In 1888, Bertha Benz took the first long-distance ride on an automobile, a carriage powered by an internal combustion engine that her husband, Carl Benz, had invented with her funding. She had to stop multiple times along the trip to fix parts of the automobile that had broken, and she did so successfully.

Up until that moment, the steam engine was king, but there was one problem with it: it was way too large. Trains can easily support the size of a steam engine, as well as massive ironclad boats and large steamwagens that take up more space than a two-horse carriage. However, the sheer space and resources necessary to power a steam engine was not practical for the every day commuter.

Until that legendary ride Bertha Benz took, just six years ago. Her road trip rocked Germany, and its ripples were felt in all of Europe. In fact, I’ve heard it even had quite an effect in America as well. Until then, transportation was simply a commercial endeavor. Airships and steamboats take goods over oceans and seas, or long distances between continents. Trains take goods between countries, and steamwagens transport goods within a city. Bertha Benz wasn’t transporting anything, just herself and her two children, and suddenly, the world sees transportation on an individual level.

The internal combustion engine- an engine fueled by fire, as I understand it- hasn’t quite gotten off the ground yet, and frankly I hope it never does. However, inventors all over Europe saw Bertha Benz as an intelligent woman with vision, and they began flocking to her. Two inventors, Klaus Muller and Alyona Volkov, came to her at the same time with two inventions: a much smaller steam engine and a small, rechargeable, battery, respectively.

The new steam engine could be mounted on something small, like an automobile, but it took a long time to heat up and required constant fuel. The new battery was only 12 inches long and had a 4 inch circumference. Whereas previous batteries were a large lead spiral in a glass casing, and were primarily used for communication and medical devices, these new batteries were small copper tubes in a cork casing and could be transported easily.

Bertha Benz, in a remarkable business move, had the idea to put the two inventions together, creating a small hydro-electric engine. Essentially, the batteries would quickly heat up the water in the steam engine. While Carl Benz focused on- and continues to focus on- the internal combustion engine, Bertha Benz created the hydro-electric motorized bicycle, or Elektorrad, which released in 1893.

This is the story I focus on, as I drive my Elektorrad, Mach 1, because Bertha Benz is a personal hero of mine and I am, quite frankly, terrified to be on one. It is fast, like a horse, but very unstable. Even a horse can’t gallop on the cobblestone streets of Etherbury, and the wheels of my Elektorrad certainly struggle, bouncing and jerking their way through alleys. That’s why it’s more commonly called a boneshaker. Evaki loves it, however, and she perches on my shoulder with her neck stretched high above my head, catching bugs in her mouth and feeling the wind through her wings. She also gets to lick all the bugs off of my leather goggles once we’ve arrived.

When I came to the Archer house to follow Nehemiah the first time, I hired a taxi, and then made the long walk home, attempting to clear my head. This time, with only about an hour of sleep, I decided to drive the boneshaker in an attempt to wake myself up. The sun is still an hour and a half away from rising- fortunately there are not many people on the street- and the combination of ice cold air hitting my face and sheer terror is doing its job of keeping me awake.

I wait outside the Archer residence in the same place I had the last time, just under the street light at the corner. I’m nervous to turn the boneshaker off, as I can’t be certain he’s going to walk to wherever he’s going, but on this quiet street even its small battery engine is loud. Hopefully I won’t be waiting here too long and my engine won’t cool off completely.

There are no lights on in Nehemiah’s home. I want to nap until he comes out, but I can’t trust Evaki to stay awake to alert me. Of course, she is now wrapped tightly around my neck and settling down for her own nap. I feel her let out a long, sleepy, huff against my skin. Me too, Eva. Me too.

Forty minutes pass, or rather, twelve times that my eyes fall closed and I have to shake my head awake. I’m starting to wonder if Nehemiah has decided against the job, or if he left before I got there. He’s getting dangerously close to sun rise, and the sallow man told him that if light was in the sky when he showed up, he would be better off not coming.

I hear the clop of hooves at the end of the street, and a singular porch light turns on. A hired carriage is turning towards the house, and I hurriedly jump up to switch my boneshaker back on. It has cooled down significantly in the past 40 minutes, and will take three or four minutes to be back up and running. The carriage approaches the house, but Nehemiah hasn’t come out yet. I tap my foot anxiously, as if that would speed up the time it takes water to boil.

The door opens, and Nehemiah comes out. I’m still about two minutes away from being ready to drive.

“Eva!” I whisper, shaking a shoulder to wake her up. She snorts angrily. “Get up, time to work!” Evaki yawns so widely that her teeth bare in what would almost be a fearsome display, if she didn’t also look so ridiculous. Nehemiah enters the carriage and it starts off slowly down the street. “Eva! You have to go. Follow that carriage!”

Eva blinks her eyes slowly at me, an expression of affection, and nuzzles against my cheek.

“Yes, I love you too, I love you very much, now please go follow that carriage!” I give her a scratch behind her jaw as she makes a big display of stretching out her wings. She yawns again and I roll my eyes. Like a spark off a blacksmith’s hammer, she bursts into the air and down the street, circling above the carriage as it nears the corner. My Elektorrad is starting to hum and hiss, meaning I have only thirty seconds before I can turn the engine on.

The carriage turns the corner and is out of my view, but I can see Eva slowly spiraling in the sky.

Finally, the boneshaker is at a full gurgle, and I give it three big cranks to get the engine going. I pull my goggles down over my eyes, and set off down the street at a full bobble.

Catching up to the carriage ends up being fairly easy, so I can slow down and follow from a safe distance. Evaki continues to mark its location, so I can let it get a turn or two ahead of me, as I imagine a lone boneshaker behind you in the middle of the night would evoke suspicion.

As I follow, I start to realize that I am familiar with the way its going. It’s not a direct route, most likely so that the taxi can charge Nehemiah more money, but the carriage is definitely going towards my home. It crosses from Glockbury into Sootdrift and makes a definitive turn towards the street the Sassy Sparrow is on. Eventually we pass in front of it, and I look longingly at the window that my bed resides behind. The carriage continues on, passing through to Kenningate, and dives into the thick fog that comes in off the ocean every night. The docks will be up ahead, on the left, and I have a growing suspicion that that’s where we will be stopping.

The carriage, indeed, stops in front of the dockmaster’s station, a small house where the dockmaster and his family live. The dockmaster can direct you to a specific dock or ship, he has a log of who is in port at all times, and he keeps a record of ships looking for work or people looking to hire one. This is especially impressive, considering that the Kenningate docks can hold three hundred ships- two hundred airships and one hundred by sea- at the same time.

Nehemiah steps out of the carriage and I can get a better look at him now; He’s dressed a little differently than he was the last time I saw him. He’s wearing what seems to be his best estimation of work clothes: a white shirt, dark wool vest that buttons all the way up to his neck, and a thick ascot, tied tightly and tucked beneath the vest. He looks as if he drove past a group of dock workers during the weekend and looked to see what he owned that best matched what they wore.

I park my Elektorrad on the side of a nearby storehouse type building, and take the batteries with me so it’s less likely to be stolen. Evaki lands on my shoulder as I continue staking out Nehemiah. I’m in a suit myself, matching gray tweed pants and vest, a grimey white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, sturdy work boots, and a baker boy cap atop my hair, neatly plaited and tucked into a bun at the nape of my neck. It’s not a full male disguise, but from far away it does the job. I plant my goggles on top of the cap and move slowly through the fog towards him. The carriage drives off, and Nehemiah just stands there, looking nervous to go any deeper.

For a second, I think he looks at me. From this far away, with the light from the streetlamps bouncing every which way through the fog, I probably look like a kid. I’m not very tall, I’m dressed in a specific way to hide my figure, and dock workers often employ young boys for menial tasks like fetching and carrying light loads. Perhaps seeing a young man like myself on his way to work gives Nehemiah the courage he needs, but after he looks at me, he takes confident strides towards the docks, past the dockmaster’s home, and I can no longer see him.

That’s okay. I’m familiar with the Kenningate docks, and I should be able to find him easy enough.

Being here regularly doesn’t diminish the awe-inspiring size of it all, though. The dockmaster’s home is sat next to a wide set of stairs which are usually teeming with people. The fog is stifling it, but I can hear the occasional voice from beneath me of dock workers and ship crews waking up their bodies enough to begin work. I descend, and brace myself for the slight pit that forms in my stomach everytime I see the Kenningate docks, from the sheer… overwhelming-ness of it all.

The Kenningate port is a colossal U shaped bay, the large mouth opening up to the Atlantic ocean. Standard wooden docks line the bay, like jutting teeth in a wide grin. These are reserved for ironclad steamboats and wooden sail boats. Floating jetties, which can be moved and connected to each other or to the docks, are tucked between the docks, and are generally used for submarine vessels or as landing pads for smaller airships.

Rising high above these docks, tiering upwards to either side like the wings of a bird and wrapping around to the very edges of the bay, are story upon story of airship docks. From the land entrance, in the middle of the docks, looking up and to the sides, it’s impossible to see all of the airship stations. They seem to stretch forever into the sky, and yet another forever from side to side. Through the fog, especially, the airship docks are a looming, creaking monster crawling up out of the sea, ready to swallow the city whole with its gaping, gap-toothed grin.

In reality, they swell to 300 meters on either side, with three stories of staggered docking stations for every type of airship that could possibly come to port. There are landing pads for balloon supported ships, massive lobster claw hooks on heavy cables for the high flying hydrogen rigids, and flexible rope ladders ready to be deployed for the top loading dirigibles. On the land side of the docks, hundreds of stair cases zig zag between the massive beams that support the docks, and thousands of pulleys, ropes, and lifts hang from the side in a maze which makes sense only to the dock workers, for loading and unloading cargo, people, and fuel.

There are already a few ships docked on the water, and the little I can see of the airship stations show several looming overhead like great dark clouds. On the platforms and the staircases, high above me, I see people, tiny and far away, moving slowly and carefully on the slick wood and metal. Everything is hushed, at the moment. The fog is keeping sound from wandering too far, sure, but there’s something more than that, something eerie. In less than an hour, the sun will be up, more ships will come to port, the work will begin, and the shouts of crewmen and dock workers will fill the whole massive area. Now, the atmosphere is like a pot of water, just before the boil; There are bubbles, but they are restrained, trying to muster the energy to burst to the top. Soon, Kenningate will boil over.

Nehemiah stands, fifteen yards in front of me, gawping at his surroundings. I’m sure he’s been to Kenningate before. You can’t live in Etherbury and not have come to the port before. There are markets in Kenningate with goods and delicacies from all around the world. Some people bring their children to the Kenningate docks to have a picnic and watch the ships come in and out. But, seeing the structure up close, from the base of it, about to enter into it… it’s just different.

I do wonder what Nehemiah is thinking. Is he wondering what exactly they’ll be having him do? Or where they will take him? Is he wondering if his body can stand up to the grueling work of dock labor? Perhaps he’s trying to come up with ways to prove to his superiors how valuable he is, so he can rise past this work more quickly. Or…is he just lost?

I’m not on a job, this is personal work, so I have a little more freedom. I can approach the mark.

“Are ye’ lost, fella?”

Nehemiah jumps slightly.

“Excuse me?”

“Are ye’ lost? Where ye’ tryin’ to get ta, fella?”

“I, um…” Nehemiah looks at me a little puzzled, then his eyes drop down to Evaki. He scans the area, probably hoping to immediately find his destination, before patting his pockets to make sure I haven’t lifted anything off him. “Um, dock C.” He pulls the card out of the breast pocket of his vest. I try to get another look at it but his hand is covering the image. “Dock C2 3-20.”

I furrow my brow; Of course it’s the same dock Cyrus is at, because why would the coincidences end at my dead sister? With his location, though, I don’t have to follow him up. Tracking him up the never ending stairs without being spotted would be difficult.

“Yeah, alright. First combination is which dock it is, then the second number is platform, an’ the last number is bay, get it? A is all the way at the end, then B… you know the rest, mate?”

Nehemiah looked offended, but then tried to hide it, presumably in an effort to look like he fit in. “Yeah,” he stammered. “Thanks, kid.”

Good, he hasn’t looked at me very hard.

Nehemiah still hasn’t moved, and his eyes continue to shift around to the highest point on the docks he can see.

“What, you need me to take you there, fella?” I gesture in the direction Dock C would be, speculating that he maybe needed a little push.

“No, no, quite right, thank you.” He pats himself down again and then walks off in the direction of Dock C. I watch him as long as I can, until he disappears around the curve, a small figure amongst the giant feet of the Kenningate Docks.

The fog starts to dissipate as light begins to appear in the sky. At the top of the stairs to the street, where golden rays of sunlight are beginning to glow, appears an angel sent from heaven. A woman guiding a coffee stall parks just to the side of the steps. She rolls up the canvas curtains on the sides of it, revealing a beautiful jungle of shining machinery whose soul purpose is to roast, grind, and steep the magical beans given to us by God himself.

Beneath the large machine which blesses us with sweet, delicious, energy nectar, is a set of twelve automata legs, which had moved like a centipede to carry the heavy coffee tankards while the owner of the stand gently guided it through the streets. Now that she has parked, the legs are locking and releasing steam as they settle into place. She opens a little door in the bottom of her stall and throws in a lit match, then she grasps the brass handle of a valve wheel and gives it a few quick cranks. The gears around the grinder begin to turn, and a glow of fire shows through the tiny window on the little door.

I narrow my eyes, impatiently standing watch for something very specific.

Little puffs of steam escape small holes in the top of the large copper tankard, and that’s all the sign I need. I bound up the stairs, eager to be coffee stand lady’s first customer today.

With the life-giving liquid filling a ceramic cup- and of course a second cup filled with cream for Evaki- we take a seat on the low stone wall that gives way to the staircase. I know where Nehemiah is, so I have some time before I need to go truly investigate. But I have some thinking to do, first.

When I am confused, or I suspect that I am thinking irrationally or emotionally, I slow myself down and make lists in my head. So, what do I know so far?

Nehemiah has a new job, with a company- or something- that doesn’t trust him enough to look at their books. He’s been a banker for twenty years, so it’s not that they don’t trust him to do the job. They don’t trust anyone to look at these books. This company- or something- has a business card with the same swan on it that my father drew for my sister for a gift when she turned sixteen, in an attempt to cheer her up. This may be a coincidence, but that is unlikely. Or is it more likely? I don’t know, move on. This company- or something- has business at the docks. This business is with an airship called Cloudsong, captained by Cyrus. Cyrus has a missing crew member, and he suspects foul play. This may be unrelated. Cyrus has a contract with this company- or something- and he does not like it. He called them a shady group and they keep tabs on him and his crew when he is in port. His last few trips have been long and over water, most likely meaning he has made trips to America. This is practically suicide. The trip can be treacherous, and ever since America has fractured from their Civil War, it is apparently a hostile and violent place to be- according to newspapers, that is. So they must be paying the crew an impossible amount of money, meaning whatever they are shipping from there to here, or back, is important.

Okay, this list doesn’t really get me anywhere. It could be anything: drugs, people, weapons, animals… Dragons haven’t survived the trip from here to America. The trip is too cold. A dragon can do well in an air or sea ship on short trips, and many keep strong dragons, or particularly fast ones, in their employ. But, while America seems to have no problem breaking, even enslaving people, they have yet to get their hands on dragons, though not for lack of trying. Is that what this company- or something- is doing? Have they found a way to safely store and transport these cold-blooded creatures across the Atlantic?

Follow up thought: Does this have to do with me or my family at all? Firstly, the connection to Cornelia. Or, rather, apparent connection to her. Secondly, Cyrus comes into my pub looking for me. Could this be a trap? Did he make up the story of the missing crew member to get my into his ship? Is this all an elaborate trap? Was everything just a lure to get me here? Is Nehemiah real? Is Letitia working with them?

Wait, I’m spiraling. It’s time to look at something rational.

I finish a second cup of coffee, while all around me the docks begin to buzz with life. Workers are coming for their shifts, ships are slowly coming in, being directed by crystal radios when they have them, or pulsing lamplight from open bays. I watch the back door of the dockmaster’s home, where his office is. He, a man named Langdon Keeler, returns from what is most likely the first of many rounds through the port to take stock of the ships, a clipboard in hand. Keeler is a lean man, as he walks nearly the whole day, and quite old for the amount of physical work he does. Being a dockmaster runs in his blood, though, as his father ran the docks until he couldn’t walk anymore, and his father before him ran the docks until a nasty accident sent him plummeting from the top bay onto the mast of a sailing ship. Keeler will do this until he dies, as well, and he’s already training his daughter and son to take over when that happens.

Langdon Keeler is also a friend of mine. My business is cagey business. A fair amount of cagey business happens at the docks, whether it’s because that business is smuggling, or just because there are so many people it is easy to go unnoticed. The dockmaster doesn’t want cagey business, but he also doesn’t necessarily want to involve the coppers, either. ‘I ‘ates me’self some vazey ol’ mutton shunters, I do’ he always says, anytime some sort of trouble shows itself on his docks. Therefore, we formed an alliance. He helps me with any information I need for a case and gives me free roam of the docks, I help keep the coppers out of the bay when I can.

“How’s the sea treating ye’, Keeler?” I say as I pop through the door of his office.

Langdon looks at me and sighs; Just because he’s not happy to see me doesn’t mean we’re not friends.

“Tell me y’er not bringin’ trouble, young missy!”

“I’m not bringing trouble, I’m trying to keep it away! Or…well, rather, discover it.”

Keeler reaches into a drawer to get a cricket biscuit and tosses it to Evaki, who catches it in her mouth.

“So you’ve got a case, ‘ave you? Here in one of my ships?”

“Possibly,” I smile at him. He scowls at me. “Okay, a man came into my pub and told me he’s got a missing crew member, asked me to come and talk to him today. I just want some information on the crew before I go up there.”

“I’ve said it before, church bell. Me logs are for me logs! Business purposes only!”

“Yeah, Keeler, believe me, I understand that. But this Captain, he says if I can’t find ‘er, he’ll have to get the police involved, so…” I end the sentence with a shrug.

Langdon bounces his heel on the ground as he narrows his eyes and studies me. Eventually, he sighs again and tosses another biscuit to Eva.

“Okay, I’ll show you today’s log for the ship y’er lookin’ for.”

“How about a coffee, Keeler? Yeah, I’ll get you a coffee, and you get me whatever you have on the past six months of a ship called Cloudsong, Captain Cyrus. They dock once a month, shouldn’t be too hard, they’re at C2 3-20 today. I know how you like you’re coffee, no need to thank me, I’ll be right back!”

Langdon Keeler makes what can only be described as a growl as I leave his office, but by the time I am back with his coffee he has six leather diaries opened on his desk.

“That was fast, love!”

“Yeah, well,” he grumbles, “you were right. They come in every three weeks, could set a date to it, same dock an’ everything. Go ahead, ‘ave at it little miss.”

I scrunch up my face at him. I hate when he calls me that, but he calls me that because I hate it.

I turn the diaries towards me, and they are full of tiny scribbles. Much like the size of Kenningate port, the sheer awfulness of Langdon Keeler’s handwriting never ceases to amaze me. To be fair, he succeeds at getting an entire day’s worth of moorings onto just the two open pages, but to do so he crams hundreds of ship names onto lines that correspond to dock positions, alongside symbols, codes, and shorthand that only means something to him. If one of his diaries were to turn up on a random street with no context around it, it could be mistaken for anything from the ramblings of a mad man to the secret war strategies of a foreign army.

I’ve picked up some of his symbols, though. For instance, circles next to ship names mean duration of stay. A half circle means they are docking for less than a day. A complete, but hollow circle, means they will be docked for a full day, and a filled in circle means they are staying for several days. A circle inside another circle means they will be here for the full week. An oval around two dock numbers, with only one ship name next to it, means that the ship is large enough to need two adjacent moorings.

Cloudsong is written by the same dock every single time, with the captain’s name written next to it: Cyrus Kayo. As I’m looking at them, I see another code that I’ve never noticed before. Some ship names have squares around them in different colored inks. Most of the squares encompass a few ships at a time, moored at the same dock. Cloudsong, however, is wrapped with a green square, and several other ships at the docks are as well, but they are nowhere near each other.

“Langdon, what does this mean? These squares around the ships.”

“That means they didn’t book the mooring or pay the fee, someone else did, usually a company.”

“Well, why do some of the squares encompass a whole dock, but these ones only encompass certain ships at different docks?”

Langdon narrows his eyes and turns one of the books around to look at it.

“Oh yeah, weird one, this. The company what booked these stations never wants them together. They go out of their way to book them so’s they can’t see each other. And they get all sorts, too: submarines, balloons, rigids like y’er ship’s there. Don’t make no sense. When you got business, cargo or what not, that comes in different ships, you usually wants ‘em all in one place so’s you can take inventory.”

“Why would a company want them all separated, then?”

Langdon shrugs. “No reason I can think of.”

I gather my mouth to the side of my face. “Maybe so whoever is shipping your goods can’t get a complete picture of what you’re shipping.”

He grimaces. “Now that can’t be good, cannit?”

“I doubt it. Do you have the name of the company that booked them?”

“Um, yeah, let me…” He flips through a different diary that is full of color codes and dates. “Oh, hm.” He furrows his brow.

“What?”

“It’s not a company. It’s just a name. T.M. Whitesmith. And he paid…well it looks like he paid double the docking fee to get the docks he wanted.”

Drattit, of course it wouldn’t be easy. I file the name T.M. Whitesmith in my brain.

“Look, Emilia,” Langdon says, and I know he is serious because he has used my name. “I don’t like this. This bloke, he paid me a lot, so I must’ve paid it no mind when he booked all these slots, but you being ‘ere for this missing person or what ‘ave you, alongside this booking… I don’t like it. If y’er sniffin’ around it, you’ve got all the resources I can give ye’. I mean… be discreet, of course, but…well, you know.”

The Kenningate Docks are Keeler’s livelihood. They keep his family in a decent lifestyle. They’re in his blood, they’re his backyard and his family. He wants to keep them safe.

I smile at him and nod.

“I’ll let you know what I find, Langdon.”

Evaki chirps, breaking the moment, and he tosses her another biscuit.

I perch back on the stone wall with my third, and then fourth, coffee, just thinking, like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle that’s been left in a back alley by a group of children. Evaki plays on the small dirt beach, five meters beneath me, where brackish water is trapped between the land and the man-made barriers of the docks. She catches bugs skimming across the still water and attempts to catch fish that are seeking the same bugs. She will need a bath later, and will hate me for it.

At 8am, finally, Kenningate is in a full commotion. The fog has burned off and one can barely hear oneself think over the shouting of the dock workers, foremen, and ship crews. Everything Etherbury has goes through these docks; Food, spices, tea, textiles, machine parts, automobiles, people… unless it comes from somewhere else in the country, it’s imported through Kenningate. All of these things and more are being lowered down on the hundreds of pulley systems on the edge of the docks and loaded onto an endless procession of steamwagens.

It’s time to go talk to Cyrus Kayo, Captain of Cloudsong. I put my hat back on and pull the brim down as low over my face as it will go. I whistle for Eva and she flies up and wraps around my shoulders, dripping stale water down my shirt. I huff in annoyance, and she bristles the scales down her spine in response. We make our way to Dock C, and along the way I notice nothing particularly unusual. There is nobody trying to seem inconspicuous, nor even seeming particularly aware of their surroundings. I even attempt an overlook of the cargo coming down from Dock C, but there is nothing but crates and tankards with fairly standard stampings on them.

The height of the dock structure is awe inspiring, surely, from far away, but definitely amplified as you climb the stairs. Level 3 should be an easy enough climb- 3 is a low number, a lot of buildings in Etherbury are three levels or higher, this should be fairly short. This is a wrong assumption. Airships vary in size, but none are very small. An airship needs the ability to hold a substantial amount of hydrogen in its envelope, while still being able to carry people and cargo. Some ships, which are gondolas hung beneath a large balloon, can be as much as 35 to 40 meters high. The docks need to be able to accommodate any airship that could possibly make its way to port, and therefore there are hundreds of steps between each level.

By the time we reach the top story, I am winded, which is a word that is probably quite kind to myself. My legs burn, my chest rises and falls at what could be described as an alarming rate, and I feel as if I’m going to throw up. The wind whips around me, so I grip onto the railing as my lungs try desperately to fill with air. I walk every day, I even have to run occasionally for work, however I do stay on a relatively consistent diet of alcohol, drugs, and Cheese Babies, which cannot be aiding in my endeavor.

“‘Ere ye’ go, kid.” Someone taps me roughly on the shoulder, and I turn to see an outstretched hand with a yellowish boiled sweet laying in the middle of it. A dark man in tweed trousers, a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a maroon turban stands, smiling at me with shockingly white teeth. “It’ll help with the altitude. Oh…excuse me, miss!” My eyes dart from the sweet to the man. “I promise, it always ‘elps me.”

I smile at the man and thank him, take the little button and pop it in my mouth. Would I normally accept food from a stranger, especially while on a job? As a rule, no, but exceptions always surface. This nice man with the lovely smile, and my surging, angry stomach full of nothing but coffee, are the perfect pairings for an exception. The sweet is a cool ginger with a spicy aftertaste, and by the time I’ve finished it, my stomach has eased and I can breathe again. Zhao would approve.

With my wits about me once again, I turn towards Dock C2 3. There are five ships parked along this bay. The nearest one to me is small with a dark green gasbag. There is a small glass cockpit mounted to the front of the rigid envelope, only large enough to require one pilot. There will be several fire-proof cells inside the envelope filled with hydrogen, however the remainder of the balloon will be reserved for the cargo and crew. It is anchored to the dock by thick ropes, and a board is laid across the small gap between the dock and ship for walking on- a board which I would not personally trust.

A larger ship sits at the very end of the dock, parked atop it. The front of the ship looks almost like a wooden house, and the gasbag is positioned behind it. It’s deflating, meaning that they are planning to be here a while and re-fuel before they leave.

By far, the most impressive ship at this particular arm of the dock is sitting at C2 3-20. A massive white semi-rigid envelope, supported by a beautiful silver exo-skeleton, sits atop a large white gondola with a huge, rounded cockpit on the front, lined from top to bottom with windows. Silver stabilizing wings protrude from the sides of the gondola and envelope, and a large ornate rudder fin is affixed to the back of the balloon. The ship is parked expertly, with a sturdy wing resting on top of the dock as a walkway to the gaping hatch on the side of the gondola. This is Cloudsong.

A ship like this- large, ornate, nimble, hardy enough to make a trip across the Atlantic and, most likely, fast- would cost more than the average freelance airship captain could afford in a lifetime of saving. There is a story to this ship, and it adds to my mystery, or the mystery of Cyrus Kayo himself.

Each airship has their share of dockworkers helping to load or unload. Some people rent the day laborers that come to Kenningate every morning looking for work, others hire professional dockworkers or have some already in their employ, and others pay the airship crew for the loading and unloading- though some refuse.

All in all, there are somewhere between fifty and seventy men and women moving supplies in and out of these ships and to the cargo lifts, alongside some larger breeds of dragons that are often used for working. Nordic Trollogles, Drachenmuskels, and Stoldrekis are the common breeds used, and despite what some activists believe, they are often very well taken care of. There are exceptions, of course, as cruelty is a trait that is found in every human, but for the most part airmen treat their dragons as another member of the crew. They don’t clip their wings, as they are useful for working, they get comfortable quarters and good food, they get rest time, and they get payment, or rather, an allotment of money set aside to buy toys, treats, and other things the dragon may want. These particular breeds are generally huge, the size of a person, with muscular wings and teeth large enough to tear apart the meat that it requires for food. They are good workers, and seem to enjoy the work, but they are smart enough to know when they are being mistreated. Most airmen wouldn’t dare abuse these powerful creatures.

Some observation tells me that Cloudsong has twentyish people working to unload it, and none of them are the crew- or at least any of the crew that were at my pub last night. One of them is Nehemiah, so I can reasonably conclude that all the dockworkers unloading Cloudsong were hired by the mysterious swan company and T.M. Whitesmith. A man in a dark houndstooth suit stands near the Cloudsong hatch, holding a large leather notebook and pen. He is clearly in charge, as he jots something down in his notebook every time someone carries something out of the Cloudsong, no matter how small. This is the man I need to get past, but I need to observe for longer.

Captain Cyrus comes out of his ship, ducking to get through the opening. He stands next to the man with the notebook, towering over him by at least five inches. They talk, and though I cannot hear what they are talking about, it’s clear that the discussion is strained, little more than polite. Cyrus seems to attempt to throw some authority around, but the shorter man barely gives him any notice.

At one point in the discussion, Cyrus looks around the dock absently, but his eyesight lands on me. He does a very slight double-take, but nobody notices him. I smile at him, and his site lingers just a moment before he shrugs, says something back to the notebook man, and then sidles past the dockworkers to get back onto his ship.

I watch a little longer, and when it becomes clear that they aren’t going to be wrapping up anytime soon, I begin to formulate a plan. I can’t just walk past notebook foreman man, and Cyrus made it clear that they take interest in the movements of the crew. I need a way to get past the man without him noticing me.

“Evaki,” she raises her head off my shoulder to hear me. “Rat Drop.” I can almost see the grin form on her face as her eyes widen. She loves the Rat Drop. It is her favorite ‘game’ to play, and we practice it regularly. Eva launches off of my shoulders, flaps her wings to get a few feet higher, and then dives over the side of the dock, her wings folded to her side. She will dip and dive between the pilings until she finds what she needs. Not even a minute goes by before she appears again on the other side of the dock, a large squirming rat in her claws. She circles overhead a few times, my cue to begin walking towards the Cloudsong. Finally, she swoops down and with military precision drops the rat onto the man with the notebook.

He, understandably, begins to panic and scream, swatting at the rat who is also panicking. Evaki drops down and begins to paw at the notebook man, as if she is trying to get her lunch back- which she will, indeed, be eating. Notebook man has now fully dropped his notebook, is screaming and trying to grab the rat, while also trying to fend off the dragon. Dockworkers drop their cargo and rush to help the foreman, and I slip quietly past them to get into Cloudsong. Cyrus ushers me into a cabin on the other side of the cargo hold and shuts the door behind him.

Cyrus looks exceptionally tall as he squares up to me and crosses his arms. “I thought you said you knew how to be discreet.”

I smirk. “There are many different kinds of discreet.”

He scowls. “I was thinking you would show up after dark, or at least after they’ve finished unloading.”

“Well, for your information, I happen to be following-”

There is a sharp tap on one of the circular windows in the cabin. We both look over to see Evaki, hanging upside down from one of the ropes that is securing the balloon to the gondola. She is clutching the rope with one talon, tapping the window with the other one, and has her rat hanging out of her mouth. Cyrus walks over and turns a brass crank, which pushes open the window from the side.

“She’s not going to get rat blood in my quarters is she?” Cyrus asks me as Evaki maneuvers her way into the room, drops to the floor and then climbs to the top of one of the bed posts.

“You’re a bit squeamish for a airship captain.” For the first time, I really get a look at my surroundings. Cyrus’ cabin isn’t very large, but it could definitely be considered grand. The furniture is certainly expensive, the bed is lush…for goodness sakes there’s a chaise lounge at the foot of his four post bed. “My God, I’ve seen MPs with cheaper furniture.”

I start walking around the cabin, trying to get a sense of the man. The room is meticulous. The bed is made, all of his clothes are out of sight; There is absolutely no clutter. A large map of the world is hung flat on one of the walls, and beneath it is a wet bar, stabilized by metal telescoping legs and a gyroscope.

“Do you want to tell me how you can afford this kind of ship? And don’t worry, she’ll eat that rat whole.” Evaki still has the rat in her mouth. She sometimes likes to tenderize a larger animal for a bit before she swallows it.

“No, I want you to tell me the end of that sentence.”

I flash Cyrus a wry smile. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

He sighs. “Fine.”

“Okay, I was following someone for a different case, and they brought me here.”

“To Kenningate?”

“To Cloudsong. Which reminds me, how on earth did you afford Cloudsong?”

“What do you mean? It’s just a ship?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You want to hire me to track down a loved one, so you must know I’m not stupid. This is no cargo ship. You may be using it for cargo, but this is the type of ship that transports dignitaries between countries. Or war lords. Also, it looks like it came furnished. So how did a freight captain afford a ship like this?”

Cyrus scrunches up his face. “This contract. It’s huge. We get paid on top of the ship. We finish the contract, we get the ship and the money.”

“So it’s like a lease?”

“A lease from hell. They’ve got constant surveillance on us at each port. We can’t take any other work until the contract is over. And, they destroyed my old ship. We had a nice little dirigible. It got the job done, but it wouldn’t have crossed an ocean. They took it and destroyed it, so now if we don’t finish the contract we can’t get any other work at all.”

“How much longer on the contract?”

“They say just a few more runs, but I’m starting to not trust them. The contract doesn’t specify an end date or amount of work to be completed, it just says ‘until end of contract’. I have a growing suspicion that it’ll never end.”

“Why would you take a job like that?”

Cyrus sighs. “We were freelance, and not living well. My crew and I were struggling to find work, we all barely fit on the old ship. We would get a job or two and be fine, and then have to repair the ship, and then be skint for months. They couldn’t leave, because it’s not like other crews were living grand, and the ones that were doing well certainly weren’t hurting for labor. We were desperate, and this company… they absolutely knew that.”

“Yeah, that’s probably how they got the others too,” I say aloud, but mostly to myself.

“Others?”

I nod. “Dockmaster’s log has quite a few ships here in port, employed by the same person who has employed you. They’re just spread out all over the port.”

Cyrus furrows his brow. “What could they possibly be transporting?”

“Shouldn’t you know that?”

“I don’t. Everything we’ve brought to this port has just been pieces. Materials or parts. It makes sense that there’s others; I’m sure all the pieces together make something. We’re paid not to know that.”

I rub my eyes, stressed and thinking. “We need more time. We need somewhere private. And I need you to bring me everything you have on this company, or whatever they are, that has hired you. Maps, logs, inventory lists, dockets…write down every name of every person you’ve ever dealt with, every port you’ve ever landed in; Just write down everything you can remember.”

Cyrus nods at me. “Okay, I can do that. It might take me some time. Can we meet tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“How will this help with Sky?”

For a moment, I am genuinely baffled by this question. “With what?” Grammatically, contextually, the question doesn’t even make sense to me. Then, I remember the reason I even know Cyrus at all. “Oh, Sky. Yes, well, this mysterious company- or whatever they are- is the best lead we have. It’s too much of a coincidence that you take this big contract with a company- or whatever they are- that tracks your movements, ships secret cargo, takes precautionary measures to stay hidden, does back alley deals-”

“Heaven above, don’t list them.”

“Okay, well… it seems it’s far more likely that your dubious employer has something to do with your missing crewmember than not, doesn’t it?”

A worrisome look flashes across Cyrus’ face as he nods, and I wonder if this has just occurred to him. Did he really not think that his missing love could in any way trace back to this questionable contract? Or was that simply a thought he wasn’t allowing himself to have because that could make him accountable?

I put a hand on his arm, and he looks down at me. “We’re going to figure out what happened to Sky, okay?”

Cyrus nods and gives me a sad smile. “What is the case that you’re working on? How did it bring you here?”

I smirk. “When you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fine, I’ll come back to your tavern tomorrow morning while me ship gets gassed up.”

“I’ll be waiting for you. Now, can you get me out of here?”

Cyrus smiles and heads out of his quarters, walking like he’s angry about something. “Can somebody tell me why this is taking so long?! What, did you bring a bunch of random opium-addicts you found on the street? That one looks seventy-five years old!”

While Cyrus and the foreman are yelling at each other, Eva and I are able to slip back onto the dock and through the crowd to the steps, where we begin our descent. I would be lying if I say my calves don’t immediately start burning as soon as we hit the stairs.