Chapter Eighteen Port Talluah #2
“So long as you’re here, you might as well make yourself useful,” she said, running her finger over the labels. “I don’t need to tell you that we will leave this office exactly as we found it, not one parchment out of place.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Any record of a ship named the Balfour.” If she was going to break onto Domwell St. Lucius’s ship, she needed to know where everything was.
A shipwane would have record of the layout in his repair logs, maybe even sketches.
“I’m not about to break into a place I don’t understand like you and your friends did in Bladestone.
” The moment the cruel words were out, she wanted to snatch them back.
“Sorry,” she said, and meant it. “That was unnecessary.”
Caelan made no reply as they both got to work, sifting through the boxes and trying to learn the filing system.
It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The books housed his accounts, while the boxes contained records of the constantly rotating employees.
There were detailed notes of every ship they worked on, listed in chronological order dating back thirty years.
Ships needed maintenance every five years at least, so that’s where she would start.
“I’ll take the last three years,” Reya said and gestured to another shelf. Domwell St. Lucius didn’t strike her as the type to cut corners. “You take the two before that. Then we’ll check the unlabeled spines on the top shelf. An account this important might have its own separate records.”
Caelan did as instructed, rifling through the tomes with light fingers while she scanned every page.
The shipwane had three separate crews working on Dockside, allowing them to go through several hundred ships a year—which was great for them and not so great for her. She sighed and put the first book back.
“Here I thought your job was exciting,” Caelan said.
Reya shrugged. “Information is power. People often forget the traces they leave behind.”
They went back to shuffling papers.
“What is it you see?” he asked finally.
“Mhh?” she hummed without looking up.
“When you let down that floodgate.”
Reya’s forefinger stopped in the middle of the page she had been scanning. “I agreed to keep you apprised of my plans. That is why I’m allowing you to be here. I don’t owe you any of my scars.”
“Reyanwyn.”
“No,” she bit out. “You’re perfectly content withholding information from me.”
“Point made,” he conceded gruffly. “A trade, then. Whatever it is you want to know, ask it.”
“What is the loophole, Caelan?”
Her words cut him off as sure as a chokehold. She went back to her book of records. “That’s what I thought.” He wanted to keep things to himself, and so did she. Reya flipped a page, then another.
But to her surprise, after a weighted silence, he answered.
“There was a female in the prison. Paler than death. Barely weighed a thing. I guessed she had maybe days to live even if we took her with us. I told my warriors to save the strongest—those who could recover and join the fight. Meanwhile I picked this female up and stepped over hardened, wounded fighters to carry her. There was this look in her eyes. Like she wanted it to end. I got it into my head that if I could just get her out and let her take her last breaths beneath the sun, it wouldn’t have all been for nothing.
But my friends were dying around me, and I couldn’t hold her and swing a sword at the same time.
So I set her down and left her there. Like I left countless others. ”
Suddenly the room felt too small, too dark.
“I think a part of me wanted to die after that,” he continued. “And the Fae Queen knew that. Only someone with a death wish would do something so foolish as break into Fae territory, right? I thought I had nothing left to lose. But we all do. There is always a weak spot, and she found mine.”
Reya picked up another book and made her best guess. “Omira and Thance.”
His eyes turned stormy as he recited, “Your flames will abandon you, your healing touch will betray you, and you will never grace the clouds again. Before the moons rise on the final day of your next annum, your immortality will follow. Or take the lives of those you love the most, and live to see another sunrise.”
It made sense now. “That’s why you never went back. Why you didn’t tell them. Their lives are your loophole.”
His face was hard. “They have nearly died for me a thousand times. If they knew the cost of my next year, they wouldn’t let it lie. They would find a way, trick me if they had to.”
“But Thance, he—”
“I’ve gotten very good at blocking him out over the years. But I don’t always succeed, as you know.”
“You’re trying to protect them.”
“So long as I’m alive, I’m a danger to them. And now I’ve entrusted you with their lives. I’ve asked Thance not to look into your thoughts, but if he so much as thinks… you must effectively forget I told you this.”
Reya gave him a blank look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That got a small curve of his lips. He tipped his chin in her direction, indicating it was her turn.
“I see ruination,” she said finally, suddenly unable to look at him.
“You keep talking about the God Power like it’s some kind of gift, and it’s not.
I don’t just kill people, I… destroy their existence.
I don’t even know if I leave their souls behind for Atyx to take.
By all rights, I should be put down. You think of it like a weapon, something to be wielded, and I’ve tried to see it that way. You bear the scars of that endeavor.”
“Let me worry about my scars,” he said roughly.
“That’s easy to say when you’re not the one dealing them out.” Reya massaged her forehead with her thumb. “It’s my curse, but there’s no cure for me like there is for you. I will have to manage it for the rest of my life.”
“So long as you believe that, it always will be.”
Reya said the next part a little too loudly. “I’m never going to be what you need, Caelan.” She didn’t even know in what context. “This—” She gestured to the armor, the dagger, the hood, the mask, and added more quietly, “This is what you get.”
He shut the book with a snap, gripping the edge of the desk like it was the only thing keeping him from gripping her, and leaned over the mountain of papers between them. “Who made you think that wasn’t enough?”
Reya swallowed. She was done talking about this. So she went back to her research, keeping her eyes down until Caelan did the same. They passed the next half hour in awkward silence until a line of script caught her eye.
“Got you,” she whispered, spreading the book across the desk. Caelan stopped what he was doing to peer over her shoulder.
Her finger traveled along the various lines of text surrounding the full-page sketch of a three-mast vessel labeled Balfour, captained by one Hans Uren—and billed to Domwell St. Lucius.
She committed the sketch to memory, counting every porthole and level and reading every repair note.
There were six pages of notes on the account.
Apparently, the Balfour came in for scheduled maintenance every spring.
The last time it had needed more serious repairs was three years ago, when it had skimmed a reef and torn a foremast sail in a storm on its way back from Delthia.
What business did a Rhiterran weapons dealer have in Delthia?
She filed the information away for later.
When she’d gathered all she could, she shut the book and had Caelan help her put the office back to rights. She surveyed the room one final time, checking for anything they’d missed. “That quill there was a coin’s width to the left.”
Looking bewildered, Caelan moved the quill as directed before following her back down to the docks.
“Did you find everything you needed?” he asked once they’d cleared the distance of suspicion.
“It’s a start.”
“Reyan—”
She came to a sharp halt, the sun-bleached wood planks groaning beneath her boots.
“I realize you and your friends believe you’re under some centuries-old obligation to protect me.
Allow me to cure you of that delusion. I hereby release you of all oaths and obligations.
All of you are far too large and too pretty to be anywhere near me, especially while I’m working. You attract way too much attention.”
“They’ll be flattered to hear you said that.”
Reya rolled her eyes. “This isn’t magic training, Caelan.
This is something only I can do. I’m good at this.
By dawn two days from now, you’ll have your blood.
That’s when it will happen. The Balfour is anchored in slip 109.
” She gestured to the marina. “I kept my word. Now I expect you to keep yours. Don’t interfere.
Go back to the inn. Or patrol the streets if that makes you feel better.
Hell, drink, gamble, find yourself a beautiful woman.
I don’t particularly care.” That was a bald-faced lie.
But she wasn’t about to admit to it. “Stick to waging rebellions, and let me do the job you hired me to do.”
Reya pulled up her mask and rolled her shoulders, letting herself become the shadow that lived inside her.