Free Liberty (Flash Gold, #5) by Lindsay Buroker

The remains of a campfire? Maybe
Amelia was out here, after all.
    The wall of a log cabin
came into view through the trees. It was as old and moss-covered as
the dock, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t be squatting in it.
Kali reached out, catching Cedar’s arm.
    “Should we go directly up
to it?” she whispered. “If it was me, I would have laid booby
traps.”
    Cedar considered her for
a moment, and Kali recalled the last time she had tried to outthink
Amelia. It hadn’t gone well.
    A shadow fell upon the
roof of the cabin. Kali expected clouds to have drifted in, but
when she looked up, she jumped. The black-hulled airship was
sailing past again. Had she mistaken what the sounds of those
cannons firing had signified? Had this new craft joined in the
search for her and Cedar?
    “That’s a different one,”
Cedar said, his tone puzzled.
    “A different ship? It’s
not—” She squinted up at it, studying it more closely. All she had
seen on her first glance was the black hull, but he was right. The
ducted fans were slightly farther back, and the hull was longer.
She should have noticed that right away. “You’re right. Who are
those people, where are they coming from, and what’s going on
here?”
    “I’m just your tracker,
not your crystal ball.”
    “Hm, maybe I should have
performed my jailbreak on someone less limited.”
    “I did see a man in there
who could whistle Dixie with just his nose.”
    “I definitely should have
gotten him.”
    Cedar squeezed her
shoulder. “I’ll get off the path and circle around to the back of
the cabin, take a look through one of the windows.”
    “Are we splitting up
because you’re afraid I’ll make noise and ruin your stealthy
approach, or because you think you’ll need rescuing from some
devious trap she’s set?”
    “More that second thing
than the first,” he said dryly, and made that same hat-tipping
gesture, though he still wasn’t wearing a hat.
    Kali stepped into the
shadows beneath a tree. The second airship had disappeared from
view, and she forced herself to focus on the cabin. Whatever was
going on in town, she doubted it had anything to do with her. Out
here was another story.
    The shutters had been
torn off the cabin’s front window, and it did not look to have ever
held glass. Oilskin perhaps. It was too dark in the cabin, and she
was too far away to see anything inside. It seemed like it had been
abandoned and taken over by animals, and yet, she still had that
sense of being watched, maybe doubly so now that Cedar had left her
side. She knew he wasn’t far, but she could not see him sneaking
around the perimeter of the cabin, and it made her feel alone.
    A breeze started up,
whispering through the trees. A branch knocked against another
branch. At least that’s what she thought it was, but the noise
continued, steady and regular. It sounded like it was coming from
behind the cabin somewhere. Or maybe
inside
the cabin?
    She was tempted to sneak
forward and investigate—if Amelia had left behind some new
mechanical construct, Kali definitely wanted to see it. Wisdom
dominated over curiosity, at least for the moment, and she did not
go exploring. She would wait until Cedar returned before poking her
nose into the cabin. Better to face booby traps together. She did,
however, scoot a few trees to the side, so she could see the side
of the cabin with the front door.
    A clank-thunk came from
the cabin, and a shadow moved across the window. Kali almost called
out a warning to Cedar, but he would have heard the noise too. He
was probably already investigating it. From her position, she could
see the walk up to the front door, and he hadn’t approached it yet,
but he could be poking along the far wall. Either way, she didn’t
think it was a good idea to start shouting. Just in case they
weren’t truly alone out here.
    As she watched the door,
it creaked open, the sound making her think of some sarcophagus lid
being raised in an ancient