“I was seeking a reaction.”
Remember the last thing you saw of Sharpe.
“He escaped,” Mors said.
Reaching for something. Something important.
“Quite the reaction.”
You thought it was you.
“Tearing apart the brig,” Aristeia added.
It wasn’t you.
“That would be the golem,” Heathen said.
It was never you.
“A golem you delivered to us. The golem and prisoner both. Who then broke free after you visited them.”
“So perhaps the girl is not the connection,” Mors took up the thread of conversation. Something in his words grabbed Violet’s attention. “Perhaps you are.”
He was right close to Heathen now, almost in her face, one hand clenched on his weapon.
“An interesting thought,” Heathen told him. She held up her hand, closed but for one finger. “I suggest you forget it.”
Violet looked to see if Raines would move to stop the confrontation, as sparks literally flew. It appeared so.
“This talk is pointless,” Raines stepped between the two. Mors jerked his hand away from his wand, surprised. Heathen’s step down was more gradual, the glow disappearing from her hand much slower than it had appeared.
“The golem could not act on his own unless given instruction,” Raines said, gesticulating as he talked. He seemed to need to talk with his hands as much as his mouth. “And these are instructions that cannot be given by just anyone. They require a connection with the golem, with Onyx. And they require a specific skillset.”
“Thaumatics,” Heathen said.
“Just so.”
“The prisoner is not such a person,” Aristeia said.
“No, he is not. But the boy who helped him escape is,” Heathen said.
Raines frowned. “I was not aware of that. You are sure?”
Heathen nodded. “An easy enough thing to recognise, if you know what to look for.”
“Which I imagine you do,” Raines agreed, considering. “Interesting. The entire purpose of this ship was to eliminate the dependency upon such people. It seems we have left ourselves with a blind spot because of that. So the traitor could in fact have manipulated the golem into his plan? Most curious. Most . . .”
“Why then was it responsible for detaining him?” Mors asked.
“Residual instructions,” Raines shrugged. “From the previous partner.”
“Partner?” Heathen asked pointedly. “Not owner? Master perhaps?”
“As I said, there is a connection required. A relationship, of sorts.”
“Of sorts,” Heathen repeated.
“It is a complicated one.”
“Concealing unregistered thaumatics within the fleet is a black offence,” Aristeia spoke up.
“Is it?” Raines sounded bored. “Given the consequences here I can see why that might be. I assume there is a punishment?”
“There is,” Aristeia said. “But the mutinous actions take precedence over it.”
“Nothing too drastic, I presume,” Raines said. “I would like some time to investigate the boy’s connection to Onyx further. It bears some interest.”
“The creature should be jettisoned,” Aristeia insisted. “It’s done enough damage.”
“The construct will be staying aboard,” Raines told her. “It will be staying aboard because I say it will. Is that understood?”
“No, it is not bloody well understood, Raines,” the first mate said to him. “That’s twice now that damned thing has run riot on this ship. Or are you so distracted you can’t make the connection?”
“You said it was a ray attack,” Heathen broke in.
“Only officially. Unofficially . . . the boy was seen in the hold where the damage was done, immediately after. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now . . .”
“Ah,” Heathen said. “I see.”
Violet was watching Raines. The expression on his face, cold, calculating. “You believe the incidents are connected, well then, our course seems obvious. Dispose of the boy and there will be no further connection. And I need hear no more complaints about the construct. My construct.”
“Captain,” Mors appealed, moving to stand with the first mate. “These are serious incidents.”
“Yes,” Raines repeated. “Captain.”
Violet watched, waiting. And then Aristeia and Mors saluted. Like good officers.
“And the girl?” Heathen said, not looking at Violet. “You seem to have had nothing but trouble since she came aboard.”
“It is in hand,” Raines told her.
“I disagree,” Aristeia said. “Respectfully.”
“And I do not care whether you agree or not, first mate. Respectfully or otherwise.”
“Violet,” Heathen said, directly. The word drew a look of ire from Raines. “Perhaps it would be better if you removed yourself to my ship.”
“That will not be . . . necessary,” Raines said firmly. “She is my—that is, she is under my protection. Safer . . . better off with her own kind.”
“And that is you?” Heathen asked. She shrugged. “I was merely making an offer.”
“We decline. The girl stays, Captain,” the captain of the Fata Morgana told his fellow officer. “That is not why we requested your help.”
“My ship stands ready to assist you.”
“It’s not your ship, Captain,” Aristeia said. “The Mangonel is a fleet ship of the line.”
“Nor is it your ship that we require, as you well know,” Raines said.
“Of course not,” Heathen agreed. A smile. Cold. The mask was back. “Let us continue our discussion then? In private?”
“Aristeia, take the girl away,” Raines dismissed them both. “Make the arrangements. We will be with you shortly.”
Aristeia bristled at her orders. She exchanged a curt nod with Mors then grabbed Violet roughly by the arm. The Luscan fell in behind them.
“Move,” she ordered. Violet had time for one last look around the room before she was hauled out. Raines seemed to have already forgotten her, deep in his own world of thoughts. It was Heathen who watched her leave. And she’d never been good at reading Kelpie expressions.
THEY’D BEATEN HIM in the hold. Beaten him more since Violet had seen him dragged off to the brig. One eye was swollen shut, a lump of blue and purple that mottled the rest of his face. Blood had dried on his neck, crimson running down his chest. Two marines supported him, in fact dragging him along the deck, manacled feet trailing limply.
His escort stopped in front of the portside winch. No cranes on the Fata Morgana, instead a grooved chute framed by rails that led directly to an oversized porthole. Three glass spheres were lined up like cannonballs waiting to be fired. Gravel collapsed to his knees when the marines released him, his forehead coming to rest against the curved wall of the bubble, sliding down as even his knees gave out. His descent left a smear of red on the glass, and when he fell he exposed his hands to Violet and Kaspar. Copper wire was wrapped tightly around his wrists, cutting deeply into the flesh.
Shock himself if he tried so much as a whisper of breeze, right into his veins. Might even stop his heart.
Aristeia Quinn knelt in front of Gravel. If she was concerned about any last-minute reprieves or escapes she didn’t show it. Almost disdainful, she unlocked his leg restraints, passing them to the nearest marine before untwisting the copper with her own fingers. This Aristeia bundled around her own hand, stepping back to take one last look at her former crew member.
The restraints were unnecessary. Gravel was barely conscious, certainly not capable of any sort of action. Whoever had worked him over had made sure. Nor did he make a sound. There was a whimper, a cut-off groan, but it came from Kaspar, not his friend.
“Quiet,” Violet whispered, perhaps harsher than she had intended. She unwrapped her arms from around herself and grabbed onto the ensign’s wrist. She could feel his trembling, feel t
he tendons move under her fingertips. She tightened her grip as the captain stepped forward.
Don’t be an idiot. You can’t help him.
Somewhere in her head she heard the sound of disappointment. But there was nobody else here, nobody who could do anything.
Raines didn’t say anything, just stood over Gravel, as if considering. And then he was done, turning around to face his crew.
They’re not his crew. Look at how they wait for the first mate. Their skipper . . .
Aristeia called out, “Proceed.”
The marines opened the bubble, proceeding to roll Gravel inside. They operated with military efficiency, one was pushing his feet inside and a heartbeat later the other was slamming the hatch closed, setting a bar to seal it from the outside. The marines turned and saluted, stepping away. Inside, Gravel twitched, struggling to rise on the inside of the curved glass.
“Captain!”
Godsdamnit.
Kaspar pulled free of her grip, stepping forward, back straight and heels at attention. “Captain, I protest.”
Raines turned his head a fraction his way. He seemed perplexed as to how to respond. “Ensign Vaughn protests,” he said to Aristeia.
“Mors,” the first officer replied.
The Luscan smiled. “The ensign’s protest is so noted.”
“Captain,” Kaspar tried again, only to be cut off as one of the marines pulled the lever. The ratcheted tension unleashed and the bubble cell was throw out into the black. Violet caught a last glimpse of Gravel thrown violently around inside, the bubble starting to spin as it sped away.
“It seems there is nothing more to protest,” Raines shrugged. “Carry on, my dear.”
“Mister Coldstream,” Aristeia said. “You may fire when ready.”
And there was Mors, standing silent but poised by the wand battery. The starboard battery, shiny metal and charged crystal pointing out into the black. Mors stood alone, needing no crew to man the single weapon, or perhaps it was a choice that he did this himself. Was it a preference or did the first mate want her trusted officer to carry out the deed?
The Gunner’s Daughter. Do you remember how she got that name?
Aristeia walked up beside Mors, leaning in to whisper a quiet word. She held up a finger.
One shot. No wasted fire.
Mors nodded, with a glance in Violet and Kaspar’s direction. His expression was hard to read. Cold. Alien.
The was a glint of reflected light from Aristeia’s hand. The copper wire wrapped around a palm. It made Violet’s hand itch, where rope had been tattooed on her skin. Her link to a ship, now gone. To the deck crew, gone. It was broken with scar tissue, where a rope had threatened to burn it away. Aristeia only had scars, no tattoos.
She took the copper, one shot for the kill. For the example. But they don’t care about the tender. They could have just blacked him, thrown him overboard. But it wouldn’t be the same. This is deliberate. This is cruel. This is for . . .
She heard Kaspar’s ragged breathing beside her. Barely restrained.
This is for who?
Mors bent to his task, sighting along the gun barrel itself. His head came up, he adjusted. The wand fired.
The light was incandescent, burning a path through the black. The mist tore and frayed where it passed through. And it struck the glass sphere floating in the void, unerringly.
There was no sound. The deck was unnaturally quiet, so subdued. Nothing carried back to them when the sphere cracked and fell apart. Slowly, pushed in a hundred different directions by the escaping air inside. A broken body, drifting in the black. And then swallowed up by the mist.
“Bring us about,” the first mate ordered, soft words that carried far. Raines, the captain, was already gone, slipped away before the display was done.
The bubble was little more than a gleam in the black now. Violet was distracted from searching for it by the sound of leather striking metal. Kaspar running down the hallway, after the captain maybe. Violet heard herself cursing and running after them both.
VIOLET FOUND HIM hiding in the dark. She’d misplaced her glasses again. Her eyes were getting worse, and the longer she wore the glasses the worse her eyes were without them. These days, the interior of the ship was little more than smudges and shadows, a series of greyed out obstacles lurking in the dark to bash her shins at any opportunity. She was hobbling by the time she found him. Followed the sounds; a faint, wheezing sob, a racking cough. An irregular banging.
It was him, Kaspar, huddled in a corner, sitting down with knees pulled up to his chest. There were tears running down his face, he looked awful. She saw what was causing the banging, when the sobbing reached a certain point he threw back his head, hard, repeatedly, against the interior metal wall. And then he’d bury it forward on his arms and begin again.
Bandit was beside him. No surprises there, he’d made these dark corners his home. No one else knew about him. Half the people he would show himself to were now gone. She’d thought him gone with Sharpe but he must have jumped out at the last.
Violet didn’t talk when she walked up to Kaspar, nor did she try to be quiet about it. She crouched down in front of him, balancing on the balls of her feet, resting one of her hands on his arms. He stilled at her touch but did not look up. Maybe he was collecting himself. Maybe he wanted to be alone. Maybe he just didn’t care.
“The captain called you Vaughn,” Violet said at length. “Ensign Vaughn.”
Kaspar went even stiller under her touch. She heard him draw a long, shuddering breath before finally raising his head. His eyes were puffy, shot with swollen blood vessels.
Violet reached out, plucking a lock of hair between two fingers. It looked drab to her in the pale moon lighting of the ship. Like mud, a sort of brownish green, but she remembered the vibrant red it would look like under real sunlight. What it should look like if she were wearing her glasses.
“You have her hair,” she said. “Just like her. I can see her in you now. I don’t know why I couldn’t before.”
“Maybe you didn’t want to.”
“Maybe I didn’t,” Violet nodded. “You don’t use her name. You have that in common. What is it with names, with you Vaughns? What shameful secret are you carrying around that you are afraid of? So afraid you try and hide from your own name?”
Kaspar pulled his head away from her, back as far as his cramped position would allow him.
“What’s in a name, Niko?”
“My name,” he said through gritted teeth, “is Dominik Kaspar Vaughn. And I am nothing like my sister.”
“Really?” Violet said. “You know she’s dead. That’s how you knew about me, because you knew she was first mate aboard the Tantamount. The ship you helped shoot down.”
Kaspar glared at her.
“Did you keep my secret for my sake or for yours?”
No answer.
“She killed me,” Violet said. “She left me to die. In the cold. In the black. Your sister.”
“I don’t want to hear,” Kaspar said, “about my sister.”
“Just like Gravel,” Violet said. “Alone. In the cold.”
Kaspar stared. “Why are you saying this? Why are you talking . . . like that?”
Violet shrugged. “Because it’s the truth.” She turned around, sitting down beside him. Their shoulders were touching, and she could feel him trembling, wanting to pull away from the contact. He was the only warm thing in the room.
“Did you love them?” she asked. “Gravel?”
“He was my friend.”
“That’s what he said about you. But did you . . .”
“It doesn’t matter. He was my friend and he’s dead. And I couldn’t stop it.”
“No.”
She waited.
“What are you going to do about it?”
Again he didn’t answer. So they stayed like that in the dark, in the hold. Somewhere, in another part of the ship, probably some place she hadn’t been and would never fin
d, she imagined they’d taken Onyx. Somewhere secure and hidden. The golem was probably chained now, wrapped in iron. There had been two incidents. They wouldn’t allow a third. She could imagine them, Raines and Aristeia, arguing over the golem, what Raines called the construct. So vivid she could even hear the words they might use.
The chains are unnecessary, first officer.
I disagree, Captain.
More than that, they are pointless. The construct could snap them if it chose.
The boy is dead. Who would make it do so?
Ah, yes, the boy.
We both know it wasn’t the boy.
The girl then.
Yes, the girl.
And not the girl, we must remember that.
I am tired of your experiments and the toll they are taking on my ship.
Your ship is one of my experiments. And do not forget that I speak for the Guild in these matters.
You speak for the Guild but I speak for the fleet. And what of your other experiment? That’s twice he has escaped you now.
A loose end to be dealt with. I have made arrangements.
What arrangements?
Guild arrangements.
How many of your damned arrangements am I to have aboard my ship?
My ship, first officer.
Heathen has made a request.
Has she?
There are other loose ends.
They are of no concern to me.
Maybe not to you but to . . .
Fine. Fine, I will speak to the agent involved. If the opportunity arises.
Heathen says it will.
Perhaps Heathen should have been the captain of this ship then.
“YOU ARE AN abomination.”
Violet stopped, facing Heathen. There was no one else around. The Kelpie captain appeared to have been waiting for her.
“What do you mean?” Violet asked.
“No games,” Heathen said, reaching for her. The woman grabbed her around the throat, lifting Violet off her feet and slamming her against the bulkhead wall. “I want to talk with you.”
Violet clutched at the hand around her throat, the one choking her. More than that, her skin burned. She could barely control her hands as live current ran through them. Then all of a sudden it was gone, Heathen dropped her. Violet drew in shuddering breaths, one hand clutching her chest. Her heart hammered away but more, she held something. A glass sphere, one that sucked all the charge that Heathen had sent running through her body.
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