Before they lifted their last one from the cold water, Shakes was already frying the fish. He and Wes had cleaned and prepared the day’s catch, gutting them, pulling out the bones but otherwise keeping the fish whole. The stove in the galley was busted, so Shakes had rigged up an impromptu one by mounting a cylinder of propane under a flat metal plate. The propane burned wildly—it looked like he was searing the fish with a flamethrower—but it worked.
“Redback à la Shakes,” he said cheerfully, serving up the plates.
The group gathered around the table with their plates of fish. Wes looked around at the expectant faces. “Well, what are you all waiting for? Eat,” he admonished. “I told you, we don’t stand on ceremony on my ship.”
Nat was a little skeptical, seeing the skin was charred on the outside, but she changed her mind as she soon as she cut into it. The flesh was white and moist. She took a bite and smiled.
She couldn’t remember enjoying a better meal. She remembered the small, silent meals at home, nuked fauxburgers while she watched a show on the nets. Even once she’d hired Wes’s team she had eaten alone, feeling uneasy in the company of the Slaine brothers.
Brendon and Roark had found a rare jug of mead among the Nutri cans, and were pouring glasses all around.
“More small magic?” asked Nat.
Brendon nodded. “If only it had been enough to save our friends.”
At the end of dinner, she saw Shakes and Liannan moving slightly away from the group. Nat felt some relief to discover that the lovely sylph was more interested in the first mate than the captain.
“He’s got it bad, that one,” Brendon noted, motioning to the two.
“Aye, that was fast. But then, can you blame him? She’s a sight.” Roark smiled dreamily. “They’re not called the Fair Folk for nothing.”
“He’s not bad-looking himself,” Brendon teased as he took Roark’s hand in his.
Ah. So that was their connection. Not brothers, after all. Not at all, Nat smiled.
Outside, on the deck, Shakes leaned closely to the ethereal sylph, and Nat could see that Liannan didn’t seem to mind. Nat turned away from them to say something to Wes but stopped. The glow left her cheeks.
Wes wasn’t there. His chair was empty.
35
THE NEW CREW SETTLED INTO PLACE. Brendon was better at plotting a course than Farouk had been. Something in the trashbergs made the compass go haywire and swing out of control, something Farouk had never been able to adjust for, which was why they had run into the trashbergs and veered out of course. Now that everyone knew about the stone, there was no more pretense concerning their destination—the Blue. Nat would spend the mornings up at the helm with them while Wes consulted the map, holding the blue stone up to his eye while he made corrections on the navigational pad. Brendon made concessions for the compass and plotted their course on the back of a coffee-stained document he found in the engine room. If they had continued to follow the compass, as Farouk had done, they would have kept traveling in circles.
But with Brendon at the bridge, they kept to a straight line. He guided the ship deftly past the mounds of trash that cluttered the ocean. His small hands moved nimbly—he seemed to have a natural feeling for how Alby would react as he turned the wheel. Whereas Farouk preferred to smash through the smaller piles of ice and trash, Brendon moved gracefully around the obstructions, swerving through the crowded ocean without ever once hitting the debris. It made for a much smoother ride—free of the constant scraping sound that the ship made when Farouk had sailed it through the ocean.
While Brendon kept them headed in the right direction, Roark commandeered the galley and the daily fishing. They were finally making good time and their fear of starving began to fade. It was a better crew than he’d ever had before, Wes thought. They worked as a team, like one unit, functioning smoothly. Some nights they were downright merry, with Nat leading the card games, and teaching them to play gin, whist, and snap, or poker if they were feeling punchy. The smallmen taught them the Layman’s Code, a way to communicate by knocking, as well as games they knew: Smallman’s Secret and Who’s the Sprat. Liannan tried to teach them a game from her people, but it was too complicated and involved high-pitched whistling and singing no one could imitate or understand.
Liannan and Shakes tried to keep their budding romance under wraps, and aside from Shakes grinning like a maniac all day and Liannan blushing whenever he was near, they merely appeared to be very close friends, laughing over their cards, or teasing each other when the other had failed to guess the Smallman’s Secret.
Wes was glad for Shakes, but he was also apprehensive for his friend; he had no idea what Shakes was thinking. In his experience, it was best not to get involved, but he was also a little envious of his friend’s happiness. Nat had made it clear that she wasn’t interested in him, and he respected her wishes, even if being so close and yet so far from her made him feel uneasy. The sooner he dropped her off at the Blue, the better for everyone. Then he could turn around and forget they had ever met.
That morning, she was standing too close to him again, helping them navigate through the strait. “Here you go,” he said, handing her back the stone when the task was done. His fingers brushed her palm, but he had learned to ignore the electric feeling, and he walked away from her quickly.
Nat watched him leave the bridge, feeling troubled at his abrupt departure. It was all for the best, truly, since there was no chance of them being together. But when she found him by the railing a few hours later, she went to him without thinking. “Your sister?” Nat asked, looking over his shoulder to the picture in his hand.
“Yeah, that’s Eliza.”
He showed her the photo of a little girl in a puffy snowsuit, standing next to a snowman. He was in the picture, too, his chubby arm slung around his sister’s shoulders.
Nat stared at it for a long time. “How old did you say she was when she was taken?”
“Let me see—I was seven.”
“And so was she.”
His eyes crinkled. “Shakes told you, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“We were twins, but I came out first. She’s always been my little sister.”
“So what happened to her—really?”
Wes sighed. It was hard to talk about. He didn’t remember much. “There was a fire,” he said quietly. “Smoke alarms didn’t work. It came out of nowhere and then it was everywhere.”
A fire that came out of nowhere. Nat felt a chill in her entire body. No. It couldn’t be true. “She burned?”
He gripped the picture tighter. “No, that’s the thing . . . they never found a body. They said she must have disintegrated into ashes, but come on, there would have been something . . . something to identify her . . .”
Fire and pain. She closed her eyes and could see it. The smoky ruins . . . the child burning within the flames . . .
“She’s alive. She has to be. She’s out there somewhere,” he said.
“I’m so sorry,” Nat whispered. She was sorrier than he ever knew.
“It’s okay.” He echoed the words she had told him the other day. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Nat did not respond. She wanted to reach out to him, but it was as if he were behind a wall of glass. He would hate her now. He would always hate her. She didn’t need to push him away, she already had. The fire. The child. The fire that came from nowhere. The child that was taken.
“Wes, there’s something you should know about me . . . ,” she said, her voice almost inaudible, just as Shakes burst from the helm.