She knew she wasn’t making much sense. She’d spent frantic days trying to devise a weapon against the captain. Tress did want to escape. And really, shouldn’t she feel excited? Optimistic? Her plan to save the Crow’s Song had worked, after all.
But lies have a way of diluting a person. The longer you live them, the more you become a bucket of mixed paint, steadily veering toward generic brown. That has never stopped me, mind you, but I’m not the person Tress was.
“We can’t lose to Crow,” Salay said, “as long as we have you, Tress. You’re a—”
“I’m not, Salay,” Tress said, exhausted. “I’m not a King’s Mask. I didn’t even know what one was until you mentioned them to me.” She shook her head. “Please believe me.”
They didn’t, of course. A boring truth will always have difficulty competing with an exciting lie.
“Look, Tress,” Ann said, “you think our problems will go away once the cap’n has talked to the dragon? We’ll still be under her thumb.”
“You’d be able to fight her,” Tress said. “She won’t have the spores to protect her. If you let her trade me, you have a much better chance of succeeding.”
Fort rested his hand on hers, then tipped his sign toward her. But we’d have to live with it, Tress. Crow forced us into this life. We didn’t know she intended to kill. But if we don’t stand up to her now, we don’t get to use that excuse anymore. We know what she is now.
Tress read the words through twice. And…though her first instinct was still to protest…something else was growing. She’d have called it arrogance, and it frightened her. But arrogance and self-worth are two sides to a coin, and it will spend either way.
That day, she met Fort’s eyes and nodded. “All right.”
“Mutiny,” Salay said. “Tomorrow morning. I’ll make certain the Dougs are with us.”
“I’ll distract Laggart,” Ann said. “If I’m firing the cannon, he’ll come scold me again.”
I have a key to the captain’s quarters, Fort said. She doesn’t know. We will go in while she’s asleep and take her captive. Then we sail for the Verdant Sea and turn her in to the king’s officials in exchange for our lives.
Tress took a deep breath. “Capturing her won’t be that easy, Fort. The spores inside her will react to someone trying to restrain her. Fortunately, I’ve devised a weapon that might work. It…”
What was that?
“It…”
Tress shivered. She felt something. A familiar itch, distinct as the scent of her mother’s bread. Without thinking, she reached to the side, into the shadows underneath the overhang of Fort’s counter.
Some of the darkness there resisted her fingers. It felt like a filled waterskin.
Midnight Essence.
Tress felt another mind controlling it, but it was distant and she was near. Working by instinct, she seized control. Immediately her tongue felt dry. She coughed, and—panicking—somehow severed the connection completely. The Midnight Essence puffed away, becoming dark smoke.
That other mind.
That had been Crow.
Crow had been listening to them with Midnight Essence.
“Oh…oh moons,” Tress rasped. “Crow knows.”
THE MURDERER
The ship’s bell rang a series of unceasing sharp notes.
“All hands on deck,” Ann said. “How…how could she know, Tress?”
“Spores,” Tress said. “It’s hard to explain.”
The bell continued to ring, and each peal seemed a threat: Die. Die. Die.
“What do we do?” Ann asked. “She’ll execute us, same as she did with Weev.”
“We fight,” Salay said. “We were going to do it tomorrow. We’ll have to start early. Tress, you said you have a weapon we can use?”
Though she wanted nothing more than to sleep, Tress nodded. They were committed now. She stood and threw open the door, intending to run down the hallway to her room to get the flare gun. However, as soon as she opened the door, she found a pistol leveled at her forehead.
“Well now,” Laggart said, “captain wants to see you four most of all. How…convenient to find you all together.”
Tress’s trembling returned, then redoubled, trying to make up for lost time. She stared down the barrel of that gun and found her mouth had gone dry again, for a different reason. She forced out some words anyway.
“You can’t hurt me,” she said. “Captain needs me.”