Chapter Twenty-One
Soft beams of apricot light illuminate the dusty dressmaker’s shop as evening settles over Ink Haven. The second-story window overlooking the canal below lets in a pleasant September breeze, carrying with it the scent of fresh bread from Mrs. Carroll’s bakery across the street.
“I liked the first one better.” Margaret tilts her head from one side to the other, her lips pursed. “It suited you.”
I groan as the dressmaker unlaces yet another itchy, cumbersome gown. How Nightweaver women force themselves into these ridiculous contraptions, I’ll never know. “This is exhausting.”
“Tell me about it,” Jack mutters, his back turned to us as he stares at the pink floral wallpaper in the tiny dressing room.
“I’ll take the first one,” I tell the old woman as Margaret helps me back into my plain black dress. I never thought I’d prefer my servant’s uniform, but the cotton fits snug to my skin, allowing me to move freely—and take more than a shallow breath. While Margaret and Jack discuss payment and delivery with the dressmaker, I retrieve the flintlock I hid in my apron and secure it to my shin once more, grateful for its comforting weight.
The dressmaker sends us on our way, glad to be rid of us, but she sends her love to Lewis, who visits the little shop more often than I realized. We start the long trek back to Bludgrave as the setting sun bathes Ink Haven in amber light, and boys and girls, their faces caked with soot, tend the lanterns along the bustling street.
Jack buys the three of us a single fried doughnut at a candlelit stall, paying with five crisp, jet-black tenors—the currency of the Eerie, branded with their scarlet sun. In the time we’ve worked at Bludgrave, I’ve seen Father pocket the stacks of tenors from Lord Bludgrave, but I’ve yet to touch a sheet of the strange, ink-laden paper. With Father in charge of how the funds are dispersed between my family and me, I haven’t seen the need to ask for my salary. My entire life, Father made any and all purchases we needed. The thought of buying something myself with my own coin seems strange. Aside from paying for a ship and a crew, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Through a mouthful of doughnut, Jack grumbles, “One more dress and I swear, I would have—”
He freezes as we round the corner and find ourselves at the back of a disgruntled crowd. Margaret tenses beside me. At the front, a platform has been erected in the middle of the street. Four ropes hang from the structure, pulled taut with the weight of four corpses. A man, a woman, and two children, fresh blood oozing from the crude P carved into their foreheads.
Percy stands at the base of the platform, his face smattered with blood, his knife wet.
Jack’s throat bobs. “We need to turn back,” he whispers.
But as he and Margaret turn to leave, I push forward through the crowd. I don’t know what propels me, other than the overwhelming desire to carve Percy’s heart from his chest.
“ Aster! ” Margaret hisses, her fingertips grazing my wrist as I slip out of reach.
I keep my head down, trying to hear what Percy is saying over the furious drum of blood in my ears.
“Let this be a warning,” he calls out. “Any human found guilty of harboring pirates will face the hangman’s noose.”
“What about a trial?” someone cries over the anxious whispers. “The king—”
“There is no king in Ink Haven!” Percy’s lips curl into a mirthful sneer. “And there will be no trials. Only executions.”
Panicked murmurs break out among the crowd. A few Nightweavers nod in agreement with Percy and the men, all clad in black cloaks, who stand beside him. Someone grabs me by the arm just as I near the front.
“We have to go,” Jack says in a voice I don’t recognize—a voice that belongs to a soldier, not a stable boy. “Now.”
I take one last look at the slack faces of the children; take one last breath, remembering the itch and burn of a rope around my own neck. But as I turn to follow Jack back through the crowd, Percy fires a shot into the air.
“Ah, bilge rats.” He cackles. “You pirates can’t stay away from the stink of garbage, can you?”
I don’t have to see his face to know he’s speaking directly to me. I glance over my shoulder to find the crowd has parted, putting Jack and me directly in his sights.
My stomach plummets. One of Percy’s minions has Margaret by the arm, a knife poised at her throat. Percy grins, revealing crooked yellow teeth. He saunters toward me, but Jack steps between us.
“Lord Bludgrave—”
Percy strikes with the back of his hand, sending a spray of Jack’s blood across my face. The metallic tang invades my nostrils, sharp and sickly sweet.
“Insolent boy,” Percy growls, a wild look about him, as if the mere mention of Lord Bludgrave were enough to drive him into a murderous rage. He clutches my face, his thumb smearing the blood from my lips, across my jaw. He leans in, his hot, liquored breath causing my eyes to water. I swallow bile as his hand roams from my face to my neck. “Your little lord isn’t here to protect you now.”
I spit in his bloodshot eyes. “And who’s going to protect you?”
Percy laughs—a cruel, grating sound. He grabs me by a fistful of my hair and yanks me forward, toward the platform.
“Foolish and blind.” He shoves me to the ground, motions for his men to seize Jack. They bring him forward, kicking his legs out from beneath him. “You may think yourself safe behind the gates of Bludgrave Manor, but these streets belong to me .”
A man in a black cloak heats an iron over a fire, presents it to Percy. Another man jerks Margaret forward and holds out her arm. Percy peels back her sleeve as if he were unwrapping a gift.
“You should be known for what you are,” he says calmly, his eyes burning with gleeful hate. “Filthy pirate scum.”
Margaret screams as Percy presses the iron to her flesh. Jack scrambles to his feet, only to be kicked back to his knees. I watch helplessly, Margaret’s screams echoing in my ears long after Percy withdraws the iron. A jagged red P puckers the skin on Margaret’s forearm. She crumples to the ground, sobbing. Jack grits his teeth, bucking against his captors.
“You can’t do this!” Jack growls. “Their names are on the King’s Marque! They’ve been absolved of their crimes.”
Percy nods at one of his men. It takes only a few precise hits, and Jack’s swollen face is nearly unrecognizable. Blood pours from his mouth, his nose, his ears. His purple eyelids bulge, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Percy grabs my arm, and two men grip me by the shoulders, holding me firmly in place. My heart pounds against my rib cage, but when he peels back my sleeve, the enchanted tattoo Killian placed there leaves no trace.
I will not scream. I will not scream. I will not—
Heat sears my flesh, and I bite down hard on my bottom lip to keep from crying out, the taste of my own blood mingling with Jack’s. As black spots edge my vision, I think of the flintlock strapped to my shin. I think of the daggers hidden inside my apron. I could slit his throat before he could blink. But I’m surrounded by Hounds, and as quick as I could take down Percy, I’m not fast enough to save Margaret and Jack.
“There,” Percy croons, withdrawing the iron.
The stench of cooked flesh causes Jack to retch, but my senses fade beneath the pain. Beneath the anger. Beneath the urge to spill blood. And above it all, a sound: a pumping rhythm, almost as familiar as the crash of a wave or the drip of water leaking from the roof of the Lightbringer ’s galley, but something new entirely. New, and yet I recognize its voice—a voice I’ve heard babbling on the tides ever since I can remember.
Percy drops the iron, his eyes intent on the brand. His fingers trail from the sizzling P to the band of braided leather on my wrist. “What’s this?”
Touch it, and you’ll be the one who’s blind.
I don’t move. I only know that as soon as the thought crosses my mind, a steady stream of blood spills from Percy’s eyes. His men release me as Percy clutches his head, shrieking in agony. Fools.
In that moment of distraction, Margaret wrenches free from her captors, using the knife they held to her throat to slit both of theirs. I draw the daggers from my apron and, before they can react, plunge the blades into the chests of the men holding Jack.
Margaret helps Jack to his feet as a whistle pierces the air, followed by the clomping of hooves. Mrs. Carroll, the baker Will greeted our first day in Ink Haven, sits at the reins of a small wagon, her face flushed with the evening chill. When our eyes meet, she appears startled and leans forward in her seat as if to get a closer look at me. But she blinks, shaking her head slightly, and when she looks at me again, she must not see whatever she had before, for a look of confusion settles over her plump features.
“Quickly, now,” she says, slowing just enough for Margaret to help Jack into the back of the wagon. I pull myself up, sheathing my daggers and drawing the flintlock instead, covering our tail as the wagon lurches forward and we barrel down the street, feeling more alive than I have since the day my feet ran aground.
Surrounded by his men, Percy shrieks, scratching at his bloody eyes. As we round the corner, the humans in the street take up pitchforks and crude weapons, descending on Percy and the Hounds. Over the chaos, I hear their cry:
“Death to the king!”