The Nature of a Pirate Page 21

  “Whatever that means.” He reached out, then checked himself and almost bowed.

  She headed back to the cabin, leaving them to take care of the magic egg, and dug in her stash of over-the-counter meds. A couple of acetaminophen, and some ibuprofen, too. What the hell.

  Then, picking up all the fingerprinting materials, she headed back to the aft cabins and Kev’s quarters. After sending Humbrey back to the Fleet with the report on the sinkings and the first half of the fingerprint index, she and Selwig—with occasional help from Daimon, who seemed more fascinated by its possibilities than he was with the law books he was supposedly memorizing—had continued to code the rest of the prints, using the Henry system. They had a couple hundred prints whose codes they agreed on; the remainder they had to look over together.

  Selwig happily claimed the box from her, working through their card index to find the remaining prints from the corpses they hoped to identify by counting ridges, measuring distances between features, and identifying points of similarity.

  Sophie coached him for a while, coaxing him over a couple hurdles. Between watching Kev and learning dactyloscopy, he was working diligently. Still, she missed his partner, Humbrey. Was it just because Selwig was a slaver? If so, did that make her some kind of a racist?

  I’m one, too, remember.

  Her mind wandered again to the inscriptions Beatrice had written for her.

  Bright, charming, persuasive. She didn’t feel anything of the kind, not right now. She had a fleeting memory: Bram once telling her that the only time she had a poker face was when she was sick.

  If there was any chance she might be harder to read right now, she might as well put it to good use.

  “Bram in there?” She indicated Kev’s door.

  Selwig shook his head, unlocking the hatch, and went back to his prints.

  She found Kev hunched in his hammock, staring at one of the spell copies—it was the seventh spell, the one whose purpose Beatrice didn’t understand.

  “Give me something to work with,” she said. “Have you thought about what happens once we free you?”

  A perplexed frown. “I … go home.”

  “You forfeited your Haversham citizenship when you committed banditry. They can’t welcome you with open arms.”

  “If not Haver, who am I?”

  “You’ll be a sort of citizen of Sylvanna, after.”

  “I can’t stay on Sylvanna.”

  “No,” she said. “You haven’t even considered this?”

  He shrugged. “Something will resolve itself.”

  “Something like your fellow bandits? Pree and Smitt?”

  His face froze.

  “Come on, Kev. Two other crew members. Strangers to you, friends of your leader, Eame. They weren’t aboard when Cly captured you. You honestly believe they’re gonna sail into Autumn and carry you away?”

  He turned bright red and refused to meet her eyes.

  “OMG, you do! You totally think they’re coming for you.”

  “I did a good thing. I freed people. Why should you mind if someone helps me find shelter?” He fished out a red citrus fruit, from Tonio’s homeland, and began peeling it. “I won’t be able to harm anyone … you’ll see to that.”

  “What if they harm someone? A guy and a woman, right? Were they Havers?”

  He shook his head. “The man was one of Eame’s countrymen. Of Tug.”

  Another portside abolitionist, in other words.

  “Where’d they disembark?”

  He looked startled. “What do you mean?”

  “They weren’t aboard when we captured you.”

  “Eame ordered us to make for an islet, to see if we could abandon ship,” he said. “We knew Sawtooth would sink us. We weren’t close enough, I hadn’t thought, but they must have swum.”

  “Must have?”

  “It was like they vanished.”

  Now that was interesting. “Any chance the woman was Verdanii?”

  He gaped at her, flabbergasted. “Verdanii?”

  She showed him phone photos of all her Feliachild suspects. “You said ‘vanished.’ I’m looking for a Verdanii who can vanish.”

  “Teeth—you’re inscribed persuasive,” he said suddenly, brandishing one of Bram’s spell transcripts. “I won’t tell you anything!”

  “If she wasn’t Tug, was she Golder?”

  “I can’t say…” But, involuntarily, he nodded.

  “Gotcha.” He had an uneasy look—maybe the headache was making her hard to read. “Let’s not pretend, Kev. You raided those ships. Those crews are gone. I saw you cut the heart out of one of the bodies. You’re not a good guy. At best you’re an idealistic but ruthless terrorist.”

  “Then you shouldn’t let me trouble your conscience.”

  “Are you trying to save your skin?” she said. “Or are you acting with purpose?”

  “What purpose could I possibly serve now?”

  What purpose indeed? A Haver and a spellscribe, on a ship full of bandits. Kev was notorious, now, because of his trial. Haversham and Sylvanna had been enemies for centuries.

  Kev thought the two strangers sailing Incannis with him had been abolitionists. But if one of them was Bettona’s eragliding accomplice …

  She rubbed her temples. “You claim Incannis met a ship that took liberated slaves away,” she said. “But Golder Girl just vanished with them, didn’t she?”

  “I’m not helping you!”

  “And you aren’t laboring under some demented fantasy that she’s going to sail into Autumn in a big old three-masted rescue vessel. She’s going to magically appear, grab you, and spirit you off to freedom.”

  She’d magically appear here, where there’s a clock for eragliders to use as a focus, she thought. Maybe she would have already, if I hadn’t stopped Gale’s clock.

  Kev turned in his bunk, putting his face to the wall and covering his ears. He pulled a blanket over his whole head. “Not helping!”

  The realization, when it came, was like having floodlights come on. The cabin almost seemed to brighten. The jolt of it made her head throb harder.

  You were infiltrated.

  Sophie barely managed to keep herself from ripping the blanket off and shouting it in Kev’s face. Golder Girl—Pree—and her ally on Incannis were the bad guys.

  All for one and one for war and terrorism. Things That Go Boom! indeed.

  So she had played Kev and his friends. Were still playing him, if Kev’s belief that they were coming to rescue him was more than empty hope.

  She had to talk to Bram and Garland.

  “What’d he say?” Daimon was settling in next to Selwig as she locked the hatch to Kev’s cell.

  “He said nothing.”

  “No progress, then?”

  “It was surprisingly informative.” The painkillers hadn’t touched the throbbing in her head. Maybe she was hungry? She dragged herself to the galley, found the cook’s basket of spiced buns, and made herself eat two. Even with water, it was like eating sand.

  After, she was feeling wretched enough to just sit, leaning against the wall, eyes closed. Tick, tick, tick. I stopped that clock in Verena’s room. Which one is this? Beatrice’s, in San Francisco?

  She’d heard that watch of Gale’s, like an earworm, until they got a mile or two from the safe-deposit box. She heard the clock at Annela’s when she was in Fleet, and Bettona’s watch.

  You can hear the Worldclock, Beatrice had said.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  The words shattered her train of thought. Tonio was staring down at her, concerned.

  “Where to start?” she said. “All these things I thought were central to who I am … they’re just spells. How I look, how I think. People kneading me, like dough. Tick tick earworms from eragliding—”

  “You’re sick,” Tonio said. He coaxed her to her feet.

  “Just a migraine.”

  “I don’t know ‘migraine,’ Sophie.”

 
; “Don’t make me move. Hurts.”

  “We’re going twenty paces, to Watts.”

  “Migraine,” she repeated. “I’m migraine woman now. There are people who build whole identities around being sick, aren’t there? Sophie, the invalid.”

  “Dottore,” Tonio called. The raised voice made her flinch.

  “Cute, cheery, full of vim. Fertile to boot. Without all the prenatal tweaks, I’d probably be a juvenile delinquent.” The spiced buns weren’t sitting so well.

  Buns, she thought. Bettona gave me anise biscuits.

  She concentrated on not throwing up on Tonio’s boots.

  “Yes, yes.” That was Watts. “Just keep your eyes shut, Sophie. That’s fine. Over here.”

  Biscuits, and then ticking. If it was Golder Girl who was aboard Incannis, how did she learn to eraglide? Did she take John Coine to San Francisco? An athletic woman ransacked Mom and Dad’s house.

  The men guided her down to a bunk.

  “Take Banana,” Watts added, putting the fuzzy anvil that was the ship’s cat on her chest. He’d fattened up. Like Kev. To Tonio he added, “Get her brother.”

  As cures went, there were worse things than “Pet the cat.” Sophie focused on rubbing Banana’s much-abused ears and listening to his noisy freight-train purr. Tears etched hot paths down her cheeks. Her teeth hurt—her cheekbones were ringing, resonating to an unheard high note, vibrating as hard as the pipe in a church organ.

  Watts rubbed something on her temples. It had a eucalyptus smell. She wasn’t sure the pain decreased, but it was a bit of a relief.

  The cat was kneading at her chest, pressing her breast uncomfortably, offering distraction. “When Mom’s cat, Muffins, does this, it’s puncture, puncture, puncture.”

  “Someone’s been clipping his claws,” Watts said, in a tone of disapproval. His people worshipped cats; as far as Sophie could tell, he thought Nightjar’s only real mission was to serve as palace and transport for the beast. “Front and back. Sophie, what have you eaten today?”

  “Get a bucket and I’ll show you,” she said.

  “Nauseated?”

  “Big-time.”

  “Have you eaten or drunk anything the rest of us haven’t had?”

  “Anise and apricot biscuits. No, that was weeks ago.”

  “Smoked anything?”

  “What? No.”

  “Open your mouth.” She did, and he laid something warm on her tongue. “Don’t swallow.”

  It felt like a tea bag, fresh from a cup of boiled water, and it tasted of herbs.

  A clatter of feet and the sound of the hatch. Suddenly, Bram’s hand was folded in hers. She tried cracking her eyes open but it hurt too much, and she couldn’t talk around the tea bag, so she just squeezed.

  “It’ll be a bad few hours.”

  “Poison?” Bram demanded.

  No audible answer from Watts. Maybe he’d shrugged. “She’s strong.”

  Truth, or bravado?

  The sound of them speaking was beginning to hurt, too. She focused on the cat, feet kneading back and forth, the pressure of his weight on her chest, the silk of the fur and the thrum against her flesh. The men had lowered their voices. Watts was asking about migraines—what the word meant, did Bram know the symptoms.

  Bram was dismissive. “Sophie doesn’t get migraines.”

  It all had a smeary, faraway quality.

  It was the tea bag, she decided. The tea bag held an anesthetic of some kind, or a sedative. Since, by now, every beat of her heart was smashing out her temples like a hammer blow, she decided a sedative was a great idea.

  Tick, tick, tick. That rhythm again.

  To eraglide, you had to be a Feliachild. You had to break bread with the Allmother. Bettona fed me anise biscuits, and that’s when I started to tick, tick, tick … So she did Golder Girl, Pree, too, right? Annela heard her talking to someone who called her Sir.

  “Conk me out,” she started to say, but the tea bag was still in her mouth, an obstruction she couldn’t speak around, and there were eucalyptus fumes and she was a little afraid to breathe deeply lest her head explode.

  “Turn on your side, honey,” Bram said, and she didn’t fight as they rolled her. Am I gonna barf after all?

  Something was pressed against her upper lip and she found herself thinking, Oh, part of the ache is the burn of blood in the upper sinuses. I remember that from the time I was climbing in Arizona, and now there was more eucalyptus or whatever on the back of her neck, soothing and cool, and a new tea bag to replace the old, which tasted of blood.

  My gums are bleeding, too? They must have been, because Bram had just let loose with a string of whispered profanity, undertone—Cut it out. I need to cut this out. I’m scaring the crap out of him. It’s not fair, ow, ow—and then there was one piercing, lucid moment where she thought, It wasn’t Sir, and it was the most important thing in the world, even more important than Cat claws, before she lost consciousness entirely.

  CHAPTER 22

  Kir Sophie:

  Constitution has instituted a shipwide ban on the sealing wax used in the final stage of the frightmaking spell, and has been searching everyone who comes aboard and detaining those who have any on their person.

  Of those detained, seven have been found to be under compulsion, and were subsequently induced to create frights on decoy hulls made of spruce. These individuals have been moved to Docket and are being examined by the Watch, to determine whether they are innocent victims or willing coconspirators.

  With such proofs at hand, it has been accepted by the Convene that the target of the ship sinkers is indeed Constitution. The matter has not been made public, but Erefin Salk suggests that the government and courts may be inclined to view our work with an even more friendly eye.

  Yours,

  Cinco Mel Humbrey, fingerprint technician of the Forensic Institute

  When Sophie opened her eyes, the infirmary cabin was dark and full of men, all awake, all looking at her. Bram had her hand. Watts, the cat on his lap now, was within easy reach of two pots of steaming fluid. Garland was at the foot of the bunk, looking pensive.

  He’d make a good portrait, looking like that. He could pass for a Romantic poet midway through a serious brood.

  She enjoyed the view a moment longer before finally moving her tongue. Finding no obstruction in her mouth, she swallowed—taste of blood—and counted her teeth. All present and accounted for. “How long I been out?”

  “About three hours,” Bram said.

  “That’s anticlimactic. Am I better?”

  Watts nodded. “There was some blood loss.”

  “Contagious?”

  “No.”

  She looked at the trio of grim faces. “So it’s Twenty Questions time? Come on, what happened?”

  “Doctor,” said Garland. His voice was steely.

  Seas, it’s bad. She felt a bright stab of fear.

  Watts was checking her pulse. “This migraine you mentioned? You’ve never had one before?”

  “Migraines don’t make your gums bleed, as far as I know.” The thought of altitude sickness flitted through her mind. But that was ridiculous for half a dozen reasons. Among them, the fact that they were at sea level.

  “It is possible you just got a bad seed in something, or reacted to the Sledge food.”

  “But?”

  “The most likely explanation is inscription. Someone worked a magical intention on you.”

  She realized that she wasn’t surprised.

  “Lidman?”

  “Too carefully guarded,” Bram said. “He has nothing to write with, and no components. Selwig searched his cabin, top to bottom, while you were out.”

  She said, “It could be anyone, aboardship or off.”

  “Your name is known,” Watts agreed.

  “We don’t know what they did? I could grow a second head, or—”

  “If you’d been transformed, we’d know by now.”

  “Perhaps Bettona did somethi
ng else. Another eragliding ritual?”

  “That’s very likely,” Garland agreed.

  “Chances are it’s quite a light intention,” Watts said.

  “Why?”

  “With the load you’re already carrying, a heavy one…”

  Would have killed me, she thought.

  “What about next time?” Bram demanded.

  “Danger increases with every inscription,” Watts said. “The suffering, too.”

  “There’s no relief if we tear up the other spells?” Bram said. “Beatrice’s?”

  “You already know she’s borne that load,” Watts said.

  “Reversion is its own form of unpleasantness,” Garland added.

  “Unpleasantness.” What would you know about that? Nobody’s ever scribed you.

  “Sophie.” He tried smiling, but it came out false, almost ghastly. “You must write your father immediately. As a Sylvanner parent, he should be able to change your name.”

  “When a spell bites, it chews and swallows,” Watts said. “Changing her name won’t alter whatever’s been done to her.”

  “No, but we must shield her from further mischief,” Garland insisted.

  Her throat was scratchy. “Can I get up?”

  “Tomorrow,” Watts said. “But only if you’re truly abed all day.”

  Something in his tone made Bram stand up, as if he had been shooed. He ruffled her hair, said, “Holler if you need me,” and vanished.

  She caught Garland’s hand as he, too, tried to make it past her.

  “You should rest,” he said.

  “Garland. I’m not gonna be fake-engaged for much longer.”

  She thought he would give her a lecture about admitting the thing with Daimon was a sham—don’t ask, don’t tell and all that—but instead he gave her a look that positively smoldered, and kissed her forehead before heading out of the cabin.

  “Ah, so that’s how you get forgiven for coming aboard engaged to marry,” Watts said drily. “Bleed from the gums.”

  “Who asked you?” She could feel a sappy grin spreading across her face. “I’m not gonna feel rested if you don’t give me something to do.”

  He uncovered the window. “Is the light all right?”

  “Yes, the eyestrain or whatever is gone.”

  “Watch the sea. And this.” He brought out a wicker cage the size of a milk jug. The egg Verena had sent was nestled within, in a nest of wool. A hairline crack ran across its surface.