“He is.” I slipped the book into my pocket and scrutinized her, knowing I looked wan and shadow-eyed. “I am watching the city.”
“Can’t sleep again?” Her question was neutral, but we both knew what it meant.
“No.” I had not told her about the new coin.
“Well, this is a fine city and a fine night,” she noted, settling her elbows at her sides like wings and leaning back into her heels. “Let me buy you a drink.”
I scratched at my jaw, beard rasping. “Why?”
She gave me an odd look. “Because I’m not foolish enough to drink my way around a foreign port, alone in the dark with a healing wrist. And no, don’t bother telling me to stay aboard ship, then. I have to go ashore or I’ll lose my mind.”
“So you intend to use me,” I summarized, “as a bodyguard.”
“As assurance against unwanted trouble,” Fisher corrected and flashed one of her flat smiles. “Large, bearded companions are useful in that respect. But I value your mind too, Mr. Rosser. I don’t speak Usti. You do.”
“I will not help you flirt with locals,” I stated, though I was already warming to the idea of finding a tavern.
“Me? Flirt?” Fisher scoffed, her grin curving up on one side. She started off down the gangplank. “I’ve no interest in flirting, neither with Usti nor anyone else. All I want is a night that doesn’t smell like damp and tar. Are you coming?”
I joined her, boots echoing on the heavy, snowy slats. “Helena, I would hardly be a gentleman if I did not. Particularly after you asked for my protection.”
Fisher’s mouth quirked at my use of her first name. “Not protection,” she corrected. “Think of yourself as a warning sign, one that reads ‘Do not try me, I’ve had a very bad week.’”
I ducked my chin, unoffended. Fisher was as brave and practical as they came, though she had been quieter since her brush with death. She would not have invited me unless she genuinely wanted—or felt she needed—my company. “That, I can do.”
“Good. Then let’s be off.”
We glanced into the windows of the first tavern we came across, only to see half the patrons were sailors from our ship. This repeated half a dozen times before it started to snow in a fine, glistening haze. Fisher frowned at the sky and crossed a bridge, into an area known as the Knocks.
“We’ll head up to the Shasha,” she decided. “Find a place where the coin’s a bit too shiny for our rabble.”
Until now she had been leading the way, I shadowing her a pace behind. But now we walked side by side through increasingly narrow streets, full of locals and sailors, whores and hawkers, and late-night vendors of everything from bottles of illicit substances to sugary pastries.
The farther we went, the less of our crew we glimpsed, and the closer together we walked. By the time we neared the bridge where I had bought the talisman earlier that day, I had already caught a dozen dubious characters giving Fisher or me the side eye. I was glad I had come.
Despite our surroundings, Fisher relaxed. We bought hot wine from a street vendor and drank it beside a canal, watching the snow fall and the water flow past its shores of ice, carrying the occasional darkened riverboat, or patrolling icebreakers with long poles. We spoke little, returned our cups to the vendor, and resumed our search.
A brief wash of lantern light swept across Fisher’s face as we crossed the bridge to the Shasha. She smiled at me, her eyes crinkling.
“So, Sooth,” she said. We rounded a whooping crowd and a knot of drunken dancers. “Where shall we settle in for the wee hours?”
Before I could answer, the Other snatched at me. I slowed, suddenly disoriented. The bridge beneath our boots vanished and the dark water of the canal swelled, spilling into the city. New lights appeared: a wash of ghistings in their anchored ships. Red-tinted Magni, wandering the streets or situated in buildings. Another Sooth, far distant. And a host of Stormsingers, their light a wan teal. Most of them were on ships, unmoving. But one was close and edged with grey.
Mary Firth.
I returned to my flesh and discovered I had already begun walking towards her. I stopped, suddenly discomfited at the thought of bringing Fisher anywhere near Mary. Fisher might do something rash.
And Mary might still have my coin—the real one with its three-snake stamp, the reliable one that had kept me sane since I was a boy. My hands trembled. I clenched them in my pockets, forcing myself not to grab the new, temporary talisman.
Fisher snatched at my arm and forced me to face her. “You have that look on your face. Has Demery docked?”
No sooner had the question left her lips than we heard Mary’s voice. It swelled out of an opening door just down the canal, facing the Knocks and bearing a sign that read The Drowned Prince.
As it had back in Whallum, the sound of her voice quietened my mind and settled me in my bones, almost like the coin she had stolen. It was inexplicable, a product of misplaced affection and admiration I was sure, but I rested in it. I released a breath and closed my eyes for one fluttering instant—before I had to open them again, and face what came next.
“You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet, and the swish of a skirt in the dew, steadily cantering through the misty solitudes.”
Mary’s voice came low and lilting, and at the same time, the falling snow changed direction. For an instant it reversed its course, wafting back up towards the shadowed lines of roofs and chimneys.
Then the door closed behind a knot of patrons, the song dimmed, and the snow began to fall once more.
Fisher turned large eyes upon me and cracked a resigned smile. “So much for no trouble tonight. You understand what we have to do?”
I knew. It was what Slader would have insisted upon, if he were here. It was what I ought to have done long ago, but had not had the stomach for.
I stamped my reluctance and longing out and shoved cold determination in its place. Mary had robbed me, and I could not fail Slader again.
We had to abduct the Stormsinger.
“She will not be alone,” I pointed out, hoping against hope that the fact would sway Fisher.
My companion was unfazed. “Then we’ll just have to wait for the right moment.”
One more try: “We ought to go for help.”
She thought for a minute, then shook her head. “No. We cannot lose this chance. At the least, we can follow them back to Demery’s ship.”
That was it, then. We situated ourselves in the lee of an alleyway and began a long, frigid wait in the snow. Mary sang three songs, each one more boisterous than the next, and the peace I felt at her voice was replaced by biting cold and anxious pacing.
After the third song, Mary’s voice ceased to waft when the door opened. Sometime after that, patrons began to trickle out, heading home or to other establishments, or, by the looks of them, to indulge in various felonies.
When the bells rang the single toll of the first hour of the morning, I sensed Mary approaching the door. I signaled to Fisher, who stretched her neck and slipped her left hand around the hilt of her cutlass. The right, the injured one, she held carefully out of harm’s way.
I expected a flood of pirates from the tavern door, but a tired-looking Mary exited The Drowned Prince in the company of just one man. He stood an inch or two taller than her, with a build that was slim but fit, and he tucked a fold of papers into his jacket as he went.