The sentence fizzled; he didn’t mean it.
“You could go home,” said Tess mischievously, a strange feeling rising in her chest. It might have been the tiniest hint of anarchic joy. It had been such a long time, she wasn’t completely sure. “Or you could walk on. By which I mean, come on a ship. With me.”
In the half-light of the overcast afternoon, his eyes gleamed like a fox’s. “What would I do on a ship?”
“That would be up to you,” said Tess, “but I’ve heard these Ninysh expeditions are always looking for priests. You’d lend some credibility to my petition to the countess.”
“Your petition? You haven’t secured a place on the expedition yet?”
“I wanted something more compelling than ‘Please, please, please forget I insulted you and let me tag along,’?” said Tess. “Thanks to you, and a piece of luck I had earlier, I think I have it. But will you come? You’re not ready to go back to seminary yet.”
“I’m not,” Jacomo admitted. He worried his lip with his teeth.
Tess ushered him toward the door. “Let’s discuss this where it’s not freezing, brother.”
They went back into The Squids and finished their beers.
* * *
Tess fetched her belongings from The Gull and put on her rakish hat; the long pheasant feather had gotten bent, to her dismay, but she trimmed it down. It stood straight up and made her look like a walking exclamation.
She met Jacomo and his baggage in the street. Tess summoned Pathka, who’d managed to find Kikiu, who now wore a pair of buggy goggles in addition to horns and bite enhancer.
Tess glanced over her entourage—the enormous, mournful not-quite-priest; the small-for-his-age quigutl; and the quigutl who looked like she’d fallen into a bucket of sharp objects.
They were perfect.
She set the pace around the harbor’s edge, chin up, not glancing back to make sure they were following. It would look better if they were scrambling a little to catch up. Tess walked like she owned the earth, indomitable, feather tickling the chin of the sky.
The sun, through a crack in the gray, lit up the underside of the clouds a transcendent salmon pink. She took it as her fanfare.
The gangplank of the Avodendron was still down while stevedores hauled up the last of the supplies. The countess was already aboard, Tess could tell, because her laugh carried on the wind. Tess knew full well that she ought to send up a message with one of the stevedores and wait for the countess to come to her. Yelling for the countess’s attention would be rude. She’d never been specifically educated on ship’s etiquette, but she felt instinctively that walking aboard the countess’s ship uninvited would be rudest of all. It would be like climbing aboard someone’s carriage, or walking into their house as if you owned the place. It simply wasn’t done.
So that was what she did, her anarchic heart thrilling with every step up the bobbing ramp.
The ship, which had been full of merry chatter in Ninysh and Porphyrian, went silent. Dozens of eyes stared at Tess from all directions—sailors, stevedores, an elderly bearded gentleman, and the keen-eyed countess herself. The noblewoman was dressed in black, with white slashes in her sleeves; her copper curls were cut off severely at chin length, which made her silhouette look a little like a mushroom.
She pulled a cutlass from her belt and held it at arm’s length, pointed directly at Tess’s face. Tess couldn’t tell whether this meant she’d been recognized. She guessed not.
“Countess Margarethe,” said Tess, giving eleven-sixteenths courtesy—odd enough to keep everyone on their toes. “I have come with my entourage to join your expedition.”
She spread an arm to indicate the demi-priest and two quigutl. Jacomo, at least, strove to look stoutly loyal. Kikiu bristled; she’d just climbed out of the storm sewers, and she smelled like it.
The countess narrowed her eyes as if she knew Tess’s face and voice but couldn’t place them. She did not lower her weapon. Tess noted sailors shifting position, readying themselves to spring at her should the countess give the word.
“I’m Tess Dombegh. We’ve met,” said Tess, posing with hands on her hips and feet apart, drawing upon her inner Dozerius.
The countess’s sword arm drooped in confusion. Tess took this as an encouraging sign and plowed ahead. “Allow me to present the quigutl Pathka and Kikiu, and Father Jacomo, who—”
“Not…Lord Jacomo Pfanzlig?” said the countess, sheathing her cutlass. She apparently hadn’t quite recognized him, either, with his dusty cloak and his dense hair nearly to his shoulders.
To Tess’s surprise and delight, Jacomo stepped up, gave a foppish bow, and kissed the countess’s jeweled fingers.
Margarethe’s brows drew together, as though she were trying to solve a riddle. Tess hoped they’d begun to capture her curiosity at last.
“You may not have heard: it was I who found Anathuthia, the great World Serpent, coiled beneath Santi Prudia,” said Tess.
“Never,” said Margarethe, retrieving her hand from Jacomo and reviving her scornful expression. “It was some charlatan, they said.”
“Right. Me,” said Tess modestly. “The Academy killed it—those bastards.” It was a calculated risk, insulting the masters, but the countess’s smirk told her she’d figured rightly. “I know you’re going after the great Antarctic serpent, milady; I can’t let the same thing happen to it. I’m going to be there, by hook or by crook. I’d prefer to sail with you on this lovely ship, but if need be I’ll sail with the dragons or hop over the ice like a puffin.”
“Dragons?” sputtered Kikiu, behind her. “Never!”
Pathka took pains to calm his daughter; to the countess and her crew, they must have looked like two snarling monsters.
A mutter went up as the sailors shifted uncomfortably.
“What dragons?” said Margarethe, fingering the hilt of her sword, her eye on the squabbling quigutl.
Tess gazed at her coolly. “You have competition, or did you not know? Scholar Spira, my old comrade from St. Bert’s, will embark tomorrow with a boatload of saar. I hear they’re outraged in the Tanamoot that Ninys killed Anathuthia. If the saar find this Southern Serpent first, you’ll never get near it.” Tess examined her nails. “I’d prefer that didn’t happen; I’d like humanity to have a chance to see and study this living marvel. But, if I can’t sail with you, I’ll have no choice but to lend my talents to—”
“And what talents are these, precisely?” said the countess, clearly irritated by the news of Spira’s expedition. Tess had hoped for as much.
“I understand Quootla, and I’ve brought two deep fonts of lore with me,” said Tess. “The quigutl know more about the World Serpents than anyone. Pathka led me to Anathuthia and taught me to approach respectfully.”
She gestured toward mother and daughter, who were scrapping on the deck like feral cats.
Kikiu screeched, “We’ll never tell the dragons anything! Never!”
Pathka pounced on her head, knocking off one of her steel horns.
The countess pointedly ignored them. “Lord Morney has read everything there is to—”
“Books aren’t enough,” said Tess, flicking a glance at the bearded old gentleman standing beside the countess. “The texts are all conjecture. Even Santi Prudia’s library”—here she made a conjecture of her own—“had nothing of use, and those monks had seen the serpent with their own eyes. A creature of that magnitude and majesty is hard to commit to paper. The quigutl approach it obliquely, through myths, and get nearer to the heart of the matter for all that.”
Tess nodded to the old man beside the countess, who’d been observing her with an expression of detached amusement. “Your pardon, milord, but these quigutl know things you don’t, and I’m the only human I know of who’s bothered learning how to talk to them.”