“Where are you headed?” I ask.
“I told you, same as you, the Lashing. Let’s go.”
A few more feet and we make it, breathless, out of the Sleeve proper and onto the brush-lined path that leads to the shore. We trample through the burrs and follow the ditch along the side of the path. I almost turn to say something to Vergel, then catch myself. Vergel is gone. Killed like a dog on the street by House Eternal.
Anguish and fury flame up in my chest. I stamp it down, deep, where I keep the rest of my hidden pain. There’s no time for that now.Vergel, left on the floor of the bar, along with our enemies.I shake my head. No, I can’t allow myself to think about it. I have to focus on surviving. Me, and Gin.
I’m all alone with a girl I don’t know, and don’t trust.
CHAPTER FOURTEENEBAN
Birds flap overhead, frightened away by the snapping twigs beneath our feet. We shove branches aside and stomp forward, ignoring the stray leaves and brambles that scratch our faces and snag our clothing. Neither of us stop or speak until we finally come to an isolated section of the rocky shoreline, a ways down from the main wharf.
Sure enough, at the south pier, there’s an old greenish-gray fishing boat docked there, drifting lazily with the current. “I think this is it,” she says, and reads the boat’s transom. “Panglaban.”For the fight.
“That thing is supposed to take us all the way to the Lashing?” I scoff. “It’s nothing but a rowboat!”
“There’s a sail,” she snaps. “Come on.”
I sigh, jump in, and hold my hand out.
She ignores my hand and climbs aboard the shaky boat. I untie it from the dock and push us off, into the river, then sit beside her. The sail is useless as there’s no wind, so we each grab an oar and begin to row as fast as we can.
Once the immediate threat is behind us, I stop rowing so I can attend to my injury. When I roll up my pant leg, I notice that Gin looks away, like she’s embarrassed, or else disgusted by the sight of the wound.
“It’s nothing,” I assure her. Still, it’s bad enough that I should cover it. I look around, but there’s nothing I can use as a bandage, so I pull my shirt over my head and rip off the sleeves, using one to wrap around and stop the bleeding.
Gin studiously avoids looking in my direction the whole time.
Once I get my leg sorted, I pick up the oar and row faster. The skyline of Lacon fades into the distance behind us. From so far away, anyone would think it’s a beautiful place, no hint of the misery and strife behind the glowing lights. It looks charming, peaceful.
“Head north on the river till we get to the sea, then follow Estrella Norte until we get there.”
“How do you know how to find it?”
She shrugs and won’t say. Fine, be that way.
I do as she’s directed, but as we near the open ocean, I realize something. We can’t see the Bituon—what we Ophir call Estrella Norte—during the day. There’s no way to know if we’re going the right way. These directions are useless. Then I realize we’re not without resources.
“You still got that bottle?” I ask, thinking of what happened back at the Sleeve. The Ophir spirit saved us, maybe it will again. I fish around in my pocket and pull out the silvery glass orb with a sapphire stopper.
She does the same, coming up with hers, a milky glass with a ruby top. “Oh!” she says, startled, then looks intently at the bottle. “The spirit—it’s back! I thought it left us.” Her eyes shine brightly with hope.
“Ask if it knows the way to the Lashing,”
She grasps the bottle tightly. “I don’t know. It seemed annoyed at the bar.” She fiddles with the stopper, hesitating.
“Just try. We don’t have many options. The last known sighting of the Lashing was supposedly just off the coast of Suvarna, which is east. But that was years ago. If your source told you to follow Bituon, there’s a huge chance it’s moved from that location, if it was ever there in the first place.”
She slips it back into her pocket. “But what if it blows us up? What if instead of leading us to the Lashing, it explodes again?” She frowns. “I think we should sell these. How much did you say Zagar said they’re worth? A thousand leopard? Wasn’t that the whole point of the heist? Money?”
I can’t believe she’s saying this. “If you do that, then you’re no better off than you were before.”
“Wrong,” she insists. Anger flashes in her eyes, and I can’t help but notice how attractive she is when she’s quarrelsome. “Right now, I have riches in my hand,” she continues. “One of the Great Houses would pay a fortune for these, possibly even enough to buy an estate of my own. And ifyou’rewrong, and we don’t find the Lashing, where will we go? Back to the streets. Or no, actually, at this point, we’re more likely to end up in the black cells, then the gallows.”
“These are Ophir relics,” I say sharply. “We can’t sell them. They belong to us. To our people. So does the Lashing.” I gesture at the Laconian city far behind us. “You really want to go back there? Even if we had that much coin, do you think they’d welcome us in the estates? They’d never let an Ophir get that much power. They built that city off our backs. They’d never let one of us live in a palace.”
“They’d have to if we had the coin. I’ve suffered enough. My pain doesn’t help our people, either. And any one of us would do the same if they were in my place. Don’t pretend anyone else in the Sleeve would choose otherwise.”
