She huffed a breath and crooked two fingers. Their boots stole soft against the wooden quays, the night filled with the rush of the ocean and the whisper of the wind. They were headed, Ramson guessed, to the very end of the port.
As they walked, the ships grew scarcer and became a more ragged assortment of smaller brigs and fishing boats—until a massive galleon loomed before them. From the dim moonlight filtering through the clouds, Ramson could see that it flew no flags.
“No sigil,” Daya whispered, “no particular design. Most ships are painted over with symbols like a pirate’s got tattoos, but this one is trying not to stand out. It’s been here since we arrived this afternoon, but no one was around it until earlier tonight. The port’s closed by six bells, and it was long after that when I caught a line of people disembarking. And Amara look upon me, Irecognizedseveral of those bastards.” She looked smug. “They’d been on my ship before.”
“Kerlan’s men?” Ramson muttered.
“Kerlan’s men,” Daya confirmed. “Sneaking around like they didn’t want anybody seeing them. Tsk, tsk. Definitely up to no good. Oh, but here’s where it gets creepy…”
Ramson threw her a skeptical look.
“What?” she snapped, shooting him a glare. “You’d be scared, too, if you’d been here.” She swallowed and touched a hand to her collarbone, where her tattoo of the goddess Amara was. “I thought I heard screaming coming from it.”
Ramson looked around. This part of Sapphire Port was remote enough that no one would come looking. “Screaming?” he repeated.
Daya nodded, her eyes wide. “At first I thought it was just the wind, but when I listened more closely—hey, where are you going?”
“Only one way to find out,” Ramson called over his shoulder. He heard her hissing curses at him, which turned to whisper-shouts threatening that he was on his own if anything happened to him.
Before him, the ship Daya had pointed out was a silhouette looming against the night. When he reached the end of the jetty and glanced back, Daya had disappeared into the shadows; he caught a flash of her eyes as she watched him.
Ramson paused to listen. There was nothing but the sound of the ship creaking as it bobbed up and down, the sound of water gurgling beneath its hull.
With a light leap, he swung himself onto the anchor line. It clinked gently as he began to haul himself up, his feet scampering easily over the chain links, his hands steady. When at last he reached the top, he peered over the hull and, seeing no one, he hauled himself over the railing and onto the deck.
The ship was a midsized vessel, with a large hull for storing goods. Ramson searched the captain’s cabin first, which was predictably empty, and then turned his attention to the hatch—the door that led to the hold belowdecks. It was locked, which wasn’t a surprise, and it took him a few moments’ work with his pick before the trapdoor clicked open.
Quietly as he could, he descended the rungs of the ladder. The air here was musty, and it took some time for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. Slowly, shapes began to emerge—piles and piles of crates.
Ramson stole over to one of them. It took him longer than usual to work the lock in the darkness. At last, the lid popped with a satisfying click.
He peered inside.
The crate was filled to the brim with searock. Under the faint moonlight that filtered through the opening above, he recognized the rippling patterns across the material’s surface. One piece caught a blue-green hue as he held it higher and turned it over in his hand.
Why would Alaric Kerlan be hoarding searock? More important,howhad he gotten his hands on so much of it? Searock was a precious mineral available only in the south Bregonian seas, its mining tightly controlled by the Bregonian government.
Had Kerlan somehow stolen it?
He investigated several other crates, which all yielded the same result. Finding nothing else, he made sure each crate was shut tight before he left.
Daya looked immensely relieved when he rejoined her. “Well?” When he gave a slight shake of his head, she continued, “Try again tomorrow.”
But Ramson remained deep in thought as they stole back to the Black Barge to settle down for the night. Olyusha had said Kerlan’s trade with Bregon was related to a new development with Affinites. How was searock connected to this?
He drifted into uneasy sleep, plagued by dreams of searock prisons and shadow ships, and monsters in the dark that lay inwait.
Bregon was a kingdom of water and sea, but there was wind here, too. Linn had hitched her dress into the breeches she’d worn under it, her own leather boots silent to the steel-tipped toes of the Bregonian Navy uniform, and she felt like herself once again.
Most important, her knives hung at her waist, strapped tightly and yielding to her body’s bend and flex as though they were a part of her.
She’d been following the scholar for a good portion of the evening, tailing him through the whispering alder trees and flitting between the gray-shingled roofs of the Blue Fort like a shadow. So far, he’d stopped by to meet with several officials before returning to what Linn assumed were his own chambers.
She leaned against the wall of his balcony, one leg dangling over the railing, watching as the lamplight in his room flickered. Before long, it went out; she heard the creak of his bed, and then silence.
Linn sighed. She waited. Minutes passed; she counted. When he didn’t stir again, she stood and stretched. She considered returning to her chambers to tell Ana that the scholar had been up to nothing and that she had no useful findings to share—but inspiration struck her as she looked around the courtyards, utterly empty at this hour.
If she were to explore more of the Blue Fort, it was best done under the cloak of night. There was no telling what she might find.
