She crouched in the corner out of view of any passing watchman and inserted the quill’s tip into the lock on her cuff. It certainly fit …

She wiggled it around and heard a click when she applied a bit of pressure to the right spot and the cuff’s lock sprang open. The first cuff dropped to the Tank’s floor. She started work on the second cuff’s lock but the lock was not as easy to trigger and although she tried again and again, each time trying a slightly different angle and a slightly different pressure, she nearly cried when the quill made a crunching noise and split along its length.

She wanted to tell Caleb what she was working at, but the sound of his snoring kept her quiet.

She pulled the broken thing out—it was no stronger than a thick piece of straw now—and certainly no more useful. One cuff open and one hand free … She quietly maneuvered the loose cuff and the chain through the iron ring bolted to her cell’s floor and stood up, freer in her cell than she had been for a while.

She swept the straw aside with her foot and stooped to retrieve her pin. She waited until the watchman walked by on his hourly tour of the Tanks and then she crouched before her door’s lock and wiggled the pin’s sharp tip into its opening.

A wiggle, a turn, a click, and the lock reacted.

For the longest moment she remained crouched there with her face by the lock, completely stunned by her success. Finally she slipped on her shoes, stood and gave the door a little tug. It moved. The door was unlocked—open. She was free and if she made it far enough this time, she could return for the others. She looped the chain around her free arm and pulled one side of her skirt up to obscure it in the folds of the fabric and, truly opening the door now, she slid out into the hall and bolted for the door at its far end.


En Route to Holgate

Rowen had allowed the horses one break, during which he had finally gotten his hands on Silver. He adjusted all the straps and buckles and rubbed the horse while reassuring it with soft words and firm hands. Looping Silver’s reins around his saddle horn, he kicked Ransom into action, a feeling growing in his gut that soon, very soon, he would see Jordan.

With that thought in mind he set the horses into a gallop and lowered his body over Ransom’s back and neck, making them as sleek a shape as possible for cutting through the air.


Holgate

She burst through the door and took the stairs at a dead run, leaping over them two at a time. The feeling of freedom—the exhilaration of escape—overrode every bit of discomfort she felt and the moment she burst out the tower’s lowest door and stumbled into the bustling and shop-lined street of Holgate’s eastern side she sucked in a breath that seemed sweeter than any she had ever taken before. It was only a short distance from the street to the Western Tower and then a climb up even more stairs than she’d come down to make it to the top …

Her eyes traveled the length of the tower to where an airship floated, tethered as tight as they dared, at the edge of the jutting balcony.

She steeled herself and sprinted across the street.

That was when she heard them.

“Witch on the run!” someone shouted, and an alarm bell rang.

Jordan doubled her speed but suddenly every face turned toward her was fierce and cruel—nowhere did she see a speck of compassion. Men she hadn’t even noticed before reached out to grab and hold her—she shook free of them, but her skirt dropped and the chain fell loose and she was running as much as dragging—

And then she saw the Maker and his little girl. The child’s mouth stood as wide open as Jordan had left her cell door standing, the child’s eyes wide.

A whip lashed out, wrapping round her waist and pulling her off her feet. The men had her. The Maker was shouting and the little girl was running and she grabbed Jordan’s chain, screaming, “Don’t hurt her!”

And then there was a bolt of light and everyone was suddenly flat on the ground. Sparks ran across Jordan’s chain and made her gown glitter with light.

Stunned, Jordan tried to stagger to her feet.

But the Maker had his gloves on and took the chain from his daughter’s hands.

“Don’t let them hurt her, Papá,” the child pleaded. “She is so scared…”

He looked from the one to the other of them. “I know, Meggie,” he whispered, “but she is as the Witches are—an abomination.” And from the look on his face Jordan knew that any previous doubt he might have had was gone.

* * *

She tumbled out of the doorway and onto the tower top’s stone floor. Her foot caught up in her own skirting, she landed hard on her hands, jarring every bit of her.

“I cannot believe it,” the Maker exclaimed. “I do not know what to think when it comes to you, Miss Jordan Astraea.” He paced by her, his shoulders slumped and his back bent, hands twisting in one another before him as he thought. “The very moment I am truly doubting that you are a Weather Witch—that you can be a Conductor, you Light Up faster and brighter than a Councilman at a cocktail party! I was ready to admit I was wrong … I was ready to give up on you, accept you as Grounded…” He turned and faced her and the sun framed him so harshly she had to look away. “What am I to believe now? I thought for a while that you were right—that I was wrong, that somehow—for some godforsaken reason—the Maker had managed to torture an innocent member of the Grounded. Do you know how that made me feel?”

“I hope it made you sick,” she hissed.

He straightened. “It did!”

“I am Grounded,” she said.

“The same words, but you showed a far different reality out there on the street. So do it again. Do it now. Admit what you are once and for all and let us end this farce!”

“I am Grounded,” she spat out the words. “I do not know why what happened out there did happen out there.”

“Admit what you are and we can move past the Making. I can get you out of here tomorrow. On that airship.” He pointed to the bulbous thing tethered to the Western Tower. “They need a new Conductor and can train you to the finer points of the job. Imagine. Being out of the Tanks. Being the captain of your own ship.”

“A Conductor’s no more the captain than a maid is the head Councilman,” she snapped. Lying there on the floor, she tried to get her feet free of her skirts. The right one had no trouble and she rolled onto her back and sat up, seeing her shoe peek out from under her hem.

He nodded once. Slowly. “But still it is better than the Tanks. So admit your true nature. Tell it true.”

“Tell it true? I am Grounded.” But her right foot … She shook it, but it would not come free. She pressed with it and heard stitches snap and gave a little start, immediately stopping the action. Her lips turned down at their ends and she bit the lower one, worrying it between her teeth. She did not want to ruin what might be the last dress she was given by popping stitches in a place that would surely not allow her a needle and thread. Bending, she reached forward to flip her skirts up and see the problem, but she froze, her hands curled above the hem.

The door opened and Meg stepped out onto the tower’s top.

The Maker looked at his daughter. “I do not think you will want to be here for this,” he advised her. “The lady insists she is Grounded.”

“Then let her go.”

He blinked at her. “Oh, Meggie. You are so young and so innocent. She is not Grounded, little dove. You saw what she did on the street.” He turned back to Jordan and muttered, “Even if she was Grounded, I couldn’t let her go.”

Jordan swallowed and tugged the fabric of her skirt back, immediately seeing the issue. Her heel was snared in a web of the same beautiful thread that ran throughout her ball gown. Light winked off the metallic thread and she curled over her leg to untangle her shoe.

Her foot freed, she hesitated, fingers tracing the intricate work she would have never appreciated had she not looked beneath her skirts.

“Papá, you are the Maker. You can do whatever you wish,” Meg insisted.

“Hush, Meggie. Nothing is quite so simple as all that.” He looked at the blades. “I would have to make you disappear to save my reputation,” he explained slowly to Jordan. “Only it’s not just my reputation I’d be saving—I have others to watch out for now, you see. I am a provider—a family man.”

Meg was beside him, holding his shirtsleeve, but Jordan paid them little mind, listening halfheartedly. How such a sweet child could be the offspring of a monster like the Maker … But the strange threads running like a spider’s web caught her attention again.

Why would anyone invest such time and attention to detail … Such money (for she knew metal spun into thread was no cheap purchase) … all for something no one would ever glimpse or appreciate?

The web ran everywhere her skirt did. And it was fine—nearly soft—not something like a hoop that added body and support to a dress. She popped up straight for a moment, eyes darting as her mind chased a thought as doggedly as a terrier after a rat.

“Besides, how else would you explain away all the potential anomalies then? What? You have demonstrated witchery at your birthday party—twice, at the Reckoning and just now on the streets of Holgate. That seems rather damning to me…”

“No,” she whispered. “Think on the science of it—you are a man of science…” She slipped her right hand up her left sleeve, flipping the remaining ruffle as she went. Intriguing. The ruffle was simple cloth—granted, a high-class weave and thread count that created a supple fall of fabric, but … Her fingers reached higher.