Chapter 16
No one sleeps. We’re ordered to work on preparations for the mid-cruise ball while the bosses interrogate every one of us.
While we move marble tables and glittering chairs in the Moondust Ballroom, the bosses take us one at a time into a small room to find out who was behind our party and the bloody lagoon.
They wanted to punish us all, but whatever torture they had in mind would’ve put too many of us out of commission for the guests’ big event.
Now, their efforts are focused on finding one person to blame.
I move a long banquet table with Alana as the sun peeks over the horizon.
We work in silence while Isla mutters to herself.
She can’t focus on the menu for tonight because she’s too worried about what the bosses will do.
She clutches the lower left side of her abdomen with quivering fingers.
“It’s my fault,” she whispers to me. “The party was my idea.”
Niko grabs Isla by the shoulders and tries to steer her back toward the banquet kitchens. When she won’t budge, he bows his head and whispers, “It doesn’t matter. We all agreed. No one person gets blamed if we all take the fall.”
Boss Charmaine emerges from the silver doors of the ballroom with her gloved hands clasped in front of her.
Everyone’s already spooked by the creature in the lagoon, terrified to talk because they’re afraid of whatever torturous punishments await them.
And for what? For throwing a party that breaks the rules when the real danger is the ship itself.
A ship that’s only getting more violent.
Now Isla bends over with her hands on her knees.
Her eyes scrunch shut. Fury prickles down my arms, but I know it’s nothing compared to the sharp stabbing in Isla’s side that will only worsen with stress.
Although the bosses made Ivander leave long ago for the theater to practice his performances for the ball, I can’t stop thinking about what he told me.
He feels responsible. For us. For his mother losing her Morphia. Yet I didn’t come here to help anyone but myself. I came here to get my retrial. But that can’t be all that matters anymore. The attack in the lagoon comes back to me. Retrials don’t matter if we can’t even make it off the ship alive.
When Boss Charmaine weaves between the staff members, searching for her next victim, I abandon the chair I was moving and walk over to her. Ignoring Alana’s pleas for me to come back, I stop in front of the boss with my hands curled into fists at my sides.
The staff members hauling furniture around the ballroom freeze, watching me. Boss Charmaine tilts her chin down to glare at me. Her stare is somewhat glassy when she looks at me. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, girl.”
“Guests will be waking up soon to a bloody lagoon,” I reply, keeping my voice steady. “I think you want to hear what I have to say.”
Charmaine’s cracked lips purse, and her eyes scan the room, sensing the large number of witnesses.
She must decide it’s not worth fighting with me here because she turns over her shoulder and motions for me to follow.
We descend the stairs to deck two, and she leads me to the Morphia storage room and closes the door behind us.
Though my nerves are heightened, I try to remember what Ivander said last night. They can’t take our Morphia away without a cause. If they did, there’d be a riot. Charmaine sits in a plain wooden chair and doesn’t offer me a seat.
“Do you have something to confess?” she asks, pulling a knife out from under her cloak. She’s trying to scare me, but all it does is make me angry.
“I know you’re upset about the party. We shouldn’t have held it, but not for the reasons you think.”
Charmaine raises a brow. I get the sense that she’s enjoying this.
Keeping my face impassive, I try not to fidget as I talk.
All Mother’s training on how to be a lady comes back to me, and for once I’m thankful for it.
“It’s dangerous to be in the hallways at night.
I knew that rule when I was a guest here.
But tonight, we weren’t in the hallways when a staff member was bitten and the water turned to blood.
We weren’t in the hallways when clear skies and calm waters turned windy and rough.
We were out on the deck. The Morphia on this ship’s getting out of control.
” I fight the urge to tell her that the bosses are out of control too. “A guest will get hurt next.”
Charmaine leans forward in her chair. “This may come as a surprise to you, Ms. Damarcus, but you don’t run this ship. I’m not interested in your opinions about its safety.”
“It’s not an opinion.” I unclench my hands. “It’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes.”
She sighs, taking a Morphia container off the stack and lifting the lid.
Removing her glove, she dips her wounded, grisly fingers into the jar.
Her furrowed brow relaxes when her skin makes contact with the glowing substance.
She uses the raw Morphia like a shifter would, allowing the luminous energy to deepen the gold in her hair and style it into a flawless fishtail braid.
She’s using it, wasting it on something frivolous right in front of me.
She flashes me a damn-the-consequences smile. “If you have no information about who’s responsible for last night’s breach of conduct, then you go back to work.”
The tongue Leith always told me would get me into trouble moves faster than my mind. “It was me. The party was my idea.”
She stops, her hand frozen on the jar of Morphia.
She shakes her head, knowing full well I’m lying, but realizing she can’t prove it.
She stands, wagging her skeletal finger in my face.
“Then it’s time for you to finally take your job seriously.
” She grips my upper arm hard. “If one thing goes wrong for you at the mid-cruise ball, you and your friends will never get retrials. I’ll make sure they all pay for your mistakes. ”
When I escort the Stallards to deck ten just before midnight, we enter a space entirely transformed into a glamorous soiree.
The Moondust Ballroom is set to look like a forest bathed in moonlight.
Overhead, an enormous round light fixture bathes the room in a silver glow.
Arbors of green leafy vines twinkle as if stars have fallen from the sky, and color-changing footprints appear with each guest’s steps on the shiny black dance floor.
Waiters weave through the guests with small plates piled high with smoked murdo crisps, boiled sea falcon eggs topped with glowing caviar, and small bowls of ravioli with a gortha pod butter sauce.
The bar’s crowded with staff members, also in formalwear, getting drinks for their impatient guests.
The walls made of windows overlook a calm, cerulean sea glimmering with the reflection of stars.
Although the guests are discouraged from wandering to the top deck tonight, they wouldn’t see the bloody lagoon if they did.
After a thorough cleaning, it returned to normal, much as the hallways do during the day.
But my stomach still turns when guests swim in it.
Sage and Ezra almost plummeted into an angry sea while the sun was high and shining.
The dangers are growing, and next time, I might not be able to stop it.
Asralyn’s mouth drops open at the elegant decorations.
She folds her hands over the small waist of her strapless gown.
The sweetheart neckline of it is a deep blue, the color of it fading along the length of the full skirt until it’s completely gone at the white hemline.
Her soft brown hair is in an elegant updo with gold ribbon wound through the strands. Even I have to admit she looks lovely.
Vance wears a blue vest with a matte silver overcoat and sleek black trousers. He kneels to lecture the children about the importance of good behavior during this especially fancy occasion. Sage tugs on a lock of pink hair with a moving butterfly clip in it, desperate to escape.
I take a few steps from the Stallards and push to the front of the bar.
If I’ve learned anything about Asralyn, it’s that she doesn’t like to ask for good service.
Having worked closely with the family for two weeks, I know their drink orders by heart.
“Bring them as soon as you can,” I tell Lorrence, an enhancer who works magic with the drinks.
“We’re all out of star cubes for the Red Starfall,” Lorrence whispers.
“The party just started,” I whisper back with a note of panic. The stupid drink won’t glow without them.
Lorrence raises his hands in defeat. “I’m as unhappy about it as you. Lady Kato requested a bucket of them, and we couldn’t refuse her. I’ll see what I can do.”
I massage the bridge of my nose. “Have someone check the seventh deck supply rooms. Sometimes Rayna likes to stash them on seven for the spa.” This can’t happen tonight.
I can’t afford any mistakes. Not when Boss Charmaine is watching everything I do.
Not when my friends could be punished for my choices.
When I return to Vance and Asralyn, they fix me with suspicious glares. “Where did you disappear to?” Asralyn asks.
“I placed your drink orders,” I reply smoothly. All I can do is hope they turn out correct.
Vance coughs. “We didn’t give you our drink orders.”