by Chloe Neill
There was movement behind them as guards and inhabitants rushed to the scene of the explosion, and those closer to the blast began to moan.
“Downstairs,” she said, and pulled her sabre again. “Go.”
This time, Grant didn’t hesitate.
They took the spiral stone staircase, narrow, steep, and dark but for the flickering light of hanging torches, and descended. The scenery didn’t improve, and Kit was glad when they spilled into a corridor. The dungeon split off in three different directions, and there were barred cells visible in all of them. The central corridor showed damage from the sparker—a hole in the ceiling and a pile of rocks on the floor, smoke slipping through the gap in a thin wisp. But it was still passable.
They’d have to split up. Kit didn’t like it, but if they had any chance of finding Dunwood before the pirates realized where they’d gone—and found them—they’d have to be fast.
“Sampson, take a torch, go to the left. If you find him, signal us. If worse comes, get him out. Don’t worry about or wait for us. Understood?”
Sampson looked down at her from his height, acknowledged the order with a grim nod.
She squeezed his arm, met his gaze. “We’re all going to make it. I’m just telling you not to wait for us. We can get off the island separately, if that’s what we need. But we will all make it off.”
His hope apparently renewed, Sampson pulled a torch from the wall and set off down the left-hand corridor.
Grant was pulling another torch from the wall when she glanced back and caught sight of the crimson stripe on his sleeve.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, and didn’t bother to ask before ripping away the sleeve, inspecting his biceps.
“It’s fine. And I liked that shirt, and you’re very presumptuous.”
“The shirt was ruined anyway. It’s not terribly deep,” Kit said, ignoring him, looking over the stripe that crossed taut skin and hard muscle, and working hard to ignore the latter, “but it’s big enough to bleed. It needs to be bandaged.”
“It’s fine,” he said again, tone harder now.
Kit lifted her gaze to his. “And maybe you’ll scar over quickly, or maybe you’ll keep bleeding and lead a trail for the Five to follow. As you’ve proclaimed yourself the leader of this mission, which risk do you prefer?”
He growled, but ripped away the rest of his sleeve, handed it to her. She wrapped it around the wound twice, knotted it tight.
“That will hold until we’re back.” She glanced up at him, thought he didn’t look much like a member of the Beau Monde now, with hair tousled and falling across his brow. “You don’t fight like a viscount.”
“I wasn’t a viscount when I learned how to fight,” Grant reminded her.
There were sounds behind them—shouts, footsteps. “Go,” he said as she pulled the third torch. “You go straight. I’ll go right.”
“I’ll tell you the same as I told Sampson—get out if you can.”
“Like you said, I don’t leave men behind.”
Kit smiled slyly. “I’m no man.”
* * *
Water dripped along the walls, and something—or somethings—skittered across the ground. The general smell of illness and rot permeated the air, and put a sick sense of dread in Kit’s belly. If Dunwood was down here, his condition was probably poor.
She ran through the corridor, passing a dozen gated cells. Many were empty—just stone and barred iron doors—although there was a scattering of prisoners, mostly men in various states of disrepair, who yelled as she walked by. Made offers. Asked for favors. She ignored their pleas. It may have been cold, but even if she’d had the urge to release a few dozen prisoners—which she did not—she didn’t have the time or the resources to deal with them.
Dunwood was her mission. None of the inhabitants fit his description, and she hoped Sampson and Grant were having better luck. Else the intelligence had been wrong, Dunwood wasn’t here, and they had no idea where he might be.
But then she reached the last cell, looked in.
A man lay on the floor, amid a scattering of rushes, the sweet smell of death even stronger here, and hope fell away like shattered glass.
“Dunwood,” she said quietly.
It took a moment, but his head lifted, and he turned blue eyes on her. “Well,” he said hoarsely. “Hullo, angel. Have you come to fetch me?”
“I have,” she said, hope rising. Kit gave a whistle to signal the others, tried to push up the iron bar that kept the door locked. But it was halfway to rusted, and wouldn’t budge.
Footsteps echoed down toward her, and she turned to face the corridor and whoever was charging toward them. And was actually relieved to see Grant.
“Sampson?”
Grant shook his head. “I’ve not seen him.” He glanced at Dunwood, the bar.
“I could use some help,” she said, and he stepped beside her.
“Crowbar,” he said, and pulled it from his belt. He wedged it under the cell’s bar, and pushed, grunting, until he’d broken through the rust and Kit could pull the bar from its brackets. She tossed it away, pulled open the door, and they rushed inside.
Kit dropped to her knees at Dunwood’s side, put a hand against his forehead. “He’s burning up. Illness?”
“Or could be this,” Grant said, opening the man’s shirt to reveal an ugly gash across his abdomen, the edges swollen and red. The sweet odor of rot lifted into the air.
“Just a scratch,” Dunwood said, reaching out for Grant’s hand with one of his own, and using the other to grip a token on a leather thong around his neck. “That you, Rian Grant?”
“It is, Marcus Dunwood. You’ve got yourself in a bit of a spot.”
“Minor inconvenience,” he said, and shifted his gaze to Kit, his eyes gleaming with interest. “And who might you be?”
“Your rescuer,” she said.
“And a lovely one at that,” he said with a wink.
“I see your infirmity hasn’t changed your proclivities,” Grant said.
“Oh, there’s nothin’ infirm about me,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“Given your current position,” Kit said, “we’ll politely disagree. But a poultice on that wound will fix you right up.” But she looked at Grant, let him see the concern in her eyes. Cook and March could work a poultice, but they couldn’t work a miracle.
“Typical,” Grant said, climbing to his feet. “Lying around so I’m forced to rescue you.”
Dunwood tried to snort, but managed only a weak cough. “Payback for all those times I saved you.”
Grant and Kit looked up as noise began to ring down the hall. Sampson came running. “Heard the signal, but got turned around. Here now.”
“We’re glad of it,” Kit said. “Meet Marcus Dunwood.”
“Sir,” Sampson said.
“No ‘sirs’ necessary, sailor. I’m just a soldier.”
“We need to get him out of here,” Grant said. “Tunnel should be to the right.”
“It is,” Dunwood said. “I can hear the waves when the tide’s high.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Grant said. “Follow me.”
This time, Kit willingly obeyed.
* * *
Grant half walked, half carried Dunwood through the wet and stinking corridor toward the ocean. Kit walked first, Sampson last, both with blades extended. She concentrated on what she hoped was the sound of water on the shore nearby, and not just her own heart, beating furiously with the hope they’d manage to get Dunwood safely aboard the Diana.
She pushed back that fear, pushed beyond it. They had no room for it. Not now.
They stayed ahead of their pursuers as they followed the tunnel, but only just. The sound of mad footsteps behind them kept growing louder, faster.
The tunnel grew rockier and s
teeper, as if it were no longer part of the building, but the island itself. A vessel between heart and lungs.
She heard a grunt, a shuffle behind her, looked back to find Dunwood gripping his side, his face white as a sail, knees bent as his body buckled.
Grant cursed, bent his knees, and picked up his comrade as tenderly as he might a child. He met Kit’s gaze, and she saw the struggle in his eyes. Not from the physical exertion, she thought, but the realization his friend needed to be carried.
Many layers to this man, she thought.
“Arms around my neck if you can manage it,” Grant said.
“Kanos’s balls,” Dunwood grunted through teeth clenched in pain, and managed one arm over Grant’s shoulder. “Carrying me like I’m a helpless child.”
Kanos was one of the old gods; he ruled the sea and the shorelines around it. Because of his fondness for women and aptitude for seduction, he was a favorite of soldiers and sailors.
“You weigh about as much,” Grant said, shouts behind them as they moved forward again. “You need beefsteak and red dover.”
“Don’t care for fish,” Dunwood said. “But aye, I’ll take a beefsteak, good and bloody, when we’re back in the Isles.”
“At the Seven Keys,” Grant said, naming one of New London’s posh and exclusive men’s clubs.
“Damned right.”
“Captain,” Sampson warned as the ground began to tremble.
“Faster now,” Kit urged, and shifted to move behind Grant. The battle wouldn’t happen in front of them, but behind. That’s where she needed to be.
The tunnel shifted, curved away, then forked.
“Light!” Grant said, and continued toward the right, disappeared from view. “There’s light up ahead. I can see water.”
The sea, their savior. “Go,” Kit said, “as fast as you can.”
Grant looked back at her, sweat on his brow. Considered arguing, but moved.
“Dunwood,” she said, a reminder of their mission. “Go.” Then waved everyone in front of her and followed them, gaze darting back as the noises grew louder.
The corridor grew brighter and brighter still, until Kit was squinting into brilliant sunlight. She emerged into sunlight and salt-scented air, the screaming jackgulls. The turquoise water was twenty feet beyond a bank of sand, of rock. And beyond that, the sails of the Diana waited, streaming toward the island.
She was, for a moment, modestly disappointed she hadn’t been able to deploy her weapons again, and was on the verge of putting her sabre away, when men began emerging from the dunes like crabs.
Pirates stepped out from the corridor, led by a man with sun-kissed golden skin and coal-black hair, deep brown eyes that watched her with curiosity. His features were elegant, as were his clothes. The pirates wore their dirty and mismatched linen, most in bare feet and necks bound with amulets. He wore buff trousers and a linen shirt white as the sugar-colored sand.
The pirates had bided their time, waited for them to reach the likely exit, and trapped them from all sides. Efficient and elegant, Kit thought.
She wished she’d thought of it first.
“Back-to-back,” Kit said, her heart beginning to thud in a new and different way now as Sampson moved to protect Grant and Dunwood.
She glanced back at the sea, and with relief found the jolly boat moving through the harbor toward their position. “Boat’s a hundred yards away.”
They had to get Dunwood to the boat, and then they had to get to the Diana.
“It would be best,” Kit murmured, as the apparent pirate king strode toward them, “if we can get the pirates together.”
She heard them shuffling behind her.
“So,” the man said. “You’re the ones who’ve destroyed my castle.”
“If you’re asking about the explosion, then yes. That was me. And you are?”
“Donal. And you?”
“Kit Brightling.”
Donal looked faintly amused by the response. “I suppose that would be Captain Brightling of the lovely little ship behind you?”
Kit had to work not to show the bolt of fear that ripped through her, fear for her crew. But this wasn’t the time to show weakness.
“As I’m facing you,” she said, “I couldn’t speak to what’s behind me.” And damn the fact that she wasn’t in the water now, couldn’t feel it moving. She took another step backward, nudging against Grant’s back. And was relieved by his solidity.
“Clever,” Donal said.
“Thank you. Where are the other four?”
“They have other priorities at the moment.” His gaze raked Kit from head to toe. “I won the coin toss.” He glanced at Dunwood. “It appears you’re taking something that belongs to me.”
“We’re taking the man you’ve imprisoned without cause.”
“I may be far removed from the Isles, my dearest captain, but I’m fairly confident spying is illegal.”
Kit ignored that. “How did you come to have him?”
“A special delivery,” he said with a smile.
More men gathered behind him, and he didn’t bother to spare them a glance. Just smiled serenely at Kit.
“I prefer to be keeping him for myself, as I’ve plans for his . . . disposition.”
“Yes, we saw the gun brig,” Kit surmised. “Where’s it from, Donal? Gallia? Frisia? Which country has paid the most for this particular treasure?”
“I’ve seen no flags of either of those countries,” Donal said.
“It’s near enough,” Grant whispered, and Kit presumed he meant the jolly boat.
“Well, this is very disappointing,” Kit said.
Donal’s brows lifted. “What is?”
“That I’d enjoy conversing with you more, learning how you and your colleagues operate your kingdom. But I’m going to have to ruin it again.”
His gaze narrowed as she took a step back, putting space between them. The pirates were still scattered, still holding their positions around the crew.
“Ready,” she whispered to her men, then looked at Donal. “Goodbye,” she said brightly, and threw the last sparker.
* * *
She’d aimed at the stone just above the tunnel, hoping the impact would throw out enough rocks to bring down most of the pirates.
It did, but sent her flying, too. She landed on her back in the sand ten feet from where she’d started, ears ringing and head spinning. She was going to need a nap. And possibly a good vomit.
She blinked at the sky until the voices resolved into shouts, the number of suns reduced to the requisite one. Then she climbed to her knees, looked back. What had been the opening to the tunnel was now a pile of rubble. Most of the pirates were on the sand, including Donal. Sampson was up, shaking his head. Grant was on his knees a few feet away, Dunwood still in his arms. And Watson and the boat were in the shallows now.
Dunwood opened one eye, looked around. “Now, that was a damn fine explosion.”
Kit blew out a breath, climbed to her feet, plucked her sabre from the sand a few feet away. Then she strode to Grant. His eyes looked clear now, which was a relief. She guarded his back while he climbed to his feet.
“Run,” she told him. “And get the boat moving toward the Diana.”
“We aren’t leaving you here.”
“You won’t have to, and that’s a promise,” she added when she saw doubt in his eyes. “I’ll be right behind you.” She held out her sword, making a wall of her body. And when a blade flashed to her right, she ducked, then spun, brought her sabre up and blocked the sword wielded by the pirate—a woman with sun-darkened skin and stringy yellow hair.
Metal sparked against metal, reflecting the blazing sun across the sand. They pushed off against each other, reset, came in again. The woman went high, bringing down her sword like a hammer. Kit stayed low, spun
on her heel, and brought up the sabre against the woman’s back, pushing her forward.
The woman stumbled, hit the ground.
Kit saw the shadow cross the sand, rolled forward just as the sword came down. It missed Kit, hit the woman across the chest. She screamed; the pirate who’d struck her grunted and pulled up his sword, flinging blood through the air as he moved for Kit again, apparently unconcerned about the sailor he’d nearly filleted.
“I’ve wondered about the loyalty of pirates,” she said casually, dodging the man’s overhead blows. He was big, but he was slow, and he signaled every move.
“Whether you’re loyal to your comrades,” she said, darting left, “or only to yourself.”
He grunted, and Kit feinted right, then slipped left again, putting the big man off balance. She took her chance, kicking him over. He hit the sand, his sword flying forward. She grabbed it, stabbed the sand between his legs, neatly catching the crotch of his trousers to pin him to the ground.
Not a permanent end, but good enough given the whistle that split the air—Watson’s earsplitting signal that it was time for her to follow. She pushed her sabre into her belt, turned toward the sea, and ran.
The boat was fifty feet out now. She pumped her arms and jumped into the surf, moving in a high-legged run through foaming water until it was deep enough.
And then she went under, diving into the waves, beneath them.
The human world disappeared, sounds swallowed by the soft murmur of water, the hard world traded for shifting green and white and yellow as light danced in the shallows. The surf was strong, but she could read her way through the rush of water against the shore, into the channels where the sea was smoother, slicker.
“It’s like you were born to the water,” Hetta had once said, when they’d determined the extent of Kit’s Alignment. “Maybe born in it, swimming like an earnest little fish.”
Kit believed it then, and she believed it now.
She swam toward the boat through water that deepened to a crystalline blue, until she saw the white belly of the jolly boat above her. Then she breached the surface, sucking air, slapped the boat twice. The oars stopped, and Watson appeared over the side, arm extended.
