Chapter Twenty-Nine
ELARA
Elara managed to lose herself in the impossibly large ship when she left Enzo to get dressed and find Leo. She asked him to relay a message to Merissa to meet her in the galley, and in the meantime used her sense of smell to deduce where exactly that galley was.
After three wrong turns and a backtrack, she finally found the source of the delicious smells wafting towards her, and, to her delight, Merissa was already there. Leo was waiting with her, and when he knew that she was safely with Elara, made his exit.
‘I’m hungry, El,’ he said. ‘Promise you’ll make something delicious.’
‘I know it’s a poor workman who blames his tools, but if all the cook has are eels, then I can’t promise “delicious”.’
He laughed as he disappeared around a corner, and Elara felt a jolt of joy—so surprising that it made her pause.
With all the terrible series of events that had unfolded, it felt strange that things were a little more at peace.
She ushered Merissa in to where Pieter was stirring a simmering pot.
‘Hello, Pieter!’ Merissa called out. ‘Thank you for the tea earlier.’
He turned and gave her a gummy grin, waving her and Elara over. ‘Well, aren’t I lucky?’ he beamed. ‘Not one but two beautiful chefs to join me tonight.’
Elara chuckled as he passed them both aprons. ‘Straight from the royal kitchens of Helios.’ She grinned widely, the movement aching cheeks that hadn’t been used like that in weeks.
‘Now,’ Pieter said, ‘the sauce is thickening nicely. Which means it’s time to season the sea bass—freshly caught by one of our lads, Davey.
You’ll meet him later; terribly surly bloke, but a gifted fisherman and the best boatswain I’ve ever met.
Trust me, I’ve cooked on a lot of ships.
’ Elara tried not to smile as the cook chattered away.
‘Anyway, what was I saying? The silverfish! Pass us that rosemary, love,’ he said to Merissa.
Merissa chewed her cheek. ‘I was thinking, for the fish, that thyme might go nicely with it?’
Pieter clapped his hands. ‘Genius! Thyme it is. See why I need the feminine touch in this kitchen? Superstition, my arse—women bring nothing but joy to a ship.’
Merissa gave a shy smile as she ran to the bundles of herbs and selected the thyme, bringing it back to where Pieter was finishing cutting the fish. Elara’s eyes widened as she looked at the piles and piles of them.
‘How much fish is there?’
Pieter chuckled. ‘We’re a crew of fifty, love. You’ll have to get used to cooking in huge quantities with all these hungry lads.’
Elara took up the wooden spoon and stirred the sauce, tasting it. ‘Do you have any lemons?’ she asked.
Pieter nodded eagerly, hobbling over with two.
‘I think it will bring out the flavour of the fish and the tomatoes in the sauce,’ she said.
‘Oh, and a dash of salt, please?’ The three settled into a comfortable routine, Pieter singing sea shanties as he showed them how to prepare food for such a large number of people.
Merissa was trying to pick up the songs, Elara humming along with them.
‘We could add some marshroot to ease everyone’s temperaments?’ Merissa murmured when the fish had been put to bake in the large oven.
Elara nodded. ‘Good idea.’ The root was said to relax the mind and body, and, skies, they could all use it after such a long and fraught day. It was hard to believe that that very morning, Elara had been weeping in Eli’s study, convinced that Enzo was lost to her.
They asked Pieter, who promptly produced it for them.
‘You’ve had a tough time of it, haven’t you?’ he asked as Elara grated the marshroot finely into the sauce.
Elara slowed. ‘You could say that.’
‘Just this morn, you thought you’d lost him, didn’t you?’
Elara dropped the grater as Merissa looked on in alarm. ‘How did you know that?’ Elara asked.
Pieter tapped his head. ‘I’m a mutt,’ he said.
‘Got a little bit of everything in me. A mixed drop of magicks. A wee bit of the sight from Sveta. Hint of the empath from Concordia. A teeny bit of Verdan, so I know my plants and herbs, can talk to them, I swear. Useless, all of it, really. No big power like yours.’ His icy blue eyes seemed to pierce right through her then.
‘Especially that silver dragun that lurks and waits.’
‘What did you just say?’ Elara asked.
‘In death and madness,’ he began to sing, ‘she beams and waits. That beautiful Moon, enemy of fate.’
‘Pieter,’ Merissa said, touching his arm. ‘How do you know about the Moon?’
‘I can see it as plainly as I can see your light, little Star.’ Merissa gasped as Pieter turned to Elara. ‘It’s in you, isn’t it? And outside of you. It’s your heavenly body.’
Elara’s chest felt tight as she stepped away, a painful hope springing to life inside her. ‘You…you can see something other than the darkness in me?’
‘The Sun and the Moon and the Dark in between, diddle dee, twiddle dee, da da da dum,’ he sang, lifting the trays of fish out of the oven.
‘Pieter?’ Elara beseeched.
‘We’d best get these plated up, eh?’ he replied.
Elara and Merissa exchanged a look. She wanted to press further, to ask more about this Dark that she’d heard about so many times, only ever in riddles.
But he only continued to hum and potter about the kitchen.
She sighed, promising herself to ask him another time before helping to plate the fish, sauce, vegetables and potatoes.
The three weaved through the ship to the mess room lying next door to the dining room.
‘You folk will eat in there,’ Pieter said, nodding to the grand door.
‘And here…here’s where most of the crew eat.
’ He nudged the door open to a rowdy sight, rows of men drinking and talking.
They cheered when they saw him with his trolley and steaming plates, but when they saw Elara and Merissa the roar became deafening.
The two women followed behind Pieter, helping to dole out the fresh food.
‘Why don’t you come sit on my lap, darlin,?’ one shouted as Elara leaned over him.
‘Careful—I bite,’ Elara drawled. There were ‘oohs’ from the men, and one or two looks of fear, which suited her just fine. One in particular caught her eye, someone surly who was glaring at the two of them, not joining in with the laughter.
‘Not sure if you have your sleeping arrangements yet,’ another said to Merissa, ‘but my bed’s big enough for two.’ He looked at Elara, grinning. ‘Or three.’
‘Close your scurvy-cursed mouth or you’ll be on rat-catching duty for the next week,’ someone snapped behind them before Elara could retort, Merissa looking severely unimpressed beside her.
Elara turned to see the Altalunian she’d noticed when they’d first embarked.
‘Santi,’ he reminded her, his surly expression changing to a charming grin as he took her hand and kissed it, then Merissa’s.
‘Quartermaster of the ship. And just about the only one keeping these animals in line. You’ll have to excuse them.
Most of them aren’t used to speaking to ladies.
Unless you count Jimmy, who called out to what he thought was a siren stranded upon a rock but turned out to be a walrus. ’
Merissa chuckled and Santi’s smile only widened. ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘You’ll be dining with the captain. They’ll follow with the food.’
He led them out as Pieter waved, smiling, and took them into the dining room.
The room was beautiful, tastefully decorated in rich deep blues with framed paintings upon the walls. One depicted a nymph running through a forest while a demon of Perses chased her.
Merissa had slowed in front of it and reached out a hand to stroke it. ‘This is one of my favourite paintings,’ she murmured. ‘I thought it was in a gallery in Helios.’
‘I may have relieved said gallery of this particular piece,’ came an amused voice behind them. Elara turned to see Adrian’s mischievous smile. ‘It’s one of my favourites, too.’
He breezed past them to his seat, Leo and Enzo already waiting at the huge dining table with a few other men that Elara didn’t recognize.
Enzo’s eyes lit up when they fell upon Elara, and she gave a small smile as she made her way over, settling in next to him. Merissa found a seat next to Leo, and Santi sat in the vacant one beside her.
‘Everything all right?’ Enzo murmured.
Elara nodded, smiling.
Adrian, at the head of the table to her left, waggled his fingers at her. ‘Heard you ladies have been busy in the kitchens. Thank the gods—I haven’t eaten since this morning.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Merissa replied down the table. ‘It was nice to have a bit of normalcy.’
Elara nodded. ‘I used to help Mer in the Palace of Light kitchens,’ she said.
‘The Palace of Light,’ Adrian said. ‘I remember visiting there once with my father when I was a boy. The sculptures, the paintings, the very building I remember being awestruck by. It was pure art. And as something of an artist myself, I’ve never forgotten it.’
Elara went to ask more, eased by Adrian’s demeanour, when Enzo beat her to it.
‘And what exactly is it that you paint? Stick people?’ he asked.
‘Enzo,’ Elara hissed. She heard quiet laughter and glared across the table at Leo, who was trying to hide his smirk behind a cup of wine as Merissa looked at him disapprovingly.
Adrian, unperturbed, reached into his pocket and pulled out a beautiful silver locket. The front of the pendant displayed a minutely detailed painting of the ocean under the night sky, the moon hanging above it.
‘Jewellery,’ he said simply. ‘My mother and father own a lucrative jewellery shop back in Neptuna, and, though I may have cut ties with the family business, seashells I pick up, pearls, beautiful gems that…I happen upon, I create with. And often paint them.’ He smiled at Elara as he handed it to her. ‘You can keep that.’
A wave of heat began to tickle Elara’s hand, and she turned to see Enzo’s gaze burning into it, as though he was trying to stop himself from setting it on fire. ‘Thank you. It’s beautiful,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Isn’t it, Enzo?’