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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Six - Plotting

  The day after the ball had passed in a sort of haze. We were all tired and other than Awen who had a sudden powerful urge to make stuff, the rest of us all lounged around being zy all day and mostly just rexed.

  That was yesterday. Today, I put off the shackles of ziness and got to work. I had to show off the ship to one of its most important crewmates.

  “And this is the main deck,” I said as I set e down. Carrying the cat up was a bit plicated, but I had managed.

  e looked about with... a distinctly feline ck of i. She didn’t seem to care all that much about the Beaver.

  “Don’t look like that,” I said. “We’re all going to have a bunch of fun on this ship, and you have an important role to py too!”

  e stared up at me, her expression hinting that that role had better involve sleeping.

  “See, ships have rats and stuff in them,” I said.

  e’s eyes narrowed.

  “And we o capture and carefully put them outside where they go frolic elsewhere with their rat families,” I tinued. “Oh, and ureheads need guarding.” I started walking towards the front of the ship and e padded along silently.

  I patted one of the ducks.

  “These beaver-dueed guarding,” I said. “We’ll all be very busy doing ship stuff, so I was hoping that we could hire you to be our chief ship figurehead guardscat.”

  e did not look amused.

  “Um... first cat mate of figurehead guarding?”

  She looked away, ued.

  “Cat captain of the figureheads?”

  Now she seemed a little ied. She started to lick her paw, enticed.

  “Fine. Grand admiral of the figureheads.”

  e gave me a kitty smile and sauntered past, rubbing herself against my leg for a moment before boung up aling herself do one of the duck heads.

  “Wow, you’re really taking to your new job,” I said as I reached up and ran my hand over e’s side. Spirit cat fur had a straexture to it, probably owing to how it wasn’t quite there.

  “Broccoli!” I heard Amaryllis call.

  I gave e o pat before moving to the side of the ship so that I could look over the rail. Amaryllis was there, along with Clementine and Awen and three other harpies that I wasn’t familiar with. “Hello!” I called down.

  “Permission to e aboard, Captain?” the oldest of the harpies asked. He was a weather-beateleman, with a craggy fad narrowed eyes. Not an unfriendly face, but ohat had spent long hours out in the sun and wind. The other two with him were a great deal younger, maybe in their mid-twenties.

  “Sure thing!” I said. I wished that I had my awesome captain’s hat, but it was stuffed away in the guest bedroom the Albatross had given me.

  The group scurried up the dder, dies first, and gathered up on deck. “Wele aboard,” I said.

  “A pleasure,” the older harpy said.

  Clementine brushed down the front of her pants, then took a moment to ihe top deck of the Beaver. It arkling , and the fresh coat of paint on all the metal bits and varnish oop really made it look like a brand-new ship. “Nice work,” she said. “I saw Awen’s... unorthodox modifications already, and with all of this repainting and refurbishing, I think this vessel might actually be worth something.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m quite proud of the Beaver. I bet we’ll have all sorts of adveogether.”

  “She’s a nice ship,” the older harpy said.

  “He,” I corrected. “It’s a boy ship.”

  He blihen chuckled good naturedly. “Fair enough.”

  “This,” Clementine said. “Is Clive. He’s one of the most experienced harpy shipmen in all of the ing Kingdom.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s impressive. Did you serve on a lot of ships?”

  He nodded. “Oh yes. I was on the dor, the very first harpy airship. Just a normal sailor then, mind you. I’ve been on every sort of ship for the past thirty-odd years.”

  “We brought him over because we figured the Beaver could use at least one experiealon aboard,” Clementine said.

  “I know my way around navigation and the like,” Amaryllis said. “But I’m dead weight on the rigging and so on. And this ship is just big enough that there’s no way we could pilot it with just the three of us. Hehese two.”

  “Ah, yes, this is Steve and Gordon,” Clementine tihe ty boys gave us quick salutes. “They’re your crew, basically.”

  “Wow!” I said. “So that makes... a crew of eight. Not bad.”

  “Eight?” Clementine asked.

  I nodded. “That’s if we take on Bastion from the sylph. I don’t know if he’s good on a ship, but he seems capable enough to help.”

  “That still doesn’t add up,” she said.

  “Did you fet to t e?” I gestured to the cat currently in loaf mode atop one of the figureheads.

  “I don’t think the cat ts as crew,” Clementine said.

  Clive cleared his throat. “Matter of fact, ma’am, many a ship does t her cats as crew. Important fellows too, when it es to keeping the cargo nid safe.”

  I could almost feel the smug radiating fre.

  “So, are you guys here to see if the Beaver’s ready to set sail?” I asked.

  Clive nodded along. “The boys here will give themselves a tour, check the rigging and the sails, and make sure everything is tip-top.”

  Steve and Gordon saluted again and snapped off to do as they’d been asked.

  “Both are navy-trained,” Clive said. “Good ds.”

  “Indeed,” Clementine said. “I was hoping to look over a few charts. If you’ll be leaving soon, then we’ll o chart a course sooner rather than ter.” She tapped a small satchel that hung off her hip. “Do you have a pce where we look things over?”

  “Sure,” I said. “There’s plenty of room down below.”

  I led everyone over to the port where we’d set up a bit of office space. Amaryllis had brought a few books to fill the shelves, and we had a couple stools bolted to the floor around a little desk. It was meant to be a captain’s room, but since we barely had a captain it felt o just have a sort of office everyone could use.

  Also, the port had windows and a little baly and was muier and brighter.

  Cleme her satchel down, then id a map onto the table. It was a big one, with little markers for distand penned-in bels for the different cities between the ing Kingdom and the Sylphfree mountains.

  “Here.” She tapped at a city marker. “This is Quickwood. It’s a smaller city, with a detly rge port. And it’s probably going to be your destination.”

  “Is it the capital?” I asked.

  “No, that’s Goldenalden.” Her talon moved up and tapped at a bigger marker. “Here. But traveling through the Sylphfree mountains without a local guide is treacherous, long, and rather expe would be much cheaper to park the Beaver in Quickwood and then charter a p one of the transports heading to and from the capital. Maybe you even arrange for a teleport betweewo.”

  “,” I said. “So what’s the trajectory from here to Quickwood like?”

  “Ah, I’ve dohis one a few times,” Clive said. “Easy enough, what with the Golden Peak ag as a ndmark the entire way. Just keep it to port and keep moving straight and you’ll get there eventually.”

  “That is the usual route, yes,” Clementine said. “But I think that would be a little bit more dangerous than you’d want. There have been a lot of reports of privateers around derlod Fhe Tres deny all of that, of course, but they certainly wouldn’t mind if a war arked between the ing Kingdom and the sylph. It would feed into their expansionist agenda.”

  “Um,” I said as I looked at the map. “I ’t see a way to get to Sylphfree without crossing them, unless we ciravigate the world?”

  “No, there’s another path,” Amaryllis said. “Southwest, through Deepmarsh, skirting the coast of the Empty Sea, then north across the Hoofbreaker Woods and finally into Quickwood. It’s a much longer route though.”

  “And not always safer. The Empty Sea may be very quiet year-round. But the Insatiable O to the east, she’s hungry for ships and men.”

  “Hrm,” I said. “Which path is the most dangerous, Clementine?”

  “The fastest route. Your ship is small, easy prey for the cervid pirates. I think going south might be the safest. It will add two, maybe three days to your travel time, but you have plenty of room for that kind of fuel and the provisions you need, and if you leave tomorrow, that will still mean you’ll arrive at Quickwood a full three days before the official delegation leaving in a week or so.”

  “What do you think, Awen?” I asked.

  “Ah, um... I think that if the Beaver will have troubles it’ll probably be sooner rather than ter. And we’ll be over Deepmarsh at first. They’re nice. But if we ght, then we’ll be over the Tres.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Also, going south and around just looks a lot more fun.”

  “Yes, because the amount of fun we have is the most important factor in all of this,” Amaryllis deadpanned.

  “Exactly, yes,” I said.

  Amaryllis rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot.”

  “I try my best,” I said. “But really, isn’t the entire goal of this to get stronger and more experienced? I bet there’s a lot more to learn when going through a long trip than with a risky hop over to our destination.”

  Clementine didn’t seem to react much to that. “Well, it’s your ship, do as you please.”

  I grinned back at her. “Yes ma’am! So, are we really ready to leave tomorrow?”

  “At first light, if everything checks out,” she said. “I don’t think this truly ts as the ship’s inaugural flight, though if you want to break a bottle on its side I’m sure we have something ying around.”

  “I think we’d rather keep the bottle and its tents. World knows I might when flying with her,” Amaryllis said with a gesture my way.

  “Hey!” I protested.

  Clive ughed, a deep belly ugh that sounded rough, a grandfatherly. “Oh, I think this might be one of the more iing crews I’ve ever been part of, and on an iing ship, no less.”

  “We strive to be iing,” I said. “So, tonight’s our st night here?”

  “I suppose it’s not too te to have Gen-Gen and the others prepare a feast. I’m certain that Rosaline would appreciate a st meal with her beau.”

  Awen’s face burst into colour and she suddenly focused really hard on the map.

  “I think that would be nice,” I said. Clive, do you want to join us?”

  “I’m not much for fancy feast-like things, ma’am,” he said.

  “Nonsense! You and Steve and Gordon should join us. It’ll be a bonding moment. We’ll get to know each other a bit and it’ll make it easier to work together iure.”

  “Ah, if the dy insists,” he said. He didn’t look all that trary to the idea. “Though I won’t be spending too long, I’m afraid; I do o get some affairs in order before we leave on the morrow.”

  I gave him a big thumbs-up. “Sure thing. I think that this flight is going to be super smooth sailing.”