Mia lay there for a long time after Ash fell asleep.
Imagining a lake so still, it was like a mirror to the sky.
Staring at the gloom above her head and picturing a pale globe shining there.
Listening to the tempest sing.
And wondering.
* * *
It was growing worse.
The Bloody Maid was almost a hundred and twenty feet of sturdy oak and reinforced cedar, built to cut the ocean’s face like an apothecary’s scalpel. But the swell was rising along with the winds, howling and gnashing about her like a wild thing at rumpus. The ship was tossed like a toy, the Ladies of Storms and Oceans both seemed in a fury. Without Mister Kindly in her shadow, each towering wave brought Mia a threefold fear—the torturous climb, an agonized, weightless quiet, and then a belly-churning drop down into the dark and an impact that felt like the whole earth was ending.
A moment’s pause. And then it all would begin again.
For hours. And hours. On end.
“’Byss and blood,” Ashlinn swore.
Their hammock was hung cross-ship to better sway and roll with the Maid’s motion, but even spent as they both were, sleep had become impossible. As the tempest grew steadily worse, the winds howling, the thunder sounding as if it were right on top of them, Mia found herself rolling out of the hammock and dragging on her leathers and boots. Belly full of butterflies. Hands shaking.
“Stay here,” she told Ash.
“Where are you going?”
“Talk to Corleone. Find out what the fuck is going on.”
She pushed herself through the cabin door despite her fear, staggering with the violent sway and toss. Closing the door behind, she made her way down a corridor lit by arkemical lamps, one hand pressed to either wall for balance. A crewman on his way below squeezed past her with mumbled apologies, soaked under his oilskins. She could see the floorboards were wet, seawater and rain rolling down the stairwell ahead. Passing the Falcons’ cabin, she heard Butcher still puking his guts up, Bryn cursing by the Everseeing and all his daughters. She knocked on the door, Sid stuck his head out a few moments later.
“All’s well in here?” Mia asked.
“F-f-fuggin’ … m-marvelous,” Butcher groaned, his battered face all but green.
“We’re all right,” Sid nodded, grabbing the doorway for balance as they crashed into another wave. “Butcher’s got nothing left in him to puke up, poor bastard. You?”
“Still kicking. I’m headed up to talk to the captain.” She licked her lips, drew a deep breath. “You can all swim, aye?”
“Aye,” Wavewaker nodded.
“Aye,” said Bryn and Bladesinger.
“Fuggin—hhurrrrkkkrkk!” said Butcher.
“I think that was a yes,” Sidonius grinned.
“Keep your wits about you,” Mia said. “Don’t lock your door.”
“We’re gladiatii, Mia,” the big thug smiled. “We’ve each of us looked death in the eye more times than we can count. No fear for us.”
She clapped a hand on Sid’s shoulder, cupped the side of his face. Looking around these men and women who’d fought beside her on the sands, and realizing they were her familia, too. And despite it all, just how glad she was to have them with her.
With a nod, she left them to it, staggered across the rolling floor, down to the stairwell. Seizing the railing, Mia struggled up to the deck above, fighting for balance.
The storm was deafening out here, the rain coming down like spears. Mia was awed by it—the walls of water rising ahead and behind, the sea a dark and sullen steel gray. Her heart rose in her chest as lightning tore the heavens, the wind was a mouthless, hungry howl, underscored by BigJon’s bursts of blinding profanity. Looking above her head, Mia could see seamen on the rain-slick yardarms, trying to secure a sail that had come free of its ties. They balanced on thin cables, working with sodden rope and heavy, waterlogged canvas, almost a hundred feet in the air. One slip, one stumble, onto the deck or into the water, either way it would all be over.
“The fuck are you doing up here?” Corleone demanded as she climbed to the aft deck. The captain was wet to the skin, his greatcoat soaked through, the feather in his tricorn wilted in the rain. The wheel was lashed in place, and the captain was lashed to it, clinging on like a very handsome limpet.
“I thought you said this storm wasn’t going to break us!” she shouted.
“I admit I may have underestimated its enthusiasm!” he yelled, grinning.