The light stopped flickering, and then I remembered there was a lightship that sat anchored outside the shoals off Enantios Isle.
I was not mad. It was a real light, on a real ship, with a real man inside who was probably drinking hot gin beside his stove. The light sparked something deep inside me that was not quite hope. Long after we passed the ship, I kept glancing over my left shoulder at it, a winking reminder that some things in the world were still steadfast.
Kenté climbed through the hatch, carrying a lantern.
“I think that’s the Enantios lightship,” I said, sniffling. I rubbed my nose on my sleeve for the hundredth time, the raw skin burning. “I’ll look at a chart to make sure. But we must be a third of the way to Iantiporos.”
“You need to get some sleep.” She closed her eyes. When she opened them, the pool of light cast by the lantern had doubled in size.
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“It’s not very good.” She cupped her hands around it. “It hasn’t any warmth to it. It’s more like the absence of shadow around the lantern than an actual light. You reach into the dark and you twist, and shove it aside …” She shook her head. “You haven’t any idea what I mean.”
“No.” I was too tired to say more.
“Go to bed, Caro.”
I uncurled my stiff fingers from the tiller, flexing them against the sudden sharp pain. “Have you ever sailed by yourself before?”
“I grew up in Siscema. Of course I have.” I stared at her until she admitted, “In a dinghy. But there’s no one out here but us, and I daresay I can read a compass as well as you.” She set the lantern down and took the tiller.
I peered into the dark water. The drakon seemed to have gone. Surely there must be a meaning lurking behind it—a sign of some kind. Of good or ill, I did not know.
At the top of the ladder, I stopped. “Kenté? Thank you. For everything.”
I stumbled to the cabin, pausing to reassure myself that Daria was all right. Curled up sleeping in one of the bunks, she looked heartbreakingly tiny. I shed my wet clothes and found a blanket to wrap around myself. It was scratchy and smelled like rank male sweat, but it was warm.
Too numb to sleep, I stared at nothing, waiting for the tears to come. But they did not. Perhaps they were all used up.
In spite of everything, warm brown spots crowded the edges of my vision. My head nodded to my chin. I fell sideways into the nearest bunk and surrendered to sleep.
When I woke, the first thing I saw was a man squatting on the opposite bench, watching me.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
I shrieked, scrambling for my knife.
The man sat at the galley table, picking dirt from under his fingernails with a blade. His hair was whitened either by sun or age—sun, I thought, for his skin had no wrinkles except around his eyes—and he wore it twisted into locks and tied with a red-striped head wrap. Tanned golden brown all over, his cheeks were blotched with sunspots and freckles. He wore a vest with no shirt underneath, displaying hairy muscular arms covered in tattoos.
“Good morning, Captain.” He grinned, showing a missing tooth.
“Xanto’s balls!” I clutched the blanket to my chest. “Who are you?”
“I am Nereus.” He raised the hand with the blade. “Please sit. I have fried you an egg and made coffee.”
I could smell the food. I was sorely tempted. “Where did you come from?” From the movement and the waves slapping the hull, we were still on the ocean. I dug in the blankets, finally locating my dagger in its sheath. “How did you get on this ship?”
The man who called himself Nereus looked disappointed. “Oh, come now. Is this how you treat every man who makes you breakfast? Let’s not go pulling knives.”
“You have a knife.” I bundled the loose end of the blanket, throwing it over my shoulder like an old-fashioned toga. “And strange men aren’t in the habit of making me breakfast.”
He flipped his knife in the air, caught it with a flourish, and put it away. “Now. Why do you not eat? The little one eats.”
Startled, I leaned out of the bunk. Daria sat cross-legged on a bench, casting shy glances at the mysterious sailor as she sliced up an omelet with a fork.
“Daria,” I said, “don’t eat that. I’ll make you breakfast.” I turned to the man. “You weren’t here last night,” I insisted, brandishing my dagger. “Where did you come from?”
The other hatch on deck led to the cargo hold. Perhaps he had hidden there, but why hadn’t he shown himself yesterday? If he was a Black Dog, he could have easily overpowered us during the storm.
“Ah.” As he sipped from his mug, I glimpsed an obscene mermaid tattoo on his forearm. “The coffee grows cold. Eat up, little one.” He winked at Daria. “There is nothing like hot food to convince us that all may not be lost, ayah?”
He certainly wasn’t treating us like prisoners, but the whole thing stunk of something fishy. Or maybe that was his trousers, which—I wasn’t imagining it, was I?—had a clump of dried seaweed stuck to one leg.
“I’ll eat and drink when you answer my questions,” I said. “Where’s Kenté?”
He shrugged. “Who do you think is sailing?”
Keeping the knife between Nereus and me, I slid out of the bunk. My own clothes were still damp, so I found a bulky sweater in the locker and rolled up the cuffs. It reeked of smoke. Placing my Akhaian dagger beside my plate, I took a seat on the bench. The stranger gestured encouragingly.
I picked up a fork. “Are you a Black Dog? Do you mean to stop me getting to Valonikos?”
He tsk-ed with his tongue against his front teeth. “So untrusting.”
“You look like a pirate. The last pirates I met tried to kill me.”
He smiled. “Ayah, and didn’t she send me to help you, Caroline Oresteia?”
An eerie feeling crawled down my neck. How did he know my name?
“Who sent you?” I said around a mouthful of omelet. Pepper and herbs were mixed in with the egg. It was delicious, or maybe I was just starved. “My mother? Do you work for the Bollards?”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt foolish. My mother was a member of a powerful house, but even she could not spirit a man onto a moving ship in the middle of the ocean. Was it possible he’d been following us the whole way from Siscema? Maybe the Bollards had an informant stationed among the Black Dogs. Something like that would be very typical of them.
I mulled this over as I lifted my mug. The coffee was dark and strong, the way Pa made it. Thinking about him made tears prickle my eyes. I saw Nereus watching me and faked a cough.
“Too hot,” I rasped, looking at my plate until I had control of myself again.