Chapter Fourteen
When Emmaline woke the next morning, her whole body ached.
I should take some willow bark. As soon as she had the thought, she remembered her medic supplies were still on Everett’s ship, along with Mama’s bag.
Tears stung her eyes and she burrowed deeper into the cot.
Not that there was much to burrow into—the mattress barely separated her body from the bed’s board, and the blankets were thin and scratchy.
Sighing, she finally tossed the blanket off herself and sat up.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
A scream sputtered past her lips before she choked it down.
The blond woman yelped in surprise and brandished her needle like a sword, aiming toward the doorway.
After several heart pounding moments of silence, she lowered her needle and scowled at Emmaline.
“Oh, I get it. You’re screaming at me, aren’t you? ”
“Who are you?” Emmaline demanded.
The woman rolled her eyes. “It’s just me, Em. But if you want some proof.” She stood up and started unlacing her bodice.
Em held up her hand, preventing Echo from stripping down in the small room. “I’m sorry, Echo. I simply wasn’t expecting this new glamour.”
“Had to make a new one after burning my other two. You like?” Echo held up her skirts and twirled in a slow circle. Her new figure was slimmer than Lady Carmine’s, with toned muscles built over a lifetime of daily work.
“Very pretty,” Emmaline replied, since that seemed to be what the pirate wanted to hear.
Echo beamed and settled back in the chair, picking up the fabric she’d been sewing.
“The tricky part is getting the whole wardrobe to match. Rafe was easy since his identity was tied solely to that eyepatch. As long as no one peeked underneath, he was safe. Lady Carmine was more challenging. Couldn’t take any real customers or the moment they stripped me naked, they’d see the real me.
” She paused and grinned salaciously at Emmaline.
“Of course, if you want to see me naked ...”
Emmaline ignored the flirtation, moving around the small cabin to clean herself. As she washed her face, her arms pressed uncomfortably against her enlarged breasts. “Are there any non-glamoured clothes I can borrow?” she asked, plucking at the bodice of the dress Echo had loaned her last night.
“Don’t you think it’d be a shame to get rid of them?” Echo asked, staring mournfully at Emmaline’s cleavage. “That’s one of my favorite glamours. I like to play with them when I’m—”
“Echo!” Emmaline exclaimed, cheeks blazing as she glared at the pirate.
“Right, sorry, didn’t mean to trample all over your delicate sensibilities. C’mon, we’ll get you fitted in something less salacious, shall we?” Echo stood and gathered her sewing supplies into a small basket. Then with her back turned, she muttered, “Even if it is a damn shame.”
Afraid Echo would linger on the topic of breasts all day, Emmaline gently steered the conversation in a safer direction. “If you didn’t have a mentor, how did you learn to sew glamours into clothes?”
“Oh, that? Easy stuff. My father gave my mother one of his grimoires before they separated.” She pulled a book out of her sewing basket and passed it to Emmaline.
The cover was worn, aged leather, and the pages inside were soft and wrinkled from constant reading. Emmaline opened it to the very beginning only to find ragged edges where the first page should be.
“Don’t know whether he meant for her to sell it, but no one wanted to buy it,” Echo continued, “or if he meant it as a keepsake, something to remember him by. Either way, Mama kept it. Though I doubt she expected me to find it while snooping around her bedroom as a nosy kid.”
“Were you telling the truth then?” Emmaline asked. “About your upbringing.”
Echo’s blond eyebrows pinched together before her face smoothed.
“Oh, what I told you on the ship? Every good tale has a grain of truth,” she replied with a wide grin.
“And it’s much easier to keep track of my characters’ backstories when real memories are attached to them. ” She held out her hand expectantly.
Emmaline would have liked to examine the book closer, see what kind of mage it had belonged to, but she reluctantly returned it. “Did you ever meet your father?” Was he as big a disappointment as mine?
Echo packed everything up into her sewing basket. “Not that I know of, but if his grimoire is anything to go by, he’s a master of disguise, so who knows?”
As they strode across the deck, crew members waved and called out cheerful greetings.
Either Echo had gone around, re-introducing herself to everyone, or they were all used to her constantly changing appearances.
The crew seemed more interested in Emmaline, their eyes following her across the deck.
Their gazes didn’t hold the same hostility or hunger as the men on her father’s ship.
Quite a few of the crew members were women, and even more of them were difficult to identify.
“Do you make glamours for other people on the ship?” Emmaline asked.
“If they want them,” Echo said with a careless shrug. “It’s useful to have a few dozen shapeshifters on board. No one ever knows quite what any of us look like.”
Emmaline thought back on the androgynous appearance she’d seen yesterday. “Is the other one the real you?”
Waggling her eyebrows and leering, Echo said, “The only way to find out is to get me completely naked.”
I should have known they wouldn’t really let me change the subject, Emmaline thought with a bemused shake of her head.
Echo led Emmaline below deck to a storage area filled with clothes and costumes. “Left side is glamoured, right side is—shit!” Echo jumped back, hand to her chest, as she glared at something beyond the rack of clothes.
“What is it?” Emmaline whispered, heart pounding. Has one of my father’s men snuck onto the ship?
“A little rat!” Echo exclaimed, reaching between two finely sewn jackets. The rat squeaked in indignation as Echo dragged him out into the open.
A lanky adolescent glared up at them with honey-brown eyes. He was a few inches shorter than both Emmaline and Echo, who were currently the same height. “I’m not a rat,” he insisted, lips pursed sullenly. “I’m a—an honored guest.” His voice cracked on the last syllable and red stained his cheeks.
“Why are there so many guests on this ship?” Echo demanded. “It’s only been a month since I last checked in and we’re overrun with civilians!” Realizing Emmaline was one of those guests, she hurriedly added, “Not you, Em. You’re my guest, so you’re different.”
The boy scowled at Echo for a moment, then wiped the expression from his face as he turned to Emmaline. “Koen Ellard, at your service,” he said, bowing prettily at the waist.
“Emmaline Orestes,” she replied, curtseying for him.
“Koen sure is a fancy name for a little sneak rifling through my supplies,” Echo said, still glowering at the boy. “Authorized personnel only.” She used both hands to shoo the boy toward the door.
Koen allowed himself to be ushered out, glancing one last time over his shoulder at Emmaline. “Are you joining us for—”
Echo shut the door in his face before he finished the question, leaning against it like she expected the boy to break it down and barge back inside. Huffing in annoyance, she said, “Let’s find something more practical for you to wear, shall we?”
Dressed and feeling much more herself, Emmaline and Echo made their way down to the wardroom. A few off-duty sailors were inside, eating breakfast or playing cards.
“Sit here,” Echo instructed, grabbing Emmaline’s shoulders and gently pushing her down onto a bench. “I’ll get us some breakfast.” Then she hurried to the small galley on the other side of the room.
Barely five seconds passed before Emmaline was surrounded, everyone converging on her table. Questions came all at once, battering her like storm waves on the hull of the ship.
“Are you really Shaw’s daughter?”
“What’s it like having a witch as a mother?”
“Do you really know the Arnsveldian King?”
“I thought it was the Bellacostan King?”
“Are you married?”
“How old are you?”
“Are you and Echo together?”
A high-pitched voice called over the rest, “You’re bothering her.” The speaker cleared their throat and lowered their voice to an unintimidating growl, “Go away.”
The crew turned, eyebrows raised, to look at the person who’d interrupted them.
Koen stood, chin tilted and back straight, glowering at the pirates as if he could scare them off with a single look.
Before anyone could react—to leave as asked or knock the boy down a few pegs—Echo shouted, “Out of my way, out of my way.” She pushed her way through the crowd and plunked down two plates, one for herself and one for Emmaline.
“Gods, I leave her alone for one minute, and you’re already hounding her! ”
“What do you expect?” one of the crew asked, a large woman with a golden smile that reminded Emmaline of Griselda. “After spending half the night telling us stories about her!”
“What sort of stories?” Emmaline asked warily as she accepted the plate of food.
Koen’s shoulders slumped as everyone ignored him, but he didn’t give up.
He squeezed between two crew members, jabbing them with his pointy elbows until they gave him space, and sat immediately across from Emmaline.
“She told everyone that your mother is a witch, your father is an evil pirate captain, and you’re in a love triangle with two kings. ”
“Echo!” Emmaline exclaimed, glaring at the pirate, who shrugged unrepentantly. Turning to the crew, Emmaline said, “I’ve already explained multiple times that I’m not romantically involved with either king.”
“But you do know them?” one man asked. He had a white glass eye and a gold ring pierced through his dark eyebrow. “The kings, I mean. Obviously, you know your parents.”
Emmaline’s heart sank at his last statement, but before she could explain the situation with her father, someone else said, “Not so obviously. Half of us don’t know ours.”
“Plenty of people haven’t met their family,” Koen piped up. “It’s not unusual.”
The man sputtered and grumbled before finally saying, “You all know what I meant!”
Once they finished scolding their companion, everyone’s attention returned to Emmaline.
Although the energy reminded her of the times she’d shared stories around a campfire, her audience was much larger and more intimidating than usual.
Smiling past her trepidation, Emmaline asked, “Would you all like me to tell the story of how I became friends with the King of Bellacosta?”
Eager cries of encouragement rose around the table, so she told them about her trip to Litus, what it was like in the capital, and taking the king with them to her mother’s cottage. People interrupted to ask questions, to exclaim in surprise, or laugh at absurd situations.
During the whole recitation, one person remained utterly silent, but his honey-brown eyes never left Emmaline.
The moment breakfast ended, Echo whisked Emmaline away to the captain’s cabin with the excuse that she needed to finish altering her new wardrobe before they made landfall.
Captain Moira wasn’t in the cabin, but Braden was.
He glanced up from his book, eyes crinkled in a smile as he greeted them, “Well, hello again.”
“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” Echo demanded, glowering at the older man.
“Not particularly. Moira requested that Koen and I stay out of the crew’s way. Though I listen more than he does,” he explained, glancing behind Echo and Emmaline.
They both looked over their shoulders to find Koen only a few steps behind them. Echo yelped and dramatically leapt away as if the boy really was a rat scurrying across her path.
Koen glowered at her. “It’s quiet in here,” he said, sidling over to a chair.
Standing this close to Braden, Emmaline could see the similarities in their hair color, the shape of their faces.
But Koen was smaller, softer, still growing into himself.
There was something else familiar about both men, though Emmaline couldn’t put her finger on what
“Oh, sure, and it’s just a coincidence you’re everywhere we happen to be,” Echo said, hazel eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You’re practicing your spy skills, aren’t you? Trying to nose out some secrets. Well, let me tell you, young man: that is my job.”
Koen rolled his eyes and settled firmly into the seat, pulling his knees up and wriggling to get cozy. He all but stuck his tongue out at Echo, a silent challenge: you can leave if you want, but I’m staying here.
Emmaline placed her hand on Echo’s arm and murmured, “The light is better in here.” The back wall of the captain’s quarters had a full set of windows to let in the sun, while her own little cabin only had a single porthole.
Echo rolled her eyes and dragged her half-made wardrobe over to another chair. “You’re right, I’m certainly not going to allow myself to be chased out by one tiny rodent.”
Koen scowled at the description. He opened his mouth to say something, but then a book cut off his view.
“Focus on your studies,” his father reminded him, looking down at his own paperwork. “You want to be prepared, don’t you?”
Koen grudgingly accepted the book, though reading its contents only seemed to deepen his scowl.
Emmaline accepted part of Echo’s new wardrobe—a waistcoat this time—and carefully followed the instructions for the symbol she needed to sew into it. The thread between her fingers thrummed with potential, and she settled in for a long, quiet day.