I strode after Grant, removing my cloak with a sweep and keeping my chin high. Glances from nearby tables darted over me—my face, my high-pinned hair, the curve of my breasts and the knife at my belt.
Mallan sighted us and stood, dropping into a small bow and gesturing for the company at his table to make room. Two more chairs were produced as Mallan and Grant grasped one another’s wrists in the Usti style and exchanged pleasantries.
I sat, casting a brief nod around the table. There were five men and three women present. All were well-dressed in a variety of kaftans and fine coats and bodices, but no matter how beautiful their clothing was, they were all distinctly underworldly. One woman wore lip paint as red as blood and rings on every finger. Another wore earrings all the way up the brim of one delicate ear, revealed by her finely braided crown of black hair. The old man across from her was moon-pale, with a ring of scars around his shaved scalp.
“Morgory bite.” The man bowed his head towards me, showing me the top. His manner was genuine, with a smile that dared me to smile back. He spoke in Aeadine and looked Aeadine, but he had an accent I suspected was Capesh.
I’d never met anyone from Cape before, only heard their accents imitated—low and rolling and stately. My stomach fluttered with anxiety, but no one else here seemed concerned.
“You can touch the scars,” the man said, “if you like.”
Despite my better judgement, I reached out and touched a long mark with two fingers. It was impossibly smooth and somehow seemed to hum—some of the morgory’s energy lingering in the healed flesh.
“I’m Farro,” the scarred man said, sitting back and offering me his hand. It was warm and rough, enclosing mine with gentle pressure. “And you’re?”
“Mary Firth,” I replied.
“Daughter of Anne Firth, Fleetbreaker, and a Stormsinger in her grand line,” Grant chimed in, leaning on the table. A serving boy set a goblet before him and he picked it up, giving it an absent sniff. “And we, my friends, are here to gamble.”
The woman with red lips smiled at him, a sultry thing that immediately earned Grant’s reciprocal gaze.
“Well, then, let’s begin.” The woman’s Aeadine carried the same accent as Farro’s. She was Capesh too. “A round of aatz?”
“I will sit out for now,” I jumped in. “I know my cards, but not that one.”
In truth, I did not want to be tied into the game. I wanted my attention and wits free to observe our surroundings, and Grant.
Red Lips nodded and Farro shifted his chair closer to mine with a soft scrape.
“Then sit near me, Stormsinger,” he said, “and I’ll teach you how to play.”
“Sit near me and I’ll teach you how to win,” the woman with the earrings put in, and the merriment in her eyes made my nerves soften. Her accent was Sunjani, and her skin a shade darker than Athe’s.
“I’ll just observe,” I said.
One of our other companions growled something to me in Usti, jutting their chin in Grant’s direction.
“He says if you do not play, you must not help Mr. Grant,” Mallan translated for me.
I nodded, cards were dealt, dice distributed, and the game began. Aatz proved to be a lively affair, earning shouts and laughter as the players traded combinations of cards for rolls of dice. The dice tumbled and the players obeyed a set of expectations attached to each number. They drank on one number, confessed a secret on another, told truth or lies, named a lover or recounted an embarrassing event—though the latter blurred together more than once. And on sixes they all drank their glasses empty, the serving boy appeared at their shoulders, and it all began again. Bets were set at the beginning of each round, wins and losses hinging on which numbers appeared the most frequently.
“Mary, my shy and sorcerous friend,” Grant said after the first round ended, leaving him with significantly less money than he’d initially put down. “Join the next round, I beg you.”
I glanced between him and the rest of the table, hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. “All right. Deal me in.”
The night began to blur. I tried not to drink much but six appeared often, and before long I had to fold out again. Grant showed no such reserve, his frequent losses punctuated with a few large wins that kept his fingers twitching.
Finally, a general hush fell over The Drowned Prince. Musicians climbed up onto a stage in one corner. Lute and drum appeared and a woman sang in Usti as the patrons fell to more intimate discussions.
Farro laid down his last card, rolled a three, and paused to formulate a truth or a lie. I watched light glint off the scars on his head. I knew I shouldn’t stare, but they were so obvious. What must it have looked like, having a morgory biting the top of his head? Well, something like a hat, I supposed, and that made me snort with laughter.
“Oh, think you can do better?” Mallan inquired, raising his bleached-bone eyebrows.
“Hm?” I blinked at him, startled.
“Do you think you can do better than the musicians?”
“Oh,” I hurriedly paddled backwards, stuffing my wine-sodden wits into an apologetic smile. “Oh, no, no, I was just pondering what a sight it must have been for Mr. Farro to wear a morgory like a hat.”
Grant choked on his wine and the rest of the table disintegrated into snickers. Farro himself let out a guffaw that shattered the peace of the room, and the music faltered.
Someone from another table scolded Mallan in Usti. Mallan replied levelly and gestured to me, saying something that earned another, collective hush.
I glanced from him to Grant and leaned closer. “What’s happening?”
“We were rude, it seems, so you’ll sing the next song.” My companion’s brow furrowed. “Is this wise? Perhaps it is. A chance to prove your quality? Or it’s bad. You’re rather valuable. I ought to have brought more pistols… I ought to have brought Athe. She makes me feel safe, Mary, she truly does.”
The singer whose performance I’d interrupted spoke up, first in Usti, then in Aeadine when I only blinked. “Come then, Aead!”
I stood, and though the attention of the whole tavern would have normally made me want to crawl out of my skin, I strode to the stage in a haze of liquored courage. The disgruntled singer and her musicians dispersed, taking their instruments with them.
Despite the wine, I disliked the thought of standing up there without accompaniment. Singing here wasn’t like singing aboard ship, where I was simply doing my job. This was for show, and my mother’s rescue could ride on the impression I made.
My mother’s rescue? I checked myself, blinking rapidly and biting my bottom lip to try and clear my head. That was the first time I’d thought of the prospect as fact, rather than possibility. Sometime in the crossing from Tithe, I’d come to fully believe Demery.
Well, then, I’d best make a good impression tonight.
My eyes drifted to the side of the stage, and I smiled. There, finely painted and propped open with a golden arm, was a harpsichord.
The crowd faded to the back of my mind. There had been some benefits to being the daughter of an innkeeper with enough pirate gold to pay a governess, and the instrument was one of my best.
I pulled out the bench, sat, and took a steadying breath. I let my fingers roam the keys, merging between various songs until my hands remembered how to move, how to flow. Then I cracked my neck and began to play.