Once Leander was alone with Faydra, he needed a minute before he could move. His breath was shallow and it felt like his heart beat irregularly. He licked his lips and got started.
Her dress had a button placed every finger’s width from her neck to her toes. He turned off his brain and got the buttons undone as quickly as he could, which was fast. When he got them all undone, he put his hand under her back and lifted her out of the dress. She was so light, Leander felt a sick ripple hit every one of his vertebrae in succession. It was like carrying half a person. The weight was off balance and Leander argued with himself about how he was supposed to carry her. In the end, he leaned her head against his chest and balled the rest of her up in his arms.
“You know,” he said out loud as a way to soothe himself and maybe her if she could hear him. She was still breathing, so she might have heard him. “This is the most wounded I’ve ever seen a person. If you make it through this, you’ll be the most hardcore soldier I’ve ever seen and you’re not even a soldier. You’re a seamstress. I’ve always liked seamstresses,” he continued keeping his voice at a tone used to calm a distressed animal. Maybe the animal was her. Maybe it was him. “When I went to a new town, I’d find a good seamstress straight off. Not only can they darn socks and patch the knees in breeches, but they’re also a lot faster at sewing people up when the doctors are busy.”
He came out of the barracks.
“I always thought it was the best day of my life when the seamstress I found turned out to be a beauty. That must mean that today is the best day of my life. It even feels like the best day of the best days because you are the most beautiful seamstress I’ve ever seen.”
He reached the bottom of the north tower.
“You may think that the red dress made you look the most beautiful because women are always confused about what makes them beautiful, but you look far prettier in this white dress than you did in the red one. White dresses make men insane, did you know? They speak silently of innocence, of openness, like a wedding dress. Men of war love that to counteract all the killing they do. And I’ve done a lot of killing.”
He came out in the open air of the tower. There were no smudges or shapes in the other watch towers. It was a night without a watch, but Leander saw a light shining in Blueleg’s window. He paused to see if he could see the old balloonist before he left. Indeed, he saw him. He sat on the table and took an apple from a bowl like he was the freest man that had ever been.
And then a woman in a red dress came across the room and kissed him.
You could only see a ghost’s shape from a distance.
Leander turned away. The balloon Blueleg had given him was a large one, much larger than the one he had used to bring Leander to the castle. It blew up in huge gusts. It was white and gray, pink and lavender in patches. The basket beneath it was a basket woven to look like a boat. Leander liked it immediately. He placed Faydra in the bow. There were pillows and a mattress placed there. Leander found a basket with food and water. There was also a blanket, which he covered Faydra with.
He got aboard himself and cut the rope.
The balloon turned and propelled itself forward just as Blueleg said it would and Leander ordered the balloon to the place where he’d left his armor and sword. When he arrived at the spot, his armor was gone. He looked around. Had he got the location wrong? Turning around, something in the moat of shrapnel caught his eye.
Shredded and twisted in the sea of metal, he saw the jewel that had been part of the hilt of his sword. His armor was there too, warped, but still covered with the fresh moss he’d picked up in the forest. Then he saw his discarded clothes torn to scraps among the shredded lengths of his armor.
That explained where they got their metal from, he thought glumly as he hovered over the area.
But then, he saw something that cheered his heart. His helmet was still on the back of the slug and he was slowly escaping.
Leander laughed and ordered the balloon to dip low enough for him to scoop up the helmet, slug, and all.
It was a gross thing, half purple, and half yellow, but Leander didn’t care. He’d never had a pet before and he was going to have one now. He turned it upside down and held it in his lap while the slug retracted into the helmet to fill it entirely.
The balloon soared higher to match Leander’s mood and the clouds in the night air became the ghosts of armies in his mind’s eye. He joined them, floating up in the air as the only man alive.
He glanced at Faydra. She was causing the blankets to take shape. That was a good sign. He pulled the blanket to stretch around him also. He loved it when he was with a woman and there was only one blanket. In the summer, he didn’t carry a blanket in his pack for that very reason.
The mountains were nearer than ever. They were the last thing he saw before he joined Faydra in a sleep that encompassed them both.