Chapter 11
My feet carry me down the narrow staircase, past the officers’ staterooms and into the blubber room, but it’s not far enough.
Men are already all around me, loud and oblivious.
I don’t want to be among them, but nor do I want to be alone in my cabin.
My cabin, boxy and odd, squatting on the deck of the ship like a flea on a dog’s back. Just like me, clearly out of place.
Instead, I go down the next set of stairs, stairs I’ve never taken before, into the hold.
It’s dark down here, and cold. It feels like the air itself changes in the time it takes me to stumble down the steep, ladderlike stairs, going cold and damp, my very skin telling me I’ve descended beneath the water level.
I emerge into a vast, cave-like space, divided into narrow aisles by rows of barrels stacked higher than my head.
It smells like tar and sawdust, and the chill seeps through my clothes into my skin.
Here is where all the supplies for the voyage are stored, food and extra clothes for the crew, furs and tall boots for when we reach the arctic.
Nails and boards and hammers, lances and harpoons, all of it shrouded in pitch-black but for the small circle illuminated by the lamp at the base of the staircase.
This I take out of its sconce and carry with me, not knowing where I’m going, just that I need movement to keep the swirl of dark thoughts at bay. I walk far enough, turning and weaving among the barrels, that I doubt the light will be visible from the staircase.
But even as I glance over my shoulder, I know no one is going to come after me. August didn’t even notice me leaving. We talked about the whaleboats. I told him I wanted to be on his crew. He smiled and nodded and like a fool I took that for a promise.
Footsteps on the staircase. I freeze amid the maze of barrels and shrink against their bulk, swiping at my cheeks—wet now—with the back of my sleeve. But they aren’t August’s footsteps—they’re light, uncertain almost, not his bold, confident tread.
I consider putting out the lantern, but that seems silly, childish. I’m not doing anything wrong; this ship belongs to my family. So when Silas rounds the corner, I’m just standing there with the lantern dangling from my fingers, trying not to cry.
The lamplight casts his pale face in strange shadows as he stops a few feet away, making his gray eyes look dark, almost black, unreadable.
I blink and swallow, furious that he’s seeing me so vulnerable once again.
The shareholder meeting. The room beneath the Spout.
The shrine at the Seaman’s Bethel. And now this. He must think me so fragile.
“Lady Fairfax,” he says quietly. “Are you all right?”
I lower the lamp slightly, hoping the light doesn’t glint off the tear tracks. “You don’t have to keep me on your crew,” I say, aiming for briskness. “That was kind of you to name me, but not necessary.”
“I didn’t do it out of kindness,” he says cautiously, hands in his pockets. The light brings out the hollows in his cheeks, shadows under his eyes. “But if you don’t want to be on a crew, I can speak to Mance and rearrange things.”
“I did—I do want to be on a crew. I want to learn. But…” I swallow and shake my head. “August was right. I have no experience. I’ll just be a liability to you.” My muscles twitch with the desire to pace. “I won’t hold it against you if you want someone else.”
I turn on my heel and set off down the aisle again. I don’t expect Silas to follow—indeed the aisles are too narrow for two people to walk side by side without brushing shoulders—but he falls into step slightly behind me, pace matching mine.
“I wouldn’t have named you if I didn’t want you on my crew,” he says from behind me.
Our shadows pool together at my feet. “I thought you knew this, Lady Fairfax, but I’m not particularly selfless or brave.
I’m not in the habit of putting myself and my crew in danger unnecessarily.
I don’t think you’ll be a liability. Quite the opposite. ”
Each word makes my cheeks burn and I’m glad my back is to him. His words are brusque, not silky like August’s would be, but he’s the one who stood on the forecastle in front of everyone and called out my name. Not August. “Thank you.”
“One thing you should know about being on my crew,” he adds. “It won’t make you any friends among the Heralder men to be associated with me.”
I glance over my shoulder to see that the words are delivered with a wry smile, but a dullness haunts his eyes that makes me think maybe guilt nips at his heels same as it does mine. “But they don’t know you’re finfolk,” I say.
“They suspect. I lead the Cursed Crew, after all. And I have a cross scar, like in the story of Ivar Kirkrell. Someone saw it once and rumors spread.”
“A scar?” I turn, confused, remembering the old story told to every child in Kirkrell, reproduced in stained glass in the windows at Seaman’s Bethel.
The story of a human fisherman and his finfolk wife and their son, whose grandmother burned a cross onto his skin to prevent him being taken away by the finwife. “Who gave it to you?”
“My father. Who else?” In the story, Ivar Kirkrell’s scar was a badge of honor, of humanity. But the bitterness in Silas’s voice makes it clear he doesn’t see it that way. More and more stories are turning out to be not what they seemed.
“But I thought—” I stumble over my words, trying to choose them carefully. “In church you told me that holy things didn’t really affect finfolk. So why…”
“They don’t,” he says, meeting my eyes quickly before glancing away.
“My father wasn’t exactly thinking clearly the day my mother left.
She wanted to take me too, but he wasn’t going to let her.
” His throat works as he swallows. “He locked me in the cellar and told my mother I’d hid from her.
That I didn’t want to go with her. The scar was just a precaution. ”
“I’m sorry.” It’s hard to get the words out; my tongue feels heavy and uncooperative. “I don’t care what the Heralder men think. I’ll join your crew.”
Our words fade into the silence, leaving only the light drumbeat of our footsteps. It’s an unsettling thing, feeling empathy for Silas Price, someone I’ve hated for so long.
But even as that thought floats across my mind, I realize that hatred isn’t quite the right word anymore. Maybe it never was. The heavy weight in my chest when I look at him feels vinegar-bitter, like guilt.
If he survived something he shouldn’t have, I did too. And furthermore, he’s been taking to the ocean all these years, when I turned away from it. He’s a living reminder of all the ways I fall short.
“I think you’re brave,” I add reluctantly.
Credit where it’s due. “You’ve survived a lot.
I…” I take a deep breath, half hoping he’ll interrupt and save me from having to say this, but he doesn’t.
There’s just the heat of his gaze on my shoulders.
“I’m sorry for what I said when we were children,” I finally say in a rush.
“At my parents’ funeral. I know it wasn’t your fault what happened. ”
He stops walking. It takes me a few seconds to realize it and turn.
I don’t know how I expected Silas to react, but it’s like he’s drawn in on himself.
His light-dark gaze skates away from mine; his shoulders hunch in, uncomfortable.
Then he seems to shake it off and start walking again.
“Surviving the Volyar doesn’t make us brave,” he says quietly.
“It just means the finfolk decided to let us live.”
“But you’re still here.” We turn the corner into another aisle, darkness and silence all around.
The sounds of the ship over our heads, heavy feet on floorboards and muffled laughter and shouts, feel very far away.
“You still came on this voyage, even though everyone on this ship would hate you if they knew the truth.”
He flinches, making me wish I hadn’t phrased it so harshly, but I’m not wrong.
Silas seems human enough most of the time, but I remember the strange sheen in his eyes when he prayed at Seaman’s Bethel, the too-fluid way he moves sometimes when he thinks no one’s looking.
If Mance’s men knew for sure he was finfolk, beyond just rumors, I fear they’d run him off this ship, or worse.
“I don’t mean to be argumentative, Lady Fairfax, but that’s not bravery either,” he says after a moment. “I’m here because if we don’t succeed, the alternative will be worse.”
“You mean succeed in ending whaling?” Anger flickers in me. I tried to extend a peace offering, only for him to press his agenda. “The alternative being a war between humans and finfolk if the whales die out?”
Maybe it’s the dark eeriness of the hold; maybe it’s because we’re at sea now and the bulk of the Heralder is still so small next to the vastness of the water and the creatures in it.
But his intimations of war frighten me more here than they did when he first told me about them at the Spout. They seem more possible.
I jump when his hand finds my shoulder, turning me around.
His skin is warm through the fabric of my shirt, trailing prickles of electricity even after he’s dropped his hand.
“I’m not trying to frighten you,” he says, a strained plea in his voice.
“Please understand that. If there was another way, I’d take it. ”
It’s strange—the desperation in his words makes it seem like he’s asking for forgiveness, when if anything he’s the one helping me by taking me to Drekja, with nothing in return except my promise to end whaling, a promise I don’t intend to keep.
“It’s okay,” I say, shrinking back from him in fear that my sudden guilt will show on my face.
He blinks. “We should get back above,” he says, echoing my thoughts. “Your fiancé will be looking for you.”
I scoff. Doubtful. For a few minutes, I’d forgotten about August passing me over for the whaleboat crew.
But the anger stokes back to life quickly, the skin on my wrists prickling along with it, new scales I’ll have to pluck out tonight.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself, and make an effort not to stomp after Silas as he turns toward the staircase.
Then halfway across the length of the hold, something stops me. Sends a bolt of mixed revulsion and excitement through me, the monster under my skin stirring. I stop walking without quite meaning to.
Silas pauses too, turning back toward me. “What is it?”
Something in the air, making my heart beat fast, something that doesn’t make sense. I blink, take a shallow breath. “Nothing.”
“Lady Fairfax?” comes another voice from the direction of the staircase, making us both jump. It takes me a moment to place it as Teuila. “You’re needed above. Bit of a problem.”
There’s urgency in her voice, prompting me to hurry to the staircase. My head clears as I approach the entrance to the upper deck, and I brush past Silas without looking at him, though he’s clearly trying to meet my eye.
Because I don’t want to explain what made me halt just now.
I don’t want him to know how very attuned I am to the smell of fresh blood.