Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 232
August stood near him, eyes downcast. Only now did
Jordan notice the bags he was carrying.
"These are Calandria’s!" He fingered the strap of one.
"Yes, I was carrying them because... well, never mind."
"Give them to me!"
August did so without complaint. He seemed relieved, in
fact, to be free of the responsibility.
Jordan sat down on the cold flagstones and began rooting
through the bags. His mind was racing, spinning between the
terrible feeling that he was somehow responsible for this
disaster, and a hope that he might be able to set it right.
"August, what do the Heaven hooks look like to you?"
August shook his head dumbly.
"Come on! What do they look like? Animals?"
"No."
"Trees?"
"Almost... no. They are what they are, Jordan."
"Do they look like mechanisms?"
August frowned, then nodded.
Jordan had found what he was looking for. "Listen,
August, when Calandria and I were on our way here, we
stopped one night in a manse of the Winds. We slept there,
unmolested."
"Impossible."
"I thought so too. I didn’t want to go in." Jordan halfrose,
and poked August in the spot where the man had been run
through. "Remember this? The wound that nearly killed you
last night? That’s now gone? Calandria May has more tricks
than that. One of them is this." He held up the gauze they had
used to avoid the mecha in the manse, and told August how
they had used it.
He had the man’s attention now. "I swear to you,"