Free A Web of Air by Philip Reeve Page A

gun,” said the stranger, after a second more. “That means you have to go first.”
    “I’m Fever Crumb,” said Fever.
    “And who has sent you here, Fever Crumb? Was it Flynn? Or the Oktopous Cartel? Or those clowns from the Quadrado Del Mar?”
    Fever, not knowing what any of those names meant and wanting only for the pistol to be pointed somewhere else, said, “I came here yesterday on a land-barge. Persimmon’s Ambulatory Lyceum. I am looking for Arlo Thursday.”
    “Well that’s a new twist! A theatre?”
    The green eye watched her unblinkingly for a long moment. Then the stranger lowered his pistol and took a step backwards, shoving his hair away from his face with his free hand. His face was pleasant, and made more pleasant to Fever’s eyes by the freckles that were scattered over it. Dark against his sallow skin, they reminded her powerfully of the markings of her mother’s people; for a shivery instant she thought that he too was Scriven.
    “You’ve found me,” he said. “I’m Thursday.”
    He was younger than Fever had expected. Twenty? Twenty-two? No older. He tilted his head quickly on one side and studied Fever. (It was a movement she would have called bird-like if that had not suggested fragility and hollow bones and a lightness not in keeping with his height and his broad shoulders.) “You don’t look like an actress,” he said.
    “I operate the lights and stage effects,” said Fever.
    Arlo Thursday smiled. “It’s a long time since I saw a play. Perhaps you have brought me a free ticket? Is that why you climbed all the way up here, Fever Crumb?”
    Fever sensed sarcasm in the question, but she wasn’t good at sarcasm and had no idea how she should respond. “I am not here on theatre business,” she said. She opened her bag and pulled out the glider she had found on the cliff. “I’ve brought this back.”
    Arlo Thursday’s eyes went down to the model, then back up to Fever’s face. There were shadows and questions in them, and something that looked a little like fear. He didn’t sound at all sarcastic when he said, “How did you come by that?”
    “On the cliff path, the night before last,” said Fever patiently. She knew it must have been Thursday himself who sent the model glider to her. She assumed that this was some sort of test. “It flew past me. Landed in the bushes.”
    Arlo Thursday watched her. There was something odd and secretive about him; his quick movements and the way he hid behind his hair. Suddenly he snatched the model from her and set it down on the table. “This was an early version. It does not fly well.”
    “Well enough,” said Fever. “It made me want to find out more.”
    “Ah,” said Arlo Thursday, and looked up for a moment at the other miniature gliders swaying on their strings. He put down the gun, then reached up and unhooked the largest of the models, a boxy thing with four wings. “Weasel!” he called. His voice echoed against the cliffs, and before the echo faded there was a fluttering of wings and an angel landed on the veranda, tilting its head, its blue eye glinting greedily. “Snacksies?” it croaked.
    Arlo Thursday did not answer, unless that odd little quirk of his head was an answer. He was moving some part of the model which he held in his hands, winding and winding a carved shape like a double-ended spoon which was set in the centre of it. After a few seconds he walked to the edge of the veranda, held the machine above his head and threw it as far and as hard as he could.
    “No!” gasped Fever, afraid that the beautiful thing would be snatched by the rising wind and dashed to pieces against the rocks of the garden. But instead of falling the model rushed busily upwards, its paper wings dazzling white in the sunlight, the spoon-thing chirring as it whirled. A paddle-wheel; a propeller … When it was almost out of sight, way up in the sky above the crater, it lost momentum and began to spiral downwind, but the angel called