Ripka caught herself clenching her jaw and loosened it. “What, exactly, is a songbird?”
Clink smirked. “A girl who gets herself sent to prison to be with her man. Comes to sing behind the bars, if you catch my meaning. Naive little shits, mostly. Some of ’em don’t even do the crime that gets them sent here, they just take the fall for it. Last a month or two, till they realize their beloved has had a few on the side since they’ve been away. Then it’s all screeching and tears.”
“It’s one to a cell. How do they even… you know what? I can guess. Never mind.”
The dark-haired woman chuckled. “She gets it.”
“Pits below, the guards here are terrible.”
“True,” Clink said slowly. “Overworked and understaffed, but that’s fine by me. If I’m going to spend the rest of my days rotting here, might as well have a little leeway, neh? But I ain’t called you over here to talk about the Remnant’s staff problems. Called you over to talk about your problems, miss Captain.”
“I don’t even know where you’d begin.”
“I got a place. That songbird you ruffled is paired up with Oiler. Nasty piece, that one. Runs with the Glasseaters, and not low on the pole by any stretch. His birdie is going to be puffed up with a queenie complex for a while, most of ’em are, and she’ll point her bony finger right at you.”
“Great,” Ripka drawled. “So I watch myself. Planned on it anyway, you know.”
Clink dragged her fingers halfway through her hair, then shook it out like she was trying to kick loose a flea infestation. “Look, girl. No one’s a lone shark here. I like the way you moved on the songbird – no hesitation, nothing sloppy in it. Don’t know what you stole – none of my business – but you got pro skills. Me, Forge, Honey, and Kisser–” she nodded to each in turn; the raspy woman was Honey, the raven-haired woman Forge, the empty seat Kisser, “–we could use someone like that around.
“We’re not looking to start fights. Ain’t no one wants to avail themselves of the Remnant’s apothik services. But having people around who can handle a fight has a way of deterring them. Understand? And regardless, girl, you’re going to need a work detail, and you’re not going to want to go that alone. They split us lads and ladies up for that, neh? So you and tall, dark, and scrawny won’t have each other’s backs out there. You get hooked up with the songbird and her cronies, and you won’t see the inside of a week here.”
A shrill whistle cut through the air, jerking Ripka’s head up and cutting off Clink. Only the newbies – the sparrows – looked around wide-eyed and confused. The rest were busy grabbing leftover food as fast as they could chew it or stuff it into their pockets. Ripka took the cue and chugged a gulp of water while reaching for what was left of the bread.
“That’s the work detail warning, next whistle we gotta be up and ready to do our part,” Forge said.
“What’s it gonna be, then? You running with us?” Clink pressed.
Ripka chewed bread as quickly as she could, swallowed hard and gulped water again. She couldn’t seem anxious for their protection, but there wasn’t much choice. If she was going to spend any time here – and it looked like it, with Nouli failing to show himself – then she’d need allies. It couldn’t hurt to have friends in her corner who had some level of control over the guards. And she couldn’t very well count on Enard’s strange past to keep her sheltered for the rest of her stay.
“I’m in.”
The work whistle trilled again, and the women of her newfound coterie stood as one. Ripka followed a little later, scanning the rec yard curiously as the guards urged every last inmate to their feet. Nothing had been explained to her about how life in the prison worked. She’d just been chucked on an airship with the rest, heaped together like moldy grain sacks, and hauled out here to the middle of the sea. Captain Lankal’s orientation on the sparrow’s nest the day before was the only information she had to work with, and that was slim pickings.
Despite her boasts to Tibs and Detan, she was beginning to realize she couldn’t rely on her experience as a watch-captain to muddle her way through. A ten-cell jail meant to hold a prisoner no longer than a few weeks was one thing. This monstrous building, this layer upon layer of cells shoved off to hide the darkest fringe of the empire’s denizens, was something else altogether.
It had seemed so simple, working through the scheme on the deck of the flier with freedom all around them as far as the eye could see. They had a plan.
She wondered if that plan was strong enough to stand up to an institution like this.
Chapter Seven
“We don’t serve shitheads like you,” the big bruiser said, startlingly hazel eyes ringed by the smoke wafting out from the ajar door behind him.
Detan held out both hands, palms pointed to the sweet skies in contrition, and tried on a polite smile. It just made the craggy man’s frown dig deeper.
“You don’t serve shitheads with the grains to pay?” He turned his hand over, gamboling a copper grain across his knuckles in a glittering dance. The bruiser’s bloodshot gaze followed the sparkling coinage. The spherical granule rolled smooth as silk over Detan’s roughed skin.
“This ain’t a copper bit kind of establishment.”
“Oh? Is that copper? I say!” With twist of his wrist he switched out the copper for a silver, and rolled that across his knuckles once before bouncing it over to the knuckles of his other hand. “Ah, now, that’s more like it, isn’t it?”
The bruiser’s eyes remained narrowed, but he held out one meaty hand. Detan deposited the grain into the man’s palm with a flourish and took a bow. The big man hawked and spat on the already stained hallway floor.
“Go on in then,” he rumbled. “Run out of coin, or start trouble, and it’s out the window with you, understand?”
“Perfectly, my good man, I am well acquainted with the particulars of defenestration.” Detan snatched Tibs’s hat and donned it. Tibs grabbed it back with a grunt, and they sidled their way through the narrow crack the bruiser allowed. Detan did his best not to comment on the bouncer’s unique aroma.
The room was hazy with smoke and other noxious fumes. He couldn’t figure out which smell dominated: the cigarettes, cheap alcohol, incense burners, or the fetor of the patrons. Detan’s nose was so overwhelmed it simply gave up, a deprivation he was grateful for. From the twist of Tibs’s face, his olfactory system hadn’t done him the same favor.
Square tables dotted a squeaking, wooden floor that had been hastily covered with threadbare rugs. The window from which Detan had spotted the festivities, it seemed, was singular. Which rather explained the hazy atmosphere.
Marking the table nearest that breezy view, Detan strolled over and dragged a chair up to an empty side. It gave a rather alarming creak as he sat.
“What’s the game, gentlemen?” he asked the guards arrayed at either end. They wore the simple white linen shirts assigned to all enlistees of the empire’s many branches. The smoky grey coats that marked them as Fleet guards hung from pegs next to the nearby door. Though their attire was identical, one was large about the shoulders with dark mutton chops marring his firm jaw line, the other shorter, his rectangular head topped by a tangle of curls like a brushweed. They gave him a look, each in turn, then glanced at one another and shrugged.
“Rabbit,” said the one hogging the window seat – the beefy man with the impressive muttonchops.
“That the menu, or the game?” Detan asked, shooting a bewildered glance towards Tibs – who had scarpered off and found another table, leaving Detan raising his eyebrows at the empty air.