Chapter 5 #2
And that’s not even to speak of the secret agendas at play.
Whatever Silas is after with his offer to take me to Drekja.
And August … I don’t believe he really means me harm, but there’s still the whisper of doubt curled in the back of my skull, warning me to keep Lydia—keep both my siblings—away from all this.
“What about Kit?” I say.
Lydia looks troubled at that, her eyes flitting quickly to the side, but answers readily. “He’ll be fine. He has Declan and Ms. Nilsson and the rest to look after him.”
“None of those people are his family. If you and I are both on the voyage, and something happens…” I swallow down a sudden, heavy lump in my throat. “He’ll be alone in the world.”
“So we’ll bring him too.” Now Lydia sounds less certain. “He’s always pestering me to read him stories about the far north. He’d be thrilled for a chance to see it for himself.”
“So if the ship goes down, we can all die together?” In the distance, in the harbor, the masts of ships rise above the rooftops, their grand uprightness a contrast to the shapes of beggars huddled in doorways, many of them missing limbs.
Probably whalers once who paid a heavy toll for their trade. “Absolutely not.”
Lydia’s smile dissipates. “Why are you going if you think it’s so dangerous?” She shifts her satchel to her front and holds it like a shield. “Don’t go, then. Stay here. What do they even need you for? You can’t throw a harpoon. You don’t know the way to Kielstraat.”
My breath catches. I know she’s not saying these things to be cruel, but—“You don’t need to remind me of my shortcomings,” I say sharply. As a whaler, a sailor, a Fairfax. “Trust me, I’m quite aware of them.”
As I speak, I avert my eyes to avoid the gaze of a thin woman staring from a doorway.
I don’t remember there being so many beggars when I was a girl, walking these streets at Papa’s side.
Are there more of them, what with the whales growing fewer, or do I just notice them more readily now that I am the head of the company and everyone’s fate rests on my shoulders?
Lydia huffs and lets go of my elbow. “I’m sorry, but—you seem so far away, Annie.”
I turn away and focus on walking, avoiding the gazes of the passersby.
It’s not uncommon for Livyati to take life and limb, even in a successful hunt.
The whale’s death throes are notoriously violent; the most dangerous part is the span of time between when the quarry is first hit and the end, when it bleeds out.
Sometimes the whale flees with harpoons still embedded in its flesh, towing the whalers in their whaleboats along at breakneck speed.
Sometimes the whale fights back, overturning the boats and sending the men into shark-clotted waves.
There are even stories of whales attacking the ships themselves, staving a hole in their sides and sinking them, dooming everyone on board.
That was why our maternal grandfather, a shipwright, began building ships with iron ribs, but it’s not always enough.
Whalers know the risks, I remind myself.
There’s not a soul in this city who doesn’t understand that when you step aboard a whaleship, you might not return.
Papa made sure to teach us this. They know what they are signing up for.
The whaling life brings danger, yes, but it also brings glory, brings fortune.
The sprawling mansions in the hills surrounding Kirkrell are evidence enough of that.
When we reach the warehouse, the double-wide front doors are propped open so workers can carry materials in and out from the floor. Barrels of blood and oil, bundles of whalebone eight or nine or ten feet long and wrapped in wax cloth.
An attendant sees us in through a side door, past the four guards stationed there. They nod at me respectfully, but it doesn’t register until I’ve already brushed past them that I ought to have summoned a smile in return. My mind feels full of noise.
There will be a storm. There always is.
Dissolve the company. End whaling forever.
Though I’ve been visiting the warehouses my whole life, the din and the smell and the clamor still overwhelm me when we first enter.
Most of the cavernous space inside is dedicated to one working area, with the dirty skylights letting in enough light to see by, but it still feels dim and shadowy, or maybe it’s just that everything is caked with a thin layer of soot and grime.
The floor is alive with activity, each quadrant devoted to one byproduct of a Livyatan.
Oil and bone, flesh and blood, all brought here in barrels and bundles from the wharves.
In the northeast quadrant, workers cut slabs of pinkish-gray whale meat into thin slices, salt them, and hang them in drying ovens.
In the northwest, massive metal vats of whaleblood simmer and hiss as they boil down.
In the southwest, workers lay out bones—massive curved ribs and heavy, knotted vertebrae, slender, oddly delicate flipper bones the shape of elongated human hands—on long stone tables, cover them with canvas, and hammer them into powder, their practiced strokes creating a harsh drumbeat underneath everything.
And in the southeast quadrant, closest to me, workers lift long spirals of skin and blubber from the barrels the whalers have brought in, carefully lowering them into more vats to be boiled down to clear, fragrant oil.
The whole place smells like blood, and the workers’ faces are grim from a long day, eyes red from smoke, soot caked into the lines in their faces and the creases in their clothes.
But the people of Kirkrell need whale magic. To restore the sick and wounded; make us stronger; allow us to endure the cold; satiate the worst hunger.
The supervisor, Bulkington, isn’t in his office when we’re first shown in; the attendant tells us to wait, another small indignity that Papa would never have been subjected to.
A fire crackles low and the air is too warm, heightening the smell of blood and grime that permeates this building even past the cutting floor.
When the door closes behind the attendant, leaving us alone in the plain wood-paneled office, Lydia’s posture changes as if the air has been let out of her, shoulders slumping and eyes narrowing. Not the younger Lady Fairfax any longer, but just an angry girl.
Her voice is low and controlled when she speaks. “After Mama and Papa died, it was awful, but I thought we were muddling through. I thought things were getting better. But these last few weeks … sometimes you look at me and it’s like you don’t even see me. You’re somewhere else.”
Even though I can tell she’s upset, I feel too fragile to be patient with her.
I’d hoped we were done with this conversation.
“Things have been difficult,” I say, clenching my fists in my jacket sleeves.
“I don’t know enough about the business, Lydia.
Joining the expedition to Kielstraat will help me remedy that. That’s all.”
“I know you, Annie,” she says, turning to face me. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Don’t say it’s just the business. We could sell the company tomorrow and move to Sant Juda and all these problems would be gone. There’s something else.”
I blink. She’s never said anything like this to me before. “There’s nothing else. The company is our family’s mission. Our life’s work. Papa’s life’s work.”
“Papa’s gone,” Lydia says, incredulity knitting her brow, like I might have forgotten. “Wherever he is now, he’s past caring. Didn’t you ever want something different for your life?”
“No,” I say truthfully. The sour thought crosses my mind that if Lydia were the heiress instead of me, she would be an easy mark for Silas’s noble talk of ending whaling.
“This is all I’ve ever wanted.” Thorns of emotion climb the inside of my throat.
“And I’m failing. Everyone is relying on us to bring them whale magic. Everyone in the city.”
I keep my voice low, knowing I shouldn’t be talking about this in someone else’s office, but after shoving my feelings down for so long it’s impossible to continue to suppress them.
“Who knows how many more people we’ll never meet, never even see—but they’re warm, they’re healed, they’re strong because of our work. ”
I expect the reminder of our responsibilities, our impact, to overcome Lydia’s protests. But she lifts her chin. “I don’t care! Maybe that’s terrible but I don’t. I don’t care about any of them. I care about you and I feel like you’re going to—”
“Shh.” I reach out on impulse, meaning to pat her arm comfortingly, but before I can, her hand darts out and she grabs my wrist. Grabs it beneath the cuff of my coat, where only a thin layer of cloth hides my skin and the scales.
She grips tight, before I even process what’s happened, then stills, her eyes widening.
“Oh.”
No.
I try to pull back, heart beating in my throat, blood racing. “Lydia.”
When she doesn’t respond, I repeat it. “Lydia.” My awareness of the curse surges, the pain in my wrists and fingertips sharpening, my senses heightening to dizzying levels until the faint sun seems too bright, the heat of the fire and the smell of stale blood and soap overwhelming, Lydia’s wide, wet eyes too close, unblinking.
“Listen to me,” I manage hoarsely, but then my voice dies, because what is there to say?
It’s not what you think? It is what she thinks.
She knows it and I know it. That night all those years ago, Cousin Mary screaming in a jail cell, pressing her face against the iron bars—the image is surely burned into Lydia’s mind as clear as it is in mine.
I see the memory reflected in her eyes; I see the realization sink in as her fingers press down on my wrist through the too-thin material of my gloves.
She’s still holding on. Why is she still holding on?