Sinbad poked and prodded at the hologram, watching it move and react beneath his touch. Eliza coughed, announcing our presence. Sinbad’s hands jerked from where they were playing with the holographic map, and he clasped them behind his back as it went straight, authority settling over his bones like a second layer of skin. His attention diverted to me and the others with it.
“The queen has gifted us a worthy ship,” he prodded.
Eliza snorted. “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one. She’s a beaut,” she dropped into the chair at Sinbad’s right, draping an arm casually over the back.
I pulled from the wellspring of confidence and knowledge hidden deep within, striding over next to Sinbad and hijacking his map. Cross-referencing it with my own, I started my explanation as I set our course.
“Shahraza–” Sinbad and Eliza looked at me oddly, and I quickly corrected myself. “--The queen has requested that we take care of the rooks disrupting her trade route.” I pinched at the holographic map, zooming in on an island.
Eliza stretched her neck forward, her arm still draped over the chair. “Isn’t that where we think those ancient tablets are buried?”
Cove looked at me questioningly, and I smirked. “Exactly.”
“So we would have come here regardless?” Sinbad questioned, pressing his hands into the table.
I nodded. It had been the perfect coincidence for us, really. The details on the traps around the island, the dungeon, and the rooks had been clearly laid out in the novel, so when she’d offered the book in exchange for defeating the rooks Sinbad would have eventually eliminated, freeing up her trade route, it seemed almost too good to be true.
“Do you know what their hunting grounds are?”
I didn’t recall it being mentioned and looked at Cove, who shook his head minutely. Turning back to Sinbad, I said, “Not clearly, but I know the trade route she’s talking about.” Using what I remembered from the book, I traced a line through the map, outlining the most probable route based on what had been mentioned off-hand in the novel by people Sinbad had encountered and clarifying the points that had known issues with the rook attacks. “These are the areas where they’re known to attack ships.” There were others, I was sure, but they hadn’t been relevant to Sinbad’s actions in the story.
Sinbad pointed at an island a few miles away from our destination. “What about this island?”
The name of it wasn’t familiar to me. “I don’t know.”
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Cove corroborated my words. “Look at the map. Most of the areas having issues are within…” he checked the estimated distance for the furthest known rook attack, his eyebrows raised, “a twenty-mile radius.” he crouched down to take a closer look, ensuring his math was correct. No corrections followed.
Sinbad tapped his chin. “So we may not be safe if we anchored there while we rested.” His words were followed with a pointed glance at our appearances and at Ranch and Ani, who’d cuddled up together on a chair next to Eliza.
Cove gave a half-hearted shrug. “It’s possible.”
“Why don’t we just anchor here.” Eliza suggested. “‘S a solar-powered airship, not a space ship. It’s a sunny day, so we won’t run out of power.”
It was as good a suggestion as why. Sinbad yawned, stretching his arms out over his head. “Now that that’s settled, we’ll take an eight-hour break so you and the crew can rest. Hayden, Cove, I want you to spend some of the time writing down everything you know about the island and its inhabitants. I don’t want a step-by-step plan but an overview of what we’re dealing with. Once you’re done with that, bring it back here and leave it on the desk behind me,” he pointed to a heavy oak desk adorned with gilded edges. “Eliza, find them pens and papers and show them to their rooms.”
Eliza rose and saluted. “Yessir.”
She gathered pens and papers from the desk as we said our goodbye’s, and shepherded us through the hallways and to a robust cabin door. She knocked once, loudly, then twisted the knob and pushed it open to a double-bedded room. The beds nestled into a cubby in the wall lofted above two heavy desks. The white sheets were pulled neatly and nearly entirely wrinkle-free over the thick mattresses, quite the inviting sight.
The pens clattered loudly on the desks as Eliza haphazardly tossed them on there, explaining without prompting. “We save the second closest quarters to our captain for guests like yourself. Makes it easier on the crew when we get a new ship.” With a devilish grin, she said, “My husband and I will be right next door if you need anything. I recommend you don’t. We’re going to be reuniting if you catch my drift.”
I snagged the chair closest to me, dropping into it and rolling beneath the desk. Truly, it was amazing how smooth the airships were.
“I woodn’t worry,” Cove said as Eliza nearly skipped out the door. “It would be hard to hear anything through these walls,” He knocked on the wood as evidence of his statement just as the door swung back shut, muffling her footsteps completely. The wooden planks next to the door creaked as Eliza presumably entered her bedroom.
I shrugged. “And yet, you brought it up. Perhaps it’s because you chose the wrong side of the room…?”
He flung himself down into his chair, the force rolling his side into the desk. “Funny.”
Blocking out the rest of the world, I stared at the blank piece of paper beneath my hands, picking up the cool pen. It lit a fiery red beneath my touch, matching the colors of the lights in my suit. As soon as I started writing, Ani tackled my hand, gnawing on the tip of the pen. His sharp claws extended, digging into the back of my hand while his bottom lifted to gouge out my arm as though my arm was prey. Whatever material the suit was made of stayed strong, protecting my skin from damage while allowing me to still feel even the lightest brush of fur against my skin.
I knocked him gently away, pointing at where Ranch was curling up peacefully on Cove’s bed. Ani’s ears dropped, and I sighed, rolling back slightly in my chair. He clambered down into my lap, then curled up, content as I ran my free hand through his fur, writing what I remembered.