by Chloe Neill
“Now that you’ve gotten a look at each other,” the queen said, “let’s begin. I’ve asked you both here to deal with a very urgent matter. Marcus Dunwood is missing.”
Kit knew Dunwood, at least by name. Like Kingsley, he worked for Chandler, gathering foreign intelligence abroad. She surmised Grant knew him, too, because he’d shifted beside her. Just the slightest movement, as if bracing against a blow.
“What’s happened?” Grant asked, and his tone was grim.
The queen nodded at Chandler. “If you would.”
“Dunwood had been serving on a sloop running cargo along the northern coast of Gallia,” Chandler said. “Monitoring Guild activity.”
The Guild was a Frisian association of the country’s wealthy and powerful merchants. During the war, they’d supplied money and arms to Gerard in exchange for promised trade monopolies on spices, silk, and other goods.
“Monitoring them?” Kit asked.
“There was a downturn in economic activity following the end of the war,” Chandler said. “Peace, as it turns out, is rarely as profitable. But trade activity is increasing again. More Guild ships leaving port, carrying greater cargo.”
“Bound for?” Kit asked.
Chandler’s lips curved, as if pleased by the query. “Everywhere they can manage it. We’ve identified no particularly unusual location or focus. And cargo moving into Guild ports has also increased. Wood, iron, hemp among them. Not, on their own, particularly unusual. They are required for many industries.”
“But they are also useful in war,” the queen said. “For guns. For ships.”
Chandler nodded. “Yes. They’ve been very cautious. There’s been nothing certain—documents or information—linking the Guild to Gerard, or to efforts to restore him to his former position. But the, shall we say, suggestive information cannot be ignored.”
“And Dunwood?” Grant prompted.
“His last communiqué was received three weeks ago. Then, two days ago, the crew of the Carpathian—a privateer with a letter of marque from the Crown—found four injured sailors on a disabled sloop off the coast of Gallia, near Pointe Grise. They claimed to have been attacked, the fifth member of their crew taken.”
“Dunwood was the fifth,” Grant surmised.
Chandler confirmed with a nod. “The sailors stated the sloop’s attackers had sought out and removed the crewman they knew as ‘Paolo.’ And thought it odd the attackers had referred to him as ‘Marcus.’”
“They knew who he was,” Grant said quietly.
Chandler nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“You and Dunwood were friends,” the queen said to Grant.
“We were together on the peninsula,” Grant said. “He renewed his commission after Gerard’s capture, and I returned to Queenscliffe.”
And from the gruff tone, Kit thought it sounded as if he’d rather have remained there.
“You believe his identity was compromised,” Grant said.
“We do,” Chandler said. “By culprits we have not yet identified.”
“There weren’t many who knew of Marcus’s mission, and even fewer his last location,” the queen said. “And those who knew were members of the Crown Command.”
That simple statement, and the accusation beneath it, cut through the room like a sabre.
“Which is why we’re the only ones in the room,” Kit said. “You believe there are traitors in the Crown Command.”
“Yes,” said the queen. And that word fell like a shadow across the room. They waited in silence for her to speak again.
“There have been traitors in the Crown Command before. My father removed many who’d been proven disloyal. Among them an admiral, a major general, and two agents in the Foreign Office. He installed a new minister and believed the Command secure.” The queen’s breath shuddered. Not with fear or concern, Kit thought, but with fury.
“Either he was wrong, or foreign agents have gotten their claws in again.” She looked back at Kit and Grant, gaze burning with intensity. “I don’t know who may have revealed Dunwood’s name. But I will learn their name, and they will answer to me. Marcus has served the Isles for two decades. We will not leave him to molder or die while the rest of us sit in luxury. And that brings us to this meeting. The two of you will find him and bring him home.”
The room went silent, and Kit had to work not to shift her gaze to the man beside her.
“The two of us,” she said, hoping against hope she’d misheard the queen.
“Aboard the Diana,” the queen said. “You will search for Marcus Dunwood, you will locate him, and you will free him.”
Kit knew a command when she heard one. “Is there intelligence regarding his whereabouts?” she asked.
“The sailors believed Dunwood’s captors were headed for Finistère,” Chandler said.
“The pirate fortress,” Kit said. “And, literally, ‘the end of the earth.’” She knew the island’s name and its reputation. It was the largest rocky island among many on the far western edge of Gallia at the boundary of the Narrow Sea. The archipelago was difficult to navigate, and the cliffs afforded a long view of the sea, which had long made it a favorite for pirates and privateers—including the Five, the famous pirate kings, who’d made their home in the fortress during the war.
“What would the Five want with Dunwood?” Kit asked.
“Money,” Chandler said. “Even the Five aren’t arrogant enough to sail directly into a Frisian port. So they take Dunwood back to Finistère, and wait for the highest bidder to retrieve him.”
“Unless we get there first,” Kit said, and Chandler nodded.
“Your Highness,” Grant said, “the Diana is not a ship of war, and it cannot be sufficient for a frontal attack on a pirate quay. A larger vessel with guns would be more appropriate.”
His tone—confident and cold—stoked Kit’s anger, notwithstanding the fact that he was simply wrong. She’d yet to meet a soldier who could tell a staysail from a jib.
“Rescue missions require speed and maneuverability,” Kit said, sparing Grant her most withering look. “Size is irrelevant, and guns are little use when trying to outrun another ship at full sail. The Diana is as swift as they come.” Particularly, she thought, when I’m at the helm.
“You’re a courier,” Grant said. “That’s hardly—”
“Grant,” Chandler warned.
A warning Grant did not heed. “We cannot simply—”
“Colonel Grant,” the queen said, her voice thunderous across the room. “Remember our conversation and where you stand.”
His struggle for control was obvious, but he held his tongue. “Your Highness,” Grant said tightly. And Kit would have given a few gold coins to be privy to whatever had been said between them.
After a moment, as if deciding she’d made her point, the queen shifted her gaze to Chandler. “It appears your suggestion we downplay the captain’s position was perhaps too successful.”
“So it appears,” Chandler said. “Brightling isn’t a mere courier, Grant, and the Diana no packet ship. Brightling fought at San Miguel, discovered the Gallic ships at Faulkney. And the Diana will do ten knots without magic—”
“Eleven,” Kit corrected.
“Eleven,” Chandler said with a nod and mild smile. “And with Captain Brightling’s magic, considerably faster.”
Grant looked at Kit. “You’re Aligned?”
“I am,” she said, eyes flashing and daring him to comment.
But he made no response.
“And, as I mentioned, Grant is an able veteran with his own skills,” the queen said to Kit, anticipating her silent objections. “You both have experience in battle in your respective forces. You have both shown resilience under pressure. You are leaders. And, although your present displays make me question my judgment, which I dislike very much, I b
elieve you will complement each other.” She looked at each of them in turn, an obvious threat in her eyes. “You will partner in this mission, and you will share the command.”
It was Kit’s turn to bristle. But she held her tongue.
“Sensible,” the queen added, nodding in approval at Kit’s control. “Given the need for dispatch, you will set sail tomorrow morning. The Diana will be provisioned this evening.”
“How long will it take to reach Finistère?” Grant asked, and they all looked at Kit.
“Depending on seas and weather, and if we’re able to maintain speed, about a day and a half.”
Grant’s features remained stony, his eyes hard. And there was something else there. Something deeper, darker. Nothing she could identify, at least not yet. But if she was to share her ship—and risk her people—she’d find out soon enough.
“The Diana is anchored at the Crown Quay,” Kit told him. “You know it?”
“I do.”
“Be there at dawn.”
“Very well.” The words were short, sharp. Bitten off, as if their taste were bitter.
Apparently satisfied they wouldn’t mutiny, at least not in the throne room, the queen sat back, looked at each of them in turn.
“Find him,” she said. “Find Marcus Dunwood, and bring him home.”
Four
Kit strode back through the palace, anger building like a storm along the horizon.
She’d do her duty, by gods, because that’s what duty was. Adversity, Hetta had told her daughters, was to be faced head-on, chin lifted, and fists raised. But she didn’t want to haul a viscount across the sea. She didn’t want to listen to his complaints or commands, or watch her words to avoid offending his sensibilities. Which might prove a problem given the state of the guest cabin . . .
She exited the palace, blinked in the sunlight, took a breath. She had sixteen hours, give or take, before the Diana was ready to sail again, and she’d use every damned minute of it. There was much to be done. First thing—get a message to Jin about the Diana’s mission. He had a wife and two children, and sixteen hours wasn’t much to spend with them. But it would have to be enough.
“Flower, missus?”
Kit stared down into the grubby face of a small girl.
She was thin and young, her light skin dotted with freckles (and dirt), and her hair was a mass of tangled curls cut just below her firm chin. Kit guessed she was eleven or twelve, and that she’d taken the flowers—and their earth-clotted roots—from the palace’s front border.
Kit lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t need weeds stolen from someone else’s garden.”
The flowers hit the ground, immediately abandoned. “I can also deliver things. Or carry things. Two bits.”
Kit snorted at the price, but she didn’t like the hollows in the girl’s cheeks. “What’s your name?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”
“I have a task that needs doing. An important message delivered, and I need to know the name of the girl delivering it.”
“Louisa.”
“Is that your real name?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” She held out her hand. “Silver.”
Kit couldn’t fault her courage, even if her prices were high. “Copper,” she said, pulling a coin from her pocket.
The girl looked at her pityingly.
“You know the Crown Quay?” Kit asked.
“Where the queen’s ships are.”
“Exactly. I need a message delivered to the Diana. The message is for Jin, one of the ship’s officers.”
The girl pointed to the braiding on Kit’s uniform. “Officers have gold on their coats.”
“They do. I’ll give you the copper to deliver it. And if Jin wants to send a message back to me, there’ll be another copper waiting for you.”
She watched Kit for a moment, nodded. “I can take a message.”
“Good. The message is this: ‘Diana sails at dawn. CR will provision tonight. Go home.’ Repeat it back to me.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “Diana sails at dawn. CR will provision tonight. Go home. Repeat it back to me.”
“Very amusing,” Kit said, and offered her the coin. The girl snapped it away, slipped it into a pocket of her short and dirty jacket.
“Do you know the Brightling house?” Kit asked.
Louisa’s eyes widened. “Where the foundling girls live. They say a wee fairy lives with them.”
Hetta was small, if entirely human. “If Jin has a return message, it can be sent there.”
Louisa looked her over with obvious skepticism. “And I’ll be paid another copper if I deliver that message.”
“Yes,” Kit said. “That’s a promise from a captain.”
With a nod, the girl sprinted toward the river.
* * *
Kit wanted a hot bath, tea with milk, a penny story, and a good biscuit. But there’d be no biscuits waiting for her in the Brightling house. Mrs. Eaves, the housekeeper, believed in mutton, hard-boiled eggs, and exceedingly dry toast. Spicy foods, she liked to say, led to spicy tempers.
Kit remembered she’d managed only a slice of meager toast while the Diana had slipped up the Saint James toward New London. And considering what she’d likely find at home, she thought of the stall Jin had shown her one rainy evening—and the dish she’d found there.
She passed the church again, then moved briskly through the narrow alley, past the stalls selling penny dreadfuls and romances, fried pastries and sugared fruits, to the counter where a woman in white, her dark hair a gleaming knot atop her head, seemed bathed in fragrant steam.
Kit put down a silver coin, and it was swept away, replaced almost immediately with a bowl of thick noodles in broth dotted with flecks of spicy peppers she knew would flay her tongue with heat.
And dug in immediately.
* * *
Two bowls later, when her hunger was finally sated and her mouth aflame, she strode down High Street to the building Mrs. Eaves had once called New London’s premier temple of sin. Portnoy’s Confectioners was a temple of puddings and biscuits and scones and desserts, a fantasy of sugar in glossy green boxes, and the pistachio nougats Kit loved most of all. She bought a box for her sisters, a paper cone of nougats for herself that she’d eat on the walk home.
New London became quieter as she walked toward Moreham Park and away from the bustle of shops and merchants, away from wagons hauling goods, and carriages waiting to disgorge their passengers for an afternoon of shopping. When she reached Francis Street, shade from towering oaks and elderwoods dappled light across the walk, and birds in the park proper chirped happily in the afternoon sun.
She stopped at No. 62. The familiar town house of painted white brick, with its gleaming black door, and round shrubberies behind the short black gate. A bronze sign, small and inconspicuous, posted beside the door was the only indication the town house was anything other than a typical residence. brightling home for foundlings it read in tidy block letters. est. 1792. One year after Hetta had returned from the Continent alone, having buried her husband on a high cliff near the sea.
Sir Harry Brightling had been a smart and canny man, born into “genteel” poverty before making money in some investment or other. He’d also been, at least based on the stories Kit had heard, a kind and generous man who’d loved Hetta to distraction. The Brightling house had been born of his wealth and her love, and bore the name he’d given her.
Hetta liked to tell her daughters that she hadn’t needed to give birth; she’d only needed to find her children and gather them home. Seven girls were residents now—Kit, Jane, Astrid, Bettina, Georgina, Pari, and Marielle—all allowed to live in the Brightling house as long as they needed. In exchange for Hetta’s financial and emotional support, they were expected to master their studies, learn and practice Hetta’s Pr
inciples of Self-Sufficiency, and when they were grown, make a contribution—financial or otherwise—to family or nation.
Principle of Self-Sufficiency No. 1: Never take for granted the generosity of others.
Kit pushed through the low gate, took the steps to the front door, and opened it . . . to the sounds of combat.
She looked into the parlor. Two girls, identically dressed in white trousers and shirtsleeves, white masks on their faces, pointed épées at each other in the center of the room.
“Point,” said one girl, stepping back and lifting her mask. Her pale face was freckled, her hair short and red, victory gleaming in her green eyes. “And that’s a win for me.”
The second swordswoman lifted her mask to reveal a markedly similar face, although her tight curls were pinned up at the back. “You cheated!” she said.
“Absolutely did not.”
“I saw no cheating,” Kit said, and the girls squealed, and launched themselves in her direction.
“Kit!” They wrapped their arms around her.
“How was your trip?”
“Was there treasure?”
“What about pirates?”
Bettina and Georgina were twins, and they approached everything with the same singular focus and vigor. And they craved adventure in the way of thirteen-year-olds who couldn’t wait for the freedom to find it, and refused to accept the notion that Kit was a mere courier.
“We found what we were looking for,” Kit said. “And I found this on the way home.” She held out the Portnoy’s box.
The girls looked at each other, nodded. Bettina took the box. Georgina ran to the doorway, looked into the hall.
“Clear,” she said, and Bettina went to a corner of the room, dropped into a crouch. Using a fingernail, she flipped up a short plank of the floorboard, revealing a small compartment. She added the Portnoy’s box, then pressed the floorboard down again and stood.
The loose board in the parlor had been a popular hiding spot even when Kit was a child.
“Cheeky girls,” Kit said, when they both came back grinning. “Where are the others?”
