in between shivering muscles and still she didn’t stop him. Another inch, a stroke as light as air, a shuddering gasp from her…
“Do you want everything?”
Another shift of his hand, a gust of her breath across his lips. “Yes,” she said, and kissed him.
* * *
Holden was on deck when Van Gast came back near to dawn, swearing under his breath, glaring at everyone and slamming shut the door to his quarters. It slammed open again a minute later, for Van Gast to shout, “Someone bring me some brandy, for fuck’s sake!”
Holden waved away the crewman who ran to find the brandy, and took it himself. He had a lot to talk to Van Gast about.
Van grabbed the bottle out of his hand without a word and sloshed a good measure in his glass. “Gilda, fucking Gilda!”
Holden said nothing, let the brandy and the swearing calm Van Gast down enough he could actually talk properly. Van flopped onto his back on the bed and Holden took the chair.
“Gilda, all along,” Van said when the glass was empty and he’d poured another. “I knew I knew the voice!”
“Gilda set you up in the square?”
“Sure as I’m a rack. Saw her going into the licensed docks, saying she was there to see Rillen.”
“So it wasn’t Tallia then.” Holden couldn’t help the smile. He poured himself some brandy. He wasn’t a drinker, as a rule, but for this he felt in need of a toast, though he’d feel better if he knew where Ilsa was. Gone to the all-night market was all the crew could tell him. This city seemed one that never slept. Maybe she’d be back soon, cheerful again as she had been the last time, having bought something for herself, something pretty. “Who’s Rillen?”
“Good question. Someone people don’t like to talk about much, or at least not to someone who looks like I currently do.” Van Gast leaped off the bed and set about cleaning himself up with the ewer of water in the corner. “Pass me the blue shirt, would you? Thanks. All I could get was that he’s not a very nice person, a lot of people are afraid of him, and if he’s inside the licensed docks—I don’t think a merchanter, people are too wary of talking about him for that. Spends his evenings in Kyr’s Palace, often as not. Kyr’s Palace again. Keeps cropping up. I wonder…anyway, if he’s not a merchanter, he’s still from inside the palace. Which means very definitely not a nice man, not if you’re a rack. What did Tallia say?”
The sudden change of tack startled Holden so he spilled brandy on his hand. “What? Oh. Gilda came down, said she’d seen Tallia come in here. Tallia admits she left a note. She wouldn’t say much else. But if it was Gilda…Tallia did show me where Josie’s ship was. She did get us the crew.”
Van Gast finished getting changed and flopped back on the bed. “Including Gilda. Maybe that was the plan, to blame each other when really they’re working together. Gods damn it all to buggery, why do women have to be so fucking twisty?”
“Because all the women you know are racks? Not all women are like that. Anyway, I thought that’s what you loved about Josie.”
Van Gast threw him an evil look. “Yes, well, there’s twisty and twisty. All right? Do you think Tallia knows who this Rillen is? I mean, she’s probably Estovanian, right? She worked in that inn, she must have heard a fair bit. Maybe we should have another chat with her, because she makes me itch about something.”
With that, he was off the bed and halfway out of the door before Holden got out of the chair. The sheer vitality of him made Holden tired.
Van Gast slowed as they got onto the deck, checking the sky, tasting the wind, noting the rigging and ropes were all as they should be. “Your men aren’t bad sailors, I’ll give them that.” Then a crafty look. “How’s Ilsa?”
Holden glared at him and moved past to the steps. “Fine.”
Even with his back to Van Gast, Holden could hear the grin in his voice. “Really? Bet her and Tallia are getting on famously.”
“Van—”
In the blink of an eye, Van Gast was blocking his way, his face dark and intense with something. “Look, Holden. You and Ilsa…you don’t have to. Not anymore, not if you don’t want to. You’re a free man now, free to think and feel whatever you want. She’s