Gaia's Brood

Chapter 14

Izzy scowls menacingly at me. "What journal, Nina?" she demands, after I've related my tale and showed them the torn page from the arrivals book.

I retrieve the sinister brown-paper package I received for my birthday from my shoulder bag and we sit round the cabin table with the bundle centered in the middle.

Trent reaches across and prods the package. He turns it round to examine the address, and then shrugs. "My master died for that book. Next stop, I'm taking it straight to the constables."

"We can't go to the constables." Scud gently places a roll of paper on the table. "These are everywhere."

I straighten out the crisp roll of paper. Ice clutches at my heart and I stare in disbelief. Whatever I was expecting to see it isn't this. "But it doesn't even look like me," I blurt. A wanted poster.

Except for the sharp intakes of breath around the table, there is silence. Never have I felt such panic pounding at my chest—what have I done?

"NATASHA SWIFT WANTED FOR MURDER." A crude, but menacing, line-drawing of my face glowers out from under the heading. There follows a brief, and fairly accurate, description of me. "The suspect may be travelling with other young adults in a stolen airship," it adds.

"Stolen?" I fume. "I paid good money for this ship."

Trent looks up in surprise. "You actually own this wreck?"

"She's not a wreck." With effort, I force myself to speak normally. "She may look tatty on the outside." I pat the sleek laminated frame of the ship with affection. "But she's mechanically sound—especially since the refit at Felix's."

"Which is one place we cannot return to," Izzy says.

I raise a questioning eyebrow.

"Because," she continues, "the constables will be watching it."

"Maybe," Trent says, "we should take the journal there. That would be the responsible thing to do—then we can prove our innocence."

Fernando turns on Trent like a hawk. "We just saved your neck, Buddy, and now you want us to put our heads on the plank? Are you trying to get caught or are you just an idiot?"

Trent recoils from Fernando's fury and I reach my arm out to protect him. "He's only trying to help." Secretly, I'm pleased: I think Fernando may have meant, "Put our heads in the noose", or "Our feet on the plank," but in any event, he's standing up for us. The mutiny is done and gone.

He's right, though, we can't turn ourselves in. McGraw might be prepared to consider us innocent until proven guilty, he's a good constable, but Borker will certainly just want to bang us up so he can close the case—or worse.

Fernando turns on me next. "And you... you've made me into a criminal. I'm an accomplice to murder. What is my family going to think?"

I wasn't expecting that. "You know we're innocent, Fernando. Anyway, it isn't as though you haven't broken the law before."

He actually bares his teeth at me. "I might play a bit fast and loose sometimes, but I have never...never done anything to endanger the family honor." He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, struggling to regain his composure. "I wish I'd never set foot on this bucket."

Now my initial panic is over, I consider my options; not only have I piloted an unlicensed airship, but the constables are hunting me for murder. There is only one way out of this. "We will find the killer and clear our names ourselves," I declare.

I gaze round the table at the others, who are staring at me in horror. "If we're not going to give ourselves up it's the only logical plan, unless you want to spend the rest of your lives on the run. Anyone got a better plan?"