“Isn’t that Kaspin’s rat?” Fisher murmured.
I nodded. Charles Grant adjusted his coat and walked backwards for a few steps, casting a laughing farewell to other tavern-goers. Mary stopped, waiting for him and glancing up at the snow. My gaze snagged on her face and my head produced a series of unhelpful observations, centering around her low bodice—which I glimpsed as she adjusted my cloak—and the curve of her lips.
Fisher read my expression. She shot me a hard look, followed by an elbow. “Rosser. Where are the rest of them?”
I took hold of myself and pulled my pistol from beneath my coat. Fetching a twist of powder and shot from my pocket, I shook my head. “Another tavern? They will not be far.”
“Then we move now.” Fisher glanced at my progress. I slid the shot home, tamped it and fit the ramrod back into place beneath the barrel with thoughtless efficiency. “Here they come.”
Sure enough, Mary and Grant were almost upon us, he rambling and she half listening, her eyes sweeping the street ahead.
“We come back tomorrow,” Grant was saying as they neared. “And the day after. Every day. Pity Demery is not here to witness our budding success… However, that gives us even more time to secure investors.”
“Every night! I’m not doing this again,” Mary protested, tired and short. They were almost to the mouth of the alley now, but Grant was slow, and Mary had to wait for him to catch up again. “Any investor we pull in at the Frolick is worth twice what that lot can offer. Watching you gamble and get drunk was not what I volunteered for.”
“I’m hardly drunk,” Grant chided, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I’m merry, as were you, singing such bawdy songs. Even I blushed. Besides, that lot had deeper pockets than I expected.”
Mary shrugged him off, returning to her earlier assertion. “I’m not doing this every night. You can come back alone.”
“Oh, you’ll come,” he corrected. “As you’ll come to the Frolick. Mallan is arranging for Phira’s seamstress to make your gown. Isn’t that nice? Why aren’t you smiling? Surely you like pretty things. Mary.”
Hidden by the shadows, I exchanged a glance with Fisher. Her hand hovered on her cutlass and I held my pistol at the ready, but neither of us moved. We had just overheard a great deal of information, and little of it made sense. Investments, an absent Demery, someone called Phira and a Frolick?
Mary glanced over her shoulder at the tavern. More patrons had flowed into the street, though they headed in the opposite direction. “I’ll attract too much attention. I’m not putting myself at risk so you can gamble and call it work.”
“Do you want to rescue your mother from Lirr?” Grant’s voice became harder. “This is part of the agreement.”
My breath shallowed. Lirr had Mary’s mother, and Demery had offered her a deal? Was that why Mary had gone to Demery instead of Hart?
My determination ebbed, my eyes full of Mary’s face as she frowned at Grant. “You don’t get to decide that. I’m not—”
Fisher flinched forward, about to step out of the alleyway.
“You two!” A woman’s accented voice reverberated down the street, making both Mary and Grant look back. A tall figure sauntered into view, followed by a knot of what my curse told me were Demery’s pirates.
Fisher and I retreated deeper into the shadows.
“Athe.” Grant touched his hat at the newcomer, but she barely stopped walking. Instead, she prodded him forward like an unruly child. Mary fell into step and they passed out of sight.
“What?” Grant protested, his voice echoing back towards us. “Athe—unhand me. What’s the matter?”
“Hart is here.” I caught the big woman’s words just as they passed out of earshot. “Time for bed, pups.”
Their voices and footsteps faded and, across the alleyway, Fisher’s eyes gouged into me.
“We should have moved sooner,” she hissed.
I let out a long breath, mentally bracing for the displeasure Slader would unleash upon the both of us—and the prospect of yet another night without my proper Mereish coin.
“It was not a complete loss,” I pointed out. From the corner of my eye, I watched the pirates cross the bridge, illuminated by lanterns and surrounded by revelers. “Grant intends to bring her back here. We know Mary’s connection to Lirr now too—he has her mother. And Mary has a bargain with Demery to rescue her.”
I said all this factually, but the words felt like lead on my tongue. Lirr had Mary’s mother. Mary had gone to Demery out of desperation, trusting a pirate over me. She had stolen from me in the process, yes, but understanding her situation dulled my anger.
“Perhaps we can help her,” I ventured. “Strike a similar agreement and convince her to join us.”
“You are not subtle, Samuel Rosser.” Fisher’s chin dropped so she could eye me more judgmentally. “Keep your breeches buttoned.”
I shot her a flat look. “Are you jealous?”
“Always,” she returned, softening her words with overdone, and entirely falsified, longing. “You stir me so, Samuel Rosser.”
Before I could contemplate just how uncomfortable that made me feel, my companion stepped out of the alleyway and started to trail the pirates. Yes, we needed to follow them back to Demery’s ship. I had to get my head together.
“The woman they mentioned, Phira, the one hosting the party next week,” Fisher said in a low voice. We fell into step far behind our quarries. “She’s sister to the Usti queen.”
I leapt on that. “And Demery will be in attendance, looking for investors.”
Fisher nodded, smiling that flat, steely smile again. “Slader will want to hear about this.”
The Girl from the Wold
The Girl from the Wold has a spent pistol, bloody clothes, and no idea where she is. She stumbles through the forest, instinct driving her away from the body of the highwayman. His friends will come looking for him, after all, and if they find her…
She spends a night sleeping on a bed of moss between two rocky outcroppings. In the morning she feels a little better, but she also feels much worse. She is lost in a forest she does not know, a forest thick with brigands. She is hungry and aching and farther from home than she has ever been. Worse, she has no money and all her possessions are gone.
She has no choice but to start walking. Around noon she stumbles onto a road, disheveled and clutching the pistol she took from the dead highwayman.
“Saint!”
The girl turns, and there in the road is a man. He doesn’t look rich, but he doesn’t look poor, either—his clothing fits well and isn’t outworn. He wears a brown cocked hat and looks lost, his boots slathered in mud to the knee.
The girl instinctively levels the pistol, though it’s not loaded and she hasn’t a clue how to use it. “Stay back!” she shouts, bracing herself for an attack.
“Do not shoot, I beg you!” The man drops his satchel and backs off, his eyes fixed on the girl’s weapon. “I know who you are, madam, and I’m no fool!”
Perplexed, she shifts her grip on the weapon. “You know who I am?”