Brightly Burning

by Alexa Donne

  “He’s not crazy,” I mumbled, though my heart wasn’t quite in it. I was distracted by a leaden feeling in my stomach and the view of Bianca leaning into Hugo’s shoulder, whispering something in his ear that made him laugh.

  It was the last of a bitter cocktail I needed to swallow. This wasn’t a normal visiting party. It was a courtship ritual. Bianca and Hugo were intended for each other.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I fled the drawing room with the same lack of fanfare as when I had arrived, making excuses to Lizzy and slipping silently out into the hall. I sought out the stars, craving their communion in my despair. I went right to the bridge, not only the best spot for a panoramic view of the stars but also one that I knew would be empty at this time of night. Xiao had long since gone to bed, and none of our guests would dare intrude on their hosts’ command center. I made my way through it, past the outer ring that housed Orion’s comms station, into the darkness, led by the light, until there was just the captain’s chair and a bank of tab controls between me and the view beyond. I sat in the chair, in his chair, which offered a perfect viewpoint through the expanse of windows. And I said something akin to a prayer. A plea.

  “Please don’t let it be true.”

  But I knew in my heart that it was. That soon I would lose the only place I’d ever truly felt happy, welcome, and wanted. I couldn’t possibly stay here, not once Hugo and Bianca were married. I said it out loud to make it true. “I will leave when Hugo and Bianca are married.” The words turned to ashes in my mouth.

  And then I did something I hadn’t done in a long while. I talked to my parents.

  That’s how Hugo found me, prattling away at triple-paned glass like a madwoman. “Stella, is that you?” I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of it, cursing under my breath. “Wait, are you in my chair?” I jumped again, this time up and onto my feet. And there he was, Hugo in all his glory—​tall, broad shoulders, furrowed brow—​shadows and lines that made me want to draw him. An expression that made me melt.

  “I looked up and you were gone. I wanted to talk to you. Say a proper hello.”

  The evening’s earlier humiliation came rushing back. He ignored me in front of company and was talking to me only now, when no one could see. “Why would you want to talk to the lowly governess?” I replied with more petulance than I intended. Hugo laughed.

  “Oh, Bianca is an idiot. Don’t mind her.”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Bianca?”

  “No, of course not.” He frowned. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m fine,” I attempted breezily, but it came out tight. “I have your book, by the way. I would have returned it to the study, but unfortunately I found once you’d left that it was locked.”

  Hugo’s eyes searched my face, which I kept steady in challenge. “Of course. I’ll collect it from you promptly.” All softness and humor had left him.

  “Thank you. I should be going to bed. It’s far past my bedtime.” I swept past him and immediately regretted my coldness, but as I turned back to apologize, I stumbled right into Bianca Ingram. She jumped back from me like I was a demon, shrieking that I should watch where I was going. Then she turned to sweetness and light as Hugo came up behind me. He ignored me and beamed at her, piercing my heart in two.

  “Hugo, darling, you must walk me to my quarters. A girl could get lost in this place,” Bianca trilled. He obliged, offering her an arm so that they might stroll to their destination linked. We walked in near unison, me five steps ahead of the couple until they tapered off at what I assumed was Bianca’s door. I was happy to lose them.

  I slowed to a stop in front of Hugo’s old door, dwelling briefly on that night just a few weeks ago. The fire, the panic, Hugo leaning sweaty against me, half naked. I lingered too long, snapped out of my reverie by a giggle and a voice that was gratingly familiar.

  “Come on, Hugo! I want to see where you sleep.”

  I hurried to my door, making it just in time before Bianca and Hugo came around the bend. They passed me, because of course Hugo’s old room was out of commission until they replaced the window and salvaged the room. But then they stopped just one door down, on the other side of me.

  “Your room is next to the governess’s?” Bianca said. I shared her surprise. I hadn’t realized Hugo was still my neighbor. “How gauche.”

  Finally, I opened my door, stepped inside, and promptly shut it behind me so I wouldn’t have to hear their courtship go on. A stampede of emotion bubbled up from inside me with nowhere to go, so I settled for penning a quick message to George before I went to bed.

  Dear George,

  If I’ve done the math right, today should be your eighteenth birthday. I can’t believe I’m not there with you to celebrate. We had plans! I hope you’re off somewhere doing something insanely fun, which is maybe why I haven’t heard from you in a while.

  I finally saw that nun musical you told me about, and you were right—​I really loved it. So did Jessa. You should have told me the captain was so handsome. I would have watched it sooner. Stop making whatever grossed-out face you’re making right now.

  Things here are . . . different. I don’t know why I thought things would stay the same way forever, but I guess I did. Now we have this group of people here from the private ship Ingram, and they’re pretentious, rich jerks that I have to tiptoe around. It’s like the Empire, except this time I’m an employee, so I really can’t mouth off. George, you would hate all of them. There is one funny thing—​do you remember a girl from the Empire named Preity Khan? She works for the Ingram and says she remembers you. Said you were obnoxious, so I knew it was true. Kidding.

  I wish you were here. Things are changing quickly, and I have no one to talk to.

  Love,

  Stella

  My pupil yawned through most of her lessons the following day, her mood as sour as mine.

  “He didn’t even bring me a present,” Jessa complained, abandoning a difficult math set. “Hugo always brings me something, but he was too distracted by those stupid ladies.”

  “I’m sure he has something for you,” I reassured her, despite my doubts. Hugo had returned to this ship with the singular purpose of marrying Bianca, so I didn’t trust him to remember gifts. “We’ll see what happens tonight in the drawing room.” We both made faces. I’d received the order shortly after breakfast that we were to return for another evening of humiliation and boredom.

  My comms pinged with an incoming hail from Officer Xiao. “Stella, I’m sorry to bother you during lessons, but please find a sensible stopping point and come see me on the bridge.” Her tone lacked her usual underpinnings of warmth. I must have been in trouble for mouthing off to Hugo. I found a grim-faced Xiao waiting for me, but what set my heart pumping and anxiety creeping up my spine was another look I knew well: pity.

  “Stella, I’ll need you to go to your quarters and pack up your things.”

  My breakfast threatened to return up my throat, but I pushed it down, maintaining a stoic expression as best I could.

  “You’ll be moving down into the crew quarters with the Ingram staff temporarily.” Xiao flashed me an uncomfortable smile. “For the duration of their stay, that is.” Did she know the “duration of their stay” was likely to be forever? I couldn’t read her.

  “May I ask why?” I needed to know if I was being punished for my insolence with Hugo.

  Xiao hesitated. “Two of the Ingram cousins were doubling up, and when it came to Miss Bianca Ingram’s attention that you had a room right next to the captain’s . . . she suggested she move into your room so that her cousins might be made more comfortable.”

  Bianca. Of course.

  “I’ll meet you at your quarters in twenty minutes to help you move,” Xiao said, dismissing me. I didn’t understand what she would possibly need to help me with until I took inventory of my belongings. When I’d come to the Rochester, I’d been able to fit all my worldly possessions i
nto a single bag. Now as I extracted the contents of my storage unit and my clothing drawer and surveyed them on my bed, I realized I owned far more than I could carry.

  Xiao was prompt, and without a word folded several dresses over one arm and took up two pairs of shoes with her free hands. I grabbed the remaining clothes, Hugo’s Jungle Book, and my drawing tab. I cast a longing look at my desk tab, which was fixed and could not be moved.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll have Rori add a profile lock to it so the next occupant can’t root around in your files. I’ll set it up so you can check for messages on the bridge in the meantime.”

  We moved down to the crew quarters on the lower deck without talking, Xiao respecting my need for the head space to process it all. For my part, I was concerned if I tried to talk, I might cry. I felt stupid, vain at the thought of it—​crying over having to share a room again—​but it was more the why than the what that affected me. Someone with everything had gone out of her way to take the one space that was mine. Bianca was putting me in my place, and a bitterness swelled up inside me that I was determined would not spill out as tears.

  “Stella, what are you doing here?” Preity jumped down from her bunk to greet us. At least I wouldn’t be sharing with strangers.

  “Miss Ainsley will be sharing space with you until the conclusion of your visit,” Xiao informed her, taking it upon herself to locate an unoccupied locker and transferring my clothes into it. After that, she didn’t stay, bidding me farewell with a terse nod of her head, her feelings on the situation once again unspoken yet abundantly clear. She did not like this any more than I did.

  Once she was gone, Preity pounced. “It was Bianca, wasn’t it?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Lizzy said she was all in a huff over it this morning, how you had such a nice room, and next to the captain’s, no less. It doesn’t surprise me one bit she schemed to get you out of there. Anyway, I’m sorry you have to slum it down here with us.”

  “This is hardly slumming it,” I said, determined to remain good-natured and not to put myself on wrong footing with my new roommate by acting like I was above this, or her. “They’re the nicest bunk quarters I’ve ever seen.”

  “You and me both,” Preity said. “You can go on the other top bunk.” She pointed to the one opposite hers, which seemed to be operating as a second closet, clothes strewn all over it. “Just move that stuff. Lizzy’s been using it as storage.” Knowing it wouldn’t earn me a friend later, I did so, transferring Lizzy’s things to her bed below, tucking my drawing tab under the pillow.

  I excused myself to get back to lessons with Jessa, though not before Preity invited me to hang out with the Ingram crew later that evening. It seemed now that I had been demoted in my quarters, I might be accepted by the group. A silver lining. I warned her I might not make it that evening on account of being ordered to the drawing room again, which drew me a look of pity and words of luck from her. I would need it.

  Jessa was even more reluctant to wear a dress that evening, though eventually I cajoled her into a blue frock, to which she agreed only on the condition that she could wear pants underneath it. I chose my battles and managed to bring a presentable ten-year-old along with me to the drawing room earlier than the night before. The mood was more subdued, either because of the earlier hour or because several people were still hungover from the night before.

  Hugo’s happiness at seeing his sister seemed genuine this time, which indicated he was likely sober. And he almost fully redeemed himself by pulling a wrapped package from the recesses of his chair, presenting it to Jessa with a flourish.

  “Consider this both a sorry-I-left present and a gift for your impending eleventh birthday,” he said as Jessa ripped into the brown packing paper to reveal a slick new tab unit and stylus. Jessa cottoned onto it as soon as I did.

  “Is this a drawing tab?” she asked breathlessly, looking back to me with a grin. “Just like Stella’s!”

  “Yes,” Hugo replied. “I stopped by the Nikkei and got you one. And after you get the hang of things, send me your favorites, and I know a printer who will put them on canvas.”

  I allowed myself to observe the rest of the company besides Hugo. I found Bianca with a smile plastered upon her face, but it was obvious she thought the display something of a bore. Indeed, she wrested focus back onto herself by asking Hugo a question about some story for which I had zero context, and I took this as my cue to move with Jessa to the back of the room.

  We powered on her new drawing tab, and I showed her the basics, from all the different drawing tools she could employ to how to pull up the tablet’s built-in photo-reference aid. This model was much newer than mine, so I found more bells and whistles that I was eager to explore, but I resolved not to snatch it away like a toy from a child. Like a grownup.

  Xiao came to collect Jessa not even an hour later, much to my surprise and consternation. “Oh, I can put her to bed,” I assured her, but she waved me off.

  “Captain’s orders. He wants you here.” Xiao took Jessa by the hand and left me to fume. Jessa’s bedtime had been my out, but instead Hugo was tethering me to the drawing room for some reason. Ritualistic torture, I was sure.

  The party moved around the table tab to play a game, while I sat in the shadows, plotting how I might escape. I needed a sound excuse, or else Hugo would just hail me on comms again, ordering me back. So preoccupied was I in my scheming that I lost sight of Hugo, allowing him to take me completely by surprise.

  “I have a present for you, too,” he said, sitting next to me, leaning close, his voice low and conspiratorial. I sat straight-backed and stiff, just inclining my head to acknowledge him. He handed over a rectangular wrapped package. I tried tucking it away to open later, but Hugo would have none of it. At his urging, I peeled back the paper to reveal a new drawing tab, identical to the one he’d given Jessa. It stole the breath from my lungs.

  “This is too much,” I said, forgetting myself and turning full on to face him. He looked to me eagerly, biting his lower lip. “How much did this cost you?” I asked, turning the tab over in my hands, my heart swelling two sizes.

  “Don’t worry about it. I saw it and knew I had to get you one. Now you and Jessa can draw together.”

  It was like he’d taken a pin to me, deflating me back down to size. Matching gifts for me and his sister. I was like a sister to him. It was all clear now. I smiled, thanking him genuinely, if a bit sadly.

  “You should draw our guests,” he suggested, pointing to Captain Ingram, again in his ridiculous naval attire, then to Lucy and Bianca. “Put your time in here to good use.”

  “Why do you want me in here? I’m not contributing anything. No one speaks to me.”

  “Frex them. You’re here for me. I missed our evenings together.”

  “I would be more comfortable elsewhere,” I insisted. “With Jessa, or the other junior crew. I don’t belong here.”

  “I happen to disagree.” Hugo remained stubborn. “I want you here every evening, for at least two hours. There’s an hour left tonight.”

  “Fine,” I said, acquiescing, pretending it wasn’t an order, “but only if you agree to actually talk to me for at least a half-hour every night. And speaking at or about me doesn’t count.” It was my small piece, my line in the sand.

  “Agreed.” His gaze flicked away, over to the table tab, where the Ingram family was playing a game, catching on Bianca, who beckoned him back over with a measure of haughty aggression. But Hugo waved her off and turned back to me. “Then I should start with an apology about your room demotion.”

  My heart sped up. “It’s okay. Not a big deal,” I said.

  “No, it is a big deal,” Hugo insisted. “I want you to know that I had no idea. I was still asleep when Bianca and her father strong-armed Officer Xiao.” Translation: he’d been hungover. “If I’d been awake, I might have stopped it. I still could. Say the word, and I’ll change it back.”

  Why did he have to
put this on me? There was no scenario in which I could assert myself and come out the winner. “No, really, it’s fine. I hadn’t realized two of the cousins were doubling up, and that room is bigger than I could ever need. Please don’t make a fuss over me.”

  Hugo locked gazes with me, his searching, skeptical, while I kept mine neutral, resolute. I would not have him upsetting the social balance in my name, painting an even worse target on my back.

  “As you wish, then,” Hugo finally said. “Listen, about Bianca . . .”

  We both looked over to her as he trailed off. Engrossed in the game, she looked unusually harmless and especially beautiful. When she wasn’t snapping her fingers at Hugo or sneering at me, she was lovely. I looked at him looking at her, wincing when he smiled to himself.

  “We go way back,” Hugo continued. “The Ingrams are my family’s oldest friends, and the only ones who kept in touch after . . . well. I know they’re a bit much, and far more hierarchical than the Rochester is. But Bianca’s not half bad, when you get to know her.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” I offered weakly, unsure what Hugo wanted me to say. I wasn’t about to become friends with her. I felt stupid that I’d entertained feelings for him, even though he’d been flirting with me, when he so clearly wanted someone like her.

  Hugo sensed the topic’s end. “We have twenty-five minutes left,” he said. “What else do you wish to talk about?”

  “Tell me about the Nikkei,” I said, desperate to dwell on subjects that didn’t make my cheeks burn and tears threaten to come. “I’ve heard it spoken about, but never in great detail. I had to leave the Stalwart before my supervisor returned from his trip, or I would have grilled him.”