Chapter 28 #2
I do exactly as she suggests, dropping onto the small sofa while she continues to bustle around the room and Gower snuggles each of the children in turn.
She then proceeds to try to wrangle them to sit still so that they can each be given a mug of milk and what looks like a bowl of porridge.
I consider offering a hand, but there’s something about the hungry, pain-filled look she keeps giving them that has me biting my tongue.
Then the teenage boy clatters down the stairs again, sinking onto the sofa beside me with an ominous creak.
“This you?” he croaks.
A crumpled piece of paper is shoved under my nose, and I rear back as I’m exposed once again to the image of my own face.
“It is you, isn’t it? You’re one of Captain Finch’s men?”
Eyeing the doorway behind him, I’m mentally mapping my exit in case this goes sour.
“Uh, yes. That’s me.”
“Sign it for me?”
“I, uh, sorry?” Maybe my muddled brain has finally given way to hallucinations.
But inspecting the boy’s face, I can see it growing pink as he continues to hold the poster out to me before slowly withdrawing his hand.
I glance past him to Gower, who is now glowering at me with a pointed expression.
Clearly, I’ve made a miscalculation here.
“Have you got a pen?” I ask.
The boy springs up to grab a pencil from a drawer in the kitchen, thrusting it at me along with the poster.
“I’m not signing my own arrest warrant, am I?” I joke weakly, and he snorts.
“What are you doing here?” the boy asks.
“Ah, I was hoping for a glass of water before I head out to find myself some trousers,” I tell him. “Don’t want too many people swooning as they catch sight of my bare legs, you know?”
Gower snorts, but the boy doesn’t react, just gives a single nod before springing up again and returning with a slightly cloudy glass of water.
He hands it over and hesitates for a moment, then roots around under the kitchen sink for a moment before he flings some coarse material into my lap.
Meanwhile, the limping woman plucks the water from my hand and replaces it with a mug of ale with a dry smile.
“You don’t want to be drinking our water, trust me,” she murmurs under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
The boy gestures to the material that’s now covering my thighs. “Trousers. They were mine, but I grew out of them when I hit thirteen. They were destined for the rag bag, but you can have them.”
“Oh, uh, thank you.”
As if that’s not a ding to my ego, he drops back into the seat beside me. “Have you come to start a mutiny?”
Both women stop what they’re doing. Gower freezes with the spoon of porridge halfway to one of the children’s mouths, and they let out an unhappy squawk of protest.
“A mutiny?”
Not my style, so much as Torin and Jack’s, I suppose. Although you could say what we did at the labs, breaking everyone free and cursing the place to oblivion, was pretty mutinous.
“What have you heard about the crew?” I ask, then clarify by tapping my finger on the crumpled paper. “The people on these posters?”
“There are plenty of rumours,” he says. “We always get it all third-hand over here. But plenty of people talk about selling stuff that’s washed ashore thanks to your lot raiding different ships.
They say you’re a crew of outlaws and fiends.
That you don’t even bow to the king.” He lowers his voice for this last part, eyes darting around like he’s afraid the walls have ears.
Maybe they do. We’re within spitting distance of the palace, after all.
“I heard that you’re all ours and that one day you’ll burn the city down. Set us all free.”
My eyebrows shoot up, but it seems like he isn’t finished.
“I also heard that Captain Finch rides around on a dragon in his spare time, and he’s vowed to lop off the king’s head.” He pauses, eyeing me up and down. “But you’re not one of our lot, so how can you be one of his?”
By this point, I’ve cottoned onto the fact that ‘our lot’ are the beast-borne. Letting out a sigh as I prepare to disappoint this young lad who's clearly been dealt a shitty hand, stuck in this city on this street where they’re treated like they’re less than people.
“If I’m honest,” I reply. “I have no idea what my brother is planning.”
Amble freezes in place and then pushes his overly long hair off his forehead, his eyes massive. “Captain Finch is your brother?”
Oh. Shit. I’ve probably revealed too much there.
Welp, if I’m getting arrested, they’re going to have an easy time of it. Here I am letting things slip out that I’d never normally tell a soul.
“He is,” I confirm, and the boy seems to take this information on board, mulling it over before giving a decided nod.
“If you had to guess, what do you think he’s planning? Do you think we’ll ever get to see him riding a dragon?”
I hate to disappoint him, but I have to admit my ignorance again. “I’m not sure, bud.”
His face drops, and I earn twin scowls from Gower and the other woman.
I don’t know what possesses me, but I find more words slipping out. “He’s headed this way, though,” I tell them.
Somehow, I know that with absolute certainty.
I could have done with that conviction when I was taken by the sorceress. If I’d known that the two of them were dead-set on coming after me, it might have made things easier.
I really should have known. My brother is nothing if not loyal to his people, and Reva’s wonderfully stubborn. Put the two of them together and you get two people anyone would love to have on their team.
It seems like the space behind my ribs is a busy old place at the moment. I’m constantly being nudged and tugged and prodded, and all that is on top of the general ache from missing Reva. Stifling a sigh, I pick up Amble’s trousers and hurriedly cover myself up with them.
I wish we could go back a few months, and I could sit and enjoy Reva’s company when she turned up in my shop with a mystery item of unknown origin.
But we can’t go back, only forward. And despite knowing that Finch and Reva are heading this way, I have no clue what might happen once they arrive in the city.
I WIND UP SPENDING a few days with Gower’s family, her wary wife and slightly fanatical son.
Three nights of sleeping on their tiny sofa is enough to make me wish for life back on the ship.
Despite the constant threat of seasickness, it’s still better than feeling like my spine might never straighten after being scrunched up and twisted at a weird angle.
Considering that I’m a wanted man and there are pictures of my face plastered over the most inconvenient areas of the city, I can’t exactly strut about the city. But I can’t continue to hang around inside Gower’s tiny house either. So, I keep myself busy.
I head back to the crypt house where I woke up, trying to see if I can observe my way into understanding exactly what is happening here. I see people coming and going, including Jack and his brother.
Every time I see Jack, it’s like a fresh knife of betrayal in my gut. Especially when I see him mingling with Araminta Stone, grinning at her like they’re the best of buds.
My mind has felt clearer over the past few days.
And I’m slowly piecing together memories of when I was stuck with her.
I remember she spent a lot of time monologuing at me as though I were a lamp or some other inanimate object that couldn’t understand what she was saying.
She told me over and again that she’d spent years on building her collection of stolen, undiluted magic and that it still wasn’t enough for the elite sorcerers, like Jack’s family.
It didn’t seem to matter how much power she amassed; she was still not seen as one of them.
But she was going to show them, and then they wouldn’t be able to deny her any longer.
I never got the details on how she was going to show them. And then we destroyed her entire collection.
I still don’t have the faintest idea how she could have got from there to suddenly schmoozing with Jack’s family.
What I do know is that I need to get him alone and tackle him, find out exactly what it is they’re planning and why Jack is acting like he’s one of them.
But before I can put my cobbled together plan in motion and grab him when he’s alone, I get another of those alien sensations in my chest. This one is another strange sense of certainty.
Just like I knew that they were headed this way, I know the exact moment that Reva and the others arrive in the city.