Chapter Nine
“Your headache persists?” Kit interrupted a pleasant daydream about Supermac’s curry cheese chips.
Reclined on the bed with an arm thrown over his face, Nick hummed.
He’d been using Kit’s soothing voice as he taught astronomy to the children to ease the pain.
In the past week, Nick had learned that Mini was a genius, three of the kids were very quick to catch on and the other two were very slow.
Maths was a struggle, but Kit addressed each of their failures with perseverance, trying a new approach each time the last failed and never with even a hint of frustration.
The daily lessons proved Kit to be extraordinarily patient.
It was difficult to reconcile this patient Kit with the one who had abducted and harmed Nick.
“Anna said I cannot give you any more painkillers.” Kit’s voice came from his immediate right. Nick moved his arm to see a worried twitch in his tail, and a now tidied study space. The kids had all left. “I can have one of the children steal some.”
“Didn’t you whip someone with your tail for stealing lantern oil?”
Kit’s whip slashed sideways, his eyes sharpening on Nick, who squinted up at him from the bed. “Stealing cannot be permitted on a ship. There’s no quicker way to end up with starvation and mutiny.”
“Unless it’s the captain doing the stealing, except you’re not the captain on this ship.” Nick was thinking out loud.
“The medical supplies belong to me. It is not stealing, it is…sidestepping the doctor,” Kit insisted.
“Was it a kid who stole the oil?” Nick asked.
He dropped his arm to watch Kit’s face. The answer mattered to Nick, and he wasn’t entirely sure why. Perhaps because he was still trying to suss Kit out, and part of him wanted to believe what his gut instinct was telling him, foolish as that instinct might be.
“No.”
“Have you hit the kids for –”
“No.” Kit didn’t say it sharply or defensively. “Physically brutalising a child does not help them learn. Children must be nurtured and encouraged. They face enough physical trials working on a ship; I will not add to that.”
“Do you have younger siblings?” Nick sat up, tilting back his head to keep his gaze on Kit’s face.
“No,” Kit said. “Though I have been charged with training young kits since entering Lady Desre’s service.
” Despite the mention of Desre, Kit didn’t withdraw emotionally.
As if his feelings towards the young kits were strong enough to overcome that shutdown.
His gaze slid over Nick, catching his wince when the boat rocked and light from the porthole shone into his eyes.
“I will set Mini to the task; he will enjoy the challenge,” Kit said.
“I don’t need painkillers. I’m pretty sure the headaches are from caffeine withdrawal.” Nick recognised the feeling. It was probably sugar withdrawal too. He’d never had a sweet tooth, but even he could tell that the food here was severely lacking in the sugars of back home.
Kit’s head cocked to the side.
“Caffeine?” he repeated the word in English. “This is related to the coffee drink you told me about?”
Nick nodded.
“You must roast and crush the beans, correct?” Kit’s hand sank into his pocket, and he withdrew it, revealing to Nick a handful of coffee beans wrapped in white cotton.
“I took a bag of soil from the ground before we left, but the sea breeze might be too cold to nurture them. I thought it better to wait until we arrive in Aridia…but with all the crops failing, I worry that these will fail too. I do not wish to waste them.”
Nick wouldn’t have described the breeze here as anything close to ‘cold’. But Nick looked past Kit’s remark about the cold breeze, realising he had just gained more insight than he knew Kit meant to give. Aridia’s crops were failing. Was the job Nick had been taken for related to it?
“Of course”—Kit’s gaze snapped up from the beans—“if this is what you require to ease your headaches, we will use them and brew your drink. I wish you had mentioned that you require coffee. With direction, I could have taken some.” His tail flicked in agitation, something akin to distress flashing in his eyes. “Perhaps we might set aside one seed?”
Nick looked from Kit to the seeds. Six seeds, kept on Kit’s person, wrapped carefully in cotton to keep them dry so they wouldn’t begin to germinate.
Kit had taken the time to get a bag of soil, while in the middle of abducting someone, so that he could plant them.
A pang shot through Nick’s chest. Kit had only spoken to Nick at that party to scope him out, and yet his demeanour and actions were so oddly sweet.
“There was none to take,” Nick said after gathering himself.
Sam and his family were all tea drinkers, as Nick had unhappily discovered when they’d arrived at the villa, and even Connor didn’t have any on his yacht, preferring tea as well.
“Six beans wouldn’t make even a cup, so let’s not waste them on that.
” He thought it over. “Can you bring the soil for me to see? And what you’d planned to plant them in? ”
Kit carefully rewrapped the coffee beans. A hopeful look crossed his face, followed immediately by distrust. “Please do not ruin them.”
Nick wondered how often people stomped on Kit’s things to bring him down. Enough that he suspected Nick would do so too. Then again, Nick had threatened to both strangle Kit with his own tail and cut it off.
“I won’t,” Nick promised. He met Kit’s eyes. He meant it. He really, really meant it.
Kit hesitated before handing them over. Nick saw in his face that Kit feared he was about to chuck them in the stove fire. When he returned with a canvas sack and saw them intact, a relieved breath shook loose. Mini tottered in on Kit’s heels, carrying a handful of clay pots.
Nick examined the soil, which was a deep, earthy brown and broke into clumps as he crushed it in his fingers. “This looks really good,” he said, surprised.
Kit’s eyes gleamed. “I took it from Vi’s garden. Everyone knows of her family’s skill in growing plants. If the soil is enchanted for growth, I thought it prudent to take.”
Despite himself, Nick laughed. “So Vi woke up to her guest stolen, and a sack of soil?”
The gleam lessened. “Student,” Kit corrected.
Nick just rolled his eyes. “You’ve done a good job. I was considering asking her to let me plant these in her greenhouse to get them growing. It’s too cold where I’m from, even with the heat from this world raising the temperature by a few degrees.”
Kit looked downright puzzled. “Can you explain what you mean?”
Nick paused his examination of the various pots. “Did you see The Tear?” he asked. “Do you know what it is?”
Kit repeated, “The Tear?”
Was it a good idea to give Kit directions to a world of people who wouldn’t have a clue what to do about a handsome pirate there to abduct them, but who was all guilty and sorry about it, so it was annoyingly difficult to stay angry with him?
Nick thought of the churning waters one had to sail through in order to pass from one world to the other.
Without a merman to calm the ocean, it was a dangerous crossing. “I’ll tell you when you tell me.”
Kit dropped the subject.
Nick moved on.
“The soil and pots are perfect. We’ll also need fresh water—no salt—and a place where the pots can sit in the sun without getting abused by the wind.”
Mini’s tail shot straight up. “I know a good spot.”
They put aside the pots and soil, and after catching another anxious glance from Kit, Nick gave him the seeds back to keep in his own pocket as they followed Mini above deck.
As they passed by the cabin entrance, Kit tensed, tail curling around his own leg, and he drifted closer and closer to Nick until he was butting up against him.
Once they were beyond the entrance, his tension eased.
Nick looked over his shoulder, noting how the sailors on deck took great care to avoid the entrance too.
Mini clambered onto the roof at the back of the cabins. “Up here.”
Nick eyed the handholds Mini had used, deciding on the path up.
Kit’s gloved fingers brushed against Nick’s elbow. “No. Your ribs need to rest, not to be extended. What am I checking for?”
Nick reluctantly agreed not to climb up. “We need shelter from the wind, but not shade. Coffee plants need near constant sunlight to grow.”
Kit nodded. He eyed the climb in front of him, took three trotting steps for momentum, kicked off the ground and vaulted up the wall with ease.
Kit and Mini disappeared from view, and Nick took the chance to examine his surroundings.
There was no land. The waves were moderate, and wind filled the sails, gliding them along at what he personally considered painfully slow, but according to Kit was a ‘good clip’.
Kit’s face appeared over the edge. “I can assign a child to move the pots to keep them in the sun as it circles the masts throughout the day, but there is no shelter from the wind.”
Nick considered that. “Can we build a small frame for them? Something big enough to block the breeze, and that can be moved around?”
Kit hummed. “I will procure materials.”
Procure. “Because it’s not stealing if you’re the captain, right?”
Kit’s lips slid into a boyish grin. “Exactly.”
Nick grinned back, amused.
“Kit.” Evie was suddenly next to Nick. “Lady Desre wishes to see you.”
Kit’s grin vanished.
Kit climbed down from the roof, landing lightly in a crouch, and even though he straightened to his full height, he seemed smaller. His shoulders didn’t hunch. His back didn’t bow. But his tail curled around his leg and tightened as if he was trying to strangle himself.
“Mini, take Nick back to his room,” Kit said, emotionless. He didn’t look at anyone but rather at the open air next to people instead.
“His room?” Mini questioned, peeking over the edge of the roof at them.
“My room,” Kit corrected himself, a crack of embarrassment showing through the blankness. It was gone again in seconds. He didn’t delay, marching stiffly with Evie towards the cabin doorway.
Nick frowned after him.