Chapter 18 #2
Oh, well. She took another sip, determined to leave the Aether problem behind her for tonight, no matter how bad it tasted.
“Amaya.”
Maker have mercy, there was something about the way Will said her name. It was warm. Deep. Gentle, even. Like it deserved to be spoken with deference. The sound cut through the noise of the rowdy restaurant and drew Amaya like a magnet to meet his eyes.
Had he always looked at her like that? Or was that just his face?
Don’t get distracted.
“Hm?”
“Have you ever used a gun?”
Amaya’s lips parted at the question. “N-no?”
Lexington raised one eyebrow. “You aren’t sure? That’s concerning.”
Was he joking with her now? Amaya added it to today’s list of strange events.
“No, I . . .” Heat bloomed across her cheeks. “Firearms are forbidden in Sorrento, outside of law enforcement. I’ve never even held one.”
Amaya had done quite a few things that were “forbidden” for a woman of her status living in Sorrento—almost all of them with Camden at her side—but fussing around with weapons wasn’t one of them. The first and only weapon she’d ever touched was the axe she’d used on the automaton.
Lexington leaned forward, propping himself up on his elbows. Amaya blinked, her pulse jumping at his sudden proximity. From here, she could see the metallic flecks in his eyes and the many shades of gold in his hair. He radiated heat, as if his temperature ran ten degrees higher than hers.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began. “You were brave the other day, during the attack. And if you’re going to be staying with us for a while, which you are, considering recent developments, you need to learn how to defend yourself.”
Amaya hardly believed what she was hearing. “With a gun?”
“I can’t allow you to live on my ship and be a burden to my crew.
I can’t spare Ford and Crowe to watch over you every time there’s an attack.
And there will be another attack.” His matter-of-fact confidence gave Amaya chills.
“I’ve got something in mind to help, but you need to learn the fundamentals. ”
Although her instinct was to be indignant at the implied insult .
. . he was right. She was an enormous liability, a target, and offered no value to the crew with her nonexistent skill set.
If they were going through the trouble of protecting her, the least she could do was try to minimize the effort they’d need to exert in doing so.
There was something deeper, though. Did Lexington trust her?
If he wanted to give her a gun, then at the very least, he trusted her to not attempt killing them all in their sleep. That was something. She wondered how much of his decision came from her saving his life and how much came from the simple fact that she couldn’t go home and needed them.
“That sounds . . .” Amaya looked down, then back up at him. “That sounds great. I want to learn.”
“Well, it wasn’t a suggestion,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “But I’m glad you agree. Lockwood, will you train Amaya with a pistol tomorrow?”
“Of course, Captain,” was Lockwood’s quick reply.
Amaya’s stomach swooped in nervous, excited anticipation. Her, with a gun?
Rory returned to take their dinner orders, and the same girl from last night arrived with their food shortly after.
“Will,” she greeted the captain with a sugary smile, putting his plate down and pushing back strands of auburn hair. “Good to see you.”
“Hey, Jenny. Thanks,” he said.
Jenny served Amaya her food and then shimmied between the tightly packed tables to deliver Edmund’s order. On her return, she hovered between Amaya and William as if she expected them to say something.
When the silence grew uncomfortable, Amaya offered her a polite smile. “I think we’re good here. Thanks.”
Jenny pouted, casting a sour glance at the captain before skirting away with a dejected whine. Amaya frowned, unsure what she’d done wrong.
“What’s her deal?” she asked, munching on a parmesan-crusted fry.
“That’s Jenny. I think she’s in love with him,” Sebastian said. “Can’t imagine why, though. I mean, look at that face.”
He gestured toward his friend, and Amaya failed to stifle her giggle when she saw William looking as annoyed as ever.
But despite his pinched expression, Amaya saw exactly what Jenny was attracted to.
The Sky Lord was almost unbearably handsome, even if he was the most emotionally unavailable man she’d ever met.
“Did you court her?” she pried.
Lexington wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Hell no. She’s needy and petty. And I don’t have time for women.”
“Damn, tell us how you really feel.” Serena laughed from her seat next to Sebastian. “Also, nobody ‘courts’ in the sky cities, princess. We live in the modern era up here.”
“I don’t know, I’d argue Bas courted her sister,” Will said. “And her cousin, and her best friend . . .”
“Oh, fuck you. I did not,” Sebastian grumbled into his mug. “It was just Evelyn.”
“Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about you,” Amaya said, tapping the handle of her fork on Will’s sleeve before digging into her fried fish. She’d liked it so much last night that she’d ordered it again. “Surely someone’s caught your eye before.”
“No.”
“No? Come on, Will. She’ll hear about Emelie one way or another,” Serena said.
“Serena . . .” The captain’s voice turned dangerous, and the engineer lifted her hands in surrender.
Emelie.
The name rang a bell. Amaya filtered through her thoughts and memories until an image of a page turning solidified itself in her mind.
“Wait. Emelie Hawk?” she asked. “The Sky Lord—Lady?”
“Call her a Sky Lady to her face and she’ll have your head,” Sebastian warned, but he was grinning now that he’d avoided being the topic of interest.
“We are not talking about this,” Lexington said, his eyes hard and jaw set. “It was a long time ago.”
“Not that long ago,” Serena disagreed.
“Long enough.”
“How’s everyone faring?” Rory approached their company and put a large hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Everything up to scratch?”
“Sure is.” Sebastian nodded. “Seems quieter in here tonight.”
“Aye. Found my pianist passed out drunk in the alley, the bastard.” Rory sighed. “Musicians. Maker willing, he’ll be back at it tomorrow.”
“Hey, Amaya could play something,” Mouse said, piping up from his spot several seats down.
Amaya’s stomach lurched, her eyes snapping to the teenager as she shook her head. She played rehearsed pieces in scheduled performances, not impromptu gigs.
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Sure you can. You said you play.”
“I do.” Amaya’s fingers itched with longing to fulfill the request, but she didn’t think . . . “I don’t know the type of music you’d want. I’m classically trained.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. If you can rustle up a little tune or two to lure in the evening patrons, I don’t give a shit if it’s classical or not,” Rory said. “Do that, and tonight’s on the house.”
Amaya didn’t get the impression that money was a concern for the Maelstrom crew, but it was a generous offer.
She looked over her shoulder at the piano, certain it was out of tune and riddled with broken keys.
But the promise of making music for the first time since being abducted warmed her heart and made today’s events feel a little further away.
And she was spontaneous, right? Of course she was.
She’d whacked a titanic automaton with an axe nearly as tall as she was. She could play piano at a pub.
Amaya tossed a glance back at Mouse and stuck out her tongue. “Fine.”
Standing, she wove her way through the tables to the piano bench, sitting down and running her fingers over the chipped keys. The texture was familiar and entirely new at the same time.
Amaya tested a few keys, unsure. Her penchant for melancholy compositions clashed with the vibrant venue, but she had little emotional bandwidth for happy songs at the moment. Music was the way she channeled all of her secret, unspoken sadness into something beautiful.
So that’s what she’d do.
Amaya sat on the bench and closed her eyes as she began. It wasn’t long before she lost herself in the music, playing through all the emotions contained in Camden’s death, her abduction, evading Graven, and the discovery of magical energy making a home in her body.
She didn’t play two songs, or even three. Once she’d started, it was impossible to stop. Perhaps her technique was a tad too rigid for the pub, her chords a bit too traditional for the audience, but Amaya wasn’t paying attention to them.
She played where her emotions took her until at last, she opened her eyes and found every patron in The Drunk Captain staring—with more gathered in the open doorway.
She saw them—the “savages” who dwelled in the sky cities—watching her, a Sorrento heiress dressed like a pirate, playing classical piano in a pub . . . and something new stirred in her chest at the strangeness of it. Something light. Fluttery.
Hopeful.
Her music reflected the feeling, and she instinctively transposed it into a major key. She found some old folk songs from when she’d first learned to play in the depths of her memory and played those, and then the shanties she’d heard the pirates singing over the past few days.
Worries about Aether and Alastor Graven slid off her shoulders as she played. Her careful smile turned carefree, her fingers dancing across the keys without inhibition. It was the most like herself she’d felt since that dreadful night, and Amaya clung to every note like a lifeline.
The Maelstrom crew gathered around her, making requests and singing along with the songs she only knew because of them. Their off-key harmonies were grating, betraying an epidemic of tone-deafness. But at the same time, they were the most beautiful thing Amaya had ever heard.
Maybe there were some things the land and sky shared. Music, at least, and the joy it facilitated, was universal.
She hardly expected the captain, who seemed allergic to joy, to join them. But when Amaya looked up from the cracked keys, her smile more genuine than it had been in days, she met a certain set of green eyes on the other side of the piano . . . and they were singularly transfixed on her.