Cole looked at Mira. Were they doomed? Would they drift away into the cloudwall to be destroyed with the rest of Parona? “There must be something we can do.”
Durny opened his eyes. “Of course there is. I’m holding on to life for a reason. We must construct our own skycraft. It will require a minimum of five floatstones. Seven would be preferable. And we’ll need something to serve as the vessel itself.”
“We could use your help,” Cole told Lyrus.
“You’ll have it,” the soldier said.
“I don’t suppose you retrieved any of my tools?” Durny asked Cole.
“They were in one of the lifeboats that got away,” he said.
“Which lifeboat didn’t make it?” Mira wondered.
“The Melody got tagged by a catapult,” Cole said. “It blew apart. The men fell.”
“Did the debris land on Parona?” Durny asked hopefully.
“No, it missed.”
Durny frowned. “This mission is our biggest disaster in years.”
Cole felt terrible. “I really blew it.”
“This isn’t your fault,” Durny said. “You’ve helped us more than duty demanded. All raiders know the risks. I interviewed Lyrus, as did Rowly. We failed to ask the right question. Your champion hid his intentions well.”
“I grieve for your losses,” Lyrus said. “I was doing my duty.”
Durny studied Lyrus. “How well do you know Parona?”
“Almost as if we were one and the same.”
“Could you help us locate seven of the most available floatstones? The nodes that keep Parona aloft? We need to extract them with a minimum of digging and without bringing buildings down on top of us.”
“We can access some in the catacombs,” Lyrus said. “Six for certain, as long as we harvest them from different areas. The seventh would start to make things unstable.”
“I can manage with five,” Durny said. “I’ll need to be carried. I’m paralyzed from the waist down, and Mira lacks the know-how to extract floatstones on her own.”
Lyrus scooped Durny from the ground, cradling the injured shaper in his arms. The soldier looked to Cole.
“Take us to the first floatstone,” Cole ordered.
The soldier started walking. Cole and Mira followed.
“Pray that Parona drifts slowly today,” Durny said. “And pray I’m wrong about the look of these clouds.”
By the time they had extracted the fifth floatstone, night had fallen, and rain poured down on Parona. None of the fires had gone out in any of the torches, bowls, kettles, or platters scattered throughout Parona, whether indoors or outdoors. Droplets spat and hissed as they came into contact with the open flames.
The wind had risen, blowing the raindrops diagonally. No stars were visible. The temperature had fallen considerably.
Cole had felt useless while they hunted for floatstones. The catacombs beneath Parona connected into an elaborate labyrinth, allowing his group to move from one floatstone to the next without returning to the surface. Along most of the webby, convoluted corridors, skulls, partial skeletons, and other strange bones were embedded into the waxy walls. At each extraction site, Lyrus would strip away wax, fungi, and filth until he had laid bare the stone wall or floor. Mira gave Durny some support, but he did the heavy work, dividing the stone with his mind and holding it open while Mira pulled out the floatstone, then sealing the stone back up again as best he could.
Each floatstone was a mirrorlike disk with rounded edges, no bigger than a dinner plate, maybe three or four inches thick. Cole’s job was to carry them. When he let go of a floatstone, it hovered in place, perfectly stationary. The floatstones resisted movement. He learned that they offered less resistance when he moved them slowly.
After helping Mira collect the fifth floatstone, Durny had slumped back, his pale face gaunt and slick with sweat. Cole doubted whether he could have extracted seven of these even if they had been readily available.
They had emerged from the catacombs some time ago. Durny rested on the floor, eyes closed, his breathing shallow but steady. They were waiting for Lyrus to return with something they could use as a skycraft. All the buildings were sparsely furnished, and so much of Parona was made of stone that they had yet to come across anything suitable. The soldier had assured them that he had some ideas.
“What a mess.” Cole sighed, staring beyond the colonnade to the steam hissing up from the rain-lashed fires spaced about the patio. “I’m so sorry.”
“You saved my life,” Mira said. “Durny’s, too.”
“Whatever. If you say so.”
He felt her hand on his shoulder. “Why’d you do it?” she asked earnestly. “Why risk your life for me? You were in a lifeboat. You could have escaped.”
Cole turned. She looked perplexed. He had asked himself the same question a couple of times while they roamed the catacombs seeking floatstones. He felt a little guilty about the chance he had taken. After all, Jenna and Dalton needed his help too. If he got himself killed, who would rescue them? “I didn’t want to see you get squished. It would have been my fault.”
She shook her head. “We’re slaves, Cole. You came here because they forced you. If you want to place blame, give it to the owners of the Sky Raiders. No matter what goes wrong, you don’t deserve any of it.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Cole said. “Still, I couldn’t watch you get killed. I just couldn’t. I saw it coming. I saw a chance to stop it, so I tried. There wasn’t time to think it through. I can hardly believe it worked.”
“Well, it was the bravest thing anyone has ever done for me. And the least expected. Thank you.” She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.
Cole suddenly found it difficult to breathe properly. He had never felt more self-conscious, or more pleased. He told his mouth not to spread into a big goofy smile, but the muscles in his cheeks wouldn’t listen.
“Aha!” Lyrus called. “To the victor go the spoils!”
Flustered, Cole tried not to look surprised and embarrassed. The brawny soldier was dragging something into the room. Maybe he was talking about the potential skycraft he had found. “What?”
“You saved a damsel in distress,” Lyrus said. “I may never have that pleasure. You speak like a coward but act like a hero. I can respect that.”
Lyrus set down the box. It was a large coffin in the traditional shape, widening to accommodate the shoulders, then narrowing toward the feet, like an elongated hexagon. Except it seemed to be built for an eight-foot-tall occupant.