Shemaiah
Dark clouds roll on the horizon as heavy as the water we’re crossing, though at this time of year, the impending rainstorm isn’t a surprise. The wind rushes over the surface of Lake Nettor, whipping the waves into a frenzy.
“Pippa?” The clanking of the steamship almost drowns out my voice.
“Don’t,” she says, not looking at me. She heaves nothing and spits into the angry, red water below. She’s been sick since we left the dock.
Unsure how to help her, I tighten my grip on the railing and stare back at the island as it fades from view. It’s been a strange morning. And not just because of the awkwardness after last night.
At breakfast, Noah came to take Pippa’s blood before we left, and she said Mrs. Darning had already taken it.
“What do you mean Mrs. Darning took your blood?” Noah asked her, the incredulity clear on his face. “Why would I ask her to do that?”
Pippa turned to look at me, as if for reinforcement, only I was equally perplexed.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Certain.” Her voice was a notch more intense. “She came in with a bag and a syringe and said Noah was too busy to do it.”
“I wouldn’t ask her to do something like that,” Noah insisted. “You there,” he called to a servant near the door. One of the fresh-faced footmen stepped forward. “Would you please fetch Mrs. Darning?”
The man gave a quick bow and darted away.
“My nightgown,” Pippa said. “There was blood on my nightgown.”
I squeezed my hands into fists at the mention of Pippa’s blood. Fuck me. The taste of her had been so much better than I thought it would be, and I wanted more. Someone else accessing her blood made me irrationally angry.
My gaze tracked Pippa as she left the room.
“Has venom ever given hallucinations before?” Ruby asked.
“No. It can make people less aware of what’s going on, a bit more forgetful, suggestive, but not hallucinate.”
“Are hallucinations a symptom of the disease?” I asked, unsure if I wanted the answer.
Noah rubbed his chin and glanced over at his black medical bag near the door. “I wouldn’t think so, and I haven’t heard of hallucinations being tied to Vastatio. But the disease is still fairly new.”
An uneasy feeling disturbed my stomach, and I pushed away what little I had on my plate.
A few minutes later, Pippa returned, her face pale from the exertion.
“Did you find it?”
“My laundry was already taken.” She collapsed into a chair at the table just as Mrs. Darning walked into the breakfast room.
“Noah?” Bored indifference coated her words. She stood in her usual, severe black dress, her silver-streaked hair in a tight bun that complemented her attire.
“Did you draw Miss Willoughby’s blood last night?”
Her gaze jumped to Pippa. “Why would I do such a thing?” A flicker behind her eyes gave me pause before she turned back to Noah. “I don’t even know how.”
“She had a brown bag,” Pippa said weakly, her head in her hands.
“Perhaps she’s just too ill to remember things clearly.”
Pippa looked up, staring daggers at Mrs. Darning. “I’m right here. I know what I experienced.”
As I watch Pippa moan over the side of the boat, I’m inclined to believe her.
Pippa isn’t a liar. And I’ve never fully trusted Darning. The question is, why would she take Pippa’s blood?
A pop blasts from the smokestack. I turn my gaze to the sky. It’s going to rain soon. Pippa will need to get out of the cold.
I lift my hand, intent on rubbing her back, but stop myself.
She’s been keeping her distance, and I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.
But, goddess, I want to touch her. I could make her feel better, alleviate her nausea with some venom to replace the sensations with another.
But I don’t think that’s what she wants.
Besides, there’s nowhere private to retire.
No one beyond the shores of the island should know what I am.
That could put everyone in danger. And I don’t want anyone seeing Pippa in my thrall, seeing how beautiful she looks and sounds when she experiences pleasure.
I swallow down those memories. I shouldn’t even have them.
What I said to Pippa last night wasn’t a lie.
Biting her meant something. That first tang of her blood nearly brought me to my knees.
Her tart lemon scent was nothing to the mouthwatering perfection of her taste.
Sweet and strong. I expected the foulness of her illness to taint it, but there was a purity to the thickness that coated my tongue.
It was only after I stopped drinking that I found the bitterness of the disease in the aftertaste.
It made me want to chase it away by drinking more.
But it wasn’t just the taste of her that had me wanting our time together to last. It was her. The little moans she made, the eager way she begged, the beautiful way she trusted me. I didn’t just want her blood. I wanted all of her.
And it terrified me.
I’m even more terrified that the morning hasn’t chased away the feelings. If anything, it’s strengthened them.
Last night, I could explain my desire, blame it on the new moon.
Today, I can’t justify the longing to have her in my arms, the craving to taste more than just her blood.
Would it be that bad to indulge this attraction between us?
It still wouldn’t be love. I can’t offer that.
But maybe we could be something more than just friends.
Testing the waters, I rub soothing circles over her back. She flinches away.
No matter how much she wanted my touch when the venom was in her system, she doesn’t now. She seems more embarrassed about last night than eager for it to happen again. She won’t even look me in the eye.
A man walks the deck toward us, his wool coat buttoned up to his neck and a cap pulled low over his ears. “Not one for the sail, I take it,” he says with a gravelly voice and a smirk.
I frown at him. “How much longer?”
“We’re about halfway.” He looks at the sky. “But the storm’ll open up soon. Suggest you take her in. I’ll find a bucket.” Then he’s gone, and the first, fat raindrop hits my skin.
“Pippa.” I brave touching her, and it sets something at ease inside me. Finally.
She releases a sound filled with misery, and I can’t hold back, drawing her against me without giving her a chance to pull away.
Unexpectedly, she curls into my embrace with another little moan.
I try to recall the first time we made this passage together, the night Jafeth and I brought her and the other women from The Sanatorium.
I don’t recall the voyage, my mind overly occupied with plotting a way to stop my father, running through options that all seemed like they would fail.
There was a wasteland inside me then, a distinct apathy born by hopelessness.
How different I feel now, as if awake after sleepwalking.
I barely noticed Pippa then. Now, she’s all I notice.
I pick her up in my arms as the rain begins in earnest. Rather than fighting me like I expect, she nuzzles my chest with her face and sighs.
By the time I’m through the doorway into a small holding area, she’s asleep.
Though I could lay her down in the seat next to me, I don’t.
I keep her close against my hearts for the rest of the voyage.
When the harbor finally comes into view, the rain still falls, but the storm has settled into itself, as if it’s spent its anger and now just weeps.
The gray clouds mix with the gray smog of the city and the strange combination of materials used to construct it.
It’s old-world wood, mined iron, and rough-hewn, gray rock fashioned into bricks.
Smokestacks vent dark smoke into the sky, coating everything with soot and grime.
Across the harbor, small fishing vessels float beside medium steam boats, like the one we’re on, meant for taking people and supplies to various settlements around the lake.
There are also large freighters that will travel to the massive river that feeds Lake Nettor and out to the sea that connects the rest of Prisma.
My skin itches being here. Too much noise, too many scents, so much blood. I’ve always preferred the island, even when it was a house of horrors.
“Pippa,” I whisper, adjusting my hold on her. “We’re here.”
She shoots up, ramrod straight, and looks around with wide, disoriented eyes. Her movement on my lap nearly makes me groan, but I suppress it. The sensations whipping through me are a raging storm. I want to hate how my body responds to her, but I don’t. I want more.
“We’re in New Essik,” I offer.
She looks down, as if noticing for the first time that she’s in my lap.
I clear my throat. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Right, of course.” She stands, putting a generous distance between us. My hearts feel as if they’re being pulled apart.
Getting to my feet, I check my pocket watch. I’m not sure if Gray is back from Briarton yet—a shorter trip than the one Mrs. Darning took to Caldon—but I’m hopeful that he’s returned and received the message I sent yesterday.
Pippa sways as the boat rocks, and I take hold of her elbow. “Are you alright?”
“I will be once we get off this boat.” She gives me a strained smile.
“Then by all means, let’s get you to land.” I wrap her arm around mine, telling myself she needs the support.
“And to my son,” she whispers.
With a pang in my hearts, I say a prayer to the goddess that we’ll find him. Pippa isn’t the only one concerned about how long it’s taken to track down the boy. I’m afraid what we find at the end of this journey might not be what Pippa wants.
To my relief, Gray is waiting for us at the end of the pier with transportation.
A turbine carriage sits behind him. The carriage itself is a curved enclosure with heavily lacquered doors marked with the letter “R” in plated gold, a remnant of my father.
Four large wheels help the vehicle traverse the terrain, propelled by the turbine wheel situated at the carriage rear, which rotates so quickly it’s difficult to see.