Free Blightborn by Chuck Wendig

ashy and how the lines around her mouth and eyes deepen as she smiles. “This is my wife. Karya.”
    Karya beams at Gwennie, grabbing her hand and shaking it furiously. As she does so, a set of breasts far too large and round shimmy and quake behind the woman’s apple-red dress.
    “It is an honor to meet one of our Heartland brethren,” Karya says, her voice breathy—an almost squeaky whisper.
    “Quiet, Karya,” the architect mutters. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
    The man with the snow-blond hair turns and puts a cold hand on Gwennie’s bare shoulder. “I’m the peregrine, Percy Lemaire-Laurent.”
    “The peregrine . . . ,” Gwennie says. She has no idea what that is.
    “I’m the right-hand man to the praetor.”
    The praetor speaks up. “Pish. Not at all true. I have assistants for that. Percy is the law around here. Every flotilla has a peregrine. Though perhaps none as effective as ours.”
    The peregrine laughs and casts his gaze downward: an expression of humility, though Gwennie can’t tell if it’s genuine. “You honor me with such kind words, Praetor.”
    Gwennie turns suddenly toward Merelda. “And you are . . .”
    Merelda freezes as if caught in a beam of harsh light.
    “Of course,” the peregrine says. “This is my house-mistress. La Mer.”
    “It means ‘the sea,’ ” Merelda says. She extends a trembling hand. Afraid that Gwennie will ruin it all for her? “It is a pleasure to meet you, Heartlander.”
    “And you,” Gwennie says, hearing the coldness in her own voice. “Skylander.” It’s not a word they use, clearly, because they all chuckle a little, but she doesn’t care and can barely hear their dismissive chortles, because all she’s thinking is:
    Traitor. She’s a traitor to her own people. A traitor to the land. Godsdamn you, Merelda McAvoy. Godsdamn you into the arms of Old Scratch.
    Three glasses of bubbly in quick succession and already Balastair is feeling it. His stomach flutters. His head drifts. He turns to flag down another Bartender-Bot, and just as he’s trying to suppress a little burp, he runs face-first into Eldon Planck.
    “Hello, Balastair.”
    Balastair holds a fist against his lips and ill suppresses the burp. “Eldon. I was going to come and say hello.”
    “Of course you were.”
    Eldon smiles that cruel, handsome smile.
    Erasmus whistles and says, “Uh-oh!”
    The smoke rising from the architect’s pipe is acrid and skunky; it stings Gwennie’s nose and brings water to her eyes. Whatever it is, it’s softening the man’s eyelids and making his mouth droop more than a little. He keeps making this wet, plying sound with his mouth: smack smack smack. Occasionally he jolts back to awareness.
    For her part, Gwennie can’t escape the attentions of the architect’s wife, Karya. That woman keeps drinking and pushingcloser and closer against her—Gwennie first thinks it’s not out of lust but rather some mad, sodden fascination, as if she’s a strange object or an odd animal. The woman’s hand falls to Gwennie’s knee, and she keeps leaning in, boozy breath washing over them both in waves. And suddenly Gwennie isn’t so sure.
    “What are you drinking?” Karya asks, and before Gwennie can answer, the woman says, “I’m drinking a Gee-Whiz,” and shakes a tall, slim glass of something unnaturally blue. It splashes on the woman’s own knee.
    Gwennie’s about to say that she’s not drinking anything, but then Annalise flits along (butterfly pollinating flowers) and places a drink in her hand. “A Tuxedo Tassel,” Annalise says. “As ordered before you . . . hurried off.” And then she’s gone again, once more joining the praetor and a crowd of other hoity-toity types whom Gwennie can’t possibly relate to or understand on even the barest human level.
    She takes a sip of the Tuxedo Tassel and finds it awful. As if she’s drinking an old tree. A piece of something—skin from some kind of fruit maybe—collects on her