By the time that ship returns from Fairde with an answer from Rian, I’m going to be ready to throw caution to the wind and swim there myself. I’ve spent days in Silvesse now, and while I no longer hate Lochlan, I’ve been forced to spend time with Oren Crane’s people, and they’re so much worse than he could ever be.
Honestly, they’re so much worse than I could ever be.
It’s obvious why Crane has such a stronghold on this island, why people whisper about him but don’t do anything to stand against him. Anywhere there’s a murmur of dissent, he sends his henchmen to take care of it. Now that Lochlan and I are relegated to waiting for a response, Crane keeps sending us along to watch.
I understand why. It’s not just so he can keep an eye on us.
It’s a lesson. A warning.
Cross me, and this is what I’ll do to you.
When I watch Lina goad Mouse into breaking a man’s fingers, one by one while he screams, I’m reminded of the time I stood outside a cell and told Rocco to do the exact same thing to Consul Sallister.
It was different.
But it also wasn’t.
I can feel the undercurrent of tension among the people, though. It’s so similar to Kandala, where everyone wanted things to be better, but solutions seemed impossible. It’s clear that many people have heard a rumor that I’m from Kandala, that I’m a sign that help isn’t far off, because I catch a few secret glances, people who kiss their fingers and touch a hand to their heart when Lina and Mouse aren’t looking. But others scowl at me when it becomes clear I’m with Oren Crane’s people. Like when Mouse is slamming someone into a wall while Lina and the others egg him on, and I stand to the side, powerless. I wonder how it makes me look. I wonder how it makes Kandala look.
On the night we’re finally due to return to the harbormaster, my nerves are on edge again. I have no idea how Tessa will respond to my words. Would she write a letter back? I should have said more—but I know the message would have gone through Rian, so I wasn’t going to pour my heart out through that man’s lips.
I could have at least told her I loved her.
Mind your mettle.I’m such a fool.
“You look like you’re going to come out of your skin,” Lochlan says. “Calm down.”
I’m pacing the floor of our shared room, and I glance at him. He’s sitting at the table, studying a paper by candlelight, trying to puzzle out the sentence I’ve written. He’s been a quick study over the last few days, and he’s easily learned a hundred words on sight already. We had to spend silver to buy more paper. Now he has quite the stack, both from practicing his own penmanship and from reading words that I write for him.
It’s very weird to go from watching someone scream while an ear is ripped off their head to going back to the boarding house and teaching a man to read. It’s no wonder my nerves are shot.
“Never mind about me,” I say. “This is your first full sentence. See if you can read it.”
He sighs and looks at the paper while I resume pacing. “I . . . w-w-wiss . . .” He blows out a frustrated breath. “Wish?”
“Yes,” I say. “Very clever.”
“Shut up. ‘I wish I were as—’ ”
“You don’t like the praise? You’re learning this all so very quickly.” I truly mean it—but I’m enjoying that he thinks I’m entirely mocking him.
“Shut up! ‘I wish I were as . . .’ ” He hesitates, whispering under his breath, because he must not be willing to stumble over pronunciations out loud now. He looks up at me. “As strong?” Another glance at the paper, and he frowns. “And . . . bravy? Brave!”
“Yes! Go on. From the beginning. You’ll have it all now.”
He takes a breath and begins slowly, but more confidently. “I wish I were as strong and brave as Corr—” He stops short, realizing what he’s reading. He flings the pencil at me, but there’s no real vitriol to it. “You ass.”
I duck and snatch it out of the air, then resume my pacing. “And with that, the trick pony learned to read.”
He goes still, as if struck by that. He stares at the page again, then sets it on the table. Candlelight flickers across his features as his eyes trace over the letters.
“Thank you,” he says, and his voice is a bit hollow. “Your Highness.”
After days of Cory, it gets my attention, especially since he says it without a lick of disdain. I stop between the bed and the window to look at him, but I keep my voice light. “So formal all of a sudden, Master Cresswell?”
He’s not looking at me now, but he shrugs a little, abashed. “You’re the king’s brother. I sort of . . . forgot.” He gives a soft, humorless laugh, then nods at the paper. “I know we’re stuck here, but you . . . you didn’t have to do that.”
I stare at him. I’m not sure what to say.
Maybe he’s not either, because he glances at the window. “It’s almost midnight.”
As if on cue, there’s a knock at the door, and Lochlan shoves all the papers into a box, then drops a blanket on top.
I’m the one who draws the door open, and I’m not surprised to find Lina there, waiting with Mouse. “It’s time to go, Your Highness.”
The way she says it is completely at odds with the way Lochlan said it.
“Or am I still calling you Weston?” she says. “I can’t keep track.”
“I can’t either, honestly,” I say.
“He’s Weston,” says Mouse. He looks at me. “You’re Weston.”
Lina scowls. “We know, you idiot.” She elbows him in the stomach.
He frowns and rubs at his gut, drawing back. His eyes are wounded.
Despite the fact that I watched him crush a man’s ribs earlier, he has my sympathy. Our roles are very different, but he clearly doesn’t want to do any of this any more than I wanted to be the King’s Justice. The saddest part is that I don’t think he has the full capacity to understand that he could resist them. He could crush Lina one-handed and walk right out of here if he wanted to, but the longer I spend with them, the more I realize that whatever Lina did to him seems to have left him with the mind of a boy. A boy who’s been beaten down so severely that he doesn’t even try.
I look him in the eyes, because none of them seem to. “Thank you, Mouse. I do appreciate the reminder.”
He gives me a nod. “You’re welcome.”
I take an apple from the basket on the table and offer it to him, because I’ve seen the others steal his food, poking his arms and saying he could stand to miss a meal. “Here,” I say. “We had some left.”
His eyes light up a bit, but before he can take it, Lina swipes it from my palm and bites right into it. “Thank you.”
I glare at her, wishing I could order him to pull her teeth out of her mouth.
She glares right back at me, and she knows it, too.
Lochlan swears under his breath, and he pushes past me. “Let’s go.”
Lina takes one more bite of the apple and turns to follow him.
When her back is turned, I reach into the basket and grab a muffin from the bottom. It’s from this morning, so it’s a little dry and crumbly, but I take Mouse’s wrist and press it into his hand.
He looks down as if he can’t fathom what I’ve just put against his palm, but then he sees the muffin.
He inhales sharply, and I tap a finger over my lips, glancing at Lina. She doesn’t hear him, but Lochlan does, and he looks back.
“Our secret,” I whisper to Mouse, as Lina stomps down the hallway.
Mouse worriedly follows my gaze, then looks back at me and Lochlan. For half a second, I’m worried I’ve made a misstep, that he’s going to turn on me for offering him food behind her back, even something that’s just a simple kindness.
But then he tucks the muffin into one of his massive pockets, and for the first time since I’ve met him, Mouse smiles.
When we head deeper into Silvesse, Lina doesn’t lead us south, toward the harbor. Instead, we head back toward the cove where Oren Crane’s ship is docked.
“Where are we going?” I ask. “We’re due to meet with Ford Cheeke.”
“Not anymore,” she says. “He’s already given his messages to Oren.”
My heart thumps in my chest. That wasn’t part of the plan at all. “What? When?”
She looks back at me. “At dawn, when the ships docked.”
My thoughts are spinning. Ford Cheeke wouldn’t have given messages to Oren Crane. Oren shouldn’t have been able to reach him. Ford was terrified of him.
Did Lina and Mouse hurt the man and his daughter?
Lochlan glances over his shoulder and meets my eyes. I don’t know what to make of it either, and I don’t know if I can ask.
Like the first morning we went out to Oren’s ship, we have to row and climb up to his boat. I’ve grown more used to the rowing, and Lina says, “You’re turning into a bit of a sailor, aren’t you, Weston?”
I don’t know why she’s saying the name like that, and I don’t like it. It rolls around in my head with the way she came to the door, like the way she questioned which name was real.
When we climb onto the deck, torches are lit, and the sails are open and billowing in the wind. Small fires flicker farther out on the water, too, and I realize there are other ships in the moonlight, waiting just beyond this one.
And in front of us is Oren Crane, standing with Ford Cheeke.
“This can’t be good,” Lochlan mutters.
He’s right about that. I try to ignore the pounding in my chest, because I have no idea what this could mean. “I wouldn’t expect to find the two of you together,” I say.
Ford is glaring at me. “It was nice of you to show his people how to access my offices, Your Highness.”
“You knew how we got in. You should have put guards on that alley.” I glance between the two of them and let my gaze stop on Oren. “I hope you got what information you wanted, because I rather doubt he’ll send any messages for me now.”
“I think I did,” says Oren. “Lina kept telling me that your story was too easy. That there was no possible way that you could’ve convinced someone that you were a prince of Kandala, simply fallen from a ship, right here on Silvesse. If you were, why wouldn’t you try to bargain with me?” His eyes are almost black in the moonlight, and the sails snap in the wind. “Because I have ships. I could’ve gotten you back to Kandala. I could’ve used a bargain for steel in exchange for medicine, if that’s what you so badly need.”
He’s also a tyrant, and I wouldn’t bargain with him if my life depended on it.
Which it might, in a second.
My spine is absolutely rigid, but I keep my voice easy. “So you fetched the harbormaster yourself? Of course he told you I’m the prince. That’s what I told him.”
“He also told me about all the ways Kandala tried to trick Ostriary in the past. I don’t know why my nephew ever thought he could trust any of you. I was a boy when your people set our ships ablaze, but I still remember.”
“No matter who you think I am,” I say, “I don’t know anything about that. I wasn’t even born yet.”
“You’re lucky you were born at all,” says Ford bitterly.
I frown. “What?”
“Enough of that,” says Oren. He pulls folded parchment out of his jacket, and he holds it out to me. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a prince or not. It doesn’t matter if you’re tricking me or not. My sweet little nephew has set the trap you told him to lay.”
I take the paper and unfold it. My palms feel damp.
We’ll have Bella under guard in the old Mason house on the north point. I’ll have people in the woods, too. The water will be clear.
It’s not as incriminating as it could be—but it’s pretty damning.
I snap my head up. “I didn’t tell anyone to lay a trap.”
Oren shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if you did or not.” He looks to one of the deck hands. “Pull the anchor.”
“Where are we going?” says Lochlan.
“We’re going to rescue my girl,” says Oren. He gestures at the paper. “You see yourself. The water will be clear.”
I frown. “You just said Rian is laying a trap.”
“Oh, I’m not the one getting off the ship to get her, Your Highness.” He smiles viciously. “You are.”
