• Closed • You Wouldn't Pirate A Ship

[Sade Sauterne]

The day had come. By the end of it, that ship would belong to him.

Partly, at least. His in spirit, though Sade did not know the first thing about sailing a ship and didn’t want to try, not when the stakes were as high as they were now. No, he needed Sel’wyn and Vermund for that, and their invaluable skills in seamanship mattered more to him than the logistics of who the ship was going to belong to, once they pried it out of its current owner’s grip.

He wasn’t a sailor either, the man that owned it. Oscar Brillby was a delicate man, portly and short, and the ship had only come to him through the acquisition of his late father’s estate. Darley Brillby had been a true pirate, or at least he had been back in the day, according to everything Sade had been able to find out about him. His twilight years had seen him set aside a rough life at sea in favor of using his accumulated riches to sail Idalos in luxury, in the vessel that he’d named The Widowmaker. Capable of traveling between continents and reaching speeds which would escape from any vengeful pirate’s reach, Darley had forgone the battleships of his youth, donning silks and raising his boy with fanciful breakfasts in the cabin, in place of rags and cannons.

It was on the Widowmaker that Darley met his end. Trusted the wrong man to navigate the seas, while he lavished in the luxuries of women, food, and painting within the safety of his cabin. The plan had been to sail to Ne’haer, where Darley often spent the warm seasons while his boy waited at home, but they never left Scalvoris waters. The cabin was raided in the night, its contents trashed, its inhabitants massacred. Darley Brillby and his girls were maimed and thrown overboard, and for the next three arcs, the Widowmaker disappeared.

That was how the story went, anyway. It was hard to piece together the truth when everyone he asked had a different way of spinning it, but they all came to the same conclusion: Darley Brillby had been betrayed, the Widowmaker stolen, and the ship had suddenly reappeared once his son Oscar was of age to acquire it.

Some said it was Darley’s ghost that returned it to Scalvoris. Others said the betrayer’s conscience finally caught up to him, and he brought it back as an apology to his victim’s son. Whatever the truth was, the ship had fallen into Oscar’s hands, and in the arcs since he had only set foot upon it a handful of times himself. Mostly he kept a crew in his employ to make sure it was maintained, and to occasionally transport larger quantities of alcohol from Almund to his second home in Scalvoris Town. All of them had met him at least once – apart from the crew’s latest addition, which came in the form of one Sade Sauterne. He didn’t need to meet him; Oscar liked Vermund enough by now to trust his recommendation of a young, hard-working man that just wanted to work on a ship as nice as his.

Sade’s top lip curled as he stared in singular concentration at the paper he was writing on. He gripped the quill so tightly that it hurt his fingers, and he had to consciously loosen his hold in order to finish penning the message.

“Quit moving so much,” he complained, and the boy-child whose back he used as a table turned his head with a glare.

“Stop pressin’ so hard! Yer gonna rip right through me back!”

“Am not,” Sade insisted. His eyes swept over the letter he held in his other hand again, and then he quickly finished writing. The boy straightened up immediately, turning around with his hands on his hips.

“Alright, kid. You know what to do.” The thief raised the paper and blew on it, encouraging the ink to dry. Once it had, he folded it neatly and handed it over to the boy. “You do this right, and I’ll make sure Miss Firecatcher knows what a tough guy you are.”

The boy puffed his chest, lifting his chin so high he looked stupid. He slipped the folded letter into his pocket, along with the coins the thief offered him for all the times he looked after his horse.

“Aye, sir. It will be done!”

With that, the boy ran off, and left Sade alone at the post where someone’s mule was tied up, just a ways out from Port Diablo. The other letter was returned to his own pocket, and he kept his hands within his cloak to keep them warm while he stood and waited.

That ship would be his, but he didn’t want to do it alone. Not this time. So he moved to lean back against one of the nearby buildings, hood raised over his head to block out the bright mid-trial sun, and he tried his best to ignore the way his heart skipped faster with every bit he spent in wait.

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Good things came to those who waited. So the saying went.

Jinyel had long grown used to sewing himself closed on the same trial he was torn open. Bones set, lacerations filled in, it was all the same to him so long as he never had to mend too many things at once. There was something heady about such absolute control over his own body, over being so stubbornly alive despite all of the things that wished he were not.

To be so close to whole, in spite of his own magic wishing otherwise.

That quiet confidence followed him into Almund like smoke followed fire. Control. Of himself. Of Monya. Of Lotus and Divi, fatter, stronger, and wiser with every trial they were at his side. Of the crossbow in his hand, how long it took to reload, how true it shot. The supplies on his animals, the tentrial’s worth of meat and forage he brought with him. He was more himself than he had been in seasons, perhaps more than he’d ever been before.

How easy it would be to swear he had everything he could ever want. So nearly true that he could have sworn it to the Prince himself, if pressed. Everything, except for what lay in Almund, in the winding streets and predatory alleys that were quickly growing familiar.

He’d seen this junction before, and the knock-kneed boy at its corner. The place where Masoch was often kept, where Jinyel had once climbed awkwardly onto that horse’s back and struggled to fit around another rider.

There. Quill in hand, flashing eyes, putting that same boy to use as a writing table. Now Jinyel had everything he could ever want.

Monya pulled ahead of him, tail swishing at the sight of her friend. Jinyel was just as shrouded as the other man, hood pulled up, mouth masked, identified only by the censer at his belt and the equines at his side. Lotus walked on one side, saddled and packed with pots and supplies to last a fortnight. On the other strode Divi, bearing half as much, hitched lower.

Jinyel slowed as he approached, just enough for the boy to run off and grant some semblance of privacy. Not that he cared what common streetgoers thought of him, but others’ curiosity cost time, and his patience for wasted time grew thin when it delayed what he wanted.

You. His hands shaped the word like an accusation, but his eyes glittered with mischief. Too long afar.

He dropped Divi’s lead and kept hold of Lotus’s, confident that the horse would follow wherever the pony went. His newly free hand knotted into Sade’s shirt and pulled him close. Their hoods cast them into joint shadows as his prehensile tongue unfastened his mask.

Greed, he said, and kissed him.

Their dreamscape encounters had been precious. Jinyel would never claim otherwise. But they were too few, and Sade was too far away for Jinyel to remain satisfied upon waking. He had initiated Sade with the hope of bridging however many miles came between them, but still, despite that power, his hunger had never come close to being sated. They were here for business, he knew, and he would not distract them from it, but he could at least taste what he had missed. The thief’s enervations which spread across his tongue like fine wine, the pulse of silver blood through hot veins. The familiar Graft: Energize: Repair Flesh followed without thought, mending whatever scrape or bruise Sade had managed to pick up in the interim.

I am here. Jinyel withdrew, running the full length of his tongue against the roof of Sade’s mouth simply because he could. “I do not know the length of your voyage, but I have brought rations for a fortnight, in case your ship’s belly is empty. Yours if you wish it. It will remain here if you do not. What little I know of ships is unlikely to aid you ― when last I sailed, I crashed into a boardwalk. But I have two hands, a crossbow, and eyes and ears to be aimed. Point me at your ship and tell me how to help.”

[Sade Sauterne]

Dreams had never been anything special to Sade, before he had been awoken to the reality – or unreality – of Emea. Just flashes of memories and possibilities warped through the lens of his subconscious, not important enough to remember once he shed the fog of sleep. Nightmares had plagued him more often than not, and why would he try to remember them? Why waste energy on trying to sleep, when he knew that he would never like what awaited him?

That all changed, once his dear Hunter had opened his eyes. Sleep had not found him any easier, but he had made much more of an effort to find it, and even when he could not fall deep enough into rest to join his companion in his dreams, he still laid down and tried. It was more effort than he would have put forth for anyone else. And on the nights when he’d been able, how worth it those efforts had been, to see Hunter again when he was elsewhere in the waking world.

But even in lucid dreams, it was not the same as seeing him here. It could never be.

It was Monya that caught his eye first. Sade had been looking the other way when the sound of her paws against the cobblestone drew his attention towards her, and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He held a hand out to her, and scratched her head – and she seemed larger, still, each time he met her – and looked to the encroaching silhouette he knew to be his hunter.

The thief’s smile only widened as he was grabbed by the shirt and kissed. It took conscious effort to force the expression away, if only to return Hunter’s kiss with as much enthusiasm as he wanted to. His hands came to hold Hunter’s head between them, and when he withdrew, Sade only failed to follow out of interest in what he had to say.

Still didn’t stop him from signing Greed into Hunter’s chest while he listened.

“Fates,” started Sade, with a short laugh. “I hadn’t even considered that we might need food.”

Everything Hunter brought with him, they were all the same things that Sade hardly even thought about when he formulated any kind of plan. He knew for a fact that the ship was not well-stocked when it came to rations, as it didn’t often have any need to be.

Sade’s fingers toyed with the edges of the hunter’s mask where it rested around his neck. It surprised him every time, somehow, when he met Hunter and still felt the same nervousness creep over him as the first time they’d met. The quickened heartbeat, the rush of blood to his face. It felt impossible to still enjoy someone as much as he did Hunter. He had to remind himself, as his fingers slowly slipped beneath the hunter’s scarf to touch his skin, that they were here for a different reason.

An important one! He couldn’t let himself be distracted from his own damned goal.

“I’ll tell you everything you need to know, but first, tell me. We’ll be heading toward Faldrass once we’re clear of here. An island to the northeast. Will you come with me?”

The request made the assumption that they would indeed be able to take the ship and wrestle control of it, of course, but that was an assumption that he was happy to make. Sade’s pink gaze flitted back up to Hunter’s face from his neck. The expression he wore was open, for once: he wanted to have the hunter’s company, but would not begrudge his refusal. It was enough for him to have asked for help, and to have had that request be met.

“I’ll need you to join us on the ship until we’re out of here, at least, if you’re able. Far enough that what happens won’t be observed by anyone here. But I can see to it that we bring you elsewhere after, if there’s somewhere you need to be.”

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Even with an explanation on his tongue, and attention ostensibly turned to the animals and what they carried, Jinyel did not draw any further from Sade than necessary. When he absolutely had to gesture to Lotus, he set one foot atop of Sade’s boot to keep contact, as if looking away for too long might cause the thief to vanish. Sade’s fingers lingered beneath Jinyel’s scarf; Jinyel’s own finger hooked firmly into Sade’s belt. There was no such thing as too many points of contact, not after the last twenty trials had been so empty of them, and he had no doubt they would have to part again in pursuit of this ship.

Jinyel knew little of ship logistics, and even less of ship-and-pony logistics. Divi could stay ashore until their task was done, but Lotus bore the rations, and Jinyel certainly could not manage them alone. The pony was smaller and far easier to hide than a draft horse, but without knowing the plan, Jinyel couldn’t begin to imagine how one might sneak a pony onto a ship without being noticed.

“Faldrass.” Jinyel tilted his head back to study the clouds, silently tallying hay and water and how much space each would occupy. “That is… two days from here? Three? Lotus would require little, but…”

… Sade had not even heard the question of Lotus aboard, much less agreed to it. Jinyel pinched the bridge of his nose, setting aside numbers and calculations in favor of the living, breathing man currently in front of him.

“Yes,” he answered. “Of course. I would like to see Faldrass with you, but I cannot carry what I need alone. I do not know your plan, but if Lotus can fit into it, I will stay aboard. He carries the food, the pot and pan, and he has strength to carry his own feed as well. Where will Masoch go? Divi can stay with him, wherever it is, and we can retrieve them together once the time is right.” His brow creased. “Have you planned for drinkable water? He can carry that, too, if I know how many people to account for. Can… can two people sail a ship of that size? I’ve only sailed a vessel a third as large, and badly.”

It was easy for his thoughts to turn down the trail of What does a ship need parmanently instead of What does a ship need for two days. A runaway nesting instinct that he knew was born from his dreams, of building and tending the place where Sade’s dreams met his own. Or maybe it was just the Zi’da weather which drove him, a season where comfort in cold inevitably meant digging into whatever ground he found himself on.

Or whatever planks.

“Tell me what you need from me.” Jinyel tugged Sade’s shirt loose from his belt, just enough to slip under and put fingers to his hip. “Has the ship moved since last we met? Where shall I go, and what shall I do?”

[Sade Sauterne]

Rations, drinkable water, feed for any of the creatures that they brought on board – so many things which seemed to fly through his hunter’s mind so hurriedly, and which Sade never spent much time thinking about at all. When he traveled, no matter how far, he starved more often than he ate, for he had always been a poor hunter on his own. He drank when he found water fresh and clean enough to refill his waterskin, but it held so little, when compared to the amount that an adult man as active as himself should likely have. He froze, and he scavenged, and he took what he could from other people, and he always managed to scrape by another trial, even if the previous left him hungry and bruised. It had never occurred to him to go through life any differently.

Hunter’s priorities were so different. So much more grounded. Reasonable. He thought about the essentials, and then the comforts that could be added once survival was ensured. Pots and pans and butter and soup.

Sade felt his fingers slide under his shirt, and his skin shivered equally as much from the cold as from the touch itself. For a trill he didn’t respond, didn’t do anything but pull on Hunter’s scarf to bring him closer, and to kiss him again.

How different they were, in the way they went about their lives. How much he’d needed someone like Hunter in his life, and never known it until he’d found him.

“Lotus won’t be a problem,” he assured, remaining close by once he’d withdrawn from the kiss. He merely traveled lower, so that he could speak while he nuzzled into the hunter’s neck.

“You can bring Divi, too, if you need to. The boy that watches Masoch here will be caring for him while I’m gone, if you’d prefer to leave him here. The boy’s young, but his father’s a farrier. They treat the horses well.”

He didn’t know half as much about horses as Hunter seemed to, but he knew that it was important to him that the animals in his care were well-tended.

“Whatever you think we’ll need for the journey – I doubt that I’ve planned for it, but as for getting it onboard, leave that to me. We can just bring it all on, once we reach the ship. So long as you follow my lead.”

Not that he supposed Hunter would do anything to sabotage this. But it was difficult, even so, to let himself fully trust in all the people he was relying on to make this work – he’d always done this alone, and his anxiety in having to do otherwise kept his heart in a persistent quick beat. He slipped his arms around Hunter’s waist, holding him in close embrace.

“There are five of us,” he said, only slightly muffled as he spoke against Hunter’s neck. “Me, you, Pirvek, Sel’wyn, Vermund. And there are six that we’ll need to… dispose of. But that comes after.”

Sade raised his head. He could spend more time enjoying the lack of distance between himself and Hunter later, once they had done what they’d set out to do.

“Sel’wyn will captain the ship, once we’ve gotten rid of the others. Vermund is a part of the current crew already – as am I.” The thief flashed a sly smile. “And according to a letter from the ship’s owner, so are you, as of now. They think we’re taking some of the owner’s recent purchases to Scalvoris Town for him – so all we have to do, for now, is help load everything up, and then go.”

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Far be it from Jinyel to protest a little more intimacy. The kiss did not answer his question, but it said something close to All will be well, Lotus included. So he sank back into Sade, prying past the thief’s teeth to tie knots with his tongue. He teased the very back of Sade’s mouth, just to make it clear he could slip down his throat if he wanted.

If they only had time.

Somehow, they never seemed to have enough of that.

Jinyel huffed in dissatisfaction when Sade pulled away. With even greater dissatisfaction, he forced his thoughts back to practical matters of ships and horses and the next two days. Those thoughts were a mighty task with the thief’s face at his neck.

“Divi―” He drew in a breath. Reined in his focus. Or, tried to. “Stay here. With Masoch.”

He did not wish to bring Divi onto the ship unless absolutely necessary, and from what Sade said of the boy and his father, it would not be. Lotus was maneuverable and required less careful handling. Divi, on the other hand, was easy to spook, and a horse that size trapped on a wooden vessel over open water would spell trouble for everyone.

“Five people.” Was that a lot? Jinyel understood the hands threading around his waist, but little else. The names Sade listed went in one ear and out the other, important only because Sade had said them and ought to keep talking. Five people surviving for two days seemed a simple task with the supplies Jinyel had, once he gathered water. But the other six…

“Six people. Dispose of.” The weight of that phrase, and its vagueness, pulled him closer to reason. “Five of us, kill six of them? Well, six of us, if you count Monya, but she is not trained for open combat. How well can the others fight? I will do what I can, but my shoulders limit me greatly. Unless you wish for poison, I suppose, but I would need several more trials in the wilderness to gather and prepare such things.”

Jinyel was not pleased by the idea of doing harm to strangers who had never done harm to him, but he had promised Sade his aid, and no thought crossed his mind that ‘dispose of’ might mean anything other than death. His morality was not Sade’s morality, and he was not quite brave enough to ask the thief to bend his intent.

“My role on the ship is to look after Lotus, then,” he concluded. “Perhaps the owner bought him as a gift for a niece or nephew. The blood-leather and blood-meat, those are fine things to send by ship, and Lotus carries those any other things besides. Armor. Small magic trinket. Perhaps the owner purchased me. He would not be the first.”

Jinyel rested his chin on Sade’s shoulder, then turned them slightly so he could look at the docks without pulling away.

“When will these purchases be loaded? I cannot give much help with carrying, but Lotus can. I will go where you go, but I do not wish to share words with those who are not you. Tell them my tongue is cut out, or that I do not know the common tongue. Let them sign if they wish to know me. I do not wish to know them.”

[Sade Sauterne]

If there was hesitance on Hunter’s part to dispose of the crewmembers which were not a part of Sade’s own, he did not notice. It was another of those things that simply failed to occur to him, as it had never crossed his mind to consider doing otherwise – to go out of his way to choose a harmless route, when the easier and safer one for his purposes might include injury or death.

“Poison? No, no need.” Sade shook his head. The offer was certainly one that he appreciated, but he was not of the mind to wait any longer than he had. Not when he had already planned for a more active, quicker fight. “We can try to make sure you're farther from the others, when it happens. If you have your crossbow near, I would only ask that you use it, if you see a need.”

If anything went wrong, if any of the others overpowered him, or any other number of scenarios which might happen – but Sade hoped would not. Hunter’s role on the ship was… apart from looking after Lotus, and bringing all of the supplies and levelheadedness that the thief was in sore need of… to be there with him. To make sure that he didn’t get himself killed. To help him turn things around if everything went wrong, or if the others betrayed him. Hunter, he trusted more than any of them.

With Hunter’s chin upon his shoulder, Sade leaned his head against his. A small smile came to his face as the hunter told him that he did not wish to speak with any of the others, that he did not wish to know them. It pleased the thief more than something like that should have.

“You don’t have to,” he promised, while one of his hands rubbed lightly across Hunter’s lower back.

All the better for him, if less of the world was given a chance to steal his dear hunter away from him. What reasons Hunter had for not wishing to speak with anyone, they were his own.

“They’ll be starting to ready the ship soon. You don’t have to strain yourself; Vermund and I will load what the rest of them cannot. There isn’t much. If you can get water, and whatever else you think we might need, then we might almost be finished by the time you and Lotus arrive.”

Sade’s head tipped forward until he could rest upon Hunter’s shoulder, too, and he held a little tighter onto him.

“One of them…”

The information was necessary, in a sense, if he wished to prepare Hunter for the trials ahead. But still, Sade seemed to have some trouble sharing it, and cleared his throat to try and rid himself of the discomfort.

“Pirvek,” he said. “He is – he can be… unkind. He does not do well, being ignored, but don’t mind him. Or any of the things he says. He doesn’t think before he speaks.”

To put it lightly. The thought of Hunter and his father being in the same place was one that frightened him more than any possibility of something going wrong.

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Distance. Yes. That was what Jinyel wanted. Distance from the fight, from the faces, from any risk of forming a connection with those about to die. Let them all breathe and make merry as far from him as could be allowed in the wooden cage of a ship, so he would only have to deal with them after they became meat.

That was how the labor of this juncture divided itself: what had to be done before the fight, and what came after, but the aftermath was something else entirely. Six bodies would need to be disposed of, and he had so thoroughly mucked up his last attempt that he dared not leave it to chance. He would not allow Sade to be as careless as he had been.

“Bodies.” He tapped Sade’s skin thoughtfully, and lowered his voice. “Do not throw them whole to the water. I shall look them over once the deed is done, ensure they cannot be recognized as they sink. I hear there are eyes under the waves, too, Mer or Elements or some giant beast which watches ships. I will tally their possessions and supplies along with my own, and if there are any dangerous secrets inside the vessel, I shall find them. Once the ship sets sail, how far from here will the battle begin?”

He would have to learn many things about ships, very quickly, if this was to work. Still, there was comfort in knowing someone on their side knew how to captain one, and that Jinyel wouldn’t be responsible for actually sailing anything, if he could help it.

“If they begin soon, then so must we.” He frowned as he said it, as if the words tasted sour. Things to do. Places to go.

He unwrapped from Sade by slow, unhappy inches. If Sade made no move to also begin their scheme, the separation might well take multiple bits.

“Pirvek.” Jinyel committed the name to memory. Avoid. Chatterboxes were his least favorite kind of stranger.

Once their limbs were untangled and their hands turned finally to the business of reaching the damned ship, Jinyel moved a few token items from Divi to Lotus. He searched for Sade’s errand boy, who had vanished somewhere up the street, and signed I go to find Divi’s place. I will meet you at the docks.

[Sade Sauterne]

…Do not throw them whole to the water. Hunter’s reasoning behind the command made sense, of course, and Sade’s own reason for wanting to do otherwise did not outweigh it, but there was a tiny twitch beneath his eye all the same. He was not used to suggestions or advice, not when it came to things like this – that was all. If Hunter wanted the bodies of the deceased to remain onboard until he could make them unrecognizable to the waves and whatever laid beneath them, then that was fine. His plan could shift.

So long as he was able to tell the others in time. They had not been told to make sure that any of the crewmembers were dead, after all – only to hurt them enough that they would certainly die in the water. There were more of them, and spending time making sure they were dead was time that could have been spent poking a few holes and pushing them over before the rest could intervene. He said nothing, simply gave a single nod to show he’d heard and would do as Hunter wished.

“Far enough out that we won’t be heard, and nothing will be seen being thrown over,” he offered vaguely, unsure of the distance himself. “Don’t worry. You’ll know beforehand.”

The only distance that mattered to him, in that moment, was the increasing gap between himself and the hunter’s body. A displeased hum sounded from the thief, and for a moment he resisted, as if to cling onto him far longer than their tasks allowed – but he let the hunter disentangle himself all the same.

See you soon, he signed back, and flashed a smile in farewell.

Hiding his hands away in the warmth of his cloak, Sade turned, and soon after had disappeared into the winding alleyways to make his way down to the docks of Port Diablo. On quick feet – and lighter, still, for what felt like the fluttering of wings within his chest upon seeing his dear hunter again – he traveled through the sparsely populated end of the docks where the ships that remained had fallen into disrepair, and not even the sharp-eyed mongrels that prowled them had any interest in taking them over. There were eyes all over Port Diablo, indeed, but nowhere were they more apparent in their staring than here. They left him alone, for he moved too quickly and with too much purpose for them to bother.

The farther he walked, the more faces appeared around him. No longer blatant, hungry eyes, but the salt-weathered skins of sailors, merchants, travelers. The eyes faded into the shadows here, and wore too-casual smiles when they did approach. But this trial they, too, left him alone, for he kept his head down and his guard fully raised.

He spotted three heads on the main deck when he had made it near enough to the Widowmaker’s nesting place. He knew all of them, by now, and would not miss a single one by the end of the trial. His steps took him not to the ship, but to where their cargo sat in wait to be loaded on. Several crates had already found their way aboard. Sade craned his head until he could see the barrels, and was pleased to find them still there.

Vermund and Henry were on their way to move more of the “owner’s purchases” by the time Sade reached them. Henry’s acknowledgement came in the form of a silent nod, and he carried on to hoist another crate into his arms. Vermund’s greeting, on the other hand, saw him stray from his task to come over and clap a hand on Sade’s shoulder.

“It’s going well,” said the biqaj, a proud note carrying through his voice. “We made room for the barrels.”

Yellow eyes glared up at him, as if to say, shut the fuck up, none of this needs to be suspicious.

“Everything’s real light,” Henry piped up. His eyebrows were furrowed when he looked over at them, and he said, “Mr. Brillby’s stuff always breaks my damn back. Now that I’ve been trainin’ for it, he goes and starts buyin’ light?”

The sailor spat. Sade moved to push one of the barrels just enough to test its weight.

“Where’s he want it taken to?”

“Scalv–”

“Scalvoris,” another voice called out, raspier than Henry or Vermund’s. Sade watched as… Giles, he thought, came down the docks from the ship to grab another arm’s load himself. Giles was older, skinnier, with more scars than skin. “First time doin’ the rounds, right? We take her out to Scalvoris Town, help Brillby’s fancy lads load everything on their fancy wagons, spend the night out on his coin. You been to The Four in Hand, boy?”

“Four in Hand?” the thief repeated with a frown. Henry walked his crate back to the ship, Giles replaced him to grab another. Sade pushed the heavier barrel over onto its side and gestured for Vermund to deal with it.

“Haven’t heard of it.”

“Aye, wait ‘til ye see her,” the older sailor sighed wistfully. “Mixiebelle.”

Sade didn’t respond, nor would Giles have cared if he had. The sailor was already off, heading back towards the ship, while Vermund rolled his barrel behind him. Once Henry had returned from his latest trip, he stepped to help hoist the other barrel up, and together they carried it off.

“Knew it were true,” Henry snickered to him. “All’s light except for Mr. Brillby’s drink.”

[Jinyel]

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The boy hadn’t wandered far, and Jinyel had seen his face enough to pick him out in a crowd. Not that the boy was especially thrilled to be approached by a masked man with a wolf at his heel, but he at least seemed to know he meant no harm, and believed him when Jinyel spoke of his friendship with Sade.

“This gelding, stabled with Masoch.” Jinyel spoke slowly, uncomfortably, and the boy in turn seemed equally uncomfortable. “Needs his feet looked at.”

“Upfront pay?”

Yes. It wasn’t a terrible blow to Jinyel’s purse, though it felt strange to hand the coins over. He simply wasn’t accustomed to having enough money to purchase things legitimately.

He left Divi in the boy’s hands, clearly talented by the easy way he checked the horse over and the casual confidence of his grip on the reins. Even so, Jinyel couldn’t help a twinge of protectiveness as he watched them go, and the familiar itch for revenge should any harm come to the gelding. The Hollow Prince had eyes everywhere, after all, and if Divi disappeared, Jinyel had no doubt that the Prince’s eyes could uncover exactly what had happened.

With only Monya, Lotus, and Littlespark at his side, Jinyel turned swiftly to logistics: clean water; cloth and thread for mending; a rough branch of that yellow lizard-wood or dragon wood, whatever it was called. The wood that would burn for trials at a time. There was never too much fuel when it came to carrying Littlespark over open water.

Lotus, hardy and cheerful as ever, barely flicked an ear at the added weight. Jinyel rounded out his supplies with one handful of dried apples, which went straight into the pony’s mouth. Then, finally, the quest began.

Jinyel felt the looks as he strode Port Diablo. Eyes on his wolf, eyes on his censer, eyes on the mask pulled over his teeth. He had no doubt that word would travel back to whatever slavers were looking for him here, but he did not fear them by broad daylight. And he planned to be gone long before that daylight faded.

The Widowmaker was a ship he remembered: a schooner of middling size, waiting in one of the more run-down piers. He heard Sade before he saw him, and his easy tone with the other crew members.

“Beast ho! Clear a path!”

Before Jinyel could study the ship any further, a shout rang out far ahead of him. From the other side of the boardwalk, one of those decrepit warehouses was hauled open, and through its door was led a… creature.

It had four clawed legs and stood roughly the size of a horse, its body layered in scales and crowned with a mane of white hair. A sinuous tail trailed behind it, nearly as long as its body, yet there was a bedraggled air to the animal that Jinyel recognized even from a distance. An iron muzzle clamped its face, with special care taken to plug its nostrils ― a cruelty Jinyel would not visit on even the most disobedient horse. What manner of creature was this? In what state of care? The hunter had never seen its like.

“You. Standing there gawking. Get a move on.” One of the Widowmaker’s crew threw Jinyel a vicious scowl. “Or be moved.”

Jinyel had the sense to stay clear of the strange creature’s path, though he did not stop staring. Two handlers let it to the Widowmaker, each of which kept several feet of distance from its head by way of long leads. Chains bound the animal’s feet to prevent running and jumping. Each time it tossed its head, its leads were yanked sharp. Each time it edged toward the water, they were drawn tight again.

“You deaf?” the irate crewman snapped, and Jinyel at last shook off his curiosity.

I’m here for you. His signs seemed to have no impact, so he pointed at Sade and said, Him. “Nnnn.” I’m with him.

Särkïn

300 Point Bank points have been deducted for a Särkïn mount, of poor condition but excellent training.