“This is Olsa Uknara,” Demery said, gesturing to the woman, then the man, both of whom stood with him in the main cabin of Harpy. “And Illya Uknara. Olsa is a Sooth of the highest repute and Illya is a Voyager.”
Olsa nodded and Illya raised one big hand in a finger-fluttering wave, revealing the fact that he’d lost half of his ring and pinky fingers. He was dressed similarly to his wife, though the cut of his coat was straighter and the earflaps of his cap stuck out slightly.
“Many greetings,” he said, then looked to Demery. “Where will we sleep?”
“Widderow will see a cabin partitioned for you.” Demery nodded to Old Crow, who eyed the pair with satisfaction.
“That I will.” The old woman beamed, an expression I’d never before seen on her weathered face. “A right pleasure to have you two back aboard.”
Illya gave her a salute and looked down at his wife, obviously waiting for a cue.
Olsa surveyed Widderow, then Grant and Athe, then settled on myself. Her eyes were somewhere between grey and brown. It made for an odd contrast to her pale hair, though the more I saw of the world, the more I realized such combinations were not uncommon.
“Your captain tells me you never learned how to sing the storms,” Olsa said. “I can help you. I am a Sooth, as Captain Demery says. I know the Other, and your soul is tied there too. I will teach you how to use the Other to train the wind, so it will obey you more easily.”
Shame turned my cheeks scarlet. Train the wind? Was that something Stormsingers did?
“Oh,” I said, sounding as ashamed as I felt. “Thank you.”
Widderow’s glare told me I’d embarrassed her, but she wasn’t surprised about it. “Follow me,” she said to our guests. “I’ll get you settled.”
The Usti left, as did Athe and Grant, and I was alone with the captain. Demery looked around the space, reorienting himself, and fed a new log into the woodstove in the corner.
“Did Phira’s gown arrive?” he asked.
“No,” I replied, watching coals flicker in the belly of the stove before he closed the door again and fastened the iron latch. “I’ll pick it up at the seamstress’s tomorrow.”
“Good. I’m sure it will be wildly impractical and quite suitable. She’s sending something for me too, Saint preserve me.” Demery made for his trunk on the other side of the room. He pulled a key from beneath his shirt and unlocked it. “I hear you’ve been singing in taverns?”
“Yes,” I said. Rosser crept into the back of my mind. I hadn’t told anyone about the pirate hunter’s presence. This would be the time to do so, but part of me worried that if Demery knew Rosser would be at the Frolick, I wouldn’t be allowed to go. Then I wouldn’t be able to give him his Mereish coin. And I wouldn’t see him again, but that was not the point.
Besides, the Frolick was the last place the pirate hunter would risk doing anything rash. Demery, perhaps, didn’t need to know everything. He was still a criminal. I could keep a few cards up my sleeve.
“Grant secured the signatures of two investors just last night, and Widderow’s been able to restock the magazine,” I informed him.
Demery nodded, taking his hammock from the trunk and balancing it on his shoulder while he fastened one side to the beams above. “She told me. You and Grant have been doing good work. If I can secure even one large contribution tomorrow evening, we’ll be set to cross the Stormwall and survive there for a goodly while. But we need to leave port as soon as we’re outfitted.”
Unease crept across my shoulders. “Is Lirr close?”
Demery fastened the other side of his hammock. “He can’t be far off now. He won’t dare sail directly into Hesten—not with half the Usti Navy a stone’s throw away. If there was any chance of that, I’d never have left you here. But if we stay much longer, he’ll be waiting for us in open water.”
My unease turned to cold, hard fear. “How can you be so calm about that?”
“Because it’s my plan,” Demery informed me, unbuttoning his coat and shrugging it off. He wore a knee-length burgundy waistcoat beneath and a loose white shirt, along with a patterned bronze cravat that he pulled off and folded, with the coat, into his trunk. “With any luck, he’ll give chase and we’ll lead him directly into the trap I’ve set.”
I raised my brows.
“I wasn’t just tracking down the Uknaras over the past week.” Demery unbuttoned his waistcoat and folded it away too, leaving him in his shirt and breeches. “Illya helped me find the perfect place to lure Lirr, where his ship will hopefully run aground, and we’ll have him at our mercy.”
That sounded well and good to me, but the pirate was so calm, so flippant about the whole matter.
I tried not to shiver at the memory of Lirr’s laughing, blood-spattered pirates and cleared my throat. “That’s it? It can’t be so easy. His ship has a lot more guns, and a bigger crew.”
Demery rested his hands at the top of his breeches. “No, it will not be easy. Now, are you going to stand there and watch me disrobe or may I have some privacy?”
“Oh. Of course.” I sidled towards my cabin door. “Good night, then.”
Demery nodded. I retreated into my quarters, realizing only once I was inside that I’d need to go back out to light my lantern and woodstove. But when I peeked back through a crack in the door, the captain was already divested of his pants. He stood in his knee-length shirt, revealing densely muscled thighs—which I examined with a respectful degree of appreciation.
He raked out his sweaty hair as he stared at the bulkhead.
Harpy, the ghisting, parted from the bulkhead like a sigh. There was already a fan in her hand and as I watched she flicked it open and lifted it to her head. A face sunk into her spectral flesh, hard-eyed and cool, and her clothing transformed into the ribbed, structured gown of a queen at war.
Brother, she said.
“Sister,” he said.
All thoughts of Lirr fled in an instant. I watched the ghisting drift to Demery. She spoke again, but this time I barely understood her. The sense of them passed over me—plans, intentions, Lirr—but the words were lost, as if someone held their hands over my ears. Demery’s responses, too, faded into unintelligibility.
Unnerved, I closed the door and stood in the pitch black of my cabin for a long minute, half listening, half reeling.
Brother. Sister. Ghistings spoke to Demery the same way they spoke to me. Back in Tithe he’d claimed that other people could speak to ghistings and mentioned he did too, on occasion. But I hadn’t imagined their communication to be as familiar and easy as this.
I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes. I could ask Demery about it, but that would mean admitting I’d spied on him. I wasn’t sure the topic was important enough to risk that.
I fumbled my way into my hammock in the dark and fell asleep with my head full of ghistings, pirates and Samuel Rosser.
THIRTY
The Other Brother
MARY
The next day I arose to find Demery gone. I was immediately swept up in preparations for the Frolick, and by the time the fleeting winter sun ducked down behind the rooftops of Hesten, what I’d seen between Demery and Harpy had retreated to the back of my mind. I tucked Rosser’s coin into my pocket to join my sewing scissors and handkerchief, combed my hair through with rose-scented oil, and set my thoughts on the party.