“I figured she should have something special today, too,” said Leroux.
Lady Esme ate every kind of food imaginable, except of course birdseed. At supper time she always sampled from both their plates.
“Who shopped for you?” asked Moth. “Mrs. Jilla?”
Leroux began coughing, answering only with a nod. To Moth the cough sounded frighteningly familiar.
“It’s what happens when you’re old,” Dr. Trik had told Moth. “Keep him comfortable and rested. And keep him away from the candy!”
There didn’t seem much sense in that, so Moth let Leroux eat as many gumdrops as he wanted. Between the old man and the bird, Moth was going to the candy shop nearly every other day. His job at the aerodrome paid only pennies, but he had everything he needed, thanks to Leroux, and didn’t mind spending his money on treats.
“If your mother was here,” said Leroux, popping a candy into his mouth, “she’d be proud of the way you’ve grown up. I’m proud of you, Moth. You know that, yes?”
“Yeah,” Moth answered.
“I know it’s not the same,” said Leroux. “It’s all right to miss her.”
Suddenly Moth couldn’t talk. His mother had been dead for three years now, taken by the same kind of coughing sickness Leroux seemed to have. Being so high up in the mountains made it easy to get sick, but remembering his mother had never gotten easier for Moth. He had no brothers and sisters, and had never known his father. He didn’t even know why his mother had ever come to Calio. All he had was Leroux, a grandfatherly friend who’d taken pity on an orphan.
Far below, the train to Medona blew its mournful whistle, following the winding tracks through the mountains. Dark smoke puffed from its stack, hanging like a cloud in the air. The train was their only real link to the rest of the world, and every time it arrived was an event. Moth liked the train almost as much as the dragonflies and airships.
One day, thought Moth, maybe I’ll be on that train.
“If I can’t be a Skyknight, that’s what I’ll do,” he said.
“Eh?”
“The train. I’ll see the world, even if I can’t see it from the sky.”
“Don’t give up on your dreams,” said Leroux. “That’s what old people do.” He held out his arm for Lady Esme. The kestrel hopped on, her talons gently grabbing the fabric of his coat. “Now that you’re thirteen you can show them you’re a man.” Leroux smiled. “When I was thirteen I squired for an Eldrin Knight. That’s the age to do it.”
“That’s not how it works anymore. They save those jobs for important kids. Sons of lords and governors. Not sons of cleaning ladies.”
It was an argument Leroux always refused to accept. This time, though, it saddened him. “If there was someone I could talk to for you, I would,” he said. “But they’re all gone. No one listens to an Eldrin Knight anymore. Only you and Esme listen to me now.”
“Listen to your stories, you mean,” joked Moth. He reached over and took a gumdrop for himself. “I don’t mind. Never have.”
Old Leroux narrowed his eyes on the mountains. “I have one more story for you, Moth.”
“Really? I thought I heard them all.” He sucked on the candy, hoping for one of Leroux’s grand tales about the land beyond the Reach. It was forbidden for anyone to cross the Reach, and those who tried surely never made it. The Reach bewitched people, making it impossible to cross. But Leroux had done it, or so he claimed, and his stories about the world beyond their own were legendary. “So?” asked Moth. “What’s it about? The Skylords?”
Leroux dodged the question. “Later. Your friends will be here soon.”
“We got time,” said Moth. “I told them to come after supper. Go on, tell me the story.”
“This is a special story, Moth. It’s a gift. To tell you now would spoil it.”
“A gift?” Moth grew intrigued. “A birthday gift?”
“Of course. You think all I have for you is a kite?”
Moth grimaced. “Yeah, about the kite…”
“You’re old enough now to hear this story, Moth.” Leroux settled back in his chair, looking as if he might fall asleep. “And to have the gift.”
The old man had lapsed into one of his senseless moods. “All right,” said Moth softly. “You can tell me the story later. Whatever you want, okay?”
Leroux closed his eyes. “I’m tired. Let me rest a little. Wake me when your friends come.”
Moth agreed, waiting with Leroux until the old man drifted to sleep. His words about stories and gifts baffled Moth, and worried him too.
He’s getting worse, he realized.
Leroux’s kestrel, Lady Esme, had hopped back onto the railing. Instead of eating gumdrops, though, she stared at Moth with the strangest eyes he had ever seen.
DINNER
FIONA SAT AT THE ENORMOUS TABLE, her eyes fixed in an empty stare at the gleaming silverware and crystal. Trays of food lay cold under metal lids. At the opposite side of the table, a vacant chair waited for Fiona’s grandfather to arrive. An embarrassing silence hung over the dining room. Fiona blew a strand of red hair out of her eyes just to hear a noise.
Two of the mansion’s servants stood near the table, beneath a gigantic painting of an old fashioned fox hunt. Their names were Jonathan and Lucie, a married couple who, like all the mansion’s servants, had arrived in Calio long before Fiona and her grandfather. Jonathan and Lucie had served the last three Governors of Calio, in fact, and knew every minor fact about the grand house. They were impeccable, uncomplaining, and, to fourteen-year-old Fiona, as boring as everything else about the city.
Fiona hated Calio. Through the window of the dining room, she could see why it was called “the edge of the world.” Calio was a two day train ride from Medona and four days from Capital City, where Fiona was raised. She had left behind her friends and everything familiar, falling into her grandfather’s hands when her parents had suddenly died. For three months now she had been with her grandfather Rendor, yet still she hardly knew him.
Jonathan cleared his throat to break the silence. “Mistress Fiona, you’ve waited the proper amount of time now. I’m sure the Governor wouldn’t mind you starting without him.”
But Fiona wasn’t hungry. These meals with her grandfather always killed her appetite. Luckily, he’d been too busy lately to bother with them more than once a week.
“It’s okay,” said Fiona absently. Secretly she liked her grandfather being late. It always forced him to apologize to her. Still, there was Moth’s party to attend. If her grandfather didn’t get here soon….
Outside the sun dropped below the hills, yet she could still make out the mists of the Reach in the fading light. Growing up she had heard about the Reach and wondered what it really looked like. Now that she had seen it for herself Fiona wasn’t impressed. To her it looked like a cottony blanket, bumpy and white, spreading out forever so that it covered the whole north world.
Could it really be that big, she wondered? Some folks believed faeries lived beyond the Reach. Old Leroux thought so, at least. Fiona didn’t know what to believe.
“It’s the land of the Skylords,” her grandfather had told her. It was why they had come to Calio, and why the city had been built. “The Skylord problem,” that’s what her grandfather called it. And the important people back in Capital City believed him enough to make him a governor.
Looking at the Reach, Fiona simply couldn’t imagine anything dangerous about it. It all seemed so peaceful to her. If the Skylords did exist, they had been quiet for hundreds of years.
At last the doors of the dining room opened and her grandfather breezed into the chamber. He straightened the tie beneath his bearded chin, dressed in his usual blue suit and grey waistcoat.