The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)

 

 

“No. Kash—” My voice broke. “Kashmir, that’s why we’re still here. I would risk anything for you.”

 

“Anything but loss.”

 

I felt the blood leave my face. Words deserted me.

 

Kashmir shook his head. “I’m going to the ship. I can’t sleep under this roof.”

 

“Wait—” But he had already opened the door, slipping out without even the decency to slam it behind him. “Come back!”

 

He did not.

 

Grabbing the candle, I yanked open the door just in time to see the one to the hall closing; Kashmir wasn’t there in the parlor.

 

But my mother was.

 

She was kneeling at the hearth, pulling a copper pot off the coals of the fire. She rose and turned toward me, every movement graceful. “Only lovers fight like that.”

 

“What can I say?” I shifted, fists clenched, on guard. “I’m a fighter, not a lover.”

 

Her laugh was light, like chimes. “Your father used to say the opposite. Would you like some tea?”

 

Part of me wanted to flee back to my room; another part wanted to rush after Kashmir, though would I be able to say the words he needed to hear? Instead, I took one step, then another. The third came easier still. Finally I was close enough to set the candle down on the table near the chaise, where a tray held a fine porcelain tea service. “Okay.”

 

Lin poured the water into the teapot and flipped two cups; their gold rims shone in the glow from the fire. She didn’t bother with the saucers. As the tea steeped, she glanced up at me with her dark eyes, so like mine. There was a sharpness in them, as though she was trying to add me up. She dropped her gaze as she filled the cups; fragrant steam purled in the candlelight. Then she sat back, resting the other hand across her belly. “Sit?”

 

I sank into the chair opposite her; it was so soft, it made my body ache. I took my cup and held it close to my chest. “Thanks.”

 

For a moment there was silence. She lowered her eyes again, giving me the courtesy of indirect scrutiny. “Are you up early?” she said delicately. “Or late?”

 

To my own surprise, I blushed. Had she thought Kash and I had been together all night? She’d been raised in the nineteenth century—but in an opium den, and despite Slate’s commitment to her, I knew they’d never had a chance to marry. What would she think of the way my father had raised me? And should it matter? “It’s hard to sleep with everything going on,” I said, deliberately vague. “You?”

 

“I’ve missed too much already.” She tilted her own cup and took a delicate sip, watching me over the rim. “Tell me about Kashmir.”

 

I bristled. “I don’t want to talk about Kashmir.” There was an edge in my voice. I thought she would push back, but she only nodded a little.

 

“That’s all I need to know.”

 

Still, I frowned. “Did Slate say something about him?”

 

“Only his name.” She tilted her head. “But I saw the way he looked at you last night.”

 

“And how was that?”

 

“Like nothing else is real.” At her words, my heart ached, but her smile deepened, just a touch. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about him.”

 

“You’re right,” I said quickly. “I don’t.”

 

“Of course not. Let’s talk about something else,” she suggested. And then she waited, watching me.

 

Clutching the cup in my hand, I shifted in my chair. It was very difficult to look at her, and I did not know what else to say. Still, I wanted her to talk. I wanted to listen to her voice. “What happened?” I said finally, as though to the tea. “After you . . . after I was born?”

 

She was still for a long moment, but I couldn’t lift my eyes to see her face, to try to see what she was thinking. “I held you as long as I could,” she said at last. “When Joss told me a doctor had arrived, I knew something was wrong. Then for a while . . . nothing.”

 

“Nothing?” I frowned. “Where did you meet Crowhurst?”

 

“He was the doctor.”

 

I almost spilled my tea. “What?”

 

“He came in and gave me medicine.”

 

“Penicillin?”

 

She only shrugged. “I drank it. It must have helped. But for a while . . . time disappeared. One moment there, the next, here. I lost so much and I didn’t even know it, not until I woke.” There was a quaver in her voice, a hitch in her breath; I was close enough to hear her swallow. “That was yesterday morning.”

 

“Yesterday?” I looked at her then—really looked—taking in the slowness of her motions, the careful way she held herself. Still recovering, a new mother—and I, her daughter, already sixteen. As much as I’d lost, hadn’t she lost the same things? Then I blinked. “What day was it, do you know? When you . . . when I—”

 

“Nineteenth of January, of course I do.” Her dark brows swept down. “Why?”