For a week, the sun rises and sets. I’m put to work, I’m put to bed. Every morning I wake up expecting my room, my comforter, the life I knew.
Every morning, instead, I’m greeted by Wedda’s clucking, scouring, dressing and braiding. And then Dai’s stern face as he lectures me about finding my voice—and gives me something new to scrub until I do.
I feel like I’m in a book written by George Orwell.
Except that this is nicer than Orwell. This is Animal Farm plus Peter Pan, plus . . . squallwhales and bird people. And, somehow—somehow it’s real. I have to keep reminding myself it’s real.
I know it is, because I’ve attempted to determine my aliveness or deadness in several ways. Be she alive or be she dead, I’ll grind her bones to make my bread, fee, fie, foe, fum, and no, that doesn’t help me, but it’s what I mutter when I’m at a loss these days, even though I didn’t climb a beanstalk to get up here. Most of my tests have involved infliction of medium amounts of pain. Vital signs, modified. Each of my experiments yields the same result: alive. Alive and presumably sane, yet completely and utterly messed up.
Because Logical Aza, Rational Aza keeps wanting to wake up—to shake someone by the shoulders and scream ships can’t fly! You can’t sing something into happening!
Except that they can. Except that Magonians do.
I’m trying hard to stay calm and deal with all of this. All things considered, I’m doing reasonably well. Practice gained from years of dying. Credit due.
This morning, I’m in a harness, trying not to look down at earth while I’m carefully washing the figurehead on the ship’s bow: a patchwork bird carved and painted. One crow’s wing, one thrush’s, half of its head an owl’s, half a parrot’s. One heron’s leg and one flamingo’s, and a bird of paradise’s tail. Apparently the mascot of Amina Pennarum is a messy hybrid creature, which makes me feel sympathetic toward it, given that’s exactly how I feel.
“I’ve heard we’re embarking on a special mission,” Dai says. He’s agitated, as usual.
I stare at him, awaiting the further explanation that I know is coming. Dai loves nothing so much as the sound of his own voice. It’s the only reason I know anything about this place.
“Before we got you, we were on field duty, sending Rostrae down to net crops. It was dull. Feed the capital. Send our forage off to them. This new mission, on the other hand, is what Zal’s trained this crew to do.”
I lean forward, but he shuts up, because the golden eagle Rostrae lands on the deck rail, and with a shrieking stretch transforms into a shining woman, her hair to her waist, her eyes yellow.
Another Rostrae lands with her, the girl I keep noticing, the blue jay girl with the electric-blue mohawk. She considers me for a moment, her black eyes with white streaks beneath them, and a yellow stripe on each of her cheekbones. She’s more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever seen, though she also makes no sense with her combination of human features and beak.
She could be my age, I think, or near it.
“Nice scrubbing,” says the blue jay, and grins. She looks at me for a moment in a way that might be friendly.
I’m shocked to discover a smile spreading across my face. I’ve had plenty of attention since finding myself here, but no one’s been actually friendly.
Do I want a friend? I’ve only ever had Jason.
I look around for Dai, but he’s wandered off, nowhere to be seen. Not surprising. He doesn’t relish fraternizing with those beneath his rank.
“I’m Aza,” I say.
“Thus revealing an impressive grasp of information we both already possess,” she says, and tilts her head.
Is she . . . joking with me?
“I just thought—I want to ask—do you think you might be able to answer some questions for me?”
She shrugs elegantly and her shoulder feathers ruffle. The trim on her uniform is as bright as her plumage.
“Possibly,” she says. “I don’t know how helpful I’ll be. I’m only a sailor.”
“I’m only a skyman,” I tell her, and she laughs.
“An ordinary skyman with more power than all the other officers on this ship combined,” she says, pointing at my insignia. “Captain’s Daughter. Savior of Magonia.”
Savior?
She’s mocking me, clearly.
“It’s Aza,” I insist.
She nods. “I’m Jik. I was born aboard this ship, and I’ve been part of the effort to locate you—ever since I can remember.”
“So I guess, thank you?” I say weakly.
She smiles. “You look ordinary, Aza Ray Quel. It’s hard to believe you’d be capable of so much.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. But Jik turns toward some piece of business and, despite her human form, I see that she has a long, blue-feathered tail. It’s weirdly glamorous—tails on a tuxedo.
I’m entranced.
The Rostrae she’s with don’t correct my scrubbing and washing. The Rostrae seem too busy with their own crew assignments to stop and stare at me.
And soon, it seems they’re sharing a meal.
“Birdseed,” one of them says, looking dismissively at a cake of some kind in his hand.
“We’d be better feeding below, where there IS food,” says Jik. She’s quickly shushed by an older crew member, a robin.
“Do you wish to make trouble? This is our ship, and we are lucky for it. Not all of us have access the way you do. Your place is assured, but what will become of us when she’s through? Have you thought of that?”