Something very small, but bright and painful sparks in the hollow parts of my chest. The sooner we can get there, the sooner I can get to the bottom of this. For myself. For Kelda. Maybe even for any future saints.
Atlas pushes himself away from the table and stands, his preacher medallion swinging against his dark maroon shirt. “We’re going with you.”
Orion looks up sharply. “Wait, really?”
“None of you know how to drive a carriage. You won’t get very far on your own.” He looks down at Liren, who gives him a barely perceptible nod, and then he knocks a fist gently against Orion’s shoulder. “Finish up with your stuff. We leave in half an hour.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“THERE HAVE BEEN SOME ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORING THE ORIGIN POINTS OF OUR BLESSED AQUEDUCTS, GIVEN THAT HUMANS OFTEN HAVE AN ILL-ADVISED AND DANGEROUS SENSE OF CURIOSITY. BUT THE MYSTERIES OF THE HERALDS’ GREAT DESIGN HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO PENETRATE. EXPLORERS OFTEN FIND THEMSELVES GOING IN CIRCLES OR INEXPLICABLY LOST IN THE COPPER PLAINS.”
—TRINITY: A TOPOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW, PROFESSOR BEATRICE BARTLEWICK
The carriage is hidden in a ramshackle storage shed on the outskirts of Concord and is so old that I don’t know that I’d even recognize what it was if the Bookers hadn’t already told me. It looks a bit like a low wagon with three pairs of wide-set wheels at the front, middle, and back, and a strong, crisscrossing cage of bars arching up over the cart itself. At the front, six automaton mounts stand, quiet and dark, their plating covering the naphtha hearts sitting in the chest of each one. They’re a bit rusty, but still elegant-looking, with long legs and faces, small pricked-up ears,and a strip of metal along their arching necks molded to look like hair streaming backward.
“We couldn’t find anything down here in the dust that would protect the wheels,” Garian explains as I sling my rucksack onto the carriage floor. He moves around, checking and double-checking all the mechanisms involved in making this thing move. “Nothing we could afford, anyway. But Orion here”—Orion shoots me a wink as he clambers by me into the carriage interior—“found a skyliner material that we could get our hands on.”
“Legally, of course,” Orion says in a tone as dry as the Copper Plains.
Garian straightens and reaches out to take Liren by the shoulders, the hint of tears shining in his eyes. “This feels a lot more dangerous than sending you off to pester preachers and wardens.”
Liren pecks him on the cheek and then turns to hug Mira. Mira holds her child much tighter and longer this time.
“It’ll be okay,” Liren says as they step back. “We’ll be back before you know it.”
Mira levels a fierce look at me. “You keep them all safe, understand?”
I couldn’t even keep Halle safe, I think, but I just nod and turn away.
“Is this going to carry all of us okay?” Dani eyes the carriage with blatant doubt as she gives Kelda a boost inside, then tosses in their rucksacks and water rations. “Six people and our gear and—”
“Carriages were designed to actually carry around ten peopleat a time,” Orion says, reaching out a hand to help Kelda balance as she plops down into a seat and settles fuzzy Ember in her lap. She hasn’t let go of the little thing for an instant since it woke up, hand-feeding it bits of her own food and water rations. “It was supposed to be a whole new commerce area—run a carriage, charge people to ride, the usual.”
Dani humphs, still not convinced, but she finally sighs and crawls in after me. “Fine. But it looks like a tragic accident in the making.”
“Don’t worry.” Atlas places his hand against an emerald-green crystalline pad and the automaton mounts spring to life, the naphtha hearts and veins inside them igniting with blue-white light that glows through their eye sockets and the gaps in their plating. He shifts the levers lined up in front of him and we start to roll forward. “We’ve tested this out several times, and it worked perfectly at least once.”
Dani can barely get out a shout of protest before the carriage picks up speed and takes off, rumbling roughshod over the lightningrail bridge and then shooting north off across the Copper Plains.
For the first hour or so of the ride, I sit stiff and upright in my low seat, not quite comfortable with the feeling of the carriage. It’s so different from a train car, which shifts and clacks in a familiar rhythm, but it’s not quite smooth like an airship, either, because you still get the tangible sensation of the ground beneath you. I’m not sure I like it, if I’m being honest, but at least I’m able to settle into it after a while, leaning back and letting my muscles unclench. I’m seated at the back, with Orion on my rightand Dani next to him. Kelda sits up front, sandwiched between Atlas and Liren, who are trading off driving and navigating. The smothering heat of the day eases slightly as the hours pass and the sun starts to set.
At the front of the carriage, I watch as Atlas points at the sky, mutters something to Liren, and then twists one of the levers, adjusting our trajectory.
I lean over toward Orion so he can hear me over the wind without me raising my voice too much. “What are they doing?”
“Hmm? Oh.” He shifts in his seat, rubbing at his face like he might’ve been about to drift off to sleep. “They’re using the stars to navigate, I think, to make sure we’re still headed in the right direction. Pretty much the only way to know where you’re going out here since there are no streets or signposts or anything else like that.”
I follow the angle of Atlas’s arm, trying to discern what he sees in the night sky. “How do they know what to look for?”
“That’s a very excellent question for someone who’s not me.” He folds his hands behind his head, cradling it as he tilts his chin up to the starscape. “I’m just a spectator when it comes to things like this.”
“As opposed to the things you’re an expert in, like thieving and pretty talk.”
“Did you just call me pretty?” I’m not even looking at him, but I can still hear the grin in his voice. “You can’t take that back, y’know.”
I roll my eyes so hard they hurt a little. Of course he took it like that. “I said you know how to talk pretty. That’s very different.”
He waves my excuse away, smiling so big his teeth shine in the darkness. “All I heard was the wordpretty, so I’m going with that.”
