Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
WENDY
“ W ell, you have excellent grip strength,” says Maddox, clearly stretching for something positive to say.
Our first training session started an hour ago. It hasn’t gone well. In that time, he’s almost cut my arm off twice with blows I didn’t have the strength to parry, nor the speed to avoid.
“Maddox here is too optimistic,” says Charlie, perched on the edge of the ship watching us like we’re here for entertainment. “He starts everyone off like this: way in over their head.”
Maddox rolls his eyes then offers me a wink. “Charlotte is just bitter because I gave her a paper cut on our first day of training.”
Charlie guffaws. “A paper cut? It went down to the bone.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“That’s because your brain magically erases any negative memories. We had to dock for a fortnight until the healers could extract the infection. I thought for sure I was going to be left behind.”
“And did we leave you behind, Charlotte?” says Maddox.
Her lip twitches up as she kicks her heels against the edge of the boat. “No.”
“Then I’m not sure what you’re complaining about.”
I’d be laughing, except my ribs hurt from where Maddox slammed me across the chest earlier. Thankfully, he’d had the sage wisdom to switch to a blunt weapon by that point.
“This is hopeless,” I say, resigned to the fact that there’s little I can do to avoid my frequent kidnapping.
“Nah,” says Maddox, poking me in the side with the blunt edge of his sword. “I wasn’t kidding about the grip strength. You haven’t dropped your weapon once. Even when I’ve landed a blow and knocked the breath out of you. That’s more than some can say.”
“Yes, I’m sure my ability to hold on to my hilt for long periods of time is going to really come in handy,” I say, tugging my arms upward to keep the short sword from dragging on the ground. Even holding it in front of my chest in the stance Maddox taught me is a labor. “I’m hardly able to keep a defensive stance for more than a few minutes.”
“Unless you’re going into battle anytime soon, a few minutes is all you need.”
“Enough time to escape. Right,” I say, trying and failing to make the words seem comforting. “One would think that all that climbing I did would prepare me more for this,” I say.
Charlie shrugs. “Climbing’s mostly in the legs.”
It takes me finally dropping my short sword and almost slicing Maddox’s foot off for him to end our training session for the day. Thankful for an opportunity to collapse into bed, I make my way for my and Charlie’s room, but she bounces in front of me, blocking my path.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Somewhere my muscles can sufficiently melt,” I say, to which Charlie tsks.
Charlie is under the impression that I’m depressed.
Granted, staying in bed despite the location of the sun in the sky or the quality of the weather for the past few weeks, except for my brief hiatus to train with Maddox, was probably what gave her that impression. In truth, my brief flare of bravery in approaching the captain about training me had been a short-lived flicker that had soon been doused in the hopelessness of my situation.
“I don’t think so,” says Charlie, motioning me to follow her deeper into the hull of the ship.
I try to track our path, but the inside of the ship might as well be a labyrinth with how many “shortcuts” Charlie takes through strange spaces—she even has me climbing through a vent at one point, which is more fun than I care to admit.
Eventually, we make our way back up a ladder hanging down from the deck above, and I’m left to wonder why we went so deep into the ship in the first place.
“Surely there’s a more efficient way to get around,” I say. “Unless the person who engineered this ship also wrote mazes for the paper.”
Charlie flashes me a grin as she slides a brass key into a lock and opens a creaky door leading into a dark, long hall. “There is a more efficient way to get here. You’re just not allowed to know it. Captain’s orders.”
“Is he always this paranoid about the aristocrats he kidnaps?” I ask, rolling my eyes. “What does he think I’m going to do?”
“Nothing, I’m sure. It’s not as if you’ve ever escaped him before. Or managed to keep him prisoner for weeks. Or kneaded the mind of a brothel owner in your hands like it was made of dough.”
I stop, blinking. “You’re making all that sound much more impressive than it actually was. John—my brother—helped me escape Astor the night of the masquerade. And Astor was already unconscious when I bound him in Neverland. Otherwise, I never would have been able to incapacitate him. And the brothel owner wasn’t exactly the most clever being I’ve encountered.”
Charlie tosses her long, silky hair behind her shoulder. “The captain says you used to free-climb the outside of your parents’ clock tower. You don’t think that’s gutsy?”
I flush, though I don’t know why. “More like irresponsible.”
“I think you’ll find that on vessels such as this one, we have more pleasant vocabulary for the reckless among us,” she says. “I would ditch the word ‘irresponsible’ if I were you. Leave it back with the aristocrats.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, but I smile all the same as I examine our surroundings. The hall galley is long, with small square windows cut into the hull of the ship, each with a flap that closes over it. Only a few of them are open at the moment, enough to let the day’s light in so no one has to light a lamp. It might not be the deck, but the taste of the salty sea finds my lips nonetheless, the careless crash of the waves beyond us filtering in through the windows.
My spirits have lifted already.
Lining the hall is a row of cannons, planted with even spaces in between like a farmer might sow seeds. Crew members tend to the cannons, cleaning out and oiling the barrels.
Charlie cocks her head toward a cannon with no one stationed at it. “Come here and I’ll show you how to clean it,” she says.
“Not how to fire it?” I ask.
She offers me a closed-mouthed smirk, her head bobbing. “Maybe. If I can convince the captain it’s a good idea and not one that’s going to land him in trouble.”
I laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I’m pretty sure I’m the least dangerous person ever to have graced the planks of this ship. Charlie must find the concept absurd too, as she lets an amused giggle escape her lips. “What does he think I’m going to do? Blow his head off?”
Charlie opens her mouth, then shuts it quickly.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s just…” She leans in conspiratorially. “I’m not sure the captain’s as much afraid of what you’ll do with a weapon, but what it will do to him to see you wielding one.”
I clear my throat and spin Peter’s ring around my finger as one of the crew members behind us snickers.
As Charlie shows me how to care for the barrel of the cannon, I find it surprisingly relaxing, even the feel of grease against my hands.
“What made you want to be a gunner?” I ask.
Charlie lifts her brow. “What makes you think I had a choice? It was the only position available on the ship. And I needed a way out.”
I don’t ask what she needed a way out of. Her home city, perhaps? The memory of her parents’ slaughter? Instead, I ask, “And the captain hired a disgraced aristocrat girl to be a gunner on his ship?”
Charlie shrugs, then sighs, running a greased hand through her hair. The motion leaves smudge marks against her forehead. “His crew happened to be docked in Xhana a few months after it happened. I’d been living on the streets, scrounging for food and begging for the mercy of the villagers, trying to hide from the people who murdered my family and overran their estate. When I met the captain, it was sheer happenstance. He was meeting with a merchant at a tavern in town. I’d come in, begging the establishment owner for a job. I was so hungry. He overheard me and ended his meeting early. Asked me if I learned quickly and if I was willing to put on some muscle to lift heavy objects. Said he only had one position available on his crew, and I’d have to get my hands dirty if I wanted it. I met him at the docks that night. Haven’t looked back since.”
I crane a brow at her. Something about her story doesn’t quite add up. “The captain offered you a gunner position just because he heard you were looking for a job?” Surely he couldn’t have been that desperate. Charlie’s strong; there’s no doubting that. But her strength doesn’t compare to the fae crew members. If she’d been starving at the time, I’m sure she looked feeble. There’s little I know about being a gunner, but I assume it takes more than a few days of training. Astor would have had to invest heavily in Charlie to make hiring her worth his while.
Charlie sighs, placing her hand on the barrel of the cannon and stroking it. “It wasn’t just any job I’d been applying for. The tavern I met Astor in doubled as a brothel. And I was fourteen.”
Shock drums through me. Not that a seedy brothel would take advantage of a starving fourteen-year-old girl like that, but that Astor, the man who had slaughtered my parents in front of me, had cared. Had even noticed. Not only that, but he’d given a job that involves heavy labor to a teenage girl, a fallen aristocrat, who, up to that point, had probably never lifted anything heavier than a paintbrush.
“It wasn’t charity, though. Well, it was at the time, but I assure you, I’ve made up for what must have seemed like a poor investment on his part in those first few months. Took me a while to get stronger. I was slow moving the cannonballs at first. But I worked harder than anyone else here. Stayed up tending to the cannons when all the others had gone to bed. Still do,” she says. “Besides,” she says, patting the cannon like it’s a pet, “I’m happier doing this than I ever would have imagined. There’s something about working with my hands. The exertion of it all.” A soft smile breaks loose on Charlie’s face. “I was always jittery back at home. I didn’t have anywhere to focus my energy. Now, I do. And I like to think I’m good at it.”
“You like it then?” I ask. “Being a gunner?”
Charlie nods. “Yeah. I…” She bites her lip, as if being transported back in time. “We’re not as strong as them, you know. It doesn’t matter how hard we train, how hard we fight. I could train for years, and Sorell—you know, the scrawny fae who works in the kitchens?—could still overpower me if he wanted.” She runs her hand over the cannon affectionately. “But put me behind one of these, and none of that matters.”
“It evens the playing field,” I say, thinking of my inability to wrench myself from Teeth’s grip the night he took me. “If only we could carry one of these around with us,” I say.
Charlie’s eyes flicker. “Yeah, if only.”
“Remind me to flee the continent if you ever find a way to make a cannon portable,” says a half-bemused voice.
Charlie and I turn to find Astor standing behind us, arms crossed and expression equally as perturbed, though I can’t imagine why. I suppose his face is just stuck like that.
“I assume the fact that the two of you are cleaning out the barrels of the cannons means that Darling is sufficiently prepared for our meeting with the Carlisles,” says Astor, managing to sound as if he actually assumes the opposite.
“You tested me yourself,” I say, remembering, somewhat smugly, the night I’d caught Astor off guard by playing the type of woman I thought he might like. “Remember?”
Astor doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he offers me a smile that’s only fitting for a person one wishes to fail. “Make sure you dress the part,” is all he offers.
I glance at Charlie, confused.
“Did you not inform her?” asks Astor, clearly annoyed.
“Inform me of what?”
Charlie doesn’t pay me any attention. Instead, she addresses her captain. “I didn’t want her to have all day to build it up in her mind.”
A cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.
Astor rubs his brow between his fingers and groans.
“Charlie?” I grind her name through my teeth.
“Right. I might have forgotten to mention. We’re approaching Laraeth.”
Meaning I’ll be dining with the Carlisles. And impersonating Cressida Rivers. Tonight.