31. THIRTY-ONE #3
The shining impression her mind held of her brother flickered and winked out.
The man in front of her stiffened. Fankalo braced herself for another fit or, worse yet, an attack, despite the promise he’d just made.
He clenched his eyes so tightly his cheeks nearly melded with his brow.
His hands reached for the notebook. She pushed it into his fingers, expecting him to write, but he only pulled it to his chest. He clutched it like a child clutched a doll, back to cringing and whimpering.
Fankalo released a shaking breath. Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten in more than a day. Chaos, how much longer could she ignore it? If she left now, it might ruin the progress she’d made. And she wasn’t sure that she could trust food so soon after…
Calver had not eaten, either. Not since they’d pulled him from the sea. And before that? It must have been two days, at least. She could probably find some apples. Those couldn’t have been poisoned easily.
“I’ll be back,” she said. “Stay here.”
Calver did not respond.
When Fankalo surfaced from the hatch, she asked after Mitek, but found she’d just missed him. He was taking a sleep shift.
She was barraged by a half-dozen needs and questions from various crew members.
She ordered food to be brought to Calver and forced herself to eat what little her stomach would tolerate.
Then she spent half a day caught in the orchestration of her newfound command.
It would have been fun a week prior. Now, every order given was a reminder of her loss.
Fankalo returned to her cabin at lowsun again. Calver still clutched the notebook to his chest. His food had been pushed to the side. His eyes met hers, void of anything. She repressed a shiver.
Then he stretched out his arm to hand her the notebook.
It was full.
The words were hard to make out—many were misspelled and the penmanship was savage—but their quality improved as the pages went on.
Never once did Calver look up to gauge her reaction as she flipped through it, eyes bulging, muscles blazing, heart beating against her ribs like the rain from a front off the sea. She had been right. He hadn’t left, hadn’t gone back on his word, hadn’t followed in their father’s footsteps.
They’d taken him.
She read it through to the bitter last line: Cul’Mon will keep coming for me. You have to leave me somewhere you aren’t.
Fankalo slammed the notebook shut. This was Cul’Mon’s fault. He had taken everything she loved and desecrated it. She’d be damned before letting him finish what he’d started.
“No. I won’t let him touch you! He won’t get so much as a stone’s throw from you, so long as I’m around. Even if it means I have to build a literal army at your back.”
Calver studied the porthole like he’d never seen the sky before. Fankalo’s blood boiled. Her skin twitched. She couldn’t just sit here. She needed air. She needed to move.
She burst from the room, striding through the lower deck so mindlessly she nearly collided with Mitek.
“Preservation.” His hands clutched her shoulders. “You’re still alive.” He spluttered a string of curses. “I was on my way to check on you.” His expression said he’d been on his way to check on her several times before and turned around for fear of her reprimand.
“Mitek,” she said, glad that her voice still rang with calm authority despite her desire to tear something in half. “I want you as quartermaster.”
Mitek froze. “I’m… honored.” His mouth flapped uselessly once or twice before managing, “And I’m grossly unqualified.”
It was true. She hadn’t ever heard of a deckhand being promoted to quartermaster. “Last night you volunteered your life, knowing I was lost, for the sake of my honor. As far as I’m concerned there is no greater qualification.”
Mitek’s eyes found his feet. “Don’t mention it.”
“Drogus will help in the interim. And I will hire tutors for you.” A couple of good scores would allow such a thing. Her father had found a way to do it for her. Surely she could do it for Mitek. “You’ll learn everything you’ve ever needed to know, and more if you accept.”
Mitek didn’t say anything. Maybe she’d overstepped. He might think she was crazy. After the night before and everything since, he probably even resented her.
“Do you accept?” There was the panic she’d expected to hear in her voice since the start.
His eyes rose to meet hers. They were wet. His dark brows furrowed with determination. “I would follow you across any ocean, Brat.”
Relief flooded her. Her lips pressed together so they wouldn’t tremble. She lifted her chin and set her thoughts on vengeance: what the Tera’thians had done to Calver. What she wanted. How she might get there. The sacrifices she would have to make, and Mitek too.
“I need you to think about this. Seriously, Mitek, because I don’t plan to cross the ocean. I plan to go past the horizon.”
“Well then.” His jaw jutted, and a trace of his usual cocky self glinted in his eyes. “I guess I’ll just have to pack us each a pair of fucking wings.”