Soulstar Read online

  “But you have to call the election,” I said, “and that means the trains must run. And I think I know how to accomplish the task faster than the labor of strong backs and shovels.”

  “Very well. I’m curious to hear it.”

  I had to trust this man. I had to believe that he would protect us when the dangerous winter was past. “You call your Royal Knights Storm-Singers, which refers to their actions of calming weather patterns. But in Riverside, we call witches with the power Windweavers, because the most common occupation for a Samindan Windweaver is ship’s navigator.”

  “That’s why Samindan sailors are so fast,” King Severin said. “So you propose that we use Windweavers to clear the rail lines.”

  “Yes. They will need staff support on the trains, of course, with plenty of food and ample rest, with medical staff and other amenities. They will be working very hard to clear the rail lines. You can’t just dole out Service pay for that level of skill.”

  “Aha. Very well. How much?”

  “Twenty marks a week.”

  Severin blinked. “That’s four times Service pay. We generally double for emergencies.”

  I shrugged and risked it. “Well, this time it’s more.”

  King Severin finally looked at me with a little surprised respect. “This is a service to the kingdom. But I could probably see two and a half times Service pay, for extraordinary—”

  “Four times Service pay, Severin,” Aife interrupted. “You have to free them, and I like the idea of it being done as swiftly as possible. Miss Thorpe understands the worth of the people with the skills to do the job quickly and well. They ought to be paid what they usually get.”

  “Actually, ma’am, as navigators they stand to make considerably more than that on a voyage,” I said. “They get a share of the sale of their cargo, but since this is an emergency the reduced rate is fair.”

  “There you have it,” Aife said. “Will you pay them?”

  Severin stole a glance at Grace. “You had this in mind when you suggested we all meet.”

  Grace didn’t try to simper or look innocent. “They deserve it, and you know very well that they do. And you won’t get the rail lines cleared this quickly without them.”

  “But the Cabinet—”

  “The Cabinet’s about to be dissolved. You don’t need to consult them.”

  Severin sighed. “Fine. Send messages to the engineers and the staff. How long do you need to get the operation in motion?”

  “The day after tomorrow,” I said. “I have some wrangling to do.”

  “When will you stop all this?” the King asked, gesturing to the yellow ribbon pinned to my jacket sleeve. “The activism.”

  “When the work is done, Your Majesty. When the sun rises on a better Aeland. And may it be soon.”

  He blinked at me, then collected all his surprise and tucked it behind a grave expression. “It may be sooner than you think. You may leave us.”

  Tea hadn’t yet been served. Aife gave him a sharp look, but Severin watched as Joy and I took three backward steps before turning for the door. My stomach growled, but I would eat at home. The plan was on, and I had work to do.

  * * *

  We couldn’t bring the witches home to nothing to wear, but I could organize a clothing drive in my sleep. I had crews ready to visit our neighbors the next morning. Five Corners wasn’t the wealthiest part of Riverside, but even their residents could find an extra sweater or hat to donate. I traveled alongside a cargo sled already half-full of clothes that didn’t need too much mending to make whole. Residents of every tenement on the block lined up to donate what they could and then speak to me of the ones they had lost, and what they remembered of their whereabouts.

  I stood at the back of the cargo sled with my clipboard and pen, standing in a shaft of morning sunlight. The woman in front of me tied her layered shawls together and shoved her hands into the pockets of a food-stained apron.

  “Lonnie Fisher,” she said, her straight hair escaping the knotted bun at the back of her neck. “Lonnie’s my cousin. They took him to Norton. You’re going out to Norton, aren’t you? You’re going to them all?”

  “We won’t stop until every asylum is empty.” I noted Norton as Lonnie’s possible location in the ledger. “And can you take him in?”

  “I’ve only the one room, Auntie, but I won’t leave him to the cold either. If his family uphill won’t have him, then I will.”

  “And you’re Ginny Fisher?”

  “Smith. I married. Lost him to the Laneeri War. The widow’s pension is half of nothing.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you do?”

  “I was a factory baker.”

  I fished a stiff little card from the stack in my pocket. “Would you stop at the Service offices and tell them you’re a baker? We need staff on the trains, and they could use someone like you.”

  “Thank you for the tip, Auntie. I’ll do that.” She took my card for the Service office and turned away.

  The next to talk was a red-nosed man smoking acrid tobacco in his pipe. The sour smell made my nose wrinkle. He offered old suits and a story about his missing niece. I wrote it all down and caught up to the sled, ready to speak to the next person who had lost family and friends to the asylums.

  Some of the people I talked to hadn’t given up hope. They were alive with it, brimming with the possibility that their loved one would come home, free at last, and they would get their lives back. Their sons, their siblings, their spouses would come back and fill the empty space they had been torn from.

  I tried very hard not to disturb their hope. It was a powerful feeling, so easily shattered by reality, and a fall from its heights could break one’s heart in a breath. I rubbed at my chest and fought the urge to envy them. They didn’t know what had happened to their people, so hope still nudged their hearts. They still believed. They still had a chance.

  “I’ve been alone for so long now,” one man said to me. “Wouldn’t it be something to be two of us once more?”

  I smiled and wrote down the name of his wife. “It would be something, indeed.”

  “She was everything, my Marcia,” he said. “Sang sweet as a bell, nursed every animal she could find that was sick or hurt or starving. She was so kind—she is so kind,” he corrected. “And the birds will sing when she comes—”

  He wasn’t looking at me anymore, gazing at a sight that turned him waxy-pale.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Good luck.”

  He shuffled around and made his slow, careful way back into the tenement. People who hadn’t had a chance to talk to those of us with clipboards and pens about their own connections scurried back inside.

  Standing in the intersection of East Second and Cockle were eight Greystars, so called for their smoky attire and the shine of sunlight on the dark-tinted snow goggles they wore year-round. They watched people melt back inside and hastened their flight by moving toward us.

  I moved too, past the volunteers who watched the Greystars, staying still and quiet, until I was in the lead of the group. I planted my feet. I held my head up. My breath came too fast, and anyone looking at the cloud I exhaled in the cold would know it.

  The Greystars walked in step. The crush and crunch of their boots on hard-packed snow played a rhythm that made my heart kick in my chest. They marched toward me, a wedge that filled the street, the point of their charge the woman in the center of them all.

  I suppressed a tiny flutter in my middle. Jamille Wolf came strolling over, clad head to toe in shades of gray from mist to charcoal, glare goggles over her eyes. A yellow ribbon fluttered from her left arm, matching the band on my coat.

  “Good morning, Auntie.” Jamille grinned, showing off the gap of a missing front tooth. She shook back her braided hair, and bone beads clicked together as the ends swung free.

  She called me Auntie out of respect, like everyone else, but Jamille was a cousin—distant, and out-clan, but still one of my relations, tho
ugh the respectable Thorpes didn’t make a point of displaying their connection to the wild, disreputable Wolfs. I nodded to her and her followers, standing my ground.

  “Good morning, Miss Jamille.”

  “I see you’ve come out to collect donations in Five Corners,” she said, and cocked her head to one side. “I don’t remember you coming to ask me if that was all right.”

  If you asked Jamille Wolf, she owned Five Corners. Every business that wanted to keep its doors open, every tenant who wanted to keep their belongings—they all paid Jamille the cost of keeping their roof safe. They paid her again when they filled runners’ pockets with coins, playing the game where they predicted the closing numbers of the Kingston Stock Exchange for a share of half the day’s take. They paid her even more when they bought their poppy resin and smoked their way into forgetful dreams.

  Jamille had taken her family’s gang of drug peddlers and extortionists and organized them into an efficient, money-generating enterprise. She was as good at making money as any prince of industry. She was at least as heartless. When Jamille said Five Corners belonged to her, few would dare to disagree. Only a fool would deny her to her face.

  “We didn’t ask,” I agreed. “We were coming your way next, however, to see if you had any extra clothes to spare. We’re still in need of everything, but we’re on the lookout for shoes.”

  “Shoes,” she said. “I’ve always admired your dedication to the community, Auntie. But really, I admire your sheer nerve. What are you doing here?”

  “We’re collecting clothing and taking down the names of family and loved ones who were sentenced to life in the witch asylums,” I said. “We’re bringing them home.”

  Jamille went still, and the pressure of her gaze kept me transfixed. Her mouth opened. She covered it with one gray-gloved hand.

  “You’re going to save Jack,” she breathed. “He’s coming home.”

  Hope had Jamille Wolf. In just one instant, hope had her by the scruff. “Will you tell me where they took him?”

  “Clarity House, in Bywell. Basil.” Jamille raised her hand and beckoned.

  A blocky, pink-faced man with colorless blond hair and a thin white scar curved over one cheek stepped forward. “What is it, Jams?”

  “These people need shoes and winter boots,” Jamille said. “Fetch them.”

  The Greystars moved as one body, slipping into a nearby shop.

  “You don’t need to do that,” I said.

  “I won’t give my brother used shoes. Or secondhand clothes. You shall have the best, Auntie. I’ll see to it. Whatever you need, just ask.”

  “You could take your brother shopping instead,” I said. “I can’t accept looted goods. I appreciate the gesture—stop them. Please.”

  Greystars marched out of the shop, arms piled with shoeboxes. “Auntie. They’re donations.”

  I sighed. “Miss Jamille. Don’t. They won’t be able to pay insurance if you take all their stock.”

  Jamille sighed. “Fine. Take them back, lads. Save one pair. Proper brogues, size ten. Give the rest back.”

  They turned around to return the newly looted goods. Jamille turned back to me. “Anything you need, Auntie. Just ask. But please make sure Jack gets his new shoes, will you? And tell him I’m waiting for him to come home.”

  She rounded up the Greystars and took them away, hope gently stroking her hair.

  THREE

  Clarity House

  The morning of the liberation dawned bright and clear, and I climbed up King Philip Hill with a company of thirty Windweavers in stout layers. We were greeted with coffee brewed to a strength I hadn’t tasted in weeks, and pastries fresh and warm.

  Marlon handled the Windweaver shifts and sent two of them to board the train’s engine car. It looked strange to see its stack smoking with the leavings of burning coal, but all trains could run on coal if there was an emergency. People gathered on the platform, some gathered in clumps organizing their roles on the trains, others getting in the way with their gawking.

  “They’re going to start clearing. You all are going to want to stand back,” Marlon yelled. “Go inside. Inside!”

  No one moved. Marlon shrugged and let himself in. Grace stepped outside, joining me in the crowd of spectators.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, and then gripped my arm. “We should go inside.”

  “But I want to see it.”

  “Not from out here. Come on.” She pulled on me, and the breeze changed direction, blowing harder. Faster, and snow flew, smacking me in the face. I had to lean into the wind to join the others who staggered toward the door and took refuge inside the train station.

  Outside, the wind howled. The train was little more than an outline as snow filled the air, slicing sideways as if a tiny blizzard had overtaken the train station.

  People inside exclaimed in amazement, but they shuffled away from the Windweavers, whose rows of pierced earrings, long hairlocks gathered into buns and high headwraps, and ornately knitted woolen sweaters marked them out from the spectators and officials.

  It was one thing to sit in their parlors and declare that witches didn’t frighten them. But when confronted by the uncanny, impossible gift of witchcraft, those stout-hearted opinions flinched.

  The wind died. Tiny, sparkling snowflakes fell glittering to the ground, dusting the carefully cleared platform. The tracks were clear, scoured by the efforts of the Windweavers. Marlon clapped his hands together, and the echoing slap made the crowd jump.

  “That turned out well enough,” Marlon said. “Let’s board.”

  The Windweavers headed for the doors. Grace and I followed behind them. And the spectators muttered to each other as we greeted the sun on our heads with squinting and snow goggles.

  The trip took longer than usual, but we beat the estimate of sundown. We pulled into Bywell Station with the long afternoon sun shining off the heaps of snow piled on the town. We ate in the dining car while people toiled to lead horses from the livestock cars and hitch them to sleighs for the rest of the journey to Clarity House. Grace and I shared a sleigh, bundled against the glittering cold.

  “We’ll be back in Kingston late tonight,” Grace guessed, and then pointed at a mound in the snow. “I think that’s my car.”

  “This is where you broke the network?”

  “The very same. I wonder how Dr. Fredman’s doing?”

  “Who’s Dr. Fredman?”

  “The head physician,” Grace said, and took a deep breath of cold air. “It’s so much better than it was. When we were here before, the air was agonizing. Just horrible.”

  We passed through the gates and stopped. The building sprawled in snowdrifts, long arms angling away from the center. The roofline was peaked with tall gables and a drift of snow fell from the steep pitch to pile just under ground-floor windows. Grace didn’t wait to be helped from the sleigh. I scrambled out after her, and we studied the building while waiting for the guards and medics to sort themselves out.

  I caught a glimpse of a small face in an upper window. I blinked and stared at the empty space, willing the face to appear again.

  “What is it?”

  I shook my head. “I think I saw a ghost up there. Just for an instant.”

  Grace nodded. “Maybe a lot of them stayed here.”

  She led the way to the front door and marched inside, halting as we encountered an empty, silent foyer.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked. “Where is everyone?”

  “Ahoy!” I shouted, pitching my voice to the ceiling. “Ahoy! Who’s here?”

  Heavy boots thudded on the stairwell, becoming a white-uniformed porter—did they have porters, in witch asylums? He stared at us in offended, slack-jawed surprise, his eyes lighting with fear as he beheld the Chancellor of Aeland and uniformed King’s guards.

  The porter caught his heel on the stair and toppled—backward, thank luck, so he landed on his backside. He scrambled a few steps away from us. “What do you
want?”

  His name was embroidered just above the pocket, just like my uniforms at work had been. I pushed forward, a far less intimidating figure than Grace. I was small, kindly, my expression unpainted with the fakery of a smile, and he looked at me with a little relief.

  “Are you Jordan Sellers?” I asked, and he clapped a hand over his embroidered name.

  “I am.”

  “We’re here to release the witches, Mr. Sellers,” Grace said, presenting a ribbon-tied scroll of paper. “Here is a copy of the writ signed and sealed by the Crown. Take it to your director, and then have the staff report to me for further instructions.”

  “Director’s not here,” the porter said. He got back on his feet, adjusting his too-big uniform.

  Grace waved his excuse away. “The proctor, then.”

  Sellers shook his head. “They left after their shifts. They didn’t come back. Most of them didn’t. And then the storms hit and now we’re snowed in.”

  There was something wrong. This man looked tired, his eyes sunken into violet-tinged shadows. His uniform should have been white, but it was dingy, and his belt was looped past holes that showed the wear of a waistline that had lost an inch or two around the middle.

  Grace made an astonished noise. “They abandoned you?”

  “No one has walked through that door in weeks,” Sellers said. “Since you came and broke everything. Director no-showed first. They say he packed up and left town. There’s only three of us left, and we can’t go home—we couldn’t leave them alone.”

  “They left,” Grace said. “Ran away. The cowards.”

  “We can still get to the barns. There’s goat milk, as long as we have hay,” Sellers said. “But we’re running low on everything. They would have died without us. We couldn’t leave them.”

  “Thank you for your humanity,” Grace said. “You could have left them, trying to escape whatever your superiors fled.”

  “Is anyone ill, or injured?” I asked. “Will anyone need assistance to get to the train?”