Anger.
Wiping blood on my pants, I caught up a lantern from the cockpit floor. My trembling hands struggled with the flint, but finally it sparked. The lamp, encased in painted glass, was meant to be a signal during foul weather. It cast an ominous pool of red light as I strode around the cabin roof. Leaves and sticks littered the deck, dislodged from the trees above when our mast and gaff had struck. I kicked them out of my way.
The crate, blanketed with canvas, loomed up in the circle of lantern light. What was in it that men would kill for? Warily I stepped closer, as if the box might suddenly pop open and monsters or Black Dogs or other nameless terrors might pour out.
“Forbidden,” Fee warned at my shoulder.
I hesitated. The blackness around us was quiet but for the chirping of crickets and frogs. The wind tickled the leaves above.
I had half a mind to throw this gods-damned crate overboard myself. We’d never asked to be involved in any of this mess—me, or Fee, or Pa, or the Singers, current carry them. The Black Dogs thought people like us were expendable, and so did that commander. Well, this was my wherry. This was my life, and I was taking control back. Now.
I ripped off the canvas tarp. It fell in a crumpled pile.
Wood scraped on wood as I tugged at the lid of the crate. It toppled over onto the discarded canvas. I lifted the lantern.
“Oh,” I breathed, because I couldn’t think of a single intelligent thing to say.
There was a boy in the box.
CHAPTER
FIVE
The light hit him and his eyes snapped open.
I yelped. Fumbling at my waist for Pa’s pistol, I pointed the barrel at his head.
The boy squinted up at me with light blue eyes, dazed by the glare of the lantern. Wincing, he rubbed the back of his neck as he uncurled himself from the bed of packing straw. I realized he was my age, or perhaps a little older.
He spat out a mouthful of dust. “Put that ridiculous thing down.” Brushing a clump of straw from his chest, he tossed it aside.
I glanced at Fee, whose eyes were wide as she peered down into the crate at the boy.
He had strange foreign coloring, with a bluish cast to his skin that made it seem almost translucent. His curls were black or dark brown—I couldn’t tell the difference at night. Among them something sparkled in the lamplight. A tiny garnet he wore in his earlobe, I realized. His clothing was fancy, all rich colors and swirling brocades, and he wore a loose jacket, knotted at the waist with a tasseled silk rope.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
I took an inadvertent step back. My anger had fizzled away into stunned confusion. “Caroline Oresteia,” I answered automatically, then cursed myself for it. It was my place to ask the questions. I drew myself up, trying to sound commanding. “Who are you?”
He rolled his eyes upward, as if asking the gods for patience. “I mean, who is your father? Who are his people?”
“His name is Nicandros Oresteia. This is his wherry.” What a snobbish thing to ask. Pa says only a fool looks at a man’s name before he looks at the man himself.
“A wherry?” The stranger’s lip curled. “Why have you been entrusted with this task?”
Annoyance leaked into my voice. “I was given this crate and a letter of marque by the harbor master in Hespera’s Watch.”
“Very well. And how many men do you have?”
“Men?” I echoed, beginning to think we were having two different conversations, in which neither of us understood what the other was saying.
“Men. Soldiers. Guns.” He gripped the edge of the crate and surveyed the deck, clearly unimpressed with what he saw. “It’s not just you, is it?”
“Oh, ayah, I’ve an entire company of the Margravina’s best infantrymen stuffed in the cargo hold.” I felt as if the gods were having a bit of fun with me, and I didn’t like it. I kept the pistol leveled on him. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“My name is—” He hesitated. “Tarquin,” he finished, rather grandly for someone sitting in a packing crate. “Tarquin Meridios. I have the honor of being a courier for the Akhaian Consul.”
Too much honor, if you asked me. I failed to muffle the laugh that escaped. His stiff manner of speech was so at odds with our surroundings. Who exactly did he think he was?
He glared. “Take me to your father at once.”
“He’s in the lockup in Hespera’s Watch.”
“Worse and worse,” he grumbled. “This isn’t Valonikos. Why am I awake? This looks like the middle of nowhere.”
“When people are trying to kill me, I like to know why.”
“This box,” he explained slowly, “was enchanted by a powerful shadowman to make me sleep the whole journey to Valonikos. You broke that enchantment when you opened the box … very stupidly, I might add.”
He surprised me by lunging to his feet. I took a step back. He was taller than me by nearly a foot.
“Didn’t I tell you to put that contraption away?” he demanded, glancing at the gun.
“Sorry if I’m not accustomed to having boys hatch out of packing crates,” I snapped. “Maybe it happens all the time up north, but it never happens here.”
“As if I travel like this on a regular basis,” he muttered, shaking out his clothes. It didn’t do much good. They were badly rumpled and full of straw. “And don’t say ‘hatch.’ I’m not a chicken.”
“That’s what it looked like.” I felt overwhelmed by the whole situation. “Listen, can’t you just … I don’t know … get back in?”
“No, I can’t get back in.” He spoke in a sarcastic tone, with the crisp accents of a northerner. “Unless you’re a shadowman.”
“Of course I’m not.”
“Of course you’re not.” He mimicked me. “Well, it can only be done by a shadowman. They should have told you to never, under any circumstances, open the box.”
I didn’t have a retort for that. He seized on my silence, narrowing his eyes. “I see that they did. Only a great fool disregards advice given by his betters.”
“I am not a fool,” I said, “and what do you mean, betters?”
Above us a tree branch creaked loudly, startling us both into silence.
A chill crawled down my neck. The night takes small noises and amplifies them. The shadows turn tiny bugs into monsters. I forced myself not to glance over my shoulder into the dark.
Fee jerked her head toward the river. “Scout,” she whispered, slipping over the side of the boat with a soft splash.
Tarquin stared after her. “I’ve never seen a frogman before.” His lip curled. “I didn’t expect it to be so … green.”