The words did nothing to pacify Ilior who glared at the captain with wrath in his eyes.
“He’s not responsible for my wounds,” Selena said impatiently. Exhaustion infused every bone in her body. “He…helped me. Come.” She gave Ilior’s arm a pull. “Let’s depart.” To Julian she said, “Tomorrow, after I’ve rested, I would like to see your ship. Did you tell me her name?”
“The Black Storm.” He tore his gaze from Ilior and regarded her. “And you never told me yours, Selena Koren.”
“Didn’t I? Then how did you know my name?”
“You ended the war. Everyone knows your name.” Julian Tergus shrugged. “Your god is a fool.”
Sebastian Vaas watched her out of the window. The rain was coming down again, and Ilior shielded her from it with his single wing. Where the other wing had been was a nest of bone and scarred flesh. Selena shivered with cold and staggered with weariness, and Ilior held her with one arm. Sebastian thought it would have been so easy to follow her into the night, drag her into an alley and do what he’d done to the bastard who’d laid hands on her. But the dragonman complicated things. And if rumors were true, Selena could summon a sirrak with a word.
Even so, it wouldn’t be too difficult. His mark was weak and desperate to trust. Her eyes—the same blue color of the water around his atoll—had been so full of hope when he’d told her he had a ship. But if he ended her soon, he’d have to sail to Saliz alone for Accora.
I might need the Aluren to lure the Bazira out. I’m not trekking through the jungle searching for the old bag on my own.
He nodded at this rationale and leaned back. The rum tasted vaguely like paraffin oil but he tossed it back and signaled for another. He raised the new glass. “Here’s to my last job,” he murmured.
The second drink burned a path down his throat and he slammed the empty glass down with a thought to return to his ship. His eye caught hold of a stunning young woman sitting in the corner. Alone. She wore a revealing velvet gown of deep crimson. Her lips and cheeks were stained with the same color and her raven hair fell in loose ringlets that might have fared better in a cooler climate. They drooped in the heat, as did the plume in her wide-brimmed hat that rich, city ladies on larger islands favored.
Sebastian thought this woman might be of that ilk, but if so, she was a long way from any cosmopolitan city. Like her curls and her plume, she seemed worn down by Uago, by the heat and the filth. Her dress was not so fine as it first appeared, but frayed at the hem, and the lace ruffles of her sleeves were torn and stained. She shifted under his scrutiny but gave him a measured look, then inclined her chin to the empty chair beside her.
Sebastian considered the offer. While the rest of his crew frequented the brothels at shore leave—and were likely doing so at that moment—he abstained, preferring to bed women who came out of willingness, not necessity. But his gut told him this woman was different. It was possible she was a harlot, but he doubted it. Her dark eyes regarded him with a strange mixture of cold aloofness and desperation. There was a story there; the question was did he want to hear it?
He supposed he did as he rose and strode the three steps to her corner. She tried to hide her relief behind nonchalance but he caught it anyway. He took the chair opposite her small table and drew a silver case from an inner pocket of his black long coat and offered it to her. She took a cigarillo from it with a trembling hand. He lit their cigarillos from a candle burning on the mantle above the hearth. Soon, a soft haze of smoke hung between them.
Silence. Sebastian exhaled twin plumes from his nose. “Well?”
“She was pretty, your friend with the dragonman,” the woman said. She inhaled delicately from her cigarillo and it blew out in nervous little bursts. “But sick, yes? She looked sick.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Seems like bad luck to take on sick passengers.”
“Worse luck to listen in on business that doesn’t concern you.” Sebastian regarded her through his smoke. “What do you want?”
“I want you to break whatever agreement you made with the sick woman and make a new one with me. I want passage off this island. Tonight.”
Sebastian said nothing for a moment and then whistled for the barmaid again. “Rum. A bottle.” He looked at the woman, eyebrow cocked. She nodded. “Two glasses.”
“What’s your name?” he asked when the barmaid had gone.
“Eleanor. Eleanor Rathbone. Of Lillomet City.”
“Rathbone,” Sebastian said. “Sounds like a fine family name. Tell me, Lady Rathbone, is there a lordly father sitting on a pile of doubloons and bemoaning his missing daughter somewhere this night?”
Eleanor sniffed. “You’ve been listening to too many silly ballads. But you were correct about one thing.”
“The money.”
“Aye. Take me back to Isle Lillomet and you will have more gold than that sick woman promised you.”
“She’s not sick,” Sebastian snapped, and waited as the barmaid set down a bottle of rum and two glasses that were mostly clean. “And how do you know what she promised me?”
“I don’t,” Eleanor said. “But whatever her price, I will double it.”
Sebastian sipped his rum and grimaced. Selena Koren hadn’t talked price. A mistake. I was too eager and she might realize that if she stops shivering long enough. He cursed his lapse, and tossed back the rum so as not to actually taste it.
“That’s a generous offer, Eleanor,” he said. “How did you end up stranded on Isle Uago?”
“It’s a long story and one I don’t care to repeat if it’s not necessary to our negotiations. Suffice to say I was betrayed by a man who…” She swallowed hard and looked at Julian, her dark eyes haunted. “A lady eschews discussing personal matters. Especially if those matters are of an…intrusive nature.”
Sebastian felt a rush of blood behind his eyes. The same rush that clouded his vision red when that filthy pirate had groped Selena Koren in the alley. His thoughts were torn back farther, as they always were, to the war. To Mina, and the Zak’reth soldier bent over her, rutting like a wild animal…
He caught Eleanor’s eyes and though she didn’t move, she may as well have nodded.
“What say you, Captain?” she whispered, smoothing the folds of her shabby dress. “Will you help me?”
Sebastian finished off the rum and poured another. He hadn’t intended to drink so much this night but the sharp edges of his memories needed dulling.
“You have the gold now?”
“Upon landing on Lillomet. My family will reward you handsomely. You have my word.”
“That’s not enough, I’m afraid.”
“It’s all I have.” Eleanor’s hand crept over the table and she ran her fingers lightly over his. Her glove had once been white but was now as shabby as her dress. And bloodstained. “If you require…something more,” she swallowed, “I have a room at the Marchand.”