free, too, and you’re both just now finding out who you really are. And for a start, you’re a rack now. You don’t have to do anything. Rack rules, remember?”
Holden found he couldn’t look at Van Gast. “That means I don’t have to keep Tallia in the brig, or have to do what you say, or…but I do have to, on this. Ilsa doesn’t know anything but Remoria, anyone but me. And I want to make everything right for her.” He managed to raise his head, look Van in the eyes. Say what he’d been struggling with in silence all these weeks. “I already risked her, with Josie. I can’t, not again. She never knew about that, but I don’t want to hurt her. I have to do this, Van. I do, for me. For her. Do you see? I have to know that the person I’m finding out I am is a good man. The man I was under the bond—I wasn’t a good man, though I tried. But I brought Josie to breaking, made Skrymir cut off his braid and honor, made Ilsa…I don’t know. I wasn’t a good man then, but I want to be now. So I’m going to try, whatever it takes. I want to make her happy. I just don’t know how.”
Van Gast sighed enough it seemed it might lift him out of his boots, and glanced around at the crew on watch. Looked at all their bond scars, their newly open faces. “You poor bastards. You most of all, Holden. No man truly knows how to make a woman happy. Didn’t you know that? All you can do is love them, hard as you can, and hope like fuck it works out.” He flashed a grin. “Come on, we’ve got a game of Find the Lady to finish off. Lady number one is with this Rillen. Lady number two is down in the hold, just waiting for a nice chat with us.”
“And lady number three?”
“I have no idea.” He ran a distracted hand through his hair, and Holden could almost see him reject the first thought. Josie. “Let’s concentrate on one and two now, I think.”
Darkness seemed to breed down in the area of the hold where the brig sat. Dank, humid, airless. Van Gast lit a lamp, and the flame stuttered and popped, but held.
Tallia glared at them through the bars, and again Holden had the urge to open the brig, let her out. Too long chained himself, he couldn’t bear that she was locked away, a free thing trapped.
Her lip curled as she considered them. “Ah, the infamous Van Gast. Come to gloat? Or to do the stupid thing and leave me here?” She turned reproachful eyes on Holden. “And what about you? How’s Ilsa today?”
Van Gast didn’t give Holden a chance to reply, but strode to the brig and crouched so he was at eye level with Tallia as she sat on the bench. He raised the lamp so they could see each other clearly. “It’s you we’ve come to talk about, Tallia. You make me itch, make my little-magics burn. You’ve heard of them, I’m sure.”
Tallia shrugged, offhand, as though she wasn’t in a brig, as though she had the upper hand or a gun aimed at Van’s heart.
Van’s grin flashed out. “Why is that? Why is it you ask me if I’ll do the stupid thing? What do you know about stupid-but-exciting?”
“What do you know about anything other than getting drunk and being a bastard?” The tone was sharp, but a flush crept up Tallia’s neck. Caught out saying something she shouldn’t, but Holden couldn’t see what.
“Not much, admittedly. But I’m out here and you’re in there. Holden says you left a note. What did it say?”
Tallia glared at him but said nothing.
“How about I tell you what it said, and then you tell me what the fuck you’re up to? The note you left said for me to meet Josie at Kyr’s Palace. Right?”
“Yes.” The word came grudgingly.
“But you didn’t want me knowing it was Josie that sent you. Or that you had anything to do with her. Or are you going to try to tell me some random person just gave you the note and you decided to deliver on a whim of goodhearted charity?”
Tallia’s lips twisted and for a moment Holden thought she’d lash out, but she gripped her hands together. “I thought she was going to get you back, going to make you pay