Chapter 13
Somewhat to my chagrin, Kit seems to fall into place on the ship even more easily than Lydia has.
Easier than me, certainly. He helps Willa in the kitchen; he persists in asking me if he can climb to the crow’s nest and keep watch for whales.
The Heralder men mostly ignore him, but the Whistler crew is kind to him, as they have been to me and Lydia.
Even Silas—I’ll see him showing Lydia how to adjust a sail up in the rigging, or bent over a map with Kit, his long fingers tracing a route as he tells stories about past voyages.
At first I worried I’d made a mistake telling my siblings he was finfolk, but they both seem able to keep his secret.
And then there’s August. Even living in such close quarters, I can’t shake the sense of distance that has sprung up between us.
He spends much of his time with the captain, he and Mance conferring in low voices.
No matter how handsome he looks with the wind tugging at his coat, outlined in golden sun, the memories from Silas’s seashell echo in my mind when I look at him.
There will be a storm. I’ll do what must be done.
As a distraction, I throw myself into the rhythm of the ship, learning how to do various tasks, getting used to the feeling of the sea rolling far beneath my feet.
I start trading my dresses for shirts, trousers, and oilcloth jackets, and my cotton gloves for wool and leather.
It’s a relief to be less worried that the scales and claws will tear through, and I stick out less and less amid the rest of the crew.
But I still feel set apart from everyone else; I feel the gazes of the crew following me, and I’m not sure if it’s curiosity about the heiress to the Fairfax Whaling Company in their midst, or if they can tell that something deeper is wrong with me.
In the commotion of finding Kit, getting him settled, and placating Mance, the blood scent in the hold slips from my mind for a couple of days.
One afternoon when the wind feels less vicious than usual, I feel brave enough to take a shift in the crow’s nest when the noon bell rings—brave enough, even, to let Kit come up with me when he asks.
We bundle ourselves in scarves and hats and gloves, which make us overwarm on deck, but which I know we’ll need up so high.
My heart lives in my throat as we climb the rigging, Kit ahead of me so I can catch him if he slips.
But I don’t need to worry. My brother is a natural; I’m just trying to keep up.
The top of the mast is fitted with a steel hoop, meant for one sailor to stand in while he keeps watch.
But it’s built to fit a large man, so both Kit and I can squeeze inside.
He folds his arms over the hoop and leans out, for all the world as if he’s just leaning out the parlor window watching for birds in the garden.
Meanwhile, I can’t help keeping one hand looped protectively over his chest and one hand with a death grip on the hoop, even as the cold seeps in through my glove.
Still, I can’t deny that it’s beautiful up here, the afternoon sun painting everything in washed-out shades of gray and blue and white, even though the sun burns my skin and eyes.
The ocean, stretched out as far as I can see in every direction, ripples like silk on a clothesline, and the rest of the crew look like dolls going about their business on deck.
I search for familiar figures: Ezra fishes off the side of the ship, Josephine and Lydia repair nets, Zimri coils ropes.
August is at the prow, watching our progress, hair shining in the pale sun.
He looks like a prince in a storybook. Then there’s the sea, looking calm and docile at this distance, the waves like ripples in a mug of tea.
I don’t see Silas, and wonder where he is.
Another headache, or is he simply working on something belowdecks?
There’s something else we might see too. “Remember what to do if there’s a spout?” I ask Kit, my stomach tightening in mixed anticipation and nervousness at the thought.
“Sing out for him!” Kit chirps, just like every schoolboy and schoolgirl in Kirkrell is taught.
“Good man,” I tell him, affection warming me from inside. “You’ll have to shout loud for the crew to hear you down there.”
He stands on his tiptoes, like that will help him see just a little farther. “When we’re done with this voyage, can I join Captain Silas’s crew on the Whistler?” he asks, shouting slightly to be heard over the wind.
Now, that would be a scandal, a Fairfax sailing under the flag of a scavenger. “Wouldn’t you rather crew a real ship?” I call back. “Chase living whales?”
I feel his shoulders stiffen under all the layers. “I don’t want to kill whales,” he says.
My throat goes tight. “We can talk about it back home,” I say once I find my voice.
Guilt trickles in, Kit’s words reminding me of my lies to Silas.
Silas thinks I’m going to end whaling entirely.
I know that’s impossible—all of Kirkrell relies on whale magic—but the knowledge sits heavier than it used to.
The thought of betraying Silas doesn’t feel quite so easy anymore.
After an hour or two up the crow’s nest, a commotion on deck draws us back down.
The fishermen have brought in a haul of herring and a dolphin is caught in the net.
Kit, Lydia, and I join the gathering crowd out of curiosity, never having seen a dolphin before.
“They have babies, not eggs,” Kit informs us, looking torn between distress and fascination as we all watch the fishermen pull the creature from the net, its thrashing weakening moment by moment. “They have red blood like us.”
When someone produces a club, I realize what’s going to happen and order Lydia to take Kit to my cabin.
None too soon. In a few minutes that red blood is smeared across the deck and the Heralder men are discussing how Willa might cook the animal up for dinner.
And I’m staring in a sickly kind of trance, the memory of the smell in the hold slamming back into me.
As the blades come out, I turn away, a little dizzy and uneasy about what someone else would see if they looked at my face. Disgust or hunger.
I’m not sure if it’s my conscious mind or the monster under my skin that carries me back toward the hold, brushing past the sailors with my eyes on the ground.
But neither I nor the monster is much pleased when Ezra, Silas’s taciturn second in command, detaches from the crowd and falls into step beside me.
“Lady Fairfax,” he says, clipped. “Where are you off to?”
Annoyance flares and I grit my teeth. “Is it such a tall order to have a moment alone on a whaling ship?”
A rueful smile crosses Ezra’s face, the first time I think he’s smiled in my presence. “It is, actually, yes.”
I stifle a groan as the gravity of this settles on me. Back in Kirkrell, I spent a great deal of time alone—too much—and it never occurred to me how taxing it would be, living packed in with so many others.
“You get used to it,” Ezra adds, which is little comfort.
When we near the entrance to the hold, I expect to part ways, but instead Ezra hesitates only slightly at the top of the stairs before following me down.
Which presents a problem. I can’t investigate the blood smell with him there, but I don’t have any other reason to be in the hold.
I pause on the staircase and look over my shoulder at him.
“That was a hint, in case you couldn’t tell,” I say pointedly, rudely, but I don’t know how else to get him to leave. Yet Ezra doesn’t seem fazed as he takes a lantern off the wall and hands it to me.
“Oh, I could tell,” he replies amiably. “But my captain asked us to keep an eye on you if you started wandering around the ship alone.”
So Silas is having me tailed now and not even bothering to hide it?
“I’m not going to fall over the railing,” I snap.
It occurs to me that sailors, especially the Cursed Crew, might have different standards for rudeness than the high society I’m used to.
That I might have to try harder if I mean to cause offense.
“Not by accident.” The reply is low and serious. “That’s not what Silas is worried about.”
I swivel to look back at Ezra and almost end up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, caught off guard by the implication of Ezra’s words. Silas must have told his crew about August and the supposed plot to murder me.
It isn’t so surprising in and of itself. Silas and the Cursed Crew are clearly close. But that makes it worse. Because if Silas told them that August means me harm, that diminishes the likelihood he was lying to me, like I’ve been telling myself.
It would be one thing for Silas to lie to me, to try to drive a wedge between August and me. But why would he tell the same lie to his crew?
“How much do you know about all this?” I ask Ezra once I’ve found my feet at the bottom of the staircase. The voices of the crew are dim and distant above us, the lantern illuminating little.
“More than I’d like.” Ezra crosses his arms, waiting for me to lead the way, but I don’t move yet.
“He told you about my curse,” I venture, and I can tell from the way Ezra’s eyes flick down to my gloved hands that it’s true. I scoff and turn to stride deeper into the hold, trying to hide my hurt and anger.
No matter what I felt toward Silas, I kept his secret—that he’s finfolk—all these years, right up until telling Kit and Lydia a few days ago, and that was out of necessity. But he didn’t keep mine.
“Only the four of us know,” Ezra says, the soft tread of his footsteps starting up behind me. “Silas wanted us to make an informed decision about this voyage. He doesn’t send us blindly into danger.”
It’s not lost on me that this is more respect than my own fiancé has accorded to me. “Are you not afraid of me?” I ask bitterly, without turning around.