initial attack on their ship.”
I turn my head in his direction. “Now that was reckless.” Acura eels are more feared than sharks. They’re faster and more sensitive to human blood. In some cases, they’re even bigger and toothier. Most of the time, they stay near the ocean floor, but if they sense a disturbance at the surface, they’ll come to investigate.
“Were you able to get the chest back for him?” I ask.
“No. An eel headed for me. Draxen saw it and lowered me a rope. He hoisted
me out of the water just in time.”
“What did your father do?”
“He tried to toss me back over to get the chest, but Draxen was able to talk
him out of it.”
“Sounds to me that if you hadn’t killed him, someone else would have
eventually. He sounds awful.”
“He was.” Riden turns to look at me. “I’m guessing that question wasn’t random. Are you doing something reckless to impress your own father?”
“I do reckless things for the fun of it.”
“I have no trouble believing that.”
“Do you feel like you knew your father well?”
He shrugs. “Well enough. Why?”
I have to be careful. I need to make the conversation seem harmless. He needs
to think it’s all about me. “My father trusts me more than he does anyone else in the world, yet I can’t help but feel like he keeps secrets from me.”
“Everybody has their secrets. We would all feel too exposed if we weren’t able to keep things to ourselves.”
“What are—” No, I can’t ask Riden about his own secrets. I need to keep the
conversation focused. “But this feels different. Couldn’t you tell when your father was keeping things from you? Big things?”
“Yes, usually.”
“My father had a hiding place on his ship, a loose floorboard in his rooms. He
would keep important things there. When I felt like he wasn’t telling me
everything, I could usually find his plans and secrets there.” I’m making this all up quickly. I hope Riden can’t tell.
In truth, my father has a room he alone enters at the keep. His private getaway. I’ve been tempted many times to sneak in. I even made an attempt once. When Father found me outside fiddling with the lock, he said if I was so
interested in his locked doors, he’d put me behind one.
And he did. In a cell deep down. For a month.
“But then one day,” I continue, “the space below the floorboard was empty.
And nothing has been kept there ever since.”
“He found you out.”
“Or suspected what I was up to and didn’t want to take any chances.”
Though he seems natural, relaxed—Riden has to be holding on to my every
word. There’s no chance he isn’t hoping I’ll tell him some of my father’s secrets.
But that’s not the purpose of this conversation. I’m trying to learn Lord Jeskor’s secrets.
“What about your father?” I ask. “Did he have a place where he kept secrets?
Did you ever learn something you weren’t supposed to?” Do you know where he
hid his section of the map?
“Honestly, I was never curious enough to care. When we were younger,
Draxen would coax me into helping him find secret panels belowdecks. It never
turned out to be profitable, though.”
I can relate. I’ve already been through all of those panels.
I can’t deny I enjoy talking with Riden, but I was really hoping for something
useful to come out of the conversation. Something that would make me realize
exactly where the map is.
I should have known better.
“Besides, if there was anything so important to my father, he probably wouldn’t have let it out of his sight. He likely would have kept it on him at all times. And Draxen and I were never foolish enough to try stealing something off
him.”
Oh.
Chapter 13
RIDEN LEAVES TO FIND me some breakfast. Meanwhile, I ponder on my own stupidity.
Of course you would keep something so valuable on your person at all times.
After Jeskor died, his sons would have searched his body. They would have
found the map. Draxen is one of the greediest men I’ve ever met. If he didn’t already know what the map was, he would have done everything he could to find
out. And once he did—
Draxen’s despicable and abusive and manipulative. He’s the last thing I’d ever want to touch on this ship.