Crow smiled. It would have been less unnatural to see those shining teeth and curling lips on an actual crow. “I’ll send Ulaam to brief you. But before you grow too fond of your new accommodations, be sure to have a look at the floor.”
The captain sauntered off, taking a swig from her canteen. Tress sat on the mattress, trying to discern what the captain had meant by that last comment. The floor looked normal. Wooden planks, though a little dusty, since it didn’t appear that anyone had cleaned the room since Weev’s death.
As she considered it, that troubled her. Why hadn’t anyone claimed this room? A bed, a mirror, and running water? The moment Weev died, the sailors should have been fighting for a chance to…
Then it struck her. There was no silver in the floor.
She would have seen it sooner, if she’d been more experienced with ship life. Except for one little section near the cannon, all decks—save the hold—of the Crow’s Song were inset with silver. This was a fine, expensive merchant vessel （they could even afford some aluminum, which wasn’t as costly at this point as it had once been, but still pricey）， and it was built to keep its occupants comfortable and—most importantly—safe.
Except in here. Where the sprouter needed to work with spores. Tress glanced at the porthole, and the verdant spores rolling past. Each time the ship surged in the sea and the room plunged into darkness, her heart sped up a little.
Moons. No wonder no one else had wanted the room. You’d have to be insane to sleep in here.
Huck found her snoring softly a short time later. One shouldn’t blame her. Sleeping on the deck hadn’t really involved much sleeping.
“Tress?” Huck whispered. “What’s this? Your own room?”
She sat up groggily. “Yup. It’s a deathtrap, but a comfortable one. Where have you been?”
“They got a cat, Tress,” Huck grumbled, eyeing the door. “An actual cat. This is an insult of the gravest kind. As in the kind that leads to my grave…”
“Stick close to me,” Tress said. “I’ll try to keep you away from it.”
Huck shivered visibly. “I hate cats,” he whispered. “Plus, how stupid do you have to be to get a cat because of one rat? Like, what is going to eat more of your food? Me, or the thing ten times my weight? Idiot humans. Er. Other humans. Not named Tress.”
“I’m my own brand of idiot, Huck,” she said. “Considering I’m still on this ship.”
With a sigh, she heaved herself off the bed and went above to fetch her sack of cups. She returned to the room, where she began arranging the cups on her worktable, thinking of the stories Charlie had told her when she’d shown him each one.
She felt like a traitor. Staying and helping people she barely knew? Instead of hunting for a way to save him? She whispered prayers to the moons as she arranged the cups, and promised herself that she would find a way. If she could help this crew, and they weren’t willing to take her to the Midnight Sea in return, maybe they could still help her in some other way? Like gathering money for the ransom?
That made her feel sick. She didn’t want to rob people to save Charlie. In that moment, holding the cup with the butterfly, she acknowledged something. She could never pay a ransom—and she wouldn’t resort to piracy to do it. She’d have to find some other way to save Charlie.
But how? What could she do?
As she was contemplating this, fighting to keep her tears in check, a peppy voice spoke from the doorway.
“Need a hand? Hmmmmm?”
“You didn’t literally bring me a hand, did you, Ulaam?” Tress asked.
Ulaam furtively tucked one arm behind his back. “Would I be so crass, Miss Tress?”
“…Yes? It’s why I asked?”
The ashen-skinned man （person? thing?） grinned and stepped into the room. Behind him, I peeked in—but as Tress didn’t have any marmosets, I wasn’t interested at the moment.
“You know about all of this, Doctor?” Tress said, waving to the small room with the basin and the spigot. “The captain said it was for experiments.”
“Yes, Weev loved the experiment of ‘How can I con everyone else into letting me take warm baths?’ They keep the water barrel out in the sun; while I doubt your washing will be toasty, you also won’t be freezing any bits off.” He glanced at her. “If you do, be sure to save them for me, hmmmm?”
“So it is a bath,” Tress said.
“Well, Weev did need a room where he could manipulate spores—and sometimes activate them—without posing too much danger to the crew. That required a ceramic basin that would hold water. He merely extrapolated. He was a cunning fellow. Except that part at the end.” Ulaam shook his head. “What a waste of a corpse.”
“Captain says I’ll need to take on some of Weev’s duties if I’m going to stay on the ship. Was there more than the work with the zephyr spores?”
“You’ll want to practice with roseite, for sealing breaches in emergencies,” Ulaam said. “And in growing verdant without breaking anything, as the vines can be emergency food. Yes, they are edible. I suppose anything is, if you’re optimistic enough!”
“I’m optimistic!” I said, looking in again. “I once ate an entire rock. Had to fight off its family first though.” I growled and wandered away.
Tress mostly missed what I said, focused as she was on my ailments. “Do you know what his…issue is, Doctor?” she asked.
“Hoid has too many issues to count,” Ulaam said, poking through the drawers above her table. “I wouldn’t trouble yourself with his situation. He’s nearly as deft at untying knots as he is at creating them.”
She nodded and eyed her bunk. When Ulaam left, could she take another nap? Or would she be reprimanded for loafing?
“Yes…” Ulaam said absently, “Hoid should have known better than to tangle with the Sorceress. In fact, he probably did know better. Frightening, how infrequently he lets that influence what he actually decides to do.”
Tress felt a start that drove away thoughts of sleep. “The Sorceress?”
“Hmmmm? Yes, what did you think happened to him? He puts on a brave front, pretending to be just an ordinary idiot, but I assure you that he’s instead the extraordinary kind. Remarkable really. I always say, when trouble troubles you, keep a stiff’s upper lip! Or several.”
“There’s someone on this ship,” Tress said, choosing her words carefully, “who knows the way to the Sorceress? Who has been there before, and escaped alive?”
“Technically, yes,” Ulaam said. “But I haven’t the faintest idea how Hoid did it—I found him like this after I arrived on the planet in response to his letter.”
“On the…planet?” she asked. “Like, you’re from the stars?” She’d heard stories of visitors from the stars, but had thought them fancies. Even if there did seem to be more and more of them these days, talked of among sailors.
“Hmm?” Ulaam said. “Oh, yes. Not from a star really, but a planet that orbits one. Regardless, I doubt you’ll be able to get anything useful out of Hoid with that curse in place.”