as she sidled between the corseted ladies. She posted herself a little to Captain Hoak's left, making quite a contrast to the stout, graying captain. She seemed cut more from the same fragile white-gold cloth as Jack. "Jack, darling. How old were you when he bought you?"
Several flinched at the word, and now Sebastien's vision was clearing enough to tell who. Mrs. Smith was one of them, though Sebastien was wishing he was still dazzled enough to pretend he didn't see her face. Instead, he focused on Miss Meadows—and was surprised to see that her furrowed brow was an expression of concern, not reproach.
"Seven," Jack said, folding his arms. "My parents couldn't afford to feed me; they indentured me at five. There would have been three years left to run on my bill of service by now."
And that, finally, brought a look of dawning uncertainty to the captain's face. "Would have been?"
"Yes," Jack said. "Sebastien emancipated me when I turned fourteen. And settled a considerable trust on me, as well. I'm quite independent, and no more in need of rescuing than Miss Meadows, here." And then he smiled at the captain and tilted his head, more like the dove he played at than the falcon as which he stood revealed. "And I also know precisely where Sebastien was the night before last, and I assure you, it wasn't with Madame Pontchartrain. Now, may I see to my patron's injuries, Captain, or are you going to make me force your hand?"
* * *
The last time Sebastien had been so eager to absent himself from the public eye, it had involved an angry Parisian mob with pitchforks and torches, and that was leaving aside all hyperbole. This, at least, was less physically hazardous. But just as humiliating, as Jack guided him up the stairs—while Sebastien's eyes had recovered enough that he had been able to see fairly well in the bright salon, the dimness here defeated him, and his fingers were numb under the throbbing pain of the burns—and brought him to their chamber. Once Sebastien was settled, Jack went for water and bandages himself rather than trusting an attendant.
Sebastien sat in the dark with his eyes closed, healing. The flash had been brief, intended to injure and mortify rather than maim or kill. And it had been effective, indeed. He was quite thoroughly humiliated—and quite thoroughly defanged, at the risk of a terrible pun. In one dramatic gesture, Korvin had rendered it impossible for Sebastien to continue investigating any crime aboard the Hans Glücker. And, Sebastien thought, listening to the footsteps of the crewman who was now wearing a path in the decking outside the cabin, he'd also neatly distracted attention from himself and Mlle. LeClere as suspects.
Sebastien sat forward and opened his eyes. The dazzle was fading, and even in the dim room, he saw plainly now. In particular, he saw the upholstery cabin-bag that he had left beside the door when he and Jack went downstairs to conduct the search. The cabin-bag which had held the bottle of laudanum he'd fished from behind the carts beside the trash chute.
The bottle would not have fallen there, he thought, unless someone was stretching over the carts to dispose of something in the chute. Straining, struggling with something heavy. Sebastien was now reasonably certain that chute had been Mme. Pontchartrain's route to a final resting place at sea.
The bag was not where Sebastien had left it.
He crossed the cabin in one and a half quick steps, crouched beside the bag, and pulled it open. The contents were in no disarray. But the bottle, which should have been slipped between his shirt-collars and underthings, was nowhere to be found.
And there was no scent of anyone on the air, other than Jack and himself, the crewman in the hall, and the chambermaid.
Sebastien was abruptly reminded of his burned face as his eyebrows crept up his forehead. Standing dizzied him. He needed to feed, to recoup the strength he was expending regenerating his face and hands. And Jack—
Jack's voice in the hallway, cheerily greeting their watcher in German. The watcher's embarrassed mumble. Jack's footsteps, and the scent of clear water. "Sebastien?" Jack said, from beyond the curtain. "My hands are full."
Sebastien kicked his bag back against the wall and pulled the curtain aside, frowning at Jack's wince when Jack saw his face. "That bad?"
"Get the light, would you? And you mean you don't know?"
Having raised the lampshade with his aching hands, Sebastien silently tilted his