Chapter 5 Old Acquaintances
Riley
Riley stared down at her new boots, turning them this way and that in marvel of how the shiny leather was catching the lantern light, how the little copper rivets glinted with every tilt of her foot.
They felt even better than they looked. The inside was padded with fleece lining, and the few steps she’d taken around felt like walking barefoot amongst clouds.
Sturdy, too. If she kicked anyone with these it would hurt like a fucker, unlike the previous pair, when stumbling into anything risked taking them completely apart at the seams.
And if Riley had spent half her accrued pay to buy these boots, well… What of it? They were worth every hard-earned coin.
Then the thought struck her, making her lightheaded. She’d earned these boots. She hadn’t stolen or paid for them with con money, or sweet-talked anyone into giving them to her. She’d worked hard for this, and now she had something to show for it.
It felt… good. Riley was a little weirded out by how good it felt, but she was too pleased with her new purchases to pay it much mind.
She’d splurged the other half of her pay on new clothes and a soft scarf for Patch to nest in, along with a smelly bit of cheese that he went feral over as soon as she’d handed it to him.
Before she’d had the time to blink, he’d grabbed it in his tiny little paws and hid himself in the bag slung over her shoulder.
If she listened closely enough, she could still hear his tiny grumbles of pleasure coming from inside it.
Patch was happy with his treats, Riley was happy with her new boots, and everything she’d bought matched nicely with Calla’s gloves–not that she’d done that on purpose or anything.
Then Riley remembered this wasn’t why she was here at all.
She turned to Pip, who’d gotten distracted by a hawker balancing candied nuts on a board across his chest. “So where do we find that pirate–”
Pip’s hand paused in mid-air towards the sweets, as if he wasn’t sure he should, but then his head snapped somewhere to the left and in the next breath both the sweets and Riley were forgotten as he skipped away. “Neera!”
Riley froze. A draft of air snuck up her pant leg, high up her back, making her skin crawl in slow, cold realization. But she shook herself out of it, because–no. It wasn’t that Neera. It couldn’t be. It would have to be some sort of cruel joke.
Pip halted in the middle of the street, glancing back at her with a frown just as Riley convinced her feet to start working again. “Come on, she’s the captain I was telling you about!” Then he pointed to someone further off, and Riley zeroed in on her before the woman had a chance to notice them.
In the next breath, everything tilted upside down.
That laugh, smooth and self-assured, cut between Riley’s ribs like a knife with its familiarity.
That patchwork jacket, too big for her figure.
That straw-blonde braid, still woven through with twists of colored fabric and jagged beads as if she was daring her marks to recognize her and say something about it. Do something about it.
Just like those marks, Riley’s boots glued themselves to the rock beneath, and she stared. Said nothing. Did nothing.
Because it was her. It was Neera. That Neera.
And she was approaching.
Riley was powerless to stop it as her heart beat rabbit-fast against her ribs, limbs going numb.
Unresponsive. Keeping her trapped in place.
In full sight of those pale-blue eyes, which washed over her before settling on Pip.
The two of them were talking, but Riley couldn’t hear anything they said.
Her own breath was too loud in her ears, grating against her lungs, and the roar of her blood drowned out even the sounds of the market-goers and haggling merchants.
And then Neera was looking in her direction again, at her this time, and everything became a tinny, ringing noise.
Riley saw the moment Neera recognized her.
Saw that wolfish grin spreading on her lips as she approached with Pip close in tow and beaming.
“Riles!” Neera said.
Hearing that name was enough to make her stomach turn like she was on the sea for the first time again. She used to think it made her special. Neera had never bothered butchering the names of the other kids. Now it made her feel like a discarded toy Neera had found new, sudden interest in.
The thought skittered away from her as arms were suddenly slung around her. Neera pulled her into a tight, suffocating hug. “Fancy seeing you here!”
Feeling crept back into her limbs, into her skin, into her face, and everything was all off. Like she’d been taken apart and reassembled with all the wrong pieces. Because she was hugging Neera back.
“Neera,” she heard herself say through a daze.
Pip looked between the two of them, frowning. “You two know each other?” he asked.
“Know each other?” Neera laughed as she pulled back, hands still holding onto Riley’s shoulders while she scanned her from head to toe.
The scars on her back prickled at the appreciative glint in her eye.
The last time Neera had seen value in her, it hadn’t ended well for her.
When she was satisfied with her study, Neera pulled Riley into her side, warmth and familiarity bleeding from every pore.
Distantly, Riley saw herself lean into the touch, mimicking that charming smile, as if Pip was one of their marks and they were on the same job together again.
“Riles here used to be my second hand some years ago. The cons we pulled together! Those were some good times back then, eh?”
It all rushed back in a merciless downpour. The rules. The cons. The knife in her back. If she closed her eyes, she could still hear a younger Neera’s voice, clear as day. And she did. She closed her eyes. Because maybe when she opened them again, none of this would be real.
Rule number one: don’t ever, ever, tell the truth.
Rule number two: don’t let them see your feelings unless you can use them as a weapon.
Rule number three: lie to me and no one will find your corpse.
Riley had followed them to a T. But there’d been a fourth rule all along.
Rule number four, lovely. Do not outshine me.
Those had been Neera’s last words, delivered with an affectionate pat on the cheek before the town’s guards dragged Riley away. Even then, she’d followed the rules. She’d thought it a test of loyalty.
When she opened her eyes again, Neera’s arm was still slung across her shoulders. The warmth of her body was seeping through her clothes, and it was too much, too hot, too close. She could barely breathe.
“Yeah,” Riley heard herself say. “Those were the days.” And then she laughed. She fucking laughed.
Neera squeezed her closer. The torchlight shone on her face as she grinned at Riley, and so little had changed from ten years ago that Riley wondered if this was a dream.
Or maybe the betrayal had been. Maybe Riley had convinced herself she’d been the slighted party, but hadn’t she betrayed Sable and Calla both?
She hadn’t been able to look Calla in the eye like this and smile like Neera was doing to her.
It was fond, and patient, and promising, as if Riley had done something wrong a lifetime ago and Neera was willing to let her make up for it.
She might’ve made it all up. It had been such a long time ago.
“Change your mind yet, Pip?” Neera asked. “There’s still a place for you on my ship if you want it. You can bring Riles here along, if that’s why you keep telling me no. Be nice to rehash old memories, wouldn’t it?”
The question felt like a bucket of ice-cold water. Pip. He was standing in front of them, peering at them suspiciously, and he was the same age Riley had been, wasn’t he? He couldn’t be allowed near her. The memories were real.
That sliver of thought finally gave Riley back some control over her limbs. She shrugged Neera’s arm off her shoulders and took a step back, inhaling sharply. “Sorry, Neera. We got our own ship to get back to.”
Pip thrust his chest out proudly. “Yeah! We’re sailing with the Moonshadow!”
Neera whistled good-naturedly, but Riley knew better now, some ten years too late.
“The Moonshadow?” she asked, sounding impressed.
“You’ve come a long way from that tiny wisp of a girl stealing pastries from merchants, huh?
” Neera grinned, then she looked around quickly, waved over a hawker.
She slipped him a coin for one of the pastries on his tray.
“Here, for old time’s sake. It’s on me.”
Neera winked at her, and Riley took the offered sweet.
Bit into it. Some part of her knew the pastry was fresh and flaky, but it tasted like ash on her tongue.
Her stomach roiled and twisted as she swallowed, even though she’d been starving just earlier.
She smiled through it. Eager to please. But no, this wasn’t her.
Not really. She was watching this from somewhere else.
Pip looked between the two of them again. His frown dug deeper.
Another sliver of thought found her.
“It’s nice to see you, Neera,” Riley said as she wiped the crumbs from her mouth.
And then, “Pip said you know everything going around the Gullet.” A self-satisfied smile spread across Neera’s lips at that.
“We’re looking for someone. Two pirates.
Sable and Kittredge. Traveling together.
Can you put a word out?” Riley tilted her head, smirking. “For old time’s sake?”
Neera’s eyes focused solely on Riley, and she had to stop herself from flinching back. She would give anything to get Sable back. Even if it meant asking her. Riley’s feelings didn’t matter. This was fine.
“I’ll ask around,” Neera said slowly, and her eyes drifted to Pip again. There was a flicker of something, there and gone. “Free of charge.”
And then she left like it was nothing, ruffling Pip’s hair as she passed by before weaving through stalls and merchants and out of sight.
When Riley looked back at Pip, his eyes were already on her, serious and intense.
He opened his mouth to speak, but Riley stumbled back, heart in her throat, because she knew her mask must’ve slipped back there and she’d never stopped being a coward.
She didn’t want to talk about this. She didn’t want to think about this.
“I’m tired,” she said, stuffing her hands in her pockets, pushing her voice to go stiff, cold, dismissive.
Like she’d seen Calla do so often around her.
“I think I’ll go back to the Moonshadow for a while.
You good on your own?” Pip barely started replying before Riley turned her back and lifted a hand in goodbye. “Alright, great. See you later.”
Pip, blessedly, did not follow. That was all Riley remembered from the trip back to the ship.
The solitude that she’d asked for. Neera’s voice in her ears.
Her hug, tight enough to hurt, to remind Riley where she’d come from.
She must’ve started running, because suddenly she was gasping, stumbling her way up the gangplank, trying to outrun the memories.
That laugh clung to her like the scars on her back, and all she could see was that smile.
Not a crumb of guilt in it. Like they were friends. Like Neera hadn’t ruined her.
And then Riley found herself in front of a closed door, gasping, fists tight and shaking at her sides. She blinked. She recognized this door. She’d knocked on it the last time she’d felt unsteady. Except this time, no one was here to answer. Knocking wouldn’t do shit.
A heartbeat–or two–passed, and then Riley unclenched her fingers.
She knelt on one knee, took a pin out of her pocket, fumbled with the door’s lock.
Her heart felt like it was about to eat itself.
The corridor was tight and closing in on her and there wasn’t enough air down here to breathe at all and her fingers weren’t working fast enough which was just about right because everything was wrong with her and–
The lock clicked. Riley gasped in a lungful of air, the pin slipping from her fingers as she pushed the door aside.
She stumbled past the doorway, slammed the door shut, stopped in the middle of the room, breathing hard and fast.
It was empty. Of course it was. What did she expect?
Sable wasn’t here. But the room looked the same as the last time Riley had been in here.
No one had touched it. The sheets were rumpled and carelessly flung aside, as if Sable had just gotten out of bed and didn’t see the point in making it again because she’d be back at the end of the day.
Riley took a step towards it, and then another, shedding her boots and her coat in a haze.
And then, with a ragged gasp, she fell onto the mattress, crawled into the middle of it, bunched up those rumpled sheets and held them to her nose.
Inhaled deeply. They still smelled like Sable.
Sun-warmed leather and smoke. It soothed something in her chest, and Riley took another deep breath, closed her eyes, curled in on herself tighter, trying to stop herself from shaking.
It didn’t work, and the one person who’d been able to help last time wasn’t here anymore. Sable wasn’t here to make it better.
And it was her fault.