“With Tonio,” he said. “Sophie?”
“Yes?”
“Nothing. It’s out of turn.”
“No, it’s okay.” She remembered she’d bitten his head off when he tried to tell her about Cly. “Frankly, any advice you have to offer would be welcome.”
“Beatrice is flamboyant,” he said. “She feels deeply, and she’s unrestrained with her passions. It worked against her here; the Verdanii expect their matriarchs to present a serene face to the world, and Fleet society is very contained. It’s something I think you’ve perhaps found frustrating. In our dealings, at least…”
“Contained? More like emotionally constipated. If I started tearing off my clothes here and now in the hold, you’d say something like ‘I don’t think this is the time, Kir—’”
Oh my GOD why did I put that image in his head?
“Ah—” He blinked, as though she’d smacked him. “Well, I—no, I. Ahem. My point is that being passionate or vocally emotional isn’t, uh … it isn’t necessarily a bad quality. It might even form the basis for some common ground between you, when Beatrice is in a better state of mind. She’s a smart, generous, funny woman.”
“Okay, yeah, I’m a little emo too. Message received, very delicately put. Go you, Parrish. But my state of mind is pretty much all Hey, my brother’s missing! And Beatrice is freaking out all over me when she’s the one who committed fraud. Divorce fraud, how stupid is that, that you even have such a thing here…”
“I believe his Honor has ensured that Bram won’t be injured.”
“Yeah. Daddy came through. Bram’s safe-ish.”
He looked at the black plastic case in her hand and didn’t comment.
“Fine, yes, Mom’s come through too. Why is this a flute and not the actual Heart of Temperance?” She opened the case—it was a plastic harmonica case, she realized—and inside was a little silver recorder, maybe six inches long, with a whistle-shaped mouthpiece and holes.
“Don’t use it now,” Parrish said. “It summons an octopus; the octopus hides the heart.”
“Why not now?”
“We must get Sawtooth off our bow.”
“Okay.” She took a long breath and with it came a prickling, hot feeling. Redzone—Bram gone, both birth parents here … she was drowning.
Easy. Breathe. Ground yourself—look around. A glow within the timbers caught her eye.
“What’s this?” She followed the glint to a steamer trunk, a dull-looking case with wood-grained bands and a flimsy-looking padlock.
“It’s our Watchbox,” he said. “If we’re sunk, it goes straight to the bottom of the ocean, along with its contents. Only an officer of the Fleet Watch can recover it.”
“So what’s in it now?”
“Not much. We aren’t carrying any important secrets at the moment.”
She opened it, finding a bottle of red wine and a flour sack drawn shut with a string.
Parrish looked at the bottle. “We got this for Tonio, Gale and me. His birthday’s soon.”
“You’re using the official spy box to hide presents?”
“Tonio joined us when he was quite young. He used to be a bit of a snoop.”
She looked in the flour bag. Inside were six skeins of light brown yarn, wool or alpaca, mixed with rougher stuff, twisted coarse strands.
“What’s this?”
“It’s Gale’s hair.”
She pulled her hand back and dropped the bag. “Ewww.”
“Gale was scripped inconspicuous. People didn’t remember her, didn’t notice her, or take her seriously. And intentions are bound into every … cell, you’d say?”
“Cells, yeah. Of a subject’s body?”
“Exactly.
She remembered Captain Dracy’s lantern, made from her father’s skull. “So you make magical objects from stuff taken off dead inscribed people?”
Parrish opened his mouth to reply, but there was a tromp of feet above deck, heavy feet, and a rush of others, scurrying about.
“What’s that?”
Parrish closed his eyes. “I suppose it was folly to hope he wouldn’t learn Beatrice was aboard.”
They rushed back up the deck. Sure enough, Sophie’s birth parents were both there; Verena was standing between them, her hand hovering near her sword. Cly had the big wrestler and two diminutive clerks behind him. He looked entirely relaxed. Beatrice looked like she was building up to another screaming fit.
Any of these fighters could slice Verena to ribbons, and Cly’s the best of them.
“Everyone chill,” Sophie said, before the atmosphere could get uglier. “We can work this out.”
Parrish had eased himself to Verena’s side.
I’m going to end up alone on the ship with a hostile crew and a bunch of chopped-up human remains. She fought an edgy giggle. And then I guess I can turn them into magic stuff.
“There’s nothing to negotiate, Sophie,” Cly said. “Kir Beatrice will be taken into custody, and you can pursue your brother’s ransom.”
“Nightjar will convey Beatrice to the Fleet,” Parrish said.
Again that little gleam of … happiness? “Dear boy,” Cly said. “Would you disgrace yourself again by flouting the law so thoroughly? Consider your position. Gale’s gone. Beatrice holds you in contempt. There is nobody but these two inexperienced girls to stand between you and…”
He paused, seeming to consider what he might say next, and behind Verena and Parrish, Beatrice shuddered. “Social oblivion,” he concluded, his tone mild, and yet he might as well have said, “I will cut on you.”
“Stop, stop all this!” Sophie said. “Cly—” She wormed her way into the bristling pack and made herself lay a hand on her father’s sword arm, despite a sudden feeling that grabbing live electrical cable might be safer. “Where’s the harm if we take Beatrice in? Really, can’t we just do it?”
“Mmmm,” he said. “If it’s what you want…”
“Well, yeah.”
“If you’re asking—”
She felt a thread of wariness. Dracy had asked if she could redirect Estrel, all those weeks ago, and simply saying yes had been what bound her to the magic purse. Every utterance here could have meanings she hadn’t anticipated.
“This is idiotic,” Beatrice broke her train of thought. “I’ll go.”
“Kir—” Parrish said. “We needn’t give you up. His Honor has a clear conflict of interest. He isn’t going to set upon us, or forcibly arrest you. Unless I’m mistaken, he’s just offered—”
“Ah yes, so magnanimous. Don’t you see, Parrish, His Honor just wants the girl in his debt?”
“The girl? Is that how you refer to our flesh and blood? I suppose, having thrown her aside like a scrap—” Cly asked.
“Save your elocutions for Court,” Beatrice said.
“I’m executing a legal warrant, and there are any number of Adjudicators aboard who can stand witness to my behavior and hospitality—”
“Which will no doubt be impeccable. You’re smoother than you used to be, Clydon.”
“You, my dove, seem entirely unchanged.”
“Do I get any say in this?” Sophie said.
“You’ve done enough,” Beatrice said.
Cly shrugged, as if to say, “I tried to do the right thing.”
“If you’re going, Mom, I’m coming too,” Verena said. Cly’s brows went up, at “Mom.” That’s right, Sophie thought. Parrish tried to imply that Verena was Gale’s. “I’ll take that report to Annela, Parrish.”
Parrish looked from Beatrice—who was pale and tight-lipped—to Verena, and then back to Sophie.
Of course. She was, officially, still the one in charge of Nightjar.
“We need to stop messing around,” she said. “Am I right? It’s not just Bram who’s in danger here, it’s the Fleet or the Cessation or whatever you call it. Gale’s murder was part of a political conspiracy. The longer we sit around playing dysfunctional family, the farther ahead of us the ba
d guys get. We need to get warnings to Lais and the Fleet, and we need to ransom Bram.”
“Sawtooth can reach Tiladene within three days,” Cly said, “if winds are fair.”
Beatrice looked from Verena to Parrish, seemed to do a bit of complex reckoning, and then barked at Tonio. “Have my things transferred to Sawtooth’s brig.”
“You needn’t pretend I’ll lock you up,” Cly said. “The guest quarters will be at your disposal. Eugenia will be delighted to see you.”
“Captain?” Tonio said. He was still holding the suitcase.
Parrish looked to her.
Sophie could feel her father taking it in, doing the math, confirming that it was she who was in charge. But … yes. If Beatrice was going to insist on going with Cly after all, who was she to fight it?
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said to Beatrice.
“You’re going to be. Sooner rather than later, if you let him draw you in.” With a visible effort, Beatrice pulled herself together and stomped off to the steps. Verena, looking muddled and whiplashed, handed Sophie Gale’s courier pouch. The weight of her smartphone, within, was strangely comforting.
“Do you have that fact sheet, Parrish?” Verena asked.
Within twenty minutes, they were loaded up and leaving. Sawtooth raised more sail, gliding away, carrying with it the sound of judges at practice, clashing swords and fists thudding against flesh, bodies hitting the deck.
“Any clue why Beatrice suddenly changed her mind like that?” Sophie asked.
“What she said,” Parrish said, “was that she didn’t want you beholden to His Honor so early in your relationship.”
“Can he really be that untrustworthy? He’s a judge.”
“Untrustworthy?” He seemed to be considering it.
“Maybe once Beatrice saw him, she realized she’d made him out to be worse than she thought. People do that, right? Decide someone’s a monster, inflate them over time?”
He didn’t agree, she could tell, because he was silent.
CHAPTER 22
She watched Sawtooth as it dwindled to a speck on the horizon, bearing away all her newfound biological relations: mother, father, and half sister. It was an odd feeling: not quite melancholy, not quite relief. The hollow she’d felt since she was about eleven, the who am I? itch, had gone. Instead there was a slow churn, an ache that reminded her of the residue of a caffeine buzz.
Cly certainly hadn’t pushed her away. The memory of his arms around her returned: the crush and scratch of his wool cloak and the strong arms within, that peck on the top of the head.
“He wants me,” she whispered. “Would have wanted me, way back then.”
She could have grown up in this weird, half-primitive place. All it would have cost was the two of them, Beatrice and Cly, being contractually strapped into a marriage that made them both miserable.
We had arguments, terrible arguments, Cly had said. Sophie and Bram had friends who’d grown up like that, tucked into bed each night, wide awake, listening as their parents screamed at each other. She and her brother had congratulated themselves on that: Mom and Dad barely ever snapped. They’d yelled at her perhaps twice in her whole life.
“They’ve gone far enough,” Parrish said, breaking into her thoughts. “Try the flute now.”
She opened the case Beatrice had given her. The flute was tiny, made of silver, and its mouthpiece would have fit better between the lips of a doll. A single line of spellscrip, in magenta, was etched into it. “How was it safe or smart to put an animal in charge of hiding this super-valuable thing?”
“There’s a long-standing tradition of using guard creatures to hide certain inscriptions,” he said. “Animals have simpler lives; they can’t be bribed or blackmailed. And the octopus was only one component of the Legend, remember?”
“Right. Everyone thought something different had happened to the Lady and her octo-pet.” She pursed her lips around it and let out a little stream of air, thinking to warm it. What emanated from the flute was a long, peculiar warble, high-pitched and liquid, random and quavering. It made her lips tingle and tickle; the urge to stop and rub at them was overwhelming.
A splash from the port side.
She leaned over the rail. The mantle of a large octopus had surfaced; it was the color of blood, and it looked straight into her eyes. Sophie blew on the flute again—what the hell—and it stretched out tentacles on the surface, extending like a big red parasol, almost two meters in diameter. It seemed, somehow, to expect something of her.
“Now what?”
“I’m not sure,” Parrish said. “I’d hoped it would just bring Yacoura.”
“We are due an easy win,” she said.
This opinion notwithstanding, the octopus collapsed, like a tent, head sinking first, limbs closing inward like a flower until it was below the surface, invisible. It popped up again, spitting.
“It wants us to follow it,” Sophie groaned. “Is that right, Lassie? Has little Timmy fallen down a coal mine?”
The octopus dipped again, surfaced again.
“Lower a rowboat,” she said. “I’ll get my diving kit.”
She trotted down to her cabin, where she was jolted, momentarily, to find it empty and tidied, the berths so stiffly made they seemed starched. Had someone come and taken her samples, her cameras? And—a piercing sense of hurt—where was Bram’s stuff?
Then she remembered: Parrish had been planning to move everyone around, to hide Beatrice from Cly.
She went up to Parrish’s cabin, tapping on the hatch before entering, even though she knew he was up on deck.
Parrish’s cabin was small, smaller than the double room she had been sharing with her brother. The bunk, tucked into one corner, was covered in a blanket woven of coarse wool thread, with dyed green stripes. Bram’s backpack sat on it, along with a sheaf of pages—his Fleetspeak-English dictionary and a huge sheet of measurements from the scientific instruments he’d brought with him. A big sheep’s fleece was hooked to the wall above the bed. There was a desk on a hinge and chain, a swinging board that could be bolted against the bulkhead. A hardwood chest of drawers, six feet tall and with variously sized drawers, was affixed to the far end of the room, near a dressing table equipped with pitcher and basin, a straight razor and brush, and an orange plastic toothbrush from home.
The room smelled of … was it spice? Cloves, she decided, and a low, peculiarly pleasant whiff of something that made her think of buffalo.
A trio of meter-long cork shelves stood near the portal, covered with shells and pebbles, pieces of petrified wood, bits of coral, some bird skulls and other such treasures. Each of these items was carefully looped ’round with black thread and pinned to the shelf so that the ship’s movement wouldn’t send it all tumbling to the floor. Hanging in a small net was a light wooden sphere about the size of a volleyball, sandy in color, that had the islands of Stormwrack carved onto its surface. About a third of them had been painted with a green lacquer with the shine and texture of nail polish.
Places Parrish has visited? she wondered.
She looked at the chest of drawers, a potential treasure box if ever there was one. She was momentarily tempted to snoop.
Instead, she turned her attention to her own things, which were piled neatly on the floor beside the bunk.
She opened her trunk, setting aside the sack of polystyrene packing peas her solar charger had come in. The princess dress was next. Had anyone worked out what she was up to? It was inside out, but her little collection of samples remained hidden in its petticoats.
Relieved, she turned it right side out and repacked it before fishing out her diving equipment: swimsuit, wetsuit, mask, air tanks, rebreather, flippers. She tried to tell herself she wouldn’t need the camera, but she couldn’t do it; it would have been like leaving her leg behind.
She clamped it into its waterproof housing, checked the seals, and clipped it to the LED flashlight for good measure before she changed into her gea
r.
By the time she was back on deck, the rowboat was ready and Tonio was inside, waiting. She set her kit inside, one piece at a time, double-checking that nothing had been missed.
“You’ve hardly left room for anyone to row,” Tonio objected.
“I’ll help,” she said, clambering into the boat. The octopus was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Lassie?”
“It will resurface if you blow the flute again,” Parrish said.
“Okay.”
“We’re right here if you need us.”
“Look, I’ll follow it, you follow me. It’s not gonna be a problem.” She fervently hoped it was true.
“No,” Tonio said, unshipping the oars. “This is all meant to be, don’t you think?”
“I’ll give you people a lot, but not predestination, not without serious evidence.”
He looked away: “Let us hope you never find any, Kir Sophie. Knowing your future might be a terrible thing.”
“Chasing my past hasn’t exactly been an endless rain of lemon drops.” She raised the flute to her mouth, and blew again. The octopus surfaced almost immediately, about fifty feet away, on a bearing north-northwest. Sophie wrangled the second set of oars into their locks and fell into a rhythm with Tonio.
They did that for about half a mile … the octopus surfacing to spit and wave, Sophie and Tonio following, Nightjar inching along behind. Then something seemed to bump them and the little boat picked up speed, racing after the octopus. Sophie peered over the side. There was something big and shadowy beneath the boat.
“Friend of yours?” Tonio inquired.
“I doubt it,” she said. “I’m guessing he knows John Coine.”
“Teeth! That can’t be good.”
The octopus kept pace beside them now as the rowboat raced along. Wind ruffled her hair.
She let a hand drop into the water, enjoying the caress of the sea and simultaneously assessing the temperature. The air and water both had a bite to them that reminded her of spring in the Atlantic. Still, the wetsuit would keep the chill off.
“Land!” Tonio pointed.
A hump of an island rose on the horizon, but their course took them east and south of it. Sophie trained her camera on it and zoomed in. It was volcanic: a pitted rock beach facing south. The rocks seemed to be moving; after a second, she realized they weren’t rocks but iguana, black and leathery, indistinguishable at this distance from the infamous swimming variety associated with the Galapagos Islands.
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