Eletheria came back to as more pain pierced the mental fog threatening to close in on her. Tony stood in the open carriage door as he bent down to pick her up. Tony had pulled the carriage over in an alley. Through the windows of the carriage Ele did not recognize the buildings surrounding them. Tony got out and helped Ele out of the passenger area. With her arm over his shoulder, he helped her out of the alleyway and into the tavern next to it. Once they got inside, Tony sat her at the closest table and walked to the bar. Ele watched Tony say a few things to the bartender, handed him some coins, and received a couple of drinks. Tony walked back to the table and set a drink in front of Ele before taking a seat himself.

“We can’t just sit here,” Ele said, trying to control herself so she didn’t cry in pain as her leg was still hurting. It matched the pain in her heart that she tried to avoid thinking about.

“Drink, we sit and wait.” Tony looked at the bartender and raised his chin. “Marco is family and owns the place. He will take the carriage and sell it for us,” Tony replied, taking a deep swallow of his drink.

“But Tony, my family…,” Ele started to say between little pulses of pain from her leg.

“They will not take me back, not after Ve saw me drag you away,” Tony replied, and then he finished his drink. Tony always had wrinkles on his face, but they were the type one often gets from smiling. As Ele looked at Tony, she saw new lines from a scowl that had already started to take hold from the past few days.

“I’m sorry,” Ele felt a jolt of pain leaped up her leg. She lowered her head to avoid showing the grimace. “Where is Lex and is there a plan?” Ele asked as a distraction from her pain. She also finished the rest of her drink and placed the cup in the middle of the table.

“When Lex and…” Tony paused for a moment of silence, “Sal got away, Sal convinced Lex to try and find a way to leave Ascalon. Sal figured Lex wouldn’t be as noticeable among the captains. He told Lex that we would wait for him at the Inn. Once Lex was gone, Sal asked me to drive him to your family home.” Tony paused for a moment. Ele thought he was gathering his thoughts he but he stood up, grabbed their glasses, and walked back to the bar. At the bar, he spoke with Marco for a minute before returning with full drinks.

“Why didn’t Sal wait at the Inn?” Ele asked then took a long drink of the ale. Thoughts of how things would have gone if Sal hadn’t shown up ran through her head. She never was a big drinker in the past, and the lack of food enabled the alcohol to take effect almost immediately.

“Sal said he knew you, and he knew his mom.” Tony also took a drink but not as big of one as Ele did. “He figured it would be a trap.” Tony’s face resumed the new frown that had begun to set in permanently upon his face.

“When will we go to the Inn?” Ele asked, feeling a little tipsy now.

“As soon as Marco lets me know he has replacement clothes and a horse, we will,” Tony responded, ending his point with a drink from his glass.

“Cloths, did you need…” Ele started but then realized her clothes were torn up and bloody.

“You, my dear, look quite a fright. In fact, even though we are in the lower part of Ascalon I almost worried they would have kicked us out.”

“Thank you, Tony,” Ele said, and then she finished her drink. “Why are you risking your life to help me?” Tony looked into his glass and started talking.

“Lex told me how you acted once you saw Acanthio’s morning star disappear. You loved him, or at least as close as you could. I once loved a G’Aeris, but since I am untouched...” Tony didn’t look up from his glass for almost a minute. Ele was nodding her head and feeling exhaustion coming over her. She lowered her head for a moment to look at her glass and decided resting her head on the table sounded good. As soon as her head was cradled under her hands as she fell asleep.

Eletheria woke up with a start. As soon as she was awake, the pain in her leg returned, and she silently cursed. She was sitting alone at a table in a tavern. She remembered coming here with Tony and talking but couldn’t remember why she had fallen asleep. Briefly, she wondered if the events of the past few days were just a dream. The pain in her leg reminded her it wasn’t. The impact that she will never get to make fun of Sal for his goofy face or Thio made her eyes start to water up. To distract herself, she looked around to see where Tony was going. Neither Tony nor Marco were at the bar.

As she looked around, the tavern was mostly empty. Of the 20 tables, only two others had people at them. She tried not to make a scene, so she placed her head back in her hands to remove the tears that were building up. She had her head down for a few minutes before Tony came back. As soon as he sat down, he whispered to Ele.

“Ele, wake up.” As soon as he said that, Ele lifted her head to look at him. Her eyes must have been red because he immediately stood up, moved to her side of the table, and hugged her. “I’m sorry, dear, but come with me. Our ride is here.” Then, in a louder voice, he said, “You’ve had too much to drink already. Let’s get you home.”

Ele was confused for a moment, but as he helped her up, he half-carried her on the left side. This allowed her to not have any pressure on her broken leg. Together they made their way out of the tavern. Outside, waiting in front of the Inn, was another carriage, much smaller and with only a single horse pulling it, but still a carriage. Sitting in the driver’s seat was a person that Ele did not recognize. When she stopped moving forward, Tony said, “He can be trusted.” Still not assured, Ele took slow steps and kept her right hand free and ready while she walked towards the carriage.

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“Where are we going?” Ele whispered at Tony once he got into the carriage after her. He sat on her left and was still using his arm to hold her upright. Tony pulled a blanket from a storage cubby under the seats and used it to wrap them up as if they were chilled by the early evening air.

“Somewhere to get your leg looked at,” Tony said, leaning forward and tapping the driver on the shoulder. The driver snapped his reins and got them moving.

In a few moments, they stopped in front of a building. Ele didn’t remember most of the trip and worried she may have passed out along the way. The building had a marking for a doctor, and a name written on the sign; Jamison McLellan, physician. Getting out of the carriage required the help of the driver as well as Tony. Soon, Ele was in a room lying on a table as an elderly man worked on her leg.

“It would have been a clean break if you had come to me earlier. You won’t be able to walk unassisted for 2-3 months and probably won’t have full use for close to a year. I’ll have to set the break; this will hurt.” The doctor gave Ele a bit of leather to bite down upon. “Unless the lady would like something stiff to drink as well.” With her stomach not happy with the drinks she had taken, the little food she had eaten, and the quan she had channeled, she did not know if her stomach would tolerate any more liquor. With a shake of her head, Ele took the leather cord and placed it in her mouth. She nodded for them to start. Tony held her down while the doctor performed his work. Blissfully Ele passed out after the first stabs of pain.

When Eletheria regained consciousness, she was lying on a bed. She wondered what happened to the table and how long she had been out. A glance around the room revealed simple furnishings: a small four-drawer dresser, a nightstand near the bed with her goggles on it, a little stool, and a painting on the wall of a Tres Clavo warship. It didn’t have the markings on it to be the Vol Mortem, but there were similarities. The two pontoons that held the cannons on the side of the ship level with the deck. The three masts were painted as if they were full of air. Ele squinted her eyes at the picture, trying to make out any markings but could not.

The movement from looking around caused the pain to increase from almost none to a dull throb. She sat up and turned around as much as possible without disturbing her leg. Behind and above her was a small window revealing a night sky full of stars.

“FAEX!” Ele cursed loudly; she quickly placed a hand at her mouth and looked around to see if anyone heard her. There was still no one in the room, but her old habit of cursing still caused her to look out for her mother or father. The thought of her parents brought mixed feelings of anger and sadness. Ele prayed to the gods that her father was not mixed up in this, but she worried he was. Mentally, she reviewed her memories, trying to find times when her father had treated a G’Aequor as less than a person. She couldn’t remember anything, but most of her memories of her father were happy. Until she started Windmaster training, she had not been around any G’Aequor except the house servants. Her dad always treated them with some respect.

Since the window was closed, Ele figured she could take a chance and to call out for someone. She didn’t want to yell, so in a slightly louder than-normal voice, she asked, “Anyone here? Hello? Where am I?” then she waited. It took a minute for someone to open the door. Lex walked into the room. Ele was so happy to see him that she tried to jump off the bed to give him a hug. The leg in a cast prevented that, so she only ended up putting herself at an angle where she had to hold onto the headboard of the bed with her right hand to avoid falling off. Lex saw her predicament and quickly came over to help push her back into the middle of the bed.

“I’m glad to see you are awake. We were worried you would be out until morning,” Lex said, brushing her hair out of the way. Ele self-consciously repeated his gesture and wondered if she looked frightened.

“What happened in the morning?” Ele asked though she wanted to know who we were.

“Nothing, just figured would be easier to move unseen through the city at night,” Lex replied. Ele was still pondering the “we” part of the question, so didn’t fully catch what Lex was saying.

“We? Sal is…” Ele started to say, but her voice got caught in her throat when she mentioned Sal.

“I know, Tony told me,” Lex said, then stood up. “Do you feel able to walk and get some food? I know somewhere we can stay.”

“We can’t stay in Ascalon,” Ele said, sighed, then blinked to try and hold back tears. “Where are we going to go?”

“Let’s get to a safe place and work from there.”

“Tony can’t go back…”

“I know. Tony and I talked about it.” Lex held a hand out to Ele to help pull her out of the bed. “Come, we got to get moving.” Ele took Lex’s hand and threw her arm around his shoulder once she was near standing. Lex threw an arm around her waist and helped her walk out of the room. Outside of the room was more space, off to the side was the table she had been laying upon when she first arrived. Standing in the room was Doctor McLellan and a few other G’Aequor that Ele did not recognize.

Ele took a second look at one of them as their eyes at least seemed familiar, the really bushy beard covering up most of his face was out of place. The eyes reminded her of Tony and the beard hid his wrinkles.

“Tony?” Ele asked while looking at him. His smile revealed the wrinkles on his face even through the beard. He nodded but did not speak. As Ele studied him more she wondered if he glued his lips shut when putting on the disguise, “Did you glue your lips closed?” Ele asked, and the resulting nod and laughter from everyone else in the room filled the air. It was the first real laugh Ele had in a while, and she imagined it for most of the others in the room, too. “And the others?” Ele asked, looking at Tony.

“James, you know.” Lex pointed at James, who dipped his head a little. “The tall man over there is Cesar Ringstmeyer, owner and captain to the Rattling Can, and Isaac Hachiro, his 3rd mate.” The captain was a good hand taller than everyone else in the room. Lex was a finger taller Ele, but compared to the Cesar, he looked short. Isaac was much shorter and much rounder, his bare arms though revealed cords of muscle along with the plump flesh. “Last but not least, Felicia Krupiak who’s friends were killed once Ve was finished using them.” A girl who was shorter than Ele and shared the same brown skin tone bowed from the back of the room; she had been hidden behind everyone.

“Give me a moment.” Ele hobbled backward a little to get some room. Ele turned and looked at Cesar and Isaac. “Why are you two here?”

“Well, our ship, the Rattling Can, was damaged in a storm, and we were able to successfully bring it to port. We had to scrap it here, and we were out of a job for a week. Acanthio left my crew to join the Vol Mortem.” Cesar spoke his words slowly, as if to make sure they were understood before he continued to the next word.

“You were Thio’s old crew?” Ele asked while holding back her feelings.

“Aye, when we heard about him rescuing you, we went looking to celebrate, but all we found was Lex and his rescue crew. Thio was a hero to all of us common folk,” Cesar said, and Isaac nodded in agreement.

“So, we have a ship’s crew without a ship. Two Windmasters also without a ship. A scout and a carriage driver without employ.” Ele pondered her words for a moment before continuing. “How many are in your crew, Cesar?”

“Counting Isaac and I, twelve,” Cesar replied.

“All of you seek vengeance against Ve?” Ele asked and was answered by nodding heads from everyone in the room. Ele looked at Jamison with raised eyebrows. Ele obviously did not expect James to have a vendetta against Ve.

“She killed my son Augusta,” James quickly said.

“We need to find a way to get out of Ascalon.” Ele sighed then continued, “I have an idea that will get us a ship, but it won’t be an airship.” Ele told the group she was a little surprised they were listening to her. “We need to find a safe place to rest, and we will gather here tomorrow night and discuss the plan then. Otherwise, pack up, but don’t say goodbyes. We do not want word getting out until we are already on the sea.” With that final word, everyone nodded in agreement. Lex and Tony helped Ele out of the building into the small waiting carriage. They went to the dock district and checked in at an inn. Ele disguised her injury by playing heavily drunk. Winks and suggestive motions made by patrons in the inn common room followed them as the two men helped Ele up the stairs.