Kindred did see, and silence filled the room as she imagined the violence to come.
The violence and death and destruction she and everyone else aboard The Errant had accidentally brought.
“I want to hear about the controlled dive you performed to make it past our dreadnought!” Seraph said, interrupting the conversation and leaning forward, eyes bright.
“I’ve only heard about that sort of thing in a theoretical sense, but here you are!” He clapped his hands together and smiled, excited and eager. “How did you do it? Beachroot? Or no, skull shavings mixed with crushed bluestem? No, no that wouldn’t work, I suppose. What ab—”
“Thank you, Councillor Seraph. That’s enough,” Ebb-La-Kem said, his voice stern, reclaiming the conversation. The two of them exchanged a long look: Ebb-La-Kem frowned at the disheveled man, and Seraph looked bewildered.
“Looks like you already found your people here,” Cora the Wraith whispered to Kindred, her sneer ugly and mean.
With a sigh, Ebb-La-Kem turned back to them.
“Now you see our predicament.”
“I care only for the safety of the crew,” Long Quixa said, her voice quiet, steady. “We have no allegiance to Cantrev or his warmongering. Our escape from him is what brought us to this place. It was never our intent to bring danger to the Once-City.”
Ebb-La-Kem nodded through Quixa’s speech, his brow furrowed, eyes almost theatrically sympathetic.
Kindred suspected she might grow to hate this man.
“I appreciate the sentiment, truly,” he said. “Though I’m sure you can understand the predicament you have placed us in. Some on this Council have called for your deaths and an end to the whole affair.” A few of the other councillors nodded. Kindred saw that Morrow Laze and Seraph did not.
“But we do not kill our citizens. This is a place of safety for those who seek it.” He paused. “And there is use for you, perhaps. Cantrev’s forces will arrive soon; of this we are reasonably certain. Though we have some experience with his warships, there is always more we might learn if we are to successfully defend the Once-City. Your captain and your quartermaster will provide any information they possess regarding the Arcadian fleet, the magics they may employ, their tactics when attacking, and any other details our defensive leaders may require. Your other crew members will be assigned tasks as befit their abilities and our needs.
“Councillors Laze and Uz will supervise your aid in this matter,” Ebb-La-Kem said, nodding to Morrow Laze and a bulky woman sitting next to him. “For this, we will begin the process of forgiving and mitigating the danger you have brought on your new home.”
Begin the process of forgiving? Kindred thought on the strangeness of that phrase, wondering what else they might be required to do to be forgiven. But given their lack of other options—The Errant sunk, their crew split up, fractured, Sarah still injured—the beginnings of forgiveness would have to do.
Long Quixa thought for a long moment before responding.
“I cannot speak for the captain, but I will do all I can to convince her, and the crew will perform their responsibilities as well, but I want something in return.”
“The safety of this place is not enough?” Morrow Laze asked, not angry anymore. Just curious. “Safety even for your crew who failed the test? The pirate majority on this Council would gladly see all of you, failed and passed alike, killed, and you ask for more than safety?”
Kindred remembered Seraph talking of the pirate majority on the Council. As Morrow Laze spoke, The Word, Ebb-La-Kem, Uz, and a broad, fat person sitting behind a placard reading GladWill nodded. The pirate majority, apparently. Four of the seven places.
“A life stuck on land in a place unfamiliar to us is not much of a life,” Quixa said, speaking with conviction and confidence. “If we are to help you in this way, give us a chance at life again. A ship, nothing special, equipped with stores enough to make it to the Mainland. We work here for forty days, offer whatever knowledge and insight we might have. In return, we get our lives back.”
“You barter with little to give,” Ebb-La-Kem said, though he did not dismiss it immediately.
“The captain has sailed out of Arcadia for more years than many of you have been alive,” Quixa said, eyeing each member of the Council with slow deliberation. “The knowledge she has seems more than enough to barter with.”
A hurried discussion ensued among the councillors. Kindred heard almost nothing of what they said, though she was sure the word water was spoken several times, and then Ebb-La-Kem reached below the table and produced a calculating wheel, one Kindred had seen the Number-Children using as they grappled with huge numbers. Ebb-La-Kem spun the wheel with deft mastery, muttering numbers and sums to himself, shaking his head at the offer of coal and leaf to write on. After a moment of intense silence in which the only sound was the whir of the calculating wheel spinning and stopping, spinning and stopping, Ebb-La-Kem finished, apparently satisfied, and the talks resumed.
Little Wing began to silently scream again, catching the attention of Long Quixa.
“It’s the only way,” Quixa said. “If we’re ever going to leave, we need a ship.”
“You really think the captain will do it?” Cora asked.
“I don’t know.” Quixa shook her head slowly. “But I don’t know what else to barter with.”
Sarah had said the sailors from the Once-City didn’t understand the hearthfire any better than the typical Arcadian keeper; they burned bones and built structures without any true understanding.
“I can help,” Kindred said, and though she was looking at Long Quixa, she spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Yes? What?” Ebb-La-Kem said, that same condescendingly pleasant smile resurfacing on his face.
“I’m the best hearthfire keeper sailing out of Arcadia, maybe the best alive,” Kindred said. No time for modesty. She heard scoffs from those at the table, and even from Cora the Wraith, but she continued. “I know your ships sail without any clear knowledge of how the hearthfire works, and I’m sure you burn through bones far more quickly than you should. I could teach your keepers how to do their jobs and perform the kind of basic maintenance of your hearthfires and basins that I’m sure no one here has ever known how to do.”
In the silence that followed, Kindred took a leap.
“If you grant this crew a ship,” she said, careful to speak of this crew and not my crew, “and supplies enough to journey to the Mainland, I will do everything I can to fix the hearthfire of the Once-City.”
The music she had been hearing below, the music Scindapse had said she could hear too, confusing it for The Errant’s hearthfire—this was her hope, her leap. It was not the melody of a hearthfire from some boat in the harbor; it couldn’t be. If the Once-City had once sailed, and if it still floated above the black below, it had to find lift somewhere.