A Daughter of No Nation (42 page)

“If he will.”

“You could update Kir Gracechild while you're at it.”

“I'll leave that to Verena.” They had to come up with an official-looking forensic institute charter anyway.

Tonio pursed his lips. “Verena is no Gale Feliachild.”

“Yet! She's seventeen. Was Gale born good at all this?”

He looked faintly surprised. “How old should she be?”

“Come on, when did you start working?”

“I took up sailing as a second career at fifteen. Before that, I helped keep the books in my family store.”

“Seriously?”

“The nations of the Fleet aren't the outlands,” Tonio said. “On Erinth, one is expected to make oneself useful.”

“At home, if a lovestruck seventeen-year-old behaves stupidly, you give them time to get over it.”

He shrugged. “Verena has chosen being a Fleetwoman over being outlandish. Now she must sail that course.”

Sophie felt a pang: that made it sound so simple. “As a rude, crude outlander myself,” she murmured, changing the subject, “I might ask what info you went seeking on Issle Morta.”

“A necessary and terrible burden,” he whispered, then seemed to catch himself. “One I may yet share with you.”

“May?”

“Do you need another burden at present, Kir?” He smiled. “Give it some thought.”

She squeezed his shoulder affectionately, then climbed up the rigging to join Verena and Parrish. The exercise was gratifying: the strength she'd spent all those months building was there at her beck and call. “What are we looking at?”

“Watching for sea specters,” Parrish said.

“Orcas,” Verena translated.

She turned her eye to the water. They were well east of Mount Rainier now, sailing over what should have been Nebraska. Was the corpse of the state below them—highways, bones, and buildings, sheet glass and I-beams, all submerged and waiting?

She'd have to read up on underwater archaeology techniques. If anything of Erstwhile could be found after millions of years, it might be fossilized in sedimentary layers under the depths.

She imagined splitting a couple layers of shale and finding a Coke bottle or tire treads between them. It was an oddly depressing thought.

“There!” Parrish pointed. What broke the water wasn't an orca but a sea lion, first one and then dozens, a whole curse of sea lions racing eastward.

The orcas would be in pursuit, then, she guessed, and in time the sea revealed them, a pod back behind the flashes of brown fur, both species arcing through the water as they exchanged old air for new, their bodies breaking the surface.

Sophie touched the note in her pocket. It was gone.

Parrish twinkled at her from nearby.

*   *   *

She found a reply in her cabin that night.
Three bells,
it suggested.
In the hold?

When else would they date but when Verena was finally asleep?

She lay awake and agitated until the appointed time, then made her way down, fifteen minutes early, flinching at every thump and creak of wood.

Parrish was waiting, laying out a small meal on a tablecloth he had draped over a trunk. It was simple fare—a few of the savory breads that closed out each meal, a sliced sausage. Two marionettes lay to one side.

“Puppets?” She kept her voice low.

“You mentioned entertainment.”

“You're gonna entertain me?”

“We might entertain each other—what is it?”

“Nothing,” she said, knowing she'd cracked another huge smile and hoping it didn't look too lascivious.

“It's the best we can do, under the circumstances.”

Sophie sighed. “The best we can do is be honest with Verena.”

“I have discussed this with her.”

“On the hike up to the monastery? So that is why she was so pissed?”

“Her distress has been building for some time. Losing Gale, then struggling to fill her shoes. I always believed she would outgrow her infatuation with … that she'd find someone.”

“Before you did?” She sat, picked up a slice of sausage in one hand and a marionette—a sailor—in the other. She fiddled with making it dance.

He picked up the second, a lady—from the hair—in Fleet uniform, maneuvering it through a low bow.

What to say? Her mind churned up possibilities:
Tell me about your affair with Langda Pike, what'll you do if Verena gets fired, does Annela really think I'm a spy?

Parrish looked similarly at a loss for a topic.

They covered it by concentrating on the marionettes. Sophie tried to copy Parrish's bow, then dance-hopped over to the uniformed woman. She managed to lay her marionette's hand on his.

Their eyes met and Sophie suddenly decided that petting by proxy was not enough.

I'm allowed to want things.

She set the puppet aside, wiped her fingers on her napkin and stood, skirting the makeshift table. Imitating the marionette's abrupt movement, she caught at Parrish's hand.

A little jolt ran through him, and a muscle twitched in his cheek.

Don't overthink this, she told herself, but as she stepped closer she felt it again, some stiffness, a sense of hesitation.

“Do you think I'm a slut?” The question rose, unbidden, to her lips. Parrish's jaw dropped.

“I—”

“I wouldn't necessarily blame you. I mean, I had that fling with Lais Dariach, and—”

“I may have envied Kir Dariach a little.”

“That's weirdly gracious of you.”

“It is…” He seemed to founder. “It is Verdanii custom to have numerous—”

“You're okay with me having
numerous
?”

“No!”

Why was she pursuing this?

He bit his plummy lips. “Is that what you want? Many lovers?”

She shook her head emphatically. “Wow, this is so not first-date conversation. This is sleepless, middle of the night after the third time we—”

She barely managed to run that sentence aground. From the look on his face, Parrish had followed her thought just fine.

“Don't you just have some kind of out-of-the-box boyfriend-girlfriend, spend-time-together, discover-if-we're-compatible kind of customs?”

“Compatible. Are you talking about pheromones again?”

“Why does that bug you? We should be Tru Luv Always, like Corsetta and Rashad?”

“I—” Then he said, “You must feel, at the least, some emotional pull?”

Jeez, now he's broken out a can of extra prissy.

“All I asked is aren't there any see-if-it-works, give-it-a-try, don't-date-anyone-else-in-the-meantime relationships here?”

He nodded stiffly. “If that's what you want.”

Now her temper, unaccountably, was rising. “Yeah, put it all on me. What do you want, Parrish?”

“I do. Want.” He swallowed. “You.”

“You seem pretty damned unhappy about that. Is it guilt? Over Verena's crush on you?”

“No. It's unfortunate, but…”

This was silly, Sophie realized. The government might well pack her off home whether she did or didn't get Beatrice out of the jam she was in. She'd lost her feather-light claim on Stormwrack citizenship, and getting to know Cly had been a bust. Now this thing with Parrish was alienating the only remaining biological relative she'd found who'd shown any interest in getting to know her.

I should declare this a mistake and go back to bed, she thought, but instead she just stood there, fists clenched, feeling just about ready to hit him. “Well?”

Parrish was visibly struggling for control. “I have a hunch this isn't first-date talk, either.”

“Tell me what's wrong, Parrish, please.”

He sat, reached for one of the puppets, and frowned at his hand. It was—no, he wasn't trembling, he couldn't be. “I am guilty.”

“Not over Verena.”

“When your aunt Gale was born, her relations worked an intention on her; the Verdanii Allmother wanted to know her future.”

“This is the thing about how she was supposed to be murdered.”

He looked surprised.

“The old onionskin guy mentioned it, remember? It was predicted at her birth?”

“Who else has discussed this with you?” Sharp tone now.

“Nobody. Jeez!”

Again, he seemed to need time to master himself. “It was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gale's parents scripped her inconspicuous, to lower her profile.”

“Make her less of a target?”

“It made her perfect for a career in espionage. Where the hazards are considerable, obviously.”

Sophie fought an urge to actually wring her hands. Whatever she'd expected, it wasn't one of Parrish's long and wayward parables. She was acutely stressed. And he, he was fighting to bring this … whatever this was to the surface. It was like he was vomiting glass.

“When she first set out on
Nightjar,
the ship was captained by a fellow named Royl Sloot. From Tallon, not that it matters.” A faint, pained smile. “I'm not sure what's wrong with me. What's your Anglay word? Babbling.”

“About Sloot,” Sophie said, just to break in.

“None of her family expected Gale to live to adulthood. Once she joined the Watch … well, of course she wouldn't see her twentieth birthday. Her twenty-fifth. Her thirtieth.”

“But she did.”

“The fetes kept coming. Her idea had been that Captain Sloot would be there, when it happened, when she was—” He swallowed.

“Was killed.” It had been so fast. The mezmers breaking in through the balcony of the apartment in Erinth, the brawl, the stink of them. Gale's neck, snapping—

Okay, stop crying, just listen to him.

“Sloot retired,” Parrish said, as if this were the saddest thing that had ever befallen anyone. She could almost hear violins in the background. “Gale was in good health, still working, and so far, no murder.”

She wiped her face. What was wrong with her? “And so—you.”

“Me.” His eyes were swimming. “Sophie, I—”

This was crazy. She kissed him.

It was a good move, as far as it went: her Ping-Ponging emotions slammed over into lust and he grabbed her almost roughly in response. Their lips locked, tongues met, and there was real heat there—

Rattling at the hatch made them both jump apart, guilty as killers standing over a body. Bram leaned in from the deck above, taking in the tablecloth and puppets.

“Jeez,” he said. “I'm sorry.”

“Not at all.” Parrish drew in a shuddery breath that was almost a sob. “Join us?”

“What, for your intimate tête-à-tête in the basement?”

“It's called the hold. What do you want?” Sophie said, feeling enraged and bitchy. “Are you seasick again?”

“I heard something.”

“Like us
talking
?” She emphasized the “talking.”

“You're not quiet, you know,” he said. “But no. Music. Don't you hear it?”

“Teeth!” Parrish was suddenly in motion, running past her to the ladder, climbing past Bram hastily. “All hands on deck, all hands on deck! Sound the alarm!”

A bell began to toll.

“So,” Bram said, into the clamor, “Good date?”

“I asked if he thought I was a slut, he countered with the Commitment Talk—”

“Never your best event, traditionally.”

“Shut up. It all segued into the history of Gale's career in the Fleet, complete with prenatal death threats from beyond.”

“Yeah, it looked like a history lesson.”

“Keep it up. I'll leave a cockroach in your bunk.” She was more irritated than was reasonable.

“Nice. Very mature, Ducks.”

“You need to stop—”

Now she could hear it, too, the high-pitched, sweet, and faintly metallic chord she had taken for imaginary violin music. It was wordless, almost a combination of human choir and the call of cicadas. The whole crew was tramping up to the sailing deck. Parrish was shouting, “All hands on deck, now,
now
!”

“Guess he means us, too.”

They were practically the last up the ladder. Tonio had an upbeat, roguish look to him. He tipped Sophie a wink and leered, just a little, at Bram.

Sophie felt the change as soon as she hit the open air. Her horror over Gale's murder freshened, like a scab torn off a recent wound, and at the same time her desire for Parrish notched up to an intensity that bordered on the painful. The knife's edge of stress about how pointless and stupid it would be to pursue anything with him got worse, as did the heat of how much she wanted to.

That feeling of being torn, wanting to be here on Stormwrack without hurting her parents or abandoning San Francisco, battered her like a typhoon.

“Are you kidding me?” Bram said. “You have sirens here?”

Parrish and Watts were going from crew member to crew member, peering into their eyes, grilling them, rapid-fire questions in a mixture of languages.

“Find Verena, Sophie,” Parrish said. “Find her now.”

“There.” Tonio pointed. She'd climbed the rigging again and was edging out across the mainsail's top spar.

Sophie scrambled after her.

Her sister was atop the mainsail, hanging out over the edge, looking down at the black waters.

“Verena, you okay?” In the light thrown by the ship's lamps, Sophie saw faces in the water—round, lamprey-like mouths, faces that reminded her of the Chinese dragons that danced every Lunar New Year in Chinatown celebrations.

“Leave me alone!”

“You showed me these,” she said, “in the pet market in Fleet. They were the size of fingers.”

The animals surrounding them were as big as beluga whales, with huge, lash-fringed eyes the color of citrine, and sharp teeth. Some waited just below the surface, barely visible. As she watched, one rose, frothily clearing its blowhole before adding another note to the hum.