Chapter 4 Snubbed
Riley
Pip stared at the both of them, eyes big as saucers. “You’re pulling my leg,” he said.
Riley shook her head.
“Calla’s a selkie?!” Pip whisper-shouted.
Nyxen cringed and slapped his palm across the boy’s mouth, muffling him.
The chatter at the nearby table stumbled for a breath as the pirates paused their dice game to shoot them grumpy glares, but they stopped paying them any mind after that, which was good.
Riley didn’t think Calla would appreciate her deepest, darkest secret being shouted all around a den crawling with pirates.
Pip’s face scrunched up, and he pushed away his tankard of fermented grape juice, crossing his arms. “I can’t believe I missed all that. I always miss the best things!”
Riley raised her eyebrows. “You hung out with sirens and lived to tell the tale. I’m pretty sure anyone on the ship would’ve traded with you in a blink.”
Pip’s face cleared up a little. “Really?” he asked, slightly suspicious. “You’re not just saying that?”
Nyxen scoffed. “Most of what happened wasn’t exactly pleasant, you know?”
Riley had to stop herself from outwardly cringing.
Thinking of that ghost ship still made goosebumps crawl up her arms, and thinking of the mutiny made her want to throw up.
She told herself her shiver was due to the coldness of the stone bench beneath her thighs and the draft of salt air sneaking through the cracks in the walls.
Pip bit his lip, and he nodded slowly. Then he seemed to change his mind in a flash. “But it makes for the best stories! Surely that’s worth a little danger?”
Nyxen’s head thumped back against the wall as he sighed in defeat, staring at the ceiling as if a conversation with the mushrooms might turn out to be more reasonable. “No, Pip, it is not.”
Riley glanced at him, and whatever her face was saying, Pip immediately caught it. “Riley?” he probed.
“Maybe a little,” she amended. She’d do some things differently, because she hated that Sable was gone and that it was her fault and that Calla couldn’t bear to look at her.
But signing up on the Moonshadow? The dangers of the sea?
The thrill of treasure-hunting? She regretted not having thought of doing that earlier.
Nyxen shot her an incredulous look, and Riley shot him one of her own. “Tell me you’d just rather be back in Vareth, waiting around for the days to bleed into one another until you die of old age and boredom.”
His face did something weird, then. It looked suspiciously like fondness.
When he smiled at her, Riley frowned, and she wasn’t sure she liked what it did to her chest. The warmth there felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
She inhaled deeply, her nose filling with the musk of sweat-drenched clothes and stale beer and sour wine, and focused on that instead.
But Nyxen didn’t keep it at just a look and a smile. “You sound just like Kit sometimes, you know?” His voice sounded weird, too.
Riley frowned harder. “But Kit is…” She waved her hand, looking for the right words. Then she blurted, “Like a ray of sunshine. And I’m–”
“You’re like her evil twin!” Pip piped in, helpful as always.
Riley wasn’t sure she quite liked him putting it like that, but she couldn’t exactly argue with it either, so she just shrugged and filled her mouth with more spiced rum.
Nyxen stared at her intently, like he wanted to say something, and Pip looked so worried that a chuckle bubbled up Riley’s throat, unbidden.
When they blinked at her, the chuckle evolved into full-on laughter, and she couldn’t stop it.
It only took a moment for Nyxen and Pip to join in.
The glares of the pirates around only made them laugh harder, and it wasn’t long before the amusement tapered off into something quieter, but a weight lifted from Riley’s chest all the same.
“Speaking of Kittredge,” Nyxen said, coughing the laughter away as if it had been an intruder. “If she talked to anyone else around the Gullet, it would’ve been Rowe. Her place is not far from here. Come on.”
“Rowe?” Riley asked.
“She’s an old friend,” he said, ignoring their curious looks.
As they weaved through the Gullet’s galleries, Riley craned her neck at the novelty of the strange environment.
Shadows moved across damp stone, voices and footsteps echoed all around, and the tang of salt and minerals and wet iron sat heavy on her tongue.
When she reached out to touch one of the fluorescent mushrooms clinging to the wall on her right, a gritty powder clung to her glove, and the light from it faded like a sigh.
Riley rubbed her hands together to brush it away.
Patch must’ve sensed the strangeness, too, because he crawled out of his bag and perched on her shoulder, whiskers twitching inquisitively at all the strange, new smells.
Eventually they reached a nondescript door, where Nyxen raised his hand to knock on the scarred wood. He hesitated, throwing Riley a sidelong look.
Riley tilted her head at him, frowning. Did he not want her here? Was this woman the sort of friend that required privacy prior to talking? But Pip was here, too, bobbing on his heels excitedly, and Nyxen wasn’t looking at him.
“You might want to keep him close. Not sure how safe it is in there, for him.”
Riley blinked. He meant Patch. She reached a hand up to stroke down the wiry fur on his back. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Nyxen’s lips twitched. “There might be a cat in there.”
She stilled, and Patch nudged his snout under her gloved palm for more pets. She took the hint before his demands grew toothier and ruined her fancy new gloves–Calla’s gloves. “Might?”
“She wanders sometimes.”
“Oh.” Riley glanced around, shifting the weight on her feet, then tried to persuade Patch to climb back inside his nest, but his little claws dug into her shoulder and his beady black eyes threw her a dirty look.
Riley lifted her palms in surrender. “Alright, Patch. I’m sure a cat is no match for you anyway. ”
“Damn right it’s not!” Pip said with a grin, and Riley grinned back.
With a shrug, Nyxen knocked twice, then took a step back, crossing his arms as they waited.
Before long, the door opened to reveal a tall, wiry woman with a scowl on her face, which didn’t promise a great start.
In spite of the sunless chill of the galleries, her sleeves were rolled up to expose tanned skin littered with tattoos.
Their flashy colors competed with the splashes of paint staining her boots and leather apron.
Her wavy, gray-streaked hair was clawed up in a messy bun, and her moss green eyes widened at the sight of Nyxen, losing their initial hard edge.
No one said anything as Rowe looked between the three of them and silently investigated the surroundings outside her building with her sight, as if she was waiting for someone else to jump out of nowhere.
When that didn’t happen, Rowe’s focus shifted to Nyxen again, sharper than before, and she looked suddenly pale.
“Is she–”
“She’s fine,” he cut in, and Rowe’s shoulders slumped with relief. Nyxen frowned. “So I’m guessing she didn’t drop by. Can we come in?”
The tension was right back. The woman didn’t move from the doorway. “Kittredge was here? Alone?”
Nyxen looked quite uncomfortable all of a sudden. “She left the ship.”
Rowe blinked. “She left? What do you mean she left?”
“It’s… a lot to explain.”
“You were supposed to watch her back.”
Nyxen’s expression went hard. “Don’t you think I tried? She didn’t tell me what she was going to do, and you of all people know how impulsive she is? Look. I’ll tell you everything, but I’d rather be sitting, and I’d rather not be overheard.”
Rowe stared at him intensely, as if trying to pry her way inside his head, then she finally looked at Riley and Pip proper.
Her eyes narrowed. She nodded to Nyxen and Pip.
“You two can come in.” Then, to Riley, “Your rat’s not coming in, so you either dump him in the refuse heap he came from, or you’re waiting outside. ”
Riley stared at her, a flash of heat in her ears. “Excuse me?” she asked.
“You heard me.”
That was bullshit. Patch could behave. And he didn’t come from a refuse heap.
And he had feelings. Riley narrowed her eyes right back at Rowe, just barely keeping her temper in check.
For Nyxen’s sake, because he’d said this asshole was a friend.
“I didn’t want to come in anyway. Clearly you don’t know anything useful.
” With that, she took herself and Patch out of Rowe’s sight.
She didn’t know how Kittredge picked her friends, but she clearly had terrible taste.
Riley stomped away in such a huff that she didn’t hear the slap of feet in her wake until Pip’s shout cut through the anger roiling in her ears. “Riley! Wait up!”
Riley slowed her pace, though she didn’t stop walking. She was too annoyed to stand still.
Pip breathed heavily as he tried to keep up with her. “I’m sorry she talked to you like that,” he said, trying to catch her eye. “Patch is very cute. She was rude.”
“She was,” Riley agreed with him, and she was surprised by the sour note in her voice. She used to be better than this at hiding her feelings. Other people looking at her and Patch like they were the dirt beneath their shoes didn’t use to bother her like this.
Pip nodded eagerly, a curl of hair falling in his eyes. He huffed it away without breaking pace. “She sucked. So I refused to go in, too. No one picks on Patch, yeah? Not even Kit’s girlfriend.”
Riley’s steps faltered at that, before she moved on. Terrible taste in partners, then.
“The whole place was stinky anyway, and you’re right, she doesn’t seem to know anything. But I might know someone who does!”
Riley finally stopped walking, and she turned to face Pip properly. “You do?”