forget it if the Emperor himself tried to erase it from her mind.
“What did he say to you?”
“He said…” Petal had reported this to the crew already, but it was still embarrassing to say out loud. She mumbled into the neck of her dress. “He said you were my family.”
Jyrine smiled, squeezing her hands in reassurance. “That’s right. And we are, Petal. We are. So can you trust your sister, this once, when I tell you that what I’m doing isn’t going to hurt anyone? I’m just here to learn, like you. The more we know, the better. Isn’t that right?”
Petal nodded. That much was true. The Blackwatch studied Elders. Even the Luminians studied Elders, though their interest wasn’t as academic.
“I knew you’d understand. But the others won’t. They’d think it was too risky.”
She rolled her eyes as though they both knew how silly that sounded, though Petal happened to think that messing with strange men and Elder powers in the dark of a strange town was dangerous.
But she understood what Jyrine meant, so Petal nodded.
“So you’ll keep it a secret?” For the first time, Jyrine looked uncertain. Vulnerable. Petal wondered what she would do if Petal didn’t keep it a secret.
But…
Petal had hated it when she was denied official access to the alchemical knowledge she craved. She had immediately resorted to her own methods of learning, from stealing textbooks to sneaking up to the rafters to spy on lectures.
Who was she to stand in the way of Jyrine’s ambition?
“I promise,” Petal said softly.
Jyrine brightened and threw arms around her in a tight, reassuring hug.
Behind her, the two newcomers tried to shake their friends awake, but the writhing locals only groaned in pain.
Chapter Three
present day
Compared to Candle Bay, the Capital’s tiny military harbor was nothing worth mentioning. It was surrounded by sheer cliffs, so cargo from the ships had to be raised and lowered by a series of platforms supported by pulleys and cables.
Calder had been forced to dock The Testament here. He couldn’t abandon the Lyathatan unsupervised in the Capital’s largest harbor indefinitely, and too many of the public knew his ship on sight to risk it.
But leaving his ship, his Soulbound Vessel, tucked away in this rocky, guarded, inhospitable stretch of coastline had left Calder feeling somehow lonely. As though he would never return.
So this morning, just to prove that feeling wrong, he had carved out some time to visit.
Escorted by Imperial Guards, he strode onto the deck he’d built with his own hands and saw his crew waiting for him.
Petal trembled, shooting peeks at the monstrous Guards through her dark cloud of hair. She shrunk inside her overcoat, fiddling with something inside that Calder couldn’t see. It would be some kind of self-defense alchemy, he knew. Holding a gas bomb or a vial of acid would make her feel more secure.
Foster wore his reading-glasses, his shooting-glasses still hanging against his wild gray beard. He was examining a nearby cannon, grumbling about its condition. The old man wore his toolbelt, his own Soulbound Vessel, and the tiny tools trembled as though aching to be used.
While Petal looked nervous and Foster distracted himself with work, Andel seemed completely comfortable surrounded by the Imperial Guard. He stood in his pristine white suit and hat, hands tucked behind his back, a subtly amused smile on his face as he watched Calder.
It lifted Calder’s spirits to see them, though he couldn’t help but eye the gaps between them. Urzaia would have laughed and thrown his arms around Andel, and Jerri would have rushed up to greet him.
The empty spaces made his heart ache, but he hadn’t expected any of the crew.
“Finally sick of slumming in the Imperial Palace?” Calder asked. “I see you decided to return to true luxury.”
Andel raised an eyebrow. “I was visiting with friends in the city when a very polite young man with ram’s horns instructed me that I was expected by the Imperial Steward.”
“They shook me from my bed,” Foster grunted.
Petal shrunk back from the nearby Imperial Guards, then spoke in an apologetic tone. “…I was in my room. They told me to come.”
Calder pushed down his instinct to blame this on the nearby Guards. For one thing, they had not given the order. He had. He just hadn’t intended to.
“I am more than sorry, everyone, but I do bring good news: the Independents have accepted our proposal for peace. The meeting is in two weeks’ time.”
From their lack of response, he could see they already knew.
“No,