Zoe Archer - [Ether Chronicles 03] (18 page)

“I don’t think I’d pass the physical.”

“But if you
could
—”

She scooted out from beneath the washbasin and dusted off her hands. “I remember crying in my father’s arms . . . I couldn’t have been more than six or seven . . . angry and sad that I’d never get the chance to do what he did. Be of service to my nation.”

“What’d he think?”

She used a rag to clean off her wrench. “He was sorry, but not sorry I wouldn’t get the chance to get shot at. But it’s my decision to make, not his. Not anyone’s.”

The thought of Kali in battle—the target of ether-powered cannon shot and bullets—made his gut clench. If anything were to happen to her . . . Cold fear scraped down his neck and back as he remembered seeing her half-buried beneath the ruins of her cottage, the visceral punch of terror that stole thought. But she hadn’t been hurt beyond a bruise or two. And he’d never have to worry about her being in battle. So long as they stayed on this island, she was safe.

“You must miss it,” she said now. “The navy. Being captain of a ship. Having more than just this.” She waved at the floorboards, slightly buckled from the crash, and the listing bulkheads.

“I liked being a captain at sea,” he answered, watching her get to her feet. She’d only refuse his help to stand, so he tucked his hands beneath his biceps. “And those first years as a Man O’ War gave me purpose. I don’t miss war. But when I first crashed here, I didn’t know what the hell to make of myself. How to act. What to feel. I was dead in a way. Now . . .” Now each breath felt like an education in what it meant to be alive.

She didn’t press him for more. Instead, she turned the knob on the faucet. Something groaned and shuddered. But then, after a minute, water sputtered out of the tap. It was brown and filled with bugs.

Four, who’d been watching the proceedings with interest, squeaked and darted away.

“We’ll have to let it run for a few minutes to clear the pipes out. I’d imagine a whole host of insects are irritated at receiving such a rude eviction notice.” She slanted him a grin. “But if it means vexing a millipede in order to have a hot shower bath, I’ll do so, gladly.”

True to her word, after fifteen minutes, the water ran clear, free of insect life. He turned the hot water knob on the shower bath, and after more groaning, actual hot water came out of the shower nozzle. Man O’ Wars didn’t have the same sensitivity to temperature as normal humans, so he hadn’t minded his ice-cold baths in the forest stream. Yet the feel of hot water on his hand nearly brought tears to his eyes.

He quickly shut off the faucet.

“I’ve set it up so that we’ll be recycling some water,” she said, “given that we’ve a limited supply and I don’t want to tax the island’s resources.” She offered him an apologetic smile. “Not opulent living, washing in each other’s bathwater.”

“Ah, damn, here I’d been thinking we’d transform the
Persephone
into a Cunard luxury liner.” But as he teased, the image of her in a shower bath—naked, water running all over her sleek and curved body—leapt into his mind, as if projected by a cinemagraph.

Hell.
He really had to be demented if he looked forward to bathing in the same water that had touched her skin.

He cleared his throat. “You’ve worked miracles on this broken-down old ship. So . . . thank you.”

She brushed past him as she left the washroom. “No thanks yet. There’s still much to be done. My work’s just beginning.”

“Should I be excited, or terrified?”

Over her shoulder, she threw him a grin. “A little of both would be the safest option.”

F
letcher had never known time to move more quickly than it did over the next week. Without discussing it, he and Kali fell into a schedule. The mornings were for gathering supplies to eat—hunting, fishing, collecting edible plants—as well as gathering peat. The afternoons were spent putting the ship back in working order. She was a single-minded whirlwind, whose energy nearly surpassed his own. They cleared out the passageways, putting all the debris he’d never touched into the former gunnery deck, and repaired the floors and bulkheads. She spent days studying the batteries, and the complex system that transformed his
aurora vires
into energy for the ship, and the ether that resulted from the process. As she did, she worked to get the electricity running on the ship.

“I’d wager lots of sailors want to be Man O’ Wars,” she said, her fingers buried within a web of wires.

Making himself useful, he spliced rope. He wasn’t sure entirely what he’d do with hundreds of feet of rope, but when the complicated work on the ship needed doing, he was as helpful as a bear trying to carry an egg in its paws.

“New recruits are examined through spectral goggles to see their
aurora vires
rating,” he said. “Barely five percent rate Gimmel or higher. Some are relieved. Others get angry.” He shrugged. “Nothing changes your rating, though. You can train and face as many battles as you want. But the
aurora vires
is part of us when we’re born—at least, I think so. They taught us the history of Dr. Rossini and her discovery, but I was more interested in whether I’d qualify or not.”

“So you were an Aleph,” she said. The top rating.

“Bet,” he said instead, the second highest rating. It hadn’t disappointed him that he wasn’t the highest. He hadn’t felt the need to be at the top. All he’d needed was to do his duty, and do it well.

Emily hadn’t wanted any of it, whether he was the highest ranking or not. He’d heard that there were some ladies who actually tried to take Man O’ Wars as lovers, and that they preferred Alephs, thinking them the most superior. Not wanting to be anyone’s trophy, he’d avoided those women and their expectations as to what he should be. Including their disappointment that he wasn’t the top grade. Courtesans catering to Man O’ Wars weren’t as particular. But then, they weren’t paid to be selective.

To his surprise, though, Kali only smiled. “I would’ve guessed Bet. Alephs are overbearing brutes, I’m sure. Bullies and chest pounders.”

“Not all of them.” But
she
didn’t think of him that way.

They hadn’t any tetrol to make the galley function as it had before, but she built a device that allowed peat to fuel the stove as well as the clockwork spit. That night, they dined on roast rabbit and fish, and the following morning, she made them eggs. All her flour and butter had been ruined in the storm, but he’d done without bread and pies before her arrival. He only worried that she’d grow too lean on the island’s Spartan diet. At least the ferryman would arrive in a few weeks to resupply her.

They both agreed that they needed to rebuild her cottage. Not only should the ferryman want to see it when he returned, but because she had her own home, just as he had his.

Yet day after day passed. They never went to her cottage. “Too damp today,” she’d say, or he’d insist that the partridges would by migrating and they couldn’t lose the chance to bag some more game. Neither of them objected to the objections.

Each day wasn’t spent entirely in each other’s company. When it rained, he went out on his own to hunt and forage. And sometimes, she shut herself off in the wardroom, which she’d commandeered as a workshop. She might emerge to bolt down some food, then hasten back to whatever it was she was working on. He didn’t mind these absences. Gave him time to clear his head, time with his own thoughts.

At least she’d gone back to wearing dresses.

It troubled him, how easily they’d fallen into this arrangement. He wanted to be disturbed by her presence, to think his peace ruined, to resent her.

None of those feelings came. He woke eager to see Kali, though his sleep was restless and full of her. Often, he had to tear his gaze from her mouth and redirect his thoughts from unpinning her glossy black hair. It was too fragile, this thing between them. And he was still learning what it was to think of himself as a man and not a means of destruction again. To breach the distance he’d imposed around himself.

Though he did shave. A little. And trim his hair. Just a bit.

Nothing drastic. Only the minor application of a pair of grooming scissors as, shirtless, he studied his reflection in a broken mirror. He hadn’t looked at himself in months. It was a wonder she hadn’t thought him truly some kind of animal, with his beard as thick as it was, and his hair like a mane. But with the newly-restored water running, and some scavenged shaving soap, mug, and brush, he took the uncultivated mass of his beard down to something slightly more tame—a jungle into a botanic garden. He wasn’t much of a barber, so he trimmed off only an inch of his hair, lest he look like some kind of escaped lunatic asylum patient.

When he was done, he studied himself again. He’d never be a handsome man, with his large nose and heavy brow, but he’d lived nearly forty years with his face and they were on amicable terms. He could’ve shaved the beard entirely. The deck of an airship could be a damned cold place, and all the crew grew beards to keep warm. Man O’ Wars didn’t need the extra warmth. But after four months with it, he’d grown used to his facial hair. Liked it, actually.

Still, when he came into the galley for supper that night and Kali’s mouth literally hung open when she saw him, heat flooded his face.

God, did I make a huge bloody mistake
?

They both cleared their throats at the same time.

“You didn’t do that on my account, I hope,” she said.

“I did it on my account.” He took his seat at the table. “You disapprove?”

“No,” she answered with gratifying quickness. “Only . . . I never realized . . . you’ve got a dimple . . . just here.”

He jumped when she leaned closer and her fingertip brushed his cheek.

“Damn thing,” he muttered, composing himself. “Makes me look like a sodding baby.”

Her gaze continued to linger on him, dark and bright as a midsummer sky. “Of all the things I’d confuse you for,” she said, “a baby isn’t one of them.”

He’d once felt an earthquake when he was a young seaman on leave in the East Indies. The ground had shuddered and shook, and he’d thought the world was ending. It hadn’t, of course. But it had scared the hell out of him. He’d learned later from a geologist that the violent shaking was the result of plates beneath the earth’s surface shifting against each other. Breaching distances.

He felt it now, that shifting and shaking. But the earthquake was inside him. He didn’t fear the distance between him and Kali, not as he had before.

There was a new danger, and though he’d faced every variety of peril, this one held the most uncertainty.

He needed her.

K
ali came instantly awake the moment someone’s hand touched her shoulder.

“Easy.” Fletcher’s voice, low in the darkness.

She shoved herself upright, heedless of the blanket pooling at her waist. “What’s going on? Are we under attack?” She fumbled with her prosthetic leg, kept just beneath her bed.

“No attack. We’re safe.”

She rubbed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “What time is it?”

Shadows still veiled the cabin, and she could just make out Fletcher’s tall, broad outline as he paced to the window. “Almost time,” he said cryptically.

“For what?”

He turned back to her. She felt more than saw his gaze linger on her, particularly where the blanket revealed she was wearing only a chemise.

“Get dressed,” he rasped. “Meet me topside in ten minutes.”

“But—”

Then he was gone.

She’d half a mind to go back to sleep. The dream had been so blessedly pleasant. Well,
pleasant
didn’t quite cover it. She and Fletcher had been lying in a grove of mango trees, feeding each other dripping slices of fruit and licking the juice off their skin. They’d been growing quite sticky, and all around them had been not birdsong but a
raga yaman
, the lush, lilting music of the evening.

She’d just been sucking mango juice off of Fletcher’s stomach when the real Fletcher had awakened her. Likely for something far less enjoyable than her dream. Perhaps one of the battery relays she’d rigged up had broken and needed repair. Though why it couldn’t wait until morning, she had no idea. And none of the relays were on the top deck. The whole thing was an irritating mystery.

If she lingered in bed, he’d certainly come back to fetch her. And not to recreate her dream. Muttering, she lit a lamp and pulled on her clothes. Checking her timepiece, she saw it was just past six in the morning.

It was damned chilly in the cabin, her breath misting in front of her as she fastened on her prosthesis. After slipping on her boots, throwing on her cloak, and grabbing her tool belt, she left the cabin. She carried a lamp with her, since none in the passageways had been lit. At least the corridors were cleaner and straighter now than when she’d first arrived, and she had less risk of tripping and snapping her neck.

She climbed the companionway stairs leading to the top deck. Despite her cloak, it was bitter cold. The sky was still full black, except for the pale edge of ash on the eastern horizon. She scanned the deck, looking for Fletcher. Beyond the circle of light thrown by the lantern, she just made out his silhouette standing near what had been the central support column for the ship’s main ether tank. Some other objects stood near him, but it was too dark to make out what they were.

Still muttering to herself, she crossed the deck to him. “All right, what needs fixing?” she grumbled.

He frowned at her. “Nothing.”

“Then why drag me out of bed at an hour fit only for bakers and dipsomaniacs?”

He glanced at the object beside him. Several objects, actually. One was a barrel with the top part removed. Beside it stood the biggest coil of rope she’d ever seen. When unrolled, it had to be at least two hundred and fifty feet long. One end of the rope looped through several iron rings that had been riveted around the barrel. The other end of the rope had been tied with a massive knot to one of the ship’s cleats.