Chapter Seven
Nick woke to many voices. He tried to tune them out.
Stay in the hold of whatever drugs had kept him asleep.
The twisting in his stomach didn’t let him, and he rolled over to squint across the room.
A handful of children with swishing tails sat around the table, each focusing on individual slates, white chalk in hands.
Mini, the child who had encouraged Kit to smack him with his tail, was the smallest of the bunch.
Kit stood behind him, studying his slate.
“Good,” Kit said, and moved to the next child. He went to each in turn, offering either a compliment or further instruction, and then picked up a book from the table and opened it to a page near the start. “Which stars do we follow for a northern heading?”
Nobody answered.
Kit looked up from his book to find the children all staring in the same direction.
Kit followed their gazes to Nick. Kit glanced over him and turned back to the kids.
“Tonight, I want everyone during their watch to pick out our northern guide. The bow.” Kit placed the book on the table.
“Memorise the pattern. Draw it on your slates to help.”
They all did as told, packed up the slates carefully in cotton wrap and placed them in a trunk, amongst books, extra slates, feathered quills and inkpots.
They all cast looks at Nick as they left, but none of them spoke to him.
When the door shut behind the last of them, Kit approached.
He studied his face first, Nick guessed to gauge how alert he was.
Nick would rate that on a very low scale himself, and he wished it even lower still. The nausea worsened every second.
“Toilet?” Kit asked.
“Tea.”
Kit’s head bobbed, and he set about brewing it. Nick sat upright, swinging his legs out over the edge of the bed. He still wore the loose shorts and shirt from the night he was taken. “How long now?”
“You last asked me that two hours ago,” Kit answered. “It’s been two days.”
Two days. Two days and Nick was still here.
Kit peeked at him, clearly seeing his troubled look. He didn’t comment on it. “If you are feeling well enough, it would do you good to come up on deck for fresh air. The waves are calm.”
Nick accepted the tea, the bitter leaves energising his mind.
It helped with the nausea, lessening the need to curl into a ball and wish for unconsciousness.
“Let’s do that,” Nick said. He flinched as he stood but didn’t allow any other reaction under Kit’s concerned gaze.
It was so irritating. Kit seemed genuinely worried, genuinely sorry that Nick was injured, yet he was the one who hurt him.
And Nick could tell that Kit would do what he needed to keep him on board too.
If that meant inflicting more hurt, then more hurt was going to come his way.
Kit brought him a change of clothes; trousers, shirt and boots, alongside thick socks. “I will wait outside the door. Knock when you are changed.” Kit hesitated in the doorway, casting a long look over his shoulder to Nick. “There are no weapons in here.”
“Shaving knife.”
“I removed it.” Kit scowled. “And good thing I did, you near as cut open your own throat with it.”
Nick didn’t get the chance to respond; Kit slipped out too fast. He scowled at the closed door before letting his gaze wander across the solid wooden furniture of the room.
No weapons. Sure. Nick bet after the oversight with a shaving knife being left in the bathroom basin, Kit had carefully searched his rooms for anything else sharp.
Even if Nick had, in his drugged state, decided the weapon had best be used to shave rather than escape.
That didn’t mean Nick couldn’t arm himself. Or, if he really wanted to inflict damage, he could bar the door and spill the contents of the stove fire out onto the wooden planks.
The thought soothed Nick, though he didn’t seriously consider it.
There was little sense in burning down a ship he was currently standing on.
After Nick changed, he lingered in the room, wandering it inch by inch, leaving Kit waiting.
One shelf of the wardrobe had silky long-sleeved shirts and leather pants.
The other drawers all held smaller items of clothing.
Child-sized spares of shirts and pants and jackets.
One drawer was stuffed with child-sized boots.
Finally there was a knock. Kit opened the door to glare in at Nick. “I will not wait all day.”
“Half a day?” Nick asked.
Kit’s tail slashed through the air, the sound of agitation pleasing to Nick’s ear.
“Now,” Kit insisted.
Nick waited. And Kit did too.
“Are you going to hit me if I don’t?” Nick asked.
Kit’s glare faltered. His tail twitched again before wrapping around his leg. “No. But I have duties to attend soon, my watch will begin within the hour. I cannot stand here all day. I am not making you go upstairs if you do not wish to.”
Nick’s heart kicked up a gear. Somehow, between one barely conscious moment to the next, this cramped little room had begun to feel safe.
The unknown of the ship did not. But Nick recognised the danger in that feeling; this room was no safer than anywhere else.
Getting accustomed to the ship and its layout would only help him.
Nick approached the door. “Lead the way.”
Kit didn’t immediately move. He met Nick’s eyes. “I am not forcing you to leave the room if you do not wish to,” he said.
Nick gestured behind Kit to the hallway. “Go.”
Kit went. Nick noted that he didn’t seem to get angry at all and filed that information away. He guessed that Kit would hurt him if he tried to escape, attacked someone, or was ordered to, but he wasn’t going to hit him for giving him attitude. For now, at least.
Kit led him down the hall, and Nick looked side to side as they went. A few open doors revealed small rooms crowded with hammocks and chests, most filled with sleeping men. Rather than portholes for light, there were lanterns in the hall whose light spilled through open doorways.
“These rooms belong to my men,” Kit explained. “Only a handful of my original crew are here. The rest of the rooms house Captain Hin’s men. Food is served three times a day in the dining hall. It’s the largest open room on board. On the wall there is the work rota –”
“Finally finding out what my job is, am I?” Nick asked.
Kit shot him an annoyed look. “I do not mean that job, I mean –”
“I know.”
A growl hummed from Kit’s throat, and his tail slashed through the air.
The dining hall was down a set of stairs and well-lit by several lanterns.
Nick thought that was a lot of oil to keep on a wooden ship.
“Why not use those glowing stones that Vi has?” Nick asked.
There was a lot of noise as sailors ate and drank together.
A table at the far end had two people manning it, bringing out plate after plate of food.
There had to be a few dozen men down here at least, and Nick wondered how many men it actually took to keep one of these ships going.
A hundred? Two? It was certainly big enough to house that many.
“I can bring you stones, if you would like to cast the spell to light them,” Kit said.
Nick looked at Kit blankly. Kit read his look and turned from him. “The rota is here.” He brought Nick’s attention to a wall of slate, filled with scribbles.
Nick’s inner wrist itched as he focused on the writing.
It was unfamiliar lettering, but he understood it regardless.
It was a list of names and roles. There was cleaning, lines and livestock in the section Kit indicated.
As soon as he read, nausea crept up Nick’s stomach and into his throat.
He ducked his head, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Are you unwell again?” Kit noticed at once.
“Car sick.”
Nick knew immediately that he’d said it in English—he’d actually shaped the word ‘car’ with his mouth. Kit repeated the word to him.
“Motion sick,” Nick corrected, and that one came out right.
“Seasick,” Kit finally surmised. “Come. Being able to see the horizon will help.”
They began to move again, Nick fighting the urge to curl up. Something about nausea was so much worse than soreness. Soreness could be perversely pleasant, but that was never the case with feeling like you needed to throw up.
It was only as they climbed up steps and came out on deck that Nick realised how musty it smelled below.
He squinted against the sunlight as he sucked in deep breaths of air, the fresh sea salt breeze reminiscent of home.
The sick feeling receded as Nick turned his gaze to his surroundings.
He glanced briefly across the deck. There was another cabin on the opposite side of the ship, the shape indicating it held rooms above deck rather than below.
Nick moved his focus beyond his immediate surroundings, turning in a slow circle to examine the full stretch of the horizon line.
Kit waited.
After Nick finished his look around, he met Kit’s gaze, seeing something ashamed in Kit’s blue eyes before they darted away from Nick. That shame clued Nick in to the fact that Kit, very intentionally, wanted him to see that there was no land in sight.
“Any better?” Kit asked politely.
“Asshole.”
“Your colour has improved,” Kit said, as if Nick hadn’t spoken a word. “I believe you are naturally pale? An affliction common to students.”
“I’m Irish. It’s in my genes to be pale, nothing to do with me being a college student –” Nick cut off. His wrist burned, his sentence had been a mix of English words and others.
“Irish. Genes.” Kit repeated, eyes bright with interest. “Where is Irish?”
Nick didn’t get the chance to answer, not that he was going to. A young woman—a girl, really—stepped up to them, looking at Kit.
“Evie,” Kit acknowledged her.
“Lady Desre wants you,” she said.
The brightness evaporated from Kit’s eyes. “I was told not to disturb her.” It was Kit’s turn to be pale. His skin had a natural tan, but it all seemed to leech out of him, leaving him grey.
“She will speak to you through the door,” Evie said.
Kit stiffly nodded. “Very well.”
Evie trotted away, going to where Captain Hin was examining ropes at the base of the tallest middle mast.
“I cannot make her wait,” Kit said. “You can find your way back to the room alone?”
Nick had been a shit since he woke, but the urge to continue that behaviour snuffed out. He could cause a scene. He could delay Kit and make him late to meeting Desre. But he didn’t want to do that; he didn’t think it would go well for Kit.
Nick nodded, and relief filled Kit’s face. By the time he’d turned and began walking across the deck, the relief was gone, leaving behind an uncanny blankness.