“You could still go with them,” Monty says, nodding toward the camp, but Felicity shakes her head.
“Can you imagine? They’d never let me past Gibraltar.”
“Adrian and I would protect you,” Monty says. “We’re very tough. We have a whole fifteen fingers and three ears between us.”
“Eighteen,” I correct him.
Monty frowns. “What did I say?”
“As fearsome as you may be,” Felicity says, “you’re both overdue in England. I’m sure you’re missed dearly.” She flicks a handful of water from the surface at me. “Oh, stop looking at me like I’m a lost kitten.”
“You’re lonely,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“I’m not, actually. I’m just a bit adrift right now. It happens to us all sometimes. Nothing to do when the tide comes in but wait for it to turn.”
“Or swim,” Monty mutters, fiddling with the curls at the back of his head. They’re starting to get long again.
“Before I make any long-term plans, I need to go back to Amsterdam and set things right with the university about Professor van der Loos.” She studies her nails. “See if he had a family I can contact. Do what I can.”
“Then back to your research?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t know if any of it’s worth pursuing. Maybe I couldn’t get funding because I’m a woman, but maybe my ideas simply aren’t good enough.”
“That’s not true. What about your scale powder?” I ask.
Felicity frowns. “What about it? It doesn’t do anything.”
“It did for me. It might not be the panacea for all ails that you hoped for, or an exact duplicate of the dragon scales, but maybe it could help me. And maybe other people as well. I’ve been thinking . . .” I swallow, take a hard, heavy breath, then start again. “Someday—not today, or not soon, I mean, obviously—but maybe once I’ve had a few years in the House and I feel a bit, you know, better about it all, I think I might try to campaign for reform in the mental institutions in England.”
“That would be brilliant,” Monty says.
“And you could help,” I say to Felicity, then add to Monty, “I mean, you also could.”
He raises his hands. “No no, it’s fine. I know my strengths lie elsewhere.”
“What about the company?” Felicity asks.
“If Sim can convince the governors to reinstate her, she’ll open the shipping routes to us again,” Monty says. “Though it’ll be a son of a bitch to pay off the debt we’re in, and I’m not sure there’s a creditor in London we don’t already owe.”
“I could give you a loan,” I say. “Or give me stock. Let me be an investor.”
“You can’t run a shipping company,” Felicity says. “You’re about to become a Peer of the Realm.”
“Then you keep running it,” I say to Monty.
He splashes a handful of water over his neck. It’s unclear whether the strawberry-red patches there are burns from the sun or he’s simply spent too long in the water and is starting to cook. “I think that’s behind me. Percy and I need a new start.” He stares up at the sky, scratching his chin idlly. “Mostly me. It’s always me.”
“Don’t say that,” Felicity says.
“You could find a job in London,” I tell him. “You’ve been running a shipping company for the last fifteen years, for God’s sake, someone will hire you for . . . something.”
“Especially if that shipping company doesn’t shutter in financial ruin,” Felicity adds.
“Maybe.” Monty says. “Or maybe it’s time for change.” He stares out at the bright sky over the treetops for a moment. “George could run it,” he says suddenly. “He’s losing his mind digging up shipwrecks for Saad. Why don’t we give him a majority share? And he’s in good standing with the Crown and Cleaver, so Sim wouldn’t have to fight as hard to get permission for him to sail. Adrian can loan him the money if he doesn’t have it now, and George can pay him back once he gets things running again. And you know he will.” He pushes my head affectionately. “That way your quiet life in a quiet town with your quiet books won’t be disrupted by investing in a dying company linked to a notorious pirate fleet.”
“I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive,” I say.
“And books can be loud, if you know how to listen to them,” Felicity pipes up.
“Books,” Monty says, “are only loud if you slam them aggressively to make a point.”
Felicity hauls herself up from the edge of the hot spring. “Come on.” She wipes her feet on the ground, leaving them covered in stray blades of grass that look like embroidery. “We should see the Dey off.”
“We’ll be along shortly,” Monty says. “I have not yet sweated out every pore of my body.” Felicity rolls her eyes, but sets off alone toward the trees. I start to climb out and follow her, but Monty puts a hand on my arm. “Give her a moment. She won’t admit it, but she’s going to want time alone with Sim.” I sink down on the edge of the hot spring, my feet still submerged. My skin is sticky, and the cool grass is a welcome relief from the heat.
Monty cups a handful of water between his hands and splashes it across his face. “Ready to go home?” he asks me.
I stare up at the white sky of the endless summer. “I’m ready to see Louisa,” I say. “And sleep in my own bed.”
“Not quite the enthusiastic yes I expected. Did you think you’d come this far?”
“I hoped I’d be farther.”
“What—the North Pole?”
“Not literally.” I weave my hand through the grass. “What if nothing’s different?” I say quietly.
Monty looks up at me, one hand raised to shield his face from the sun. “What do you mean?”
“What if I go back and it’s just as hard and frightening and overwhelming as it was before, and I’m just as frozen and afraid?” I pull up a handful of grass and toss it into the wind. “I didn’t fix anything. I didn’t fix myself.”
“Who says you needed fixing?”
“I don’t want it to be the same,” I say. “But I don’t know how it won’t be.”
“It won’t be the same because you’re not the same,” he says. “That’s the most important thing. You know yourself better now—accepting that person comes later. But you’ve come so goddamn far. Believe me. Coming from an impartial observer.”
“You’re hardly impartial.”
“I know; I really wanted you to be a dick.” He stretches his arms out across the lip of the hot spring and lets his legs float. “I’m sorry for what I said to you in Amsterdam. And that I hit you.”
“You didn’t hit me.”
He laughs hollowly. “As good as.”
“You’re not like Father,” I say quietly.
“Dunno. We all start somewhere, don’t we? The first time he laid hands on me wasn’t the worst. You have to work your way to cracked ribs and black eyes.” He swipes his thumb under his nose. “What I should have said—what I was far too drunk to say—is that I didn’t come to find you because I was worried you’d be like your father. Either that, or he’d have ruined your life the way he did mine and I would have to face knowing that I had left you with that. Better to just avoid it all. But I swear to God, Adrian, I have thought of you for years.” He looks up at me. The sun on his face makes his skin look like glass. “There wasn’t a day I didn’t wonder who you were.”