His eyes found hers in the dark. They were a storm of blue and grey, at times bright and at others almost colorless. He tipped his head wordlessly in the direction of his chambers, and she followed.
Alucard’s cabin smelled as it always did, of summer wine and clean silk and dying embers. He liked nice things, that much was obvious. But unlike collectors or boasters who put their fineries on display only to be seen and envied, all of Alucard’s luxuries looked thoroughly enjoyed.
“Well, Bard,” he said, sliding into English as soon as they were alone. “Are you going to tell me how you managed it?”
“What fun would that be?” she challenged, sinking into one of the two high-backed chairs before his hearth, where a pale fire blazed, as it always did, and two short glasses sat on the table, waiting to be filled. “Mysteries are always more exciting than truths.”
Alucard crossed to the table and took up a bottle, while his white cat, Esa, appeared and brushed against Lila’s boot. “Are you made of anything but mysteries?”
“Were there bets?” she asked, ignoring both him and the cat.
“Of course,” said Alucard, uncorking the bottle. “All kinds of small wagers. Whether you’d drown, whether the Thief would actually pick you up, whether we’d find anything left of you if they did …” He poured amber liquid into the glasses and held one out to Lila. She took it, and as she did, he plucked the homed mask off her head and tossed it onto the table between them. “It was an impressive performance,” he said, sinking into his own chair. “Those aboard who didn’t fear you before tonight surely do now.”
Lila stared into the glass, the way some stared into fire. “There were some aboard who didn’t fear me?” she asked archly.
“Some of them still call you the Sarows, you know,” he rambled on, “when you’re not around. They say it in a whisper, as if they think you can hear.”
“Maybe I can.” She rolled the glass between her fingers.
There was no clever retort, and she looked up from her glass and saw Alucard watching her, as he always did, searching her face the way thieves search pockets, trying to turn something out.
“Well,” he said at last, raising his glass, “to what should we toast? To the Sarows? To Baliz Kasnov and his copper fools? To handsome captains and elegant ships?”
But Lila shook her head. “No,” she said, raising her glass with a sharpened smile. “To the best thief.”
Alucard laughed, soft and soundless. “To the best thief,” he said.
And then he tipped his glass to hers, and they both drank.
III
FOUR MONTHS AGO RED LONDON
Walking away had been easy.
Not looking back was harder.
Lila had felt Kell watching as she strode away, stopping only when she was out of sight. She was alone, again. Free. To go anywhere. Be anyone. But as the light ebbed, her bravado began to falter. Night dragged itself across the city, and she began to feel less like a conqueror and more like a girl alone in a foreign world with no grasp of the language and nothing in her pockets save for Kell’s parting gift (an element set), her silver watch, and the handful of coins she’d nicked from a palace guard before she left.
She’d had less, to be sure, but she’d also had more.
And she knew enough to know she wouldn’t make it far, not without a ship.
She clicked the pocket watch open and closed and watched the outlines of the crafts bob on the river, the Isle’s red glow more marked in the settling dark. She had her eyes on one ship in particular, had been watching, coveting, all day. It was a gorgeous vessel, its hull and masts carved from dark wood and trimmed in silver, its sails shifting from midnight blue to black, depending on the light. A name ran along its hull—Saren Noche—and she would later learn that it meant Night Spire. For now she only knew that she wanted it. But she couldn’t simply storm a fully manned craft and claim it as her own. She was good, but she wasn’t that good. And then there was the grim fact that Lila didn’t technically know how to sail. So she leaned against a smooth stone wall, her black attire blending into the shadows, and watched, the gentle rocking of the boat and the noise of the Night Market farther up the bank drawing her into a kind of trance.
A trance that broke when half a dozen men stomped off the ship’s deck and down the plank in heavy boots, coins jingling in their pockets, raucous laughter in their throats. The ship had been preparing for sea all day, and the men had a manic enthusiasm that spoke of a last night on land. They looked eager to enjoy it. One kicked up a shanty, and the others caught it, carrying the song with them toward the taverns.
Lila snapped the pocket watch closed, pushed off the wall, and followed.
She had no disguise, only her clothes, which were a man’s cut, and her dark hair, which fell into her eyes, and her own features, which she drew into sharp lines. Lowering her voice, she hoped she could pass for a slender young man. Masks could be worn in darkened alleys and to masquerade balls, but not in taverns. Not without drawing more attention than they were worth.
The men ahead disappeared into an establishment. It had no obvious name, but the sign above the door was made of metal, a shimmering copper that twisted and curled into waves around a silver compass. Lila smoothed her coat, turned up its collar, and went inside.
The smell hit her at once.
Not foul or stale, like the dockside taverns she’d known, or flower scented like the Red royal palace, but warm and simple and filling, the aroma of fresh stew mixing with tendrils of pipe smoke and the distant salt of sea.
Fires burned in corner hearths, and the bar stood not along one wall but in the very center of the room, a curved metal circle that mimicked the compass on the door. It was an incredible piece of craftsmanship, a single piece of silver, its spokes trailing off toward the four hearth fires.
This was a sailors’ tavern unlike any she’d ever seen, with hardly any bloodstains on the floors or fights threatening to spill out onto the street. The Barren Tide, back in Lila’s London—no, not hers, not anymore—had serviced a far rougher crowd, but here half the men wore royal colors, clearly in the service of the crown. The rest were an assortment, but none bore the haggard look and hungry eyes of desperation. Many—like the men she’d followed in—were sea tanned and weather worn, but even their boots looked polished and their weapons well sheathed.
Lila let her hair fall in front of her blind eye, wrangled a quiet arrogance, and sauntered up to the counter.
“Avan,” said the bartender, a lean man with friendly eyes. A memory hit her—Barron back at the Stone’s Throw, with his stem warmth and stoic calm—but she got her guard up before the blow could land. She slid onto the stool and the bartender asked her a question, and even though she didn’t know the words, she could guess at their meaning. She tapped the near-empty glass of a beverage beside her, and the man turned away to fetch the drink. It appeared an instant later, a lovely, frothing ale the color of sand, and Lila took a long, steadying sip.
A quarter turn around the bar, a man was fiddling absently with his coins, and it took Lila a moment to realize he wasn’t actually touching them. The metal wound its way around his fingers and under his palms as if by magic, which of course it was. Another man, around the other side, snapped his fingers and lit his pipe with the flame that hovered at the tip of his thumb. The gestures didn’t startle her, and she wondered at that; only a week in this world, and it seemed more natural to her than Grey London ever had.