“What’s back there?” she asked, knowing the question went against the caution Seraph had just offered but unable to help herself in the face of a mystery. She thought back to the breaches on the first level—she had only been able to think of them as eternally open doors, a hole in a wall meant to separate inside from out.
Kindred suddenly saw The Word in her mind, their symmetrical steps taking them through the plant wall and out into the dark Sea, their feet finding nothing and yet still walking, their strange forms insinuating themselves into the sway of the prairie.
“Extra water and food storage, that kind of stuff. It’s honestly quite boring—at least I assume. Only a few of the councillors have the authority to go back there. Water and food are scarce things here, so we like to keep them mostly protected and secure.”
Seraph gestured over to one wall, opposite where The Word had just gone.
Barrels were lined up there, a seemingly endless row of them stretching all the way across the Gone Ways—at least, the part of the Gone Ways Kindred could see.
“Those are all filled with dew skimmed by our sailors, and we ration from them, but Ebb-La-Kem, the water master, has more stores back there, apparently—the reservoir to collect rainwater filtered down from the branches, that sort of thing. And The Word are always working on some scheme or another in their own private areas.”
It was a huge amount of trust that Seraph offered to his fellow councillors, and for a moment, Kindred heard Sarah’s cynicism, her certainty that the Once-City was rotten, was full of liars and crooks. Full of pirates.
And hadn’t she said that both Ebb-La-Kem and The Word were part of the pirate majority on the Council?
Kindred bent her head to the hearthfire, accepting the situation for the moment, but doubt crept up on her, reaching cold fingers into the fire of her confidence in this place.
And still her mind wandered back to the boats sitting unused next to the Sea, cast off and ignored.
Waiting, perhaps, for the right hand to bring them to life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next morning, Kindred found the rest of the crew waiting for her when she descended.
“Crew meeting,” Sarah said, lacing her fingers through Kindred’s and pulling Kindred into a seat next to her. “I was going to wake you up soon if you didn’t show up.”
Everyone was present, even the captain, who was normally gone by the time Kindred awoke, summoned by Ebb-La-Kem for this or that reason.
On Kindred’s other side sat Scindapse, who had gained some of her confidence and life back in the last few days. Kindred watched the young girl, thinking of herself around that age. At fifteen years old, she’d still sailed aboard Revenger. Her life became a constant fight to define herself as someone other than “the Marchess’s granddaughter,” and so she had put her head down and become a part of the crew, another pair of carrying arms, another voice for song.
To be part of the whole had meant so much to Kindred then, and she felt no guilt or shame for that. It gave her purpose and place in the world when she needed it.
Kindred saw herself in Scindapse, and in doing so felt more clearly the distance between her heart and those of the crew. She did not seek purpose or place in the world anymore.
Yllstra’s voice echoed in her head, her certainty that Kindred was not like the rest, that she felt curiosity when others felt fear, that she looked down as others looked up and out.
“We don’t have much time, so hear me,” Captain Caraway said, looking around at the shattered remains of her crew.
Kindred felt that old loyalty stirring inside her, the woman who would have followed Captain Jane Caraway anywhere, fought anyone for her. That old command of the captain’s—hear me—pulled again at the person Kindred had been. Though it had only been days since she sailed under Captain Caraway’s lead, so much had changed.
But not this.
“We’re getting out. The next time Cantrev attacks, we’re going to steal a boat from the backside of the city, one of those not fit for battle. I don’t give a green damn who wins; by the time it’s over, we can be gone in the chaos, on our way to the Mainland.”
The captain spoke with her old certainty. She took care of her crew, saw them ahead to safety.
“What about our fifty days of service?” Kindred asked. “Why not just wait?”
Captain Caraway shook her head.
“Those councillors have been plying me for information every day, studying me, watching me—but I’ve been studying them, too. And there’s no chance they are planning on following through with their end.”
Nods from the other crew members—especially Sarah—pushed the captain on.
“More than once I’ve overheard them talking when they assumed I couldn’t hear or wasn’t listening—they’re planning something. I don’t know what, and I don’t know what it has to do with us, but it doesn’t bode well. Something is wrong here. Our water rations have begun to shrink, guards seem to follow us everywhere despite our status as citizens, and they all seem too calm about another attack from Cantrev. I can feel it, certain as sunlight: they mean to fuck us. And I plan to fuck them first.”
“Are any of those vessels capable of making the voyage?” Long Quixa asked.
“I’ve seen them all a few times and think so. But Kindred, you’ve worked on them,” the captain said, looking at her. “What’s your assessment?”
Kindred nodded.
“Aye, Captain. I’ve seen to their hearthfires myself. They may not be suitable for battle, but they could make a voyage. Most of them . . .”
Kindred trailed off, remembering the dew-skimmers lined up next to the other vessels. Dew-skimmers that provided water for the entire Once-City.
“Exactly,” the captain said, her whisper pulling the conversation forward. Plans were sketched: during the next attack, each of them would pull away from the crowds—however they could, though less conspicuous violence was better—and meet on the far side of the City. With everyone focused on the attack, they could hop aboard a vessel and be out of the harbor before anyone knew what was wrong. Quixa, Cora, and Sarah would steal as many supplies as possible; Kindred would steal as many bones as possible, preferably a few every day she worked by the fires; the captain and Scindapse would steal what weapons they could. If they were lucky, they could get a dew-skimmer. If not, they could make do with another vessel.
But Kindred’s mind pulled around the dew-skimmers, and she realized she’d never really gotten a satisfactory answer about the water stores. There was no way those ships could pull in enough dew—enough water—for everyone in the City, even if the number of citizens had gone down in recent years, even if the stores below were massive. Skimming the dew, stealing from Arcadian vessels, plundering their own stores—it was simply not sustainable, not for as many years as the Once-City had been stopped.