Chapter 22 #2
It’s beautiful, but what I just said hangs in the air like a bad odor. Is he simply going to pretend he didn’t hear me? Or is he calculating what to say next, weighing every word?
August drops my hand and, like nothing at all is wrong between us, removes his jacket and lays it over a boulder.
His shirt next, skin almost glowing under the sun.
Then he crouches and unlaces his boots. He straightens and watches me as I slowly come up next to him and do the same thing, stripping down to my shift.
His expression is a mix of fondness and hunger.
We wade into the water hand in hand; as ever, August seems not to notice the claws, the scales.
The water is pleasantly warm, not hot, and feels thick with salt and minerals.
Like if I tipped back, it would be easy to float.
After the whirlwind of the last day and all the routine deprivations of life on a ship, it feels like heaven.
The stones beneath my bare feet are smooth and warm.
We’re up to our waists when he finally asks, his voice level, neutral: “Why do we need to end whaling?”
I take a deep breath, still unsettled, but starting to feel a flicker of hope. “Because the whales are dying out,” I say, striving to keep my voice even, calm, reasonable. “The lower numbers aren’t just a blip. We have to stop soon or they’ll be gone.”
August tilts his head slightly. “Well, yes.” One hand holds mine; the other floats on top of the water, fingertips skimming idly over the bright surface. “I thought that was obvious.”
Shock steals my breath. I blink, close my mouth and open it again. “You did?” My voice comes out small.
“I don’t know about stopping entirely,” he says. “But certainly we won’t be able to rely on it like we used to.”
“But this settlement…” I feel off-balance, and shuffle my feet beneath the water to search out footholds in the rocks below. “Kielstraat, you planned it all.”
“Yes.” This observation seems to please him. He smiles faintly, gaze ranging out over the horizon. “We’ll need this place for what comes next.”
Tongue heavy, I ask what I know he wants me to ask. “What comes next?”
“Do you remember the fae stories?” he says. “The finfolk’s City-beneath-the-waves is said to be in the far north. The place they call Drekja.”
“Oh?” My voice sounds tinny. My pulse races; I know he must be able to feel it in my hand.
“I read about it back in Kirkrell,” he goes on. “And not just the fae stories—all the historical accounts, the explorers’ journals. I compiled all the references I could find. I can’t determine its exact location, but I know it’s close by.”
“August.” I remember the skepticism I felt back in Kirkrell what seems like an age ago, discussing this very same thing with Silas. Try to channel it into my words now. “Those are children’s stories.”
He gives me a sly look, letting go of my hand to caress my cheek briefly, a gesture that says he knows I’m lying but he’s not going to call me out on it.
Warm, metallic water trickles from his fingers, past my lips, dissipates under my tongue. “Even if it were real,” I go on, “shouldn’t we try to avoid it? Avoid the finfolk?”
“No. We’ve run from them for long enough.” He slips backward into the water and floats, hair making a red-gold halo around his face. He is beautiful and every word darts dread into me. “It’s time to turn and face them. All the rest of nature we bend to our own purposes. Why not them?”
“Like with the prisoner?” I remember his words from the night we spent together in his room while Silas and Lydia freed the finfolk in the hold.
Imagine the yield, Annie, if every ship in the fleet could sail twice as fast as it does now.
We’d never lose a whale again.… What a wonder, to be able to control the wind and the rain.
“I want to do more than that,” August says calmly. “I think they’re touched with the same magic as Livyati. I think their blood can heal us. Maybe other properties too; time will tell.”
I take a step back, causing August’s eyes to dart toward me. The colors of the water shift, and for a moment, it matches his irises precisely. The effect is eerie, like he’s just a mask floating atop the water, like the sea and sky look out through his eyes.
Then the water shifts to greenish-black and I find my voice. “That’s impossible.” But it’s an automatic reply and I hear the falseness of it.
“Why else would they fight us so bitterly for so many centuries?” August keeps his eyes on me as he speaks. “They want us to fear them and stay away. But we don’t have to anymore. We have guns, we have iron. They should fear us.”
“What exactly are you proposing?” I take another step back, cold all over, even with most of me under the warm water.
“That we hunt them? Cut them up and—” My voice dies abruptly, throat clogged with rising panic.
August comes to his feet slowly as I scramble out of the water.
Teeth sharp enough to slice through dried whale meat flash in a smile.
“We already kill them in self-defense when we must,” he says as I grab for my clothes and start yanking them on.
“Why would hunting them be worse than hunting whales? Because they have arms and legs?” He comes out of the water with the silent menace of a crocodile.
“Because they’re intelligent? Livyatan is too. More than us, I’m certain of it.”
He dresses as he speaks, leisurely, stretching before he shrugs back into his shirt. “All that means is that we need to press what advantages we have.”
The world chills and slows around me as I watch him pull on his coat, my wrists and fingertips itching with the sudden sense of danger.
The hope drains away slowly. I know now, I think I have known for some time, that there is no way we can fix things between us.
For so long I’ve lain awake at night wondering if he wants me dead.
But that hardly seems to matter now; what he’s proposing is so much worse.
“Who else have you spoken to about this plan?” I ask, choosing my words carefully. Mance likely knows; he did about the finfolk prisoner. How far has the poison spread?
“Annie.” He takes a step forward and I take a step back, which seems to amuse him. He smiles faintly and it makes fear and rage curdle together in me. “When you fell overboard during the whale hunt, I started counting.”
My gloves are still on the ground. I crouch to retrieve them without taking my eyes off August and cram them into my pockets. My muscles scream at me to either fight or run, but I force myself not to do either, just keep slowly backing away.
“No one could survive that long without breathing,” he goes on. “But then you came up with Silas. Finfolk magic saved you. Don’t you want to share that with everyone?” Again there’s that boyish, optimistic ring in his voice. It makes my chest ache as I stumble over a rock and catch myself.
“We will never hunt finfolk,” I say once I catch my breath, near spitting each word. “Never. Put the idea from your mind.”
“You can’t stop it,” August says, almost gently.
“The Fairfax Company is mine.” Pain shoots through my arms, skin prickling, rage coiling around my heart. “I thought I could share it with you, but if that’s not possible, so be it.”
“Easy,” August says with a smile, climbing the slope after me, and the double meaning of the word hangs in the air. Be easy. Rest. Relent. “I know you feel the weight of your father’s legacy.”
The impulse to lash out makes my limbs twitch, but somehow I stay rooted to the ground as he comes up to me, hands settling loosely on my shoulders.
Thumbs on my collarbone, long fingers curved around the nape of my neck.
In another world it could be reassuring, the warmth and the weight of them.
But I’m aware of how quickly he could bring them up around my throat.
“We can talk more about it back at the settlement,” he says, tone conversational. “Mance and the other officers may have some wisdom to offer.”
I hear what he’s saying. Reminding me that most of the whalers stand with him, from the crew up to the shareholders back in Kirkrell. I might be the head of the company, but August’s vision is so much bigger than a surname. Even if I dissolve the company, he could just start another one.
“Why did you bring me here, August?” The enormity of my disadvantage presses down on me and steals my breath.
“To talk. To be alone with you. It’s been too long.” His eyes flicker over me, head to foot and back again. “You’ve changed, Annie, but I don’t mind it. Whaler Annie … I like her.”
“You didn’t expect me to last this long.
” Possibilities unspool in my head, each more absurd and impossible than the last. I could attack him.
Try to subdue him. But even with the scales and claws, I don’t know that I could overcome him.
Could I bear to hurt him? Even knowing his intentions.
His hands are warm, his smell as familiar as my own heartbeat beneath the lingering sulfur trace of the hot spring.
I have held his body with such tenderness and he mine.
A smile touches his lips. “I promise I won’t underestimate you again. Come on.” He steps back. “There’s going to be a celebration on the beach tonight for our arrival. Not to be missed.”
Even if I could hurt him, what then? Return to camp alone and bloody and expect no one to ask questions? There’s no way I win this. No world where I come out with everything I want. Only, if I’m lucky, get out alive with the others.
Because I’m not the only one in danger here in Kielstraat, I realize as I fall into step next to August, my jaw tight. I never was. Kit and Lydia, the Whistler crew, Silas—they all are too. All the more now that I’ve tipped my hand.
“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth. “We’ll discuss it more later.”
We walk back to the settlement in silence but I never put the gloves on. I want him to see the claws. To remember that I’m dangerous too.