The sun is coming up as I make my way through the city, back home. Zhao and I drifted off while comparing notes about complicated family relationships, but I awoke only a few minutes later… needing to piss again, badly. He had fallen asleep on my shoulder, so I carefully replaced myself with a mountain of pillows, covered him up with a blanket, and quietly used his latrine before slipping out his shop door- though not before leaving a small stack of pound notes on the ground in front of him, for the medicines he used on me. The light and cold hits me like a steam engine, and I have to hug my cloak tight around my body.

Dirifall is abuzz this early in the morning, with the busy Chinatown street market setting out their inventory, and deliveries being made. Large steamwagens filled with goods take up most of the room on the street, and people zig-zag around them on electric boneshakers, little clouds puffing out from the small water tank on their rears, pushing men and women to early shifts at work as fast as they can. I want to keep my hood up and stay unnoticed, but my cloudy head desperately needs the wind on my face, and everyone here is so focused on getting their day started, nobody notices me.

Once home, I try and climb the stairs as quietly as possible. I make it all the way inside, cloak half way off, when Evaki awakes from her slumber- the exact spot I left her in. The often too silent dragon chirps and chitters at the sight of me, as if trying to expose my position.

Ash’s door opens, and she leans against the door-jam, arms crossed. “Well, aren’t you right bricky, coming home all skilamalink!”

When she’s angry, Aisling slips back into our Sootdrift vernacular. I suppose we both still carry it around.

“I am not! I’m just trying to be quiet, so I don’t wake you. That would be rude!”

“That’s a laugh. You’re trying to hide that you spent a whole day and night with our good friend and family chemist, because you don’t want me to know what you were doing! We have a treaty!”

“That’s not true! Zhao gave me some herbs to help me remember, like you suggested, and they put me to sleep, and then we just...talked for a while. No porky pies.”

“Really?” She narrows her eyes at me. “And that’s why you’re no longer inside your own corset?”

Bollocks.

“Okay, let me get you some coffee and I’ll explain.”

“I already had that talk with me nan, thank you very much.”

“Ash, come on, I actually have things I need to tell you!”

She arches an auburn eyebrow at me and wraps her green kimono tightly around herself as she makes her way over to our dining table. I scoop ground coffee beans into our coffee pot and fill it with water, then open up the top of the oven and lower the pot to ready for boil. Eva lets out a chirp that turns into a yawn which, in turn, becomes a lazy growl, letting me know that she is hungry. I go into the ice chest for her breakfast: about two hundred crickets suspended in a disc of frozen fish oil. The abomination smells as bad as it looks, but Evaki brims with delight as I pop it onto a saucer. She arches her back in a stretch, and then taps her front paws on the window bench in a little impatient dance as I bring it to her. It will take her about an hour to finish, after which she will need a nice jaunt around a nearby park, and then she will be content to sleep for the rest of the day.

“I’ll give you a little dance for my coffee too, Em.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I smile as I set down our coffee cups. “You know, if you hired some more people, you could open the Sparrow early in the morning and serve coffee. I bet you’d make a fortune off that.”

“Don’t think so. The carts ‘round town do plenty of business and they’re in the streets, right where people need ‘em on the way to work.”

“That’s true. What about a weekend breakfast?”

Aisling glares at me. “You’re stalling.”

“Fine, fine!” I take a long draw off my coffee cup. “Unfortunately, no, nothing happened between Zhao and I. He gave me something, something strong, to help get a clearer memory of the night. It knocked me out for quite a while, and then...” I shrug, “we honestly just talked all night.”

Aisling gives me a sharp and biting look of incredulity.

“Believe me, it wasn’t for lack of trying. If I’d been able to pull Zhao, I would be coming home with a victory banner, playing trumpets and throwing flower petals into the air!”

Aisling laughs, and her face finally softens a bit. “Okay, so tell me what happened. Tell me everything. I’ve been on this journey with you since year three, so I deserve to know.”

Two coffees later, and I’m beginning to wonder how much liquid my body can actually take in before I start leaking out of my feet as I walk. I tell her every detail of my mescaline hallucination, and how Zhao somehow used charm or magic or something to get me to talk about Cornelia. I do not, however, tell her what Zhao told me about his family- that is not my story to tell.

“So, after all that, do you think it was Cornelia’s swan?”

I nod. “Yeah, yeah I do. I think it was absolutely the same swan. I just don’t know if it actually has anything to do with her, or if that swan has any significance about it that I don’t know.”

“Are you going to pursue it?”

I sit back in my chair and sigh. “That’s the plan. Though admittedly I’ve talked myself out of that plan several times already.”

Ash taps her nails against her coffee cup, and they make a clinking sound.

“How about this?” She proposes. “Nehemiah starts work for this shady swan company when?”

“Monday.”

“That’s four days from now. Take a break from your cases, work with me in the Sparrow for the next few days, get your mind off everything, and come Monday morning you decide if you want to pursue. I assume your plan is to follow him to work?”

I nod.

“Great! You come with me to work, and then you’ll go with him to work.” She grins at me, and I smile back. I don’t know about this plan, but it’s the only one I have. This whole business will whittle away at my brain until I’ve figured it out, so I might as well not let it sit a while.

…...........

A busy weekend at the Sassy Sparrow has, indeed, gotten my mind off of the affair case that has been occupying my thoughts, though not exactly for the right reasons. I often help Aisling behind the bar, but generally only for a few hours at a time, when things are especially busy, or she has an appointment she needs to go to. I haven’t worked the Sparrow for days in a row in a long time, as there are only so many times I can accept Aisling telling me what to do whilst holding my tongue.

“Man in the blue needs a pint.”

“I know, I see him.”

“Then why doesn’t he have a pint?” She walks off, carrying a tray full of about eight different ales.

The Sparrow is especially raucous for a Sunday evening. It seems there is one of two moods on a Sunday night: 1. The weekend is coming to a close, the tavern is tired, and dreading the start of another work week or 2. The tavern celebrates the last few hours of freedom before real life begins again. Tonight, the Sparrow is rippling with the shared grip on the last vestiges of merriment. Strangers are becoming friends, rounds of pints are being bought and shared, laughter cuts through the chatter like lightning bolts through rain, one group has even started up a round of drinking songs. All is merry, and I just want the sweet release of death.

It’s nearing eleven in the evening and Ash and I have gone nonstop, all weekend. We are bristling at one another, our feet hurt, and not thirty minutes has gone by without a patron trying to get handsy with one or both of us. The crowd is holding onto the fun of their weekend with all the strength they have, but Ash and I just want to sleep. We maintain a cheery and flirtatious disposition, though. For the money.

Evaki has spent the weekend slinking along the ground, between feet and under tables, eating and drinking any spills and mostly avoiding any other dragons that have been brought in. She has been fairly happy, though while she can generally sleep through anything, the noise is becoming irksome even to her.

The door to the Sparrow opens and a small group comes in. I close my eyes briefly and sigh; People are still coming in, and it’s raining outside, meaning people will be more reluctant to leave.

“The gates are closing in Cheltham Gardens,” Aisling leans into me and smirks, raising her eyebrows towards the group that just came in. The large historical gates in the Cheltham square only close when the country is at war. Ash uses this term with me when there is a man that is attractive enough that it would cause her and I to fight over him. For instance, we had to agree to a ceasefire of Zhao, and the gates were reopened. “Looks like a pilot too!”

The group of three men and two women that just entered the Sassy Sparrow do, indeed, have the distinct look of an airship crew about them. They are well-muscled, their clothing is practical and durable, and they are all checkered in scars and tattoos.

There is a beefy man, bald except for large and fluffy red mutton chop sideburns, with the largest arms I’ve ever seen in my life. The other man is wiry and thin. His blond hair lays shaggy to the nape of his neck. All of his features are angular and long. He certainly doesn’t look waifish, though I wouldn’t call him strong so much as nimble.

The two women look like the complete opposites of each other, though both imposing in their own rights. One of them is tall and thin and her body looks solid. She has skin the color of coffee with a lot of cream in it, and sharp cheekbones with long, straight black hair tied in a braid down her right shoulder. The other woman is perhaps Chinese, or some form of Oriental, and about six inches shorter than the others. She looks sturdy, incredibly strong, with a thick torso and very muscular arms. Her hair is cut with a sharp line, longer on one side than the other. She has a tattoo of a branch with pink blossoms on it spanning down her left arm and high up onto her neck.

The man who led them in, clearly the captain, is who I believe Ash was referring to. He is tall, a good five inches taller than the rest of his crew, dark-skinned and broad. His head is shaved on the sides, but he’s got a mohawk of dreadlocks tied back and reaching down past his shoulders. His eyes are sharp, wise but not necessarily kind. His nose has clearly been broken several times, and there is a fresh pink scar along his jaw line, as well as a much older scar spanning from his temple to his cheek. He is very handsome, in a strong and assertive way, but much more than that, the group looks like an interesting break from my weekend full of rowdy locals.

“My customers, things have gotten slow for me,” I say to Aisling.

“Like hell they have!” She calls after me as I make my way across the tavern to the group. They have found a table that is much too small for them, but they are making it work.

“Is your night coming to a close, or just starting?” I ask the group while wiping a bit of spilled ale off my hand and onto my apron.

They all look up at me, not a smile on the lot of them, and the captain speaks. “Neither, just yet anyway. Jus’ landed, and we’ve got a few hours ‘til load up. Decided to wait it out here.”

Hours?! I think to myself, despairingly.

“You get many crews in this establishment?” The wiry blond asks, straightening up in his chair and putting a bit of posh emphasis on the word establishment.

“Occasionally. We’re not too far from Kenningate, but you have to pass a few pubs to get to us, so only the truly discerning airman makes it to the Sassy Sparrow. As you can imagine, that’s quite the rarity!”

The captain narrows his eyes and studies my face for a few seconds- honestly, sitting down he’s almost face to face with me. Then, slowly, a smile spreads across his mouth and he starts to laugh. It’s just a low chuckle, but apparently, it’s enough to signal to the crew that it’s okay for them to laugh as well.

“What can I get for you all this evening?” I ask after letting the round the laughter die down.

“Something hot, I think. I would kill a man if I could eat him warmed up after,” said the shorter woman, stoically, with not a hint of jest.

The captain raises his eyebrows at his crew member and then looks at me. “Well then. Is there anything hot on the menu?”

“We’ve got a chicken and veg soup, I think we’ve still got some curried fish, and our specialty, the Cheese Baby. It’s basically an entire loaf of bread with an impossible amount of cheese melted on top of it.”

“Soup, I think, for everyone, yeah?” The captain looks around at his crew and they all nod. “If we have another fish dinner, we might just burn this city to the ground.”

I look at him questioningly. “I’m sorry, I assumed you’re an airship crew.”

“We are, miss. But there’s been sea beneath us on our most recent trips; We can dip down far enough to fish, should we need to. And on the last few trips, we have certainly needed to.” I can see a hint of... something in the captain’s eyes as he ends that sentence. It might be just exhaustion, but I feel like it’s something more. Perhaps worry? Even fear?

I smile. “A round of soup, then. And ale, if I could assume again?”

“Yes! Another correct assumption, miss.”

“And that Cheese Baby!” The wiry blond makes sure to add in before I walk off.

The ‘kitchen’ of the Sparrow also doubles as a storeroom. It was actually the original kitchen of the home, and we modified it so that the stove, an ice chest, and crates of dried goods could fit in it, walled off from the rest of the pub. Ardal, our cook, comes in in the early mornings, makes massive batches of whatever he feels like, and then he goes off about his business. We serve whatever he makes until it runs out, and then all we have is the dried goods. The only exception is the Cheese Baby. We make the Cheese Baby ourselves, a holdover treat from our childhood. Sootdrift, where Aisling and I grew up, didn’t have the poorest families in England, or even Etherbury. In fact, my family had quite a bit of money, which my mum wisely made inaccessible to my father, and therefore we did not live off it. What Sootdrift did have were families that were making it, which often meant getting creative with the grocery money we had. My mum, to feed us all- including Aisling on many days- would get all the cast-off cheeses and breads from the market, pile them all together, and put them in the oven for a while, until it made a hot, delicious, gooey mountain, roughly the size of a newborn baby. We often found ourselves making it at home as adults, until we decided to add it to the Sparrow’s permanent menu, and the Cheese Baby was quite the hit.

I scooped what was left of the soup into wooden bowls and piled them on top of each other on a tray- put a Cheese Baby into the oven to warm up- then went to the bar to balance on five pints of ale, along with five small glasses of our cheapest whiskey.

“Your Cheese Baby is warming as we speak,” I set the bowls of soup down in front of each of the crew. “And you all looked like you could use these,” I say as I hand them the small glasses of whiskey.

“Thank ye, miss.” They take the glasses like I’m handing them life-saving medicine, and, as if on cue, they pour the whiskey straight back into their mouths in one gulp.

“Shall I keep the ale comin’?”

“No, miss, we have to work in a few hours. Just three rounds or so, I think. Right, lads?”

“Three or four, I think,” the bald man replies, and the tall woman nods.

“Right, four rounds, I think, miss, then you can cut us off. Thank you, miss.”

I smile and wink at the captain. “Emilia, please.”

I’m about to walk away, when I feel that the captain has a commanding grip on my hand. I whip around, defensively, ready to tell him off, when he kisses the back of my hand.

“Cyrus,” he replies, “and I’m enchanted.”

I shift my eyes around to the rest of his crew, waiting to see if this is normal behavior. Some of them look irritated, while others are just ignoring the interaction and looking about the pub.

“Okay,” I smile awkwardly and snatch my hand back.

Back at the bar, Ash is pulling another round of pints, and she looks over at me as I tiredly lean against the counter.

“Did that guy kiss your hand?” She asks, sounding just as put off as I was.

“Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

“What a gal-sneaker!” Ash says, though her insulting tone is juxtaposed by the way she bites her lip while staring at the man.

“Oh, come off it!”

“What?”

“He’s faking. That’s no charmer. Something’s off about him.”

Aisling furrows her brows at me. She never questions my assessment of people; She knows that growing up in the house I did, wondering when or what would set my dad or sister off, I learned to read others very well- a skill honed by my work. She has a bit of a fuzzy spot for handsome men, though.

“How d’you know?”

I shake my head. “I don’t, I just feel it. I think that was the first time he’s ever acted like a gentleman in his life. It didn’t sit right on him. Even the way he said ‘enchanted’. He practically changed his whole accent to say it.”

“Are they even an airship crew?”

“Yeah, that’s no doubt. Just something about him… I don’t know. But I’ll find out.”

“Em, he’s just a customer! Maybe he wanted to try his hand at flirting for the pretty young barmaid.”

“You think an airship captain that looks like that has never flirted before? You’re off it, Ash.”

“Maybe I just like to see the good in people!”

I shoot her a look and laugh. “That’s absolute ballocks!”

She smirks. “I know.” Aisling walks off with the round she poured and takes them to a nearby table. “So, what do you want to do? You want me to take over the group?”

“Absolutely not! Now I need to find out why he’s acting so strange, what he’s hiding.”

“There’s not a mystery everywhere in your life, Em. Sometimes things just… are.”

“Yes, and sometimes things are not that at all. Also, I need to take them their Cheese Baby, excuse me.”

“Oh! Put one in the oven for us. If we’re goin’ta be here a while, which it looks like we are, we’re going to need some sustenance.”

“True, love.”

This was a perfect suggestion, as the Cheese Baby I take out of the oven smells like exactly what my body needs right now. Holding a hot Cheese Baby in one hand, I stuff a pre-assembled Cheese Baby into the oven with the other, and then I make my way back to the table.

“And ‘ere she is, your Cheese Baby!” I set the molten mass down in the middle of their small table as they scramble to move empty soup bowls and pints out from underneath it. The bald man and the shorter woman look at the Cheese Baby like it’s a long lost lover that has come home after years away. “I’ll clear whatever ye’ don’t need anymore.”

“So, uh,” Cyrus clears his throat and leans back, trying to look comfortable and casual in a chair that is clearly too small for him to do so. “Do you own this place, love?”

“I’m a part owner, yes. Aisling, my friend, she’s the real owner of the Sparrow.” I nod my head towards the bar where Ash is hard at work.

“Wow, the two of you ladies, running a tavern on your own, that’s very impressive.”

I arch an eyebrow at him. “You sound like you’re trying to rob us. What are you, sizing us up?”

Cyrus laughs. “No, no, I just… all I own is my ship, and that barely fits my crew. I’m envious when people own things, and it’s even more impressive when it’s a business, owned by women.”

I cross my arms. “Why’s that?”

Cyrus looks to his crew members, presumably to help him out, but they purposely focus on their Cheese Baby.

“I’m just, uh… I’m just trying to say something nice. I’m sorry.”

I let him off the hook with a smile. “Well, I’m glad you’re impressed. I’ll get you all another round.”

The night goes on with a few more odd interactions like this. The tavern starts to die down, thankfully, with patrons coming down the other side of the drunk mountain, and dragging themselves sadly home. Loud laughter is replaced by long, thoughtful pauses in conversations. Topics turn from the hilarious, to the ironic, to the serious and sad, before eventually trailing off. Soon, you can actually hear the crackle of the fire, and people start coming up to the bar to pay their tabs instead of ordering more.

As Aisling is busy taking sterling from a group that can’t seem to remember who ordered how many of what, Cyrus walks up to talk to me at the side of the bar.

“Off to work?” I ask him.

He slides paper notes across the bar and puts his hand on mine as I take them. “Yes, but I couldn’t leave without asking if you wanted to come by and see the ship. We’re at port for about two days before taking off, and I feel like I need to see your face again before I go.”

I pull my hand and the money out from under his, and flash him an incredulous look.

“Alright, what’s your deal, captain? You’ve been sellin’ me a dog ‘ere all night, and I’m not buying, love.”

Cyrus feigns offense. “I have no deal! I just wanted to talk to a beautiful woman. You can’t fault me for wanting to cop the jammiest bits of jam, can you?”

“Ah, see, that’s the real you. Not this gentleman act you’ve been playing at.”

“I’m playing at nothing, I promise you, love. I’ll leave you alone if you want. Just count the money I gave ye’, make sure it’s all there.”

I narrow my eyes at him, suspiciously, and do as he suggested. Between the last two notes is a piece of paper with something scrawled on.

I need to talk to you privately

Not in your office-

We’re being followed

A note of this kind is fairly frequent in my line of work. My clients are not often already being followed, but they do tend to want discretion. They communicate with me in a variety of ways, and secret messages is often one of them. I fold up the bills and put them in my apron pocket.

“What a nice tip, apparently you are quite the gentleman. I mis-judged you, captain.” I lean forward against the bar flirtatiously, and Cyrus leans in towards me.

“You can’t always judge a person by how they look, you know.”

I put my hand on his and pull him closer to me. He’s tall, so he leans over the bar easily.

“I’m learning that,” I reply, and lean even closer. I believe Cyrus thinks I’m leaning in to whisper something to him, and therefore he seems quite surprised when I kiss him, deeply, keeping his face pinned to mine with a hand on the back of his head. When I pull back, he seems legitimately shocked, but trying to keep his composure. “You want to join me in the back room for a bit?”

“Yes, uh, yes ma’am,” he stammers out.

I walk past Ash, who has both her eyebrows raised at me, and Cyrus follows me around the bar to the kitchen.

Once inside, I push the door shut and move a crate in front of it.

“Wow, you’re good.”

“You said you were being followed, it could’ve been anyone in the pub. I couldn’t take my chances. So you want to tell me what this is about?”

“You didn’t seem surprised to get my note.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“I do, you’re exactly who I was looking for.”

“Then you should know, I have dealings with all sorts. That’s not the first kiss I’ve used for cover, and it won’t be the last.”

“It’s not?” Cyrus asks quietly, almost to himself.

“So why do you need to talk to me? I’m exhausted, I’ve been working the Sparrow non-stop, all weekend, I’ve got a lot on me mind, so please, just get to the point.”

Cyrus nods, and that hint of fear that I saw in his eyes earlier shows itself again. This man, tall and broad, with hands the size of my face, stands in front of me looking vulnerable and uncomfortable. He shifts and cracks his knuckles nervously, looking as if he’s trying to gather the words.

“I’ve, uh… I’ve got a crew member that’s gone missing.”

“Okay, when?”

“Last time we were at Kenningate, we docked for three days and she went missing then. We had to leave, we were gone for a little less than a month, and she knows our schedule. We thought, maybe, she had some personal business and then she would be back when we were back in port. But we’ve been docked for a day now and I can’t find her, anywhere.”

“What’s her name? Give me a description.”

“Sky, er, Sky Macklay. She’s Scottish, dark haired, short, green eyes, fiery temperament, the whole Scottish works,” he recounts, with a definite hint of fondness.

“Do crew members usually go off without telling you?”

Cyrus shrugs. “Sometimes, yeah, they go off. But they always let me know if they need to skip a job. And she… she wouldn’t have gone anywhere without tellin’ me.”

I arch an eyebrow at him. “What are you not telling me?”

Cyrus tugs at his sleeves and belt nervously. “She…is pregnant.”

“Is it yours?”

“No, it’s not.”

“But you love her.”

“How do you know that?!” He asks quickly and defensively. I give him a sly smile, and he sighs. “I do, but… it wasn’t like that. I’m the captain of my ship, I can’t compromise my crew like that.”

“Okay, so maybe she’s with the baby’s father.”

“Absolutely not.”

“How do you know?”

“She was…” He breathes a shaky breath. The word makes him uncomfortable, so he finds a different way to say it. “She didn’t want it.”

I nod. “Well maybe she’s at one of the women’s clinics.”

“That’s what Evie thought. My Quartermaster. The one that said she would murder a man and eat him.”

“Ah.”

“She thought she was going to get it taken care of, but Sky told me she wanted to keep the baby. Also, we went to every women’s clinic we know of today, she wasn’t at any of them and she hadn’t been there.”

“Well, there’s a lot more than you know about. Some of them are basically just cellars with a wet nurse and a few dirty mattresses.”

Cyrus lets a fair amount of worry show on his face. “It was a nurse at Saint Agnes, told me about you. Told me where your office is and how t’ find ye’. She said you’re a good finder, a good tracker, and ye’ get the job done.”

I smile. “Emebeth, yeah she’s helped me with a few missings in the past.” I take a deep breath and rub the back of my neck, thinking. “Okay, my brain is far too tired to give this any substantial thought tonight. I have to tail someone in, oh, just a few hours now, and I’ll come by your ship tomorrow afterwards.”

“Great, thank you!” Relief washes over Cyrus’ face.

“I can’t guarantee I’ll find her! But I’ll look my hardest.”

“I know, I know, but I thank ye’ for your effort. And we’ll pay you, of course! We’re at dock C2 3-20, she’s white and silver, her name’s Cloudsong.”

“Huh, pretty.”

“Thank you, thank you for everything, I mean it!” Cyrus excitedly clasps my hands in his and shakes them before heading towards the door.

I shake my head, remembering something. “Hey, wait a second!” How could you be so stupid, Em?!

Cyrus stops. “What?”

“Who is following you? Why all this secrecy?”

His shoulders drop. “Oh, right. We’re in business with some people. I dunno much about ‘em, but they pay well. I stupidly took a contract without looking into the particulars too much. We’ve got a few runs left for ‘em, and as long as we keep our heads down and don’t ask too many questions, we get a large pay day.”

“What do they have you doing?”

“Just transport, few different places. But every time we’re in port, here or there, they keep an eye on us. I ain’t comfortable with it, but what can I do? We’re on the hook until the contract runs out.”

“Do you think this business has anything to do with your crew member going missing?”

Cyrus shrugs. “It’s possible. I can tell you more tomorrow, on the ship, but you ‘ave to-”

“Be discreet. Believe me, I know.”

He smiles at me, the first genuine smile I’ve seen from him tonight.

“Thank you Emilia Wilde. Truly, thank you.”