Chapter 2

Soft light spills through the wide gaps between the rails—a warm kiss to the cheek that seeps into my pores and kindles my blood. I squint across the sea that looks like a stretch of undulating rose petals.

Morning.

I’ve been scratching swirls and jagged bends into the wooden floorboards by lantern light, adding to my busy mural for so long I barely registered the darkness lifting.

I wrap my diamond pickaxe with a small piece of cloth and tuck it in my back pocket, turning the dial on my lantern hanging off the balustrade. Stretching my back and arms, I push my legs through the rails and reach my toes toward the sun—imagining them dug deep into grass or sand or soil while warmth paints the bare pads of my feet.

I miss plucking round stones off the beach while Kai frolics in the bay. I miss the steady ground and the morning breeze rich with the smell of dead leaves and dew-dappled moss.

Forcing my legs to recoil, I roll onto all fours.

Shuffling around the thick, wooden post pierced through the center of the nest, I crouch beside the bucket tied to a makeshift pulley and slosh a cloth through the water, wringing it out over the soil-stuffed jars tied to the mast, feeding my clippings a few drops of treasured water.

Thinking about my last-minute balcony dash around Stony Stem—wielding a tiny wooden dagger to cut small branches off my favorite plants—I almost smile. Wisteria, lemon tree, various roses … they all found lodgings in my sack with a few jars of soil.

Small snippets of home.

Sponging my face and behind my neck, I steal peeks at the bleary-eyed sailor climbing the central mast to assume his daytime shift in the nest. Jerid, I think. The only one who makes a concerted effort to keep his back to me as much as possible.

I bag my blanket, noticing three dark shadows circling just below the surface of the ship’s wake. At least until the cook tips a bucket of fish frames and sloppy innards overboard.

But it’s not the bones and the guts they’re after. It’s the seagulls that swoop down from their midair coast, risking it all for a scrap of offal—some falling victim to the lunging sharks that erupt from the water with cranked maws and fierce, thrashing bodies. They chomp on their feathery prey so fast there’s barely a fluttered wrestle.

Kai used to tell me sharks prefer warm water. Made me promise not to go swimming in Bitten Bay without him during the summer.

Now I understand.

The farther south we’ve sailed, the more turquoise the water’s become, and the more skulking shadows drift through it at all hours of the day.

The bell attached to my bucket line jingles—loud and crisp.

Tucking a length of hair behind my ear, I lean forward and pry the metal loop from the divot in the floor, heaving the hatch open. I peer down the ladder at the peppering of sun-stained men slugging away at their chores, my stare drawn to the boy standing at the base of my mast over thirty feet down.

His head is tipped, heaped plate in one hand, the other shielding his eyes from the morning glare while he looks at me.

Zane.

I toss him a wave, then pull back, pinning my hair into a half-updo before I tighten the drawstring on my sack and check it’s secured, lower myself through the hole, then start the tedious climb down the ninety-five wooden rungs—five to every deep sway of the ship.

No sooner do I stamp my foot on the smooth, wooden deck, do I hear, “I used the cook’s morning shit break to snoop around the kitchen and forage for all the best bits he keeps hidden for himself.”

My small, secret smile is a stolen treasure I don’t deserve—gone by the time I spin and look into bright blue eyes framed by thick lashes and a shock of windswept, caramel hair. “Morning, Zane.”

“Managed to get this, too,” he continues, stabbing an eager hand into one of the many internal pockets of his well-worn, velvet cloak.

A gold token is waved in my face.

I grip his wrist, stilling the motion so I can study the token’s filigree face. “You little pickpocket. Is that a—”

“Bahari token. You have favor tokens in Ocruth, yeah?” He tosses it in the air before snatching it up. “Mine now. Figure the High Master owes me a favor.”

“That’s ... I don’t think that’s how it works.”

He shrugs, tucking it into the pocket of his rumpled pantaloons. “Worth a shot.”

“Aren’t you serving time on your uncle’s ship because your mother’s at her wit’s end with your thieving antics?”

Bit of a botched remedy since barely a day goes by where he’s not boasting his loot at me.

“Yeah, why?”

“Should you really be”—I drop my voice to a low whisper, using a hand to shield my words—”stealing gold tokens?”

He frowns. “You’re not gonna tell, are you?”

“Course not. I just don’t want to see you in trouble with the Captain.” I steal a glance at the broad-shouldered man standing at the helm, hand on the wheel, eyes cast ahead, a gruff confidence spilling from his easy stillness. “He looks the type to dish out tough love like it’s a privilege.”

“Only if you’re not his favorite nephew.” Zane drops to the deck, legs crossed, and looks up at me with wide eyes, his round, freckle-dusted face dashed with a mischievous, lopsided grin.

My heart twists.

A dazzling stare belonging to a different boy blazes in the forefront of my mind, and I swiftly shove it into that deep place I try to ignore.

I sit and stab my focus on the stack of fried flatbread, nuts, and dried fruits and meat, reaching for a strip of the latter.

Zane yanks the plate toward himself, eyes twinkling with a flash of mischief. I arch a brow, and pull the small cheesecloth parcel from my back pocket. His eyes widen with his broad smile as I wave it at him and hand it over.

He unravels it with frenzied hands, plucks the pickaxe free, his hand engulfing the small handle as he holds it in a blade of sun—scattering colorful confetti all over the deck while I pick at the food, chewing without rapture.

Best cuts or not, our meal pales in comparison to the feast of his wide-eyed wonder.

“I just love it so much ...” he whispers.

I lean my head against the mast, watching him twirl the wooden handle so shards of color chase each other. “I know you do.”

In the eye of a confetti storm, we sit in comfortable silence, sharing the plate of food while the busy crew keeps a wide berth, lumping crates together and securing them to the deck.

I’m aware of their glances, feel them bounce off my hardened regard without leaving a dent.

“Uncle said the storm’s regathered,” Zane mumbles around a dried fig. “That it’s chasing our wake.”

I look to the north. “I can’t see anything ...”

“He can taste it on the air.”

The side of my face prickles when Vanth emerges from the lower decks wearing fresh clothes and a complimentary scowl that only deepens when he catches me watching.

I refuse to look away. At least until the cook appears behind him—buckets swinging in his bloated hands, his rotund belly almost throwing him off balance with every step.

“Oh,” I mumble, planting my left foot on the deck so my leg doubles as a shield for the plate of contraband when he passes. A putrid waft of aged fish guts nearly makes me gag.

Favored nephew or not, if Zane gets caught thieving by the wrong person, Cap would be forced to inflict some form of corporal punishment or risk his social standing.

The cook stomps up the stairs to the helm, works his way to the back of the ship, and heaves a lumpy slop of offal over the balustrade amid a frenzied swoop of seagulls.

An eruption of splashing ensues.

“If the storm hits, it’ll be hell up there,” Zane says around a bite of jerky, pointing the frayed strip at my nightly perch. Eyes still on my twirling pickaxe, he kicks up his left leg, foot planting on the deck, shielding the remaining food as the cook wobbles past again. “They sometimes use it as a form of punishment.”

I don’t tell him that’s half the point.

“I’ll be fine,” I say, shuffling a little further from the ladder when Gage—the aftermast’s main barrelman—emerges from below deck and strides toward us, spyglass in one hand, a leather satchel hanging off his shoulder.

“Cap will drag you below once the storm reaches us.”

He can try.

I tuck my head and hone my focus on the food as heavy footsteps approach, a shadow falling over me before metal-capped boots settle in my peripheral.

Slowly, I roll my gaze up, straight into a pair of milky-blue eyes crinkled at the corners.

Unlike the rest of the crew, Gage’s head is shaved, showcasing his tattoo: a trail of inky buttons and stitches that spans across his skull, down the back of his neck, and weaves below his shirt—as though he’s stitched together like a patchwork doll.

Tucking the spyglass into his leather satchel, he digs through his pocket, pulls out a sharpened piece of charcoal, and offers it to me. “In case you want to add some shading to your scratchings.”

I look from the charcoal to his eyes and back again, reaching out to receive it. “Thank you …”

He nods, grabs hold of the ladder, and starts to climb.

I flick the gift over my fingers a few times and tuck it in my pocket.

Zane finishes the last of our meal, wipes his hands on his pants, and flattens the cheesecloth between us. He sets my pickaxe at the edge, then rolls it up—slow and gentle and precise.

If he’d seen the way that thing slugs through stone, he wouldn’t be so careful, but I love his delicate regard.

“He keeps looking at you,” Zane mumbles, stealing a glance toward the helm.

I’m aware that he’s not talking about his uncle, but my guard. The man who spends every spare hour of the day up there—five steps above me—boasting crossed arms, a puffed chest, and perfectly pressed pantaloons.

I take the pickaxe from Zane and stuff it back in my pocket, watching him set the tin plate on its side and flick it into a spin. “Vanth doesn’t like me very much.”

“I don’t think his brother does either.”

“I didn’t know he had a brother?”

“Your other guard, Kavan.”

Oh.

“I didn’t realize …”

Zane nods, a divot of concentration etched between his eyes. “They say you’re a witch. That you chew on acorn shells and pick mushrooms off piles of horse shit.”

Right.

I won’t be offering them any dogwarth tea if they end up with crippling flatulence or a blood infection.

He flicks me a glance, violet flecks bursting from the pupils of his powder blue eyes. “I tune them out. They’re easy to steal from when their tongues are flapping.”

“Makes perfect sense to me.”

There’s a thundering sound from above, and I look up to see Gage descending the ladder at a rapid pace. He leaps off it from ten rungs up, lands heavily beside us, then sprints up the stairs on a beeline for the helm.

Movement stills, a hush falling over the ship as men seem to watch and listen. Some even file up the same stairs toward the back of the ship to catch their own glimpse of whatever it was that ripped Gage from his perch.

“Weird,” Zane mutters, standing. “I’ll go check it out.”

He trots off in a flutter of velvet.

I shove to a stand, reaching onto my tippy toes in an effort to see through the congregating crewmen, then stab my stare up the aftermast. I climb a few rungs, pausing to peer past the stern over a gathering of loose hair and tawny, low-hanging buns.

The sharks are gone. Even the gulls have scattered.

A ripple in the water draws my eye almost ten ship-lengths beyond us, and a shock of silver scales disrupts the surface before drifting out of sight.

The men mutter … point … shout. The Captain bellows something that cleaves a path for him to charge through—spyglass in hand.

Frowning, I continue to climb, settling high enough that I have a decent vantage point to cast my gaze back upon the water.

My heart lurches.

There’s a long, slithering shadow double the length of the ship that’s weaving just below the surface.

Closer than it was a few moments ago.

A massive, gossamer dorsal fin volleys out of the water, leaving a trail of misty spindrift.

A lump lands in my belly, thrashing like a creature swallowed alive …

Something’s following us.