Flora's Fury: How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Impo (11 page)

Well, I couldn’t argue with her there, plus I wanted her out of my cabin as quickly as possible. So I gave her one of my bars of Madama Twanky chocolate, and asked if she would like to help me take Flynn for a walk. After I had a long swig of Madama Twanky’s Tonick, we went back up top, Elodie scampering like a monkey up the swaying stairs and hauling Flynn by my sash, me following slowly behind. Even the faint motion was making me feel slightly queasy I hoped the Tonick would kick in soon, or it was going to be a very long trip. I did not want to spend what were possibly my last few days alive puking.

Up top the weather had improved mightily Now that we were outside the Oro Gate, the fog had vanished into the bluish haze. The schooner skimmed through the water like a swallow, swooping and speedy.

With the wind and sun on my face, I felt much better. We perambulated around the deck, dodging sailors and cargo. Elodie was a chatterbox, which was good. I needed information, and she was only too happy to provide it. She was six; her favorite color was purple; she had been born on
El Pato;
she was going to be an actress when she grew up; her pet monkey had fallen overboard on the last trip, et cetera, et cetera.

Eventually I managed to turn the conversation to the subject that interested me most: Sieur Wraathmyr. Elodie didn’t know much about him, but what she knew, she was happy to share. He was only going as far as Cambria. He had a lot of luggage in the hold, cases of stuff he was selling, she supposed. He wasn’t very nice. He didn’t have any candy.

We were supposed to dock at Cambria tomorrow morning. That gave me the rest of the afternoon and the evening. Now, we were both trapped on the ship; he would not escape me. It occurred to me, also, that my certain Birdie doom afforded me some freedom. I no longer cared much if he tried to expose my magickal dealings. Buck could hardly court-martial me for illegal magick if I were dead.

Alas for me, as we rounded Crescent Bay, the ocean became rough again, no match for the Madama Twanky’s. Leaving Flynn, who seemed to have found his sea legs, with Elodie, I was forced to take to my berth. I lay for hours upon the clean sheets Elodie found for me and stared fixedly at the ceiling, trying very hard not to think about food. Or the Birdies. Or anything else that might make me puke.

Eventually, Elodie appeared at my cabin door with a giant cup of hot chocolate, which she insisted that I drink. The chocolate was thick, mudlike, and not very sweet, with a dark orange undertone. Within a minute of finishing it, I felt fine. Elodie refused to tell me what was in the drink, only ordered me to get dressed for dinner. Fifteen minutes earlier, I had thought I would never eat again. Now I was ravenous.

My dress uniform was a bit creased, but again I was grateful for it. The uniform is one aspect of being a Blackcoat that I actually enjoy I never have to worry about being in fashion. No matter how bad my hair looks, the wig covers the sin. No matter how pallid my cheeks, regulation rouge makes them rosy Ayah, there are a lot of silver buttons to polish and the aiguillettes can be somewhat strangling, but it’s worth it to always have something cool to wear.

The cabin was so tiny that winding my red sash the mandated three times around my waist proved to be a bit of a challenge. I left off my saber sling; it kept whacking against the furniture. The mirror above the washstand was small; tarnished and dark, it showed a narrow slice of my face. By craning my neck and leaning against the edge of the basin, I was able to get my left eye into the reflection. The eyeliner is liquid and easy to smear, but the line came out perfectly I shifted over, and this time my hand was not so steady The brush slipped and I ended up with black liner trailing down my cheek. I scrubbed the black off and leaned in again.

And froze.

There was something off about my reflection. The eye in the mirror was green, not blue. It was already smeared with thick smudges of kohl. And the pupil was a catlike slit.

I took one step back and was blocked from further retreat by my trunk. The eye stared at me, unblinking. I held the liner brush like a weapon; the brush was shaking. The eye closed, revealing a second golden eye painted on the lid. The golden eye gazed at me, and the force of the gaze nailed me to my place. The eyelid flickered and there was the green eye again. It receded and a nose appeared in the mirror, sharp and with a golden ring through its septum, and then another eye, equally green. Angular cheekbones and wisps of long black hair. Thin lips opened to reveal black teeth, a crimson tongue—the mouth pursed in a Word—and suddenly I was flung sideways onto the bed. Hardhands slammed his fist into the mirror. The glass spidered and shattered, spraying the cabin with knife-sharp shards.

“Well, now,” the ghost said.

I lumbered to my feet. There was broken glass everywhere. The mirror frame gaped emptily. “What the fike was that?”

“You were being scried, Almost Daughter,” Hardhands said. Mirror shards glittered in his matted hair. Flecks of glass sparkled on his cheeks.

“Scried? By who?”

“Do you not know?”

“No! I have no fiking idea. Fike.” I sat down on the bed. I still had the liner brush in my hand; I threw it away Fike. My heart was walloping against my rib cage. I took a deep steadying breath but that didn’t help.

“It was a small mirror,” Hardhands said. “I don’t think he saw you very clearly. Let’s hope not.”

“Didn’t I tell you to go home?” I snapped.

“And well it was that I did not. You standing there like a gaper. If I hadn’t broken the mirror, he’d have seen you for sure. And that Word he was about to speak was a hot one, I could tell—”

There was a quick knock at the door, Elodie hollering, “It’s dinnertime, Flora!”

Hardhands evaporated. I opened the door and told Elodie I’d fallen against the washstand and broken the mirror. She helped me sweep the mess up and we went to dinner. Dogs, Elodie explained, were not allowed in the parlor during mealtimes, so she’d left Flynn in the galley. Apparently he had been a real hit with the cook.

The rearrangement of the furniture had transformed the parlor into a dining room. Captain Ziyi and Sieur Wraathmyr were already drinking sherry Captain Ziyi greeted me politely, but Sieur Wraathmyr bid me ave in a voice that could have frozen boiling hot tea, and received my own cold hello with a slightly raised eyebrow. Udo had more manners in one strand of his golden hair than Sieur Wraathmyr had in his entire body.

Dinner was brought to the table by the cook, and then served by the captain, who took our passed plates, filled them, and passed them back. As you would expect on a ship with a full cargo of vegetables, the menu was comprised mostly of salad and asparagus, with one of the chickens from the coop as the centerpiece.

The captain led the conversation, and while I did my best to be charming and witty, Sieur Wraathmyr spoke only when directly addressed, otherwise remaining aloof and disengaged. You would think that someone who earns his living selling things would be amiable, but Sieur Wraathmyr did not seem the slightest bit concerned with being nice. He even seemed immune to Elodie’s charm, and that girl could have given Udo a run for his money.

Oh, Udo! I hoped that charm had bought him something with those pirates.

The captain had changed into a black wool coat with golden frogging, Elodie wore a poison-green satin frock, Theo had exchanged his linen smock for a smart red jacket, and I, of course, was in my uniform. Sieur Wraathmyr had not bothered to get gussied up. He still wore that furry jacket (although today he did seem to be wearing a shirt underneath) and his curly hair still needed a good brushing.

The combination of the shaggy hair and the shaggy jacket really did make him seem bearlike. If I were a wer-bear, I would probably have tried to downplay any ursine qualities I might have, but Sieur Wraathmyr seemed unconcerned with his bearishness. Or his boorishness, for that matter. After about the third attempt to include him in the conversation, Captain Ziyi gave up, and the talk went around him while he continued to sullenly stir his soup.

“Sieur Wraathmyr,” I said sweetly, when Theo finished telling us about the telescope he was building, “I am so pleased to find you onboard.”

Sieur Wraathmyr looked up from his soup warily and made a sound that might have been an acknowledgment.

I continued. “I saw your advert in the
CPG
, and had been so hoping to visit you and see some of your wares. But before I could do so, I was ordered on this journey and I thought I had missed my chance. You can imagine my happiness when I saw you onboard and realized I might be in luck after all.”

“I am sorry, madama,” he said. “But my cargo is all packed below.”

“Oh, dear. How disappointing. I was very much interested in obtaining a bottle or two of Madama Twanky’s Bear Oil Hair Oil. I have found nothing better for an unruly hairdo than Madama Twanky’s Bear Oil Hair Oil.”

Sieur Wraathmyr stared at me with a glinty blue-gray gaze. “I’m sorry, madama, but I am out of bear oil.”

“Oh, boo. Well, it’s lucky I have a bottle to see me through, then,” I said. “How about maps? I am most particularly looking for a good map. I’d much rather have the map than the bear oil.”

“I will look through my manifest, madama, and see what I have in stock, but I fear that my map supply is rather low at this moment. I cry your pardon, Captain. Will you please excuse me? I find that the motion of the water has cured my appetite. ” And with that rudeness, he was gone. But I was pretty sure he had gotten my point.

After dessert, the table was cleared and folded back into the wall. We were treated to a recital of sea shanties sung by Elodie, and then a recitation of
The Warlord Stood On the Burning Deck
by Theo. Finally, the captain went up to the bridge, and Elodie and Theo went to bed. I retrieved Flynn from the galley and took him back to my berth, took off my wig, and went up on deck determined to corner Sieur Wraathmyr and settle the map matter once and for all.

The night was dark and moonless, but the stars above were as thick as clover on a grassy field, and the water glowed phosphorescently as it churned away from the ship. A snatch of song flew by on the wind: the sailor in the rigging high above. I followed the sweetish smell of apple tobacco to a corner of the poop deck, where I found Sieur Wraathmyr sitting on a hay bale, smoking his stubby little pipe and watching the dark coastline slide by our port side. I had the feeling he had been waiting for me.

“Why are you on this boat?” he demanded. “Did you follow me?”

“No. Just luck, that’s all.”

“Luck! No such thing,” he said bitterly “There is fate, but there is no luck. What do you want of me, madama, that you so insistently keep popping up wherever I go?”

I could have pointed out that
he
had been popping up wherever I went, but I let the comment slide and said, “Look, I just want my map back. I saw you take it from the Grotto, and I need it.”

This time he didn’t bother with protests. “That map was part of a magickal Working. Are not officers in your army forbidden from magickal practices, upon pain of death?”

“I don’t see how that matters to you, sieur. But you do admit, then, that you were at the Grotto?”

“Since you admit it, I will, too. But you didn’t answer my question. If you say that I am against the law, it seems to me that you are, as well.”

He glared at me, the pipe clenched in his teeth. I glared back. I’d been stared down by experts, and while his stare was fierce, it wasn’t even in my top ten.

“You are right that it is against
The Articles of War
for a soldier to perform any magickal act,” I said. “I’d be in serious trouble if anyone knew. So let us trade silences. Give me the map and I shall be silent as to what I saw in the Grotto, and shall expect you to keep silent as well.”

“Why should I take your word,” he asked, “when I could take your life?”

I didn’t see it coming. One second he was sitting on the hay bale; the next, he was looming over me, pressing me into the sharp edge of a crate. His breath was apple-scented, and his hand was soft on my neck, but very firm.

“I could crush your throat in an instant, and toss you overboard so you could tell your secret to the sharks. Everyone would think you stumbled and fell. It happens, and you have admitted you have no sea legs.” His hand tightened in a not-so-soft squeeze. I had no doubt he could toss me over the side with very little effort.

“You could,” I wheezed. “But I don’t need a voice to tell your secret. I left it in a letter addressed to my mamma, which she will find when she goes through my things after I am gone. I don’t think you want to mess with my mamma.”

“Your mamma? Why do I care about your mamma?” The grip tightened, and I was finding it hard to breathe, pressure building in my skull. “Who is this mamma?” “Juliet Fyrdraaca, Buck Fyrdraaca,” I wheezed. The grip loosened slightly and I knocked his hand away from my throat. He let me do so, and then said, “Your mamma is General Fyrdraaca?”

“Ayah.”

“That letter trick,” he scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”

“Take the chance and see.” I hoped he wouldn’t, because, of course, there was no letter. He was still pressed up against me, and now that he wasn’t choking the life out of me, I had to admit the sensation was not entirely unpleasant. I gave him a good shove, and he moved away.

“And also, I am not without my own magickal defenses,” I said. “I could turn you inside out with just one Word.”

“I saw an example of your vocabulary at the Infantina’s birthday party” he said jeeringly.

My cheeks were turning warm. I said quickly, “I was using the Word in its truest sense:
to burn
. I’ve seen things explode into flames when that Word was conjugated.”

I returned his skeptical look with a glare of my own. He said, “Lucky for me, then, that I am not cinders. I will take your promise. But not until we reach Cambria. I wish to be off this ship first. I will leave the map with the captain and instruct him to give it to you once I have disembarked. Then, even if you betray me, I will be out of your reach. Do we have a deal?”