their knees, and soft lilac waves. She’s on the arm of an Ikaean man with beautiful silver liner winged out into dagger-sharp points around his eyes. His hair is a matching silver against pale skin, and he stands tall in a sharp lilac suit, holding his body in the same way those proud of their money often do.
He’s got dice in his hand, and holds them to the woman’s full, frosted-pink lips. With a giggle, she blows on the dice, and he tosses them onto the table. When the crowd cheers, I stretch onto my toes to try to get a better look at what’s happened, though none of it makes any sense.
“There’s no way that’s Shanty,” I whisper to the others.
Bastian only shrugs. “She’s an excellent actor.”
“A little help, here?” Ferrick’s voice is a sharp whisper as someone takes him by the arm and sets a pair of dice in his hands.
“Your turn,” they say, and slap him on the back. He trips to the front of the table, and the woman who might be Shanty arches a curious lilac brow that has Ferrick turning red from his neck up. Hesitantly, he tosses the dice and rolls a seven.
“Seven out, seven out, seven out!”
The entire crowd roars, and Ferrick’s face flushes even brighter. “Again,” he says, already digging into his pockets for his coin purse. I’m about to grab his collar and steer him away from this trap he’s fallen into so easily when the lilac-haired woman frees herself from the Ikaean man—much to his disappointment—and instead winds herself around Ferrick. I see a flash of a rose gold bracelet on her wrist, dainty and in the shape of several dozen slender fish bones.
“Why don’t you let me blow on those for you?” Her voice is a low, seductive purr. At once, the rest of us find ourselves nodding.
“Aye,” Bastian says, “that’s her.”
Ferrick, however, doesn’t appear to realize this. He darts a look back at Vataea, as if trying to convey his disinterest in this woman by his sheer looks of panic. Without popping blood vessels, he couldn’t possibly get any redder. His body grows rigid when Shanty loops an arm over his, giggling. As she leans in, she bumps his hands too hard and makes Ferrick drop the dice. She catches them just in time, and places them back in his hands with flushed pink cheeks.
“Sorry!” she says to the table. “Looks like the bubbly is catching up with me.” Ferrick, still stiff as a board from her touch, awkwardly tosses the dice onto the table. I don’t see what numbers he rolls, but whatever it is makes the man running the table bulge his eyes, while the rest of the crowd screams and grabs Ferrick by the shoulders. They cheer for him as though they’ve all been best friends for ages.
“I don’t think I’ve had enough to drink to handle this place,” Vataea sighs, slinking away as she catches sight of the bar. “I’ll be back.”
“Do you need money?” Bastian’s quick to ask, about to dip into his own coin purse when Vataea scoffs.
“Have a bit more faith in me, pirate.” She disappears into a crowd that parts for her, and with Ferrick happily distracted, I’m acutely aware of Bastian’s presence at my side. It’s a comfortable feeling, a warm buzz I want nothing more than to sink into and never emerge from. It takes everything in me to ignore it, keeping my attention ahead as Ferrick throws another pair of dice, greeted immediately by more cheers.
“I would have lost the shoes off my feet to this place when I was younger.” Bastian sighs, trying to make conversation. “With that kind of cheering, I have to imagine our drinks are all on Ferrick’s tab, tonight.”
Not a bad idea. Whatever Shanty’s doing, it’s working. But it’s also drawing attention.
Discreetly, I nudge an elbow into Casem’s side, nodding my chin a fraction of an inch at two men who are watching Ferrick from behind the crowd on the opposite end of the table. They’re less like men than they are walking boulders, built thick and strong, with massive coiled muscles. Based on the amethyst color of their clothing, they’re Kers.
One of the men catches me looking, and recognition sparks a light in his eyes. He elbows his companion, who turns his attention to me. I realize it’s not with interest, like I might expect from people who recognize their queen in public, but with malice.
Quietly, I say, “Something tells