I jerked away. “Your hair is fine.” I picked a string of beads, pretending to admire it. “Don’t fish for compliments. It’s not becoming.”
“A man who fished for compliments from you would find himself with an empty hook and no dinner,” he grumbled.
I clapped my hands. “Markos! You sound like a wherryman.”
“Oh, shut up.” I saw him trying to hide his smile.
I turned from side to side to see my image in the glass, admiring the way the lamplight sparkled on my new pistols. Free of the net, my hair bounced around my shoulders, a mass of reddish-brown corkscrew curls. I leaned closer to examine my face.
Markos noticed. “You know, the girls in Akhaia put juice from the orangeflower on their freckles to fade them.”
It was just like him to pick the one thing I was self-conscious about. Some girls had a dusting of dainty freckles, but mine were big and blotchy.
“Ayah? Do they be wearing fine hats too, and sitting all day indoors?” I rolled my eyes. “I work on a wherry. In the sun. Orangeflower won’t do anything.”
“I didn’t mean you don’t look nice,” he muttered.
A shadow blocked the arched doorway.
A man in sailors’ clothes stood on the stairs. He grinned, revealing a rotted tooth. Light from the sputtering lantern shone on his long, curved blade. He certainly didn’t look like he worked for the Akhaian Consulate.
“So it is you. Philemon did be thinking it was.” Boots scraping heavily, he stepped down. “You have the Andela look about you, to be sure.”
Markos’s face froze. “I don’t know what you’d know about it,” he snapped with scorn, drawing both swords in one sweeping motion.
The man laughed. Markos’s snobbish remark had only confirmed he was exactly who the Black Dogs suspected. He truly was an idiot sometimes.
My new pistols weren’t loaded. I slowly snuck my hand around my belt, reaching for the dagger.
The man gestured with his blade. “Try it and I’ll gut you like a trout.”
Time seemed to slow as I calculated—the length of his sword, the number of steps to cross the small room, how long it might conceivably take to gut someone like a trout.
Everything happened at once. The man lunged, light flashing on steel. The gilt and lace trim on Markos’s coattails darted out into the dark like twin serpents striking. He jumped between me and the pirate. Before I had time to be afraid for him, the man was down on the floor, clutching his throat.
Blood spurted from his neck, pooling in a widening circle on the stones. His slick red hand twitched and fell away, limp. I didn’t know where to look. It was so messy.
Markos straightened, a dark-stained blade in each hand. A metallic smell filled the room.
“You know,” I said, my voice sounding high and disconnected, “I much prefer pistols.”
The rushing in my ears grew louder, and I stumbled. The floor lurched alarmingly toward me. Something clattered on the stones.
A warm, painful grip encircled my arm. Markos dragged me up so hard my jacket bit into my underarms.
“Ow,” I said vaguely from what seemed like ten miles away. My ears roared.
“You were going to faint.” His fingers twisted into my coat sleeve. “Why didn’t you tell me you aren’t good around blood?”
“How am I supposed to know that? I’ve never seen so much blood in my life.” I swallowed, letting my eyes go unfocused so I wouldn’t have to see the blood spray on his shirt. The hot buzzing in my head began to fade.
“Better?” He loosened his hold.
I pulled away, fixing my jacket. “It just seems to me you might’ve killed him in a less disgusting way.”
I refused to look at the dead man as I stepped over his leg. Bracing myself against the wall of the staircase, I gulped in cool river air. I was not feeling dizzy. I wasn’t. That kind of thing only happened to town girls. Behind me I heard a swishing sound. Markos, wiping his swords on the dead pirate’s clothes.
“I didn’t expect you would faint,” he said. “You’re not afraid of anything.”
“I didn’t faint.” My cheeks burned. “I’m not afraid.”
“Many men get sick after they kill for the first time,” he said. “Many warriors.”
“Did you?”
“I’ve never killed anyone.” His voice shook. “Till now.” The fabric of his jacket stirred. I knew he was glancing over his shoulder at the dead man.
“I did not need to know that,” I muttered.
Markos brushed at the cuffs of Pa’s shirt, which only smeared the blood specks. “I don’t feel ill,” he said, a look of distaste crossing his face. “Just … dirty.”
The fear I didn’t have time for earlier came rushing in, making my heart flutter. “What are we going to do with the—with him?”
Inhaling, he turned his back on the dead man. “Leave him here, I suppose. With the door closed, it’s not likely they’ll ever find him.”
When someone next opened the secret room, there might be only a dusty skeleton left. I shivered, and not from the night air. It seemed a gruesome fate.
On the way back to the wherry, we kept to the shadows. If Philemon had thought to send someone to the consulate, he likely had men all over the city looking for us. The scent of the river was potent at night and somehow still wild in spite of the urban surroundings. We followed it to the harbor, finally rounding the corner of the last warehouse.
My throat almost closing in panic, I frantically sought Cormorant. She lay at rest in the Bollard docks, the familiar curve of her bulk rising out of the dark water, exactly where I’d left her. One lantern winked high up in her stays.
I exhaled in relief. “Fee!” I called softly as we boarded.
In the dark, we loosed and raised the mainsail. Markos helped, with Fee tapping his hand to give him wordless directions. Not fifty feet away from us lay Alektor. I was too scared to breathe.
“Caro!”
Ma jogged down the dock, followed by her two bodyguards. Was this why she hadn’t woken me up—because she intended to search Cormorant herself, behind my back? All I knew was I couldn’t let her stop us. I undid the last mooring warp.
“Caro, what’s all this about a stolen cargo? How did you get mixed up with the Black Dogs? Wait!”
I cast off. Cormorant slipped out of her berth, moving sluggishly.
Ma strode along the dock in her tall boots, keeping pace with us. She lifted her head, and her eyes seized on Markos. “Who are you, really?” she demanded.
I knew he thought I was making a mistake. Yet he stood back and said nothing, deliberately leaving the choice to me. For one desperate moment, I hesitated. It wasn’t too late to throw her a rope. To turn back. The Bollards had schooners and barks and brigs—large seagoing ships, armed with long nines. I only had a wherry.
“I can’t tell you,” I said. But there was one thing she could do. “Send a ship to the harbor master in Hespera’s Watch. They’ve got Pa locked up on smuggling charges. He’ll explain everything.”
“Hespera’s Watch? You said he was in Valonikos. Come about, Caro!” She stopped. There was no more dock.
“I’m sorry, Ma,” I called softly across the lengthening gap. I didn’t dare say more. Behind her lurked Alektor, dark and silent in her berth.