Chapter Fifteen
“You’ve done enough work today,” Echo declared.
Wearing the simple brown waistcoat Emmaline had sewn a glamour into, he appeared as a handsome young man with wheat-colored hair, a neatly trimmed mustache and slightly overgrown beard, and broad shoulders perfectly sculpted to carry heavy bags of flour.
He hadn’t named the persona yet, simply referring to himself as a ‘farm boy.’ “Come dance with me?”
“Dance with you?” Emmaline sputtered, flabbergasted by the request. “We’re on a ship.”
“Do you think ships can’t have music?” he asked, raising a brow in challenge. He grabbed one of her hands and tugged her up from the chair she’d claimed as her own. Ignoring all further protests, he dragged her out of the room.
On their way out, they passed Captain Moira entering. Despite the fact that they’d settled into the Captain’s Quarters, Emmaline had rarely seen the captain since arriving on the ship. She’d always been busy overseeing her crew.
Captain Moira nodded as she passed them, then turned and called over her shoulder, “Causing mischief, Farm Boy?’”
“Only slightly,” Echo replied with a cheeky grin.
“Excellent—take the kid with you,” she ordered, nodding at Koen, who was pretending to pay attention to his studies.
Koen’s eyes widened at being addressed, but he didn’t need to be told twice. With the captain’s explicit permission to bother Echo, he didn’t have to wait until five minutes after they left to pretend he wasn’t following them.
Echo’s mouth dropped open. “What have I done to deserve such punishment, Captain?”
“Just been yourself,” she replied, her lips quirked in amusement. “That’s usually enough.”
Emmaline set her hand on Echo’s arm, gently squeezing the firm biceps made firmer yet by the glamour. “Come on, dancing is more fun with more people.”
Echo sighed and looked down at her. The new glamour also made him several inches taller than her to accomplish that feat. “You have a point. Come along, rat, let’s see if you’ve got two left paws.”
“Can’t you call me Koen, just once?” he grumbled as he scurried after them.
Echo ignored him. They walked to the main deck, where Echo spoke to one of the crew. It didn’t take long for a small crowd to gather. A few brought instruments and clustered off to one side. Emmaline saw drums, a flute, and a fiddle.
Turning to Emmaline, Echo held out his hand and bowed gallantly. “May I have this dance, my lady?”
She giggled and curtsied. “It’d be my pleasure, sir.” As she accepted his hand, she leaned in and whispered, “What kind of dances do pirates know?”
“All kinds,” Echo promised her with a wink. He raised his hand and one of his crew nodded. They counted off and then dove right into a loud, rambunctious song with a fast tempo.
Echo pulled Emmaline close and began whirling her around the deck to the beat. Laughter bubbled up within her as everything around them sped up and up and up. The faster she spun, the more the sky and sea blurred together, until her whole world became Echo and the endless blue expanse.
When the music finally slowed, she took several seconds to catch her breath. Echo gazed down at her, his eyes glimmering like gold. “Having fun?” he asked between panting breaths.
“Yes, but the ship is spinning a little. Can we try something else?”
Echo laughed and gestured to the musicians, who nodded.
For the next song, instead of finding solo partners, the crew lined up on two sides. As the music began, Emmaline recognized a reel she’d danced before. It took her a few repetitions to remember the moves, but the rest of the crew only seemed to half-follow the steps.
At the end of the song, someone shouted, “Change partners!” and swept Echo away before he could claim another dance from Emmaline.
Unsurprisingly, Koen was already waiting to receive her.
It was odd dancing with a much shorter partner after dancing with one taller than her, but she adjusted quickly, raising her hand to meet Koen’s as they circled each other.
“You’re having fun,” he observed, his brow scrunched like this surprised him.
She laughed. “I am. I can’t remember the last time I’ve danced.”
“You didn’t dance with the king?”
The question only partially surprised her since Koen had already shown a lot of interest in Archer and Silas. “King Archer, yes. Mama and I live at Castle Arn over the winter and there’s always a large midwinter party where everyone dances, even grumpy old Archer.”
“And King Silas,” Koen said, “did you ever dance with him?”
The lively energy spurred on by dancing seemed to drain out of Emmaline with the question.
“No, I never had a chance to dance with Silas. I’m not sure he …
” Would have been well enough. She didn’t finish her sentence.
Even when she’d told her story about Silas, she’d kept most of the details of his curse and illness to herself.
She’d always been taught that patients deserved their privacy and didn’t want to share the harrowing parts of his story without his knowledge and permission.
“I’m not sure he likes to dance,” she finished, forcing a smile.
The song ended without Koen asking any other questions, and another one began, but Emmaline’s heart was no longer in it.
Every time she spoke of Silas, she remembered her reason for returning to Bellacosta—to save her mother.
Yet she’d hardly thought of Mama during the voyage.
While she’d been on her father’s ship, every minute of waiting had clawed at her conscience, her thoughts consumed with her mother’s well-being.
But her time on The Queen’s Garden had been filled with quiet companionship and soft comforts.
It’d been easy to forget, just for a moment, that her mother was still in danger.
Preoccupied with her thoughts, she stepped on more than one partner’s foot before she quietly excused herself.
“Em?” Echo called behind her, but she waved him off. He’d been away for a long time, working undercover on Everett’s crew, he deserved to enjoy an evening of fun with his friends.
It was a little too early to turn in for the night, so she decided to retrieve her sewing from the captain’s quarters. It would give her hands something to do while she thought through her next steps for when they arrived at Bellacosta.
She’d barely reached the cabin door when raised voices leaked through the wood.
“—putting him in danger!”
“What else do you expect us to do, Braden?”
Emmaline paused, her brow furrowing. She wasn’t sure whether it would be better to announce her presence with a knock or to simply return to her own cabin.
The captain’s next words made her freeze in place. “If we want to eliminate Everett for good, the best way is to trap him on the shore.”
Eliminate him? A cold dread pooled in Emmaline’s stomach.
She understood that her father was not a good man.
Whatever excuses he gave, a constable had falsely imprisoned her as a favor to him, his men had kidnapped her, and he’d made a deal with a traitor.
While she’d initially given him the benefit of the doubt, she eventually had to admit that the company he kept reflected his true character.
But the idea of his death still unsettled her.
“On Bellacosta’s shores, you’re saying, with or without Silas’ permission,” Braden said. “Do you even plan to warn him first?”
“If we have time. We have no idea when Everett’s ships will arrive, how quickly he can gather his forces.
For all we know, he stationed his ships around Bellacosta before he even met to negotiate with Varro.
By the time we arrive, it could all be—” She stopped, her words falling into an awkward silence.
“It could all be what, Moira?”
“It’s best if you stay on the ship until we assess the situation.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Fine,” Moira snapped. “Would you rather I detail the worst-case scenario for you? How we could arrive too late and find both Everett’s and Varro’s men have ransacked the shores? Burned every building to the ground? Cut off your son’s head and impaled it on a pike for all to see?”
Emmaline gasped and stumbled backwards, crashing into a sturdy body behind her.
“It’s all right,” Echo murmured as he steadied her, wrapping one arm around her waist. “I’ve got you.”
The conversation inside the cabin stopped. After a few seconds, heavy footsteps approached the door. Emmaline didn’t know how to face the captain after hearing such cruel speculations about her father, so she grabbed Echo’s hand and dragged him back to her own small cabin.
As soon as the door closed, she leaned her forehead against it and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Em?” Echo whispered, squeezing her hand once, reminding her that he was still holding on.
“Is my father a monster?” she asked.
Echo was quiet for so long, she assumed he would either formulate a kind lie or refuse to tell her anything at all. “Why don’t we sit?” he suggested, guiding her away from the door and to the bed. Instead of sitting with her, he sat in the chair, near enough that they could still hold hands.
She considered letting go, but the hand of this new persona was nice and strong, with callouses that reminded her of the soldiers back home.
“Everett Shaw is a pirate,” Echo began, “he’s ruthless, bloodthirsty, and selfish, but he’s only a man. Calling him a monster gives him more power than he deserves.”
“What did you see while you worked with him?” she asked. “And please, don’t treat me like I’m too delicate to hear.”
Slowly, Echo untangled his fingers from Emmaline’s and leaned back in his chair, putting a little distance between them.
Her hand felt cold and empty without his presence, but she clenched her fist rather than reach for him again.
“A merchant pissed him off once. Sometimes, crews are hired to escort ships on long journeys to protect them from other pirates. Good pay with fewer casualties than attacking the ships ourselves. The problem is, we reached our destination without a single issue.”
Emmaline’s brow furrowed. “Why is that a problem?”
“Because the merchant decided he didn’t have to pay us since we weren’t needed.”
“But you spent your time defending him!” Many Arnsveldians loaned themselves out as mercenaries or bodyguards to other, richer kingdoms to earn money.
They were compensated for their time, any equipment used, and any injuries sustained.
A safe journey still offered a fair payment because they spent weeks away from home for each assignment.
“That’s not how he saw it,” Echo replied, his lips pressed in a grim line.
“And Everett decided the man needed incentive to pay them. He spread the word through Dreamer’s Isle that anyone who worked with the merchant wouldn’t receive payment, so no one accepted his contracts anymore.
Then Everett spent three months burning and sinking every single one of the merchant’s ships.
By the end of it, the man lost all his contracts, his entire livelihood, and threw himself into the sea. ”
Emmaline gasped. The merchant had done wrong, of course, but she hadn’t expected his story to end so tragically.
Echo stared at a point on the wall, unable to meet her eyes.
Because he feels guilty for his part in the merchant’s death? No, there’s something else. “It didn’t end there, did it,” she whispered.
Echo’s prominence bobbed as he swallowed.
“He didn’t die, is the problem. Everett expected him to take the easy route and fished him out of the water.
He carted him off to Dreamer’s Isle where he set up a mockery of a trial, allowed the crowd to decide how to handle him.
Because the thing is, right up until the end, the merchant never paid his contract.
It didn’t matter that Everett had stolen everything of value from him—he had to pay his debts on his own.
“Another crew offered to take the man onto his ship and send his ‘wages’ to Everett. Every coin he made went straight into Everett’s pocket for four months.
I don’t know if the man finally paid his debt, or if he died from overwork.
I do know that no one else has tried to welch on their protection contracts since. ”
Emmaline sat quietly for a long time, absorbing these details of her father.
Even once she’d finally met him, she hadn’t learned anything real about him.
He’d been stern but soft-spoken and smiled whenever he thought of her mother.
Not quite the man Emmaline had imagined but also not the type of person who would bargain with a traitor.
Yes, the bargain was to save her mother, but the way he’d spoken about her …
not as a person whose safety he wanted to ensure, but a possession he wanted returned to him.
At some point, Echo bid her goodnight, though Emmaline hardly noticed him leaving. They would be arriving in Litus tomorrow, which meant she might see her father again. She had no idea how she would face him now that she knew what kind of man he was.
We’re happier without him, Mama had said. And oh, how Emmaline wished she had listened.