was clenching his teeth. After a moment, he said, "I tell you, there's no need for anything of the sort. I am giving you the information you need. The weight of the materials isn't actually important. What matters is their levitational properties."

Fierar paced. Adrio stealthily flexed his fingers and tugged at his bonds. He immediately stopped when Fierar turned around to face him.

"And how are the levitational properties of materials to be determined, before I spend months trying to source cedar spars?"

"I don't know. I'm not a natural philosopher. In my notes was a list of materials and their levitational index. It must have been one of the pages that was destroyed."

"And that list—"

"Came from a book of my father's. I found it in the library at Lodola," said Adrio, with the air of a man patiently repeating something he'd said many times already. "Which burned in a fire nearly ten years ago. Those notes were the only copy I had."

"Then why was Noresponto burning them?"

"I don't know. I doubt he knew what they were. I left them at his house carelessly, and I think he merely threw them away."

"That's not the impression Lord Cay got."

"Lord Cay knows nothing."

Fierar snorted. "I believe you. He is no brain, but what a beauty! Those big eyes, those lips?" He leered at Adrio. "Did you know he threatened me if I hurt you? Such a fierce kitten. Perhaps I should send a message to have him brought to me. Would you treasure him as much if his pretty face were scarred? If his big eyes were blind?"

"Sir," said Adrio again, slowly, "I am telling you everything I know. Silk bag, mahogany pannier, cedar spars. She will fly. She will cut through the air like a yacht on a calm sea; you will be able to sail her anywhere except directly into a strong wind. I cannot tell you more than I know."

"I wonder." Suddenly Hob Fierar strode toward Adrio again, pulling a knife from his belt.

"Enough," whispered Cay. He reached out and pushed the window open further.

"How would your Cay treasure you, if you were scarred or blinded?" Fierar rested the blade of his knife under one of Adrio's brown eyes.

Cay climbed silently into the room, narrowed eyes trained on Fierar.

"Cedar," Adrio said huskily. "Silk and cedar and mahogany. I—" His gaze fell upon Cay, crawling through the window, and his eyes widened. His mouth opened, but no words emerged. Then he snapped his focus back to Fierar. "Actually, there might be one more thing you could try."

Cay slipped closer, pulling his dagger from its sheath. His bare feet were silent on the worn rug,

"Go on."

Cay seized Fierar's shoulder, yanked him around to face him, and plunged his dagger toward the center of his chest.

Though he'd taken Fierar entirely by surprise, the man's fighting instincts were fine, for he flinched, wrenching his shoulder from Cay's grasp and dropping his knife with a cry of surprise. The tip of Cay's blade tore his shirt and shallowly slashed his skin, but then Fierar seized Cay's wrist in a two-handed iron grip.

He was strong, bigger than Cay, and he bared his teeth savagely as his fingers dug into Cay's forearm hard enough to make Cay yelp with pain. Cay clung to the knife desperately, knowing he'd be dead if he dropped it.

There seemed to be a lot of blood and sweat, making his hands slippery. Cay's grip on the dagger weakened. He heard Adrio shout.

With his left hand, he pulled one of his lockpicks out of his pocket and jabbed them at Fierar's eyes. They weren't sharp, but Fierar jerked back, off-balance for a moment. Cay wrenched his right arm free and drove the dagger wildly at him. It punched into Fierar's throat, just above the notch in his collarbones.

Blood sprayed Cay's face, hot and meaty-smelling, and he recoiled. Fierar made a breathy sound like a kicked dog. And then Fierar was on the floor, motionless, the dagger sticking obscenely out of his neck, and blood was everywhere. The smell was of blood and urine and something else, an iron-rich musk Cay supposed was the smell of death itself. Cay cried out in horror and staggered back away from the corpse. He tripped over his feet and stumbled against a wall, nearly knocking over the washstand by the door.

"Where did you come from?" breathed Adrio.

"Home," said Cay, and then turned and vomited painfully into the washstand basin.

When the spasms passed, Adrio, still bound to the chair, said his name.

"Just a moment." Shaking, Cay dunked his bloody hands directly into the water-ewer and washed them, then splashed water on his face and fingered it through his hair, trying to cleanse away the sensation of life-blood hot on his skin. The water went pink, and he mopped his face with his shirt.

He pressed his lips together, trying to be calm, as he turned around to survey the room. The movement made his head swim; his breath came in fast pants.

Nothing remained of the envoy but a heap on the floor, sodden with blood. Cay could not quite bear to look at it, so he stared at Adrio, trapped in his chair, saying Cay's name again and again. He gulped down nausea, wiped his hands on his shirt, picked his way past the mess and the pools of stinking blood. He thought he'd vomit again if he touched his own weapon, embedded in the body, but he found Fierar's knife on the floor near Adrio's chair. He picked it up and went to Adrio's chair to cut his bonds. His hands, he noticed distantly, trembled.

"Gods, Cay." Adrio's voice was breathless. As soon as his hands were free, he stood and wrapped his arms around Cay.

"I'm all dirty," Cay protested weakly.

"I don't care." Adrio's arms around him tightened, his hands running up and down Cay's back, and, shivering, Cay relaxed against him, resting his cheek on Adrio's shoulder and closing his eyes.

"I warned him not to touch you," he said, nonsensically, into Adrio's shirt. "It was his fault. I always warn them first, but they never believe me."

Adrio squeezed him. "Are you hurt?"

"No." The warm clasp of Adrio's arms around him was helping to ground him, to reconnect him with his body. "You?"

"Are you certain you're all right?" Adrio cupped his face and stared down into his eyes. "Cay?"

Cay nodded.

"Good. That's good." Adrio closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to Cay's. "You are splendid," he whispered. Then Adrio released him and straightened, stepping away. "And now I must piss." He went over to the narrow bed and pulled a chamber pot out.

Cay politely turned his back, staring at the wavery reflection of his huge-eyed face in the dark window as Adrio relieved himself.

"They didn't keep me tied up often, or long, fortunately, or I'd be dirtier than you by far." Adrio's voice was strong and cheerful but not quite steady.

Still trembling, Cay put a hand on the wall to keep from swaying. "Are you hurt? They haven't beaten you, like Ondrei?"

"Oh, no. No, but then, I've been giving up information as fast as I could invent it."

He heard Adrio refasten his trousers and turned to see him smiling a little. His hearty cheer was a mask, Cay thought; he was trying to bring Cay out of his attack of nerves.

"Well. You have rescued me handily, and avenged me too. Where is Fonsca?"

"Still back in Valette, as far as I know."

"You didn't come together?"

"He did not include me in his plans. I have Lirano and the coach down in the village, waiting to whisk us away."

"Good. And the mounts to get us to the village?"

"Ah," said Cay. "I tried. But they ran away."

Adrio's eyebrows went up. "The horses ran away?"

Uncomfortably, Cay sat on the bed and pulled his boots and stockings out of his belt and began to put them on over his scraped and dirty feet. "I was able to approach unnoticed on foot," he said.

"And scale the wall unnoticed too," said Adrio. He went to the window, glanced down, and grimaced. "How are we to get out of here?"

"Perhaps we could steal some horses from the stables?"

"Guarded. We'd be shot on sight." He gestured at the corpse on the floor. "We must be quick. Someone will come in search of this before long."

"Then we'll walk to the village. We'll leave the road and cut through the hills."

"It'll take too long. First they'll search the house and grounds, then ride straight to the village and post men there. They'll find Lirano and lay a trap for us."

"Then we must be faster. What if we create a diversion, to draw the guards away from the stables?"

"That's how I got Ondrei free, and I was caught. It won't work a second time."

Irritated, Cay said, "Well, I don't know, Husband. Perhaps you could contribute some ideas, since spiriting people out of prison is your specialty?"

"If I knew how to escape, without horses or keys or useful assistance, I'd have done it already!"

Cay glared at him. "We'll scout out the stables," he said. "Perhaps it's not so dire as you think."

Adrio glanced at the window, and his voice softened. "Cay," he said, "I'm sorry, but truly, truly, I cannot go down that wall."

"Oh." Flustered, Cay patted his pockets for his lockpicks. "No, of course not. We'll go through the house. It's the middle of the night; perhaps no one will be about."

"The door's locked."

The lockpicks were on the floor, of course. It was difficult because Cay wanted to avoid the blood. If he looked too closely at the body on the floor, he would remember the blood on his face, the way it sprayed, and his stomach would heave—no, there was no time. He found the picks, rinsed them in the pink water of the ewer, and knelt to probe the lock to the front door.

"When did you learn to do that?" muttered Adrio.

"From my Grup masters, no doubt," growled Cay. "Now shut your stupid mouth and let me concentrate."

His shaking hands made opening the door more time-consuming than it should have been, but once he had it open, Adrio took the lead. It seemed he had completely memorized the layout of the house, though he had only been here a few days. He blew out the lamp and led them unerringly through dark hallways, past the main stairway, to the servants' stair at the back of the house. It was a stone spiral, narrow and pitch-black, the steps worn smooth from centuries of footsteps. They crept down from landing to landing, soft-footed. On the stairs just above the main level, they froze: they heard people in the room just below them.

"How long is Master Fierar going to be?" grumbled the first voice. "I would sleep sometime this week."

"Go to bed, then," said a second person.

"He said to wait for him while he got answers out of the Aviator."

Cay silently tugged Adrio's sleeve. Cautiously, they began to climb back up the spiral.

A third voice said, "Then he'll be there all night. That fellow's tongue is slick as the port side of an anchovy."

Cay bit his lip to keep in a hysterical giggle.

"It has been a while," said another person. Cay thought it might be the woman who was in charge of the balloon project. A chair scraped on the floor. "Stay here. I'll go see."

Adrio and Cay silently fled up the stairs, staying one spiral ahead of the sound of footsteps coming up behind them. Since Adrio's room was on the top floor, they went past it to the roof.

The balloon was still inflated, though sagging; it loomed into the sky like an enormous eggplant, blotting out the stars. The crowd of workers was gone, but a few people still sat about, chatting, clearly waiting for further instruction.

Cay and Adrio hid behind a stack of timber.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know."

Trapped. Nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait for discovery and capture. Cay had been a fool, impulsive, and led by his heart instead of his head: as always.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry I lost the horses. I'm sorry I didn't have a better plan. Fonsca refused to include me, and I just couldn't bear to wait in Valette, and... I should have. This is my fault."

"No." Adrio's whisper was velvety in the darkness. "No, do not apologize to me. I didn't imagine I'd ever see you again. But you came for me. I'm grateful... And I am humbled by your courage." He huffed a laugh. "I can't believe you climbed that wall."

"You know I like to climb."

"I also know you were planning to leave and never come back. Yet here you are."

"Much good I've done either of us," grumbled Cay, his face hot.

Adrio silently slid his hand into Cay's and laced their fingers together. "Thank you anyway."

After several minutes, a distant shout from the building below. The sound of a window or a door being thrown open. More voices. The workers on the roof perked up. And then, shattering the night, a bell began to clamor.

"They've found him," said Adrio.

The workers rushed past them to the door and ran down the servants' stairs, leaving Cay and Adrio alone on the rooftop, with the silent balloon looming above them.

Adrio released Cay's hand and stood. Cay looked up at him.

Adrio was staring at the balloon.

"No," said Cay. "It doesn't fly."

"It flies."

"No. I watched them test it before I came to you. It could only get a few feet off the ground."

Adrio turned from the balloon, a wild light shining in his eyes. "It won't fly because of the masts and sails and things. I tried to talk them into putting a rudder on it too. We'll have to take all that stuff off." He grinned. "It doesn't steer, but it flies."

"Adrio." Cay gaped at him. He was serious.

"Come on. We'll have to be quick."

They worked together, fast and silent. Adrio held a section of the scaffolding upright while Cay climbed up and cut the sails loose from the top of the balloon. The heavy silk slithered to the ground. Cay jumped back down, clambered into the wicker basket, and began feeding charcoal into the kiln while Adrio unhitched the heavy spars and dragged them away. He threw a bag of charcoal and a few discarded cloaks into the basket, climbed in, grabbed the bellows, and began to pump.

The balloon seemed to ruffle itself, shaking its feathers like a falcon released from its hood, and the flagging bag of the balloon stretched and filled. They rose from the ground and stopped with a stomach-swooping lurch when they reached the extent of a line tethering the basket to the roof. Pulled by the balloon but restrained by the line, the basket tipped. Cay dropped into a terrified crouch and clung to the rim.

"Give me the knife!"

He passed Adrio the knife, and Adrio leaned out and cut the tether.

The balloon seemed to spring skyward, and the basket rocked, and Cay's stomach turned upside-down. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the rim until his knuckles went numb.

"Look, Cay!"

He opened his eyes. The basket drifted, impossibly, through nothing but sky. Adrio was standing, peering down over the edge of the basket.

Cay peeked over the rim. The roof of Bortorra dropped away, smaller and smaller in the distance, as the balloon rose into the sky.

"Oh my gods," moaned Cay. "We're going to die."

"Look," said Adrio again, pointing.

The grounds of Bortorra were alight and aswarm—people with lanterns and torches were running about. Searching the grounds, searching the buildings. Searching for Adrio and Cay.

Not one of them turned their eyes upward.

Adrio and Cay sailed up and up, above their heads, until an easterly breeze caught the balloon and took them, slowly and silently, away.