“What would happen if the truth did slip out, I wonder?” Sophia asked, all sweetness. “What would the crew think of you, risking their lives for a reward they’ll never see?”
Something about those words fractured the control over his temper that he’d clearly been wrestling to maintain. Nicholas’s arm lashed out, his palm slapping against the wood beside her head. He had loomed over Sophia at his full height, but now he stooped to stare her directly in the eye. “Disparage me all you like, Miss Ironwood, spit out every vile curse you can think of at me—but if you threaten my livelihood again, know that there will be consequences.”
Ironwood?
Sophia didn’t so much as flinch. She brushed the threat away with a smirk, sickly green face and all. Nicholas shifted back, eyes flickering with a fire that seemed to burn to his core. In the silence that followed, with only the rhythm of the creaking bones of the great ship to mark time, Etta realized what she’d just witnessed, what the girl had found: a weapon to slice open old wounds.
If this was Sophia weak from seasickness, then she was mildly terrified of what the girl would be like at full steam.
Torn between letting the conversation continue, perhaps with more useful information, and watching them spar, Etta dug the dull edge of the knife against her thigh again, and breathed in the cold, briny air.
“We understand,” Etta said finally. “Thank you.”
It had the effect she’d hoped for, drawing Nicholas’s attention back toward her.
He gave a curt nod. “I will have dinner sent to your cabins. Rest well, Miss Spencer.”
Etta nodded, keeping her eyes on the toes that peeked out from beneath her dress. Nicholas moved toward the steps, and the air and smoke around them shifted, the skin at the back of her neck prickling with awareness as his eyes combed over her one last time.
When the sound of his feet on the stairs disappeared, Etta whirled to face the girl beside her. “What the hell is going on?”
Sophia sagged against the wall, the back of her hand pressed against her lips. At Etta’s words, her face drew up. “Don’t breathe another word until I say so, otherwise I will not be responsible for my actions.”
Etta pushed the cabin door open again, and stepped inside with her fingers around the warm metal of the knife.
“Tell me who you are,” she demanded. There was a small porthole window in the wall, but the light that filtered in was minimal. Sophia bent on unsteady legs to lift a metal lantern onto a small desk.
Etta shifted, trying to get some distance from the smell of vomit and Sophia’s cold, assessing gaze. She wanted her back to the door—if this took an ugly turn, she could get herself out and lock Sophia in.
The girl sat heavily on the edge of the built-in bunk, drawing a bucket over to herself with her foot. “Damned ship, damned traitor, damned task—”
“Tell me!” Etta said. “How did we get here—and where is here? And who are those people?”
“I shouldn’t tell you anything after that truly breathtaking display of stu—” Sophia heaved slightly. “Stupidity.”
“You pushed me,” Etta said, letting her words rage on. “You did something to me—you brought me here!”
“Of course I pushed you.” Sophia sniffed. “You were as slow as a cow. We would have been there for ages, you crying all over yourself like a fool. I did us both a favor.”
“Did you—” She could barely force the words out. “Did you shoot Alice? Was she trying to stop you from bringing me here?”
Etta’s mind was frantically trying to connect why Alice would have been there, not in the auditorium, not with her mother in her office upstairs. She hadn’t checked to see if she was carrying her purse—in any other circumstances she might have believed that someone hiding in the museum had tried to mug her. But it was too much of a coincidence. It was too simple of an explanation.
“Alice?” Sophia repeated, confused. “You mean the old bag? I have no idea who shot her—there were other Ironwood travelers there keeping an eye on our progress. And if it wasn’t one of them, well, I wasn’t going to stand around and let whoever it was get us, too.”
Etta stared at her, a thousand thoughts spilling into questions. Sophia laughed at her stunned silence, and the last, frayed grip Etta had on her composure finally snapped.
She drew the knife up, her chest heaving, body trembling as she pressed it against the other girl’s neck. Instinct overrode logic, compassion, patience. The ugliness that poured through her veins was unfamiliar and frightening.
What are you doing?
Sophia stared up at her, dark eyes widening just a fraction. Then she clucked her tongue impatiently and leaned forward into the blade, until a droplet of blood welled up at the tip.
Before Etta could stumble back, Sophia wrapped her hand around hers, pulling it back a fraction of a centimeter from her throat. Her skin would have been the envy of the moonlight, it was so pale and smooth. Her dark eyes burned with a wild kind of approval. Like Etta had passed an unspoken test.