Free Blightborn by Chuck Wendig Page B

can manage the privilege, claiming I caught them in . . . some act of sedition, some madness deserving the mercy of my pistol. Do you understand? Then I’ll make you identify the bodies just so you see how they suffered.”
    “You’re a monster.”
    “I’m merely protective, as I’m sure you are of the things you hold dear. Which is why I know you’ll do the smart thing and keep quiet. I have a wife and two beautiful sons, and they all know that I am deeply in love with La Mer and that I take my job very seriously, and I’ll not have some scrubby callus-hand from the corn-blasted below threaten that.”
    The wind grows suddenly cold.
    Gwennie cannot suppress the shiver.
    “Are we clear?” he asks.
    “We are,” she says, barely finding her voice.
    “Excellent. I’m going to tell them you’re not feeling well. Go find Balastair and have him take you home.”
    He reaches up and touches her arm.
    “You look very pretty,” he says. “You clean up nice.”
    Then he’s gone, and she dry heaves over the side of the balcony.
    Flustered, feeling as if she can’t catch her breath, Gwennie finds Balastair standing face-to-face with some other Empyrean, an older man whose looks hover somewhere between dapper andrugged. Next to that man stands a young woman—pretty, a streak of silver shot through ruddy-red hair. Gwennie comes up and tugs on his arm, and she’s about to tell him it’s time to go, but they seem in the middle of a conversation—
    “You’re really quite bitter,” the older man says to Balastair. “A few glasses of bubbly and you fall to pieces. Unlike my auto-mates, of course. You’ve heard of the Initiative, have you? Down there in the Heartland?”
    “The who now? The what?” Balastair looks flummoxed. Erasmus chirps and burbles on his shoulder.
    “Ah. Well. I daren’t split my lips to spill news that isn’t mine to spill. But this Pegasus thing is really just a drop in the bucket. We’ll be airborne by the end of the week and . . . you can go back to your lab. Isn’t that where you want to be? Back doing real work? If they’ll let you, of course.” He takes another sip. “After failing to create a true Pegasus to embody the Empyrean ideals, a living sigil to demonstrate the pride of the heavens. Failure is like honey, Balastair—it’s really quite sticky.”
    “ You’re sticky,” Balastair hisses, what Gwennie assumes is a nonsense insult that comes plopping out of his fool’s mouth.
    “Sticky!” Erasmus echoes.
    The other man just laughs.
    Then he turns his gaze toward Gwennie.
    “This is your . . . charge,” he says, swishing his drink around the bell of his glass. “Your ward of the flotilla. How interesting. Heartland girl, is she?”
    “I’m right here,” Gwennie says. “I can hear you.”
    “Gwennie,” Balastair says, and she hears the droopy slur in his voice as he gesticulates with a sloshing glass of somethingpink and bubbly. “This is Eldon Planck, the men behind the mechanical man—er, the man behind the mechanical men , and that there, the woman right there , is his lovely wife. His new wife. Cleo Planck.”
    “Great,” Gwennie says. “We seriously need to get the hell—” She pauses and looks at the woman. “Cleo?”
    “That’s right,” the woman says.
    Gwennie takes Balastair’s glass from him and splashes the drink in her face.
    All around her are gasps and mumbles followed by a swift silence.
    She feels a hundred pairs of eyes on her.
    Damnit .
    Gwennie can see the raised balcony and the persecuting glares of those truly elite members of the flotilla: the praetor, the peregrine, the architect, and yes, Merelda McAvoy. La Mer.
    Eldon Planck grabs her wrist and twists.
    “You little bitch,” he says. “Throwing a drink in the face of my wife—just because you get on your knees for this fool—” He lifts his chin to indicate Balastair, but before he can say anything else, Balastair throws a wonky punch into his chops. Eldon staggers