And what could I expect at Bilgetown, one of the mostterrifying places in the entire Northhelm? She had no land of her own but moved without sails across oceans. Rumor had it that she ate ships foolish enough to trade with her, and yetwewere going to trade with her, to find a piece of a Forge-damned puzzle.
I sighed as I stared at the captain’s door. I really should have taken that second tot last night. I was entirely out of my depth.
There was a rattle of the door, and Echo peered out.
“The captain will see you now, Ensign.”
I slipped in for the second time in as many days.
The faun stood behind me, hands behind his back. I didn’t sit, either, despite the fact that there was a chair. I hadn’t been asked, and I’d not presume. Not with this man. Not anymore.
There was an open journal on his desk. His right arm was still in a sling, and I watched in wonder as ink wrote runes across the page. There was no pen, no quill, merely the strum of his fingers above it all. I was impressed. It took serious skill to wield runes that way, creating something from nothing at the stroke of a finger.
He paused at the last rune and frowned.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
Echo peered over the desk and flicked an ear.
“Define ‘certain,’ sir.”
Even upside down, I could read it. I saw that rune every moment of every day now.
Aro’el.
“I must think on this, Doctor,” he muttered. “The sequence will be complicated and the assumptions a reach. One miscalculation, and everything is lost. I do not know that we have the skill.”
“Of course, I could be mistaken,” said Echo.
“I doubt that very much.”
I watched him as he read. It was hard to think of him as the enemy now, and I studied the lines of his face, realizing that itwasn’t all severe. In fact, the cut of his brow was elegant, with thick brows and delicate lashes. His lips were slightly parted in concentration, softening the usual sharpness of his mouth and jaw. And of course, there was the sweep of his remarkable sea-deep black hair, strands curving along cheekbones higher than the most regal faun, minotaur, or homani in Oversea.
It was always said they were a beautiful people, and as he sat there, deep in thought and steeped in magik, I couldn’t deny it. Elven and beautiful, like a sword of oiled steel.
Still, any sword could cut. Any sword could draw blood.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Thanavar said. “I shall think on it.”
Echo nodded, sparing a glance at me before slipping out the door.
After a moment, the captain pushed the journal aside and looked up.
“You have officially joined the crew.”
“I have, sir,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“You need a station.”
“I do, sir,” I said.
Not so different than the Navy, I told myself. Perhaps more talking.
“The doctor says that you are the daughter of a greenmage healer,” he said. “Since his loblolly, Arik, was killed in the Dreadship’s attack, he is in need of an assistant.”
“Aye, sir.”
He glanced back down to the papers on his desk, nudging one to the side. “Smoke has also petitioned for your assistance at the helm.”
