 
### Shadow Road

Book 1 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

Copyright 2020 A. E. Pennymaker

Published by A. E. Pennymaker at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Prologue

1. An Unfortunate Beginning

2. Accidental Encounter

3. An Awful Adventure

4. Reason

5. Eye of the Storm

6. Leave It and Go

7. Adrift

8. Eat Fish

9. The Angpixen

10. You Speak Illyrian

11. Bait and Switch

12. Things Fall Apart

13. Playing Games

14. Cry, Birds

15. Keep Fighting

16. After

17. Showdown

18. Trading Secrets

19. Soup Tureens and Ice water

20. Rescuing the Pirate

21. A Side of Mutton

22. Surprisingly Well

23. Revelations

24. The Devil's Pact

25. The First Step

26. The Iron Dragon

27. Tempests in Teacups

28. Once More unto the Dragon

29. Keys and Other Things

30. The Return of the Civilians

31. More Than One Kind of Storm

32. Speaking of Calm

33. Still Miss Westerby

34. Fresh Air

35. Steppingstones

36. Of Mittens and Fog

37. The Rimrocks

38. Upon Arrival

39. The School

40. Proving Useful

41. Warring's Daughter

42. Rikkafilla

43. Dancing in the Dark

44. Starting to Feel Like Home

45. Sharp Eyes

46. Wait and See

47. Monolith by Moonlight

Endnotes

Meet the Author

Connect with A. E. Pennymaker

Sneak Peek at Shadow Dance: Book 2
Dedication

In memory of my mother: inspiration, friend, and fierce cancer fighter

October 1939 ~ January 2020

Prologue

The second shift was still in full swing, and Southend Street was quiet. Mrs. Ardeshi was sitting sentinel on her bench in her patch of yard, and a little farther down, Mrs. Reinost twitched her curtains aside, but otherwise it was empty.

Mrs. Reinost scowled when she caught sight of me, and twitched her curtains open a little farther to catch every little thing that happened, but I didn't mind. Nosy-Rosy neighbors had their uses. Those beady, suspicious eyes would be on me wherever I went, and I wasn't going far.

Rule 1: Tell someone where you're going.

I closed the front door behind me, then waved and smiled. "Hello, Mrs. Ardeshi!"

She harrumphed, folding her lips into a disapproving pucker.

"Beautiful day isn't it? You're looking fine this morning. Is that a new shawl?"

That earned an unimpressed once-over from the corner of her eye, but then she relented, a grin of pride creeping through as she gathered the knotwork black and green fabric of her shawl closer. "Aye, t'is. My Lisse made it. Got it in the Post yesterday, all the way from Pordazh Kaskara."

"It's beautiful," I called. "I'm on my way to the corner. Can I get you anything from Grint's?"

Mrs. Ardeshi lifted her chin and sniffed. "I've got plenty ta keep me, child." Then she leaned forward over her cane. "But ye could tell that man of your'n I need 'im ta fix me stove pipe. Cain't warm me shins wi'out breathing soot."

Right on cue, my cheeks went pink. _Your man_. What a pathetically pleasant fiction. I kept my smile pasted on for Mrs. Ardeshi's benefit, but it had gone flat. "He's on a late shift tonight I'm afraid. I'll send him straight over in the morning."

Rule 2: Never go anywhere that no one can see you.

I checked to make sure Mrs. Reinost was still observing everything from her window.

She was.

That wasn't enough. He would be disappointed in me when he got back from the docks, but if I didn't go now, Grint's would be closed by the time my shift ended, and we both needed a more substantial meal than two-day-old gruel.

Still, I glanced around again. It really was quiet. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The quiet was why we had picked Phyrros, and we had been hiding for months with no sign that we had been followed. Hopefully, everyone thought we were dead. There were no links left to trace, no ties to the lives we had left behind. They wouldn't find us here. Nothing was going to happen if I stole ten minutes of freedom.

I patted the well-worn doorframe of 68, whispered a reassuring "I'll be back in a moment," turned, and went down the steps to our little walkway, then on down the block to the row of shop fronts on the corner. There wouldn't be many patrons in the eateries at that hour, but the staff would be inside preparing for the breakfast rush when the canning factory let out. I wouldn't be completely alone.

Grint's Commissary had just opened. Mrs. Demyrre was shaking out the mud runner on the front stoop, sending up a small billow of sand with every flap of her arms.

Across the street, I came to a stop and chewed my lower lip for a moment. The shelves probably hadn't been fully stocked yet. If I waited a few more minutes, I wouldn't have to beg her to bring anything out. I also might be able to get a glimpse of 'my man' while he was working.

That did it.

I headed for the public dining pavilion across from the eateries instead. It was deserted, save for a few seagulls. Grateful for small mercies, I wound my way between the seats, smiling as the gulls complained and took flight on their stark white wings.

I pressed up against the wall separating the pavilion square from the top of the bluffs and rested my elbows on the capstone, stretching up on tiptoe so I could get a better view of the wharves a hundred meters below me. It didn't take much to find the weather-beaten yellow sign of Padashiri's Shipping. The dockhands were outfitting the bulky old Camberstone-Froley steam-driven merchanteers for their return run to Pordazh Kaskara, and pyramids of crates were stacked up on the dock outside the warehouse, ready to be loaded.

There he was, shouldering a big box of canned fish onto a loading trolley, and as usual, the sight of that dark, unruly hair curling out from under his deckhand's cap made me grin. Also as usual, reality quickly followed, bringing with it the dull reminder that he didn't feel the same way about me as I did about him. To him I was only a friend, at best. At worst, I was a problem he had decided he was responsible for.

I ground my teeth and dropped down onto my heels again, hating that hollow ache in my chest. This had only ever been a temporary arrangement. It was easier to hide as a couple. I knew that. Allowing myself to feel anything more was only going to make it worse when we found our way back to Aethscaul and his self-inflicted duty to my father came to an end.

I needed to get the shopping done. With a sigh, I stepped away from the wall and turned toward Grint's.

Rule 3: Keep your back to a barrier or corner and keep your eyes on your surroundings.

Up the street, Mrs. Reinost drew her curtains closed.

There was no warning, no hint that I wasn't alone. I was about to start walking back through the seating area when the blur of rapid movement behind me had me ducking and spinning.

Too late. They were too close, too big, and too fast. A grain sack blotted out the light, and then strong hands were grabbing at me, snatching me off the ground.

Screeching, I lashed out with my feet and elbows, slammed my head back in hopes of catching a nose or throat.

That was the end. There was a hoarse grunt and a muffled curse, and then something heavy collided with my temple. Sparks exploded behind my eyes. My body went limp as a ragdoll, and the last sound I heard before darkness stole me away was a low, growled, "'Ey! Don't dent the merchandise, ya minger!"

~~~

Clink... Clink-clink... Clink... Clink-clink.

A sliver of light darted into being, painfully bright. The sliver disappeared as my eyes drifted shut, but the darkness was no longer absolute.

Clink... Clink-clink... Clink-clink... Clink... Clink...

I took a slow breath.

Oil. Hot metal. My left cheek against something gritty.

Clink... Clink-clink... Clink...

I opened my eyes again, deliberately this time. I could only lift my right eyelid. The left was stuck shut.

Ever so slightly I moved my head, blinking around as my vision wavered in and out of focus. Light came through a small, barred window high above me on a green wall, creating moats of gold that hung in the air.

Clink... Clink-clink-clink... Clink... Clink-clink...

Another slow breath, this one threaded with the reek of feces, urine, and stale sweat.

I gagged, then had to cringe and clutch at my skull as liquid fire went streaking through my brain, centering in my left temple.

Something dragged at my wrists, accompanied by a metallic rasp and a dull thump from somewhere in front of me.

An icy swirl of fear shot through my belly. Carefully, I opened my good eye and tried to focus.

A girl was lying there, looking at me.

She was quite pretty, with fine-boned features, rippling wheat-blonde hair, an upturned nose and thick black eyelashes, but there was something wrong with her face. It was slack. Immobile. Her eyes were fixed and cloudy, and there was an oddly grey cast beneath the ivory of her skin.

She was dead. The dull thump had been her skull hitting the floor. Her shoulder had shifted when I raised my hand – shifted because there was a shackle on her arm, and the chain welded to that shackle led to a shackle on my own wrist.

My breath left me on a silent scream as I finally realized where I was.

Nearby, the song of the Shadow Road sounded again: _Clink... Clink... Clink-clink... Clink..._ chain swaying against chain.

~~~

_Minger_ : ( _Ronyran_ ) An idiotic, oafish, or clumsy person.
1. An Unfortunate Beginning

3rd of Uirra, 1 year ago

I bit my lip, my eyes on my father. He hadn't moved in nearly half an hour. I wasn't going to get another chance.

Slowly, I reached down and eased the sheet of hotel stationery out of my boot. Father didn't stir, so I brought the paper up and pressed it flat on the hard side of the traveling bag resting across my knees. Still chewing my lower lip, I pulled the hotel fountain pen out of my stocking, and began writing as quickly as I could without making noise:

Aunt Sapphine:

We aren't dead. We're gone. There was an explosion at the warehouse. Everything is lost – the shipyard office, the dock, all of the outbuildings and equipment.

I stopped writing and stared at the words I had just scribbled. _"Everything is lost"_ did nothing to describe the horror of waking up to the crash of Mr. Farspender breaking in through my bedroom window because the hallway outside my door was in flames, but reliving nightmares would get me nowhere. I blinked the tears from my eyes, took a shaky breath, and kept going.

Thankfully, the explosion woke everyone before the fire spread, though now four hundred people are without an income, and two blocks of tenant housing were razed. Even our own beloved 466 didn't go unscathed. The fire jumped the square and kindled those overgrown bushes outside Father's study, and that whole end of the house went up. All of my clothing, all of my paintings, all the equipment I bought, all of Mother's things, all of it is gone.

The familiar red oval of the Tillerson's Emporium sign flashed by outside the coach window, which meant we were already passing Blunt Street. I snapped another glance at my father. He was still oblivious, so I began writing again:

We are on our way to the Colonies. Father's school friend has offered him a place in some business venture or other, and that has been the only option Father is willing to think about or discuss.

I believe he must be suffering from delusions brought on by smoke inhalation. There is plenty of employment to be found on the continent, but nothing I say or do can convince him, and we are currently in a public coach heading for Porte De Darre with barely the funds for two tickets to the Adropedes, and passage to Nimkoruguithu.

I'm worried.

I wish you had been here. Perhaps Father would have listened to you.

We passed the oxidized-green copper columns of the Tanners Street fountain. I wouldn't be able to finish everything I wanted to say.

Write to me at the Iron Dragon Inn, Lordstown-Over-the-Isle, Adropedes Islands. We should arrive there within a week.

All my love,

Grimly,

Bren.

I closed the pen, pulled the envelope out of my sleeve, and folded the letter into it without blotting it. Then I slid it, blotches and all, into the pocket of my cloak and glanced at my father, my heart pounding just a little.

He was still sleeping.

Stomach knotting into a new lump of guilt, I sat back, my fingers moving automatically to my compass rose pendant, running it up and down its chain. He had told me not to tell anyone where we were going, and I was about to willfully disobey him. I didn't want to, but did he really expect Aunt Sapphine not to care if we dropped off the face of the earth? Hadn't it occurred to him that she would be frantic? She was our only family. How could we simply transplant to the other end of the known world without saying anything? I closed my eyes, fending off the niggling fear that something had come loose in my father's brain.

With a frustrated sigh I let go of my necklace, bracing myself as the stage rattled over a rut, sending our luggage bumping about on the rack above our heads. We had reached the city. The merchant's sector of Porte De Darre began rolling by outside the _luxfenestre_ window, and I twisted the wiper knob to clear a skim of snow away from the panels of glass.

I had always loved Porte De Darre. There was a whimsical, sea-beaten charm about the place, with its salt-bleached boardwalks, and random, winding streets. My father's business was usually done in summer, when the eastern and western trade routes were open and people of every sort, from every place, filled the streets with color and music and a hundred different beautiful languages. Father began bringing me with him when I was five, and I spent countless hours playing on the wharves, talking to sailors and dock hands while Father worked in our Porte De Darre shipping office. The world had been much simpler then, full of fantastic new words to learn and things to discover.

Now, twenty years later, I knew what red ink in a business ledger meant, just how many of those sailors and dockhands had been on our payroll, and how quickly everything could be lost.

As if to mirror the change in our fortunes, there was no color or music in Porte de Darre, now, either. In winter the population always dwindled to the local residents, and Barrow-Market Street lay still and cold in the early morning light, devoid of its ware-hawkers and produce barrows, with only a few heavily clad people hurrying down the boardwalks.

We had become ghosts, sliding away with no one to notice we were leaving.

Father woke as we reached Seawall Street and the road changed from old cobblestone to new pavement. He sat up and blinked around, then removed his spectacles, wiping them with the cuff of his sleeve before returning them to his nose.

He squinted through the window on his side as we passed beneath the unmistakable shadow of the Sea Gates. "Have I slept long?"

"Since New Sullyn," I said quietly.

"Oh. I apologize, my dear. What a boring trip this must have been."

I gave him a little grin, then changed the subject. "If we have time, I would like to go to Prattle's. I forgot to purchase a mending kit." Convenient excuse, that. Prattle's Sundries was right next to the P.d.D. Post.

"I'm not sure that's a good —"

"It will barely take a minute," I went on quickly. "I can be there and back while you're at the ticket office, and prices are much better here than in Lordstown."

Father didn't look pleased, frowning and muttering about 'headstrong young women who forget things' as the stage pulled to a stop outside the Travel Bureau. I watched him until he gave me a sideways glare, then at last shook his head. "Fine! Go," he paused, then added a gruff, "But only straight there and back."

"Don't worry, I shan't talk to shady characters or gad about in dark alleys." Smiling, I opened my door and stepped down to the ground. My smile disappeared as I turned around. With a silent plea for patience, I straightened my skirts and made for the nearest foot ramp to the shopfront boardwalk.

"Straight there!" Father called after me as he got out of the stage on his side.

"And straight back," I called over my shoulder, knowing from recent experience that he would be suspicious if I just hurried away. He probably didn't even realize he was doing it, but he was going to drive me mad before we even got to the _Galvania_.

Then we would both be crazy. What joy.

~~~

_Luxfenestre: a_ foldable watertight window made of diamond-shaped panes of carbon glass.

_Nimkoruguithu_ ( _nim_ -cor-oo- _gwith_ -oo): Also referred to as Nim K; the largest city in the Coalition Colonial Region, a rough, nearly lawless place too far from Coalition influence to be kept properly under heel. More information found in the Endnotes.

_Lordstown-over-the Isle, Adropedes Islands_ (ah-drop-pih-deez): A city built across a string of small islands reaching out from the northern end of the Edonian mainland; the last stop before sailing across the Marral Sea to the colonies.

_Porte De Darre_ (poor-tuh deh _dah_ -reh); abrev. _P.d.D._
2. Accidental Encounter

3rd of Uirra, Continued

Prattle's **** was sure to be open at that hour, so I went there first, flying through the aisles without letting myself get sidetracked by the exotic knick-knacks and curiosities the place was famous for. It took too many precious minutes, but I found a mending kit and a few other things, then nearly overpaid the grumpy store-clerk before rushing next door.

The gaslight was on behind the 'Open' sign, and I heaved a sigh of relief as I took the broad stairs to the front entrance of the Post. Like any normal person would, I stepped up to the switch panel and pressed the enter toggle, then moved to the left to be in front of the doors when they accordioned apart.

At the same instant that I stepped left, someone manually yanked the doors open from the inside and came storming out, and in the blink of an eye I went from walking politely into the Post, to slamming into a large, solid person who was also slamming into me.

For one flurry of a second all I could see was dark blue wool and a metal greatcoat clasp. Then there was a masculine grunt of annoyance somewhere above my head, and the next instant I was lifted like a post and set neatly out of the way, while Mr. Large-and-Solid continued down the stairs two at a time and went striding off down the boardwalk.

My mouth was hanging agape.

I let out my breath on a "Hah!"

Then I realized I wasn't holding the packet of things I had just bought and looked down.

The mending kit was at my feet, the tin of seaman's balm to my left, my wax-and-charcoal sketching sticks scattered about. With a frustrated groan I began gathering everything up, scooping my mending kit out of the slush, shaking dirty snow off my sketch sticks and the tin of balm. Then, shooting a narrow-eyed glare in the direction Mr. Solid had taken, I hurried into the Post.

It wasn't until I reached the Sender's Due counter that I bothered to reach into my cloak pocket for the letter. My fingers didn't find an envelope. "How in all..." I checked the other pocket, but there was no question. They were both empty. I took a breath. Then another. Tried to remember where I had last had it. Went through my items from Prattles. Checked my jacket pocket even though it was much too small.

The woman behind the counter was watching me expectantly. "Will you be sending anything today?"

At a loss, I glanced at the timekeep on the far wall. Thanks to Mr. Solid there wasn't even time to dash off another quick note. The _Galvania_ wasn't going to wait for one little passenger, and Father couldn't afford to stay at an inn until the next boat to Lordstown.

Throat burning, I shook my head, turned around and left, breaking into an unladylike run as soon as I reached the boardwalk.

My father was standing at the entrance to the gangway. When he saw me coming, he pointed at me, obviously begging the boarding conductor to keep the gate open. Running as fast as I could, I tossed aside all decorum to make it aboard that blasted ship. I let out a bitter laugh as I hurtled up the gangway and came to a puffing, panting, inglorious halt on the main deck.

Father was only a step behind, thanking the sailor at the end of the boarding ramp before following me to where I stood with my hands on my ribs, trying to catch my breath.

"What were you doing? Do you know —" He realized he was nearly shouting and grabbed my arm, dragging me over to the railing, as if that would somehow provide privacy from the dozens of other passengers gathered on the deck.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was?" He hissed, bending to put his face close to mine. "All of our belongings have already been loaded! What if you had been a minute more? We would have been stuck here with nothing but the clothes on our backs while everything we own sailed off for Lordstown! And that is nothing compared to not knowing where you were, or if something had happened to you —"

"I'm fine, Father," I got out, still a bit winded. "I am here, you are here, and we and our belongings are all heading to the same... distant... place," my voice broke and I had to look away, my emotions getting the better of me.

Father studied me. Then, abruptly, he asked, "Did someone stop you? Is that what took so long? Did you talk to anyone?"

"What? No!" A hot blush began creeping up my neck as I fumbled for something that would derail this particular line of questioning. "I just ran into someone outside the Post Office —"

"Man or woman?"

"A man, but he didn't —"

Father's words were quick. Hard. "Did this man say who he was, or ask where we were going?"

A stranger was wearing my father's body. Two weeks ago, he wouldn't have been asking those questions. He would have laughed. Perhaps expressed concern for the man while teasing me about doing a thing well the first time. A peculiar chill of apprehension slid down my spine. "No." I glanced around, smiling at a curious elderly couple a few yards away. "He was just some poor fellow in a hurry to be somewhere else... Honestly, Father, can't we talk about this in our cabin? Please? People are looking at us."

Father's gaze shifted to the other passengers, and for an instant his expression changed. The calm, dignified man was gone, replaced by some wary, hunted creature that had been backed into a corner. The next second the spell broke. Chuckling, he held out his hand. "My dear, what would I do without you?"

Go completely off your rockers?

I didn't say anything, though, and took his hand, simply glad that he was leading me toward the main hatch and away from prying eyes.

~~~

Four hours later, I sat on my berth, trying to stave off seasickness by holding very still while drinking chamomile tea. This was proving more difficult than I was used to. Father had purchased 2nd class tickets, C level, in the lower deck of the fore passenger's section, so there was quite a bit of pitch and roll to contend with.

The trick seemed to be to hold the teacup still and wait for the tea to slosh toward my face, and then open my mouth, rather than attempt to keep the tea tilted toward my lips by adjusting the angle of the teacup. It was too easy to overcorrect. Suffice to say, there was more tea on me than anywhere else.

The cabin door slid open and Father stepped in, quickly closing the door after him.

I glanced up at the sound of the latch pin.

He had been gone for nearly an hour, but he didn't have the ginger biscuits he had left to get. In fact, all he had was that tight, tense, hunted look on his face. He put his hands on his hips and released a long, slow breath, then moved to sit on the edge of his berth, reaching to pluck the Porte De Darre advertisement bulletin from where he had left it on his pillow.

I put my teacup on its saucer. "They didn't have any biscuits?"

He lifted his head and gave me a vacant stare through his spectacles. "Oh. No. Sorry, my dear. No biscuits," he said, then went back to perusing the 'searching for' ads.

I didn't really care about the biscuits. It was the way he wouldn't quite meet my eyes that made me uneasy. It seemed very much like he was hiding something.

He had never hidden things from me before we left Garding. For the thousandth time since the fire, I wondered if I had lost him too that night. There was a widening distance between us that I couldn't seem to find a way across, no matter what I did or said. He could barely let me cross the street alone, anymore, when he used to trust me with everything. I desperately wanted to believe he was simply overwhelmed with losing the business, but his paranoia only seemed to be getting worse. I swallowed hard. What would happen to us in the Colonies if he really was losing his mind?

3. An Awful Adventure

6th of Uirra

After three days of feeling absolutely wretched, I finally woke without ridding my stomach of last night's dinner. Quite the opposite. I was famished, so I decided to go up to the mess deck even though Father had forgotten to leave me a key. Happily, he had left a set of meal tickets in his bag.

That missing key should have been my first clue that something was about to go wrong. Father never forgot anything. Or he never used to. At the time, though, I simply added that to the growing list of ways my father had begun to scrape away at my sanity, took a meal ticket, and left anyway, telling myself he would forgive me for ignoring his orders to stay in the cabin.

The gargantuan Starre & Sons transit ships were marvels of engineering; according to the brochure, the _Galvania_ was one of their largest, with four decks, a thousand berths, two massive compression engines, and two full-size saloons. The brochure also made the dubious claim that sailing with Starre & Sons was "The best value for your hard-earned money! Travel farther, spend less!"

That may have been technically true, but while there was great size meant to accommodate great quantity, thus making it possible to travel cheaply, the quality was inversely related. Thin walls, inadequate heating, leaky valves, coarse linens. Everything was made to carry swarms of people across the ocean in all the ambiance and comfort of a sardine can.

The 2nd class saloon reminded me of the cafeteria at school, with its long trestle tables and benches set in rigid, impersonal lines. At school, though, the walls were white, not dingy grey green. There wasn't as much welded metal, either.

A man took my meal ticket at the door to the dining room, fed the ticket into a recording machine, and then opened the stile, allowing me to go down the line to the serving station, where a member of the kitchen staff ladled my rations onto a tin plate and shoved it across the counter.

It would seem Starre and his sons had bought their dining service secondhand from a prison. Possibly their food, too, from the overcooked smell of things. I stared down at my plate and seriously debated whether or not it was possible to kill a chicken twice.

Imagining the cooks performing resurrections on poultry in the galley, I found an empty stretch of bench and sat. Then I examined my 'lunch' while thinking of Mrs. Winterborne's plum puffs and coriander muffins. And that cream cake she made for my twenty-third birthday, with the dusting of iridescent pink sugar on the peppermint glaze.

It didn't help. The biscuit-brick nearly broke my teeth, and the mummified drumsticks actively refused to be swallowed. Then I almost coughed it all back up when the gravy slid down my throat in a single gelatinous lump.

A florid woman with thick shoulders and a large nose was eyeing me from the other side of the table, her gaze openly amused. At my attempt not to gag, she leaned forward. "I'll take yer vittles, Missy, if ya haven't the stomach."

With a shuddering breath, I pushed what was left across to her and got to my feet. "Thank you," I whispered from behind my hand, covering a queasy burp as she began forking everything into her mouth in big, stomping bites, quivering gravy and all.

Having 'eaten,' I decided to do some exploring, thinking Father might be taking the air. I wandered along the main deck promenade by myself, surveying an endless slate sea and an overcast winter sky, then turned around in the peak of the prow to take in the sheer size of the _Galvania's_ four smoke stacks marching like soldiers down the centerline of the ship.

After watching the deck for another half an hour, though, I hadn't spotted Father anywhere, and the wind was picking up. With a last, worried look around, I went back inside.

Growing up, it was a well-known fact among my friends that I could get lost in a bucket. I learned to cope by making note of large landmarks, or by finding a clearly drawn map of my surroundings that referenced said landmarks. In a pinch, following a friend or kind stranger who seemed to know where they were going would get me to where I needed to be. Unfortunately for me and my missing sense of direction, the _Galvania's_ lower decks were laid out like a waffle iron, with an extraordinary number of nondescript hallways that were all the same. No large landmarks were available, and not very many friends or kind strangers, either.

At last, I rounded another dingy green corner into another dingy green hallway with white doors on either side and came upon a deck steward.

"Sir!" I called, smiling politely. "Could you help me find my cabin? I'm afraid I can't remember where it is, and everything seems so similar —"

The deck steward gave me a patronizing smile. "Your number is on your key, Miss."

"I know," I said, "I was getting to that. My father forgot to give me a key."

The deck steward stared at me for a beat too long, his brain skipping a few cogs. Once he had re-meshed his gears, he straightened. "Right. Well, you'll have to speak to the Chief Mate, Miss." With that, he went marching off down the hallway I had found him in.

"Thank you." I hurried to keep up with him, assuming he was going to lead me to the Chief Mate.

He didn't speak again the whole way up to the pilot deck, where he showed me to an arched hatchway door marked, "Office of the Chief Mate." Then he wheeled around and left me to fend for myself.

Feeling quite a bit like an errant schoolgirl, I tapped at the porthole.

Less than five minutes later, I found out I was not listed as a passenger on the _Galvania,_ and my father was sharing an eight-person 3rd class men's cabin with seven other people.

I observed dumbly as the Chief Mate showed me, first, that my name was not on the ship's passenger manifest anywhere, and second – right there in my father's handwriting – that Arrix Warring had come aboard alone, and checked into a cabin I knew we weren't staying in.

"Are you quite alright, Miss?" the Chief Mate asked, giving me a concerned glance as I reached out to grab at the edge of his desk.

"Ah... yes. I'm fine," I mumbled. "Thank you." Then I took a step toward the door.

"Miss, I'm afraid you'll have to stay here until I find out what's going on," the Chief Mate said, not unkindly. "Stealing a passage is a crime."

After everything I had been through in the past weeks, that was the last straw. Father wasn't just forgetting things, or planning things poorly, or being annoyingly protective or vague, this was far, far... far worse. This was bizarre, and probably illegal on several counts. He would have had to have bought two different tickets with false identity papers. Or bribed several people. For what?

I wasn't even able to muster anger. I was too tired of the chaos to care.

The Chief Mate rang for a runner, casting sidelong squints in my direction as he wrote out a message for someone. He caught my eye and aimed a finger at a small chair that folded out from the wall. Then he went back to whatever he had been doing before I interrupted him.

Apparently, I was supposed to sit.

Numb, I unfolded the seat, sat down, clasped my hands neatly in my lap, and contemplated how much my life had changed. Barely a month ago I was in our front parlor, taking tea in my mother's finest set, laughing with Betha as we discussed upcoming galas and our more ridiculous marriage prospects.

Two days after that, I was fishing the charred pieces of my mother's tea service out of what was left of the cook's cupboard. The last time I stood in our front parlor, it had been nothing but four walls of blackened masonry rising from a sea of frozen, trampled mud. Three weeks later and there I was, facing charges of stowing away.

I barely acknowledged my father when he came in. It was petty of me. Childish, even, but for the first time in my life I resented him. I wanted my normal, predictable father back, and instead he was drifting farther and farther away, so I kept my head down and my eyes on the floor while he proceeded to invent the biggest, most astonishing lie I had ever heard. We were of absolutely no relation whatsoever, the poor, confused girl, but he had seen me coming and going from room 406 and believed my last name to be Larkham.

He said all of this in a hushed tone, as if he were trying not to be rude. Then he gave me a very kind, very concerned nod, murmured a sincere, "It'll be alright, Miss Larkham. I wish you all the best," and walked out.
4. Reason

6th of Uirra, Continued

I stared at the inside of the hatch door, half expecting Father to come popping back in to say this was all a great prank, and that I should see the look on my face.

But he didn't, and the Chief Mate cleared his throat.

I did it. I pretended I was this Miss Larkham and made a tearful confession of taking a silly dare too far. I apologized for all the trouble I had caused, then meekly followed the Chief Mate down to cabin 406.

A woman I had never met before in my life opened the door at the Chief Mate's knock and, to my amazement, exclaimed, "There you are!"

Then she thanked the Chief Mate for bringing me back and promised to punish me appropriately, all while pulling me inside and shutting the door in his face.

She listened at the panel, a droll grin tugging at her brightly painted lips.

"What is going —" I started to ask, when there was another knock at the door, and the woman calmly unlatched it.

Father handed her a small fold of bills. "Thank you ever so much."

I gaped at them both in disbelief.

She shrugged and gave him a lazy she-cat sort of smile as she tucked the money into her bodice. She stayed there, lurking in her doorway as Father pulled me swiftly out into the hall and down to our own cabin. Or the cabin I thought was ours. Maybe it wasn't.

With nothing else to do, I sat down on the edge of my bed. For several seconds, silence reigned. Finally, when it became clear that he wasn't going to be the one to say anything, I couldn't stand it anymore. "What is going on?"

My father was standing there, staring at his berth, and at my question his jaw knotted up.

"Why have you been acting so _strange_?" I tried. My voice quavered, fear and anger tightening my throat.

He didn't answer.

My tenuous hold on my emotions was beginning to break. "I'm not an idiot!" I choked out. "I can read a ship's manifest. We're not supposed to be in this cabin. I'm not even supposed to be on the _Galvania_. Why?" When he didn't do more than take a shaky breath, I nearly yelled, "Talk to me!"

Slowly, he shook his head. "I can't." Then he turned to look at me. Really look at me, his warm brown eyes meeting mine fully for the first time in weeks. "I've wanted to. Many, many times, but it's too dangerous for too many people. Too much hangs in the balance. Please..." he said softly, crossing the few feet between us to crouch in front of me, his hands covering mine. "I know you must think I'm a madman, but I swear, I'm only trying to protect you."

In that moment, he seemed so much like the man he used to be. Calm, quiet, reasonable. I hadn't truly appreciated just how much I missed him. It was like coming home after wandering alone in the rain, only to find that the rosy childhood impressions of your home are gone, and you can see the cracks in the foundation, the buckled walls, the crooked roof. Tears stung my eyes and I nodded, something crumbling apart in my chest as I went through the charade of giving in.

A small, grim smile crossed his face, tugging his mustache awry. "That's my girl." Then he got to his feet. "Now. There's something I have to do. I'll be back late." He paused. "Please stay inside. And lock the door."

I nodded again and brushed at the tears brimming behind my lashes.

Still he hesitated. Then he sighed as if he was about to do something he would probably regret and reached into his jacket. "I didn't want it to come to this..."

He withdrew a Dekker pistol from his inside pocket, palming the snub-nosed barrel before unloading the reel. Then he held it out to me, grip first. "There are a few things I _can_ tell you. First, you need to stay in the cabin as much as possible. Second, if anyone other than me comes to the door, you are not to answer. Third..." he took my hand and wrapped my fingers around the pistol grip. "It goes primer, two hands, take aim, trigger." He guided my hands through the motions of flicking the primer lever back, placing my left palm under the butt of the pistol to support my grip, then taking aim at the wall across from us and pulling the trigger.

Learning to fire a gun was not at all how I had imagined the day ending when I went for a walk that morning. It was unnerving, holding something that could kill another human in the blink of an eye, yet there I was, letting my father show me how to use the thing, if only to ease that intense frown marring his brow.

He made sure I knew at least the basics of using a firearm at close distance, then left me there, the reloaded pistol on my pillow.

~~~

Father was gone for several hours.

Guilt gnawed at me. I wanted to trust him. I tried to tell myself I should. At the back of my mind, though, was the growing fear that I couldn't.

I had never felt so alone. Or confused. Or worried, or lost, or... exhausted. In a way, it was a small relief to know Father had a reason for his behavior. Even if he only _thought_ he had a reason, at least it was a reason, but that left a million other questions clattering around in my head. Why was he really hiding me? Were we in danger? Were we running, and if so, what from? Or who? Creditors? The authorities? Assassins? That last made me roll my eyes at my own morbid imagination, but sadly, after everything we had been through, it was almost more believable than the other two.

After a while, I gave up waiting for Father to come back and began pacing up and down the little aisle between our berth boxes – two steps to the wall, turn, two steps to the door, turn.

"Alright," I announced, (quietly, so no one could hear me in the next cabin over). "For the sake of the absurd, I'll follow that line of thought. Suppose someone is actually trying to kill Father, and this isn't just a fiction. What if the fire wasn't an accident? Or... what if it was retaliation for something?"

I stopped pacing and stared at nothing, then wrinkled my nose. "Why? What reason could anyone possibly have to kill Father? Of all people."

"None," I pointed out.

"Exactly!"

I sighed and steepled my fingers in front of my mouth for a moment, then turned and headed for the wall again. "So, the question then becomes... who does Father _think_ we're running from?"

I reached the wall and turned to face the door. As I did, my gaze fell on my father's luggage, stowed in the bulkhead above his bunk.

It would be a simple matter to just... accidentally... give it a bit of a _bump_.

"Oops! What a mess. I really should clean that up."

~~~

Feeling both guilty and relieved at once, I refolded Father's extra cravat and buckled his bandbox shut again. Unless he was being hunted for his low-shelf cotton shirts, there wasn't anything in his clothing to worry about. Which I should have expected.

Chewing my lip, I set my attention on my father's satchel. There wouldn't be anything in there, either. Probably.

With a muffled groan, I dragged the satchel out of the luggage netting and plopped it down on his berth, then glanced at the door and hopped off the mattress box. There couldn't be much time left before he came back. I was already halfway done rummaging, though, and if it helped me understand what was going on... I undid the clasp on the front flap of the bag and flipped it up, then peered into the bottom of the main pocket.

The usual items were in there. Pipe. Tobacco pouch. Money purse. Tea ball. The smaller pockets were empty. Of course that was all he would have in his satchel. That was all he had left.

"What am I doing," I muttered, disgusted with myself. I was about to close the bag, when something brought me up short. I frowned. Squinted. Tilted my head. The lining on the front side of the main pocket was a little thicker than it should have been. It had to be my imagination. Didn't it? Slowly, hesitantly, I ran my fingers along the double-stitched edge. There was a slight bump beneath the fabric at one end. It gave a little, moving inward then rising again when my fingertip wasn't on it, as if it were spring-loaded. I bit my lip and pushed more firmly. The next instant I jumped when the lining popped apart, revealing a hidden compartment.

My heart set off at a rapid canter. I was looking at the spine of a green business binder. In a hidden compartment.

For several unsteady heartbeats I simply stood there, staring down at the satchel. Then I whispered a grim, "I'm so, so sorry, Papa," and pulled the binder out.

~~~

Nothing. There was nothing there. Docking receipts and a few odds and ends Father must have fished out of the rubble of the shipyard office. None of the shipments on the manifests matched, and they weren't even from the same year. It was a strange thing to keep as a memento, but I doubted someone was trying to assassinate him over a handful of random papers. I sighed and put everything back in the binder, then closed it back up in the secret pocket again and returned the satchel to the cargo net.

Instead of being relieved that there was nothing there, the weight on my shoulders had only gotten heavier. The only rational explanation I could come up with was that my father had indeed gone insane.

The cabin had become a cage.

When the key rattled in the lock and Father finally slipped in, I was sitting on my bed again, pretending to read. I didn't say anything. I didn't speak at all, actually. Not yet. I needed to find the right time to confront him, the right words, the right facts. Until then, I would have to bide my time.

~~~

' _Posy_ ': the colloquial term for a lyr, the second-smallest denomination of Altyran currency. Also known as roses or plunkers, after the wreath minted on one side, and the fact that they're made of tin and silver instead of all silver and make a much different noise in the hand than the gold marks, or silver semi-marks.
5. Eye of the Storm

9th of Uirra

"That was the year Sir Gorran did an exhibition of his inventions at Glazdunne. It was a great honor, so they had this great event planned. The Dean himself was to give a speech." Father finished sorting his lot of cards, then reached out and placed a Raven Throne neatly in the middle of the top of his hard-side traveling box.

I smiled. "Starting with a bang, are we?"

"I had it, might as well open with it."

I laid down a Foreign Dignitary in the Requests position to the left of the playing deck, which allowed me to collect two extra cards from the undealt pile. I pulled two Pauper cards and made a face. "Go on."

"One of the inventions in Sir Gorran's exhibition was this incredible contraption that could be set up anywhere, and then used to lift a platform or scaffold into the air. It was supposed to be used in construction, but Kleisham took one look at the thing and came out with, 'What you wanna bet that could get up to the Administration building roof?'" Father put another high-bid card down: a Jester Eight. "As you can imagine, the temptation was too much to resist."

I searched through my hand for the Jester Eight I already had, then slapped it down over the one in play and flipped them both over. "Take that."

Father snorted lightly. He considered his cards, then put down a Foreign Dignitary card of his own. "So that's how our last Grand Prank started. I quizzed the exhibition demonstrator about the device, and he was only too happy to teach me how to make it go up and down, how to transport it and set it up. Kleish and I hid under a side-table in the display room till after the exhibition was over, and the doors were shut. Then we snuck out and just... rolled the elevation device out of the display room through the back door and kept right on going with it all the way down to the Administration building."

I raised an eyebrow and laid down a Castle card opposite his Raven Throne. "No one noticed?"

Father shook his head, a faint grin lurking about the corners of his mouth. "They were all listening to the Dean give his big speech." He covered my Castle card with a Queen, effectively cutting off my advance on his Raven Throne card. "Meanwhile, Robarri got fifty-eight of his cousin's sheep in the bin of a cargo hauler. When Kleish and I arrived with the machine, we loaded the entire cargo bin, sheep and everything, onto the elevation platform, and then I started pumping away at the treadle, and Kleish hopped in the bin with the sheep. And bless Sir Gorran, that elevation device worked exactly like it was supposed to. We got the bin up to the roof, Kleish opened the door, and all the sheep trotted right out, polite as you please. I let the air out of the elevation cylinders just like the nice demonstrator showed me, then Robarri drove off with the bin. Smooth as puffed-cream candy. Took all of half an hour, start to finish." He paused as I laid an Assassin's Mace over his Raven Throne. "You mean business, I see." He pursed his lips, and eyed the cards in his hand again, then took my Mace with a Mage Healer card, and turned them over.

"Then what happened?" I prompted.

"Well, Kleish and I rolled the device back to the Oratory center and set it up again in the display room... dusted it off a bit to make sure there wasn't any farmyard on it. We were in the stadium, applauding the Dean's speech when one of the Administration secretaries came running in, screaming that there were sheep running amok in the Administration attics. They must have gotten in through a window. To this day it remains a mystery." He laid a Prince down as a new high card bid, sat back on his bunk and looked at the timekeep.

After three days spent cooped up in that cabin, I knew what that look meant.

Father put his hands on his knees and gave me a thin smile. "Well, my dear, I need to go out for a spell," he said, getting to his feet. He reached for his hat and gloves, then gazed down at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Hold my spot?"

I sat there, stiff and prim like the genteel lady I was taught to be and nodded. That was all. I didn't return his smile as he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Then I bent, covered my face with my hands, and let all of my breath leave my body. Tension throbbed in my shoulders and my head ached. It had only been three days. How was I going to keep this up for two more weeks? Pretending everything was fine, smiling and laughing and playing cards all day, as if I just waited long enough maybe he'd start being normal again. It didn't seem to have done any good. Every morning and evening he still left without telling me why.

I eyed the door, then heaved a sigh and found my waddingpage copy of Dunston's _Arrabellina._ Might as well escape reality.
6. Leave It and Go

9th of Uirra, Continued

Hours went by. The time for an after-dinner mug of tea came and went, and still Father hadn't returned. I told myself not to worry. I repeated to myself that he had been late before, and that I should stay put. Going to look for him would only create other problems if he came back and found me gone. I got ready for bed, and curled up in my bunk, fully intending to read until he came back.

I must have dozed off.

The next thing I knew, I was lying in a heap on the floor, blinking in sleepy befuddlement as the _Galvania's_ forward momentum came to a lurching halt.

Everything was freakishly still.

Then the sound of opening and slamming doors nearly drowned out the voice of the Deck Steward as he came down the hallway, shouting to be heard as passengers began spilling out of their cabins. "Please do not panic! Collect your family and what belongings you can carry and proceed to the exit indicated on your evacuation diagram! The crew will assist you in boarding a safety vessel! Please! Do not panic!"

Shaken, I got to my feet.

The floor was sloping ominously to port, making it difficult to move without falling again. I managed to grab my valise, open it, and stuff my dress into it. What else? Shoes. I would need shoes. I shoved my feet into my boots. Then I pulled on my cloak while trying to think of things my father might need.

Already, another deck steward was screaming at people to "Leave it and go! Leave it and go!"

I snatched my father's heavy oilskin coat off his bunk, put it on over my cloak, and slid his business satchel over my shoulder. Then I was out the door, joining the stream of humanity pouring down our hallway to the larger main corridor.

Nearly a thousand frightened men, women, and children were trying to leave the lower holds through that main corridor, and it quickly grew into a full-contact press. I was swept along, helpless as a twig in a river, propelled from behind by a big, swearing, sweating man clad in nothing but a pair of pants and braces. His sobbing, hysterical wife was to my left, and there was an elderly woman to my right, hobbling along on arthritic feet.

People were yelling, calling for loved ones, accusing others of shoving or cutting in line while we all jostled down that dingy green hallway, packing tighter and tighter the closer we got to the entrance to the stairs.

I was still several yards from the stairwell when a loud concussion sounded somewhere in the forward hull, and the _Galvania_ shuddered, the ironworks of her frame groaning and shrieking as if she were being torn apart. Then, without warning, the floor shifted beneath us again, rising to port and dipping to starboard.

Everyone staggered to the right in our stretch of hallway. This time the ship's distress siren began wailing, its shrill, repetitive 'whoop' grating over already frayed nerves. The acrid stench of desperation and terror rose from a thousand frightened bodies, mingling with the overwhelming odor of sweat and unwashed human. People shouted louder, shoved harder. Like rats caught in a flooding sewer, the only thought on anyone's mind became the need to survive, to reach the outside of our floating tin can before the inside became a watery tomb.

One young man began climbing up the girding, scaling it like a monkey, which prompted nearly a dozen others to try the same thing.

Beside me, the fat man's wife started gibbering in Lodesian, reciting an incantation to her favorite saint.

I scanned every face I could see, every broad-shouldered dark tweed jacket, every head of white hair, desperately trying to hold down a growing storm-surge of panic when my eyes didn't find my father. Anywhere.

It didn't make any difference. I was leaving whether I saw him or not. Trapped close between the fat man at my back and a tall woman in front of me, I could only squeeze along with them as they reached the entrance to the stairwell. Then we were fighting to join the press of people already on the stairs, one current merging with the other in a clash of arms and knees and fear.

Around and around we went, spiraling up the outside of the main loading bay. One floor, then another, then another.

I never did spot my father, not even after the fat man pushed me out from behind the tall woman in a furious attempt to get himself farther ahead. For a moment I had a good view of the stairwell in front of me, and wild, frantic hope flared in my chest, but... Nothing. The only white-haired man in sight was thin and stooped over.

Then I was out of time. We turned the final corner and stepped up onto the last landing before the exit. Stewards shouted at us to form three lines, funneling us toward the lifeboat stations at the ship's railing. The massive, riveted opening of the main loading hatch yawned high above me, and then it was my turn. The ship tilted a fraction more, and I grabbed at the edge of the flange, the sharp metal cutting into my hand as I pulled myself out onto the deck, out into the biting rush of winter air and the sight of the promenade climbing at an unnatural angle into a moonstruck sky.

A sailor grabbed at my arm with rough hands and pushed me toward the third station at the railing, his voice hoarse, shouting, "Move! Move!"

I was about to obey when a tug on my father's coat brought me up short. I glanced down, thinking I must have gotten snagged on something. The little old woman with the arthritic feet was gripping the cuff of the sleeve, trying to keep herself from tottering over backwards.

Blinded by my own fear, I hadn't bothered to take much notice of her. She was clearly terrified, but unlike me, she needed help. Aunt Sapphine would have made a beeline for her from the first. Asked if she had any family. Told her she wasn't alone.

Ashamed of myself, I took hold of the little old woman's gnarled hand and tucked it more firmly at my elbow, then proceeded to drag her along as I started up the steep incline of the deck.

Halfway there, she faltered. Then she stumbled and came to a halt, a mute expression of resignation and fatigue on her wrinkled face.

I came to a stop with her. "It's only a few more steps," I panted. "Like on the stairs."

She shook her head, her hand fluttering near her chest. She was wheezing heavily, her breath rattling in her throat, pluming in the frigid night air.

Passengers were streaming past, and someone – the fat man – bumped into me, sending me stumbling as he growled, "Gi' ou' the way, ya minger!"

The ship shifted again, then, by a scant few inches, but it was still enough to make everyone scramble for a handhold. As I pushed myself upright, I took in the new angle of the deck, dread trickling through my veins, stealing my breath. The _Galvania_ was rolling too far forward much too fast. Father had explained that these huge super-liners had multiple safety locks on every level. She __ should have evened off by now if the crew had been able to contain the damage.

This was no precautionary evacuation.

The ship was going all the way down.

That realization changed everything. I whirled, searching the dark maw of the passenger hatch, watching as people came flowing through it. I waited. Father would come out. He had to. He would... any minute now...

He didn't.

The urge to go running back down those stairs beat like a drum in my chest, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth; I would fly down those stairs and hunt through every corridor and room until I found him. He wouldn't have wanted that. He would have wanted me to get myself safely on one of the lifeboats. He might even be in one already, waiting for me.

Jaw tight, I took off my father's satchel, unclipped the strap at one end, and wrapped it around the little old lady's waist like a belt. "I can help one person, at least. I am not going to leave you here," I muttered. "Now then. You hold onto me, and I'll hold onto you, and we'll do our best."

I looked back again. _Please_...

But there was no flash of white hair in the shadows of the doorway. Tearing myself away, I turned and proceeded to half carry, half yank the poor woman the rest of the way to the railing. We hobbled down a narrow gangplank to a lifeboat that was slung over the water, and several people reached to pull us aboard amid frantic calls of, "Come on! Come on!"

A big, burly man shoved the two of us into the only remaining seat just as the ship's crew let the winch go.

We dropped.

My lungs went weirdly light in my chest and I sucked in a whistle of air, my body rising, weightless. For four sickening heartbeats we were in free-fall, twenty people and a white boat plummeting toward the water, the heavy steel side of the ship an inky blur beside us.

I let out a cry of panic as what should have been a parallel drop brought us dangerously close to the hull at the bottom, but then we landed with a bone-rattling thud and a backwash of brine. The bright red safety bladders bobbed to the surface as they were meant to, and the lifeboat rode the deep swell of the _Galvania's_ wake. Then we leveled out.

And found ourselves in hell.

The _Galvania_ was listing heavily, with nearly twenty yards of keel visible on her port side, revealing a great, gaping hole that had been torn through her belly, the metal sheeting of her hide curled out and away from what must have been an explosion in the hold. Burning machine oil from her huge engines seeped out of the wound like fiery blood, the light of the flames illuminating the extent of the damage... and the bodies in the water. Everywhere. All around us. Hundreds and hundreds. Too many to count. The scent of singed hair and cooking meat had me clapping my hands over my mouth, horror swarming through my stomach.

"Spuirnoght," the little old lady gasped.

I couldn't even nod. It was a scene straight out of the old war sylvos.

It wasn't over.

A split-second after our lifeboat joined the others, the ship's compression engine became unstable. The savage yowl of the distress siren was cut off by a low, rumbling roar, and billowing smoke came pouring out of all the portholes amidships. The whole ship lit up like a lantern. Screams sounded from inside as the _Galvania_ tilted all the way onto her side, burrowing into the sea. Then she slid gracefully under, as if she were merely rolling over in her bed, wrapping herself in a watery blanket.

We tried to save as many as we could. The crew bravely stayed behind to cut the rest of the lifeboats free as the ship went down, but even after we combed the water for hours, we only found enough survivors to fill two more boats.

My father was not among them.

~~~

_Spuirnoght: (_ roughly 'hell night' in Lodesian) the name given to a particularly bloody battle outside Varrus, a large city in the Lodes Province.

_Sylvo:_ (abrev. for Sylvograph) an image captured on glass discs and then transferred to a piece of paper using silver salts.
7. Adrift

11th of Uirra

Dry. And white. I never knew that about the ocean, that the constant salt spray could parch your skin till your lips cracked and your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth. Or that you could be so dazzled by the sunlight glittering off the waves that everything became colorless and pale.

After two days spent drifting across Endover Bay, I knew those things.

That first morning, one of the more reasonable men suggested that we lash all our boats together into a flotilla to keep them from getting separated. We succeeded, repurposing the tie-downs, tossing them across to one another and pulling until we were all connected by a web-work of straps and ropes. No matter how hard and long we paddled, though, there was no way to stay where the _Galvania_ sank. By the second day the ship's navigator – one of the few survivors we pulled from the water – said we were too far away from the spot to be seen by any rescuers that might have come to the distress signal.

So, there we were, two hundred and seventy-three people left alive out of more than five times that number, having escaped death on the _Galvania_ only to face slow starvation on the open sea.

For that first day, I didn't care. I was too hollow, as everything that was alive had been scooped out of me. I wasn't in my body. Or my body wasn't where I wanted it to be, and since my body couldn't do anything but sit idly in the bottom of a lifeboat, I existed in halves, with my heart and soul lost somewhere behind us.

That was not to say I felt _nothing_. There was an awful, niggling itch at the back of my mind: something vitally important was missing. If I simply retraced my steps, I might remember where I lost it. There was hope in that searching, at first. Cruel hope fueled mostly by disbelief that the loss was real, because only a short time ago that precious thing had been there. Taken for granted. Safe and sound and whole.

To feel that way about a person; to search until you can search no more, until even the place that should be searched is gone; to go from the frantic madness of possibility and panic to the futility of knowing, deep down, that the chances of finding that person had dwindled away to a shred of a half-chance in a million; to finally sink into dumb acceptance that there was now an ever-changing, unforgiving wall of water between you and that beloved person... That was what I felt, so I drifted, unable to find my father, unwilling to let him go, unable to do anything but keep breathing, moving farther and farther from where I left him while absurdly hoping to find him whole and alive somewhere.

12th of Uirra

The little old lady finally introduced herself today. She said her name was Laffa.

By a stroke of awful good fortune, there were enough empty lifeboats that the group was able to spread out a little, and this morning the big, burly man who helped row our boat away from the wreck dared to ask if he could have the stern end of our boat.

Laffa screamed at him, called him names that made my ears blister, and threw one of her rubbershoes at him when he didn't retreat fast enough. Needless to say, we were left to ourselves after that.

Laffa's grandson, Loffi, and his wife were not among those we pulled from the water. Laffa looked for them last night. By dawn she had started calling me Maury, who seemed to be either Loffi's mother, his sister, or his wife by turns, and didn't mention Loffi again.

I tried to tell her my name, but she only told me to stop being silly.

Hollow Me didn't particularly mind. Laffa was alone, I was alone, so we might as well stick together. Better her than some. At least I knew she wasn't going to steal my valise. She thought it was Maury's.

I almost envied her ability to bend reality to suit her needs. Can't find your family? Simply decide a total stranger is the person you lost and carry on as if nothing happened. But I couldn't mock her. Her nightmares were every bit as real as mine. And the two of us got along all right, so long as I didn't object to being both her daughter and her daughter-in-law. Or to repetitive and embarrassingly loud comments about the physical appearance of the other survivors. Or to endless, tuneless humming.

I made a little tent for us out of a tarpaulin I found under one of the seats, and we sat under it, sharing our body heat. Just me and a delusional old woman bobbing among the waves, at the mercy of the ocean and the wind.

There was no safe way to light a fire, so there wasn't any way to keep dry, and we were both cold, damp and hungry. Yet for all her wobbly grasp of the present, Laffa was remarkably tough. She wasn't about to give up on living, and she wouldn't let me give up either. She refused to leave me alone until I ate my ration biscuit, and she kept pestering me to refill our water filter.

She thought the water filter was sorcery the first time she saw me use it. Salt-water went in the canister on top, and a few minutes later fresh water would come dribbling out the bottom through a small silver tube.

"You do magic water!" became the phrase that pulled me from my stupor every two hours, regular as clockwork. I tried once to show her how to attach the filter segment to the canister so she could do it herself, but she just stared at me, then demanded that I "do magic water."

I guess it was good to have a purpose.

13th of Uirra

This was our third full day at sea, if I did my math right.

Earlier, Laffa was sleeping. No one else was moving about much, either, trying to conserve energy.

It was too quiet. There was nothing to distract me.

What part of the ship was he in? Was he in pain, at the end? Did he drown, or was it the fire that got him? Did he go down with the ship, or was he among the bodies? Did I see him and not realize? Did he survive, and I missed him? Could I have saved him if I had looked harder?

I couldn't make it stop.

Every time I allowed myself to think anything, there it was.

Finally, I shoved myself up out of the bottom of the boat and knocked the tarp aside, thinking fresh air might help. Instead of relief, I saw Father's satchel sitting there, mocking me from the prow of the boat.

Suddenly angry, I snatched it off the prow board and slammed it down on the seat in front of me. Then I started going through it, yanking his things out of it as if I could find him at the bottom.

The first of his belongings that met my fingers was his favorite rosewood-burl short stem pipe. Next I brought up a green leather tobacco pouch from Greystrom and Sons with a bit of finecut Medrano still in it. A few cedar sticks and a nearly empty box of sulfur-strikes. The silver fountain pen my mother gave him on their last anniversary. A small packet of Provincial Black and Orange and a tea ball. Our traveling, financial standing, and identity papers, and a crumpled handkerchief. Four letters from this mysterious college friend. Six banknotes amounting to five and one-half marks, which was probably all the money I had left to my name.

That was what was in my father's satchel. That was all I had left. Tea and twenty-five years of memories. And his oilskin coat, the things in my valise, and the compass-rose necklace he gave me last year that I never took off. And the contents of that weird, secret pocket.

Hesitantly, I opened the tobacco pouch, then spent an hour sobbing, inhaling the familiar scent of rich leather and cherrywood.

When my tears finally dried up, I took the binder out and thumbed idly through it again.

I still had no idea what it was.

Oh, I knew what it _was_ well enough. I often helped in the shipyard office when Father was away, and he taught me all sorts of unladylike things about handling a shipping business. If it had anything to do with the shipment of goods across an ocean, I'd dealt with it, so I knew what all the documents _were_. Some of the receipts and records were even in my handwriting. That wasn't the problem. I didn't know _what_ it was. Or more to the point, _why._

It was all grouped into neat little bundles, but the bundles weren't arranged chronologically, or by any subject I could make out. None of the shipments were even the same.

Even if Father had only taken what had survived the shipping office fire (as I had assumed), there wouldn't have been that much variety. Why would the fire destroy thousands, – no, _all_ – of the Warring Oceanic shipping manifests, but spare six from three different years? The same went for all the rest of the papers. Father must have kept them somewhere separate from both the shipyard and his private office.

Then there were the letters from my father's supposed college friend. None of them mentioned a promise of employment, past or present. None of them had any return-to, either, and only one of them was formally signed, which I found rather odd.

The signed one simply read,

"I hope this finds you well. Write when you have opportunity.

Sincerely,

Levig Honeyston"

There was no date, no postmark, no other information. The other three informal letters were nearly as cryptic, with one telling Father that he should come for a visit sometime soon, another saying something about a friend named Percaus Montemortus being in town, and the last informing Father that the gift he sent was received. It was all very polite and nicely written in the same bold, masculine hand, but it would have taken a wild stretch of the imagination to find any invitation to come halfway round the world for a position at a bank. There wasn't any talk of a bank at all.

Father had manufactured all of it.

The thought made me want to scream and throw things, to lash out at the unfamiliar ghost my father had become.

We weren't gentry by any means, but we were well off. Father made sure I went to the best schools in the country. We both could have found decent work on the Continent. We could have stayed. We would have been fine. We could have taken a somewhat-reduced-but-still-respectable flat. I could have read about the loss of the _Galvania_ in the comfort of a quaint drawing room somewhere, felt a pang of sympathy for those 'poor souls and their families,' then done the dutiful thing and donated a few of my last-seasons to the Sisters of Claddage. I wouldn't have been the one bobbing about in a floating coffin, wondering if I would freeze to death before we ran out of ration biscuits, or if that storm brewing in the distance would finally come along to end us all. I wouldn't have plummeted into a fiery, watery grave every time I accidentally fell asleep. I wouldn't have been driving myself out of my mind wondering if my father was really _____ or if somehow, somewhere, he was alive, and I would see him again.

But I didn't throw things. I couldn't. It would have taken too much energy, and what would I throw? His pipe? Those stupid papers? Even if he was delusional, that satchel was all I had left of him.

I put everything away exactly as it had been.

Then I sat there, watching the chop of the waves while a weak, watery sun slowly rolled toward the horizon in front of me, and another frozen day came to an end without my father in it.
8. Eat Fish

14th of Uirra

A thick fog crept in last night.

I didn't know something as soft as fog could kill.

Laffa and I tucked the tarp down as well as we could, but the moisture still leached into our clothes, and the condensation from our breath and body heat began beading on the inside of the tarpaulin. It trickled through our hair and down our backs and gathered in the floor of the boat. There was no way to escape it, and what little warmth our bodies generated quickly wicked away.

I thought we might die. Just slip away, drifting peacefully into whatever waits beyond this life. It didn't really seem like a bad way to go, all things considered.

I didn't die. Neither did Laffa. And there was no peace. She kept poking me, her knobby fingers digging into my ribs until I moved. She rubbed my hands and feet between her palms, then kicked me until I rubbed hers. She woke me just to crack the tarp open when the air inside became too stuffy, and always there was the demand for "magic water." It seemed as soon as I began nodding off, all too gladly giving in to the welcome pull of oblivion, there she was, her scratchy voice loud and grating in the dark, "You! No sleep! Sleep bad. Up. Make magic water."

By dawn there was a film of ice floating in the puddle at the bottom of the boat, but we survived.

One of the other young women didn't.

The big, burly man – Orrul – found her this morning. She hadn't been willing to share her tarp with anyone for fear they would take advantage of her. Now that she didn't need it anymore, two of the other women were fighting over it.

I sat on the gunnel of our boat, numb, as three of the men discussed what to do with the girl's body, their breath pluming in the air and freezing to their already frost-covered eyelashes.

"We shouldn't let her sit here like this. It isn't right."

"What would you suggest then, Patrus? We can't exactly light a candle for her. Does anyone here even know her name?"

"It's too cold for all this talk," the third man grunted. Then he bent over, grabbed the girl's corpse by its stiffened arm, hefted the body up out of the boat, and rolled it clumsily over the side and into the water. "Problem solved," he croaked, and hobbled back toward his tarp.

The other two men gazed at the girl's rigid figure floating a few feet away, but neither of them was willing to get wet retrieving it. They stood in silent vigil as the waves pulled her into the grey of a misty dawn.

15th of Uirra

I might have missed a day. Or two. If not, we had been drifting with the current, rudderless and helpless, for six days. If I did miss a day, today could very well have been the eighth sunrise since the _Galvania_ went down. Just a week, but it felt like a lifetime.

Ironically, we knew where we were thanks to the navigator. We simply had no way of doing anything about it. Oars could only do so much on the open ocean.

The ration tins started running low this morning. With the extra boats there were extra survival tins, and a doctor named Turragan had the good sense to suggest we hold them in reserve for when we ran out of biscuits, rather than dividing everything up at the very beginning.

The fat man that pushed me on the _Galvania_ died today.

He and his wife didn't ration their biscuits. They were in a boat not far from ours, and I could hear them bickering about it all last night, blaming each other for sneaking more than their fair share. The woman finally reminded him that there were more biscuits, and that it wasn't right that Turragan had control over them. She suggested that everyone should be able to have any of those biscuits if they needed them. A moment later, the man poked his head out of the gap in their tarpaulin.

He glanced around. No one else was stirring yet, and he came lumbering all the way out, skulking from one empty boat to another.

He had nearly reached the boat containing Turragan's hoard when Orrul stood up, barring his way. "What are you doing, Arnush?"

Arnush eyed Orrul. Then he eyed the small mound of tins in the boat beyond. With a sudden jerk of his wrist he was brandishing a knife. "Taking wot's mine!"

There was no fight. Orrul braced himself. The fat man made a lunge for him, tripped over his own feet, pitched forward over the gunnel, and hit the side of his head on the metal edge of the bowsprit as he dropped through the gap between his boat and the one Orrul was in.

That was it. He never came back up, and no one dared dive under the flotilla to pull him back out.

~~~

Laffa caught a fish a few minutes ago and began eating it like a bar of softmelt sugar – raw, and with enraptured appreciation.

It was hard to look away. I couldn't decide if I was disgusted, or jealous. I had eaten my ration biscuit, and my stomach was already gnawing at my spine. I would almost have preferred to starve all the way than stretch the inevitable so far. What was the point of eating barely enough to stay alive if we were just going to die anyway?

~~~

Laffa peered at me while I wrote that, her beady eyes laughing from within the crinkles of her crow's-feet.

She rested her cheek on her hand, supporting her head with her elbow on the wall of the boat. "You strange child, Maury. Always with nose in book... Scribble scribble scribble... Does book talk? Does book feel?"

I sighed and lay back against the side of the boat, stretching my cramped legs out straight. If anyone had told me that the meek, frightened old lady I dragged off the _Galvania_ would turn out to be a nosy, persnickety, bossy... "No. Book doesn't talk. Book is quiet. Book doesn't poke me in the middle of the night or eat smelly fish," I answered in Tettian.

Laffa grinned, sly, her nearly toothless gums allowing her upper lip to fold into her mouth. Then she waved the heavily gnawed fish carcass in my direction. "You try fish. You like fish more than book, _betchamoy_."

"Betcham not," I shot back.

"Betcham big. Here. Try." She leaned forward to shove the fish an inch from my nose.

I narrowed my eyes at her and pinched my lips shut.

"Try!" she said, more insistently, like a parent telling a stubborn toddler to eat her peas.

I shook my head, glaring at her. "Mmm-mmm."

She paused, her wrinkled face going still, those bright-button eyes sober. "You stubborn girl. Fish _good_. Lying around, pretending you die... Scribble, scribble... No good. Live. Get up. You got fish. Eat fish," she said, drawing out the word 'fish' as she placed the pale, chewed open middle between her teeth again and bit into it with gusto. "Understand?" she asked, munching something, both wiry eyebrows raised expectantly.

When I firmed my chin and turned away, she gave me a perplexed squint, sighed, then muttered, "Bah. You foolish," and gave up on me.

I slouched into the bottom of the boat again as she scooted forward to perch on the front seat like a squirrel, her fish clutched before her in both hands. She wouldn't stay there for long. In a few minutes she would want magic water again.

My throat tightened as I watched her. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have been pretending to be dead, I would have been frozen like that girl yesterday.

Live. Get up. Eat fiiiiiiish.

I started putting together that blasted osmosis canister.

~~~

Orrul just sighted a ship. At first, I thought he must be hallucinating or sun-blind, but then several other people began whooping and hollering.

After a few minutes, I heaved a sigh and pushed myself up to get a view over the gunnel, and there it was, clear as the winter sky above us: three masts in the distance, rigged out in a clipper formation, sails white as a cloud skimming swift and smooth along the horizon.

~~~

It got very loud after I wrote that last entry. People began jumping up and down, waving their arms and screaming.

Except for the navigator and the four surviving sailors, who tried to make everyone be quiet. They kept saying that at that distance there wasn't any way to tell whether the ship was friendly or not, but no one listened. A ship was a ship.

~~~

People began laughing and crying and hugging each other a few minutes ago.

The ship turned toward us.

I had to admit, part of me was looking forward to being warm and dry and not hungry. At the back of my mind, though, a dark, angry voice whispered that if I was warm and dry and not hungry, I would only be leaving my father that much farther behind.
9. The Angpixen

15th of Uirra, Continued

An hour after I wrote that last entry, the clipper had drawn close enough to make out the fore royal.

Slowly, all the cheering and hugging petered into an uneasy silence as everyone got a better look at what they had so eagerly welcomed.

"Is that..." Dr. Turragan finally asked out loud.

"Aye. That would be the Vixerox _,_ " the Navigator said grimly. "And with 'er flyin' over that black hull, I'd bet my life that's the _Angpixen._ "

A young man I knew only as Teg piped up with, "What's an Ang Pixie?" and all the sailors turned to squint at him like he had rocks where his brains should be.

"What's funny?" Teg quavered, turning red.

"The _Angpixen_ is the Bloody Fox's fastest bloody ship, that's what t'is," muttered one of the other passengers, shading his eyes against the sun overhead. "Don't you read the Dailies?"

One of the sailors gazed at the oncoming ship, his expression wooden. "I thought Cap'n Arr'my were givin' NaVarre a what-for in the Adro-pee-dees."

"That's what I heard too." The Navigator took a seat on the gunnel of his lifeboat. "But no one else dares fly those colors. That's Bloody Fox NaVarre, sure enough."

"What are you saying?" demanded Doctor Turragan's wife, giving voice to the realization dawning over the rest of us. "That's a _pirate_ ship? We're about to be taken by _pirates_?"

Her cry was echoed by a few sobs of dismay and panic, but most of us simply went quiet. A pall fell over our little floating island. After six days of fighting the cold, living on the awful hard biscuits from the ration tins and the pitiful amount of fresh water the survival filters produced, we were all too weak to muster any sort of resistance. There were only a handful of weapons among the lot of us. Vastly outnumbered, unable to flee and too starved to fight, we were exceedingly easy pickings.

When she was about fifty yards off, the _Angpixen_ canted gently to the right, presenting us with her port broadside. She passed close enough that I made out a man standing at the railing of the quarterdeck. There was no mistaking his authority, even from that distance. An army of pirates were gathering at the rail and scaling the rigging, but while his men were readying for action, that man on the quarterdeck remained calm, gazing down at us as his ship swept in an ever-tightening circle around our flotilla. Then, when the sleek, glossy side of the _Angpixen_ was just shy of scraping the outermost lifeboats and the wash of her wake was sending us rocking, the man lifted his hand, gesturing in our direction.

The pirates immediately began launching themselves from the ship, swinging out over us on ropes, shrieking and howling like monkeys.

It was almost comical, really, just how peaceful our abduction was. A few of the men made an effort to resist, but it was more out of pride than any hope of success. They were beaten into submission and that was the end of it. There were a few people who sobbed and begged, and some of the children screamed as they were pulled from their parents, but it was mostly haphazard sounds of distress and exertion as the pirates dropped into the lifeboats and began gathering us up.

I was 'caught' by a big, swarthy monster with a badly scarred right arm, who landed nearly on top of me. I didn't say anything. I just ground my teeth as he grabbed at me with his big, rough hands and slung me over his shoulder. Then he leaped acrobatically into the air, caught the same rope that was tied around his waist, and used it to pull us both back up the outside of the hull, over the railing, and onto the deck. He carried me to the foot of the main mast and dumped me there like a sack of potatoes, then went lumbering back over the rail for more.

I huddled where I landed, watching as the pirates kept at it until every last man, woman and child had been brought up and deposited in front of the main mast. Even Laffa, who shrieked and spat and clawed at her captor until he swore and dropped her on the deck. She hissed at him and scrabbled quickly over to squeeze into the narrow space next to me, ducking and hiding behind my shoulder.

When they had finished dragging all of us up, they brought up all of our belongings too, which they tossed into a pitifully scant pile by the railing. Several of the pirates began pawing through everything, systematically opening and emptying cloth bags and traveling boxes. One of them popped open my empty valise, then grunt and fling it back into the sea.

It didn't matter. The only thing I wasn't wearing was my short jacket because I hadn't been able to put it on over both my shirtwaists, my blouse, and my nightgown. Everything else was either somehow on my person, in my father's satchel, or tucked into the pockets of my father's oilskin coat.

Leaning against the mast at my back, I ran my tongue along my salt-chapped lips, fighting off a growing surge of hunger that overcame every other thought. The dull thought occurred that I was more worried about eating than enslavement to pirates, but there was food cooking somewhere: roasting meat and the trademark rich spiciness of Illyrian _bisran_. It smelled so good I could almost taste the thick, aromatic sauce, the fire-kissed chunks of mutton...

I was seriously pondering just how low I would be willing to stoop to get my hands on some, when a short, bowlegged man – the First Mate – came stomping past, barking orders in Illyrian. A bull-necked pirate with a short whip came along behind him, prodding and kicking at a few people, gesturing with his whip and shouting in broken Altyran, "You move! You move!"

Not wanting to find out what that whip felt like, I pushed myself up onto my feet and shuffled unsteadily along with the others as several of the pirates shoved us into a wilting, wavering line down the middle of the main deck. I kept my head down and did what I was told, which wasn't too difficult since I knew what the pirates were saying. Teg was not so fortunate. He wound up behind me, and it was clear he didn't understand a word the big lout with the short-whip was shouting at him; he followed me like a duckling, his hunger-hollow eyes wide.

The man with the short whip wasn't taking Teg's innocent rebellion very well. His face went red, and he started coming toward us.

I took hold of Teg's arm. "He wants you to start a new line," I croaked, nodding off to our left. "Over there." I gave him a little push. For a moment Teg stood goggling down at me, confusion large on his young face. "Go stand next to Mr. Obrossy," I said more firmly.

The pirate with the short-whip slowed, his irritation dissipating when Teg started limping over to the front of the new line.

I didn't realize what a mistake that was until I happened to glance up at the aft deck. Ice promptly slithered through my veins to settle in a slushy lump in my middle.

Bloody NaVarre was standing in the curve of the balconette, a pair of wickedly curved twin blades strapped across his back, throwing knives glittering along the gauntlets on his arms. He was leaning forward, his hands flat on the railing in front of him; and he was staring straight at me.

For an endless second neither of us moved. The prey had seen the predator. Then, to my horror, NaVarre pushed away from the railing and came down the steps to the main deck, sending his men scrambling out of his way as he strode swiftly along the line of prisoners.

Dazed, I yanked my gaze forward, my heartbeat thundering painfully in my head. Maybe if I pretended nothing was happening —

He stopped directly in front of me.

Everyone went absolutely still. No one spoke.

Finally, Bloody NaVarre observed softly, "You understand Illyrian." It was a statement, not a question.

_Not anymore, I don't_.

When I didn't do much more than sway with the roll of the ship, he said quietly, "Look at me." In Illyrian.

I swallowed hard and kept examining the planking beneath my soggy boots.

Fingers caught my chin, then, bringing my head up. "Look at me."

I shut my eyes tight.

"Look at me, or I will toss you overboard," NaVarre whispered, his words fanning my cheek.

Stunned, I blinked before I could stop myself, meeting NaVarre's golden-green stare.

NaVarre let out a chuckle and turned to his men. "A fine haul! I think an extra pint is in order this evening, don't you?" he shouted, and was rewarded with a near-deafening round of stomping and whistling. "Good! Now get back to work! Finch, secure the deck, if you please!"

"Aye, sir!" Finch bellowed.

"Come along, my dear." It wasn't a request. He spun me away from the rest of the prisoners and pushed me along in front of him toward the stairs to the quarterdeck.

The others were being taken in the opposite direction, toward the main hatch and the stairs down to the hold. I was not. There was only one thing that could mean. "No! No, you can't —"

NaVarre's hand found the back of my neck, his fingers unforgiving as he propelled me forward. "Keep moving."

"I won't do it! You can't make me!" I hissed in Illyrian, and tried to twist away from him, jabbing at him with my elbows.

He swore as my arm connected with his face, and his grip faltered. I lunged away from him, only to be brought up short by his grip on the collar of my father's coat. "You had better be worth it," he growled. Then he half-lifted, half-dragged me for several yards, even though I was still struggling.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and I managed to grab the banister topper.

"Would ya like some help, sir?" the First Mate called, observing passively from the main hatch.

"No, Finch, I can manage," NaVarre said loudly, simultaneously holding onto my coat while prying my fingers from the scrollwork. "You go on below. Have your pint. I'll be down in a while to make sure everything is settled."

My mouth fell open as the First Mate raised a dubious eyebrow but didn't lift a finger to help me, instead shaking his head as he started down into the hold with a very calm, "As you say, sir."

NaVarre peeled me away from the banister and hauled me upright. "Right! No more of this, or I'll make chum out of your grandmother. All she's good for is shark bait, and I happen to _really_ appreciate a good shark stew." He paused to catch my hand as I reached again for the banister. "But if you _cooperate..."_ I whimpered when he wrenched my arm behind my back and used it as leverage to push me up to the next step. "If you _cooperate_ , I might just keep her alive."

I choked on a sob and stopped fighting. Shaking, I went where he steered me, trying mindlessly not to fall. Already light-headed from hunger, my vision narrowed to a dim, sparkly tunnel as he urged me up the stairs and across the quarterdeck to the rear of the ship, where he opened an ornately carved door and shoved me into the map room beyond it.

~~~

Vixerox: (veeks-er-oh). n. from the Illyrian "vixe," fox, and "roxer," red, or blood. The word Vixerox was coined in reference to the emblem used by the infamous pirate Bloody NaVarre, also known as the Bloody Fox because of the color and symbol of his pennant.
10. You Speak Illyrian

15th of Uirra, Continued

I didn't have so much as a beat to get my bearings before he shut the door behind us, locked it, then pulled me around and made me stand beneath the ceiling sconce.

My heart stuttered in my chest. I might not have had much experience with such things, but I wasn't completely naive. I knew very well what happened to the female captives taken by pirates, and Bloody NaVarre was one of the worst.

"What are you going to —" I quavered, but he cut me off with a firm, "Shhh."

He squinted at me, dark lashes nearly meeting. He took a step back, studying my face as though trying to decide if he recognized me. Then he reached out and took hold of my tangled braid, lifting it and coiling it on top of my head. "What's your name?"

Disconcerted, I tried to yank away, only to be brought upright again by his grip in my hair.

"You speak Altyran with a cultured accent and you have the hands and face of a rich woman, but you also speak Illyrian and you're dressed as an Edonian day laborer," he growled. "Who are you?"

My eyes watered. "Why does it matter?" I asked, my voice scratching out of my parched throat.

He lifted an eyebrow, and a rakish grin curled one corner of his mouth. "You're in no position to be asking questions." He released my hair. "Now. What's your name?"

I shot a bitter glare at him, jutted my chin and pinched my lips tight.

His grin widened to include a set of perfect teeth. "All I want is your name. One little name, and nobody gets hurt." When I didn't say anything, he crossed his arms over his chest, quirked that eyebrow a little higher, and 'tsk'ed his tongue. "That's not very wise. I'm Bloody NaVarre. I might make your friends out there walk the plank if you don't give me what I want."

The silence stretched taught. Then he jerked a nod. "Right. Shark stew it is."

He had taken three steps toward the door when I coughed out a broken, "Wait!"

Slowly, he came back around, an insufferably victorious smirk on his pretty face.

I swallowed. I had read the Dailies. Bloody NaVarre wasn't known for taking prisoners and had slaughtered people over less than a name. Still, I didn't exactly have a choice. We were all cold, starving, and exhausted, and this pirate had food and shelter. "Brenorra Warring," I croaked, looking away again, angry at myself.

"Do you have any proof?"

That struck me as an odd question, but I was too tired to think about it. Reluctantly, I unbuttoned Father's coat and pulled the satchel around so I could open it.

NaVarre straightened slightly.

I lifted the flap that covered the main section of the bag and was about to start searching for my identity papers when NaVarre said, bluntly, "Give it to me."

I went still, my throat painfully hot. "It belonged to my father," I rasped.

NaVarre sighed, then reached out and unclipped the satchel strap in one neat move, yanking it away from me as easily as if I were a small child.

Dizzy and defeated, I stood there while he strode to a map cabinet on the far wall.

"Why are you doing this?"

That made him chuckle. "What, you don't appreciate my hospitality?"

I closed my eyes, swaying on my feet as he opened doors and drawers. "Not particularly, no."

NaVarre fell silent. Then he came toward me again. Fast. He was coming fast. I opened my eyes in time to see him rounding the map table, Father's satchel under one elbow. He didn't slow down. He took hold of my left arm with his free hand, then dragged me across the room to another door. This one opened into a large, opulently furnished personal quarters – obviously his own – with a broad gallery of windows that offered an unfettered view aft of the ship.

He marched me inside and shut the door behind us, then gave me a shove into a leather armchair in front of a huge hammered-copper desk while he continued straight to a compact sideboard. He selected a bottle of liquor from a cabinet, poured a generous shot into a tumbler, turned around, and proceeded to empty Father's satchel unceremoniously onto the desk blotter. My father's tobacco pouch, his pipe, his pen box, those were set aside. Our traveling papers were of fleeting interest. He studied them, then studied me, an unreadable expression crossing his face. Then he kept hunting.

A few seconds later he found the interior pocket.

"Ah." He pulled out my father's business binder and flipped the cover up as if he were opening a present, grinning wide. "What have we here?" He scanned first one paper, then another, his brows drawing into a studious frown. As if he were searching for something important. Something he had already known would be there.

Wide eyed, I stared at him. Things began popping into place like mechanized puzzle pieces, gears meshing and moving, the world as I knew it shifting wildly. If Bloody NaVarre, of all people, was hunting for something in my father's satchel, something _in particular_ in a _hidden_ folder, then whatever was in that satchel had to mean something. If it meant something, then it wasn't just a random collection of odds and ends. Which meant the fire, the mad race to the Colonies, the _Galvania_... Everything... Was probably because of those papers.

"This is the only bag your father had with him?" NaVarre asked, slowly putting all the documents back into their binder, his face carefully impassive as he placed the binder on his desk.

His question interrupted my mental epiphany, and it took me a moment too long to answer. "It's the only one that survived the _Galvania_." I licked my lips. My heart pounding so hard it hurt. "Why?"

NaVarre glanced at me, then picked up his tumbler and came around to the front of his desk, where he perched his lean backside against the edge, crossed his arms casually over his chest, and assumed a very easy, almost friendly manner. "What was your destination?" he asked.

I blinked at him. "Why?"

"Where were you and your father headed?" he rephrased, swirling his drink before calmly taking a sip.

I blinked again, bile souring in my stomach. He was acting as if we were acquaintances standing in a parlor somewhere. He even looked the part, somehow, like a devilishly handsome country gentleman who had recently come in from his morning ride, with his dark hair all wind-tossed and wavy, and a well-developed shadow of beard darkening his jaw... Betha would have swooned and fallen flat at his feet.

This was no parlor, and there was much more to this game than mere pleasantries. There was something big going on, but it was impossible to tell what part NaVarre played in it. It was also impossible to think of a decent lie on the spot, especially with that threat of Laffa going overboard hanging there like a noose. "The Adropedes."

"What was in the Adropedes?" NaVarre prodded.

"Why do you need to know?" I asked, more firmly this time.

He hesitated mid-sip, then lowered his glass and smiled. His smile was a little too broad, though – more shark, less recklessly handsome gentry. "Let's call it... mild curiosity."

I narrowed my eyes, studying him. There was nothing mild about NaVarre's curiosity, which begged the question, why did a notorious pirate need to know where my father was going? I wasn't going to say anything more. He was going to have to dig the answers out of me. Lying might not be my strong suit, but I could balk with the best of them.

NaVarre's brow furrowed as he watched the play of emotions apparently racing across my face. Then he opened his mouth, prepared to say something.

I never found out what.

The ceiling opened to the left of the door, and the First Mate shouted down at us, "Sir! The _Stryka_! She's gainin' on us!"

"What!" NaVarre whipped around to glare up through the hatchway that apparently connected his personal quarters to the aft deck.

"Arramy's gainin' on us, sir," the First Mate repeated as NaVarre burst into a string of colorful Illyrian expletives on his way up the access ladder.

Eavesdropping wasn't hard. They weren't being quiet, and I was sitting under the still-open hatchway.

"Glass!" NaVarre growled, and then a few seconds later he swore again. "How is this possible?"

"I don't know sir. I've ne'er seen anythin' like it. The _Ang's_ full sheets t'the wind, all engines givin' all she's got," the First Mate said, his voice strained. "We shoulda pulled well ahead o' that beast by now." NaVarre must have handed the spyglass back to the First Mate, because there was a pause. Then, "That mad bastard! He stripped 'er down ta nothin'. No armor on 'er at all! What's e' thinkin'?"

"Look at the guns."

There was another pause. Then the First Mate swore.

"Ring to battle stations," NaVarre ordered, and another man shouted, "Aye, sir!" just before a bell began clanging.

Instantly, the whole ship erupted into activity like an agitated beehive; men running on the deck, their words rapid and sharp as they rushed to obey orders; the heavy _thud_ of the _Angpixen's_ long top guns dropping and locking into their cradles; the softer metal-on-wood _bom-bom-bom_ of the forty pounders as the powder monkeys dropped them by threes into the shot racks.

"On my mark, bring her about two points to starboard!" NaVarre yelled, his voice coming from a distance. "Large shot, full charge!" he demanded, "And get that to'sail open!" Then he shouted, "Mark!" and the ship tilted to the right as the pilot brought her around to a new bearing.

Whoever this Captain Arramy was, NaVarre felt the need to turn tail and run fast.

A spark of hope dared to spring up in my chest. We might just get out of this after all.

And, thankfully, I was alone. No one was guarding me. The satchel was sitting there where Bloody NaVarre had left it, surrounded by my father's things, with the binder resting neatly on top of it.

I bit my lip, an idea taking shape.

An idea that was quite possibly insane.

An idea that might not even work... But, if it did, it might be worth it in the end.

Depending on what the end turned out to be.
11. Bait and Switch

15th of Uirra, Continued

For four hours, I sat in NaVarre's cabin, wondering what in all blue blazes was going on.

I didn't get any answers from NaVarre. There was a tense moment when he came thundering down the ladder and I scuttled over to the far end of the cabin, but he only snatched a sextant and a map off his desk and went climbing back up through the hatch.

The only other person who came in was the ship's cook. The first time, he brought in a big bowl of that _bisran,_ with steamed rice and a glass of coconut cream.

As soon as the door shut behind him, I snatched the bowl from the side table. I had never tasted anything that delicious in my life, and the spoon couldn't get it into my mouth fast enough. I just ate it standing up, shoveling it into my mouth with my fingers like some sort of mountain-bred heathen, barely chewing the first few bites. Then I slowed down and made myself actually taste it, picking out the nuanced flavors of roasted carrot and fig, the smoldering heat of arcara chilies, and the delicate, tangy pop of _pinsauri_ berries. It was blazing hot, but it was heaven.

A little while after my embarrassment with the _bisran_ , the cook brought in a tray of dainty little creamed-cheese pastries, and an urn of spicy Praidani. I stared at that tray for a good half hour. The individual edges of the pastries were crimped with a flourish design, as if they had been made by a highly ranked baker in Arritagne, and there was an insulated copper mug with a lid to keep the tea warm. Even the tray was beautiful, inlaid with mother of pearl flowers and what looked very much like actual rubies.

Only that morning, I had been half-starved and freezing cold, and now I was on a pirate ship, warm, dry, well fed, with a tray of absurdly pretty after-dinner pastries in front of me. I had to pinch myself to make sure it wasn't some weird dream.

The tray was real. The pastries were real. The Praidani was real.

Half an hour later I felt sick, partly because of all the pastries, but also because I was still in that cabin. My father's binder clearly meant something to NaVarre, but that didn't explain why he didn't just take the thing and send me down to the hold with the rest of the survivors. Something else was going on. It didn't help that my brain had already made a list of all the horrible things a pirate might do to a young woman trapped in his personal quarters. The longer I was stuck there, the jumpier I got.

I needn't have worried. NaVarre never came back. I heard him up on the aft deck, ordering his crew around, but for all those four hours he remained above decks. From the sound of things, he was too busy keeping the _Angpixen_ running as fast as she could ahead of the wind, because the _Stryka_ – miraculously, I gathered – was keeping pace behind her.

At first, I thought NaVarre was fleeing like a coward, but in fact he was forcing Arramy to chase him until the sun began going down. Then he ordered the _Angpixen_ about and brought her to a dead halt in the water.

It was a cunning move. Half an hour later, when the _Stryka's_ sails came into plain view, the _Angpixen_ was lying in wait, rendered nearly invisible to the approaching warship by the blaze of an open-ocean sunset.

NaVarre gave no courtesy warning. He simply shouted, "Fire!" and all thirty of the _Ang's_ portside long guns roared in quick succession, coughing out flashes of bright light and the stench of expended powder.

I inched forward, craning to see through the deck railing from my perch on the hatchway ladder, my stomach twisting as a hailstorm of heavy shot flew in awful, deadly arcs toward that far-off, oncoming ship. NaVarre shouted again, and the second gun crew instantly set off another volley before the first round had even struck home.

Sixty 40-pound rounds of hot lead and exploding shells peppered the _Stryka_ in a distant rumble. A moment later, those pristine sails and all hope of rescue disappeared beneath a roiling blanket of black smoke.

I smothered a sob in my hands.

It was over. Nothing could have survived that.

NaVarre brought the spyglass to his eye again, his face stony as he peered at a scene half a mile away. Below us, the gun crews began reloading the portside cannons with grape shot, moving calmly and efficiently as the rest of the men gathered amidships, every last one of them armed to the teeth, ready to fight.

Squinting in thought, NaVarre lowered the spyglass. Then he said something to his First Mate, who barked an order to come to port. The loftmen scrambled about in the rigging, taking in sail as the pilot brought the ship around, tacking windward under the power of the _Angpixen's_ engines.

No one noticed that I was there, lurking in the hatchway. The pilot was watching the sails and the sea, the First Mate was watching the men, and NaVarre had gone back to staring through his spyglass... so I eased up to the top rung of the ladder, craning to get a better look through the ship's rails. I held my breath, waiting for what felt like forever, my heart in my throat as the smoke drifted and thinned in the breeze, giving hints and glimpses of what lay beneath it. Then, all at once, the haze parted completely, and there it was.

I bit back a gasp.

The _Stryka'_ s main mast had been blown to kindling near the deck and lay entirely in the water, sails billowing sluggishly in the waves. The rigging was still intact, and the overboard weight was dragging the _Stryka_ severely to one side. She was still afloat, but floundering, her shrouds on fire, great chunks missing from her unarmored sides, her engines motionless.

When we were about three hundred yards off, the First Mate called in a rough whisper, "Ready t'board 'er! Keep it slylike!" and the men sprang into action, moving to the starboard rail as the _Angpixen_ made one last change in direction, coming alongside the _Stryka_ in a languid swoop.

There was an almost gentle bump as the grappling team brought the hulls together, and then the pirates were leaping over the railing and swinging across from the yardarms. Unlike their conquest of the lifeboats, there were no bone-chilling shrieks or blood-thirsty screams this time. There was only the 'swish' of rope and the faint slap of bare feet on wood as the men began searching the warship, their movements furtive and predatory.

"Something isn't right," NaVarre muttered. Then he handed the First Mate the spyglass. "It's too quiet. I'm going over."

The First Mate didn't seem particularly surprised but judging from the shake of his head and the set of his chin, he didn't approve, either. His brows lowered as NaVarre drew those long, curving swords from the scabbards slung across his back and went vaulting over the railing, following his men.

"Like a dratted cat, pokin' 'is nose in an' gettin' his self killed," the First Mate grumbled in Illyrian, watching NaVarre leave. Then he told the helmsman to "keep 'er steady," and went stumping down the stairs to the quarterdeck, still fretting, "Too dratted 'mportant ta be gaddin' about, but does 'e mind old Finch? Nooo..."

I held perfectly still, listening hard as Finch's voice faded.

It did seem odd. Everything really was eerily silent.

Whatever NaVarre's men were up to, they had stopped making any discernible noise. All I could hear were the sounds of the sea: water lapping against the stern, the breeze ruffling the sails above us. A little farther away, the slow, repetitive clanking of a loose tackle block striking something metal, and the groan of wood under stress... a muffled, meaty thud down on the main deck...

I frowned.

The helmsman had turned in the direction of the _Angpixen's_ foremast and opened his mouth as if to shout some sort of warning to the First Mate, but no cry came. Instead he pitched over backwards, a short-handled throwing knife jutting from his throat.

I stared at him, my involuntary scream coming up my sea-raw throat as a soundless little breath.

The silence was broken by Finch's hoarse shout from amidships, "NaVarre, get out of there! It's a tra—"

The First Mate's words ended abruptly, followed by a muffled curse in Altyran. Then a tall, rangy man came charging up the steps to the aft deck, where he grabbed the wheel, arresting the _Ang's_ rudder.

This man didn't appear to be a pirate. In fact, he looked more like a Coalition Naval officer who had taken off his jacket and hat and gone for a dip in the ocean: soaked white shirt; pants that would have been dark blue if they weren't dripping wet; shiny black boots. It was the cut of his hair that did it, though. His severe military close-crop was so out of place aboard the _Angpixen_ that I finally realized what was happening.

Arramy wasn't on the _Stryka_. He was on the _Ang_ , stealing it right out from under Bloody NaVarre's nose.

The Captain didn't pay me much attention other than to give me a startled double-take before looking at something aloft. A sailor was scurrying quickly up the rigging to the foreyard. He joined another sailor in letting out the large sails that NaVarre had ordered taken in. Then they had the fore mainsail free and were working their way up the fore mast.

NaVarre began screaming at his men, but it was already too late. Sails were unfurling on the _Ang's_ main mast too. Then the trysail went swinging magically to port, snagging the wind. The _Angpixen_ responded instantly, obedient as ever, leaping away from the _Stryka_ even as several of the pirates came clambering back over the rail to retake their ship.

There were a nerve-racking few seconds when the _Angpixen_ collided with the _Stryka'_ s side. She heeled hard to leeward, and the impact sent everyone stumbling while the _Ang's_ armored hull ripped a deep gouge through the warship's naked ribs. Then she pulled free, leaving the _Stryka's_ bulk __ rocking heavily in the water.

And then it was over. The surviving pirates still on the _Angpixen_ reluctantly surrendered. After a few more minutes even the vile language NaVarre and his men hurled after us had died away, replaced by the soft boom of the waves thrumming against the _Ang's_ prow and the snap of the wind in her sails.

The Captain gave the wheel a deft twirl and the _Angpixen_ stopped canting so hard to the left, settling gracefully into a north-western course.

I climbed slowly up the last few rungs of the ladder and stepped out into the rosy glow of a dying sunset, hardly daring to believe what had just happened.

Down on the main deck, the rest of the survivors had come up from below, apparently freed from the hold, and most of them were cheering and laughing.

Against all odds, we, who had survived the impossible not once, not twice, but three times, were going home.

I was going to see Aunt Sapphine again.

Without Father. 
12. Things Fall Apart

17th of Uirra

I found a way to disguise myself. I simply erased my own existence. It wasn't even very hard. All I had to do was become another traumatized woman in a group of traumatized women; more specifically, a woman whose name was _not_ Brenorra Warring.

The real Indaria Westerby, publicly known as Lady Pynnewoder, Duchess of Therne, would have died of apoplexy if she knew her given name had been stolen by a lowly Guildman's daughter. She would have then died of the plague, red fever, and scurvy in that order if she found out it was the same Guildman's daughter who stole all her underthings and threatened to mail them to the boys at Havenwood.

I had never experienced such overwhelming guilt in my life.

Not for using Pester-Westerby's name. She deserved it, but after going over and over the events of the past month, I had begun to think – no, to believe – that these women might not have lost everything if my father had not been aboard the _Galvania_. Whatever dark secrets those papers contained, if those secrets could be assumed to be real, then these women had lost a loved one for it. None of them had come aboard the _Galvania_ alone. Every last one of them was mourning someone, and there I was, hiding among them while a nasty, cold little voice kept insisting that if my father hadn't been on that ship – if _I_ hadn't been on that ship – none of this would have happened.

And still I said nothing. I hid and kept my mouth shut. Even my grief felt hollow. Shallow. It was too convenient. If I hesitated too long before answering a question, I could blame it on grief. And because I could blame it on grief, hopefully no one would realize that I told a huge, whopping great lie to a Captain of the Coalition Navy, and behind my blank stare I was scrambling to keep all my facts straight.

Now, a reasonable person might have asked, "Why would you lie to a Captain of the Coalition Navy?" And they would have a point. After all, he was supposed to protect and defend us all from the likes of Bloody NaVarre. I should have been able to trust him.

Well, this morning, during breakfast, all the civilians were informed that there would be a debriefing. We were to line up single file facing the doorway to the mess and take our turn answering questions. That didn't sound so bad. Neither did the first question the Captain asked: "Name?"

But then, see, he asked if we knew or had met an Arrix Warring.

If the butcher's wife hadn't mentioned to the next person in line how odd it was that the Captain wanted to know about a particular person, things might have gone very differently. I might not have lied, for instance. I might have thrown myself on the Captain's mercy and begged to be taken home, even if I had been on the _Galvania_ illegally. Up until that point, I believed I would be treated fairly if I confessed.

Except that as the butcher's wife walked away, Teg called after her, "Hey! Why's he asking about this fellow named Warring? What's he done?" and there it went, that familiar slither of apprehension curdling in my middle, that sickening up-tick in my heartbeat.

I couldn't give my own personal details. That would only connect me to my father. If I was connected to my father, I would be connected to those dratted papers, and if I was connected to those dratted papers, someone might try to make me tell where I put them. If I told anyone where I put them, they might give them to the wrong people... No. Lying might get me clapped in irons for stowing away, but I would have gladly taken that over being identified as Brenorra Warring.

After the dazzling performance I gave, I was fairly sure the Captain only thought I was daft.

When it was my turn, I sat down in the folding chair in front of his desk, fully aware that I was staring at him like a haddock in a barrel, while once again trying to come up with something, anything other than the truth. This time, though, I couldn't simply refuse to answer. This time I was giving information for a government record. If I wanted to avoid being imprisoned or questioned in depth immediately, I had to say _something_ , and make it believable _._

The Captain didn't look up from his papers at first. "Name?" He prodded when I only fidgeted with a fold of my skirt.

For some reason the only name that came to mind that wasn't 'Brenorra Warring' was "Indaria Westerby," and once her name came out of my mouth, everything began going sideways.

A hot blush stole over my face as I rattled off made-up details a digit or two different from my own, while mentally kicking myself for not remembering the false name my father had come up with. I couldn't though. Not for the life of me. All my brain would produce was Indaria, and then it was too late, and I was holding my breath while the Captain studied me for a beat too long.

His eyes were a most unnerving shade of pale, winter-sky grey, and he looked out of them with keen focus, as if he could read the fine print on a person's very soul. I had to resist the urge to squirm, sure that he could see straight through all my lies.

But then he wrote my brand-new name in his logbook and asked in a rich Northlander brogue, "Do you have family we can contact when we reach Lordstown?"

I licked my lips. "Yes. My... um, my aunt. Rosephyra Daguerre?" I winced inwardly, but it was already said, and all I could do was pray like mad that he had never read a Ladesky novella.

The Captain watched me for another too-long moment, and I gave him a thin smile. Then I nearly sagged out of the folding chair when he jotted that absurd answer in the space for "Next of Kin." It seemed the Captain was unaware that as of the last episode, the purely fictional Ms. Daguerre was languishing in the Troll King's prison somewhere in the very imaginary Ma-Pang jungle.

Captain Arramy sat back, then, his deep voice quiet as he asked, "Can you tell me what you remember of the _Galvania_?"

I went still. Even knowing ahead of time that this was part of the interview, I wasn't prepared for the weight of that question. It hit hard, and it only got worse. I took a breath and let it out slowly. Examined my hands. Tried to find some sort of solid ground as my stomach twisted, and memories of burning oil on ink-dark water dragged me in. I had to swallow hard before sound would come out of my mouth.

"Um," I managed, then cleared my throat and tried again. "It um... it happened so fast." I paused to swallow again, barely able to speak. "I was asleep. Then the ship was tilting, and the safety lights came on, and the steward was telling everyone to 'leave it and go, leave it and go.' So I did. I don't..." I stopped, silently trying to work out a way to avoid mentioning my father. "I don't know what happened to my... um... my traveling companion. We were separated."

"Was there smoke?" the Captain asked.

I frowned and shook my head. "No. Not at first. I don't remember seeing any until later, when the compression engine blew. Um..." I fell silent, gathering my thoughts. "There was a huge hole in the side of the ship. Like something had exploded outward through the hull."

The Captain took instant note of that. "Did you hear an explosion?"

I had already relived that a million times, so I was able to answer steadily enough. "I don't recall one, but it was well after midnight and like I said, I was sleeping. There must have been one, though. The whole ship tilted to port first, then started... ah... started s-sinking to starboard."

The Captain continued eyeing me. "Where was this hole, exactly?"

"Low on the forward starboard side. A good bit of it was below the water line. I don't know how big it really was, all I saw was the part that came up out of the water as the ship rolled." I swallowed hard, my voice gone thready.

The sound of pen scratching over paper continued as the Captain recorded my words in an efficient scrawl. "How do you know it was an outward explosion?" he asked abruptly.

I blinked. "Because all the edges were pointed... _outward_."

"You said there wasn't any smoke until later," he went on, squinting at his own handwriting. "When the compression engine blew."

"Yes. That's right," I whispered. My panic was rapidly giving way to exhaustion. I didn't want to keep thinking about that night. Or explosions. Or water, or fire.

"You're sure?" His brows drew together into a thoroughly intimidating frown as he stopped scribbling.

I lifted my chin, making myself meet that chilly gaze even though I wanted to shrink between the slats of the folding chair and hide in the floor. I almost preferred facing NaVarre with all his glittery, dangerous charm. Captain Arramy could make the Troll King run for cover with that stare. "Yes. I'm sure," I got out.

The Captain's eyes narrowed. "Do you remember ever meeting a man named Arrix Warring while you were on the _Galvania_?"

My pulse skipped a beat, and a swift jolt of pain shot through me. There it was, proof that I was in well over my depth. Like a traitor, I made myself shake my head and say, "I don't think so."

I couldn't keep the tears from gathering in my eyes. What had Father done? Should I even be protecting him?

The Captain simply looked at me. Then he ended the interview, waving to the next person in line, his tone brusque. "Thank you for your time, Miss Westerby. That will be all. Next."

I got up and shuffled out of the mess, making way for Mrs. Turragan as she came in.

~~~

So, I became Indaria Westerby today, completely unrelated to the name Warring, wholly distanced from the chaos swirling around my father.

Therein lay the conundrum.

In my haste to become unrelated to myself by throwing away my father and everything I loved, I had succeeded in making it impossible to ask Captain Arramy for my father's personal effects. To have any real claim on them, I would have had to manufacture a relationship to myself again, which was exactly what I was trying to steer clear of in the first place, since I had absolutely no idea who to trust now that the Captain was also suspect.

Teg's question buzzed at the back of my mind, now, too, stinging like a bee. _"What's he done?"_

To make the whole mess even more of a cat-in-a-birdcage, as soon as we returned to civilization, the price of my lies would only go up. How was I going to get home if I wasn't me? And what in blazes was I supposed to tell the Port Authority agents when they wanted to know why Brenorra Warring wasn't on the _Galvania_ passenger manifest, and I gave the Captain a name other than Lorelda Larkham? (I conveniently remembered that tidbit as soon as I walked out of the mess.)

That was going to land me in all sorts of trouble.

But that wasn't even the worst part. Even if I somehow figured out how to be my father's next of kin, getting his things back wouldn't do any good. The papers weren't in the satchel anymore.

No.

I hid the papers.

That was the crazy, idiotic idea I had when NaVarre left me alone in his cabin.

And try as I might, I couldn't think of any reasonable explanation for why I would hide a binder of some stranger's random collection of shipping documents in NaVarre's cabin. "It seemed a good idea at the time" just sounded ridiculous, even to me.

I resolved to look on the bright side: by happy accident, NaVarre didn't have the papers either.

It was sorely tempting to pretend the papers had been lost forever. If anyone found them, it was quite likely they wouldn't have any idea what they were. If not for the fact that someone was willing to kill people because of those papers, I would have simply let them disappear, and let whatever my father had done disappear with them. But I knew about the papers. So did NaVarre. Possibly Captain Arramy. That was at least two too many people. I didn't know how many others knew, either. All _I_ knew was that if I did nothing and more people got hurt... No. I had to get those papers back, even if all I did was destroy them.

Remarkably, the biggest hurdle in this heap of manure wasn't that I didn't have easy access to the papers. It was the fact that we were heading straight for Lordstown.

After all of that expert marksmanship, NaVarre hadn't actually sunk the _Stryka_. He sank a decoy: an about-to-be-retired warship stripped down to nothing to give it speed, then painted to look like the _Stryka._ Arramy and a small, handpicked group of marines weren't even on it when NaVarre blew it to pieces.

Apparently, NaVarre had pulled that hiding-in-the-sunset stunt already, and Arramy anticipated that he would do it again, which meant Arramy could guess exactly where NaVarre would have to be to do it. He and his marines put the faux- _Stryka_ on a course to intersect, tied down the rudder and set the sails, then dropped a low-cut skiff and let the warship tow them on a hundred-yard line. When NaVarre began firing, they started winching themselves in, using the bulk of the floundering _Stryka_ as cover. While NaVarre was busy boarding the fake _Stryka,_ leaving only a small complement behind to guard the _Angpixen,_ Arramy and his marines were making the short, but deadly-cold swim around to the far side of the _Ang_ , where they scaled the hull.

Meanwhile, the real, fully functional _Stryka_ was sitting just over the horizon, with Arramy's Commander at the helm. A few hours after Arramy stole the _Ang_ , the Commander __ swooped in to drag NaVarre and his men out of the water.

The _Stryka_ caught up with us a few hours ago, and the Captain might as well have handed his crew the moon. The reward for capturing NaVarre alive was apparently big enough that all of them would get a sizeable chunk of money. Capturing the _Angpixen_ meant they would be rich as kings once they finished their service to the Coalition. They merrily tethered up and began hauling their catch to the nearest Naval post.

All I could think was that a whole day had gone by, and I was no closer to getting Father's papers. Sailing for Lordstown meant I barely had three days left to pull off a retrieval mission before Arramy turned the entire _Ang_ over to the Navy, and I wound up in prison for traveling under falsified documents.

In the words of Aunt Sapphine, things had gone "bloody well sidelong."

~~~

"Cat-in-a-birdcage": A colloquial phrase that comes from a cautionary fable – a cat saw a bird in a birdcage and somehow got itself into the cage to eat the bird. The cat, being much too big for the cage, could not then get back out, and was still stuck inside the cage when his master returned. When used in reference to a person, this phrase suggests that said person has pursued what they want and gotten it, but in the process they have made a trap for themselves that they cannot get out of without help. Situationally, it refers to an inescapable and ridiculous problem you have created for yourself while seeking to accomplish something else.
13. Playing Games

20th of Uirra

The Captain announced a Revel this evening and gave the men a 'deck leave.' Scores of brightly painted lanterns were found in the _Angpixen's_ hold, and they were brought out and strung between the masts, bathing the deck in a lovely multi-colored glow. Someone broke out a tin pipe and a _sollenskreik_ , and there was music and dancing on the main deck. Even the refugees were given a sloshing-full pint of NaVarre's ale, and a few of them even joined in the dancing.

I stood back, drinking my pint slowly at the railing while pretending a passing interest in Orrul and Lorren as they stomped and clapped their way through a lively _passant._ I wasn't really paying any attention, though.

Teg came ambling over to ask if I would like to dance, but I shook my head. I was in a perfect position to observe the quarterdeck, and I didn't want to miss something.

Teg mumbled, "Maybe some other time, then," and I nodded, faintly glad when he gave a small bob and went in search of someone more interesting.

My stomach was in knots. I was hoping I could find a moment when no one was looking and slip up the stairs and across to the map room door... but the quarterdeck was far too busy, and I was beginning to realize this was going to take quite a lot more work than I thought.

Three days later

Two more days passed.

The next morning, I sketched in my journal on the main deck, while really keeping track of the routines of every man who went up the quarterdeck stairs. How long he was up there. When he came back. Who he replaced.

After an entire day of surreptitious note-taking and counting and timing of rotations, I came to the conclusion that the acting First Mate was able to be in two places at once, there were far too many Midshipmen to be useful, and Captain Arramy's chief delight was standing up on the aft deck at all hours, glaring down upon us like a silver-eyed gargoyle. Blast the man.

By the end of that second day, however, I had discovered a tiny window of opportunity when the Lieutenant on night watch went up to the aft deck to relieve the Midshipman on duty. He seemed to be a creature of habit, this Lieutenant. Just as he had the night before, he took the right-hand set of stairs, ducked left, and talked to the helmsman and the Midshipman for a few minutes. The Lieutenant was also an entertaining fellow, apparently, because the three of them started laughing, and the Midshipman lingered, which meant no one was on the stairs for about five seconds.

On both nights, the Captain was at dinner when that happened.

If it happened again, the quarterdeck would be empty at precisely fifteen clicks after the sixth bell.

I hoped.

There was nothing else for it. I had to get into the Captain's cabin, and tonight was the night. The moon was hiding behind a bank of clouds. The shadows were dark as pitch.

Mistress Floratina would have thrown a histrionic fit if she knew the most useful thing I learned at Kingsford Academy was how to pull off a night raid. All I had to do now was convince myself that it was a simple jaunt across the river to steal an Honors trophy from Amercy School for Young Ladies. That was all. Just a prank. What eagle-eyed Captain? Arramy who?

I was going to be fine.

Twenty clicks after the Sixth Bell

"Studying again, Arri?"

"Aye, sir!"

"Keep that up and you'll have my job."

Light laughter. "I'm not aiming for _your_ job, sir. Penweather's will do fine."

I jerked upright, eyes flying to the door. He couldn't have finished eating that quickly. I hadn't been in his cabin for more than a minute, but there was no mistaking the Captain's low voice, or those decisive footsteps. I was about to be caught red-handed.

Frantic, I stuffed the binder back into its hiding spot, whirled, and took two strides away from NaVarre's greatdesk. That was as far as I got before the latch lifted, the door swung open, and Captain Arramy came ducking under the low header of the frame.

It took barely half a second for him to see me. He couldn't exactly miss me. I was standing right there in the middle of the room, frozen mid-flight like a startled hare.

We stared at each other.

Then the Captain came all the way in, his expression weary and long-suffering as he propped the door open with his shoulder. He glanced into the map room to make sure Arri was still there for propriety's sake, then turned his attention on me again. "What are you doing, Miss Westerby?"

_Say something! Deflect! Deflect!_ I pasted a bright smile on my face. "Looking for you."

He raised one eyebrow.

"I want to... to _thank_ you. Personally. For saving our lives!" I was still smiling as I edged sideways around him, trying to angle myself so I could squeeze through the doorway – only to find the opening blocked by his arm.

My heart stopped.

The Captain's voice was a deep, dark rasp above my ear. "You're lying."

I dragged in a breath and looked up.

That pale-ice gaze met mine and held, cold and impassive as frozen stone, showing no hint of mercy.

It was too late. I could see him reading my face like a book, and he had already caught the unconscious flicker of guilt and the telltale twist of panic. Still, I tried to stick to my story. There wasn't anything else I could do. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, I doubt that, Miss _Westerby._ "

The way he said it, deliberately emphasizing that false last name, made me go dizzy. All at once the room seemed very small, the air too thin. He knew. The certainty sank into my bones, turning them to lead. He knew I was lying about my name. He really was part of this. I blinked, my vision blurring as I imagined being 'accidentally' shoved overboard with a ballast stone tied to my feet.

Then Captain Arramy bent to put his face a scant inch from mine, our noses nearly touching. "I don't know what sort of game you're playing, or why you were in NaVarre's cabin, and I don't really care. That's your business. The Travel Bureau can sort that out, and good riddance, but let me make this one thing perfectly clear. In future, you will stay out of my cabin. You will find no special favors here. Do you understand?"

Stunned, I gaped up at him, unable to look away. His words cut right through me, digging deep into a vulnerable place I wasn't aware I had, even though relief came rolling right along with it. It might have been insulting, but the only thing he was accusing me of was being a loose woman. He might have figured out that I wasn't Miss Westerby, but that didn't mean he knew I was Miss Warring.

I firmed my chin. "Thank you for your candor, sir." I turned to face the doorway with as much dignity as I could muster. "I assure you that was the farthest thing from my mind."

For a long, tense moment he kept his hand on the doorframe, barring my exit. I could feel that chilly glare burning into my scalp. Then he let me pass, calling loudly to Midshipman Arri, "Master Arriankaredes, escort Miss... _Westerby_... back to the women's quarters. Then come back and explain to me how in _blazes_ she got past you!"

~~~

_Sollensekreik_ : (soll.enz.krike), a round, stringed Lodesian instrument that is used primarily for percussion. The sound is harsh and rustic rather than melodic.
14. Cry, Birds

22nd of Uirra

The next two days passed without incident. At all. Of any sort. Not even a cloud showed up to mar the sky, and the wind was ridiculously kind. Nature did not deign to give me any extra time to figure out my mess.

We reached Lordstown shortly after noon, and the Captain came ducking down into the hold to inform us that we would be able to leave as soon as the Harbor Master had given his approval.

A few of the women began packing up their things, glad to be leaving cramped, crowded quarters for solid ground. They talked of eating meals that didn't involve salt-pork or hard biscuits.

Many were doing much the same as I, though, sitting idly on their cots, simply existing while the world spun by around them, with nothing to pack and no one to go home to.

They were lost in their grief.

I was lost in other things.

If I hadn't been on the _Galvania,_ all those people would still be alive. How could I keep on living, now, when so many others were dead? How was that fair? Some of the women were mourning children, but I was still there, breathing anyway. Living anyway. Surviving anyway.

I couldn't even get rid of those stupid papers.

What good was I to anybody?

There was no answer, only questions continuously coiling through my head.

An hour after we arrived, we were still waiting to leave. Whatever anticipation some of the girls still felt vanished when one of the Midshipmen finally came down to inform us that the Travel Bureau was closed for repairs, and we were to stay aboard until they could find accommodations for us.

There was a stir when one of the women heard Captain Arramy come back aboard. That wasn't as difficult as it might have seemed, even from below decks. He had a distinctively long, firm stride, as if he did not merely walk but rolled the world around beneath his feet, and the officer's cabins were located directly over the rear half of the women's quarters in the hold. We knew he was in the map room long before Midshipman Arriankaredes came down again, this time to tell us we would not be going ashore that day. We had been rerouted to the Travel Bureau Holding Center in Porte D'Exalle.

His news was met with frustrated groans.

I sat on my cot while the girls slowly began unpacking. I wasn't paying any attention. Instead, I was turning over Arri's announcement, puzzled. We really should have been removed to a civilian boat for transport. Even if the _Ang_ was to be commissioned into the Navy, the Navy wasn't tasked with civilian travel. Rescue, yes. Port to port, no.

Odd.

But, odd or not, it wasn't as if any of us could have done anything about it. Whatever the Lordstown Civil Port Authority was doing, we were all bits of collateral stuck under the wheels of bureaucracy. We had to go wherever they wanted us so they could process us back into the system.

23rd of Uirra

We left Lordstown on the evening tide and sailed southeast, veering around the point of the Endevan Peninsula. Another two days went by smoothly, and we made good time, coursing ahead of a brisk landward wind. By the third day we had already passed the halfway point, and the other girls had begun talking about what they would do when they finally got home.

It was almost peaceful. There was nothing to do, nowhere we had to be. There was plenty of food, even fresh fruit. We were allowed to stretch our legs on the deck during the day, slept in relative safety at night, drifting in a sort of silent limbo as we sat about waiting for life to start again. I didn't even bother trying to get the binder. I figured I might as well just enjoy the extra little bit of time before we reached civilization and all my lies caught up with me.

~~~

This morning began the same as all the others. Breakfast at dawn, then back down into the hold till the Marines were finished with their physical drills. I was lying on my cot, staring at the ceiling and drifting, listless and faded and empty, when the monotony was torn apart.

One of the lookouts shouted something, his voice strident.

The _Erristos_ , our Navy escort, had opened her gun ports.

That was followed by Mannemarra questioning why she would do such a thing, and the Captain's low, bass growl giving orders to a flagman to signal that the other Captain should stand down.

Then came a clear, strident, "Sir! She's preparing to fire!" and everything began moving much too quickly.

Midshipmen Pierce and Arriankaredes threw themselves down the stairs from the main deck, sliding on the handrails instead of using the risers. Surprised, we all watched as they began grabbing up every available scrap of loose bedding, piling it up along the wall between our little section of the hold and the galley, making a sort of fortification out of it.

A child's voice broke the confusion that gripped the rest of us. "Momma, what's that sound? Did a bird get hurt?"

The child's mother peered at her daughter. "What sound, luv? I don't hear... anything..."

Her voice trailed off as what could only be described as a 'hurt bird' reached us: a weird, unearthly wail that rose steadily in pitch and volume.

Pierse abruptly stopped what he was doing to look at Arriankaredes, his face slack with disbelief. "They're using incendiaries."

We all stared at each other. Then Mrs. Turragan shoved a little girl toward the blanket fortress. "Children and those with infants behind the beds!" she barked. "The rest of you get down as low as you can and keep your arms over your head!"

We obeyed without question, scrambling to find some sort of shelter as that 'hurt bird' wail grew so loud that it was all any of us could hear. At the last second, though, there was no impact. The round screamed over the deck __ and detonated with a muffled _whump_ somewhere in the water off to starboard.

In the stunned hush that followed, one of the girls asked, "Why are they firin' at us?"

"It must be a mistake," Arriankaredes blurted, his words meant to reassure while his strained, boyish voice only betrayed his fear.

"We don't know why the _Eristos_ fired on us," Pierse said grimly, folding up a cot. "But she did. Please, just stay here and keep calm until Captain Arramy has had a chance to —" he stopped speaking and looked up at the porthole.

"Not again," a young mother gasped as that awful wounded-bird wail cut through the air.

"Pierse! Arri! I need you in the rigging!" The Captain's rough shout sent both the Midshipmen scrambling to shove the last of the bedding onto the pile. Then they were gone, vaulting back up the ladder.

The next instant the whole ship careened heavily to port.

The _Eristos_ hadn't missed that time. The shells hit forward on the port side, rocking the _Ang_ into the waves, sending everyone in the hold cowering as the ship groaned and dust rained down on us from the planking over our heads.

All of the younger children started crying.

Laffa began cackling wildly.

One woman, who had allowed a girl with a small baby to take her place behind the blanket fort, started singing a lullaby to her little boy on the other side, her soprano reedy as she fought her own fear in order to calm his.

The Captain's voice sounded from the main hold, where the largest guns were housed. He was barking orders at someone named Raggan, who was out of sight beyond our makeshift privacy curtain, but I could see the Captain clearly from where I sat. He had removed the oiled-leather muzzle cover on one of NaVarre's legendary long guns and was prepping the inside of the barrel with an oiled cloth.

Whoever Raggan was, he was doing something with fire. A red-orange glow flickered to life in the main hold, backlighting the Captain's shoulders and gilding his silvery hair as he took hold of the hoist wheel and brought the cannon barrel upward. He raised the thing to a steep angle, then held it there with nothing more than his own strength so Raggan could kick the stop-chock into the hoist gears.

Raggan hurried down the length of the cannon to drop a cotton-wrapped bale of explosive down the open maw of the barrel. Then he grabbed a bundle of rags from a box on the wall while the Captain bent and hefted a forty-pound cannonball from a pile on the floor, shouldering it carefully into the cannon. Raggan immediately sent the rag wadding down the barrel after the ball, and the Captain rammed everything into place with a padded rod. Both men worked fluidly with each other, the efficiency of their actions betraying the fact that they had performed those steps many times.

Somewhere out on the water, the _Eristos_ fired off another round.

The woman next to me leaned closer to ask, almost as if she were discussing the weather, "Why is the whole world trying to kill us?"

My thoughts immediately flew to the Captain's cabin and the hidden papers. I wanted to be sick. I closed my eyes, ground my teeth, and pressed myself against a rolled-up blanket as that 'wounded bird' wail grew to a piercing shriek.

"Brace! Brace! Br —"

The Captain's shout was drowned out by the percussion of another exploding round, so loud and close it reverberated through my bones.

This one struck squarely amidships. The armored plating held, but a gun port cover came flying inward, turning end over end in a rapid blur before embedding in the opposite wall with a _thunk_.

I blinked slowly. The woman next to me was screaming, her hands clamped over her ears, her eyes screwed tight shut.

Arramy swore, but went right on working, releasing the hoist stop and dropping the loaded cannon back into its recoil frame. He locked it in while Raggan primed the smolder. Then they each grabbed a guide rope and yanked the monster up its sliding rail, shoving the muzzle through the gun port, using it to ram the cover open from the inside.

"Hold her steady!" the captain shouted up the stairs, then bent over the back end of the cannon to sight down the barrel.

Raggan got out of the way as the Captain worked the aiming winch, bringing the nose of the gun up a degree, then another, his jaw ticking as he stared through the gun port, waiting for something I couldn't see. Then he stepped neatly aside and slammed the firing lever forward, connecting the smolder with the quick fuse in the canon.

A deafening boom echoed through the ship and the gun plowed backward, hitting the heavy wooden piling at the end of its rails with a _thud_ that shook the floor. A cloud of acrid smoke came drifting in through the open gun port, and the burnt-metal reek of spent powder coated the back of my tongue.

Neither of the men paused to find out whether they had hit anything. They were already unlocking the cannon housing and raising the still-smoking barrel, rapidly preparing the cannon for its next round.

"Good strike, sir!" Arriankaredes called down the stairs.

"Bring her two degrees to port!" Captain Arramy bellowed back without looking away from the glowing ball of heated slug iron he was tonging out of the fire barrel Raggan had set up.

"Aye sir!" Arri scrambled away from the stairs to relay that order to the man at the helm.

A moment later the _Ang_ began swinging to the left, just as that awful, tell-tale wail announced a new volley from the other ship.

Again, the Captain and Raggan rammed the shot home, stacked and locked the cannon, yanked it back up the rails to the gun port, and took aim, even as the scream of the incoming shells rose to an unbearable pitch.

Everyone cowered again, bracing for an impact, those last few seconds measured in vicious heartbeats.
15. Keep Fighting

23rd of Uirra, Continued

It was impossible to tell which happened first, the Captain firing off another shot, or the incoming rounds striking the main deck.

For one terrible split-second the very air seemed to be expanding, sucking itself out of my lungs. Then everything fell back to earth in thick, dead silence.

I opened my eyes, my vision blurring as I brought my head up. Things had gone slow and quiet, movements appearing in languid bits and pieces. Everything was muted except for a high, thin ringing in my ears.

There was a brand-new hole in the ceiling at the far end of the women's quarters, and a shaft of afternoon sunlight poured through it, piercing the pall of smoke and dust. The makeshift privacy curtains were gone, and the rope that had been holding it up trailed from the walls like a smoldering streamer. Bits of burning canvas drifted gently down from above like fiery snow.

It was almost pretty.

Dazed, I blinked, then looked at the girl next to me. She was sobbing, her mouth moving, forming the same words over and over.

All I heard was that single-note whine.

My heart began beating again, one throb, then another, pounding too hard. I blinked again. Tried to breathe only to find I had forgotten how. Tried again, and again, until I finally pulled in a sip of air.

Reality began catching up with time, sounds realigning with events.

The girl next to me was saying, "This'll all be over soon, it's just a bad dream, this'll all be over soon, it's just a bad dream." Her voice sounded faraway and indistinct, as if it were working its way through a thick layer of wool.

I touched my ears, then shook my head, trying to rid myself of that weird, tinny hiss that overrode everything else. It didn't go away, although as I flexed my jaw, I could hear a woman crying.

The girl next to me was fine. She was terrified, but she wasn't the one screaming. That was coming from somewhere off to my right.

I was able to move. I didn't think beyond that fact. I stood up and willed my feet to carry me in the direction the screams seemed to be coming from. My limbs were clumsy, my movements sluggish and disjointed, as if I were sleepwalking. I stumbled and wavered as I picked my way between shattered lengths of decking that littered the floor like kindling.

Several of the heavy ceiling beams had been ripped out of their support brackets, bringing down a pile of decking planks. A girl was crouching beside it, horror contorting her mouth, keening sobs tearing out of her.

A bare foot protruded from under a beam, a scrap of pink lace peeking out around the ankle. Only one person had a nightgown like that.

Bile soured in my throat, but I took hold of a plank near the top of the pile and lifted it off. Then another, and another, until I uncovered her face. When I did, I stopped working. There wasn't much point continuing. It was already too late. Mrs. Turragan stared past me, her gaze locked forever on the brilliant blue sky beyond the hole in the ceiling, blood pooling around her mangled head.

The girl next to me leaned forward a little. "Is she gone?"

Her voice was distorted, but I could tell what her lips had said. I nodded, expecting the girl to start screaming again. She didn't. She sat there, still as a stone. Then she pushed herself to her feet, shuffling after me when I rose and turned to see if anyone else needed help.

The Captain was a few yards away, down on one knee next to a woman named Pellina. He had wrapped a length of cord around her right elbow and was yanking it tight enough to make her whimper. He tied it firmly, slowing the blood flowing from a ragged gash down the length of her forearm.

Dr. Turragan was there, too, bending over a young girl with a splinter spearing all the way through her shoulder.

He didn't know about his wife yet. I was standing there, unable to find the words to tell him, when the Captain saw me standing upright, and his eyes found mine. He said something, giving me an order, but his voice was only a deep, distant, raspy buzz. I had to focus on his mouth, watching his lips as they formed the words, "take this one," and "the galley." The rest was lost in a sudden lurch of the ship as another round hit the stern.

The Captain ducked like the rest of us, but recovered more quickly, pushing himself to his feet while everyone else was still grabbing at the wall or the floor. He made for the stairs to the main deck but paused briefly in front of me, bending to bring his face level with mine. Speaking slowly, he shouted, "Take the wounded to the galley," and aimed a hand at the hallway. "Understand?"

I was shaking so hard I could barely nod, but the Captain didn't wait for more before he continued past me, running up the steps two-at-a-time to the main deck.

Pellina was closer than anyone else. I started with her.
16. After

23rd of Uirra, Continued

I had no idea how many times we were hit, or where, and I only found out how bad it was afterwards. As long as the _Ang_ kept floating, and the Captain kept fighting, and I could still move, I kept working.

It wasn't a matter of being brave. I was simply determined to _do_ something. To fix something. To be perfectly honest, at the bottom of everything I did was the thought that maybe, if I saved someone who would have died without me, I would deserve to live. I would make my own survival worthwhile. It was self-serving desperation that drove me.

Dr. Turragan was the real hero. His courage was genuine, and selfless. He discovered his wife a few minutes after I did. I was helping one of the other women roll the mother of the little boy onto a stretcher so we could carry her to the galley, when the doctor stumbled over that pile of fallen decking.

He noticed the lacey nightgown and that bare foot, and went down on his knees, pulling more of the wood off of his wife, the life draining from his eyes as he realized there was nothing he could do. He bent and rested his forehead on hers, framed her face in his hands, tenderly smoothing her hair back. Another exploding round hit then, rocking the _Ang_ and bringing new screams from somewhere above us. Dr. Turragan lingered a moment more, then he pushed himself to his feet and went in search of those he could still save.

We held on for what felt like an eternity, dragging ourselves up after every hit, clawing and fighting our way forward again, driven by a madman who refused to let us stop even when survival seemed impossible. We would have died if Arramy hadn't taken the _Ang_ to Porte D'Exalle himself _._ That man refused to go down easy.

As soon as that first high velocity round came screaming toward us, the Captain stopped playing by the rules.

For every shot that found its mark on the _Ang's_ hull, the Captain evaded five, while every shot he returned did an astounding amount of damage. That first round he sent back would probably have been deemed illegal by a peacetime court. It hit the _Erristos'_ quarter deck dead center, tore through half the _Erristos'_ command and nearly wrecked the helm. Every shot after that took something else. One of their two state-of-the-art long-rail incendiary guns was reduced to kindling by another heavy round. The heated shot set fire to their mainsails, and sent their crew scrambling to keep the ship's magazine from blowing up beneath them.

Still, Arramy was fighting a losing battle.

We left Lordstown with only enough crew to keep the _Ang_ moving. He didn't have enough men to handle more than a few guns at a time while successfully keeping out of range of the _Erristos_ , which gave the _Erristos_ an advantage. Although she wasn't as well armored as the _Ang_ , she was one of the Coalition Navy's newest fastships, sleek and maneuverable. She was also well-stocked with those horrible incendiary rounds, and manned by a full, battle-ready crew.

Her Captain started off by sneaking up between the _Angpixen_ and the shore. There was a cold wind whipping out to sea from the peninsula, and she took it, turning to attack us from our port side, obviously intending to drive us farther out where no one would find the wreckage.

Brilliant, really, if Arramy had done what any normal ship's captain would have and fled leeward ahead of her.

But Arramy was not a normal ship's captain. In what felt very much like a fiery game of tag-the-mouse, he turned downwind just long enough to make the _Erristos_ alter course to come after us. Then he kept turning, bringing the _Ang_ across the wind and around to face Lordstown. The _Erristos_ had to scramble into a tight turn of her own to keep herself parallel with us or lose the upwind attack position.

I was in the galley at that point, holding one of the children – a little boy who clung to me, large-eyed and silent as a fawn, his face marred by streaks and splatters of scarlet – while Dr. Turragan stitched together a ragged gash in the boy's leg.

Dr. Turragan jerked, startled, when Pierse came zipping down the access ladder from the quarterdeck right next to us, little more than a blur sliding down the handrails before he disappeared, dropping through the hole in the galley floor as swiftly as he had arrived.

The doctor grunted and went back to suturing, only to jump again when Pierse shouted up through the ladder hatch, "I can't get the auger to feed any faster, Sir! And everything's written in Illyrian!"

Turragan frowned but kept working when Arramy slid down the ladder the same way the Midshipman had, hands and feet on the rails instead of using the treads. There was a significantly louder thud when he hit the bottom.

The only sounds we could hear were a few metallic clangs below us, and the sporadic 'crack-crack-crack' from the Marines' long-rifles above us. Then the _Ang's_ engines kicked into high gear, and a tremor of suppressed power wracked the ship as the drive rod was manually disengaged.

"Keep her running hot! Don't release that drive until I tell you to," the Captain shouted over the rumble of gears and pistons.

"Aye, Sir!" Pierse shouted back as Arramy hauled himself rapidly back up the ladder, through the hold, and out onto the quarterdeck again. There was a short spate of sniper fire from the _Erristos,_ rounds pinging off the steel of the outer hatch cover, then peppering in a swift staccato across the wood of the decking as he made a run for the aft deck stairs.

Everything went quiet.

I glanced at the doctor, my heart in my throat. He met my eyes, his own unblinking.

We both let out a breath of relief at the Captain's hoarse, "On my mark!"

The engines reached full capacity and began to whine as the pressure in the compressors reached near critical.

"Hard to starboard! Hard to starboard!" Arramy yelled, and the ship tilted steeply to the right, banking so sharply that everything in the hold went skittering across the floor.

I grabbed at the little boy with one hand and the wall beside me with the other, holding us both still as Dr. Turragan leaned against the tilt and finished tying off the last suture.

There was no chance to regain our balance. As soon as the ship began settling into its new course, the Captain yelled, "Pierse! Now!"

The compressor's drive train chunked into place, and the _Ang_ surged forward, driven not by wind but coal and pressurized steam.

Above us, one of the men crowed in victory, "She's still got 'er mainsails up! She's gonna baffle!"

That was followed by several shouts and jeers, and Raggan's stern, "Fight's nay over yet, quit celebratin' an' git that line in, Reiskelder!"

After that last change of direction, the Captain of the _Erristos_ had apparently assumed that Arramy was going to race back to Lordstown. Instead, he veered in front of her, heading directly for the shore. With her sails still out, the Erristos had to continue straight to keep from losing the wind before she could bring her sheets in and switch to her engines. That momentary reprieve gave us a precious lead.

It seemed that Arramy was sacrificing time and speed for the hope that we would wash up on the rocks below Stormaire when we inevitably sank. That may have been part of it, but it wasn't the whole reason. As we pulled away from the _Erristos_ , the Captain sent Arriankaredes up to the crow's nest with a flare gun.

I watched through the hole in the deck as the Midshipman scaled the main mast, his slight figure silhouetted against washed-out grey clouds.

When he was barely halfway up, the _Erristos'_ sharpshooters noticed, and began trying to pick him off. He managed to keep going, swinging his way upward through the rigging, dangling a hundred feet in the air. Then he was lost to view above the topsail yardarm.

The Captain was down in the main hold again, priming one of the long guns, and he kept glancing up into the shrouds then over at the nearest timekeep, his frown deepening with every passing second that Arriankaredes was out of sight.

At last there was a distant 'pop,' and a bright little ember shot into the late afternoon sky, bursting into a brilliant ball of orange flame that hung over the ship like our own tiny sun.

Raggan whooped out a laugh. The Captain actually cracked a smile, teeth flashing white against the grime of his soot-covered face. Then they went right back to loading heated shot into the long gun, preparing to rake the _Erristos_ as she came parallel with us again.

The fight wasn't over, but that flare saved our lives.

The Commander and the _Stryka_ had left Lordstown at roughly the same time as the _Angpixen_ , but instead of sailing southeast to clear the point of the peninsula, they went due east across the bay to the Island of Wychending to deliver the pirates to Wychend Prison, where they would await trial. They had made the drop and were on their way south along the coast to meet the Captain in Porte D'Exalle when Arriankaredes reached the crow's nest and sent up the flare.

By heading for the coast, Arramy hadn't merely been trying to get closer to land, he was gambling that the flare would clear the _Stryka's_ horizon, and the Commander would see and answer it.

Against all odds it worked.

At the end of the day, we had lost twenty-two of our thirty experienced sailors. Each loss tore a gap in our maneuverability, making it more and more difficult to dodge incoming rounds, no matter how hard the Captain fought. The _Erristos_ was slowly carving the _Angpixen_ to kindling when the _Stryka_ swung west and began closing the distance between us.

When they arrived, there was no hesitation. The Commander closed in on the _Erristos_ , all guns blazing, drawing her away.

At last the _Angpixen_ was able to limp from the battle _._
17. Showdown

23rd of Uirra, Continued

The stillness after the shelling stopped was a tangible thing: silence so deep it became sound, relief so rich it felt heavy.

The thunder of cannon fire still rumbled in the distance, but there were no rounds screaming through the air or ripping through the deck above our heads. For several blessed minutes there was only the gentle sway of the ship in the waves, and the acrid stink of blood, smoke and hot metal.

Then those who had survived began picking through the splinters to find those who hadn't, and a different wailing began.

I helped a woman named Lorren carry her younger sister to the galley, where Doctor Turragan and the Navy surgeon were doing their best to put the wounded back together.

The Captain was there, leaning wearily against the side of the access ladder, watching Turragan work on a young sailor's shattered leg, but when I came in, he looked up without lifting his head, eyes glittering silver, stark against the thick layer of grime on his face.

At the time I wasn't paying much attention to anything other than putting one foot in front of the other. It didn't occur to me that he was looking at _me_ , though, so I helped Lorren lower Vinna to the floor, settling her into the last free space left along the wall. Then I stood, swiped the back of my hand across a trickle of liquid crawling down my temple, and turned to go back into the main hold where several other people were still waiting to be carried in.

It took far too long for me to hear the Captain saying my fake name. Once. Twice. Finally, he bellowed, "Miss Westerby!" and at last his voice filtered through that awful, buzzing fog. My feet came to a stop on their own, my heart skipping in my chest as I found myself the subject of a particularly icy glare.

Then he pushed away from the ladder and started toward me.

I ran. Idiotic, I know. Where was I going to go? Overboard? There wasn't an ounce of thought involved. I simply didn't want to find out what he might do if he caught me. With that one, clear aim in mind, I darted down the narrow hallway and across the main hold, then up the set of ornate stairs that once joined the loading bay to the main deck.

The treads and the banister had been blown to pieces, but I succeeded in scrambling up the risers that were still there. For about half a second, when I wheeled around at the top of those splintered, rickety steps and saw that Captain Arramy wasn't climbing up after me, I actually thought he wasn't chasing me after all. I even gave a silent whistle of relief.

Then I had to cringe at my own imagination. What was I doing? As if the Captain would go through that much bother when there were so many bigger things going on.

Unfortunately, now that I was really looking at them, the broken steps were much less appealing as a way back down.

There was too much to do, and if I stopped moving, I would start thinking.

Thinking was dangerous. Thinking would lead to realizing how much of this was my fault.

There was another access ladder in the forward hold, so I headed that way.

Incidentally, I was mostly right. Captain Arramy didn't chase people. He just waited patiently for them to feel safe, or at least to think he might have lost interest. Then he popped out at them from a hatchway like a great boogeyman of a jack-in-the-box.

That was my first thought when he came climbing out of the forward hatch in front of me: _Boogeyman_. Then _Big_ , and then _Angry_.

I promptly about-faced and started for the stern.

"You!"

I kept going.

"Stop," the Captain's raspy snarl was entirely too close behind me. Then his hands descended on my shoulders, bringing me to a halt. I let out a squeak as he spun me around to face that deadly gaze of his.

"I said _stop_."

"I haven't done anything, I swear," I choked, my stomach hollowing out.

He stared down at me, his eyes searching mine. Finally, he asked the one question I had been dreading for days. "Who are you?"

"Indaria," I started, but he cut me off.

"Do _not_ lie to me!" His grip tightened on my shoulders and I almost thought he was going to shake me. Instead he ground his teeth together, a muscle ticking in his cheek. Then he asked with exaggerated precision, "What do you know?"

"I don't understand —"

"No," he growled. Then he changed tack. He let go of my shoulders, indicating the blood-soaked deck with a broad sweep of his hands. "There's no reason for this. I know Captain Gofree. She's up for retirement in a month. She would never risk twenty years of honorable service, not to mention her pension and her medals, to blow a ship full of women and children out of the water. So why in all the blue hells did she? I've been asking myself that question all day, and I can't think of a single _damned_ answer that makes sense."

He took a harsh breath, raking both hands back through his bloodied hair, making it stand on end before facing me again. "The only thing I can come up with is that she had a direct order from High Command. Which would mean High Command has issued a no-prisoner black-note on me, my crew, and this ship. They want someone or something on this ship gone." He paused, his jaw working. When he continued, his voice was hoarse. "Twenty of my men are dead. More may still die. There is a four-year-old down there grieving for his mother. I don't care what you've done, who you are, or who you're hiding from. If you know something – anything – you need to tell me."

I didn't look at the ship. I looked at him.

I didn't know who to trust, but I wanted to believe the doubt and fury I heard in his voice. More than anything, I wanted him to be the man he appeared to be, the man who had just fought tooth and nail to save the people who were in danger because of what I had done.

In the end, it was simply easier to give in. I was so very tired of fighting, of trying to make the right decision with no way of knowing what the outcome might cost. I had hidden that binder. Maybe if I had handed it over to begin with, no one else would have gotten hurt.

My resistance was crumbling away. I lowered my head, praying that I wasn't about to make an awful mistake.

"My name is Brenorra Warring," I whispered. It was like a dam breaking. Words began slipping out faster, and there was no getting them back. "My father is Arrix Warring." Arramy exhaled sharply, but I kept going, talking to the boards beneath my feet instead of hazarding a glance at that stern face again. "I didn't say anything earlier because..." I hesitated, not sure how to make myself sound less paranoid. I couldn't. I took another breath and made myself say it out loud: "Because I think someone assassinated my father. Or... tried."

Silence.

I could feel his gaze boring into my skin.

"Why?" he finally grated out when I didn't look up.

"I don't know." Then I had to wince. That wasn't entirely true.

Arramy had gone perfectly still while I spoke. He remained that way for several seconds after I stopped. Then, without warning, he took hold of my arm, jerked me about, and began pulling me beside him as he skirted the gaping hole in the main deck and took the steps to the quarterdeck two-at a time. I stumbled, unable to keep pace with his long-legged stride, only to be yanked upright and towed along again.

The door to the map room was hanging off one hinge, blown inward by an explosion, and he kicked it out of the way, hauling me roughly around the map table and into that all-too-familiar cabin. Unlike NaVarre, Arramy didn't sit me down in an armchair, or act like we were having afternoon tea. He kept hold of my arm as he went straight to NaVarre's desk, shoved NaVarre's desk chair aside, opened one of the deep side drawers, and pulled out my father's satchel.

"Is this what you were looking for that night?" he asked, holding it up.

I gave him a pointed glare and deliberately removed my elbow from his grip. "Sort of," I said, rubbing my arm.

The Captain lifted a brow. "Either it was, or it wasn't."

"It belonged to my father."

His unimpressed expression said he had already put that together. "And you think your father had something worth killing him for in this bag." The muscles in his jaw flickered. Then, once again, my father's satchel was upended over NaVarre's desk. This time, though, there was nothing orderly about it. Arramy dumped my father's things all over the blotter without watching what he was doing, obviously already aware of the contents.

His eyes glittered dangerously as he turned on me again. "You mean to tell me that fifty-seven people died today because someone wanted your father's pen box? Or was it his pipe tobacco? Is there something in the tea I missed?" His voice rose, and he shook the bag violently, then threw it onto the mess he had made. "What aren't you telling me?"
18. Trading Secrets

23rd of Uirra, Continued

I couldn't breathe. I stared up at him. The truth was on my tongue, but that last, stubborn shred of doubt still clung tight, and I wavered. I had already given away too much. If I said nothing about the papers, no one would know where they were even if they sat on them. What if that was the right thing to do? Almost unconsciously I started shaking my head.

Captain Arramy didn't erupt as I expected. He simply reached out and caught my chin in his sea-rough fingers to keep me from moving, then bent to look me in the eye. "Whoever is doing this, whatever this secret is, they _want_ to keep it a secret. They _want_ it to disappear," he whispered fiercely. "So, if this thing, this secret never sees the light of day... they win. The only way they _won't_ win is if _you_ don't let them hide it."

He was making entirely too much sense. Whoever was after Father hadn't stopped after the _Galvania_ went down. An awful thought occurred to me. What if they weren't just trying to get rid of the satchel, or me? What if they were trying to get rid of anyone who might have seen it? Or my father? That would include everyone who had been aboard the _Galvania_ , and now the _Ang._ Hiding that binder wasn't good enough. Destroying it wouldn't make any difference either if they were just going to kill us all no matter what.

Arramy let go of me.

I sagged where I stood, defeated and numb. Then I turned and walked around him to NaVarre's desk chair.

It was a simple matter of lifting the tufted velvet seat cushion up off its frame, and there it was.

I had never hated an inanimate object in my life. It was so very normal, exactly like the hundreds of other business binders we used in the office, but the sight of this one sent ice churning through my middle. This one had ruined lives. It took several mental tries to make myself lean down and lift the binder out of the indentation in the seat. Forcing my hands not to fling the cursed thing across the room, I pushed a few of my father's things out of the way on the desk and placed the binder on the blotter.

Arramy observed all of this from beneath lowered brows, his arms crossed over his chest.

"This was hidden in my father's bag. In a secret pocket." I steeled myself and flipped the cover open. "We were on the _Galvania_ because we were going to the Colonies for a fresh start. That's what I thought. That's what Father said... There was a fire in our shipping office. It spread to our warehouse and the docks. Half the tenement district went up, and our townhouse... We lost everything, so when I first found this, I assumed my father had just salvaged these from the fire and kept them."

I ran my fingers over the tissue-thin pink-press safety slips, then down one of the thick card paper stubs of a merchant's copy docking receipt. "After the wreck, I took a better look. There isn't any way to connect it. At least, not that I've found. But it can't be as random as it seems. Father must have had all of this collected _before_ the fire, because these," I pulled one of our shipping manifests a little to the side, "were kept in a cabinet that was destroyed. And these," I tapped a finger on the stiff blue paper of a tariff payment stub, "are several months apart. Why only these few out of all the hundreds in that rollafile?"

I shook my head. "After everything that has happened, first the fire, then the _Galvania_ , now this, I can't help but think that there's something hidden in here. I just can't see what it is."

The cabin was so quiet, the rumbling percussions of the _Stryka's_ long guns were clear, echoing over the water, a grim reminder that the fight was still going on outside.

Arramy closed his eyes and lifted a hand, rubbing his right temple with his thumb. Then he ground his teeth again, opened his eyes, and moved to bend over the desk, examining the bundles of paper with all the appreciation one might show a dead puffadder. His frown deepened as he removed one bundle, then another, perplexed. His eyes widened when he got to the third shipping manifest.

"What in the blue..." he muttered, pulling the sheet out of its little packet to read the date at the bottom. Then he put the paper on the desk between us, eyeing me intently. "What do you know about this ship?"

I glanced at the 'Departing On' line. "The _Persephyrre_. We lost it..." I almost had to sit down as I completed that thought aloud: "... to pirates."

He squinted at me. "That's what they told you? That it was lost?"

I nodded slowly. "It was a government contract. We filed a loss-claim on it with the Collections Bureau. I did all the paperwork myself."

Arramy began shaking his head as I spoke, then added a piece of the puzzle I never even knew existed. "It wasn't lost. I retook it. Admiral Shoult had it impounded because I found a cache of weapons hidden in the cargo."

My brain skipped a cog. " _Weapons_?" I mouthed, frowning, the full implications starting to unroll before me. "So... my father was an _arms dealer_? For Bloody NaVarre? _That's_ why they blew up the _Galvania_?... What if _NaVarre_ blew up the _Galvania..._ " Suddenly ill, I grabbed at the back of NaVarre's chair.

The Captain ignored me, still focused on the manifest. "High Command should have opened an inquest. They didn't. Why?" He began pacing slowly toward the large bay windows. Then he wheeled and came back. "Did your father meet anyone in Porte De Darre?"

His quick change in topic sent my already busy thoughts scattering into fuzz, and I blinked. "No. I don't think so."

"Are you absolutely sure?"

"He couldn't have. We left as soon as we arrived," I stammered.

"You were with him the entire time?"

"Yes," I said, then actually thought about it and closed my eyes. "No. I went to the Post." My eyes flew open. "But he couldn't have met someone. Not unless he met them in the Ticket Office. I was only gone for a few minutes."

Arramy swore under his breath, a fierce scowl drawing his brows together. He took a few steps toward the window, then turned to face me, still frowning. "Why did NaVarre have you in his cabin?"

My heart skipped a beat, my face instantly heating. "Whatever that might have looked like, I wasn't —"

"Answer the question."

"He wanted the binder," I said, remembering the look on NaVarre's face when he found the thing. "He knew what it was. Or at least he wasn't surprised by it."

Arramy leaned over and put his hands flat on the desk, his eyes narrowing in thought. Then he straightened abruptly and walked over to the liquor cabinet.

I almost let loose a slightly crazed, incredulous cackle when he found a shot glass and poured a finger of NaVarre's best rum into it. It was like watching that first conversation with NaVarre unfolding in reverse. I sobered. It really was a case of the opposites. Last time I had hidden the binder and kept my mouth shut. Now, I had spilled everything right out in the open. There wasn't going to be any way back from this.

A fresh lump of apprehension settled into my stomach.

The Captain stared through the bay window, pensively surveying the sea, then tossed back the last of his drink. He set the shot glass down on the marble top of the liquor cabinet with a hard _thunk._

"I need to talk to NaVarre," he announced. Then he stalked out of the cabin.

I stood where he had left me, gazing dumbly at the empty space he had just occupied. Then I wrinkled my nose. "You _are_ joking, aren't you?" I called, turning to face the empty map room. " _Aren't_ you?"

My only answer was the sound of his footsteps out on the quarterdeck.
19. Soup Tureens and Ice Water

24th of Uirra

Unspeaking, Laffa regarded me with her black-bead eyes as I stumped from one end of the forward hold to the other.

I was going to go mad. I was expected to sit about twiddling my thumbs while surrounded by people who were missing whole limbs. I hardly had a scratch. Even the ringing in my ears was gone. It was unfair how unharmed I was, really, but that only made sitting down worse. There was too much guilt involved.

Earlier, it wasn't so bad. I threw myself into clearing away the rubble, sweeping the floors, scrubbing blood stains, changing bandages, and organizing a makeshift new ceiling out of oilcloth for the hold so the winter air didn't add death-by-exposure to our list of casualties. But the _Stryka_ succeeded in crippling the _Erristos_ as the sun went down and came alongside the _Angpixen_ shortly before nightfall, and after that there were more than enough able-bodied sailors to do everything.

I was told to 'rest.'

'Rest' in this case should have been translated: 'try not to think about how awful everything is, and how you could have prevented it all.'

I didn't want to 'rest,' thank you, so I paced about the hold, worrying my lower lip. There _had_ to be something a non-essential civilian of sound body could do on a ship to keep busy.

At that instant, Cook began swearing at the dishes because he was missing two more fingers than he had been yesterday. I stopped pacing. Perhaps if I asked nicely, he would allow me to help.

~~~

I balanced the tray on my hip, careful of the blue and gold enameled soup tureen, and tugged the collar of my father's coat closer about my face with my free hand. Then I ducked through the gap in the oilcloth that had been strung up in place of the door to the galley.

Cook's rough Tetton lilt followed me up the newly rebuilt stairs to the main deck, "Would'a please ask 'is 'ighness if I'm s'posed ta feed 'em wot're come over, or if Cready's already fed 'em all. An' tell 'im if they needs a feed, I needs more s'plies from the _Stryka_. Got it?"

"I got it," I called back, now knowing better than to ask him to repeat himself.

I rolled my eyes at his instant, "'Ya got it' wot?"

"I got it _sir_!" I shouted smartly over my shoulder, daring to add, "You cantankerous old coot," under my breath.

I hefted the tray a little higher and made my way to the main deck. I peered around as I went up the stairs to the quarterdeck, half expecting one of the midshipmen to order me back down to the hold. No one did. Pierse was somewhere forward, standing night watch, and Arriankaredes and Mackney were both among the wounded. The quarterdeck was deserted. The only sign of life was the lantern light pouring through the empty frame that once held the map room door.

My feet faltered at the top of the steps. The Cook's orders had been clear. Or clear enough to get the gist, anyway. I was supposed to take the soup tureen to the Captain. This was proving to be a bit like working up the nerve to jump into ice water. I took a few deep breaths, walked in a small circle while telling myself I was being a ninny, then simply faced the map room, lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and made myself do it.

The Captain and another man were standing at the table, heads bowed over a map unrolled between them, their breath pluming in the cold as they discussed something.

As I crossed the quarterdeck, I noticed that the Captain had cleaned himself up a bit. The last time I had seen him, his close-cropped hair had been stuck up at odd angles, stiff with blood, and his face and throat had been smeared with soot and who knew what else. Now, in the glow of the ceiling lantern above the table, his hair gleamed platinum-silver in striking contrast with the deep tan of his skin. As if the man wasn't intimidating enough already, his dark, navy-issue greatcoat made the pale grey of his eyes seem even more intense than usual when he glanced up at my knock on the doorless jamb.

The other man was saying, "If we landed on the west beach under cover of night, we could —" when he noticed the shift in the Captain's attention. Instantly he went silent, shooting an annoyed glare over his shoulder.

The Captain held my gaze, indicating a nearby bench with a slight nod.

I carried the tray to the bench and set it down, my heart beating a little too quickly.

The Captain was still watching me, and the silence from the Commander was beginning to stifle, so I sank into a half-sweet curtsy and ducked back out onto the quarterdeck, completely rattled.

"As I was saying, from the beach, the marines could approach the southern wall here," the Commander started, but the Captain interrupted him.

"I'm thinking something more subtle. NaVarre is being held on charges of piracy by the Edonian Court Royale. But the Lodesian Maritime Court also has claim on him. If High Admiral Ghandier, say, happened to show up with papers of emergency extradition to Aritagne..." he trailed off, letting the Commander infer his meaning.

At that point I remembered that Cook wanted me to ask about feeding everyone and the availability of more vittles, and I stopped short of crossing the quarterdeck, utterly unsure what to do. On the one hand, I shouldn't loiter. On the other hand, I didn't want to go barging back in there. And on a third hand, if I came back without that information, Cook would be angry, and then he might not let me keep helping him. I decided to stay put until there was an appropriate break in the Captain's conversation. Then I would barge in. Neither were perfect options, but it was that or 'resting.'

While I was sidling back to stand just to the side of the map room doorway, the Commander was quiet, mulling over the Captain's plan. Then he said, slowly, "I mean... it _could_ work."

"If it did, we could get in and out with minimal risk to the men." That was the Captain's rough brogue.

The Commander responded with a gruff: "If it doesn't, you'll be on your own in there."

"That's why you'll be on the beach. You can storm in and mop up my mess like always."

Both were quiet. Then the Commander muttered, "I still can't believe you want to rescue that reprobate."

"I don't," Arramy grunted, and I could swear I heard him grinding his teeth. "Unfortunately, he's tangled in this up to his hairline. I just hope the Court Royale doesn't magic him away before we get there. Go on and get your bunk time in. We'll tackle this in the morning."

Footsteps began moving, tell-tale long strides approaching the door.

My appropriate moment was about to be replaced by getting caught eavesdropping. I stepped forward, clearing my throat loudly. "I'm sorry to bother you again, Captain, but Cook was wondering if he's 's'posed ta feed 'em wot're come over,'" I rattled off, parroting the Cook as close as I could, "or if 'Cready's already fed them all. If they 'needs a feed,' he'll need more supplies from the _Stryka_."

Captain Arramy came to a halt in the doorway, that unnerving glare landing on my face. I held my breath, wanting more than anything to be somewhere – anywhere – else. Then I thought of having to go back to sitting around doing nothing and forced myself to lift my chin and stand up straight.

The Captain narrowed his eyes and raised an eyebrow, responding in a slightly suspicious tone that said he knew I had overheard everything: "Des'Cready already fed the crew... Supplies will be brought over in the morning."

"Ah. Good. Thank you." I turned, ready to march away, head held high.

"Miss Westerby."

I went still, then slowly came back around, my mouth gone dry. "Yes?"

Arramy leveled a cool stare at me. "According to the _Galvania's_ passenger list, your father was alone when he left Porte De Darre. How did you keep your presence on the _Galvania_ a secret?"

I blinked. Yet again, someone else knew details of my life that even I hadn't been privy to until recently. "He booked my passage under another name. Which he could only have done if he falsified several documents... And bribed several officials." _Oh, for heaven's sake, stop babbling!_ I managed to close my mouth and gave the Captain a thin smile.

He studied me.

I waited. When he didn't seem inclined to say anything more, I cleared my throat. "Was there anything else?"

Arramy inhaled, then shook his head.

He stayed where he was as I made for the stairs again, and I felt that stare on my back until I was all the way down the quarterdeck stairs and crossing the main deck to the hatch. I didn't breathe again until I was safe in the shadows of the main hold stairwell.

~~~

As I got ready for bed, I spent several minutes amused by the knowledge that Captain Arramy was going to con his way into Wychending prison in order to save the same pirate he had spent the last two years chasing across two seas and an ocean.

If I ever made it back to civilization, Aunt Sapphine was going to have a whopping good laugh.

~~~

It took me all night, but I finally put my finger on something that had been bothering me since I took that soup to the map room. The only way Arramy could possibly have known my father was booked as a single passenger on the _Galvania_ would have been if he saw the Port Authority copy of the _Galvania's_ passenger manifest. The _Galvania's_ copy was at the bottom of Endover Bay.

If my math was right, that meant he must have been in Porte De Darre right around the same time we were, and he must have been looking for my father. Specifically. Either that, or by sheer coincidence, he wandered into the Ticket Office in the Porte De Darre Port Authority Bureau Building, where he just happened to ask for a passenger manifest... for the same ship my father just happened to be on... and then he must have memorized the entire thing for some strange reason, and picked my father out of a thousand other names.

But that was a load of puzzlestumps.

I was fairly sure that the Captain would have had to fill out a Military Inquest Form 1459 in order to see the passenger manifest of a civilian ship. The same form was used for cargo manifests, and I had seen a few of them when Father was Head Guildsman of the Docks.

From what I could remember, if the Captain had a Military Inquest Form 1459, he would have had to know exactly who he was looking for, and he would have had to have reasonable cause for search, or the civil judiciary would never have allowed him to submit the request for the form in the first place. So, since he had to have seen the manifest, and therefore must have had a 1459 form, why was he looking for my father _before_ he found out we were aboard the _Galvania_?

More importantly, what else did he know? Did he know why my father was running? Or who he was running from?

I wrote all that with a double-kick in my pulse. The more I thought about it, the more possible it seemed. I might very well have pieced together a chunk of the puzzle. I was blindfolded, though, so I didn't know where that chunk went in the rest of the puzzle, or how many other pieces there were, or even how much puzzle there was

One thing was clear, however. This was the new normal. Strangers officially knew more about my life than I did.

~~~

_Puzzlestump:_ n. a dead tree infected with a type of burrowing fungus that makes the stump weigh significantly less than it looks like it should. The wood catches fire easily and burns away in seconds, rendering it useless. A 'load of puzzlestumps' refers to something that amounts to nothing.
20. Rescuing the Pirate

25th of Uirra

From what I was told, the Captain broke several codes of military conduct last night. First, he showed disdain for the sovereignty of the Altyran Coalition by altering the appearance of a navy warship with intent to deceive the enemy. Second, he sailed under the wrong port-of-call designation, and third, he allowed one of his subordinates to impersonate a high-ranking officer. At a court martial, those three things would have been the misdemeanors added to the capital charge of kidnapping a prisoner from his own government.

This was all according to the Cook, who was in a decidedly good mood this morning, relating this news in a boyishly gleeful whisper while he loaded up a tray with biscuits for me to take up to the map room.

I made my way to the main deck, where I was met with the sight of Raggan parading around in the pre-dawn gloom, dressed like a High Admiral.

Lorren, who had been a seamstress in Sant Yranne, had been up most of the night embroidering the Naval Shield of Valor on the cuffs of the Captain's dress jacket, but she had obviously done much more than that. She had sized it down to fit Raggan's shorter frame. It also sported an Admiral's crossed swords, shield, and chains on the left epaulet, which made it officially a crime for Raggan to wear it. Captain Arramy was never going to get back into it, either.

The _Stryka_ lay at anchor a few lengths off the port bow, and several crew men dangled precariously over the waves, perched on repair scaffolds that hung from the aft and fore railings. They lit mirrored lanterns and aimed them at the nameplates. Then all of them wielded paint and brushes, and a raunchy sea shanty drifted over the water as they followed orders to deface their own ship.

None of the crew seemed to be bothered by what they were being asked to do. They didn't so much as bat an eyelash at the sight of Raggan walking the main deck by the light of a lantern, wearing an officer's double-pinned high-feathered hat, practicing Admiral Ghandier's exaggerated limp while leaning heavily on a cane. Raggan didn't seem to mind, either. They all went calmly about their duties, following orders that could get them hanged, almost as if this sort of unconventional behavior was standard under Arramy's command.

I continued on, carrying the tray up to the quarterdeck, where Master Pierse politely relieved me of it and insisted on taking it into the map room himself. Mustn't have silly girls eavesdropping on the Captain again.

Someone had put up a blanket over the map room door, but as Pierse pushed it aside, I got a glimpse of the Captain standing there by the table, dressed in a Coalition Marine's black and white uniform.

Then, when I was on my way back down the stairs, what looked very much like a group of NaVarre's crew were climbing into one of the _Stryka_ 's longboats. They were lowered away by our own sailors, though, and there was no mistaking the Commander's rust-red beard on one of the pirates, not even under the lampblack that obscured his face.

The rowboat hit the water with a careful splash, the top of a short mast appeared, and a dark sail caught the wind, pulling the boat away into the pre-dawn gloom.

~~~

By the time the sun cleared the horizon, everything was ready. Captain Arramy and his marines swung over to the _Stryka_ , leaving only Cook, Pierse, and a complement of sailors behind on the _Ang_.

Then the _Ang_ held back several miles beyond the scope of the Wychending long glasses, while the _Stryka_ kept going, sailing right into the small manmade harbor bold as you please, the fresh yellow script still drying on her nameplates proclaiming her to be the _Arapossa_ , High Admiral Ghandier's flagship.

According to Cook, the whole plan hinged on the assumption that the Warden of Wychend Prison had never met the High Admiral personally. That was the weakest link. If he had met the Admiral, there was no way Raggan would fool him, and the entire charade would fall apart.

If, however, the Warden hadn't met the High Admiral – which was very likely – then Raggan would hand over the forged extradition papers remanding NaVarre to the Lodesian Maritime Court. Then, when the Edonian Court Royale officers came for NaVarre, the only description the Warden would be able to give of the man who took him would be of a short, stoutly built dark-haired fellow who walked with a limp and spoke with a Lowlander accent – which also happened to describe General Ghandier. The ensuing rat's-nest of bureaucratic paperwork would hopefully keep the High Council busy long enough for Arramy to get us well-lost before they pieced together what had happened.

Assuming that NaVarre was even alive, and no one recognized the Captain himself. He had been to Wychend many times escorting prisoners, and he was, to quote the Cook, "A most renoiz'ible fellow, e'en in that marine get-up 'e' wearin'."

I listened to Cook ramble on about what could possibly go wrong with 'reskooing that damnible poyrat,' and I had to be glad he wasn't the one I told about Father's binder. The man's tongue was looser than a cooked noodle.

For the rest of the day I stirred a pot of fish stew, peeled several pounds of root vegetables, and generally tried to keep myself occupied with feeding the survivors and the crew.

Anything but sit down. Or hold still. Or sleep. I was determined that sleep would only happen if it was absolutely unavoidable. Sleep was far too dangerous. Sleep was fire and death and being eaten by invisible teeth. No, thank you. 
21. A Side of Mutton

25th of Uirra, Continued

The sun was quite warm for winter, with an almost pleasant southern breeze carrying a hint that spring was in the offing. It was as good a day to hang out laundry as we were likely to get, and there were mounds of laundry. After much begging and an agreement to wash his clothes too, Cook strung a clothesline between the quarterdeck railing and the main mast for us. Lorren and I were up on the deck, trying to rinse the bloodstains out of a bunch of blankets when the man at the long glass shouted that the _Stryka_ was rounding the Wychend breakwater.

I hadn't realized how tense the crew was until that moment, or how quiet the other civilians were. That shout went up, and within seconds the ship was humming with excitement. Everywhere, people began talking, laughing, even joking.

None of the crew had ever bothered to question why the Captain had gone back to get the very man he had spent months chasing about the sea. Not even after he was gone, and it was just the skeleton crew he had left behind. It was apparently an elemental fact; water was wet, and Captain Arramy never did anything without a great, whopping good reason. If you needed to know that whopping reason, he would tell you what it was. If he didn't tell you, apparently you had to accept that you didn't need to know.

That didn't keep the civilians from wondering, but the only person who was verbally against bringing NaVarre back was Orrul. Everyone else seemed to agree with the crew: if Captain Arramy thought it was necessary, then it must be. What would one pirate be able to do against all those marines, anyway? Besides. Arramy would surely get answers out of that bilge rat.

The need for answers was perhaps the largest connecting theme behind the widespread acceptance of Arramy's plan. Dr. Turragan especially wanted to know why the _Erristos_ opened fire on us, and as the oldest and most respected man among the survivors, his opinion held more weight than any of Orrul's bluster.

The knowledge of the binder – and the real reason Arramy wanted to rescue NaVarre – weighed on me. I kept to myself, scrubbing while most of the passengers came up to stand at the rail, all of them waiting for those far-distant sails to draw close enough to see with the naked eye. It was a bit like listening to a five-mile race. The lookout called down that the _Stryka_ had passed this or that mile, there was an anticipatory murmur from the spectators, then more waiting until again the lookout announced that the _Stryka_ had progressed to the next mile. When the _Stryka_ finally cleared the natural horizon, a huge cheer went up, as if the _Stryka_ had accomplished some invisible goal out there on the waves.

Nearly an hour later, she came alongside the _Ang_ , but the Captain didn't bring NaVarre over.

The instant Midshipman Pierse stepped onto the deck, I knew he was searching for me. He came aboard and immediately stopped to ask Vinna a question. Vinna pointed, and Pierse's attention zeroed in on my face. Then he headed in my direction.

I could guess what he was going to say, but I didn't stop what I was doing. I kept working, making him cross the entire deck and come to a halt on the other side of the clothesline.

With a politely formal bow in greeting, Pierse doffed his hat. "Miss Westerby, the Captain requests that you join him on the _Stryka_ as soon as possible."

I shot a glance at him over the soaked quilt I was pinning to the line. "Did he say why?"

Pierse looked genuinely surprised, as if no one had ever questioned an order from the Captain. "Ah... Well... No, he didn't divulge that particular information." He smiled, then stood waiting expectantly, hands clasped behind his back.

I finished pinning up that blanket and dragged another from the pile on the deck, shaking it out in two quick, deliberate snaps and draping it alongside the first one.

Pierse's brows began to pucker into a perplexed frown. "He did, however, suggest that you bring your belongings..." His words trailed off when I bent and grabbed a few clothespins from the bag Cook had given me, blatantly ignoring him. I clamped two peg-pins between my lips the way I had seen our maids do at home and began pinning up the second blanket.

"Begging your pardon miss, but I was told to fetch you as soon as possible," Pierse said, his tone a little firmer.

How cute. The little Arramy in Training was learning to be an overbearing, demanding barbarian. He was almost there. He would just have to practice leaving off the 'begging,' and the 'pardon' bits, and he'd sound just like Captain Clamface.

I raised an eyebrow and took a pin from between my lips, carefully fixing the middle of the blanket to the line.

Pierse observed my lack of interest, his incredulity growing.

Stepping to the left, I pinned up the other end of the blanket before looking at him again. He obviously didn't understand my reluctance. To be fair, it wasn't his fault that I didn't want to go with him. He had probably never met Bloody NaVarre. Whether I liked it or not, though, this had become my lot. As much as I hated the idea of being stuck in a room with Bloody NaVarre again, much less with both NaVarre and Arramy at the same time, there wasn't any point in running.

"Did the Captain say whether or not I should bring anything else?" I asked, drying my hands in my apron.

Pierse's dark eyes widened as he realized he had forgotten a rather pertinent detail. "Ah. Yes. You're supposed to retrieve something from NaVarre's desk" He flashed tiny grin of encouragement. "Captain said you would know what that meant."

I sighed. Then I nodded and turned to go down into the hold to get my things.

~~~

Pierse had the crew hook up the passenger sling – an evil contraption of wood and rope attached to a loading pulley on the mainsail yardarm – and helped me sit on the plank seat and adjust the straps that would keep me from falling out. He then told me to hang on tight, offered a smile, and gave the signal to the men to hoist me aloft. They pulled the swing back, then released it, and over I went, my insides trailing somewhere behind me, swooping across the gap between the ships exactly like the sides of mutton they had sent over earlier at Cook's request.

Two men on the _Stryka_ reached out with cargo hooks, snagging the leader line on the bottom of the chair as the swing reached the end of its arc. There was a swift yank, and then the team on the Ang let out more line, allowing the chair to be pulled down to the _Stryka's_ main deck. I could honestly say it was about the least dignified way to arrive anywhere.

As soon as they started pulling the chair in, it began tilting at an increasingly severe angle until I wound up descending bottom first, reclining on my back, my skirts and petticoat flopping up around my stocking clad knees in full view of a ship-full of sailors.

I was then unstrapped, as was my little bundle of clothing, and the swing was returned to the Ang, leaving me and my upside-down stomach on the _Stryka_.

Glancing around as I smoothed my skirt, I saw only men. Hundreds of men, and all of them were gawking at me. At least aboard the _Ang_ some of the strangers had been women. It was a little daunting, finding myself the lone focus of that much male attention. I was much more relieved than I wanted to admit when Raggan barked "Cap'n on deck!" and the men all stopped ogling me, stepped out of the way, and began saluting.

I spun around to find the Captain approaching from the quarterdeck stairs, the collar of his greatcoat raised against the wind.

I dipped into a curtsy, with a quiet, "Captain," when he came to a stop in front of me.

He stared as I straightened, long enough that I began to wonder if I had something on my face. A normal man would have offered his hand, or at least given me a polite bow. Captain Arramy did neither of those things, and the moment stretched awkwardly thin. Finally, for lack of anything better to do, I slung Father's satchel from my shoulder and held it out.

The Captain's jaw tightened, but he took the bag. Then he offered his hand. "Allow me to show you to your quarters," he said. Curtly. It was an order, not a polite request.

I hesitated, balking at being told what to do, but I couldn't very well live there by the mainmast just to spite the man. Reluctantly I placed my bare palm in his much larger one, falling into step beside him as he wheeled around to go back the way he had come.

Neither of us said anything. He simply escorted me up the stairs to the quarterdeck, then through a door to a common room not unlike the map room on the Ang. This one was called a Bridge, though, and it was bigger. Where the Ang had a map table, this room had a large, lux-glass desk backlit by tiny lamps. Its surface was littered with maps and almanacs and compasses and sextants. There were more doors opening off of this room, too, one of which revealed the cabin I was supposed to occupy.

The Captain held the door open and I stepped inside, taking in the clean bolster bed in its berth box, the little shaving sink and mirror atop a bureau built into the wall, and a small desk beneath a porthole that let sunlight in. "This belongs to one of your officers." I glanced at the Captain. "You don't have to disrupt someone's comfort to accommodate mine. I don't mind sleeping in general quarters —"

He inclined his head and interrupted me. "Mr. Penweather is currently aboard the Angpixen." He paused, one sandy-blond eyebrow raised, "I believe it would be far more disruptive if you were to sleep in general quarters."

Because the _Stryka_ was not a civilian vessel. The sailors slept in the general quarters. I would only have gotten in the way, and judging from the crew out on the deck, I would most likely have been the only woman. I felt like an idiot.

Just then, a boy of about twelve came bumbling in with my little parcel of clothes.

"Thank you, Evers," the Captain said.

Evers turned to go, but the Captain's quiet, "Evers..." had him facing back around.

"Sorry sir," he blurted as he doffed his cap in my direction, saluted Arramy, and went clattering back out again.

The Captain watched him go.

I couldn't help but grin. "It's refreshing to know boys are the same everywhere."

The Captain didn't seem amused. His jaw tensed, and he lowered his gaze. "Dinner is served at six bells in the Loftman's Gallery," he said stiffly, stepping out of the doorway. Then he was gone, striding through the bridge room and out onto the quarterdeck.

And just like that, I was well and truly alone.

I remained there in the narrow space between the berth and the wall of drawers, listening to... nothing.

I almost went rushing out after the Captain. For the first time since boarding the Galvania, there wasn't anyone sharing the same space, and the silence was stretching to swallow me whole, a solid, physical, malevolent thing.

A shiver of panic slid down my spine. My heartbeat began to thunder in my ears. My breath shortened; tears stung my eyelids. I didn't want to cry. Crying wouldn't change how lost and helpless I was. It wouldn't bring back my father, it wouldn't take me back home where I was trusted and loved. Crying certainly wouldn't make any of this any less confusing or frightening. I would not cry.

I reached out and snatched at the handle of the nearest bureau drawer, yanking it so hard the thing hit the end of its guiderail with a loud clap. I inhaled sharply and did it again with the next drawer down. Then I got my bundle of belongings and began unpacking, ruthlessly opening and slamming drawers, tearing that stillness apart. With every vicious physical movement, I cranked the lid down on the well of anguish opening up inside me, winching it in tighter and tighter until I was hollow and cold again.

Then I went still, staring down at my things resting neatly at the bottom of the top drawer, all packed primly together even after all of that furious rearrangement. They had seemed so loose and disorderly when they were divided up.

At one point in my life, I had enough clothing to fill two such wall-bureaus, as well as a dresser, and a closet large enough to walk around in. It had taken four drawers to hold nothing but my unmentionables. Now everything I owned fit in a single two-foot wide drawer.

At least I had clothes, and I was alive to wear them.

With a shaky sigh, I unbuttoned my father's heavy coat and shrugged out of it, hanging it on the peg by the door before braving the mirror.

I took one look at my reflection and sighed again. My hair had always been one of my best features. Mrs. Fosspotter used to say it was like molasses-taffy ripple, dark and wavy, flowing down my back in gleaming waves. I hadn't had a decent bath in weeks. Now it was a hopeless mess, all the waves turned to frizz, the top layer bleached to caramel by the sun. And my face... I had to swallow some pride. After so much time spent running about without a hat or veil, I was nearly as tan as some of the sailors, with a touch of windburn to boot. My skin felt like sandpaper and my lips were chapped.

I sneered, then stuck my tongue out at the sea-roughened waif in the glass. It wouldn't do any good, feeling sorry for myself. It wasn't as if there was anything I could do about it, and there certainly wasn't anyone I wanted to impress on this ship.

Still. There was no sense in being untidy. I washed my face and spent a few minutes re-braiding my hair and wrapping it up in a neat knot at my nape. I looked marmish, but at least that was more appropriate to my real age, which was infinitely better than having to face the Captain looking like a schoolgirl again, with my hair trailing down my back in a wind-tossed tangle.

The timekeep above the little writing desk read quarter past six bells, so I changed out of my damp grey overskirt and into my mud-brown but blessedly dry overskirt. Then I threw on my cloak and sallied forth to find this Loftman's Gallery.
22. Surprisingly Well

25th of Uirra, Continued

The Loftman's Gallery was a fancy name for the officer's mess: a long room situated down one side of the quarterdeck, with a bank of windows that opened to the sea.

The _Angpixen_ didn't have anything like it. There had been an absurdly luxurious dining hall for the officers, but it wasn't used for anything else. On the _Stryka_ , the whole Gallery was designed to be dismantled and stowed out of the way. The trestle table could be raised into the ceiling and the walls could be folded back to join the Gallery with the rooms on either end. Four light cannons hunched along the two outside walls, only a swivel away from being put into action through removable windows. The sight and smell of oiled iron and spent powder was yet another reminder that the _Stryka_ was meant for war, not civilian comfort.

The marine on guard duty opened the door when he saw me and gestured me politely through.

The Captain was sitting at the head of a long metal dining table, six of his officers ranging down either side, and from the abrupt silence that fell as I came in, it was clear that I was interrupting an intense conversation. All of the men turned to look at me, their expressions a mixture of reserve, weariness, distrust, annoyance... and interest.

Slowly, the Captain got to his feet, the other men following suit a half-second later.

"Miss Westerby," the Captain said, his tone brusque. "I believe you've already met Commander Kyro. This is Marine Lieutenant Commander Gorson, Lieutenant Hedwidge-Farrow, Lieutenant Chalb, Lineman Arkney, and Lineman Mannemarra."

I gave them all a wary nod, managing to use the motion to cover my surprise at the Captain's use of my false name. Then I stood there, hesitating in the doorway, unsure what I was supposed to do next. None of my social etiquette lessons had included this particular scenario. As a rule, single women weren't supposed to dine alone with groups of men. In fact, it was assumed they would avoid such things or risk ruining their reputation. So... Did I just walk up and pull out a chair, or...?

Lineman Mannemarra – the interested one, who stood up quite a bit faster than the others – came to my rescue, eagerly indicating the empty chair next to his at the near end of the table. "Please! Join us, Miss Westerby," he blurted. Then he added an enthusiastic, "Mr. Des'Cready has promised his pork jerk. You won't want to miss it. It's positively sublime."

I didn't look away from the Captain. He nodded slightly, and a cabin boy pulled out the chair for me. I bowed my head in acknowledgement, then moved as gracefully as I could to take my place, using every ounce of control I had to keep from turning on my heel and making for the door. Confrontation was never my favorite pastime, and there was a storm brewing. The Commander was practically fuming at the ears, and Lieutenant Chalb refused to look directly at me. I got the distinct impression that neither of them wanted me there, which made me wonder just what the Captain had told them about me. Not my real name, it would seem.

All the men sat back down, then, but there was no return to their discussion. It was Lineman Mannemarra who broke the wall, apparently oblivious to the animosity hanging thick over the other end of the table.

"Where do you hail from originally, Miss Westerby?" he asked, his clean-shaven face gone quite pink.

He was the lone man among them willing to be civil, it seemed, so I gave him a polite smile. "Garding, in Edon."

He beamed. "Really? I'm from up Phennyrre way, myself. Do you know the Smythe-Brassings?"

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," I said, unable to keep from glancing at the Captain. He was regarding me evenly, his lean face impassive, those pale eyes missing nothing.

"Oh! They're cousins on my mother's side," Mannemarra said. "Sir Smythe-Brassing owns the Tourman and Smythe-Brassing Bank and Trust in East Lenwynne. You're quite sure you've never met them? They're very social. My cousin, Miss Honrielle Smythe-Brassing, is a veritable paragon of hospitality. Last year she invited our whole division to their summer home in Darrestre. It was quite the happening. The men talked about it for months."

I was struggling to hide the dull disbelief crowding my thoughts. The Lineman was making small talk as if we were at a soiree. Badly. Betha would have labeled him a Flirting Blue Dandy desperate to impress above his station, and we would have quietly snickered at him behind our fans.

This was no soiree, I wasn't sitting on the balcony of a ball room, and all the men at that table, including Mannemarra, had committed treason against their own Navy because of me. Because of my father.

I let my gaze fall to my empty plate, weariness sinking its claws into my shoulders as Lineman Mannemarra rambled on about his days at the military academy, and his assignment to his previous posting, and the privilege it was to have been given this placement when so many others had been eager to have it. Then back again to the Smythe-Brassings and the many favors they had showered upon him.

It occurred to me that perhaps Mannemarra was the one Arramy was hiding my real identity from, and I had to admit I was thankful.

Dinner was served shortly; five courses, including dessert. There was more food and better quality than I had seen in weeks, but I couldn't remember ever sitting through a more awkward meal.

I tried to eat, but it was nearly impossible to make myself chew and swallow anything with my stomach in knots. I settled for sipping at my glass of wine and pushing my food around my plate while wishing I had disobeyed the Captain.

The Commander refused to relent in his scrutiny of me; the Lieutenant Commander glared into his wine glass as if he were locked in mental battle with his Kavarian Red; Lieutenant Chalb examined his place setting, his jaw rigid; Lieutenant H. Farrow still refused to look at me; and the other Lineman was fidgeting with his napkin and watching the Commander, the Lieutenants, and the Lieutenant Commander by turns. Meanwhile, the Captain finished eating, then loomed at the end of the table, sprawled nonchalantly in his chair, spinning his meat knife end-over-end between his thumb and middle finger, stopping it against the tablecloth first by the tip of the blade, then the end of the grip.

He was calm. Too calm. As if he was counting down, waiting for something to detonate.

The eruption was long in coming. All of them except Mannemarra, who kept casting his every thought into the void, ate in unyielding quiet until the trifle dishes had been cleared and the after-dinner sherry had been brought out. Then, finally, the Commander did something. He got to his feet, plucked the still-full bottle of sherry out of the deck steward's hands, gave the Captain a curt nod, pivoted on his heels, and left without a backward glance. It was a small explosion, but an explosion, nonetheless, and his exit sent a chain reaction rippling through the others.

The Lieutenant Commander sat there, his hand lifting his empty sherry glass, his brows lowering into a fierce scowl as his evening drink walked out the door. Then he heaved a sigh, placed his napkin neatly on his plate, nodded to the Captain, and followed the Commander.

The Lieutenant did the same a moment later, then Lineman Arkney, who very nearly ran from the room.

"I say, is something going on?" Lineman Mannemarra asked, peering after Arkney.

The Captain studied his knife, turning it to catch the light. "I believe your watch is about to start, Mr. Mannemarra."

"Oh, I'm not on for another..." Mannemarra started to say, only to begin nodding when the Captain shot a glittering stare at him. "Right now," he said, hurrying to his feet. "It was nice to meet you, Miss Westerby. I hope to have the pleasure —"

"Mr. Mannemarra..." the Captain drawled, putting the knife down.

"Aye, sir," the man choked out. He shot a worried look at me as he yanked his Lineman's cockade down over his ears, and then he was gone, his footsteps retreating rapidly as the marine on duty closed the door after him.

I cleared my throat.

Silence stretched between us, thick as mud. I couldn't think of anything to say. A minute passed. Another. The click of the timekeep was absurdly loud. At last, after it became apparent that the Captain wasn't about to say anything either, I prepared to stand. "Thank you for your hospitality, sir. The food was excellent."

Evers had just pulled my chair away from the table when the Captain's gruff, "Sit down," brought my flight to a halt.

I froze. Then sank slowly into my seat again, my knees gone shaky. This was it. This was when I found out I had made a huge mistake trusting him.

The Captain let his head loll against the high, padded back of his chair, his eyes narrowing as he regarded me.

When he didn't do more than that, I rested my elbows on the table and clasped my hands in front of me to hide the fact that my fingers were trembling.

The Captain's brows drew together, which made the grey of his eyes glimmer beneath his lashes. The effect was nerve-wracking, a fact that I was determined not to let him know. "Well... Here I sit," I prodded helpfully when he didn't say anything. I could only hope my tone didn't sound as wispy to him as it did to me.

He picked up his knife again, idly running his thumb along the edge. His frown deepened a fraction. "You've handled the last few days _surprisingly_ well," he said.

I went still, some of my apprehension leaving. He was only surprised I was still alive. Why? Because he thought I was just a silly girl? Or because I had survived when so many others had not? I swallowed around a hard lump of guilt, lifted my chin, and quirked a brow. "Careful, Captain. That almost sounded like a compliment."

He glanced away, his jaw ticking again.

Was his opinion of me really so poor? I stood. "If there's nothing else..." I said, letting my words trail into an implied question.

He dropped his knife on the table. "Report to the Council Chamber at the third bell."

It wasn't a request. I had been given a direct order again, as if I were one of his men. I pinched my lips together and whipped around, striding past the Marine on duty and down the short hallway that connected the Gallery to the Bridge. That was as far as my flight took me. I had to stop and put a hand on the map table, my knees so shaky I could barely walk, my stomach tightening dangerously around that jerked pork.

~~~

I lay on Penweather's bunk and tried not to imagine the shape of the man that must have made the large dent I was curled up in. The pillow smelled a bit like aftershave butter and hair lotion.

The blanket was in need of a pill-clipping.

I discovered a knot in the woodwork above the sink that resembled a frog.

I counted all the boards in the ceiling.

Twice.

But no matter what I did, I kept hearing that word, "Surprisingly."

The way he said it... Sur _priseingly_ , that Northlander Altyran lilt rolling it off his tongue with such... sus _picion_.

Ridiculous. Why was his good opinion of me, or lack of it, even remotely important?

I was fairly sure I should be more worried about this mandatory meeting at eight bells, but there it was, like finding a drowned spider in your tea: "Sur _prisingly_."

Why was it so surprising that I would 'handle' this whole awful mess? What was the alternative? Not handling it? Would he prefer I fall apart and melt into a useless, quivering puddle? Honestly! What sort of a rattlebrain did he take me for?

Handle it.

As if he could last a day in polite society.

I must admit I giggled far too long at the thought of the Captain out in public, stomping about a ballroom in those big boots, bowling couples over left and right. You'd know exactly where he was. There would be a flurry of objection wherever he went. 'Ouch!' and 'I say, sir, you're on my hem,' and 'Oh! My toes!'

The night would end with physicians called. Ankles splinted. Hairpieces remade. Dresses repaired. 
23. Revelations

26th of Uirra

A sound brought me spiraling up from the depths of a dreamless void. I opened my eyes. A slat of wood paneling swam into view.

For the life of me, I couldn't remember where I was, or why I was there.

"Is she still in bed?"

The Captain's voice had me pushing myself upright, while my sleep-deprived brain began putting things together in random order:

I am supposed to be at some sort of meeting with the Captain.

I must have slept late and missed the meeting.

The Captain is going to think I'm absolutely useless.

I need to get dressed – no, I don't, I'm already wearing clothes. I got up and got dressed an hour ago so I wouldn't be late for the meeting.

I have absolutely no memory of falling asleep again.

I have no hat.

Where are my shoes? On my feet.

Open the door.

The Captain was standing there, his hand raised to knock, a thunderous expression on his face.

I blinked up at him, still trying to drag my thoughts out of the cobwebs. It wasn't working. I had no idea what to say.

Arramy lowered his hand, his mouth becoming a stern line. He didn't say anything, either. He just turned around and went striding across the Bridge to the door opposite mine, yanked it open, then glanced back when I didn't immediately follow.

Exhaustion was taking its toll. I was freezing, my head ached, and my stomach had cramped up on itself. I had to force myself to take a step, then another, closing the distance between myself and that door, every ragged nerve in my body screaming that I was not going to like what was waiting for me on the other side.

I was right.

Bloody NaVarre was sitting in one of a pair of metal chairs in the middle of the council chamber. He was tied to the back of the seat, and his face was haggard and unshaven, but the anger simmering in his eyes when he saw me in the doorway was enough to make me feel like a cornered mouse all over again.

I caught myself sidling backwards, as if Arramy's unexpectedly reassuring size would protect me.

There was no protecting. Or reassuring. Arramy placed his hand at the small of my back and nudged me farther into the room as he came in. Then he closed the door behind us and locked it.

NaVarre's eyes skimmed over me, then he scowled over my head at the Captain. "She doesn't have anything to do with this."

Arramy stepped around me and walked over to a steel-bound chest sitting open on a table that had been pushed up against the far wall to make room for... whatever this was. He began taking things out of the chest, placing them in neat rows on the table. "Have a seat, Miss Warring."

I eyed that other, empty chair, my mouth gone chalk dry. It seemed very much like I was being put on trial right there along with NaVarre. Why would there be two chairs, side by side, if they weren't meant for two persons accused of the same thing? Part of me wanted to whip right back around and run from what was coming, but there wasn't any outrunning this. I hadn't wanted any of this to happen, but it had, and my ignorance didn't lessen the fact that some of it was my fault.

I lifted my chin, and made my leaden feet carry me to the chair next to NaVarre's. I sat down, my knees buckling as if I had been shoved into the seat by the weight of some gigantic, invisible hand. I was still deciding if defending myself would be worth the effort when Arramy finished rummaging in the chest on the table and came up with a large leather-bound notebook.

NaVarre inhaled slightly. If I hadn't been sitting so close, I might have missed the flicker of uncertainty in his face as Arramy began leafing through that notebook, but perhaps I was only imagining things. The next second, an arrogant, unconcerned sneer tugged at NaVarre's sensually beautiful mouth.

"You both claim not to know each other," Arramy said. Calmly, as if we were all gathered in front of the High Court, and he was the magistrate examining a witness. "You've never met before Miss Warring was brought aboard the _Angpixen_."

I stared at him.

"Is that true?" he asked, his gaze flicking to me.

I nodded slowly, my voice scratching in my throat as I got out a rough, "Yes," but Arramy wasn't paying any attention. He was studying NaVarre.

"Of course," NaVarre smiled. Silky smooth.

Arramy pursed his lips and held up the notebook, flipping pages till he found the one he was looking for. "Discussed intriguing investment opportunity with Warring, accepted invitation to attend W.'s Maiden's Fest Gala in Garding.'" Arramy stopped reading aloud and glanced at the monogramed cover of the notebook. "For your information, Miss Warring, this is the personal diary of one Lexan Rammage, more famously known as Lord Braeton, the Sixth Earl of Anwythe," he said, then went back to reading, picking up where he left off, "'More information needed, but feel confident further communication will result in profitable agreement for all sides... Spoke with A. concerning imports. Met with F. -'..." he closed the notebook, sat on the edge of the table, tilted his head back, and mused aloud, "Now... Something has been bothering me since my source found this in your room in Porte De Darre."

It was almost imperceptible, but NaVarre's shoulders stiffened.

I squinted, still trying to piece together what I had just heard. It wasn't working. I hadn't thought about the Maiden's Fest Gala since we left Garding. It had been shortly before the fire, and then afterward it just hadn't seemed all that important. Father had insisted that it be a full-costume Whimsy, though...which now seemed awfully suspicious.

I was still mulling over all of that when Arramy raised the notebook again, brandishing it by one corner. "I thought there was nothing of any value in here. It appears to be the ramblings of a man with more money than brains, and at first, I thought my source must have gotten the wrong room. The boy is a decent burglar, but a little young. Maybe Lord Braeton had rented that suite before you did, and his social journal was left behind by accident. But..." he rotated the notebook slowly, considering it as he spoke, "Then along came Miss Warring, and all of this became very interesting."

NaVarre's breathing began to quicken. His hands flexed on the arms of his chair. "She doesn't know anything," he said again, and I felt a small twinge of gratitude. The gratitude promptly died when he continued with, "She's barely out of finishing school. Hardly the type to be hanging about with pirates. Or lords, for that matter."

The Captain's eyes blazed silver as he leaned forward. "But Lord Braeton spoke with Warring." His voice had gone ominously quiet. "This journal – his journal – wound up in your hotel room. The same room my man trailed Bloody NaVarre to and from for two weeks. Then Warring's daughter turns up and says that Bloody NaVarre was extremely interested in a bag that belonged to her father, and now I have to wonder... what if it wasn't a mistake? What if the reason this diary was in your room was that it belongs to you? What if the Earl of Anwythe and Bloody NaVarre are one and the same, and this entry describes Bloody NaVarre talking to Warring?"

A frigid ripple of understanding washed through me. I sat up a little straighter, much more awake.

NaVarre had gone pale, but managed to get out a short, incredulous laugh. "This? This is what you..." he paused, his brow wrinkling in consternation. "You do realize this is all circumstantial evidence. You can't actually use any of it in court."

Arramy sat back. "What makes you think I'm going to?" he asked.

I doubted that many people had the ability to rattle the Bloody Red Fox, but Captain Arramy was managing nicely. Perhaps it was the fact that Arramy had already outsmarted him once. Or perhaps there really was something important in that notebook, and Arramy had figured out what it was.

Either way, perspiration was beginning to sheen NaVarre's forehead, even though he kept his expression cool. "What is this about, then, Captain?"

"People have died," Arramy said simply. He leaned back a little, surveying the items beside him on the table, then selected one, lifting a familiar sheet of grey-green paper to the light. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, holding one of the shipping manifests out so NaVarre could get a look at it.

NaVarre glared past the paper at Arramy, then, when Arramy kept it there in front of his face, he heaved a sigh and squinted at it. Once. Then again, and this time he frowned, focusing long enough to read it. "It appears to be a manifest," he said tersely. If he recognized the name of the ship in question, he didn't show it.

Arramy raised an eyebrow. "What shipping company claimed this manifest?"

"Warring Oceanic," NaVarre admitted. "Alright. I understand the connection to the lovely Miss Warring, here, but I'm not sure what any of this has to do with —"

"I retook that ship from a fast-cutter captain who used to run your colors," Arramy said.

NaVarre shrugged, slouching as nonchalantly into his chair as the ropes binding him to it would allow. "What can I say? The man was doing what he got his share of the haul for. I can only assume he found other prey as soon as you sailed back to Lordstown to submit your paperwork."

"There were military grade weapons hidden in the cargo of this particular freighter." Arramy paused, his keen eyes taking note of NaVarre's sudden stillness. "Funny thing about that paperwork... I put in a detailed report of what I found on the _Persephyrre_ , but nothing came of it. I was handed new orders to pursue the Bloody Red Fox, and Miss Warring was allowed to file a loss on the entire cargo. There was no inquest. Warring Oceanic kept right on operating, and enough armor piercing incendiaries to sink an armada disappeared into thin air. So I'll ask you again: how do you know Warring?"

NaVarre's stare never wavered, although his eyes widened at the implication of what Arramy was saying. "I had no idea there were weapons hidden in that cargo," he said slowly, his voice low and intense. "Believe me."

Arramy watched him silently, waiting.

NaVarre's pulse was throbbing in his neck. After a moment he blinked, then looked down, nodding, a bitter smile breaking across his face. "I see. You need someone to pin this on." He let loose a dry chuckle. "Who better than Bloody NaVarre? No jury in their right mind would suspect the flawless Captain Arramy if Bloody NaVarre is up there —"

I couldn't stand much more. "Oh, just stop," I rasped. "This isn't even about you. This is about my father. We were running because someone was trying to kill him. They... They may have succeeded. I don't know."

NaVarre stared straight ahead, lips set in an almost petulant expression.

Sitting forward, I tried to meet his eyes. "But I know _you_ know something. I saw you. You were looking for that binder. You knew it would be there to find, so this whole 'I know nothing' act doesn't work on me. My father may be dead because he was part of this, and now we're all literally in the same boat, so just... Tell me what's going on. Please."

Arramy shifted his weight, a floorboard creaking under his big boots. I refused to find out what he thought of my interruption, and kept my attention trained on NaVarre.

NaVarre was lost in thought, his gaze on the notebook where it lay on the table next to Arramy's hip. I could swear there were gears and cogs whirring in his brain.

What was there to think about? Why was he taking so long? Unless he was coming up with another lie. I was about to jump up and have at him, thoroughly prepared to choke answers out of those perfect lips, when he dragged in another deep breath, his shoulders slumping. That bitter smile broke through once more on a short laugh.

"Fine," he announced, loud and brash. "I'll admit it. You caught me. I am Lexan Rammage, Lord Braeton, Earl of Anwythe —" he stopped speaking, gritted his teeth on a muffled expletive, then leveled a smoldering glare at Arramy. "I swear, if you so much as breathe a word of this, I will bring the full weight of my family's considerable political power crashing down on you and your pathetically tiny family. 141 Eastwynd, wasn't it? Quaint little flat on the quay. Lovely place for the infirm, really. Oh," he arched an eyebrow. "Did you think you were the only one who could dig up information?"

The Captain didn't respond at first, simply leveling that frigid gaze on NaVarre's face, letting NaVarre's threat stretch till it was thin and flimsy as wet tissue paper. Then he looked away, the detached expression on his face somehow far more frightening than all of NaVarre's fury. "Don't make me keep asking the same question. If you don't tell me what you know, I will take you back to Wychending along with all of your men, and I will turn in this journal and every shred of evidence I can get my hands on, and let the courts handle the rest."

NaVarre froze. A muscle ticked in his cheek. "What do you mean, 'my men'?"
24. The Devil's Pact

26th of Uirra, Continued

"My crew were to be hanged yesterday morning..." NaVarre's words trailed off when Arramy aimed a dark glare at him. "You got them out of Wychending," NaVarre murmured, then frowned. "Why would you do that?"

"I had a feeling they would come in handy."

"Prove it," NaVarre said abruptly, sitting back in his chair. "Prove that all my men are here, and that you haven't mistreated them."

Without a word, Arramy pushed himself off the table, went striding over to the door and yanked it open.

NaVarre's First Mate came stumbling into the room as though someone outside had given him a bit of a shove. He had no hat, and his coat was dirty, but he didn't appear to be any the worse for wear as he came to a halt, saw NaVarre, and went bug-eyed. "Sir!" he cried in Illyrian, "I thought ya were dead when they dragged y'off... Are ya well, sir? They're not treatin' ya poor, are they?"

Arramy planted one large hand on Finch's shoulder, bringing him up short several feet shy of reaching NaVarre.

Finch glowered and yanked his coat out of Arramy's grip, but didn't approach any further, turning to ask quietly, "Captain? Are ya well?"

NaVarre was sitting perfectly still, eyes wide. It seemed the great, heartless Bloody Fox had a soft spot after all. He swallowed hard before answering, his voice throaty, "I am well. How many men are with you?"

"All but young Uiri, sir. The lad could'na bear the thought o' bein' tortured. Slit 'is wrists wi' 'is own shackles when we got ta Wychending."

"Ah." NaVarre bowed his head a fraction. "That's a pity. He was a fine lad... And the rest?"

"I've kept 'em fightin' fit, sir," the First Mate said, pride making him stand a little taller. "An'... we're waitin' your orders."

The sly way he said it made me glance at Arramy. Not many mainlanders spoke Illyrian. Did he? It didn't matter, though, because Arramy brought an end to the conversation, forcibly wheeling the First Mate around by the back of his collar, propelling him toward the door and delivering him to whoever was standing watch out in the Bridge.

Silence descended as Arramy returned to lean against the edge of the table, arms crossed over his chest, mouth set in a firm line.

NaVarre's swagger evaporated when the door closed behind the First Mate, and he looked so relieved I thought he might actually weep. Then he pulled his bravado back on like a mask. "If I tell you what you want to know," he said in Altyran, "Will you release them and allow them to leave on the _Angpixen_ unharmed?"

Arramy's jaw tensed, but he nodded. Once.

NaVarre studied the Captain for a beat longer, but Arramy didn't falter. "This is insane..." NaVarre muttered. "I have gone... insane..." Then he closed his eyes, a mirthless smile curling the corners of his mouth. "Alright. You've got yourself a deal, Captain."

"What's your connection to Arrix Warring's operation?" Arramy asked, blunt as a rock.

That made NaVarre burst out laughing. "See, you don't even know what questions to ask. You think this is about a smuggling ring?" His laughter died and he shook his head. "We weren't smuggling anything. We were intercepting slave shipments. That's what we thought we would find on the Persephyrre. Warring gave the signal and I —"

Arramy raised an eyebrow, his voice dripping with doubt. "Slave shipments."

"Yes!" NaVarre sparked. "Slave shipments. As in, the illegal shipment of persons who do not wish to be shipped by persons who have paid money to purchase said shipped persons."

"I know what slaves are," Arramy said flatly. "Where were these slave shipments coming from if not from Warring?"

I could only stare at the two of them by turns, hardly believing what NaVarre was saying even though I had begged to be told.

NaVarre kept going, unraveling my life. "Have you ever heard of the Coventry?"

Arramy's expression didn't change.

"I'll take that as a no... I'm not surprised. The Coventry is what we in the underground call the entity responsible for hiring the Corpsehundes..." NaVarre paused, eyeing Arramy for any sign of recognition. Arramy blinked, and NaVarre continued slowly, "The Corpsehundes... to go through slum districts and work camps and ghettos, taking people who won't be missed. The Coventry also purchases slaves on the dark market using dummy buyers. These people are rich like you wouldn't believe, and their reach is limitless. I've been trying to find a way in, both as Braeton and NaVarre, but all I was ever able to do was scratch the surface until Lendas Obyrr —"

"Let me get this straight," Arramy broke in, making me jump. "You expect me to believe that a royal pirate is paying an awful lot of attention to a bunch of kidnapped street people," he said, eyebrows lowering, "but not that you're a pirate profiteering off a smuggling scheme."

NaVarre turned to me. "Do you hear an echo? I could swear there's an echo... May I continue, Captain," he asked, swinging back to give Arramy a fiendish grin, "or is there something else you would like to repeat?"

"What were you going to say?" I demanded, interrupting. My skin was prickling, ice creeping between my shoulder blades. "It wasn't until Lendas Obyrron _what_?"

NaVarre simply looked at me.

"Who was Lendas Obyrron?" Arramy asked quietly, addressing me directly for the first time.

"He was one of our captains." He was waiting for more. My little show of boldness evaporated under those chilly eyes, and I ducked. "He was also my father's good friend... I thought of him as an unofficial uncle. He..." My voice trailed off and I swallowed, remembering a wild mane of dark salt-and-pepper hair tied back in a pile of tiny braids. And peppermint hearts. He had always kept peppermint hearts in the breast pocket of his leather vest just for me.

I picked at a thread-thin patch in the worn fabric of my skirt. "He died last summer, a few months before I finished at University." I paused again, but Arramy was still watching me. I was going to have to fix that spot on my skirt. I could see straight through to the dingy white of my petticoats.

"He disappeared for weeks," I went on, carefully lining up the strings spanning the thin spot. "He had asked for leave, so we didn't think anything was wrong, but then he didn't show up for his next scheduled run. When he didn't show up on wage day either, Father knew something had happened. He alerted the authorities, started organizing a search... Then Len was found in a canal in Porte D' Exalle. The official report was that he had jumped off the Standing Rocks bridge and washed down the river to the pier, but Father didn't believe it. He begged the magistrates for an independent examinary, but they had already burned the body. There wasn't anything more we could do."

I closed my eyes, trying to make myself think. "But... you're saying Len was... m-murdered. Because of these shipments?" My voice wavered, the taste of those words bitter on my tongue.

NaVarre's answer was a simple, "Yes."

"So... What was he doing...?"

"One of my men started bribing him for information." I winced, and he noticed. "Are you sure you want to hear this? It's not pretty."

I cast a sharp glance at him.

He relented with a reluctant shake of his head. "No disrespect meant, but Obyrron wasn't above earning quick money. That's how it started. A word here, a wink there. As long as there was a sizable purse involved, his information was good. Then something happened. He said he had seen something he shouldn't have, and that he was going to lay low for a while. That was the last I heard from him. I thought I was going to have to start over again, groom another contact, when your father put an advertisement in the Dailies with Obyrron's coded message."

"I was suspicious, at first," Navarre went on. "But the information proved good again. We saved twenty girls on that raid. A month later I was dancing the _brillardine_ in your ballroom so I would have a legitimate excuse for being seen at your father's shipyard."

The absurd urge to laugh rose in my chest as a quicksilver memory tugged at me, little more than the fleeting confusion caused by a well-dressed and mysteriously 'extra' Raven who stole a _gavant_ with Yranne Andervall, but my chuckle strangled in my throat. I was still grieving Uncle Len when Father suggested I plan that party. I had thought it was Father's way of keeping my mind off things, but all along it had been an elaborate ruse. My father had used me to set up the entire thing. I had been an accessory, and I hadn't had a clue. Even then.

NaVarre's eyes were serious. Haunted. He seemed about to say something, then frowned and turned away. For several minutes, the only sound in the Council Room was of the timekeep lightly clicking the seconds away on the wall. "Your father was a good man, Miss Warring," NaVarre said, finally, his voice raspy. "You need to understand that. He was one of the bravest, most honorable men I have ever met."

Arramy drew a dagger, then, sparing me the need to respond as he stepped up behind NaVarre and cut the ropes keeping him in his chair.

That was the moment the pact began. It wasn't an agreement among friends. More of a Devil's Pact, really, in which we all silently agreed to cooperate against a mutual threat while keeping a suspicious eye on each other. Still, it was a pact, none-the-less.

NaVarre rubbed his wrists and got to his feet. "May I?" he asked, indicating my father's binder.

Without a word Arramy stepped aside, giving NaVarre all the room he needed.

"I wasn't able to go through these at length before," NaVarre mused, peering down at the little collections of papers, each pile grouped the way it had been tied together. "Is this all there was?"

Arramy nodded. Once.

"Mm," NaVarre grunted.

The rush of energy I had been riding began to evaporate, dwindling away until I was once again the exhausted, hollowed out, used up husk I had been when I walked in. My bones felt like they were trying to meld with the seat beneath me. Neither of the men were looking in my direction, both of them engrossed in their study of my father's things. It was entirely too easy to let my eyes close and my head hit the back of the chair.
25. The First Step

26th of Uirra, Continued

I dozed (also known as "drifting into sleep only to jerk awake because a hellish nightmare has come snaking up from the darkness to drag me under") while Arramy and NaVarre mutually picked each-others' brains.

My memories of the next few hours were warped, with a lot of them run together and hazy, but I gathered enough from the bits and pieces of their conversations to understand that there were three binders like the one in my father's satchel. I had one, NaVarre had another, but apparently my father hid a third, and NaVarre needed that one. Badly.

There was also a bit about it being one matter to have enough information to trace these shipments, and another to know where they were coming from and where they were going. Without that knowledge, NaVarre would only be "cutting the tail off the _starkaelle_ while leaving the head alive."

I must have missed the beginning of that metaphor because he started talking about having tails grow back somewhere else, and how cutting off a tail would only alert the head to the fact that someone knew about the tails. Which, in turn, would only make it that much harder to find the head.

I got lost again in the middle and began dreaming about monsters with lots of long, curling scorpion tails.

There was one little flicker that I seemed to remember clearly: NaVarre sitting on the end of the table, holding a tumbler of brandy to his forehead as if to ease a headache with the chill of cut-crystal and ice. He looked angry. Or frustrated. Afraid. Sad, even, as he growled, "Blast that man. How am I supposed to find any of this if he's not alive to tell me where to start?"

I wanted to answer.

In my dream I did.

I stood up and faced him. Told him my father couldn't have known the Galvania would sink. That he hadn't died on purpose. That my father might not even be dead, so he could just keep his awful comments to himself.

NaVarre walked out and I laughed.

Then there was blood creeping over the floor in mirror-slick puddles, and I was in the galley on the _Angpixen_. There were severed limbs piling up on the floor, growing and increasing, and the Captain was lying there on the table, watching the ship's surgeon saw off his arm while they discussed it like they were going to eat it, and the blood was still gathering, pooling beneath my feet, reaching for everyone around me, and whenever it touched anyone they melted into it, and then I was in it too, swimming, swimming, suffocating, and a man with a blurry face and white hair drifted by, dragged downward by a huge, tangled mass of metal as it sank into a bottomless pit, and I swam after him, following him even when he disappeared in the wreckage.

Then the blood-sea wasn't blood anymore, it was burning oil, and I couldn't find that man anywhere, even though I was killing myself searching —

I woke to the sound of my own sobs, and a deep, lilting voice telling me I wasn't on fire, repeating those words over and over as I swatted at my chest and arms and my hair – and anything in the way – clawing at flames that weren't real, my heart pounding, the nightmare still swirling over me.

"Brenorra! You're safe. Come on, kid. Come back."

I gasped, dragging in air instead of oily smoke, and with it the subtle scent of a man's soap. That was what broke the stranglehold of my dream and dropped me roughly into the present. Not the words, not the voice, the soap.

I wasn't caught in the wreckage of the _Galvania_ , choking on hot seawater. I was wrapped in a blanket, my face pressed against a wall covered in the heavy wool of a winter coat. There were arms around me, strong, unrelenting, holding me close even while I struggled against them.

Those arms were solid ground. I stopped fighting and clung helplessly, shoulders shaking, relief coursing through me like a drug. I wasn't burning. It was just a dream. I breathed in that clean, masculine scent, gladly letting it chase away the memory of singed hair and machine oil with pinewood and fresh sea air. A touch of bergamot and coconut. I inhaled again, the nightmare's grip weakening, giving way to the emptiness of reality. I was safe. And still alone.

That knowledge sank in deep. I didn't cry. I just went quiet. Then, slowly, I took a shaky breath and opened my eyes.

Captain Arramy's pewter gaze met mine.

There were scratches on his cheek. Fresh ones, as though someone had just caught him with their fingernails. Unthinking, I brought my hand up to his jaw, my fingertips not quite touching the narrow welts marring his skin. I had done that.

He was staring down at me, his breath caught in his chest. The muscles in his cheek flickered. Then his brows lowered ever so slightly, and the spell evaporated. He cleared his throat, releasing me and getting to his feet. He took three swift strides to the table, where he stood with his back to me, apparently studying my father's papers.

I stared at him, not quite sure what had just happened.

We were still in the Council Room. I was sitting in the same chair, but the door stood wide, propped open with the metal box that had been on the table.

NaVarre was very obviously gone.

I licked dry lips and tasted tears. "How long have I been sleeping?" I asked, wiping at my watery face with my sleeve, then smoothing my hair out of my face.

"Not long," the Captain said. Polite but distant.

"Oh." I stopped at that, unsure what else to say to fill the awkward gap that followed, in which the Captain shuffled a few pages around, ignoring me completely.

"What happened?" I asked, finally. "To NaVarre, I mean."

"He's with his men on the _Angpixen_."

"Oh."

"He'll be back shortly."

I raised my eyebrows, nodding as if he had said a friend was coming over for tea.

I got to my feet, intending to see if I could help the Captain with something, when NaVarre's smooth, "Hark, what fresh, fair flower is't that, newly ris'n, shines so bright?" had me whirling around, startled.

Only it wasn't the Bloody Red Fox standing in the doorway, quoting Hurran's _Indiransk_. This version of NaVarre had changed his clothes. He was now wearing an understated black longcoat and an olive brocade vest over a white shirt without a collar or cravat, and seal-grey pants tucked into tall black boots. His dark, curly hair even had exactly the right amount of pomade to give it that effortless tousle that most socialites went crazy for.

I almost burst out laughing. Almost. I certainly would have under different circumstances. He was dressed like he was going to a High Circle soiree somewhere and had stopped by for a chat on the way to the ante party. There couldn't possibly have been better proof that he was actually a member of the Circle of Lords.

Intrigued, I took in the stark difference between he and the Captain. NaVarre fairly crackled with restless energy, filling the room with it. Even standing there leaning on the doorjamb he somehow made Arramy seem big, dull, and cold in all his stern military efficiency.

Arramy glanced at me, then over his shoulder at NaVarre/Lord Braeton, snorted under his breath, and turned back to Father's papers.

NaVarre smiled and took an apple from his pocket. He bit into it, then waved the apple at Arramy, chewing as he spoke. "I was just telling the Captain that there is another binder."

It was apparently going to take a while longer for my wariness of Free NaVarre to fade, even though he hadn't threatened to throw anyone overboard recently. I caught myself sidling a little closer to the Captain again and stopped. I couldn't exactly trust him either.

I ground my teeth as NaVarre came all the way into the room, prowling over to lean his backside against the table a few feet away from me.

"Your father sent one of them to a trusted friend," NaVarre went on, ignoring the fact that I had moved to put space between us. "He wouldn't tell me who or where. All he would say was that he didn't want all of this falling into the wrong hands at once, so he split it up into pieces. The last piece... He was using as leverage to get you to safety. 'The last piece will make all the difference,' he said. It might even hold the way into the Coventry I've been waiting for. And your father said that you," he paused for emphasis, "have the key." He took another bite of apple.

"The key," I said flatly. There were no keys anywhere in any of Father's belongings. If they needed a key from me, they would be waiting a while.

NaVarre reached behind him and plucked one of those unaddressed letters off the table, holding it out to me.

Frowning, I looked at it.

I hope this finds you well. Write when you have opportunity.

Sincerely,

Levig Honeyston

I could guess whose handwriting that was, now. Something told me that piece of paper had come full circle, but that didn't help much. I was growing tired of all the cloak-and-dagger drama and heaved an annoyed sigh. "What does it mean?" I snapped when he didn't offer any explanation.

"A safehouse in Lordstown," NaVarre announced. "The names are an intersection, the loop in the signature is the corner the building is on."

There was indeed a loop in the signature. The last 'n' in Honeyston had a tail that went up and around to the right, then down through itself, forming a sort of 'x.' I hadn't even noticed it before.

So. There was a safe house for my father and me. Not anyone else.

"We were going to join up there. Then, when I had you both safely on the way to Aesthscaul, he was going to tell me where the third binder was."

I had already heard NaVarre say as much to Arramy. Still, it hurt, stumbling over yet another reminder that everything I thought I knew was turning out to be a lie. This pre-arranged meeting was the reason Father hadn't made any plans beyond getting to Lordstown. I frowned, something tugging at my memory. "But we had rooms at the Iron Dragon," I said slowly. "He made the reservations himself. Why would he pay for rooms if we had a safehouse?"

NaVarre quirked an eyebrow. "Why indeed?" A wide, thoroughly pleased smile beamed across his face.

I had just given him a clue. Offered it up on a plate like cake at a party. Again. My stomach tightened in on itself. Was I never going to learn?

~~~

So. Conclusion: I opened my mouth one lousy time and changed the entire course of the weird, tilt-a-ball game of riddles that my father created. Within the hour we were sailing for Lordstown, straight into the hands of whoever tried to kill us, in two ships that were supposed to be at the bottom of the bay.

No matter what I did, I couldn't know for sure whether I had made the right choice until the consequences reached up and slapped me in the face. Should I have stayed quiet? I stayed quiet once. People died. Should I have said something? What if this was all a trap, Arramy and NaVarre turned out to be Coventry men, and I had just wrapped myself in silk for the spider?

There were too many questions. Head aching, I put down my pen and went to bed.

~~~

_Starkaelle_ : (star . kay . luh): n. A mythical Edonian dragon with five scorpion tails.
26. The Iron Dragon

30th of Uirra

It'll be easy, he said. Walk into the Iron Dragon and start a row in the foyer, he said.

NaVarre would slip behind the registration desk in the distraction that followed and steal the booking ledger. Then he would keep going through the back room and out the window into the alley behind the Inn while we apologized to everyone and left by the front door.

In, out.

Yes. Right.

"I don't know why you think I can start a convincing fight in public," I muttered as I stepped down from the horseless and into the ankle-deep slush on the road. The familiar smells of Lordstown's lower district slammed into me: compression engine exhaust, old oil, wet wool, mud, brine, and animal feces. Ah, loveliness.

I caught sight of my reflection in the window of the hothouse across the street and released the breath I was holding. I once had a traveling outfit very much like the one I was wearing, with a midnight-blue taffeta skirt and embroidered bodice, and a matching wool half-cloak. With my hair in a twist beneath that elegant little lilac-purple hat, it was like looking at a ghost that was using my face. I ground my teeth and turned away, refusing to let myself think about the girl in the glass. I was already queasy enough.

An overloaded oil lorry went rumbling by, and Arramy paused at the curb to let it pass, then placed a hand at my elbow, urging me forward into the early morning traffic that bumped and jostled along St. Camyrre Street. We dodged a line of man-drawn carts, a woolens barrow, a pile of steaming horse droppings, and a large flatbed dray, and then we trotted up the pedestrian access to the boardwalk in front of the Iron Dragon's front entrance.

Arramy must have seen the attack of stage-fright looming in my eyes as he reached for the door pull. "You've survived worse," he pointed out. Then, helpful soul, he opened the door and held it for me as I stepped past him into the entryway.

I didn't respond. My stomach was in knots. Performance class had always been the bane of my school career. I used to rehearse for weeks ahead of every seasonal production, and even then, I would get sick just before going on stage. Now, nearly two years later, that same old hint of acid was still crawling up the back of my throat.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my nerves as Arramy came in and closed the door behind us.

The inside of the Iron Dragon was neat and respectably clean, if a little scuffed and worn along the edges. The entryway opened into a broad lobby with a bar down one side, and a small sitting area in front of a stone round-hearth in the far corner. It hadn't been redecorated since the Pre-War era: blue-washed walls, dark woodwork, lots of gold brocade and tassels and braided-cane furniture. It was pleasantly warm, though, and the scent of the hardwood fire in the grate was reassuring.

Our target was the clerk standing behind a counter at the back of the lobby, under a sign that read Rooms and Registration. He glanced up when the entryway bell rang, and his gaze followed us to the bar.

As planned, Arramy took up a strategic position toward the other end of the bar that would require the clerk to come all the way across the room to ask us to leave. If this worked.

I moved to stand next to the Captain, taking quick stock of our surroundings. There was a middle-aged couple sitting a little way down from Arramy and I, and the woman was giving us a thorough sidelong study.

Because Arramy was old enough to have been married for several years, and I was a little too young to be his wife – but much too old to be his daughter. I looked like a kept woman. Which was undoubtedly why NaVarre had sent me in with Arramy.

My ears scorched even hotter than they had been before.

Appearances aside, I couldn't believe I was about to get myself kicked out of a hotel lobby. On purpose. I wasn't even sure how one did such a thing, and NaVarre's casual, "Oh, I don't know, accuse each other of something," hadn't been at all helpful. I wanted a script. Some sort of plot outline, at least; definitely something more than a rough sketch of events.

There were too many variables, too many ways this could go wrong. What if we couldn't keep the clerk preoccupied and he caught NaVarre? What if we wound up getting arrested? That would only be the beginning —

An old man came hobbling in at the heels of a large, boisterous Lodesian family. He was dressed as a Farrengan monk on pilgrimage, with a pointed woven-reed hat on his shaggy head and a bulky grey cloak over a pair of loose leather pants. I didn't think anything of it and almost ignored him, assuming he was going to go straight upstairs with the Lodesians. Then he split from the crowd and shuffled over to browse the Informationals and Locals rack at the end of the registration counter. He picked up one of the red City Attractions and Shops to Visit pamphlets and flapped it all the way open while facing us.

I swallowed.

Ready or not, that was our cue. NaVarre had arrived.

The bartender approached then, and Arramy nodded at him. "Drybone Barleymalt, if you've got it."

The man poured a pint of malted ale and slid it to Arramy.

Arramy slid a lyr back. "Keep the change."

I eyed him askance, suffering a twinge of jealousy. He was doing everything a normal, innocent person would do if they sat down at a bar. I, on the other hand, was ready to jump clean out of my skin. Even the thought of drinking made me queasy.

"So," I murmured. "Any ideas?"

Arramy smiled and leaned closer. Too close.

Nosy-Rosy's curiosity started percolating again.

"Yes. Slap me."

"What?" I blurted, pulling back to look at him.

"Slap me," he whispered, leaning in again, his voice low in my ear. "I know you want to. Here's your chance. Pretend I've said something really awful."

I worried the inside of my cheek. I couldn't do it. He was not the sort of man a person slapped for no reason. Avoided making eye-contact with, yes. Hid from, yes. Slapped, no. Besides. He might be a bit barbaric, but I sincerely doubted he would ever say anything so horrid that it warranted a slap.

Arramy was watching the room while I stood there failing to talk myself into hitting him, and he cut through my silent debate with a muttered, "You're taking too long."

Then he reached out and caught the back of my head in his hand, framed my jaw with his thumb, bent, and pressed his lips to mine. Right there. Without any warning whatsoever.

Stunned, I went absolutely still, every real thought fleeing my brain.

His lips were warm, but surprisingly supple. The beginnings of his ten-o-clock shadow burred lightly over my skin. He wasn't breaking it off, either. He drew the kiss out, deepening it slightly when I didn't pull away.

I hadn't given him permission to do any such thing. I was supposed to slap him. This was supposed to be what _made_ me slap him. Drawing a breath, I pushed at him with weirdly shaky hands. It took a conscious effort to bring my hand up.

The _smack_ of my gloved palm striking his cheek was loud.

"How dare you." The quaver of my voice filled the sudden silence. I didn't care about our audience. I wasn't acting at all. I was tired of losing things.

Arramy had taken a step back and was rubbing the side of his face, but he rounded on me, his expression incredulous. "How dare _I_? You're the one who was asking for it!"

My jaw went slack and heat rushed up my neck. Perhaps making a scene wouldn't be so difficult after all. I frowned and stiffened my spine, sparking up. "I was not! I told you, I don't want that kind of attention from you, you slimy, old... weasel!" I spat at him. "Ever!"

The geezer at the Informationals rack gave us a slight nod of encouragement. We had the Clerk's attention.

Arramy shot a pointed glare at the geezer and kept going. "After everything I've done for you, everything I've given you, that cottage for your mother on the coast, all that _jewelry,_ this is how you thank me? You think you've got me eating right out of your fingers, don't you, but I know what you are!"

The Clerk hadn't left the counter yet. Another customer was asking him a question.

_Blast!_ "Oh really? And what am I?" I shot back.

Arramy raised an exasperated 'get moving' eyebrow at the geezer. "You're a spoiled little tease, that's what you are. That's right!... I know all about your other men," he said. Loudly. "So who is it this time, huh? That mangy pup of a farmer? Or that ridiculous ponce of a Lord? My money's on the Lord. He has a bigger house!"

He had closed the distance between us and was looming over me. When he lifted his hand, I gasped and flinched, stumbling back a step as if I were afraid of being struck.

"Right. That's it," a male voice said behind me. "Sir, you need to leave."

Whirling, I found the clerk had come to stand beside me, his mutton-chop whiskers bristling, his slender frame rigid as he glowered up at the Captain. I had to give him credit. That must have taken a great deal of gumption.

Arramy's gaze flicked over the much smaller man – and beyond him. Then, abruptly, he straightened. "I apologize," he said. "There has been a misunderstanding." With that, he walked out, his stride heavy and swift as he crossed the lobby to the door.

"Are you alright, Miss?" the clerk asked after a moment.

I brought the backs of my fingers to my flushed cheeks. I was shaking, which was absurd, but thankfully believable. "I'm fine. Thank you so much. I don't know what he would have done if you hadn't stopped him."

That wasn't a lie. We were only supposed to start a fight. What would have happened if the clerk hadn't taken the bait? How far would we have had to go? No one else had offered to help. The couple at the bar had ducked quickly back to their morning ale, the man by the fireplace had already gone back to reading his paper... and the geezer by the Informationals was gone.

It was over. We had actually pulled it off, all because the clerk had proved to be a decent human being.

"Can I send for someone?" the Clerk asked gently. He really was being very nice, and we had just stolen his guest ledger.

"I'll be fine." I gave him a smile. "My... um... my good friend lives just down the street. I think I'll pop in for a visit... But thank you again."

The Clerk's brow wrinkled with concern. "Are you sure? Let me send for a cab, at least."

I hesitated. If I refused help it might look suspicious. I could always tell the cabby to drop me off around the corner, then walk back to where NaVarre's horseless was parked. "Would you?" I asked, hoping I sounded relieved.

"Certainly. Certainly. Apraeidon's usually takes about five minutes to get a driver over here. You're welcome to wait."

"Oh, thank you. You're so kind," I murmured. I meant it.

~~~

Ten minutes later, I tipped the cabby with the money I found in the reticule NaVarre had given me, and set off down St. Camyrre Street, searching for the flower seller with the big picture of a lily painted on the front window. There were two horseless motors parked at the curb and I stepped up to the shiny new one with the polished copperwood trim, fairly sure it was the one NaVarre had rented.

I had just raised my hand to tap on the _luxfenestre_ of the traveling compartment when the door came swinging open and Arramy leaned out, glancing around while he pulled me inside – as if that wouldn't look worse than me climbing in on my own.

I yanked my arm out of his grip and sat down next to NaVarre, aiming a baleful stare at Arramy as I arranged my new skirts. "That wasn't fair," I said curtly. "You should have warned me."

Arramy narrowed his eyes. "Don't worry. It won't happen again."

"Good," I snapped.

NaVarre had stripped off his hat and that awful grey wig and was bending over a large ledger laid open across his knees, reading while he peeled off his false mustache. "If he had warned you, it wouldn't have been as convincing."

I gaped at him. Then I heaved a sigh, my anger deflating with it. I wasn't about to tell either of them that I had never been kissed before. Who admits that sort of thing? I couldn't expect either of them to understand why it bothered me so much. What was a first kiss, anyway, in the grand scheme of things? Obviously, nothing special. There were much bigger problems to worry about. Besides, NaVarre was right, the kiss worked. We had the logbook.

I peered over NaVarre's shoulder.

Signatures and dates and room numbers and charges marched in neatly ruled columns across the sheet of paper. I had barely started making sense of it when NaVarre reached the bottom and flipped the page without finding what he was looking for.

Something immediately caught my eye halfway down the new column of signatures. It wasn't my father's name, and it was written in the same efficient hand that had noted it was a booking taken by courier, but it was certainly familiar. "There," I said softly, reaching around NaVarre's left arm to point out the entry.

NaVarre raised his eyebrows. "Well hullo, Montie," he murmured. Then he saw the date of the booking and let out a short _huh_ of bemusement. "They haven't rebooked the room even though he hasn't..." NaVarre cleared his throat without finishing that sentence.

Father hadn't checked in. I swallowed, hating my stupid, unreasonable heart for hoping he would be there, waiting for me. It only made it worse, finding these leftover pieces of him.

NaVarre sat back and scratched at his cheek, where a bit of that long, scraggly beard was still stuck to his skin. "You know what I think? I think we need to get into that room."
27. Tempests in Teacups

30th of Uirra, Continued

Delicate pink rosebuds twined around the inside edge of the teacup in front of me. If I squinted a bit and held it just right, it could almost have been from my mother's good set. This one wasn't as fine, though, and had taken the wear of many hands. The insulative and handle were made of plain cast tin, not copper, and the saucer was cheap, with single-color roses stamped on it. Still, it was so familiar, this act of drinking tea while sitting by a café's front window, that I couldn't make myself disturb the tea.

Maybe if the teacup remained as it was, everything around it would stay normal too, so I sat there memorizing it, noticing things I never would have in my other life: how the rich amber of the tea perfectly complemented the pale ivory of the porcelain lining, and how the milk billowed in miniature thunderclouds at the bottom of the cup, then formed a smooth layer just beneath the surface —

"Would you prefer Offgarten?"

The rumble of Captain Arramy's voice grated over my ragged nerves, and I winced. Then I sighed. It was an innocent enough question. Understandable, even, since I hadn't taken so much as a sip of the tea he had ordered. "No. This is fine. I like a good provincial."

Arramy was quiet.

I almost smiled in spite of myself. He was decidedly out of place, his long frame folded into a café chair covered in pink-checked cotton, his battle-roughened fingers trying to hold a teacup by its slender handle. My heartbeat quickened, my mind instantly conjuring up an all-too-vivid memory of how gentle those fingers had felt in my hair as his mouth moved over mine — _No! Bad! Stop that. Stay focused. Keen and sharp. Like a knife. You are a knife._

I picked up my teacup. "So where are you from, Captain?" I could try to be polite, if only to pass the time.

He gave a small, non-committal half-shrug. "A little bit of everywhere."

Such a lovely half-answer. I took a careful sip of tea, eyeing him over the rim of porcelain. "Where were you born, then?" I wasn't feigning interest. I had never met a living rock. Did they hatch, or grow in the soil like a potato?

He glanced at me. "North Altyr."

It was too easy. I quirked a wicked grin. "The whole of north Altyr. Two thousand square miles of mountains. Your mother must be an incredible woman."

Arramy's jaw flickered and he looked away – but I had already caught the quick flare of pain in his eyes.

I sobered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend."

Arramy didn't say anything more. He just fiddled with the bit of biscuit he hadn't eaten, tapping it on the edge of his saucer. Then he dropped it on his plate and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

My urge to have a polite conversation petered out. I studied him for a moment longer, trying to see a hint of personality beneath that stony exterior, but whatever I had seen was gone, the hatches firmly battened, all holds barred. Oddly disappointed, I went back to looking out the window.

The sky was a jagged cutout of unfettered blue framed between the overhanging upper stories of St. Camyrre Street. Icicles dripped and sparkled from every edge of every building, giving the dreariness of Lordstown's low district an air of fairy-tale.

People bustled along the wooden boardwalks: women with children too small for the local parochial school; a few older men out for a late-morning saunter to their favorite pub; messenger boys dashing from one business to another, carrying papers or parcels.

They all seemed so innocent, but were they? Maybe the ancient prune of a sailor sitting on the bench outside the cafe window wasn't simply smoking his pipe and feeding the gulls. Maybe he was staking out the Iron Dragon Inn, waiting for NaVarre to show his face. Maybe the girl hawking mended jackets on the corner had been hired by this mysterious Coventry organization to follow us. Maybe this whole half-baked scheme was going to get us killed.

I was well lost in a bog of worry and suspicion when Arramy asked, gruffly, "Where are you from, Miss Warring?"

I jerked away from the window.

The Captain was regarding me from under his lashes, keen eyes missing nothing.

"Garding," I got out, lifting my tea to my lips again. After all, I was only a normal girl having a normal conversation with her normal older male relative/brother/guardian who had kissed her. _Oh, do shut up!_

Arramy absorbed my answer like a stone and took another drink of tea. Not a sip. A gulp. The rest of it down at one go.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?" I asked.

Arramy's jaw flexed, his teeth parting before he closed them with a snap and shook his head. Then his gaze sharpened on something out in the street.

There was a jingle of door chimes and NaVarre came into the café, vigorously rubbing his hands together and stomping his boots on the mat. He made a small production out of ordered a spiced _taratine_ and a rum scone while flirting mercilessly with the shop girl, then came to sit in the chair directly behind mine. The rustle of a newspaper shaking open was followed by a painfully casual whisper, "There wasn't anything in his room."

Arramy was watching my face again.

I ducked, pretending to taste one of the little shell shaped shortbreads that had come with the tea. "Did you ask at the desk?"

"Not officially, no." NaVarre turned a page. "There wasn't anything in the pigeonhole, and there was nothing left for the alias he might have used."

I closed my eyes. It sounded so hopeless. A dead end. It also didn't sound like my father. He wouldn't have let us know there was a third binder, hidden the binder to keep it safe, then left no way for it to be found. There had to be some clue.

Something about that name in the guest register tugged at me. Montemortus. The 'friend' who was supposed to be in town, according to one of those cryptic messages in father's satchel. Why use a false name NaVarre would have known to look for if not to let NaVarre find him, or the binder? Why make it more difficult? Unless he wanted someone else to find it if he wasn't there.

I opened my eyes. "Did you ask if anything was left for me?"

NaVarre snorted lightly. "As charming as I am, there is no way I can pass for a Miss Brenorra Warring in this outfit... But there wasn't anything left for _anyone_ named Warring."

What if my name was the problem? Father had given me a false name too, one that only I would know, one that I would have had to use if I had reached Lordstown because it was on the _Galvania_ manifest: Larkham.

With a sigh, I got to my feet.

Arramy looked up. "Where are you going?"

"To ask if anyone left something for a woman who isn't Brenorra Warring. Obviously." I smiled and dipped into a half-sweet, as if we were all friends and I was taking my leave. Then I made for the door.

The scrape of a chair announced that someone was coming after me, but they were too late. I was already outside and picking my way over the frozen wheel ruts in the street, once again approaching the Iron Dragon's front entrance. This time, though, I was alone. This time, I wasn't thinking about what I would have to say. I already knew.
28. Once More unto the Dragon

30th of Uirra, Continued

The clerk smiled and paused what he was doing as I came toward the desk. If he was having difficulty because of his missing logbook, he wasn't letting it show on his face. He seemed genuinely pleased to see me.

"Hello," I said, returning his smile. And then, with no beating around the bush or stealing, or disguises or awful distractions, I just... said it. Plain and simple and straightforward: "I completely forgot why I came in earlier. I was wondering if my uncle left anything for me. He said he was staying here," I said, proud of how smoothly I substituted the word 'uncle'. The rest of it wasn't really a lie, either, so that helped. My skin only heated a little.

The clerk inclined his head politely. "I most certainly can. Name?"

"Larkham. My uncle's name is Percaus Montemortus," I said. _Smooth as puffed cream..._

The clerk squinted thoughtfully. "Larkham," he mused aloud, turning to face the pigeonholes as if he was actually looking for something.

My pulse skipped.

"Larkham... Larkham... Now where did I put it..." He bent, checking along the bottom shelves. "Ah! Here it is," he announced from somewhere under the counter. "Miss Lorelda Larkham."

The clerk came back up with a plain envelope resting flat in his hands. He blew a bit of dust off the surface, then removed a slip of paper clipped to it with a wire-twist before he pulled a pair of spectacles from his vest pocket. He blinked through them as he held the slip of paper at arm's length. "He's left some instructions here," he explained. "I'm to ask you a question, and your answer has to match the one provided." He glanced at me to make sure I understood. When I nodded, he went on. "Right then. The question is: _What would you rather eat, pickled pincushions or dandelion pie?_ "

My throat tightened. "I'll have the mud cake, please," I managed, my eyes locked on the envelope.

The clerk peered at the paper, brows raised. "Mud cake. Let me see here... Yes. That's the... that's right. That's the right answer. Mud..."

I had already snatched the envelope from his fingers, leaving him to wonder whatever he wanted about my father's word games.

I could barely breathe. Out. I needed to get out. The room was closing in on me. Air. Now. I spun on my heels and ran straight for the door, my heart caving in on itself. It was as if Father had reached out of nowhere to tap on my shoulder the way he used to. The other shoulder, so I would turn the wrong direction, but he wasn't going to be standing beside me, laughing when I came all the way around to find him.

That ridiculous riddle. Mud cake and dandelion pie and pickled pincushions. It broke something loose inside me. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't keep it from crashing into me. Right there in the middle of the street I let out a sob and bent over, curling around the pain of breathing, unable to move, unable to make a sound.

A large hand touched my back.

"Stand up," Arramy murmured. "Keep walking."

I knew he was right. I was making a scene.

But I could only heave for air while the world clattered by around us. I reached for that awful numbness again, but it wasn't enough. Still unable to breathe, I ground my teeth and forced myself up straight. I took a step, only to narrowly miss being run over by an oncoming draft wagon. It was Arramy who pulled me out of the way, and it was Arramy's commands I followed, obeying his voice like some sort of mindless clockwork doll as he guided me across the crowded street and into the waiting horseless.

NaVarre was already in the driver's seat, his dock-boss tweed jacket and winter wool pants traded for the long, dark cape and round hat of a liveried driver.

We turned south along St. Camyrre Street, traveling parallel to the bay till we reached Quay Street. We left the horseless in the parking field off the marina and boarded a nondescript one-masted fishing _goonter._ Or, I should say I boarded the _goonter_. Arramy and NaVarre cast off, working easily together as they poled the boat out of its berth and navigated the small-craft lanes into the open harbor. Then Arramy trimmed the oval sails, and the lightweight __ craft __ leaped ahead of the wind, fairly flying through the water.

Arramy took the tiller, and NaVarre came to sit under the woven-reed canopy strung up on wooden hoops over the prow. He gave a long whistle and sat down hard on the narrow bench across from me.

I expected some sort of censure for rushing off on my own, but none came. He simply leaned forward and asked, "Did you open it?"

The letter. It was still there, crumpled in my hand, peeking out from either end of my clenched fist. I could only shake my head. "I don't want to."

"May I?"

I shook my head some more. Just because I didn't want to open it didn't mean I wanted anyone else to.

_It's important. Stop dillying around and open the thing. Go on. Like tearing off a tackyplaster. Rip it open...Yes. Right now. Just..._ I held the letter up. I was breathing hard, as if I had run a mile, but I did it. I slid a fingernail beneath the sealing tape, found the looped end of the pull-ribbon, and yanked it through the thin layer of gum wax. Then I eased the flap upward and drew a tri-folded piece of stationery out into the dapple of sunlight coming through the canopy.

My father's blocky handwriting was scrawled across the side of the letter facing me.

My Darling Bren

I clamped my left hand over my trembling mouth and turned the paper over. Then I unfolded it and pressed it flat on my knees.

I hope you never read this.

I had to pause and look away as my vision swam. It took several deep breaths before I could make myself keep going.

I hope you're lounging on the sunny beaches of Aethscaul, and all of this was for nothing.

But if you are reading this, if I'm not the one delivering this information to those who need it, I beg of you... forgive me. Forgive a weary old man for wanting to let you remain the sweet, untroubled girl you are, to keep that smile bright as long as I could. I never thought this would be where we wound up when I started.

And now I may only be doing more harm than good, keeping this from you. I should tell you. Part of me wants to, but another, more cautious part knows that you are a target. If they can get ahold of you, they will, and the less you know the better. All I can say is that if I find the right moment, I will tell you everything... and if that moment never comes, this letter will have to do.

I could hear my father making that argument, and the tears wouldn't stop. Unbidden, they rolled down my face to drip from my chin.

This is an impossible situation. I have to plan on not making it through this alive. Anything less would be foolish, so I have set things in place that will keep this information from falling into the wrong hands, while providing for you in the only way I know how: I have made you indispensable. You're the key to all of it. That's it. That's the only way I know to keep you absolutely safe, to make sure Lexan has to find you even if I'm not there and protect you even if I cannot deliver what he wants. He is a good man, but if he has to make a choice between saving you and pursuing this mad course he is on, I am afraid I will have to force him to choose you.

I know there will be many times you find yourself wondering who to believe. Who to trust.

All I can tell you is, use your better judgment and follow your instincts. There is no other way I know to prepare you for what is coming. Keep those quick wits about you, my dear. Fight. Fight to stay alive. Fight to do what is right. This cause that I have dragged us into will mean justice and freedom for thousands of men, women and children, but more than that, it will expose something much bigger, something that threatens all of us. If you can trust anything, trust that. Trust that I would never risk everything on a mere whim.

I love you, Brenorra. I cannot say that enough. I hope you can forgive me. I hope I have not handed you a death sentence. Most of all, I hope that wherever this life takes you, you will be happy. Your happiness is all I want. Allow yourself to laugh. I love to hear you laugh.

There was no signature.

I stared at the bottom of the page, dimly registering the presence of an all too familiar poem.

Then, brave Aerion, fly!

Swift and sure as the wind

till the ocean runs dry

and vale becomes mountain.

Fly on till the night sky

burns scarlet with brimstone,

and ashen the earth lies

'neath thy red wings alone.

If anyone but me had read that letter, they would have thought he simply ended it with a strange, but personally meaningful quote. That was true, in a way. _Pyo and the Redraven_ had been my favorite story as a child. I begged him to read it over and over and insisted that he make the flying-bird hand motions every time.

That particular passage had become a signal between the two of us, part of what I had thought was an amusing little game. Now, because of that game, I knew there would be tiny dots on many of the upward strokes in the body of the letter. They would look like they came from a shaky pen nib, when in fact they were carefully placed, as were the small marks that would be under certain words. My stomach knotted up tight, my heartache souring. Nothing was as it seemed, not even my father's farewell letter. Our secret little code wasn't just for the two of us, there had been some other hidden layer to it all along, just like that party.

But he had done all of that to keep me safe. I took a quivering breath and wiped my face. Fight, he said. I was beyond exhausted, and he wanted me to fight.

Well then.

"I need a pen and paper," I croaked.
29. Keys and Other Things

30th of Uirra, Continued

"What's the key?"

I didn't look up, concentrating on transcribing the tiny dots in the text of my father's letter onto larger lines I had drawn on a fresh sheet of paper. There hadn't been anything to write with on the _goonter_ , so I had to wait until we were back aboard the _Stryka_. Now I was sitting at the table in the council room, a mug of hot, spicy cider in front of me, while Arramy lurked directly behind my chair, not bothering to hide the fact that he was reading over my shoulder.

"It's my necklace," I said after a moment. That wasn't the whole answer, but he didn't need to know _everything_.

A few seconds later: "How are the letters assigned to the symbols?"

"That..." I made a point of rechecking my work, searching for any dots I might have missed, "...is a secret." I moved to the next line of my father's handwriting. There had to be some things I could keep to myself.

"Uh-huh," Arramy murmured. This time he was looking at me and not the papers I was scribbling on.

"Would you mind moving? You're in my light."

Arramy grunted, then went to sit at the other end of the table, where he had been plotting things on a large map of the continents.

I glanced over at him.

There was a forest of little color-coded pins sticking out of three ports in the Colonies, several stuck in Lordstown, but only one small group clustered on the Continental side of the Marral Sea. I didn't have to get closer to tell that they were all stuck in Garding, Warring Oceanic's home port. There wasn't any other port of origin mentioned in any of Father's documents.

Arramy's gaze collided with mine, and I had to suppress a shiver.

When I was twelve, Aunt Sapphine went on an expedition to the hidden temples in North Altyr. She found them occupied by a species of wild mountain wolfdog that the locals told fearsome stories about. These wolfdogs were crafty, incredibly fierce, and capable of taking down prey three times their size.

The sketches she drew of the creatures went up in flames along with everything else in my room, but I could still remember that lazy grin under hooded eyes, and that deceptively relaxed sprawl. Arramy had that same sort of easy stillness, his long legs crossed at the ankle in front of him, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his fingers woven together over his lean middle as if he were patiently waiting for his next meal to wander by, supremely confident in his ability to kill it.

Firming my chin, I went back to work, determined not to be intimidated.

Face it, you want the big grumpy Captain to like you.

I ground my teeth. _No. Not like. I want him to acknowledge that I'm not just some silly, fawning, pampered socialite. That's not the same thing._

Are you sure?

Shut up. This is important. Father wouldn't have coded it if it wasn't.

I reached the end of the letter, triple-checked everything, then made sure I had the right cyphers. There were two systems to solve. The first was my name, underlined, followed by a sentence six words long. The second was the smudge under the 'm' in 'many,' followed by a sentence three words long. I couldn't help glancing surreptitiously at Arramy again to make sure he wasn't able to see anything... which earned me a quirked eyebrow. He was still watching me, waiting for me to prove myself useful.

Annoyed, I ignored him and unfastened the clasp of my compass rose necklace. Then I placed the pendant on the table in front of me and worked the cypher, lining up South on the larger bottom ring with North on the smaller front ring, jotting down the eight individual combinations of little dots on the eight double spokes of the rose, starting with the one on North.

It took another few minutes to write out letters beneath each dot symbol, starting with the first letter of my name and skipping by sixes – as indicated by that six-word sentence – till I had used every letter in the alphabet and all eight dot symbols had distinct groups of letters beneath them. Figuring out the message was as simple as writing the groups of letters beneath their corresponding dots in the line of code I had found in the letter. It was fairly easy to 'translate' the groups of letters.

Frowning, I jotted down the solution: LIONS PERCH.

That was the first one. I moved the top wheel so West was over East, creating a whole new arrangement of dots. Sure enough, they matched the second group of dots I had culled from the text. A few minutes later I had that solved too. BUTTER CONES.

I wrinkled my nose, baffled. Those were clearly the words Father meant me to find. His cypher rarely produced pairs of words that made sense together if you got it wrong, but the two groups of words didn't seem to make any sense with each other. What, exactly had I just solved?

Arramy got to his feet and stepped around to look over my shoulder again. This time he bent closer, leaning to place one hand flat on the table next to me, effectively caging me into my chair as he studied my papers. I wouldn't have put it past him to be reverse-solving my father's little code game in his head. Knowing him, he probably could.

For all my stubborn desire to keep a secret – any secret – to myself, I didn't stop him. I sat there, my heart doing a strange tattoo in my ribs, suddenly very, very aware of how close he was. Close enough to catch a hint of that pinewood and coconut soap. In a flash of insanity, I had the insane urge to bury my nose in the hollow of his throat and taking a deep breath. What an absurd thing to think about a person. _Hold still sir, you smell like safety and not-drowning_.

Blushing furiously, I tore my gaze from his rugged jawline. This was business. Arramy was most certainly not caging me in to flirt with me. Why would he? It wasn't as if he enjoyed my company... Much less kissing me. _That's right,_ I told myself. _This is simply an economical position in which to view what another person happens to be viewing. There is no seduction going on. More like anti-seduction. He's probably trying to see if I'll lean sideways to avoid being crushed by his arm._ Grimly, I focused on the matter at hand. "Does it make any sense to you?"

Arramy was silent, considering something. When he spoke, his voice was a rich rasp by my ear, "There's a Tetton pub in Nimkoruguithu called the Lion's Perch."

"A pub." A pub might serve butter cones. I actually _had_ done something useful. I hated how ridiculously pleased I was that the Captain knew that fact, but I smirked anyway.

Rapid footsteps sounded out in the Bridge, then, followed by more footsteps and one of the marines calling loudly, "Stop! You need permission to go in there."

Arramy straightened quickly and stepped away from me.

Then NaVarre was striding into the Council Room, two disgruntled marines trailing along behind him. They might as well have tried to stop a warship under full sail. "Please tell me you've found something," NaVarre said loudly as he slammed the door in their faces, cutting off their objections.

I twisted around to grin at him over the back of my chair. "Alright. I've found something."

NaVarre flashed a big, sparkly, stunningly gorgeous smile and came to stand next to me, bending to take a look at the proofs on my piece of paper. His smile dimmed and he shot a questioning glance at me.

"The Lion's Perch is a pub in Nimkoruguithu," I provided.

NaVarre nodded, his eyes narrowing in thought. "That makes quite a lot of sense, actually. Your father mentioned that he had a trusted contact there. An old army friend, I think." Then he turned to Arramy. "What say you, Captain? Fancy a trip to the Colonies?"

The Captain crossed his arms over his chest. "Not with a ship full of civilians and wanted men," he muttered. Then he took a deep breath and let it out on a weary sigh. "But this has to end. If going to Nim K means we find enough to take down these people, I'm in."

"We're agreed then." NaVarre dipped his head, then smiled again. "Excellent work, Miss Warring."
30. The Return of the Civilians

31st of Uirra

Arramy came into the council room after breakfast this morning. He must have been standing the dawn watch; a thick, fluffy layer of fresh snow lay on his shoulders and the top of his hat, proof of the last-of-winter storm that had come skulking up on us in the night.

He stopped short in the doorway, his eyes widening as if he were surprised to find NaVarre and I sitting across from each other at the table, where we were going over all the documents again with a magnifying lens, on the hunt for any other hidden messages we might have missed.

Arramy's brows lowered into a frown. "I want the civilians brought over to the _Stryka_ ," he announced, then came all the way in and shut the door behind him, stomping slush from his boots and undoing the togs of his heavy winter longcoat.

NaVarre looked up from my father's letters.

I put down the magnifying lens.

"The women are tired of living in a floating tent." Arramy peeled off his coat and his soaking wet gloves and tossed them over the back of the chair at the other end of the table. "The children need proper shelter. Seas are quiet now, but this storm is going to get worse before it gets better... And having them gone will allow your crew to work on repairs without threat of mutiny. Or haven't you noticed the glares your men are getting?"

NaVarre pursed his lips, then nodded. "Alright. Miss Warring can come over to the _Ang_ with me."

Arramy gave him an unimpressed stare. "That's for Miss Warring to decide."

"I'm sure she'll agree —" NaVarre began, but I cut him off.

"I'd much rather stay here."

Arramy smirked. It was barely a twitch of his lips, but I caught it. I almost informed him that I wasn't staying because of him, but because I didn't feel like being dangled over the ocean in that swing again. That, and I wanted to see the other survivors again, but mostly the dangling.

NaVarre sighed and sat back hard in his chair. He glanced over at me, then relented. "Fine. For now, but you'll have to stay on the quarterdeck. No mingling."

Perplexed, I turned to look at him. "You're asking me to stay separated from the other women, either in my own cabin, or on a ship full of pirates? Do you know what they're going to say? They're going to say, 'Oy! There is that girl that gets all the special favors! She doesn't have to stay in the hold with the rest of us. And why did the Captain take her over all by herself and set her up so nicely in a cabin of her very own?' That's what they're going to say. What do you think the answer will be?"

I fixed him with a falsely sweet grin. "I can promise you, it won't be, 'She has taken up knitting.'" I shook my head, grin fading. "Angry tongues can sink a ship. I've already caused enough trouble."

NaVarre's lips actually curled into a wry smile, but then he sighed, his shoulders sagging. "I know what it'll look like," he acknowledged. "But we don't know who sabotaged the _Galvania_. Until we do, I don't want you anywhere near the other civilians. If they're coming over here, and you refuse to go over to the _Ang_ , you'll have to stay on the quarterdeck."

My jaw went slack. That thought had never crossed my mind. Not once. I was about to object, to say that I had survived alongside those people and I was sure none of them could possibly have done such a thing, but my objection fell flat. He was right, blast him. There wasn't actually any way I could be completely sure.

Teeth pressed tight together, I braced my elbows on the table and rested my chin in my palms, pressing my thumbs into the ache burgeoning behind my temples. I had been looking forward to seeing the women again. I wanted to make sure Laffa was getting decent food to eat, and that she had a comfortable place to sleep. Now they were finally coming over, and I wouldn't be able to see her anyway. Still. At least she'd be on the same ship.

"Fine," I muttered. "I'll stay on the quarterdeck. If that's alright with the Captain."

Arramy nodded. Once.

"Apparently I am over-ruled." NaVarre got to his feet. He picked up his hunting jacket and pulled it on, careful of the blades in his gauntlets. "But while we're on the subject of what to do with the civilians, how are we on supplies?"

The Captain's lips thinned to a grim line. "Kyro was supposed to restock in Porte D'Exalle. That didn't happen. As it stands, we're low on potable water and vittles. But... If we go to light rations and set up the filters, we can stretch what we've got to four weeks. We should make Nimkoruguithu." The tension in his shoulders said what he wasn't voicing aloud: we would only make land if we didn't run into any trouble between here and there. At all.

NaVarre absorbed that piece of information, regarding the Captain through a thoughtful squint. "Right. Well. I'll check with my Bossun to see what we can spare. Now, if we really are bringing everyone over, there are things I need to do. Good day, Miss Westerby," he added, giving me a courteous bow. With that, he was gone, taking all the sound and energy out of the room with him.

Silence fell, thick and heavy as the damp wool of Arramy's Navy coat.

I shuffled my father's papers, a blush rising in my ears.

Arramy took a step toward the door.

"Thank you," I blurted.

He went still, his hand on the door pull.

"For allowing me to have an opinion." I looked up at him. "That was... unexpected. And appreciated."

The Captain frowned slightly. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, a muscle ticking in his jaw. Then he inclined his head, opened the door, and strode through the map room, making for his own cabin.

No bow, no 'you're welcome.' I blinked, then let out my breath on a short, unsurprised laugh, picked up the magnifying lens again and went back to work.

~~~

The Glorious Arrival of the Civilians was even worse than I imagined. I thought maybe there would be some raised eyebrows, perhaps a question as to why I wasn't coming down to greet them. Maybe a bit of bristle from some over my 'elevated' station. I wasn't exactly everyone's favorite on the _Ang_ , but at least the women had been civil.

It was clear they didn't feel the need anymore.

When the _Angpixen_ came alongside and the transfer of civilians began, even Lorren, who had joked with me while we did laundry only a few days ago, stepped down onto the main deck from the cargo swing and refused to acknowledge that I was right there, standing in plain view, waving at her from the top of the quarterdeck stairs.

I knew she could see me. Her eyes barely flicked over me before she ducked her chin to her chest and made a beeline for the main hatch, as if she couldn't get away fast enough.

She wasn't alone. One by one, all of the women who survived the _Galvania_ made it plain what they thought.

The message was loud for all its determined silence. Whatever I was, I was not one of them. After the fifth or sixth snubbed attempt at being friendly, I closed my mouth and stopped waving as the butcher's wife, and Lorren's sister, and Pellina, and all the rest of them paraded past, some giving me scathing looks askance, some ignoring me completely, some offering an apologetic little nod but avoiding eye contact and crossing the main deck as quickly as they could.

I couldn't blame them. I had kept them all at arm's length when I was on the _Ang_ , partly out of fear of losing another person, partly out of fear of hurting them even more by association, but mostly out of guilt. It had turned out to be quite difficult to strike up a friendship with someone who lost their mother or their child or their husband because I happened to be on the same ship.

That didn't make it hurt less when the butcher's wife spat a thick glob of saliva in my direction, or when Laffa cringed at the sight of me, yelling the word _uinskyrra_ (soiled street woman) while making a crude sign with her fingers.

I flinched when she did it, and considered running away to find a hole to cry in. It seemed I hadn't been too far off in my predictions. A wall had gone up the minute Arramy brought me over to the _Stryka_ alone.

In the same way someone can't help but watch a steam-engine wreck till the last cargo bin stops rolling, I didn't leave my spot by the railing. Not even when Arramy descended from the aft deck, coming to a halt beside me in time to see the last woman reach the main hatch.

If her parting glare had been a dagger, I would have died with it buried in my forehead.

"Enjoying the show, Captain?"

Arramy studied me until I gave in and looked up at him.

He wasn't gloating. He wasn't even smirking. He was regarding me calmly in that stern, steady way of his. Chastened, I offered a wan smile. "Sorry. That was unfair."

He held my gaze for a heartbeat. Then he squinted out at the chop of the broken-slate sea. "The wind is picking up." He continued past me down the stairs to the main deck. "Get inside."

How was it possible to make something that simple sound so much like a rebuke? He was right, though, blast him. Already, the waves were white-topped with spray, and the snow was whipping past at a severe angle. The survivors had been brought over not a moment too soon.

With a sigh, I went back into the warmth of the Bridge.
31. More Than One Kind of Storm

32nd of Uirra

With a sickening lurch, the cabin began tilting again, rising to the prow as the _Stryka_ climbed yet another monstrous swell. I planted both feet on the wall, grabbed at the edges of Penweather's berth box with white-knuckled fingers, and held on like a burr, waiting for the even more sickening plunge into the trough.

One. Two. And there it was. The wave crested, there was a single, breathless second of inertia, then the _Stryka's_ ends seesawed with a groan, and down we went, the hull crashing into the water again.

Bile surged up my throat, and the need to scrabble out of that tiny, suffocating space was nearly overwhelming. The sound of loose items clattering about in the Bridge kept me from opening the door. It was only maps, probably, sextants and marking wax dumped out of their containers, but there was also the ominous tinkle and crunch of broken glass.

There wasn't any way of knowing what, exactly, was flying around out there. The only thing I had to worry about in my cabin was Penweather's ink pot, which I had forgotten to stow in his writing desk before the worst of the storm hit. Right on cue, it made another swift appearance, sliding out from under the berth box and skittering wildly over the floor as the _Stryka_ began climbing again.

The warship's engines screamed like a savage animal below decks, pushed to the limit. Boots thumped repeatedly overhead as the Captain fought to keep the bow true to the top of the oncoming peak. Again, we hung suspended in time and space, and then the world tilted, and the ink pot raced straight back beneath the berth box.

That one wasn't quite so terrifying as the last, actually. Neither was the one that came after.

When the inkpot finally began coming to a stop only halfway to the other wall of the cabin, I uncurled my fingers from the bed frame, slightly convinced that the worst was over.

I had just pushed myself up to sit on the edge of the bunk when my door swung open.

Arramy stood there in the doorway like a great, hulking sea spirit, soaking wet and dripping water all over the floor. His jaw tightened as he took in the ink splatters on the walls and the fact that I was alive and sitting up, then he turned around and stumped back out into the Bridge, where he began straightening things with military precision.

The mess wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. All of the heavier furniture was bolted down and only a few smaller items had been jostled free of their places or spilled onto the floor.

I stood up on shaky legs and joined him, bending to gather a few map tubes that had fallen out of their cubicles. Then I righted the map table stools. The shattered glass was trickier. It was everywhere and seemed to have been some sort of jar or beaker, the shards curved and thin. I was sweeping it up with the hand broom when Commander Kyro came in, just as soggy and disheveled as Arramy, his woolen hat clinging to his head, his beard clotted with bits of snow and ice.

"We've got a problem, sir," he grated out, voice rough from shouting against the wind. His expression was grim, and he didn't so much as hesitate when he saw me, his attention locked on the Captain. "There was damage below. One of the fuel drums came loose and broke. Ruined a bin of dry goods..."

Arramy was already out the door, Kyro hard on his heels, both of them striding swiftly across the quarterdeck. Snatches of Kyro's continuing report came back to me on the winter wind: "... gotten into the water tanks somehow. Three of the filtration devices are broken. Bilge pump was shot all to blazes... One spark is all it'll take..."

Wide-eyed, I moved to close the door after them, pausing to peer out into a storm-scudded dawn. The gale out there might have died down, but a storm of another sort was already upon us. There hadn't been any water, fuel, or food to spare.

~~~

As if to mock us, the clouds rolled away as the sun rose, leaving the sky a crisp, pure azure and the sea at a gentle roll.

Meanwhile, the ship had turned itself inside out. Tarpaulins had been spread on the deck, and all of the contents of the hold were dragged topside to be rinsed free of fuel, if possible. If not, it was tossed overboard as a fire hazard. The bilge had been flushed, also, and the sharp scent of chemical sealant drifted through the ship as the carpenters went through the unwholesome, grimy task of trying to keep any fuel residue from leaching back out of the hull.

The Bridge was quiet for quite a while. Not even any of the midshipmen came in. All able hands were needed elsewhere.

I finished cleaning up the map room, the council room, and the ink stains in my cabin, then, for lack of anything better to do, I checked the mending basket. There was a torn mitten that the cabin boys hadn't gotten to yet, so I found my mending box and went to sit in the Bridge where the late-morning light was streaming in through the porthole.

The Captain and the Commander came in a few minutes later, shedding their damp longcoats, hats, and gloves.

Kyro shook the water off his boots. "All I'm saying is that fuel drums don't just jump out of their bins, sir."

"I'll speak to Pierce again," Arramy said wearily. He saw me sitting there and paused, but then walked past me to the bell panel to ring the galley for a tray. Then he lit the lamps beneath the map table and set about scribbling measurements and figures on a piece of paper.

I kept working, hating the thought of cooping myself up in Penweather's coffin of a cabin unless I absolutely had to.

Arramy stopped scribbling. At the sound of a low, frustrated growl, I looked up to find him standing there with his head bowed and his eyes closed. Then he sighed and did the calculations again, rechecking numbers and angles. He stared at them, then swore out loud, grabbed a wax stick, and made a mark on the glass covering the map he was using.

Kyro regarded the map table, arms crossed over his chest, brows low. "How are we _that_ far off course?"

The Captain gripped the edge of the table and glared off into nothing, lost in thought, eyes a gleam of liquid silver beneath a fierce frown. After a moment he went perfectly still, his gaze homing in on my face. Suddenly, he straightened and crossed the Bridge to the ladder that led up to the aft deck, scaling it fast.

With a stymied glance at me, Kyro followed, but then stepped back when Arramy came sliding back down the ladder. He grabbed his still-sodden longcoat, yanked it on, and slammed out onto the quarterdeck, bellowing for the signal lantern as he made a beeline for the main deck.

Kyro rolled his eyes. "Trot after him like a dog, these days," he muttered, donning his own coat and hat. He gave me a bow and a gruff, "Miss Westerby," as he left, closing the door behind him.

I had barely taken another stitch when the door opened again, and Des'Cready came in with a tray of hot tea, dark bread and cheese.

He cast a befuddled look around, but then put the tray on the map table. "There's enough for you, too, Miss. Last bit of bread we'll have for a while, I'm afraid. When the Captain comes back in, do try to get him to eat, will you? If you can."

And then he was gone, too.

I frowned and put down the mitten. What in all blazes was going on?

~~~

Less than an hour later I found out.

The Captain came back up to the Bridge, but this time it was NaVarre, not Kyro, who followed him in, and they were both spoiling for a fight.

Latching the map room door behind them, Arramy started in, voice low and intense. "We are two quadrants off course. That didn't happen in one night. How didn't you know?"

I had only just gone into my cabin to have a cup of tea, and I turned, watching through the half-open door to my cabin as Arramy began removing his gloves and scarf. Again.

NaVarre took his broad-brimmed hat off, revealing a riot of damp, inky ringlets. He shoved his hands through his hair, trying to slick it away from his face as he snapped, "Until just now, I didn't have any more reason to doubt my compass than you did, Captain. I wouldn't be surprised if yours was off-true, but _both_ ships? That's something else. I have to ask, how well do you __ really know your men?"

Arramy paused in undoing the togs on his longcoat to glare a hole through NaVarre's skull. "You tend your shop, I'll tend mine. I didn't bring you over to talk politics. The _Stryka_ lost a tun of water and nearly a quarter of our dry goods in the storm, not to mention the fuel we burned in the worst of it. We won't make the colonial coastline, even at half rations on a kind wind."

"What is this, then?" NaVarre asked slowly, gone still as stone. "You're making sure I don't cut line and leave you to your fate? Is that it?"

For a second, Arramy regarded him before giving a reluctant nod and a terse, "The thought entered my mind, aye, but I gave my word. You're free to leave. I brought you over because there _is_ one landfall we could make a run for."

With a heavy sigh, NaVarre followed Arramy's unspoken implication. "The Rimrocks. You want me to take you to the Rimrocks."

"I don't like it any more than you do, but it's the only land mass we have a hope of reaching." Arramy lifted a sardonic brow. "And I'm _fairly_ sure you know those shoals."

NaVarre frowned in thought for a moment, lips pursed as he considered the situation laid out on the map table. Then he came to a decision and nodded. "I'll do you one better. I'll take you to Aethscaul. We can leave the civilians and your crew there, where my people can keep an eye on them. Then we can take the _Coralynne_ right into my plantation port south of the city and save having to anchor up-coast."

Hanging their coats on the pegs by the door and tossing their gloves on the heating grate, the two of them went through into the council room and shut the door. Their conversation was muted after that, but I had heard enough.

I stood there, staring through the gap between the cabin door and the jamb. Then I sat down on the edge of the berth box, my tea forgotten.

The Rimrocks.

Islands of infamy, shrouded in mist and bathed in... more infamy.

Aunt Sapphine would have been prancing around, grinning ear to ear like a little girl picked for Snowflower Queen. She had tried for years to scrape together a crew brave enough for an exploratory expedition to the islands.

Now I was going whether I wanted to or not.

I could admit to feeling a quiet buzz of anticipation. Perhaps a little dread. To my knowledge, no one who had gone into the Rimrocks had come back out to tell about it. There were only a handful of places you could get a large ship safely through them, and those were all toward the northern end where the islands were little more than rocks jutting up from a shallow sea shelf.

The interior islands were usually noted on an atlas as a vague, foggy area occupied by sunken ships and crossbones. Whole freighters went missing if they blundered too close to that blurred-out area on the map. Now I could hazard a guess as to why: the Rimrocks were NaVarre's hub of operations.

Perhaps Aethscaul was his base, then? That would make sense, really, given what Father had said about it in his letter. Islands could have beaches.

Which brought up another problem: we weren't going straight to Nimkoruguithu and this Lion's Perch pub.

I had the niggling feeling that this new development was going to turn out badly in some unforeseen way. Father wouldn't have told us where to go if that wasn't the next step. There was no way to tell what the outcome was going to be if we did something else, and the uncertainty sat sour in my stomach. 
32. Speaking of Calm

32nd of Uirra, Continued

I had just finished tidying up my hair before heading to the Loftman's Gallery for dinner when someone tapped at my cabin door. I opened it to find Evers standing there like a half-sized officer, hands clasped neatly behind his back.

"Pardon, Miss, but Cap'n wants everyone out on the deck sharpish. He's ta make a ship-wide 'nouncement."

I raised a brow.

Evers blinked, and blushed a little beneath his freckles. Then, to my surprise, he held out his arm and gave me a courtly little bow. "M'lady."

I fought off a grin and sank into a full curtsy as I took his offered elbow. "Lead on, kind sir," I said. Very serious.

Evers straightened, then about-faced and escorted me through the Bridge and out onto the quarterdeck, his movements stiff and formal as a little windup soldier.

The 'nouncement' had apparently already started.

Arramy was standing in the outward curve of the quarterdeck balconette overlooking the main deck, where what seemed to be every crewman and civilian on the ship had gathered around the masts.

NaVarre stood slightly behind and to Arramy's right, arms crossed over his chest, jaw tight, spine rigid. From the death-stare he was giving the back of Arramy's head, he clearly didn't want to be there.

Raggan blew a long blast on his dog-pipe, and all the sailors snapped to attention.

The Captain's rough brogue lacked the elegance of NaVarre's cultured tones, but that didn't keep everyone from falling quiet to listen when he began speaking:

"I know this is confusing."

There was a smattering of angry agreement from the refugees, especially Orrul, who was glaring daggers at NaVarre.

Arramy stilled, waiting for silence again. Then he kept going with, "I know many of you have been wondering what is going on. Why the _Erristos_ fired on us. Why we're sailing _away_ from home. I have to be honest. I don't know all the answers. I do know it's frightening. I've got loved ones on the mainland too, and right now I don't know when I'll be able to return, or what will happen to them while I'm gone.

"Many of you have been asking why we went back for the Bloody Fox and his crew. Why they are sailing with us now. Why I allowed them to go free, why they haven't left, why they are being treated as friends instead of enemies. Too many whys, but it comes down to this. Out here, they are as close to friends as we are going to get.

"Home isn't safe for any of us anymore. Someone back there wants us all dead. The same people want NaVarre and his crew dead, too. I don't know who. I don't know all of why, but in the end, the who and why of it isn't as important as what we have to do to stay alive. Here. Now. On this ship, with these people. And we _have_ to survive. We _have_ to live to fight another day, or whoever they are, they win.

"Some of you have no doubt figured out what happened in the hold. The storm did more than ruin water and cargo. We've been blown too far off course to get to the colonial shore. That does _not_ mean all is lost. The Bloody Fox has offered to take us to Aethscaul Island. We can hide there, but you should know that Aethscaul... is in the Rimrocks. Another frightening thing, yes, but if there is anyone capable of living in an active volcano, it would be NaVarre."

To my surprise there was a murmur of laughter.

Arramy cracked a hint of a grin and paused to let everyone go calm again, then went on, his expression sober. "You need to understand that this is our best option, but it's also a one-way trip. NaVarre has to protect his own interests, and you won't be allowed to leave the Island once you're there. I won't force you to do that, so I've outfitted a longboat with sail and what supplies we can spare. If any of the civilians want to leave, you can try your luck reaching land on your own... You must act quickly, though. The Prima Median current will take you due west from here, but the farther south we go, the farther away the coastline will get, and you will wind up being swept north into the Marral Sea instead. I can only give you a quarter hour to make your decision."

A stunned hush followed his announcement.

Then Orrul said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "I won't be no pirate's slave! If that's what 'e's got planned, 'e can hang!"

Several voices clamored after that, until the butcher's wife rolled her eyes and planted her hands on her hips. "Well it beats starving to death with _your_ face fer company. No one would want ya, anyway, ya great oaf. Dr. Turragan, what do you think? Should we stay or go?"

The Doctor sighed. "I would suggest we take our discussion to the mess and get the children out of the cold."

That was met by general acceptance, and all of the refugees trooped down the main hatch stairs, disappearing below decks.

Arramy waited where he was, hands clasped behind his back.

I studied NaVarre. He still wasn't pleased, and I squinted, trying to figure out what was going through his head. It had been his suggestion to take the civilians to Aethscaul. Why the reluctance now? Was he rethinking that offer?

Ten minutes later, the adults came back up, much quieter, and with definite purpose.

Dr. Turragan stepped forward. "Captain, we have talked about it, and we have all decided to stay on the _Stryka_ and accept the pirate NaVarre's offer of hospitality. Furthermore, if there is anything that the able-bodied among us can do to be of use, do not hesitate to ask. We are at your service. We humbly thank you for your bravery, and your dedication to the people under your care." Then he took off his flop-brimmed physician's hat and held it to his chest as he dipped into a bow.

There was a moment of tension when Orrul moved to stand beside the Doctor. He glared up at the Captain, but then he too swiped his knitted cap from his head. One by one, the rest of the survivors followed suit.

When the last of the civilians had offered their honors, Arramy nodded. Once.

He seemed cool and collected, but I was standing close enough to see the tightness of his jaw and the rigid set of his shoulders as he turned away from the main deck. He shot a quick, sidelong look in my direction as he strode to the Bridge door, and his eyes met mine, fierce and solemn.

My heart skipped a beat.

NaVarre stalked after the Captain. Before the door to the Bridge closed behind them, his angry, "What in all the seven blue hells do you think you're doing, offering them a boat?" could be heard, followed by Arramy's calm, "My ship, my rules."

I glanced down at Evers.

He beamed a gap-toothed smile at me, brown eyes bright with confidence in spite of the raised voices behind us. "Don't worry none, Miss. Cap'n'll keep them pirates in line."
33. Still Miss Westerby

32nd of Uirra, Continued

I finally got to meet the illustrious Lieutenant Penweather this evening.

Arramy had put him in charge of the carpenters and deckhands that had been helping with repairs on the _Angpixen_. He hadn't been aboard the _Stryka_ often, but he and the other Navy crewmen had been called back over after the storm.

I walked into the Loftman's Gallery for dinner to find most of the off-duty officers already seated and well into their first mug of ale. For once, their conversations didn't wane when I came in. Most of them seemed much more relaxed than normal, in fact, and I could only wonder if it was because of the Captain's speech.

Strange that something so simple could lift the spirits of an entire ship, but it certainly seemed to be the case.

Dinner was about to begin. Evers and Mannish had just finished placing trays of broiled redfish, fried potatoes, and little urns of dipping sauces on the table runner as I took my usual seat at the end facing the Captain. There was exactly enough for everyone to have a serving of each, but no more.

Lieutenant Mannemarra came hurrying over to snatch the empty chair to my left, and immediately that familiar river of one-sided conversation began gurgling away: "Did you hear the news about the Rimrocks? I'm sure you did. You always know everything ahead of the rest of us somehow. I think that's wonderful, really, that you're so smart. I'm not opposed to intelligence in women, although my views have never been popular among my friends. I'm quite the renegade back home. I say. Would you care for one of these fritters? Cook has outdone himself again."

I eyed the potato fritter skewered on Mannemarra's fork, and fought the urge to take it, turn it about, and introduce the man's tonsils to it. It would have been so simple. Just one good jab, but it wouldn't have done any good. The man could eat, breathe, and speak at the same time, like some sort of sentient sponge. I had yet to figure out how he did it, but I had seen it happen more than once.

Chewing my lip, I picked up a sauce urn and dribbled something red into one of my dipping bowls, absently wondering what it would be like to shove whole stacks of fritters into that constantly wagging mouth. Would everything disappear in a flurry of pieces like logs in a mechanical grinder? Or would they fill his cheeks till they sagged like a chipmunk's, growing, growing... _pop!_

I was being horrible. Mannemarra was awkward, but well-meaning and friendly. He also didn't seem to mind that I was there, unlike some.

Commander Kyro did a quick double take in the direction of the doorway, slapped the table and exclaimed, "Hah! Pay up, Gorson."

There was a grumble from the Lieutenant Commander, who started fishing through his jacket pockets for his money skin as Lieutenant Chalb nodded to someone who had just arrived. "Survived, then, Penweather?"

I glanced around to find a tall young man standing in the doorway, a bifold hat under his arm, side-shorn auburn hair gleaming in the light of the ceiling lanterns. If she had been there, Betha would have had another face to swoon over. Classically handsome, with the narrow, sloped nose and pretty eyes of a Lodesian aristocrat, Penweather was almost as lordly as NaVarre.

His smile flashed just as easily, too. "By the skin of my teeth, Sir. The very skin. I'm glad to be home."

I faced forward again just in time to see the Captain's gaze flick from me to the Lieutenant and back. Then he took a long draft from his mug of ale, and sat back in his chair, his jaw briefly going tight.

There was only one empty seat left at the table, and the Lieutenant came walking over to pull the chair out for himself. Laughing hazel eyes met mine as he sat down across from Mannemarra.

Which put him directly to my right.

Mannemarra was suddenly very quiet, studying his potato fritters.

As well-meaning and loyal as the man was, that silence was still physical bliss. I closed my eyes and drank it in, reveling in the fact that I could think two of my own thoughts together. Perhaps I would be able to enjoy my dinner after all —

The Captain cleared his throat, then said, his voice gruff, "Miss Westerby."

I ground my teeth, my smile a beat too slow to appear as I brought my head up and looked at him.

Arramy lifted an eyebrow, a hint of dry humor hiding behind those pale eyes as he drawled, "I felt you should know that Lineman Mannemarra has very kindly volunteered to let Lieutenant Penweather have his bunk just so you will be able to remain in Penweather's cabin."

I didn't notice what Penweather's reaction was, although I heard what sounded like an "ah" of surprise. I stared at the Captain. He had done it on purpose. He _knew_ what the rest of my evening would be like. I could see it in that barely-there smirk on his face when Mannemarra instantly burbled forth again, "Oh, it was an honor! Really, it was. And I would do it again if I could. It's a gentleman's duty to see to the comfort of the softer sex..."

There was more. Much more, mostly about how enjoyable it was to help others in need. I murmured a "Thank you" that I wasn't even sure he heard, and then made a conscious decision to go selectively deaf in that ear, focusing instead on what was happening along the rest of the table.

It was most unusual. Unlike past officer's dinners, conversation lit up again, with Lieutenant Penweather stuck squarely in the spotlight. After only a few minutes I could understand why. He was a witty taleweaver. As though a plug had been pulled somewhere, these men who had been glowering at each other only the day before were clutching their sides and hooting with laughter as the Lieutenant recounted his escapades from the _Angpixen_.

I even found _myself_ smiling at several of his stories, especially the one about Finch's parrot flying around the ship telling everyone to go clean the privy.

But I also found myself remembering the night I snuck into Arramy's cabin to steal the binder back.

It was clear that Penweather was the man I had followed up the stairs to the quarterdeck – the one who always cracked jokes with the officer on watch. While there wasn't anything dark or dangerous about that, it did remind me of something else. I sobered in spite of all the merriment, and my attention found its way to the Captain.

He was lurking there at the far end of the table, observing everything from over the copper rim of his _alespounce_ , eyes a glimmer of frigid steel.

I realized then what had been prodding at my thoughts since Penweather arrived. Arramy had called me Miss Westerby.

He might have given his crew a grain of hope with his speech that morning, but he hadn't really given them the truth. Not all of it. There were still secrets they didn't know. I couldn't let my guard down with these men any more than I could trust the survivors in the hold.

The laughter at the table faded to a dull roar, all the warmth and hilarity losing its brilliance even while Penweather continued to string mile-long sailor's yarns, and the men kept cackling like loons. Even Mannemarra burst into boyish giggles, his skin flushing a shade of pink that clashed with his flaxen hair.

Strangely dizzy, I looked around at all of them, seeing faces I had become accustomed to, faces that had become empty masks, mouths that opened and closed, making senseless noise, their words tangling together.

My gaze collided with the Captain's, and I drew in an involuntary breath.

He didn't know who to trust either.

~~~

_Alespounce:_ a tall, lidded tankard made of copper and ox horn, traditionally used in the Ronyran Province, but adopted throughout the coalition.
34. Fresh Air

33rd of Uirra

A bead of perspiration dribbled out of my hair and ran down my face to drop onto the page of my journal.

Again.

Writing had become quite the rugged experience since we crossed the 30th parallel.

The weather outside hadn't become warmer, but the sides of the _Stryka_ were painted black, which warmed everything above the waterline. Even with the porthole winched all the way open, Penweather's cabin quickly became too stuffy to stay in for any length of time.

But, since my journal now contained dangerous information, I didn't dare write in it anywhere but holed up with the door bolted.

I figured if I wrote as much down as I could, I'd be able to use it somehow. Prove that it happened, maybe. Wrap my head around it.

I still hadn't quite accomplished that yet, even after studiously scribbling away most evenings. I was still the hollow husk from the lifeboat: empty, scraped out and cold. It took an awful lot of effort to truly _feel_ anything. Always at the back of my mind was that ever-present lack, m _y father is not here, my father is not here, my father is not here._ The weight of it clung to me like a shroud, and it only got heavier when I was alone.

Today was no different, but Raggan was busy, and Des'Cready had banished me from the galley for the rest of the day after I set fire to the Captain's _fruiteponne._

I longed to talk to Laffa. I'd have even let her poke me in the ribs again and tell me to _eat fiiiiiish_ and start living. Instead, there I was, sitting in a stuffy, overheated cabin, sweating through my blouse, with no one to talk to. I didn't even know if Laffa would recognize me if I snuck down to see her.

I needed to do _something_ , though, or I was going to go mad.

Here lies Miss Brenorra Warring.

She was whole, but now she's pouring.

Into puddles see her forming,

Oh, poor Miss Brenorra Warring.

I took all of ten minutes composing the above, doodled a bucket around it, added a bunch of flowers and leaves to the margins and a sketch of my own fingers off to the side, then heaved a huge sigh and stabbed Penweather's pen nib-first into its sponge and sat back in the folding chair.

I couldn't stand me anymore. I needed some fresh air.

~~~

I wandered the quarterdeck for a few minutes, staring up at the sails, mesmerized by the play of bright sunlit white against crisp blue shadow.

Around me, the _Stryka_ was abuzz with an orderly sort of energy.

The civilians had settled in, and the familiar midday scent of beef hash drifted from the hold. The hum of conversation in the mess aft of the galley was clearly audible; Des'Cready must have opened a few portholes in the galley to let in some fresh air.

Evers and Reiskelder were up on the aft deck, their faces scrunched with disgust as they emptied the privy buckets into the ship's wake.

A few sailors were swabbing the quarterdeck behind me, the movements of rag-mop and water a syncopated _slop, squish, tap, splash._

As I stood at the portside railing, face to a pleasant late-winter breeze that tugged at my hair and cooled my skin, there was a shout down on the main deck, then more shouting back and forth between the _Stryka_ and the _Angpixen._ Curiosity piqued, I made my way to the railing of the balconette.

NaVarre was preparing to send something over on the cargo swing but had to wait because there was some sort of bother with the _Stryka's_ loading bay hatch cover.

The corresponding lower deck panels had been successfully folded away so the incoming load could be lowered straight into the cargo hold, but the mechanism that lifted the heavy, armored outer hatch doors wasn't cooperating. They were stuck halfway open, and Arramy was on his hands and knees, his jacket off, his shirt sleeves rolled up, elbow deep in the guts of the deck engine gearbox. He finished tinkering and straightened, wiping grease-smudged hands on a rag before reaching over and slapping a lever down as he got to his feet.

A small cheer went up from the loading crew when the deck engine roared to life in a puff of smoke and a grind of gears, and the hatch doors began cranking apart again.

Raggan gave Arramy a clap on the back, then turned to bellow at the _Angpixen_ through cupped hands, "Right! Send 'er o'er!"

On the _Ang_ , there was a similar cough of an engine as Finch began operating the _Ang's_ deck winch. A large platform rose into the air, suspended on ropes from a pulley on the mainsail yardarm. Three huge water barrels were lashed to the platform, and NaVarre stood on top of them, feet braced, hands gripping the hoist ring above his head. A moment later, Finch released the guideline, and the platform came swinging across the space between the two ships, bringing NaVarre with it. The platform was hooked and transferred to the _Stryka's_ own cargo boom, and the sailors began letting it down through the wide-open loading bay doors, where NaVarre stepped off the barrels and onto the deck as easily as if he were exiting a lift.

He busied himself talking to Arramy for a few minutes, then came up the stairs to the quarterdeck, giving me a big, shark-like smile as he headed for the Bridge.

An ounce of stiffening left my shoulders, and I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. He wasn't going to pester me about presenting an easy target by wandering around in the open. I was about to go back to watching the men on deck when a child's laughter had me leaning over the railing to peer down into the shadows of the main hatch.

Lorren, Vinna, and the butcher's wife came trundling into view on the stairs, bringing the _Galvania_ children out of the hold, with Mannemarra and Arkney trailing behind them carrying several blankets and a basket.

There was a smile on Lorren's face as she spoke to one of the littlest boys, holding his arm and helping him hop up one step at a time on his uninjured leg. It was the boy I had held while Dr. Turragan pieced his shin back together. He had been so quiet then. He was still silent, his face absolutely somber as he concentrated on navigating the stairs, but he was responding to the people around him. Someone had taken the time to brush his wild hair and dress him warmly. A little of the ice thawed just a little in that emptiness in my chest.

Vinna came up last, carrying a little red-haired girl on her hip. She followed Lorren and the butcher's wife as they crossed the deck to the empty area forward of the main mast, where Mannemarra and Arkney were spreading out the blankets. Halfway there, Vinna buried her nose in the little girl's collar, growling and snuffling and pretending to 'eat' one of the little girl's ears. When the girl squealed and tucked her head to her shoulder, Vinna began 'eating' her other ear.

"So delicious! You taste like... like _smolblentz_! I'm going to gobble you all up."

I lifted a hand to hide a smile when the girl shrieked and giggled, then cried, "No! You mustn't!"

Vinna stopped nibbling and pulled back to look the little girl in the eye. "But why? I'm hungry."

"Because. I'm a _person_ ," the girl said, so prim and horrified I couldn't help but chuckle out loud.

"Makes the heart glad, aye Miss," Raggan said quietly, coming to stand a few feet away from me at the railing.

I had been so engrossed in watching the main deck that I hadn't heard him come up the stairs. I glanced at him, my smile lingering. Then a thought sobered me. "Do you have children, Raggan?"

"Me? Oh no, Sweetheart," he said. "T'weren't in me stars, I reckon. Couldn't find a woman who'd put up wi' me long enough."

I absorbed that piece of information as I returned to the view below.

One of the older girls had drawn a circle on the deck with a bit of grease-chalk, and they were all taking turns trying to get a bunch of painted stones to land in it, their aim made haphazard by the roll of the ship.

I bit my lip, longing to go down there and join in. Perhaps it was the 'only child' in me, but I had always enjoyed the company of children.

Yes, but these children were orphaned because Father booked passage on the ship they were on.

That familiar chill crept through me again, stealing the color from everything. I was about to tear myself away from all the fun and go back to wandering the quarterdeck, when the sad-eyed boy caught sight of the Captain, pulled away from the butcher's wife and went limping straight for Arramy's knees.

The butcher's wife wheeled around in surprise, then saw Arramy and dipped into a clumsy curtsy while still reprimanding the boy: "Xavi! Come back here! Don't bother the Captain, I'm sure he's very busy."

But Xavi was already tugging at Arramy's hand, indicating without words that he wanted him to look at something.

Arramy ignored the butcher's wife and sank into a crouch, his bright hair stark next to Xavi's tousle of dark spring-curls as he peered at something Xavi placed in his palm. His low voice was difficult to make out from that distance, but I could hear enough to fill in details. "What's this? Oh. I know. It's a dog. A little shepherd dog — no? Are you sure?"

I stared, not quite able to reconcile what I knew of The Great Stone Captain Arramy, and the man giving a child his complete attention.

Xavi giggled and shook his head.

"It's a goose."

Xavi shook his head again, a silly grin spreading over his face.

"Ah. Now I see. It's a flying fish."

That got a vigorous nod. Then, to my surprise, Xavi wrapped his small arms around Arramy's chest, reaching as far as he could, burying his face against Arramy's throat.

"Xavi, come along now," the butcher's wife started to say, but the Captain held his hand up in a silent request to wait as Xavi clung tighter.

"Have any of you ever been at the helm of a warship?" Arramy asked, glancing at the rest of the children, who had left off their games to gather around him.

There was a chorus of 'no's, and a lone 'oh, would I!' from one of the boys.

Arramy looked up at the butcher's wife. "Well, perhaps, if you all ask Mrs. Gorsander very nicely, you can come up to see what Helmsman Farren does all day."

His suggestion was met by a general mobbing of the butcher's wife, who raised her hands in surrender.

"Got the Captain tied right round his wee finger, that one," Raggan murmured as Arramy lifted a delighted Xavi to his shoulder and stood up.

"How long have you known the Captain?" I asked absently, unable to keep from following the progress of the children as they raced for the quarterdeck stairs. They would pass only a few yards from me, but I couldn't make myself move away. NaVarre wasn't standing there breathing down my neck, and I was fairly sure the children could be struck from his list of suspects. I firmed my chin and planted my feet. I was going to stay right where I was, to blazes with neurotic pirates.

Raggan scratched at his chin, unaware of the tiny rebellion going on beside him. "Oh... must be nearing twenty years now. I'd just made Sergeant when 'e was hired on as seaman's apprentice. That were under Captain Lorme, right a'fore the Panesian wars started. We was on patrol in the Straight..." He drifted off into a middle distance of memories. Then he grinned askance. "But that's another story for another time. Duty waits for no man. Leastwise, it surely don't wait for me. Have a wonderful day, Miss." He bowed and followed the Captain up to the aft deck.

And that quickly, I was left alone again.

The other survivors had somewhere they belonged, people they belonged with. The crew all had tasks they were needed for.

I didn't fit in anywhere.

I realized I was staring up at the children like an abandoned mooncalf and wheeled around to face the sea – but not before I caught the Captain turning to look down at the quarterdeck. His gaze found me for a long, tense moment, then slid quickly away. 
35. Steppingstones

36th of Uirra

NaVarre only came over to the _Stryka_ briefly in the three days following Arramy's speech, popping into the council room to harass the Captain about this or that, then leaving just as quickly, constantly in motion the whole time.

That was where I was this morning, on my hands and knees in the council room, my father's documents spread out around me, when NaVarre came striding in, bringing a quick draft of chilly air with him as he swung the door wide.

I squawked in dismay as several of my father's papers went eddying across the floor, scattering two hours' worth of work. Then, with a groan, I tipped my head back so I could glare at him. "Can you _not_ read?"

NaVarre's eyebrows rose at my tone. Then he followed my pointed stare to the door he had just flung open. The note was still tacked to the front, large letters printed clearly across it: "Open Slowly."

"Ah," he said, stepping all the way in, careful of the documents at his feet.

I pinched my lips shut and began shuffling about on my knees, collecting the flown papers.

"Where is Arramy?"

"Mountain climbing," I muttered.

NaVarre didn't move. "What are you doing?"

"I _was_ trying to put together a timeline," I snapped, following a small drift of receipts across the floor, picking them up one by one as I went.

NaVarre crouched and grabbed several manifests that had fluttered over to the wall, bringing them back and adding them to the middle of the mess for want of anywhere else to put them. Then he went after a few inspection reports that had gone running for the chairs. "Did you find anything interesting?"

I finished pulling an assortment of papers from beneath the council room table and added them to the heap NaVarre had made. "I don't know," I said crossly. "Maybe," I admitted. Then I heaved a sigh, grudgingly letting my spine relax. NaVarre wasn't dashing off to find Arramy for once, and he seemed to be in a talkative mood. Perhaps I could get some answers. "That manifest from the _Persephyrre_ is the earliest I could find. Was that when you began working with my father?"

NaVarre came to sit on the floor across from me. "No. That was Obyrron. Your father stepped in after Len disappeared." His expression had gone uncharacteristically serious. "I told your father it was dangerous, but he wouldn't leave. He wanted to save as many as we could. It was risky, extremely so, but he managed to save four hundred girls, two hundred or so men, and fifty-eight boys." He stopped, staring down at the inspection reports in his hands. "That has to mean something, right?"

I swallowed around a hot lump in my throat and closed my eyes. Six hundred and fifty people. It didn't sooth the pain, but it did help me understand why Father stayed. I took a deep breath and assessed the pile of documents. "There were men?" I asked, frowning as I began sorting through everything again.

NaVarre nodded. "The Coventry are going after three kinds of people. Pretty girls of childbearing age; big, athletic men; and sturdy working-class types between twenty and forty. Although lately they seem to have developed a penchant for teenage boys."

His jaw went tight, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

Perhaps I was simply becoming accustomed to his company; perhaps it was the fact that he wasn't wearing his hunting jacket and gauntlets. For whatever reason, the wild, unpredictable pirate was gone. There wasn't even much of the lord about him. Sitting there cross-legged on the floor, dark hair wind-ruffled and free of pomade, jaw shadowed by a few days' stubble, he was simply a human being caught up in the same chaos as the rest of us.

"How did you wind up doing this?" I asked.

He shot a heated glance at me, and for a second I thought he might not answer. Then a thin, hard smile crossed his face. He leaned forward and began sorting with me, his answer surprising me when it came: "I had a twin sister."

I blinked.

"Laina was warm. Feisty, like a _pyxxe_. Funny. The things we'd get up to... she could catch frogs better than any boy I knew."

He paused, his gaze softening. "When she was quite small, she contracted red fever. She recovered, but that was back when the doctors thought it was hereditary, and she was declared undesirable for marriage. Our parents barely took a passing interest in her after that. She was relegated to the nursery, hidden away at parties. No one but the servants and a few close family friends even knew she existed, while I was paraded around like a prize pony. Still... Laina was a beautiful girl, and when it became clear she was going to be a beautiful woman, Mother Dearest became jealous."

"Of her own daughter?"

He nodded. "People only ever saw the glitter on the outside, never the darkness that lived in that woman. I came back from a hunting trip one day and Laina was gone. Her room was empty, new paint, new furniture, as if she'd never been there. I demanded to know where she was. Mother would only say she was earning her keep... My father finally admitted he had given her to Lord Gallander as payment for a gambling debt. When I confronted Gallander, he laughed. Said she was used goods, now, so he sold her."

NaVarre smiled again, a quick flicker of perfect teeth. "The man Gallander sold her to put her on a dark-market slave block in Porte Caresh. I didn't know it then, but that was the first time I ran into the Coventry. It was their slave block she was sold on, and it must have been one of them that bought her. I was able to trace her to a charter boat bound for the Colonies, so that was where I went. Halfway to Nimkoruguithu, the merchant ship I was on was attacked by the pirate Bastartres."

Huh.

"I thought he was going to kill us all. Turned out he was searching for his daughter. She'd been kidnapped by the same group of slavers who took Laina. I don't know why, I certainly didn't deserve it, but Bastartres took me in. Treated me like a son. Gave me more of a home than I'd ever had. Taught me to sail. Offered me a place and a purpose, taking down the Coventry however we could."

Silence fell. Then NaVarre began shuffling the inspection reports, tapping them together, his tone abruptly matter-of-fact: "That's it. That's how I wound up doing this. Bastartres retired a few years back, and I took over. Expanded the operation a bit here and there. I even staged a triumphant return to the Circle as the long-lost heir to the Anwythe title."

"And did you ever find them? Your sister and his daughter?" I asked gently.

NaVarre shook his head and plopped the inspection reports down on the floor next to me. "There's always that little voice at the back of my mind that says she can't be gone. So... I keep looking."

I knew _exactly_ what that voice sounded like. I stared at him, struck by the fact that we had something in common. Then I smiled a little, keeping my tone light. "Destroyer of slavery rings, benefactor of displaced people... That's not exactly the picture they paint of you in the Dailies."

That lazy, wicked grin appeared. "Why would they? The Dailies are a Coventry mouthpiece, and I'm a determined thorn in their shoe. I take it as a measure of my success that my Wanted, Dead or Alive poster is plastered on every tattleboard from Lordstown to Pordazh Kaskara."

I couldn't help it. The glee in his voice had me chuckling. "Is it really?"

"Last time I checked. They want me gone so badly they even set their toughest terrier on me. Quite an honor, really."

I scoffed at that. "Oh, come now. Arramy isn't a terrier. He's a _wyrhonde_." NaVarre's gaze jumped up to mine and he let out a laugh as I went on, "Long legs... Cranky disposition. Difficult to train... Bites when cornered..." _Big, scary, fierce... descended from mountain wolves..._

"Alright! Alright," NaVarre held up his hands, chuckling. " _Wyrhonde_ it is."

I leaned over and gathered up all the weights-and-measures reports before asking, slowly, "Do you trust him?"

NaVarre gave a noncommittal shrug. "I don't need to trust him; I need to know where he is. Besides. If he _isn't_ Coventry, I want that tactical brain of his on my side, not theirs. I'd much rather use him against them than have them use him against me." He regarded me evenly. "Do _you_ trust him?"

"About as much as I trust you."

"With reservations, then," NaVarre quirked an eyebrow. "Very wise."

I found the _Persephyrre_ manifest again and placed it face-up on the floor to my left. "Speaking of trust..." I placed the next manifest a little way from that first one, since nearly a year stretched between them. "I was wondering what your plans are for the survivors once we've reached Aethscaul."

"Ah." NaVarre pursed his lips and squinted at one of the inspection reports. "They'll go through the same vetting process that everyone does when they arrive on the island. Nothing to worry about."

"They won't be enslaved or imprisoned as Coventry suspects?"

"They'll be questioned, yes, and housed in a secure facility while my people check their credentials, but it's more of a vacation hotel on a glorious tropical island than a – you really think I'd throw them all in prison? The children? The wounded?" His expression went wan. "What sort of a heartless monster do you take me for?"

I wrinkled my nose. "You did threaten to toss me overboard."

"Ah. That," he mugged. "I'm bound to say anything if it gets me what I want."

"So, what should _I_ expect when we get to the Island?"

"Well, there's a village, and a school... A beautiful beach, good food... You'll like it, I think. More importantly, I promised your father I would get you to the island if he got the information out."

"Am I'm done, then? With all this?" I waved a hand in the general direction of the mess around us. "We get to the island and it's over?"

"I should think so," NaVarre nodded. Then amended, "I _hope_ so."

I eyed him askance. "What a lovely non-answer."

"It's all I've got, at the moment," he said dryly. Then he got to his feet and began arranging the inspection reports chronologically above the manifests.

An hour later, I lay the last tariff stub on the floor and sat back, surveying the trail of evidence that now spread from one end of the council room to the other. We had moved the beginning of the line three times to accommodate everything, but it was all there, and a pattern had most definitely emerged.

NaVarre's forehead wrinkled. "It has stripes."

Groups of documents were indeed clustered together, with corresponding gaps between, like a string of steppingstones. "They're in threes. There's that first manifest by itself, and then every fourth group after it also has a manifest," I observed. "Every second has docking receipts and safety assessments. Every third has tariff stubs and weights and measures reports."

The longer I studied it, the more something scratched at the edge of my thoughts. Each group was missing two-thirds of the information it should have had if they were grouped by manifests. But that meant... "Why didn't I see it before?" I bent and snatched a docking receipt from the floor.

NaVarre watched as I moved down the line of documents and found the weights and measures report from the group that would have had the missing manifest for the docking receipt. And there it was, one of the first solid connections I had been able to make: the docking receipt and the weights and measure report had the same originating manifest number. "How did I miss that?" I whispered. I found the next docking receipt and repeated the process, coming up with another number for a missing manifest.

I looked at NaVarre.

He reached for the papers in my hand and stepped closer to examine them under the light of the ceiling lantern.

Excitement flared for a heartbeat. Then hope was smothered by a jolt of reality. "But... We don't have enough here to figure out what was on those manifests," I said, my voice dull. "We only know when these cargos sailed, and where they wound up, but I can't tell from just the receipts what ship they were on, or whether the cargo lists are the same."

NaVarre's mouth curled in at one corner. "We've successfully created a gigantic visual of how much we need that third binder."

Reluctantly, I nodded.

He swore under his breath.

Then we picked everything up and put it back in the metal chest.

~~~

Wyrhonde (veer- ond): a canine originally bred to hunt and kill the massive wolves that roamed the northern forests, it often interbred with them. Known for its powerful bite, its tenacity, and its endurance in the field, descendants of the original wolf hounds were used as war dogs by the Roghuari. Due to its large size and unpredictable nature, its modern counterparts are not commonly kept as pets but are frequently used in dog fighting, racing, and large game hunting. An undomesticated branch of the breed is still found wild in the Al-Ipanese mountains.
36. Of Mittens and Fog

5th of Thyris

The five days of the "little brother" month, Thyris, rolled by without much more than a nod at the end of winter. The weather even made a mockery of spring, snapping into a cold spell that had everyone bundling up in extra clothing.

In Edon, Thyris week was always a bit of an unofficial holiday. Every shop, establishment, and eatery served free hot mulled cider or spiced Praidani tea, and one of the favorite evening activities in most places was a Drinking Tour. People would gather at one end of town and go from shop to shop sampling teas and ciders. The point wasn't so much the enjoyment of dashing about with friends and ducking in and out of warm, cozy storefronts, although that was usually great fun. The point was the brightly painted donation boxes from the Sisters of Claddage.

For every cup of cider or tea you took, you dropped a coin in the donation box. It didn't matter if it was a brass arum or a full silver mark, you got to drink. At the end of the week, there was a competition among the shops to see whose beverage had brought in the largest donation. In Garding, the Post's honeyplum cider usually won every year.

Claddage Day was quite the affair in most towns, with snow games for the children on the green, and food and dancing in the town hall. After a town-wide supper, the winner of the competition was announced, and the donations were presented to the Sisters, to be used for supplies and necessities for their orphanages and schools for the low-born.

This year, I celebrated Claddage Day by waking from a turbulent nightmare, bundling up in my father's coat, throwing on the knotwork scarf Evers had made for me, and going for a dawn wander. Alone.

I was out on the quarterdeck, ignoring my cold toes and gazing at the first pale ribbons of sunrise, when Raggan came out of the Bridge. He was cradling a mug of sailor's tea in his mittened hands, blowing the steam from it as he crossed the quarterdeck to join me at the railing.

"'Allo, Miss. How fares the sea? Behavin' 'erself?" he asked, giving me the large, cheerful grin that had become almost as much a part of my day as the roll of the ship.

I grinned back at him. "Seems to be."

It was subtle, but I caught him easing his weight off his right leg. He had explained once that he took a round to that knee during the war, and now it was as good a weather gage as a hygrometer. "Storm coming?"

He nodded. "Two, maybe three days. Just a squall, I reckon."

"Ah." I went back to watching the sun gradually set fire to the bank of dark clouds scudding along the horizon.

After a moment: "Might I make an impertinent observation, Miss?"

I smiled a little. "Only if it concerns my sparkling wit."

Raggan chuckled at that. "Aye, your wit does sparkle surely, Miss, but..." he pulled a pair of large mittens out of his pocket and held them out. "Ya seem t'have lost your mitts."

I stared at the mittens. They were worn and misshapen from use, but the wool was still thick and well felted. I had been aboard long enough to know what a high commodity those navy-issue mittens were to the men on the _Stryka_. Claddage Day might mark the end of winter on the calendar, but that didn't mean winter would be inclined to follow orders. It was entirely possible that there would be many days of snow and wind ahead of us. "I couldn't —"

Raggan shook his head. "Nay, Miss. You'd be insulting the poor blighter what offered 'em. Besides. 'E's got an extra pair from home. Go on with ya."

"Fine," I muttered, drawing my freezing hands from my pockets and snatching the gloves, hastily pulling them on. "Who must I thank?"

Raggan shrugged and took a last sip of tea. "Whoever t'is, t'is a gentleman of great mystery and character," he said, a twinkle in his eyes. "And that's me bell. I'll bid you good morning, Miss."

He tipped his hat and left, ducking through the Bridge door just as the second bell began calling the morning watch to their posts.

As he walked away, I took a better look at the mittens he was wearing. They were dingy and faded from salt and sun, and they had been heavily darned in places, but I could still make out a faint chevron pattern of red and yellow. I smiled at first. I had the feeling I had discovered my 'gentleman of great mystery and character _.'_ Then I sobered. Those weren't Navy issue. Come inspection, he would have a mark against him for his uniform being out of order.

Feeling guilty, but a great deal less alone, I shoved my hands back into my pockets, mittens and all.

9th of Nima

"Land'o! Land'o!"

After waiting three long, hungry weeks to hear those two little words, the effect was like a swift kick to the stomach. Everyone, civilians and sailors alike, came scrambling to the foredeck, peering at the southern horizon.

It was anticlimactic. All that could be seen without a long glass was a bank of fog, but Orrul swore he could make out steep black peaks rising among the clouds, and the _Angpixen_ was heading straight for it, so the civilians all decided that the Rimrocks must be hiding beneath that scrap of haze.

It wasn't long before the legends began circulating, most of them from Orrul. Tales of gruesome phantom ships that haunted the Aerilic Ocean. Ships made of bones, crewed by men who neither ate, nor slept, nor died, trapped forever in the will of the _Djaemos_ who sought vengeance for being exiled to the 'depths of the Great Deep'. Every crew they enslaved brought them closer to breaking free of their bonds and rising up against all that was good and right in the world, and the _Djaemos_ would be only too happy to add the _Stryka's_ fine crew to their army of slaves.

Lorren told him to stop scaring the children, but she watched that bank of mist with the same wary expression as everyone else.

I had to confess; I wasn't immune to the mystery that surrounded the islands. I stood at the port-side rail, a little curl of dread and anticipation unraveling in my middle.

What waited for us beneath the fog?

What waited for _me?_

~~~

Djaemos: (jay-moss) n. East Altyran for water demon.
37. The Rimrocks

10th of Nima

Yesterday, Orrul may have told hair-raising stories to scare the children, but the adults remained cautiously optimistic, and talk began of bathing in a proper tub, and guzzling cold water, and eating fresh fruit.

Relieved or not, the closer we got to the steep-sided peaks rising out of the mist, the more often the sailors paused to eye the rocks with suspicion, until they were scanning every barren crag and cliff for _floubestes_ and 'who-knows-what-else.'

NaVarre came over after dinner tonight to inform us that, contrary to Orrul's wild tales, no merfolk would slink out of the water to steal our souls while we slept (I wasn't particularly worried on that count), and there were no sea serpents here at this time of year (again, not a worry I seriously entertained), and that the cannibals wouldn't be a problem if everyone stayed on the ships until we got to Aethscaul (slightly more worrisome).

We reached the Rimrocks at sundown and anchored in a small, protected gap between three of the largest islands just inside the outer limits. Beyond that point the sailing was too hazardous in the dark, so we would wait until dawn.

The sixth bell signaled the night watch, and the aft mess watch went shuffling below to snag a few hours of down time. I doubted anyone actually fell asleep. The whole crew was nervous, but several of the apprentice sailors were well under Orrul's sway. None of them had found NaVarre's little speech all that encouraging. In fact, the bit about cannibals only made things worse as darkness closed in. They were absolutely convinced flesh eaters were lurking everywhere, and they jumped at every little sound, eyes wide.

That was the first time I ever heard someone question Arramy's orders. One of the apprentice sailors walked over to stand next to his slightly older watchmate, and whispered, "Why don't the Captain give us all guns? Why not arm the whole ship, not just the marines? I'd feel safer with some way to defend myself. A pistol, at least..."

The other man just gave the first-year a cuff upside the head. "He don't want fools like you shooting friendlies because you 'thought you saw something,' Darvish. That's why. Your job is to keep your eyes peeled and raise the alarm if there's trouble. Get back to your post and stay there."

Darvish hesitated, but then nodded and sidled away, taking up his spot at the aft-deck railing again, his young shoulders rigid.

As the sunset died to a suggestion of burnt orange on the horizon, the _Ang_ set up lanterns fore and aft. That was only a small reassurance when the moon was a slender paring of silver in the sky, and no one was entirely sure that NaVarre wasn't leading us into a trap.

Whether out of suspicion, or simply to appease the fears of his less experienced men, Arramy ordered that all of the _Stryka's_ mirrored watch lanterns be lit, in addition to the usual nautical light-sheds on the masts.

I stayed above decks while Evers and Reiskelder went scurrying about with touch-fire sticks, lighting lantern wicks. The lanterns were then aimed out into the darkness, sending swathes of fierce golden light cascading over the rocky sides of the islands surrounding the _Stryka_

It did seem to ease the crew a little, as did the fact that the Captain himself was standing lookout.

I wasn't up on the aft deck for the lights, however. I had discovered that if I stood in the curve of the rail overlooking the wake, there wasn't as much glare from the lanterns. Aunt Sapphine always said the stars were brighter in the tropics. Closer, somehow. She was right. As the last of the sunset faded, the stars began emerging, more and more of them until they glimmered like a million diamonds spilled across blue velvet, bright enough to set the rugged tops of the islands in inky silhouette.

The Captain came to stand next to me as I gazed up at the night sky, my mind thousands of miles away. At first, he simply scanned the shadows behind the _Stryka_. Then he leaned a hip against the railing. "You should get below."

I glanced at him. "Is that an order, Captain?" The thought of that stuffy, silent cabin had my insides knotting up. I much preferred the open air and activity above decks, even if that open air held the possibility of cannibals. As if to tease me with what I would be missing, a sweetly scented breeze came whispering over the water to loosen several strands of my hair.

Arramy's eyes followed the movement of my hand as I swept a fallen curl back behind my ear. He frowned slightly and looked away. "Yes. That's an order, Miss Westerby," he muttered, turning to leave. "The crew don't need any added distractions."

Then he went striding around the helm, taking the stairs down to the quarterdeck two at a time.

I heaved a sigh. I had been about to do as he said, but now I couldn't without obeying like one of his sailors. Which rankled. He hadn't even said please. I waited until he had disappeared from view before I made myself leave the aft deck, with all its delicious breezes and starlight, and return to the confines of Penweather's cabin.

11th of Nima

No one was eaten during the night. Neither was anyone abducted or rendered mindless.

My nightmares were another matter. I floundered in my blankets, lost in some dark place until I dragged myself upright on a deep breath, my heart pounding as if I had just run the road to Castleburre.

I decided to view the sunrise; I got myself dressed and went slinking up to my spot at the quarterdeck rail where I could observe everything with no fear of getting in anyone's way.

Raggan found me a few minutes later. He didn't say anything. He just handed me a large mug of sailor's tea and asked no questions. We sipped in silence. Then the second bell sounded, Raggan gave me a little dip of his head and went to start his watch.

It wasn't long after dawn that the _Stryka_ was underway again, winding through a maze of bare black volcanic stone, following the _Angpixen_ deeper into the Rimrocks.

Several of the smaller, outermost islands were still active, churning out angry red streams of molten rock that poured down the sides of their cones like rich, smoldering red glaze, sending up billows of steam as they met the water. This steam seemed to be the source of the eerie fog that afforded the Rimrocks such mystery – ergo, it wasn't the work of a _pyxxe_ smolder, or a monstrous witch's cauldron. Or cannibals, for that matter.

The farther in we went, the taller and broader the islands became. I began to see small, soot-grey birds roosting in crevices, their nests creating a thick layer of guano and thatch along every horizontal surface. Where the birds were, there was also a short, wiry grass that clung stubbornly to crags, the bright emerald of it a shock against the black of the island rock. A few winding, treacherous channels farther in, and the grass was joined by small, scrubby bushes, and a trailing vine with large, heart-shaped leaves.

Then we passed through the last of the outer bands and entered the old islands, and everything was suddenly bursting with life.

I stared around, stunned speechless.

There were flowers everywhere. _Yensis modula_ hung in thick veils of pale lavender and pink from the branches of stately, moss-covered baraboe trees, forming a fantastical canopy that often arched from one island to the next. Beneath the trees, the bright, fiery orange fans of royal cockade could be seen nodding among spears of bright white saltflowers and sky-blue _panemis orberus._ Those were only the flowers I knew the names for. There were countless species I had never come across in any of the World Exploratory exhibits. Heavy clusters of magenta spires that clung to rocks. Creamy, star-like lilies that spangled the dark sand in the coves. On the largest islands, where the slopes were gentler and the beaches were larger, there were tall, rangy, long-branched trees that sported glossy ochre bark and golden catkins that trailed to the forest floor.

I didn't see many animals, but there were birds. So many birds. Small green and red parrots flew in flocks five-hundred strong, crossing from one island to another in a continual blur of color.

Incidentally, I found out why a group of parrots is called a pandemonium. That was the first sound we heard coming from the islands: a deafening racket of screams and whistles that crescendoed with the sunrise. They didn't quiet down once the sun was up, either. They simply stopped screeching all at once.

There was another bird, a large grey and white thing with a rounded head and a wide, pointy black beak, that had a call very much like one of the Ronyran declaration gongs – a great, sonorous _bonnn_ that echoed from rocks and water.

I might have thought it was a cannibal announcing the arrival of his breakfast if the bird hadn't been directly in front of me, perched on a branch that hung barely two yards from the ship as we went past. It didn't seem to fear humans, and sat in the open, calmly watching us with bright yellow eyes. Delighted, I had just leaned closer for a better view when the thing opened its beak as far as it could go, puffed its chest out, and gonged. Right there. In my face.

I screeched like a parrot and fell off the barrel I was sitting on.

The gong bird gave a disgruntled little _toot_ exactly like a toy slide-whistle and blinked at me with somber disappointment. It was still sitting there when the ship left it behind.

I picked myself back up, sat down on the barrel again. For a few, unbelievable seconds, I forgot where I was and how I got there, and had to laugh, imagining what I must have looked like to the bird.

It felt good, laughing. Until I remembered that I couldn't tell my father about it later, and the Captain had just witnessed the whole thing from his place at the helm.

~~~

As the islands got bigger, so did their habitable area. Eventually there were clear signs of human activity. A terraced hillside for growing crops, with a row of conical thatch-roofed huts on the ridge above it. A wood-and-rope bridge slung across the gap between two islands, then again to another. And another. And another.

Then we reached an island that didn't seem to have an end.

Arramy swore as NaVarre took the _Angpixen_ into a particularly narrow, winding passage between dark walls of rock that loomed so close they threatened to scrape the paint off the much larger _Stryka_. There was a tense half an hour when the islands actually met overhead, and we all heard the faint sound of tearing fabric as the crow's nest brushed against something solid in the shadows high above us. But it didn't get caught, and the _Stryka_ continued on – without her Coalition colors. The mainmast pennant remained behind, snagged on a protruding spur of stone.

At last, we came around a final bend, the rocks veered away from each other, and there was blue sky above us and open water in front of us. To the left, coastline stretched away in a lazy, pristine curve, a slender ribbon of white tracing the feet of a towering range of peaks that rose from the sea like the spine of some monstrous dragon, curled forever around a peaceful aquamarine cove.

And there, in the innermost bend of the dragon's spine, all agleam in the noon-day sun, sprawled a collection of copper-tile roofs and clay-white walls.

My heart began to hammer in my chest as the _Stryka_ trailed the _Ang_ toward the gates of a well-fortified seawall that jutted from either side of the village harbor.

We had arrived.

~~~

_Floubeste_ : ( _Tettian)_ : n. a mythical creature that feeds on the nightmares of children and the anger of men. More information in the Endnotes.
38. Upon Arrival

11th of Nima, Continued

There was quite a stir at the docks when the _Angpixen_ came limping into port followed by a Coalition warship – and not merely any old warship, but the famous _Stryka_ herself _._ The moment the great, terrifying pirate-hunting Captain Arramy stepped off the gangway, I swear there was a change in the wind, a collective intake of air by hundreds and hundreds of women.

Because there were. Hundreds and hundreds of women, that is. Everywhere. Crowding the pier, lining the streets, even leaning out of upper story windows.

I suppose it was understandable. NaVarre had been liberating women for the last several years. He had to put them somewhere.

That wasn't to say there were _no_ men. I saw a few. Possibly those map makers who disappeared without a trace; tradesmen; merchants; farmers; fishermen; all the poor blighters who were unfortunate enough to be on the ships that wandered into the Rimrocks and were driven aground by storms or pirates. There were also the crews of the _Angpixen_ , and the two other ships NaVarre ran in his piracy conglomerate, the _Faballe_ and the _Velda_ , as well as the very respectable looking crew of a very respectable looking _skoune-dreisen_ called the _Coralynne,_ NaVarre's safe ship.

There were a great many children, too, ducking and weaving through the crush on the dock. Some of them were undoubtedly girls, but they weren't the ones eyeing the _Stryka_ with a certain air of hunger.

It was such a complete reversal of the situation aboard the _Stryka_ that it was almost comical _._

Yesterday, Arramy declared that his men could have a day ashore when we reached the island. That announcement was met with little enthusiasm, given the expectation of cannibals and _floubestes_ , but then we came in sight of Aethscaul, the sailors took one look at what was waiting for them on the boardwalks, and began whooping and hollering, swinging from the shrouds, all their reluctance forgotten.

I'm not entirely sure who was more interested in meeting whom. It was like throwing fresh meat to wolves, but the line between meat and wolf was exceedingly blurry. There was a great deal of mutual hunting going on. When the gangways were put down and everyone began debarking, every pirate, sailor and refugee who wanted a female companion wound up with one. Or several.

NaVarre was met on the pier by not one, not two, but three very eager, very lightly dressed blondes who all seemed happy to see him, giggling and laughing as he kissed them each one after the other.

I rolled my eyes. Surprise, surprise.

True to form, the Captain didn't appear to notice that there were women everywhere. I had to hide a grin when a few girls bravely chose him for a target in spite of his history, beckoning and winking and grinning at him. He walked right on by, absolutely oblivious, a scowl firmly etched on his face as he went striding after NaVarre and the blondes, following them up the pier to a large, whitewashed building.

I stepped off the gangway, my bundle of belongings clutched under my arm, my father's satchel slung from my shoulder. For several seconds I stood on the dock, letting my sea-legs adjust to solid ground as I took in this place that Father had pinned all his hopes on.

The wharf ran along the edge of a small marina which, in turn, became a boardwalk with a row of shops and offices facing the harbor. A cantina, a public meeting hall, a milliner, a dressmaker, and a cobbler. There was even a Post and a savings bank and a pleasant park with manicured lawns and a fountain. It was all very civilized for the home of pirates. I was expecting dirt streets lined with run-down, ramshackle drinking establishments and crowded brothels, but the streets were paved, and the buildings were well-built and clean. Higher up the hill, the spire of a chapel rose from a group of palm trees.

Once, I wanted nothing more than to be like Aunt Sapphine, exploring the world, sketching and drawing and studying cultures and languages; but now that an adventure was looming right in front of me, I had discovered instead just how frightening it was to face a life full of nothing but new things alone. My throat ached as I soaked it all in.

I hadn't thought I would like this Aethscaul Island, but I did. Worse, Father would have. In spite of the charm and the warmth, the only thing I could think was that whatever new life I made for myself, wherever I made it, whatever adventure I was on, Father wouldn't be in it.

"Are you alright, Miss Westerby?"

I looked up. Lieutenant Penweather was standing at the end of the gangway behind me. "Yes. Thank you."

"Glad to hear it." Lieutenant Penweather stepped onto the dock. A boyishly appealing grin lit his face and he held out his arm, hazel eyes sparkling. "Now. Might I have the honor of escorting you to... wherever it is you're going?"

I hesitated. If I refused it might have seemed strange, though, so I let my hand slide into the crook of his elbow. "You may. Although I have no idea where that is, so this might be a bigger commitment than you think."

Lieutenant Penweather's grin twisted into a mischievous smirk. "There are worse things I can think of than following a beautiful woman around a tropical island." He reached out and slid the strap of my father's satchel off my shoulder and onto his own. "That's better. Now. Shall we proceed?"

My gaze snagged on the satchel. Arramy had all the papers with him in that metal lockbox, and NaVarre had taken the solutions to my father's code. There was nothing left for me to do or hang onto, nothing to protect or keep hidden. I took a breath and let go, falling into step beside the Lieutenant as we set out in search of the Young Women's Dormitory.

~~~

The Dormitory was a lovely two-story villa built in the old Ronyran coastal style, with separate rooms that opened from a broad veranda overlooking a central courtyard and garden. The front door of the establishment was actually a large wrought iron gate set in the wall of the courtyard, with an open-air foyer directly inside.

The Lieutenant caught sight of the 'No Men Allowed' sign and pulled a wry face. "I guess this is goodbye, then."

I smiled. "Thank you for all your help."

Penweather took a step back and inclined his head. "My pleasure." He took another step, seeming reluctant to leave, but unsure what else to do.

"Lieutenant," I murmured, "My satchel?"

He sighed, then held out my father's bag. "I was hoping you wouldn't notice so I'd have a reason to come back." That easy smile returned.

I realized what he was implying, and a blush stole over my cheeks as I took the satchel again. My blush deepened when Penweather reached out, caught my free hand and bent to press a light kiss to my knuckles.

"Good day, Miss Westerby," he said quietly. Then he started back the way we had come. Halfway to the corner he wheeled around and began walking backwards, a grin breaking over his face when he saw that I was watching him leave. He bowed low, flourishing his hat like a gallant courtier, then laughed when he nearly collided with a fruit vendor's cart.

I shook my head. The Lieutenant was handsome, charming, and from a well-established and respected family, but all I felt was... tired. My feet hurt from traipsing up the hill in my boots, and I was too hot in my heavy winter skirt, even without the petticoats under it. Hoping for a cool drink and somewhere to sit down, I opened the gate and stepped into the foyer.

There was an al-fresco office, with a desk and a chair and everything, set up right there between the foyer and the courtyard, shaded by a sun-bleached canvas awning. A tall, strikingly beautiful woman dressed in an orange and gold Ronyran _tirna_ was sitting behind the desk, breezing herself with a large woven-reed fan. Her gaze followed me with interest, and as I approached, she studied me over the tops of half-lensed spectacles, a knowing grin tugging at her mouth. "Was that your beau, then?"

I grimaced. "Goodness, no." Then I pulled NaVarre's note from my pocket and held it out to her. "I was told to report to the Dormitory for a room."

"Uh-huh," the woman said, that knowing grin getting a little wider. She took the note and read it. Then she pushed a large ledger across the desk. "Here. Sign this thing while I get you a key."

There were scars at her wrists, thick ones that went all the way around, as if they had been made by shackles. They were pale and long-healed, and she wasn't bothering to hide them, either, which I found oddly reassuring. If she could survive something that left marks like that, then I could most definitely survive this.

I looked around, trying to find something to write with among the piles of papers and random objects that littered her desk – seashells, feathers, pretty rocks, bits of driftwood. Finally, I spied a charcoal stick poking out of a flowerpot full of sea glass. With a shrug I plucked the charcoal from the pot and began filling out the information the ledger asked for, grimly providing the false details I was still hiding behind.

NaVarre had warned me that, for many of the girls, the last glimpse they had gotten of the continent was the big, blue-lettered sign marching down the ridgepole of the Warring Oceanic shipping office right before they were herded into cargo bins like livestock. In an effort to keep things as secure as possible, he hadn't told anyone what my father had really been doing. All things considered, he decided things would probably be easier if I stayed _not me_ for a while longer.

The woman fished a key out of a jumbled assortment in a drawer and held it up. "You will be in number...eighty-six," she said, reading the tag tied to the key. "The house rules are simple: don't get caught with your man in your room. This isn't that sort of establishment, and I hate drama. There's always Couple's Housing if you're so desperate for his company. Second, keep your room clean, or you'll be responsible for killing the rats. Rats brings snakes, and I hate snakes. Third, your name will be on a rotational calendar of chores because I am only one woman, and I am neither your slave nor your nanny. Breakfast is at seven, lunch is at noon, dinner at o-seventeen."

I nodded and took the offered key, feeling decidedly like I was back at Kingsbridge.

The woman flashed a smile that sent laugh-lines crinkling around her dark eyes. "My name is Ydara. Welcome to the Island."

"Thank you," I said, smiling in response. It was impossible not to. She reminded me very much of my Aunt.

~~~

_Skoune-dreisen_ (Scoon.dry.zen): a large ocean-going all-steam-driven vessel designed primarily for civilian leisure and comfort.
39. The School

11th of Nima, Continued

Eighty-six was quite small for an apartment, but after four weeks stuck in Penweather's cabin, it seemed spacious and airy. I stepped all the way inside and took a look around. There was a good-sized window in the far wall, with a quaint rope bed beneath it. I made note of that immediately. The breeze would be lovely. There was also a corner bureau and a proper closet, with enough space left over for a pair of padded chairs and a writing desk. Best of all, there was enough room that I could move about freely without immediately running into anything. It was clean, too, and it was mine.

I set my belongings down on one of the chairs and made the bed with the simple linens Ydara had given me.

I unpacked my things.

Opened the shutters.

Dusted off the bureau and the writing desk.

Moved the chairs around.

Put the chairs back.

Then I gave in, flung myself down on the bed, and stared up at the beam-and-cane plaster ceiling. It was too quiet. I wasn't going to sit around waiting for someone else's garden to sprout before I found something to fill my time. I'd go mad. Barely half an hour into being a free woman, and already I couldn't stomach the idea of being alone with myself. The stillness in the apartment was thick and sneaky, creeping in on me, squeezing closer with no noise or people or distractions to keep it at bay. There weren't any off-duty sailors singing a shanty as they swabbed the decks, no tread of booted feet overhead, no snap of sailcloth in the wind...

I shoved myself up off the bed, strode for the door, and snatched it open. NaVarre might still be in that white building down on the docks. I'd just have to beg for something to keep me busy.

~~~

When I got to the dock office, the doors were locked, and no one seemed to be inside.

An old man sitting on a bench outside said NaVarre had gone to the saloon, so that was where I went next. There wasn't any sign of him in the saloon, either, although one of the waitresses thought he might have gone up to the school, since the Director had come looking for him while he was eating, and the two had left together.

I thanked her and ducked back out. Then ducked straight back in to get directions.

~~~

The edge of the seat rasped my palms raw, but I ground my teeth and hung on as the repurposed military Gopher crashed into and then out of another pothole. The corresponding bounce of the suspension threatened to send me flying into the wooden high-sides one second, and through the open top of the cargo bin the next. Then the bottom of the bin came up in a rush and I landed back in my seat with a bone-jarring thump, only to brace myself for the next joggle. Once again, I mentally kicked myself for not walking. It would have been safer. I would have had a spleen when I got there.

The driver shouted something, her words drowned out by the racket of the engine. Then the ancient machine slowed with a squeal of braking clamps.

_At last._ I pried my stiff fingers from the seat as I sagged against the rough slats behind me.

When I opened my eyes again, a reflecting pond was rolling by outside the cargo bin, prim and civilized. Bright yellow and pink _lochi_ lilies spangled the surface. A bronze fountain came next – a great, coiling _angpixxe_ rearing from the water in wild plumes of spray.

I raised an eyebrow. _Appropriate._

The gopher followed the drive around the reflecting pond and came to a clumsy, jerking halt. There were two quick bangs on the side of the bin, and then the tailgate released by itself, falling open with a sharp clap of wood. That was my signal to get out, I assumed. I lurched unsteadily to my feet and hobbled to the back end of the gopher. I didn't wait for the driver to come help me. I doubted she would, anyway, and I was desperate to reach solid ground. There was a sort of ladder built onto the inside of the tailgate, which was now conveniently on the outside, so down I went.

My boots met the ground in a crunch of crushed oyster shell, and I took a few quick steps to the right as the gopher belched a plume of smokey exhaust directly in my face. Then the gearbox let out an awful, grinding rasp and the driver pulled away, continuing around the fountain without a backward glance.

Right then.

I dusted myself off and turned to get my first good look at what the reflecting pond was meant to reflect.

My hands went still on my skirt.

The waitress at the saloon had made it sound so normal. "He's gone up to the school, Miss," she had said. Not, "Our illustrious leader hath ascended the hill unto the glistening edifice that he has transported in all its wondrous glory from somewhere in West Lodes," which would have been more fitting.

My mouth fell open, and I gawked up at a replica of the Capitol Building in Arritagne, complete with an Antecolonial-style _luxglass_ dome glittering over a central rotunda. A broad veranda met a graceful, double curving stair leading up to the main entrance, and all of it, every wall, window-case and banister, was clad in gleaming white marble that NaVarre must have brought in from the continent.

The only thing that offered any hint that I wasn't standing on the Gerre-Pardesse in the Capitol were the mature _baraboe_ trees growing from the veranda, with their dark-green heart-shaped leaves casting heavy shade, their rusty-orange branches trailing tropical moss, and their thick, glossy trunks surrounded by marble benches. There were flowers everywhere, also, where the Capitol had trimmed evergreen hedges and a spear-topped wall.

Still gawking, I started up the steps.

The front doors were great slabs of iron-bound copper-wood, struck through with turquoise streaks of the metal the tree was famous for drawing out of the ground. Carvings of _lochi_ flowers and stylized animals twined over it. I wrinkled my brow, perplexed, although it shouldn't have been surprising, really. NaVarre had brought in vast quantities of non-native stone. Why couldn't he also have brought in thousand-year-old doors from a castle in Altyr?

I took hold of the bell pull and gave it a yank, fully expecting a liveried door boy to come popping out of a disguised servant's passage.

Chimes tinkled inside the building.

I waited.

No door boy.

Two more rings produced the same result, but on the fourth a peek-panel slid open where a stag's antlers had been, and a pair of eyes peered out at me. Then a well-hidden wicket-gate came swinging out of the right half-door. "What are ya doing out _here_?"

I blinked at the young woman standing in the doorway. She couldn't have been older than sixteen, far too young to be answering the door alone. She wasn't dressed as a servant, either, but she was doing a servant's job. Poorly. Any good maid would have curtsied and stayed out of the way so I could come in. This girl shook her head in annoyance and rolled her eyes as she stepped all the way outside to hold the door open. "Never mind. Just get in. You'll have ta wait in the office, though. There's a bit of a thing goin' on with one of the new lot."

As she said that, a girl's high-pitched scream rose from farther inside, and then a door slammed, and there were footsteps – lots of footsteps, moving swiftly – accompanied by an assortment of voices:

"Char, you're safe, you don't have to run! Please come back!" That was a rather breathless woman with a Panesian accent.

A younger, cultured female voice: "Watch out, Doctor, she bites!"

"Well, we can't very well have her running off into the jungle like a — oh dear, the door!"

NaVarre's voice broke in then with a hoarse, "Rhaina, catch her!"

I was shoved roughly aside by the girl who had just answered the door (Rhaina, it would seem) who planted herself in the doorway again, this time facing in, bracing herself like a _bagarrow_ defender just before another girl came flying through a pair of double doors on the other side of the front entry, apparently dead set on getting out.

Rhaina wasn't one to mess with, however. She didn't budge, even when the other girl slammed into her head-on and began scratching and kicking.

"Stop it, ya minger, they're just tryin' ta help ya!" Rhaina shouted, then bellowed "Ow!" when Char grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked. Hard.

A half-second later NaVarre and another man arrived, and it took both of them to pull Char away from the door and back into the foyer, where NaVarre held her while the other man fought to restrain her arms with a padded strap.

"Let me go!" Char screeched. In Tettian. "Get your hands off of me! I'm not going back! I'm not going back..." Her sharp, ghostly-pale face crumpled into a terrified sob and she went completely limp.

NaVarre wasn't prepared, and Char fell to the floor, landing in a pitifully small heap at his feet.

The other man was still buckling the restraint, and bent with her, only to receive a vicious header to the nose as Char lunged upward. The man reeled sideways, cupping his face, and Char scrambled in the other direction, making a new break for the exit while somehow evading both NaVarre and Rhaina.

Now I was the one standing in the doorway. Which made me the only thing between Char and freedom.

Frightened grey-green eyes locked on me, and I caught the flash of bared teeth and skinny fingers curved into claws ready to snatch me bald.

~~~

_Bagarrow:_ a field sport in which three teams of players attempt to steal a painted rod of wood called the 'king's arrow' from the other teams while defending their own. The defender is usually the largest, beefiest member of the team, and they are expected to stop all incoming threats without moving beyond a certain boundary. 
40. Proving Useful

11th of Nima, Continued

" _Adei_ ," I got out, lifting my hands as if that would have kept her from mauling me.

To my amazement it did. Char stumbled to a halt mid-flight, her gaze zeroing in on my mouth. "What did you say?" Again, in Tettian. Low Tettian, with a thick poor-district accent.

"Stop," I repeated, glancing beyond her at NaVarre, unsure what I should do. "You don't have to run." Then I switched back to Altyran. "What do you need to tell her?"

Char jerked as if I had struck her and whipped around to face the others, her chest heaving.

"We need to set her ankle," NaVarre said calmly. If he was surprised to see me, he didn't show it.

"They just want to fix your ankle," I translated, and Char rounded on me again, backing up against the wall so she could see all of us at once. I gentled my tone and lowered my hands. "Is your ankle hurt?"

Char blinked and took a slow breath, letting it out through her nose as if she were steadying herself. She shifted her weight, rubbing her palms up and down her arms as she considered her options. "That's all the _reighan_ want? Fix me up, then they'll let me go?"

"She wants to know if you'll let her go after her ankle is fixed," I provided for the others, leaving out the vulgar word Char had just called them.

NaVarre nodded. "Tell her it isn't safe in the woods at night, and we have food."

"He says you're free to go wherever you want," I said in Tettian, hoping that was true, "but that it isn't safe in the woods after dark. And they have food."

"Tell her this is Dr. Longalli," NaVarre said, his eyes on Char as he gestured toward the small, plump woman in the doorway to the _circularri_. "And this is Mr. Longalli, the Director," he added, indicating the other man, who was pinching the bridge of his bloodied nose with a handkerchief. Next was the young woman beside the doctor, "And this is Jinny," followed by, "and that's Rhaina. They're all very nice people. She's safe here."

I repeated what he had said as closely as I could.

Her movements sharp and birdlike, Char shot a wary glance from one person to the next. Her shoulders were beginning to shake. "I don't want to go back in that room," she whispered. "There is no air in there."

I translated and Dr. Longalli took a small step forward, holding up a medical box. "That's alright. I can see to your ankle right here, if you would like."

Char flinched away from the Doctor's voice, but then she gave a jerky little nod when I explained in Tettian, sank down with her back against the wall, and didn't so much as make a peep while the doctor reset a dislocated bone and bound her foot with surgeon's linen.

There wasn't any need to translate 'food'. When Jinny left and came back with a bowl of soup and a thick wedge of dark bread, Char snatched it from her and turned to face the wall, devouring all of it as quickly as possible, as if someone might take it away at any moment.

While the girl was eating, the doctor came to stand next to me. "Thank you. I'm not sure how she was able to get so far on that ankle. Fear, I suppose. She's one of the more challenging cases we have at present, partly because no one can understand what she's saying. What language is she speaking? Jinny can't place it."

"Poor-district Tettian," I murmured. "They use a lot of street slang. What... um..." I didn't finish my question, not entirely sure I wanted to know the answer.

The Doctor supplied one anyway. "As far as we can tell, she was a slave on a tea plantation near Reixvald. I'm only guessing from those dark stains on her fingers. That's something we see with the girls who packed tea leaves. Judging from the state of her, I'd say she has been malnourished for quite some time, which probably means her driver used food as an incentive to get his chain to fill their quota. Hungry slaves cooperate better. They can't run as far, either."

All those times I had opened a new tin of Altyran Provincial and eagerly inhaled that musky-sweet fragrance... I must have emptied and discarded thousands of those little waxed envelopes.

The Doctor wasn't done. "She dislocated her ankle trying to get out of the shackles in the cargo bin we pulled her from. Worst haul we've ever had." Dr. Longalli paused, her eyes sad as she watched Char gnawing down the bread. "Now here she is, starting at any sudden sounds, keeping her back to walls and corners, constantly making sure she knows where the doors are. She'll have to learn not to fight with the other girls over food, how to keep from stealing and hoarding things she thinks she might need."

Char finished gulping every last drop of soup and stared into the bottom of the bowl as if hoping it would magically refill. Her eyes drooped and she began swaying, then listing sideways, her chin hitting her chest, and the Doctor moved quickly to kneel next to her, keeping Char from landing hard on the tile floor as the girl finally stopped fighting the sleep-easy in the broth and went under.

Dr. Longalli made sure Char's mouth was empty, and nodded to Jinny, who had slipped out and come back with a stretcher.

Char was shifted carefully onto it, and NaVarre and the Director carried her across the foyer and on through into the _circularri_ , with the Doctor, Jinny, and Rhaina trailing along behind them.

"There is something the Council needs to discuss," the Doctor was saying as they left.

Unsure whether I should go or stay, I didn't follow.

The door shut slowly.

The outer surface was made to look like the wall of the entryway, painted white with floral-relief paneling at the bottom. If it hadn't been open when I arrived, I wouldn't have known it was there. I stood watching it inch shut on silent hinges, closing me up in cool, stony stillness.

Then NaVarre's surprised, "Where is Miss Westerby?" filtered through what was left of the gap, and Rhaina came trotting back to fetch me.

~~~

_Circularri:_ (serk-oo- _lah_ -ree). A large, elaborately decorated central conversation room common in Lodesian high society architecture, designed to show off the wealth of the owner. It is the first room accessed from the public entrance, and is often round, with other passages leading off of it. Newer construction may have a dome overhead, but in older estates the roof is left open in the middle. Only those accepted into the owner's inner-most circle are allowed past the _circularri_ and into the rest of the house, thus the phrase, "I'm past the _circularri"_ connotes having an in with someone powerful or rich, having good prospects, or having a reliable source of income or information.
41. Warring's Daughter

11th of Nima, Continued

The Director's office was spacious, with a desk in a large curve of windows overlooking a beautifully manicured garden. There wasn't time to admire the view, however. The Doctor, NaVarre and I walked in, and the Director immediately closed the door behind us, locking it before turning to face the three of us, his expression serious. "They've stopped putting food in the cargo bins."

NaVarre moved to stand near the desk, but didn't sit, simply waiting for all the bricks to fall.

I wasn't quite sure what I was supposed to do, or where I should be, so I eased into the corner nearest the door.

"That's not the worst of it," the Director continued, addressing NaVarre. "The last several groups we took were starving. We only saved ten out of the last bunch. The others are old – too old to have been sold on the Blocks, far older than the Coventry's normal fare. Three are miners with Salt Lung. One is a retired foot soldier with terminal Li-Padh disease, another lost two limbs and half his face to an incendiary in the war. Four are street women addicted to Whitecloud."

"I think it was deliberate. I think they filled those last bins with the sick and dying so we would have nothing but graves to dig," the Doctor said quietly, settling into one of the armchairs in front of the desk.

The Director nodded. "The message seems clear enough. They know about the Opposition, and this is their response. We'll only be sealing the fate of future shipments with every bin we take."

NaVarre crossed his arms over his chest, closed his eyes and ground his teeth together.

"Did you get to Warring?" The Director asked after a moment.

Eyes still shut, NaVarre shook his head.

The Longallis shared a glance. "So, the information —"

"It's out," NaVarre rasped, his voice hoarse. "He got it out. I just have to find it."

The Doctor's gaze landed on me, then, frank and appraising. "Pardon, my dear, but how did you get swept up in all this... madness?" She cast a meaningful look at NaVarre, her unspoken question hanging in the air, ' _And who are you?'_

"This is Warring's daughter," NaVarre said, not quite meeting my eyes.

The Longallis went very quiet.

I picked at my thumbnail. Plucked an invisible piece of lint off my sleeve. Anything but find out if that silence was full of pity.

The Doctor finally cleared her throat. To my relief, she changed the subject. "I can't tell you how much we appreciated what you did today... How many languages do you speak?"

"Standard and Low Altyran, Ronyran, two forms of Tettian, High and Low Edonian and Lodesian..." I recited, still examining my fingers. "I also speak Illyrian, Panesian, and a few dialects of Caraki... and I can get by in Tradeslang."

Dr. Longalli coughed out a short laugh. "Would you like a job? We are in desperate need of a translator."

"Quite right, wonderful idea," the Director said, his voice just a little too jovial. "My dear, I wonder if Miss Warring —"

"Westerby," NaVarre muttered. "She's going by Indaria Westerby."

"Miss Westerby... would like to meet Jinny and some of the girls from the Dorm before the gopher runs back down to town?"

"Yes," the Doctor said slowly, giving her husband a searching look as she got to her feet. Her hesitation was gone as soon as she turned to smile at me. "Yes, that's an excellent idea. They can see that you get to the hello on the beach tonight, then, too."

I blinked at her, feeling distinctly like a piece of spare furniture nobody knew where to put. It was clear that the Director wanted to speak to NaVarre alone, though, so I nodded, joining the Doctor as she moved to unlock the door.

I was right. As soon as Dr. Longalli began closing the door, the Director stepped forward, his hands at his hips, his words low and tense: "The Shadow Road is still active. Orrelian is getting desperate. He's operating blind. Without Warring, we have no way of knowing where or when the shipments are being made."

NaVarre sighed. "I know. We can't keep sniping at ghosts. We have to take the fight to them."

The latch clicked behind us, then, and the Doctor pocketed the key. "I'm so sorry. That must have been dreadful."

I pressed my lips together in a tight smile, then followed as she led the way out of the Administration offices and down the hallway to the Language Studies suite, where Jinny was preparing to leave for the day. After a brief, very polite, much more official introduction, and instructions to take me down to the beach and make me feel at home, the Doctor left, and just like that I had been handed off like an extra lounge cushion.

Jinny took it in stride, apparently well-used to dealing with new arrivals. She came around her desk, a big smile lighting up her pretty oval face, and linked her arm through mine, ushering me back out into the hallway. "I must say, it will be wonderful to have another wordy sort of person here, although I should warn you, you won't believe how much work you're going to save me tomorrow." She pulled a face, then grinned. "But for now, we'll just settle for getting you to the hello."

There it was again. "What _is_ a 'hello on the beach'?"

She took a left into a smaller hallway that ended at a side exit and a portico over the drive. "Whenever our ships come home, we have a party on the beach in Fox Cove to welcome everyone. To say 'hello.' Basically, it's just an excuse to eat a lot and dance."

"I see," I said, letting her pull me along. A dance sounded like a very long end to an already long day.

A flock of other girls had gathered beneath the portico, and as Jinny and I stepped out onto the crushed shell of the drive, the gopher came rattling around the far end of the building. A matter of minutes later we were all jouncing our way back down the hill.

The chatter of the girls around me blended with the deep rumble of the ancient gopher engine. An odd, twisting sensation had settled into the pit of my stomach that wasn't entirely due to the lurching of the seat beneath me. This new life was rushing along, twining around me already, pulling me in. How long before it started to come apart around me, torn apart by the secrets in Father's binder?
42. Rikkafilla

11th of Nima, Continued

The gopher ground to a halt at the front gate of the Women's Dormitory, the idle engine puttering as Persha set the brake and released the tailgate. Around me, the girls who worked at the school rose from the bench seats and shuffled to the end of the cargo bin, lining up to descend the ladder.

Jinny grinned, then got to her feet. "C'mon. We have an hour, and I think I can find something less... robust and northern... for you to wear."

I unhooked my aching fingernails from the seat beneath me and pushed my numb bones upright, hobbling after her as she climbed down to the street. Then I followed her through the main gates of the Dormitory.

The whole place was buzzing with activity. Girls and women of all ages were getting ready for the dance, and again I could very well have stepped into a day at Kingsbridge Academy. There were stays and lightweight petticoats everywhere, talk and laughter and perfume in the air, flowers and ribbons and jewelry swapping hands.

Jinny's room was on the second floor, only a few doors down from mine. As soon as she came up the stairs, a girl popped out of an open doorway, her hair spilling loose down her back in a waterfall of gold. She trailed after us as Jinny unlocked her room, then flounced inside like she lived there. "Did you see the new groundskeeper?"

"Indaria, this is Umelle," Jinny provided, putting her hat and bag on a faded armchair by the window.

Umelle waved a haphazard flutter of fingers in my general direction. "Hello. But did you see him?"

"Yes. He had to fix the window in my classroom, and he seems like a decent, hard-working person."

Umelle let out a giddy squeal. "Did you see the size of his _arms_? And his shoulders! And that backside..."

"Oh, don't get your dander fluffed, he's already taken," another girl said, coming to lean on the door jamb. This one was built tall and strong like most Ronyran women, with rich sable skin and dark wavy hair. Unlike most Ronyran women, her hair was cropped short, and instead of a _tirna_ , she was wearing a grease-stained pair of men's denim covers over a work shirt with the sleeves cut clean off. She tilted her head, studying me, her almond-shaped coppery eyes narrowing. "So, who's the new _rikkafilla_?"

My jaw dropped. "I beg your -"

"This is Indaria," Jinny said again, opening her closet and pulling out a pretty blue summer skirt. She gave me an apologetic glance. "Around here being a Rikkafilla just means you aren't a Shacklefoot. You really shouldn't call the new girls that, Grenna. You know what it actually means."

"Ah," I said, "What's a —"

"Shacklefoot?" Grenna grinned and came all the way in to flop onto Jinny's bed. "That's what we call the people that were bound slaves a'fore they got here. They all walk funny at first because they never knew a time when they could move one foot more than half a stride from the other. Have to figure out they don't have to raise both hands at the same time to eat..." Grenna pantomimed eating with both hands. Then she held out her bare arms, palm up, showing a set of thick scars at her wrists, very similar to Ydara's. "Took me only two weeks to figure it out. Some it takes months. Ydara says I should wear them with pride, now. Like a badge of honor."

I didn't doubt that at all.

Jinny sized me up and brought a gathered cotton skirt out of her closet. "I'm a little taller than you, but this cinches in fairly well. Maybe if we use a bodice instead of a belt, we can raise it?"

Umelle perked up. "Oooo! She needs clothes? I'll be right back!" she called, already hurrying out.

"Now you're done for," Grenna laughed, rolling over. "You've become Umelle's new pet project. Jin, can I borrow that neck ribbon with the roses?"

"The red or the peach?"

I sat down on the end of the bed, watching as Jinny brought out her ribbon ring and Grenna picked the one she wanted. Umelle arrived a few minutes later under a mound of colorful clothing, and in short order I found myself dressed in a skirt of gauzy ruffles dotted with yellow and green flowers, a wide black belt, and a dainty white lace sleeveless blouse, with faux pearls at my ears and a black ribbon around my neck. I looked like a doll, but Umelle was so enthusiastic that I smiled when she asked if I liked it.

While Umelle put my hair up, several other girls stopped by to talk and swap things. Some of them had been on the gopher, some were friends of someone who was already there. They laughed and gossiped, their bond evident, their manner easy. It would have been a scene straight out of Kingsbridge before the spring gala, if Mistress Floratina had allowed us to slouch or sit on the floor.

And still, that weird, hollowed-out, sinking feeling lurked in my middle, as if I had just gone over the top of a hill too fast in a horseless.

Not a single one of them knew who I was.

~~~

_Rikkafilla: (rick-uh-fill-uh)_ Tradeslang insult for a rich woman who has no cares beyond spending money on herself at the expense of a man. The equivalent of calling someone a spoiled gold-digger or a kept woman.
43. Dancing in the Dark

11th of Nima, Continued

Apparently, pirates used paper lanterns in all of their decorating. It was just like on the _Angpixen,_ only bigger. Hundreds of lanterns in every shape and color had been strung crisscross in a bright canopy over a broad stretch of raked white sand. Under one end of the lantern canopy was a __ bamboo _sonularri_ platform, with a grilling pit off to the side next to a row of trestle tables laden with food. At either end were bonfires in massive metal fire pots. Everything was lit up and glowing in the last rosy rays of a vibrant tropical sunset.

We strolled over the sea laurel-studded rise above Fox Cove, and Umelle immediately squealed, "Oh! Just _look_ at all of them! Big ones, blond ones, tall ones, dark ones, _oooh_! There are even some in _uniform_!" She took off at a run down the footpath to the beach.

Grenna stared after her. "There is a fuse shorting in that girl's brain."

Jinny shook her head, then gathered her skirts and started down at a much more ladylike pace.

Umelle wasn't wrong. There were many men on the beach, and a few of them were sporting naval officer's jackets. I spotted Raggan, his bow-legged frame recognizable even from a distance. There were lots of women and children, too. The entire Island had come out for the festivities. Several hundred people were gathered beneath the lanterns, eating and talking, sitting on blankets, standing in groups and bunches, milling about in front of the _sonularri._ The sound of them was loud even from the top of the hill, and for a moment I balked, that weightlessness in my ribs turning into a knot.

I firmed my chin. It was either this or sitting alone in a silent room, fighting with ghosts. _Right. Go on. Get down there._

The musicians were arranging their instruments and working the crankshaft on the generator, warming up the coils of the transistor under the _sonularri_ stage. As Jinny, Grenna and I reached the bottom of the hill and started across the sand, the lead musician finished what he was doing and turned to face the crowd, his fiddle at his shoulder. He spoke into the copper trumpet of the sonulator receiver that had been set up for him, his words amplified by the resonator drums in front of the stage. "Right. Ya know who I am, ya know who's up here wi' me, so let's just get rollin', aye?"

There was a loud chorus of 'ayes' and a loud 'get on with it then,' followed by quiet as he drew his bow over the strings, pulling long, sweet notes out of his fiddle. Then, with a snappy burr, he set off into the wild beginning bars of an Illyrian folk song. Whooping and hollering, the crowd moved to form two lines beneath the lights and the dancing began in a flurry of stomping and clapping as the _sollenskriek_ player started up a toe-tapping beat.

It was very loud, and lively, and very definitely unlike any of the dances I had ever learned at Kingsbridge.

"I'll just wait over there," I announced, and attempted to veer off in the direction of the food.

Jinny grabbed my arm rather resolutely for someone who seemed so calm. "Oh no you don't." Then she dragged me into line with her.

"But I don't know this one —"

"Nobody cares, Rikkafilla," Grenna shouted over the music, teeth flashing in a saucy smile as she slid her feet out of her sandals and faced off with us.

"It's not so much about the footwork as the clapping," Jinny said loudly, taking off her slippers and tossing them off to the side with Grenna's. "Just give it a chance! It's a lot of fun once you stop worrying about what you look like doing it!"

I burst out with a short, incredulous laugh. That was the least of my worries. Then I thought of my empty room again. Grimly, I bent, slipped off my boots, and started clapping when Grenna clapped and stomping when Grenna stomped. There was some hopping that came as a surprise, some synchronized yipping and howling, and then the lines switched places, hopped some more, stomped some more, clapped some more. Switched places again. Other people joined the line, and I found myself across from a spry old man I'd never met. But not knowing who you would wind up with was supposedly half the fun, and I had to admit it was. My dance-fellow could lift his feet like he was in his twenties, and yip with the best of them, blue eyes bright beneath bushy white brows.

I was laughing for real by the time the song ended.

Then the next song began, and the lines broke apart. My old man gave me a wink and a grin and went prancing away in the other direction, Grenna prancing right along after him. Jinny grabbed my arm again and off we went, following the matronly woman in front of her as the _sollenskriek_ struck up a syncopated rhythm. I recognized it. This dance I had at least seen once on the _Angpixen,_ so I was slightly more prepared when our group linked arms and formed a ring, feet kicking up sand as we went flying around and around and around.

It wasn't until the second stanza began and everyone abruptly paired off that I discovered who else was in our group.

I came to a breathless halt, unsure who, exactly, I was supposed to pair up with, and found the only other person left without a partner standing there watching me, a little smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Lieutenant Penweather stopped smirking, bent into a courtly bow, then held out his hand as he came forward, closing the distance between us. "Miss Westerby."

"Lieutenant." I sank into a curtsy, then took his hand while making a quick study of the couple next to us to see what we were supposed to do. Turn. We were supposed to turn while facing each other, hands together. Like a _passavada._ I knew how to do that.

The Lieutenant was smirking again. He held up his other hand for mine and started moving to his right. "How are you finding the Island?"

I blinked. "It's alright, I suppose." I followed his lead, still observing the others, trying to guess what came next. Keep turning, apparently.

"You know, since we _are_ on an island, I thought it would be easier to run into you, but you're really quite difficult to locate most days."

Surprised, I brought my head up. "You were looking for me?"

His smirk grew into a devilish grin. "Not anymore."

Oh dear.

Everyone began switching directions, then, and for some daft reason the musicians decided they should increase the pace. Penweather's grip tightened and he peeked surreptitiously at our feet.

I gave in and looked down too as we switched directions again.

"Blast, this is tricky," the Lieutenant grunted, trying to keep from trampling on my feet as the tempo doubled again to a quick jog.

I couldn't help it. A giggle crept out of my throat.

Other couples were already wavering and collapsing to the ground, laughing and out of breath.

We switched directions again, then again, somehow managing not to fall over each other before the song came to a boisterously silly end, all the musicians hitting random notes, the drummer making a show of drumming his way right off the stage.

Breathless and dizzy and laughing, we slowed to a halt. Around us everyone was picking themselves up and dusting themselves off, and there was a pause as the band regrouped and the dancers got their bearings.

Then the fiddler began playing a simple, elegant melody, sending it drifting into the balmy evening air.

Penweather still had hold of my hands, and when he realized what the next tune was, he pulled a wry face. "Hah! One I _know._ I'll bet you know this one too." He waggled his eyebrows. "Care to go again?"

I smiled a little. I did know that particular dance. It had been all the rage at every ball in Edon a few seasons ago.

Penweather let go and took two steps back, then struck the opening pose, right foot slightly forward, hands behind his back. When I hesitated, he rolled his eyes. "Oh, come now, you know you want to. There aren't any society Mamas to catch us. I won't tell if you don't."

I bit my lower lip. If we were back home, he knew accepting a second dance with him would have meant I was singling him out as an acceptable suitor. We were far from home. Things were different here. No one would notice. No one would care. Everyone was too busy having fun. The breeze was warm, the scent of jasmine hung in the air, and there was pretty music on a beach lit by lanterns at sunset. Why not? With a shake of my head, I relented, backed up the required distance and sank into a curtsy.

The first bars of the opening segment began, and we both took four steps toward each other.

Penweather held out his hand, and I placed my fingertips on his. He brought our hands up, and I spun beneath them, coming around to face away from him, my fingers in his behind my back. The first segment was done in tandem. _Right toe-touch to the side, crossover, crossunder, crossover, crossunder, left toe forward, to the side, return spin on the eight count... spine slightly loose but shoulders squared, keep your movements graceful... you are a swan, you are a beam of light. Warring! Keep your chin up —_

"You're an excellent dancer."

Penweather's words feathered my cheek, breaking through Mistress Floratina's Advanced Grace and Movement class as he pulled me into a spin.

I felt myself blushing and looked away... just in time to catch the gleam of firelight on silvery blond hair by the nearest bonfire. I frowned.

A few people were in the way, and he was dressed like some sort of day laborer in brown pants and a loose white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but there was no mistaking that military close-crop, or the sprawl of those long, rangy limbs. He was sitting on a driftwood log, legs bent, his elbows propped on his knees, and Arramy's gaze met mine. Then he glanced quickly away, then down at the drinking mug in his hands.

I kept moving, my feet carrying me along __ without missing a beat, although something had gone weirdly hot in my chest and my face decided to heat even more. _Blast the man. What is he even doing here? I didn't know basilisks liked music. No. Don't you look again... Don't you dare... But really, must he glower quite so much?... He's obviously not enjoying himself. Stop that, he'll see see you!_ I couldn't help it, though. My eyes kept returning to that log by the fire whether I wanted them to or not. I didn't have a choice. Penweather moved us into the third set of steps, clapping as I sashayed around him, and with every half-bow and twirl I wound up facing the bonfire.

It was a drama in snatches: a girl came to stand in front of Arramy. A very pretty girl, with hair that glowed copper in the firelight. She said something. Held out her hand. He stared up at her —

"Is something wrong?"

With a start I dragged my attention back to Penweather. "No. Nothing."

He lifted an eyebrow. "The ramrod in your spine says otherwise."

"I stepped on a clamshell," I blurted. Without blinking. Then I relaxed my shoulders.

Penweather's eyebrow arched a little higher, but he brought our right hands up for the final series of spins and didn't say anything more.

I told myself it was none of my business if Arramy had attracted female company. She was lovely. With any luck, she would do him some good. Maybe he would thaw a little, but my eyes still weren't listening to my brain. I caught blurry glimpses of the girl putting her hands on her hips. Then turning. Then walking away, leaving Arramy still sitting there, alone, drinking from that mug. I couldn't be sure, but I thought he looked at me again.

Then the dance was over, the ending chords drawing out into the final statement. Everyone faced the musicians to applaud, and Penweather was smiling as he bent over my hand, pressing his lips to the backs of my fingers.

Like a rattlebrain, I found myself fighting an almost overwhelming urge to peek at the bonfire to see if the Captain really was watching. _What is wrong with me?_

The Lieutenant released my hand and straightened. "Thank you, Miss Westerby. I haven't enjoyed myself quite this much in a long time."

"Neither have I." I pasted on a smile and dipped into a curtsy. That really should have been the truth, but the fun was gone, frozen by the Captain's wintery glare. I could feel it boring into my back, right between my shoulders. Which was ridiculous. The Captain wasn't watching me. Why would he be? He found me about as interesting as a bent doornail. I was imagining things.

There was a pause and then the lead musician announced over the resonators, "The frolicking shall resume shortly, I've just developed a bit o' thirst." He made a rolling gesture with his finger in the air. "Talk amongst yerselves."

There wasn't anything else I could think to say. None of my rules and deportment lessons had ever advised what to do if you danced twice with a dashing Navy Lieutenant on a tropical beach and didn't feel like making it a third because his commanding officer was scowling at you. I settled for giving Penweather another, more genuine smile, turned, and began searching for Jinny.

"I hear you're going to be staying on the Island," the Lieutenant said behind me. Loudly.

I went still, my heart kicking over.

Then I rotated on my heels, coming around to face him. "You did?"

"I did," he admitted, quirking that eyebrow again. "Am I wrong?"

A shiver of suspicion was prickling the back of my neck. Why would he be surprised that I was staying on the Island? Did he think I might be going somewhere? What else did he know?

Penweather frowned slightly. "I'm sorry. One of the girls from the Dorm just said you were going to be working here. I didn't mean any offense."

Abruptly, I schooled my face into an impassive mask and knotted my shaking fingers in the ruffles of my borrowed skirt. "No offense taken."

"Good," he said, flashing a broad smile. "Oh. I've been meaning to ask, have you had an iced orange at the Creamery?"

"No, not yet." I began craning to see if Jinny was over by the _sonularri_. She was. Grenna was with her, and they were talking to a few of the students from the school. She saw me, though, and waved. Her eyes flicked from me to Penweather, and she narrowed her eyes, then said something to her friends and started in my direction.

"You really should," the Lieutenant was saying. "In the words of Mannemarra, they are 'sublime.' We could go tomorrow, if you like." He took a step toward me.

Jinny arrived, then, smiling ever so politely as she linked her arm with mine. "My apologies, Lieutenant, but I must steal Miss Westerby."

Only too glad for the rescue, I offered a little shrug and a grin and a non-committal, "Perhaps some other time," and let Jinny pull me away.

Penweather didn't say anything more. The last I saw of him that evening, he was standing where we had left him. When I glanced that way again, he was gone. The Captain, however, remained on the log for the duration of the party, drinking and looking about as happy to be there as a cat in a doghouse.

I kept close to Jinny and Grenna after that, while studiously ignoring the bonfire closest to the right of the stage, that knot in my stomach tightening every time I accidentally noticed that the Captain was still there.

It was dark when we finally left.

Jinny, Grenna, Umelle and several other girls were with me, all of us talking and giggling, but as we wound our way back up the footpath and over the ridge to the village, I could have sworn someone was following us. It was never more than a suggestion of footsteps in the sand, but that feeling of being stalked radiated through my shoulders and didn't stop until we filed into the Dorm and Ydara locked the gate after us.

I sank into bed exhausted. I was hardly aware of drifting off, but I must have, because there was a monster sitting outside my window until dawn. It was huge, with thick, stony hide, and eyes that gleamed like ice in the moonlight. It wasn't my friend. I knew that much. It was frightening, wild and dangerous, able to tear me to pieces with fangs and claws. It didn't like me, either, but for some reason it was standing between me and the other monsters swarming through the trees. If they came to get me, they would have to go through that big one.

For being lost in such a disturbing dream, I slept surprisingly well.

~~~

_Sonularri:_ A sound stage that's made with a projection coil underneath it. The sonulator would be a microphone, and the whole lot is powered by a hand-cranked electrical generator.
44. Starting to Feel Like Home

20th of Nima

The next few weeks passed quickly, in many respects.

I was able to keep very busy translating for the Doctor and the Director at the School, enough that I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Then I woke at dawn every day, dragged into consciousness by the Island guinea fowl that roosted in the overgrown vines outside my window.

On the 15th, my name came up on Ydara's chore rotation and I learned that it does not require an entire tin of scouring powder to scrub twenty pots and pans. That discovery went hand in hand with finding out just how many suds it took to swamp the scullery floor.

Yesterday, the 19th, I finally had enough spare time to slip over to the school library.

The library inspired surprisingly mixed feelings.

On the one hand, it was a _library_ , with four whole stories of shelves, arranged in row upon row on the ground floor, and marching along stately balconies that wound upward toward a vaulted glass ceiling. Just the smell of the place was enough to make me grin like a schoolgirl: ink, paper, leather glue, and furniture polish, the scent of long hours spent learning.

On closer inspection, the books on the shelves weren't just any old books, either. They were beautiful books that looked like they might have come from NaVarre's family estate. Leather-bound special editions, the kind with gilded illustration plates and velvety-smooth pages. There wasn't a single wadding-page copy to be found in the lot, although all the usual Southstreet novella writers were represented on the first floor – even Vignor Ladesky and his ridiculous _Rosephyra Daguerre, Queen of the Wilds_ periodicals.

I almost picked one up. Not for me. I imagined Arramy finding it on his desk... then I sighed, put _Rosephyra and the Ogre King's Breakfast_ back on the shelf, and kept exploring. Arramy would just throw it in the nearest bin, and shout at Arriankaredes for allowing someone to get past him again.

On the other hand, though, I kept stumbling into books I had in my personal collection at home. Books I read while curled up in my favorite chair by the hearth in my father's study, absorbed in another world while my father sat mere feet away, smoking his pipe, his nose in a periodical.

I was in the middle of Tosarte's _The Berrion Chronicles_ when the fire took everything. I found it. Not the exact copy I had, obviously, but the same version from Dartmarre Publishing Consortium with the lime-green leather binding and a gold-leaf lion prowling up the spine.

My first reaction was delight, and I reached for it, pulling it from the shelf. But as I opened the cover, the words blurred together, and that frigid emptiness inside me unfurled, settling in a burning ache in my chest. I ran my fingers down the smooth surface of a page, my throat tight. I closed my eyes, but the memory still hung in front of me. Marking my place with a scrap of note paper from Father's desk; gathering my shawl around my shoulders; bending to kiss his cheek on my way up to bed.

An odd, shuddering little sound crawled up out of my chest. I snapped the book shut and shoved it back into the gap it came from, my heart pounding.

I couldn't bring myself to go near the Adventure section again. Instead, I found the Informationals and picked through it for something dense, wordy, and tedious for my bedside table. A particularly brick-like tome by the title _A Thorough History of Roghuari Society in the Latter Half of the 100th Century_ fit that bill nicely. I signed it out and went back to the Director's office to help him translate Caraki identification cards.

By that point I had been at the school for nearly a week. I knew where all of my things were, I was starting to figure out how to get where I needed to go without an escort, many of the students knew who I was and greeted me eagerly in the hallways. I could feel it: the warmth of that place was wearing through the flimsy bit of resistance I was trying to maintain. I had begun to hope. I could build a new life, here, have a place to call home, maybe do something that would make my father and Aunt Sapphine proud.

What a fool I was.

~~~

This morning I came awake in a blur, my body already sitting up before I opened my eyes, my heart racing, cries of pain and terror ringing in my ears.

Then I jumped when a guinea hen let loose again outside my window, screaming her herald-song at the rising sun.

That explained one part of my nightmare, at least.

For a moment all I could do was drag air into my lungs, my chest aching, my shoulders stiff, as if I hadn't taken a full breath all night. Then I grimaced. I was sticky with sweat and my hair was soaked through. With a sigh I swung my legs over the side of the bed, shoved my feet into my unlaced boots, got up, and trudged out the door, not particularly caring who might see me in my nightdress.

It seemed to help a little, walking; planting my feet on something dry, solid, and unmoving was proof that I wasn't stuck in the _Galvania_ on its way to the ocean floor, or hiding from a huge, fiery bird that flew on burning wings, swooping down to annihilate anyone I looked at.

The burning bird was the newest addition to my Fun with Dreams in the Dark program. In last night's episode, Captain Arramy had been eaten while trying to save everyone by killing me – because I had begged him to. But I hadn't died. I became the bird and went hunting for a faceless man with a white beard.

I shuddered and kept going down the stairs to the courtyard.

The faceless man. I wasn't sure what part of that was more disturbing, the fact that I routinely dreamt that my father had no face, or the fact that whenever I dreamt of him, I couldn't find him.

Mrs. Fosspotter would have made me sit down at the kitchen table while she put the kettle on. She would have listened to every gruesome detail. Then, when we had both finished our cuppas, she would have read the strainings to see what it all meant.

I didn't need bits of leaves on a napkin to tell me what those dreams were about. It was easy enough to decipher, if I dared try.

I didn't dare. Clomping about in my untied boots on the deck of a warship – or more recently the cobblestones of a moonlit courtyard in the tropics – breathing slowly and counting things till the world made sense was far easier than facing the things in my head.

But if I was clomping about, I was awake.

Awake with nothing to do, which was proving to be another kind of battle. Without any distractions, I invariably began remembering, and remembering was worse than the nightmares. It was real. I couldn't wake up from it, either, and it was worse on land than it had been on the _Stryka._ Everywhere I went, I found things that my father would have enjoyed: food he would have wheedled a recipe from the cook for, people he would have loved to meet, sights he would have liked to see. It made it so much more difficult to keep from missing him, and if I let myself miss him, I would start breaking until there wasn't anything left of me.

So, this morning I paced the length of the Dormitory courtyard, counting cobblestones while the stars blinked out and the sky began lightening in the east. I was still there when the sun came oozing over the island peaks, slowly shedding layers of molten gold into the mist of the Rimrocks, before rushing down into the bowl of the cove to gild the rooftops of Aethscaul.

As if that was her cue, Ydara came out of the apartment closest to the outdoor kitchen, her lazuli-dipped _tirna_ swaying and flowing around her ankles as she walked.

I smiled a little. She always seemed like she had been transported from some long-ago era. Her simple Ronyran clothing was designed for function and freedom of movement in a hot climate. No corset, no blouse and bodice, no heavy skirts or under-ruffles, just that length of rippling linen wrapped around her twice and held in place with a woven-cord belt. Even the free end of the fabric had its uses: this morning she had it draped over her shoulders like a shawl. Instead of a hat or bonnet, she wore her mane of corkscrew curls pulled back in a brightly colored scarf. It all looked wonderfully comfortable in the broil of humidity that was already rising in the courtyard.

A few of the Dormitory girls began coming out of their rooms, then, to help Ydara put food on the table.

I sat under the _baraboe_ tree at the other end of the courtyard, remembering mornings spent sitting in the kitchen at home while Cookie and Betts and Mrs. Rushwater all bustled about, frying onions and rolling pastry dough for a savory sausage pie, or whisking spices and egg yolks into scalded milk to make the filling for an _arensconne_. It had been a sort of dance. A reassuring dance that meant everything was as it should be.

The breakfast dance on the Island was only similar in that there was a group of people preparing food. Everything else was different. Instead of a cast-iron stove tucked politely into the hearth of an indoor kitchen, these women tended an open fire in a big stone ring with a grate over it. Instead of shiny copper pots and pans, there were wooden bowls, slates, baskets, and heavy cast-iron kettles.

Ydara began by grilling the legs of some large bird, claws still attached, that she pulled out of a wooden vat full of a dark brown sauce. The meat hit the grate over the fire with a juicy hiss, and the smell of cooking poultry began drifting across the courtyard.

There was hot Praidani tea, too, that one of the girls made in a huge clay urn and shoved directly into the fire. When she was done with that, she began pounding a pile of knobby rust-red roots to a pulp in a large wooden trough. Then she added eggs and flour, mixed the pulp into a sticky orange dough, shaped it into a bunch of rounds on a slate, and popped the slates, rounds and all, right into the fire next to the tea urn.

I knew from experience that the rounds of dough would turn into loaves of dense, fragrant, cake-like bread the girls called _llinfa._

This breakfast dance was different and foreign to me, but it fit this place, and it was beginning to feel normal.

After a few minutes of observing the food-making, I went back up to my room, pulled on my clothes, made a stab at taming my hair, washed my face, ignored the soot-eyed girl in the mirror, then went back down again for breakfast with Jinny, Grenna and Umelle. Then, as usual, Jinny, Umelle and I went out to stand on the corner with the rest of the girls bound for the School, waiting for Persha and the Gopher of Internal Disruption.

The sunlight was as warm as it had been, the air as sweet. I had a place I belonged, and an important job to do, with people who were quickly turning into friends.

There wasn't any hint that everything was about to change. 
45. Sharp Eyes

20th of Nima, Continued

Rhaina was waiting for me outside the Director's office.

"Doctor Longalli needs ya in Med Ward B, soon as ya can," she said, bobbing awkwardly into a curtsy before setting off down the hallway.

That stack of identity papers would have to wait.

With a sigh, I went on into the Director's office, gathered my translation kit and set off through the back halls of the school to the hospital ward. When I got there, though, it took an effort to make myself go in. Biting my lip, I stood outside the double doors to the medical wing, hesitating. I had been through enough of these translation sessions to know what waited for me inside, and it hadn't gotten any easier with repetition.

_Don't be ridiculous, standing out here afraid of a headache when there are people in there who are still learning what freedom is. Right. Tear it off like a tacky plaster._ Steeling my spine, I reached up and pushed the door open.

The Doctor came bustling out of one of the treatment cubicles at the end of the aisle. Her relief was clear. "Oh good, you're here." She waved me in, then gestured toward the bed she had just come from. "This one won't let me near his dressings now that he's awake, and he's going to undo two surgeries by developing a septic infection. I'd rather not have to put him under _every_ time I see him."

"Name?" I asked as I approached the cubicle.

"I have no idea. He's southern, though, I think."

A stunningly handsome boy of about fifteen lay on the medical cot, both of his shins in casts. He smiled readily enough at the Doctor but went blank as a clam when he saw me behind her.

"Hello," I tried in Lodesian. Then again in Ronyran. Nothing. _Further south?_

When I tried Tradeslang, "Tazhir'ai, inamsa Miss Westerby," the boy's pretty doe-dark eyes flew wide. Then they welled with tears, and he buried his face in his blanket, muffling a sob. With a furious swipe at the wet on his cheeks, he sat up in spite of his broken legs, and held out his hand, fingers spread in a street greeting.

"Inos Nikkorus."

I touched my fingertips to his, and a glorious smile broke over his face. I didn't think I would ever get used to that look on another human's face, that realization that they weren't alone.

I managed a smile in return and kept going in Tradeslang. "Hello, Nikkorus. This is a hospital. And this is Dr. Longalli." Then I started translating for the Doctor as she told him what she needed to do to treat him.

Knowing the Director would appreciate the effort, I got out my notebook while the Doctor worked, and began asking Nikkorus where he was from, and what he remembered. He answered readily enough. He was from the Pardeshi region just north of the Caraki border. He came from a small farming compound that was overcome by the floods last year and had sold himself to a Friend in a barn outside Pordazh Kaskara so his father could build a new barn.

He was put on the Blocks and bought by an extremely wealthy man. He didn't talk about what happened in the three years after he was bought, but he was sold again because he tried to run away and take one of the younger boys with him, and his master broke his legs. He was put in a cargo bin with other injured slaves, and the cargo bin was loaded onto a ship. He nearly died, but then the pirates came, and now here he was, talking to me.

"They seem kind, here," he whispered. "Will they keep me? I know my legs are ruined, but —"

I cleared my throat. "They don't 'keep' people, Nikkorus, you're free, now. You can stay because you want to.... but I think Doctor Longalli is ready to fix you up, now. Alright? We can talk some more tomorrow."

Nikkorus took a breath. Then he simply nodded and ducked his head. "Thank you, Miss."

I smiled, then got out of Dr. Longalli's way as she started redressing the wounds on his back.

The next patient was a woman named Orra, who spoke a regional version of Lodesian I had never heard. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes of asking questions to figure out the different pronunciations and the syntax, but it didn't help much. She didn't know where she came from. She only knew that she had been a slave in a 'long house' somewhere that she was unable to describe in much detail other than to say there were lots of other girls there, and they made parts for machinery.

Orra had been raised at the factory, kept in a stone hut with the other girls, until a few months ago the 'whipping man' came down the line when they were assembled for breakfast. He began picking girls at random. Ten of them. They had been sold sight unseen. Orra and these other girls were loaded into a cargo lorry that stank of death, and then they were driven over the hills for three days and part of a fourth night. She didn't know what direction they traveled to get to the sea, but on that fourth night they stopped in a place with lots of buildings. She could see them through the air grates when the cargo bin was lifted off the lorry, raised high by a crane, then lowered into the hold of a freighter.

What color was the freighter? Blue.

I wrote all of that down, but I could feel the beginnings of a headache blossoming behind my eyes as Dr. Longalli kept going around the ward, checking pulses and splints and adjusting bandages.

I tried to shrug it off. I was doing something good, giving something back. Still, with every new face and story, something razor-sharp slid along my nerves. All of their stories had one big thing in common.

There was a girl with a mangled hand who spoke a distorted mix of Ronyran and Lodesian. Another girl spoke Low Altyran with a thick accent and a heavily regionalized vocabulary that made her nearly unintelligible, even to the other people who spoke Low Altyran. A young woman taken from the streets of Arritagne spoke a pigeon of Tradeslang, Low Altyran, and Ronyran.

None of them could read, none of them could write, all of them were very grateful, and all of them talked about being loaded onto a blue freighter. One of them even saw a man with white hair observing from the docks. It didn't take much to figure out who that white-haired man had been.

By the time we had gone round most of the ward, the throb in my head had grown to a steady note of pain focused halfway between my right eye and ear.

Char was one of the last patients who needed a translator. She was awake, and much calmer than she had been in the foyer, but there was still a subtle tension in her wiry muscles as Dr. Longalli whisked the curtains aside and the two of us stepped into the cubicle.

"Hello," I said, smiling. "How are you today?"

"Better," Char whispered. She eyed the Doctor, then glanced at me. "Can you get rid of this one? We need to talk without..." she paused to make a street hand motion that meant 'extra ears everywhere.'

The Doctor didn't even blink when I switched my satchel strap from one shoulder to the other, the signal that meant I needed to stay behind. Calm and efficient, she finished checking Char's ankle, then walked out, moving down the aisle to the next patient.

"Alright. No more extra ears," I murmured in Tettian, going to stand in the narrow space next to Char's cot. "What is it?"

Char frowned slightly, watching the doorway before she looked up, searching my features. "You're her, aren't you. The missing daughter?"

I froze.

Char nodded a little, as if she wasn't surprised by my reaction. "Yah. I never forget a face..." Then she leaned forward, her voice low and fierce. "Look. You helped me, so I'm gonna help you. After the Blocks, I was kept in a shed with a bunch of other girls, locked up in cages like dogs... The guards, they didn't care what we saw or heard. One day, they got this message from their high-boss, one of those wanted papers with the drawings. The leader, he got really angry. Said he wasn't going to hunt for one measly girl, and they should let the Magis handle it, but the others didn't want to make the big boss man angry, so they left. The leader tossed the paper in the coal grate, but I've got sharp eyes... It was a picture of you."

"How does that help me now?" I started to ask, only to gasp when she grabbed my arm and yanked me closer, her other hand clamping over my mouth.

"I'm not done," she hissed, glaring at me. "One of the girls they brought in later, she was treated just like the rest of us. See? They kept her _with us_ in the cages, locked her up _with us_ in the bin. But this girl, she was different. There wasn't enough food or water for everyone, and she killed another girl over it. Snapped her neck like a twig, kept all the food for herself. I guess she thought she would survive, but she caught the fever just like the rest of us. She started going mad with it toward the end. Talked about being sent on some great mission for some great cause. She was a trained assassin, she wasn't meant to die like a gutterdog, on and on. Kept repeating 'the time is coming, the time is coming', and something about the purge already taking place, everything is going to change, no way to stop it. I thought it was just the fever, but... She kept saying the name from that wanted paper. Brenorra Warring, Brenorra Warring. She said she was sent to kill you."

Char's fingers dug into my skin when I stumbled back a step, her eyes boring into mine as she kept going. "Listen to me. I don't know what you did to wind up on that paper, but do _not_ trust anyone. Keep your eyes open. They have people everywhere. Those men that took me, they put that girl in that kennel knowing she would wind up here. If these people are after you, there is nowhere you can hide."

The sound of Dr. Longalli's footsteps out in the corridor had Char releasing my hand and sitting quickly back against her pillows, her gaunt face instantly assuming cool, emotionless lines.

I couldn't breathe.

Dr. Longalli came in, then, eyebrows raised expectantly.

I mumbled some sort of excuse and ducked past her. I kept going, right on down the aisle between the cubicles and out of the ward, Char's words echoing in my ears. _Brenorra Warring, Brenorra Warring, don't trust anyone_. Without really thinking about it, I wound up outside under the portico.

Persha was there with the gopher, picking up a group of teachers and students.

On impulse, I darted forward and joined them, quickly finding a seat in the corner toward the front. The noise of the engine was the loudest there and no one else wanted to sit that close to the heat of it, but I could see all the students.

A few of them turned to smile at me, then shared puzzled looks when I didn't respond, and went back to discussing what they were going to get at the Creamery.

My heartbeat still jittering in my chest, I gathered my bag to my chest and tried to make myself relax as Persha got in and the gopher leapt into motion.

Brenorra Warring, there's nowhere you can hide.
46. Wait and See

20th of Nima, Continued

The docks were alive with activity. NaVarre's crew was outfitting the _Coralynne,_ and there were platforms of food and water waiting to be loaded into the hold while the pulley booms were being readied.

I caught sight of Arramy on the _Stryka._ He was dressed as a dock worker again, his dingy white shirt drenched with sweat and sticking to his back as he took turns with two of his men, sledgehammers rising and falling in a steady rhythm while they pounded something into place on the main deck.

I wasn't looking for the Captain, though. NaVarre. I needed to talk to NaVarre. I skirted a pile of Island citrus and headed for the whitewashed building, pushing through the large swinging double door.

NaVarre was right where Persha the Gopher Driver said he would be, sitting at the far end of a long trestle table, scribbling notes in a ledger.

I must have appeared about as nauseated as I felt, because NaVarre took one glance at my face and got up, brows drawing into a frown. "What is it? What happened?"

I couldn't meet his eyes. I was being silly, like a child running from ghosts. Feeling silly didn't quiet my anxiety, though, and my "Oh, nothing, really," sounded annoyingly small and far away.

NaVarre waited.

"Ah... You remember Char?"

"Of course."

I wheeled about and began pacing. "I translated for the patients in the medical ward today," I got out between teeth that wouldn't quit clattering. "And... ah... Char was one of them. And she said some things... For instance, she ah... she saw a bulletin of me when she was kept in a shed, and these men who kept her were supposed to hunt me down and kill me. So, there's that. She also said that one of the other girls who was with her was an assassin. She – this other girl, not Char – she died, but before she died, she said she had been sent on a mission to ah... to get to the Island. And that she knew my real name. She – Char – said that there may be other spies we don't know about. Which means nowhere is safe. Not even here —"

I was on my way past NaVarre as I said that, and came to a stop, brought up short by his hands on my shoulders.

He spun me gently around, golden-green eyes serious as he peered down at me, his gaze roaming my features. "Stop. Take a deep breath."

Obediently, I dragged air into my lungs. Then I let it out on a strained, "I thought I was finally going to belong somewhere." I tried to smile but my lower lip wouldn't stop quivering, so I covered my face with my hands, fighting to keep some semblance of dignity. "I love this place. I love everything about it. Ydara and Jinny and Grenna and the Longallis. The School. I just wanted _one thing_ to be safe, one thing to feel real __ again, and now everywhere I look, every face I see, I think, 'Is that person going to kill me?'"

NaVarre was shaking his head. "You _are_ safe," he said, his voice gruff. He gave my shoulders a slight squeeze. "Don't let a confused Shacklefoot steal that from you."

He hadn't heard what Char had said, or the tone of her voice. _Don't trust anyone. There's nowhere you can hide._ Then there had been that walk home from the Hello. "Char seemed to be in full possession of all of her faculties," I muttered.

For a moment, NaVarre was silent. Then he rubbed my arms, let go and stepped back. "You don't have anything to worry about. I have eyes all over the Island, and I trust my sources far more than a girl fresh off the Blocks."

The threat of tears had passed somewhere in all of that. I took a shaky breath and lowered my hands.

NaVarre was regarding me with an oddly reserved expression, as if he knew something but wasn't willing to tell me.

I frowned and narrowed my eyes. They were outfitting the _Coralynne_. "You received word from your agent."

There was a flicker of surprise in his gaze, but then, reluctantly, he nodded. "He'll be here tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest."

So soon. "Did he give you any indication whether I would..."

"Whether you'd have to go to Nim K? No. That's not something I would risk sending by letter. We'll have to wait and see."

That queasy, displaced sensation bubbled up between my ribs again.

"Come on. I'll walk you back to the Dorm," NaVarre said quietly, moving toward the door. He held it open and offered a wry grin. "You'll be absolutely safe there. Ydara may seem sweet, but I've seen her in action, and my bet wouldn't be on any assassin."

21st of Nima

I was allowed to stay in the Dorm since it was already walled up like a fortress, but I had to pack a bag for a trip to Nim K and transfer to a small, windowless room next to the kitchens on the first floor so the pirates NaVarre had posted outside could more easily guard my door. I wasn't allowed to leave, either, and no one was allowed to visit, not Jinny or Grenna, not even the Doctor. No one but Ydara and NaVarre were permitted past the guards.

Once again, I had been carved out of society and stuck somewhere 'safe,' waiting to find out what would be expected of me.

I tried telling myself that it was only temporary. No matter what happened, I could always come back and work at the school again.

What is that Rosephyra Daguerre saying? Don't trust a bridge over a misty gorge unless you can see the other end, and even then, send the guide over first?

47. Monolith by Moonlight

21st of Nima, Continued

I lay in bed, hoping to put my brain to sleep by learning how the barbarian Roghuari tribes kept themselves alive long enough to establish a territory that once spanned all of northeastern Altyr and Panesia. It was turning out to be much more interesting than I had hoped, mostly because the color-plate of Dazhir the Great, the first Roghuari High Chieftain, bore a freakish resemblance to a certain silver-eyed Captain. Enough that I had to wonder if Arramy's military abilities were genetic.

I was idly imagining myself meeting a long-ago barbarian Arramy in the middle of the bloody conquest to unite the northern tribes and conquer the surrounding peoples, when someone knocked at my door. Insistently, and with vigor.

Realizing what I had been doing, I frowned, and thumped _The History of the Roghuari_ shut _,_ eyeing it askance as I got up and moved to open the door.

Ydara stood outside, a faded shawl thrown over her cotton night shift, floppy slippers on her feet, her hair swinging in a thick braid down her back. She was also not amused, glaring at me as she marched past my guards and into my new apartment. "NaVarre has sent that Coalition _pushda_ to fetch you," she announced, jaw tight.

I squinted and made a guess. "Captain Arramy?"

Ydara scowled and gestured stiff-handed in the direction of the front gate. "Yes. He is lurking out there like a monolith. I don't know what business he has with you and NaVarre, but there is a darkness in those eyes that no man should have looking out of him. He wears death like a second skin."

That, I would have to remember, but the time had come. I closed the door and began collecting my things.

"You don't have to go with him," Ydara said, crossing her arms. "I will tell NaVarre that he needs to find someone else." There was a faint tremble in her fingers where she clutched at her shawl, her knuckles white.

Had Arramy frightened her that much? I could understand being upset because of something the man said, but there was more to her reaction than mere irritation. She was genuinely afraid. For me. Which made me want to hug her.

"I'll be fine," I said, rapidly exchanging my night shift for the light blouse I had bought on my first, and perhaps only, day off. Then I shimmied into my grey skirt and wrapped my new black woven-cord belt around my waist. A handful of hair pins later, and I had made quick work of coiling my braid up at the nape of my neck.

Ydara let out a breath and bent to peer under the end of my bed. "Well, I think you are making a mistake, you and NaVarre." She grabbed my new shoes, holding them out to me as she added, "I have known men like that before. They are not to be trusted."

"NaVarre probably just needs me to translate something." I finished pulling my stockings on and gave her a smile. "That's all." I took my shoes from her and pushed my feet into them.

"You're sure?"

I paused in the middle of tying the ankle ribbons. "Yes, but thank you for caring."

She gave me a sidelong, mildly disapproving glare, then heaved a sigh on a shrug and a lift of her hands. "Well, I'll be here if you ever need help." She held out my father's satchel as I stood up. "You can talk to me. About anything."

To my surprise she didn't just hand me my bag, she kept going and wrapped me in a firm embrace. "We take care of each other, here." She pulled back to look me in the eyes, her hands on my shoulders. "You aren't alone. Remember that?"

"Thank you," I smiled a little. "I will."

She regarded me for a moment more, then nodded and crossed the room to open the door, waiting as I made sure I had everything.

I did, so I left. No questions, no dilly-dallying, I just picked up and walked away on NaVarre's say-so. I couldn't tell Ydara that there were things I would never be able to talk to her about. It felt good to have someone care what happened to me, so I let her escort me past her personal apartment and around the corner to the gate. She walked with me arm in arm the whole way like some sort of bristling, guardian _fyrropyxxe_. I imagined that was what it might have felt like to have an older sister. Someone in my corner no matter what.

A tall figure in a long grey cloak stood in the shadows on the other side of the gate. His face was mostly hidden by a hood, but it was definitely the Captain. I would have known that immovable stance anywhere.

Ydara scowled at Arramy as if he might come barging in to ravage everyone. She unlocked the gate, rotating the key until the lockbolts slid into their slots, but she stayed where she was, deliberately standing in the way and holding the gate shut. "You listen to me," she growled through the bars. "If I hear that anything... _any thing_... has happened to this sweet girl, I will hunt you down and they will never find your body."

Arramy was still as a stone, but then he nodded. Once _._

I had to hide a smirk, wishing I could see his face, but I really did need to go. NaVarre had obviously received word from his man in Nimkoruguithu. I gave Ydara's hand a parting squeeze, then eased the gate open and slipped through.

Arramy didn't say anything. He simply headed for a flatbed gopher idling in the road and held the door to the cab open for me.

I climbed up and scooted across the padded seat to make room as he got in. He glanced at me, jaw tight, then looked forward again as he released the gopher's flywheel and pulled the ancient vehicle away from the Dormitory.

We rumbled down the hill toward the docks, and I settled into the worn leather upholstery, hugged my father's satchel. My heart was beating a rapid tattoo in my chest, that weird, empty feeling swarming in the pit of my stomach. I was back on the tilt-a-ball again.

I think I knew even then, before I walked into NaVarre's office. I still hoped, though. Maybe it would be a simple thing they needed, and I wouldn't have to leave this new life behind. Maybe all I would have to do was translate something. It was possible.

A small, quiet voice said it could never be that easy.

~~~

One thing was blatantly clear: Arramy didn't want me to be a part of any of this. He maintained that from the very first second we arrived, when he strode in behind me snarling, "This is insane."

NaVarre didn't look up from his rum. "So you've said."

I walked over to the table, but my attention was still snagged on Arramy, who had gone straight to the sideboard, where he poured himself a large tumbler of brandy.

"Did your agent find the binder?" I asked, easing into the seat across from NaVarre.

"No. He didn't." Arramy turned around to face us, then leaned against the sideboard instead of coming to sit down like a civilized person.

"He means yes," NaVarre said, voice dull.

"Fine. He found out they have physical descriptions of you in the Magistrate's Bureau," Arramy amended. "You're billed as an escaped detainee at large. Oh, and you're to be taken dead or alive." That last came with a mirthless grin.

NaVarre shot a flat glare at the Captain.

Arramy gestured with his glass. "But more importantly, if they're posting rewards for you, then the Coventry has figured out you're alive, and they're hunting for you in Nim K. Which means we're officially out of time."

" _Almost_ out of time," NaVarre muttered.

"Nai, I'd say completely." A muscle in Arramy's jaw ticked. "What will make it officially too late? Her capture?"

"That's a risk, yes, but I don't think they know where she is yet. Her description is probably posted abroad as a precaution, and I doubt the Nim K Magis will be as big of a problem as you think. I've got more than half of them in my pocket."

Arramy paused to give NaVarre a frigid once-over. "We don't know how much they know. What if they _do_ know where to look and you're sending her in there purely on the assumption that your enemy is a fool? Are you willing to bet her life on that?"

This had clearly been a heated argument before I arrived. "Send me in?" I asked quietly, breaking the prickly silence. I had expected to go along to help solve a riddle, perhaps. Being 'sent in' sounded much more active.

NaVarre took a breath and let it out. He was weary and a little disheveled, as if he had run his fingers through his hair several times in the last hour. "My source found a sylvograph of you behind the bar in the pub. It's from your father to the pub owner." He didn't meet my eyes as he offered his conclusion: "The pub owner is expecting you... and only you."

_Ah._ I sat forward a little. "What would I have to do, exactly?"

NaVarre shrugged. "My guess, all you have to do is be you, and ask for butter cones."

"You know it's not that simple," Arramy said from behind the rim of his tumbler. "Every time she shows her face, the chances go up they'll notice."

"Well, hopefully, this will be the last time she has to show her face," NaVarre snapped.

I fiddled with my necklace, running the pendant up and down the chain. "And you're sure this is the only way?"

NaVarre sighed. "No, but finding another will take too long or attract too much attention, and... the Captain is right. We're running out of time. If we had been able to go straight to Nim K instead of stopping here, it would have been a different story. Your father certainly wasn't planning on that storm... The owner isn't keeping the binder in the pub or at his home, and it didn't seem to matter how many butter cones my man ordered, he never got anything but a bill. It has to be you, and it has to be now. If this doesn't work, I'll have to resort to other, messier means, and I doubt your father would have wanted that."

"No. He wouldn't." I ran my pendant up the chain again, a deep weariness settling into my bones. But... Maybe this would be the end. Maybe I could do this one thing, and then come back to the Island. NaVarre would have his third binder, the Coventry would be ruined, everyone would be safe.

That thought dangled in front of me like a low-hanging orange, far too tempting to ignore. I studied my necklace. Then I nodded. "I'll do it."

Arramy grunted under his breath, displeasure plain in every line of his body. He poured another tumbler of brandy, yanked out the chair at the far end of the table, and sat down, long limbs asprawl.

NaVarre inclined his head to me. "Thank you. Now. If you're ready and packed, we're leaving on the morning tide."

~~~

_Pushda:_ (push-dah) Ronyran name for a large poisonous reptile known to hunt humans. Also, a derogatory term for a person of northern Altyran mountain descent. This goes back centuries, to when mountain tribes regularly came south to raid Ronyran border villages.
Endnotes

1. An Unfortunate Beginning

_Nimkoruguithu_ : (nim.ko.roo.gwith.oo) Also referred to as Nim K; the largest city in the Coalition Colonial Region, a rough, lawless place too far from Coalition influence to be kept properly under heel. Nimkoruguithu is populated by people hoping for a fresh start. Many are wanted fugitives, many are convicts sentenced to transportation, many are ex-convicts that have done their time, many are seeking to escape poverty on the promise of opportunity, many are looking for a hustle. Only the hardest and most desperate survive.

37. The Rimrocks

_Floubeste:_ (Tettian): n. a mythical creature that feeds on the nightmares of children and the anger of men. The floubeste spends its larval stage building itself a frame for its soft, formless body to move about in. To do this, it invades the bodies of whatever animals it can catch, consuming the parts it needs. Its last acquisition is the skin of a human, which it uses to blend in with human society and draw close to its real prey. In some cases, it will abduct particularly naughty children to take back to its communal lair. If that happens, the rest of the village children are spared for ten years. For several centuries, this myth was used by village women to frighten disobedient young children.
Meet the Author

Ms. Pennymaker grew up in rural Pennsylvania as the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and an artist, and is the sixth of seven children.

She showed a determination to draw from a very early age, and that compulsion was lovingly fed by her mother. At the age of twelve, Anna was also bitten by the dread Serious Writer bug. She thought going to college to be an English teacher would make her symptoms more acceptable to the rest of humanity, but no dice. Life took a wild detour into a story for another time, and her pen and paintbrush came rattling over the rocks behind her. She still suffers from prolonged attacks of creativity, though now, nearly *cough cough* years later, she has to balance them with reality, two huge dogs, five kids, a forest of assorted houseplants, and a hardworking, globe-trotting husband.

Anna enjoys jaunts across the wilderness with her camera, eating frozen custard, and drinking entirely too much caffeine for a sane person.

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Books by A. E. Pennymaker

The Shadow Trilogy

Shadow Road: Book 1

Shadow Dance: Book 2 (Coming December 2020)

Shadow War: Book 3 (Coming June 2021)

Sneak Peek at Shadow Dance: Book 2 of the Shadows Rising Trilogy

With the discovery of a new lead in Nimkoruguithu, Brenorra Warring has been drawn back into the game. At first, Bren hopes that all she'll have to do is solve another secret code, and then she'll be able to return to the Island and the people she has come to love, but it soon becomes clear that there is much more at stake than finding her father's last binder.

When a devastating betrayal nearly costs Bren her life, trust becomes a treacherous commodity, and friends become suspects as the fight to bring the Coventry down moves from the jungle of the Colonies to the ballrooms of high society on the Altyran Coalition continent.

Through it all, Bren must discover just how far she is willing to go to finish what her father started – and how much of herself she is willing to lose.

Keep scrolling and you will find bonus content from the next book in Pennymaker's Shadows Rising series, coming December 2020.
1. Three Days Aboard the Coralynne

22nd of Nima

With a sigh, Raggan sat down at the tea table outside my cabin, then lowered a grain sack from his shoulder to the floor. He gave me his famous gap-toothed grin as he fished around in his breast pocket for his clay pipe and tobacco pouch. "How goes your first morn back at sea, Miss Westerby?" he asked, tamping a pinch of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. He lit it with a pocket flint, then sat back and took a long, easy draw on it, watching me expectantly.

I couldn't formulate a reply, so I just lifted my mug of hot Praidani. That was all the breakfast I could handle. I might as well have thrown the piece of toast overboard without eating it first.

"Ah," Raggan grunted. "Land legs gettin' to ya."

I gave him a tight little grin and turned to stare at the passing scenery again.

Another island, dark rocks, vibrant greenery. They were getting smaller, now. This one was too steep and too 'new' to support large trees, and there were only small signs of wildlife here and there.

Parading through the islands from largest to smallest wasn't the only difference between this trip and the last. This time we were aboard the _Coralynne,_ which was smaller and sleeker than the _Stryka._ It was also built with creature comfort in mind. Where the _Stryka_ had cannons and grappling hooks, the _Coralynne_ had a full formal ballroom and canteen. Where the _Angpixen_ had a large forward hold and a handful of cabins for the officers, the _Coralynne_ had thirty-five individual cabins, four of which were staterooms, and all of which opened onto a generous promenade deck overlooking the sea. We even had individual lounge chairs and tea tables.

Another change on this ship was that NaVarre wasn't NaVarre. The crew referred to him as Lord Braeton, and they treated all the rest of us as if we were guests on a luxury vessel. This was done on purpose. We had to look like what our papers said we were: legitimate civilians sailing about as Lord Braeton's retinue of servants, bodyguards, and hangers-on. There wasn't a single Navy-issue anything on board, and everyone – even Raggan – was wearing civilian clothing.

I felt distinctly like I had stepped through a hole in reality and landed on a holiday trip.

I wasn't alone. Raggan snorted lightly as he looked around, taking in the high-gloss polish on the woodwork, the gleaming brass accents, and the cushions in each lounging nook. There was even insect netting gathered in tiers at the edge of the overhang above us.

"Sure makes workin' fer 'ome and country look right dull, don't it?" He shook his head. He pulled a small knife from his pocket, then dug in the bag at his feet and came out with a small chunk of driftwood. The fragrant scent of pipe smoke drifted in the air around us as he loosened his new neckerchief, propped his legs out straight, crossed them at the ankle, unfolded his knife and began whittling.

Grim, I took a sip of tea, wondering if Ydara and the girls were done making breakfast, and what Jinny would think when I didn't show up. I had only been there nine days, hardly long enough to do more than leave several tasks unfinished. A pile of personal records was still sitting on my desk waiting to be translated, for one. I wasn't there to help the Doctor, either, but Jinny could do both. Would anyone even notice I was gone?

"Don't you worry, lass," Raggan said quietly. "You'll find yer way back."

I shot a glance at his blunt profile. How much had Arramy told him? I knew the Captain trusted Raggan more than many, which was why he was among the dozen or so men Arramy had hand-picked to come on this mission, but did Raggan know why I was there? Did he know how dangerous this might actually be, or what would happen after?

Questions flew around like moths in my brain. My stomach knotted up again and I closed my eyes, only to snap them open a second later when the Captain's singular tread sounded on the nearby stairwell, descending from the observation deck.

"Well, there's me cue," Raggan said, folding away his knife. He flashed a little smile as he tapped out his pipe and swept wood shavings off my tea table. Then he bent and tucked his bag of driftwood beneath his chair. "Cap'n got us doin' heavy drills an' such, puttin' the pirates through their paces. Save me spot?"

I nodded carefully, then had to swallow down a surge of nausea while he jogged off after Arramy.

23rd of Nima

There was another strategy meeting this evening. NaVarre – no, strike that, Lexan Rammage, Lord Braeton, the Earl of Anwythe – said that we should arrive at his plantation landing in two days. From there it would be a day's ride to Nimkoruguithu by horseless, whereupon I would have to walk into the Lion's Perch. Alone. Or nearly. There was still some debate as to how many should go in with me. NaVarre said it should be just me, so we didn't spook the pub owner. Arramy wanted a complement of at least five.

Weary of listening to their vicious back and forth, I left before they had reached any sort of agreement.

Penweather was on the promenade, leaning on the rail, smoking a cheroot and staring out at the mist lying low and pale between the islands in the light of a dying sunset. He heard me coming down the stairs from the command deck and turned to look at me.

"Miss Westerby," he said, dipping his head as I passed.

"Mr. Penweather." I offered him a smile, polite, but distant, just like every other time since that night on the beach.

"Miss Warring, might I ask..."

My heart skipped a beat, apprehension settling cold in my middle. I paused, giving him a sidelong glance.

He took the cheroot from his mouth, gesturing with it as he said, casually, "Pardon me. It's not really any of my business whose company you keep, but I can't fathom why NaVarre would want to bring you along. It doesn't make any sense."

"I think maybe you need to ask the Captain," I said stiffly.

That got his attention. He took another drag on his cigar, making the ember glow bright in the gloom, illuminating eyes narrowed in thought beneath lowered brows.

I firmed my chin and kept walking, heading straight for the door to my cabin.

My fingers were shaking so much it took three tries to slide the bolt into the lock.

24th of Nima

We left the last of the Rimrocks behind, today, and started up one of the main tributaries that twist like snakes through the Ulba River Basin.

The plan: to arrive at the plantation landing late tonight, then set out at dawn for Nimkoruguithu, with Braeton, Arramy and I hidden in the back of a draft wagon carrying a shipment of sugar cane. 
2. The Lion's Perch

25th of Nima

Nimkoruguithu basked in the late morning sunlight, a sprawl of metal and concrete buildings put up side by side in a hurry and added onto even faster. The streets were wide, though, much wider than they were in Edon. Everything in Nim K was like that; big, with lots of open spaces.

It felt very much like I was walking right out into a test-shooting field with a target strapped to my head. I had to keep telling myself to breathe as I strolled along the boardwalk, scanning all the signs that jutted from the second story.

There it was, halfway down the block, just as it had been described: dingy yellow shingle, faded red lion perching like a bird in the branches of a grey tree, the words 'Lion's Perch Saloon' in plain red letters along the bottom.

_Just go in and sit down. This will all be over soon. Just go in and sit down..._ I reached the front doors. _This will all be over... soon..._ I placed my hand on the handle of the accordion door, took a breath, and pulled it open, my heartbeat thundering even though I knew the Captain was supposed to be right behind me. I hesitated just inside, and there he was, swaggering in on my heels, brushing past me and aiming for the bar as if I had merely been an annoying obstacle in his way.

I shot a glare after him but didn't say anything. The great argument over who and how many should come in with me had resolved into Arramy grudgingly assigning himself the job of undercover bodyguard because NaVarre had a famous face, and for all his grumbling about it, I had to admit I really didn't mind. The people of Nim K had a bad reputation for shooting first without bothering to ask questions later. If things went sideways, I could probably do much worse than the man who had outsmarted the Bloody Red Fox.

Glancing around, I tried to get my bearings. The interior was dim, with no decorating scheme to speak of, unless mismatched and off-kilter could be called a style. Scores of antlered animal skulls were mounted on the wall above a huge fireplace, the floor was covered in nut shells and a fine layer of sawdust, and there were barrels and crates in place of chairs. None of which really mattered. I needed to find a table. There was no receptionist or usher, NaVarre had said. I simply had to find a spot and sit, and one of the kitchen workers would come over to take my order.

It sounded like barbarism, but thankfully it wasn't complicated.

There weren't many other customers. Three men were playing a game of cards on a barrel by the only window facing the street. Two women who looked every bit as battle-hardened as Arramy were sitting at the far end of the bar. Neither the women nor the men paid Arramy any mind. He fit right in, with a few days' worth of stubble darkening his jaw, and that metal-studded leather vest buckled over a scruffy grey shirt, and the set of pistols slung low at his hips. No. It was me they all looked at.

In my refugee clothes, I must have seemed drab and unremarkable, though, because their interest faded after a cursory once-over, and to my relief no one stopped me as I began walking toward the row of booths along the far wall.

I chose the one in the left-hand corner and tried to keep from looking as nervous as I felt as I scooted into the bench facing the room.

It wasn't a long wait. A young woman about my age came out of the kitchen, and when she saw me, she made a beeline for my table. She gave me a warm, welcoming smile, which seemed out of place in such a cave of an establishment, and asked in heavily accented Low Altyran, "Wakinagitcha?"

I smiled back. "Butter cones, please."

"Roit," she said brightly. "Beritba." Be right back. The 'with that' apparently had to be understood. Interesting.

She told someone in the kitchen that there was another order of butter cones, and then one of the biggest men I had ever seen, overlarge pirates and a certain Navy Captain included, came lumbering out, wiping his huge hands on his apron as he walked down the inside of the bar. He bent over by the money box, reaching for something under the counter. When he stood again, he had a clay bottle in one beefy palm, and he was reading the label as he turned to go back into the kitchen. Just before the door closed behind him, he looked in my direction, his gaze skating over my features. Then he continued on through the serving doors with no other indication that he had seen me.

That was it. That was the moment NaVarre had been so terrified about. One split-second study.

I chewed my lip and tried not to fidget.

A few minutes later, the girl came back with a plate piled high with butter cones. She also brought a pot of cane syrup and a thick wedge of creamy white sweet cheese.

There wasn't anything else to do, so I waded in, and I had to admit the big man knew his way around a butter cone. They were perfectly crisp on the outside, light and airy on the inside, the top forming a crunchy little peak, the hollow inside filled with fluffy cream. In different circumstances, I might have actually enjoyed them.

Then the girl came back with an urn of Praidani and poured some into a mug without being asked. I glanced up at her, mildly confused. Her eyes widened as she put the mug down in front of me. Carefully, so I could see the note stuck to it, but anyone watching couldn't.

"Taya," I whispered. Thanks.

"Yawellca, Miss. I'll giyit wenyadun."

I nodded. She wasn't talking about coming back for the dishes. I was going to have to memorize what was on that note.

I picked up the mug as she left, made sure no one was looking, then took a closer peek at the scrap of wet paper.

2200 tonight. Park bench on Lagrossa. He'll find you.

I took a sip to give myself a reason for holding the mug near my face, then grimaced and put it down again. That part wasn't pretend. I might as well have been drinking tar.

Like magic, the girl came bustling back out, exclaiming, "Y'askin fer'randge n'alosye. Gongoroitoumemindamorn!" ("You asked for orange and I forgot. Going right out of my mind this morning!") She proceeded to remove the mug and replace it with a chipped little porcelain cup of orange provincial. Then she went back into the kitchen, taking the note with her.

Apparently, our transaction was over.

I took a few more bites of butter cone and sipped my tea, then put my fork on my plate.

That was Arramy's signal. Immediately, he finished off whatever he had ordered, tossed a coin on the bar, and went striding out of the Lion's Perch like he had somewhere to be. He did. He was supposed to make sure nothing happened to me while I walked down to the 'extraction point,' as the two of them kept calling it, where I would meet NaVarre.

I paid the bill when the girl came back to collect my plate, then got up and made my way out into the early morning sunlight. I turned right and began wandering down the boardwalk.

Wherever Arramy had gone, I couldn't see him. To my annoyance, not seeing him made me feel very, very alone again. I gave myself a mental shaking, but still that creeping-insect sensation snuck up my spine.

'Act like a tourist,' NaVarre had said. Tourists took their time. Tourists window-shopped. They didn't rush along with their head down like they were running from someone. I tried not to, but I started moving faster and faster the farther I got from the pub. I couldn't help it. My neck was prickling, the sensation of being stalked clinging to me the entire way down the street to the corner where NaVarre was waiting in a hired horse drawn cab. I was out of breath by the time I climbed inside and collapsed in a heap on the threadbare cushion across from him.

NaVarre tapped the handle of his cane on the roof and the cab started forward.

I sat up and brushed my hair out of my face. "I can't believe I'm doing this," I muttered. "You're used to it, though, right? Skulking about in corners, passing messages on tea mugs... does it get better with practice?"

"Did you get anything?" NaVarre asked, calmly. To the point.

"2200 tonight, bench on Lagrossa, he'll find you," I provided. "When will it stop feeling like someone is secretly aiming a pistol at my back?"

NaVarre shrugged. "I've found that to be a healthy concern in my line of work."

"Well you can keep your line of work. I can't wait to go back to being little old boring me."

A small, humorless smile crossed NaVarre's lips before he glanced out the window. 
3. Run, Hide, Seek, Find

25th of Nema, Continued

I should have guessed what that smile meant.

Twelve hours later I was sitting on a bench on Lagrossa Avenue.

The _streghtlimmer_ was walking along on his stilts, lighting the gas lamps that lined the boardwalk. The wooden _thunk...thunk-thunk...thunk_ of his unnaturally long strides echoed off the stone fronts of the warehouses across the street. He was nearly finished, and the light of the gas flame bathed everything in a weird, greenish cast, all of it made even more sickly by the mist rising between the ancient trees in the park at my back.

The Captain slouched in the shadows of the alley across from me. He was supposed to be a drunk sleeping off a bender, but all I could see of him was a large, dark lump huddled against the wall of the Fousten's Wools warehouse. At least, I assumed the lump was Arramy. Perhaps it really was a drunk. Maybe I was really as alone as I felt —

A man sat down next to me as suddenly as if he had materialized from the fog.

I froze, my heartbeat leaping into a full-on gallop. I started to glance at him when his frantic whisper stopped me cold: "Don't look at me! They aren't far behind. When I leave, go the other way down Lagrossa for two blocks and turn right on Pazhstreght. There's a metal sign on the wall of the Moonflower Motel. Look behind the second M." He paused and scooted to the edge of his seat as if he were about to leave, but then stayed just long enough to murmur, "I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Your father was a good friend. Best of luck, my dear."

And then he was gone, a short, stocky figure hurrying off down the boardwalk. I didn't even get his name.

I took a breath and then another, forcing myself to think. I was going to have to relocate, which meant this had just become exactly the sort of unpredictable mess Arramy had predicted it would. I shot a look at the drunk in the alley but couldn't tell if he was watching me or not. NaVarre was supposed to be up on the roofline with a handful of his men. I just had to hope that they would all be able to follow me. There was no time to find out.

I got up and began moving down Lagrossa. I wanted to scream, to pelt away like a frightened rabbit and hide in the nearest bolt hole.

They aren't far behind, they aren't far behind, they aren't far behind.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large, blessedly familiar figure come out of the alley: Arramy, making swift progress for a drunk, keeping even with me on the other side of the street as I walked along the boardwalk that followed the perimeter of Inderkynde Park.

They aren't far behind; they aren't far behind.

My blasted knees were shaking.

I passed a side street. One block down, one to go. All I had to do was this one last thing. Then I could go back to the Island. Help the Doctor translate for her patients, and work on case records for the Director. Read about Roghuari Emperors... Eat _llinfa_...

Heavy footsteps sounded behind me just before I reached Pazhstreght, and rational thought fled. I broke into a mad run, dashing to the right around the building on the corner. Golden lamplight and bawdy music poured out into the night through a set of swinging doors a few yards down the boardwalk. And there, just a few paces beyond the pall of tobacco smoke, was a big gaslit metal sign: The Moonflower Motel.

But instead of going straight to the sign, I darted through those swinging doors.

~ This is the end of the excerpt. ~

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