Mary, however, did not move.Instead, Tane manifested.She left Mary’s skin like river mist and took form, standing directly behind Mary with her hands resting on the chair back.As she did, the entire room trembled, just enough to make the soup and the contents of our cups quiver.
The hair on the back of my neck rose.
“Admiral Rosser.”Tane’s deeper tones laced Mary’s voice, slipping from the Stormsinger’s lips with calm precision and—I noted with satisfaction—Mary’s own accent.“A man of your station can’t be ignorant of the Mereish’s beliefs about their High Captains, even if the extent of their true abilities is cloaked in rumor.So I tell you now, I am the same as them.And if you expect any aid from me or my kind in the coming battle, you will speak to me with respect.”
Ben, picking up his soup bowl with both hands, leaned back in his chair and began to sip.
Admiral Rosser rose.Looking from Mary to me in astonishment and not a little unease, he leaned to brace his hands on the table.“What is this?”
“We areghiseau,” Tane replied through Mary.“I am a Mother Ghisting, but I am Mary, and Mary is me.”
Admiral Rosser stared at Mary and Tane for another long, long moment.Then he gave a slow incline of his head and sat back down.One thing was clear—either my uncle had become considerably more open-minded in recent years, or the existence ofghiseauwas no great shock.
“I beg your forgiveness, Ms.Firth,” he said, and cleared histhroat.“Perhaps I should speak more candidly.Samuel, sit.Let us begin again.”
By the time the main course was served, the reason for my uncle’s anxiety was clear.
“We have suspected a change in the winds for some time,” he said as our food grew cold—all save Ben’s, which had long vanished.“First, you must understand, strange accounts of conflict with the Mereish have always abounded, but High Captains and their High Ships are not common, and none have ever been captured and held alive.One was taken in the last season of the war—the one in which your mother served, Ms.Firth—but they killed themselves within hours.
“More recently, I have heard the accounts of Aeadine Magni who claim their powers did not affect certain Mereish enemies.So too did I hear of a Sooth who claimed her sight had been cut off during an engagement with the Mereish, in which she was shot.However, when she awoke after surgery, she was restored and the matter explained by blood fugue and injury.No one suspected the musket ball might be the culprit.”
“Thus, nothing has been done yet,” Ben observed.
“The items you retrieved and your notes will go a long way to convincing the world to both believe and act, though it will take more time than we now have, with the Great Tide approaching.”The admiral inclined his head to Mary again.Tane had retreated and she appeared herself once more.“As will Ms.Firth’s and Mother Tane’s bond.That is, if you are willing to make yourself known beyond the confines of this room.”
While I relished the notion of the world acknowledging Mary and all that she was, I feared it too.Mary would not simply be a powerful Stormsinger.She would be a singular anomaly.That could either protect her or put her at greater risk than ever before.
“I’m not,” Mary said, to my selfish relief.“I won’t be bought or threatened or puppeted, and I know that will be my fate if I comeforward publicly.I’ll sing against the Mereish fromHart, do what I can, and I’ll go my own way when I’m done.Let my actions speak for themselves in my absence.”
“Very well,” my uncle said, looking to his meal.“Now, eat, and I will tell you all I can.”
FORTY-SIX
Revelations
MARY
Six hours later, Helena Fisher sank into a chair at another table beside Sam, letting her unbuttoned jacket fall open with a long sigh.Charles, Ben and the Uknaras had yet to join us, but the table was immaculate, plates and cutlery laid out on a crisp white tablecloth, rounds of toasted bread topped with savory preserves and cheeses set between two bottles of wine and steaming oysters.Willoughby had held nothing back.
I bit back a smile as, under the table, I heard the clatter of the other privateer captain kicking off her boots.I didn’t know her well, but she was Sam’s closest friend, and I enjoyed watching the two of them.
“Are you in your socks at my table?”Samuel inquired.
“Captain Rosser,” Fisher said, gesturing to her open coat and finely embroidered waistcoat, complete with lace cravat.“I am in the company of trusted friends.And I am as near to a pirate as a Letter of Marque will permit.Thus, I have decided to embrace the life.”
Sam looked like he was trying very hard not to beam.The expression was painfully endearing.
“Well,” he said, snagging a bottle of wine from her hand before she could pour.He filled her cup himself.“At least let me be a proper host.”
Fisher relented.Sam filled all our cups and sat back down.
“I want to know all that’s befallen you andHart.”Fisher sobered slightly, the events of the past years leaking through her ease.Hartused to be her ship too, I recalled, back when she and Sam had been first and second officer, and they’d shared the cabin that was now mine.I’d heard several members of the crew greeting her earlier with enthusiasm.
“But before that, and before the rest of our company arrives,” Fisher nodded to the table, “let me say—I am in Renown because a Mereish man-o’-war harried us out of the Free Channel.We were cruising rather near Mereish waters, I admit, but that ship tailed us far over the line.I’ve already reported to the Admiralty.But what did I see when we sailed in?The flag of the Admiral of theNorth?Samuel, why is your uncle here?”
“Admiral Rosser’s presence is not of particular note,” Sam began.“His ship was undergoing repairs, and he intended to head north next week to rejoin the North Fleet in preparation for the Tide— that is, general preparations for the expected tide and the usual vulnerabilities that arise with it.But there is more to the situation, I am afraid.”
Sam began to recount recent events.Over the course of the tale the Uknaras joined us, along with Charles and Ben, Ms.Skarrow, and Mr.Keo.Enisca and Maren had elected to keep to themselves, Maren ensconced in research and Enisca doing Saint knew what with her time.She might be ashore again for all I knew, and had gently rebutted my overtures of coffee and sweets earlier in the day.
