*
I ate a breakfast of hot oats and dried berries as Athe arrived, along with a grey-haired, narrow-eyed man Demery addressed as Bailey, and the old woman Widderow. The latter sat without an ounce of formality, took me in with one long look, then set to tapping a stylus on a bottle of ink.
Athe settled in beside Demery. They began to converse about daily matters, and I finally understood that she must be the ship’s master. First mate, as it were. Bailey was the bosun, whatever that meant, and Widderow, as she told me previously, was the steward and purser.
Grant situated himself next to me with a thin smile. “Enjoying your breakfast?”
I turned to Demery.
“Now,” the captain said, taking a seat of his own. “To business. Our goal? Locate Silvanus Lirr and rescue Anne Firth, preferably leaving Lirr dead in our wake. Then Anne will guide us to the location of Bretton’s Hoard.”
“No crossing the Stormwall without a Sooth.” Widderow stopped tapping the ink with her stylus and ran it across the tiny vessel’s smooth surface with the barest, gentle rasp. “Too many ships wrecked in those waters, and too many ghistings trapped in them. We need someone to manage the Other. And we need an Usti Voyager.”
“A Voyager?” Athe gave the older woman a long-suffering look. “We’ve sailed the Winter Sea for decades, Crow. No need of a Voyager.”
“And I’ve sailed it for half a century,” Widderow returned with a tight-lipped, thoroughly unnerving smile. “Because we always kept a Voyager in the pocket when I was anywhere near the North Line.” Her smile turned even slyer. “What of… the Uknaras?”
I must have looked lost, because Grant leaned in. “A Voyager is a survivalist, of a sort,” he murmured. “From one of the Usti tribes that live near the Stormwall, or the North Line, as our elders may call it. Occasionally, Voyagers live on the other side of the wall too.”
“No one can live over the Stormwall,” I countered.
“Voyagers can. In specific areas,” he informed me. “Or so the Usti say. They’re as private about the north as the Mereish are about their magics.”
“Old Crow is right.” Demery overrode the discussion. “We’ll pick up the Uknaras in Hesten.”
Whoever the Uknaras were, everyone appeared to believe they were a good choice, and nodded in acquiescence.
Demery went on, “We’ll have to move quickly to keep ahead of Lirr, but with any luck he won’t realize Mary’s survived for some time.”
“How is that, exactly?” Grant asked curiously.
“Randalf’s ghisting carried her off quite swiftly, as I understand it,” Demery said, unruffled by the bizarre nature of what he was saying. “Ghisting light can confuse the sight of Sooths, particularly a newly freed ghisting who is already skirting the divide between realms. I’ve been told it can be blinding.”
“Juliette wanted to hide me,” I observed, pondering the implications of this information.
Demery shrugged. “She saw in you a kindred spirit, perhaps.”
“You were both Randalf’s captives,” Athe put in dismissively. “Ghistings are complicated creatures.”
Widderow tsked, irritated by the conversation. She reached across the table and took a piece of paper from in front of Demery, uncorked her ink, dipped the stylus, and began to write.
“We’ll need a good deal of gear beyond the Line, young man,” she informed the captain. “I hope you’re prepared for that and have some private funds not in my books, which are looking quite spare. This is only a preliminary list of goods, however—”
“We’ll also need investors,” Demery cut in. His smile, I noticed, had an edge to it. “I’m well aware, and I’ve a story prepared to lure them in.”
Widderow paused at her writing, stylus poised over ink. “Oh?”
“Yes. So, while I convince the Uknaras to join our ignoble cause, our ambassador will secure investors around Hesten.”
Hesten was the Usti capital, and my imagination sparked at the thought of seeing it myself—a sight that few of my childhood friends could ever hope to glimpse. Never mind that it would be with Grant. I decided I was willing to put up with him for a chance to see a foreign port.
“Let me go with him,” I put forward impulsively. “A good Stormsinger is key to your success, so let your investors see me.”
Grant looked dubious. “Will it not be dangerous, touting a Stormsinger around Hesten?”
“Not overly so. My name has sway there.” Demery looked ponderous. “Mary, do you have any experience in society’s higher echelons?”
“My father wanted me to marry up,” I answered, unsure of just how high he meant, “so I had a governess for a time.”
“Did you spend any seasons in Jurry?” the captain pressed. “Do you speak Usti?”
I shook my head, ashamed. “I’ve… I’d never left the Wold until a few months ago. And I only speak Aeadine.”
Grant gave me a sideways look at that, brows knitting. “You’ve spent your entire life in a Ghistwold? You never left? Truly?”
I nodded, leveling my shoulders. “Never. But I had a governess, as I said. I learned my histories and poetry, and I can dance and play several instruments. Be polite and such. Things ladies know.”
Demery surveyed me silently, an inscrutable calculation passing behind his eyes. Grant nearly looked pitying.
“I want to do this,” I asserted, indignation rising. “I’ll be helpful.”
“Follow Mr. Grant’s lead, then,” the captain decided, turning back to his books.
I smiled in relief and glanced at Grant. He seemed concerned, but at my look he arched his brows suggestively.
“This ought to be entertaining,” he observed.
Widderow spoke over him, asking me, “How are your numbers, girl?”
“Fair.”
“She’s mine.” The old woman pointed at me with her ink-bloodied stylus. “Eli, your crew cannot count beyond their fingers, and Saint save me, I could use an assistant at my age.”
“You? An assistant?” the bosun, Bailey, spoke up for the first time. “I was under the impression devils had ‘minions.’”
Demery cleared his throat. “Mary, when you’re not tending the weather, you’ll assist Widderow.”
It didn’t sound as though I had a choice, so I nodded. The old woman gave me a narrow-eyed smile, a cat to a trapped mouse, and went back to writing her list.
“What’s your plan for cornering Lirr?” Athe asked.
“I’ve a location in mind where we can lure him,” Demery said. “Once we’re ready, supplied and crewed, we’ll head there and make our stand.”
“And rescue my mother,” I said.
“Then head over the Stormwall,” Athe added.
“To riches.” Bailey rocked his chair back onto two legs and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Precisely,” Demery finished.
“So, we go to a graveyard of our predecessors, locked in ice and haunted by unimaginable quantities of Other-born beasts,” Widderow said lightly, stoppered her ink, and stood to present her list to Demery with a flick of paper. She nodded to me. “You do realize that no matter what you say to the crew, there will be trouble with this one. She may not be Lady Abwery but she is no sack of potatoes, and that is all these boys care about.”