Chapter 11 The Price Of A Soul
Chapter eleven
The Price Of A Soul
Rose
To make a deal with the devil was to burn twice as much in hell.
-Lady Agatha Bailey
The Siren and The Kraken was the sort of place you didn’t go for a pleasant dining experience.
In fact, it was some of the worst food I’d ever put into my mouth, and that was saying something given I’d spent a year on a pirate ship.
The clientele was also not particularly good company.
It was a colorful array of people trying to avoid their lives in one way or another.
Cracked stone walls with a variety of colors and sizes, as if they had just walked around London and picked anything that mimicked a stone.
Coupled with dark oak timber that created the balcony overhead and beams that bore the weight of the building, it was a cozy enough establishment.
The lantern light provided just enough ambiguity that a dark hood could mask most discernible features.
That was the nice thing about this particular inn: if you had something to hide, there was an area where lantern light flickered, but if you were there to have a memorable evening, a burning fire crackled on the opposite side.
When I first met Flynn, we sat at this very table.
It felt like a cruel joke that it was the only table available tonight.
It was hard not to remember the sound of his laugh when I tried to make a joke or the way he leaned towards me whenever I spoke.
Who knew a stranger would become the reason I woke up every morning?
Boisterous laughter cut through my melancholy, and I pulled my hood a little more over my face. There was some kind of celebration tonight. A large group of ten was already on their third round, and with every drink their volume grew. It seemed wrong to hear joy and camaraderie tonight.
“I suppose this seat is for me?”
I was terrible at espionage. There was only one reason I was here, and I hadn’t even noticed him walking in. Shit.
I held out my hand to his seat, and his lips curled up in amusement.
Gold glittered on every finger like a dragon hoarding wealth.
Unbecoming of a Royal Navy captain. Edmonds didn’t have any qualms about being recognized, though he wore clothes befitting his station as a gentleman in lieu of his uniform.
Even still, his pristine black coat and trousers were out of place in The Siren.
A few of the patrons eyed us over the tops of their drinks, struggling with the code of discretion rather than their curiosity.
If I had to guess, they probably thought I was a mistress meeting a wealthy lord.
The way Edmonds held himself stiff, as if aware of every speck of dirt ingrained into the table, made me think he wouldn’t have appreciated my company like that.
“Can I get you something to drink, my lord?” A young girl asked.
Her face was covered in spotty brown dirt while her hair lay limp and lifeless, shielding her left eye. She couldn’t have been more than twelve, but her body was thin and bony. Skin pale. The urge to take her home to my mother for a good meal was an anthem in the beat of my heart.
Unfortunately, home wasn’t an option yet for either of us.
“No, thank you very much,” Edmonds said, voice clipped.
The girl’s honey brown eyes darted from me back to Edmonds. “I’m very sorry, my lord, Matilda says if they ain’t drinking, they ain’t sitting.”
Edmonds' sigh was long-suffering. “Very well, I will have whatever my friend is having.”
Relief brought her shoulders done, and she nodded once before scampering to the back kitchen.
I brought the dirt-smudged glass that was meant to be clear to my lips and tasted the bitter ale. It fizzed and sank into my stomach. I missed the liquor on the Wraith. I dragged out the sip, studying my adversary. He wasn’t at all what I expected.
Everything about him was too pristine, too put together.
Even his skin was smooth, and not a single blemish in sight.
His blond hair was perfectly combed and styled.
It was his eyes that unsettled me the most, sending an uneasy feeling pumping into my bloodstream.
Something akin to a warning. They were ice-cold blue, a shade that seemed impossible.
Almost as if it had been plucked from icy waters.
“Well, aren’t you something?” he said, his gaze running over me as he could see straight through my cloak.
“Thank you, I try very hard not to be boring,” I said.
His smile was wide and genuine. This may have been a game to him, but he was enjoying himself immensely. It didn’t bode well for me.
“Boring you are not, Miss Bailey. Tell me, were you by any chance born by the sea?”
I stiffened at the use of my real name. As far as he should have known, I was dead at the bottom of the Glass Sea, haunting treasure.
The rules of the game changed just like that.
I struggled to find the words. Emille and Dilly’s hard work preparing me for this conversation all sank down to the ocean floor within minutes.
No amount of simulation included him knowing who I was.
“Ah, I see I gave away my hand too early. If it is any consolation, I have no intention of announcing that the new captain of the Sea Wraith is English nobility. In fact, you at the end of the noose would become the great tragedy of my existence. You have my word, I will not be turning you in anytime soon,” he said.
His golden hands were tight in his lap as he met my eyes through my cloak.
Dread coiled in my stomach, and I pulled back my hood, forcing myself to hold his unnatural, icy eyes.
“Oh, yes,” he practically purred, drinking me in like a man dying of thirst. “You are something.”
Once, I might have considered how he must be insulting me because I was no great beauty.
However, my time at sea taught me much, and I could hear the truth ringing through his words.
He genuinely believed the words he spoke, but I knew deep in my gut it wasn’t beauty he was referring to.
He saw something else when he looked at me, and every second I spent not knowing what it was risked myself, my crew, and the two men he called prisoners.
Eyes burned into the back of my head, but I refused to turn and acknowledge Val’s glare. If we made it through this without pistols being drawn, I was going to get an earful from her about sticking to plans.
“You are either very clever, or you extracted that information by force. The former I can live with, but if it is the latter- well, it won’t end well for you.”
He clicked his tongue, practically beaming.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you. Tell me, was the dragon’s blood as difficult to obtain as it’s rumored to be?”
I stilled, claws wrapping around my throat.
He knew. Nothing I’d spent the last four months doing mattered because he knew it was all trickery.
It didn’t matter that London papers talked of a new type of pirate captain able to wield the power of God.
They hypothesized that what I’d done was the same as what Moses had done in Egypt, turning the water red. But not this man. He knew the truth.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” I asked, stalling.
The urge to scratch my neck was a burn that radiated throughout me. All I had to do was give in, and Val would give the signal to get me out. Our carefully placed crew was creating a diversion so I could sneak out the back.
“No need to mobilize your crew, Miss Bailey, or is it Captain Bailey?” he nodded once to the serving girl as she placed his drink in front of him, the sound grating on my ears.
I was an idiot. A proper, monumental idiot. How little I’d evolved over the last year. Still jumping headfirst without a second thought for the consequences. Plans were ripped to shreds at the first chance.
“I want my brother back, and I want Bash back,” I said, leaning forward.
The moment you show you know you’ve lost is the moment your opponent wins.
Flynn’s voice in my head made my heart stutter. I was closer to him than I’d been in months. Now, instead of a sea monster-infested sea between us, there were only iron bars and the man sitting across from me.
“It might encourage you to know that I’ve already agreed to release your brother. The eldest Bailey is quite persistent, and we’ve come to an agreement of our own. As for Flynn, have you considered that he might not wish to be freed?”
Oliver. My oldest brother was a genius. He never had our father and Oscar’s charisma, but no one knew the meaning of persistence like him.
It was what made him so successful in parliament.
He never knew when no was the answer. The only problem with that was that I hadn’t accounted for Oscar already being free.
“If I am being honest, Captain, I don’t give a rat’s ass what Bash wants. So what do we need to agree on so that I get my captain back?” I said, willing steel into my words.
Don’t show any weakness. Be confident.
His back must have ached from how straight he kept it, but I got the feeling this was a man who was going to scrub himself clean at the mere thought of dirt on him.
“Excellent, I do love it when we skip to the point. I believe we can indeed help each other. You want Flynn released, Flynn wants to ruin the house of Smith, and I need someone to retrieve an item for me,” he said, perfectly white teeth showing through his smile.
“How do you know-” I began, mouth agape.
I had nothing. Absolutely nothing that he didn’t know. Well, all except one thing that was very quickly becoming a problem.
“Yes, Miss Bailey, I even know that as we speak, your little friend is attempting to rescue Mr. Flynn and Mr. Bailey.”
I stood up, knocking over my drink with a crash. With unnatural speed, Edmonds stood just in time to miss the steady stream of brown liquor that poured onto the ground.
My heart beat against my chest like crashing waves threatening to pull me under. A click of a pistol behind me, and Val was standing next to me, weapon ready to end the captain. Murmurs and shouts erupted around us, and a woman screamed.
“No, if you all be wanting to fight, you can take it outside, but we won’t be tolerating that shit here at the Siren.” A stout woman with greasy hair spoke a few feet away.
Captain Edmonds held up his hands, eyes glued to mine.
They were all in danger. Everyone I cared about was in danger because of my stupid plans. All because I thought myself clever.
“I will not hinder their escape. In fact, you will be happy to know I simplified it for them. We are not enemies, at the end of the day, we are each other’s best allies,” he said.
“I should shoot him,” Val said beside me.
Probably.
A smart person would.
Instead, I sat back down and righted my now-empty glass.
“My apologies for the disturbance. If we could please have another round of drinks and a clean seat for my friend.”
I could have sworn gold glinted in his eyes when he nodded his head to me.
“An excellent notion. Now let’s make a deal,” he said.
My ancient grandmother always said that making a deal with the devil was to burn twice as much in hell.
It didn’t seem like a terrible trade for getting what I wanted.
So I did.