by Jon Skovron
Brigga Lin didn’t like letting Gavish Gray—or anyone for that matter—speak on her behalf. But she still remembered how poorly her discussion of biomancery had gone with Nettles, and she worried that, particularly when speaking to people from the lower classes, she had a tendency of making things worse. Even so, she felt Gavish Gray gave in to popular opinion far too quickly.
His eyes swept the crew. Moonlight filtered in through the narrow windows of the dock house to shine on brown, tattooed skin gleaming with sweat. Serious, furrowed brows looked back at him.
“If that’s how it is for all of you, we’ll do it the old way.” He gave them a tight grin. “Besides, nothing wrong with a little risk now and then, as long as the reward is worth it. And in this case, my wags, it very much is.”
They all grinned back at him, relief clearly showing in their eyes. These men loved their captain. Perhaps they were worried that Brigga Lin was too much of an influence on him. That she was changing him. If so, they didn’t know him as well as she did. Because Gavish Gray would never change for anyone. It was one of the things she liked about him, even if it was frustrating at times.
“Well, then, send someone to fetch some grease from the ship,” Gavish said brusquely. “We’ve much to do, and the moon is already risen.”
“Aye, sir.” Fisty tapped two sailors to run back to the ship, which was several piers over.
“Marble Eyes, you and Ginty go cut us some reeds along the shore to use as tubes,” Gavish said.
“Aye, sir,” said Marble Eyes, and the two hurried away.
“Do you still want me to come along?” Brigga Lin asked him.
“You know, Lady Witch, maybe you should sit this one out,” he said, not quite able to meet her eyes. “If there were any … unusual-looking corpses found on board, that might run counter to the plan, keen?”
“I see.”
Then his face brightened and he looked directly at her. “I tell you what. How about you put the finishing touch on it, though.”
“And what touch might that be?”
He held out a revolver with a fine rose-quartz-inlaid handle, the metal polished to a mirror brightness. “Once I give the all clear, we’ll slip back into the water with the loot. You said you can be invisible, right?”
“I can bend the light around me so that people can’t easily see me.”
“Right. So you do that … light bending, and leave this gun in a conspicuous spot on the deck near the ship.”
“Planting false evidence,” she said.
He smiled encouragingly. “Right you are. And of course you were the one who pointed out that imps at the local garrison have an almost unnatural obsession with solving crimes. They won’t stop until they find someone to put in jail for this, so let’s make certain it’s not us. Sunny?”
Did he know how demeaning this all was? Once she had dreamed of being on the Council of Biomancery. Later she had dreamed of being at the forefront of a revolution. But now she wasn’t even a proper outlaw. She had been reduced to a pirate’s mistress who planted evidence for him.
And yet, she found herself nodding dully and taking the gun from him. Because what else was there to do?
This was Jilly’s first time infiltrating a docked ship like a proper pirate. There had been some resistance among the crew about letting her come along, but Gavish convinced them to go along with it. She had a feeling he’d probably done it to appease Brigga Lin, who was clearly pissed and peppered that they refused to let her use biomancery. But Jilly was so excited about this job, she did her best not to think about that too much. She’d show those pirates that she was more than just a lookout and a sneak-thief. She’d prove to them that she could handle this and any other thing they cared to throw at her.
First was the tub of black grease that Fisty brought from the Rolling Lightning. The rest of the crew removed shirts and shoes. Jilly wasn’t about to go bare-chested, since she’d just finally started to grow something worth covering. Instead she stripped down to her sleeveless cotton undershirt and gladly removed the pointy boots Brigga Lin made her wear.
She watched carefully as the rest of the crew coated their faces, necks, shoulders, and chests in black grease, then slicked back their hair with it as well. Then Jilly did the same, making sure to even cover the white shoulder straps of her undershirt in grease. Brigga Lin would probably say it was ruined later and make her get a new one, but Jilly wanted to make certain that she did this right. Besides, with the money she made on Gavish’s crew, she could afford a new undershirt. Especially after this score.
Marble Eyes brought back a thick bundle of reeds and passed them around. The crew cut them down to foot-length tubes, discarding any sections that couldn’t easily pass air through them.
“You ready, my wags?” Gavish asked quietly.
The group of pitch-black faces grinned and nodded. To Jilly it looked like white eyes and teeth bouncing up and down in the darkness. Then, one by one, they slipped off the side of the dock and into the dark water. Just before Jilly slid over the side, she glanced back at Brigga Lin, who still stood next to the storage shed. Jilly felt a pang of guilt at leaving her mentor behind, but she reminded herself that Brigga Lin had just as important a role to play as anyone else.
The crew of the Rolling Lightning moved slowly through the water beneath the dock so as not to create much wake. Gavish was in the lead, with Fisty just behind him. From her spot near the back of the group, she could barely make them out in the darkness.
The crew moved carefully and silently under the docks until they reached their mark—a large merchant vessel at the very end of the pier. The hull rose pretty high out of the water, but after all the climbing drills Hope had put Jilly through, she was confident it would be easy to get onto the decks. In fact, she’d probably get there before anyone else.
But first there was a small stretch of open water to clear between the end of the dock and the side of the ship. That’s where the reeds came into play. One by one, the pirates dropped below the waterline, put up the reed so they could keep breathing, and made their way slowly to the ship.
Gavish had stayed under the dock cover to watch over his men as they moved to the ship. Finally it was just Jilly and Gavish left. Jilly took a deep breath and sank beneath the surface, but Gavish took hold of her arm and pulled her back up.
“You climb the dock here and keep an eye out for imp patrols,” he breathed in her ear.
Her eyes widened. “But, Captain—”
He scowled at her and put a finger to his lips. Then he sank below the surface and made his way across the open water to the boat, leaving Jilly behind to stew. He’d never intended to let her on board. This had been his plan all along. Making her the lookout. Again.
She was so mad that she had to bite her lip to keep from cursing out loud while she shimmied up the dock pylon. She found a crossbeam she could balance on near the top that allowed her to peek over the edge and look down the length of the dock. If a patrol came back, she’d see them long before they saw her or the crew currently scaling the side of the merchant ship.
She glanced back and winced at their clumsy climbing technique. They were like bears climbing a tree, relying almost entirely on their knives and strength to pull themselves up, rather than using the natural hand- and footholds that were all too easy for Jilly to spot, even at that distance.
She took another quick glance down the dock to make sure it was still clear of patrols, then allowed herself to look back at the merchant ship. The crew had finally made their way up to the decks. Now they were lumbering around, slitting any throat they could find. They didn’t seem to have any interest in using the nooks and crannies of the ship to slip up behind their prey unawares. Instead they relied on shock, speed, and crude force. It wasn’t the silent, elegantly sinister event she’d envisioned. In fact, it was ugly, brutish, and dull.
Once the merchant crew were all dead, the pirates spread the loot among each other so that no one would be weighed
down by too much coin for the return swim. Gavish used a mirror to flash a signal to Brigga Lin at the far end of the pier so she would know it was time to plant the evidence. Then the pirates climbed back into the water and crossed to the cover of the docks again.
Jilly stayed up on the crossbeam and glared down at them as they passed beneath her. She thought the least they could do was give her a nod in thanks for keeping an eye out for them, but most either didn’t notice or didn’t acknowledge her.
Once the rest of the pirates had continued beneath the docks back to the storage shed where their clothes were kept, Gavish motioned for her to climb down. She kept her angry eyes fixed on him the whole time she made her way back down, not looking at hand- or footholds once. Just to show him how easy climbing was for her. The smile he gave her was pained. Maybe even a little apologetic.
“Good work, my wag,” he whispered.
“Easy work,” she said.
“Now, now, don’t be like that,” he said. “After all, I couldn’t have the world’s first Vinchen biomancer slinking around a ship cutting throats like some common criminal.”
The world’s first Vinchen biomancer …
What a pissing joke.
Jilly was a smart girl. She had to be, otherwise she wouldn’t have lived as long as she had. Maybe she wasn’t as clever with words as Red. And she had to admit that she often struggled to understand the books Brigga Lin put in front of her. But she was smart about people. She understood them. Sometimes better than they understood themselves. And now she understood why things didn’t feel as great as she thought they should.
It was because she had been let down by everyone she trusted. Bane had abandoned her, of course. But so had everyone else. Sadie and Filler were dead. Finn was God knew where. Vaderton had gone off with Old Yammy. Even Alash had disappeared shortly after Brigga Lin and Captain Gray started tossing. All of that she’d known for a while, and she’d always comforted herself that at least Brigga Lin hadn’t abandoned her.
But now, as she sat at a table in the Past Is Forgotten with Gavish Gray and Brigga Lin, she looked at her “master” and understood that a person could abandon you without ever leaving.
“Master, when can we begin actually doing things?” she asked.
“Hm?” Brigga Lin had been staring into a glass of wine.
“All I ever do is read,” said Jilly. “I was thinking maybe you and me could go off someplace secluded and you could actually show me some things.”
“We need to make a run up to Port Blaze soon,” said Gray. “We could drop you somewhere on the way and pick you up on our way back. There’s many little spits of land coming off Walta, and the mole rats only keep to the largest one.”
“Did you finish the last book I gave you?” Brigga Lin asked her.
“Well, no …,” admitted Jilly. “But—”
“Then you can occupy yourself with that.”
It felt like a load of balls and pricks. She’d finished the Biomancery Praxis months ago. Everything since that felt like it was just a waste of time. But Jilly had been with Brigga Lin long enough to know that open disrespect wouldn’t get her any closer. So she bowed her head and gave a half-hearted, “Yes, master.”
An awkward silence settled at the table, which Brigga Lin seemed not to notice. Captain Gray gave Jilly an apologetic look, which she appreciated, although more and more that seemed the only kind of look he gave her. She sipped moodily at her tankard and stared at a stones game at the next table, not really paying attention to it so much as simply watching hands move stones around.
A short time later, a squad of imps marched through the front door in single file. The tavern fell silent, and the tension was suddenly palpable.
“I think they finally figured it out,” Gavish said quietly.
One imp stepped forward, his face hard. The gold epaulets on the shoulders of his white uniform marked him as the squad captain. “I’m looking for a man who goes by the name of Clean Kever.”
Every wag in the tavern breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Except, of course, for Kever. He sat at a table near the back and looked up from his tankard to find everyone suddenly staring at him. A moment of panic flashed across his face, but it quickly twisted into an ingratiating smile.
“Uh, what can I do for you, sir? Perhaps you need a sales representative to move some personal items?”
“Hilarious,” the squad captain said sourly. “Get him.”
Several imps shoved their way through the tables until they reached Kever, then they roughly hauled him to his feet.
“I ain’t done nothing!” Kever protested as they clapped irons on his wrists.
The squad captain held out the revolver with the rose quartz handle that Jilly had stolen from Kever the week before. “I have several people who vouch that this one-of-a-kind revolver is yours.”
“Now, listen,” said Kever. “I know it’s frowned upon for a regular wag like me to own a revolver, but there ain’t exactly a law against it. And anyway, it was a gift from a valued customer!”
“So you admit that it’s yours?” asked the captain.
“Yes, but—”
“It was found at the scene where the esteemed Mr. Mazelton’s ship had been infiltrated. The captain and crew had been coldly murdered, and the high-value cargo on board had been stolen.”
Kever’s eyes went wide. “It must have been planted! That gun was stolen from me!”
The squad captain didn’t seem interested in anything Kever had to say. He nodded curtly to the imps who held him. “Let’s go.” Then he turned smartly on his heel and left the tavern.
As the imps hauled Kever past the table where Jilly, Brigga Lin, and Captain Gray sat, he was still shouting.
“It was stolen! I swear to God I was framed!”
“Of course you say that, old pot,” Gavish said with a smirk. “Of course you do.”
Kever went from panic to rage. “You did this! Damn you to every last hell, Gavish Gray. I should have known that the biomancer’s cunt-warmer would also be in league with the imps!”
He leapt toward Gavish, but one of the imps struck him on the back of the head with the butt of his revolver and he went limp. They had to carry him the rest of the way out of the tavern.
Once the imps had gone with Kever, and the tavern had settled back down, Gavish turned to Brigga Lin. “Well, I’d say we won.”
“Hm?” said Brigga Lin, looking up from her glass of wine as if she hadn’t noticed any of it.
“You definitely got the best of him, Captain,” said Jilly, forcing a cheer she didn’t feel. Stealing the revolver and planting it at the crime had seemed devilishly clever at the time. But there was something about watching the imps do their dirty work that left her unsettled. She couldn’t help wonder what Hope would have thought of this plan. She glanced over at Brigga Lin, who had gone back to staring at her wine, and wondered if her master felt the same. But what could they do? Hope was the one who had abandoned them. Both of them.
That’s when Jilly understood that Brigga Lin might be hurting from that betrayal just as much as Jilly.
She reached out and touched Brigga Lin’s hand. Brigga Lin looked sharply at her, a little of the old haughtiness flaring up. Jilly braced for rejection. But then Brigga Lin just sighed, squeezed Jilly’s hand, and nodded.
That’s when Jilly knew she wasn’t completely alone after all.
10
Stephan would not have considered himself sheltered. Before today, his concept of that word had meant being shielded from hardship. And certainly as the youngest son of a noble family, he had been sheltered in early childhood. But once he’d been sent to Galemoor at the age of twelve, he had encountered a great deal of hardship. Particularly after Racklock became grandteacher, his life had been mostly about discipline and pain. So if he had been asked, say, yesterday, he would have said he was not sheltered.
But as he and Hectory walked the streets of Vance Post’s Shade District, Stephan realized he mig
ht need to broaden his definition of the word sheltered. And perhaps that was not all he needed to broaden.
The Shade District was renowned throughout the empire as a paradise for the merchant class. A place where birth and heritage were unimportant. Anything could be gotten by any person, so long as they had the money. Desire and its fulfillment seemed to be the primary focus of this place. Whether you were a gourmet or a gourmand, high tastes or low, there was a place for you in the Shade District. Fine restaurants were nestled comfortably next to seedy taverns. A shop selling black rose and coral spice could be found next to a shop selling rare herbs and spices from islands at the fringe of the empire. There were “pleasure palaces” filled with orange-powdered women as elegant as any lady of the court just waiting to be your “companion.” And across the street, one could find the raunchiest brothel with a haggard topless woman in the window who pressed her bare breasts against the glass, and spewed curses at anyone who passed by without admiring them.
There were even places that catered specifically to men who wanted to have sex with other men.
“Disgusting,” declared Hectory as they passed one such place.
Stephan glanced at the front window, where a finely muscled young man dressed only in a loincloth sat delicately eating a tangerine with the help of a small paring knife. There was something about the composition Stephan found particularly compelling.
“Stephan?” prompted Hectory.
Stephan tore his eyes away from the scantily clad man in the window, hoping he hadn’t been staring too long. “Yes, disgusting,” he murmured.
Stephan knew he was attracted to men. He didn’t know why that was, but after a lot of internal struggle and meditation, and feeling the embarrassed heat whenever he and the other brothers exercised shirtless on a summer afternoon, he couldn’t deny how he felt. Thankfully, since he’d taken the Vinchen vows of chastity, it was an easy secret to keep. It was ironic, actually, that by forcing him to join the Vinchen, his parents had provided him with the perfect excuse to never get married. He knew his mother at least would have pestered him about it endlessly, as she did his older brothers. Now he would never have to break her heart.