“Tychon Hypatos. Iphis Street. I’m not going to need this.”
“I hope not.” He released me. I expected him to step back, but instead he inclined his head toward me.
We were only inches apart. It would have been easy to lean my body against his. Easy to mess up his hair and press my lips to that triangle of soft skin at the base of his neck. Images jumped unbidden into my mind: Markos, pushing me up against the locker and kissing me over and over until we were both breathless. Hands under clothes.
The rum and my embarrassment made my face burn. How can you ever be certain a person is thinking the same thing you are? I heard his uneven breath and saw the jumpy way he glanced away from me, and I knew at once that he was.
“I’m going on deck,” I blurted out, shouldering past him to escape the warm, cramped cabin.
Air was what I needed. Fresh air, to calm the buzz of the rum in my head. And in other parts of my cursed body.
Maybe I wasn’t the right girl for this kind of adventure. In the stories, the heroine is a lady locked in a castle. Or a common girl with dreams of being special. Or a servant who meets a handsome boy who will take her away from all this.
A heroine is always someone who wants out.
Well, I didn’t. I wanted Pa back. I wanted to inherit Cormorant someday. So I didn’t have the favor of the god in the river. So what? I could still be a wherryman. This boat was alive beneath my boots, a friend and a home. I already had the life I wanted.
I didn’t want to be swept off my feet by some Emparch, to have everything else in my life seem smaller and emptier by comparison. At the end of this, I would deliver Markos to Valonikos. Or we’d all be run through by the Black Dogs. Either way, I’d never see him again. Sixty years from now, I’d probably be an old woman knitting in her chair, telling the tale of the one exciting thing that happened in her life.
Suddenly I didn’t want that either.
Current carry you, the folk of the riverlands say. It is many things. A greeting. A benediction. An acknowledgment that the river continues to flow around us, no matter what happens.
To me, tonight, it felt like a warning.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
“You know, Bollard Company has a branch in Casteria.” Kenté perched on the cabin roof, legs dangling. Her skirts flapped in the wind as we tacked up the Neck.
They ought to have called it the Spine, for that was what it looked like on the map, a narrow bay with many short, bony tributaries. Leaning posts marked out a channel between the cliffs, which were dotted with caves. So far we’d seen nothing suspicious, but I was still wary. In the northern riverlands, you can see sails moving far away, but here a ship might hide among the rocks. Rumrunners and pirates made these waters perilous.
I knew what Kenté was going to suggest. “No.”
“Caro, they can help us. Don’t you think you’re in a bit over your head?” She must have registered my stubborn glare. “A bit! I just meant a bit.”
“You didn’t hear Ma and Uncle Bolaji. D’you know what their first thought was, when they heard Markos’s family was murdered?” I demanded. “Getting a better trade agreement.”
I glanced at the cockpit, where Markos sat across from Fee, staring determinedly into the distance. He had taken one of his swords out and was slapping the broad side against his knees. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I lowered my voice. “So, yes. I was afraid Ma would hand him over to the Theucinians. The Bollards are—” I stopped, not wanting to offend her.
Kenté’s nostrils flared. “You think we’re no better than the Black Dogs.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
She shook her head. “You got the same problem as your father, Caro. You’re too independent.”
“A wherryman follows no man but the river,” I said. “A wherryman is—”
She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s your pa talking, not you. Your mother killed a man to protect you, no questions asked. Any of us would’ve done the same. We’re family.”
But Markos wasn’t a Bollard. I watched him turn the sword over, sunlight glinting up and down the blade, and sighed. Since two nights ago, when we’d drunk Kenté’s rum, our interactions had been excruciatingly polite.
Which was awkward on a boat the size of Cormorant. His legs were so long, our knees bumped under the table at meals. When he’d reached for his mug at breakfast this morning, his hand had brushed mine, causing both of us to drop into a squirming silence. It wasn’t even like anything had happened, but the tension of the almost-kiss thrummed between us.
I startled as Kenté scrambled up, whistling an alarm. “What?”
“Trouble, I think.” She stood with one arm wrapped around the mast, skirts whipping out to the side. “You said you were looking for a cutter or a sloop? One’s coming up the Neck.”
My whole chest twisted. “What colors?”
“White sails, black paint. She’s not flying any flag.”
I jumped down into the cockpit. Bracing my elbows on the stern, I shook Pa’s brass spyglass out of its bag and extended it. “It’s Alektor, all right.”
I lowered the glass. On the horizon, the city of Casteria was a blur. The Black Dogs would be upon us before we could reach it. It wasn’t a guess. It was a certainty.
Cormorant was pitched far over, beating up the Neck as fast as she ever could. I trusted Fee’s skill at the helm, but a wherry was built for hauling cargo. The sloop made better headway against the wind than us. She was just plain fast, crashing along with mainsail and jib close-hauled, and a triangular topsail wedged between the gaff and the mast. We couldn’t outrun a boat carrying that much canvas.
Markos took the spyglass. “They followed us!” He stood so close behind me, I felt the warmth radiating off him.
“They can’t have,” I said too loudly, to cover the jangling of my nerves. “We’d have seen them.” I exchanged sober glances with Fee. They would be on us within half an hour.
“They know what you look like,” Kenté pointed out. “You and Markos should hide. Fee can sail. There are plenty of frogmen in the riverlands, and there’s a chance they’ll mistake us for a different wherry.”
My mind raced. Alektor had been berthed right across from us in Siscema. Philemon would know the wherry Octavia left port three nights ago, but other wherries might have departed overnight too. Perhaps he didn’t know which one carried the Emparch.
“Get down.” I seized Markos’s shirt, dragging him to the cockpit floor. Belowdecks would be better, but Cormorant was my wherry. There was no way I was going inside. I sat cross-legged, sweat dampening the back of my shirt. We’d be safe enough as long as we stayed low.
Markos clutched one of his swords in his lap. “What’s your plan?”
“Haven’t got one. You?”
“I was hoping you knew some kind of sailing trick,” he said.
“Not a lot of tricks to sailing. Ships carrying more canvas go faster.” I was thinking as hard as I could and coming up with nothing. “Kenté, can you do an illusion or something?”