anything to just stop feeling again, to stop hurting, to know myself again. That’s what every bugger did. But you go and do the opposite.”
For the same reasons, though. Even as the buttoned-up inknose, he’d felt deeply. That signal took it all away—and didn’t let him care that it was gone. Longcock hadn’t known who he was when the tower went down; Archimedes didn’t know who he was when it was up.
He knew who he wanted to be, who he should be—and it wasn’t this. None of this was enough.
Doing the opposite wasn’t enough, either, though that was part of him, too. “If I did what was expected of me, I’d bore everyone.”
“True enough. Though that puts another light on Archimedes Fox, Adventurer,” Longcock mused. “You’re a madman with an airship, searching for danger.”
Almost all correct. “It’s her airship.”
“No doubt of that.” The first mate nodded, his gaze shrewd. “And you running away from it is the opposite of sense, too. If I was searching for danger, the last thing I’d do would be leaving that ship.”
Leaving her. Yasmeen. Archimedes’ gut clenched. He’d left her. Terrified, he’d left her. Terrified of what he might do, what he might say. His emotions often got the best of his sense—and the last time he’d surfaced out of a tower-induced fugue, he’d sunk Temür Agha’s barge and destroyed his war machines. Christ knew what he might have done to her ship or in front of her crew.
But Bilson had jeopardized her ship and her crew, anyway. She might resent Archimedes for making her vulnerable. But, by God, he would convince her to let him stay.
He’d seduce her. She admired his clever tongue. He’d use it in every way a man could to win her over again.
Longcock rocked back a bit. “If you’re looking at me like that, friend, then I know your brain’s addled.”
“Not at you.” With effort, Archimedes stood. “If I was, you’d already be in my arms.”
“And here I thought you were coming to your senses.”
He wasn’t. His emotions weren’t balancing any better than his feet were. But he was finally getting there, heading in the right direction. This felt more like him.
“I’d charm you,” he told the first mate. “You’d fall desperately in love with me.”
“No man could be more mistaken—”
“I won her heart. Yours would be no challenge in comparison.”
The other man paused. “You have a point.”
So he did, but Archimedes was already losing it. The oily, smoking funk of the harbor led him to the docks, and revulsion disturbed his brief humor. Pain shot through his knuckles when he gripped the rope ladder. With each step, he reminded himself—he wouldn’t kill Bilson. Dead was better than nothing, but he couldn’t bear seeing her reaction to that statement again.
He wouldn’t kill Bilson for that, either.
The crew must have thought he was there to kill someone. Wary, they watched him cross the deck. Blood spotted his shirt. His waistcoat was gone. Yasmeen had taken it off of him before she’d taken him in her mouth, before Bilson’s device had taken the rest. He shouldn’t go to her like this.
But he did, because she was the right direction to take—and because Longcock had been right, too. He’d been an idiot to leave.
She sat at their desk, and looked up as he entered the cabin. Raw emotions raced across her face—fear, pain, uncertainty—and all of them chased by relief.
God. How was it that poets hadn’t dedicated thousands of verses to the expressive tilt of her eyes? Where were the songs to her lips, her sharp teeth? He would write them, and sing them, and lay at her feet.
“You’re all right.” Her gaze lingered on his battered face, the blood on his shirt, but it wasn’t quite a question. She knew he was more resilient than that.
But not resilient enough.
“Not yet.” He closed the door. “But I realized that there was no need to keep running, to keep fighting. The most dangerous person in Port Fallow is on this airship.”
She watched him for a long moment. Then her eyes cooled, and her smile held a knife’s edge. A shiver worked up his spine, delicious and terrifying.
“Yes.” Slowly, she lay down her pen. “I am.”
His heart pounded. Christ, the thrill she gave him with that simple movement outstripped the onslaught of a dozen zombies. Wary, he stalked closer. “Do I interrupt your writing, Captain?”
“No.” She watched him come, elbows on the desk and her fingers steepled, clicking her claws together. Her casual posture was