“No.” Adela held out her icy hand, her cane growing from her palm.
“Was it a sort of reverse whirlpool under me?”
“Child, it was nothing but power and control.” Adela started toward the aft of the vessel. The boat was similar to the one Eira had just been on, except this had a larger cabin space, more of a pleasure barge than a trader’s vessel.
Eira knew Adela wanted her to follow, but her gaze was drawn back to the first boat—where her friends still were. If she followed Adela into the cabin, she wouldn’t even be able to see them any longer. But she also couldn’t do anything from here to help them.
“My friends?—”
“I said they would be kept alive, for now, did I not?” Adela stopped with an air of impatience.
“And what about their things?”
“You should know when to stop while ahead, Eira,” Adela said coolly, making it clear she wouldn’t be pressed on the matter any further.
Eira had no choice but to put her trust in the pirate queen, as wretched as that felt. So she followed behind. The other pirates on this vessel were new faces and they regarded her warily from where they lounged on the deck. Even though none of them were posed in a particularly aggressive manner, Eira could sense danger coming from every direction like invisible daggers hanging in the air.
The interior of the cabin was lavish, though small. It was all queen and no pirate. A short stair down gave enough room to stand. Two lanterns hung from the ceiling to the left and right. One was directly over a small bed piled with furs and quilts. The other was over a desk flanked by two narrow bookcases, dowels running the length of the spines to keep them in place during inclement weather. Though, nothing about this vessel suggested it was made for the seas, and Eira suspected that it didn’t face too many violent swells in the river. At the very back, two tall and tufted chairs were positioned on either side of a small table where a stack of familiar journals were set out.
Adela motioned to one of the chairs. “Sit.”
Eira did as she was told. “What do you want with me?” In the back of her mind, the question of,Are you my birth mother?stillburned. Adela had seemed convincing when Eira had first asked, but perhaps…too confident? Adela had made it clear that there were risks to her surrounding having a child, and then there was the matter of keeping Eira alive when all common expectations surrounding the pirate would’ve been for Adela to kill her… Eira could read into every action Adela took seven different ways.
“Today, I want you to tell me what in these journals you read. We will start there.”
“Start?” Eira arched her eyebrows as she reached for a journal, skimming through it. It was one she hadn’t had a chance to pore over as much and she set it to the side.
“It is still a few days to Ofok, the current in the river is not fast, and the winds are fairly stagnant.” Adela rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her palm, staring listlessly out at the water passing by through the portholes.
“And you will let my friends off in Ofok?”
“Annoy me further and I will be certain not to.”
Eira pursed her lips and grabbed for another journal. It opened easily to the pages she’d studied to the point of nearly being able to recite the words scribbled across them. Eira rested it on the table, tapping on the page. “I spent a lot of time studying how to freeze people solid without killing them.”
“What did you think of it?” Adela leaned away from the journal after skimming it only for a second.
“I thought it was…dark,” Eira admitted. “At first, it seemed so cruel that it would be something I would never use.” She slowly looked up from the page, meeting Adela’s eyes. The pirate queen’s gaze was as passive as always.
“But then you did use it,” she finished softly.
“Then I did,” Eira echoed. “It is a grim and fearsome magic. But it is also…elegant. The idea of keeping someone alive in a frozen state without harming their internal organs. Of knowingjust how far the body can be pushed and how long it can be held… It is a fearsome skill.”
“And you did it well, I heard.” Adela lifted the journal off the table, placing it in her lap. She flipped through the notes with a nostalgic smile that didn’t match at all with the horrors of the magic she was reading about.
“You heard? Ducot?”
She nodded. “And others from within the Pillars.”
“You were working with the Pillars, then?” Nausea passed over Eira. Just when she’d thought that perhaps Adela was someone to be reasoned with…
“If I had been working with the Pillars, wouldn’t I have sailed you right back to Warich and left you in their hands?”
Eira considered this. “Perhaps you want me to have a false sense of security around you to extract information. I have no guarantee this isn’t all a long play at a game I can’t yet see the end of. Perhaps the Pillars want me in Ofok for some reason and you wanted to ensure you at least got your journals out of the exchange.”
Adela closed the journal with an exasperated sigh. “I am not workingwiththe Pillars, but I make it a point to have eyes and ears everywhere. Though, I do commend you for your suspicions. Expect everyone is out for themselves, Eira. Always. That’s your first lesson for today.”
“For today?”
