I look around. The key is there, hanging on the wall (just in sight of the bird, what a torture). So I open the cage. I hold out my arm, bare, trusting him.
He steps onto my forearm. Talons touching. They dig into my flesh, but don’t break my skin. They feel as though they sink into me, fit me. I feel his weight.
Broken string, Caru sings, looking at me. Heart battered home burned. Bound, broken, knots undone. Ocean, island, talons, feathers, nests. Fall, fall from the stars.
Caru’s wings spread slowly, and then he beats them and starts to rise into the air, just enough to scare me. I step back.
He looks at my heart, like he wants to tear it out of my chest. But when he stares, I stare back. I watch his eyes widen, clear bright gold, and totally insane.
Aza, the falcon whirrs, quietly.
His voice is different now, less scared, less rageful.
Sing, he whirrs, the sharpness of his beak close enough to savage me. He ruffles up his feathers and shakes himself. His talons are as long as my fingers.
Sky, Caru says. Take me.
He moves his head forward and uses his beak to pluck something from his ankle.
I look at it. It’s a ring. A gold ring, similar to the rings I’ve seen on the Rostrae, but this one is without any chains.
Caru drops it into my hand, and then looks at me. I don’t know what to do. I could throw it off the ship. Would that release him?
Sky, says Caru again.
I keep my arm extended. I take a roll of charts from the desk and push them into my belt.
Caru looks at me. I put my cloak over his head, and wrap him in it. I hold him in my arms, and we go up in the dark. Caru croons into my ear—
A terrifying soft song and the song sounds like mine. It hurts my head, bruises my eardrums. I shake my head to clear it, and Caru moves against my chest.
Sky, he sings in the smallest voice.
I walk to the launches pretending I’m not doing what I’m about to do. I see Jik lingering on deck, and then walking toward Dai with purpose. He looks barely awake, and she’s distracting him.
I’m casual. Slow. I consider one of the launches, big enough to be stable in high wind, big enough to not capsize if something comes up beneath us.
The batsail looks down at me and makes a soft sound, high and quiet. A squallwhale passes close to me singing a delicate light rain.
Caru is still in my arms, but I can feel his heart pounding; it shakes his entire body. I step into the launch, and put Caru down inside it. He’s not chained to anything, not captive.
I unspool the rope that holds us to the ship. I unknot the knots. I don’t even remotely know what I’m doing. Stealing the captain’s canwr? The captain I swore an oath to?
An oath. Aza, who are you? What life is this in which you’re swearing blood oaths?
And who are you swearing them to?
I look up at the sails, and at the ship, at the night all around us. The batsail flexes its wings, pushing Amina Pennarum away from us, and with Caru in my boat, I push off from the side, and into the sky.
I start to row.
After a moment, Caru shudders beneath my cloak, and shakes it off his head, an elegant pool of fabric slipping from his shining feathers.
He makes a low ruffling noise, deep in his chest, a hum. I push us out from the ship, out, out.
I look out at the scip steorra, and aim myself toward it. I can hardly see the navigation lights of Amina Pennarum now. We just need to get far enough away that they won’t see him take flight.
Caru tilts his head and rattles out a little cry.
“What?” I ask.
Prison, Caru says. Torn from rain and sky.
Who took you? I ask. I notice that I’m singing, suddenly, notice that I’m not speaking any language but the one I share with Caru.
Magonia, says the falcon. Thieves! Home, he sings, more quietly now. Home.
The pitch of the bird’s voice goes into my heart, and my heartbeat aligns to it. A beat, and the bird cries out, another, and the bird cries out again, a metronome.
Slavebirds. Songbirds. Songgirl.
Caru stares into my eyes and his head weaves.
He stops singing, and stares at the sky, opens his wings wide, and then folds them again.
A breeze, and I realize my cheeks are wet. Tears are streaming down my face. Caru yearns for home. For [({ })].
Maybe he, at least, can have it.
It’s quiet out here. There’s no one, no other ship, no Milekt. All I have is the roll of maps I took from Zal’s cabin, and this huge, mad bird, who could kill me and everything around me, simply by screaming an alarm. I think about Zal’s plans, the ones she’s told me about. I’m only supposed to steal the plants. She swore it.
Do I trust her? I just watched her break her word.
How can I trust her?
Caru’s talons and my arm are one now, and I row. Caru’s wings open, and together we push into the night.
Caru sings a string of jangling syllables. In front of us, stars begin to blaze brighter, one by one. A trail. Very carefully, hesitantly, I add my voice to Caru’s and I start seeing before us a gleaming silver path, straight into the night. A mist rises up around us, a storm of soft sand, and hides us from the moonlight. We move forward in darkness.
But I look down, off the boat, toward the world, and for a moment, I lose myself. I imagine Jason seeing my rowboat making its way across a dark and highly trafficked sky. I imagine how much he’d love it. Part of me is drawn to the earth’s surface, while another part reaches through the night for Dai. I ache a little more with each push of my boat. Partner.
My chest is hollow without Milekt, but the song of Caru has made its way inside me too. I feel something rattling in my heart, not a living being, but a want. To sing with Caru. To meld my voice to his. His voice is so strong—