Quill of Thieves

Chapter 26

What if Astrid had been hurt?

Abel would insist he shouldn't care, but he found that he did.

Regardless, he had to go up.

Eventually, the wooded path opened to a small, logged shack with its front door hanging off its hinges. It was a dead-end. A solid place for an injured person to seek refuge. Sebastian slowed, gasping to catch his breath. He turned on the spot, searching these new, empty surroundings. Nothing moved. Beside the dilapidated cabin, there lay a set of snow-covered rails. Curious, Sebastian followed the tracks around the back of the shack and came across a rusted tram, only large enough for one or two people. The railed tracks led up the mountain where there wasn't a walking path. Almost to the top.

Sebastian's heart leapt. He slipped and slid towards the tram. He had read about such machines and how they worked. In theory, the mechanisms were rather simple: an engine powered by steam that would expand the pistons and power it up the mountain.

And what was steam but water? His fingers stretched reflexively.

"For the record, I thought of that first."

The voice startled Sebastian. He slipped on the icy rails and fell, spinning on his backside to find Astrid leaning against a broken tree trunk.

"You screamed."

It was the first thing he thought of saying upon seeing her. If he was more adept at such social interactions, he probably should have asked her if she was alright. It was what he had meant, anyways. She had her left leg stretched out in front of her. Pine needles and sticks littered the snow in a near perfect circle around where she sat. A branch protruded from the torn sleeve of her snowsuit.

"What happened to you? Are you alright?"

She winced as she tried to stand, bracing a hand against the wide trunk of the tree. "I'm—fine."

"You don't seem fine."

Astrid gritted her teeth but sank back to the ground, her left foot shaking as she reached for it. Sebastian knelt before her and carefully touched the side of her boot. "Is it your ankle?" His fingers drifted to the boot's buckle like they knew what to do. Which they didn't. Shouldn't. "May I?"

"Absolutely not! If it is broken, then it's swollen, and if you take that boot off, I'll never get it back on. I'm not about to risk losing an appendage to frostbite." She pushed his hand away, cheeks pink from pain or the cold, Sebastian wasn't sure. She scowled at him from beneath her heavy hood. "I told you. I'm fine. At least more fine than that mountain tram. Go ahead and analyze it, scholar. It won't run."

Scholar, indeed. If it was broken, perhaps he could fix it. The tram, not Astrid's ankle.

Sebastian looked back at the cart and went to where its engine should have been. The cavity was empty. Well, there would be no fixing that, which meant his plan of using Water's threads from the snow to steam it up as close to the watchtower as it could travel was officially kaput.

"Hate to say I told you so," Astrid muttered.

"What do you think happened to it? Why steal only the engine?"

"No one stole it."

Sebastian glanced back at her. "You sound so sure."

"Perhaps because I am." She waved a wrist around in the air indifferently. "I may have flung it. On accident, of course. Or, rather, Air flung it, to be more precise about such things."

He gaped at her. "Air flung it?" It was still hard to believe he lived in such a world where he said nonsense such as that. "So, by extension, you sabotaged my plan."