“How can I prepare?”
“There’s a proper attitude!” Adam said. “Durny, you’ve earned a rest. Have Mira show him about, get him equipped, give him some tips. And have her dig up some decent clothes. The boy looks like a storm-blown scarecrow.”
Cole almost explained his costume, but Adam seemed through talking to him. Durny ushered him away and began asking people if they had seen Mira.
Before long, Cole found himself facing a girl nearly his height. She wore boots, corduroy pants, a collared shirt, and suspenders printed with shamrocks. Her brown hair was chopped short. She wasn’t very clean, but that couldn’t hide her pretty gray eyes and cute face.
“Find some new monster bait?” she asked Durny.
“Go easy,” Durny said. “Boy’s had a rough week. Mira, this is Cole. He’ll be raiding tomorrow. He needs to learn the ropes.”
Mira gave Cole a once-over. “Let me guess. He needs clothes, too.”
“He’s all yours.”
Durny moved away.
“Not a lot of girls here,” Cole said.
“We have more than you see topside,” she said. “Most of the girls stay below.”
“In the basement?”
“In the caves. This whole section of the cliff is honeycombed with them. That’s why they built here. We’re right above them.”
“It’s a big building,” Cole said.
“Big enough for most everyone to have a room topside. But some prefer the caves. When a storm comes, everyone prefers the caves.”
“You get bad storms?”
“It doesn’t get much worse than a castle landing on you.”
“Has that happened?”
“They’ve had close calls. Some damage. No direct hits.”
Cole regarded Mira pensively. “Have you been here long?”
“A couple of years.”
“Really? You must have been young when you came here.”
She shrugged. “I’m about eleven.”
“ ‘About’?”
“I’m an orphan. Nobody knows when my birthday is.”
She didn’t seem to be asking for pity, so Cole tried not to give it. “Are you going to help me survive tomorrow?”
“Survival is up to you. I can help you get your stuff.”
A boy, maybe a year older than Cole, chummily clapped Mira on the back. “Did you finally find a boyfriend?” he asked.
Her shoulders hunched uncomfortably until he removed his hand. “No, but I already have a boy-enemy.”
“Nice,” he said, smiling. He stood a few inches taller than Cole, with a bronze complexion and dark hair. He held out his hand. “I’m Jace.”
Cole shook it. “Cole.”
“You’re my new best friend.”
“How come?”
“With Fiddler gone, it was my turn to scout tomorrow.”
“Glad I could help,” Cole said.
“If you get an easy one, we aren’t friends anymore. If you get killed, I’ll love you forever.”
“Buzz off,” Mira said. “I need to show him the place.”
“Listen to everything she says,” Jace advised. “Then do the opposite.”
Mira punched at him, but Jace dodged away.
“Come on,” Mira said.
Cole followed her out of the common room and down a wide hall. They turned corners, passed some doors, then went down a flight of stairs.
“Where are you from?” Mira asked.
“Earth,” Cole said.
“You’re from outside? How long have you been here?”
“About a week.”
For the first time he saw a flash of real sympathy in her face. She stopped walking. “A week?”
“My friends got kidnapped by slavers. I followed them through to try to help them.”
“You came through on your own?” She sounded impressed.
“I had no idea where I was going. I got caught. Then Durny bought me.”
She gave a little nod. “Do you know what the Sky Raiders do?”
“They raid the floating castles. That’s all I know.”
“This is a salvage operation,” Mira explained. “There’s nothing alive in those castles. Not truly. Just semblances. Some are big and dangerous, some seem like people, but none are really living. Most of the semblances disintegrate if you bring them back here, just like the floatstones if they head inland. Everything else holds together just fine. It’s all ownerless and headed for the Eastern Cloudwall, never to be seen again. So the Sky Raiders take what they can. We keep certain valuables, but most of it goes to the salvage yard. People come from all over the Outskirts to buy our finds.”
“Sometimes the semblances are dangerous?”
Mira huffed. “Up in the castles, they seem plenty real. Some castles are empty. Some are deadly. If nothing gets taken, it doesn’t count as a mission, so make sure something gets back to the ship every time, even if it’s just a floatstone.”
“Got it. I don’t want to end up doing more than fifty missions.”
“Right.”
Cole cleared his throat. “So I’m the bait. For the semblances.”
“More or less. Nobody wants to see you fail. They’ll scope out the castle before they send you down. They’ll be ready to lend a hand if possible. And we’ll equip you.”
She opened a door to a room full of clothes. “Your outfit is about function, not fashion. You want clothes that let you move freely, have enough pockets, and maybe give a little protection. Put tough material over your knees and elbows.”
The room contained a bizarre variety of clothing—tunics, long underwear, embroidered robes, a sequin cape, a medieval breastplate, turbans, a trench coat, a pliable cloak as clear as glass, grass skirts, a football helmet, garlands, beaded vests, and togas. Cole fingered a fringed buckskin jacket, like the kind Davy Crockett might wear. “Where did all of this come from?”
“You get one guess.”
“The castles?” Cole picked up the football helmet by the face mask. “Do you even play football here?”
“Is that a game?”
He set it down. “Do the castles come from my world?”
“Do you have floating castles on Earth?”
“No,” Cole said. “But we have a lot of this stuff. Like that T-shirt over there. It’s for a movie called Medal of Shame. It doesn’t belong here.”
“Nothing belongs in the castles,” Mira said. “It’s why they’re worth raiding. You never know what you might find. It might be valuable or useful. It might be garbage. But it’s there for the taking.”