He should not have come alone.
“You say you want help with the Lady Hasegawa?” Flora shot back.
“Flora, no —” Xenobia tried to interject.
“Be still, woman!” the man shouted, and just like that — like the fall of one foot after the other, easy, inevitable, and immediate — he struck Xenobia. The back of his hand collided with her face, and the witch stumbled back, clasping her cheek where his blow had landed.
Flora felt her heart harden against him.
“I will help you,” Flora told him through gritted teeth. “Even if she will not.”
“Who are you?” the man asked.
“The witch you came looking for.”
Behind him, Xenobia slumped to the floor, her back against the wall, shaking her head.
Good.
The notion of revenge was not something that struck Evelyn as a purpose. She had her petty moments, small rebellions. But now fury built in Evelyn’s chest, brick by brick, until it formed a fortress against these men, her parents, and their cruel plans. How casually they discussed her demise. How thirsty they were for more power, more land, more trade routes. Already, the Nipran Empire was spread across nearly every nation. With the sack of Quark, what more could they possibly need? What resource was not already available to them in abundance?
Their greed sickened her. These men of power, these men who had raised her. Who taught them such cruelty? Who allowed them such means?
She would not abide them any longer.
And still, aboard the Dove remained one of their operatives, bent on catching the Pirate Supreme’s man.
Evelyn could not let these men win. Not that she bore the crew of the Dove much affection — she had been but chattel to them, a prize yet to be realized. But instinct told her that she knew who the Pirate Supreme’s man was. And she owed him her life. If she could save him, if she could thwart these men, then her life would have finally had use.
She had to find Florian.
If she wanted to make her escape, she’d need to do it when the servants were most distracted. So when one of the men mentioned that dinner should be along shortly, Evelyn knew it was time to leave the passages and make her break. It was slow going — in the dark, which was complete, through the spiderwebs. But, keeping her left hand to the wall, she followed the passages until she could smell fresh air.
She promised herself that when she breathed free once more, she would see these men ruined.
When she breathed free once more, she would fight back.
She waited by the end of the passage for some time, trying her best to gauge the location. Footsteps passed by, then echoed away, and from the sound of them she could guess the passage opened into a stone hallway. When no more footsteps came, Evelyn cautiously pushed against the dead end of the passage. For a moment, it did not budge, and Evelyn feared it was, in fact, only a dead end and not a door. But with more effort, she heard first the grind of grit beneath stone and then felt the shudder of the passage opening.
The light was, after so many hours in the passageway, too much to bear. But she could not be caught emerging, so she hurried into it even as it burned through her eyelids. Hastily, she shut the door behind her and blinked furiously, trying to gain her bearings.
It was indeed a stone hallway, though Evelyn had not realized it had opened outside, directly into the evening. The sun had begun its descent, but she could still see the bleeding red orb just over the stone perimeter walls of the keep. With the sunset, she’d have an even better chance — darkness could act as a mask over her face.
Doing her best with her bare feet, she spread the dust kicked loose by the passage in the hall. When she heard another set of footsteps from around the corner, she made the quick decision to simply walk toward it, head bowed, playing the part of a lowly servant boy simply passing between his many duties.
To Evelyn’s horror, Lida turned the corner and gave Evelyn a double take, which Evelyn clocked as recognition. The servant girl was holding a basket full of laundry and flanked by a couple of new faces Evelyn didn’t recognize. For a moment, they simply stared at each other.
What could she say? There was nothing. They stood in silence for what felt like too long of a time.
“Carlos, you are so silly,” Lida said. “You are not needed here — you’re needed at the gates to help unload the carts.” She held Evelyn’s eyes, her lips curled into a flirtatious smile. “Yes?”
Relief and gratitude washed over Evelyn, and she hoped that if she felt it strongly enough, Lida would feel it, too. Evelyn coughed, dropped her voice low. “’Course.” She bowed in the stiff-legged way men were supposed to.
“Get on, then.” Lida moved past Evelyn, and the two new girls trailed after her, giggling. They clearly thought they had witnessed a simple flirtation rather than the escape of a prisoner. “It’s over there, you silly boy, or did you already forget?” She pointed lazily to the south and kept moving. “The pretty ones are always the dumbest,” Evelyn heard Lida say to the girls, who cackled their agreement.
What Evelyn had done to deserve Lida’s kindness, she did not know. She prayed for a moment that she might be able to repay her, then took off at a run in the direction the servant girl had pointed.
When she reached the gate, a guard stood in her way, his arms crossed over his chest. She could tell right away that he was of Nipranite blood, probably from an old family, judging by his perfectly erect posture. Probably resentful of his low station, probably bored.
“Where d’you think you’re going, boy?”
“On an errand for the cook,” Evelyn replied quickly. Not too quickly, she hoped. “He needs more eggs for the morning meal tomorrow, what with all the fine men visiting.”
“Market’s closed.”
“That’s true,” Evelyn said. “But word is there’s a lady who lives in the cliffs and stays open all night.” When the guard looked at her dubiously, she added, “Please, sir. I can’t imagine how angry Cook’ll be if we’re short provisions.”
“We’ve got orders to keep everyone in for the night.”
“Yeah, I know. But there’s Imperial officers in our estate tonight, sir. We’ll all look like backwater bumpkins if we can’t feed ’em. And when that happens, I don’t want to be on the brunt of Commander Callum’s rancor.” She leaned in conspiratorially to the guard and whispered: “You know what they say about him. New money and all.”
The guard chuckled. Evelyn had pegged him correctly. “Right you are. On your way, but be quick. We change shifts in two hours, and if I’m not here, you’ll have to explain yourself all over again.”
“Right!” Evelyn practically shouted. At least now she had an excuse to run. “I’ll be back before you know it!”
So off she ran, into the night.
But she’d hardly made it a hundred strides before someone grabbed her by the wrist. Before she could even yell out, a hand clamped over her mouth and she was held, one hand behind her back, barely able to breathe in the tight embrace of a person she could not see.
“Shhhh,” the man hissed in her ear, hot and wet.
Evelyn screamed into his hand and fought against his hold. But neither her voice nor her body had the strength to see her will done. She’d been caught.
You will regret this,” Xenobia said.
But Flora ignored her.
Instead, she led Inouye out of the witch’s home. The sun was just beginning to set, just now becoming heavy, dipping on the horizon. Inouye bounced from one foot to the other nervously once they were outside. Being seen with Flora was, she guessed, incriminating all on its own. What would an Imperial soldier be doing with an urchin like her? And if that weren’t enough, being seen cavorting with a witch was, by Imperial law, a capital offense.
Still, he stayed by her side, if several comfortable feet from her.
“Let’s just do this here,” Flora said. The witch’s porch was as good a place as any. Inouye nodded eagerly.
The spell w
ould be an easy one. For the man whose name she’d learned was Inouye was more impressionable than even the stone had been. He wanted so badly to have Evelyn, was so desperate in his longing, that he would accept Flora’s story without even a blink.
She took Inouye’s hand, and though the feeling of his skin on hers disgusted her, she held it and his eye contact firmly. She could feel his reluctance in his touch, could feel his fear.
“Do you love her?” Flora asked him.
Inouye paused, shuffled his feet a little uncomfortably. “Yes?” he said, but it was more of a question.
His indecision disgusted Flora. It was all she could do not to roll her eyes. Only an Imperial man would go to such lengths for something he wasn’t even sure he wanted. Only an Imperial man would be so confounded by not having gotten what he wanted with ease. How upset he must be, that this one time the world did not grant him his heart’s desire on his first request.
“Listen,” she said. “But listen well, for this spell has a cost. If you should dishonor this spell or speak of it to anyone, it will break and you will never love again. The mechanisms that turn in your heart shall rust and erode; they will dissolve into dust in your chest. You will never know the softness of a lover’s lips nor share a cry of pleasure or the quiet shelter of a lover’s arms. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said. His eyes were alight with desire. But he was not listening, not really. He simply waited expectantly in that way men sometimes did when waiting for their chance to talk.
“Then listen to me, Tomas Inouye, and hear these words: You will find your heart’s desire, and you will hold her close. You will feel the press of her against you, will take her hand in yours, and you will lead her to love. Your love will make your love’s love a reality. Your love will lead her to love; your affection will see her free. And neither of you will ever return to Commander Callum’s keep. This is the next chapter of your story. See that it begins now.”
Again and again she said the words. As she spoke, Flora could feel the wind in her lungs, the Sea in her belly. She gripped his hand and felt how easily he’d accepted her tale, his grip tightening on hers. He was so hungry, despite the feast that had been his whole life. His eyes were clouded with his greed, and he did not see.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
“Come, then,” Flora said. “Let’s go get the Lady Hasegawa.”
The man pulled Evelyn several steps before finally letting go. She whirled on him and sucked in a breath.
“Inouye?”
His face was drawn with pain, his eyes strangely distant. His mouth opened and closed like a fish’s, seemingly unable to speak. Evelyn took a step away from him experimentally, but he shifted toward her, mirroring her movement. He was bigger than her, and stronger. She doubted she could simply make a run for it.
“Your hair,” he said faintly.
Evelyn opened her mouth to respond, but he took her by the hand once more. And try as she did to shake her fingers from his grasp, he held fast, pulling her along the cobblestone streets.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
Inouye did not respond.
If he was leading her to Callum, he was leading her in the wrong direction. As they hustled down the streets, the keep grew smaller and smaller behind them until all Evelyn could see of it was the torch of the tallest parapet, a tiny speck of light nearly indistinguishable from the stars.
They passed the Imperial church, passed the marketplace where merchants were hurriedly shutting down shop, all the way to the cliff’s edge. The elevators still ran, though not as frequently. The donkeys that powered the pulleys looked as tired as Evelyn felt. And though Evelyn asked, again and again, what they were waiting for, Inouye did not or could not answer. Again and again he opened his mouth, but no sound was ever produced. He filled the silences he created by staring at her scalp, his mouth twisted in an obvious display of disgust.
Evelyn shivered, but this time Inouye did not offer her his coat.
There was a shudder of gears, and then one of the donkeys grunted. Soon all three were walking in their steady circle, slow and plodding. Below, Evelyn could hear an elevator rising.
Inouye looked down and grimaced.
When the elevator crested the cliff, Evelyn gasped.
There stood Florian, wearing a smile, wide and warm. Inouye released Evelyn from his grasp, and before she could think in words, before she could audit her new reality, before she could question why Inouye — of all people — had brought her here, she was running to Florian, she was in Florian’s arms, she was kissing Florian and Florian was kissing her back.
She was unaware of Inouye as he slunk away into the night.
She was unaware of the stares their embrace brought.
All that mattered was that Florian was there.
Tears filled her eyes, spilling onto her cheeks, onto Florian’s. But she did not care.
“Florian,” she whispered. And how at home she felt, how right. As though the crook of Florian’s neck had been constructed with the purpose of cradling Evelyn’s face.
But Florian pulled back and held Evelyn’s eyes in his own. “Flora. Also.”
“All right.” Evelyn smiled. The name suited Florian, felt right on Evelyn’s lips. What it meant, Evelyn didn’t care. All that mattered was Florian — Flora — and the closeness of their bodies.
How she loved the way Evelyn’s lips curled around her name.
“Flora.”
The spell had worked. The truth of it kept Flora’s face pulled into a perpetual smile. It had worked. And it had only worked because Evelyn loved her, truly, bindingly. If it were not so, she would not have found her with that fool soldier, simply waiting for her.
Xenobia’s warning seemed a silly thing. How could she ever regret this, the feeling of Evelyn in her arms, of their reunion at long last, of her lips covering her own?
“Do you . . . ? Should I call you by he or she? Or they?” Evelyn asked. She didn’t seem to care which, and for that, Flora was more grateful than she could say. After all of the time spent worrying, fretting, over the lie that was Florian, and now she could be anything. She could be herself. Florian smiled.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter. Any of them feel true.”
“All right, then,” said Evelyn. And she kissed Flora’s fingers.
They rode the elevators down to the shore so that they might be away from the eyes that seemed to stare from all directions. Evelyn may not have known it, but Flora was well aware that the Floating Islands did not boast a particularly elastic culture of acceptance when it came to love. And with Evelyn’s hair shorn and Flora’s questionable appearance, they certainly did not look like a man and woman the Islanders — or Imperials for that matter — would expect to be romantically entangled.
For hours, it seemed, neither could find words, let alone use them. In the quiet of the cove they found, their shared happiness could not be expressed with speech. Spoken words were useless then, just noise, air. Flora folded into Evelyn’s arms, let herself be enveloped in her kiss. And with a sureness she had never known before, she knew she was loved.
Flora. Florian.
The pirate.
The liar.
She was loved and she was safe in Evelyn’s arms and she was warm in her embrace. Evelyn’s lips traced a burning line from her neck to the jut of her collarbone, and Flora understood the strange communion of simultaneous hunger and satisfaction of love. How full she felt, with Evelyn’s flesh beneath her fingers. How ravenous she felt from the scrape of Evelyn’s teeth on her lower lip, the press of Evelyn between her legs.
Immune to the chill of the night air. Immune to the crash of the Sea. And though exhaustion nipped at them both, neither could close their eyes. Neither could look away from the other.
“I thought you left me,” Florian said.
“Never,” Evelyn said. And she kissed the fear from Flora’s voice.
“I wonder if Rake knew,” Flora mus
ed between kisses. “If that was why he let us go.”
To her acute disappointment, Evelyn pulled away from her. “Rake,” she whispered. And Flora could see from the way her face fell that whatever news was to come, it was bad. Evelyn took Flora’s hands in hers and sighed deeply. “We have to save him,” she said.
“Rake doesn’t need saving,” Florian said immediately.
“He does, though. And Alfie, too.”
At the mention of her brother’s name, Flora froze. That Alfie needed saving was certainly something she could believe.
As Evelyn spoke, Flora felt dread building in her chest. The joy of their reunion dissipated into the cool of the predawn air. Evelyn was right. They had to return to the Dove. Go back to the life Flora had wanted so desperately to escape. For Rake. And for Alfie.
And, loath though she was to admit it, for the other Imperial prisoners. She may have fallen in love with only one of them, but that did not mean the others weren’t human as well, as deserving of life as Evelyn. She could not separate people like this anymore, not even Imperials.
“They were willing to see us all dead,” Evelyn said. “All of us were expendable.”
Flora had magic now, but what could she do? She’d have to return to the Dove. And then what? She gritted her teeth against the growing realization that she was the only one who could help.
Well, not the only one.
“We have to do what’s right,” Evelyn said.
Save the prisoners. Save Rake. Save Alfie. Protect the Pirate Supreme. Protect the Sea. Thwart the Lady Ayer.
“I know,” Flora said. “I know.”
There are countless ships in her waters, but only one is hers.
It only sails to serve the Sea.
She feels the Leviathan more than she sees it. Her eyes are not what they used to be, so many of her waters clouded and murky now, polluted. But she feels the Leviathan as it pushes away from port like the farewell kiss of a lover.
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea Page 22