“Don’t worry. He’s a good swimmer, remember?” Barrels said.
“Shite,” Plank said, scanning the parapet above. “Did he do a bloody belly-flop? He’ll draw the guards back.”
Stubby shifted in his cage. “Best get ready to move whether it be up or down, crocs or not. We ain’t the only ones who would’ve been hearin’ that.”
“Ye can jump now.” The thin tendrils of Grubby’s shout reached them.
Peg-leg blew out a breath. “Ebba, I be thinkin’ ye and Jagger should still climb up.”
Ebba wasn’t going a different direction to her fathers. If they were falling fifty feet through the air into crocodile territory, so was she. “Nay.”
“Well I be headin’ upward. I’ll see ye back at Felicity,” Jagger said. He pulled himself over the top of the cage and began heaving himself hand over hand up the thick chain.
No surprise there.
“Ready?” Locks asked, though the question seemed more geared toward himself.
Barrels groaned. “I’m too old for this.”
“Now!” Ebba jumped out of her cage into the black night, windmilling her arms as she plummeted toward the dark water.
As the air rushed past her ears, she had no idea where her fathers were or if they’d even jumped. She broke the surface of the water, and thick sludge swallowed her whole, invading her ears and clothing. Ebba kicked, chest tightening, and pushed her arms down in frantic strokes.
She resurfaced, sucking in a huge gulp of air. The fetid smell of the water—if it could be called water—overwhelmed all else, and she swiped at her eyes. Ebba shrieked as something huge reared underneath her, pushing her up.
Grubby appeared by her side. “Settle yer seas, Ebba. It be our new friends.”
“A crocodile?” Ebba glanced down in horror at the thick-scaled creature she now sat astride.
“Aye,” Grubby said happily. “They be goin’ the extra yard for us in exchange for a favor.”
She didn’t venture to ask just what that favor was.
Yells erupted across the surface of the sludgy canal.
“If ye could just be droppin’ us away from the guards, that’ll do nicely,” Grubby said to the monster underneath her. The crocodile swung its great head toward her father.
Grubby grimaced, shrugging. “Well, I ain’t seen the normal guard, so I can’t be commentin’ on his thinnin’ hair.”
Ebba registered the crocodile’s sinister smile, but craned to look up as shouts reached her from the gangway above the cages they’d escaped.
“The guards,” she called out.
The crocodile began swimming through the sludge with her on its back, tail swishing side to side, its powerful body a constant reminder the creature could probably eat her in one bite.
A subtle splashing to her left alerted her to Peg-leg’s presence atop of an even larger creature, looking utterly relaxed.
“How can ye be so calm?” she demanded.
Peg-leg shook his head. “There ain’t nothin’ about this s’tuation I be okay with, apart from the survivin’ o’ it.”
Aye, she’d forgotten about that. They were surviving. Ebba set her sights farther left and counted two more of her fathers on crocodiles, and to the right where she found two others. That only left Grubby in the water.
“Do ye think Jagger got to the top okay?” she asked Peg-leg.
“Aye, Ebba. That one don’t need any help gettin’ out o’ a tight corner. I’d guess puttin’ faith in Grubby speakin’ to crocs was a bit much for him.”
Couldn’t blame a pirate for surviving, and even their crew had hesitated before joining Grubs in the canal.
“Look smart now,” Locks called from her right. “We’re nearly to the other side.”
Her crocodile pulled up next to a stone outcrop, and Ebba hoisted herself up onto the ledge. She backed away a safe distance. “Uh . . . thanks?”
A shiver ran down her spine as the crocodile slid over to Grubby.
Still in a crouch, Ebba glanced up at the parapet across the canal. The gangway was lined with torches. More torches were moving either side around the canal, no doubt carried by sprinting soldiers racing toward her and her fathers. “We gotta go.”
“Hold on,” Grubby called. He disappeared, and moments later, a series of loud clangs ensued.
Ebba pursed her lips. “Should we be worried about that?”
“Only that Grubby be tellin’ the guards exactly where we are,” Peg-leg said with a growl.
To her, it sounded like a gate being destroyed. If that was the favor they owed the crocodiles, Ebba had a strong feeling her father had just released the powerful creatures on the townspeople of Exosia.
“To the docks?” Plank asked as Grubby reappeared. “We shouldn’t tarry in this spot.”
They couldn’t go back to Felicity yet.
“Nay, we need to get Sal and the two cylinders back,” she said. There was no way she’d leave the dynami and the purgium behind. Not without a fight. And Ebba certainly wasn’t leaving her friend. Who knew what they were doing to her in the castle. Sal had to be locked up, too.
Stubby shook his head. “Aye, that we do. And the navy men will be headin’ to the wharf. We’ll have no chance to be gettin’ to Felicity just yet, and I doubt we’d have time to get out o’ cannon range if we did. Then there still be the navy-infested waters to navigate between here and Kentro.”
“I know of somewhere we might go until we can find a safe way off Exosia,” Barrels croaked. “Only to gather ourselves because I’d wager the king will look there soon enough.”
Ebba shot a look at him, blinking at his forlorn expression.
He sighed heavily. “Someone I haven’t seen in a very long time and who I hope very much is still alive.” He sighed again. “My sister.”
Sixteen
“Ye’re sure this be the place?” Ebba tilted her head back, taking in the columned house that extended upward for several stories. “It be awful grand.”
Barrels was retying his hair. She wasn’t sure why he bothered when brown, stinking mud covered him from head to toe, but she suspected the thought of seeing his sister for the first time in forty years might have him out of sorts.
“It is grand,” Locks answered. “Barrels’ father was a baron, remember?”
Ebba replied, “I ain’t knowin’ what a baron is.”
“Baron just mean there ain’t no grog left,” Peg-leg said.
Barrels jiggled his sopping wet cravat. “That’s barren,” he corrected.
Peg-leg shrugged. “Guess I don’t know what a baron is either.”
“A person with too much money,” Stubby grumbled.
The door swung open. A man stood there gaping before promptly slamming the door.
“Who was that?” Plank asked.
“The butler.” Barrels groaned, patting his hair again.
“The governor had some o’ those folk,” Ebba said. “I don’t think he recognized ye, Barrels.”
They paused to listen to the screeches inside.
Stubby muttered, “I be more worried they’ll tell the soldiers exactly where we are.”
“Marigold wouldn’t send soldiers after me,” Barrels protested, though he glanced back at the solid door with a small wrinkle between his brows.
“Little nymph,” Plank said, “shimmy up the column here. Ye’re lookin’ for Barrels’ sister.”
“Doe blue eyes, a head shorter than me,” Barrels said miserably.
Plank’s lips trembled with what looked suspiciously like laughter. “Tell her that Barrels be here.”
Stubby grabbed Locks and Grubby. “We’ll go round the side and be makin’ sure no servants are sent out with an alert.”
Ebba eyed the column before walking up and wrapping her arms around it. The first level was ten feet above. She went on tip-toes and held tight, jumping to place her feet either side of the column. “All right,” she puffed. “Find Marigold.”
She shifted up the c
olumn as Plank had instructed, wishing the soldiers hadn’t taken her belt—she could’ve wrapped it around the back of the column to make climbing easier. The stone scraped against the soft part of her forearms in the absence of the strip of leather. Wedging her feet tight into the crevices and hugging the column for dear life, Ebba made it to the top and shuffled along the ledge of the second-story windows.
A servant stood on the other side of the window, and both of them jumped upon sighting the other. They lunged for the bottom edge of the window at the same time, and as Ebba made to wrench the window up, the servant turned the latch.
“Ye bloody bugger,” Ebba shouted at the woman.
She edged to the next window, but the woman had pre-empted her move.
“We’ll see about that.”
Leaving the servant to continue running about locking windows on the second level, Ebba returned to the column and began shimmying to the top level of the house. Her arms and legs burned as she skirted upward as fast as she could without dying.
Ebba made it to the third level and, when she lifted the first window, had the triumph of seeing the same servant racing into the room. Ebba flung the window fully open and vaulted inside.
“Ha! Beat ye,” she said smugly.
“Pirates in the house,” the woman screamed.
Ebba frowned. “Oi. I just be lookin’ for Marigold.” She paused. “Can ye really tell I’m a pirate just from one look?”
The woman backed out of the room as Ebba strode toward her. Holding up her hands, the servant stammered, “Y-yes.”
Ebba beamed, following the woman’s retreat. “Thank ye. But where be Marigold?”
“I am she,” an imperious voice boomed.
Ebba turned, glancing down at an elderly woman standing at the base of the stairs. One fine-boned hand rested on the balustrade, her hair was coiffed up in night curlers, and a quilted robe sat over the blooming powder-white lace of a sleeping gown.
“Ye’re Marigold?” She couldn’t see much of Barrels in her. The woman was much prettier.
“Samson,” the woman said, turning her nose up. “Fetch the pistols.”
Definitely not related to Barrels. She had a feisty way about her. “Hold on now. I only came in to tell ye that Barrels be outside. Keep yer hair on.”
“Barrels?” the woman said shrilly.
Ebba winced. “Aye. Sumpin’ an octave lower would do the trick, though.”
“Who is Barrels?” Marigold demanded.
“Sideways swimming codfish! Ye don’t know his pirate name, o’ course.” Ebba racked her skull grog for his real name. “He did mention his real name, he did. It were right rid’culous. I’m just on the spot. I can’t rightly remember it. His father be a barren.”
“A barren?”
“Aye, someone with too much money.” Ebba floundered. “Uhhh, he wears cravats. And he’s Exosian. Oh!” She slapped her forehead. “He’s yer brother.”
The woman’s face paled. “My brother?”
“Aye.” Ebba nodded frantically. “Not yer dead one.”
The woman clutched at the stair railing now. She swayed on the spot as she repeated Ebba’s words. “Not the dead one.” She glanced past Ebba and blanched. “Brigetta, no!”
The initial sharpness of a heavy blow to Ebba’s head was accompanied by the shattering of whatever had caused it. Ebba swayed before, blinking slowly in a last attempt to focus her vision, black coated the insides of her eyes, and she crumpled to the polished wood floor.
* * *
“Ye be all right, lass. Rest easy now.”
Ebba recognized Stubby’s murmur through the throbbing pain in the back of her head. “Was it the servant who struck me?”
“Aye, lass.”
Had to respect her perseverance. Ebba was sure she would. Later. “Is there blood everywhere?”
“Nay, the vase didn’t break the skin.”
“What? No blood at all?” The pounding jabs stabbing her skull were worthy of the whole room being sprayed with blood.
“None. Ye’ll get a mighty bruise, I’ll be expectin’.”
Ebba opened her eyes, feeling mildly better at that.
She was still in the same spot, but three of her six fathers loomed over her. “Ye got inside,” she said. “Did ye have to kill anyone then?”
Stubby cleared his throat, glancing over his shoulder. “Barrels’ sister let us in to help ye.”
“His name is Baron Jonathan Schnikelwood,” a woman answered.
A suspicious wheezing sound began in Peg-leg’s chest.
Ebba sat up with Grubby’s help. Her crowding fathers parted, and she peered between them to an elegant lounge suite and its occupants. “Repeat that one more time?” she asked Marigold.
“Baron Schnikelwood,” Plank called from where he sat on the couch. “It’s even better than Jonathan Schnikelwood. Why in Davy Jones’ do landlubbers choose such names?”
Barrels’ face was bright red, and at Plank’s remark, the rest of her fathers fell into fits of laughter. Knowing how important the reunion was, Ebba checked the majority of her laughter, feeling more than a little sorry that one of her fathers had such a horrible name.
She got to her feet, weaving toward where Barrels sat next to Marigold.
“I think ye should stick with Barrels,” she confided in him.
He glared at the rest of the crew before his brows lifted. “Strangely, so do I.”
“There will be nothing of the sort. You are returned, Jonathan! Exosia shall rejoice. The king—”
“—Put me in the cages, Marigold,” Barrels interrupted her gently. “I cannot stay. But I came to seek your help to get off the mainland.”
“Forty years, Jonathan,” she whispered, bottom lip trembling.
Ebba stepped over to the woman and hugged her. “I’m sorry yer brother was stolen and at sea for so long.”
The woman glanced at Ebba in shock.
Barrels tugged her back. “You are covered in filth, my dear. Marigold doesn’t want that all over her.”
With a snort, Ebba gestured to where her father sat on the couch. “Or on her couch.”
“Oh,” Barrels said, standing abruptly. “Sister, I do apologize!” He gestured at Plank, who rolled his eyes and stood.
“Jonathan.”
“I’m afraid my manners are rather rusty. I—”
“Jonathan.”
Barrels slumped and faced his sister. “I’m so sorry, Marigold. So very sorry for everything.”
Marigold stepped closer to him and cupped her hands around Barrels’ filthy face. “My brother miraculously returns home after I’ve thought him dead for nearly forty years, and you think I’m worried about a dressing gown and a silly couch?”
He stared back at her for a long moment before his shoulders relaxed, and a small smile graced his face. “I guess not.”
Ebba liked Marigold. She glanced around the spacious room, counting her fathers. “Where’s Locks?”
“He went with Marigold’s footmen to search for Verity,” Stubby answered. He cleared his throats. “Apparently the town be in an uproar over some escaped crocs.”
Her eyes rounded and shot to Grubby.
Marigold stood, looking exactly the same as when Ebba had first seen her. Completely dignified after rediscovering her brother was alive, and in the presence of six fearsome pirates, too. Ebba really liked her. “Is Locks knowin’ where they took her?”
“They likely dropped her at one of the sisters’ hospitals. Finding her won’t be hard,” Marigold said. “Now. Each of you must wash and dress in clean clothes. If you plan on escaping, you won’t get two steps looking like that.”
“We got more than two steps to get here,” Ebba pointed out.
“Ebba-Viva. Manners,” Plank said.
Barrels gave her a look and then stood beside his sister. “I’m afraid our departure is not so easy as merely leaving, sister. We must retrieve a number of items from the king and prince.”
Sal!<
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“Poor Sally must be right terrified,” Ebba said, pacing. “They’ll have her locked up and starvin’. She’ll be missin’ me sumpin’ fierce.”
Grubby wrapped an arm about her shoulders. “We’ll get her back. Ye just wait and see.”
“What precious items?” Marigold asked.
Peg-leg ticked off his fingers. “One glowin’ wind sprite. One tube that can heal right bad stuff. Another that makes ye strong.”
Barrels’ sister stared at her fathers and Ebba, face going slack momentarily before she drew herself up. “I see,” she said. “Then once you are bathed and dressed, I shall call for tea.”
Seventeen
“One does not saunter into the castle,” Marigold said as Ebba entered the room. The woman gasped upon seeing Ebba still in her pirate clothes. “You are still in those rags.”
“Aye, I washed and put my dirty clothes back on,” Ebba said. “Ye only sent me a nightgown.”
“‘Twas not a nightgown,” Marigold scolded. “Young ladies wear dresses.”
She knew her fathers wouldn’t willingly enter a conversation about dresses and what Ebba should do with one. She’d taught them better than that by now. They’d been dressed by Marigold rather like Barrels dressed every day. The bunch of them looked utterly ridiculous, and she gathered from their constant fidgeting they knew it. Barrels was the only one who seemed comfortable.
“I ain’t wearin’ no dress. Ye wouldn’t be the first to attempt gettin’ me in one either,” Ebba countered. She softened her tone because, truthfully, Ebba did have female parts, and she could understand how landlubbers would get confused on the matter. They seemed stuck in their straight lines—like horses with blinders on who missed most of the world. For all that she’d worried over the subject for weeks, in the end, the answer to who Ebba was slid naturally from her lips. “I mostly be a pirate,” she explained. “Though I’m a bit o’ a tribe princess, too, did ye know?” The thought struck her with odd strength as she spoke. She’d never particularly thought that a person could be more than one thing. Yet Ebba wasn’t just a pirate. She was from the Pleo tribe, too.
“I gathered you were from the tribes. But a princess?” Marigold asked, patting the seat next to her.
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