Penn left at a stealthy jog and silence fell, horrified understanding spreading across Hart and the rest of the harbor. The hush was eerie, interrupted only by the swirl of morgories beneath the water, the creak of ships and the soft intake of Fisher’s bated breath.
The ship rocked on the glowing tide. Fisher grabbed a line and I seized the rail with frozen, aching hands.
“Lieutenants!” a nearby sailor choked. “Sirs, should we make for shore? If we—”
“Hush!” Fisher commanded, but she looked to me, her eyes round with a fear her calm exterior masked. “They’ll eat the boats to splinters before you get a dozen yards. Our only hope is for them to lose interest or Hart to intervene, so shut up.”
Silence clapped over the deck. A hiss rose in its place, a slithering grate of rough morgory hide on the hull of the ship. Or teeth. It was a sound few of the crew would have ever heard before—and quite possibly would never hear again.
I was transfixed. This was a waking nightmare, boyhood terrors made flesh. I wanted to run or arm myself, to do anything except stand here praying I would not die tonight. But there was nothing I could do.
“Come now, Hart,” Fisher murmured to the ship, resting her hands heavily on the rail beside mine. “Wake.”
I felt something shift in the wood beneath our palms. It was a breath, a sigh, and in the next instant the form of a great stag materialized atop the waves beside the ship.
Hart’s ghisting raised his head and looked up at Fisher and I for one glassy-eyed instant. He was over twenty hands high, with antlers broader than I was tall and a ruff of thick hair about his throat and chest.
More ghistings materialized on shore. They formed between the houses, glowing threads connecting them to lintels, doorframes and ancient ornamentation. Some were human in form, mirroring the staring townsfolk in the street around them. Some appeared as animals or strange beasts, and others as formless entities. All were still. All were silent.
They were Tithe’s ghistings, come out to watch, to wait, and to protect the town.
On the waves beneath me, Hart huffed, stomped, and ducked his head to the water.
The morgories scattered into a broadening swirl about him, taking their illumination with them. Fisher and I fell into shadow as the swarm finally dove in a comet of light towards the mouth of the bay and vanished into the Winter Sea.
As they went, the ghistings on shore extinguished one by one. Finally, only the ghisting Hart remained, standing atop the waves and watching the other morgories leave with a steady, unmoving gaze. Then he slipped out of existence, returning to his home within the figurehead.
“Well.” Fisher turned to lean against the lattice of the shrouds, giving me an arch look. “You were in the Other again? Pray, was what you found worth nearly killing our ship and everyone aboard?”
I nodded, using the movement to cover a swallow, and shot the woman a humorless smile. “It was. I found the trail of Mary Firth.”
*
The open sea felt like forgiveness. I stood watch, calm and rested after a night relatively undisturbed by visions. Though I knew the peace would not last, I relished the clarity of mind and strength of will that came with real sleep.
“Sails on the horizon!” a pale-haired woman called from the stern. “A warship, sir.”
I left my post beside the wheel and took her spyglass, directing it in the direction of her pointing finger. Sure enough, a tower of sails appeared with a long, deep indigo banner streaming from her maintop. I did not need to see the colors of Aeadine at her mizzenmast to know precisely who and what she was.
The shape of the pennant meant Navy, the color of it, the North Fleet. The fleet under command of Lord Admiral Rosser Howe, my uncle. And the lines of that ship? The arrangements of her sails, the indigo paint and gold lettering along her quarterdeck and the number of their guns? I knew her.
“Sir?” The watchwoman’s voice pressed into my thoughts. Her accent was Midland Aeadine, likely from the Wolds. She almost sounded like Mary. “All’s well? Who is she?”
“Her Majesty’s Defiance,” I said, giving her a polite nod and handing the spyglass back. “We are sharing these waters with honorable company. Let me know if they signal, Ms. Fitz.”
“Aye, that.” She peered at the vessel again, an awed smile touching her lips.
I returned to my post by the wheel, gloved hands clasped firmly behind my back, expression clear of all disruption. I had known the Navy sailed these waters, including my brother’s ship. There was no reason to let sighting them perturb me.
Fisher materialized, greatcoat wrapped about herself and breath misting from her nostrils in draconian swirls.
“Old friends?” she asked mildly.
“Yes,” I said, making sure my tone and expression gave nothing away.
“Which ones?”
“Defiance.”
Fisher looked back at me in surprise. “Defiance? Isn’t that your brother’s? Mr. Rosser, we can signal. I know you left your post in some… well. But your brother—”
“No.” The word snapped out of me before I could temper it. “Benedict and I have not spoken in some time.”
“Ah.” Fisher fell quiet. After a moment she produced a flask from beneath her cloak and held it out to me.
I hesitated. There was no mocking in Fisher’s manner, no hint of our usual conflict. I was wary of pity too, but there was none of that. Just a flask.
I accepted and uncapped it, taking a cautious swig.
The helmsman eyed our exchange, and Fisher gave him a wan look. “It’s coffee, crewman. Nothing proper.”
“Could still share,” he muttered, his huge, mittened hands wrapped around the spokes of the wheel.
I passed the flask on, and over the next few moments, the three of us drank in silence. Then Fisher tapped the empty flask on my arm in farewell and vanished across the deck.
“She’s not all bad,” the helmsman commented, then added hastily, “an’ I mean no offense by that.”
I glanced at the man sideways and grinned. “Still, be careful not to say that in her hearing, crewman.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said with all seriousness.
Fisher had already slipped from my mind, though, as my eyes strayed back to the speck that was Defiance. It was true. My brother Benedict and I had not spoken in years, not since I had resigned my commission. The words we had exchanged on that day were not easily forgiven.
With any luck, this was the closest I would ever come to my brother again.
SEVENTEEN
On the Account
MARY
I awoke to singing through the deck above my hammock, rumbling baritones accompanied by the steady beat of a drum. Disoriented, I squinted around my dark little chamber, trying to recall what ship I was on and how I’d gotten here.
Lighter female voices joined in and feet stomped right above my head. I heard what sounded like a clap of thunder—a sail filling?—and the whole cabin creaked, tipping to one side. My hammock swung, ropes strained, and I braced my hands in a beam above.
Demery. What had I done?
I’d joined a damn pirate crew, that’s what I’d done.
The urge to stay in my hammock indefinitely assailed me, but my bladder was full, my stomach empty and the cold chamber stank of wood and damp and sweat. Besides, hiding wasn’t an option. I had a job to do, and that job was the only leverage I had.