I button my coat. “Why are you helping me?”
He glances at me as if he’s not sure how to answer, and then says, “I suppose I feel sorry for you.”
I follow him into the corridor, hating his answer. I don’t want uppy pity. I suspect he’s realized that I’m a deeplander, and maybe he’s repulsed that he kissed me.
He is, at least, telling the truth about hiring an automotor. One of the gleaming uppy machines waits for us outside, its mechanical insides rumbling impatiently.
The trip back down to the wharf seems to take a lot longer than it did yesterday when Brindy drove Melily and I up to the museum.
For a while Cressit and I travel in silence, but when we’re in one of the tunnels, he says, “So based on what you said last night, you don’t like my music.”
“It’s just not what I’m used to,” I say, watching the passing lights flash across his face like a steady swingshow drumbeat.
“So you don’t like things that are unfamiliar?” he asks.
I think for a moment. “I liked your last song. I just couldn’t hear it that well.”
“Ah, interesting. My band doesn’t like that song. They say it doesn’t fit with the tone of our other music. But I keep insisting we play it, now I’m glad I do.” When the next passing tunnel light shines on Cressit’s face, he’s smiling.
Despite his fancy uppy clothes and manners, Cressit’s more likable than I expected. And strangely, I’m getting the same cozy feeling from him that I get from Gren, like he’s someone I could trust and rely on—like he’s someone I’d enjoy spending time with.
I feel like I’m betraying Sande just by noticing it.
When we reach the wharf, I have trouble finding the Trident. The harbor is much larger than I remember, and there are dozens of steamships. For a few heart-crushing moments, I’m afraid the Osperacys left without me, but then I spot the Trident’s three red and black funnels.
“Thank you,” I tell Cressit again, and I find it hard to leave the automotor. It’s not only that it’s warm and I’m afraid of facing an angry Lord Osperacy, Cressit’s been kind to me.
“There’s no need to thank me just yet,” Cressit says, opening the door nearest to him as the driver opens a door for me. “I’m coming with you.”
“What? Why?” I ask as I climb out of the auto.
Cressit hands paper shells to the driver and asks him to wait. “I promised I’d help you, so I’m going to talk to your employer and explain what happened.”
“No, that’s not a good idea,” I say. Surely Cressit will only complicate things with Lord Osperacy, and I’m a little afraid of what Douglen or even Melily might do to him. But he’s already walking toward the ship, the wind blowing his long jacket sideways. I wish I had wavurl so I could command him to leave.
Two shipsmen guard the gangway. One of them gives me a cold look and says, “Lord Osperacy is gonna be happy to see you,” as if Lord Osperacy is a hunter, and I’m a long-tailed deer. The same man also holds a hand up to Cressit. “No one boards the Trident unless my boss says it’s okay.”
“I only wish to speak with him briefly,” Cressit says, offering the man a couple of folded paper shells.
To my chagrin, the money convinces the shipsman to let Cressit aboard. Lord Osperacy, he tells us, is in the dining cabin.
As we walk down through the ship’s long, beautiful corridors, I try to send Cressit away one last time. “You really should leave. It’s not safe here.”
“Why isn’t it safe?” Cressit asks.
And I don’t know how to quickly explain wavurl, so I don’t answer.
We find Lord Osperacy sipping salted coffee and examining tide charts. When we enter, he only seems to see Cressit. “Who are you?”
“Cressit Scale,” the singer says. “And I apologize for any complications. Please don’t blame this girl for what happened at my spread… I’m a musician and sometimes the parties after my swingshows get a bit too wild. It’s entirely my fault.”
I watch Cressit out of the corner of my eye, wondering how old he is. He holds himself with plenty of confidence, but his skin is as smooth as mine.
“And I would also like to speak with you about a business proposal,” Cressit adds.
Lord Osperacy puts his cup down at once, smiling. “Absolutely, let’s do that right now. Would you like something to drink?”
I feel like I’ve just been kicked, although I suppose things make more sense now. Cressit didn’t just want to help me, or perhaps didn’t want to help me at all. He must have heard about the Osperacys and their strange talents, and now he wants to hire them.
Lord Osperacy finally looks at me. “Leave us, Nerene. I’ll speak with you later.”
I’m eager to leave, and feeling betrayed by Cressit who I was stupidly beginning to trust, I move quickly out of the dining cabin. As I pass the singer, he has the nerve to give me a guilty, apologetic look. I flash him an angry glare in return.
I’m not in my cabin for long before Melily drifts in.
She closes the door behind her by flopping against it, and her eyes sparkle like the arctic stones. “So I was taken to jail! Can you believe it? It was so crazy! My powers came back, but slowly of course. And at first all I could do was, like, move other people away from me, but after a few hours, I was ordering all the R.S. Men around. And did I ever punish them!” She stifles a giddy laugh. “What we did in Beth will be hard to top in Noret! We have to find another swingshow to go to!” She gulps in a quick breath. “So how did you get back to the ship?”
I suspect she won’t like my answer. “Cressit hired an automotor.”
Melily peels herself off the door. “What? Why were you talking to Cressit?”
My lips prickle and so do my cheeks. “He was the only person willing to help me.” My words come out shaky and high-pitched. I snatch up a brush and force it through my hair.
Melily says nothing, which is odd, so I sneak a look at her.
She’s watching me with wide, angry eyes. “You were gone all night. Something happened.”
“Nothing happened,” I say, because nothing significant did happen and the rest of it I will scrub from my mind.
Melily stares at me for several seconds as if the intensity of her gaze might burn the truth out of me.
“Nothing happened,” I repeat. “Cressit used a relayphone to try and find you, and then he brought me here. And I think the only reason he wanted to come here was to talk to your father.”
Melily’s little body, all knotted up in rage, softens. “He did? Well that’s not terrible. Maybe Cressit needs me to acquire something! That would be amazing!”
She dashes from my cabin with her eyes gleaming again.
I spend the afternoon trying to sleep, but even though I’m exhausted, I only manage to nap in short spurts. Lord Osperacy doesn’t call for me until well into the evening, long after the Trident rumbles out of port and long after the ship’s relayphone has surely been disconnected.
“Come in,” Lord Osperacy says when I knock on his cabin door.
I do as I’m told, heavy with misery.
There’s only one light on, the ornate table lamp clamped to his desk, and the windows behind him are dark and mirror-like. Looking up from a stack of paper, Lord Osperacy puts down a gold-plated pen, snapping it loudly onto his desk. Then his round, bulging eyes meet mine. “Did you forgot something yesterday?”
I don’t answer. It feels like a trick question. I think he’s referring to Melily, and I wonder what story she’s already spun for him.
He reaches into a desk drawer and then places my gunnerife on his desk with a dull thump. “When you didn’t return, I asked Douglen to check your room to see if you ran away. He found this.”
My stomach feels hollow, and I don’t like the thought of Douglen rummaging through my underthings. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think that Melily would be in danger. I didn’t think that I’d need it, and—”
“You always need it,” Lord Ospe
racy says, his voice slicing through mine. “I know you’re not a stupid girl. Surely you realize our arrangement is a delicate one. You must take care of what is valuable to me, while I make sure what is valuable to you—that deepland boy—stays alive.”
“Yes sir,” I murmur.
He loosens the tasseled scarf around his neck, and something about the way his long fingers grip the fabric puts me on edge. “I would rather Melily have no balance than a balance who defies me and cannot control her.”
I squeeze my hands together. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Because of your… recalcitrance… you will be disciplined. It’s not possible to relaycall your friend yet, he’s surely still traveling, but even when we can reach him, you won’t speak to him immediately. Not in Noret, or Panlo, or the U.P.T. either.” He slowly spins the globe beside his desk.
Each mountain city name feels like a separate venomous sting. “Please…” I say. “When can I talk to Sande?”
“If there are no more troubling incidents…” Lord Osperacy stops the globe with his finger. “You can relaycall him in the Hill Kingdoms.”
The Hill Kingdoms? Where are the Hill Kingdoms? I’ve never heard of them before, which means they must be very far away.
I hold in my sadness until I return to my cabin, and then I let my tears soak my dress sleeves and bedding. I found it hard enough waiting days to speak with Sande, but now I’ll have to wait sunedges or maybe even months.
The next morning, I feel drained and numb as if all my emotions are still sleeping. With the fuzzy sense that I should probably show Lord Osperacy how responsible I can be, I rise early, bathe, and I’m in the dining room before anyone else. Beth is gone. There’s no sign of its double peaks, with the countertide side higher than the other. I stand at the large windows and watch the tidewater, listening to the soft tinks and clatters of the serveworkers setting the breakfast table. I can’t let what happened in Beth happen again. I have to find a better way to handle Melily.
“Good morning.”
I turn, expecting Jeck or Douglen, but it’s Cressit who stands on the other side of the table, with a cup of that tangelemon spice water in one hand and a book in the other.
A smile curves the lips I know better than I should. “And surprise, I suppose.”
I stare at Cressit. I should say something, but what? He lied about why he was bringing me to the Trident or at least didn’t tell me everything—which makes me angry. But in the short time we’ve spent together, I have the feeling we could be friends—so in that sense, I’m happy. But then I also kissed him, which I feel guilty about, so…
Thankfully just then, Melily enters the dining cabin. “Eeek! It really is you! Father just told me the news!”
Cressit smiles and looks genuinely happy to see her. “You must be Melily.”
“Threegod above, you know my name!” Melily tiptoe-jumps, and I notice she’s more dressed up than usual. Not only did she put on one of her lacy, fringed dresses, she’s also wearing a string of pearls and a headband with a plume of feathers. “Did Marto really get caught with subs?” She stands so close to Cressit I almost expect her to wrap an arm around him. “Is your ship really impounded? Are you really, really going to travel with us?”
Cressit lifts an eyebrow. “You make an impounded ship sound like a good thing.”
Melily covers her tide-wide grin with both hands and tries to look somber. “I mean, I’m so sorry about that.”
Cressit pulls out a chair and sits down. “Well, hopefully we’ll sort everything out quickly. Now that your father’s made room for me and my friends here, we won’t have to cancel any of our shows. A lot of other performers depend on my little ship.”
So that’s why he’s here—his ship is trapped in Beth because of another subs raid. I wonder why he didn’t tell me yesterday, but I’m also glad he’s not hiring the Osperacys to steal for him or to manipulate a trial or to do something else awful.
Melily sits beside Cressit, tucking her hands under her knees. “You must love traveling on the tide.”
“Absolutely.” Cressit reaches for a silver teapot. “Who doesn’t?”
“Not me,” she says. “As in, yes me, I love it too. Like, so much.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’m glad I said it.”
Not sure what to do with myself, and since I don’t want to join their awkward conversation, I sit on the far side of the table. Gray clouds skim the water outside, threatening rain.
“Tell me if you have a girlfriend,” I hear Melily command, and that’s not a good sign. She’s using wavurl already.
I glance over. Cressit looks surprised by Melily’s question, but of course he has to answer. “There isn’t anyone special.”
I try not to pay attention, and I don’t like that I’m curious. I shouldn’t want to know anything more about him or his private life. I turn back to the windows, back to the foggy weather, and only then do I realize that I’ve picked up a spoon, and I’m squeezing it so hard my knuckles are white.
Lord Osperacy, Douglen, Jeck, and Shara soon arrive. Eager to escape, I eat breakfast as if I’m in a race. I ignore the kelp tea scalding my throat, and I swallow wheatmeal, brined cheese, and shallowberry cakes so quickly they all taste the same.
Conversation darts and glides around me. Melily keeps complimenting Cressit—he’s so clever, he’s the best songwriter on the equator, his dining jacket is so fine Threegod must have sewn it. Douglen, on the other hand, says he’s never heard of Cressit, which he somehow turns into a boast. He then asks what sort of music ‘mountain brass’ is in a way that makes it clear it’s nothing he’d ever bother listening to. Jeck wants to know all about the women Cressit meets at swingshows—which makes my neck feel hot—and when Cressit doesn’t give him a juicy answer, Shara politely asks which mountain city is the singer’s favorite.
“Ellevah,” he says, “Although unfortunately, I haven’t been there in several tides.”
Ellevah, that’s the city Sande wanted to travel to. I glance over at Cressit and find he’s already looking at me.
I swallow a final mouthful of wheatmeal, and oh thank goodness, I’m done eating. I drop my spoon and leap up as if I’ve been sitting on a cookstove. “I need to… tend to… a walk!” I say far too loudly, and then I dash out of the dining room.
I take my next few meals in my cabin until I learn from Marthes that Cressit isn’t eating with the Osperacy family anymore. He’s been sitting with his musician friends and other passengers in the larger dining cabin, and she says he only ate with us that first morning because Lord Osperacy invited him.
A disappointed Melily tells me that Cressit also spends most of his time practicing with his band and writing new songs, so perhaps I don’t have to worry about him being on the ship at all. I do cross paths with him a few days later in the corridor near the ship’s pool, but surprisingly, and I guess thankfully, he seems eager to avoid me too. All he says is, “You said the ship was dangerous. Are you in danger?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I just thought you might not be safe here.”
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“Well you don’t need to worry about me either,” I say before hurrying away from him.
And so the Trident sails to Noret City, a place that seems small and charming compared to Beth and Varasay. It’s full of little stone buildings topped with mossy, kelpwood shingles and a surprising number of drywood trees in walled off, well guarded forests. Selling drybark is apparently the main trade in Noret. After that, we travel to Panlo, a skinny ridge of a city topped with very tall buildings that seem to be made out of dark gray, nearly black bricks.
On each mountain island, I escort Melily off the ship, and on each outing, I obediently take the gunnerife. Fortunately I never need to use it, and just as fortunately, Melily is so enamored with Cressit, she doesn’t cause more trouble… or at least, not much. At Lord Osperacy’s request, I help her “acquire” an em
erald necklace, an ancient, hand-painted atlas, and a few dusty stacks of paper vitally important to one of Lord Osperacy’s clients. Meanwhile Douglen arranges a few complicated marriage contracts, “encourages” someone to rewrite their will, and assists in the trial of an accused murderer, forcing him to confess.
When I do see Cressit, it’s often at a distance, and he’s almost always with Melily. The terrible guilt I felt before fades. We just shared a kiss, that’s all, and of course I still care about Sande. I’m sure Cressit’s already forgotten about what happened between us, so I try to do the same.
I can’t completely avoid him, though. After we pass Panlo, late one evening, several wooden sailing ships mysteriously slip past my cabin window. Even more oddly, they’re sailing countertide—and not very many people travel in that direction. I rush to the upper deck to get a better look, and I find Cressit already there.
“Are those drifters?” I ask, staring at the silent ships that are already gliding back into the dark.
Cressit nods. “Yes… and I haven’t seen any in a long time.” He looks over at me and smiles. “It’s supposed to be good luck seeing them, you know.”
I nod. Gren always said that too. Drifters are farmers that don’t belong to any city. They sail against the tide, and when the ocean ends, they put their ships on stilts and farm the land they wash up on. When the water returns, they pack up and sail across the tidewater again.
“Do you miss your home?” Cressit asks. He’s wearing nightclothes like I am, but he had the foresight to grab a jacket too. “Melily told me all about Varasay.”
I cringe inwardly, imagining what terrible things Melily might have said. “I miss my village,” I say. “But I don’t miss the city.” I watch the last ship disappear into the darkness and hug my fluttering nightdress close.
“Do you want my jacket?” Cressit offers.
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