“You have my word.”
“Fat lot of good that does us, but I suppose we don’t exactly have a better offer at the moment.”
“Freedom in Hond Steading, a stipend to see you well established, and, if my guesses are correct, a possible reunion with your other friend that escaped with Ripka – Honey, I believe you told me her name was.”
Silence, then, “We like her well enough when she’s chained. Not sure the girl’s worth the risk when she’s loosed. But we’ll take your offer, Honding. Pity we can’t shake on it.”
“I’ll make sure your meals are remembered. Take care.”
“Don’t get killed before you can spring us,” Forge said.
He grinned, and rapped twice on the door in affirmation before taking off back down the hall. It seemed a pity to snuff the lantern after he’d gone to so much trouble to light it, but he couldn’t very well take it with him. He blew the flame to death and hung the lantern, then stepped back onto deck. The sun was high, just beginning to trail over the other side of Thratia’s compound where it would eventually go to rest for the night somewhere behind the firemount that was Aransa’s twin. He blinked in the brightness, settling his vision, then strolled toward the gangplank, circling around to the other side of the cabins.
As soon as he turned the corner, he froze.
Thratia stood on the dock, a small entourage of very armed men and women at her side, deck hands scurrying about the opposite side of the u-dock in an effort to make those ties ready. She spotted him there, cocked her head in mild curiosity, but seemed otherwise uninterested in his presence. The Crested Fool was Aella’s ship, after all, and its contents were the girl’s business. Detan wondered if Aella had ever bothered mentioning Clink and Forge to Thratia. By the bored expression on the woman’s face, he doubted it. There was no irritation in her posture, no tension that he might have stumbled across something he wasn’t meant to find. Thratia was not at all interested in Detan’s presence on the Crested. She was, in fact, staring straight over his shoulder.
With a sinking feeling in his gut Detan turned, slowly. A ship larger than any he’d ever seen blotted what was left of the fading light, a massive bulk of wood and sail headed by a sharp, cutting prow. The mere proximity of all that selium made Detan’s skin itch. It loomed toward the dock, slow and steady, aiming right for the space alongside the Crested Fool.
Detan scurried off the smaller ship before the larger could close the distance. He’d never been keen on trusting his safety to the piloting skills of others. Thratia acknowledged his presence with a distracted nod, her gaze stuck on that hulking mass. He sidled up to her, daring to take the place at her right side, and asked, “What in the pits is that thing?”
She shot him a fierce grin. “That is my new flagship, and our transport to Hond Steading.”
It drifted closer, the voices of the dock hands rising in panic as they scrambled to make ready for the leviathan’s arrival. Detan’s throat grew dry, his stomach heavy, as he began to make out the fine detail on the ship’s deck. Massive harpoons dotted the rails, and structures the likes of which he’d never seen before adorned the silk-smooth deck. Whoever the ship’s captain was, they were a deft hand, for they sailed the ship with firm and steady grace. Detan swallowed to regain his voice.
“When do we leave?”
“Two days,” Thratia said, and there was more passion in her eyes as she looked upon that ship than he had seen all through the night spent in her bed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The streets of Aransa baked in the heat, but there was no temperature save the killing field of the Black Wash that could ever make Detan feel clean again. He moved with purpose, letting the fancy clothes Thratia’d dressed him in cut a swathe through the city’s crowds, and tried, very hard, to ignore the sting of his raw skin beneath those shiny, shiny clothes.
Two nights now. Two nights in Thratia Ganal’s bed, and there was no scrub-brush in the world that could strip the scent of her from his memory. Nothing in the world that could undo the betrayal of his body, responding to her need though it turned his stomach.
He couldn’t think on it. Not too long, anyway. Every time the memory threatened to surface it slid away into some black pit in his mind, leaving him unsettled and restless but, at the very least, capable of functioning.
Even his memories of his time in the Bone Tower were clearer.
His destination loomed into view, shaking him back into himself. The thing about mercers, even the wealthiest of the bunch, was that they all had the same boring sense of style. Grandon’s offices were located in a squat, squared-off building topped with a roof of dark-stained wood. Expensive stuff, that wood, but he figured Grandon could probably afford it. Pits, he’d probably be able to afford another one after the order Detan was prepared to place.
Grandon’s lobby sported a prim little receptionist hard at work under a massive mural of the Grandon family crest. She whipped her head up from the file she’d been prodding at as Detan entered, and plastered on a smile quick enough that he almost believed it was real.
“Welcome to the Grandon Trading House. Do you have an appointment?”
He sauntered forward, making a show of pulling his crimson-lined collar straight, and leaned one arm on the woman’s desk.
“Not an appointment, exactly. Renold and I are old friends, I’m sure he can squeeze a little time in for me.”
She lifted a brow like she’d found something suspicious on the bottom of her shoe. “Then you know that Mercer Grandon is very busy. Is there a general question I can assist you with?”
Right. In his long experience, it was easier to worm one’s way past a guard than a sharp-eyed receptionist. He hadn’t meant to play this completely straight, it just wasn’t in his nature to stick to a single path, but there was only one thing that could get him past those narrowed eyes without her ringing for the watch to escort him out.
“I’m prepared to place a large purchase, and need to consult with Renold directly regarding delivery times.”
In one deft movement she plucked a ledger from under her desk and flicked it open to the appropriate page. “In that case, sir, I would be happy to set you an appointment for a future date with Mercer Grandon, or perhaps one of his junior salesmen. Are you free on the third of this week?”
He rubbed his temples as if fighting back a tension headache. “I leave tomorrow, and skies willing won’t be back to this city in my lifetime. My old pal Renold would be very, very upset to hear he’d lost this opportunity, miss. And I will inform him – letters don’t need appointments, after all.”
She pursed her lips and snapped the ledger shut. “I see. I will inquire about his availability directly, then. Who should I say is calling?”
“Detan Honding.”
She paled, and he felt like a bigger rockbrain than usual. Figured she’d have heard of him – most of the city had, by now. Thratia’d made sure of that. He could have skipped that whole song and dance and just cut straight to who he was, and what he wanted, and no doubt she would have seen him straight to Grandon’s door. Now she had to keep up appearances by asking the man, and Detan feared Renold’s surly streak just might see him kicked out the door. Served him right, forgetting his name was just as deft a tool as any other he had up his sleeves.
“A moment, Master Honding.”
She disappeared down a hallway, heels click-clacking on the hardwood floor, and it didn’t take her long at all to come click-clacking back, a little furrow between her brows that Detan couldn’t quite read.