Superstition, she guessed, about bringing the dead aboard. A gold coin was placed on the man’s forehead, perhaps as payment for disposal. From what Lila could tell, Red London wasn’t a particularly religious place. If these men worshipped anything, they worshipped magic, which she supposed would be heresy back in Grey London. But then again, Christians worshipped an old man in the sky, and if Lila had to say which one seemed more real at the moment, she’d have to side with magic.
Luckily, she’d never been devout. Never believed in higher powers, never attended church, never prayed before bed. In fact, the only person Lila had ever prayed to was herself.
She considered nicking the gold coin, but god or not, that seemed wrong, so she stood on the deck and watched the proceedings with resignation. It was hard to feel bad about killing the man—he would have killed her—and none of the other sailors seemed terribly broken up over the loss itself … but then again, Lila supposed she was in no place to judge a person’s worth by who would miss them. Not with the closest thing she’d had to family rotting a world away. Who had found Barron? Who had buried him? She shoved the questions down. They wouldn’t bring him back.
The huddle of men trudged back aboard. One of them walked straight up to Lila, and she recognized her knuckle-hilted dagger in his grip. He grumbled something under his breath, then raised the knife and buried its tip in a crate beside her head. To his credit, it wasn’t in her head, and to hers, she didn’t flinch. She brought her bound wrists around the blade and pulled down in a single sharp motion, freeing herself from the cord.
The ship was almost ready to set sail, and Lila appeared to have earned a place on it, though she wasn’t entirely sure if it was as prisoner, cargo, or crew. A light rain began to fall, but she stayed on deck and out of the way as the Night Spire cast off, her heart racing as the ship drifted out into the middle of the Isle and turned its back on the glittering city. Lila gripped the rail at the Spire’s stern and watched Red London shrink in the distance. She stood until her hands were stiff with cold, and the madness of what she was doing settled into her bones.
Then the captain barked her name—“Bard!”—and pointed at a group struggling with the crates, and she went to lend a hand. Just like that—only not just like that, of course, for there were many taut nights and fights won, first against and then beside the other men, and blood spilled and ships taken—Lila Bard became a member of the Night Spire’s crew.
IV
Once aboard the Night Spire, Lila barely said a word (Kell would have been thrilled). She spent every moment trying to learn Arnesian, cobbling together a vocabulary—but as fast as she was on the uptake, it was still easier to simply listen than engage.
The crew spent a fair amount of time tossing words her way, trying to figure out her native tongue, but it was Alucard Emery who found her out.
Lila had only been on board a week when the captain stumbled across her one night cussing at Caster, her flintlock, for being a waterlogged piece of shit with its last bullet jammed in the barrel.
“Well, this is a surprise.”
Lila looked up and saw Alucard standing there. At first she thought her Arnesian must be improving, because she understood his words without thinking, but then she realized he wasn’t speaking Arnesian. He was speaking English. Not only that, but his accent had the crisp enunciation and smooth execution of someone fluent in the royal tongue. Not like the court-climbers who fumbled over words, offering them up like a party trick. No, like Kell, or Rhy. Someone who had been raised with it balanced on their lips.
A world away, in the grey streets of Lila’s old city, that fluency would mean little, but here, it meant neither of them were simple sailors.
In a last-ditch effort at salvaging her secret, Lila pretended not to understand him. “Oh don’t go dumb on me now, Bard,” he said. “You’re just becoming interesting.”
They were alone on the stretch of ship, tucked beneath the lip of the upper deck. Lila’s fingers drifted to the knife at her waist, but Alucard held up a hand.
“Why don’t we take this conversation to my chambers?” he asked, eyes glinting. “Unless you want to make a scene.”
Lila supposed it would be better not to slit the captain’s throat in plain sight.
No, it could be done in private.
*
The moment they were alone, Lila spun on him. “You speak Eng—” she started, then caught herself. “High Royal.” That was what they called it here.
“Obviously,” said Alucard before sliding effortlessly into Arnesian. “But it is not my native tongue.”
“Tac,” countered Lila in the same language. “Who says it is mine?”