He was still laughing uproariously when Marten shut the cabin door.
It was another day before Lucy woke. She was delirious, lost somewhere between dreams and reality. She cried out and wept, clutching herself close to Marten. He held her loosely against his chest, stroking her back lightly, trying not to aggravate her wounds. But even in her delirium, she was hungry. He fed her and she fell back asleep, her breathing easier than it had been.
When she woke again, she knew him.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
He didn’t mince the truth. “We’re on the Bramble ship.”
She caught her breath and said nothing for several minutes. At last she pulled away, struggling to sit up. Marten helped her, feeling her tremble and flinch from his light touch. When she spoke again, her voice was thin and uneven. Whether from the pain or from revulsion, he didn’t know.
“What happened?”
Marten hesitated. “I don’t know what you remember….”
She knotted her fingers together, frowning in concentration. Then memory seeped up from the parched ground of oblivion. Her mouth twisted and her hands clawed the blankets.
“He was going to—” She broke off, her neck working. “Sylveth!” she spat out at last.
“You burned him.” His voice inflected up in a question. How?
She snarled at the memory. “I did.” She licked her lips. “Then someone hit me. I don’t remember a whole lot after that.”
Marten didn’t press, but described the footmen throwing her into the basin with the sylveth spawn and then the explosion.
“They locked me up after that. For three days. You were in that box when I arrived on board. That was two, maybe three days ago.”
Lucy sat very still, her head bowed. Her shoulders were hunched. “Not everything the papers said about me were lies. I collect—collected—true ciphers. That night I met you, when you found me in the salvage warehouse and I seemed injured, I’d just located another. It attached.”
He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but this was most definitely not it. His mouth fell open like a Pale-blasted idiot. “What?”
She lifted her head. “I’ve been attached by a cipher. A true cipher. That’s how I started the fire in Salford Terrace. That’s how I burned your brother. I only wish he hadn’t been wearing knacker gear.”
Marten scratched absently at the thick bristles sprouting from his jaw. “It may not have helped him much. Captain Creasely said the rumors are that he’s dying. That the majicar healers couldn’t help him.”
“Good.”
“Exactly so.”
She glanced at him with raised brows.
“I was ready to gut him for what he did to you. But after hearing his confession to murdering my mother, after seeing what he was doing in that gods-cursed room—” His nostrils flared. “He can’t die slowly and painfully enough.”
It wasn’t long before Lucy fell asleep again. Soon after she began shivering, her teeth clacking together. Her fever continued to burn, and soon it was clear that her wounds had turned septic. She woke for longer periods, huddling in the blankets. She did not protest Marten’s touch, which worried him. Though she ate, her flesh seemed to melt away even as he watched. Her face lost its curves, turning almost skeletal. The bones of her arms and shoulders jutted through her skin, and holding her at night, Marten could count her ribs with his fingers. The fever and the infection were draining her and there was nothing he could do but watch and pray. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
Every time she woke, he pestered her to eat.
“You’re hardly eating enough to keep a rat alive,” she pointed out.
“Which is just fine, since I am a sewer rat, or so I’ve been told.”
“It’s not like it matters. I’m going to the Bramble. You’ll need your strength to deal with the Jutras. I’d just as soon die before Chance hits.”
Marten had no arguments, but adamantly continued to force food on her. She was too weak to refuse.
It was eight days into their voyage when another snip of memory returned to Lucy. She’d been in a restless sleep, Marten keeping watch at the foot of the bed. She woke suddenly. “By the gods! The Jutras! Sharpel is a Jutras spy!” she shouted shrilly.
“What?”
Marten opened a deadlight, letting a stream of bright sunshine into the cabin. Lucy was sitting up on the bed, clutching the blanket. For the first time he saw how frighteningly thin she’d really become. She had no curves left; her bones jutted through her skin in sharp angles. Lucy shivered at the draft from the open window and Marten went to the bed, gingerly slipping behind her, extending his legs on either side of hers and pulling her back against his chest. The stench of her putrefying wounds nearly made him gag, but he ignored it. She drew a jagged breath as the cloth of her shirt pulled away from her seeping scabs. But she settled back against him despite her obvious pain. She did not speak, going so still he wondered if she was still awake.
“What do you mean, Sharpel is a Jutras spy?” he asked when Lucy had been silent too long. He could feel her shallow breathing, but he’d begun to fear she’d drift off to sleep and never wake again. The agony of that thought was appalling.
“I have always been able to sense majick,” she said offhandedly. “I can feel spells. That’s how I found my collection of ciphers.” She lifted her left arm, turning it from side to side as if showing off a bracelet.
He went rigid with shock. “Are you saying…?”
“Mmmhmm. It’s still on my arm. If it wasn’t for the fact that it won’t come off, I’d think it was dead. I haven’t felt anything from it since that night.” She struggled suddenly to push herself up. “You shouldn’t be here with me. If it should wake up—you should go.”
He pulled her back gently, taking her hand in his and stroking her hair with the other. “We’re aboard ship. There’s no place to go, even if I wanted to. Tell me the rest.”
She sighed, whether from relief or pain, he couldn’t tell. “You should know the whole story, starting when I first met him. I was nine years old. I didn’t know who he was then.”
She spoke for more than an hour, at one point drifting off to sleep. Marten waited patiently for her to wake, his mind churning. Edgar would never collaborate with the Jutras. Marten was sure of that. But there was no comfort in that knowledge; Edgar had proven how truly evil he really was. Yet underneath Marten’s repulsion and fury was a child’s love and worship for a strong elder brother. He swore softly, waking Lucy. He eased out from under her, fetched water, and sat on the edge of the bed to help her sip. Her hair was crisp as straw beneath his fingers.
“He was blackmailing me. He must have been watching me since I was a child. He figured out I was collecting the ciphers and made me retrieve a crate from customs. He didn’t think I could break the protective spell sealing it up. Or he thought I’d figure it was just to protect the jewels in the box. But thanks to the cipher, I was able to unseal it and find the secret compartment with the contract. There were three copies of it. Two are still hidden.”
She stiffened, gripping his arm with weak fingers.
“Keros! I told him about the contract and where to find them. I left him a letter to take to Cousin William if anything happened to me!”
“Keros?” His voice nearly cracked with his surprise.
“Didn’t I tell you? He helped me.” She went on to fill in the holes in her story. But pain fractured her mind and she wound about over the same ground several times, unaware.
“I would not have expected it of him. You got under his skin,” he said when she trailed off.
She laughed softly. “Maybe. I thought it was guilt.”
Marten took her wasted hand in his and lifted it to his lips. “It wasn’t.”
She did not answer. But neither did she pull away.
Marten became aware they’d reached the Bramble long before Lucy did. He felt the ship slowing as the sails were taken in, leaving only the main c
ourse, the forecourse, and the standing jib to move the ship along. The breeze was fresh and following. Marten said nothing to Lucy, savoring the time he had left with her. But he couldn’t hide the slide of the anchor’s chain through the hawsehole or the whir of the capstan spinning.
“We’re here.” Her voice was empty and distant.
“Aye.”
Before she could say anything else, the key turned in the lock and the door was flung open. The mate filled the doorway.
“Out w’ ye, then. No tricks.” He shook the hilt of his cutlass. “Ye stay back, Thorpe.”
“She can’t walk on her own,” Marten said quickly. It was true. There was no way Lucy could walk to the rail. Not with the roll of the deck and her weakened state. “I’ll carry her.”
The mate spat, the tobacco juice splattering Marten’s boots. “Suit yerself. But I’ll cut yer jackstays if her deck start to buck. Hurry now. Pilot says there be a sylveth tide rising. We don’t want to run foul of it.”
He waited as Marten retrieved Lucy. She was sitting up, her legs braced apart as she tried to stand. Her shirt—his shirt—barely reached the middle of her thighs. It was crusted with blood and pus. More of the filth ran down her legs. Livid streaks of red spread like spider-webs beneath her skin, interspersed with putrid, weeping burns. Wordlessly, he wrapped a blanket around her and lifted her in his arms, trying to be gentle. He carried her out onto the deck.
She blinked and squinted, blinded by the brilliant sunlight. She looped an arm around his neck. Marten felt her muscles shake with the effort.
They made the walk to the rail in silence. Sailors hung from the shrouds in nervous clusters, watching with hostile eyes. They murmured epithets, but made no further overtures or outbursts. In the middle of the deck, Pilot Idron stood beside the compass post, just aft of the main hatch. The post was solid silver rising out of the deck. On top was a thirty-two-rayed compass, each ray made of sylveth. Idron’s right hand rested on the sylveth dome in the center as he continued to scan the ever-changing depths of the Inland Sea for trouble. He met Marten’s eyes for a grain, then flicked away. But the moment was enough to reveal that Idron was a roiling mass of rage and fear.
Marten continued his slow walk. The gate rail had been taken down. Spray spurted up over the bow, showering them in a fine mist. The captain stood at the foot of the stairs leading up to the forecastle. His face was impassive. He nodded to Marten, scowling.
“Just toss her down, then, and we’ll hoist the sheets and be on our way,” the mate said.
Marten stepped to the gap in the rail. His knees bent and flexed with the rise and fall of the ship. The water was glossy black and frothy white. A half a league away the Bramble rose blue and green, its mountains jagged and white like teeth.
“I can’t swim,” she said. “At least it should be a quick end.”
His arms tightened and he made an animal sound in the back of his throat. She winced at the sudden pain and pulled her arm from round his neck.
“Thank you, for your care. You’ve made the journey easier than it should have been.” Her lips pinched tight, but she did not allow her fear to color her expression. “If you see my family and Sarah and Blythe…” She broke off, her chin crumpling. She took a breath and blew it out. “If you see them, will you tell them I’m sorry for…everything?”
“I would. But I’m getting off here.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you saying? You can’t. The Chance storms! It’s suicide.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” she said. “We’ve both made mistakes. I don’t blame you. Your brother and Sharpel were going to get me whether you helped or not. I’m dying anyway. Drowning is a mercy.”
He pressed his lips close to her ear. “I’m not letting you go without me.”
“Why?”
The mate prodded him with the tip of his cutlass. Marten grimaced, clutching her tight. It hurt her, but he didn’t loosen his grip.
“Because I’d rather be with you in a vat of sylveth than without you on a throne of gold.”
He didn’t wait for her reply, but crouched and jumped, hearing shouts as they plummeted down into the night black waters of the Inland Sea.
Chapter 29
They struck the water, plunging deep underneath the waves. Pain raked her with steel claws. Lucy screamed, her mouth filling with water. She struggled wildly, kicking and thrashing. Marten held her tightly, dragging her up toward the surface. Then the pain was too much. She spasmed and went limp. Her mind ribboned chaotically. She held on to the thought that she shouldn’t breathe. Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe
“Lucy! Lucy!”
Marten held her chin, patting her cheeks with his fingers. She blinked at him. She was cold, so dreadfully cold. Down to the roots of her being. She thought of the cipher and its former fiery heat. If she could have laughed, she would have.
“Lucy, are you with me? We have to get ashore before the sylveth tide rolls in.”
She nodded, still not quite able to believe he’d jumped into the water with her. He began to swim, pulling her along.
“Let me do the work. Relax.”
But as thin as she’d become, Lucy was still a heavy burden to pull through the chop. And Marten had been days with little food. He struggled against the waves, his breathing guttural and harsh. The Bramble was half a league away and the Firedance a shadow running away across the waves. Lucy wanted to tell him to let go of her, to swim ahead to safety, but she knew he wouldn’t. He was insane of course. There was no other explanation.
She felt the sylveth coming before it overtook them. It was a burning, knifing sensation. She moaned, clutching at Marten and kicking her legs.
“Hurry!”
“What’s wrong?” he rasped.
“The tide!”
But it was already too late. Streamers of sylveth unfurled through the waves like tentacles. Marten dived toward an opening, dragging Lucy after him. But there was no place to go. The sylveth caught him first. One moment he was holding Lucy afloat; the next he flung his arms wide, his back arching, his eyes rolling up into his head. His mouth jerked open in a silent scream. Then he sank. In a heartbeat he’d disappeared.
Lucy shouted weakly, kicking and splashing her arms awkwardly. Then she felt its touch. A whisper-soft caress. A feeling of bliss suffused her and she went limp. Her body dissolved into nothingness.
She came back to herself on a rocky shingle lying half in and half out of the water. She felt…perfect. There was no pain. No exhaustion. No hunger. No thirst. There was…want.
She sat up. Her toes curled, washed by warm, silvery waves. She scooped up some sylveth in her cupped hand. She lifted it up level with her eyes. Shape. The sylveth rolled itself into a ball, swirling with opalescent color. Lucy tilted her head. The ball changed into a face. Male. His eyes brown, his hair sun tarnished. Square face, strong, blunt features. Smile that infuriated. Marten.
The name trailed through her mind like sparks from a fire. They floated down, igniting flames. Memories. More sparks. More flames. They twisted into threads, winding and weaving together into a tapestry of a life. Her life.
Slowly she retreated from the web of memories. The sylveth had melted from her hand. But the face remained in her mind’s eye. She stood, ankle deep in the shimmering tide. She looked down. She was naked. There was a silvery cast to her pale skin. Flecks of stardust sparkled in a seam between her breasts and scattered across her belly. Winding around her left arm was the cipher, its sylveth disks cobalt blue. The wind caressed her. It was, she thought, cold, identifying the sensation distantly, not truly feeling it.
Another thought and sylveth swirled up, arranging itself in a silky pair of twilight-hued leggings and a flowing tunic. She nodded satisfaction. Still, something was odd. She reached up to touch her head. The skin was smooth. Suddenly a thick wash of auburn curls cascaded down her back to her waist. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as the win
d picked at it, teasing it across her face. Grains later, it wound up in an ornate braided coif. Better. She stepped out of the tide, fashioning soft boots around her feet.
And then she went in search of Marten.
Lucy wandered along the shore. The sylveth called to her; it celebrated her. She felt its presence in the beat of her pulse and the vibration of her chest when she breathed. It was soothing, invigorating. Like warm sunshine, cool water, and rich earth to a tree. It offered itself to her, a reservoir of power for the taking.
As she walked, she began to feel more like herself. Her senses grew more immediate. She was aware of growing hunger and thirst, and a need to relieve her bladder. She climbed higher on the shingle, finding a rock to brace against, and did so, wondering idly if she could create a slop jar to make it easier. She tried it. It was more difficult than molding the sylveth into Marten’s face. She pulled dirt and pebbles up into a crumbling, lopsided, bulbous shape that had no lid nor wide lip to sit on. She scowled with concentration, pushing, pulling, molding. Sweat beaded on her forehead and upper lip. Gradually the jar grew taller, smoother, the lip widening. At last she felt done and stopped.
She examined her construction, panting with effort. She reached out a finger and prodded it gently. The jar caved in with a puff of dust. She sighed, aggravated, and gave up. Marten was still waiting.
He was alive. The sylveth had told her so. She smiled, remembering his words before they’d jumped from the Firedance. I’d rather be in a vat of sylveth…. He’d hadhis wish.
She walked for hours. At midday, she stopped and frowned at the sun. Midday? It had been afternoon when they’d been forced from the ship. How much time had passed since? She shrugged and began to walk again.
It was dusk when she found him. Storm clouds had begun to pile up, their billowing tops white, their flat bottoms nearly as black as the waves. He was perched on a spur of rock protruding from the water. White-capped waves washed around him, spume spouting into the air to drench him.
The Cipher Page 34
