My mouth tasted dry. Slowly, I raised the cup to my lips and drank. I’d known my parents met aboard ship, but I’d always assumed it was in the Navy. My father, who always smelled of cigars and coffee, had been a pirate? A common pirate in love with his ship’s Stormsinger?
“Of course, your mother refused to help Lirr, and swore to take the secret of Bretton’s prize to the grave. She and Grey escaped—to this day, I’ve no idea how—and vanished. Completely.”
They went to the Navy, and then the Wold. I’d long known my mother sang for the Navy for protection, and scant freedom in peacetime. But until now, I’d never understood just what she’d run from. Who she’d run from.
“Her departure broke Lirr, somehow,” Demery continued. “He became wild and reckless. Half the crew left, including myself. I heard that he tried to sail the Stormwall without a singer and failed. So he set his mind to conquest, pillaging his way into something like lordship in the South Mereish Islands—most of their rulers down there are pirates of one form or another. But all the while he looked for your mother, and with her the location of Bretton’s Hoard. Finally, he found her.”
Quiet fell between us while I struggled to process it all. It was a mad tale, but it wasn’t impossible. Still. Demery’s claims didn’t explain the way Lirr had spoken as if he knew me personally, and I should recall him. And unless Demery was lying, all this had taken place before my birth. Lirr would have only been a boy.
“Lirr is too young,” I countered, suspicion creeping up my spine. “Or… I’m not sure. It was hard to tell. He looked younger than you, in any case.”
Demery tapped his rings against the side of his cup in absent rhythm. “How kind of you to say. I assure you, he’s older than he looks. I can’t tell you why—a kindness from his parents? An effect of his magecraft? He is a mage, Mary, and an unusual one.”
“What kind?”
“A Sooth, as I said before, but also a Magni,” Demery said. “It’s a dangerous combination. He has a Sooth’s foresight and connection with the Other, but also a Magni’s influence over others. What else, I can’t say. The unnatural was never an area of particular interest for me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What is your area of interest?”
“I enjoy cards, military memoirs and complicated women,” Demery returned. “But at this time, I’m interested in Bretton’s lost prize. I’m tired of this life. I want to retire somewhere warm, where there’s no noose waiting for me. So I plan to rescue your mother, convince her to take me to Bretton’s lost prize, and then hang my hat.”
My breath lodged in my throat. “You intend to rescue my mother?”
“Yes, and it would go a lot better if I delivered her daughter to her, safe and sound. Which is possibly why Lirr is after you, though he could also intend to use you against Anne. I can’t be sure, and I won’t pretend to be. Their relationship was always unpredictable.” Demery lifted his cup to his lips, adding along the way, “In any case I need a Stormsinger, and you need protection from Lirr, so we both win if you come with me. I have a vested interest in your health and happiness, for your mother’s sake.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Demery looked dour. “That’s foolish of you.”
“You’re a pirate,” I shot back, my cheeks beginning to flush with anger—anger at my confusion, anger at him and at the world, which had left me so alone and uprooted. “I can’t trust—It doesn’t matter, does it? Are you going to drag me back to your ship now?”
Demery considered his wine. “Maybe. Though as I’m trying to endear myself to your mother, I’d prefer not to abduct you. And like I said, I want your loyalty, Mary.”
“I don’t believe you.” I spat the words this time, cold and disgusted. They were not a lie, but they weren’t entirely true, either. My heart wanted to believe him; my mind knew better. Even if he’d shown me relative kindness up until now, who knew what the coming months would bring—particularly once he realized I was untrained.
Thrusting myself back from the table, I stood and glared down at Demery. “We’re done here.”
“I’ll be here all night, and back tomorrow,” he said, ignoring me. “Drinking quietly and awaiting your response.”
“This is my response,” I stated and stormed away into the crowd.
I went back up to my room, but the walls felt too close, and I had no desire to be in a place Demery had paid for. It was time to go, to find space—and from there, sort out my thoughts and make my own decisions.
Checking to ensure no one saw me, I followed a second stair I’d seen the maids use earlier in the day, skittered past kitchens full of clinking and calling, and out a back door.
I shouldered past a pissing man and out into the snowy brightness of the street. I let the press of townsfolk sweep me away from the inn, from Demery, and all that he’d tried to tell me.
“Miss?” A figure materialized from the crowd, clad in a worn brown overcoat, a cloak, and a clumsily tied scarf. He had dark hair, ineffectively constrained by a tricorn hat and a short braid, and brown eyes rimmed by dark lashes in a pleasant, if currently ominous, face.
I knew him. The memory was thin, but I’d seen this man before. One of Lirr’s men? No. One of Demery’s?
“Miss, are you well? Do you need help?”
I kept walking for a few steps, rage boiling up in my stomach. Of course, Demery would have the doors watched. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to slip away unmolested.
Well, I’d had enough of Demery and captivity. I’d had enough of hiding from punches, of trying to keep myself alive in a situation beyond my control. I’d take what scraps of power I could and run with them.
If Demery and his pirates wanted to keep me locked up? They’d just have to catch me.
I bolted into the night.
THIRTEEN
The Man in the Shadows
SAMUEL
Mary Firth lunged into a passage between two houses, skirts rippling in her wake. I skittered to a stop at the end of the alleyway, peering after her into the shadows.
“Ms. Firth!” I panted. “I am not your enemy!”
There was no response. The alley ended in something of a courtyard, but it was blocked by a fence. I doubted the woman had managed to scale that in skirts. So where was she?
There. Movement behind the bulk of a chimney, its warm stone steaming softly in the gloom.
I glanced back into the street. A pair of men walked towards us on the other side, deep in discussion and more than a little merry. Still, I hardly wanted to catch their attention. Having to bail me out of prison for chasing a woman through the streets might just be my last straw with Slader, even if that woman was Mary Firth.
I slipped into the alleyway, letting the shadows hide me. “Ms. Firth? Please, I have no intention of hurting you. I—”
She stepped out from behind the chimney, shoulders hunched in fear—no, rage. There was no mistaking the woman’s glare, her grey eyes glittering in the night.
She was taller than I expected, her forehead level with my eyes, and she was beautiful—in a vengeful kind of way, with a full bottom lip and flushed, pale cheeks.