Around them, the Black Tide was brimming with bodies.
In one corner, a trio of women with a small fortune of silver in their hair leaned forward, heads together over a map. In another, a ship’s crew was getting blindingly drunk over a game of Sanct. There were even a pair of Arnesian soldiers—not dressed as such, of course, but they might as well be branded with the cup and sun and decked in red and gold.
Between the crowd, the planked walls, and the dark curtains, the place felt less like a tavern and more like the hull of a ship. Or, given the stale air, the belly of a whale.
She let her gaze drift over the room, though in truth, she wasn’t looking.
She was listening.
Verose was a thieves’ haven, a place where the rule of the empire gave way to the will of the people, most of them criminals, pirates, and exiled magicians. It was the kind of place that fostered grudges, and turned them into bad ideas. The kind of place that could easily have produced the rebels that called themselves the Hand.
So Lila listened. Or tried—most of the patrons in the Tide were speaking a version of Arnesian, but some handled the language like a pen, while others used it like a hammer. Add to that the staccato bursts of laughter, the scrape of chairs, the way the voices rose and fell, and it was like fighting with a wave. Easier to relax, and let the words wash over her.
Tav, meanwhile, had produced a set of cards, and he and Stross were now engaged in an intense drinking game, one that had something to do with throwing down cards at rapid speed, and shouting loudly when you saw a king or queen. The loser drank. Or maybe the winner. Honestly, Lila wasn’t sure. But she watched them bicker like old maids as they played, and marveled at the easy way they were together, the way they were with her, the space between them all worn smooth. She found herself wishing Kell was there. And Vasry, and Raya.
How strange.
Ask her at nineteen the definition of freedom, and it would have been one. One person. One ship. One big wide world. And yet here she was, seven years on, free, but far from alone.
She liked being alone. She was good at it. Had never trusted or taken to people.
But these weren’t people, not really. They were something else. Allies. Friends. Family.
Once upon a time, the thought would have been enough to send her heart lurching in a seasick way, her pulse hitting that old familiar drum, telling her to run, run, run. As if it were a snaring trap, a snake of chain around her legs. As if people were just anchors, dead weight designed to hold you fast, drag you down.
Caring could drown you, if you let it.
But it could also help you float.
Not that she’d ever let the bastards know.
“Another round?” asked Tav, scraping the cards back into a pile.
Stross shook his head. “I’m tired,” he said, rising to his feet, and finishing his drink.
“Tired of losing, you mean,” said Tav, even as he stood and dropped a handful of coins on the table. They looked to Lila. “You coming, Captain?”
She looked around, shook her head. “Not yet.”
Tav hesitated, and Stross weighed her with a look, and seemed about to sit down again when she waved them both away. “Oh, fuck off,” she said, “and let me have a drink in peace.”
If Kell were there, he’d make a fuss, insist on sticking around until she was done, trail her like a moody shadow back to the boat. But Kell wasn’t there, and Stross knew better than to tell her to be safe, or careful. They all knew she could take care of herself.
“Your orders,” said Tav, tipping an invisible cap.
Lila watched the two men go, and flagged down another drink.
* * *
The coat slumped to the cabin floor.
The mask, he flung against the wall. The swords came next, the leather holsters stiff beneath his bloodstained hands, but piece by piece, Kay fell away, leaving only Kell.
Vasry and Raya had parted like a tide when he swept past. They didn’t bother making small talk, or asking how the mission went. The evidence was right there, sinking in the bay. Right there, in the bloodstained steps he left on the Barron’s deck.
Seven years of practice, and still he slipped. No matter how long or hard Kell trained, there were times when his body still forgot.
He dragged the sodden shirt over his head, wincing at the pain that lanced across his shoulder, the wound left by the broadsword’s bite. He made his way to the basin, gaze sliding to the large mirror propped behind it. In the glass, his hair fell into his face, a single streak of silver cutting through the red. In the glass, his bare skin was a tapestry of scars. Blood welled from the fresh cut along his collarbone, sliding in a narrow ribbon down his chest. It followed the line of his necklace until it reached the three coins that still hung at the end of the chain. Tokens that had once carried him to other Londons. Other worlds.
As Travars, he thought grimly, as blood dripped from the coins into the basin, staining the water pink, then red.
Kell’s hand drifted up, almost absently, toward the tokens, and then past them, to the angry sword wound, which he knew his brother must have felt.
It was a marvel he hadn’t heard from Rhy—or worse, from Alucard.
He glanced down at the red ring on his right hand, as if expecting the thought to summon the king of Arnes or his consort, but the band stayed dark and cold. As did the black one beside it. The red ring bore the royal seal—the chalice and rising sun. The black one bore a ship.
They were rare and precious things, these rings, not one of a kind, but two. Each had a twin, a perfect replica designed to rest on another finger.
It was a clever piece of magic, gifted to him by the queen four years before, a way to link two people, no matter where they were. One simply had to touch the surface of the ring and say the words as vera tan—I need you—and its twin would burn with light and heat. Place both rings upon a scrying board, and the distance between them disappeared, the flat black surface turned to glass; not a door, but at least a window, a way to see and speak.
His brother had married well, Kell thought, not for the first time.
The red ring that he wore belonged of course to Rhy Maresh, who said he’d only wear it if it matched his other finery. The black one, Kell had given to Lila. Or rather, he’d tried. It hadn’t gone well. She’d paled when he’d offered her the charm, recoiled as if it were a serpent, or a bottle of poison he was asking her to drink, and too late, he remembered the customs of her world, the meaning of such a ring to someone in Grey London.
He’d shown her the one on his own hand, tried to explain how the bands were linked, how in case of trouble, she could call on him, but her gaze had gone flat and mocking.
“If I’m in trouble,” she’d said, “I’ll get myself out.”
He had shouted, then, and so had she. He had called her stubborn and she had called him selfish, he had called her frightened and she had called him a fool, and in the end, she had stormed out, and he had slammed the door, and the waves had sloshed angrily against the ship, and he knew she’d cast her ring into the sea.
They did not talk about it after that.
And yet, he didn’t take his off. Not that day, or the next, or the next. It was silly, he knew—after all, the ring was useless on its own, nothing but a sentimental trinket, but he wore it, still, to spite her. To say that in his mind they were still linked, that they would always be, that she was one of only two he loved so much, that he would let himself be bound to them like this.
Kell ran his thumb over the black band, then thrust his hands into the basin, rinsing them clean, before he set to work on his wounds.
Antari magic was an incredible thing.
It was the only kind of power that was both element and spell. Chaos and order. A drop of blood, a pair of words, and you could turn a man to stone, open a door into another world, mend almost any injury.