A Gathering of Shadows E-Book

V. E. Schwab

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 690

Beschreibung

Kell is plagued by his guilt. Restless, and having given up smuggling, he is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila. As Red London prepares for the Element Games - an extravagant international competition of magic - a certain pirate ship draws closer. But another London is coming back to life, a shadow that was gone in the night reappears in the morning. Black London has risen again - and so to keep magic's balance, another London must fall.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by V.E. Schwab

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

I: Thief at Sea

I

II

III

IV

V

II: Prince at Large

I

II

III

IV

V

III: Changing Tides

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

IV: Londons Calling

I

II

III

IV

V

V: Royal Welcome

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VI: Impostors

I

II

III

IV

V

VII: Intersections

I

II

III

IV

V

VIII: The Essen Tasch

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

IX: Collision Course

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

X: Catastrophe

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by V.E. SCHWAB and available from TITAN BOOKS

Vicious

A Darker Shade of Magic

This Savage Song (June 2016)

A GATHERING OF SHADOWS

A Gathering of ShadowsPrint edition ISBN: 9781783295425E-book edition ISBN: 9781783295432

Published by Titan BooksA division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First Titan edition: February 201610 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

V.E. Schwab asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2016 V.E. Schwab

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For the ones who fight their way forward

Magic and magician must between them balance. Magic itself is chaos. The magician must be calm. A fractured self is a poor vessel for power, spilling power without focus or mea-sure from every crack.

TIEREN SERENSE,head priest of the London Sanctuary

I

THE ARNESIAN SEA

Delilah Bard had a way of finding trouble.

She’d always thought it was better than letting trouble find her, but floating in the ocean in a two-person skiff with no oars, no view of land, and no real resources save the ropes binding her wrists, she was beginning to reconsider.

The night was moonless overhead, the sea and sky mirroring the starry darkness to every side; only the ripple of water beneath the rocking boat marked the difference between up and down. That infinite reflection usually made Lila feel like she was perched at the center of the universe.

Tonight, adrift, it made her want to scream.

Instead, she squinted at the twinkle of lights in the distance, the reddish hue alone setting the craft’s lanterns apart from the starlight. And she watched as the ship—her ship—moved slowly but decidedly away.

Panic crawled its way up her throat, but she held her ground.

I am Delilah Bard, she thought as the ropes cut into her skin. l am a thief and a pirate and a traveler. I have set foot in three different worlds, and lived. I have shed the blood of royals and held magic in my hands. And a ship full of men cannot do what I can. I don’t need any of you.

I am one of a damned kind.

Feeling suitably empowered, she set her back to the ship, and gazed out at the sprawling night ahead.

It could be worse, she reasoned, just before she felt cold water licking her boots and looked down to see that there was a hole in the boat. Not a large hole by any stretch, but the size was little comfort; a small hole could sink a boat just as effectively, if not as fast.

Lila groaned and looked down at the coarse rope cinched tight around her hands, doubly grateful that the bastards had left her legs free, even if she was trapped in an abominable dress. A full-skirted, flimsy green contraption with too much gossamer and a waist so tight she could hardly breathe and why in god’s name must women do this to themselves?

The water inched higher in the skiff, and Lila forced herself to focus. She drew what little breath her outfit would allow and took stock of her meager, quickly dampening inventory: a single cask of ale (a parting gift), three knives (all concealed), half a dozen flares (bequeathed by the men who’d set her adrift), the aforementioned dress (damn it to hell), and the contents of that dress’s skirts and pockets (necessary, if she was to prevail).

Lila took up one of the flares—a device like a firework that, when struck against any surface, produced a stream of colored light. Not a burst, but a steady beam strong enough to cut the darkness like a knife. Each flare was supposed to last a quarter of an hour, and the different colors had their own code on the open water: yellow for a sinking ship, green for illness aboard, white for unnamed distress, and red for pirates.

She had one of each, and her fingers danced over their ends as she considered her options. She eyed the rising water and settled on the yellow flare, taking it up with both hands and striking it against the side of the little boat.

Light burst forth, sudden and blinding. It split the world in two, the violent gold-white of the flare and the dense black nothing around it. Lila spent half a minute cursing and blinking back tears at the brightness as she angled the flare up and away from her face. And then she began to count. Just as her eyes were finally adjusting, the flare faltered, flickered, and went out. She scanned the horizon for a ship but saw none, and the water in the boat continued its slow but steady rise up the calf of her boot. She took up a second flare—white for distress—and struck it on the wood, shielding her eyes. She counted the minutes as they ticked by, scouring the night beyond the boat for signs of life.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, come on, come on …” The words were lost beneath the hiss of the flare as it died, plunging her back into darkness.

Lila gritted her teeth.

Judging by the level of the water in the little boat, she had only a quarter of an hour—one flare’s worth of time—before she was well and truly in danger of sinking.

Then something snaked along the skiff’s wooden side. Something with teeth.

If there is a god, she thought, a celestial body, a heavenly power, or anyone above—or below—who might just like to see me live another day, for pity’s or entertainment’s sake, now would be a good time to intercede.

And with that, she took up the red flare—the one for pirates—and struck it, bathing the night around her in an eerie crimson light. It reminded her for an instant of the Isle River back in London. Not her London—if the dreary place had ever been hers—or the terrifyingly pale London responsible for Athos and Astrid and Holland, but his London. Kell’s London.

He flashed up in her vision like a flare, auburn hair and that constant furrow between his eyes: one blue, one black. Antari. Magic boy. Prince.

Lila stared straight into the flare’s red light until it burned the image out. She had more pressing concerns right now. The water was rising. The flare was dying. Shadows were slithering against the boat.

Just as the red light of the pirate’s flare began to peter out, she saw it.

It began as nothing—a tendril of mist on the surface of the sea—but soon the fog drew itself into the phantom of a ship. The polished black hull and shining black sails reflected the night to every side, the lanterns aboard small and colorless enough to pass for starlight. Only when it drew close enough for the flare’s dying red light to dance across the reflective surfaces did the ship come into focus. And by then, it was nearly on top of her.

By the flare’s sputtering glow, Lila could make out the ship’s name, streaked in shimmering paint along the hull. Is Ranes Gast.

The Copper Thief.

Lila’s eyes widened in amazement and relief. She smiled a small, private smile, and then buried the look beneath something more fitting—an expression somewhere between grateful and beseeching, with a dash of wary hope.

The flare guttered and went out, but the ship was beside her now, close enough for her to see the faces of the men leaning over the rail.

“Tosa!” she called in Arnesian, getting to her feet, careful not to rock the tiny, sinking craft.

Help. Vulnerability had never come naturally, but she did her best to imitate it as the men looked down at her, huddled there in her little waterlogged boat with her bound wrists and her soggy green dress. She felt ridiculous.

“Kers la?” asked one, more to the others than to her. What is this?

“A gift?” said another.

“You’d have to share,” muttered a third.

A few of the other men said less pleasant things, and Lila tensed, glad that their accents were too full of mud and ocean spray for her to understand all the words, even if she gleaned their meaning.

“What are you doing down there?” asked one of them, his skin so dark his edges smudged into the night.

Her Arnesian was still far from solid, but four months at sea surrounded by people who spoke no English had certainly improved it.

“Sensan,” answered Lila—sinking—which earned a laugh from the gathering crew. But they seemed in no hurry to haul her up. Lila held her hands aloft so they could see the rope. “I could use some help,” she said slowly, the wording practiced.

“Can see that,” said the man.

“Who throws away a pretty thing?” chimed in another.

“Maybe she’s all used up.”

“Nah.”

“Hey, girl! You got all your bits and pieces?”

“Better let us see!”

“What’s with all the shouting?” boomed a voice, and a moment later a rail-thin man with deep-set eyes and receding black hair came into sight at the side of the ship. The others shied away in deference as he took hold of the wooden rail and looked down at Lila. His eyes raked over her, the dress, the rope, the cask, the boat.

The captain, she wagered.

“You seem to be in trouble,” he called down. He didn’t raise his voice, but it carried nonetheless, his Arnesian accent clipped but clear.

“How perceptive,” Lila called back before she could stop herself. The insolence was a gamble, but no matter where she was, the one thing she knew was how to read a mark. And sure enough, the thin man smiled.

“My ship’s been taken,” she continued, “and my new one won’t last long, and as you can see—”

He cut her off. “Might be easier to talk if you come up here?”

Lila nodded with a wisp of relief. She was beginning to fear they’d sail on and leave her to drown. Which, judging by the crew’s lewd tones and lewder looks, might actually be the better option, but down here she had nothing and up there she had a chance.

A rope was flung over the side; the weighted end landed in the rising water near her feet. She took hold and used it to guide her craft against the ship’s side, where a ladder had been lowered; but before she could hoist herself up, two men came down and landed in the boat beside her, causing it to sink considerably faster. Neither of them seemed bothered. One proceeded to haul up the cask of ale, and the other, much to Lila’s dismay, began to haul up her. He threw her over his shoulder, and it took every ounce of her control—which had never been plentiful—not to bury a knife in his back, especially when his hands began to wander up her skirt.

Lila dug her nails into her palms, and by the time the man finally set her down on the ship’s desk beside the waiting cask (“Heavier than she looks,” he muttered, “and only half as soft …”) she’d made eight small crescents in her skin.

“Bastard,” growled Lila in English under her breath. He gave her a wink and murmured something about being soft where it mattered, and Lila silently vowed to kill him. Slowly.

And then she straightened and found herself standing in a circle of sailors.

No, not sailors, of course.

Pirates.

Grimy, sea stained and sun bleached, their skin darkened and their clothes faded, each and every one of them with a knife tattooed across his throat. The mark of the pirates of the Copper Thief. She counted seven surrounding her, five tending to the rigging and sails, and assumed another half dozen below deck. Eighteen. Round it up to twenty.

The rail-thin man broke the circle and stepped forward.

“Solase,” he said, spreading his arms. “What my men have in balls, they lack in manners.” He brought his hands to the shoulders of her green dress. There was blood under his nails. “You are shaking.”

“I’ve had a bad night,” said Lila, hoping, as she surveyed the rough crew, that it wasn’t about to get worse.

The thin man smiled, his mouth surprisingly full of teeth. “Anesh,” he said, “but you are in better hands now.”

Lila knew enough about the crew of the Copper Thief to know that was a lie, but she feigned ignorance. “Whose hands would those be?” she asked, as the skeletal figure took her fingers and pressed his cracked lips to her knuckles, ignoring the rope still wound tightly around her wrists. “Baliz Kasnov,” he said. “Illustrious captain of the Copper Thief.”

Perfect. Kasnov was a legend on the Arnesian Sea. His crew was small but nimble, and they had a penchant for boarding ships and slitting throats in the darkest hours before dawn, slipping away with their cargo and leaving the dead behind to rot. He may have looked starved, but he was an alleged glutton for treasure, especially the consumable kind, and Lila knew that the Copper Thief was sailing for the northern coast of a city named Sol in hopes of ambushing the owners of a particularly large shipment of fine liquor. “Baliz Kasnov,” she said, sounding out the name as if she’d never heard it.

“And you are?” he pressed.

“Delilah Bard,” she said. “Formerly of the Golden Fish.”

“Formerly?” prompted Kasnov as his men, obviously bored by the fact she was still clothed, began to tap into the cask. “Well, Miss Bard,” he said, linking his arm through hers conspiratorially. “Why don’t you tell me how you came to be in that little boat? The sea is no place for a fair young lady such as yourself.”

“Vaskens,” she said—pirates—as if she had no idea the word applied to present company. “They stole my ship. It was a gift, from my father, for my wedding. We were meant to sail toward Faro—we set out two nights ago—but they came out of nowhere, stormed the Golden Fish...” She’d practiced this speech, not only the words but the pauses. “They … they killed my husband. My captain. Most of my crew.” Here Lila let herself lapse into English. “It happened so fast—” She caught herself, as if the slip were accidental.

But the captain’s attention snagged, like a fish on a hook. “Where are you from?”

“London,” said Lila, letting her accent show. A murmur went through the group. She pressed on, intent on finishing her story. “The Fish was small,” she said, “but precious. Laden down with a month’s supplies. Food, drink … money. As I said, it was a gift. And now it’s gone.”

But it wasn’t really, not yet. She looked back over the rail. The ship was a smudge of light on the far horizon. It had stopped its retreat and seemed to be waiting. The pirates followed her gaze with hungry eyes.

“How many men?” asked Kasnov.

“Enough,” she said. “Seven? Eight?”

The pirates smiled greedily, and Lila knew what they were thinking. They had more than twice that number, and a ship that hid like a shadow in the dark. If they could catch the fleeing bounty … she could feel Baliz Kasnov’s deep-set eyes scrutinizing her. She stared back at him and wondered, absently, if he could do any magic. Most ships were warded with a handful of spells—things to make their lives safer and more convenient—but she had been surprised to find that most of the men she met at sea had little inclination for the elemental arts. Alucard said that magical proficiency was a valued skill, and that true affinity would usually land one gainful employment on land. Magicians at sea almost always focused on the elements of relevance—water and wind—but few hands could turn the tide, and in the end most still favored good old-fashioned steel. Which Lila could certainly appreciate, having several pieces currently hidden on her person.

“Why did they spare you?” asked Kasnov.

“Did they?” challenged Lila.

The captain licked his lips. He’d already decided what to do about the ship, she could tell; now he was deciding what to do about her. The Copper Thieves had no reputation for mercy.

“Baliz …” said one of the pirates, a man with skin darker than the rest. He clasped the captain’s shoulder and whispered in his ear. Lila could only make out a few of the muttered words. Londoners. Rich. And ransom.

A slow smile spread across the captain’s lips. “Anesh,” he said with a nod. And then, to the entire gathered crew, “Sails up! Course south by west! We have a golden fish to catch.”

The men rumbled their approval.

“My lady,” said Kasnov, leading Lila toward the steps. “You’ve had a hard night. Let me show you to my chamber, where you’ll surely be more comfortable.”

Behind her, she heard the sounds of the cask being opened and the ale being poured, and she smiled as the captain led her belowdecks.

* * *

Kasnov didn’t linger, thank god.

He deposited her in his quarters, the rope still around her wrists, and vanished again, locking the door behind him. To her relief, she’d only seen three men belowdecks. That meant fifteen aboard the Copper Thief.

Lila perched on the edge of the captain’s bed and counted to ten, twenty, then thirty, as the steps sounded above and the ship banked toward her own fleeing vessel. They hadn’t even bothered to search her for weapons, which Lila thought a bit presumptuous as she dug a blade from her boot and, with a single practiced gesture, spun it in her grip and slashed the ropes. They fell to the floor as she rubbed her wrists, humming to herself. A shanty about the Sarows, a phantom said to haunt wayward ships at night.

How do you know when the Sarows is coming?

(Is coming is coming is coming aboard?)

Lila took the waist of her dress in two hands, and ripped; the skirt tore away, revealing close-fitting black pants—holsters pinning a knife above each knee—that tapered into her boots. She took the blade and slid it up the corset at her back, slicing the ribbons so she could breathe.

When the wind dies away but still sings in your ears,

(In your ears in your head in your blood in your bones.)

She tossed the green skirt onto the bed and slit it open from hem to tattered waist. Hidden among the gossamer were half a dozen thin sticks that passed for boning and looked like flares, but were neither. She slid her blade back into her boot and freed the tapers.

When the current goes still but the ship, it drifts along,

(Drifts on drifts away drifts alone.)

Overhead, Lila heard a thud, like dead weight. And then another, and another, as the ale took effect. She took up a piece of black cloth, rubbed charcoal on one side, and tied it over her nose and mouth.

When the moon and the stars all hide from the dark,

(For the dark is not empty at all at all.)

(For the dark is not empty at all.)

The last thing Lila took from deep within the folds of the green skirt was her mask. A black leather face-piece, simple but for the horns that curled with strange and menacing grace over the brow. Lila settled the mask on her nose and tied it in place.

How do you know when the Sarows is coming?

(Is coming is coming is coming aboard?)

A looking glass, half-silvered with age, leaned in the corner of the captain’s cabin, and she caught her reflection as footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Why you don’t and you don’t and you won’t see it coming,

(You won’t see it coming at all.)

Lila smiled behind the mask. And then she turned and pressed her back against the wall. She struck a taper against the wood, the way she had the flares—but unlike flares, no light poured forth, only clouds of pale smoke.

An instant later, the captain’s door burst open, but the pirates were too late. She tossed the pluming taper into the room and heard footsteps stumble, and men cough, before the drugged smoke brought them down.

Two down, thought Lila, stepping over their bodies.

Thirteen to go.

II

No one was steering the ship.

It had banked against the waves and was now breaching, being hit sidelong instead of head-on in a way that made the whole thing rock unpleasantly beneath Lila’s feet.

She was halfway to the stairs before the first pirate barreled into her. He was massive, but his steps were slowed a measure and made clumsy by the drug dissolved in the ale. Lila rolled out of his grip and drove her boot into his sternum, slamming him back into the wall hard enough to crack bones. He groaned and slid down the wooden boards, half a curse across his lips before the toe of her boot met his jaw. His head snapped sideways, then lolled forward against his chest.

Twelve.

Footsteps echoed overhead. She lit another taper and threw it up against the steps just as three more men poured belowdecks. The first saw the smoke and tried to backtrack, but the momentum of the second and third barred his retreat, and soon all three were coughing and gasping and crumpling on the wooden stairs.

Nine.

Lila toed the nearest with her boot, then stepped over and up the steps. She paused at the lip of the deck, hidden in the shadow of the stairs, and watched for signs of life. When she saw none, she dragged the charcoal cloth from her mouth, dragging in deep breaths of crisp winter air before stepping out into the night.

The bodies were strewn across the deck. She counted them as she walked, deducting each from the number of pirates aboard.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

Lila paused, looking down at the men. And then, over by the rail, something moved. She drew one of the knives from its sheath against her thigh—one of her favorites, a thick blade with a grip guard shaped into metal knuckles—and strode toward the shuffling form, humming as she went.

How do you know when the Sarows is coming?

(Is coming is coming is coming aboard?)

The man was crawling on his hands and knees across the deck, his face swollen from the drugged ale. At first Lila didn’t recognize him. But then he looked up, and she saw it was the man who’d carried her aboard. The one with the wandering hands. The one who’d talked about finding her soft places.

“Stupid bitch,” he muttered in Arnesian. It was almost hard to understand him through the wheezing. The drug wasn’t lethal, at least not in low doses (she hadn’t exactly erred on the side of caution with the cask), but it swelled the veins and airways, starving the body of oxygen until the victim passed out.

Looking down at the pirate now, with his face puffy and his lips blue and his breath coming out in ragged gasps, she supposed she might have been too liberal in her measurements. The man was currently trying—and failing—to get to his feet. Lila reached down, tangled the fingers of her free hand in the collar of his shirt, and helped him up.

“What did you call me?” she asked.

“I said,” he wheezed, “stupid … bitch. You’ll pay … for this. I’m gonna—”

He never finished. Lila gave him a sharp shove backward, and he toppled over the rail and crashed down into the sea.

“Show the Sarows some respect,” she muttered, watching him flail briefly and then vanish beneath the surface of the tide.

One.

She heard the boards behind her groan, and she managed to get her knife up the instant before the rope wrapped around her throat. Coarse fibers scraped her neck before she sawed herself free. When she did, she staggered forward and spun to find the captain of the Copper Thief, his eyes sharp, his steps sure.

Baliz Kasnov had not partaken of the ale with his crew.

He tossed the pieces of rope aside, and Lila’s grip tightened on her knife as she braced for a fight, but the captain drew no weapon. Instead, he brought his hands out before him, palms up.

Lila tilted her head, the horns of the mask tipping toward him. “Are you surrendering?” she asked.

The captain’s dark eyes glittered, and his mouth twitched. In the lantern light the knife tattoo across his throat seemed to glint.

“No one takes the Copper Thief,” he said.

His lips moved and his fingers twitched as flames leaped across them. Lila looked down and saw the ruined marking at his feet, and knew what he was about to do. Most ships were warded against fire, but he’d broken the spell. He lunged for the nearest sail, and Lila spun the blade in her hand, then threw. It was ill weighted, with the metal guard on the hilt, and it struck him in the neck instead of the head. He toppled forward, his hands thrown out to break his fall, the conjured fire meeting a coil of ropes instead of sail.

It caught hold, but Kasnov’s own body smothered most of it when he fell. The blood pouring from his neck extinguished more. Only a few tendrils of flame persisted, chewing their way up the ropes. Lila reached out toward the fire; when she closed her fingers into a fist, the flames died.

Lila smiled and retrieved her favorite knife from the dead captain’s throat, wiping the blood from the blade on his clothes. She was sheathing it again when she heard a whistle, and she looked up to see her ship, the Night Spire, drawing up beside the Copper Thief.

Men had gathered along the rail, and she crossed the width of the Thief to greet them, pushing the mask up onto her brow. Most of the men were frowning, but in the center, a tall figure stood, wearing a black sash and an amused smile, his tawny brown hair swept back and a sapphire in his brow. Alucard Emery. Her captain.

“Mas aven,” growled the first mate, Stross, in disbelief.

“Not fucking possible,” said the cook, Olo, surveying the bodies scattered across the deck.

Handsome Vasry and Tavestronask (who went simply by Tav) both applauded, Kobis watched with crossed arms, and Lenos gaped like a fish.

Lila relished the mixture of shock and approval as she went to the rail and spread her arms wide. “Captain,” she said cheerfully. “It appears I have a ship for you.”

Alucard smiled. “It appears you do.”

A plank was laid between the two vessels, and Lila strode deftly across it, never once looking down. She landed on the deck of the Night Spire and turned toward the lanky young man with shadows beneath his eyes, as if he’d never slept. “Pay up, Lenos.”

His brow crinkled. “Captain,” he pleaded, with a nervous laugh.

Alucard shrugged. “You made the bet,” he said. “You and Stross,” he added, nodding to his first mate, a brutish man with a beard. “With your own heads and your own coin.”

And they had. Sure, Lila had boasted that she could take the Copper Thief herself, but they’d been the ones to bet she couldn’t. It had taken her nearly a month to buy enough of the drug for the tapers and ale, a little every time her ship had docked. It was worth it.

“But it was a trick!” countered Lenos.

“Fools,” said Olo, his voice low, thunderous.

“She clearly planned it,” grumbled Stross.

“Yeah,” said Lenos, “how were we supposed to know she’d been planning it?”

“You should have known better than to gamble with Bard in the first place.” Alucard met her gaze and winked. “Rules are rules, and unless you want to be left with the bodies on that ship when we’re done, I suggest you pay my thief her due.”

Stross dragged the purse from his pocket. “How did you do it?” he demanded, shoving the purse into her hands.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Lila, taking the coin. “Only matters that I did.”

Lenos went to forfeit his own purse, but she shook her head. “That’s not what I bet for, and you know it.” Lenos proceeded to slouch even lower than usual as he unstrapped the blade from his forearm.

“Don’t you have enough knives?” he grumbled, his lip thrust forward in a pout.

Lila’s smile sharpened. “No such thing,” she said, wrapping her fingers around the blade. Besides, she thought, this one is special. She’d been coveting the weapon since she first saw Lenos use it, back in Korma.

“I’ll win it back from you,” he mumbled.

Lila patted his shoulder. “You can try.”

“Anesh!” boomed Alucard, pounding his hand on the plank. “Enough standing around, Spires, we’ve got a ship to sack. Take it all. I want those bastards left waking up with nothing in their hands but their own cocks.”

The men cheered, and Lila chuckled despite herself.

She’d never met a man who loved his job more than Alucard Emery. He relished it the way children relish a game, the way men and women relish acting, throwing themselves into their plays with glee and abandon. There was a measure of theatre to everything Alucard did. She wondered how many other parts he could play. Wondered which, if any, were not a part, but the actor beneath.

His eyes found hers in the dark. They were a storm of blue and grey, at times bright and at others almost colorless. He tipped his head wordlessly in the direction of his chambers, and she followed.

Alucard’s cabin smelled as it always did, of summer wine and clean silk and dying embers. He liked nice things, that much was obvious. But unlike collectors or boasters who put their fineries on display only to be seen and envied, all of Alucard’s luxuries looked thoroughly enjoyed.

“Well, Bard,” he said, sliding into English as soon as they were alone. “Are you going to tell me how you managed it?”

“What fun would that be?” she challenged, sinking into one of the two high-backed chairs before his hearth, where a pale fire blazed, as it always did, and two short glasses sat on the table, waiting to be filled. “Mysteries are always more exciting than truths.”

Alucard crossed to the table and took up a bottle, while his white cat, Esa, appeared and brushed against Lila’s boot. “Are you made of anything but mysteries?”

“Were there bets?” she asked, ignoring both him and the cat.

“Of course,” said Alucard, uncorking the bottle. “All kinds of small wagers. Whether you’d drown, whether the Thief would actually pick you up, whether we’d find anything left of you if they did …” He poured amber liquid into the glasses and held one out to Lila. She took it, and as she did, he plucked the horned mask off her head and tossed it onto the table between them. “It was an impressive performance,” he said, sinking into his own chair. “Those aboard who didn’t fear you before tonight surely do now.”

Lila stared into the glass, the way some stared into fire. “There were some aboard who didn’t fear me?” she asked archly.

“Some of them still call you the Sarows, you know,” he rambled on, “when you’re not around. They say it in a whisper, as if they think you can hear.”

“Maybe I can.” She rolled the glass between her fingers.

There was no clever retort, and she looked up from her glass and saw Alucard watching her, as he always did, searching her face the way thieves search pockets, trying to turn something out.

“Well,” he said at last, raising his glass, “to what should we toast? To the Sarows? To Baliz Kasnov and his copper fools? To handsome captains and elegant ships?”

But Lila shook her head. “No,” she said, raising her glass with a sharpened smile. “To the best thief.”

Alucard laughed, soft and soundless. “To the best thief,” he said.

And then he tipped his glass to hers, and they both drank.

III

FOUR MONTHS AGO RED LONDON

Walking away had been easy.

Not looking back was harder.

Lila had felt Kell watching as she strode away, stopping only when she was out of sight. She was alone, again. Free. To go anywhere. Be anyone. But as the light ebbed, her bravado began to falter. Night dragged itself across the city, and she began to feel less like a conqueror and more like a girl alone in a foreign world with no grasp of the language and nothing in her pockets save for Kell’s parting gift (an element set), her silver watch, and the handful of coins she’d nicked from a palace guard before she left.

She’d had less, to be sure, but she’d also had more.

And she knew enough to know she wouldn’t make it far, not without a ship.

She clicked the pocket watch open and closed and watched the outlines of the crafts bob on the river, the Isle’s red glow more marked in the settling dark. She had her eyes on one ship in particular, had been watching, coveting, all day. It was a gorgeous vessel, its hull and masts carved from dark wood and trimmed in silver, its sails shifting from midnight blue to black, depending on the light. A name ran along its hull—Saren Noche—and she would later learn that it meant Night Spire. For now she only knew that she wanted it. But she couldn’t simply storm a fully manned craft and claim it as her own. She was good, but she wasn’t that good. And then there was the grim fact that Lila didn’t technically know how to sail. So she leaned against a smooth stone wall, her black attire blending into the shadows, and watched, the gentle rocking of the boat and the noise of the Night Market farther up the bank drawing her into a kind of trance.

A trance that broke when half a dozen men stomped off the ship’s deck and down the plank in heavy boots, coins jingling in their pockets, raucous laughter in their throats. The ship had been preparing for sea all day, and the men had a manic enthusiasm that spoke of a last night on land. They looked eager to enjoy it. One kicked up a shanty, and the others caught it, carrying the song with them toward the taverns.

Lila snapped the pocket watch closed, pushed off the wall, and followed.

She had no disguise, only her clothes, which were a man’s cut, and her dark hair, which fell into her eyes, and her own features, which she drew into sharp lines. Lowering her voice, she hoped she could pass for a slender young man. Masks could be worn in darkened alleys and to masquerade balls, but not in taverns. Not without drawing more attention than they were worth.

The men ahead disappeared into an establishment. It had no obvious name, but the sign above the door was made of metal, a shimmering copper that twisted and curled into waves around a silver compass. Lila smoothed her coat, turned up its collar, and went inside.

The smell hit her at once.

Not foul or stale, like the dockside taverns she’d known, or flower scented like the Red royal palace, but warm and simple and filling, the aroma of fresh stew mixing with tendrils of pipe smoke and the distant salt of sea.

Fires burned in corner hearths, and the bar stood not along one wall but in the very center of the room, a curved metal circle that mimicked the compass on the door. It was an incredible piece of craftsmanship, a single piece of silver, its spokes trailing off toward the four hearth fires.

This was a sailors’ tavern unlike any she’d ever seen, with hardly any bloodstains on the floors or fights threatening to spill out onto the street. The Barren Tide, back in Lila’s London—no, not hers, not anymore—had serviced a far rougher crowd, but here half the men wore royal colors, clearly in the service of the crown. The rest were an assortment, but none bore the haggard look and hungry eyes of desperation. Many—like the men she’d followed in—were sea tanned and weather worn, but even their boots looked polished and their weapons well sheathed.

Lila let her hair fall in front of her blind eye, wrangled a quiet arrogance, and sauntered up to the counter.

“Avan,” said the bartender, a lean man with friendly eyes. A memory hit her—Barron back at the Stone’s Throw, with his stern warmth and stoic calm—but she got her guard up before the blow could land. She slid onto the stool and the bartender asked her a question, and even though she didn’t know the words, she could guess at their meaning. She tapped the near-empty glass of a beverage beside her, and the man turned away to fetch the drink. It appeared an instant later, a lovely, frothing ale the color of sand, and Lila took a long, steadying sip.

A quarter turn around the bar, a man was fiddling absently with his coins, and it took Lila a moment to realize he wasn’t actually touching them. The metal wound its way around his fingers and under his palms as if by magic, which of course it was. Another man, around the other side, snapped his fingers and lit his pipe with the flame that hovered at the tip of his thumb. The gestures didn’t startle her, and she wondered at that; only a week in this world, and it seemed more natural to her than Grey London ever had.

She turned in her seat and picked out the men from the Night Spire now scattered around the room. Two talking beside a hearth, one being drawn by a well-endowed woman into the nearest shadow, and three settling in to play a card game with a couple of sailors in red and gold. One of those three caught Lila’s eye, not because he was particularly good-looking—he was in fact, quite ugly, from what she could see through the forest of hair across his face—but because he was cheating.

At least, she thought he was cheating. She couldn’t be certain, since the game seemed to have suspiciously few rules. Still, she was certain she’d seen him pocket a card and produce another. His hand was fast, but not as fast as her eye. She felt the challenge tickle her nerves as her gaze trailed from his fingers to his seat on a low stool, where his purse rested on the wood. The purse was tethered to his belt by a leather strap, and looked heavy with coins. Lila’s hand drifted to her hip, where a short, sharp knife was sheathed. She drew it free.

Reckless, whispered a voice in her head, and she was rather disconcerted to find that where once the voice had sounded like Barron, it now sounded like Kell. She shoved it aside, her blood rising with the risk, only to halt sharply when the man turned and looked straight at her—no, not at her, at the barkeep just behind her. He gestured to the table in the universal signal of more drinks.

Lila finished her drink and dropped a few coins on the counter, watching as the barkeep loaded the round of drinks onto a tray and a second man appeared to carry the order to its table.

She saw her chance, and got to her feet.

The room swayed once in the wake of the ale, the drink stronger than she was used to, but it quickly settled. She followed the man with the tray, her eyes fixed on the door beyond him even as her boot caught his heel. He stumbled, and managed to save his own balance, but not the tray’s; drinks and glasses tumbled forward onto the table, sweeping half the cards away on a crest of spilled ale. The group erupted, cursing and shouting and pushing to their feet, trying to salvage coin and cloth, and by the time the sorry servant could turn to see who’d tripped him, the hem of Lila’s black coat was already vanishing through the door.

* * *

Lila ambled down the street, the gambler’s stolen purse hanging from one hand. Being a good thief wasn’t just about fast fingers. It was about turning situations into opportunities. She hefted the purse, smiling at its weight. Her blood sang triumphantly.

And then, behind her, someone shouted.

She turned to find herself face to face with the bearded fellow she’d just robbed. She didn’t bother denying it—she didn’t know enough Arnesian to try, and the purse was still hanging from her fingers. Instead, she pocketed the take and prepared for a fight. The man was twice her size across, and a foot taller, and between one step and the next a curved blade appeared in his hands, a miniature version of a scythe. He said something to her, a low grumble of an order. Perhaps he was giving her a chance to leave the stolen prize and walk away intact. But she doubted his wounded pride would allow that, and even if it did, she needed the money enough to risk it. People survived by being cautious, but they got ahead by being bold.

“Finders keepers,” she said, watching surprise light up the man’s features. Hell. Kell had warned her that English had a purpose and a place in this world. It lived among royals, not pirates. If she was going to make it at sea, she’d have to mind her tongue until she learned a new one.

The bearded man muttered something, running a hand along the curve of his knife. It looked very, very sharp.

Lila sighed and drew her own weapon, a jagged blade with a handle fitted for a fist, its metal knuckles curved into a guard. And then, after considering her opponent again, she drew a second blade. The short, sharp one she’d used to knick the purse.

“You know,” she said in English, since there was no one else around to hear. “You can still walk away from this.”

The bearded man spat a sentence at her that ended with pilse. It was one of the only Arnesian words Lila knew. And she knew it wasn’t nice. She was still busy being offended when the man lunged. Lila leaped back and caught the scythe with both blades, the sound of metal on metal ringing shrilly through the street. Even with the slosh of the sea and the noise of the taverns, they wouldn’t be alone for long.

She shoved off the blade, fighting to regain her balance, and jerked away as he slashed again, this time missing her throat by a hair’s breadth.

Lila ducked, and spun, and rose, catching the scythe’s newest slash with her main knife, the weapons sliding until his blade fetched up against her dagger’s guard. She twisted the knife free and came over the top of the scythe, slamming the metal knuckles of her grip into the man’s jaw. Before he could recover, she came under with the second blade and buried it between his ribs. He coughed, blood streaking his beard, and went to slash at her with his remaining strength, but Lila forced the assaulting weapon up, through organ and behind bone, and at last the man’s scythe tumbled away and his body went slack.

For an instant, another death flashed in her mind, another body on her blade, a boy in a castle in a bleak, white world. Not her first kill, but the first that stuck. The first that hurt. The memory flickered and died, and she was back on the docks again, the guilt bleeding out with the man’s life. It had happened so fast.

She pulled free and let him collapse to the street, her ears still ringing from the clash of blades and the thrill of the fight. She took a few steadying breaths, then turned to run, and found herself face to face with the five other men from the ship.

A murmur passed through the crew.

Weapons were drawn.

Lila swore beneath her breath, her eyes straying for an instant to the palace arcing over the river behind them, as a weak thought flickered through her—she should have stayed, could have stayed, would have been safe—but Lila tamped it out and clutched her knives.

She was Delilah Bard, and she would live or die on her own damn—

A fist connected with her stomach, shattering the train of thought. A second collided with her jaw. Lila went down hard in the street, one knife skittering from her grip as her vision was shattered by starbursts. She fought to her hands and knees, clutching the second blade, but a boot came down hard on her wrist. Another met her ribs. Something caught her in the side of the head, and the world slipped out of focus for several long moments, shuddering back into shape only as strong hands dragged her to her feet. A sword came to rest under her chin, and she braced herself, but her world didn’t end with a bite of the blade.

Instead, a leather strap, not unlike the one she’d cut to free the purse, was wrapped around her wrists and cinched tight, and she was forced down the docks.

The men’s voices filled her head like static, one word bouncing back and forth more than the rest.

Casero. She didn’t know what it meant.

She tasted blood, but she couldn’t tell if it was coming from her nose or her mouth or her throat. It wouldn’t matter, if they were planning to dump her body in the Isle (unless that was sacrilegious, which made Lila wonder what people here did with their dead), but after several moments of heated discussion, she was marched up the plank onto the ship she’d spent all afternoon watching. She heard a thud and looked back to see a man set the bearded corpse on the plank. Interesting, she thought, dully. The men didn’t carry it aboard.

All the while, Lila held her tongue, and her silence only seemed to rattle the crew. They shouted at each other, and at her. More men appeared. More calls for casero. Lila wished she’d had more than a handful of days to study Arnesian. Did casero mean trial? Death? Murder?

And then a man strode across the deck, wearing a black sash and an elegant hat, a gleaming sword and a dangerous smile, and the shouting stopped, and Lila understood.

Casero meant captain.

* * *

The captain of the Night Spire was striking. And strikingly young. His skin was sea tanned but smooth; his hair, a rich brown threaded with brass, was pinned back with an elegant clasp. His eyes, a blue so dark they were almost black, went from the body on the plank, to the crowd of gathered men, to Lila. A sapphire glittered in his left brow.

“Kers la?” he asked.

The five who’d dragged Lila on board broke into noise. She didn’t even try to follow along and pick out words as they railed on around her. Instead she kept her eyes on the captain, and though he was obviously listening to their claims, he kept his eyes on her. When they’d burned themselves out, the captain began to interrogate her—or at least ramble at her. He didn’t seem particularly angry, simply put out. He pinched the bridge of his nose and spoke very fast, obviously unaware of the fact she didn’t know more than a few words of Arnesian. Lila waited for him to realize, and eventually he must have recognized the emptiness in her stare for lack of comprehension, because he trailed off.

“Shast,” he muttered under his breath, and then started up again, slowly, trying out several other languages, each either more guttural or more fluid than Arnesian, hoping to catch the light of understanding in her eyes, but Lila could only shake her head. She knew a few words of French, but that probably wouldn’t help her in this world. There was no France here.

“Anesh,” said the captain at last, an Arnesian word that as far as Lila could tell was a general sound of assent. “Ta …” He pointed at her. “… vasar …” He drew a line across his throat. “… mas …” He pointed at himself. “… eran gast.” With that, he pointed at the body of the man she’d gutted.

Gast. She knew that word already. Thief.

“Ta vasar mas eran gast.”

You killed my best thief.

Lila smiled despite herself, adding the new words to her meager arsenal.

“Vasar es,” said one of the men, pointing at Lila. Kill her. Or perhaps, Kill him, since Lila was pretty sure they hadn’t figured out yet that she was a girl. And she had no intention of informing them. She might have been a long way from home, but some things didn’t change, and she’d rather be a man, even if that meant a dead one. And the crew seemed to be gunning for that end, as a murmur of approval went through the group, punctuated by vasar.

The captain ran a hand over his hair, obviously considering it. He raised a brow at Lila as if to say, Well? What would you have me do?

Lila had an idea. It was a very stupid idea. But a stupid idea was better than no idea, at least in theory. So she dragged the words into shape and delivered them with her sharpest smile. “Nas,” she said, slowly. “An to eran gast.”

No. I am your best thief.

She held the captain’s gaze when she said it, her chin high and proud. The others grumbled and growled, but to her they didn’t matter, didn’t exist. The world narrowed to Lila and the captain of the ship.

His smile was almost imperceptible. The barest quirk of his lips.

Others were less amused by her show. Two of them advanced on her, and in the time it took Lila to retreat a matching step, she had another knife in hand. Which was a feat, considering the leather strap that bound her wrists. The captain whistled, and she couldn’t tell if it was an order for his men, or a sound of approval. It didn’t matter. A fist slammed into her back and she staggered forward into the captain, who caught her wrists and pressed a groove between her bones. Pain shot up her arm, and the knife clattered to the deck. She glared up into the captain’s face. It was only inches from her own, and when his eyes bore into hers, she felt them searching.

“Eran gast?” he said. “Anesh …” And then, to her surprise, the captain let her go. He tapped his coat. “Casero Alucard Emery,” he said, drawing out the syllables. Then he pointed at her with a questioning look.

“Bard,” she said.

He nodded, once, thinking, and then turned to his waiting crew. He began addressing them, the words too smooth and fast for Lila to decipher. He gestured to the body on the plank, and then to her. The crew did not seem pleased, but the captain was the captain for a reason, and they listened. And when he was finished, they stood, still and sullen. Captain Emery turned and made his way back across the deck to a set of stairs that plunged down into the ship’s hull.

When his boot touched the first step, he stopped and looked back with a new smile, this one sharp.

“Nas vasar!” he ordered. No killing.

And then he gave Lila a look that said, Good luck, and vanished belowdecks.

* * *

The men wrapped the body in canvas and set it back on the dock.

Superstition, she guessed, about bringing the dead aboard. A gold coin was placed on the man’s forehead, perhaps as payment for disposal. From what Lila could tell, Red London wasn’t a particularly religious place. If these men worshipped anything, they worshipped magic, which she supposed would be heresy back in Grey London. But then again, Christians worshipped an old man in the sky, and if Lila had to say which one seemed more real at the moment, she’d have to side with magic.

Luckily, she’d never been devout. Never believed in higher powers, never attended church, never prayed before bed. In fact, the only person Lila had ever prayed to was herself.

She considered nicking the gold coin, but god or not, that seemed wrong, so she stood on the deck and watched the proceedings with resignation. It was hard to feel bad about killing the man—he would have killed her—and none of the other sailors seemed terribly broken up over the loss itself … but then again, Lila supposed she was in no place to judge a person’s worth by who would miss them. Not with the closest thing she’d had to family rotting a world away. Who had found Barron? Who had buried him? She shoved the questions down. They wouldn’t bring him back.

The huddle of men trudged back aboard. One of them walked straight up to Lila, and she recognized her knuckle-hilted dagger in his grip. He grumbled something under his breath, then raised the knife and buried its tip in a crate beside her head. To his credit, it wasn’t in her head, and to hers, she didn’t flinch. She brought her bound wrists around the blade and pulled down in a single sharp motion, freeing herself from the cord.

The ship was almost ready to set sail, and Lila appeared to have earned a place on it, though she wasn’t entirely sure if it was as prisoner, cargo, or crew. A light rain began to fall, but she stayed on deck and out of the way as the Night Spire cast off, her heart racing as the ship drifted out into the middle of the Isle and turned its back on the glittering city. Lila gripped the rail at the Spire’s stern and watched Red London shrink in the distance. She stood until her hands were stiff with cold, and the madness of what she was doing settled into her bones.

Then the captain barked her name—“Bard!”—and pointed at a group struggling with the crates, and she went to lend a hand. Just like that—only not just like that, of course, for there were many taut nights and fights won, first against and then beside the other men, and blood spilled and ships taken—Lila Bard became a member of the Night Spire’s crew.

IV

Once aboard the Night Spire, Lila barely said a word (Kell would have been thrilled). She spent every moment trying to learn Arnesian, cobbling together a vocabulary—but as fast as she was on the uptake, it was still easier to simply listen than engage.

The crew spent a fair amount of time tossing words her way, trying to figure out her native tongue, but it was Alucard Emery who found her out.

Lila had only been on board a week when the captain stumbled across her one night cussing at Caster, her flintlock, for being a waterlogged piece of shit with its last bullet jammed in the barrel.

“Well, this is a surprise.”

Lila looked up and saw Alucard standing there. At first she thought her Arnesian must be improving, because she understood his words without thinking, but then she realized he wasn’t speaking Arnesian. He was speaking English. Not only that, but his accent had the crisp enunciation and smooth execution of someone fluent in the royal tongue. Not like the court-climbers who fumbled over words, offering them up like a party trick. No, like Kell, or Rhy. Someone who had been raised with it balanced on their lips.

A world away, in the grey streets of Lila’s old city, that fluency would mean little, but here, it meant neither of them were simple sailors.

In a last-ditch effort at salvaging her secret, Lila pretended not to understand him. “Oh don’t go dumb on me now, Bard,” he said. “You’re just becoming interesting.”

They were alone on the stretch of ship, tucked beneath the lip of the upper deck. Lila’s fingers drifted to the knife at her waist, but Alucard held up a hand.

“Why don’t we take this conversation to my chambers?” he asked, eyes glinting. “Unless you want to make a scene.”

Lila supposed it would be better not to slit the captain’s throat in plain sight.

No, it could be done in private.

* * *

The moment they were alone, Lila spun on him. “You speak Eng—” she started, then caught herself. “High Royal.” That was what they called it here.

“Obviously,” said Alucard before sliding effortlessly into Arnesian. “But it is not my native tongue.”

“Tac,” countered Lila in the same language. “Who says it is mine?”

Alucard gave her a playful grin and returned to English. “First, because your Arnesian is awful,” he chided. “And second, because it’s a law of the universe that all men swear in their native tongue. And I must say, your usage was quite colorful.”

Lila clenched her teeth, annoyed at her mistake as Alucard led her into his cabin. It was elegant but cozy, with a bed in a nook along one wall and a hearth along the other, two high-backed chairs before a pale fire. A white cat lay curled on a dark wooden desk, like a paperweight atop the maps. It flicked its tail at their arrival and opened one lavender eye as Alucard crossed to the desk, riffling through some papers. He scratched the cat absently behind the ears.

“Esa,” he said, by way of introduction. “Mistress of my ship.”