“Cantrev,” the captain said, pulling Kindred back from her memories.
“Come to complain about the pirates or our entry?” Kindred asked, looking up to where a pack of people were walking down the dock toward The Errant.
“I imagine we’ll soon find out,” Captain Caraway said, turning back to her. “Though between the two of us, I’d take the pirates over that sack of shit.” She nudged her chin toward Cantrev’s approach.
He stumped in the middle of his retinue, a weak man emboldened by the weaker men around him. Sweat glistened on his face, illuminated by a flickering torch carried by one of his servitors. Night fell quickly upon Arcadia’s streets.
“Looks like he’s gained even more power since we last saw him,” Kindred said, noting the blue paint on Cantrev’s face.
Captain Caraway spit and walked over to meet the new senator of Arcadia.
“Jane! What an entrance! My gods, we all thought you were finished. I’ve been saying it about these pirates for years and years. Menaces and monsters. I’ve been saying it, haven’t I?”
Kindred bit down hard to keep from correcting Cantrev. The captain was too well respected and too senior for anyone—including a senator—to use her first name so casually without permission.
Cantrev turned to his retinue, who nodded like a pack of obsequious dogs. He snatched a waterskin encrusted with gems in swirling patterns from one man and drank noisily.
“Aye, I suppose,” Captain Caraway said, her humor and wildness gone.
“Jane, listen, we need to get you under the Collective’s protection.” Cantrev neared the The Errant’s gangplank and looked as if he would step on it, and then thought better of it. “The dew boats and half—more than half by now, I think—of the harvesters sail under my flag. Think of it: cheaper water guaranteed for Collective members, and that’s not even to mention the protection! Everyone, everyone, gets outfitted with two of my mages. And a Collective mage is worth at least ten pirates.”
He turned again for agreement, his sagging, doughy cheeks following the movement of his head with some delay. The blue senator’s paint shone on his face, pebbled with sweat.
“Maybe even twenty of them, eh?” he said, eyebrows jiggling up and down in excitement. He tapped his chest, which bore the symbol of his Collective—a clenched fist, white on a black background.
Cantrev’s gaggle laughed and sneered in response, and he turned back to Captain Caraway.
“Eva Golden and her ship, The Nettle, said no to my offer of protection, and you don’t see The Nettle anymore, do you?” Cantrev gestured around, as if everyone on Arcadia hadn’t heard about The Nettle getting taken by pirates. Captain Golden had made it close enough for those on shore with longsights to see The Nettle’s harried flight, but not close enough for Cantrev’s mages in the towers to help once the pirates caught up. The whole thing had been over by the time any of the ships at port had pushed off and sailed out.
“What do you say, Jane? My boys have already saved your ship once tonight.” He gestured up to the lighthouses towering above and the men—his men—standing next to the roaring casting fires, serving as both waypoint for sailors in the night and an iron fist for pirates venturing too close. “You don’t want to go the same way as The Nettle, do you?”
“My answer hasn’t changed,” Captain Caraway said. “My crew and I sail under our own flag; we harvest where and when we want.”
Kindred watched Cantrev’s smile twist slightly so that his teeth were no longer perfectly aligned, a grind instead of a grin.
“Soon you’ll be the only one, Jane,” he said, biting down on the captain’s name. “Those damned, filthy pirates are sailing closer and closer and you don’t get it.” He hissed the words and flapped a hand of stubby fingers at the crew, catching Kindred’s eye as he did. “We need to be unified. One Arcadia. One complete defense against the pirates. The old ways are going, Jane, and you’ll be going with them if you don’t shape up.”
“The old ways are best,” Kindred said, speaking without thinking but glad she did. It was something her grandmother had always said, something Kindred believed in.
She shivered when Cantrev looked at her again, the darkness of his eyes puckered in by the pouty flesh of his face, hiding something, some secret or knowledge that turned her insides.
“The old ways are done,” Cantrev said, smiling, before taking a single proprietary step onto the plank, leaning on his knee. “Kindred? Captain Jane’s new junior keeper?”
About to respond, Kindred realized suddenly that she wasn’t sure. Was she still the new junior keeper? Could she be if she were about to sit out a whole voyage?
“She is,” Captain Caraway said, fiercely. Whether from protectiveness or hatred of Cantrev, Kindred didn’t know, but either way she was glad of it.
Cantrev chuckled and held up his hands in mock apology.
“Of course. My congratulations. And condolences.” Cantrev leaned in and nodded at Kindred. “So sorry to hear about the Marchess. Speaking of the old ways.”
Kindred blinked, unsure of what that might mean. Sorry about the Marchess? Sorry for what?
“I’m not interested in your Collective,” the captain said, cutting into the man’s laughter. “And we have work to do.”
Dismissively, the captain turned back to her ship and clapped her hands, setting the crew to work.
Heartbeat loud and with a dry mouth, Kindred, though, stood like a statue watching Cantrev, who stared furiously at Captain Caraway’s back before storming off, speaking quickly, venomously, to those keeping pace beside him.
“That man is truly a shit,” a voice said from beside her, and Kindred turned to find Ragged Sarah watching Cantrev storm away. “I don’t understand why he has to be such an enormous shit so much of the time.”
Kindred nodded, though she wasn’t so sure. The greatest problem with a man like Cantrev, she thought, was that there was nothing mysterious about him at all. He was rotten in the most obvious, boring way. A man after power, a child after praise. Kindred could see ten lengths into him and he was only three lengths deep.
But what had he meant about her grandmother?
“Ragged Sarah,” Captain Caraway said, interrupting Kindred’s thoughts, “you’re on mail duty. The letter-pass should be open still if you hurry.”
“Aye, Captain,” Ragged Sarah said, nudging Kindred and tipping her a wink before hopping from the boat and moving off down the dock, in toward the rancid thrive of the city. Kindred watched her go, feeling again the strange swirl of something inside her chest.
“Before your break, Kindred,” the captain said, emphasizing the word, as if calling it a break instead of a punishment made it go down easier, “I want you to get us fixed for water.” She passed over the paper detailing their stores and showing their need.