Blue Sea Burning (15 page)

Quint shook his head. “Could be longer, Cap.”

“So there's that. Rooms and hot baths will be ready in short order at the Four Winds. Please treat the townspeople with respect. And for Savior's sake, try not to get
really
drunk until after sunset.”

Half an hour later, the money had been doled out to the crew. Kira, Guts, and I sat on a railing at the end of the dock, eating the leftover jelly bread they'd gotten from the baker's—it was pretty good, although it would have been better hot—and watching a steady stream of newly flush pirates head into town, their pants sagging and clinking under the weight of all that silver.

Guts shook his head. “Pirates with money. Gonna get ugly.”

I had to agree. I'd seen what had happened with the field pirates when they were let loose in Port Scratch with fifty silver each—and that had been a lot less money, and a much less breakable town. Healy's men were less ragged and desperate than the field pirates. But they were still pirates. And after what they'd been through the past few days, they were primed to blow off quite a lot of steam.

Kira hopped off the railing. “We need to find Mr. Dalrymple before things get out of hand.”

Kira's former tutor lived about fifteen minutes' walk from the port, on one of the narrow side streets that snaked through the hills above the town center. As she led us up one street after another, I wondered how she knew where she was going—but then I remembered she'd lived in Edgartown for more than a year, when her father was trying to get the Governor-General's help to stop Pembroke's slave trade.

Finally, she turned us up a red brick sidewalk that led through a small, well-kept garden to a little green house with white trim. As we approached the door, we heard voices through the open front window.

“And the square root of nine is . . . ?” It was a thin, slightly musical voice, and Kira beamed when she heard it.

“Five?” a boy's voice answered.

“Is it?”

“Four?”

“Now, Trevor, don't go guessing willy-nilly—”

Kira knocked on the door.

“Just a moment!”

“Three?”

“Very good. But we don't guess. We memorize. Sit still and look at your squares. Back in a sec.”

The front door opened to reveal a man in a crisp shirt and an unbuttoned sweater who looked exactly like his voice—thin, slightly musical, with kind eyes and unkempt silver hair combed over a poorly hidden bald spot.

Mr. Dalrymple and Kira took one look at each other and both started to cry.

“Oh, my dear . . . !”

There was a lot of hugging, and tears, and a whole series of
oh, my dear!
s from the tutor. It went on long enough that Guts and I started to feel a little awkward.

As I watched them, I wondered what the reunion would be like if I ever ran into my own former tutor—cruel, stupid, lazy Percy, who'd betrayed me to Pembroke and wound up getting run off our plantation after Millicent shot him through the arm.

There'd be a lot less hugging, for one thing. And there might be an
oh, my dear!
or two, but they'd be delivered in a very different tone of voice.

Eventually, Kira and Mr. Dalrymple managed to pull themselves together. She introduced us, then tried to explain how we'd wound up on his doorstep. But the story was too confusing, and he quickly lost the thread of it.

“Come in, come in!” he said. “Plenty of time for all of that.”

The interior was remarkably tidy and smelled of fresh-brewed tea—and when the nine-year-old boy who'd just had his math lesson interrupted scrunched up his nose at our arrival, I remembered we were still overdue for a bath.

“Come, come,” Mr. Dalrymple said. “You can wait in the kitchen and have a pot of tea, and as soon as Trevor's finished his lesson, we'll get caught up. Did you know Makaro is here?”

Kira's eyes widened. “Here in Edgartown?”

“Yes! At the moment, he's up in the hills collecting berries. But he'll back shortly. He's staying with me.”

Kira turned to us, her eyes shining. “Makaro is Okalu. An elder. He can translate the map!”

“What map?” asked Mr. Dalrymple.

“We have a map that leads to the Fist of Ka,” she told him.

Now it was Mr. Dalrymple's eyes that widened. “You don't say? Mercy! The gods must finally be smiling on your people. Why, just the other day—”

He poked his head in the living room to make sure his young student wasn't listening. Then he continued in a hushed voice. “Just the other day, two teenagers from Sunrise Island showed up demanding an audience with the Governor-General. Said they had evidence of slavery in the silver mine. Course, they got thrown in jail for their trouble, but it was—”

“What teenagers?” I blurted out.

“I'm sorry?”

“Who were they?” My heart was hammering against my chest.

“I don't know. Rumor was, they were children of some mining executives—”

“Did you see them? What'd they look like?”

“I didn't. But I'm told they were quite the handsome pair.”

“Handsome? So . . . they were boys?”

My heart skipped a beat, then started to settle down.

“No. A boy and a girl. He was older than her, I think.”

Just like that, it was hammering again. “Where are they now?”

“Still in the jail. Waiting for their fathers to—”

“Where's the jail?”

“Straight down the hill.”

Jail

“EGG! WAIT!”

I was barreling down the hill toward the middle of town. Kira and Guts were somewhere behind me.

“Stop!”

I wouldn't have stopped, except it had just dawned on me that I had no idea where the jail was. I let them catch up.

“That was very rude to Mr. Dal—”

“Is this the right direction?”

Kira nodded, panting for breath. “Bottom of the hill. First big street to your right. But don't you think we should talk about how we're going to—”

I took off again.

“Egg!”

I couldn't wait.

Millicent's here.

With Cyril.

Best not to think about that part.

The jail was a wide, low stone building in the middle of town. There wasn't any kind of sign on it that said
JAIL
, but it was the only building on the block that had iron bars on its windows, so I figured I was in the right place.

I pushed open the heavy door and found myself inside a small entry room manned by two Rovian soldiers. One of them was seated at a large desk, filling out paperwork. The other was hunched over the far end of the desk, playing cards with himself.

There was an iron door against the back wall.

“Is there a girl from Sunrise Island here?”

They both looked up at me.

“What of it?” asked the one at the desk.

“I need to see her. Please.”

“On whose authority?”

“Burn—I mean, Mr. Lo—I mean, Commodore Longtrousers.”

The soldiers looked at each other with concern. The card-playing one shrugged.

The one at the desk got up, pulled open the iron door, and gestured for me to go inside. As I started to pass, he stopped me and took the pistol from my hand.

“Forgot I had that. Sorry.” I'd been holding it so it wouldn't fall out of my pants as I ran.

“Mmm.”

As I walked through the inner door, I heard Kira and Guts burst into the room behind me, but I didn't stop to wait.

The jail was split into three iron-barred cells, side by side with a corridor running the length of the room in front of them. There was a single, wide bench in each cell, along with a wooden bucket.

A heavyset, grimy-looking man was asleep on the bench in the first cell.

The second cell was empty.

I walked on to the third cell.

As I approached, I saw a young man sitting up on the end of the bench nearest me. He was tall and lean, with wavy brown hair that fell to his shoulders in a way that was almost pretty. Something was in his lap, and he was stroking it gently, like you would a cat.

There was a much larger something lying across the length of the bench next to him.

He turned his head to look at me. But I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at the something that was lying beside him.

It was another person, curled up asleep. The thing in his lap was her head.

“Who are you?” the young man asked in a deep, husky voice. He sat up a little straighter, and the girl stirred. A lock of her golden-brown hair came loose and tumbled down over his legs.

“I'm . . .”

I forgot to finish the sentence, because she lifted her head just then, and I knew—even before she tucked her hair behind her ear in that certain way she had—that it was Millicent.

Her head was in his lap.

And my stomach was somewhere near my ankles.

“EGG!” She got up and ran to me. “You're alive!”

She grabbed the bars with her hands like she might try to yank them apart. Her face was running through a whole series of emotions all at once—shocked, happy, overcome. Tears were filling her eyes.

Her head was in his lap.
Nothing else could penetrate my skull but that one thought.

I heard the inner door open. She looked away from me.

“Kira! Guts!”

“Millicent!” Kira ran to her, and I sort of moved to one side so they could clasp hands through the bars.

“I'm so, so glad to see you!” Still holding one of Kira's hands, Millicent reached through the bars toward me with her free hand.

The look on her face almost set my stomach right again. I reached out for her hand.

It's okay. She loves me. It was only a—

Our hands had met, and she was twining her fingers in mine when I heard the deep, husky voice again.

“Here's a spot of luck . . .” A strong arm draped itself over Millicent's shoulders. Its owner was grinning down at me, all big teeth and sharp cheekbones and bright blue eyes.

He was handsome. Ridiculously handsome.

And tall. It was absurd how tall he was.

His arm's around her. Like she belongs to him.

I looked back at Millicent, at those deep brown eyes that until a moment ago, I wasn't sure I'd ever see again.

There was guilt in them.

She could have stabbed me in the chest right then and it would have hurt less than seeing that guilt.

I pulled my hand away from hers. She winced—
more guilt
—then sort of wriggled out from under the pretty-haired tall boy's arm, and he let her go.

But it was too late. I'd seen what I'd seen.

Now he was holding his own hand out toward me, grinning with those big teeth like a handsome ape.

“You must be the lad from Deadweather. Cyril Whitmore. Pleasure to meet you.”

I didn't want to touch his stupid hand. But he kept sticking it out there, and everyone was staring at me, and it seemed like they weren't going to quit staring until I shook it.

So I did—but I didn't come in hard and fast enough, and he wound up gripping my fingers instead of my palm, scrunching them together in a way that stopped just short of being painful.

Then he dropped my hand with what I'd swear was a smirk.

It was a good thing the jailer had taken my pistol away.

“How did you find us?” Millicent asked, wiping the wetness from her eyes.

“Didn't mean to,” I said in a sharp voice. Her head drew back, confused—and maybe even a little hurt.

Good.

Kira jumped in. “We heard that teenagers from Sunrise had gone to the Governor-General about the slaves in the silver mine.”

Millicent gave a snort of disgust. “It's madness! They're all rotten to the core. Slavery's illegal! King Frederick himself declared it! But we go to the Governor—
ready to prove it
—and he has us hauled off before we've even gotten the words out!”

“No surprise,” said the handsome ape, with a surly toss of his pretty hair. “Can't expect a regime like this to reform itself. Whole power structure's got to be overthrown.”

“I'm
so
glad you're here!” said Millicent, glancing at me but mostly talking to Kira and Guts now. “We can stop it! I know we can.”

“Stop wot?” Guts asked.

“The slavery! In the silver mine!” She looked down the corridor to make sure the soldiers weren't in the room, then lowered her voice. “They're vulnerable now, because most of the soldiers went off to the New Lands with
him.
” She spat the last word out, and nobody needed to be told that
him
meant Pembroke. “If we can move quickly—”

Cyril chuckled. “First things first, darling—”

Darling??!!

As my stomach churned, he put his hand on her shoulder again. “We've got to get ourselves sprung from this little mousetrap.” He smirked through the bars at us. “Any of you got pull within the regime?”

Guts wrinkled his nose. “Wot's a regime?”

“Powers that be, my friend. The local despot.” He stuck his free hand out toward Guts. “Cyril Whitmore. Pleasure to meet you.”

Guts shook his hand with a wary look. “Wot's a despot?”

“A dictator. Or in this case—the Governor-General,” Cyril said, adding a wink to his stupid smirk. Guts's eyes narrowed, like he wasn't sure if the wink was meant to be friendly or insulting.

Kira turned to me. “Can your uncle get them out?”

Millicent turned back in my direction. The ape's hand was still on her shoulder. “Who's your uncle?”

“It's not impor—”

“Burn Healy,” Guts blurted out.

“What?!”
Millicent stared at me, stunned.

She wasn't even trying to brush Cyril's hand off this time.

If I stayed in that room any longer, I was going to explode.

“But how—” Millicent began.

“I have to go,” I said, turning toward the door.

“Egg! Where are you going?” Millicent sounded upset.

Good.

“Are you getting your uncle?” Kira asked.

I stopped and looked back at them.

“No. My uncle's not helping. I'm not, either. They can rot in here.”

They were still calling after me when I slammed the iron door shut behind me.

The soldier in the entry room wouldn't give me back my pistol.

In the mood I was in, I guess I couldn't blame him.

I STORMED DOWN THE STREET,
my brain running hot with thoughts of violence and revenge as I listened for the sound of Kira and Guts running after me.

But by the time I reached the end of the block, they hadn't even left the jail yet.

That just made me angrier. I thought about disappearing on them, but it wasn't like I had anywhere to go. I could find my uncle, but I didn't want him asking me why I was boiling over with fury.

Her head was on his lap . . .

His arm was around her . . .

He called her “darling” . . .

I paced back and forth at the end of the block for a while. I got a few strange looks from passing townspeople, but there weren't many of them around—most of Edgartown seemed to have gone into hiding from the pirates, even though I suspected the
Grift
's crew weren't doing anything more dastardly than soaking in warm baths.

After five minutes of angry pacing, Kira and Guts still hadn't shown up. I went back to the jail and paced in front of the door.

By now, I was furious with them, too.

Millicent betrayed me. Now Guts and Kira are, too. Probably sucking up to that Cyril ape like some . . . something . . .

I was so mad I couldn't even come up with words for it.

Finally, Kira and Guts emerged from the jail.

Kira looked furious as she walked toward me.

At least she's angry, too.

“Can you believe her?” I waited for Kira to agree with me.

Instead, she shoved me so hard I almost fell over.

“What is the matter with you?!”

“Me?!”

“Why did you treat her like that?!” She looked like she might slug me. Guts was keeping his distance from both of us.

“Because she—are you seriously—did you
see
them? They were
snuggled up together
!”

“They're in
jail
!”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Everything! And so what? She thought you were dead!”

“Didn't waste much time!”

Kira shook her head in a kind of amazed disgust. “At a moment like this, are you truly so selfish . . . ? My people are in chains in that mine! And Millicent's trying to help! She is in prison for trying to free them! And you run away, and suck your fingers like a baby, because two people were sitting too close to each other?
In a jail cell?
”

“He was petting her hair!”

It sounded so ridiculous coming out of my mouth that my face went hot with shame.

Kira's eyes narrowed. I hung my head so I didn't have to look at her.

“My father died for this cause,” she said. “It is your cause, too. This is Roger Pembroke's silver mine she wants to make free. And you refuse to help because you're jealous of that man in there?”

“He's not a man!” I spat. “Just because he's tall doesn't mean he's a man.”

“A boy, then. What are
you
going to be? A boy as well? A little boy? Who pouts? Or a man?”

I wanted to scream and pull my hair out and stomp on things. Because I knew she was right.

“This is
really
complicated—”

“It is not, Egg. It is very simple.”

I looked at Guts for support.

“Do you understand? Why I'm so angry?”

He nodded. “Course. Bein' an idiot, tho'.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don't want him near Millicent, yeh? So why leave 'em sittin' in jail together?”

If there was any part of me that didn't already want to crawl under a rock and never come out again . . . well, that took care of it.

I wasn't just being a selfish idiot—I was being a self-defeating selfish idiot.

Kira's attitude changed as soon as mine did. She spent the next ten minutes speaking softly to me, trying to make me feel better by telling me what a good person I was, and how much Millicent cared for me, and how this was all a big misunderstanding that was going to work itself out as soon as we'd gotten her out of jail. Kira even hugged me once to get her point across, which made Guts growl in his throat even though he knew it wasn't that kind of hug.