Star's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The daylight had not lasted. Star carried the broken compass back toward the shadow weaver's house, but the only clear path ran through the iron hall again. Now they flew alone, deep in its dark rows. The gold cloth hung loose at their throat, its warmth gone. Below, Ezekiel's voice had dropped to a whisper. His song had held the iron flat for an hour. It could not hold much longer. "My throat's done," Ezekiel rasped. He gripped a shelf to stay upright. His locs stuck to his neck with sweat. "The cloth is spent too. I can feel it." He was right. The relics began to stir. A nail slid from a case and shot at Star's wing. It struck feathers and clung. Then a hinge. Then a chain. Metal climbed over Star's body, each piece dragging the next. Star beat their wings and sank anyway. The pull was winning. "Ezekiel, I can't fly!" Star cried. Star remembered the vial then. Zee had pressed it into their claw before leaving, shaped like a flower, full of pale water. "When the iron blinds you," she had said, "this clears the way." Star had thought she meant the compass. Now they understood another use. Star bit the stopper free and tipped the water over their feathers. The sky-water spread cold across their body. Where it touched, the metal loosened. The nail dropped. The chain slid off. For three breaths the iron forgot Star entirely, as if their feathers had turned to glass. Star shot upward through the clear space the water made. "The door!" Ezekiel shouted. He shoved off the shelf and ran beneath Star, following the gap. The owls dove around them, batting loose iron aside. Star flew hard, the water already thinning on their wings. The pull crept back. A blade grazed their tail. But the door stood open ahead, bright with day. Star burst through it and crashed onto grass. Ezekiel stumbled out behind, dropped to his knees, and did not get up. The owls settled on the roof, chests heaving. The hall sealed itself behind them with a low iron groan. Star lay still, the empty vial rolling from their claw. The broken compass was still caught in their other foot. They had survived. They would not go back in there again, not with the gold cloth dead and Ezekiel's voice cracked to nothing. Ezekiel wiped his mouth and looked at the vial. "The fortune teller gave you that." "She did," Star said. "Then you owe her twice now." He coughed. "And the compass is still broken. Night Bloom won't trade for a dead thing." Star turned the shattered star in their claw. The needle pointed nowhere. To earn the sky-god's name, they needed the compass whole. And only one person on the island could tell them how to mend it.