Chapter 10
TEN
My eyes opened to darkness, and a hard floor pressed against my cheek. My hand slipped beneath my cheek, finding soft wool and the sharp inhale of an agitated breath—
“Getting comfortable?”
I startled, reeling away so quickly, I hit my head on top of the bunker.
“Oh,” I whimpered from the bump, still disoriented after waking.
“We’re still under the bed,” Max murmured.
I rubbed the sore spot on my skull. “Now you tell me.”
Each sense woke one by one. The cramped space had turned sour from our bodies and damp with the lack of fresh air. Sweat beaded on my lip, at my hairline, in the folds of my form. My neck ached from lying on the hard floor.
“Did he forget about us?” I asked.
“It’s very possible, Nina. He’s missing teeth and a few screws in his brain, possibly also the instructions on how to use it.”
I nudged him in the side with an elbow. “Leave him alone. He’s risking everything to help us.”
“No, I risked everything to help us. And if I’d have known I was going to die in a box with you, I would have just let the copper shoot me. At least I wouldn’t have had to listen to your snoring for the last hour.”
“If I had known you’d be this insufferable, I would have let him shoot you, right between those smug eyes.”
Even his laugh was dangerous, and my heart lurched at the sound. “Careful, Ace. Where I’m from, we use threats like that as foreplay.”
Heat licked my neck. “I suppose that explains why I’m better at them than you are.”
“Well, that sounds like a challenge.”
I was better off shutting up entirely, before he drove me half-mad.
“I wish I knew what was going on.” I refrained from making noise and drawing attention to the bunker when I had no idea if we had left the city yet. But what if he had forgotten us? He wouldn’t return to the cabin until late in the day when it was time to eat, or rest, or…
Footsteps rushed down the stairwell, sending a flutter through the floorboards. I nearly squealed in relief when Maurice released us. Before he could lift the board, Max was shoving his way out.
“So sorry!” Maurice said, gasping. “Truly, it never takes me so long to get through the gates. They were so thorough in their questioning, and the line of boats waiting to leave was stacked along the Main Canal as far as the eye could see.”
“It’s… alright,” I told him as I crawled out into the cabin.
Max stripped off his coat and flung it over a chair, rolling his shoulders and shaking out stiffness.
I took my time to stand, my legs cramped after running all night and sleeping the morning away.
“I figured it wouldn’t be easy to pass through the gate guards, but we’re out the city. That’s all that matters.”
Max huffed a breath, scowling at Maurice while he ran a hand through his oily hair. “Is it clear up there?”
The fisherman cleared his throat and nodded. “Sure. Go on up.”
Max pulled a cigarillo from his pocket and started up the stairs. Maurice watched him leave, eyeing him carefully until he shut the door. He turned to me then. “Nina, I don’t like him. I really don’t like him with you. Does he have something to do with the Governor?”
I shook my head and paced the width of the cabin while he sat on a chair. “He got me out of prison after I was arrested. We’re”—I glanced at him—“both looking for the buyer.”
“By the Architect…” He rubbed his eyes. “Why would you go looking for the buyer? What, do you think finding him will somehow get you out of your charges? Nina, this is mad.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But I must. My mother was taken to him.”
His hand slowly fell from his face, eyes widening. “Someone sent your mother to the buyer? Why? Who else even knows the route?”
“Not important.” The question summoned Bria’s memory, forming my fingers into fists. “However, I do need your help finding the next link in this chain. If I can catch up to her before she reaches the next set of hands, then I won’t have to worry about the buyer at all.”
Maurice sucked his teeth. “And the Cursed? You want me to believe he’s helping you?”
“He wants to find the buyer as well, though I have no idea why. It’s a risk, working with him. But I need help if I’m going to get my mother back. Keeping him around improves my chances.”
I didn’t mention that he hadn’t given me a choice—that wouldn’t have helped with the disapproving look on Maurice’s face.
He sighed, scratching the bristling beard beneath his chin. “I can take you to Driftend. It’s a little trading post outside city limits, where I drop off the bodies. That’s the extent of my business with the buyer.”
“Thank you! That’s enough to set us on our way,” I said, relieved to be on the right track, at least.
The fisherman stood from his chair and crossed the galley. “I’ll ask you this only once, so think about it,” he whispered. “Do you need me to get rid of him?”
“Maurice…”
“It’s a wide river with lots of undercurrents. All I’m saying is no one would ever know—”
“Maurice!” I fought down a laugh. “I don’t want you to get rid of him. He’s terrible and broody but…” I shrugged. “I think he’s what I need right now.”
I had no one left to help me track down the buyer.
Bria had betrayed me. Matthieu had denied ever caring about me.
Bernard was most likely dead. I could only hope he was, anyway, knowing the alternative if the guard had brought him back to the Gatehouse.
His memory was like a swallowed flame, burning my throat.
I’d never step into that old surgery again, would never stand beside him at the table.
Unfortunately, whether I liked it or not, the outsider was all I had left until I found my mother.
“You didn’t pack anything?” Maurice assessed, taking in my rough state. I was still wearing the clothes I was arrested in.
“There wasn’t time,” I admitted. Hell, I’d left everything in the surgery’s upstairs apartment, even my savings.
“We’ll get you something in Driftend. But you’ll have to sit in those for one more day.”
“Maurice—”
“I’m not taking what’s rightfully yours, darling.
Especially when you’ve got nothing left.
You have a good payment waiting for you at the next stop.
That should help you get on your way.” He stood from the chair and went to his kitchen, which was no more than a cabinet and a kettle on a single burner.
“I’ll make some tea and start on a warm dinner. You look famished.”
I nodded. A little fresh air sounded nice, especially after being stuffed inside a bunker for hours.
When I emerged from the galley, a silver trail of smoke led to the front of the ship. The same scent that had clung to his coat, of a thinly rolled cigarillo, lingered behind it.
We were the only boat on the river, from what I could see through the haze of fog. Maurice’s steam trawler rolled against the tide as we paddled upriver.
Steam rolled from a pillar behind the galley, rising from the engine room below.
Metal vents stuck up around the deck, filtering out the heat.
Ropes lined parts of the ship I couldn’t name, reminding me of the galley ship we’d seen.
Many still relied on the old ways of transportation, while others, like Maurice, took a chance on the steam-powered paddleboats for commercial fishing and travel alike.
The world was suspended on a precipice, between old and new.
Academy innovations were rapidly changing the way we lived and worked, but tradition was a stubborn survivor.
Max was halfway through his cigarillo by the time I joined him. His feet dangled off the front of the ship as he watched the landscape roll by, a slow cycle of the same marsh, the same black willows lining the edge of the River Renard, and the same dense, impassible woodland beyond.
I sat on the opposite side, though I kept my feet inside the boat. “Those are terrible for you, you know. I’ve seen firsthand how much they rot your chest.”
“I don’t really care about it rotting me, Nina. Honestly, I hope it does.” Silver smoke trailed from his mouth with each word before he exhaled the rest through his nose.
“Do you care about anything?” I asked, genuinely.
“Judging by the disaster I’ve gotten myself into, I care far too much.
” He took another long drag, holding in the smoke.
“I could have just walked away. I had my dice, I had my freedom, but no.” He flicked the cigarillo into the canal, only to pull out another—to my irritation.
“I gave a damn about the pretty thief who could use my dice. Now I’m on a boat that smells of fish with her, in the middle of nowhere. ”
I scoffed. Did he think this situation was ideal for me? “I’m not a thief. I told you, I found your dice on a beggar in the surgery.” Amber eyes shifted in my direction. “The only person I stole from was the real thief. I had no idea what they did until you showed me by using them.”
He was quiet for several heartbeats. “Do you remember anything about the thief? Did you get a name?”
I shook my head. “He was dropped off by a constable after a street fight, chest torn to shreds. All I know is that he had a bloodline.”
Max hummed, lost in thought. “Describe him. I didn’t get a good look at him before I ripped him to shreds, as you assessed.”
I shook my head. “Male, mid-thirties, living on the streets if the filth packing his clothes was any indication. He died alone and unknown.”
He grunted beside me, still staring far off. “Good.”
I sighed, half expecting a long-overdue apology. I fanned away some of the smoke that had drifted my way. “How is your shoulder?”
“Fine. Bullet just grazed me.”
“It wasn’t a graze. I can look at it—”
“I said I’m fine.”
And that was the end of that conversation.
This was pointless. There had been more life in the corpses I’d smuggled than there was in the shell of a man beside me. I suddenly felt ridiculous, coming out here to speak to him. “Maurice is making tea, if you’d like. We should arrive at Driftend sometime tomorrow.”
He spoke with a new cigarillo between his lips. “What then?”