A watcher woman lay on the sand not far from where he stood. She leaned against a dripping boulder, legs splayed out before her, swimming in pools of red. Her eyes were closed, but her chest rose and fell with ragged breath. She didn’t appear strong enough to have pushed herself up on her own, which meant her fellow watchers had propped her up. And then left her to die.
Detan ambled over and sat on the sand beside her, ignoring the salty wet seeping through his backside. He was already wet enough, he could handle a little more discomfort to see this woman through to the endless night.
“Hi,” he said. Her eyelids fluttered. “I’m Detan.”
She tipped her head toward him, lolled it against the rock. One eyelid was swollen shut, the other half-open, but the eye behind it bright. Alert. He shifted in the sand so that she could see him without having to crane her head.
“Alli,” she said. “Have you come to pick us off?”
“No.” He shook his head. “We’ve come to help, if we can.”
She swept him from his crossed legs to his ruffled hair with her one good eye. “I can’t say we would have done the same for you.”
“That’s all right. I don’t blame you.”
“You should.”
She coughed, her shoulders shaking. Detan waited until the fit had passed before he spoke again.
“You were just doing your job. Trying to keep Petrastad safe. I understand that more than you might think.”
She chuckled. “Do you, now? I didn’t realize you were an expert on municipal matters, though that explains the ease with which you infiltrated our tower.”
He grimaced. “I don’t mean to belittle what you do.”
She waved him to silence. “No. No. But I meant to belittle you. I’ve heard that some people get calm when they’re facing death. That they go into the dark with grace and dignity. Turns out I just get surly.”
He thought of Ripka, standing on the roof of a jailhouse in Aransa, wearing a coat much like the one Alli wore. Thought of her lifting her chin, facing the Black Wash and her impending death with pride and calm. He’d admired her for that. He found he admired Alli, too.
“There’s no good way to go,” he said.
“I suppose there isn’t.”
She fell quiet for a while, her good eye gazing out to sea. Detan wondered if his presence was a comfort or a hindrance. If he were bleeding his last in the surf, he’d want someone there to witness it. To sit with him while his blood mingled with the salt and the world drew in to nothing all around him. But he worried that he might be imposing. That maybe she’d sent her watcher fellows away, and that’s why she was all alone here. Could be she was only suffering his presence because she lacked the strength to tell him to get lost.
He shifted, making to rise and leave her to her peace, and her eye snapped open as far as it could. He stayed.
“I took this job for the money,” she said.
“Isn’t that why people take jobs?”
“Hah. You’re as cynical as I was. No. Lucky for the two of us, it isn’t. Some people don the blues because they want to help. They care. I came to, in time, but to start with… Well, my husband was a sel-miner, fell to bonewither earlier than most. Shuffles around the house like my grandpa used to, and he’s only forty. There’s the stipend for retired miners, but the good medicines… They cost.”
“So you didn’t take the job for the money.”
“Maybe not. But don’t mistake me, Detan, I’ve a taste for fruit pies the stipend just wasn’t covering.”
He laughed and rummaged through his trouser pocket. “It’s no fruit pie,” he said and pulled out a waxpaper-wrapped bar of sticky honey and crushed nuts. “And it’s probably wet and salty, but here.” He broke off a small corner and placed it on her tongue. She swished it around and smiled.
“Salt’s a nice touch.”
He took a bite and grimaced. “If you say so.”
They sat in silence for a while, sharing the ration bar while the pool around her legs got darker and her skin grew paler. When the bar was finished, he scrubbed his hands in the wet sand and wiped them pointlessly against his Fleetman’s coat. The sun sagged against the horizon, pink-crimson spears radiating through the sky. He looked away, not liking the color of the sky any more than he liked the color of Alli’s face.
“It was the bonus pay that did it,” she said.
He blinked. “Huh?”
“After Aransa fell. Every watcher district was promised a bonus for each deviant or rogue sensitive turned over to the empire. Petrastad never had many before, you know. We’re not a sel-city, which is why my husband and I moved out here. Thought being away from the source might help. But the city always had its fringe, weak sensitives who escaped notice. The watch looked the other way until Valathea started offering a premium per head. That’s why we chased you down. Whole ship full of rogue sensitives? It’d mean a fortune.”
He closed his eyes as his stomach sunk. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, Lord Honding.”
He winced. “You knew?”
“I guessed. Detan’s a common enough name, but the Larkspur is unmistakable. I hadn’t seen it before today, you understand, but the description got around. Valathea wants you something bad, you know. They’ve been sending delegates to every city with a watch presence to distribute your likeness and warn us all to take you in upon sight. I don’t know what you did, I doubt it’s what they’ve told us, but…” She licked her lips, lapped up a bit of the honey left there. “They’re hungry for you. Don’t let them catch you.”
“I’ve no intention of letting them.”
“Good.” She nodded firmly. “So that really is the Larkspur, then?”
He grinned. “Yes, it is. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“I’ve never seen anything like her. It’s like a real, old ship sailing through the sky.”
“I suppose that was the idea when Thratia commissioned her. Now Pelkaia’s crew has to keep most of her lines masked so as to not give the game away.”
“The game,” she rolled the word across her tongue. “You and that crew really are picking up rogue sensitives all across the Scorched?”
“They do. I’m just aboard to call in a favor.”
“And what might that be?”
He chuckled. “Nosy, aren’t you?”
She winked at him with her good eye. “Who am I going to tell?”
“All right.” He crossed his legs and leaned in closer. “Answer me this, then: what are they saying I did in Aransa?”
“Ooh,” she whistled, a soft, thready sound. “Got that big of an ego, eh?”
“The biggest.”
“Well, they claim you tried to set off the firemount there, and that Watch-captain Leshe died stopping you.”
He snorted. “I’ll tell her that. Not only will she be offended she’s dead, she’ll be doubly offended my sorry hide managed to pick her off.”
“Your turn,” Alli’s voice dragged out into a rasp.
“I’m using the Larkspur to pick up a friend.”
“Vague,” she admonished.
“Captain Leshe herself. From the Remnant.”
She tried to raise her brows at him and winced. “I would have heard if she were working there.”
“She’s not.”
“Now that’s interesting.”
He held both hands toward the sky. “I aim to entertain, my dear.”
“I almost wish I could live a day or two longer, just to see how you plan to get her out of there.”
“I assure you, I can get up to all kinds of trouble in the time you have left.”
Her head rolled against the boulder, angling her vision toward the crew working with her watcher brethren. “They’re good people, the crew of the Larkspur?”