around the blade. Besides, she thought, this one is special. She’d been coveting the weapon since she first saw Lenos use it, back in Korma.
“I’ll win it back from you,” he mumbled.
Lila patted his shoulder. “You can try.”
“Anesh!” boomed Alucard, pounding his hand on the plank. “Enough standing around, Spires, we’ve got a ship to sack. Take it all. I want those bastards left waking up with nothing in their hands but their own cocks.”
The men cheered, and Lila chuckled despite herself.
She’d never met a man who loved his job more than Alucard Emery. He relished it the way children relish a game, the way men and women relish acting, throwing themselves into their plays with glee and abandon. There was a measure of theatre to everything Alucard did. She wondered how many other parts he could play. Wondered which, if any, were not a part, but the actor beneath.
His eyes found hers in the dark. They were a storm of blue and grey, at times bright and at others almost colorless. He tipped his head wordlessly in the direction of his chambers, and she followed.
Alucard’s cabin smelled as it always did, of summer wine and clean silk and dying embers. He liked nice things, that much was obvious. But unlike collectors or boasters who put their fineries on display only to be seen and envied, all of Alucard’s luxuries looked thoroughly enjoyed.
“Well, Bard,” he said, sliding into English as soon as they were alone. “Are you going to tell me how you managed it?”
“What fun would that be?” she challenged, sinking into one of the two high-backed chairs before his hearth, where a pale fire blazed, as it always did, and two short glasses sat on the table, waiting to be filled. “Mysteries are always more exciting than truths.”
Alucard crossed to the table and took up a bottle, while his white cat, Esa, appeared and brushed against Lila’s boot. “Are you made of anything but mysteries?”
“Were there bets?” she asked, ignoring both him and the cat.
“Of course,” said Alucard, uncorking the bottle. “All kinds of small wagers. Whether you’d drown, whether the Thief would actually pick you up, whether we’d find anything left of you if they did …” He poured amber liquid into the glasses and held one out to Lila. She took it, and as she did, he plucked the homed mask off her head and tossed it onto the table between them. “It was an impressive performance,” he said, sinking into his own chair. “Those aboard who didn’t fear you before tonight surely do now.”
Lila stared into the glass, the way some stared into fire. “There were some aboard who didn’t fear me?” she asked archly.
“Some of them still call you the Sarows, you know,” he rambled on, “when you’re not around. They say it in a whisper, as if they think you can hear.”
“Maybe I can.” She rolled the glass between her fingers.
There was no clever retort, and she looked up from her glass and saw Alucard watching her, as he always did, searching her face the way thieves search pockets, trying to turn something out.
“Well,” he said at last, raising his glass, “to what should we toast? To the Sarows? To Baliz Kasnov and his copper fools? To handsome captains and elegant ships?”
But Lila shook her head. “No,” she said, raising her glass with a sharpened smile. “To the best thief.”
Alucard laughed, soft and soundless. “To the best thief,” he said.
And then he tipped his glass to hers, and they both drank.
III
FOUR MONTHS AGO RED LONDON
Walking away had been easy.
Not looking back was harder.
Lila had felt Kell watching as she strode away, stopping only when she was out of sight. She was alone, again. Free. To go anywhere. Be anyone. But as the light ebbed, her bravado began to falter. Night dragged itself across the city, and she began to feel less like a conqueror and more like a girl alone in a foreign world with no grasp of the language and nothing in her pockets save for Kell’s parting gift (an element set), her silver watch, and the handful of coins she’d nicked from a palace guard before she left.
She’d had less, to be sure, but she’d also had more.
And she knew enough to know she wouldn’t make it far, not without a ship.
She clicked the pocket watch open and closed and watched the outlines of the crafts bob on the river, the Isle’s red glow more marked in the settling dark. She