by Amy Ewing
“They’re all in search of that island?” he said in awe.
“Wealth is a powerful motivating factor,” Agnes said.
“Do you think your father is right, that those ruins can let you see the future or speak to the dead?”
“No,” she murmured. “But there is something special in them, of that I have no doubt.”
Ebenezer pulled the car over when they reached the tavern and let it idle. The building had stained-glass windows and a carved wolf’s head over the open front door. Music and raucous laughter could be heard from inside. Agnes felt a thrill of fear that had nothing to do with the tavern’s appearance or clientele. Vada was in there. She suddenly wished she’d dressed a bit less conservatively.
“Agnes, are you sure about this?” Ebenezer asked.
“I am,” she said. Then she surprised both of them and leaned forward to peck him on the cheek. “Thank you, Ebenezer. You’re the best man I’ve ever met in Old Port.”
“Another compliment,” he said, looking bemused, his face pink, his glasses slightly askew.
She laughed. “Don’t let it go to your head.” Then she stepped out of the car, gathered her skirts and her courage, and walked into the tavern.
The interior was lit by an enormous chandelier crafted out of antlers hanging from one of the rafters on the ceiling. There was a long bar curving around half the room, chipped wooden tables with men playing cards, and booths tucked away where prostitutes were dandled on the laps of sailors. Agnes felt even more out of place here than she would have on the streets of the East Village. Men at a few of the tables closest to her turned to stare, one old sailor licking his lips; she stiffened, kept her gaze ahead, and marched up to the bar.
“Good afternoon,” she said to the bartender, a portly man with thick glasses and a dirty rag tucked into his apron.
“Drink?” he asked gruffly.
“Er, no thank you. Actually, I’m looking for someone. She’s a Pelagan sailor, about my age, named Vada. She frequents this establishment and I was, um, wondering if you’d seen her today by any chance?”
The bartender spit on the ground. “Drink?” he asked again, and Agnes realized she was going to have to purchase something if she wanted information.
“All right, I’ll have an orange juice, please.”
He stared at her like she had stopped speaking Kaolish. She was beginning to think she should have just gone to the ship first to see if Vada was there, but the docks were so crowded and she didn’t want to risk running into someone who might tell her father she was here.
“Agnes?”
She turned and saw Vada’s head sticking out of one of the booths, a prostitute in a flimsy purple dress sitting on her lap. All the blood rushed to Agnes’s face, prickling as its heat traveled across her scalp and down her spine.
“Oh, there you are! Hello!” The words came out stilted and overly cheerful, and Agnes wanted to crawl under one of the tables and hide. She’d managed to sound somewhat normal the first time she’d met Vada. What was wrong with her now?
She suspected it had to do with the prostitute’s breasts pressing against Vada’s shoulder. The girl giggled when she saw Agnes looking and fluttered her fingers.
“Care to join us?” she asked.
Vada hoisted the girl off her and stood up. “Sorry, May, got business to attend to,” she said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. May pouted and left to find a new client. Vada sauntered over to the bar; her walk reminded Agnes of a panther, fluid and predatory. The shark fang dangled from her neck and her vest was open, her shirt partially unbuttoned, offering a teasing glimpse of her freckled chest.
“Good afternoon, Kaolin lady,” she said. “I see you are keeping your word.”
“You thought I wouldn’t?” Agnes asked.
Vada shrugged. “It is not in my nature to trust the Kaolin people.” Her lips twitched. “For you I may have to be making an exception.”
Agnes flushed with pleasure. “I have the money,” she said, opening her purse. “But I need—”
“Do not be hasty,” Vada said, putting a hand on hers and snapping the purse closed. “Let us have a drink first. It is not wise to be showing our business off so publicly.”
Agnes noticed that several eyes were darting in their direction, and she saw two sailors whispering to each other, smirks on their faces. At that moment, the bartender slammed the orange juice down on the bar.
“Yes,” she agreed. “All right. A drink.”
Vada looked confused. “What in Saifa’s holy name is that?”
“Juice,” she said meekly.
“Are you in nursery school?” Vada cackled at her own joke. “Gregory, two ales.” She slapped a five-kroger bill on the bar and the bartender began to pour the drinks from one of the copper-headed taps. “We do not seal a deal with juice,” she said, picking up the pints and carrying them to the nook where she had been entertaining May before. Agnes took a seat across from her, grateful that the booth provided them a measure of privacy from the tavern’s prying eyes.
Vada raised her glass. “You might have thought to wear something a little less”—she paused, searching for the right word—“rich.”
Agnes tugged at the collar of her blouse. “I don’t own anything less rich.”
“Somehow this does not surprise me.” She took a drink of ale, her catlike eyes trained on Agnes’s face. They were the gray of the sky before a storm today, and Agnes thought she could lose herself in them for hours. “We agreed on six and fifty, did we not?”
“We did, but I was hoping I could make an amendment to the arrangement.”
One eyebrow arched. “Amendment?”
“Not in terms of price,” she said quickly. “I need to purchase another berth.”
Vada threw her head back and laughed again. It was the wild laugh of someone who did not care who heard her. It sounded to Agnes like freedom.
“Kaolin lady, you are either very brave or very stupid. You are lucky I am agreeing to take one Kaolin passenger. Now you want two?”
“She isn’t Kaolin,” Agnes said.
“You have another Pelagan friend? Why, I am burning up with the jealousy.”
“She’s not Pelagan either.”
“You are speaking in riddles,” Vada said, growing irritated. “Perhaps our deal should be called off.”
“I can pay you two thousand krogers, up front.” Agnes took most of the bills out of her purse and slid them across the table.
Vada stared at the money, dumbfounded. “That is no small sum.” She took it quickly and counted it under the table. When she’d finished, she whistled. “Two thousand krogers,” she murmured. She flashed Agnes a wicked grin. “Well, my mama will not be happy with me, but then, she is rarely happy with me. All right, Agnes.” She raised her glass again and gave a pointed look at Agnes’s own ale. It was the color of wheat with thick white foam on top. “Slansin!” she said, clinking their glasses together.
“Slansin,” Agnes said, taking a delicate sip. The ale was strong, earthy with a bitter tang. She coughed and Vada chuckled.
“I am going to have to teach you how to drink, Kaolin lady.”
“I’m used to champagne, that’s all.”
“Of course you are.”
Agnes jutted out her chin defiantly and downed half her ale in three large gulps. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she slammed the glass on the table and prayed she wouldn’t belch and ruin the effect.
Vada tilted her head, fingering the fang around her neck. “It’s a start,” she said. She finished her own drink in one long draught and got up to get another round before Agnes could protest.
“So tell me,” she said as she set a full pint next to Agnes’s half-finished one, “how is it that the daughter of a Byrne has to purchase a berth on such a bastard ship as the Maiden’s Wail?”
“Well,” Agnes said, taking another drink and considering her response carefully, “like you said, I don’t look like a Byrne. I’m so v
ery . . . Kaolin.”
“This is true,” Vada agreed.
“Pelagan ships aren’t taking on Kaolin passengers. And I can’t get passage on a Kaolin ship without my father’s permission, as you so aptly pointed out last time we spoke.”
“Still,” Vada said. “I cannot believe Ambrosine Byrne would not send word to some ship or other that her granddaughter needed passage to Pelago.”
Agnes shrugged and hid her face in her beer until she finished it. But when she put her glass down, Vada was watching her with narrowed eyes.
“She does not know you are coming to Pelago,” she said flatly.
Agnes swallowed. “She does not.”
“You lied to me.”
“I did.”
“I do not appreciate liars, especially not Kaolin ones.” Vada sat back and folded her arms across her chest.
“I wasn’t lying about being a Byrne,” Agnes insisted. She almost wished she had the photograph of her mother with her to prove it. “My father has never let me write to, much less meet, my mother’s family. He acts like she never existed—we aren’t allowed to talk about her at all. I’ve spent eighteen years wondering what she was like, what sort of woman she was. Eighteen years grieving over a stranger. Or maybe not grieving, but . . . missing? Is it possible to miss someone you’ve never met?” Her head felt light, and her mouth seemed to be moving of its own accord, her brain having a hard time keeping up. She stared into the depths of her empty glass as she spoke. “Leo looks just like her, Eneas always says, but not me. I don’t know if there’s anything of her in me. I don’t know anything of Pelago except what I’ve read here and there, and of course it’s all covered up in Kaolin propaganda. There’s a whole part of me that’s a mystery, an entire side of my family I’ve never known. And if I stay here, I’ll be strangled by rules and etiquette. I’ll drown in expectation.”
Vada was looking at her with some mixture of intrigue and sympathy. “I never knew my father,” she said. “My mother has been with many men. Many women, too. Myself, I prefer women. Men are such big babies, needing this, demanding that.” Agnes felt a jolt run up her spine, and a high-pitched laugh escaped her lips. Vada grinned and continued. “But if I wished to know him, she would tell me. We have no secrets. I am sorry you do not know anything about Alethea Byrne. For myself, I have heard that she was very beautiful and very headstrong. It is well known in Ithilia that your grandmother did not approve of the marriage. Alethea broke with Pelagan traditions when she married your father—she did not have permission from the family matriarch.”
“Really?” Agnes leaned forward, greedy for more information.
“Really. And now her daughter sits before me, breaking the traditions of her own country. So there is something of her inside you. You are both headstrong.” The storm in Vada’s eyes roiled. “And you are both beautiful.”
Agnes’s throat swelled up. She picked up her second ale and took a sip. “You’re just being nice,” she said. “You haven’t seen my mother. She was stunning.”
“I have seen you,” Vada said with a shrug, as if that settled it. She drank her beer and looked around the bar, and Agnes tried to collect herself.
“Ambrosine Byrne has a reputation,” Vada said. “You should be aware of that. She has much power in Pelago—some even call her the fourth pillar of the Triumvirate, though never to her face. She is deeply influential and not one to be crossed. I do not recommend showing up at her door unannounced.”
“She’s not the only reason I’m going to Pelago,” Agnes said.
“Oh?” Vada tapped the corner of her mouth with one finger, like she was trying not to smile. “Aren’t you just full of surprises. And what other purpose would a Kaolin lady have in my country?”
“I’ve passed the first round of admissions to the University of Ithilia’s Academy of Sciences,” she said in a rush, her fingers clenching around her glass. “I want to be a scientist. I want the chance to be more than what I could ever be here. That was why I wanted to leave initially, when I first approached you. But it’s gotten more dire, more important than just my own life. I have to help a friend, someone in desperate need, and I . . . I’ve never had a friend before and she’s trapped just like me, only worse, much worse. She’s got to get to Braxos and I have to help her get there. As impossible as that sounds, I have to try at least. She’s got no one else on this entire planet to help her but me.”
Vada took a long drink, considering Agnes’s words. Agnes could hear her heart pounding in her ears, a muffled thump thump thump that made her feel frightened and alive at the same time. Vada leaned forward, her hand reaching out to cross the space between them, casually confident like all her movements were. Agnes ached to be so sure of herself—she kept her hands tight around her glass as Vada’s fingers brushed softly over her knuckles. Her touch sent electric sparks up the bones in Agnes’s hand, a heat like Sera’s magic filling her up.
“I was wrong,” Vada said with a tender smile that stole Agnes’s breath from her lungs. “You are no mouse. You are a lion.”
Agnes let out a hysterical giggle and Vada’s smile turned playful. She sat back and Agnes almost reached out to keep her close, but stopped herself.
“Come,” Vada said, nodding at her barely touched beer. “Let’s get you drunk. Of all the folk in this bar, you need it the most.”
33
Leo
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT AND AGNES STILL WASN’T BACK.
He’d lied to Swansea and told him she had already come home and gone straight to bed. His father returned around ten thirty, went to his study for half an hour, then climbed the stairs to retire to his room. The house grew quiet until no one was awake but Leo.
He sat on his bed, turning the star necklace over and over in his hands. It was so light, the stone unlike anything he’d seen before—white and round like an opal but shot through with wisps of color that would appear and vanish as quickly as he saw them. He thought about Sera’s friend who had given it to her, how special that moment between them had been. Leo didn’t have any friends like that. When he really thought about it, it seemed as if Robert liked being his friend because he had so much Leo did not.
The minutes ticked by and he began to worry. Maybe he shouldn’t have lied for Agnes. Maybe she was actually in trouble, or in danger, and people should be out looking for her. He was just considering waking up Janderson and sending him to the police station when he heard a noise, like someone had fallen up the steps to the brownstone. Then there was muffled laughter. Then the sound of a key fumbling in the lock.
Leo was out of his room and down the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible. He opened the door and found Agnes and another girl, tall with a thick auburn braid, dressed in pants and a leather vest. Agnes was leaning on her and giggling. Leo had never seen his sister giggle before.
“Leo,” she said with a lopsided grin. Then she hiccuped. “See, Vada, this is my brother and he’s a Byrne face, a face . . .” She frowned. “A face of a Byrne.”
“Agnes, are you drunk?” he hissed.
“She only had four ales,” the other girl said with a thick Pelagan accent. “She is a lightweight, your sister. But it is cute. Like me when I was twelve.” She studied him, her eyes narrowing. “You do have the face of a Byrne. All right, little lion,” she said to Agnes, patting her head. “I believe you.”
His sister smiled triumphantly, then burped.
“Come on,” Leo said. “Let’s get you inside before Father or Swansea wake up and ship you off to Larker Asylum.”
“He’s not usually this serious,” Agnes said in a mock whisper. “He’s the fun one. I’m the serious one.”
The girl smiled and passed her off to Leo. She slumped against his shoulder, then quickly righted herself.
“I can stand,” she insisted. “I’m fine.”
“Good night, little lion,” the Pelagan girl said. “Good night, face of a Byrne.”
Then she sauntered down the steps, whistling as
if perfectly at ease, seemingly unaware that everything from her braid to her boots to her accent made her unwelcome on Creekwater Row.
“Did you have a nice day?” Agnes asked. “I had a very nice day. She’s nice, Vada is. Well, not nice nice, but she’s funny. Well, not funny but . . .” She lost the thread of her thoughts and her voice trailed off.
“Yeah, she’s definitely something.” How Agnes came to get drunk with a Pelagan girl who whistled and smelled like the Seaport was a whole other story, but not one that he felt should be told on the front steps. “Come on, quiet now, okay? Let’s get you to bed.”
She stumbled twice going up the stairs, but he managed to get her into her room without waking the house. She fell back onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling. Leo had to acknowledge the incredible role reversal that was going on this evening—he’d been sneaking around trying to do good and help Sera, while his sister was the one out getting drunk.
“You know I’m not going to let you live this down for, oh, at least a year,” he said as he knelt to unlace her shoes.
“That’s okay.” Agnes let out a little sigh. “It was worth it.”
“Who was that Pelagan girl?”
“Vada. Her name is Vada.” She said it softly, like it was precious. “She’s a sailor. She’s going to help me get Sera to Pelago.”
Leo dropped her shoe and stood up. “Sera?” he said. “To Pelago?”
Agnes clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t say that. You didn’t hear that. I didn’t—”
“Are you going to get her to that . . . that tether? The one she saw in the photograph of the ruins?” He sat on the edge of the bed.
“How do you know about that?”
“I can understand her now. I saw her tonight—talked to her. Father’s keeping her locked up in a crate in the Maribelle.”
“What . . .” Agnes rubbed her eyes. “How did she . . . did you two . . .” She tapped her index fingers together. “The thing with the glowing and the magic . . .”
“What?” Leo wondered if the Pelagan had miscounted the number of drinks Agnes had had. “No, I think it was when her blood healed me. Is that how it happened with you? Did she heal you too?”