Beneath the Surface

by Lindsay Buroker

  Evrial backed up a few paces from the door, then ran at it, shoulder leading. She smashed into it with a jaw-rattling thud. The wood trembled but held, though her teeth might be in danger of falling out. “Tougher door than it looks like.”

  Amaranthe delved into the bottom of the cart.

  Evrial kicked off the stupid slippers and measured off a pace-and-a-half for a step-behind side kick. Striking with her heel hurt less than with her shoulder, but it didn’t open the door either. She glowered at it. Those women hadn’t had time to push something in front of the door, had they?

  Amaranthe tapped her on the shoulder. “You’re a lot like Maldynado. You should be nicer to him.”

  Evrial turned her scowl onto her comrade.

  Amaranthe waved toward the hinges. “It’s tough to kick open a door in the opposite direction from which it usually opens.”

  Evrial’s scowl turned sheepish. Good point.

  Amaranthe slipped something under the door. She grabbed a lantern and lit a—was that a fuse? What had she been doing in the laundry cart? Evrial eyed a bar of soap on the carpet next to a glass jar emitting pungent fumes.

  “Back around the corner, please,” Amaranthe said.

  “What?”

  “Quickly.” Amaranthe sprinted away from the door, grabbing the wall to swing herself around the corner.

  Before Evrial could more than stumble after her, an explosion roared. Something slammed into the wall behind her—a piece of wood. The arm-length wedge had embedded itself into the wall where it quivered like a thrown knife.

  Amaranthe peeked around the corner. Evrial leaned over her shoulder, crinkling her nose at the burning-chemical scent of the smoky air. When it cleared enough to see the door, or rather the two hinges that were the only things left hanging on the frame, all she could do was gape. Amaranthe pushed a piece of wood off the desk and pulled out the business book.

  She patted Evrial on the way past. “Time to go.”

  Evrial couldn’t disagree with that. She jogged after Amaranthe, leaving her slippers and the cart—what was left of it—behind. Before they reached the corner and access to a service ladder, footsteps pounded up nearby stairs. Evrial jerked to a stop. Someone must have heard the explosion and was running to check.

  “It’s those maids!” a familiar voice screeched.

  “Back, back,” Amaranthe whispered.

  Evrial was already opening the door of one of the cabins they’d serviced, one that didn’t have any people in it—or hadn’t when they’d been in earlier. Amaranthe pushed in right behind her. She shut the door, and darkness fell over them. Footsteps thundered past in the corridor.

  “I’m not sure your plan was better than my idea of beating those women up and locking them in their cabin,” Evrial whispered.

  Amaranthe locked the door. “We’ll be fine so long as this cabin’s occupants don’t come back from dinner in the next few minutes.”

  “And security doesn’t decide to search the entire deck. Where’d you learn to blow up doors? That wasn’t a class at the academy either.”

  “I have Sicarius to thank for my lock-picking skills and Books for an education on the properties of certain household chemical compounds. He made smoke bombs in someone’s kitchen once.” The darkness hid Amaranthe’s smile, but it came through in her voice.

  How could she possibly be having a good time?

  Evrial pushed away from the door, stalked into the room, and promptly rammed her shin against the corner of a bed. “They may not have identified us, but they’re going to be suspicious when that book comes up missing.” She rubbed her shin. What a deplorable night. “Those people probably have enough money to order the captain to search the entire boat.”

  “Maybe,” Amaranthe said, “but the older lady has been lying low. Maybe they all have. They may not want to stride into the captain’s cabin. I hope the explanation as to why is in here.” Thumps sounded as she knocked on the book’s cover.

  Evrial found that she could see the movements. A porthole on the far side let in faint nighttime illumination. “Maybe we can go out that way.” She pointed toward the window. Wedging her shoulders through it wouldn’t be easy, but she thought the feat doable. “There’s not a deck out there, is there?” Evrial pictured the layout of the boat in her mind. “But we’re near the top. Maybe we could climb up to the roof. As long as the helmsman is looking forward instead of backward, he wouldn’t notice us crawling across to a ladder going down.”

  “We may have to try that,” Amaranthe said from the door. “They’re going to search every cabin on this end of the deck.”

  Evrial grumbled and groped her way past the furnishings to the porthole. Something scraped over the thin carpet—a chair? Amaranthe must be wedging it under the doorknob.

  Evrial patted around the porthole, searching for a handle, but didn’t find anything. “It doesn’t open. You don’t really think I’m like Maldynado, do you?”

  “You favor a similar approach to opening doors.”

  Heat flushed Evrial’s cheeks, and her shoulder ached in reminder of the ill-advised bashing. “He doesn’t take anything seriously, and he has the work ethic of a... a... well, an indolent son of the privileged caste. I’ve worked my entire life, and I...”

  “Take everything seriously?” Amaranthe suggested.

  Evrial crossed her arms. “Maybe. So, what? Life isn’t a joke.”

  “No, but it’s easier to enjoy if you can find the humor in even the grim moments. Perhaps it’d be healthy for you to let someone bring a little levity into your life.”

  Evrial dropped her arms. Maybe it would be if... “He’s silly about everything though. How could you count on someone like that to be serious when it counts?”

  “He is. Didn’t he stand by your side for the fight on that steamboat?”

  “I suppose. And he did risk himself to pull his comrades out of that booby-trapped building in that park. I guess I have seen him be serious and take responsibility, but he’s always... He says the dumbest things to me. I can’t imagine what’s inside his head.”

  “His smiles and silly lines usually work on women,” Amaranthe said. “And I think they’d actually work on you, too, if you weren’t worried about being hurt.”

  Scowling, Evrial patted around the porthole again. They ought to be focusing on getting out of there, not talking about such unimportant matters. Unfortunately, the porthole still lacked a latch. She rapped a knuckle against the glass, wondering if they might break it. It sounded thick, but she still had her dagger.

  “It’s understandable,” Amaranthe went on. “If you believe half of what comes out of his mouth, he’s loved and left a lot of women.”

  “I don’t know why he’s bothering with me,” Evrial muttered, drawn back into the conversation despite her thought to drop the topic.

  “Even if you had no features which men find alluring, which isn’t true by the way, you represent a challenge to him. It’s human nature to want that which we can’t have. If you were so inclined to give in to his advances, that’d be the point where you could find out if there might be more to it than that.”

  “What more could there be with someone like him? I figure he’ll get his itch scratched, and that’ll be that.”

  “Do you want something else?”

  “With him? No. I don’t know. I don’t really see what we have in common or how it’d work or anything.”

  “If you decide you do want something with him, show him that you trust him,” Amaranthe said. “I gather his family never did, and he’s been upset of late with how many people here have turned suspicious eyes in his direction.”

  “I’m not suspicious of him. I just—”

  “Growl at or insult him every time he tries to start a conversation with you.”

  “That’s because he starts them with stupid lines,” Evrial said.

  “That’s his way of protecting himself, by not expressing true feelings. Just as you protect yourself with those
insults. Perhaps if you both dropped your defenses long enough to have a serious conversation, you could find out if you have any commonalities after all.”

  Evrial pressed her hands on either side of the porthole. She remembered a conversation with Maldynado that had gone that way. One where they’d been crouched on a boiler in the darkness. And it’d been... not unpleasant. Until he’d voiced that stupid spelunking comment. She caught herself smiling at the memory. Maybe Amaranthe had a point. Maybe—

  The doorknob rattled.

  “Uh oh,” Amaranthe said. “Any progress with that porthole?”

  “No, it’s—”

  A pale blob appeared on the other side of the glass. Evrial yelped and jumped backward faster than a dog bit by a snake. Her calf caught on the edge of the bed, and she tumbled onto it.

  “Good timing,” Amaranthe said.

  “What?” Bewildered, Evrial stared at the porthole. Only on the second long look did she recognize the pale blob. It was Sicarius’s face—upside down.

  Amaranthe pointed to the porthole frame and mouthed something.

  Sicarius’s head rose out of sight. Evrial rolled off the bed, embarrassed by her startled—and ungraceful—stumble.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Amaranthe said, “but I’ll have to let Maldynado know.”

  “What?”

  “That you are capable of shrieking.”

  Evrial would have snapped a retort—she hadn’t really shrieked, had she? Surely it’d been more of a surprised grunt—but thumps started up at the door. Whatever had escaped her lips, it must have been loud enough for the team in the corridor to hear her. “I’ll refrain from asking after the context of that discussion,” was all she said.

  “Wise woman,” Amaranthe said.

  Sicarius’s head reappeared along with a hand holding a narrow razor-edged blade. A louder thump sounded in the corridor, followed by a crack. It might have come from the door or the chair bracing it. Either way, it didn’t sound auspicious.

  “He better hurry up,” Evrial said.

  Sicarius applied the blade to the glass and cut a circle. Something else struck the door—it sounded like wood rather than a shoulder this time. A battering ram?

  Sicarius waved for them to back up. Conscious of her bare feet, Evrial leaped onto the bed. Sicarius thumped the glass circle with the heel of his palm, and it popped out of the porthole. It landed on the carpet with a crack.

  Amaranthe moved it out of the way. “You first.”

  Evrial’s first inclination was to argue that she should go last—after all, she’d been the one to drop the knife and rouse suspicions—but another blow at the door convinced her there was no time to argue. Amaranthe draped a towel over the sharp edge left in the porthole, and Evrial jumped, caught the frame, and did her best to wriggle through. Her momentum only took her halfway before her hips stuck in the narrow opening.

  Sicarius, still dangling—what he had his feet hooked around, Evrial could only guess—caught her under the armpits and pulled her out. His grip was about as gentle as a vise clamp, and she was certain she left flesh and clothing on the frame, but her hips were freed. Her legs followed, and she barely managed to catch the frame with her feet, so they wouldn’t tumble out before she could right herself. She doubted Sicarius would appreciate having to hold her weight thirty feet above the water. Nor did she want anyone walking on the deck below to see her dangling legs.

  With his help, Evrial pushed off the porthole frame and clawed her way to the roof. She dropped onto her belly and turned around, thinking to offer an additional hand to Amaranthe. Sicarius’s black boots were hooked around nothing more than a cable attached to an eyelet on the edge of the roof. Evrial couldn’t believe he could hold himself up that way. Before she’d done more than stick her head over the edge, Amaranthe’s hands appeared on the roof. She pulled herself up without help and dropped into a crouch. In an acrobatic move that would have impressed the circus performers, Sicarius flipped up beside them.

  Wind gusted down the river, ruffling his short hair. Enough of a moon peeped between the clouds to illuminate his face—and the cool stare he leveled at Amaranthe.

  “I heard your explosion,” he said, apparently assuming Amaranthe, rather than Evrial, had been responsible.

  “Good.” Again unfazed by the glare, Amaranthe gripped his arm. “We’re fortunate you decided to loiter up here.”

  “Stand purposefully,” he said.

  “Yes, that too.”

  Shouts erupted from below—security breaching the cabin.

  “Time to go,” Evrial said at the same moment as Amaranthe. Only as they crept across the roof toward a ladder, did she realize she’d adopted Amaranthe’s phrase. She wondered if she should be worried about that.

  CHAPTER 3

  Amaranthe perched on a stool in her cabin, perusing the stolen ledger and waiting for Yara to change and join the rest of the team. Basilard sat on the other stool, his burly arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the wall and watched her flip the pages from across the table—a hint of interest lighted his pale blue eyes, as if he hoped something more interesting than being incarcerated in his cabin might come up.

  Akstyr and Books sat cross-legged on the bottom bunk, each engrossed in work of his own. Books had a stack of his own notes in his lap. A thick tome penned in a foreign language sprawled across Akstyr’s legs, and his freshly spiked hair—dyed orange this week—scraped against the frame of the upper bunk as he mouthed words and nodded to himself. Maldynado lounged above them, drumming his fingers on the thin mattress and watching the door. Either he’d suddenly found Sicarius interesting—he was standing guard just inside the entrance—or he was looking forward to seeing Yara again. Sespian was the only one who didn’t seem interested in anything. He leaned against the one free wall, his hands in his pockets, his chin drooped to his chest. Now and then, he glanced at Amaranthe through pale brown bangs in need of a trim. She’d been leaving him alone since their chat in the boathouse the week before, but perhaps that had been a mistake. He looked.... lonely. And lost.

  Sicarius opened the door, checked outside, and closed it without comment. That was the third time he’d done so.

  “More security about?” Amaranthe guessed.

  “Yes.”

  “Searching rooms?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why would they be searching rooms?” Maldynado asked.

  “There might have been a small explosion in a cabin on the upper deck.” Amaranthe had been waiting for everyone to arrive before explaining everything, but Yara already knew of the events, so she decided to go ahead with the story.

  “We should eliminate the Forge people rather than letting them return to the city,” Sicarius said.

  Amaranthe and Sespian scowled at him at the same time.

  “Eliminate as in kill?” Sespian asked.

  “Or otherwise incapacitate them so they cannot return to the city to assist their brethren,” Sicarius said.

  “Or,” Maldynado said, “we could stay in our cabins, enjoy the rest of our trip, and wait until we get to Stumps to deal with Forge. Why pick fights before it’s necessary?”

  Amaranthe feared that option might already be unavailable. The idea of hiding out didn’t appeal anyway, not if there was a chance to whittle down the enemy forces before they could all band together in the capital. Of course, she had no interest in Sicarius’s method of eliminating people. And she wanted to know what—

  Someone knocked on the door, interrupting her thoughts.

  After checking outside again, Sicarius let Yara in. She’d changed out of the maid uniform and back into unassuming brown trousers and a gray sweater.

  “There’s my lady.” Maldynado shifted his position to open up a spot for her and patted the bunk. His new position involved dangling his legs over the edge and into the face of the person sitting below him—Books. “I saved you a seat. You decided to eschew the maid’s uniform, eh? Probably just as well. Those u
niforms are dreadfully monochromatic and the cut is all wrong for accenting... things that should be accented.”

  “What she’s wearing now doesn’t accent much either,” Akstyr muttered without lifting his gaze from his book.

  Amaranthe thought about chastising him, but Yara climbed onto the top bunk, not-so-accidentally kicking him in the shoulder on her way up, and that seemed a more appropriate response. Yara had, Amaranthe recalled, been raised with a bunch of brothers.

  Though Maldynado couldn’t have seen her foot strike, he must have heard Akstyr’s protesting grunt, for he smiled and winked. Yara glanced at Amaranthe, then offered a return wink. Huh. Maybe Amaranthe’s earlier words had made an impression.

  Maldynado seemed to appreciate the small gesture for his smile widened, and he leaned against the wall, hands locking behind his head.

  “Did I miss anything?” Yara asked.

  “Oh, the usual,” Maldynado said. “The boss is trying to figure out the next step, Sicarius wants to go kill all the Forge people so we don’t have to worry about them anymore, and nobody’s listening to my suggestion that we simply stay in our rooms and out of trouble until we arrive in Stumps.”

  “Surprisingly prudent advice,” Books murmured. “Given the source.”

  Maldynado let his legs swing back and forth a few times.

  “Ouch, watch what you’re doing, you odious troglodyte.”

  Maldynado gave Yara another wink. “Books was obviously an only child. If he’d had any brothers, he would have learned that it’s never wise for the person on the bottom bunk to be lippy to the person on the top bunk.”

  “Let’s get back to our discussion, shall we?” Amaranthe asked.

  Basilard waved his fingers for attention, then signed, Perhaps instead of killing the Forge women, we should throw them overboard. That would delay their return to the capital and give us time to arrive first.

  “That’s a possibility, but I’m wondering if there’s something more going on here than four Forge refugees finding passage home.” Amaranthe tapped the pages of the open book. “The Traveling Ice Show and Circus made a pricy purchase, one simply labeled as equipment and supplies, at Arstor Island in the Gulf before boarding the River Dancer.”