The trading season in the east had been profoundly successful, so much so that the captain had lifted anchor early and set sail in mid-summer, hoping to arrive home before winter came on too hard. The experienced crew believed they could do it, for all that the journey was often eight months, and, indeed, they had come most of the way when pirates beset them only a few hundred miles from home. Even that had not been quite enough to stop them, but in the wake of the attack, a storm had risen, and men weakened and injured from battle had been unable to hold the line against nature's ferocity. The sailor—his name was Fisher—had been one of four to drag himself into a rowboat as the Cobweb and its companions sank, and none of the others had survived the next two days of storms. Fisher had come on foot across half a continent, wretched with grief and ill tidings, and now, looking on him, all I could see was a broken man whose life seemed worthless even to him.
I lifted my eyes to Father, and saw Fisher's fate reflected in his face. I had always thought the conceit of aging in minutes to be only that, a dramatic interpretation, but I saw now that it could happen. He looked heavier, brought farther down than the fire alone could have done, and between one heartbeat and the next I realized we had nothing left to our names at all.
Instead of calling on Pearl as she had done for the past two weeks, that afternoon Solindra Nare sent a polite note begging our forgiveness for her absence, and indicating that she did not know when or if she would once more be able to attend us.
Pearl did not feel the injury of lost love, only the insult of rejection, and drew herself up icy and cold as the sea that had killed the Cobweb and its crew. Within a year her dark hair turned pearlescent white, which with her pale green gaze made her presence positively unearthly, but that lay in our future, and we could as of yet barely contemplate our present.
By evening creditors and bankers had darkened our door, calculating the worth of the very dresses we wore, for they were all that we owned, and even they had not yet been paid for. Maman, unable to face their studiously judging expressions, retreated to the room she shared with Father, and for a little while the boys and I joined her. She seemed to take some comfort, especially from the little ones cuddling with her, but when Opal came to enquire after her health, it became clear I was no longer needed. I returned to Father, who sat haggard in a chair in the salon, and could not look at me when I sat beside him.
"Have we anything left at all?" I finally asked.
He shook his head once. "Nothing." Then, instantly contradicting himself, he admitted, "A hunting lodge, far from the city. It belongs to Felicia, solely to her; it was in her father's will that it could not be given to her husband. It's on none of my records or accounts, although I'm sure someone will make note of it in time, and find a way to take it too, to stack against our debts."
"How, if it is Maman's?"
"Lawyers are good at that sort of thing. Someone will press until the wretched lodge is mentioned, and…" He shrugged, a large and helpless motion.
"Then we must not let them press us."
He chuckled faintly. "You don't know lawyers, Amber. They're relentless. Sharks, save that their skin makes less fine leather. They'll learn about the lodge."
I stood with sudden certainty. "Not if we're not here to press." Father looked at me then, surprised, and I steadied myself with a deep breath. "We must leave the Noble, Father. Tonight. Immediately. I'll trade my gowns for a horse and carriage. We'll take blankets and pillows from the hotel and bundle up, and we'll leave."
"Flee?" Father asked incredulously. "Are you proposing that we flee?"
"Do we have another choice? If we stay they'll take the clothes from our backs and the one building we have left to our name. To Maman's name. Solindra won't marry Pearl now, and under slightly more forgiving circumstances Opal's kindness might win her a husband in time, but a wife who has had to live in the streets is too much for any decent man to bear, and nobody was going to marry me any time soon anyway. The boys are too young, even if we could find someone wealthy and generous enough to betroth them to, and we won't, not right now, perhaps not ever. So what choice do we have?"
Father looked at me as though I had become someone else entirely. I almost felt as though I had: running from the only life I'd ever known had certainly not seemed an option half an hour earlier, but then, half an hour earlier I hadn't known there might be one single place for us to run to. "I can't run," he said without conviction. "The dishonor…."
"We're already ruined," I said grimly. "How can running make it worse? Go tell Maman and the others to pack what they have, including the hotel's blankets. We'll need them more than the Noble does. I'll get my dresses and…" I faltered. I had barely any idea where to go in daylight hours to acquire a horse and carriage. It was after ten in the evening now, and surely any reputable place would be long-since closed for trade.
"Miss," said an unexpected voice, more gentle and regretful than I had ever heard from him before. I met my father's manservant's eyes, surprised to even see him; servants were simply not seen, unless they were necessary, and I hadn't had any idea he was there. "If you'd allow me, Miss, I think I could be of some assistance tonight."
My father burst out, "Glover!" with the same astonishment I felt. His manservant bowed to him, but kept his attention on me. Something happened in that moment, an offering of the mantle, and though I did not fully realize it at the time, I accepted its weight without hesitation.
"I would be grateful, Mr Glover. I'll pack my gowns—"
"If you will allow me, Miss," Glover interrupted, as politely as before, "I believe it would draw less attention if I were to apply a little coin to the situation, rather than half a dozen ladies' gowns."
I hesitated. "There's almost no chance we'll ever be able to repay you, Mr Glover."
"I know." Something else changed in that moment, and I almost had the capacity to recognize it: we had become equals, this manservant and I, in a strange meeting of my fall and his rise. I nodded once, but his lean, tall form was already on the move, leaving a polite excuse at the door for his departure.
My father gaped after him, then turned the stupefied expression on me. "What are you doing, girl?"
"I hope to the sun and her sister the moon that I'm saving us all. Go, Father. Pack your things. I think we don't have much time."
I do not know who was more surprised, my father or myself, when, after another moment's silence, he rose to do as he'd been bidden.
The boys were easy: the entire prospect was presented to them as an adventure, and they could hardly contain themselves with excitement about it all. Opal's resistance faded into acceptance so quickly that the former hardly seemed to exist at all, and Pearl, magnificent with rage, acquiesced to the inevitable immediately, if not precisely gracefully.