Fire & Frost

by Meljean Brook

  Tears swam in her eyes again, but this time she didn’t look away. She stared up at him. Yearning held her features absolutely still; her arms wrapped around her middle as if hugging herself tight.

  “I know you, Elizabeth. You. Not who someone wants you to be, but who you are.”

  She closed her eyes. The tears spilled over her cheeks and she shook her head. Still not trusting him.

  “I know you have no reason to believe me. I hid everything I was from you, and I never let you know me. But by the time we arrive in the Ivory Market, you’ll know who I am. We’ll go our separate ways.” The thickness in his throat roughened his voice. “But there will always be one friend you can go to, no matter your troubles. A friend who will always believe you. Who will always help you. That’s who I am.”

  She seemed to crumple. Standing stiff against the bulkhead one moment, in the next she buried her face in her hands, muffling a wounded cry. Her shoulders slumped. As if her knees had given out, she began to slide down the wall.

  And God help him, Caius broke every promise to himself. Lurching forward, he caught her before she hit the floor and gathered her against him, letting her sob into his chest. His eyes burning, he tried to soothe her, pressing kisses to the top of her head and murmuring a vow never to hurt her again.

  Elizabeth slowly quieted, but she didn’t leave his arms. Her cheek lay over his heart, her fingers softly curled beneath her chin, her gaze staring into nothing. Now and again another shudder wracked her body, and with each one, he held her tighter.

  But he had to let her go.

  The knock came too soon. Through the door, the porter called, “Five minutes to dinner, miss.”

  Raising his voice, Caius thanked the man. As the porter’s footsteps moved on to the next cabin, Elizabeth stirred in his embrace and lifted her head. Cupping her cheeks in his gloved hands, he looked down into her tear-ravaged face. Her eyes searched his, and he watched her wariness and uncertainty return—and the hope.

  “Go on, then,” he told her quietly.

  She answered with a slight nod, a tiny movement that was heaven against his palms. “What will you do?”

  His gaze fell to her softly trembling lips. But he wouldn’t kiss her. “I’ll keep watch above.”

  And try to prove himself the friend he’d said he was.

  ELIZABETH HAD NO appetite, but she knew from experience that it was best to eat when she could.

  As the only female passenger, she’d been placed at Captain Harker’s right hand. She must have been proving very dull company. Barely a word had passed her lips since she’d sat at the table, but the captain bore it well. He spoke with the men, and though she felt his gaze upon her from time to time, he didn’t attempt to drag her into the conversation.

  Elizabeth was grateful for it. A gruff man with a weathered face and long black beard, Harker had already shown himself to be a kind man, as well. When she’d arrived for dinner, he’d taken one glance at her, eyes still slightly red and swollen from crying, and carefully pulled her aside for a private word.

  She suspected that the crew had told him she’d been holding hands with Caius on deck and that he’d been in her cabin when the porter had come by, but the evidence of her tears must have alarmed him.

  Quietly, Harker had told her, “We are no strangers to shipboard romances on Kingfisher, Miss Dvorak. But I want to be sure this is of your choosing. One word from you, and I’ll make certain that you won’t see Mr. Trachter during the remainder of this voyage.”

  Her heart still overwhelmed by Caius’s declaration, the captain’s concern had almost started her crying again. So many years alone, and in one hour, two different men offered to protect her without asking for anything in return.

  Something her father should have done.

  But although she didn’t know whether to trust Caius, Elizabeth would take her chances with him. “Thank you, but you need not worry. I’ve known Mr. Trachter since I was young,” she’d explained. “And our reunion was…emotional. He had to impart unhappy news to me regarding a mutual acquaintance.”

  The captain had nodded. “If that is what upset you, then I hope the remainder of your voyage proves more pleasant. You can be certain of privacy aboard this vessel. And because sounds of love and sounds of distress can often be mistaken for each other, I’ll let my aviators know that you are not in need of rescue—so that you won’t be interrupted at a delicate time.”

  Her face had flamed at that, yet the good humor in his voice made Elizabeth laugh at herself, too. It was scandalous, but so different from the stories she usually created to hide her identity. She was having an illicit tryst aboard an airship. Or rather, Miss Dvorak was.

  With Caius Trachter.

  In her bed.

  At the thought of it, her cheeks had heated again, but not with embarrassment. Everything within her tightened when she imagined him there. In her bed. Caius—big and strong and rugged. When he’d kissed her, his unshaven jaw had scraped her chin. Leather gloves had covered his large hands, but when he’d tied her before, she’d felt the calluses on his palms against her wrists. She’d seen him bathe by the dim light of a candle when he thought she was asleep, watching from the dark as he lathered the coarse hair that shadowed his broad chest, her gaze following the water sluicing over ridges and planes of hard muscle.

  He might be gentle. But a man like Caius would always be a little rough.

  And she’d imagined being with him before. She’d imagined so many foolish things about him—at the sanctuary and after she’d fled.

  She had kept trying with him, despite every time he’d hurt her. Because Elizabeth had believed that he was just as wounded and alone as she had been. And as she’d grown older, she’d begun building so many fantasies around him. Some romantic, some not. But in all of them, he hadn’t hated her. She’d told herself that he was like the lion that had once roamed the sanctuary grounds before being moved to a preserve farther south, where the climate was more agreeable. She’d worked and walked near the lion before, always wary of the danger he posed. Yet he never attacked, watching her instead with his tail flicking, sometimes loping away as if irritated. But when he’d been caged for transport, he’d lashed out when anyone had drawn near, clawing through the bars. Not enraged by the person—enraged by the cage.

  She’d thought Caius was like that. And she’d imagined that one day he would come to her and say that he’d never despised her, that he’d lashed out because of his own cage, the indentured servitude.

  But then Elizabeth had wondered if she just wanted to believe it so much because she’d felt her own cage closing around her.

  She’d let herself continue to have those dreams, however, because aside from studying and the sanctuary, she’d had little else. When she’d finally run, she’d dreamed that if Caius caught up to her, he wouldn’t take her back to her father. That he’d just want her for himself, and they would run together.

  But although she’d imagined it, Elizabeth never let herself succumb to those dreams. And a good thing, too. Because he hadn’t let her go—and she would have been a fool, running straight into the arms of her captor.

  She couldn’t be a fool now, either. Even if the rough warmth of his lips still burned on hers. Even though his words still echoed in her ears, claiming that he was everything she’d imagined.

  I hated that you were everything I wanted and couldn’t have.

  If that was true…then Caius was wrong: she knew who he was, too. If it was true, she understood Caius better than he realized. If it was true, he could be someone that Elizabeth could run to instead of running from.

  If it was all true.

  She was so terrified that it wasn’t.

  That fear and doubt lodged in her throat, making every bite an effort to swallow. Then the apple tart arrived at the end of the meal, and she couldn’t eat at all.

  Elizabeth never forced herself to consume something she disliked anymore. Apples, duck, sweetbreads—all were foods her f
ather had insisted were her favorites and had regularly made her eat them…but it was her mother who had enjoyed their flavors. It was her mother who’d told her father that she’d grown up preferring the company of animals to human friends, and so when Elizabeth had complained of loneliness her father had insisted she didn’t need any companionship but what she found at the sanctuary.

  And Elizabeth had loved the sanctuary and studying to become a naturalist, just as her mother had been. But she’d wanted more.

  So without her father knowing, she’d taken the entrance exams to the scientific university in New Leiden—close enough to the sanctuary that she could visit regularly. She’d announced her intentions on her twentieth birthday, the day she reached her majority. Her father had demanded that she attend university in Manhattan City instead.

  Just as her mother had.

  Elizabeth might have gone to Manhattan City, if only to finally be away from his controlling influence. Except during their argument she’d begun to cry, and her distraught father had confessed how he and her mother hadn’t been able to conceive, so they’d created a duplicate—a daughter for them to love. That when Mary died giving birth, he’d known she’d been returned to him and that he’d been given a second chance. That Elizabeth was the same woman, and he believed that when she was twenty-five years of age, she would journey from Manhattan City and fall in love with him as her mother had.

  Elizabeth had known for many years that her mother’s death had broken something in him. She hadn’t realized how those broken pieces had warped in his mind and his heart, and how desperate he must have been to make himself believe it so deeply.

  But his belief was unmistakable—and unshakeable. He would attempt to make Elizabeth into her mother, in every way.

  Sheer horror had sent her fleeing.

  Five years later, it had brought her here. Elizabeth wished she could hate her father, but she pitied him. A brilliant man, driven to madness by grief. And despite everything, she loved him. She had far more happy memories of her father than bad—and although they’d had arguments and frustrations, never once had he given her reason to suspect he saw her as anything but a daughter.

  But in his madness, he did—and she didn’t know how to stop him now. He wouldn’t give up his search for her, and she had no protection, no power. Her only option was to run. And she was so tired of running, but there had to be an answer besides death.

  Perhaps by hiding so well he’d never find her. By concealing herself until there simply wasn’t an Elizabeth Jannsen anymore. She’d stop visiting menageries, attending to animals, and acting in any way that might draw attention to herself. Whatever crumbs of her identity that had allowed Caius to follow her around the world needed to be destroyed. She’d toss away everything she’d worked toward and wanted, and erase every lingering connection to her conservationist roots.

  A fugitive, maybe Caius would want to run with her. She wouldn’t be alone, then. There was no one better to hide with than a hunter. And there was no one else who would still know who she was, who she’d been.

  There was no one else who had ever known.

  But those were just more foolish dreams. When her father caught up to Kingfisher, he and his hunters would come aboard. She’d have no chance to hide. And Caius would have few options, too, except to lash out at the man who would cage them.

  She didn’t want anyone to die—and she wanted to remain Elizabeth. The very thought of losing herself made her heart seem to wither, and despite what her father had become, the thought of losing him this way made her want to cry. But she just didn’t see a solution that would allow her to have both.

  Movement near her elbow pulled Elizabeth out of her desperate search for an answer. The chief mate had entered the cabin and was speaking quietly into the captain’s ear. Harker sighed and nodded, the tip of his beard brushing the buckle that fastened his jacket over his stomach. On his order, a cabin attendant began closing the shutters over the portholes. The conversation around the table lulled as everyone looked to the captain.

  “It appears that we have caught the attention of pirates,” he said, and when a murmur of alarm rose around the table, he held up his hand. “We are taking precautions, but I promise you there is little reason for concern. This happens with unfortunate regularity. The pirates know that the fare to the Market is a steep one, and they assume we are carrying someone worth taking for ransom. But in ten years, not a single pirate has been successful in boarding Kingfisher. They won’t be tonight, either.”

  Not pirates, Elizabeth realized. They’d mistaken her father’s airship for a marauder’s.

  She supposed there wasn’t much difference—and the captain’s confidence was reassuring.

  “They are probably relying on the snow to cover their approach, but the storm offers us the advantage,” he continued. “Without lights to follow us by, they won’t be able to track our heading. At this moment, my men are shuttering all portholes on the ship. I ask that when you return to your cabins, you keep those shutters closed, particularly if you spark your lamps. By morning, we will be far beyond the pirates’ sight and their reach.”

  Hope lifted through Elizabeth’s heart. Perhaps it would be that simple.

  But it rarely was. And even if they did escape her father’s pursuit tonight, he would still come after her. When she reached the Ivory Market, Elizabeth would have to give up everything that she was and hide as best she could.

  She felt the captain’s gaze on her again through the remaining minutes of their meal. Finally the glasses of spirits were poured—traditionally a male indulgence, and one that gave her an excuse to leave. As she rose and said her goodnights, Harker stood with her, offering his arm.

  “Allow me to escort you to your cabin, Miss Dvorak.”

  It was only a few doors along the same deck, but she couldn’t refuse. Elizabeth nodded and took his elbow.

  In the passageway, he said, “Your man didn’t come to dinner. Instead he remained on deck and was the one who alerted my crew.”

  Caius had? She’d assumed that one of the aviators had spotted the lanterns. But she couldn’t feign ignorance. “Yes, sir.”

  “If you’ll forgive me, it’s a bludging snowy mess out there,” he said bluntly. “My chief mate tells me that if Mr. Trachter hadn’t pointed out the airship, no one could have possibly spotted it…unless he already knew it was there.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said softly.

  “Are they pirates, Miss Dvorak?”

  “No, sir.” As they stopped at her cabin door, she turned to look up at him. “It’s my father.”

  His gaze thoughtful, Harker nodded as if he’d already suspected that answer. “And is your life in danger? Or that young man’s?”

  “Are you asking because you might have to decide whether to hand me over?”

  “In the unlikely event that we do not lose them in the storm…yes.”

  Because his men might have to fight her father’s men if they didn’t. Not just gruff and kind, but pragmatic. A runaway daughter wasn’t worth the lives of his aviators.

  Though her chest hurt, Elizabeth tried to be just as pragmatic. “He doesn’t mean to kill us, Captain. Just to return us home.”

  “Would it make any difference if you were married first?”

  Married? Elizabeth frowned, then realized—the captain thought that was the reason her father was following them. That he had forbidden her and Caius from being together.

  Now the captain was offering to perform the ceremony. Another kindness, but it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “No, sir. Mr. Trachter broke his indentured contract.” And an indentured servant could marry whomever he wished, but a fugitive’s marriage could be quickly annulled. “So my father’s hunters would come aboard and take me, regardless.”

  “Then I ask you again, Miss Dvorak.” Harker’s gaze was hard and direct. “Should I hand you over?”

  Her stomach in knots, Elizabeth struggled to find a response. But it wasn
’t her decision; it wasn’t her life at stake.

  Perhaps the truth was the only possible response, then. His crew would be in danger if they fought her father. If the captain was trying to decide whether she was worth dying for, then Elizabeth could at least tell him why.

  “My father is…not well. I look very much like my late mother. Exactly like her. So he imagines that I am her and wants me to take her place.”

  A dark frown furrowed his brow. “That’s unnatural.”

  Elizabeth stopped her automatic denial. All her life, she’d heard that word used to denigrate anything someone didn’t understand—particularly Horde technology. Unnatural was why her father had to keep a wondrous and helpful device secret. Unnatural was why Caius couldn’t return to the city where he was born without special papers. Many people would say Elizabeth was unnatural if they knew the truth of her birth. But a couple creating a daughter that they couldn’t conceive on their own wasn’t unnatural. It was wonderful.

  What her father had done was unnatural, though. Grief had twisted his thinking, and it had never untwisted.

  “Yes,” she said. “And I am sorry, Captain. I didn’t know he would follow me so quickly and endanger your ship.”

  His frown smoothed away, leaving an amused gleam in his eyes. “We’re not in danger yet. A man doesn’t fly as long as I have without learning how to disappear in a snowstorm—and this wily old fox knows a few tricks.”

  THEY’D EXTINGUISHED THE lanterns on deck. Bundled tightly in her coat, Elizabeth climbed up the ladder and into the rushing dark. The wind snapped at her scarf and whipped tears from her eyes. She stopped at the edge of the companionway near the middle of the ship, waiting for her vision to adjust.

  Engine huffing and rattling, Kingfisher hurtled through the night and the falling snow. Somewhere above, a full moon was shining. Only faint light penetrated the thick clouds, but after a few seconds she recognized the shape of the pilot’s wheelhouse and the framework of pipes warming the balloon overhead. Looking for Caius, she searched the deck for upright figures. Supporting timbers stood at intervals from bow to stern. Equipment lashed to the posts gave them irregular outlines, making it difficult to distinguish between the timbers and the aviators.