Ten Ruby Trick

by Julia Knight

  Her lips twisted and she launched herself toward him, screamed as the bond stabbed the pain into her again. She fell to her hands and knees, panting for long moments before she hauled herself to her feet. She held herself still as a statue for so long Holden began to wonder if the bond had done something else to her.

  Then her hand swept everything from the desk onto the floor so the inkpot spilled over the parchments, the clock shattered in a shower of glass and springs. The chair was next, her muscles bulging with the effort as she launched it at the window with a snarl. She watched in dead-eyed anger as it smashed its way through and out, spinning into the sea. It still wasn’t enough, Holden thought, nothing would be enough. The small bed followed the chair, then the chamber pot. She smashed or threw overboard everything she could lift and Holden didn’t stop her. Her ship, her things she was breaking. Her life, her heart he had broken.

  Finally she sank to her knees in the center of the floor, shaking and out of breath. But not crying, oh no, not Josie. He went to stand in front of her, intending to help her to her feet, find some word of comfort for her. Nothing could be a comfort, he understood that when he saw her eyes. He’d killed her already, only her body still breathed, her heart still beat. Inside she was dead and he’d killed her. Just another pretty thing destroyed at the end of a bond.

  “I hate you,” she whispered. Such an understated thing, as though she couldn’t think of anything else, any other words to express it.

  “I know. So do I.”

  Van Gast concentrated on Guld and tried to ignore the feeling that the toy Remorian was watching him. The toys were spread out in front of them, marching up and down the rug on the floor of Van Gast’s quarters aboard Gast’s Ghost. Racks on one side of a triangle, merchantmen on another, and the few Remorians on the last.

  “It still doesn’t make any sense.” Guld snapped his hand shut on the spell he’d cast. “I can’t tell anything from these. She never touched them.”

  They’d gone over Van Gast’s house as thoroughly as they could but their search had turned up nothing of hers. Not even a hair. The woman that Van Gast paid a pittance to keep the place clean while he was at sea had done too good a job.

  “There’s nothing else you can try?” Van Gast turned the Remorian commander so he was facing away. Bloody thing gave him the creeps.

  “I can try a tracing spell, but they’re unreliable at the best of times, and the last time she was seen was too long ago. They only work for a few days.”

  “Can’t hurt to try.”

  Guld got to his feet and dusted himself down. “I suppose not. I wouldn’t hold out much hope though.”

  Van Gast put the toys back into a sack, relieved they were no longer looking at him. “Let me know, either way.”

  Guld left for his cabin and the quiet he preferred for his magic. Van Gast went out on deck. Wind tugged at his hair, a squally, grey kind of day pressing humidity and sweat onto his skin. He checked the sail and rigging, tasted the wind and absently watched his crew going about their business.

  “So, Van, you back among us now then?”

  Dillet popped up beside him. He’d been acting oddly since Van Gast had come back aboard, disappointed almost, as though Van Gast’s disappearance was a blessing and his reappearance with Guld a curse.

  “Never really left.” Van Gast kept his face and words guarded. He was already feeling misgivings about having told Guld. If Dillet found out—actually he preferred not to think about that. Dillet would laugh him off the ship for being such a fool. Maybe he was right.

  “So what’s all this with stopping at every bloody port and village then?”

  Van Gast leaned on the rail and took a lungful of salt air to brace himself. “Nothing much, just working with a hunch. You know how it is.”

  “Nothing to do with that business in Estovan then?” Dillet watched him carefully, his eyes sharp, flicking over Van Gast’s face.

  “No, not really. A hunch that might pay off is all.”

  “If you heard something, by rights you should be telling me, not that girly bloody mage. ’Bout as much use as a one-legged donkey.”

  Van Gast laughed. “He’s not so bad as that. Two-legged donkey maybe.”

  Dillet leaned on the rail next to him. “So come on then, spit the juice. What we doing going to all these pissant little places? We ain’t going to make no money there. Poor bastards can just about feed theyselves. And you know how this lot of dogs get if they don’t see some money.”

  “We’ve enough for now. But preparation is the key to a good twist, eh? Information is what I’m after, Dillet. Those fishermen go out a long way, they might have seen who I’m after.”

  “So might I, if you tell me who it is.” There was something about the way Dillet said it that made all the hairs stand up on the back of Van Gast’s neck. Fishing, and not for sharks. Van Gast had never trusted Dillet much further than he could shove him—the man was too money-hungry for that—but he did make a good first mate. As long as you watched your back.

  “All in good time, all in good time. Have a little patience. But it’ll be worth a fortune if I can pull it off.” Even if I have to pay you out of what I’ve got stashed away for a twist I never ran.

  Dillet looked at him narrowly and grunted. “It better had be, Van, or your crew will be getting antsy. Just a warning like.”

  Van Gast forced a smile. “It’ll be worth your while. I guarantee it.”

  Dillet turned to go. “Aye, well just make sure it is, that’s all I’m saying. A poor rack captain is one no one will sail with.”

  Damn it, Josie, you’d better show soon. While I’ve still got a ship and crew.

  Just be alive.

  Chapter Twelve

  Holden crouched down so he could look Josie in the eye. She’d not said a word to him since the day he’d bonded her but huddled in the corner and glared at him. The only person she’d speak to was Skrymir and that in the Gan tongue. To ask about the boy, Skrymir said.

  “Josie, I—”

  She turned her head away. Damn it, she was only making it harder on herself. Holden concentrated on the bond, on making her obey it. “Josie, look at me.”

  Her mouth tightened in a grimace, and cords stood out on her neck as she fought it, but finally, with a gasp of pain, her head turned.

  “I don’t want to do it this way, Josie. I never did. If you help me catch him, then it’ll all be over. I’ll take off the bond and you’ll be free. It’s nothing to you, except that Van Gast will be gone for good, and that’s what you want too, isn’t it? Help me, and you’ll be free. I swear.”

  The way she looked at him, the pain etched into the skin round her eyes and mouth, the disappointment in him, burned him to the core. She’d never thought badly of him just because he was a bonded man. She hadn’t cared, had seen past that to who he was inside, and now he’d done this to her.

  “I’m sorry.” A paltry effort. “Josie, I swear, just this one little thing and you’re free. I’ll—I’ll make it up to you.”

  She snorted a derisive laugh. “Make it up to me. How can you? What could make up for this?”

  “Josie, please.” The skin on her wrists had mended under the healer’s care, but that was just skin. The rest of her…Holden took her hands in his, held them when she would have pulled away. “You left me no choice.”

  She stared down at his fingers as they gripped hers. “I was going to help you. I just had to show you I wouldn’t be your little slave. I still won’t. I won’t be anyone’s fucking slave, yours or this Master of yours.”

  Holden wanted to turn time back, roll it all away back to the night they’d boarded the ship. Do it all differently. More than that, her presence was starting to eat at him, made more and more memories of her pop to the surface of his mind. Made his dreams more and more painful. He wanted to take the bond off, but couldn’t. He wanted her in his bed and couldn’t do that either. All he could do was what he’d been set, any way he could.


  “Josie, will you help me catch Van Gast?”

  She pulled her hands from his and hunched away. Holden stood up and glared out of the newly repaired window into the grey of the day, clouds and mist and drizzle. A constant dampness that didn’t alleviate the heat, only made it worse somehow, made the air press against him with a solid weight. He wished for a storm to blow it all away. Him with it.

  Anger replaced guilt. She was turning him into a milksop, a man with no blood in his veins. He had a sudden pang for Ilsa—and a worse one for Josie. Even bonded, she wasn’t servile, wasn’t his. He’d thought that was what he wanted. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Josie, get up.” He held his mind on the anger, drove it into the bond over her.

  She hissed behind him but got up. “Holden—”

  “Enough, Josie. Enough. I’m not the man you thought me. I never was. This is who I am, like it or loathe it. I am the man who controls you, and you will help me. So, firstly we are going to run through the plan, down to every last word. Then you’re going to make sure the crew that come ashore with us don’t look Remorian. Skrymir, we’ll have to do something about him too. Van Gast’s seen him. You can see to that, see that he looks different enough that Van Gast won’t recognize him.”

  Holden turned round and tried not to watch the new hatred in her. “You will help me, like it or not. Because I have to do this, like it or not. So, this Ten Ruby Trick. Tell me every last detail.”

  Van Gast stepped over a puddle of the gods only knew what and propped himself against a wall, acting drunker than he was. The girl half fell into him but he managed to catch her and stop her falling into the muck. The flimsy wall protested at the weight of them both and Van Gast pushed himself off, his arm around her.

  He normally loved Sarigin this time of year. All right, the weather was a foul, sweltering sort of fug until the winds came again in the autumn, the constant bouts of rain churning every street to mire, but Kyr’s mercy, the girls were out in force on this night and the populace so charmingly naïve of his ways.

  The Wedding Dance, they called it, the week that fell in the middle of the year, when no one fished because of the spawning. When the fish spawned, so did the people. The men were all ashore, the girls all prettied up and looking for a husband. They carried their dowry with them, tinkling belts of coins that shimmered and shivered with their hips as they tried to catch the eye of a likely looking mate. Not only that, but this was the only time when it was acceptable for them to drink strong spirits, and most of these girls had drunk nothing stronger than water. Until now.

  In any other city they’d all be robbed before they went twenty paces, but not in Sarigin. No, here the people were trusting and truthful, like a religion to them. Telling a lie would damn you down to the Deeps, or the Dark as they called it. Theft, as it was viewed in Sarigin, was just another lie, one about who owned what.

  Drunk, naïve women looking for a man, with lots of money upon their person. It was only a wonder more racketeers didn’t ingratiate themselves and rack up a small fortune. It was a little holiday, but this year his heart wasn’t in it. He was just marking time. If Josie didn’t turn up soon…

  He was fooling himself. She was gone and he’d best get used to the idea. He blinked heavily and swallowed back the chunk of grief in his throat. Can’t show it, never show it. That was the worst of it. He had to be Van Gast, racketeer of the first order, all roving eye and clever twists, as he always was—or always seemed to be.

  Van Gast and the girl whose name he couldn’t quite remember lurched along the street, dodging food stalls and piglets and piles of rotting filth that did nothing to help the fetid smell that washed in from the estuary, caught and magnified by the perpetual fog that made silver beads of moisture drip from every surface. There it was, the delightful little establishment that served a particularly stiff rice wine.

  He stepped over the threshold, the girl hanging on his arm, and knew immediately something wasn’t quite right. Something about the way the patrons were so very intent on their own business. These people didn’t like a lie, and it didn’t have to be a spoken one. It could be something as simple as being the wrong person or projecting the wrong sort of image. They knew when something wasn’t right, and Van Gast had long ago learned to pay attention to their subtle cues, to mirror them himself. That was how he got away with so much coin at the end of the week. These people were upset. Very upset, though there wasn’t one raised voice. A pursed lip here, a hunched shoulder there. Enough for him, given the direction his little-magics went. The itch of it made him scratch at his chest absently.

  Van Gast let the girl fall into a seat along one bamboo wall and made his cautious way to the bar, keeping his eyes and ears open. He made sure to stumble over a foot and slur an apology, made sure his body language didn’t give away the lie, though he was far from drunk. It was an art form really.

  A Gan at the bar seemed to be the center of the strained emotions in the room. Bells rang in his head—a Gan asking questions about him up and down the coast, a Gan in Estovan chasing him—but he couldn’t be sure this was the same one. Gan weren’t common, but there were enough of them around, and this one was dressed differently, more like a rack, and he had more than just a family braid in his hair. Unlike the other—yet achingly reminiscent of Josie—braids swung about his shoulders, almost obscuring the rest of his hair. Difficult to say if it was the same one, the Gan all looked the same to Van Gast. Big, blond, brutal. That was all you needed to know about them. Still, best be wary, because a Gan wasn’t a good enemy to have. Too efficiently vicious and too damn stubborn.

  This one was built like a bull, his thick neck protruding from a bright red shirt that accentuated his build rather than hiding it. A sword hung at his waist, and that made Van Gast raise an eyebrow. A fatal mistake here, wearing a weapon. Truthful men had no need of sharp steel, and Van Gast made sure the few blades he did bring from his ship were very, very concealed.

  What in the world was a Gan doing here of all places? Then he saw the man by the giant’s side, and how the two of them both put down their drinks when they saw him. Leaving their hands free. The other man was Josie’s first mate, and the muscles in Van Gast’s shoulders loosened.

  So the ship wasn’t sunk, but where was she? He wanted to leap forward and shake it out of her first mate. Only…only Josie didn’t have a Gan in her crew, and she knew better than to let her men abroad in Sarigin with swords. There was something odd here. His little-magics were urging him to turn round, walk out of the door and then run, as far and fast as he could. Only he couldn’t be sure whether the itch was for him in trouble, or whether it itched for her.

  Something very odd here. Like, what the heck was Josie doing in Sarigin during Wedding Dance week? Nothing really for her here. For her crew maybe, but it was chancy. Van Gast only managed it because his little-magic was a positive boon in places like this. Maybe she’d come to find him, and that was a surge of relief that made his itch subside.

  Only…what else was strange was the Gan. They kept popping up in the least likely places. She wouldn’t have oathed him—no rack would take a man’s freedom like that—and even if he was on her crew, she wouldn’t have let him come ashore with that sword. Gods damn it all to the Deep, what was she playing at? Not for the first time, he wished he had a mind as devious as hers. He had to trust to her, to that slippery bent of thinking, that she knew what she was doing and at some point she’d tell him.

  The two men moved toward him, the Gan taking a more sideways track to get between Van Gast and the door. Josie’s first mate, Galdon, was behaving quite oddly too. He kept sneaking little glances at the Gan, then back to Van Gast. Nervous, and that was something Van Gast had never associated with one of the toughest sailors on this coast. All that time their ship had been out of contact, and now this. The relief that had swum through him when he’d recognized Galdon curdled in his stomach.

  Galdon smiled as he came up to him, but it wasn’t the easy smile o
f long acquaintance, or even the strained smile of a long-time enemy. The grim stretch of his lips was the haunted smile of the rat that was finally trapped. “Josie wants to see you.”

  A huffing breath behind him told Van Gast that the Gan was there, too close for comfort. Playing along seemed the best bet for now. Besides, he wanted to know where the fuck she’d been, and how much she was going to make it up to him for scaring him half to death by disappearing like that. Play the game for now, though. Plenty of time for making it up to him later, something to look forward to. “What for?”

  Galdon lifted one shoulder a touch. “Best ask her. Proposition, I reckon.”

  Breaking the twist, the show of enmity. Weirder and weirder. But highly interesting. Van Gast made a show of scratching at his ribs and loosened the knife under his shirt. He glanced back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at the Gan before he turned back to Galdon. “Can’t say I approve of your methods, but I’m in a betting mood. I’m betting she won’t kill me here, because she’d be strung up in no time.” The Sarigin weren’t slouches when it came to stamping on violence in their town.

  “She promises not to kill you today. On her honor.”

  On her honor? Van Gast caught his laughter in time and his itch subsided, just a little. Josie was playing, but what game? By now, now that he knew she was alive and well, he was curious to find out. It wouldn’t be anything simple, not for her to break the show. Might be something exceptional. “Very well, Galdon, you intrigue me. Lead the way. Though if you could tell your pet bull not to puff down my neck like that, I’d be obliged.”