CHAPTER 51: UNREAL ILLUMINATION

  There was a growing gap between the race’s three frontrunners—The Sapphire Spirit, The Gray Gargoyle, and the inexplicable Valshynarian vessel—and every other ship still left in the race. That gap had existed when Elias’s crew crossed the first checkpoint, and it had grown larger still as they blew past the second one. By the time they passed the third, he could no longer see their trailing competition through the fog. He could no longer see if any more ships had fallen.

  They had overpowered their way past them all, save for the two they could never quite overtake. That overpowering had now run its thirty-minute course, however, as Gabby had explained they could only keep the engine running hot for so long. This airship—not to mention their lives—was still worth considerably more than any prize money. Her mechanical prowess had pushed them into the leading pack, but they were still technically in third place, and the finish line was fast-approaching.

  Elias’s desperate hope stemmed solely from the fact that they appeared to be slowly, very slowly, gaining on The Gray Gargoyle. The two ships were practically racing in parallel, but over the course of two rather intense minutes, The Sapphire Spirit had gone from having its bow aligned with the other’s stern to being almost perfectly in sync. Maybe Edric’s new ship was not better than his old one, after all, or maybe they would lose their gains now that Gabby could no longer overpower their efforts. But they were still sailing fast. They had overpowered momentum, if nothing else.

  The sound of a gunshot popped his ballooning optimism. Elias whirled around, searching for the damage, but no one aboard had received a bullet, at least not successfully. He turned his attention to the source: a crew member on The Gray Gargoyle was holding the smoking gun, literally in this instance. Indeed, he recognized the shooter. It was the man who had lost his tricorne in their scuffle a week earlier, now sporting a new one.

  Edric had tried to bully him out of the competition once already, and Elias would not bank on him being a rule abider today, especially when they were neck and neck—throat to throat.

  Another gunshot. This time, he heard a second sound: a metal ting. The shooter was aiming for the back of their airship. Elias turned to his sight for an answer, struggling for a moment to form his question. He wished not for his own shot to strike true, but to understand where they were being attacked. A flickering green line formed a path toward the bow, bending and disappearing over the bulwark. He chased after it.

  The end of the road turned out to be their starboard side propeller. The line faded away as Elias’s answer materialized in its place. A destroyed propeller would end any chance of victory, and even a bent blade could slow them. At this juncture, any advantage—and any disadvantage—could be the difference between first, second, and third. And only one of those positions awarded enough prize money to buy a small paper mill.

  It came down to two options. If they kept flying fast and gaining on The Gray Gargoyle, Edric’s ship would have a better shot at their propeller. If they slowed their speed, the shooting might stop, but they would surely lose. It was, in Elias’s view, a simple enough choice.

  “Keep going,” he told Briley. “I’ll handle this.”

  That said, he did not want to kill or even maim anyone, and so he turned to his sight once more. His target wasn’t the man but his weapon. Elias unholstered his own pistol—a Leefield he had acquired a month ago as a gift to himself—primed the flash pan, pulled back the hammer, and steadied his breathing.

  This path revealed itself more quickly than the last one. He was used to taking trick shots, but his target was smaller than most, with less room for error. Not the man. Not even his hand. The gun and only the gun.

  And just as Elias was about to pull the trigger and perform his perfect shot, the man in the tricorne noticed he was being aimed at. His pistol moved, shifting from their propeller toward Elias, who now had no more time to take. He fired first.

  The man howled and dropped his gun—along with two fingers. A third one dangled from his bloodied hand like a Solstice Eve ornament.

  “Fuck.” Elias spat the word. He had stopped their shooter sure enough, but there would be consequences now. His enemy may have started it, but Elias had drawn first blood.

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  Revenge, it seemed, would come swiftly. Edric had witnessed everything from the stern, standing beside his navigator. He lifted his pistol. Elias had given him all the permission he needed, if he ever needed any.

  Edric aimed and fired back as Elias dove behind the bulwark. A bullet chipped the wood beside him. Elias retrieved his powder horn and began reloading his weapon. How much he wanted to return the favor, but he would not forget his promise to Abigail—even if it killed him, apparently. Had Bertrand not been presently below deck, he also would have reminded his eager friend that shooting the son of one of the most powerful companies in the Rise was a bad idea for a whole range of reasons.

  He could, of course, reattempt the circus maneuver he had failed once already: shooting gun from hand, but that had not worked out so well a minute ago. He wasn’t going to risk it with Edric.

  Iric, however, could not read minds. What he could do was throw an axe with more precision than most men could shoot. Elias stopped him: “Iric, don’t!”

  “Fair is fair,” the northerner protested. He put his hatchet away. “You’re the boss.”

  Another shot whizzed overheard. Fair might be fair in the United North, but fair could scarcely afford an apartment in Hightown. Elias could not play by the same rules as Edric. He had found ways to exploit them before, but the walls he had broken through and scaled so many times before were closing in around him, tougher and taller than ever.

  Another ting. They were going after their propeller again.

  Elias repeated his word of the day: “Fuck.”

  When he turned toward Briley to see if their navigator had any bright ideas, he saw something else, something unexpected, behind her. The Valshynarian airship, still leading the race if only by a dock’s length, was decelerating. More specifically, it was decelerating directly in front of The Gray Gargoyle.

  The latter ship tried to fly beneath the former, only to be matched and blocked. Edric’s vessel went right, shot upward, trying again and again to pass the Valshynar, always to no avail. The Sapphire Spirit, meanwhile, was gaining air. Soon, they were tied for first.

  Elias could not quite believe it. Iric shrugged. Briley seemed skeptical. Bertrand and Gabby returned to the upper deck to see the truth for themselves. As for Edric, Elias couldn’t get an angle on him, even with his telescope, but The Two Worlds Trading Company’s chief proprietor had always possessed an indulgent imagination.

  He did not need to imagine Lucas Dawnlight’s expression. The handsome collector met his gaze as they floated past him, smiling his perfect smile, standing upright with mysterious purpose and all the structure of a stately statue upon the peak of their bow. The Valshynarian nodded and made a hand gesture Elias had never seen before. Was it supposed to mean something to him—or perhaps to a fellow collector? If Constance suspected Elias was a rogue member of their secret club, surely Lucas did too.

  And then it dawned on him. Somehow, through intuition or something more, he understood what Lucas was signaling through the fog: a debt repaid. “It is I who owes you, Elias,” he had said back in Azir after the younger man had stepped into a fight that was not his, taking out one of Lucas’s would-be assassins with a well-timed shot that apparently “made things easier” for the impossibly quick collector. True or not, Elias still treasured that compliment like a favorite souvenir.

  He had never imagined anything would ever come of it. He had never imagined Lucas would truly repay his casually self-imposed debt—and never with such generosity. Even after The Sapphire Spirit firmly stole first place, the situation remained utterly unreal. Elias looked back toward The Gray Gargoyle poking out behind the Valshynarian vessel like the sun trying to escape an eclipse.

  “What is he doing?” Briley yelled from the wheel.

  “I’m not sure,” Elias replied. “I think he’s helping us.”

  “What reason plucked high from heaven or dredged from the depths of hell could compel a bloke to throw The Emerald Cup in our favor?” were words only Bertrand Fairweather would ever string together.

  “Because I helped him,” Elias said simply.

  That explanation was not illuminating anything for anyone. Even Iric furrowed his dense, unbendable brow.

  Indeed, the only illumination came from the sky itself. The fog dissipated into cotton clouds as sunlight broke through in beams and then washed over the crew of The Sapphire Spirit completely.

  Sailor’s Rise appeared in front of them, closer than they had realized. They too must have just appeared before the event’s immeasurable audience, many onlookers only now getting their first clear view of the race. Elias had been awe-struck by Azir’s ancient colosseum and its incomparable crowd, but this was the spectacle of an entire city, of an entire continent gathered together for a singular moment, a defining moment, Elias Vice’s moment (and Bertrand’s and Briley’s too, of course). The crowd’s distant roar sounded through the sky like the echo of some supernatural disaster.

  Wanting to confirm they were not cheering for anyone else, Elias peered over his shoulder toward the ships behind him, only now emerging from the fog. Even if Edric managed to somehow slip past Lucas, it would be too late. The Sapphire Spirit had created too much distance.

  Bertrand stepped up beside Elias, following his gaze from their competitors to the finish line. “This is it, then.”

  “Not yet, it isn’t,” Elias said.

  “Unless there’s another sky rift up ahead that I can’t see, I’m quite sure we’re about to win The Emerald Cup, my friend.”

  “The race isn’t over for us.”

  “I suppose not,” Bertrand replied, “but you can still be happy about it.”

  “I’m happy, Bertrand. I’m very happy.”

  Bertrand chuckled to himself, but his smile grew contagious. Gabby cheered a high-pitched cheer, reminding them that she was barely a teenager, a fact too easily forgotten. Iric placed both hands on his hips, looking proud. Briley was grinning quietly at the wheel. And Elias—Elias finally looked the part of happy.

  Soon, they were enveloped in an endless applause.