“Let me tell you what it is before you agree,” Charlotte cautioned. “It might be too much.”
“Nothing you ask of me will ever be too much.”
36.
DAWN HAD BARELY kissed the horizon when Charlotte, Jack, and Grave walked to the far edge of the Quay.
Jack leaned close to Charlotte and said in a low voice, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” she said. “And as I’ve told you before, you don’t need to be here.”
“And as I’ve told you before, I’m not letting you do this without me,” Jack said.
Despite her forceful demeanor, Charlotte was relieved to hear him say it again. By the time the sun shone its full light on New Orleans, Charlotte and Jack would be aboard the Perseus, sailing into a new life. And this unpleasant, but necessary task would be behind them.
New Orleans’s stockade had been erected in the Quay long ago, and no one could quite recall why that decision had been made. Obviously none of the quadrants fancied the idea of playing host to a prison, but mostly the city’s residents joked that the location of the stockade guaranteed a short trip for the criminal element of the Quay to their cells. Like most of the structures in this part of the city, the stockade was dank. The guards posted on duty looked miserable and showed no interest in their work, which Charlotte was pleased to note, considering her aims.
The guards did straighten up when Jack presented his credentials. The younger Winter had become the source of grand tales, outlandish rumors, and wide-ranging speculation. Not only was he related to the blackguard Coe Winter, may he forever rot in Hades, but he had also shot down the most enemy aircraft during the siege of New Orleans only to undertake a secret rescue mission to the Floating City immediately thereafter.
Because of this, Jack’s name could be very useful. As it was now.
“There are times you need to look a traitor in the eye,” Jack was saying to the enraptured guards. “When I stare into my brother’s face, I see the dark shadow of what I might have become.”
One of the guards shivered.
“You’re a good man, Lieutenant Winter,” the other guard said. “A good man.”
Once that rapport had been established, Jack had no trouble getting the guards to unlock Coe’s cell for an unscheduled brotherly visit.
Coe sat on a pile of moldy straw. Heavy irons circled his wrists, chaining him to wall. His skin was sickly pale, and his cheeks hollowed. He didn’t look up as they entered, but when Jack pulled the door shut with a clang, Coe lifted his head. When he recognized his visitors, his eyes brightened for a moment, but just as quickly, he slumped against the wall in resignation.
Jack kept watch at the door while Grave and Charlotte approached the prisoner.
“Come to see justice done?” His laugh was a croak.
“You could say that,” Charlotte replied.
Coe’s gaze moved to Grave. In the darkness, the boy’s pale amber eyes took on an unearthly gleam.
“Will you tear me open as I had done to you?” Coe asked. “I suppose that’s only fair. Though I’d much prefer it if you’d just break my neck.”
“I promised to spare your life,” Charlotte said. “And I’m going to keep my word.”
Coe put on a rueful smile. “Do you think this is a way to torture me?”
“I have no interest in your torment,” she said. “I’m here to clear my conscience.”
Coe stared at her. He leaned forward as he grasped that she meant her words.
“Why would you free me?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“They’ll want you swinging from the Hanging Tree when they find me gone,” Coe told her, shaking his head. “You’ll be the traitor who dies in my stead.”
“I’m no traitor.” Charlotte nodded to Grave, who went forward and began to break the iron bonds. “Too much blood has been spilled. Nothing would be enough to slake the thirst of this beast of a war. No matter how many voices clamor to the contrary, your death would mean nothing. Sparing your life does. As I said, I’m keeping my word.”
Coe stared at Grave and Charlotte in disbelief even as he rubbed his chafed wrists.
Charlotte had acted according to her conscience. Later that day Grave would deliver a letter to her mother in which Charlotte explained her actions and made it clear that Grave acted only according to her wishes; he was not to blame for Coe’s escape.
Grave went to the back of the cell, where a single barred window sat high in the wall. He reached up and grabbed the bars. With one hard tug, the iron bars and their frame came free from the wall.
Coe scrambled to his feet. He approached the gateway to his freedom warily and looked up at the window, then back at Charlotte. “It’s too high.”
“Grave will help you.”
Coe turned to Grave, who nodded.
Coe passed a hand over his eyes, as if trying to wake from a dream. But when he blinked at the dim interior of the cell, nothing had changed. “Why don’t you hate me?” he asked Grave.
“Hate has no purpose,” Grave said simply. Then he cupped his hands, so he could boost the prisoner up.
“I should thank you,” Coe said to Charlotte.
She didn’t answer.
He put one foot into Grave’s hands. Grave easily lifted him to the opening in the wall. Without a backward glance, Coe wriggled through the window and was gone.
Grave returned to Charlotte’s side, frowning in the way he always did when he was worried about her. “It’s done. Are you all right?”
“Yes, Grave.” She smiled at him. “Everything is all right.”
Epilogue
CHARLOTTE LEANED AGAINST the rail, gazing at the lush jade forests of the coast. They would take the small boats ashore in an hour, more or less. Pirate time, Charlotte had learned, was an approximation. She quite liked that. Whenever they happened to get around to dragging the boats onto the beach, Charlotte would be introduced to yet another new place and quite possibly new people who would broaden her understanding of the world. Every small piece of that infinite puzzle was a gift.
“Daydreaming again?” Jack stood behind Charlotte, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her shoulder. “Don’t let the captain see you lazing about. He’ll make you swab the deck.”
“You do realize that you’re the only person Lachance ever makes swab the deck,” Charlotte replied.
“That can’t be true.”
“It is.”
“Charlotte, Jack!” Linnet waved to them from the fore of the ship. “Stop lazing about and come help me ready the boats!”
“I told you so,” Jack said to Charlotte.
“That is Linnet, not the captain,” Charlotte said. “And readying the boats is not swabbing the deck.”
“Unimportant details.” Jack waved a dismissive hand.
Though she had yet to develop sea legs, Charlotte had decided she preferred the buffeting of the waves to that of the winds in the sky. She wouldn’t have minded at all if she never again set foot in an aircraft. Breezes full of salt and sea never failed to enliven her senses, prompting dreams of adventure, of all that was possible. Endless blue in ever-changing shades. Infinite mystery. Boundless joy.
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The Turncoat's Gambit Page 24
