Chapter Twenty-Three After #2
She held her ground, digging in. The last thing she wanted was to put herself in Goa’s path again and risk his capricious nature.
“In broad daylight? They’re not even drunk yet. Maybe.”
“I don’t intend to get them drunk. I intend to hold them at gunpoint until they give us every bit of information we want.” He touched the flintlock on his hip. “If not lead us to Kane himself.”
Cat rolled her eyes. “You should still wait for nightfall. Unless you want to end up in the gutter. Or an Arcayan jail.”
To her relief, Fell relented and followed her at a quick pace. “I did not know the islanders had jails,” he said as they stepped onto another road. Stone bottles poured fountains of wine down from a rooftop, the curving white sculpture forming an archway. “Nor any of this, frankly.”
While Fell marveled openly at Nera’s beauty, Cat shook her head.
“What did you expect?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered, shrugging. “A few huts, perhaps? One of their priests singing on the beach?”
“For a smart man, you are desperately stupid sometimes,” she scoffed, looking over the limestone walls. They stood in harsh contrast to the colonial cities, the buildings more beautiful craftwork than any brick mansion or rigid church.
Finally, her eyes snagged on something familiar—the figure of a jaguar, clutching a human head in its paws.
“Ah, yes, this way.”
Fell eyed the great cat with suspicion. “I don’t like the look of that.”
“Then don’t look,” Cat answered, leading him past the jaguar and around a corner.
They were greeted with a long, winding street that zagged, beginning the climb up the city slope.
Fuchsia flowers bloomed overhead, thorned branches hooking in a lattice that shaded the street.
Taverns, bakeries, food counters, and cacao bars lined the way, with patrons huddled around tables or perched on sills.
Again, Cat fought the urge to stop and savor the delicacies from Arcayo and the Southern Continent.
A cornmeal flatbread smothered in tomato jam.
Spiced chocolate simmered with chili powder.
Spring-green avocado on grilled bread, or cinnamon apples dipped in honey.
Fresh shrimp pickled in citrus juice and salt, chased by sweet rum or taquil brought over from Itzima.
Meridian food paled in comparison, and Cat loathed the thought of hard biscuits and ale back on the Fledge.
She swallowed hard and kept on, promising herself she would return when opportunity allowed.
“Valerian loved that bakery—and this bar,” she told Fell. It felt like a betrayal, even against everything else. To give a little bit more of Valerian to Fell and the Empire, reducing the legend that was Captain Kane to just another man. One who could be found—and killed.
My head or theirs. His head or theirs, Cat thought again, forcing herself forwards.
They edged around a circle of sailors playing bone dice on the curb before she stopped in front of a tall building, its ground floor open to the street.
“If he’s been here in recent days, they will remember,” she muttered, eyeing the establishment.
Fell removed his hat as he followed her in, tucking the tricorne under his arm. “Let’s hope they do. Much as I enjoy touring the varied cities of the Lyrian Sea, I will not return to the governor with nothing to show for our endeavors.”
She took a deep breath, as if the tavern was a cold pool of black waters.
Truthfully, Cat would have preferred the deep.
Instead, she stepped off the winding road and onto the elevated curb, high enough to keep dry when hammering rainstorms sent floods cascading down the hill.
She faced a terrace beneath the flowery canopy, lined by a row of arches opening onto the tavern floor.
Sunlight, tempered by the mist and the flowers, rippled across the stone, casting shifting rays of light in all colors.
Despite the white stone walls and the simple furniture, all dark-black wood, it felt like stepping into a jewel box.
And stepping back in time.
Cat refused to lose her nerve, or her heading.
No matter how many memories threatened to pull her apart with every step she took into the bar.
At least Ahuala is dead, she thought. The kindly old proprietor would have known her on sight, but now a stranger tended the tavern floor.
And he was more than preoccupied, overwhelmed by so large a crowd of patrons all competing for his attention.
Her hat still low across her forehead, Cat shuffled to an empty table in the corner.
Her heart quickened, but she did not slow or tense, her face a mask to hide any emotions bubbling beneath the surface.
She stole what glances she could, looking for familiar faces or tattoos amongst the others throughout the main room.
She dared not search upstairs, where Ahuala once rented rooms to pirates and travelers alike.
Cat ventured they were fully occupied, with so many ships in port.
Heart in her throat, she took a seat on the free side of the table, leaving Fell to slide onto the bench against the wall. In the folds of her skirt, one hand twitched, her fingers tapping each other in time.
Counting.
Will it be enough?
The breath felt heavy in her body. Her eyes darted again, picking out scarred hands and bronze faces.
It must be.
“I suppose it is only a matter of time,” Fell said, sighing as he looked up at the ceiling.
While the interior walls were carved as ornately as the rest of the stone city, the ceiling above them was dark-brown wood to match the furniture, slotted together in smooth planks.
Unlit lanterns hung overhead, unneeded against the shimmering daylight.
“Until what?” Cat replied, startled by his reluctant tone. Under the table, she counted again, this time her fingers drumming against the smooth grip of her pistol.
“Until the Meridian takes all this for her own,” he said plainly, as if it were obvious. “Or Esperin. Whoever fires the first shot will have quite the jewel.”
His tone was even, detached. And chilling. Cat shuddered to think of an island like this claimed by the Empire or another kingdom, subject to a crown it would never know, thousands of miles away.
But she shook it off, trying to hold steady on her course.
Her laughter was soft, almost lost beneath the many voices of the tavern. With another deep breath, she willingly took the plunge. As it had before the Key Keeper in Alvaris, the mask slipped and fell away from Cat Rose.
“Like I said, Fell, you are desperately stupid sometimes.”
Across the table, he grinned, like they had only returned to their usual game of insults.
“Oh? I think I should procure a drink before I listen to this—”
Her hand darted out and stopped him before he could move, holding his forearm to the table. Fell looked up at her, confused. Then his fist clenched, the muscles going taut as her grip tightened.
Though Fell was the stronger of the two, easily capable of breaking her hold, he did not move.
“The problem is you see the world as you wish it to be, and not as it actually is,” Cat murmured, never releasing his arm.
“It was the same all those years ago, when you could not see things changing right in front of you. It’s no wonder they threw you back here, clinging to your orders, eager to prove yourself to men who would never see your worth. ”
His lip curled.
“They see it now,” he said hotly.
“Do they?” Cat drawled back at him. Her eyes flickered, finding the silver ring on his hand.
The image of the swan stared up at her, the emblem of a bloodline with no name.
“Do the lord officers of the Meridian navy, born noble and rich and powerful, all playing at war—do they see you as you are, Captain Fell? A decorated sailor, loyal to the Crown. Or do they see a debtor’s son, an orphan, a victim of the press-gang—shamefully striving for heights he will never quite reach? ”
Fell looked like a pot on the boil, ready to spill over.
“I choose to be who I am,” he hissed, muscles like stone beneath her touch.
“So do I,” she murmured. “You are right about one thing. We are alike in our nature.”
The rainbow light gleamed in his silver eyes, turning them yellow, then pink, then the blue-green of a swirling tempest. For a moment, Jasper Fell was not himself but Valerian Kane, sitting across from her in another time, in another life.
But the flesh beneath her hand was not Valerian’s. Cat knew that by feel, even if her eyes deceived her. There was no substitution for the touch or taste of Captain Kane. Fell lived up to neither. Much as she once hoped he would.
“Cat—”
“Look around this tavern—filled with sailors, right?” she cut him off, blinking as the light shifted, and Fell was Fell again. He peered at her curiously, then glanced through the bar. “Are they merchants? Traders? Men of the Empire or Esperin?”
She paused, watching him scan the room.
“Or something else?”
Beneath the table, his body shifted, and Cat knew his free hand strayed to his pistol.
“We’re surrounded by pirates,” Fell said, his voice flat even as anger washed his face red.
Cat nodded once, face still shadowed by her hat. “We are.”
“Pirates you know.”
“Some,” she offered.
Enough.
Across the tavern, someone laughed uproariously as a glass shattered.
Neither Fell nor Cat reacted, holding each other’s gaze as they would a rope thrown between them.
Both pulled hard, refusing to relinquish their grasp.
But Cat felt his resolve weaken, the slight tremor under her hand indication enough.
Jasper Fell was afraid.
And furious.
“Cat,” he hissed, making to move.
But she clucked her tongue, and her eyes sharpened, a flash of warning. With her free hand, her fingers trailed the length of his arm, circling at the hem of his sleeve. Fell snarled under his breath, but she did not relent, pulling the fabric up an inch, exposing a stretch of skin.
And the black edge of a navy tattoo, the paws of the Meridian lion threatening to claw free.