by Chloe Neill
The girl ate quickly, hunched over the food like it might be snatched away if she allowed the opportunity. That spoke wonders about her history, Kit thought, and felt a tug in her chest that might have been compassion or guilt. Or both.
“We could toss her overboard for violating the rules against fare dodgers,” Jin said.
Louisa’s eyes grew wide. “What’s the rules against fare dodgers?”
“Commander Takamura means you’ve come aboard ship without permission or paying your way,” Kit said. “That’s a violation of the queen’s orders.”
“I had permission,” she said, lifting her chin in that stubborn way. Then she shifted her gaze to Jin. “You invited me on board.”
“To deliver a message. You were to leave when the message was delivered.”
“You didn’t tell me to leave.” Her tone was prim, and Tamlin hid a laugh behind a not-very-convincing cough.
Jin merely looked at her, then at Kit, with mild amusement. “No,” he said. “I suppose I did not. Nor did you expressly request permission to stay.”
Louisa dropped her gaze to the stew, and didn’t look nearly as pleased by it now.
“Why did you stay on board?” Kit asked.
Louisa lifted a shoulder but didn’t raise her gaze. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”
“Your family?”
“Don’t have one.” She looked up, eyes fierce. “Don’t need one, do I? I get along just fine.”
She’d survived, certainly. But whether a child needed—or deserved—more than mere survival was a different matter.
“I can do lots of things,” Louisa said. “I can carry things. Or find things.”
“Both very important tasks,” Kit agreed. But possibly better performed by a child safely onshore, not on a ship on a mission with a questionable possibility of success. “Mr. Pettigrew, will you please keep an eye on our charge for a moment?”
“Aye, Captain,” he said, then turned to the girl, looked at her consideringly. “Have you ever seen a compass?”
“What’s a compass?” she asked as he pulled the device from his pocket. Kit led the others back to her cabin, then closed the door when they were all inside.
“Well,” Jin said. “This is an interesting surprise.”
“You’re acquainted?” Grant asked.
“She was waiting outside the palace after we spoke to the queen,” Kit said. “I paid her to deliver a message to the Diana.”
“She’s a foundling?”
“I’m not certain,” Kit said. “I presume so, but she wasn’t exactly forthcoming regarding her background. If we were in town, I could take her to Hetta. But as it is . . .”
“She can’t stay on board. It’s much too dangerous for a child.” Grant’s voice had gone hard.
“Should I drop her into a boat and tell her to start rowing?”
“She’s a child.”
“Jin,” she said, keeping her eyes on Grant. “How old were you when you first sailed?”
“Seven. I accompanied my grandfather, who was a fisherman.”
Kit nodded. “I was punting down the Saint James at thirteen. The sea is dangerous for everyone; that makes it fair. She’s old enough to be a cabin girl or general mate. And not all foundlings are lucky enough to have a safe bed and hot meal. The Diana is preferable to a larkhouse, a gambling hell, a life of picking detritus from the muck of the Saint James.”
“Are you requesting a cabin girl?” Jin asked.
“Gods, no,” Kit said quickly, shuddering at the thought of a person standing over her all night and day and asking what she wanted. That was a bit too Beau Monde. But there was always work to be done aboard ship, and they had food aplenty. Life onshore for a girl of Louisa’s age, her size, would be no easier.
Grant made a sound of frustration.
“Welcome to life aboard someone else’s ship,” Kit said with heat. “It has none of the amenities of Grant Hall and you are, rather remarkably, not in charge.”
“Sarcasm isn’t helpful,” Grant said.
“You should remember your own advice,” Kit said. Then took a breath herself, because there was no point in arguing with him over this.
“This isn’t an ideal situation,” she said after a moment. “Especially considering where we’re going or what we’re doing. But it’s the situation we’re in, so we’ll deal with it as best we can, and we’ll protect her as best we can.” And then she smiled, slow and sly, and looked at Jin. “Cook has daughters, does he not?”
“Six of them,” Jin said with an answering grin. “And he’s been complaining about needing more hands in the kitchen.”
Kit nodded. “She’ll share a cabin with Hobbes. She’s easy with the younger crew members. Cook can teach her what he knows. But no knives,” she said, pointing at him to emphasize the point. “Last thing we need is the little imp running around with a blade.”
“Aye, Captain,” Jin said, and they went back to the mess to deliver the news.
Kit took a seat at the table, and Louisa met her gaze squarely, if with a tint of suspicion in her eyes. She was a brave little thing, and Kit had to admire it. But the girl—for her own safety and everyone else’s—needed to know who was in charge.
“You’ll share a room with Lieutenant Hobbes,” Kit said, glancing at the crew member. Hobbes looked visibly surprised, and not altogether pleased, but training and logic—which told her the crew’s options were limited—had her nodding.
“And you’ll learn to cook,” Kit said, voice raised, and heard the echoing groan from the kitchen.
Louisa’s gaze narrowed. “I get to stay.”
“For now,” Kit said. “If you can follow orders, which is necessary for every sailor on board this ship. Can you do that?”
Louisa watched her for a minute, face screwed up in concentration. Kit appreciated that she was actually taking the time to think about her answer.
“What if I don’t?”
“Then we toss you to the sea dragons.”
“No, you won’t,” Louisa said, with the gravity of a much older girl. “And what if the order isn’t fair?”
Kit bit back a smile. Damn it all, but she admired the sass. “An order is an order,” Kit said. “But we try very hard to make sure that our orders are fair. Because we’re a kind of family.”
The need that crossed Louisa’s face was so plain, so bare, it made something in Kit’s chest clench hard against her ribs. She had to resist the urge to sweep her into her arms, but understood well enough the distance she needed to keep in order to keep her safe.
“I can follow orders,” Louisa said.
“Very well,” Kit said. “Welcome aboard, sailor Louisa.”
She grinned. “I’m a proper sailor now?”
“Not quite officially,” Kit said. “First things first: You need a wash.”
Years from now, Kit thought, they’d tell tales of the scream heard across the ocean.
Eight
Kit woke before the sun had fully risen, stepped onto the deck as it breached the horizon. The morning blossomed, petals unfurling across the sky in orange and pink smears, casting brilliant light across the otherwise dark sea. Clouds were pale brushstrokes among the color, foretelling good sailing.
She wasn’t alone; the sailors on the night’s last watch were still in position, watching the sea or trimming the sails as the first mate ordered to follow the wind and keep the ship on her course.
Her gaze dropped from the horizon to the dark water that slipped against the ship’s oaken planks. But the sea was calm, the wind fair, and the Diana slipped through the waves as elegantly as a dancer. The wind moves the sea, and the sea moves the ship. The ship moves the sailors so the sailors don’t drip. A children’s ditty she’d learned years ago.
She nodded at the mate, then went below, openin
g the rear hatch into the hold. She took a lantern from the passageway, and carried it down.
Inside the hold, she hung the lantern on an iron hook, slipped between barrels of coffee and sugar and tea to the hull on the port side. Here, alone in the hold and beneath the waterline, she was literally surrounded by the sea, by its story. She pressed her hand against the hull, reached out for the sea beyond.
She could feel its power against her palm, the pressure of water against copper and wood and iron. And the discord she’d felt yesterday had disappeared. The sea was calm again, the current shifting about as it always did, the core of it energized. For a moment, she wondered if she’d imagined it, had projected her own feelings about the voyage, the presence of a viscount, onto the sea. But then she remembered Tamlin’s warning, the instability she’d felt, too. Either the magic had resolved its own crisis or, by traveling through the Narrow Sea, they’d sailed beyond it.
She would watch and listen. Because if the magic of the Narrow Sea had been damaged somehow, they’d be sailing back through it soon enough.
* * *
Kit gathered her officers in their mess when the watch bells were rung. Because she wasn’t sure if he understood the bells or the watch, she rapped her knuckles on the door of Grant’s cabin.
It opened immediately, Grant all but filling the doorway, broad shoulders down to booted calves. He hadn’t shaved, or perhaps didn’t plan to on a bobbing ship, so dark stubble traced the long line of his jaw. He wore black today, tailcoat and trousers, in sharp and elegant lines that Kit thought should have looked strange stretched across muscle, but instead looked regal.
“Captain,” he said, gaze flat.
“Colonel. We’ll be meeting in the officers’ mess to plan the approach and rescue operation.”
Those eyes flashed with temper. “I will be commanding the land operation.”
She’d been considering an apology for failing to warn him about her magic. But his entirely Beau Monde tone had her rejecting that idea outright. “As my crew will be undertaking that operation, we will share that command.”
“The lives of your crew are not the only lives at stake.”
There was fury in her gaze. “I am well aware of the import of this mission. But this crew embarks on no operation that does not meet my approval.”
“Then we’ll have to hope you’re sensible enough to approve it.”
She’d nearly bared her teeth at him, when there was a polite throat clearing from the corridor beyond. “Captain,” said Jin’s voice.
She turned to find him in the companionway, perched on the ladder while waiting, Kit assumed, for her and Grant to come to fisticuffs.
“The officers’ mess,” Kit said to Grant. He closed the cabin door behind him with a snap, slid past her through the hallway, anger radiating like heat.
“I’m glad to see you’re finally getting along,” Jin said dryly, hopping down into the corridor.
Kit just growled. “Wind?” she asked, assuming he’d already spoken with Tamlin.
“Unworried,” he said. “The sea?”
“The same,” she said. “It will not fail us today.”
Jin smiled with obvious relief. “Excellent. So it’s only pirates to worry about then.”
“And aristocrats,” Kit added.
Cook’s head popped out from the galley, hair damp from steam and heat. “Could use a good bit of class warfare now and again. It thins the humors.”
“On that note,” Jin said, offering his hand, “shall we away to the mess?”
“Let’s,” Kit said, and let him escort her down the corridor.
* * *
The staff assembled, Simon placed documents on the mess table, topped them with a map of the island. It was a wide smudge of green and brown with a natural harbor on the southern end.
“Finistère,” he said. “The largest of the Rondel islands, and home to the famous fortress of the five pirate kings.”
“The Five,” Jin said, “about whom the songs are sung. ‘The Five of passions deep,’” he intoned, “‘who bear the strength of ten men.’”
“It’s a miserable tune,” Simon said. “But they’ve a fortress and island kingdom, so it must be true enough. There are cliffs nearly all the way around the island, with a few rocky harbors and inlets scattered here and there. It’s dangerous—shoals, sandbars, and, so they say, the remains of a thousand ships that failed to make it safely through. They call it the Côte Sauvage.”
“The savage coast,” Kit translated, and Simon nodded.
“Land flattens toward the harbor. The fortress itself is here,” he said, pointing at the crescent’s center curve. “The building fits into rock cliffs behind it. It was abandoned a century ago, and resettled by the Five.” He moved his finger into the harbor in front of the fortress, drew an arc. “The dock is here.”
“How many ships usually dock there?” Kit asked.
“Could be a hundred or a dozen, depending on who’s telling the tale. There’s a trade zone here,” Simon said, pointing to a spot on the eastern shore. “The island doesn’t produce anything, so they allow commerce along this side of the island. It’s the market for the entire archipelago.”
“Do they have treasure?” Phillips asked.
“Good lord, man,” Watson said, rolling her dark eyes. “Of course there’s bloody treasure. It’s a pirate fortress, aye?”
Phillips blushed.
“Watson’s right,” Simon said. He pulled off his spectacles, wiping away a smudge with a handkerchief he pulled from his jacket. “Any treasure there would be offered in homage to the Five—or taken by them. So if there’s gold, it’s in the fortress.”
Phillips grinned, young and more innocent than Kit could ever hope to be. “Perhaps we’ll find our charge and some treasure.”
“We have a singular mission,” Kit said firmly, and Phillips looked chagrined enough.
“If Dunwood’s identity has been discovered,” Grant said, ignoring the byplay, “he’d also be given to the Five. Would likely be in the fortress.”
“Most likely,” Simon said, replacing his glasses. “Mr. Chandler provided a sketch of the fortress’s interior,” he said, and placed it atop the map. The drawing showed three floors, inside a rectangle of stone with towers at each corner.
“Underground, first level, second level,” Simon said, pointing at each in turn. “The entry is here,” he said, pointing to the position. “I’m told there’s a courtyard inside, stairways leading up and down. Down is the dungeon.”
“Where Dunwood’s likely being held,” Kit said.
“Yes,” Simon agreed. “The entry level houses kitchen, armory, stables. Second floor houses the Five. So how do you get in?”
“That would be for me to determine,” Grant said. He moved closer to the maps, close enough that his body brushed hers.
Kit didn’t enjoy being pushed aside, physically or metaphorically, and had to clench her hands against the urge to push him back and away, and remind herself why they were here—and that her crew was watching.
“Your proposal?” she asked, voice cold. But she refused to step back, to concede her territory. So they stood, side by side and, Kit thought, pretending very hard to ignore the other.
He pointed at the island’s outer curve. “We anchor near here, climb up, and make our way across the island to the fortress.”
“The cliffs are fifty to sixty feet tall, rough stone,” Simon said. “Climbing would be difficult, and if you made it to the top, the island is largely flat with few trees. You’d have to walk across it, and you’d have virtually no cover.”
“It would also look suspicious,” Kit said dryly.
“Well, we can’t simply march in and demand their captive,” Jin said.
With smooth confidence that grated Kit’s nerves, Grant studied the map with quiet contemplat
ion. Then he pointed to the trade zone. “Here. We pretend to be traders.”
“We can’t sail into the free-trade zone,” Jin said. “They’d recognize the ship.”
“The Diana,” Grant agreed. “But there’s a smaller boat on deck, yes?”
“The jolly boat,” Kit said.
Grant nodded. “You could anchor offshore on the other side of the island, and we could use the jolly boat, load it with provisions, pretend to trade them. And if we offered to unload the provisions,” he said, shifting his gaze to Kit, “we could walk into the fortress.”
There was a challenge in his eyes, a dare for her to insult his plan—or come up with a better one. The look thoroughly rankled. As did the fact that she couldn’t think of one, because it wasn’t an entirely awful plan.
“We could take the tea,” she said quietly, and there were groans around her. The queen, perhaps acknowledging the canceled shore leave, had given them crates of her own blend.
“We’d have to wear disguises—perhaps clothes borrowed from the crew—and bluff our way into the fortress. But the Five will not simply allow us to stroll through the fortress to the dungeon and bring Dunwood out again.”
“We’ll have to fight our way through,” Grant said. “Or create a distraction.”
“The Diana’s appearance?” Jin offered. “We sail around the island, flags flying. That would certainly provoke a response.”
Kit made a vague sound, looked at the sketch of the fortress again. It wasn’t terribly detailed, and she didn’t like her crew bearing the risk of limited information. “I’ve got explosives.”
The officers went quiet, looked at Kit.
“Something my sister Jane created,” she explained. “We can use them if necessary, but I’d rather not have to rely on them. We’re attempting to remove Dunwood from danger, not make his situation more dangerous. We have to get into the dungeon,” she said, pointing to the sketch again. “How are the prisoners held?”
“From the size,” Simon said, “I’d presume individual cells. Probably barred or gated.”
