didn’t actually know.
“Are we working for the Elders?” Calder asked suddenly.
Jerri flinched, which he understood. It was a startling question.
“…it depends on what you mean.”
“You know…the one with all the eyes.” He didn’t want to say Ach’magut’s name aloud. Not only did he not want to risk the rumor getting back to anyone, but he was afraid Shuffles would hear it and start repeating it.
“When he spoke to me, I was sure I knew exactly what he meant. I could feel it, like I was Reading it myself. He had seen how the world would play out, and he was telling me where I would end up. Now, I wonder if he’s just…pushing me where he wants me to go. He’s playing the music and I’m dancing.”
She snuggled up next to him, taking his arm. “The Elders are strange, and they’re old, and they’re dangerous. But they aren’t evil. At least not all of them.”
Calder’s eyes tracked to the entrance to his hold. Somewhere down there, Shuffles would be sleeping the day away in its covered birdcage.
“I don’t want to survive just because an Elder likes me best.”
He hadn’t liked Tommison. He hadn’t even known Tommison, really. But the idea that Calder had only lived because he met the preferences of a Great Elder…that felt wrong.
Jerri was quiet, watching the shore as they slid into Candle Bay. The rest of the crew scurried below, making their respective preparations to return home.
“I feel like I let you down,” she said finally.
He turned to read her face.
“I weighed you down in the fight, just like you said I would. I don’t want to be useless.”
Calder slipped his arm out of her embrace and wrapped it around her, pulling her close. “We’ll have Foster make you a gun. Not sure how much we’re getting paid this time, but it should at least make a nice dent in the debt. We might be able to make you a Soulbound someday.”
She burrowed closer to his side. “I’d like that.”
Cheska was waiting on the docks with a team of Readers in the employ of the Navigator’s Guild. Varia, her orange-clad quartermaster, was chief among them.
The Head of the Navigators marched up to the end of the dock before Calder had even tied off. She wore a simple brown tricorn hat and coat today, her red hair the most brilliant spot of color about her, and she put her hands on her hips.
“Well, Captain Marten? Where’s my cargo?”
Calder gave her a long-suffering look. “You sent us to die.”
Cheska gripped her hat so hard it looked like she was going to tear it in half. “Stop trying to hike up your pay and tell me if you have it.”
“No, I don’t have it!” Calder shouted. “I don’t have it, and I don’t have Captain Tommison or any of the others! I’ve got one of his crew, but I doubt you’ll want him, because he was Elder-poisoned and we can’t tell if it’s contagious or not. We have him in his very own box in the hold.”
He put more and more emphasis on every word until he was red in the face.
Cheska relaxed, searching his expression. “…Kelarac’s beard. Come on down, you can make a full report.”
Minutes later, Calder was standing on the docks and regaling the Guild Head with his version of events as Readers crawled all over his ship.
His version of events was remarkably like the real version, except the crew of The Reliable had lost the crown immediately upon their arrival on the island.
“…we found Goss dead in his bunk the next morning,” Calder finished. “If anyone had any clue what happened to the crown, it would have been him.”
Cheska watched him. She kept her eyes on his face for far longer than he was comfortable with, her arms crossed, chewing on her lower lip.
Finally, she stepped close enough to kiss him, looking up to meet his eyes. “The Regent is stuck to me like a coat of paint. Now, you know I might not personally care what happens to the crown, but if she comes asking for it, I’ll swear in front of the entire Witness’ Guild that I had nothing to do with it.”
“I can’t imagine—” he began, but she rode over him.
“And she will come asking for it the second it shows up for sale in some rich person’s display. Or when you start trying to prop yourself up as the Pirate King of Izyria or whatever title you’ve cooked up.”
“I would nev—”