“Yes, precisely. What if there should always be a condition?”
“If you’ve killed a man,” she finally said, “I’m sure you had good reason.”
He let out a startled laugh. “You’d forgive me murder?”
She set a hand on his elbow. “I can’t imagine what else would inspire this sort of self-doubt. As it’s clearly something less serious than that, I bid you not to worry.”
He exhaled. “It’s not fair, putting the question to you this way, with none of the facts.” He looked at her sidelong, then looked away. “I’ll tell you once I work it out. I’m a bit envious, to be honest. You always seem to hew to your loyalties so easily.”
“Nonsense.” Amelia shook her head. “I’m loyal to those who are loyal to me. There’s no choice to be made there.”
“Ha.” But he shook his head again. “Enough with my foolish imaginings. Let’s talk about something uplifting. Tell me what you’re imagining for yourself in Shanghai.”
Amelia found herself brightening. “Did you know I have a dog?”
“A what?”
“A dog!” And that was enough to change the conversation from self-doubt and loyalty to the benefits of hounds and the methods of training.
The harbor of Hong Kong was busy around Grayson, filled with little steamers like the Lenity—small ships intended for the coastal trade. Smaller, more agile Chinese junks darted between larger steamships heading to all four corners of the world.
The British flag flew from a high pole on the harbor; dozens of smaller flags—British, Dutch, French, and American like Grayson’s own—flew from every ship.
The Chinese dock workers that Zed hired had come aboard, unloading the purchased tea with smooth efficiency.
Behind him, Zed was giving out some final instructions. “These, to the western warehouse—those to the east. That will go to San Francisco; Aaron is leaving tomorrow, so transfer it across the harbor.”
“I’ll be off then,” Grayson said.
Zed looked up from the giving of instructions, his face a scowl. “Just like that?”
“Not quite so abruptly. Thank you for all your assistance. I’ll see you in December.”
Zed came to stand next to him at the rail, looking out. Victoria Peak rose across the water, lush vegetation interrupted by the cut of a road winding up and up.
“You’re off to Fuzhou for more tea.” That was the way these things went—during tea season, Zed made the journey as often as he could.
“If everything goes to schedule, I’ll be back within a few weeks.” Zed tilted his head. “Have you considered staying a bit?”
“I haven’t got a few weeks to stay.”
Zed sighed. “Look, this isn’t just about my mother and your mother. It’s about me too. There aren’t as many of us Hunters as there once were. I get lonely, you know.”
Lonely. He could not let himself think of loneliness.
“I can’t change what needs to be done. The work doesn’t become lighter for the wishing.”
Zed looked skeptical.
“I have to go from the northeastern corner of Japan to Myriad Island,” Grayson explained. “Then back to San Francisco for more cable, see my parents, entirely thanks to you, then return immediately for a meeting with the taotai. All of this takes time; the world is too large. And it will only get smaller if I do the work.”
“You don’t need to convince me what you’re doing is important,” Zed told him. “That’s why I need you to take care of yourself. Your whole self.”
Grayson looked away, his gaze going to the high British flag once more. “My whole self is just fine.”
His whole self wasn’t whole, but there was no way to mend those fractures, not with idle conversation. And what good would it do to admit the way he felt now? He wasn’t even sure himself. He still had that odd feeling, the one that had started back when they were first leaving Fuzhou. The atmosphere around him felt like the build up of pressure, like a promise of wind and rain to come. He had a storm to outrun.
Beside him, Zed absorbed this obvious lie in silence. He let the quiet stretch, waiting for Grayson to break down and admit otherwise.
It would never happen.
Zed broke first. “Mine isn’t. I was in the same war. In the same navy.” Suffered the same losses, Zed did not say. He didn’t need to. “I’m not ‘just fine.’”
“Then you understand,” Grayson said softly. “I’m as just fine as I am going to be. And finishing a transpacific cable won’t fix everything that’s wrong, but it will mend the things that are mendable. Let me do it.”
“Gray.”
Grayson turned to him. “We planned it together, Zed. Every mile of cable has Henry and Noah and John bound up in it. It’s their monument. You can’t expect me to leave it to someone else.”
“Gray.” Zed reached out.
Grayson shook off that hand. “I need to be off. I have too much to do.”
The look his cousin gave him—piercing and not at all subtle—was too much. Too pitying. Too understanding. Grayson didn’t want it.
“My whole self will wait,” he said. “It will wait until the work is finished.”
Chapter Twelve
That unwelcome sense that change was coming lingered with Grayson as the Celerity left Hong Kong harbor. Thinking of his ships—thinking of what he was going to do—grounded him. And God, he needed to be grounded.
The Celerity was swift and small. She had a cargo hold—enough to carry precisely the right amount of coal—and a purpose as part of a mismatched pair.
Her opposite—the Victory—was everything the Celerity was not. The Victory was heavy, slow, and possessed the distinctly unusual characteristic of having a carrying capacity of nearly ninety-thousand cubic feet—enough to hold a cable over two thousand miles long. The Victory, with her heavy load, would lay the cable in deep ocean. The Celerity laid the line to the shore. The Victory crept at a slow pace, paying out cable as she went; the Celerity scouted ahead, alerting her larger, ungainly counterpart to coming storms or icebergs. And when the Victory finished her run up north, where no friendly harbors waited, the Celerity would be her dock, serving as coaling station in the arctic reaches.
Facts. Those were facts, and facts would keep him safe in the coming storm.
(Also a fact: The Celerity, in their original plans, would have been captained by his brother Harry.)
Grayson scrubbed at his face. Not that kind of fact. What was happening? He’d held everything together for years, all his emotions properly battened down. And now they were going awry again?
He did not have to guess at the reason why. She was on deck, running to one end to watch the water from the screw propeller with Merry at her heels, and then walking swiftly up one side, leaning out to look over.
He yearned for the days when he thought the Silver Fox was some kind of elderly man.
Eventually, she came to stand beside him.
“I’ve been thinking about our code!” Her tone was as bright and friendly as her eyes. Our code. It was just talk of business, this; surely talking about business would reassert the natural order of things. Grayson inclined a head to her.