When the Sea is Rising Red (9 page)

The only answer Lilya has for her is a grumpy snort.

“Here, you lump,” Nala says, and hauls a bone from her bag. The terrier perks up one jaunty ear and whines lazily. Nala tosses the bone with a laugh, and the terrier snaps it up before it hits the ground. “Still fast on your feet, Kirren, old boy.” She scratches the dog’s head.

A sudden clatter of boots on the stairs has us all on our feet. I’m shaking inside, although I try to hold myself together. If this is Dash, then my reckoning has come.
Anja sent me
. I hold the name on my tongue and wait.

Instead of Dash, a sharp familiar face appears at the head of the stairs.

“Esta,” says Lilya. “Any news?”

“Ship came in.” She doesn’t smile. Gripped tightly in one hand is a small paper box.

The
Silver Dancer
is safe, thank goodness. Loss of an entire ship eats in even to our fortunes, and we are one of the wealthiest Houses in Pelimburg.

“Half the men washed over,” she continues, and the pit of my stomach draws tighter. I feel guilty, as if somehow I am responsible for these unknown men and their deaths. Owen will pay their families for the loss. It’s more than some Houses do.

“And Rin?” asks Nala, although the answer is writ plain on the little girl’s face. My stomach twists more, and now I can’t tell if this is hunger or guilt or the lack of scriv or all of them tangled up in my insides like fishing line.

“Come now,” Lilya says, stepping away from the food. “Hand those over, Esta, my love.” She motions at the small rectangle in Esta’s hand. “There’ll be no setting this house on fire.”

Esta throws the box down. It has a small print of a red sphynx on the front. Matches. “Going out,” she says, and turns away from us.

“Where?”

Esta stares back at Lilya.

“We can go look for your brother.” Nala draws a little closer to the half-selkie. “Kirren’s got a good nose. We can give him one of Rin’s shirts to sniff at, and then we can all go down to the shore and look—”

“For what?” Esta screams. “His body?”

An uncomfortable silence settles through the house. Esta turns and walks back down the stairs. No one makes any move to stop her.

“Would that Verrel were here,” says Lilya. “He’s the only one of us who can talk to her and—her and … Rin.” She turns her attention back to the meal, stirring the pan. “Hope he comes home soon.”

Nala takes a chipped ceramic bowl from a wooden crate that serves as a cupboard, and I follow her and do the same. “He’s as bad as Dash for coming and going,” Nala says softly.

“I’ll go look for Verrel later,” Lilya says. “Tell him that Esta’s down walking the strand, looking for Rin’s body.”

Nala says nothing, and we three eat in silence. The food, a solid, salty, fatty lump, hits my empty stomach. I’ve never tasted anything better. I forget about the boy called Rin, a faceless person whom I have never met, who means nothing to me. With a precision I normally feel only when I use scriv, I push my tangled-up feelings into a little ball and seal them away.

Afterward, I scrub my one pair of stockings and my dress clean in a small pot of cold water and hang them to dry. I’m so tired I can barely stand, and I sway as I wring the water out of my stockings.

“Here,” says Nala. “I’ve made you up a bed in the corner.” She leads me to a curtained-off space near the stairs.

It’s little more than a pile of burlap bags, loosely stuffed with sea grass. She hands over a neatly folded gray blanket. “It’s all there is,” she says. “Maybe tomorrow Lils can see what she can find. She’s good at finding things.”

The blanket is thin, and I have to add my slightly rain-damp coat over it to keep warm. I curl up like an alley cat on the pile of bags. The storm beats about the crumbling house.

I sleep in my shift, while my dress and stockings drip on a line that stretches across the remains of what was once a tiled washroom. This is the first time in my life that I have ever washed my own clothes or known that in the morning I would have to wear the same outfit again.

If Esta comes back during the night, I don’t hear her over the screaming of the wind.

7

T
HREE DAYS LATER
and I’m sick to the teeth of the smell of tea and cakes, the feel of soapy water, and the lamentations of crakes. I can hear them from the scullery. Every now and then one stands up and orates at length to the unfortunate crowd, after which he bows to their scattered applause. Personally, I think they’d be better served by plates broken over their heads than by hand-claps.

And if I’m correct, more than a few of their recent verses make mockery at my House’s expense. Crakes—always biting the hand that feeds. Ilven used to tell me that my hatred of poetry and poets had more to do with being forced to study under our House crake than with the actual quality of the verse, and that one day I would see the beauty in what they did. Somehow I doubt that.

“Firell?” A head pops around the doorway. It’s the day-shift waitress, a low-Lam girl everyone calls Perkins. She has a narrow nose in a moonish face, and her eyes are wide and dark as winter storms.

“Yes?”

“Can you pick up a table for me? Charl has all the outside tables so he’s too busy.”

Of course he’s busy. It’s market day, and the place is packed from floor to wall. I dry my hands on my apron and squint at her. “I’ve never served a table in my life. Why can’t you do it?”

“I—just can’t.” Perkins huffs and blows a loose strand of dirty blond hair from her flushed cheeks. “Please, all you have to do is take his order and bring it to him, I swear. And he tips well, so you’ll get a bit for your troubles.”

It must be some regular that she can’t face. And a bit is nothing to sniff at. “Fine. I’ll do it.” I take off the stained scullery apron and hang it on a peg. “Just point me to him.”

“Thanks, Firell. I’ll owe you one.”

After checking my dress to make sure that it’s serviceable, I follow Perkins into the chaos of the Crake’s interior. Poets are clustered about high tables scribbling away or angrily gesticulating at each other as they argue some fine point of meter and rhyme. Perkins points to one of the low tables near the door and its single occupant. Unusual enough in this crowded place that he would have a table to himself.

His back is to us, and all I can see of him is that he’s wearing a fine black coat and that his long dark hair is loose, falling over his shoulders in a sleek wave. One of the better-groomed crakes then. A wide-brimmed hat is on the table next to his elbow—an odd fashion choice on this windy day.

I squeeze my way between the tables and chairs, muttering
excuse me
s until I reach his table. He’s bowed over a notebook, his quill flying over the cream pages. This close to him the air feels stretched and tight. Uncomfortable.

“Sir? Can I get you something to drink?”

He answers while he writes. “Water, please, and a redbush tea, no honey.” He looks up then, and I recognize him.

He’s the bat from the promenade. The one who held me to him so that Owen wouldn’t see me, who sparked with magic and smelled of white soap and musk. A little shiver runs through my center.

I can’t remember his name, but he’s from House Sandwalker, that much I know.

The bat frowns. “Pelim Felicita?” he says. “I
thought
it was you I saw—”

I drop to a crouch so that I’m level with his face. “Shut up!” I hiss at him, then change my tone. “Please, don’t say a word.” I glance around to see if anyone heard him or noticed what happened, but the crakes are deep in their own worlds.

If he turns me over to the sharif, if he tells my family that I’m here— No. I will not go back. Desperate to guarantee his silence, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “I’ll give you whatever you want if you’ll pretend you never saw me.” Then I put both hands over my mouth and damn myself for a fool.

He stares at me.

Slowly, I lower my hands and grip the edge of his table. Dizziness is rushing up inside me, making my head light. Then he drops one white hand over mine and draws my hand closer to him, pinning my palm to the table.

The subtle prickle of his magic wars with my building nausea, and shivers run up my arms.

He leans closer, and I can see the tips of his fangs when he speaks. “Whatever I want?” He sounds amused. The flicker of magic dances between our skin.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, and try to pull my hand free, but he grabs my wrist and keeps me there.

He smiles. The fangs are more obvious than ever. “I know you didn’t.” He releases my hand and I almost land flat on my bottom. “Are you free five days from now, in the evening, I mean?”

“What—I—yes, I suppose so.” I stand, jerking my dress straight. Fury is now replacing the terror and I glare at him.

“Don’t be like that,” he says. “I’m inviting you to a party.”

A party
. “Are you insane? I can’t go to a party. What if someone sees me?”

“Trust me on this, no one will recognize you at this particular social event.”

My mouth drops open in disbelief. “I’ll just fetch your tea,” I say.

He grins in response, and I can feel him watching me as I thread my way to the counter and give Mrs. Danningbread the order.

She peers at me. “Why are you up front here—”

I point at the bat.

“Oh,” she says with a sniff. “Perkins needs to get over her little prejudice very, very quickly. I can’t have that sort of nonsense. They’re citizens, whether she likes it or not.”

The bat is back to scribbling in his book. Perhaps he’s hoping to become a crake in his own house. Stranger things have happened. I lean my elbow on the counter and wonder what I’m going to say to him. The wood is warm and satin smooth under my elbow and I fight the desire to just lay my head down on the counter and start screaming at the mess of my life.

If I agree to go to this party of his, then Gris alone knows what I’m letting myself in for. On the other hand, I really don’t want him going to my mother, or worse yet, Owen, and informing them that I’m still alive, working in a tea and cake shop and looking like a cheap whore.
Argh
. I grit my teeth.

“Here you go, dear.” Mrs. Danningbread puts a small tea urn and bowl on my tray, and a glass of fresh-pumped water. I set my shoulders and carry the drinks to him.

“If I go to this little … social event of yours,” I say as I set down his bowl and pour the tea in a smooth arc, “can I be sure that this thing between us is clear, or will I have to spend the rest of my life running at your beck and call?”

He smiles thinly. “It wasn’t meant to make a slave of you.”

I arch an eyebrow in answer. He holds my future in his hands, and he knows it.

The bat sighs and rubs a hand over his face. When he looks at me again, I see that he’s slid the third eyelids down, and his eyes are milky white and expressionless. “You have my word that it will be just this one time,” he says softly.

“Fine. Five days’ time.”

The bat smiles again and he looks genuinely happy. I realize then that he can’t be much older than me—he’s maybe seventeen or eighteen and not yet well versed in schooling his face. The third eyelids recede a little and I can just make out the edge of his indigo pupils. “I’ll see you then, Felicita.”

“It’s Firell.”

He nods. “Can I meet you here?”

Well I certainly don’t want him knowing where I live. “That will have to do. What time?”

“About eight?” He sounds so uncertain that I almost feel sorry for him. Then I want to start laughing because I have just agreed to accompany a bat to a party. I wonder if this counts as stepping out.

I will the damn bat to leave so that I can get back to the bowls piling up in the kitchen. Perhaps he’s something like a Lammer Reader, able to see emotion, because he drinks quickly, scribbles a bit more, and then picks up his hat and his letters-bag and heads for the door. He’s left coins on the table, and already I can see he’s paid double—a fair tip indeed. He pauses at the counter and hands Danningbread a small envelope. Danningbread nods and puts the note into her apron pocket.

It’s only after he leaves that I remember his name: Jannik.

When I’m back in the safety of the scullery, I lean against the wall and bury my face in my hanging apron. I scrunch the damp material up against my cheeks. A choked noise escapes me, something between a laugh and a sob. This day better not get any worse.

*   *   *

T
HE NEXT MORNING DRAGS
, leaving my hands still and my mind too busy. After my first day of work, Nala left me to find my own way there and back, and mostly, I haven’t managed to get myself too lost. I’ve seen Esta once, sat with Lilya and Nala while they talked and made supper, and spotted a gangling low-Lammer youth leaving the house, his coat over his shoulder. Of the infamous Dash, there has been no sign.

I’m not even sure if he exists. Perhaps he’s just some bogeyman that the Whelk Streeters use to keep the other gangs of squatters at bay. Whatever, it seems to work. Dash’s name is like a pass-letter, and people melt out of your way if they know you’re one of his.

And I will be one of his, I tell myself. Lilya says that as long as I’m putting brass in the bowl, he’ll be happy enough. I hope she’s right.

Mrs. Danningbread comes into the back room. “It’s quiet,” she says. “You go on and take a seat outside with some tea.” It’s true, we seem to have hit a mid-morning slump and I haven’t had to wash a teabowl for a good few minutes. Everything is clean, the dishes scrubbed down to creamy white, stacked up and drying. I wipe my hands on a mangy-looking tea towel and untie my apron.

Charl, the low-Lammer boy who works alternate days, is sitting down at one of the outside tables enjoying a bowl of steaming tea. There are two plates set out before him, both with a thick slice of dark cake. He nods at the other chair and pushes the second plate over for me. Flustered, I take a seat.