Sophie wasn’t one to let a tense silence run long or at all. “So, Miss Pyke, you write for a newspaper?”
“Kir Pyke. And we say ‘newsheet’ or ‘journal.’”
“How does that work? You have folks out on boats delivering the sheets at dawn, in rain, snow, sleet—” She’d started chattering to draw the reporter’s attention, but now she considered it, that was ridiculous. “I’d have seen papers. Besides, none of these ships would waste space on a press or use up that much pulp.”
“I don’t know that word, ‘press.’” Pyke leaned back in her chair. “Our crier memorizes the master copy. People draw the information in a variety of ways.”
Sophie trolled her memories. “Lights blinking in Morse code, maybe. And I’ve seen people listening to shells.”
“Eraseable slates,” Bram said. “Tonio’s got a tray covered in fine-grained sand.”
“You’re sharp, Kirs.” Pyke was grinning. “May I also play at guessing?”
“Guess at what?”
“Your Fleet—someone impressed it on you, didn’t they? There’s no way your accent would be Constitution-perfect if you grew up outlandish. You’d sound like…” She inclined her head at Bram.
“Yes, it was a spell,” Sophie said. “On Stele Island.”
She cocked a brow at Sophie.
“We’re taking turns?” Sophie said. “What is this, Ping-Pong?”
“If you’ve run out of observations…” A shake of the lion’s mane, and a yawn.
“You’re old,” Sophie blurted.
“Excuse me?” Mock offense.
“Your boots are a more fashionable version of the ones I just saw on that retirement vessel, Pastoral. They’re braced, for supporting weak ankles, balancing on shifting decks. Your face has a youthful appearance that puts you under thirty, but the skin on your hands is papery. I see your veins, and there’s a scar.…”
Pyke stretched out her arms. “I may have gotten a bit of sun as a child.”
“Maybe. You carry a fan, you’re dressed in layers—so you can shed them in case of hot flashes? You addressed Tonio in Erinthian when you came aboard, and he replied, Gennadonna. I don’t speak the language, but I know you say ginagina for a young lady. You replied in kind, so you’ve spent time on Erinth. And that’s where you go when you want to get your age spots sanded away but you can’t turn back the clock … if you can. Can’t you just be younger?”
“Reversing one’s age is a much heavier intention,” Parrish said. “Most who try are broken under it.”
Pyke surprised her by laughing. “I see why Convenor Gracechild thinks you’re dangerous. If you can do this with so little experience of the civilized world, imagine what’ll happen once you’re well traveled? Just as well you’re taking her off to the monkish corners, Garland.”
“The chances of Sophie picking up no useful knowledge on a sail to Issle Morta,” Parrish said, “would seem low.”
“They’re zero,” Sophie said. “If you’re gonna quote odds like Mr. Spock, get the math right.”
“I don’t know the math.”
“Ask Bram.”
“Don’t drag me into this,” Bram said.
“Garland, the two of you deserve each other,” said Pyke. “Well, girl, I can’t say I hate you, though I rather wish I did. Enjoy the boneyard.”
“Thank you, Langda,” Parrish said, helping her to her feet. Pyke held on to his arm right up until she disembarked, stepping back into her hired ship and vanishing into the fog.
They stood together, the three of them, until the silence was thoroughly awkward.
“Tibbon’s Wash is roughly on the way to Issle Morta,” Parrish said. “Were we to further investigate Corsetta’s dispute, we could ask questions there.”
“Verena’s case, Verena’s call.” Sophie wondered if he was just trying to buy himself a few more days not being home. “How much of a delay?”
“Two days?”
“If winds are fair?”
“I always catch the fast wind west,” he said, with a rueful expression.
“Well, that’s neither here nor there.” Tonio plopped down beside them with a sigh. “The cabin lock’s been jimmied. That little scamp Corsetta’s made off again.”
CHAPTER 22
The Fleet’s annual summer sail took a northerly route west, threading a route past chains of islands located where northern Canada should have been. After leisurely visits to a number of those nations, the ships would pause at Verdanii, taking on grain and vegetables before continuing west into what should have been the Pacific. Finally they’d sweep southeast, easing back along the other remnant of North America, a scythe of islands that curled outward and down from the location of the Pacific Northwest, east and south to Haversham and Sylvanna, and thence southward, dropping below the equator, through the latitudes Sophie couldn’t help thinking of as Caribbean. As autumn continued and the days shortened, all the ships would sail in the direction of the remains of Africa.
By heading west and making straight for Issle Morta, Parrish proposed to outrace the Fleet’s long arc of a route.
Verena came back with a grim Do whatever it takes, just solve the Corsetta problem from Annela. She took the news of Corsetta’s escape philosophically. “If the Watch can’t hang on to her, why should we try? If she stayed aboard, she’ll surface when she’s hungry.” With a quick glance at Parrish’s charts, she agreed to the plan.
She seemed lost in thought or perhaps morose. Sophie did nothing to jolly her out of her mood. She’d ambushed Parrish by sending his ex-girlfriend to Nightjar with no warning: she was actively messing with them. Try as she might to remind herself that Verena was just a kid, a lovestruck kid, she couldn’t shake a growing sense of annoyance.
Parrish, too, seemed withdrawn. He watched the seas, checked all the hatches, kept an alert watch on the crew.
The sea, as they sailed east, became a strange purplish blue, ultramarine edging to, at times, periwinkle. It held a stunning profusion of life. There were pods, hundreds strong, of dolphins to be seen every morning. The cook had crew out netting an unfamiliar and quite ugly fish they called saltsander.
The water foamed easily and smelled, to Sophie, of springtime.
It was a fast crossing—the winds did indeed seem obscenely cooperative. They were zooming along at a clip so quickly, Parrish rarely had to order up the mainsail. Had they bent every sheet, the ship might well have flown … until her masts cracked under the strain.
Corsetta had indeed stayed aboard. One day out from Tibbon’s Wash, she tried to take over the ship.
There was no gunpowder aboard Nightjar, but the ship carried plenty of flammables. Parrish kept a supply of lantern oil, and she’d made herself a wad of reeking, incendiary rags.
Bolting out onto the deck, she had thrown the rags atop a stack of dried, folded laundry. Then she waved a long flaming something that looked like a torch from the tomb of some old-time adventure movie. “I’ll set the mainmast aflame,” she shouted. “I’ve already started a fire in the hold!”
“This is suboptimal,” Bram said. He and Sophie had been working on their map again, and he looked less afraid than inconvenienced.
Verena drew her sword, pacing forward deliberately until Corsetta was just beyond its reach. The girl did not back away.
“Take me home!” Corsetta demanded. “Or I’ll burn this ship, crow’s nest to keel.”
Parrish’s lips thinned. “Beal, Bram, go below. See if she’s telling the truth about another fire.”
Corsetta remained squared off against Verena as Bram descended. “Order your captain to bear us to Tibbs.”
“It’s his ship, not mine,” Verena said.
“Then he should have a care not to lose it.”
Sophie moved to follow Bram, but Parrish had her by the arm.
“Corsetta.” Verena extended the rapier. “What are you going to do? Even if we lower a boat for you, you can’t hope to outrun us, paddling.”
&nbs
p; “I’ll take someone with me.”
“We’ll give you nothing,” Parrish said. “No boat, no hostage, no ride to Tibbon’s Wash. You can’t hope to swim the limit—I’ve overlooked the currents here. All you’ll achieve is to drown. Then your Rashad will die, too, will he not? Or perhaps you’ve misled us about how much that matters to you?”
Corsetta feinted, making as though to light her rags. Verena swung at her wrist and Corsetta darted aft.
Something hit the girl from above.
It was big and black and fast; it drove Corsetta down, out of view, behind the jib. The cat, Banana, streaked past, a tabby blur, scrabbling at the boards of the deck as it fled whatever-it-was. Corsetta’s torch rolled astern.
Parrish scooped it gracefully off the deck, tossing it underhand to Sweet, who had been ready with a bucket.
Verena had leaped into whatever fray was developing up on the bow.
“It’s all right,” Parrish said to Sophie. “We’re perfectly safe.”
With that, he strode into the bow.
Corsetta and Verena were in a three-way wrangle with a winged man.
He didn’t look in any sense angelic. His wings were white and tattered with use—snow vulture, wings, thought Sophie—and the egg they’d grown from was still stuck between his shoulder blades, a wet remnant of shell and yolk that smelled of rot. Plucked chicken flesh covered his skin from just below the neck to above his pectorals, and all of his musculature—his upper arms, shoulders, back, and chest—had been built up to cartoonish, Popeye levels.
The egg was fixed to his skin, as far as Sophie could see, by amber slivers jammed into his skin like pins.
Amber, she thought. They met up with the raiders to get amber.
He had a loose-skinned, almost starved look.
Had to lose mass to fly at all, and then to come … how far is it? We’ve been covering over a hundred miles a day. He’s gotta be wrecked.
Parrish had apparently reached the same conclusion. He ducked a flapping wing with his usual grace, catching the man by the arm.
“That’s quite enough, Kir!” It was a bellow. Sophie would never have guessed anyone could be so loud, much less someone so mild-mannered.
Everyone froze.
Parrish lifted the winged man as though he were a toy, raising him to his feet and giving him a little push starboard before helping Corsetta up. Her face was bleeding.
Verena, looking scalded, leaped to her feet before he could help her, too.
The man lunged, but Parrish caught him with a hand.
“This festering pussball of a goatherd has ravished my brother!”
So this was Montaro.
“Your brother wooed Corsetta at your suggestion, Kir,” Parrish said. “What would you do? Drown her and him, too?”
A look of triumph crossed Montaro’s face. “We know the scribe who knotted their life-threads.”
“That does you no good if the inscription remains intact. Has your brother given it up?”
“I will have their fates unbound!”
Corsetta’s lips skinned back from her teeth. “You would have me dead? Tear up the spell you used to heal me of wounds you inflicted?”
“I would have my brother detached from someone who risks herself at every oksakkin opportunity.”
They slipped into Tibbsian, yelling.
“Maybe the boy should get a say,” Sophie said, and silence fell.
Verena had been gearing up to say something. Now she shot Sophie a furious look. “Wasn’t there a fire aboard?”
Crap. I was supposed to be staying out of this.
“My mistake.” Sophie went below to see if she could help Bram.
He was just packing away an innocuous-looking pair of wooden boxes. “Crate of Tonio’s wine, bunch of straw soaked with lantern oil, and another lantern set to catch it all. Cigarillo as a trigger. Beal’s making sure there aren’t any more. A fruit bat could have disassembled it.”
“Good. Because you’re not becoming the Stormwrack bomb squad.”
“Like that’s up to you.”
“Bram—”
“Don’t, Sofe.” He spoke with surprising heat. “I have as much right as you to come here and risk my butt.”
“I meant—”
“What? You get to research all this, and I stay in San Francisco in a nice padded room, reading up on your crumbs?”
What could she say? That she was afraid for him? That it was hard? That only she was allowed to take the risks that had been stressing their parents out for years?
I’ve been using Bram as an excuse, she thought, a reason why I have to go back to San Francisco. Maybe I just want to go home.
As she was standing there, open-mouthed, too shocked even to sputter, he broke into a grin. “You busy with that epiphany, Sofe, or you want to help me with this?”
“Um. I’ll help.” They cleared up the last of the oil-soaked straw in silence, putting it in an old flour sack.
Could I do that? Go home if Bram stayed? Be the padded-room kid? It was one of those questions that felt ridiculous in every way. She might as easily ask if she wanted to grow a duck’s bill.
“Wanna go up?” Bram said.
“Yes, but aft. I think I’ve stuck my foot in it again.”
He led the way to the rear of the ship, found a pitcher and some soap, and washed the oil off his hands. The two of them climbed the ladder back to the main deck. Sophie glanced up, into the ship’s rigging, and then scanned the deck. No sign of Verena.
“What are you gonna do about this mess?” Bram asked.
“No clue. Everything hinges on getting Beatrice out of jail. Verena’s goodwill, Annela’s willingness to let me do research—”
“Beatrice herself thawing out?”
“Fat chance of that,” she said.
Bram shrugged.
It was, more or less, true. The tangle of home versus Stormwrack hadn’t gotten any looser—it was such a tight knot now she’d never pick it apart. She couldn’t just be here and vanish on her parents. Yet the thought of going back to the real world forever felt heart-rippingly wrong.
“Can you love a place you barely know?”
“A place?” he said.
“This isn’t just about Parrish.”
“You can love anything, can’t you? Why not a world?”
“I mean love. Corsetta’s die-without-Rashad thing.”
“That’s hormones. What is she, fifteen?”
“Yeah,” she said, unconvinced.
“The little animal whisperer and Verena are both sex smitten. You know as well as I that the idea of one true love is a media package.”
“Love at first sight?” They’d had this conversation before … she could even supply his next line. “Your choice of mate will inevitably be made by powerful pre-programmed biological instincts.”
“You’re the biologist, tell me I’m wrong. You know we’re driven to pair up. To cheat, too.”
“I don’t—”
But suddenly the hatch at their feet was opening again, and Bram interrupted. “Hey, Parrish.”
The captain nodded, quite stiffly, Sophie thought.
He said, “Everything all right?”
“Corsetta’s a better escape artist than a mad bomber,” Bram said. “Her fire trap was barely smoldering. Someone would’ve found and doused it quickly enough.”
Parrish nodded. “Verena’s sent for the brother, Rashad.”
A long silence spilled from that. To break it, Sophie said, “Do I hear thumping, down by the galley?”
Parrish put a hand on the rail, and something in his face made Sophie think about true love again. “We’re rearranging some bulkheads below; Nightjar’s fore cabins convert to an arbitration space.”
“If Verena finds a resolution here, will it keep Annela from firing her?”
“It will depend, I suppose, on the resolution.”
“I guess she’s still got the magic back-and-forth power. She can get to and fro b
etween Erstwhile and Stormwrack.”
“Would that keep the government from reducing her to just that—a letter carrier between worlds?” Bram asked.
Parrish refused to be drawn out—he just gave them a polite smile.
She didn’t quite finish high school, did she? Once Gale died, she figured she was moving here, full-time. She’s got nothing left at home; she’d have to finish out her senior year, start making friends.
She’s spent all her life learning to fence and speak languages nobody on Earth knows.…
“What’s a hormones?” Parrish asked suddenly. Changing the subject?
Bram smirked. “You’re the biologist, Ducks.”
“Don’t call me Ducks.” She gave Parrish a dry little lecture, starting with bees and the alarm pheromones they used to communicate, hoping to see his eyes glaze over. He hung on every word.
Jeez, you’re adorable. The thought made her feel more flustered, not less.
Boring, Sofe, be boring. She was up to describing household traps that used gypsy moth hormones to lure them onto sticky paper, when a small ferry appeared, sailing from the direction of Tibbon’s Wash. It bore three wildly well dressed figures.
Corsetta and Montaro both leaned on the rail, near the bridge, watching the ferry’s approach.
“What’s to keep Angelboy from flying off again?”
“Honor?” Parrish said.
If he chucked a fifteen-year-old girl off his ship, he wasn’t likely to have any of that, Sophie thought.
Parrish may have read her face; he added, “The appearance of honor will matter, at this point.”
In any case, Montaro looked exhausted. The spell that transformed him would have worked better on someone jockey-slender; the wings drooping from his shoulders were massive, but everything had its limits. If he wanted to remain an aerialist, he’d never eat a decent meal again.
There was a final, percussive cluster of bumps and sliding wood, and Verena appeared at the fore of the ship. Now, as the ferry reached them she crossed her arms over her chest, in imitation of a pose of Annela’s. She was clad in what must be a traditional Verdanii tunic of flowing green silk. One of her fencing blades hung from a gold scabbard. Gale’s Fleet badge dangled like a big flashy pendant at her throat.
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