Chapter 5
It’s times like this I wish I could growl. Instead, I bare my teeth at my captor. With a flick of my wrist, I twist myself out of his grasp.
I don’t linger on the look of surprise on his face, though what I do glimpse I find satisfying. Instead, I grab onto the rope. Now that I have both hands on it, I slide down, its rough fibers stinging against my palms.
My feet hit the front end of the rowboat, slipping down the rounded sides around the tip. It teeters with the weight of my impact, but I remain steady.
“I’d cut you down,” says the Nomad, his voice carrying from above, “but I’m too curious. Really, I must see what you plan to do.”
I can’t help myself—I glance up at him. His smirk is less derisive than it is amused. It reminds me of a cat playing with its prey. Except I am no mouse. In fact, it offends me a little that he thinks me one, even if they are the least objectionable of rodents.
With a flash of his teeth, he grabs the rope again and shakes it. The boat sways beneath my feet as I cling to the tether.
He’s right, you know, says a know-it-all voice in my head that sounds a lot like John. This wasn’t exactly well thought out.
Yeah, well, it’s not like I had many options.
I glance below, hoping to catch some clue as to how far we are from shore.
“There are crocodiles in the water,” the Nomad calls from above. “If you jump, I’m not diving in after you.”
I do my best to ignore him. But I glance down and scan the waves. While I don’t see any crocodiles, that’s not exactly a reason to celebrate. Moonlight streaks across the water, unrestricted, meaning it’s not having to cut through trees or around mountains or cliff sides. We’re in open water.
Crocodiles or not, a few moments ago I told myself I would rather die of my own volition than risk fate at the Nomad’s hand.
Still, in all of my dreams, in all of my visions, ever-changing as they might be, the Nomad has never murdered me on a ship.
The end of the story might be a blade at my throat, his fingers curled around the hilt, or maybe just his fingers around my neck, but it won’t happen here.
At least that’s what I tell myself as I groan silently and climb the rope.
When I reach the top, sweating and huffing, the Nomad offers me his hand. I grab it and yank, but he must have been expecting as much, because he immediately grabs onto the rope above me.
I glance down and realize his boots are well farther than hips-width apart, his stance steady.
“That test, you failed,” he says.
Now that my hand is in his, he grips it firmly and pulls me into the secret room.
I glare at him and wait for him to either make some sly comment about me being shy, or command me to answer him. But he does neither.
Instead, he looks into my eyes, still holding my hand in his. “You’re not an easy woman to find, you know.”
When I go to pull away, he grips my hand tighter, but just for a moment. Something flashes across his face, unreadable, but he lets go all the same.
His fingers flex, like one might do if their grip had become firm and aching after holding onto something for too long.
“Needing any help down there?” calls a voice from the hallway.
I immediately recognize him as the guard from the hallway outside the Nomad’s room.
“Am I the one who needs help?” the Nomad calls dryly down the passageway before turning to me and saying, “Don’t worry, I have no intention of letting him live down the fact that he fell for that little trick you played.
” He glances down at my fingers. “Although I might have fallen for it too, in another life.”
I snarl at him, and he chuckles.
“Would you rather I demote him? I can do that for you, if you wish.”
He beckons me into the passageway, and I hesitate.
“It’s either come with me, or”—he nods toward the gaping hole in the floor and the ocean beneath—“but I think we’ve already established you don’t want to go that way.”
The Nomad must not plan to murder me inside his bedroom, because he takes me to his office, a room whose walls are warm cedar that match the brimming bookcases, their overflow on display in glass cases lined against the far wall.
He closes the door behind him but doesn’t bother to lock it. If the intention is to send a chill down my spine, it’s successful. No need to lock the door for a prisoner who has no chance of escape.
He walks to his desk, leaving plenty of empty space between me and the door. Another sign I read well enough—there’s no use in running. So I wander over to the desk, placing my fingers on the back of the chair instead of sitting in it. He gestures to the seat, but I stare at him stone-faced.
“Have it your way, then,” he says, then places his elbows on the desk, knitting his fingers together as he taps the pads of them against each other. “It was impressive what you managed back there. My captain of the guard and I had made bets on whether you would find the escape route.”
He doesn’t mention whether he bet for me or against me.
“There’s only one way off the ship,” he says. “That you figured it out means you’ll need minimal training.”
He glances at me, waiting for me to ask what sort of training. Perhaps he’s unaware of my condition after all. It won’t be long before he figures it out, surely, but I might swing a few days of him believing my silence is by choice.
Once he discovers I have no voice, he’ll find a way to exploit it. Those with power always do.
He watches me, a contemplative look wrinkling his brow. Once the silence becomes overbearing, he shakes his head, expression bewildered, but his response is not what I expect. “Looking at you, I almost forget…”
His desk drawer rattles as he opens it. He flicks out a sheet of parchment, then unstoppers the quill at his desk before pushing both toward me. I cross my arms.
“We could also sign, if you prefer,” he says.
I’d rather make no reaction, but I find myself swallowing.
Had I been born without a voice, no doubt my adoring parents would have learned to sign and taught me early, but I was well past maturity when Peter deceived me and the Sister stole my voice.
That was part of what made it so difficult to communicate with John in the beginning, back in Neverland.
Besides, I’m Kruschian, and though I learned to speak Estellian, the common trading language, from childhood, I didn’t learn to write it until Lady Whittaker took Michael and me in.
She’d taught me to write the Estellian script, the characters blocky where the Kruschian characters are fluid.
If I wanted to, I could use that quill to communicate with the Nomad, but I have so little power in this situation. Can hold back my words, though.
“Is there a manner in which you prefer to communicate?” the Nomad asks, barely able to hide the tension in his jaw, the polite facade beginning to slip.
In the pouch I’ve kept tied around my waist, I feel the comforting weight of John’s tiles—the ones he’d had Benjamin, one of the Lost Boys, carve for me, so I could communicate with him back in Neverland.
Together, we’d spent hours crafting the perfect set of words.
It’s not an easy way to communicate, not efficient by any means, but it had been the first semblance of a voice I’d had in years of being trapped on that cage of an island, in the cage of my own traitorous throat.
My fingers linger over the pocket, but my tiles are too precious to sully by using them to communicate with a man like the Nomad.
He sighs, which I find satisfying. Good to know that my lack of cooperation is an inconvenience.
“Fine,” says the Nomad as he pushes himself from his desk chair. He circles me like a shark would its prey, though differently than he does in my dreams. If I were asleep, his fingers would be trailing my shoulders, sliding up my throat to rest on my chin. As it is, he keeps his distance.
“Act coy all you want,” he says, “but we both know I’ve sparked your curiosity.
‘What could the Nomad want with a simple faerie like me? It can’t be faerie dust, not when a faerie could be more easily purchased than tracked, especially with coffers like his.
’” Ah, dropping his riches seamlessly into conversation.
Because I definitely wouldn’t have picked up on that from the size of his ship. “Well, I’ll be open with you,” he says.
I fight back a smile. One of the few advantages of silence is that it keeps people talking, trying to fill the gap—a subtle means to harvest information from those who would not normally hand it over.
“I’m in need of your assistance. There’s an artifact of considerable value that has captured my attention.
For years, I have searched for this artifact, and then, once I identified its location, plotted ways to remove it from said location.
Unfortunately, I’ve always come up against one barrier seemingly impossible to circumvent. That is, until I learned of you.”
He pauses, and then, circling back in front of me with a flourish toward the parchment and quill, says, “Here’s the part where you ask, ‘And why do you need me?’”
When I don’t respond, he scans me from top to bottom with those piercing eyes of his, then steps behind me—not touching, but close enough that if he breathes any deeper, his chest would likely skim my back.
His warm breath grazes my temple. “I must admit, I doubted I could get to you with a show of force. Something told me you’re too strong-willed for that. But I thought for certain you’d be curious, that I could set off a spark.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge as he whispers, “You’re not at all curious why I need you specifically?”
I don’t move.
“Have you ever wondered, Tink,” he says my name almost derisively, “why it was your voice the Sister needed?”
When my eyes go wide, he raises his brows. “Oh, you thought I didn’t know about that? I’m slightly offended you think I would attempt a heist like this without doing my research. I wasn’t under the impression I gave off the ‘let’s just see what happens’ aura.”
He lets it hang in the air between us. He’s hoping that by leaving that bit of information dangling, I’ll respond, that he’ll bait me into communicating with him.
It won’t work. Not that my curiosity isn’t flaring. I’ve spent countless nights asking myself the same question. It’s that there’s only one thing to truly be curious about—one thing that matters with regards to the Nomad—and that is the manner in which he will finally end me.
I am not a fly. I will not be enticed into a trap simply because I’m curious how the honey tastes.
The Nomad groans. “You are difficult, aren’t you?” He circles back around me to sit at his desk, the chair scraping the floorboards as he does. “I take it you’re not one to do something for the curiosity of it. Disappointing, but no matter. I can work with practical.
“Here’s the thing, Tink, dear. You might think refusing to answer me frustrating, but I was prepared to dodge all of your questions.
‘What artifact? Why do you need it? What are the skills you need from me?’ Now that I know you don’t seem to care for practical conversation, it will only make this more efficient.
So let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I doubt you care anything for money, either, but if I were you, I would be concerned about the where of it all.
You see, the artifact I need is locked up in the Sister’s lair. ”
For the first time, I can’t keep my face from twitching, just a brief uptick of my eyebrow, but the Nomad is astute enough to catch it. A pleased smile curves on his lips. The way he phrased his revelation is intentional, purposefully leaving out which Sister.
It’s not enough to tempt me into answering him, but it’s close.
My lack of an answer doesn’t seem to bother him as he leans over his desk, digging his elbows into it with a sly smile. “Tell me, Tink. How far would you go to get your voice back?”