The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Courtney Grace Powers

  All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  PUBLISHED BY

  Courtney Grace Powers

  For Sean, Tim, and Christopher

  who alone understand why the Sterling Patron

  wears a floppy green hat

  Table of Contents

  Ch. I - The Unwilling Veterans

  of the Emathia Tea Party

  Ch. II - A Blue (No, Grey) Sky

  Ch. III - Reece Sheppard, Captain Umbrella

  Ch. IV- What the Birds Knew First

  Ch. V- The Cost of Doing Something Great

  Ch. VI – Problems with Pudding

  Ch. VII – Moots, Shrews, and Little Red Boots

  Ch. VIII – Mighty Big Engine Rats

  Ch. IX – Owon to the Rescue (If He Doesn’t

  Kill You First)

  Ch. X – Welcome to Leto City, Now Go Away

  Ch. XI – Evacuation Now, a Guidebook

  Ch. XII – When Cannibals Ain’t the

  Scariest Thing Around

  Ch. XIII – What Means Me

  Ch. XIV – The Battle of Red Pool, L.F. 1296

  Ch. XV – Good Sterling Eve to All Except Owon

  Ch. XVI – The Land of No Princesses

  Ch. XVII – Fairy Lights

  Ch. XVIII – Theft!

  Ch. XIX – Scarlet Ashdown, Whim-Checker

  Ch. XX – The Enviable Blue Turtle

  Ch. XXI – Over the Edge and Beyond

  Ch. XXII – The Death of Po Trimble

  Ch. XXIII – Being Fine

  Ch. XXIV – We’re All Crazies Here

  Ch. XXV – It’s Nice to Meet You, Nivy Noemie

  Ch. XXVI – Truth Be Told

  Ch. XXVII – Radioactive

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  I

  The Unwilling Veterans of the Emathia Tea Party

  It was winter.

  The Estate at Emathia, home to the Grand Duke of planet Honora, sat alone on a country lane a short automobile drive outside the planet's capital. The estate's rolling grounds were covered in several inches of wet, sticky snow, and the brick-laid drive leading up to the mansion had great heaps of the stuff piled on its edges, heaps that leaned against the trunks of the tall oak trees flanking the drive. Though bright against the colorless landscape, the green and yellow carriage trundling down the drive, its horses' hooves clopping in slush, faded into the background as it squeaked to a stop before Duke Thaddeus Sheppard's mansion.

  The mansion was a flinch-worthy teal, roofed with red and white shingles laid in patterns of swirls. Icicles clung precariously to the edges of the three balconies looking out over the grounds while smoke drifted out of the mansion's almost ungainly-looking, too-tall chimneys. Someone who hadn't seen inside the mansion might actually think the colors and the icicles and the cheerful chimney smoke quite quaint.

  Scarlet Ashdown had never considered Emathia quaint. Not even as a little girl, all those times her mother had brought her to the estate for tea meetings and recitals before the duchess. She had been awed—cowed, really—by the enormity of it. Frightened by what even then she understood as the strange, double-faced nature of nobility. One might be quaint and pretty on the outside, but on the inside, there had to be composure, order, steadiness. No compromise.

  The inside of the mansion was dark and handsome. A chandelier of red and black stained glass provided the entrance hall with an atmospheric glow, but most of the real lighting came by way of the gaping hearth beyond the duchess's grand piano. The mansion was eerily quiet; sitting in the tearoom off the entrance hall, Scarlet could hear both the crackling of the fire and the tick of ice against the tearoom window.

  Despite the silence, the mansion was not empty. There were, in fact, seven people in the tearoom alone. Looking over the rim of her teacup as she sipped, Scarlet studied her company with a practiced eye. Her mother sat by her elbow, her tea untouched. Mother's hands tended to shake, and she would never draw attention to herself by rattling her cup in its saucer—that wasn't her way. She'd rather blend into the walls and listen. A job not easily done, when you were the kind of beautiful that made men sit up and pay attention. Scarlet had inherited her mother's deep golden hair, almond-shaped hazel eyes, and svelte figure, but when Rowena Ashdown was around, she felt faded and bland.

  Lucious Tobin, a big boy with receding yellow hair and a ruddy complexion, was sitting on a dark green sofa between his much smaller parents, who were reading different copies of the same book, neither acknowledging the other. Scarlet called Lucious a boy, but at twenty, he was actually a few months her elder. Noticing her glance, Lucious leaned up out of his slouch and grinned. Scarlet's eyes continued to pass over him. No matter his age, Lucious really was still just a boy. Most men were.

  The tearoom had its own fireplace. A deep-chested man stood before it, clasping his hands behind his back as he studied the black and white photographs hanging over enormous mantelpiece.

  “Where is he?” he asked without turning. Duke Thaddeus Sheppard had a voice like dark chocolate, smooth and deep and rich.

  “I told him noon,” the duchess, Abigail, said. She sat in a high-..backed leather chair by the tearoom's bay window, her golden dress catching the sheen of the firelight. The dress was the latest in fashion, tight at the hips, flaring at the knees, complete with a high-waisted jacket and black silk gloves. Scarlet's dress was cut similarly, but it was a conservative blue.

  “You should have told him eleven,” the duke rumbled, sounding amused. “That way he would have been on time.”

  Abigail sniffed disdainfully.

  An ominous roar that began in the distance and gradually grew loud enough to rumble the floor beneath Scarlet's ankle-high boots warned them he had arrived. With a snort, the duke turned to face the mantel again, shaking his balding head. The roar died out, footsteps stamped up the mansion's front stairs, and the front door banged open.

  A moment later, Reece Sheppard, heir to Honora's dukeship and Scarlet's friend for going on nine years, skidded into the tearoom, leaving streaks of melting snow on the polished wood floors.

  “Sorry,” Reece said loudly, breathless. His brown hair was windblown and messy, parted by a pair of riding goggles he seemed to have forgotten about, and though he'd obviously tried to dress for the occasion, wearing a half-decent suit…he'd missed a button on his jacket, and done up the rest crookedly to compensate.

  Scarlet inwardly sighed, wanting very badly to put her face in her hand. After all the notice his recent heroics had earned him, he was still Reece, through and through. She supposed she was glad for that.

  “Sit,” the duke instructed calmly.

  Reece looked around, panting, and unsurprisingly picked the empty chair beside Mrs. Tobin rather than the one by his thunder-faced mother. The Tobins had both put away their books in favor of studying him with the same expression of bland curiosity they had worn while reading.

  “Sorry,” Reece repeated, addressing the room at large. “I didn't mean to keep you waiting.” His dark brown eyes twinkled at Scarlet's flat stare, and she rolled her eyes at him.

  “Didn't you?” Abigail said hotly. “It's nearly one o'clock, Reece Benjamin.”

  “That late already?”

  Abigail simply glared at him till he felt the top of his head, discovered his goggles, and tugged them off with a sheepish smile.

  “Abigail,” the duke said, “go and tell the servants we'r
e ready to move into the banquet hall for lunch.” Turning to fully face the room—impressive in his dark military suit—the duke leveled Reece with a wry stare. “Finally.”

  Today was a revisiting of old days, when Abigail had held banquets in the hopes of sophisticating her unruly son. Lucious and Scarlet were two of the banquets' veterans, both children of politicians, both destined for parliament. Scarlet was due to finish her education at the prestigious Aurelian Academy in a matter of weeks and, right on schedule, begin her tenure as Junior Ambassador overseeing relations with the people of Zenovia. Lucious had already begun his work as an intern at The Guild House.

  Reece, still so much like the boy who had sneaked out of his mother's banquets in favor of running unchecked and barefoot through the countryside, was going to be an airship captain. He had never retaken the career aptitude test he had failed some four months ago, but, questionable circumstances notwithstanding, he had saved the lives of every important member of Parliament by steering their crashing heliocraft to safety.

  As Scarlet drifted behind her mother and the Tobins, Reece fell back to join her, redoing the buttons on his jacket.

  “Almost like old times, isn't it?”

  “Yes,” Scarlet said, arching an eyebrow. “Except you have your shoes on, and you aren't hiding your Westerner comrades under the table.”

  “They don't fit anymore.”

  Smirking, Scarlet turned into the candlelit banquet hall, where a large round table was already laid with sparking crystal dishes. Despite the early hour, the light falling through the tall windows lining the hall was blue and gloomy. Scarlet wasn't much anticipating the return carriage drive to Caldonia.

  “Horrid weather, what?” Lucious commented, tucking a napkin into the front of his shirt. “All that ice…but say, Reece, you came here on a bimotor, didn't you? I thought I recognized all that dreadful rumbling.”

  Nodding as he pulled out a chair for Scarlet—he remembered at least that much from the old days—Reece glanced out the window and grimaced. “The bim does alright in the ice. It's the Dryad I'm worried about. Dryads don't do well in this kind of weather. The ice gets into their compressors, and then they produce too much steam.”

  “Well, I won't pretend to know how that all works.” Lucious lifted his goblet to shoulder height and held it there till a servant in white bustled over to fill it, looking harried. “But, you know, I find bimotors simply fascinating. Sort of rugged, aren't they? A real return to man's roots.”

  “Be quiet and drink your wine, Lucious,” Mr. Tobin grumbled. “You sound like a buffoon.”

  “Hush, darling,” Mrs. Tobin tut-tutted, glancing embarrassedly at the duke and Abigail, who were joining them at the table. “This isn't The Guild House.”

  “For which I am shamelessly grateful,” the duke spoke up, smiling as he sat. Duke Sheppard had seemed almost a different man, these last few weeks. Still hard, still stately, still intimidating—but he smiled more, and when Reece was around, the man could be almost…impish.

  Something had changed between the father and son. Scarlet had witnessed their relationship in its prime, before Reece had started at The Aurelian Academy and had still silently humored his parents' vision for his future. Even then, it had felt…strained. Reece and the duke had even gone through a two year stint when they hadn’t spoken at all. That stint had been miraculously broken by the events of a month ago. Events that Scarlet still didn't fully understand.

  The first course of lunch arrived. She idly tossed her salad with her fork, watching and listening.

  “So, young Mr. Sheppard,” Mr. Tobin said, pausing to wash down his salad with a generous gulp of wine. “You've gotten your wings. When do you expect assignment?”

  Reece twiddled his fork. He wasn't eating, either. “I can't officially take a crew of my own until I finish school. So it'll be a few more weeks, at least, until I hear from the Regulatory Air Assignment Patrol.”

  Lucious made a fascinated noise through a mouthful of food and raised a hand as if to hold his place in the order of conversation. “You know, Reece, The Patrol work out of The Guild House. I could stop by their offices and see if I couldn't find out what's coming to you. A little favor for an old friend.”

  “Thanks, Lu,” Reece said with a crooked smile. “But don't trouble yourself. I'm qualified to fly in the Streams now, so that's likely where I'll be headed.”

  “The Streams, eh?” Mr. Tobin squinted at Reece. “I thought it wasn't till a captain's second promotion that he qualified for the Streams.”

  When Reece merely shrugged and continuing raking through his salad, Mr. Tobin turned to the duke, who had been silently working away at his lunch. This seemed to be the chance Mr. Tobin had been waiting for.

  “Your boy must have really outdone himself at that masquerade. I wasn't there, myself, but I have the missus's firsthand account. And the wireless reports have been talking of little else for the last few months. I've even seen his face on the evening papers.”

  “How utterly disconcerting,” Reece muttered so only Scarlet could hear. She shot him a look.

  “Yes,” Lucious spoke up quickly, “it was just dreadful, but you know, rather exciting.”

  “Pah, you don't know what you're talking about. You were as drunk as a bleeding Westerner,” Mr. Tobin snapped at his son, who flushed. Tobin nodded his head apologetically to the duke and Abigail and loaded another forkful of salad before continuing. “An assassination plot...hatched by the headmaster of The Aurelian Academy himself! Can't imagine you knew it was coming, Thaddeus, but you have to admit, it was a mighty bit of luck that landed Reece of all people with the chance to stop Eldritch's Vee before it got a shot off on you.”

  “Very lucky,” the duke agreed. His dark eyes and stern expression betrayed nothing, but in Scarlet's studies, even that meant something.

  Scarlet carefully eyed Reece, who had suddenly homed in on his neglected salad and was focusing all his attention on his bowl. Scarlet had been there that night; she had spoken with Reece and learned that he had come to the masquerade to protect the duke from said assassination. That, frustratingly, was all she really knew for sure. Oh, she had guesses, the same guesses as Mr. Tobin's evening papers. Headmaster Charles Eldritch, whom she had previously ascertained was the real power behind most of The Guild House's decisions, had turned out to be what parliament classified as an N.H.A.: a Non-Human Alien, one capable of taking human hosts. Where he had come from, or whom, was being kept closely guarded from the Honoran public.

  Scarlet and the newspapers all suspected Reece was in on the secret, but he thus far hadn't been very forthcoming with either. Which was altogether unsurprising.

  Mr. Tobin didn't seem pacified by the duke's answer. “But there was a second assassin, wasn't there? A gold-masked fellow, all the rumors name him.”

  “There was.” The lines around the duke's eyes deepened as he frowned at a point over Mr. Tobin's head, seemingly lost in thought. Try as she might, Scarlet couldn't comprehend his expression; it seemed strangely…sad. And why had Abigail's face gone so pale?

  After a pause, Reece cleared his throat and spoke while watching his father out of the corner of his eye. “There was a second assassin, and he did wear a gold mask. But he was killed in the explosion.”

  With a cough that barely passed for a laugh, Mr. Tobin picked up his goblet and tipped it at Reece as if offering a toast, all the while staring beadily at him. “Well, you're probably something of a hero at The Owl, I imagine. Unmasked an imposter, saved the duke and Parliament…killed a Vee, too, and that's no small feat.”

  “Actually, I just pushed him off a balcony.”

  Nobody said anything for a long moment.

  Finally, Abigail, whose eyes looked rather red, snapped, “Are we ready for the second course, or are we going to keep yapping our appetites away?”

  The second course—fruit salad garnished with mint leaves—stretched impossibly longer than the first, with the Tobins always returning to
the night of the masquerade, ferreting for gossip. The duke took it all with that dark grace of his, but Abigail's disdainful sniffs kept growing more and more pronounced.

  “Blasted shame about Liem, by the way,” Mr. Tobin said as he cleaned the bottom of his fruit dish, affecting an appropriately mournful expression.

  “Terrible, just terrible,” Mrs. Tobin echoed. “But the funeral was lovely.”

  The duke nodded grimly, and Abigail drank deeply from her goblet. There was definitely something there, Scarlet decided. She'd already had her suspicions, of course. Liem pronounced dead the same night as the horrific heliocraft crash? It was too great a coincidence. This settled it in her mind. For whatever reason, Liem had been on The Jester.

  “I wonder,” Mrs. Tobin said in a conspiratorial voice, “if Headmaster Eldritch had something to do with Liem's abduction?”

  Scarlet's keen eye picked up on the short glance passing between Reece and his father.

  “I'd say that's likely,” the duke said, and Mrs. Tobin swelled with pride.

  Sweet nut and honey bread and lamb stew came and was then replaced by apple pie and tea, and the conversation dragged, but still Scarlet listened, mentally filing valuable little tidbits—such as Reece and the duke's shared glance, and Abigail's red eyes and heavy drinking—away for later. It was boring, tedious work, but necessary.

  “…can't blame a man for wondering, of course,” Mr. Tobin droned on. “But us in the Economics Department, we don't hear much of these things. The army is still being raised, then?”

  Scarlet tipped her head in interest, swilling her tea gently. That particular nugget of information was one she had mined months ago. Parliament had enacted the involuntary draft to raise the numbers of Honora's ground and air forces, undoubtedly for war. What war, however, remained yet another mystery. Reece, along with his friend Hubert, had actually been drafted before his father had belatedly exempted them in accordance with The Duke's Rite of Imbuement, but if he knew any more about who his enemies would have been than Scarlet, he'd kept the knowledge to himself.