Despite myself, mine did too. I might have lingering doubts as to Samuel’s qualities, but I was glad he’d survived the Stormwall. Not only that, but the way he smiled at me now, relieved and hesitant, thawed me to the tips of my toes.
Grinning so wide I thought his face might crack, Demery cupped my mother’s head in a hand and bumped his forehead into hers, a gesture so familiar that I gaped.
“Sister.” His voice drifted towards me. “We haven’t much time, but it’s good to see you.”
My mother transformed as she grinned back, eyes brimming with happiness, and she folded into his arms. Over her head Demery caught my eye and his smile became a little grimmer, his gaze one of shared understanding and solidarity. Did he see the changes in her too, despite her smile?
“Brother,” Anne said when they parted again. “Where’s Lirr?”
“Close, but Olsa says he’ll have to come on foot from his position,” Demery answered.
Olsa and Illya, the Usti Sooth and Voyager I’d met back in Hesten, had settled in behind the captain. My mother broke away and nodded to the Uknaras with familiarity. They knew one another. Other members of Bretton’s surviving crew?
Demery, meanwhile, called to me. “Hello, Mary.”
“Captain,” I returned with a heavily mittened salute.
The final member of the company was Charles Grant. He joined me beneath the oak as the others began to confer. Samuel cast us a lingering look, but was soon wrapped up in planning.
“I feel as though I should apologize.” Grant glanced warily at the branches above us and settled in at my shoulder. “Though honestly, you are the one who ran away at the palace.”
“You’re a terrible bodyguard, Charles,” I replied, but my eyes crinkled. With Lirr closing in, the vestiges of Grant’s and my enmity seemed particularly irrelevant. “You practically told Lirr where you were, shouting like you did.”
“I’d hardly have drunk so much if I’d known there would be fighting,” Charles grumbled.
I smiled. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
“As am I.” Charles squinted down at the rest of the company, currently listening to my mother. “Though I’m most interested to know how you two escaped Lirr. I assumed you would still be locked in the belly of his ship.”
I remembered just how many people were locked in the hold of Lirr’s ship, and suppressed a shiver.
“We walked,” I said with intentional lightness, and was rewarded by his stunned expression.
“Walked?” the former highwayman flustered. “How?”
“Magic,” I replied with a wink.
Grant gave me a flat look, but before he could press further, Demery’s voice interrupted.
“Now,” the captain said, looking at the assembled company before resting his eyes on Anne. “We plot.”
*
Our council transitioned to Demery’s cabin, where I settled in gratefully beside the stove as the captain, my mother, Samuel, Athe and Olsa Uknara fell to business. Grant sat on the other side of the stove from me, one leg hooked his knee and a cup of steaming, rum-spiked tea in his hands. I balanced my own cup on my lap, watching as Widderow shouldered into the room with her ledgers.
She shoved in beside Samuel and set the books down with a solid thump. “Mines. I can give you mines, James. Enough mines and grenades to turn Lirr’s folk into spittle and toothpicks.”
Samuel startled, either at the old woman’s sudden proximity or her talk of munitions. I concealed a smile.
Grant, blowing at his cup of tea, frowned at me.
“That would be helpful, Old Crow,” Demery replied. He braced on the table, palms flat, fingers splayed. “Simply put, we need to lay a trap. Mary will be the bait, at the heart of the Wold. Without her, Lirr can’t finish this, so even if he realizes we’re waiting for him—which he may—he’ll still have to make a play.”
Samuel’s lips thinned to a line.
My mother spoke up. “Mary and I will wait. We escaped Lirr together—he may sense if we separate, and be suspicious.”
“Lirr can track you as well, Ms. Anne Firth,” Samuel said, more of a clarification than a question. He surveyed the group and I noticed an odd distance behind his eyes, as if he wasn’t quite here. He chose his words carefully. “The lot of you have a… light, in the Other. Except Mr. Grant. Olsa is a Sooth, both our Ms. Firths are Stormsingers, so that’s to be expected. But are you a mage, Captain Demery? Or you two?” At the last, his eyes skimmed Athe and Widderow.
It took me a moment to understand what Samuel was saying. Demery, Athe and Widderow all had reflections in the Other, even though they were not mages. But Demery, I knew, was ghiseau. So were Athe and Widderow too?
I nearly spilled my tea, but only Grant appeared to notice. He offered me a handkerchief, plain but obviously stolen—the initials on the corner were not his.
“Don’t look at me too long in the Other, lad,” Widderow chided Samuel, back at the table. “This mortal frame is not so lovely as it once was.”
Samuel cleared his throat, his hand contracted in his pocket, and the distant look in his eyes vanished. “I saw only your light, Ms. Widderow. I assure you.”
“Sure you did.” Athe tsked, trying very hard not to laugh.
Samuel’s neck flushed red, Widderow cackled, and my mother cracked a smile. She nearly glowed now, her eyes filled with grim good humor and determination. She was at home here, with these people, and my heart warmed to see it. I suspected she was more herself now than she’d been in a very long time.
“Leave the boy, Crow,” Olsa chided from her spot, leaning against the wall with her ankles crossed. “He does not realize what company he’s in.”
“We’re ghiseau, Mr. Rosser.” Demery faced the other man across the table and offered a resigned, half-smile. “Do you know what that means?”
“Those bound through spirit to wood and blood,” Samuel said with a tone of recitation. He pulled a slim red book from his pocket, its front gilded with Mereish lettering, and held it up. “I have done my research.”
Athe nodded, eyeing the book with something between wariness and curiosity. “Myself, the Old Crow, James, Olsa and her husband are all ghiseau. Anne was, but she’s passed the creature on to her get, far as we can tell.”
“She did,” I said. I disliked Samuel learning of my nature like this, so off-hand and communal, when I’d barely had time to understand it myself.
But more than that, I was taken aback by the affirmation that almost everyone in the cabin was more than human. Like me. We were something other, and we were united in that difference.
My heart swelled. We.
“It seems I’m the only one unaffiliated,” Grant said loud enough for everyone to hear, gesturing with his cup. “What’s a man got to do to get himself possessed by a ghisting?”
“That’s no joke.” My mother cowed him with a look.
Grant hid his affront behind a sip of tea and a haze of steam.
“Lirr is ghiseau as well?” Samuel inquired, slipping the book back into his pocket.
Demery nodded. As he did, Harpy appeared from the bulkhead. Other ghistings materialized too, some more vague than others, but all in the vicinity of their hosts. Harpy stood behind Demery, her face maskless and blank, skirts rippling in an unseen wind. A shadow loomed behind Athe, huge and shaggy—a bear? An indistinct shape flitted behind Olsa and on Widderow’s shoulder, a spectral crow rustled its feathers. It was the pale crow I’d once seen, flying over her head in Tithe.