Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) by Courtney Grace Powers Page B

back. Nivy’s blue eyes, calm and steady, were on him.
     

     
    V I
     
    Do You Prefer Water, or Engine Grease?
     
     
    Reece tilted his head and let the sunlight soak through the backs of his eyelids, washing out the black. He tried to make sense of a number of things and wished not for the first time he had Hayden’s mind. Hayden could compartmentalize, put order to his thoughts and connect the lines between them. Reece felt like his thoughts were a bunch of blocks, rattling around untethered in his cargo bay of a skull.
    The crash of the capsule, the theft of its cargo, Eldritch’s murder of his workers, and now Liem and Nivy.
    The hovering dock under Reece’s legs shuddered as Gideon thundered down its length, tucked in his feet, and leaped into Emathia’s pond. Hayden made a tsking sound and used his sleeve to wipe droplets from the screens of his journal. Gid was the only one who cared to swim this late into the solar cycle. In fact, Hayden couldn’t swim at all.
    “But the thing of it is,” Hayden continued, “if that capsule was from Honora, why wasn’t its cargo just sent by ship?”
    Reece thought for a moment, dangling his legs over the edge of the dock. “I don’t know. Maybe whoever sent it didn’t have one.” Reaching out, he grabbed the dock’s vertical adjustment crank and tweaked it a few degrees till his feet brushed the startlingly cold water.
    Gideon stroked over to them and wildly shook out his black hair, spraying Hayden’s journal all over again. “Mighta done it so the cargo would fly under the radar.” When his friends stared at him blankly, he hoisted himself onto the dock, dripping wet and shirtless. “Capsules are too small to be picked up by any’a that fancy equipment at the AC. If they ain’t carryin’ weapons or magnetizers or any foreign bells and whistles, they glide right over sensors. Chances are, those ginghoos in your flight tower really did think it was just another meteorite.”
    “But Eldritch definitely knew differently. He must’ve had the judges fail me to distract me from looking into the readings I picked up on my console.”  The blocks were settling into place one at a time. “Only I did it anyways.”
    “Hold on!” Hayden exclaimed, glaring up into the sunlight and at Gideon. “How do you know…wait, on second thought, don’t tell me. Then I won’t be guilty by association when you and Mordecai get found with a load of—of smuggled tobacco, for example.”
    Gideon grinned, did an about face, and dove off the dock again with a boisterous whoop.
    Reece was still stuck on the fact that Eldritch had known all along. Known, and failed the Palatine Second to cover up his own lousy tracks. That cargo must be bleeding valuable. Had he been expecting it? Was that the whole reason he had come to Reece’s test, to watch for it from the flight tower? Maybe—
    “Son of a toffer!” Reece shouted. “Hayden!”
    Jumping, Hayden stared aghast at Reece. “Good gracious, what?”
    “I just remembered… Liem was in the flight tower with Eldritch!”
    Hayden continued to stare. “You don’t think he knows something?”
    “He might.” Troubled, Reece shook his head. He’d never really liked Liem, but he hated to think of him knotted up in this tangled conspiracy. “He always was the celebrity pupil. Followed Eldritch around like a lost puppy at The Owl, remember? The capsule, the cargo…even my dropped gun…he could know about all of it.”
    “That’s…you don’t know that.”
    “That’s why I said he could . But I bet he does. It would explain why he was so jumpy to see me.”
    “There’s no proof, Reece.” Hayden folded his legs beneath him and pressed his face into his hands, like he did when he was tired. “No factual evidence.”
    Reece looked at his wet rag of a friend. “Why are you defending him? He doesn’t exactly delight in your existence.”
    “Because you can’t blame someone for something out of mere gut instinct…it