Ten Ruby Trick

By Julia Knight

Privateer Van Gast thrills in capturing treasure; delights in pulling off elaborate scams; and has an outrageous reputation with the ladies. But there is only one woman for him: fellow privateer Josie—seductive, brave and unpredictable. He’s hoping to make their relationship permanent, until he raids the wrong ship. Now slavers are stalking him, his crew is verging on mutiny and Josie has disappeared.

When she reappears with a new mark wanting Van Gast’s help running the ten ruby trick con, he senses trouble. It seems like Josie has joined up with mage-bound slavers to turn him over to their Master. Van Gast is about to take the biggest risk of all—and find out the true meaning of trust and betrayal.

Dear Reader,

A new year always brings with it a sense of expectation and promise (and maybe a vague sense of guilt). Expectation because we don’t know what the year will bring exactly, but promise because we always hope it will be good things. The guilt is due to all of the New Year’s resolutions we make with such good intentions.

This year, Carina Press is making a New Year’s resolution we know we won’t have any reason to feel guilty about: we’re going to bring our readers a year of fantastic editorial and diverse genre content. So far, our plans for 2011 include staff and author appearances at reader-focused conferences such as the RT Booklovers Convention in April, where we’ll be offering up goodies, appearing on panels, giving workshops and hosting a few fun activities for readers. We’re also cooking up several genre-specific release weeks, during which we’ll highlight individual genres. So far we have plans for steampunk week and unusual fantasy week. Readers will have access to free reads, discounts, contests and more as part of our week-long promotions!

But even when we’re not doing special promotions, we’re still offering something special to our readers in the form of the stories authors are delivering to Carina Press that we’re passing on to you. From sweet romance to sexy, and military science fiction to fairy-tale fantasy, from mysteries to romantic suspense, we’re proud to be offering a wide variety of genres and tales of escapism to our customers in this new year. Every week is a new adventure, and we want to bring our readers along on the journey. Be daring, be brave and try something new with Carina Press in 2011!

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Dedication

For Nerisse, may she always stay the free spirit she is today

Acknowledgements

As always, thanks to the AW crew, without whom I’d never have learned enough, especially Bettie and Martin for their insightful comments on this story. To the Unforgiven III, for the inspiration. To the T Party Writers’ group, as great a bunch of nutters—er, writers—as you could wish to meet, who help me in all sorts of ways. To the family, especially the Old Man, for putting up with me when I say “No, shhh, I’m writing!” Which is all the time. And of course, to the inestimable Deborah, whose smilies make the editing process a whole lot more fun.

Contents

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

About the Author

Chapter One

Black into white into blue into grey into black; the patterns kept Holden’s mind in check. He kept his eyes cast down. You didn’t look at the Master unless invited. You stared at the floor and kept your eyes on the tessellations of the tiles, the way the patterns interlinked. Sensible, orderly. Straight lines, symmetrical patterns, constants to soothe a disordered mind. The patterns were always the same.

“You’ve performed well, Commander.” The Master’s voice grated through the magic that encrusted every inch of him. “You may look up.”

Holden had never been asked to look on the Master before, though he’d seen him from a distance. Hesitantly, he let his eyes rise up the dais to the litter of cushions, all dyed a deep purple as befitted the Master’s rank. Over those, past the Master’s bonded women, indolent, dead-eyed but adoring, and on to the Master himself, full of wonder and dread.

Magic crept over him in lumps and bumps, his hands like crystalline tree roots, his arms misshapen from the need to remain still, his back hunched from the weight. Greasy clumps of brown hair stuck out between groups of crystals on his scalp. Remorian mages, mages of the power, weren’t like ordinary men. They were born the same, cried and suckled the same, but almost immediately magic began to accrete on their skin, to exude in tiny, delicate crystals through their pores. They built over time into a crackling suit of power. The Master’s eyes were mountains and craggy valleys in a shining relief map of his face. By his mouth the crystals thinned where he moved to eat or talk, and flaked away power with every bite or word.

The Master looked over Holden’s shoulder and a delicate frown cracked his forehead. The Master’s intended bride and a common sailor stood shivering in the sultry heat. Even without looking at them, Holden could feel their terror washing over him, the shock at the first sight of the Master, the clenching dread of what they must know would come next. If only the racketeers hadn’t chosen that ship to raid for the fulsome dowry in the hold. If only loneliness and proximity and the thought of long years marooned hadn’t led the sailor to defile the Master’s bride.

“Holden, bring him forward.”

“Yes, Master.” He turned and pulled at the sailor’s arm. The nut-brown skin of a mainlander was tinged with grey around worried eyes, and his damp dark hair stuck to the sailor’s face in tendrils. Beads of sweat trickled down his cheeks, darkened his grubby linen shirt and added to the scent of terror.

Holden pulled him forward and the man seemed powerless to resist, a limp weight he had to drag. Finally, shaking and sweating, the sailor stood before the Master. Holden laid a hand on his shoulder, a tiny gesture of reassurance. The sailor would suffer pain but it would be followed by blessed numbness, a release from uncertainty, a single-minded devotion. The bond allowed no room for fear, anger or envy, any of the petty emotions of the unbonded. He would become one of a useful, peaceful society, one with no crime or hatred. It was a good thing. A good thing.

“There is no shame in screaming.” Holden intoned the words of bonding, ones he remembered well from the day he’d come of age when the milk-bond of youth had been taken off and the mage-bond of adulthood put on. “There is no shame in crying. There is only duty, devotion, loyalty, obedience. This is your service to the Archipelago, to the mages of the power who rule us well, in peace and prosperity.” Then extra words, just for this man. “This is your service to repay your crime.”

The sailor’s shoulder jerked under his hand but Holden held him fast, not unkindly. For a moment he thought the man might try to run but solid guards ringed the room with implacable faces that flickered in the dim lamplight. Their bronze-and-copper Remorian skin shone like their swords and their eyes were blank of emotion but fixed on the sailor. He couldn’t run, from them or the Master. The muscles along the sailor’s jaw grew taut as he clenched his teeth, as though willing himself to be brave, to not make a sound. A point of courage, of honor perhaps. It would be useless in the face of the bond.

Faint sobs echoed around the room as the bride tried to pull against her guard. “Please, please, he didn’t do anything wrong. I love him, please, you can’t…”

“And I shall not separate you.” The hint of a gesture from the Master, a twitch of his finger. “Holden, his arm.”

“Yes, Master.”

Holden took the man’s arm and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing his wrist. The Master lifted a finger just a touch, and the bond slid out of his sleeve. A silver string, writhing, blind and seeking, searching for new flesh to invade. Knowing whose flesh it sought.

At the last, at the final indisputable proof that the bond was no rumor, no fireside tale to scare the gullible with, the sailor’s courage broke. He batted blindly at Holden, turned to run, and his sweating bare feet slipped on the tiles. The crack of bone was louder than his sobs. Holden reached down, pulled him to his feet and held out the arm again. The sailor struggled once more, feebly, but his other arm hung limp at his side and Holden held him with ease.

“Don’t fight it,” he murmured. “The more you fight, the worse it is. Accept it and it will comfort you. It will be all the comfort you ever need.”

The sailor turned incredulous round eyes on him, seemed about to speak when the bond coiled along the Master’s hand and leaped. It sank into the sailor’s skin, leaving only the telltale red scar, a perfect circle around his wrist. His face dissolved into cracked panes of agony and Holden couldn’t hold him as he thrashed but let him slide gently to the floor.

Holden turned away. The bond was necessary and good, but the screams always made him uneasy, made unbidden thoughts swirl through the pearled grey fog in his head. Not good in the Master’s presence.

What he saw instead when he turned wasn’t much better. The bride on her knees and crying the sailor’s name—terror, love and grief all mixed up in that one sound.

The Master’s voice called him back. “Holden, attend.”

“Yes, Master.” He attended. The back of the sailor’s head was bloodied where his thrashing had banged it on the tiles, not noticing in his greater pain. The smears of blood made new patterns, chaotic, disordered, and that disturbed Holden, made him want to rub them away and let straight lines take their place again. The screams subsided in the end, fading down into strangled gasps until they ceased altogether. The sailor lay shivering and weak, his shirt and breeches soaked with sweat, until the Master’s voice called him.

“Up.”

The sailor stood on trembling legs, unable to resist the bond, the voice, the rich rolling power of magic that shone like a beacon on the dais. His face was calm now, all terror gone, all base emotions erased by the rightness of the bond, his memories rolled up into nothingness. Yet the scar on his wrist had darkened to a grisly, throbbing blue-black. Bonded unwilling. If he didn’t learn to accept, to not fight it, that blue-black would spread until it ate him. Yet he seemed willing enough when the Master spoke.

“Who was it stole my dowry?”

“Racketeers.” The voice was bland now too, the monotone of the newly bonded. Maybe he would accept it after all.

A tiny wash of relief touched Holden’s heart. He hated when they fought it, hated to watch the slow decline, the movement of the blue-black lines along their arm to their heart. He shouldn’t; those who fought would bring unrest among them, bring violence and hatred into a peaceful and benign society. Yet still it caused him a hollow pang, a sorrow that he didn’t understand. He hastily turned his thoughts away.

“Which racketeer?” the Master was saying. “Which one? What ship?”

“Van Gast.”

“Van Gast.” The Master let the words roll along his tongue, let his power infuse the words with the anger he couldn’t afford to show for fear of cracking his crystals, dislodging his power. “Good. You’ve gone some way to redeem yourself. You shall have your reward, for I reward my servants well. Bring her forward.”

The guards brought the sullied bride to the edge of the dais, kicking, screaming, crying. She looked at Holden with a pleading in her eyes, begging him to do something, anything. He turned away. It was a good thing. A necessary thing. He believed that with all his heart.

Another bond snaked its way along the Master’s hand. “Come forward,” he said to the sailor, and the man took two jerky steps toward him. “Here, bond her. She’s yours, to serve your every need and desire, as you are mine.”

The sailor dipped his head but didn’t hesitate to take the bond from the Master’s hand. The guards offered up her wrist.

Her dark, sharp face was reddened from crying, tears dripping from her chin unheeded. “Please, I love you, please don’t, please—”

The touch of the bond on her skin cut off her words and drowned them in a formless howl of pain. The sailor stood, impassive, and watched her.

Holden pretended to watch but closed his eyes as much as he dared. Wished his ears would shut too. It was a good thing, a necessary thing. It allowed them everything they had. Peace, beauty, prosperity, freedom from uncertainty, from the fear of that uncertainty. In the swoops and swirls of life, the bond was smooth straight lines, constant, a comfort, what held his life together. The patterns were the cornerstone of everything he was.

It was a good thing. A necessary thing.

Van Gast lurched to a stop outside the inn and turned to his first mate. “Dillet, how much money have you got left?”

Dillet belched hugely and leaned against the wall. “Bugger all. Lost it in that game of bones. You?”

“Not a lot.” Van Gast had money, more than enough, but he had plans in this inn. He rubbed at a grimy pane of glass with the sleeve of his bright shirt and peered into the gloom beyond. “I know a way to get some though. We’ve spent enough, it’s time to get some back.”

Dillet pressed his nose to the glass and grinned. “Plan?”

“I pick a fight with the bitch, the rest of you pitch in and use the distraction to pick a few pockets.” Van Gast looked around for the rest of his crew. Most of them were staggering down the street behind him, just visible in the early evening murk. Barely upright bodies ricocheted between the driftwood houses that lined the little shifting islands of the delta in the more disreputable end of Estovan. The air reeked of brackish water, gently rotting wood and seaweed gasping its last on the clogged banks of the saltwater rivulets. The stench was only relieved by the hint of muggy breeze that managed to work its way through the narrow gaps that passed for streets. After a while you only noticed the smell when it was gone.

The crew caught up, leaning against the half-rotten walls of the inn in varying stages of inebriation. Van Gast looked them over and nodded. “Might as well kill two sharks with one spear, piss her off and earn some money. I’m not sure which I enjoy more.”

“Make sure you get her good, no letting her get away like last time.”

“I intend to fuck her so far off, she’s the other side of the ocean.”

Dillet rubbed his hands together and laughed to himself. “Oh, this I got to see.”

Van Gast pushed open the warped door, strode into the taproom and was enveloped in the fug of stale beer, tarts’ cloying perfumes and, yes, a hint of burning rend-nut drifting through the air, fogging minds and destroying brains.

Forn’s bells at his ankle chimed in counterpoint to his stride, an endless entreaty to the merciless god of the sea to spare him what every sailor dreaded and expected—death by drowning. Every man and woman who sailed was a child of Forn, even before they were fisherman, merchantman, racketeer. Before they were friends, allies or enemies, they were Forn’s.

His crew scuttled in round him, their own bells chiming in the hubbub, and found themselves places at tables among other racketeers they knew or wanted to tumble. A woman detached herself from a captain and strolled toward him, her admirably full figure threatening to spill out of the flimsy blouse cinched tight around her. “Van Gast, lovekin, I haven’t had the pleasure of you for a while. Staying the night?”

Van Gast favored her with a grin. “Sorry, Gilda, not tonight. I’ve other plans just now.”

“Oh, you’re no fun anymore.” Gilda swayed past him and on to Dillet, giving him a quick pat on the rear as she passed. At least Dillet had his tumble sorted for the night.

Van Gast looked toward the bar. There she was, Joshing Josie, his bitterest rival and dearest enemy. He loosened the sword in his scabbard, checked his pistol and sauntered up behind her. All conversation died away. Every racketeer here knew of their enmity and they were watching, hoping tonight would be the fight, the one that ended it at last, when one would finally best the other for good.

Josie had her back to him and even when one of her crew whispered in her ear she didn’t turn. Cocky, way too cocky about her abilities. She was good, but he was Van Gast. He stared at her back for a heartbeat, at the way she stood, fluid and graceful like a dancer. At the braids and beads, feathers and trinkets woven into the white-blond hair, at the pale skin nearly unique among the mainlanders. The smooth-fitting leather breeches that showed off her lithe physique, the one that made her so damn quick. Another step and he was behind her, close enough he could feel the heat of her through his shirt. Her first mate Galdon drew his sword, but Josie settled him with a lazy half-raised hand.

Van Gast leaned in, one arm either side of her, and pinned her to the bar from behind. He set his mouth by her ear, but he made sure his words carried. He wanted everyone to hear what he had to say. “Hello, sweetheart, I’m looking for a good time. You look like you’d be pretty cheap and plenty dirty. How much?”

Galdon flinched as though he’d been slapped, and Van Gast knew he’d hit on just the right thing to really fuck her off.

“I don’t think you could afford me.” Josie’s low, smoky voice held no note of anger, only a resigned weariness. She didn’t turn but she tossed back her drink in one hit and placed the glass delicately on the bar.

“Oh, I think I can.” Van Gast fished out the smallest coin he could find, half a copper fish-head, and slapped it on the bar by her glass. “That should buy me all night. You do the real kinky stuff, right? ’Course you do, no one would pay otherwise for a pox-ridden little whore like you.”

One moment her hand was resting lightly on the rim of her glass, the next her fist flashed back over her shoulder and caught him square on the cheek. Fuck, she was fast. He staggered back and she turned, aiming a swift boot for his groin as she pulled out her sword. His twist to the side made sure her boot caught his thigh not his balls, and then he had his own sword out.

She stood ready, light on her feet, and Van Gast wasn’t quite so confident now. He was bigger and stronger, yes, but she was a damn sight quicker and could stretch her kicks farther than she’d any right to. It was unnatural.

The inn was deadly silent as everyone held their breath, waiting for it all to kick off in earnest. Might as well give them what they want. If there was a choice between the sensible-but-dull thing and the stupid-but-exciting thing, Van Gast would say “fuck it” and do the stupid thing every time. Life was too short for dull and sensible when exciting was so much more fun.

“Come on, then, you reckon a girl can beat me, then beat me.” Guaranteed to start it—any racketeer woman was as formidable with a sword as a man in technique if not in strength. They honed their quickness with long practice and had a reputation for devious, underhanded viciousness that, among the best of them at least, made up for the lack of strength.

Van Gast led with a feint that Josie dodged with ease before she stabbed back with a riposte that sliced the cuff of his shirt.

Gilda swore behind him. “I’ll show you girls are just as good, you—”

He swung round, thrust at Josie again and in the corner of his eye Dillet was giving Gilda a run for her money in a fist fight.

Josie came for him, lightning quick, but he got his blade up just in time, brought his extra height and strength to bear as he forced her down and away. A swift kick to his knee and she leaped up onto a table. Then everything descended into chaos as her crew and his drew weapons, as more sober racketeers dived under tables, and whores screamed theatrically at the sight of blood when Gilda opened up Dillet’s face with a well-placed knuckle. The barkeep carried on serving with a look of long-suffering resignation, batting away anyone who looked like they were coming over the counter.

Van Gast leaped after Josie, up onto the table, chased her along and back down to the floor, parried two swift attacks and then he had her, his sword pushing her back to a flimsy driftwood wall. She lashed out with her other hand, but he knocked it away and bore down with all his weight and a grin.

A giant bald lump of a man crashed into them and sent them flying in opposite directions before he fell half through the wall in a smash of wood. Dillet got up off the unconscious man’s back, shook away fragments of driftwood, dipped the giant’s pocket and came away with a handful of coins. He winked at Van Gast before he leaped back into the fray with a wild grin.

Josie was gone. A door at the end of the taproom swung on one hinge and Van Gast laughed under his breath. Trying to run away, eh? Slippery little Josie. He planted a foot in the giant’s back and ran after her. The door led straight up a set of rickety stairs, and the muffled sound of scuffed footsteps creaked on the floorboards above.

He took the stairs two at a time, slowed a little as he neared the top and flipped round into a hallway. Four doors lined up along a carpet so old and ground with sand and dirt he couldn’t tell the color. The end door was ajar. He crept along, trying to keep the creaks to a minimum, but the boards were old and warped from the salt-laden sea damp, and every step sounded as loud as a pistol shot to his ears.

He stopped to listen at the last door but heard nothing and opened it. A flash of movement by the window caught his attention as Josie swung out and down. By the time he got there, she was a flicker of bright shirt and a chime of Forn’s bells twisting round a corner below. Toward the next inn, the Wicked Lady. He sheathed his sword, let himself down onto the empty path and followed, keeping to the shadows.

The sun had set and the Estovan delta wasn’t a safe place to be after dark. Of course, being one of the people who made it dangerous was an advantage. He crept round the back of the Wicked Lady, a more substantial affair than the last place. The narrow path was clogged with debris and he had to pick his way through with care. One window stood slightly open, a lamp glowing against a flimsy curtain. A woman’s outline moved across it. He had her.

A barrel made a handy jump-off point. He caught at the edge of the window and pulled up, quiet and quick. The window had a lock set into it, holding it ajar. For someone like him it would be a matter of moments to get it open. He never got the chance.

The window wrenched out of his grasp and Josie stood there, sword at his throat, one pale eyebrow raised imperiously. “Pox-ridden whore?”

Van Gast laughed, pushed her sword away and slid through the now open window into the room. “All I could think of at the time.”

She looked at him, half glare, half wry amusement, her sword still ready. She never gave up, not till the end. Too wary, too slippery to be pinned, his Josie. He made a grab for her but she wriggled out of his grasp and away across the room. By the bed.

Van Gast threw his sword across the floor and took her arms with both hands. She grinned her lopsided grin at him, the one that always made his stomach flip. The one that meant she was going to kill you, rob you or take you to bed. He was never sure, from one moment to the next, which it would be. Josie was the stupid-but-exciting thing, the never-quite-in-his-grasp thing that always kept him coming back for more, kept him from taking the tumbles of others, even though freely offered, even though it was expected of him, of any racketeer.

Even now she wriggled in his grasp but he stopped her with a kiss. She relaxed into him, returned his kiss with a hungry passion that shivered his toes, and dropped her sword. He pressed against her and slid his arms round her back and down.

She pulled away after a time and looked up at him with laughing, half-lidded eyes. “Andor Van Gast, is that all you ever think of?”

“With you in the room? Yes, Josienne, yes it is.”

“Good.” Then she grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to the creaking bed.

Van Gast lay on his back with his arms behind his head and looked up at Josie as she sat astride him, at the way her braids trickled over one pale shoulder and her mouth curved to one side in a smile. The hollows and shadows that flickered over her in the dim lamplight, the little scar on her collarbone that pointed at the cleft between her breasts. She leaned forward and all he could see was her.

“Andor, are you listening?”

“Hmm? No, sorry. I was admiring the view.”

Josie laughed softly and leaned farther forward so her breasts just touched his chest. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Damn, I was hoping for irresistible.”

She kissed him, softly and slowly, before she slid off to the side and lay with her head on his shoulder, one arm wrapped around him. “You’re that too.”

“Glad to hear it. So, tomorrow night at the Herald’s Trumpet?”

“And the next morning, that counter-scam I was trying to talk to you about. Silly man thinks we’re going to rob you. You ready to be a respectable merchantman for the day?”

Merchantmen and racketeers, there wasn’t much difference between them, only attitude and flair. Many racks only traded, and legally. Many merchants ripped off or stole or bribed or otherwise circumvented the laws. There were plenty worse ships than either of them out there in the Deeps, ones who’d kill you before they robbed you whether they needed to or not, maybe shoot you just for fun or sell you to the Remorians to be bond-ganged.

No, not much difference between merchantmen and racks. It was all in how you approached life, and racks were born to it, not made. Merchants twisted the rules and laws if they could. Racks ignored them when they felt like it. It was a matter of being your own person, of never letting anyone—excepting maybe your captain and not always then—make you do a damn thing you didn’t want to.

Van Gast groaned at the thought of spending a day in the roasting sun, all trussed up like a merchantman. It was essential, because any merchantman worth his cargo was a hard man to fool. Besides, while Josie couldn’t hide her fair skin and blond hair among the dark mainlanders for long, there weren’t many people other than racks who knew his true face, and he intended to keep it that way. Yet the contraptions merchantmen used to hold in their bellies didn’t bear thinking about. Especially in the damp heat of Estovan. “Is business all you ever want to talk about?”

Before he’d met her, he’d been nothing but a smash-and-grab man, stealing whatever lay to hand when the opportunity presented itself. She’d been a fount of ideas and plans with no one to help her finesse them. Apart they’d been insignificant. Together they were unstoppable.

“I expect you can persuade me to think of something else.” She snuggled in closer and let her hand run over his chest in slow swirls. Van Gast slid his own hand down her back and savored her breath on his neck. He turned on his side and they looked at each other across the pillow. She was smiling, not her Josie grin, but that soft smile that only he got to see. Her eyes were dark in the shadows.

These were the times when he hoped—when she lost her sharp edges and brittle words, just with him. When they were alone, secret together in the half dark, just them, their skin, lips, hands, hearts. This was when he hoped that she loved him, that he was more than just a tumble to her, someone to stop the loneliness, a warmth in her bed.

If only he could get her to say it.

She stopped his thoughts with a fierce kiss, one to bruise his lips. Tangled her legs around his and pressed into him with a quiet, nearly desperate arch of her back. When she pulled away, her hand fell from where it was entwined in his hair and dropped to stroke his cheek, along the line of his jaw.

The hand fell farther, across his chest, between their stomachs. Damn the woman. He leaned over her so she fell back to the sheets and lay looking up at him with her braids spread across the pillow. The press of him stopped her hand and he kissed her with a ferocity of his own, angry with her for making him be this way, for making him love her. Angry with himself for letting her do it to him.

He kissed her down into the pillows until she was breathless with it, and didn’t let her up until he’d loved her. Until he’d made her twist and arch beneath him, made her sweat and his mingle together and she’d called his name with what breath she had left.

Chapter Two

Black into white into blue into grey into black. Holden traced it with his eyes. The pattern was always the same.

“You may look up, Commander. I’ve a task I want to entrust to you.” The Master’s eyes bored into Holden. “One that requires your diligence and duty, your utmost effort. A tightening of your bond.”

Holden did his best not to flinch. Remorians were willing servants of the Master of Mages in return for the peace he gave them. They served as his hands and legs. A mage of the power couldn’t move—or bathe—without losing magic, so their every need was attended to by the bondsmen.

Holden was a loyal servant, he was. He didn’t need his bond tightened. “Master—”

The Master’s lips moved in the tiniest of smiles. Holden winced as a crystal by his mouth cracked. “Come forward, Commander.”

Holden had no choice but to obey. He knew the price of failure and it was pain. He took a step, and another, his heart dragging though he dare not show it, dare not think the thoughts that wanted to leap into his mind. A mage of the power could see inside the head of any bonded man, and those unbidden traitorous thoughts would see him dead. Why did he think them when he knew—with a cold, dead certainty—they were wrong, that the bond was right? He squashed them as he always did and thought of a fine sea breeze, of wind snapping in the sails of his ship, and a far horizon. He stepped up onto the dais and stood in front of the Master. His nose was full of the musky scent of unwashed skin and the vague, oddly comforting smell of accrued magic.

“You have long been one set of my eyes and ears, Commander. You are one of the men who keeps our land and seas in order. You carry the weight of my will in your bond. That has been your charge for some time. Order. Yet I find that racketeers, among others, upset that order with their wild and debauched ways. This Van Gast humiliates me, humiliates us all. We cannot appear weak in front of the free ports. Trade, and our livelihood, depend on it. I depend on you. Do you understand, Commander? We must catch this Van Gast at all costs, and show the free ports, the racketeers, that we’re not to be trifled with.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Kneel.”

Holden’s knees bent of their own accord. This close to the Master, to his power, he knew nothing else but obedience, had no deliberation on it. The Master controlled the muscles in his legs, the thoughts in his brain. Their faces were level, and the Master’s eyes glinted in their crystal caves. “Hold out your arm.”

Holden’s arm rose. He stared at it incredulously and made a fist to try to stop the shakes. The Master’s hand delved into his bond-scar, twisted round and scrabbled on bone till he had it, and pulled. Holden bit down on the scream that came to his lips as the bond drew tight on his arm and his head, rolling up his recent past into the fog of duty until nothing else remained.

The Master’s voice droned in his ear. “Bring me Van Gast, bring him alive so I may bond him unwilling, watch him fight against it and see that fight kill him slowly.”

The Master’s command, the burn in the tightened bond, dragged Holden back to his feet with his skin cold and clammy and his muscles trembling.

“Now that’s out of the way, I’ve something more pleasant for you.” The Master’s eyes flicked to the side and his aide bowed and left the room. “A reward for your fine service and in expectation of fine service to come.”

Holden kept as still as he could and concentrated on the soothing pattern of the tiles. Straight lines, smooth order calmed him.

The aide returned with a woman in tow. She stopped by the dais, her eyes turned to the floor as was proper.

“Come here, Ilsa,” the Master said, his voice kind.

She stepped up to the dais, her deep chestnut hair swinging between her shoulder blades, her copper skin shining. She’d have been pretty if it weren’t for the blank-eyed adoration that dulled her face. Holden’s heart twisted.

The Master held out his hand over Ilsa’s bond-scar, murmured to her as he turned his fingers in such a small movement Holden strained to see it.

“A gift, and one I expect you to use well, Holden. It’s been noted that you’ve yet to give a woman your bond. I expect better of my commanders, I expect them to set an example. Use her well, make many children for the Remorians. Start tonight. Come back in the morning and we shall discuss how best to catch Van Gast.”

Holden forced down the sickness in his belly, the treacherous thoughts in his head. “Yes, Master, thank you.”

“Now bond her.”

Another silver snake dangled from the Master’s fingers. Holden took it hesitantly, the feel of it churning the bile in his stomach. A good thing. A good one. Ilsa held out her arm without him having to say a word. Not just the bond that held her, but the training too. He didn’t want to put it on her. He didn’t want a woman to be his slave, to be bound to his desires, but he had no choice. His hands moved as though he was a puppet and someone else pulled the strings.

“You know the words, Holden. Bond her.” The Master’s voice held a hint of impatience.

Holden held the bond over her arm and let it slide from his fingers. His only comfort was that for those that took the pair-bond willingly, the pain was less, little more than a sharp sting, soon gone. The bond circled her wrist and he managed to choke out the words, the words every man used when he bonded a woman to him. Ones Holden had never wanted to have to say. “Let this bond you to me, your other master, my every desire your wish to fulfill.”

She fell against him and he supported her as best his shaking legs would allow. It wasn’t long before her whimpers faded. She stood up straight and raised her head. That blank, adoring look was fixed on him. He turned away.

Holden left the stale air of the Master’s chamber, silent as he paced the long dim corridor with Ilsa half a step behind him. She followed him like a dog; he could feel her eagerness to do his bidding, her pathetic need. It grated on him, and he couldn’t say why. The adoration was normal—he knew a hundred men with a hundred adoring wives and they were happy, content. Yet something about it, about her, nagged at him. A memory he couldn’t quite recall.

When they came out into the harsh heat of Remon, capital of the Archipelago, Holden took a deep, cleansing breath of the salted air and turned for home, through the market toward the docks.

It always took a little while for him to get used to it when he’d been away at sea. It’d been months since he’d seen Remon or any Remorian port. He was now more used to the noise and bustle of the mainland ports, the cries of the barkers and the soft promises of the whores, the redolent waft of ale, the chaos and bewildering variety. Remon was different, the Archipelago was different, and the normalcy, the quietness and peace washed over him like a cool breeze. No need to keep a watch on your purse here, no need to cross the road to avoid the brothels and the whores eager to have your business. No need to step over drunks or make sure your boot didn’t land in something rotten when you walked. Remon was different. No crime, no whores, no inns, and he didn’t miss them. Every citizen a good one, a law-abiding one, by their bond. Peace, through the bond. It was home.

They walked through streets lined with little white houses, all the same, like hexagons in beehives. Everything was neat and tidy, not a leaf of a shrub out of place, all as it should be, and that quieted the rogue thoughts in him. Patterns and constants. Every house with a flowering plant outside the door, every door scrubbed to shining, every window sparkling and bracketed with shutters painted in subdued tones of blue and dove-grey. Clean, well-fed children ran in the streets, quiet and respectful. Men nodded at him as he passed, noting the insignia on his silk overtunic.

It didn’t take long to reach his quarters, a little house like all the rest that stood on a hill overlooking the docks and the ships under his command. He’d chosen it for that, and for the view of the far horizon, for reasons he couldn’t recall—long-buried memories of his youth when his bond had been looser. When he’d had dreams and played out those dreams. Only he couldn’t quite bring them to mind. He couldn’t remember much before he’d been made up to captain, then commander with a half-dozen ships under his command, his past mostly a mystery to him, but he had the vague feeling that this too was a blessing from the Master.

All he had to show for where he’d come from was the view from his house and the dim recollection of long hot nights under stars, nights he was not alone, nights that were full of laughter, of women who weren’t bonded. The memories disturbed him, and he tried not to think of them or the dream he sometimes had where he ran, naked and shouting through the marketplace, laughing at the shock on the faces there. Just a dream, nothing more. He didn’t laugh when he was awake, why would he when asleep? That he couldn’t remember what words he shouted in his dream made no matter.

He opened the door into the familiar dark of his home at sunset and Ilsa scurried in behind him. Even once he’d lit the lamps she showed no curiosity about her surroundings, didn’t seem to see the spartan furnishings or the masculine minutiae of a life lived alone. A table precisely set for one, a small library of books about sailing, an ink drawing of his mother, curled now at the edges but still in pride of place on the mantel, her bond-scar hidden behind long sleeves. Everything neat, in its place. Orderly.

Ilsa stood gazing up at him until he couldn’t bear it any longer. He had her sit by the hearth in the worn leather-covered chair where he spent his evenings contemplating flames and trying to recall long-dead dreams.

She smiled at him, clearly confused. “Master, aren’t we—”

“Don’t call me that, never call me that. I’m Holden.”

“But I should…” She trailed off with a frown. Bonded to willingly serve his every desire, taught to call any man she was bonded to Master, the contradiction made her hesitate. The bond won out, the bond always won. “Yes, Holden.”

Hers wasn’t the only one that held. His wrist burned and pulsed, sent its message through him. Use her well, make many children for the Remorians. All resistance bled out of him as the tightened bond settled and swelled, covered his senses with a grey blanket of duty, of service. Any dreams he’d once had dissolved into that grey, gone beyond any reach of his. The Master’s will was all.

He held out his hand. “It’s time for bed.”

When Van Gast woke up Josie was gone, but that was nothing unusual. She always was. He stretched luxuriantly, winced a little at the satisfying ache in his back and arse that meant a night well spent, and got up. Not long now, not long until it became clear they weren’t just a usual tumble, until he could call her lover. For him it’d been that way a while, but slippery Josie was taking longer to come round to the idea. Besides, they made so much money from their supposed hatred, from the pickpocketing and the counter scams they ran, where one of them would persuade someone to help them scam the other—and end up twisted out of the deal in such a way they couldn’t know their erstwhile partner was scamming them. But soon, soon he would tell the world.

He whistled cheerily as he washed at the basin in the corner and pulled on the weather-beaten breeches that had once been a violent green and the bright blue shirt with its hidden pockets. He was careful putting on the knee-high boots, mindful of the daggers hidden in the lining. Being a rack was all attitude and that was nowhere more apparent than the gaudy clothes.

By the time he’d crept out of the window—she’d hired the room and no sense letting anyone know who’d shared it with her—made his way back to the inn his crew were installed in, taken some bread and honey for breakfast, and fielded the usual offers, questions and banter from the innkeeps, the sun was halfway up the sky. He had too much to do. A land trader to persuade that what Van Gast had in his hold was real silk, not a convincing fake. A noble lady to sweet-talk until she was sure she needed to invest in a wholly invented consortium of the delightful, and eminently respectable, merchantman he would appear to be. A dozen other enterprises he might fancy. Those could wait.

First he had a few items to lay off, which might take him half the day. Then Josie tonight, a last night in port for them both until a month from now when he’d see her again, when they’d meet in Dorston and there’d be a brawl or similar and they’d sneak off in mid-distraction, or maybe just slip off to the house he kept there. Until he’d finally get her to tell him what he wanted. And she would, he was sure. Not long now. He was content to wait.

Until then life held a myriad of potential surprises and riches to steal, and Estovan—vast, sprawling, down-and-dirty Estovan—was the place to do it. Respectable on the face of it, as seedy and underhand as you’d care for underneath, if you knew where to look and how to keep out of the guards’ way. Plenty of trade for merchantmen and racks alike, and where there was trade, there was room for a scam.

He strode out into the humidity of noon, into the heart of Estovan. There wasn’t a road as such, just gaps between rickety buildings made from driftwood and whatever the owner could scavenge, the paths boggy this far out into the delta. A man could buy anything here—a slave, a lion, a whore, a circus of jugglers, any number of stolen items. The shifting, shanty nature of the smaller delta islands farther out afforded a measure of anonymity. The island the inn stood on was more permanent but still good for secrets. The city’s guards didn’t like it down here, with no path clear to see along for more than two steps, and the miasma of rotting seaweed and effluent-ridden water clogging the air.

Van Gast found the tumbledown little bridge that led closer to the mainland, to the more prosperous traders who’d give him a better price for what he was carrying. The bridges here in delta-town were low, too close to the water, and he kept an eye out for the slow water-raptors that often lay in wait near the end for the drunken men who made an easy meal.

After a dozen or so rickety bridges, the boggy paths began to widen into earthen streets, the bridges became higher, with stone walls guarding from the water-raptors, and a hot breeze swept some of the humidity away. It wasn’t long before he stepped into a wide plaza that lay on the edge of the mainland proper.

The city wall stretched as far as he could see in either direction, hurting his eyes when the sun blazed off pale sand-colored stucco. The plaza was full of stalls, some permanent fixtures in the wall, most just an amalgamation of wood and silk and cotton haphazardly arranged to shield the wares from the sun. It was almost impossible to move without stepping on something—the hand of a stallholder as it hovered on a blanket displaying little wooden toys, a stray piece of fruit knocked about underfoot, the toes of passersby, the pliers of the dentist or, if you were unlucky, some donkey dung or a snake no longer charmed but pissed off and hungry.

Van Gast insinuated himself through the heaving, sweating press of people, his feet always landing on the solid dressed stone of the plaza, and took advantage of the crush. By the time he reached the dark and narrow crack in the wall that led inside to the city, he’d acquired two heavy purses, one silver necklace and a piece of roast water-raptor that he chewed as he dove into the shaded darkness of the real market.

Estovan was a haven for the exotic, for everything that could be brought from the interior on the vast, slow Est River and unloaded either at the river docks for the city, or in the small harbor so that it could be shipped elsewhere. Getting a place in that harbor was a tricky business, kept only for those with a proper license from the Yelen, the council that controlled trade here, and with trade, controlled everything. Most others had to find a narrow berth among the islands, but that had its advantages, especially if you weren’t fussy about the legality of your cargo. The free ports all along the western coast weren’t too particular about who came to town, if they had money to spend. Even Remorians were tolerated, provided they kept their bonds to themselves, because of the trade they pulled through the harbor.

Inside the city walls, everything was shaded against the harsh sun. Reeds covered narrow walkways, giving way to silk awnings as Van Gast progressed toward the more affluent areas. Toward the traders who might be able to afford what he had to sell. Everywhere was a press of people, a jabbering, hawking, elbowing, begging mob. A mostly honest mob at that, the Yelen saw to it, their reputation as rulers of the finest trading port on the western coast a jealously held one. Traders might try and rip you off, but not too much or it’d be their head. Dishonest ports and traders—or at least more than usually dishonest—drove buyers away, and that the Yelen would not stand for.

Heavily armed Yelen guards patrolled the streets at regular intervals, sharp-eyed, unbribable and merciless. Van Gast curbed his wandering pickpocket hand, because he wanted to keep it.

The narrow alley widened out into the Godsquare, the teeming center of the trade district. Nine temples towered above him, one for each god or goddess, throwing their welcome shade over the multitude, and priests mixed with hawkers and merchants, chanting their mummer’s shows to lead the sinful to pray. Van Gast skirted Oku’s priests carefully, never having been one for justice too rigorously pursued, though he dropped a coin in the bowl of the troupe of Kyr’s mummers as they performed their mercy play. Mercy was a commodity much in demand, and one you couldn’t pay too much for. Van Gast hoped Kyr would listen, but you could never tell with women, even when they were goddesses. Too unpredictable by half. One of the troupe caught his eye and looked away hurriedly. Too hurriedly. Van Gast’s little-magic began to itch, deep under his breastbone. A tiny scratch as yet but something to beware.

Trouble.

The trader Van Gast was after had set up in a corner. The blast of vivid pink-and-gold-striped silk butted up against the temple of Herjan, chief of the gods, the one all the others deferred to in thought and wisdom, the god to pray to when you needed an answer. Trust Haban to try to make himself look wise by courting Herjan’s adherents. Van Gast slid in between the silks into a space heavy with the scents of incense, mint and money. Haban clapped his hands in delight, his mouth a beaming white crescent against his polished dark skin.

“Van Gast, you dog! It’s been too long. Sit, sit.” He clapped his hands smartly twice. “Boy, refreshments, at once.”

A small lad, skinny as Haban was expansive but with the same burnished skin, darted out into the square. The flap of the awning fell back into place and a beggar flicked a glance their way. The itch grew worse as Van Gast made himself comfortable on the bright silk cushions that littered the vast, intricately woven rug worth half a ship. Haban might always protest he was just a poor honest trader, and reasonably honest he might be, but poor was one thing he could never be accused of. Which was why Van Gast was here.

“So,” Haban said. “Van Gast comes to Estovan, and not only that, but to me. You have something. Something good. I know it, I can tell by the way you walk. Something very good.”

Not a question, a statement. Haban’s little-magics at work, ones that had made him one of the richest traders along the western coast. Van Gast let his mouth twitch in a noncommittal smile. He’d been saving this for a couple of months now, since they’d taken the Sea Witch and marooned her crew, saving it to bring to Haban, who would know where to lay it off and give Van Gast the biggest price. Best not to seem too eager though, or Haban would pounce like a cat on a mouse, and when he haggled, it had sharp claws.

“Possibly I have something that may be worthy of you.”

Haban shook with laughter, holding his belly as though the movement would shake his guts loose. “Oh, I know you have. The Sea Witch, I bet a thousand gold sharks that was you who took her, and I know what was on it. Oh yes, a very fine shipment, and not only in jewels and goods. Did you like her?”

“Like her? Oh, the girl. Not my type.” Not Josie, and what sort of racketeer was he to pass up a tumble when it came his way? The sort he could never admit to becoming without being laughed off his ship.

Haban shook so hard, his guts falling out seemed a real possibility. “Oh, Van Gast, so enigmatic, but I know, ha! Yes, all the world knows the sort of dog you are. You’re a rack, no? But a discreet one, I admire that. Ah, but there are many people unhappy. Many, many. Not least her father, though for the loss of the dowry and the trade agreement it was to seal, not the daughter.”

“People are always very unhappy to see me, it’s true. Especially when we meet at sea.”

The boy slid through the awning with a silver tray piled with steaming plates of delicacies that made Van Gast’s stomach growl. A pot of mint tea balanced precariously among the plates. The beggar was still just outside, pretending not to watch. The itch in Van Gast’s chest made the growl in his stomach fade away—the little-magic that told him when trouble was on its way.

Haban had the boy put the tray between them and they began to pick at the sweetmeats. They toasted each other in mint tea and took tiny sips of the scalding liquid.

“So, come on, dog, what have you got?”

“Ah, nothing much, I doubt you’d be interested. Not rich enough for a man of your standing.” Van Gast reached into a pocket sewn into the inside of his shirt and pulled out something in a closed fist.

Haban tried to keep his eyes placid, but they widened when he noticed that Van Gast couldn’t quite close his fingers over what he held. If Van Gast hadn’t known better, he’d have thought the trader was holding in drool.

He turned his hand over and relaxed his fingers. The find of a lifetime—a single, perfect diamond. “Her father must have been keen for trade. Who was he sending her to?”

Haban licked at dry lips, unable to contain his surprise. “Kyr’s mercy, Van, it’s huge! I don’t know. One of the Yelen’s daughters, and all secret secret. No one knows where she was bound. I can’t sell this here, Van. He’d know it was his, there can’t be two like that in the world. Boy!”

The boy scuttled into view from behind a curtain and staggered when he saw the diamond, his eyes wider than the sky.

“Boy, you get outside. Get down the corner to the bodyguard pen, get the biggest, meanest one you can find. A blond one, one of the Gan if you can. Tell him I’m doubling his wages if he gets up here now or sooner. Then you keep your eyes open out there, understood? I want to know who’s watching.”

Only Van Gast knew who was watching. The waft of the awning, the itch in his ribs told him. The beggar outside looked as though he was talking to himself, but the man from Kyr’s mummers earlier stood behind him looking far too nonchalant. Listening?

“Look, can you take this or not? And what have you got in return?”

“Kyr’s mercy, that’s worth more than everything I have here.” Haban cocked his head to one side, considering, his eyes narrowed and shrewd. “Old Haban has never ripped you or twisted you, yes?”

Van Gast lifted one shoulder and twitched a lip, all but saying “Not yet.”

Haban spread his hands wide. “Van, I would not, for my reputation. Half my trade comes from racks and they’d not be pleased if I did. I’d have no trade left. But this, this will be hard. I’ll need to ship it, I can’t sell it here. Wait, wait,” he said when Van Gast shifted impatiently. “I have something, something to cover part of the cost. The rest…the rest I will owe. Gold, a favor, a woman, whatever you ask, I will give. On my reputation, and may you blacken it as you wish should I fail you.”

Van Gast considered. The little-magic, that thing that some men had, that all racketeer captains had, that set them apart from the norm. A talent of some sort, such as a fisherman who always knew where the fish were, a rack captain who could sniff out a dead-in-the-water merchant. Traders like Haban who could tell a fake from the real thing at a glance. Only Van Gast’s little-magic was knowing when there was trouble, when to get the fuck out of town. His was telling him to get out, now, the itch not an itch anymore but a burn. If he wanted shot of this diamond, to make anything from it, he had to take what he could. He could trust Haban to a point, and whatever he got now was better than nothing, and better than a diamond he couldn’t sell and was instantly recognizable. “What have you got?”

“Ah, you’ll like this.” Haban flicked back a part of the rug behind him and there sat two glass daggers, filled with some golden, oily liquid.

Glass daggers? What good were they?

“Rarer than a lion’s feathers, these. Oh yes, only pair I ever managed to get hold of. Beautiful aren’t they?” Haban lifted one up and let the light fall through the glass to reveal the etching, so fine it made a spider’s web look crass. “Wedding knives.”

“What, you get married and stab each other? I’ve heard a wedding is the death of freedom but—”

Haban looked at him sternly. “Do not mock what you don’t know, Van. Whatever you racks think of marriage…but I digress. Olar wedding knives. You know the Olar? No, I suppose not. No sea there for you to sail. Very far inland, a month’s caravan or more to reach them. Their Yelen, they are wary of women, those who would marry for money, status. So they make these, wedding knives. On the night of the wedding you drink the liquid inside the dagger, one each. And then you stab the other in the heart. If they marry true, for love, then the glass dissolves and they live. If not…well, if not, you’ve found out that you shouldn’t have married that person, no? And yet you still have all your money. They take weddings, and money, very seriously in Olar.”

“Haban, no offence, but what am I going to want with wedding knives?” Van Gast eyed the awning. Shadows there, not passing by but lingering. “Valuable?”

“Very, because so rare, and easier to get rid of than what you have. At least three hundred. The knives, five hundred gold sharks and I’ll owe you another five hundred. I can have them by tomorrow.”

“I don’t have till tomorrow.” Van Gast stood up. The burn of his little-magics was a flame behind his breastbone. Time to go, right now. “Haban, you owe me, remember it and if you fail you’ll get no business from me or any rack, ever. Deal?”

Haban sat back sharply, as though surprised that Van Gast had agreed without even a lame attempt at bargaining. Van Gast couldn’t help it—he had no time for the niceties of trading in Estovan. It didn’t matter if he’d offended him. He peeled back a corner of the brightly striped awning carefully. Here came the boy with the bodyguard, huge and brown-skinned with a face only a mother could love, bristling with scars and weapons and leather. Too late. The pale beggar and the darker man from Kyr’s mummery had been joined by another. A big blond giant of a Gan, covered in more weapons even than the bodyguard, and that was quite the achievement.

Racketeers? No others mixed with other races so well, but they weren’t dressed like it. The beggar was in rags, the mummer in the robes of a priest of Kyr, and the Gan—well, Gan dressed oddly at the best of times, they could never get used to the heat here compared to the cold of their home. This Gan wore breeches, boots, a bandolier full of sharp blades and a whole lot of sweating, sunburned muscles. Besides, no racks knew he was coming to Haban’s, except Josie. In the end it didn’t matter who they were. Now was the time to go.

Van Gast glanced at the wall to Herjan’s temple hidden behind bright silk hangings. There might be a way. “Priest hole?”

Haban took in the situation with a glance and leaped to his feet with a grace that belied his size. “Of course, what do you think I am?” He shoved the daggers at Van Gast, rummaged quickly in a chest at the back of the awning and brought out a pouch, stuffed and clinking. “Five hundred now, same tomorrow or when I next see you.”

With a nervous glance at the way Van Gast was jigging on the spot, ready to run, Haban drew back a silk hanging to reveal a dark hole in the wall of the temple behind. The door, stuccoed and painted so that when shut it was nearly invisible, lay against the wall.

Van Gast tucked the pouch firmly inside the pocket in his shirt, where it bulged alarmingly. Five hundred and that wasn’t even half of it—the richest haul he’d ever made. “Haban, that diamond—”

“You think they chase it, or you?” Haban laughed again. “No worry, Van Gast, no worry. They’ll not find it on me. It’s not only people I hide today.”

He shut the door and Van Gast was alone in the dark tunnels the priests had once used, to escape persecution or run black market goods. He hoped that whoever was after him wasn’t Estovan born, and if they were, and they knew these tunnels, that he could get far enough ahead. Someone spoke loudly just the other side of the awning, the accent coarse and guttural, demanding Van Gast.

Not just the diamond they wanted, then—they knew who he was and it was him they were after. He ran into twisting darkness.

Chapter Three

Holden stood on the steps of Oku’s temple, having made an offering for swift justice, and watched as his men got into position. A specially picked crew for this, not a one of them Remorian born. The bronze-and-copper skin, black hair cropped close to the scalp, the billowing silk clothes they usually wore would give them away if there were too many. Only Holden was a Remorian from birth. The rest had been bond-ganged, except for Skrymir. Not even Remorians bonded Gan.

The man tailing Van Gast signaled from the alley and pointed out their prey. He wasn’t what Holden had expected. He’d thought the man would be lithe and quick—he was reputed to be the best swordsman in the racketeers, and that was an accomplishment. Van Gast was broader than rumor had made him, though not with the big bulging muscles of Skrymir. Van Gast’s was a taut physique, muscle honed and flat from years of swordplay. He couldn’t have been more than in his mid-twenties but the racks taught them young. He wore his sky-blue shirt in a loose, rakish way, billowing over skin nut-brown from his coloring and the sun. His leather leggings fit snugly but had seen better days. The clothes were a vain affectation no Remorian would ever entertain, but it gave the racketeer a certain air, one he certainly cultivated. The hair, too, was vanity—long and loose, black as pitch, framing a sharp brown face and a ready, knowing grin.

Holden nodded at the men dotted round the square. The diamond hadn’t been sold anywhere that the mages could find, through whisper or magic, but there were few traders with enough coin to buy it, or contacts to sell it without rumor. Three of them were in this port, two in this square. His ship’s mage, Cattan, had scried about and found Van Gast on his way here only an hour ago. Little enough time, but Holden began to hope that this time they had him. Twice before now they’d got close, only for Van Gast to disappear without trace, so quick even Cattan couldn’t tell which way he’d gone. This time Holden was taking no chances.

Van Gast ducked into the tent of Haban, one of the wealthiest and canniest traders on the mainland. Holden allowed himself a smile and trotted down the steps. Now they had him, trapped in a corner between Herjan’s temple and part of the palace. The Master would be pleased, finally. Holden wouldn’t have to report failure again, face the twisting of the bond, the pain again.

He reached his men just as a bodyguard approached the tent from the pen.

“Still in there.” Skrymir the Gan eyed the bodyguard with professional curiosity. “Want to get him now, or wait?”

“Now, no sense waiting.” Holden stepped forward and the bodyguard moved to block his way. “Whatever Haban is paying you, I’ll match it if you let me through. I only want Van Gast.”

The bodyguard stared down impassively and shook his head. “Wouldn’t be in the guild if I took a bribe. Yelen would cut me to ribbons. No guild, no work, no skin. Boy, tell the trader he has customers.”

Holden signaled, and his eight men came to stand beside him from their places in the crowd, swords or bill-hooks drawn and ready. A worried murmur ran through the multitude behind them but Holden ignored it. He was used to the effect of a Remorian among others. Skrymir stepped forward, bigger even than the guard.

The guard didn’t appear surprised or worried. He let out a sharp, trilling whistle and unsheathed his sword. Feet pattered on the stone of the plaza around them. Bodyguards from the pen on the corner—big, nasty, professional-looking men come to protect their own.

“I only wish to talk to the man inside, I’ve no business with any of you.” Holden made sure his voice carried.

“Try bonding anyone, and you’ll get a face full of this.” Haban’s guard hefted his sword, and Skrymir squared up in front of him. “Fucking Remorian pigs not got no business here at all. You’re supposed to keep to the docks instead of filling our temples with your stink.”

The awning swished back and a vast round man stepped through, his white smile splitting his dark face. “Now, that’s no way to treat a customer. Come, come.” He beckoned to Holden to enter the tent. “Haban will sell you what you want.”

Holden stepped through, Skrymir at his back and the rest of his men kept ready. The bodyguards stood with weapons drawn, keen for a fight. Holden hoped they could get Van Gast quick and—

The tent was empty. No one but him, Skrymir and Haban. Holden jerked his head at Skrymir and the Gan flicked at silk hangings with the point of his sword, looking behind them for anywhere a man could hide.

“Where’s Van Gast? He came in, but he didn’t come out.”

Haban stopped smiling, fluttered round Skrymir and complained when the sword ripped silk. “I don’t know any Van Gast.”

Holden grabbed at his arm and stopped the fluttering, pulled the dark face to within an inch of his own. “I don’t have time for this. Tell me where he is, or Skrymir here guts you. Or I could bond you.”

Haban seemed to shrink inside his skin at that. He licked at dry lips, his eyes darting to and fro as he thought. “And then you will all die. My bodyguard will protect me, kill any man who harms me, bond or sword, and his friends protect him. An impasse, no?”

Holden let Haban’s arm drop and scowled in disgust. “Skrymir, check the wall at the back.”

Haban half closed his eyes, calculating. “How much do you want him, how much is it worth to you?”

Worth more than worlds to Holden. If Van Gast got away again…he couldn’t even begin to imagine the punishment. “How much to tell me?”

“Not much, no. Not much to such a rich Remorian commander. One hundred sharks only. Once you all come in and don’t leave, my secret is gone forever. That’s a very good price for a ruined secret.” Haban beamed again.

A hundred sharks was a huge price—nearly enough to buy a ship. Holden debated haggling, but it was useless and Haban knew it. Every heartbeat here let Van Gast get farther away. Haban hadn’t gained his reputation idly.

Holden dragged out his purse and threw it at the trader. “Here, there’s at least that in there. Now, where is he?”

Haban hefted the pouch and nodded before he lifted the hanging at the back of his tent and did something complicated to the wall. A section of it swung away. “In there, the priest holes. Take you all over the city. Which way he’s gone, only Kyr knows.”

Holden stared at the pitch-black of the opening, trying not to gag at the dry, dusty tickle of unused air. Enclosed spaces, being hemmed in with no escape, filled him with dread. Yet not half as much dread as coming back empty-handed again. “Skrymir, get going.” He beckoned his men through, past the surly bodyguard, and one by one they climbed in.

The door shut with an ominous click behind them. Darkness stretched in every direction, made Holden’s heart pound and his skin grow clammy.

“This way, sir.” Skrymir’s voice in front of him made Holden start, but he took a deep breath and followed it.

“Are you sure?” Only now Holden’s eyes began to adjust he saw there was light, the tiniest glimmer from little holes set in the right-hand wall where it faced the plaza. Footprints in the dust. “Quick then. If he gets away again—”

Every one of the bonded men shuddered in the dark and doubled their pace.

Van Gast staggered to a halt and leaned against a dusty wall. He had to catch his breath, just for a moment. These tunnels went for miles and he’d yet to see any way out. Trouble was still coming, the itch in his chest told him that. Getting closer, too.

How long till Haban had sold him out? Not long, no not long at all. Van Gast could trust him to pay up when he saw him, but not to pass up the opportunity to make money. How could he blame the man for something he’d do himself in an eyeblink?

He pushed away from the wall and started off again. There had to be a way out. Estovan was riddled with priest holes; they honeycombed every major wall within the city. He’d been in some of them before, but not this close to the palace, and he didn’t know the entrances and exits. He passed a place where a low murmur of voices penetrated the brick. Maybe here. He ran a hand over the wall as he went on, hoping to find some clue, some trick to finding an exit. Couldn’t slow too much though. Trouble was gaining. There, a ripple in the brickwork like a wrinkle in cloth. He tried again with both hands and pushed. The wall bent, as brick shouldn’t. He’d found a way out at last.

Three good shoves later, part of the wall swung back and opened out into a cellar. He swung the door back behind him and leaned on it while he took stock. An inn’s cellar, by the looks of it, filled with barrels and bottles and the sour smell of old beer. Excellent. He grabbed at a random bottle on a shelf and found the stairs. At least the door at the top was unlocked—the taproom sounded as though it was in full swing, with raucous shouts and calls for ale and spirits and rend-nut and bad, bad women.

Van Gast insinuated himself through the door, into the crowd and made his snaky way out to the street. He let himself take a deep, relieved breath. They’d have a much harder time finding him in the throngs of people that crowded the streets, a riot of colored silks and cottons and linens he could blend into. He sauntered along at an unhurried pace and mixed with the people who walked along the packed street, let humanity wash over and around him. Time to get his bearings. He looked back over his shoulder. The inn was the Blue Man, one he’d been in once or twice before. Bad, bad women indeed.

Near the docks then. Dillet and his mates had said they’d be down Mucking Lane, a place full of games of bones, much booze and even worse women than the Blue Man. A racketeer paradise, crammed with deals and scams and twists, alive with the sounds of Forn’s bells. Trouble wasn’t too close now, not too close, but not far enough away. Time to round up his crew, get the ship ready to go as soon as they could before trouble found its little hiding place among the hundreds of islands. Before he did just one last thing before getting the fuck out of town. He headed to Mucking Lane at a brisk swagger.

Chapter Four

Holden had come to the conclusion that Skrymir was inhuman. It wasn’t natural a man that big could run so long, so fast, and not get out of breath. Holden got out of breath every time he thought about the walls so close to his shoulders, how they had yet to see one exit. They could be in here forever. Finally he called a halt and propped himself against a wall, the other bonded men taking his lead and resting. Skrymir scouted ahead. Inhuman.

“Commander, over here.”

Holden pushed away from the wall with a groan and went forward, the dim closeness pressing in on him like a suffocating blanket pulled tight across his face, making breathing difficult and conjuring imaginary shapes that burst across his vision in blooms of color. “What?”

“The footprints stop here.”

The light that leaked through the tiny holes on the right illuminated the scuffed dust against the wall to the left, and, farther down the corridor, the blank, undisturbed detritus of years.

“Try the wall.”

Skrymir shoved at a section and it swung back, banged against the wall the other side with a hollow crunch. The stale waft of spirits filled Holden’s nose. An inn was in a lively mood above them. “Let’s go.”

They couldn’t be too far behind. It hadn’t been long between his men’s last sight of Van Gast and them going through the opening. They could still catch him, if they were quick. They had to catch him.

The inn was packed to bursting, full of merchantmen in their heavy finery, racketeers with their ostentatious clothes and gaudy jewelry, whores and jugglers, soothsayers and drunks. When they walked through the door, the innkeep was there in a heartbeat.

“What you doing in my cellar?” he demanded of Skrymir. Then he saw Holden, must have noted the Remorian coloring and clothes, and blanched. “Kyr’s mercy. No bonding here, ’tis the law. You want to trade, then no bond-ganging, not in my inn.”

The rest of Holden’s men piled through the door.

“No bonding,” Holden said into the sudden hush. “If you tell me what I want to know.” He hated saying it, hated doing it, but he had his orders, ones he was powerless to resist, and every man here knew it. They all knew that nothing would stop a Remorian carrying out his orders, nothing but death.

There was the subtle sound of knives being drawn. In these sorts of inns, death was always an option.

“No one is telling you nothing.” The innkeep spat into the sawdust on the floor. “Not to a Remorian. You want someone, find them yourselves.”

Van Gast found Dillet in a drunken stupor behind a gambling house. He picked up his first mate and shook him a few times, slapped him when that didn’t work, and Dillet opened a bleary eye.

“Wha’?”

“Wake up, damn your eyes. Come on.” Van Gast shook him again and Dillet seemed to rouse. “We need to get the fuck out of here. Round up everyone you can find and get ready to sail.”

“But, Van, we ain’t sailing till tomorrow. Still got money to spend.”

Kyr’s mercy, Dillet’s breath stank like rotting fish that had died of too much beer. He strove to keep his voice calm and clear. “And now we’re sailing just as soon as you find everyone and get ready.”

Dillet squinted up at him. “Trouble bone itching you, is it?”

“Not just itching, it’s fucking burning. We need to sail. We are in big, big trouble if we don’t.”

Dillet nodded and scratched intensely at the back of his head. “Reckon I can find everyone. Might take a while, and most of them’ll be drunk, but I can get them back. They won’t be happy, mind.”

“Good. Take this.” Van Gast shoved the pouch of money at him. He’d taken out most of it, but enough gold weighted the pouch to tempt most racketeers to sell their granny. “Every man who gets back by sunset gets a share.”

Dillet looked up at the lowering sun then down at the pouch. “Ah, you’re a generous man, Captain. Generous indeed. We’ll be ready and any man not there, he won’t be leaving.”

“Good, I’ll meet you there. I’m on a promise, and I’d not like to let the lady down by not appearing.”

Dillet laughed, a wretched lewd thing that made Van Gast shiver, but they parted ways and Van Gast headed up toward the palace. The itch had gone for now, but he didn’t expect it to hold. Someone was after him. Someone who wanted him bad. Could be anyone, really. The father of the girl on the Sea Witch, the merchantman he’d sold that bad fish to last month, or the noble lady convinced he was investing her money to make a fortune and had maybe just discovered where her money really was—in his pocket. Probably half a dozen others who would happily see him skinned alive, and that was just in Estovan.

The crowd thinned as he walked, became more refined until his gaudy clothes were unusual rather than the norm and the sound of the bells at his ankle were a lonely echo, hoping for other seamen to join in the prayer. Just on the cusp of standing out, he stopped outside an inn. The Herald’s Trumpet. Then the itch was back, not an itch, gods no, not a burn, it was a tear in his chest. Someone was ripping his ribs apart with a giant hand. How had they found him? Who knew, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was fucked.

He didn’t stop to look, or to think. He ran and laughed aloud at the sheer blood-pumping joy of it, of knowing he was screwed but hoping beyond all hope he wasn’t too screwed, that he would weasel his way out of it.

A shout went up behind him and he ran faster, jinked round a corner, the other way round the next, left and right down alleys, up a shambolic outside stair that led to a roof garden. Footsteps followed him and he took a heartbeat to look. The beggar and the Kyr’s mummer. Other men shouted from away to his right. Trying to hem him in.

More fool them. He reached the roof garden, ran roughshod over the delicate arrangements, destroyed borders in a spray of dry earth, planted one foot on the low wall and leaped. His breath tasted of copper as the neighboring roof caught him. He scrambled up the loose tiles and ran on again. Shouts surrounded him, left and right from other rooftops, from behind. Only ahead was clear. Only ahead lay escape.

Ahead was a ten-foot wall blank with stucco, no handholds, no handy bricks to climb, and either side a long drop to the street. He jerked to the left, past the outstretched fingertips of the mummer, ducked and rolled and caught the edge of the eave as he tumbled over the side of the building. His arm yanked him to a stop, the muscles screaming, but there was a window open, by Kyr’s mercy. He dove through, feet first.

He landed in a messy heap on a filthy rug, but it didn’t matter. His heart was thumping pure, unadulterated joy-fear through him. He was Van Gast, he was good, better than good, he was the master at this, and better than whoever it was wanted him so bad. He scrambled to his feet and out of the door. The voices behind grew faint for a second then stronger again—someone had followed. It didn’t matter where he ran, only that he was running, that he was ahead, that his breath was fire and his legs were lead and he was going to win.

Out the door, along a corridor, into another bedroom, making a woman scream and clutch a thin sheet over herself. Too late.

“Pardon, madam. Nice tits.” Out the window, hold the sill and hang down, drop light as a feather to the street and round the corner into an alley. Keep going, keep running, Forn’s bells chiming so fast they’re a blur of tinkling noise, don’t let the bastards catch you. Go left, go right.

Through that inn and out the other side, coming out with half a bottle of spirit that he swigged as he ran. Another turn and the ripping sensation faded, back to a burn, down to an itch and then gone. He’d lost them. He slid down a stucco wall caked in mud, down into whatever it was that coated the alley floor, and it was sweet as wine. He took another swig of the spirit and savored the burn that swept through him, that said he was alive, he was kicking, and the bastards would never get him.

Chapter Five

Holden and Skrymir stood panting on the broad thoroughfare that led down to the marina and docks, to the center of everything here in Estovan. Rich merchantmen eyed them warily and hurried past as Holden caught his breath. So close, they’d almost had him there for a heartbeat, outside that inn. Holden had thought him lost, had ordered his men back to the ship in the licensed dock with a heart heavy with fear. Then, just as Holden’s mind had conjured the third excruciating punishment the Master would plan for him, Van Gast appeared, standing outside a respectable inn, the Herald’s Trumpet. And gone, fast as a shark after seals, as they crept up behind him. The man was impossible to catch. He seemed to always know when they were coming.

The rest of Holden’s men clotted round him, sweat and dust staining their faces, their fear no less palpable than his own. Failure was not a happy prospect.

“You.” Holden pointed at the man disguised as a beggar. “Back to the docks, see if Cattan’s managed to find their ship, and if not, why not. The rest of you, back this way. We haven’t finished with him today, not yet.”

“The inn?” Skrymir asked and Holden nodded tersely.

Van Gast hadn’t headed straight for his ship when he knew they were after him. Because he had something important to do in that inn.

“I want everyone out of sight but watching it, every entrance. I’m going to catch this man if it kills me.” And if I don’t, it probably will.

Van Gast threaded his cautious way back, intent on everyone and everything, waiting for the itch to start. He was tempted to take off his bells, to creep more quietly, but that would be an enticement to fate. Forn, the sea, the threat of the Deep, was a bigger fear than whoever chased him.

He neared the Herald’s Trumpet through a rubbish-strewn side alley, and immediately it scratched at him, the itch. Faint as yet. He would maybe have time enough to say what he wanted here, though not time enough to do what he wanted, because they were waiting for him, whoever they were. This was possibly the most stupid thing he’d ever done, and his mouth ached with the grin he couldn’t get rid of, his heart thudding with the thrill of it.

As he walked and sidled and crept, he thought. Who was after him—and why hadn’t they shot him? He’d seen enough of the beggar and the mummer once the chase had started to realize they wore pistols. Why hadn’t they used them? Because they wanted him alive, that was why. A vaguely encouraging thought, or not, depending. Encouraging if they merely wanted to scare him off something or warn him, give him a beating. He’d had worse on occasion. Not encouraging if they wanted to kill him slowly rather than quickly. It all depended on who was after him and why.

He’d lost them, and then they’d found him, near the docks. On the way back to their ship? He was a fool not to have thought of it before, to have thought that the teeming anonymous humanity of the city would save him. He took a slight detour and found a shadowed nook where he could look out over the docks and see who was in port.

Five fat-bellied merchantmen, slow ponderous ships that he’d love to take, only merchants that rich would have their gunships anchored just outside the harbor. Pity really, but the open sea was the best place to take a merchantman, where he could maneuver and twist and win. He recognized two of the ships. One owned by a man he’d stolen a cargo from not too long ago, no matter his gunships. Keeping Van Gast alive didn’t seem his style though. Stone cold dead with a bullet in the face was more his thing. Brutal but straightforward. No, not him.

Van Gast’s gaze ran over the smaller marina to one side, where the Yelen kept their personal ships, an altogether more fragrant place than the rancid trading docks. The Yelen chambers, all pale stucco and occasional sculptures of ships and mermaids crudely placed, which seemed to be put there to try to assume a grace they didn’t have. A square and somehow sterile building that loomed up behind their yachts and pleasure barges.

A powerful bunch, the Yelen, and noted for their love of vengeance. Van Gast had taken the Sea Witch, a daughter and a dowry. A huge incentive, for an Estovan. It was rumored that in the dark dungeons below their chambers, they long kept men who’d twisted the wrong person, scammed a Yelen or their kin. Kept alive and not-alive for months, years, decades. Van Gast was beginning to wish he’d never seen the Sea Witch, no matter the diamond was the one biggest share of a booty he’d ever had. Maybe he’d do well to keep away from Estovan and the Yelen for a while. Plenty of other cities nearly as rich, other ways to make money.

The sun hovered just at the horizon, and it was only when Van Gast moved to go that he saw the other ship, hunkered in the long shadows piling up at the far end of the docks as though ashamed. A different sort of merchantman, this one. Sleeker, faster, well gunned on her own, no need of protective guard-ships. The sharpness of the prow, the way the quarter deck was aligned, instantly told him its origin. Remorian. At least they weren’t after him for anything—he wasn’t so stupid as to scam a Remorian, or even get within a league of one if he could help it.

They’d all heard the tales of bonding, of what it did to a man, took his mind and turned it over to the shadowy power that ran the Archipelago. Any racketeer, merchantman or lowly fish-gutter feared that more than a bullet out of the dark. But the men after him hadn’t been Remorian; they’d not the copper-bronze skin, the dark hair cropped close to the scalp. They’d been many colors of skin, even a pale Gan, but not that. Not islanders come to make his mind a slave, and he offered up a quick prayer of thanks to Forn.

The light bled out of the day in long red streaks that washed the streets as Van Gast made his careful way back to the Herald’s Trumpet. The itch grew as he got closer. They were waiting for him, must be, had somehow worked out that the inn had been his destination all along. The sensible thing, of course, would be to get back to the ship and sail the fuck away, stay away from the Yelen and Estovan for as long as it took for this to die down and for them to find another man to hunt.

Fuck the sensible thing. Josie was waiting and she didn’t take kindly to waiting longer than she had to.

Bad enough that he would only have time to say he couldn’t stay, he had to leave, and arrange their next meeting, when what he really wanted to do was spend the night in bed with her. Wait another month? He didn’t want to wait another day.

He sidled down an alley behind the inn and stopped in a shadow, listened to his itch and let his eyes get used to the gloom. Someone up ahead, just standing and waiting. Watching. Van Gast slid back deeper into the shadows and looked around. The ground was covered, what about the roof?

Moving carefully so his bells didn’t chime, he soon found what he was looking for—two houses that leaned toward each other drunkenly, narrowing the alley still further. Narrow enough he could place his feet on one wall and his shoulders on the other and shuffle his way up, until his reaching hand could grab the eave and pull him onto the tiles.

He waited a heartbeat on the roof and scanned the inn. They had someone up here too, skulking in a nest of chimneypots. Taking no chances. The failing light would help Van Gast though, and the man was in the wrong place.

He snuck along, ducked low behind the ridge of the roof and made the small jump to the inn. A close thing, but he was pretty sure the man on the roof couldn’t see him from this angle, though he might have heard the jingle of bells Van Gast couldn’t stop. The window he was after was just below him. He slid down and swung through.

The slide of steel from a scabbard almost drowned the low whistle from the roof. Josie looked at him, one eyebrow raised, and lowered her sword. “What’s wrong with the door?”

“Too sensible.” He stepped forward and took her arms in his hands and slid them down, felt the heat of her through the thin linen, the vitality that seeped from her into him, made him a little crazy. Maybe a lot crazy. Gods damn it all, he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay, wanted everything of her even when he knew it was impossible, for her soul to burn away when he loved her, for her to lie under him and say she loved him. Only he couldn’t say it, not without driving her away. “I can’t stay. I only came to arrange another time, there’s people after me.”

“When aren’t there people after you?”

“True.” He leaned down and kissed her, and for once she didn’t try and wriggle away. “A month, at the Dorston house?”

“Longer, six weeks.”

“Six—damn it, Josie, I don’t want to wait another minute, let alone a month and then an extra eighteen days. It’s possible I might burst, and you wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?”

Josie laughed then tipped her head to one side, her face unusually serious, her eyes soft. She traced a hand over his cheek and rubbed her thumb over his lips in a way that made his groin shiver. That made him think maybe, just maybe…

“I’ll have a surprise for you. A good one. Six weeks.”

Van Gast kissed her thumb. “Does this surprise include being naked?”

She grinned up at him, the wicked, lopsided Josie grin. “Andor Van Gast, is—”

A thin creak outside the room. Someone was trying to creep up the stairs, badly. At least Josie had the door barred shut. The creak of the floor grew closer, the itch in his chest grew warmer, began to burn. Shit, he didn’t have time for this. When had that ever stopped him?

“All right, six weeks.” He kissed her again, enough of a kiss to last him that long. He slid his hands down her arms and twined them in hers, pushed her back against the wall, and let everything come out through his lips. It wasn’t enough, he needed words, and he didn’t have the right ones, he never did with Josie. With anyone else he could have said it and not meant it, but with her, in meaning it, he couldn’t say it.

Someone tried the latch quietly and found the door barred. Van Gast pulled away. “You’ll need to get out too, but it’s me they’re after. Just get hidden and safe, all right? And take these, look after them. A surprise for you, in return.”

The glass daggers had been troubling him the whole way. He hadn’t trusted Dillet not to sell them to the first buyer, but the thought of all that wealth waiting to break the first time he stumbled—why couldn’t Haban have given him something more robust?

He didn’t have time for more—someone banged on the door as though they were a bull trying to break it down. Van Gast swung a leg over the sill, but Josie stayed where she was. “You need to get out too, Josie.”

She grinned her Joshing Josie grin at him and nodded to the other door, the one that led to a room all but filled with a vast bath. The one he’d been planning to spend a lot of time in with her, getting very clean and then getting mucky again. “They’re after you, not me.”

The bar on the door groaned and splintered. Josie slipped through the door to the bathroom and the bolt went home. Kyr have mercy, the woman drove him mad. He sometimes wondered if she ever spared him a second thought when he wasn’t there. Then he had no time to think, only do, as the bar split and two men fell into the room.

Van Gast got his other leg over the sill and dropped to the alley. He landed lightly enough and ran, a mad, joyous grin on his face. Stupidity had never been so much fun.

Chapter Six

Holden and Skrymir stood at the rail together as the ship slid into port and nestled up against the jetty. Skrymir called a few orders and deckhands rushed to tie up, glad to be home again, or at least partly glad. Not for them the punishment of failure, the responsibility of the Master’s orders. Holden shivered in the humid heat that seemed to strip the breath from him and looked up at the city, at the white houses marching up the hill, stained orange and pink by the lowering sun. His sharp gaze roved over the regular lines, the wide streets scrubbed spotless, the neat harbormaster’s office, the painfully clean docks. A breeze washed out over them from the Master’s gardens atop the hill, surrounding them in the heavy scents of honeysuckle, moonflower and jasmine. He was home, and it was good, no matter the circumstances. It would always be home.

This was Skrymir’s first time ashore in a Remorian city. One cheek bunched as he considered the view and his eyes never stopped moving, but he said nothing until Holden made to disembark.

“You don’t have to, you know.”

Holden stopped with his hand on the rail and looked the question.

“Go ashore, take your punishment. You did the best you could to catch him, we all did, but from everything we’ve heard, he’s uncatchable. You don’t have to…” Skrymir’s good-natured face screwed up with words he couldn’t say, or didn’t want to.

Holden hadn’t said anything to him about his own fate once they were ashore and he was in the presence of the Master. Doubtless the crew had told Skrymir and it wasn’t sitting well on his heart. The Gan had odd notions about things, about how people should behave.

“I do have to.” There was no more to be said. He’d failed in a direct order from the Master, and not just once. He had no excuses for that. Forn’s bells jingled at his ankle as he started down the gangplank. Skrymir’s chimed in time as he followed.

The deckhands finished off and hurried up to the communal rooms by the harbormaster’s office, or to their homes and the women bonded to them, a tangle of bells and goodbyes. Holden and Skrymir made their way more slowly up the hill toward the palace, Skrymir’s eyes never still, taking it all in with a frown.

“Why?” Skrymir asked after a time.

Holden let his pace slow further and rolled up the billowed sleeve of his commander’s grey silk tunic. The scar was livid in the late sun, and the muscles in Skrymir’s cheek twitched again. “I have no choice, and even if I did, still I’d do it. Look around, what do you see?”

They’d reached the edge of the market square. Traders were packing up stalls, bakers selling off the last of their wares cheap before they finished for the evening. A silk merchant struggled with his display in the strengthening wind, and two neighboring traders hurried to help him. No shouts to advertise their wares, no loud haggling over prices or disputes over space. Children played quietly in a corner, no screams or tears or arguments over who had which toy. The paving stones that lined the square were scrubbed to within an inch of their life, no rubbish blowing in the wind, no dust or dirt marring them. Skrymir’s eyebrows drew down in long thought.

“This is what the Master gives us. No crime, no whores, no violence, no poor starving on the streets. A clean, well-fed, happy and above all peaceful city and all the other islands the same. Peace and order. The bond is a small price to pay. So is my punishment.” Holden’s voice was calm, but his insides roiled as though he was land-sick with the stillness of the earth under his feet. His eyes sought out the patterns in the flagstones at his feet. Regular and comforting.

“Gives me the creeps,” Skrymir muttered. “Worse that you’re all so willing.”

“It’s no different to when you’re on board my ship, only larger. Do you regret swearing to me?”

Without spoken agreement they’d stopped. People bustled round them, careful not to barge. Skrymir drew one or two blank looks, but other than that no one paid them any attention, their vacant faces turned inward on their own business.

Skrymir’s mouth twitched and he squinted up at the palace atop the hill. As ornate as the houses were plain and uniform. White towers sprouted from it, straight and orderly, precisely aligned, stretching up into the clear blue-gold of the evening sky. A hundred dark windows stared out over the city, shadowed and somehow sinister, as though each window held eyes that could see into your head, your heart.

“I don’t regret it, how could I? You saved my life. I could do no else, on my honor. I must repay the debt. But…it is different. We’ve not been here a bell yet, and I see the difference in you. It holds you tighter here.”

Holden turned away and began his slow walk again. He kept his eyes on the great arched doors that yawned their welcome to the palace. “I’m no different.”

A lie. Skrymir had pinpointed it exactly—the bond held him tighter here, held them all tighter here. On the sea he had a measure of freedom and, though a man like Skrymir might not call it much, to him it was the difference between breathing and suffocation. Holden frowned. Skrymir and his different ways were bringing more and more of these treacherous thoughts into his head. Patterns, see the patterns, the order, the comfort. The bond was good, right, necessary.

“If it’s all so wonderful, why didn’t you bond me?”

“I was ordered not to. Your people are different. Your oath is a bond, in a way, and all know you won’t break it. And sometimes an unbonded man is useful, in those places that are suspicious of us.”

“Thank Kyr for that.”

“No, Skrymir. Thank the Master.”

They reached the courtyard that fronted the palace, its complexities of fountains and little stone channels running with bright water. Two guards stood to attention at the doorway, bland, impassive. They could have been statues carved from bronze and copper.

Skrymir stopped again, storm clouds gathering on his face. “You don’t have to.”

Holden sighed. How could you explain it to one without the bond, the comfort of it, who hadn’t been brought up among it? That anything was worth that, even the fear that clutched at his balls. Fear would pass; order, peace, the Archipelago would not. “I do. It’s necessary. I didn’t carry out my order, I must take my punishment. In your land, what do they do to a soldier who breaks his oath?”

Skrymir’s hand strayed to a colored braid in his hair and twisted it, his voice horrified. “They cut your braid off.”

“That’s all? I thought that—”

“They cut your braid off, sir. It’s not like what you’ve done. Oath-breaking’s a choice, not a failure, a choice as bad as murder. Worse in some ways. Cut off your braid, cut off your family, friends, honor, everything that makes a Gan a man. More than likely hang you after, the most shameful death, if you’re lucky. If you aren’t—well it’s no life, no life at all. I saw a braidless man once. Half-starved wretch of a man he was by then, and no one would give him the spit out of their mouths. But like I said, to break an oath is a choice freely made. It isn’t the same as—”

“Then my Master is a benevolent one. I haven’t done as asked. I’ll be chastised, as a man might chastise a child who’s strayed. But it’s done with love and I’ll be welcomed back after. Isn’t that better? The Master gives us everything we could want.” Holden smiled and faced the doorway with a lighter heart. “You’ll change your mind when you see the Master, when you see a mage of the power, see why we keep them hidden so the world won’t know their might and beauty. Why, you’ve yet to see even my ship’s mage, and he’s little compared to the Master.”

Skrymir muttered under his breath behind him, but Holden ignored it and entered the palace, into the cool shadows and the muted click of boots on tiles. Skrymir trailed him reluctantly, through the lofty atrium painted stark white with columns of grey, blue and black, lit with glittering lamps hung from plain sconces. The archway at the end was a cloud of black. The Master lived in the half dark, to protect his sensitive eyes.

Holden strode in, full now of the glow of rightness, of things as they should be. The punishment was something to be borne, as Skrymir bore his oath, as mainlanders bore their dissolute lives in fear of violence from the society they chose to live in. His punishment was necessary to the order of the land he lived in, the order that kept his mind in check, as was proper. He would take it, he would bear it, and then it would be done.

His footsteps faltered as the half dark enveloped him, the air stifling and dead. The tiles were muffled under the ring of his boots, as though they feared what would come. Sweat popped out on his forehead and lip. The guards who ringed the chamber, normally so impassive Holden didn’t think he’d ever seen one as much as fidget without a direct order, moved uneasily as he passed. He let his eyes get used to the gloom and went forward, counting the tiles, tracing the patterns. Soothing himself. Order was necessary. He must obey, and he had not. Order must be restored, straight lines, consequences. It was right.

Skrymir swore softly from the entrance, an unbonded man allowed no farther, only permitted this far because of Holden’s rank and because he was Gan and had oathed. Holden ignored him; he couldn’t know. It was right. It was.

Holden concentrated on the patterns on the floor and tried to keep his mind from the anger that would lash him, the Master’s displeasure at his failure, again.

“Look up, Commander.” The Master’s voice was soft, menacing.

Holden’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips and he looked up. The Master’s eyes peered out from their prison, dark with sorrow.

“Yet again, Van Gast eludes you, Commander.”

“Yes, Master.” Holden had to force the words past the constriction of fear in his throat, had to concentrate on taking deep, even breaths. No fear. He would bear it and it would be done.

“A simple task, one would have thought, for a man of your capabilities. You have made us seem weak against the debaucheries of the unbonded, when all know that our way is right. You have failed me, failed the Archipelago. Why is this so, do you think?”

Holden’s eyes were dragged back down to the tiles, the regular pattern letting him think in straight lines. “His little-magics, Master. That’s what they call them.”

“Little-magics? Paltry things, little more than instinct. And what use are they against the might of the Remorians, against a mage of the power?”

“Nothing, Master, they are nothing. But I’ve no magic, and they are used against me. He always knows when trouble is coming. He’s well known for it, every man for half a thousand miles tells of it. He feels trouble, us, and slips away like a ghost.”

“I see.” The Master was silent some time, long enough for Holden’s mind to conjure all sorts of punishments. Patterns, concentrate on the patterns of the tiles. “Come here, Commander.”

Holden’s legs jerked him up to the dais. The Master raised a finger and Holden had to take a grip on himself not to flinch. Necessary for order, for the land he loved.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then we find Van Gast’s greatest enemies and use them. If he feels the trouble coming, he will think it them, not us, or at the least he’ll be surrounded by trouble and not know which way to turn.” The Master allowed himself the hint of a smile. “He will flee trouble, flee them, and come right into our arms.”

“How do we find these enemies?”

“Leave that to me.” The Master creaked his fingers out straight, one at a time, so slow Holden found it hard to see the movement. “Raise your arm, Commander.”

“Yes, Master.” Holden couldn’t seem to raise his voice above a whisper.

“It’s necessary, Holden, you know that. It’s right and it’s necessary. For order, and for the Archipelago.”

“Yes, Master.” He had failed, and punishment was proper.

The Master’s fingers touched his skin.

Ruisden sat like a decayed jewel between the gold setting of two hills burnished with fire root. Van Gast could smell it before he saw it rising out of the waves on the horizon, could tell how close they were by the increase in detritus bobbing on the waves. The smell was like a force of nature, enveloping everything and everyone, tainting them all the same. A green smell, of the bog that bubbled behind the houses, the leaves of the fire root that were harvested and treated here before being shipped off to the farthest reaches of the coast to be used in everything from making ropes to lighting fires. The bog fed the underground corms, let them send off suckers miles long to drier hills where they rose in pink-gold arches and dropped stinking sap on everything underneath them, coating the ground in sticky sweetness.

The leaves were of no interest to Van Gast—cheap and plentiful, there were a dozen or more racketeers and merchantmen who dealt in nothing else. The sap was another matter. Fermented and distilled in a complicated process only a few knew, it made an outstanding liqueur, one Van Gast had a taste for and which sold very well for a very good price. Van Gast got it cheap too. There were advantages to having information of an indiscreet nature on the town’s foremost distiller, information his wife would be most distressed to learn.

Liqueurs weren’t the only thing he was here for though, because Ruisden had many other delights—and uses. They tied up at the flimsy jetty and Van Gast sent Dillet and a couple of hands to talk to the distiller and fill their hold. He had other business and set off along the earthy, sticky track to where the town nestled under the great overhangs of fire root leaves on the hills. Sap stuck to his boots and made walking a chore. The smell of the fire root hung over everything, masked the more usual odors of fish and sewage. Vapors from the distillers tainted the air a faint green so that everyone took on the cast of someone who’d just eaten bad oysters.

Van Gast ducked under a tatty awning and down an alley so narrow his shoulders brushed the sides. Hardly anyone down here, and just as well, because he had to turn sideways to get past them. The discreet sign glowed in the window. Open for business at Madame Quint’s. Quint’s was always open for business.

He opened the door and slipped through. A smiling girl bowed and shut it quietly behind him before she helped him take off his boots. No shoes, no weapons, those were the rules of this house. Van Gast handed her his sword, his pistol and one of his knives. The hidden one stayed where it was. He’d never been one for rules.

The girl opened another door and Van Gast stepped through into low amber lighting, velvet sofas, the thick heady scent of incense and expensive booze that mingled with the fire root smell and made it bearable. The place was full, as usual, so full there was no place to sit. A group of racketeers at a nearby table, male and female, called a greeting and he nodded tersely.

Part whorehouse, part business meeting, at Quint’s anything went, and this room, along with Quint’s friendly attitude to those more at home on the wrong side of the law—not to mention her hold over the town elders—made Ruisden a haven for racketeers. Men came for whores or a friendly ear, business or a drink. Women, racketeers anyway, came for the same reasons, though they’d no need of the whores unless their taste ran that way—there were two men to every woman on any racketeer ship. Most any one of either sex would come here at some point during their stay in Ruisden, hook up with someone for a night or two for a tumble if their lover wasn’t in town. But that wasn’t why he’d come.

He padded slowly through the room, heading for the bar but looking for one person in particular. Finally he spotted her holding court in the corner, half a dozen men hanging on every word. Quint saw him watching and raised her glass and a cool eyebrow. Nothing ever surprised her, that was one of the first things he’d learned about her. The very first was what it was like to tumble a woman, and fairly swiftly after that was just what a shrewd brain she had on her.

When he didn’t say or do anything in response to her greeting, she frowned delicately and stood, smoothing down her silk dress, and glided across to him. She said nothing but laid a gentle hand on his arm, gestured to one of the servants and led Van Gast into the darker recesses at the back, then on into a private room.

She had him sit on one of the plush, silk-covered loungers and poured him a glass of smoky fire-spirit, another for herself. Her eyes watched him carefully and she sipped at her drink. Van Gast downed his in one swallow, grimaced at the burn and held out his glass for her to pour again. She filled it to the brim and waited.

He knocked back half the second glass and watched her in return. The rich brown hair was pulled back into an intricate knot that showed off her tawny skin and large, expressive brown eyes to perfection. Older than Van Gast by ten years perhaps. Still, when he thought of beauty and elegance, he thought of her. His first tumble and, on his part, his first lover, generous of heart and mind. A true lady.

She looked delicate but she wasn’t, not emotionally or mentally. She had a mind that soaked up all the information she heard and effortlessly pieced it together. And she heard every little bit of information there was to be had. Not just from the racketeers, but merchantmen, fishermen, beggars and even occasional Remorian deckhands with looser bonds who frequented her other establishments. If she didn’t know it, it either wasn’t worth knowing, she could find out, or no one could.

“You seem nervous, Van.” Her mouth was curved up in that knowing smile she had. She knew why he was here, probably had known it even before he’d decided to come.

“Not really. What have you heard?” He shrugged one shoulder in an offhand way.

She filled her glass again and sipped at it. “Trouble in Estovan. Nearly caught you there, didn’t they? Not the first time either. Someone was looking for you before, but no word since. Whoever it was has called off the dogs. You’re safe enough.”

Van Gast let out a gusty sigh. He’d had his ship’s true-mage—that is, a proper mage, a mainlander mage, not a damned Remorian—scrying, had him contacting every other ship’s true-mage in range, and they’d come up with nothing. No one following since Estovan, but too, no one knew who it’d been, and Van Gast liked to know who wanted to catch him. It made it easier to avoid them.

“You don’t know who?”

Quint’s forehead creased delicately. “No, no I don’t, and that puzzles me. A big man, a Gan, was asking questions about you from here to Tarana in the time before you were at Estovan. What would a Gan want with you?”

“I thought it was the Yelen after me. I thought the Gan was working for them.”

“Ah yes, the Sea Witch. Nice catch for you. But no, the Yelen want whoever took the dowry—but they don’t yet know it was you who stole it. They will, in time. I’d give you a week or less before they discover Haban took the diamond from you to sell. Then you’ll have a price on your head, one which might even tempt me. If I were you, I wouldn’t go back there any time soon. If I had any sense. But it wasn’t them chasing you this time. I don’t know who that was.”

“Wonderful.” Van Gast got up and paced. His trouble bone hadn’t stopped itching since Estovan, just the faintest scratch but enough to keep him awake at nights, wondering if even now someone was trailing him, wanting to catch him and determined to find him. Quint’s assertion that they were no longer after him eased it back. “So you can’t help me then?”

“Not presently, Van, no. I can keep my eyes and ears open for you. If I find anything I’ll let you know. But if I were you, I’d be careful who I robbed until you know more. Whoever it was, they’ve stopped for now, no one’s seen the Gan for a time, no one else is asking what they shouldn’t. Maybe they’ve done whatever it was they set out to do.”

“You believe that?” Whoever it was, they’d been determined, and almost lucky enough, to catch him. He wasn’t sure they’d give up so easily, though it was a slim hope.

“I don’t know. Yet.” Quint got up and stood in front of him, her perfume tickling his nose and reminding him of a younger time, when he’d been naïve and hopelessly in love with her, a woman who loved nobody and nothing except information and what it could get her. Still, while she hadn’t loved him, she had a soft spot for him, that he knew. She was probably the source of his weakness for smart and highly unobtainable women.

“While you’re in port, some of my girls have been pining for you. Might take your mind off things for a while.”

“A kind offer, but no.”

She raised a skeptical eyebrow and smiled secretively. “I see, yes, I think I do. A racketeer turning down a tumble. Just as I thought. Well then, if you’ll excuse me?”

She left the room in a cloud of perfume and elegance, and left Van Gast wondering what it was she’d just concluded about him.

Chapter Seven

Holden checked his sword again, unaccountably nervous. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange. A fair-haired woman and a young boy, his Master had said. On this street, on this day, at this time, when dawn was just starting to make its presence known. Those words weren’t what made his stomach jump and flip, but the casual afterthought. “A new dawn that will change your life forever, Commander. It’s up to you in which way.” Then the Master had smiled. Holden didn’t like it when he smiled—it usually meant someone was about to discover what pain really was, in excruciating detail. He could only hope it wasn’t his turn to learn today, again.

It had taken a week after he’d given the news to the Master before he could walk without pain, before Ilsa dared to come too close. Even now, ten days after he’d been up and about again, his bones ached and his skin shivered in remembrance. Yet the Master hadn’t dismissed him from Van Gast’s capture. On the contrary, he’d insisted Holden carry on. The Master had a new plan. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. A new punishment too, should he fail. Death by bond, by twisting it so tight that it killed him.

It grew lighter and Holden could, if he worked at it, just make out the grey forms of his men scattered along the doorways and shadowed places in the street. A few lamps came on in the houses and lit squares of packed earth and patches of wall in the narrow street, but no one was about yet. This village was too small to ever be busy, but now it was deserted.

No, not deserted. Two figures came down the street holding hands, wary in the half light. One taller, one a small child, and the faint sound of Forn’s bells accompanied them. They moved past a patch of lamplight, and Holden caught a glimpse of blond hair. Enough, in this town where the inhabitants were dark-haired and brown-skinned, to know it was the woman he was after. Holden nodded to Skrymir over the street and they stepped forward together to meet her and the boy.

Before they could draw their swords, she’d scooped up the boy on one arm and drawn her cutlass with the other. Two steps back in a fluid fighter’s stance. It would do her no good—five more of Holden’s men came forward from their hiding places behind her.

The cutlass whipped out, took one of his men across the face and she darted into the sudden gap, heading for the narrow, winding alley his man had hidden in. Skrymir led the chase, his wide shoulders skimming the alley walls as he leaped rubbish and a drunk, a hair’s breadth after her.

Carrying the boy slowed her or they might never have caught her. Skrymir grabbed at her shoulder and spun her as the alley widened into the village’s single square. Even as she fell she lashed out with her blade and rolled into the fall, the boy tucked under her. Skrymir jerked back with a curse to avoid the sword and then he was on her, his great arms trying to pin her. It was like trying to corral a nest of snakes.

Holden grabbed for her flailing legs as she bit and cursed and kicked, caught him a crack on the cheek with the heel of her boot that made stars spin a moment. Then the rest of his men caught up. One held the wriggling boy above the ground by the scruff of his neck and Skrymir had the woman pinned with one knee on each shoulder, her cutlass in his off hand. Even his weight on her, his bulk dwarfing her, didn’t stop her struggles or her curses.

“Lamp,” Holden said, and one of his men ran to a corner of the square and brought one of the lights that kept it patchily bright even at night. Skrymir threw the cutlass out of her reach and reached for something in her hair, his breath hissing when she bit his hand hard enough to draw blood.

Holden brought his sword down to just touch her throat and she stilled, though she cursed him under her breath. His man held the lamp up so they could see her. Fair hair, all done in braids with trinkets, ribbons and shells woven in. A deadly cold coiled in Holden’s stomach and he let the sword’s point fall away from her throat. With the threat of that gone, she wriggled and strove to get free.

She spat on his blade and he saw her face clearly. Sharp cheekbones, pale skin that tended to burn in the sun, a stubborn, full mouth that would turn into a lopsided grin at the most inappropriate moments, and he knew if he looked closer he’d see that her eyes were the grey of the sea before a storm. Five years, back to a time that had all but been wiped from his mind by his tightened bond, by his newer, more direct servitude to the Master, but she’d barely changed from that youthful nineteen to now.

“Josie?” A new dawn that would change his life forever. The Master’s joke, making him abduct the woman he’d been in love with all those years ago, whose face he’d forgotten in the fog of the bond. The face that ghosted his dreams even after the bond was tightened to take his mind and will and made her just a vague memory, soon buried under a tide of grey duty.

The woman who’d ruined him for bonded girls, and he’d not even remembered.

Her wriggles and curses stopped and she glared at him. “Holden? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Holden pulled Josie along by her arm, all too aware of the long-buried thoughts she stirred in his brain. Josie dug in her heels, tried to bite and scratch, but he kept her at arm’s length and, besides, Skrymir had the boy. He dangled from the Gan’s hand like a trapped rabbit, and Josie’s eyes were never far from him. Something to use, to lever her with. Only…

They reached the wharf and her ship, the Jesting Queen. The deck was empty and Josie frowned up at it. Getting the idea at last. Holden dragged her up the gangplank.

The ship was silent, still, when it should be full of noise and crew-hands.

“My crew,” Josie said in a murmur, her voice suddenly unsteady, unsure. “Where’s my crew? What have you—please tell me you haven’t bonded them. Holden?”

“Being held against your good behavior.” Holden’s men, two ships’ worth, had taken her men and confined them in the brig while he’d got hold of Josie. Only a few had been bonded, as yet. Only enough for Cattan to discover where she was, that the Master’s scrying had been true.

One of Holden’s men came up from belowdecks. “All secured, sir.”

“Good, let’s make sail before anyone finds out what we’ve done. The Master’s waiting.”

Skrymir took the boy below to the brig and Holden tried to ignore the hot glare that seemed to burn between his shoulders. He’d taken her ship. Taken who she was. It was the Master’s will.

“Holden—”

“I don’t care,” he said to the unasked question. “I have my orders, I follow them. That’s all. That’s all there ever was.”

He avoided her gaze, the puzzled look as though she couldn’t believe it was he who said such words. And the anger that followed, twisting her mouth and making trenches of the lines on her forehead.

Only it wasn’t all there ever was. Now he remembered. One of his crew took Josie away still talking to him, still trying to understand where he’d gone wrong, why he wasn’t the person he had been.

Because he’d seen, that was why, the thing he could never express, especially not to her. He’d seen the order, the peace, he’d seen how it should be. The Master had shown him, and he knew it was right. The bond was good, and she’d come to see it in time, the rightness of it. The way it leveled everyone, smoothed away all fears, made everything easy, everyone equal.

A small, small voice wondered if she’d join him, but another, just as small, just as whispering, told him no. That she was precisely who she was, who he’d once loved, because of the way she was. That he’d loathe it if she was bonded to him. It would take away everything they’d had, that she had been with him because she wanted to be, not because she was told to.

She was the reason for the far horizon in his window’s reach. Hers was the name he shouted when he dreamed of running naked and laughing through the town. The last came up through his mind, like a dead body coming to the surface of a still pond, stinking and green from neglect. She was the one who’d found his laughter, made him think there were worlds beyond the bond. Josie, who had loved him anyway, despite his bond, despite his Remorian blood, had shown him the possibilities the world had to offer.

And there she was belowdecks, in his chains. Ready for the Master. He had no choice and it shriveled a part of him, the part that dreamed forgotten dreams. He stared at the deck, at the straight lines and patterns of the wood. Straight lines, patterns, order, constants, comfort. It was good, it was necessary.

It hurt him to the quick.

Van Gast took a swig of beer, kept back his best hand and threw the remaining bones. “Double kraken.”

“So five kraken over four sharks? Again?” Captain Brandick snorted and shoved a handful of coins across the table. “Are you sure you aren’t cheating?”

A few of the other players muttered and two of the more nervous disappeared into the smoky fog of the taproom. Accusations like that rarely went well, one reason the game was called Dead Man’s Hand. Nine bones with nine sides. Three rolls to see what kind of hand you could make. Nine kraken the best you could roll, but so unlikely to be rolled naturally on the first try that any time it happened, the man who rolled generally ended up with a bullet somewhere nasty. If he was lucky.

Van Gast stretched his mouth in a grin and spread his hands wide. His little-magics weren’t itching, had been still and silent since Quint had allayed his fears, he was more than a little drunk and the world was a good and happy place. “How can I be cheating? They’re your bones.”

Brandick picked up the bones thoughtfully and rattled them in his hand. “Yes, and I paid good money for them to only roll well when I roll them. Fucking mages, bastard twisted me. Bah!” With a shout of rueful laughter he threw the bones across the floor and let them get lost in the tangle of drunken feet and spills of ale and food among the rushes.

Van Gast bent down to retrieve them. Maybe not magic, but he’d known they were weighted as soon as he picked them up and he’d got the feel for them now. Nothing like a set of bones ready to fall in your favor. He sat up, shuffled the bones and cast them across the table. Five sharks, a kraken, a mermaid and two wrecks. Not a bad first hand and not so flashy as it looked like he’d known before he rolled what he’d be getting. “I thought as much. Takes a cheat to know one.”

Brandick swigged at his ale and smoothed the spillage down his dark beard shot through with grey. He smiled to himself, as though he’d just hatched a plan. That was Brandick’s trouble—he’d not got the face for a bluff.

“You’re absolutely correct. Ah, take them, they’re yours. Just make sure you don’t roll Dead Man’s Hand. I had something special put in for that, in case I met someone could cheat better than me. Speaking of which, the little cheat I was due to meet hasn’t showed. She was supposed to be here days ago. Women! Never on time. But it’s the first time she’s not showed at all. I got to sail, and I’ve got a cargo sitting there with no buyer now.”

Van Gast sipped at his beer. The itch had started, just behind his breastbone, but faint, very faint. Almost the ghost of one. “Who’s not turned up then?”

Brandick sat back and smoothed his beard again, as though debating whether to tell him. Van Gast said no more. They’d known each other a long time, and the older racketeer wouldn’t say until he was sure it was to his profit, or at least that he wouldn’t lose any profit. Finally he leaned forward with a little smile, as though he was imparting a secret that would set the sharks among the seals. “Josie, she was supposed to be my buyer. Now, Van, don’t look at me like that, I can’t stop trading because you don’t like who I’m dealing with. Besides, when I’m haggling I prefer to see a pretty face, not your ugly mug.”

Only it wasn’t that, his supposed hatred of her, which made Van Gast scowl. He’d all but forgotten he was supposed to keep up the act. The mention of her, that she’d not shown, made the itch grow. Still small, like a cat’s claw scratching delicately behind his ribs, but it was there. Trouble, on its way. But trouble for her or him? No, Josie could take care of herself. A few days was nothing. Him then, trouble for him. Yet why would Josie not showing be trouble for him?

“What’s your cargo?” Van Gast spoke more to keep up appearances than because he wanted to know. “I might be able to help you out.”

Brandick’s eyes narrowed under brows that looked as though they’d been dusted with snow. Smelling a way out of an unsold cargo and a lost profit. He grinned in what he probably thought was a nonchalant manner, but in reality looked more like a fox that had just smelled chickens and found a gap in the fence. “You might want some of it, I suppose, if you think you can shift it. Why not come and see?”

They stumbled out of the inn and down to the harbor. The moon was nearing full and hung fat and heavy over the roofs, lighting their way. The cooler air sobered Van Gast up a little, but that only made him fret about the itch more. Brandick staggered on a pothole and grabbed at Van Gast’s arm. Way drunker, and that would be good when it came time to deal. They might have known each other a long time, might even be what you’d call friends. That wouldn’t stop Van Gast using Brandick’s drunkenness against him. Brandick would no doubt do the same. They were racketeers after all. No loyalties except to their own crew, and most of all to money.

“Heard you had some trouble in Estovan.” Brandick took his hand off Van Gast’s arm and squinted as he tried to negotiate the holes in the street. “Got away, as usual though. How’d you do it?”

“Luck, just luck and an itchy trouble bone.”

“Ah yes, you and your famous trouble bone. A handy little-magic for a rack. Trouble in Estovan, though. That’s not good. It’s a fine place to turn a twist. So many people with too much money and too little sense.”

They made it to the wharf and Brandick was still upright. An achievement.

“I think I upset their Yelen.” A handy lie to cover for the fact he still didn’t know who it’d been. A racketeer never admitted what he didn’t know—first rule of trade.

Brandick stared at him in alarm. “You did what? Oh, you idiot boy.”

Van Gast laughed. “Stole the wrong ship, didn’t realize till too late whose it was. Made me a shitload of money though, so can’t complain.”

“Van, Van, Van, what are we going to do with you?” Brandick shook his head. The movement unbalanced him but he managed to get upright again with a hand on a wall. “A boy after my own heart.”

“Come on, what’s this cargo? It’s getting late and I want to sail with the tide.”

“Cargo? Oh, yes.” Brandick led the way to his ship. Van Gast’s own ship, Gast’s Ghost, wasn’t far along the wharf, tucked up nicely in the corner being unobtrusive, out of the way. A couple of his crew were just staggering up the gangplank, ready for the tide and time to leave. The sober men among the crew—those left to guard the ship—cursed them aboard.

Brandick led Van Gast along the wharf to where his ship was tied. Sails flickered dolefully in the fitful breeze that wafted the sour smell of the estuary among the pilings. The deck was littered with half-open barrels, tangles of rope, overturned buckets. Brandick had never been one for making his crew work too hard at keeping everything squared away.

They went down into the musty hold. Brandick kicked at a rat that skittered past and rifled through the haphazard piles of crates, barrels and bales. After a lot of swearing, he found what he was looking for. “Only a little thing. Gods alone know what she wanted with it. I can probably shift the rest myself, but this? What rack, or anyone else even, would buy this off me?”

He levered open a crate, held up the lantern from the doorway and they peered inside.

To begin with Van Gast couldn’t make sense of what he saw. He was expecting silver maybe, silk perhaps, jewelry, something small yet valuable. Just Josie’s style. Brandick held the lamp higher and then he could see properly. Only it still didn’t make sense. What the fuck would Josie want with a crate of toy men?

He reached in and took one out. A carved man all tricked out like a racketeer. Brightly colored breeches, loose shirt, boots to the knee, long hair left free, pistol, sword. Van Gast took another out. A mainlander merchant. Hair greased back but left long over the ears, heavy frock coat in a muted, tasteful color, lots of ruffles, shoes with buckles. Van Gast had a merchantman rig stashed in his trunk, came in very handy at times for a certain type of twist. Greasing the hair back was always a pig of a job and nigh on impossible to get rid of, so he only used it when he had to. Next to the merchant toy was a merchantman crew-hand, dressed much like a rack crew-hand, only less bright and gaudy.

This last one was a Remorian, no mistake. Captain by the look of the clothes. Short hair, almost shaved, loose silken trousers to stave off the heat of the islands, a fitted silken overtunic with billowing sleeves, all in drab greys and browns. The skin had been painted that distinctive copper tone and the man’s face was somehow menacing, though Van Gast couldn’t have said how. There, on the wrist, they’d even carved a bond-scar and painted a delicate red line in the groove. Van Gast shuddered at the detail.

“See? Can’t think what she wanted with them,” Brandick said. “Who the fuck am I going to sell a bunch of toys to?”

Van Gast stared down at the Remorian face. The itch was worse now, but still too faint to know why or who or what. What was Josie playing at? More to the point, why was a crate of toys making him itch worse than before?

“I’ll take them,” he said faintly. “How much?”

Brandick slapped him on the shoulder. “Not much. Two fish-heads a piece, they ain’t worth more. Knew you would. Anything to piss her off, right?”

“That’s right.”

Van Gast couldn’t stop staring at the Remorian, at all the carved men. Trouble was coming.

Chapter Eight

Holden slid out of bed without disturbing Ilsa and padded over to the window. He remembered now why he’d picked this view, why the far horizon. Josie. She’d shown him the possibilities that life had to offer, ones he might never know while he was bonded. What the rest of the world was like, where people decided everything for themselves rather than being told like children. Where people were free in their minds. The swoops and swirls of life, exciting but unpredictable, not his straight, comforting lines.

The moon was setting over the sea, casting silver spinners into his eye, and he recalled an evening of love and laughter, when Josie had said she always wanted to be the moon, because then no one could catch her. How could he have forgotten that, or the way she’d kissed him? As though she’d wanted to be part of him.

Josie hadn’t cared that he was Remorian, couldn’t give a spit what anyone else thought about it. Her choice and she’d made it, as he wasn’t free to make his. Two years they’d loved and met every chance they could. Then he’d been made up to first captain, then commander. That first promotion, the tightening of his bond and duty, had ended everything, rolled up all his memories like a pig’s tail so he could no longer quite see them. He no longer had the relative freedom he’d taken advantage of then. That tightening had drowned Holden in what he must do, say, think, for the Master. He’d forgotten Josie, hadn’t turned up for that last meeting, hadn’t even recalled there was a meeting, or her. She’d become a lost and distant call across insubstantial dreams.

Just seeing her had woken the sleeping part of him, the dreams he’d not remembered dreaming. Swoops and swirls and possibilities. The dreams, ones of freedom, of making his own choices. Just dreams, he knew that as his younger self hadn’t. He was bound too tightly, had been for too long. If he were freed of it he wouldn’t know where to start, what to do, what to think. He laid his head on the cool stone wall by the window and stared blindly at the silver track of the moon on the waves. Knowing it was futile didn’t stop the dreams, but only made them worse.

He looked down at the sleeping port, at the little houses all alike built up the hill, the narrow streets dark now. Order out of chaos, he’d thought it. A calming sensation when he returned home, a soothing sereneness that refreshed him. Only now it looked different, or maybe he was different. The little houses brooded under the moon, holding secrets from him. Not calmness—numbness. A city full of drones, buzzing round in blind adherence, dancing their little dances and pretending the steps were of their own making. And at the center not a queen, a monstrous, glittering king, directing every drone, pulling every string.

He remembered the dream, of running naked through the market, of startling the drones. Laughing at the freedom of it. Holden had laughed once, when his bond was looser. Josie had taught him how. He’d laughed at something trivial, something insignificant, and that first time had been unable to stop. Yet once free, once that first time had dragged it all out for him to see, the stinking pus of his life that had been before, it had been an effort to stop. Only the bond had stopped it, stopped everything, the tightening of captaincy. Drowned the memory of it under obedience, servitude, duty. And now, now he wanted to swim up from the dark depths of that drowning and see the sun again, but the deeps were too cold to swim up through all at once. A stroke at a time was all he could manage, if the weight of his bond didn’t hold him to the seabed.

A soft sound behind him made him jump and roused Ilsa. The damned cat, a present from the Master to them. A home shouldn’t be without a cat, he’d said. A huge silver-grey thing with piercing green eyes. It gave Holden the shivers. Even the cat had a bond-scar, made to mouse and purr and curl on a lap, made obedient, unnatural.

Ilsa lifted the cat off the covers and came over to Holden. She’d be so pretty if it weren’t for the look, the blankness in her eyes. If she weren’t his slave. How could he love someone who was forced to do his bidding, and did it so willingly, so blindly? He couldn’t, even less now he remembered how else it could be. How it should be. A free giving. Everything he’d thought was right and good disappeared before the weight of his memories.

“Ilsa,” he said on impulse. “Would you like me to take off your bond to me?”

She dropped the cat, which leaped off with a yowl, and stared at him, her eyes wide and white in the moonlight. She huddled into herself, arms crossed and hands on elbows as though to ward off a sudden chill. “I—your desire is my wish to fulfill, Holden. If you wish to, then you shall.”

He grabbed her by the arms, too tightly he knew, and she screamed, a pathetic little thing as though she tried to hold it in so as not to offend him. The effort was what offended him, that she thought she had to. He worked to keep his voice level. “No, Ilsa, not what I want. What do you want?”

“I want what you desire, Holden.” She hunched away from him and shook her head, her blank eyes fixed on the floor. As was proper, like a good slave. Like him before the Master. Was this what he looked like, what he was?

“Kyr’s mercy, woman! I desire for you to want something, don’t you see? I want you to have a thought of your own in your head. See past the buzzing, past the—the order of your life to what’s beyond. Haven’t you ever wanted something? Haven’t you ever wanted to be free of your bond?”

She trembled violently in his hands. He’d gone too far; it was too ingrained in her, in him, in all of them. Obedience, blindness, duty. They were all nothing without it, bred to expect it, taught to embrace it and pity those who didn’t see the way. Josie was unsettling him now as she had then, making odd thoughts pop into his head.

He let Ilsa go and turned back to the window. “I’m sorry, Ilsa. Go back to bed.”

“It’s dangerous to talk like that,” she whispered, and it was the first time he’d ever heard her voice an opinion on anything, maybe the first time she’d said anything other than “Yes, Holden” or “Your desire is my wish to fulfill, Holden.”

“It’s my desire to talk like that.” He couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice, or the feeling of shame that he was talking to her like this, scaring her, or the contempt he felt, for her bland servitude—and his own unquestioning obedience. And he’d brought Josie here, to this, to be bonded and become another droning slave, quiet and servile. To be made the opposite of everything she was. The thought made him sick to his stomach, and yet at the same time he knew it was right. That order should be kept and made, that the bond was a good thing.

“But I—”

He turned back to Ilsa at the tone of her voice. Deathly afraid but trying to master it. He tried a smile, feeling a grudging admiration that she tried and a deep shame that she only tried because she was bonded to obey. “What? Please, it’s my desire to know.”

“I’m afraid for you if you talk like this, if someone were to find out. I—I wouldn’t want my bond taken off, Holden. I wouldn’t know what to do, what to think. How would I live? Where would I go? I’m lucky I’m bonded to a good, kind man. Please don’t take it off. I’d lose everything I know, I am. I would lose me.”

She looked so frightened, like one of the mice the cat brought in sometimes, still alive but always fearing the paw it knew would come. He moved toward her and lay her head on his shoulder, put his arms around her. Hoped that he comforted her in the way he wanted comfort and couldn’t find it.

“I’m not good or kind, Ilsa, not by a long way. I just—” Just what? He didn’t know. The fog in his mind was lifting, shredding, but it was still there. He still knew what his duty was, still couldn’t shake free of the weight of the bond and swim to the surface for air.

They lay down on the bed and Ilsa slid her arm over his waist, hesitantly, as though he might bite. Sleep would not come. His bond ached and pulsed, told him what his duty was but he couldn’t bring himself to, not to tumble a woman—no, a slave—because he should, because the Master told them to. Not anymore, not now he remembered what it was outside his world, where men and women chose, wanted to be with each other.

Holden stared at the ceiling for a long while before Ilsa’s quiet voice startled him.

“Lions.”

“What?”

“Something for myself. I heard there’s a place on the mainland where there are cats as big as ponies, shaded the same color as the sand. I always thought they sounded beautiful. I’d like to see lions.”

He turned to look at her, at the way she gazed up at him as though afraid she’d done something wrong. The bond burned, made his whole arm ache and throb, and the fog was back, directing his mind where it would. This time he didn’t mind as much. Lions. Maybe there was hope for them both, if they could keep their dreams together. The bond took him again, rolled its grey fog over his wants and dreams and remembrances. He smiled at her reassuringly, kissed her and pulled the covers over them.

Van Gast slid down the rigging and landed lightly on the deck. A stiff breeze to fill his sails, a clear sky, endless possibilities and a rendezvous not too far over the horizon. No one chasing him either, and only the itch to bother him. Even that had faded to a low-grade niggle that was easily ignored, especially when he’d found no cause for it over the last weeks, though he took care not to look at the toys in their sack. Something about them made shivers run up his spine. He whistled the tune to a lewd sea shanty and sauntered along the deck to his quarters.

Guld, Gast’s Ghost’s true-mage, sat in a chair waiting for him, his broad face pensive. Van Gast frowned at him, not wanting any of his crew to intrude on his good humor. Guld swallowed nervously but waited for Van Gast to pour himself a generous slosh of brandy. “Any for you?”

Guld shook his head, his eyes slack and worried. “I, um, well, I’m not sure, but I might have some news.”

“What sort of news?” Van Gast dropped into the captain’s chair, swung it round and savored a mouthful of the very fine brandy he’d “acquired” only yesterday.

“Well, firstly it’s good. I think. Anyway, I can’t find any hint of anyone chasing us, anyone asking for you. If anyone’s looking for you, they’re being very quiet about it.”

There’d been no more trouble since Estovan. Maybe Quint was right and whoever it was had given up. Unlikely, but possible. If it were the Yelen, then more than possible. Their power only ruled in their own waters. They were weaker outside of them, though trade links could get them a lot. But to the Yelen, denying him the ability to berth there, denying him the richest trade port on this coast, might seem punishment enough.

“That’s definitely good news, Guld.”

“The rest might not be, I’m not sure. I can’t find Josie.”

Van Gast clamped his teeth shut and tried to act nonchalant. He’d asked Guld to look for her, find out why she’d missed her berth with Brandick. He hadn’t said why he was interested. “And?”

“Well, it’s the talk of the waves. No one’s seen her in weeks.”

Van Gast sniffed at the brandy to cover his surprise and all his good humor evaporated. “Go on.”

Guld fidgeted in his seat. “No one, at all. The mage’s spells are alight with it. One day she was there, sailing north up near the Archipelago, to Tarana, for some trade deal. Next thing, she’s disappeared.”

Van Gast choked on his brandy and the sudden flare in his chest. She’d missed a trade—and now this. Not like her, not like her at all.

“A few weeks is nothing.” Van Gast tried for nonchalant. He was lucky, or not, as the case may be, if he saw any one particular racketeer more often than once every couple of months. “What’s the fuss?”

“The fuss is first she missed her deal with Brandick. After that she had a deal going down south Dorston way, and she didn’t show. No word, nothing, and there’s more than one unhappy captain out of pocket. Even if she’s off trading, or scamming or whatever, someone should have seen her or heard tell of her, of a ship sunk or boarded, her captured and tried, something. Our spells reach a long way, and we keep in contact, but we can’t contact Josie’s mage. Between us we’ve talked to every racketeer ship for half a thousand miles, more. Nothing.”

Van Gast got up and brought the bottle of brandy to his desk before he slumped back into the chair and stared out of the window to hide his agitation. “Wouldn’t be the first time that a ship’s gone down and no one knew of it.” Only he didn’t think she was sunk, not his Josie. She had the little-magics to keep a stricken ship afloat a week after it should have drowned in the Deeps with all hands, and her ship’s true-mage was no slouch either. He drained his glass and absently poured another. “Tarana is a bit out of her usual way. She doesn’t like it too far north, too hot. Interesting. Wonder what she was doing there?” Odd, she’d never mentioned it, but then again, why should she? Their trades, their time, were their own usually, unless they had something specific going down.

“Could be good news for us though,” Guld said and flinched when Van Gast turned his eyes on him. “Um, well, I mean without the competition.”

Van Gast stared into nothing. Trouble was, his upcoming rendezvous in Dorston was with Josie, though none of his crew knew about his productive little sideline or his nights with her, and he didn’t want them to know. It worked much better that way in such a delicate matter, and everyone thought they knew the two of them loathed each other, competed at every opportunity.

But a few weeks really was nothing. He’d missed rendezvous before and so had she on occasion. A day late, maybe two. Sometimes it couldn’t be helped. A storm, a trade too good to pass up, an unexpected merchantman all alone in the deeps and begging to be boarded, a twist run overlong. Half the joy of a racketeer’s life was not holding to time, to anything that interfered with what you wanted. She’d catch up with him when she could, and she’d not be more than a few days late. He hoped.

Yet his little-magic hadn’t stopped itching since he’d seen Brandick, maybe not for him for once, but for her. That was why he couldn’t find the source of it. Trouble somewhere though.

“Keep an ear out, see what you can find. And see which captains are out of pocket. Might do us some good to trade on their disgruntlement.”

Guld bobbed his head in agreement and scuttled out of the door like a fat, nervous mouse. Van Gast sat and drank, but no matter the fineness of the brandy, or the amount he drank, his good humor didn’t come back.

Chapter Nine

Holden stood before his Master, eyes downcast. Patterns. Black into white into blue into grey into black. Same patterns, same comfort, but it seemed thinner now, less full. The mage-bonds on his left wrist pinched and burned this close to the power that made them, reminding him who owned him, mind, body and soul. An ownership he’d almost sunk into without recall of anything different, until now. The weeks Josie’d been held here, every day made the fog recede, let his dreams further in, brighter, more likely. Harder to live with. Ilsa, after that one brief moment when he’d thought she’d seen, was back to saying “Yes, Holden.” Holden was sure the Master suspected something, had tightened her bond. Made her forget.

“We’re getting nowhere with the usual methods, Commander. I think we need a more unusual way. One more fitting to her and the immoral ways she lives. Racketeers.” The Master said it as though it was the worst, vilest curse he could think of. “Whores, all of them, and the men the worst.”

Holden kept his teeth clenched, trying not to think what the usual methods entailed, the purification rituals of the priests. It was necessary, yes. It was. It was right…Half her crew were dead already, the rest half-mad and mage-bonded. But they’d known nothing above what Holden or any other Remorian could hear in any bar or brothel all along the mainland coast. You couldn’t catch Van Gast, too wily to be trapped, his little-magics—something unknown among Remorians—too powerful to let anyone close enough to get him. Good enough with disguises that if he didn’t want you to know who he was, you wouldn’t.

Only Josie and the boy were left alive and unbonded. Holden hadn’t been allowed anywhere near the cells, near her, left to wonder just what they were doing to her. Kept back, just in case his knowing her could help break her near the end. She was Van Gast’s bitterest enemy, she must know his weakness, at least know where to find him, trap him like a rat. You always knew your best enemies as well as your best friends. Better even.

“What do you order, Master?”

“I want you to befriend her, Holden. I want you to get her to tell you where we can find Van Gast and, if necessary, take you to him. Pick her brains on the best way to catch him. A trade, in return for not bonding the boy. She’ll take it, I think.”

“And her, should I bond her?” Even though it would kill her, because Josie fought everything. Always. To fight the bond was to die slowly, horribly. If the Master said do it, then he would, he had no choice, the bond saw to that. But it would sicken him to his core.

The Master shut his eyes and considered. “No, not at first. Threaten it certainly, and do it if she becomes unruly. But be careful, Holden. I know very well your past relationship with her, and I overlook it only because it’s useful. Else you’d be where she is now and with less pleasant prospects. Remember that. Maybe you need a reminder of where your duty lies, in case she should try and tempt you.”

He beckoned Holden forward with one crusted finger. Holden’s arm rose without thought, and he clenched his teeth against the cry when the Master reached into his bond and twisted it with a grunt of satisfaction. Duty loomed large in Holden’s head again, too painful for him to think of anything else. Do your bond, do your Master’s will. Think only of that, of your service to him and your country. This is how you serve them both. Let the fog take everything else.

“Offer her freedom from bonding, her and the boy, in return for Van Gast. And if you should get me what my heart most desires, then I shall loose you of your latest, more stringent bond.”

Holden’s heart thudded painfully. To be free of it, to only have the plain bond, the one that kept him to the Archipelago even if it was pulled tight for his commandership. Like the thought of water to a man dying of thirst.

He said the only thing he could to an order from his Master. “Yes, Master, thank you.”

Van Gast crept through the dark, humid streets of Dorston, keeping to the shadows. Down away from the main streets, the inns and brothels by the docks, the traders who wanted to sell the little wooden and ivory carvings of the region. Past the butchers who dried the vergu meat that was such a delicacy farther north in Estovan and could only be found here, on the edge of the great jungle that loomed over the town, crept up to the edges like a big cat stalking its prey.

His heart was tight in his chest as he walked. Guld had been right—no one had seen or heard from Josie in weeks, and rumors of what had happened to her were rife. She was sunk, she’d boarded the wrong ship and been bested, she’d had her throat cut in some dark alley somewhere, she’d been caught by the authorities in Estovan—no, Ruisden—no, Sarigin—been tried and hung for piracy, or was alive in some cell somewhere, alive but better off dead. All the usual sorts of ends for a racketeer. One or two captains had mentioned in whispers that she’d been close to Remorian waters, that maybe she’d fallen victim to the worst thing any of them could imagine—the mage-bond.

It had sickened him to have to pretend to be happy about it, to listen to others gleefully embellishing their stories, thinking up worse and worse fates for her. So he’d slipped away, made out he had some tumble planned, which he did, only it looked as if she wasn’t going to make it.

The houses thinned as the jungle crept in, vines that tangled along the path, twisted over roofs and through the stilts under the houses, huge trees that towered over everything and dripped their great leaves over the earth. There, at the very edge of the town, the little one-roomed house that was his, often used for secret deals and trades, more lately used for him and Josie to have some time.

He climbed the steps to the front door and took a deep breath. The tang of the spicy wood used to build the houses was sharp in his nostrils, and the scent always reminded him of here, of the first time he and Josie had been together, the first tumble. He smiled at the memory and tried to still the little pang of fear. She’d come, she would.

If she could.

He lit the single lamp and hung it from the hook in the ceiling. No one waiting for him. No Josie asleep in the bed or lounging in the tin bath. No one, nothing. Not even a hint of her. He threw the sack of toys into the corner, sat on the bed and stared into space.

He waited three days before he gave up, and tried not to think that she’d not come because she was dead.

Chapter Ten

Holden stared at the stone slabs of the floor, at their straight lines, and tried to keep his eyes blind and his ears deaf as he entered the cell block, but it was impossible. Sights and sounds leaked in, seared the backs of his eyes and echoed round his ears and into his brain. Not Remorian men—a bonded man would do nothing to bring himself to the cells. No, these were her men, her crew crowding the usually empty building, some compliant, some still free, in their minds at least, though their sanity was ragged at the edges because all were bonded. Sobs echoed along the corridor, the lonely sound of a man begging. The chant of the priests as they purified the next man in line, pain washing their sins away in screams and tears. The hopeless sound of a set of Forn’s bells chiming as a man shivered in his cell.

Holden came to the cell at the end and waited at the entrance, trying to ignore the stench of sweat-soaked fear that tainted the whole building and fingering what he had in his pocket. The slick, greasy feel of it made him vaguely sick. At his order the guards went in and grabbed the boy, unlocked him from his chains and made to bring him out. Josie stood at the end of her shackles, straining as though she could break them, spouting every curse she could think of at the guards.

Holden stepped in and she turned on him but he stood and took it all, until she spat on him. He pulled his hand from his pocket. A silver string writhed in his hand. A bond, seeking new flesh to enslave.

Josie went very still and whispered, “You wouldn’t. Holden…you wouldn’t. Have you changed so much?”

Her words slipped over him, over his duty, and left no ripple. Joshing Josie, that was what they called her. No one knew what her real name was. Or, if they did, they weren’t telling because racketeers were a superstitious lot, especially when it came to names. A racketeer held on to his or her full name at all costs, only revealing it to those they trusted beyond life. Not even Holden knew it, and they’d been lovers for two years, more, what felt like an eternity ago. A different life, when he’d been a different man. When he’d been a man at all. He kept his eyes fixed on the patterns on the floor, on his only anchor in a sea of grey thoughts and greyer duty.

“You can stop this,” Holden said, though he didn’t hold out much hope she’d take the bait. His voice sounded odd to him, mechanical. He risked a glance at her.

Her eyes were flat and still but she was wearing the lopsided grin that gave her the nickname. That smile meant one of three things, if you believed all you were told. She was about to rob you blind, she’d kill you without a blink of regret, or you’d have a night the like of which most men only got to dream of. They said. They were right about the nights though.

“Don’t tell me,” she said, and the grin got wider, the eyes flatter. “Let me guess. I get on my knees, you untie your breeches and—”

“No,” Holden said. Though he’d be tempted, very tempted. If she weren’t a racketeer and he weren’t now the commander in charge of finding Van Gast, through her. If he didn’t have his bond. Something about the unconscious grace in the way she moved, always something about the freedom of her that had a hold over him, that made his recent dreams dangerous things. “Not that.”

She raised a cynical eyebrow, shook her fair hair and made all the braids bounce around her shoulders. “An honest Remorian man? Wonders will never cease. Just as well because I’d rather take the bond. No offence, but you aren’t Holden. You’re someone else wearing his skin.”

Holden wasn’t fooled by the cool façade. Her eyes kept flicking to where the guards held the wriggling, wide-eyed boy. When Josie turned, the collar of her bright shirt moved, revealing a raft of bruises along her collarbone and round her throat. They hadn’t been there when he’d arrested her, and Holden tried not to think of the purification rituals the priests had used to try and get her to talk. By the time they’d got bonded, most of her crew-mates were relieved more than anything, if it meant an end to the nonstop line of priests. Oku’s holy men took their notions of purity, freedom from sin, and adherence to justice very seriously.

“None taken. And it’s not you I’m after, or rather not just you. I want Van Gast.”

She laughed at that, though it seemed brittle and forced. “He doesn’t swing that way darlin’. Though if he did, I’m sure you’d be just his type, pretty boy like you.”

Holden stepped forward a pace and the jingle of the bells at his ankle made her start. Forn’s bells. A whispered entreaty to the god of the sea with every step, a sound that marked him a sailor every bit as much as she was. Something maybe she’d forgotten. They were all Forn’s children. It didn’t hurt to remind her that they shared something, that they’d shared even more once upon a time.

“Boy? I’m not a boy. He is.” Holden jerked his head toward where the guards held the boy and held out his hand so she could look at the bond, watch it blindly strive for a new victim. “But I am the man who can stop it. If you agree to help me get Van Gast.”

Her eyes flicked to the boy again, but she kept her face blank of emotion. An act, Holden was sure. What he’d staked this gambit on, knowing what a soft heart she’d had all that time ago, for him at least, though he’d heard enough from her crew to know she’d changed since. Become brittle, hot-headed and dangerous to go up against. Still soft enough she’d try to save the boy, puzzle that he was.

What was a racketeer, especially one with Josie’s more recent reputation, doing with a five-year-old aboard? Because he was important to her in some way. Not hers, because Holden had known her five years ago and she certainly hadn’t been pregnant or had a child. Blood relative or possibly a hostage to some fortune that she hoped to cash in on. Maybe the son of some favored friend, a promise kept to look after the boy. Even racketeers kept that sort of promise. Mostly.

Whatever the reason, the boy was the key to getting her to cooperate so that Holden didn’t have to bond her, and despite the burn of his own bond, despite the flame of duty and obedience in his head, he didn’t want to do that. Not to Josie. If he did that to her, any hope he had was gone, his dreams turned to dust by his own hand.

Holden held out his hand toward the boy and the bond wriggled furiously, seeking its target. Holden would have sworn Josie winced. “You can stop this now. Just say the word.”

“All right,” she said in a whisper. “I’ll help. I could do with getting back all that bastard stole from me anyway.”

Holden smiled tightly to himself and slid the bond back into his pocket. Josie’s and Van Gast’s enmity was legendary. Constantly needling each other, trying to outdo one another by any means, fair or foul or downright vicious. That hatred was something the Master had counted on. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Maybe Van Gast was the only racketeer she’d help him catch.

Her eyes were hot daggers on his. “Would you have done it? Bonded him?”

Holden kept himself in check. No good letting her find a chink in his armor; she’d use it far too well and the chink wasn’t a chink, it was a chasm, one that widened every time he looked at her. It could be fatal for him, if she found it. That was what she did. Found the chink, played the odds, and until now she’d won every time. Except against Van Gast. Nobody won against Van Gast. Holden suspected she hated him as much as the Master did.

“Maybe I’d have bonded him, maybe not. Tell me where to find Van Gast.”

Josie stood up straight and squared her shoulders. Again Holden noticed the smoothness of her movements, even shackled as she was. Not slim, muscled, but like a dancer not a fighter, and she used those muscles and that grace in quite deadly ways. She really was something. Something different to the bonded girls, who wouldn’t know a lee wind if it slapped them on the arse, wouldn’t know the thrill of a storm or the comfort of the swell in the sway of your ship, the freedom of a good wind and a degree to head for.

Holden’s stomach turned as he thought of Ilsa, how he’d offered to take his bond from her and she’d begged to keep it, afraid of what her life would be without the comfort of its confines. Afraid to be anything apart from what she’d always known.

When he’d met Josie, when his bond had been looser, it had been a revelation. A woman who could do as she pleased and yet who had chosen to be with him. It had ruined him for Remorian women for a time, until the memory had faded under the bond, too painful to recall. He wouldn’t let that get in the way of this, of catching Van Gast. Not just a racketeer. The racketeer. Because his Master said so. With a sudden clarity he saw himself as no better than those bonded women, and yet there was nothing he could do to change it.

“I don’t know where he is,” Josie said. A lie, he was sure.

“Then we’ve nothing to bargain.” He made to pull his hand from his pocket again and her voice, edged with a feathery hint of panic, stopped him.

“But I know where he’ll be. And I know how to catch him.”

Holden kept his back to her, afraid his face would reveal too much. “Oh yes?”

“Yes. You could have done it yourself, if you’d had the brains you used to have.”

He turned back to her and squashed the hint of doubt when he saw her lopsided grin. Joshing Josie. Rob, kill or delight. Odds are one in three. He’d not be trusting to any way she thought of. He knew her twisting mind too well and it was far too slippery. No, not trust it but use what she knew of Van Gast and how he worked, how his little-magics worked.

“You’ll get the boy back once I have Van Gast in this cell looking at his own bond. And we’ll get him how I say, not through any plan of yours.” He looked at those bruises again, a dark livid purple against the paler skin under her shirt, and swallowed back his disgust at what the Archipelago would do to anyone in its way. “Let’s get you to a healer.”

Van Gast couldn’t recall the last time he’d been this drunk. Maybe never. His tongue felt clumsy and sticky. His eyes were gummy, everything swam in and out of focus, and if he stood up he was pretty sure he’d be sick.

A vague blob appeared in front of him. “Van?”

He made an effort and propped himself on his elbows in a vain attempt to sit up straighter. Bad mistake. The taproom swam around him in a swirl of colors. He laid his head back down on the table. Better.

“Van, get up.”

“Don’t want to.” His voice sounded petulant and slurred. “Stay here ’n get drunk. Drunker.”

“Van, um, you need to get up. Come on.”

A pair of hands pulled at him, tried to get him on his feet, but he stumbled against their owner and the two of them fell in a tangled heap on a floor strewn with straw and reeds that reeked of rancid beer and week-old food. Guld, that was who it was. He could tell by the extra smell of mothballs and a musty hint of magic.

Guld tried again and on the third attempt Van Gast was on his feet, Guld’s shoulder under his arm. “Kyr’s mercy, Van, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this drunk. What’s the matter with you?”

Didn’t matter now. Might as well tell him. “Josie.”

Guld helped him out of the inn and into the air. The slap of the salt breeze sobered him a little and that little was too much. He swayed around and tried to go back in the inn but Guld pulled him away. If Van Gast had been more sober it would have been easy to throw him off. Now it was easier just to go along.

“Josie? I thought you’d be glad she’s not around anymore.”

“Everyone does, that’s the problem.” Van Gast took a big gulp of air, fought back an urge to retch, and propped himself on a wall. The narrow street closed in on him and he struggled up again. Had to get to—to—somewhere else. Yes.

The noonday sun stabbed at his eyes and he squinted up with a glare before he staggered away from the inn. He’d no idea where he was going or even what port they were in. The streets were narrow, paved only with packed earth and the occasional steppingstone over a bubbling channel of who-knew-what. As he went farther, other scents joined in. The sea, brine and seaweed and rot, wafted up from away down a hill. An earthier scent, a verdant wild sort of smell, mixed with the spicy tang of wood.

Van Gast stopped for a breath and peered out over the roofs of houses below him on the hill. A great green giant lurked on the edge of the town, looming over it like a storm cloud ready to break. The jungle creeping up on them, as if it thought they wouldn’t notice. Still in Dorston then, and she hadn’t come. She hadn’t come.

Guld hovered nearby, his mouth flapping as though he wanted to say something but didn’t dare.

“What?”

Guld hesitated until Van Gast growled his question again. “Oh, um, what about Josie? Only the crew’s been waiting for you. We should have sailed two days ago, if we’re to make Sarigin in time. Dillet sent everyone out looking for you.”

Van Gast started off again, down the hill toward the docks. What about Josie indeed. He had to tell someone, couldn’t keep it all in, and no point now. “Guld, can you keep a secret?”

“I suppose. Well, yes, I suppose I can. My magic is secret, my spells.”

Van Gast glanced at him, at the bright but tattered robe over breeches that were a little too long so he tripped on them occasionally. The pensive face and stutter, the habit of wringing his hands whenever he was called upon to talk. A figure of fun amongst the crew, though he knew his magic all right. Who would Guld tell? More to the point, even if he did, who would listen?

“Good, because if this gets out—” he glared at Guld meaningfully, “—I shall be very bloody angry.”

They reached the main market square. A little shop on the corner sold sweetmeats and the local specialty, a hot spicy drink made for curing hangovers or giving you some pep. Van Gast could do with both. He shoved Guld toward the entrance and pushed him into a seat in the corner.

It only took a moment to get two small glasses of the tonic and sit down. Van Gast watched Guld, sipping his drink thoughtfully. He had to tell someone, had to. He was sobering up now and his hands began to shake, just thinking about it, about her. She couldn’t be gone. That was it—if anyone could help him find her, it was Guld. At the least, the mage was the one member of his crew who wouldn’t sneer or laugh to find out Van Gast wasn’t taking petty tumbles and hadn’t for some time.

Only trouble now was where to start. “Josie…” Van Gast shook his head with a grimace and started again. Straight out was the best way, like pulling a knife from a wound. “I love her.”

Guld’s glass dropped to the table, spilled its hot contents in his lap and smashed on the tiled floor. Guld leaped to his feet with a cry at the scald and flapped his robe while the shopkeep came and swept away the debris with a subdued tutting. When he’d gone, Van Gast tried again. It was hard, looking at Guld’s flabbergasted shock.

“The whole thing, us hating each other, it was all a scam. Worked like a fucking charm too. Her idea, of course. Before I met her I was just a smash-and-grab man, couldn’t organize a fuck in a brothel. Her though, she had ideas that would make your head spin and needed me to help her finesse them. Add a bit of panache, you know? She sets up the deal, gets them sweet and makes them think they’re in with a chance with her, makes them think her and the mark are going to twist me. Only that doesn’t happen, because I twist them both, or so the mark thinks. Only it’s her twisting with me. You following me? Then me and her split the money, the mark thinks she hates me even more for doing her out of money, and so does everyone else. Perfect. She knew how to do it, knew how to keep everyone from suspecting, how to fire a shot across our bows that looked like it was just an unlucky miss. Knew when to cut and run with the cargo, leaving us the ship. Done that more than a few times and even Dillet never suspected, and he’s a suspicious bastard.”

Guld sat there with his mouth open, forgetting even to wring his hands or say “um.”

“Even the fights were nothing but a chance for both our crews to pocket a bit of money. If it weren’t for her and her twists, I’d never have afforded a ship or crew. Ten Ruby Trick, that’s what got us enough for a ship each, made it so we didn’t have to crew for anyone else anymore. Damn good twist, that one. She was damn good. And when we were alone I—I never even took anyone else’s tumble. Not once. And now…” Van Gast took a steady breath and tried to still the pain in his chest. “I was supposed to meet her here, only now my trouble bone’s itching like buggery, she’s gone and I don’t know where, or if she’s alive or—or if she’s just found another rack to help her or…I love her.”

Van Gast blinked rapidly and took a bracing sip of his tonic, ignoring the scald to his lips. Waiting for Guld to laugh at him. A racketeer who wouldn’t take a tumble, who’d got himself in this state because of a woman. Him, Van Gast, known for his roving eye, for the way he took every opportunity, and it was all a lie. A scam to make his reputation as a racketeer of the first order. The racketeer. That meant nothing to him now.

Guld didn’t laugh. His fingers twined round and round themselves on the table and his eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t laugh. “A scam, all of it? But, Van, I don’t—”

“We do all right at trade, I can haggle with the best of them. Occasional ship boarded and taken sees us right, too. We make enough on that, to live. But we don’t just live, do we, Guld? We’re the ship to beat, the crew with all the money. Made ten times as much last year from her twists than we did from trade or taking the odd ship we found.”

“There was the Sea Witch, we made a lot off her.”

“We did, but she was just a lucky find. I’ve got five thousand sharks stashed away, Guld. Five thousand. Saving it, against the day. Buy each one of us a good house and some land, if the day comes we want it. But it wasn’t the money, I never gave a crap about that. Well, a bit. It was the thrill of it, always the exciting thing, the chase of getting what you shouldn’t, of winning. She’s the same and now it comes to it, I don’t care what else I lose, I can’t lose her. I’d spend every fish-head in my possession to find her safe.”

“And you’ve no idea where she might be?”

Van Gast stared into the dregs of his drink and shook his head. “She said to meet her here, she was going to have a surprise for me. You know as well as I do no one’s seen her since she sailed up Tarana way, and that was a month and more ago. She’s missed two trades since then at least, and now this.”

“Beneran,” Guld said. “Last seen tying up at Beneran.”

That name made Van Gast jump. He’d had no cause to think of the place for years. Beneran was a fishing village half a day’s sail from Tarana. A street, a square, a tiny dock, and that was it. He’d been a frequent visitor once upon a time, when there had been a certain young lady. Pretty little Tilly. But that was years ago, before it had gone badly between him and Tilly’s family, and he’d not seen her since. Before he’d met Josie, when he was just another rack crew-hand, before he’d had a ship of his own. Before she’d given him that with her twists. “What would she be doing there?”

“No one knows what she was after there,” Guld said. “Only she was seen tying up and then next day she wasn’t there, nor her ship.”

“Doesn’t make any damn sense.”

“And you’ve not heard anything?”

“All I know is she had Brandick buy her a load of toy men and then didn’t turn up to collect.”

Guld raised his eyes at that. “Toy men?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. They’re up at my house.”

Guld drummed his fingers on the table. The pensive look was gone, the stutter and the vague air of helplessness. “Have you got anything of hers, a hair or something like that?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Might help me find her.” Guld stood up, purposeful now. “This house of yours, is it close?”

Chapter Eleven

Holden followed Josie closely down the steps to the jetty in the almost dark of a long summer’s dusk. They reached the gangplank, brightly lit with lanterns, and she looked up with a displeased twist on her lips. “That’s my ship, but it’s not my crew.”

“You think I’d let you sail off with them? I’d never see you, or Van Gast.”

She lifted her chin to look him in the eye—a challenge. As though she still needed to test him and find the chink in his character. Or rather the character he had now, as opposed to who he had been.

“And if you send me in a ship full of Remorian men, he’ll sniff them out from fifty leagues. He’ll know they aren’t my crew—and he’ll know what they are. That’s how come you never caught him before. Too bloody obvious, you are. I can smell a Remorian from a hundred paces.”

Holden allowed his smile to show. “The crew aren’t Remorian born, they’re bond-ganged mainlanders. Not so easy to tell at first glance. I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work. I don’t trust any word of yours. I’d be a fool if I did. If you want the boy, free and unbonded, you’ll do as I say.”

She shrugged. “Then you won’t get Van Gast. You can’t chase him. He’ll get away, he always does. So you need to lure him, appeal to his greed. Give him something to want, make sure he knows where it is—and then make sure you’re waiting. Don’t chase him. Trick him into finding you, somewhere close to Remorian waters. You can’t do that if he smells you Remorian piglets. Me, my ship, my crew, that he might trust. Might. He’ll suspect I’m tricking him, trying to twist him, that I’m the cause of his itch of trouble. He won’t suspect you.”

Holden said nothing for a moment, considering. Vast Gast always seemed to know when a Remorian ship was about to hove into view across the horizon or a hand land on his shoulder. They would get close and then…he’d be gone. His infamous little-magic giving him the edge. What she was suggesting was very close to the Master’s plan, and if she was willing to help rather than fight, it might be worth taking.

“Your crew are already on board, those who are still alive. Brigged and bonded. To ensure your obedience. And when we do come into view, me and one other of my crew with you at all times. Another four to stay with your crew, at all times. If necessary, I’ll have some of yours on deck so he knows them, but with no weapons.”

She snorted a derisive laugh. “Do I have a choice? Can you manage not to behave like a Remorian man for five minutes?”

“Oh, we will. You can pick the other out yourself from my crew. One most likely not to be sniffed out.”

For the first time she smiled with some warmth behind it. Not the Joshing Josie grin but a real smile. “I shall enjoy that.”

“You aren’t here to enjoy yourself.” Holden made himself stern with her to cover his misgivings and shoved her toward the gangplank. She shuffled up in her shackles.

“Got to get your enjoyment where you can.” She began to whistle one of the more lewd sea shanties. “Never know if it might be your last.”

Holden tried not to hear what she said—it tallied too closely with what he was feeling.

They passed a knot of his men sorting the rigging. Josie stopped and looked at them intently. Holden gave her another shove, but she pushed against his hand. “Who’s the one that looks like a gorilla with its hair shaved off?”

Holden looked to where she nodded and couldn’t suppress a smile. Gods damn, but Skrymir did too, he stuck out like a fox in a henhouse. Not usual sailors, the Gan, or not here in the Archipelago at least. Holden called him over and Josie looked up at him, and up again, with as much confidence as if she held a knife to his groin.

Skrymir’s face was steady enough—the Gan were much sought after as sailors, rare though they were. Stoic and practical to a man, so hidebound to their own peculiar honor they’d do anything their captain said. Once they took oath to a ship or captain, they believed their soul forfeit if they should break it. They didn’t need mage-bonds, not like the rest, and that was useful at times, to have an unbonded man aboard. The fact Skrymir was so big, so brutal and a handy man with a sword was just an added bonus.

Josie jerked her head at the braid Skrymir wore over his right ear, threaded with blue over white. “Brimeld’s house. Sad business.”

Skrymir started and looked at her more intently, especially at a braid she wore over her ear, black and gold, gleaming amongst the other braids and plaits and beads. “Jornn’s house. Aye, sad enough. Never would have took you for Gan.”

Neither would Holden—she’d never said, that he could recall, though it explained the fair hair, so rare on the islands or mainland coast. She was very slight compared to the other Gan he’d seen and sailed with, but he’d only ever seen the men. He laid a hand on Josie’s arm and pulled her away. Gan were an odd bunch, with an odd sort of code. He didn’t want her getting any ideas about Skrymir helping her.

“What’s he oathed to?” she asked.

“Me, so don’t be thinking what I can see you thinking. If you’re Gan, you’ll know as well as I he won’t break that.”

“Oh, only a bit Gan. About as much as one leg. This one, want to see?” She shook the leg with its anklet of bells.

Holden tried to ignore her and took her over to the captain’s quarters, her quarters, where he’d installed his own gear. No more room in the brig and, besides, Josie was a crafty one. He wanted to keep her where he could see her.

“You’re in here with me.”

She looked around, glancing over at the worn oak desk, the captain’s chair, comfortably upholstered in leather, a vibrant rug underneath it all in golds and reds. He’d had most of the rest of the furniture taken out except the big bed and the smaller one he’d had installed in the far corner.

“Oh, like that, is it? I don’t like what you’ve done with the place.” She headed for the large bed, sat down and struggled with her overshirt. “How am I supposed to get undressed with these shackles on?”

“You can sleep in your clothes. In that bed.”

She stopped her struggle with the shirt and wrinkled her nose. “In my clothes? While I appreciate your propriety, I’m going to stink like a Remorian before we find him. And I don’t like to stink.”

She’d got the overshirt undone and it hung loosely about her, letting Holden glimpse the flimsy undershirt and the hint of what lay underneath. The bruises had faded under the healer’s touch, and what was left was pale, smooth skin swelling against her shirt. He tried not to look but she twitched the corner of her mouth when she caught his glance.

“So, what’s your grand plan then?” she asked.

Holden dropped into the captain’s chair and swung it about so he wasn’t looking in her direction. “Why should I tell you? All I need to know from you is where to sail.”

Footsteps rang on the boards as she came to him and swung the chair back round. Lamps hung from the beams above, swaying gently with the movement of the ship, and light flickered about her, caressed her skin and made it golden and tempting.

She smiled her lopsided grin at him and his stomach clenched. Robbed, dead or—no, none of those things. He was here to do a job, not indulge himself, and he’d see it done. He had no choice in that, only in the how of it, and not much choice in that either. More than enough opportunity for all he could desire after, when the Master loosened his bond. Maybe he could even take the opportunity with Josie, dangerous though she was. But not now.

“I told you, just sailing after him won’t work, even in my ship. That won’t fool him for more than a heartbeat.” Her voice was very soft, little more than a whisper, and it seemed smooth as calm water, hypnotic. “You need to—”

“I need to not listen to someone with a vested interest in escaping me.” He couldn’t let her do it, for his bond, for his life he couldn’t. Couldn’t give way to dreams of air, things that could never be. “And if you do, the boy’s good as bonded. He’s down in the brig, nice and safe. Any trouble from you, he’s a very bonded boy. Who is he?”

The interrogators had tried all they could, at least all they officially could and one or two methods besides, but no one was talking. The mages had tried, looked inside the heads of the men they’d bonded, and found nothing. Even a mage of the power couldn’t see inside the head of the unbonded, and the Master didn’t want that for the boy or Josie yet, not unless it was necessary. Unusually lenient, for him, and something that made Holden ponder. Only the lad and Josie knew who he was. The boy refused to give a name, and they hadn’t pressed too hard. If he died, they’d have nothing to bargain.

“No one you’d be interested in,” Josie said. “So, the plan?”

“First tell me where we need to sail to.”

She watched him steadily, then shrugged as if it made no matter. “Sarigin.”

“What in the world would he be doing there?” Sarigin, as far south as it was possible to go on the mainland, was no haven for racketeers. Little or no trade, no merchantmen to plunder or miners to scam. Just a small town in a land of vines and large cats and tiny fishing villages.

“Doing what he always does. Making money. He won’t be far from there. Not this time of year.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

She said nothing but wandered over to the desk and fiddled with the parchment on top. Nothing there she shouldn’t see, so he didn’t protest.

“So, Sarigin. No deepwater harbor so he’ll be anchored offshore. Once we’re there, you find out exactly where he is, the ships standing off will follow us, and we’ll take him. If he sees your ship, you and your crew on it, he won’t expect Remorians.”

She laughed to herself and doodled something on one of the parchments. “Oh, he will. He’ll smell you coming, he’ll escape, you’ll blame me and I’ll end up with a bond. Or hung. I don’t like your plan, Holden. Don’t like it at all.” Something about the tilt of her head in the lamplight, the bitter set of her mouth, made him think this was the closest to any truth he’d yet had out of her. Made him think other things about her too, but he squashed that and tried to concentrate on the job in hand.

Holden cleared his throat. “And I suppose you have a better idea?” His reasoning for keeping her in here with him, at least in part. Along with maybe trying to both gain her trust and find some chink in her armor, over and above the boy. Something he could use to keep her in line rather than have her mage-bonded, and use to make sure he got that bastard Van Gast this time. That was what he told himself, anyway.

If he couldn’t find that chink, he’d have to have her bonded, because he was sure the boy wouldn’t be enough on his own, not for long. Racketeers held no loyalty to anyone for long. Besides, she’d be more use without the bond. Holden wouldn’t willingly take that from her, take any last bit of freedom she might be clinging to. When men were bonded unwilling it killed them, in time, that loss of themselves. He didn’t want to see her dead. Didn’t even really want to see her trapped like this. It was like caging a bird so close it couldn’t even flap its wings.

Josie sighed, as though there were many things she could think of she’d rather be doing. “Oh yes, I’ve a much better plan. One that might actually work. Van’s got two weaknesses. He loves to steal, and he loves chasing some pretty bit of tail. If he can steal a bit of tail from another man…likes the challenge, it’s what he lives for. All right. The plan. Ten Ruby Trick we used to call it. We find Van Gast and we offer him a proposition. We appeal to his greed, something he has a lot of.”

“First flaw in your plan,” Holden said. “Why would he take up a proposition from you?”

There was that grin again. She stepped closer and it was all Holden could do not to reach for his pistol. With a soft laugh, she sat astride him on the chair, the shackles on her ankles tight around his legs. He should tip her off but found he didn’t want to. The scent of her brought back too many memories. Besides, he wanted to hear what she had to say. If it helped him find Van Gast, it’d be worth it. He need not take any of her advice, but he had to stay smart and she knew Van Gast better than anyone else alive, even if it was only in hatred.

She leaned forward and her breath was on him, tickling at his cheek, and it was as though he was under some spell, the magic of the forgotten past revisited. “Because of this. Me and Van Gast, we know each other. Intimately, as only the best of enemies can. He thinks he knows me and how I work, but I know I know him, and I know something he doesn’t know. If I give him an offer he can’t refuse, all he’ll think is I’m trying to rob him, twist him, not turn him over to the Remorians. He’ll guard against theft or trickery, think that’s the trouble that’s coming. Not your men. If it’s me, what he’ll do is try to twist me back so hard I bleed and, when he tries, that’s when you take him.”

“So we, er, we proposition him. With what?”

When she slid her arms over his shoulders he didn’t hear what she said at first, too intent on her touch. “With his own greed. And rubies.”

“What rubies?”

She sighed and the sound swelled through him like a riptide. “The fake one you found in my gear before you gave me my clothes back. You did find it and then put it back?”

Her hand reached inside her shirt and pulled out what looked like a ruby the size of his thumb. He’d had his assayer check it while she was in the cells. It might look like a ruby but it was little more than worthless, except for its novelty value. She flicked the stone across her knuckles and back again. She kept her eyes on his and they were a deeper color in the firelight. A dark grey-blue, like a thousand fathoms of sea. “This ruby. Good enough to fool him, for long enough. He’s no assayer, his little-magic doesn’t run that way.”

He didn’t want to go on with this. Didn’t want her to try her tricks on him, because he was afraid if she went much further he might fall for them. But they were here, alone, and she wasn’t scathing him. She was a free woman, free from the bond, and she was taunting him with herself, with her freedom.

“And then I tell him where we can find ten more, just like it.” Her voice had gained a burr to it, a husky edge, and the pupils of her eyes were wide and black. She shifted on his lap and his heart sped up a notch. The fog was almost gone, just shreds and tatters in his mind. “And I tell him about you and how you can help us get them, and how he can help me scam you, how together we can twist the Remorian man. You say you can get us in, and out. Unseen, undetected. Appeal to his greed, his pride when I say he’s the only man good enough for the job. And how I’ve got you twisted…round…my…little finger.”

As she dragged those last words out, she circled her hips on his lap. Sweat popped out on his upper lip and her smile was softer now, with a hint of cat about it. Josie as she’d always been with him. Loving him despite his bond, drawing him out of his thoughts. Yet she was playing him this time, as she played everyone. Part of him didn’t care. Part of him would gladly do anything she said if she’d kiss him as she once had, but he had a job to do. That she wouldn’t want to be within a thousand miles of him once it was done, when she had what she wanted, her freedom and the boy, well, that he’d deal with when he got there. Now it was too dangerous because she was dangerous, and not just in the way she robbed and killed. Just in the way she was. Dangerous to him, because she was his sort of woman, had once been the only woman he’d ever want, but if he let his guard down…

“So he thinks that you’re the mark, not him. You can’t take him in Sarigin. No ship could hold him for the time to get back to your islands. So, we tell him where to be. Tarana, to the north, where only a short stretch lies between the port and your waters.” Her lips were by his ear, her words little more than a breath. “And when he’s there in Tarana, thinking that we’re tricking you, guarding only against whether I’ll trick him back, rob him, thinking that he can twist me out of the scam, then you take him to your cells and I’m free. In the meantime, we can enjoy ourselves. Have to take it where you find it. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”

Her lips grazed his cheek and trailed around to his mouth, leaving little bolts of lightning behind them. Maybe Holden’s mage wasn’t the only magic user on board—and then it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because her lips were soft on his mouth, tasting of sea spray and wild winds. She leaned into him, everything about her soft and strong at the same time. Dancer’s muscles along her arms, down her back, under his hands.

Straight lines gave way to swirls in his head. She circled her hips again and he held in a groan of wishing. He grabbed at her and yanked her hips more firmly toward him, let himself kiss her back and think what had once been, what might be again.

She sat back and it was all he could do not to look at her lips, at the way they seemed swollen. Begging for him to kiss them again. A hand slid under his shirt, the other down toward his breeches, each touch a tingling thrill, before her shackles pinged taut. “This would be so much easier without these chains.”

That snapped him out of whatever spell she’d put him under, made his wrist burn and throb, his mind ache as he remembered what he was held to, what his orders were. What his punishment would be if he failed. He grabbed her wrists and shoved her hands away.

“Maybe I can just do what I want with a prisoner of the Archipelago.” He’d face no censure if he just took her, there and then. Her life had become his the moment he’d arrested her, and he had to follow the Master. Had to, because his bones still remembered the last time he’d failed, and he’d not survive again. He’d rather die now than go through that again. Keep apart, don’t let her wheedle her way back in. You can’t afford to. Not if you value your life.

Her lip curled into a sneer. “And would you?”

“Not my style. But that’s not to say it wouldn’t happen, amongst my crew.” An empty threat—he could only hope she wouldn’t know it.

He grabbed her about the waist and stood up, took three steps and dumped her on her bed.

“Whatever you think, this is work. A service for my country, for my Master, for everything I hold dear. A job, a life, and one I’d do well, one I have to whether I want to or not. I’ll go along with your plan, up to and until I see you trying to play me. And this is you playing me. I’ll consider what you’ve said. Maybe pretend what you say. I’ll even pretend that all you tell him is true. But I won’t make it real. Not all the while this is a job.”

She sprawled on the bed, looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and, Kyr’s mercy, he was tempted. Dreams ran through his head, a multitude of colors and sounds when his life was grey and deaf. He couldn’t afford to give in so he made sure she was firmly chained to the bed. She reached out to him, her touch soft across his chest and down. A remembrance of what once was. He pulled away.

“What happened to you, Holden? Why didn’t you come?” she said, and the look of pained confusion in her eyes made him turn away.

He’d never thought, had he? That when the Master had tightened his bond five—or was it six?—years ago, when he’d been made up to captain and had stopped seeing her, forgotten her, that it might have hurt her. Never thought that maybe she’d loved him as he’d loved her, even when she’d said it many times. He’d never believed it, not truly.

Holden clamped his teeth down on what he wanted to say, that he’d not wanted to stay away but that he’d forgotten, for the bond, for the Master. Instead he said only, “Go to sleep,” and made for the door to give the order where to sail. He smiled grimly to himself when she swore at his back and made his face still and stern when he turned from the crewman who took his order, shut the door and made for the other bed, the one he’d sleep in alone.

He lay there a long time, wanting to get up, wanting to go to her bed. Wanting to remember all of it, but they were too close to the Master still, his duty too weighty in his mind. His bond was heavy on his arm and kept him pinned to the bed with a burn and throb of magic, of strength he could not deny. It chained him to his bed just as surely as she was shackled to hers.

Sleep was a long time coming.

Holden woke when he tried to turn in his sleep and found he couldn’t. A weight pressed down on his chest. He opened his eyes to the barrel of his own gun staring at him. Josie sat astride him, the shackles off her and round his wrists instead. She grinned her Joshing Josie grin.

Shit.

“Just a little reminder,” she said. “That you aren’t necessarily in charge. I’ll help you, if only to get the boy back safe. We’ll find Van Gast for your Master. And when we’re in there, with him, you’ll do as I damn well say, if you want to get him and live to tell about it. I don’t want to be bonded and if you don’t listen to me, then your Master will make you, because Van Gast will be away.”

Holden hardly dared to breathe. She shoved the muzzle of the pistol against his nose and let her voice go soft and husky again. “You’re alive because my lads are in the brig and I can’t fight your whole crew, not on my own. Not even I could do that. But Van Gast could. Don’t doubt what he’s capable of. I am not and will not ever be your slave. But I’m a dab hand at pickpocketing.”

Now he knew what that had been all about last night. Not her playing him, as such. Certainly not her wanting him. Just wanting to get the key to her shackles.

“So I see,” he said. “One sound out of place and there’ll be crew in here in a heartbeat. You won’t live, and neither will the boy.”

Her lip curled and she spat her next words. “Neither will you. But at least I’ll have died free, not some mage-bound, heart-dead slave for the Remorians. Not like you’ve become.”

Holden ducked his head to the side and pushed with one shoulder, tipping her off balance. He shouted for the sentry and came to an abrupt halt at the end of the chain, his arm pulled above his head. She’d been ready for it, rolled with his motion and onto her feet, out of his reach. The gun came to bear again, aiming straight for his chest. Holden stared at her, at the eyes that were wild with fear but still calculating, thinking on her feet.

The door banged open and she squeezed the trigger as Skrymir barreled into her and slammed her to the floor. The shot went wild, just grazed Holden’s arm before it burst into the wood behind him in an explosion of splinters.

Josie struggled against Skrymir, bit and spat and kicked, but she was no match for the sheer weight of him. He grabbed for the arm with the gun. She squirmed out from under him and cracked him across the head with it. Skrymir grunted in pain but didn’t let go of her waist, and it was only moments before he had her pinned to the deck, facedown, her arms behind her back. Blood dripped from his forehead onto the back of her head, but the dark look hidden under looming eyebrows was for Holden, not her.

Holden ignored it and pulled himself up as far as the chain would allow. “Find the key and let’s get these shackles back on her.”

Skrymir held her down with one easy hand and began to search. He murmured what sounded like an apology as he patted her shirt, his hands as gentle as he could make them. Finally he found the key and threw it to Holden. Once free of the shackles, Holden could concentrate on getting Josie back into them. Back where he wouldn’t have to watch his back. She swore vividly and lashed out with a foot, nearly catching Holden in the groin, but between him and Skrymir it was simple enough, though the big Gan looked uneasy about it.

Holden dropped into the captain’s chair and regarded her thoughtfully. He’d tried being as kind as he could and she’d only taken advantage of it. If he couldn’t at least trust her to not kill him at the first opportunity, he’d have to resort to other methods, ones he’d hoped not to have to use. His bond pulsed and burned, the Master’s voice echoing in his head, this new bond too tight, letting the Master inside his thoughts even at this distance. He had his answer, his order, though it made his stomach twist.

Not Josie, she’d always been so free…

It was right, the voice intoned, it was necessary. For order, for the Archipelago.

He sent Skrymir to fetch a mage-bond, and the look on the Gan’s face matched what Holden’s heart was telling him. That for someone like her, this could be death. If she fought it, it would kill her, and Holden didn’t doubt she’d fight it every step of the way. But he couldn’t fight it; he had lost the strength a long time ago. He had his bond, his order, and all he could do was fulfill it.

Josie looked at him with a clear mix of hatred and fear as she struggled against the chains that held her to a ring fixed to the deck. Not so casual now, not in the face of that. Holden moved closer to her, though not within her reach.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and she spat at him. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but I’ve my own bond to obey.” He rolled back his shirt sleeve to show her the scars, the little strings of reddened skin around his wrist. Mark of the mage-bonded. His bonds made sure he was going to do this to her, strip her of the one thing that made her who she was. The one thing that made him want her, made jealousy creep through his bones at the lives of the racketeers, of those in other realms. “You forced me to this, and I’m sorry. But I can’t have you at my back trying to kill me. I need to get Van Gast and you’re my best hope. Probably my only hope. If only you’d played it my way, done what my Master wanted, this could have been painless for all of us.”

“Your way?” She struggled against the chains and lashed out with her foot again, just missing his leg. “Taking hostages, threatening to bond a five-year-old, locking me in chains and threatening his life if I don’t do as you say. What kind of way is that?”

He sat on his haunches and shook his head. “The kindest way I could, the only way I can. It’s a good thing, Josie, you’ll see. A good thing. What other way could I have used to get your help?”

“You could have asked.”

“And you’d have said yes, would you? Of course not. But I didn’t want to use the bond. I wouldn’t have—but I’m not stupid enough to think this would be your last attempt to kill me. Even if killing me would have got the boy killed.”

“It wouldn’t. I’d have—”

“—got everyone killed.”

Skrymir came back in, a pouch dangling from his fingers as though it were a live snake and he was afraid it would bite.

Holden took it from him with a sigh. If only there was another way. He crouched down near her again and drew the mage-bond out of the pouch. A silver string, that was all it looked like, a string with a life of its own. So simple. So all-encompassing. It squirmed around his fingers, trying to find a purchase, but it wasn’t his flesh it was looking for. There was nothing for it there.

He’d never seen such terror in someone’s eyes as he did Josie’s. She scrabbled backward as well as she could in her chains, scrunched herself as far into a corner as she’d fit, and readied her feet to kick out at him. Forn’s bells jingled dolefully as she shook. “I’ll help you, I will. I promise. Holden, I promise the Gan way. An oath I can’t break, I swear it. Holden, please, if you ever felt anything for me—”

Holden shut his eyes briefly. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t see the fear he’d etched on her face. “I’m sorry, Josie, the time for that was before you tried to shoot me. I have my orders and I cannot disobey. Cannot. By any means, I have to catch Van Gast. I’d not have bonded the boy, unless I must. But his fate might have been worse, the way you see it, if you’d shot me. He’d have been brought up in the Archipelago, taken the bond. I gave you both a chance at having the life you wanted. I tried. But you didn’t trust me to keep my word, and now I can’t trust you. Give me your arm.”

“No…no, you can’t. I’ll kick your bollocks off first.”

“Sadly for you, I can do it, and I will. I have to, for my own bond. I won’t use it for anything other than getting Van Gast, if that’s your worry. I won’t use it to force you anywhere else, not into the cells or into my bed, as other commanders would. Ask Skrymir, I’m a fair man to be bonded to.”

Josie’s eyes flicked up toward Skrymir but her panic didn’t lessen at his nod, or when he spoke.

“He’s talking true. Never asks a man more than he should, and I wouldn’t have oathed to him otherwise. But, sir, to bond her unwilling…”

She yanked at the chains, had rubbed the skin from her wrists by now, but she was trapped and she knew it. It didn’t stop her fighting it though. Holden had to admire her for that and mourn that her spark, her fight, would soon be lost. It had gone out of him a long time ago, because there was no fighting the bond, not if you wanted to live.

“Accept it,” he said, the only advice, the only help he could give her. “Accept it and it will be easier.”

Skrymir had to hold her down while Holden laid the bond on her. No unbroken skin left at her wrists so he held it over her ankle, the one free of the bells that seemed to mock him, to grieve for her. “Take this bond and keep it, on your life. To break it is to break yourself. To find Van Gast and bring him to the Remorians’ justice, to do as I say or ask, to do nothing that would hinder that task or harm a Remorian, while this bond shall last.”

The end of the string wriggled above her ankle, sensing the unbonded skin so close. Holden let go with a hollow pang that he’d killed something he so admired, in service to his own bond that bound him as tight, whether he wanted to do its bidding or not.

The string slithered around her ankle, instantly burrowing into the skin in a perfect circle. She screamed at the touch of it, a ragged, wretched sound of fear and pain that hurt Holden’s ears, and his heart. Reminded him of his own bonding, of how he’d screamed and begged, afraid the pain would never end. Yet she didn’t beg, not even now.

The physical pain didn’t last long, at least not for those who bonded willingly. The other pain was what might kill her, if the bond was left on too long. The pain of not following what your soul told you was right. Remorians were different, brought up knowing to expect it, a sense of fatalism about it, trained by the milk-bond put on at birth. The rightness of it was poured into their ear every waking minute. It was good, it was necessary. They welcomed, craved it, cherished it, because they knew it was right.

For most of them it was just a fact of life, not a threat to it. Holden turned away to the desk, unable to watch. He held his fists tight to suppress the shivers of sympathy that ran through him as she thrashed in her shackles so violently even Skrymir couldn’t hold her.

It seemed interminable, the time until her screams faded away to hoarse swearing, though it couldn’t have been longer than half a bell. Holden turned back to her, pinched his lips together at the sight of her pale, sweating skin, the way she shuddered rhythmically, in time to her own heart.

“Skrymir, go and fetch some ointment for those wrists and her ankle. The healer makes some that numbs the pain for a time.”

The Gan’s eyes judged Holden, as though he’d seen something in him he’d never thought to find there. He went finally, his shoulders sagged with sadness. Skrymir wouldn’t oath to him again when the time came, and Holden couldn’t blame him, but he’d had no choice, the Master had left him none. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do what he could to ease the pain of it for her.

He crouched down beside her and held out the key. “Give me your hands.”

Josie hesitated, the shackles jingling with every quiver, then held out her arms. Holden unlocked the chains and let them fall, tried not to look at where she’d chafed the skin away in her desperation to be free of him. She clenched and unclenched her fingers, trying to get the blood flowing again, her eyes hot and dangerous on him all the time, but he had no fear that she’d kill him, not now. For long heartbeats they stared at each other, each trying to size up this new situation.

Her hand blurred toward him, nails out to go for his eyes. He pulled back without thought and brought an arm up. Before the blow could land, her hand jerked to a stop in a hiss of pain. A low growl escaped her and she tried again with no more success. Each blow shuddered to a halt before it could land, and each attempt inflicted pain on her, burrowed through her skin like a gnawing rat.

He’d tried it once, going against his bond. He knew what that did to you. He’d not tried again.

She stared around wildly, looking for a weapon, he supposed.

“You can’t hurt me now, Josie, not me or any of the men bonded to me. You can’t hurt me or disobey me. You must help me, or the bond will bring you only more pain. Accept it, and you’ll live long enough to be free of it. I promise you that. You will be free of it if you help me. If you fight it, it will kill you, sooner or later. If you fight too hard, too long, then you’ll be too weak for me to take it off, because taking it off is worse than putting it on. The quicker we catch him and the bond is fulfilled, the sooner I can remove it, the sooner you’ll be rid of the pain of it, and you and the boy can be free. And before you ask, only I can remove it.”

Her lips twisted and she launched herself toward him, screamed as the bond stabbed the pain into her again. She fell to her hands and knees, panting for long moments before she hauled herself to her feet. She held herself still as a statue for so long Holden began to wonder if the bond had done something else to her.

Then her hand swept everything from the desk onto the floor so the inkpot spilled over the parchments, the clock shattered in a shower of glass and springs. The chair was next, her muscles bulging with the effort as she launched it at the window with a snarl. She watched in dead-eyed anger as it smashed its way through and out, spinning into the sea. It still wasn’t enough, Holden thought, nothing would be enough. The small bed followed the chair, then the chamber pot. She smashed or threw overboard everything she could lift and Holden didn’t stop her. Her ship, her things she was breaking. Her life, her heart he had broken.

Finally she sank to her knees in the center of the floor, shaking and out of breath. But not crying, oh no, not Josie. He went to stand in front of her, intending to help her to her feet, find some word of comfort for her. Nothing could be a comfort, he understood that when he saw her eyes. He’d killed her already, only her body still breathed, her heart still beat. Inside she was dead and he’d killed her. Just another pretty thing destroyed at the end of a bond.

“I hate you,” she whispered. Such an understated thing, as though she couldn’t think of anything else, any other words to express it.

“I know. So do I.”

Van Gast concentrated on Guld and tried to ignore the feeling that the toy Remorian was watching him. The toys were spread out in front of them, marching up and down the rug on the floor of Van Gast’s quarters aboard Gast’s Ghost. Racks on one side of a triangle, merchantmen on another, and the few Remorians on the last.

“It still doesn’t make any sense.” Guld snapped his hand shut on the spell he’d cast. “I can’t tell anything from these. She never touched them.”

They’d gone over Van Gast’s house as thoroughly as they could but their search had turned up nothing of hers. Not even a hair. The woman that Van Gast paid a pittance to keep the place clean while he was at sea had done too good a job.

“There’s nothing else you can try?” Van Gast turned the Remorian commander so he was facing away. Bloody thing gave him the creeps.

“I can try a tracing spell, but they’re unreliable at the best of times, and the last time she was seen was too long ago. They only work for a few days.”

“Can’t hurt to try.”

Guld got to his feet and dusted himself down. “I suppose not. I wouldn’t hold out much hope though.”

Van Gast put the toys back into a sack, relieved they were no longer looking at him. “Let me know, either way.”

Guld left for his cabin and the quiet he preferred for his magic. Van Gast went out on deck. Wind tugged at his hair, a squally, grey kind of day pressing humidity and sweat onto his skin. He checked the sail and rigging, tasted the wind and absently watched his crew going about their business.

“So, Van, you back among us now then?”

Dillet popped up beside him. He’d been acting oddly since Van Gast had come back aboard, disappointed almost, as though Van Gast’s disappearance was a blessing and his reappearance with Guld a curse.

“Never really left.” Van Gast kept his face and words guarded. He was already feeling misgivings about having told Guld. If Dillet found out—actually he preferred not to think about that. Dillet would laugh him off the ship for being such a fool. Maybe he was right.

“So what’s all this with stopping at every bloody port and village then?”

Van Gast leaned on the rail and took a lungful of salt air to brace himself. “Nothing much, just working with a hunch. You know how it is.”

“Nothing to do with that business in Estovan then?” Dillet watched him carefully, his eyes sharp, flicking over Van Gast’s face.

“No, not really. A hunch that might pay off is all.”

“If you heard something, by rights you should be telling me, not that girly bloody mage. ’Bout as much use as a one-legged donkey.”

Van Gast laughed. “He’s not so bad as that. Two-legged donkey maybe.”

Dillet leaned on the rail next to him. “So come on then, spit the juice. What we doing going to all these pissant little places? We ain’t going to make no money there. Poor bastards can just about feed theyselves. And you know how this lot of dogs get if they don’t see some money.”

“We’ve enough for now. But preparation is the key to a good twist, eh? Information is what I’m after, Dillet. Those fishermen go out a long way, they might have seen who I’m after.”

“So might I, if you tell me who it is.” There was something about the way Dillet said it that made all the hairs stand up on the back of Van Gast’s neck. Fishing, and not for sharks. Van Gast had never trusted Dillet much further than he could shove him—the man was too money-hungry for that—but he did make a good first mate. As long as you watched your back.

“All in good time, all in good time. Have a little patience. But it’ll be worth a fortune if I can pull it off.” Even if I have to pay you out of what I’ve got stashed away for a twist I never ran.

Dillet looked at him narrowly and grunted. “It better had be, Van, or your crew will be getting antsy. Just a warning like.”

Van Gast forced a smile. “It’ll be worth your while. I guarantee it.”

Dillet turned to go. “Aye, well just make sure it is, that’s all I’m saying. A poor rack captain is one no one will sail with.”

Damn it, Josie, you’d better show soon. While I’ve still got a ship and crew.

Just be alive.

Chapter Twelve

Holden crouched down so he could look Josie in the eye. She’d not said a word to him since the day he’d bonded her but huddled in the corner and glared at him. The only person she’d speak to was Skrymir and that in the Gan tongue. To ask about the boy, Skrymir said.

“Josie, I—”

She turned her head away. Damn it, she was only making it harder on herself. Holden concentrated on the bond, on making her obey it. “Josie, look at me.”

Her mouth tightened in a grimace, and cords stood out on her neck as she fought it, but finally, with a gasp of pain, her head turned.

“I don’t want to do it this way, Josie. I never did. If you help me catch him, then it’ll all be over. I’ll take off the bond and you’ll be free. It’s nothing to you, except that Van Gast will be gone for good, and that’s what you want too, isn’t it? Help me, and you’ll be free. I swear.”

The way she looked at him, the pain etched into the skin round her eyes and mouth, the disappointment in him, burned him to the core. She’d never thought badly of him just because he was a bonded man. She hadn’t cared, had seen past that to who he was inside, and now he’d done this to her.

“I’m sorry.” A paltry effort. “Josie, I swear, just this one little thing and you’re free. I’ll—I’ll make it up to you.”

She snorted a derisive laugh. “Make it up to me. How can you? What could make up for this?”

“Josie, please.” The skin on her wrists had mended under the healer’s care, but that was just skin. The rest of her…Holden took her hands in his, held them when she would have pulled away. “You left me no choice.”

She stared down at his fingers as they gripped hers. “I was going to help you. I just had to show you I wouldn’t be your little slave. I still won’t. I won’t be anyone’s fucking slave, yours or this Master of yours.”

Holden wanted to turn time back, roll it all away back to the night they’d boarded the ship. Do it all differently. More than that, her presence was starting to eat at him, made more and more memories of her pop to the surface of his mind. Made his dreams more and more painful. He wanted to take the bond off, but couldn’t. He wanted her in his bed and couldn’t do that either. All he could do was what he’d been set, any way he could.

“Josie, will you help me catch Van Gast?”

She pulled her hands from his and hunched away. Holden stood up and glared out of the newly repaired window into the grey of the day, clouds and mist and drizzle. A constant dampness that didn’t alleviate the heat, only made it worse somehow, made the air press against him with a solid weight. He wished for a storm to blow it all away. Him with it.

Anger replaced guilt. She was turning him into a milksop, a man with no blood in his veins. He had a sudden pang for Ilsa—and a worse one for Josie. Even bonded, she wasn’t servile, wasn’t his. He’d thought that was what he wanted. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Josie, get up.” He held his mind on the anger, drove it into the bond over her.

She hissed behind him but got up. “Holden—”

“Enough, Josie. Enough. I’m not the man you thought me. I never was. This is who I am, like it or loathe it. I am the man who controls you, and you will help me. So, firstly we are going to run through the plan, down to every last word. Then you’re going to make sure the crew that come ashore with us don’t look Remorian. Skrymir, we’ll have to do something about him too. Van Gast’s seen him. You can see to that, see that he looks different enough that Van Gast won’t recognize him.”

Holden turned round and tried not to watch the new hatred in her. “You will help me, like it or not. Because I have to do this, like it or not. So, this Ten Ruby Trick. Tell me every last detail.”

Van Gast stepped over a puddle of the gods only knew what and propped himself against a wall, acting drunker than he was. The girl half fell into him but he managed to catch her and stop her falling into the muck. The flimsy wall protested at the weight of them both and Van Gast pushed himself off, his arm around her.

He normally loved Sarigin this time of year. All right, the weather was a foul, sweltering sort of fug until the winds came again in the autumn, the constant bouts of rain churning every street to mire, but Kyr’s mercy, the girls were out in force on this night and the populace so charmingly naïve of his ways.

The Wedding Dance, they called it, the week that fell in the middle of the year, when no one fished because of the spawning. When the fish spawned, so did the people. The men were all ashore, the girls all prettied up and looking for a husband. They carried their dowry with them, tinkling belts of coins that shimmered and shivered with their hips as they tried to catch the eye of a likely looking mate. Not only that, but this was the only time when it was acceptable for them to drink strong spirits, and most of these girls had drunk nothing stronger than water. Until now.

In any other city they’d all be robbed before they went twenty paces, but not in Sarigin. No, here the people were trusting and truthful, like a religion to them. Telling a lie would damn you down to the Deeps, or the Dark as they called it. Theft, as it was viewed in Sarigin, was just another lie, one about who owned what.

Drunk, naïve women looking for a man, with lots of money upon their person. It was only a wonder more racketeers didn’t ingratiate themselves and rack up a small fortune. It was a little holiday, but this year his heart wasn’t in it. He was just marking time. If Josie didn’t turn up soon…

He was fooling himself. She was gone and he’d best get used to the idea. He blinked heavily and swallowed back the chunk of grief in his throat. Can’t show it, never show it. That was the worst of it. He had to be Van Gast, racketeer of the first order, all roving eye and clever twists, as he always was—or always seemed to be.

Van Gast and the girl whose name he couldn’t quite remember lurched along the street, dodging food stalls and piglets and piles of rotting filth that did nothing to help the fetid smell that washed in from the estuary, caught and magnified by the perpetual fog that made silver beads of moisture drip from every surface. There it was, the delightful little establishment that served a particularly stiff rice wine.

He stepped over the threshold, the girl hanging on his arm, and knew immediately something wasn’t quite right. Something about the way the patrons were so very intent on their own business. These people didn’t like a lie, and it didn’t have to be a spoken one. It could be something as simple as being the wrong person or projecting the wrong sort of image. They knew when something wasn’t right, and Van Gast had long ago learned to pay attention to their subtle cues, to mirror them himself. That was how he got away with so much coin at the end of the week. These people were upset. Very upset, though there wasn’t one raised voice. A pursed lip here, a hunched shoulder there. Enough for him, given the direction his little-magics went. The itch of it made him scratch at his chest absently.

Van Gast let the girl fall into a seat along one bamboo wall and made his cautious way to the bar, keeping his eyes and ears open. He made sure to stumble over a foot and slur an apology, made sure his body language didn’t give away the lie, though he was far from drunk. It was an art form really.

A Gan at the bar seemed to be the center of the strained emotions in the room. Bells rang in his head—a Gan asking questions about him up and down the coast, a Gan in Estovan chasing him—but he couldn’t be sure this was the same one. Gan weren’t common, but there were enough of them around, and this one was dressed differently, more like a rack, and he had more than just a family braid in his hair. Unlike the other—yet achingly reminiscent of Josie—braids swung about his shoulders, almost obscuring the rest of his hair. Difficult to say if it was the same one, the Gan all looked the same to Van Gast. Big, blond, brutal. That was all you needed to know about them. Still, best be wary, because a Gan wasn’t a good enemy to have. Too efficiently vicious and too damn stubborn.

This one was built like a bull, his thick neck protruding from a bright red shirt that accentuated his build rather than hiding it. A sword hung at his waist, and that made Van Gast raise an eyebrow. A fatal mistake here, wearing a weapon. Truthful men had no need of sharp steel, and Van Gast made sure the few blades he did bring from his ship were very, very concealed.

What in the world was a Gan doing here of all places? Then he saw the man by the giant’s side, and how the two of them both put down their drinks when they saw him. Leaving their hands free. The other man was Josie’s first mate, and the muscles in Van Gast’s shoulders loosened.

So the ship wasn’t sunk, but where was she? He wanted to leap forward and shake it out of her first mate. Only…only Josie didn’t have a Gan in her crew, and she knew better than to let her men abroad in Sarigin with swords. There was something odd here. His little-magics were urging him to turn round, walk out of the door and then run, as far and fast as he could. Only he couldn’t be sure whether the itch was for him in trouble, or whether it itched for her.

Something very odd here. Like, what the heck was Josie doing in Sarigin during Wedding Dance week? Nothing really for her here. For her crew maybe, but it was chancy. Van Gast only managed it because his little-magic was a positive boon in places like this. Maybe she’d come to find him, and that was a surge of relief that made his itch subside.

Only…what else was strange was the Gan. They kept popping up in the least likely places. She wouldn’t have oathed him—no rack would take a man’s freedom like that—and even if he was on her crew, she wouldn’t have let him come ashore with that sword. Gods damn it all to the Deep, what was she playing at? Not for the first time, he wished he had a mind as devious as hers. He had to trust to her, to that slippery bent of thinking, that she knew what she was doing and at some point she’d tell him.

The two men moved toward him, the Gan taking a more sideways track to get between Van Gast and the door. Josie’s first mate, Galdon, was behaving quite oddly too. He kept sneaking little glances at the Gan, then back to Van Gast. Nervous, and that was something Van Gast had never associated with one of the toughest sailors on this coast. All that time their ship had been out of contact, and now this. The relief that had swum through him when he’d recognized Galdon curdled in his stomach.

Galdon smiled as he came up to him, but it wasn’t the easy smile of long acquaintance, or even the strained smile of a long-time enemy. The grim stretch of his lips was the haunted smile of the rat that was finally trapped. “Josie wants to see you.”

A huffing breath behind him told Van Gast that the Gan was there, too close for comfort. Playing along seemed the best bet for now. Besides, he wanted to know where the fuck she’d been, and how much she was going to make it up to him for scaring him half to death by disappearing like that. Play the game for now, though. Plenty of time for making it up to him later, something to look forward to. “What for?”

Galdon lifted one shoulder a touch. “Best ask her. Proposition, I reckon.”

Breaking the twist, the show of enmity. Weirder and weirder. But highly interesting. Van Gast made a show of scratching at his ribs and loosened the knife under his shirt. He glanced back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at the Gan before he turned back to Galdon. “Can’t say I approve of your methods, but I’m in a betting mood. I’m betting she won’t kill me here, because she’d be strung up in no time.” The Sarigin weren’t slouches when it came to stamping on violence in their town.

“She promises not to kill you today. On her honor.”

On her honor? Van Gast caught his laughter in time and his itch subsided, just a little. Josie was playing, but what game? By now, now that he knew she was alive and well, he was curious to find out. It wouldn’t be anything simple, not for her to break the show. Might be something exceptional. “Very well, Galdon, you intrigue me. Lead the way. Though if you could tell your pet bull not to puff down my neck like that, I’d be obliged.”

The Gan grunted behind him but hung back as Galdon led them off to a private room behind the bar.

The cramped space was hot and smoky, dimly lit by guttering tallow lamps, and it took a moment for Van Gast’s eyes to adjust. Then Josie got up off a man’s lap, trailed a sensual hand across his shoulders and came toward Van Gast, smiling that lopsided grin.

Forn’s bloody bells, she was alive and grinning at him and all he wanted to do was kiss her stupid. He held on to himself with difficulty. She’d not thank him for ruining whatever devious plan she had up her sleeve. Plenty of time later, he reminded himself. Plenty of time to take all the time he wanted.

“Do sit down,” she said in a purr. The Gan’s meaty hand landed on his shoulder, and it was sit at the rickety table with the beer stains and rend-nut burns or get a bone broken. He sat.

Van Gast looked round the room, noted several of her crew, but four more men he didn’t know. He studied the one whose lap she’d been sitting on. He’d be tall when he stood up, with a grave, weather-beaten face that looked as solid and still as a mask carved from wood, but the eyes were bright blue and full of sharp awareness. Shit, and the copper-bronze skin of a Remorian, the close-cropped black hair starting to grow out. But the only one of them like that. A rogue Remorian? Impossible, but all the rest were mainlanders, Van Gast was sure. The Remorian sat very straight, and Van Gast noted all the newcomers had upright postures, as though there was a string in the top of their heads and someone was holding them up. Like puppets.

Like bonded slaves. What the fuck was she getting him involved in?

The two who stood behind the seated guy looked uncomfortable in their brightly colored shirts and breeches, as though they weren’t used to them, and the hair was only just this side of what a respectable merchantman might wear. Not racketeers, that was certain, but trying to look like them. If he didn’t know Josie better, he’d suspect they were Remorian too—they might not have the skin color but they smelled Remorian, the reek of the islands—or some consortium of merchants wanting to take him out. As well they might. But Josie had as little cause as he did to seek Remorians out or trade with them, and some very powerful reasons not to.

Still, best to be wary. “Got some new friends, I see.”

She stood the other side of the table, magnificent as ever, and trailed a finger along the wood as she came round to him. “Very good friends.”

Her voice was odd—heck, everything was odd, but her voice the most. Like hearing the dead speak. Her finger lifted from the table and ran up his arm, along his shoulder and round behind him. His neck twitched involuntarily when she caught at the sensitive spot just near his ear with an invisible caress.

She leaned down close and her perfume washed over him. Peaches and honey, with an odd undercurrent to it that was perturbing. “But very, very stupid,” she whispered just to him. Then louder, “You know how I love a smart man.”

He smiled smugly and raised an eyebrow. Oh yes, he did know.

She twirled away from him and dropped into the chair opposite, all loose limbs and grace. Kyr’s mercy, he needed to kiss her right now.

“Any idea where I can find one?” Her lips curved into the grin he knew so well.

“Now wait a damn—” He was ready with an indignant retort. Only what she brought out of her shirt shut him up real quick. A ruby the size of his thumb. A fake ruby, one he’d seen many times before. What in the gods’ names…Ten Ruby Trick, was that what she was doing?

“My friends know where there’s lots more.”

He had to suppress a grin. Now he thought he might know what she was about. A scam, that was where she’d been all this time, setting up a twist, and of course she’d thought of him first when she needed an extra man or ship. Only she was going about it all from the wrong angle. He was the inside man on that trick, the mark was the extra help. She was playing him as the mark. Made no sense. It had worked all too well the way they’d played it before, long ago. Why change what worked? Unless—he looked sharply at her arms. Her wrists were bare, her shirt sleeves pushed up to the elbow. No scar, no bond. Not that then, so what was amiss?

“Like the look of it?” She bounced the ruby along her knuckles, one way and back again, hypnotic.

“It’s very nice. But what’s it got to do with me?”

She leaned forward and let him get a good eyeful of her cleavage, smiled her lopsided smile at the way he didn’t even bother to hide where he was looking. “I know where there’s another ten the worth of these. At least. And I know a man who can get us in, and out again afterwards. Slick as you like.”

The same old spiel. He knew his part; his only concern was whether Josie wanted his help scamming the guy over there, the one who stank more and more like a Remorian, or whether he was the one going to get scammed. He knew the Ten Ruby Trick like the back of his hand, and she knew it. She knew him too, knew he’d smell out what they were, that his trouble bone would be screaming just from them being in the room.

He had to try and be smart, but she was the smart one when it came to running a twist. Think, man, think. She’s trying to tell you something.

Josie wouldn’t make a deal with Remorians. She’d happily steal everything they had and maybe even share it with him, but he’d not got where he was by trusting people. But—he still couldn’t make any sense of it, so all he could do was play along until she told him. “Where? And why me?”

“New Remorian mine, way up north, top of the Archipelago. They’re sending ships to bring it all back next full moon. If we get there first…” She stretched lazily and bounced the ruby across her knuckles again. “And you, why you? Because I need another ship, another crew, and much as I’m loath to admit it, you’re the best there is.”

Van Gast sat up straight and puffed his chest out, playing the game. “There is that, of course. How do I know you and your man over there aren’t going to rip me off first chance you get? Come to that, how do I know he can get us in there? Because if he’s not a Remorian, I’m an honest man. What about his mage-bond?”

Van Gast would have sworn he saw her flinch at that, a fleeting clench of every muscle, but it was gone before he could be sure. The man whose lap she’d sat on stood up, as tall as Van Gast had expected. “How do you know I’ve got one?” The accent was clipped, guttural—unmistakable when you had the ear for it.

Van Gast shrugged and looked back at Josie as he spoke. “Smells like a Remorian, looks like a Remorian, sounds like a Remorian. If he can get us in and out of a Remorian warehouse, he is a Remorian. So he’s got a mage-bond on him. This is not a comforting thought.”

Josie turned toward the guy, flicked her pale braids around her shoulders and raised an eyebrow in an I-told-you-so look before she turned back to Van Gast and took his hand. “That’s what we’re for. No bond on us. Holden here isn’t telling us, or helping us. Not really. But I do appear to have found a mislaid map. It’s quite detailed. And of course, Skrymir there behind you isn’t mage-bound.”

Van Gast glanced up toward the Gan at his shoulder. Frankly, he was hard to miss. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

Skrymir stretched his mouth in a nasty grin. “If we’d met before, you’d be dead by now.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Van Gast turned back hurriedly to Josie. “That’s not enough and you know it. If he’s bound to keep the rubies, then what good will it do him for us to steal them? He can’t take his share, so what’s in it for him?”

Josie ran her thumb over the back of Van Gast’s hand and looked into his eyes. Intent, serious. Certain. Willing him to do this, to play the game. Goose bumps ran up his arm. Wrong, it was all so wrong, but it was Josie…

“No, but I’ve arranged to buy a certain trifle from him at a very inflated price. Once we have the rubies, that is.”

Van Gast chewed at his lip. She knew he wouldn’t believe it—you couldn’t get round a bond like that. You couldn’t get round a bond at all. But the Remorian man, Holden, he might not believe Van Gast would know that.

Josie squeezed his hand. “It’ll work.”

No, it won’t. But then that wasn’t what this was about, because they’d never make it to the mine. Whatever it was she was after, they’d get it way before then, once they were out to sea and away from any prying eyes. What in the gods’ names could it be, for her to act so oddly, to try and twist a Remorian of all people, and risk a bond? To dredge up this years-old scam, to look so gaunt and closed in on herself, even while she was stroking his hand and flirting with him?

This wasn’t a Josie he knew and that thought chilled him, made his little-magics itch worse than ever. But he’d play the game, see how it went. Who knew what he could gain? Just have to keep a weather eye out. He could end up a deal richer, if Josie was true, and Josie was true, he’d bank his life on that. Yet, a Remorian? There was exciting-but-stupid and there was downright idiotic. The threat of a bond was maybe just a risk too far.

“You know I don’t sail their waters or trade with them, and neither do you. There’s nothing worth the threat of a bonding.”

She shrugged easily and flipped the ruby again. “A mile or two into their waters, no more. In and out before they can spot us. And what we’re after—what we’re after might be priceless.”

Priceless? What was it this man had that made her so willing to do this, to piss off Remorians and risk a bond—that is, to risk everything they were? He looked around again. Holden watched him carefully. A canny man, that one. Not letting much show, but if you knew where to look…he was hiding something, plain as day. The tenseness of him, the muscles at his jaw slightly bunched. Impatient too, but neither of those things were a surprise, given the conversation.

Josie looked at Van Gast equably and tipped him a sly wink, waiting for his decision.

He had to keep up the act at least, the pretence that they hated each others’ guts. “Why should I trust you?”

“Because if I was going to kill you, I’d not fanny around like this. I’d just shoot you in the face.”

“That’s true enough.” He let out a long breath as though taking a great gamble and tried to hide his smile. Josie had the slipperiest, twistiest mind he’d ever known, and that was saying something. Something priceless. If she had a plan, then he’d follow it. “Even split?”

She grinned, and that was the old Josie. “You think I’d insult you with anything else?”

“Deal then.”

Chapter Thirteen

Holden watched the two of them carefully as they danced around with words, noted Josie’s coldness, Van Gast’s flip retorts that hid a sharp calculation. Something bubbled between them, a thread of the enmity they were so famed for. Van Gast’s eyes were the same black shade as his hair. Dark and unfathomable, though they seemed to be laughing at everything even as he and Josie sparred.

The two of them sorted out the details, the timescale, the rendezvous. Josie arranged it just as he’d told her. Tarana, a little city on the mainland, not far from Remorian waters. Near where he’d arrested her. Two captured racketeers’ ships waited there already for Van Gast, crewed with Holden’s men. They’d take him, quickly and quietly, before Van Gast could suspect a double cross, and be back into Remorian waters before two bells had passed. With luck before Tarana’s authorities had noticed, because if they discovered what Holden was up to, that they were breaking the trade deal on no bonding in their waters, no Remorian ship would be able to berth there again.

Van Gast jibed at some of Josie’s proposals, made a sharp comment or two and Josie held firm with a lewd insult. Then, before Holden was even aware it had happened, before Skrymir could draw his sword, Josie and Van Gast had their knives on each other.

Holden had allowed Josie the small blade, safe in the knowledge she could do nothing to harm him or his. He’d failed to think she might kill Van Gast before he had a chance to arrest him. In one way, it’d fulfill the bond all too well, but that wasn’t what Holden wanted, or rather not what his Master wanted.

Van Gast’s knife flicked toward her throat, found only the collar of her shirt as she ducked away with a riposte that almost ceased his chances of ever being a father. Holden barked a command at Skrymir, but he was already moving, trying to flank Van Gast while Holden grabbed for Josie.

She dodged out of his way but lowered her knife with a pained grimace and a vicious glare as the bond stopped her skewering him. He could see it in her eyes, how little his life might be worth when he took that bond off and she was a free woman again. A clatter of steel behind warned him that Skrymir was not faring well against Van Gast.

Holden turned, still feeling her eyes on his back, and wondered whether her hatred could work through that bond. He was speechless—he’d never seen any swordsman last long against Skrymir’s sheer brute force, but here was Van Gast, grinning as he stood atop the table and made his knife disappear. Skrymir stepped back, blood dripping from his nose and a gash along his ribs that stained his shirt a darker crimson in a rapidly swelling blot. His sword was stuck into the corner of the flimsy bamboo wall. Holden’s other men watched warily, swords at the ready but none too eager to challenge Van Gast without orders from Holden, if the way they hung back was anything to go by.

“You want to keep her under control, if we’re going to do business. Women!” Van Gast said with a roll of his eyes and a sour smile. “And a word of advice—watch your own back. She’s one tricky bitch.”

“Duly noted,” Holden said, and thought that was more truth than Van Gast could know. “Do we still have a deal?”

Van Gast grinned and jumped down from the table, all loose limbs, swaggering arrogance and grinning dark eyes. “We do. But keep her on a lead, all right?”

“I certainly will, you’ll face no danger from her.”

“Then I’ll see you there. Be ready.” He was out of the door before any of Holden’s men could move.

Holden rounded on Josie and shuddered inwardly at the way she looked at him, her eyes filled with only one thing—the need to have him dead. He ignored it as best he could. “What was that? Your bond’s to get him, not kill him.”

Josie sheathed her knife and shrugged. “You never said he had to be alive. Thought I’d save you—and me—some time. I want this fucking thing off me.”

Holden reached out and pulled her toward him, tried not to think of how she felt in his hand or what he’d done to her. Or what he was about to say. “You kill him and the bond stays, for good, and one on the boy. Bring him to Remorian justice, that’s your bond. Not kill him for your own hatred.”

“Justice?” Josie spat onto the dusty floorboards. “Justice for what? He’s never sailed your waters, and neither have I. You took me outside your remit, by blind luck, because you had a mage find me. But what’s he done that makes you want him so bad?”

Holden forced a smile and held her arm tight as they made their way out a back door into a dark alley stinking with refuse. In Wedding Dance week, people were too busy to be clean. “Skrymir?”

The Gan looked up from where he held the gash on his ribs closed with one hand. “Not too bad, sir, just bleeding a lot. He’s damn handy with that knife, I’ll give him that.”

Holden ordered one of the other men to bind Skrymir up before they went any farther, but Josie got there first. She ripped off a sleeve of her shirt to plug the gash and they managed a makeshift bandage. Skrymir said something in a language Holden didn’t understand, and Josie grinned at him, ignoring the looks of frank curiosity from the people walking past.

Holden shifted uneasily. “You get straight to the healer once we’re on board. Place like this, Forn knows what muck could be in that wound.”

“Aye, sir.”

“You owe me a new shirt.” Josie walked past Holden, heading for the jetty. Holden and his men followed her down a foggy alley. “So, you didn’t say. What’s the bastard done that makes you want him so bad?”

Holden made sure to keep her close. She might be bonded but he still didn’t quite trust her not to try and disappear into the fog, even if the attempt would get her nowhere. “Not me. It’s not me who wants him. He’s a nuisance, but as you say, neither of you sail our waters. He took one very special ship. My Master…my Master is very upset. My Master wants to watch him wriggle in a bond, and so he shall.” Or I shall pay for it with pain, and so will you, and the boy. So will we all.

“And who is your Master?” She shoved back against his hand but was only rewarded with a hiss of her own pain.

“You don’t want to know.”

The weather closed in as they got to the jetty where the dinghy waited. A stiff breeze swirled the fog into odd little patterns that scribed on the senses and made Holden’s head throb. Josie felt it too, snapped her head round to the source and peered into the miasma as though she could see through it. Her shoulders twitched and she shuddered. “Storm coming.”

Holden knew as much himself but he said nothing, only gave orders to the hand in charge of the dinghy. The storm was a bad one—he could tell by the way his bones ached, the sense of dread foreboding that always came before a storm. But this area, this stretch of the coast, rarely had a bad storm. Rarely had any storm this time of year. The trade winds wouldn’t start again for two moons, and until then fog and more fog and only a breath of wind was the forecast. If it weren’t for the mages, true-mages for the racketeers and mages of the power for the Remorians, the ships would be becalmed. Until now.

The breeze stiffened into a wind and stripped the fog from them in damp greenish streamers. Josie had her head cocked as though listening. Nothing to hear. Not the city behind or the ships ahead, anchored offshore. No shouts of revelry, no clang of a bell or creak of rope. Not the weird noises that often echoed through the fog like a ghost. Not a bird, not a splash. Nothing.

Holden urged the rowers faster.

“It doesn’t matter.” Josie’s gaze was far away. “We can’t sail in this, not in what’s coming. Typhoon. Even true-mages can’t calm them much.”

“Typhoon? Here?” Though now she said it, Holden felt the chill in his bones, the drop of the barometer in the throb of his blood. Ridiculous. “There’s hardly ever been more than a squall in these waters.”

“Storm anchors,” she said, never taking her eyes from the sky. “Get the storm anchors down, head us into the wind. No harbor and no decent deepwater haven for miles—it’s all the chance we’ve got, and that’s bugger all.”

Her agitation mixed with his own, brewed and fermented in his stomach like a sour wine. “No, we sail.”

“Are you deluded? You can tell as well as I can what’s coming.”

“I’ll have my mage do what he can, and that’s quite a lot, more than one of your true-mages can manage. My Master doesn’t send me out unprepared.”

“Going to sink my ship!”

“No more dangerous than riding it out here. There’s rocks aplenty by the shore if the wind breaks the anchors and drives us that way. Out to sea, with the mage dampening the winds, we’ll be fine.” He wished he could believe it, that he didn’t have this sense of dread at the pit of his stomach.

He clambered aboard the Jesting Queen behind her but instead of taking her to his quarters, he barked out orders to get ready to sail and led her down the narrow steps to belowdecks.

The way was cramped and musty down here, and Holden at times had to turn sideways and duck to make his way. Kyr only knew how Skrymir managed. Josie muttered to herself behind him, but he didn’t need to hear the words to know what she was saying. He was risking her ship. What he’d brought her down here for was to show her just why he thought sailing the best option. The least he could do, and if someone commandeered his ship, he’d want—no, demand—that the best care be taken of her.

Josie wrinkled her nose and sniffed pointedly as they passed the mess, a few of his men shoveling the last of their meal in before they sailed. Was it true that Remorians smelled wrong to others? How could that be?

They reached the last cramped room aft. Two sailors stood up straighter at their approach. Holden opened the door into near darkness and Josie stood back with a cry.

“Kyr’s mercy, what have you let die in there?” The words were muffled by the hand that flew to cover her mouth and nose. “It stinks like month-old meat.”

All Holden could smell was a certain extra mustiness and the hint of unwashed skin. “No one’s dead, and it doesn’t smell that bad.”

She looked at him with wide, incredulous eyes. “You don’t smell it?”

“Well, he’s a little ripe, but that’s part of the price of his magic.”

“A little ripe?” Josie pulled her shirt up over her face and her breath puffed through it in quick, shallow gasps. The ship moved under them, buffeted by a stronger wind, half a point alee. Half a point farther toward the coast and the rocks that lurked in the shallows by the shore.

Holden squashed the sharp words that came to mind and turned to grope for the lantern and flint that hung inside the door. “You’ll get used to it.” It took only a few moments before the lamp was lit and he pulled her into the room after him.

He lifted the lamp so she could see better. Cattan sat in his usual place atop a pile of rugs and cushions to shield him from pressure sores, glittering with the magic that covered him in a lumpy crystal skin.

Josie pulled away from his hand and he turned to berate her, but she sat abruptly on the floor, staring at Cattan. “What, in all that’s holy, is that?”

“My mage, Cattan.” Holden thought she’d forgotten to breathe.

“That’s a person?”

Cattan creaked open an eyelid. Holden winced at the flakes of magic that fell from his skin and floated in the waft of his breath before they fell to the deck with a tiny green spark. Holden was so used to him, to the humped and monstrous shapes that the mages became when the power covered them, it had never occurred to him how strange Cattan would appear to her, to anyone who’d never moved among Remorians.

“Cattan, may I introduce Josie, captain of this vessel, so kindly loaned to us for our mission.”

Cattan’s lips moved, stiff with the effort of trying not to dislodge any more flakes than he need. “Charmed.” For all the repugnance of his appearance—to Josie at least—Cattan’s voice was rich and rolling and filled the small room with a hint of the wild power he held in glittering splendor on his skin.

Josie got to her feet and moved closer, though her breathing was still shallow. She walked around him as though dazed, reached out to touch him but started back at a warning word from Holden.

“How does he do—well, anything?”

“All he does is magic. We do everything else for him. That’s what the bonded, the Remorians are for. And he’s the one who’s going to keep the storm from hitting us too bad. All right, Cattan?”

“Right,” Cattan breathed through still lips. “Ready.”

Holden pulled at Josie, a dead weight against his hand as she stared at the mage, squinted at the crystals that shone in the dim lamplight like a million diamonds. He manhandled her out of the door, doused the lamp to save Cattan’s eyes, sensitive because so often shut, and dragged her back to the upper deck.

“He can’t do anything else?”

More than his appearance seemed to stick in her mind. “Not really, but what he does do more than makes up for it.”

“He could bathe occasionally. The stink!” The wind whipped her hair across her face and she looked up at the rigging critically, muttering under her breath about the amount of sail.

“Not if he wants to keep his magic. In you go.” Holden shoved her toward the door to their quarters.

Once again she baulked at his push and was rewarded with a spasm of pain. One that brought it back to both of them, that he was Master and she was bonded. He’d almost forgotten, or maybe that wasn’t quite true. He’d wanted to forget. He tried again to get her in the door, but still she fought against him despite the clench of her teeth against the agony that had to be ripping through her for her disobedience.

“Forn’s balls, Josie, get in the damn room!”

She shook her head, whipping the beads and braids around a face set into a determined scowl. “My ship. Mine, no matter what else, and if you persist in this—this lunacy, I’ll be on the bloody deck making sure you don’t sink it.” The wind picked up again and squalled a sheet of warm rain across the deck. “You need everyone on deck if you do this. I know my ship better than anyone and my little-magics run this way. If anyone can keep a ship afloat sailing in a typhoon, it’s me.”

He stared back, not sure whether to be angry with her for trying to defy him or admire her for fighting against him, the bond, the pain, for her ship. For what made her who she was. She planted her feet, let her hand drop to the haft of her knife and gritted her teeth against the pain. Foolishness, madness.

Admiration won, nonetheless. Holden stood back and nodded in the direction of the quarterdeck. “Take the wheel then. Cattan’ll dampen what he can, but if the rain gets too bad it’ll interfere with the magic, reflect it back. Whatever, you keep her steady before the wind and keep your nerve, and we’ll be afloat come morning.”

“Teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, why don’t you?” she snapped, but she ran up the steps and took the wheel.

Another squall of wind, more vicious this time, whipped the words from his mouth as he turned away to give his orders. He shouted against the building roar and men scurried to do his bidding. Holden checked the sails and rigging, checked that everyone was where they were supposed to be.

By the time all was to his satisfaction, he was soaked to the skin. The wind was a steady howl and had already turned them more than halfway toward the shore, despite all he’d done to try and prevent it. He shook off the subtle throb of dread in his stomach, took the steps up to the wheel two at a time and sent a crew-man down to Cattan. Now they needed his magic, now he could show Josie just a hint of what serving a mage of the power meant.

She stood at the wheel, swaying with the ship and glaring at the amount of sail. “Going to lose a mast if you keep that up.”

“No, we won’t, just you wait and see.” Holden ordered the anchor pulled up and the sails loosed. The ship lurched as the wind caught at the sails and tugged. Josie struggled with the wheel a second before she got the ship steady, and they scudded across the rising waves away from Sarigin.

Then, just as she was swearing at him in terms so vile he’d only heard of half of them, the wind dropped to a stiff, steady breeze, just right for where they were headed. The rain became a warm drizzle, a slight nuisance rather than a face-slapping half blindness. Yet not ten fathoms from the hull of the ship, the storm continued to build. Wind howled among the houses on the shore, sang in the rigging of the ships in port. A small ship closer to shore broke free from an anchor to swirl about wildly, and a roof whipped away from one of the buildings of Sarigin.

Josie hesitated only a heartbeat, maybe the surprise at Cattan’s power secondary to the fact her ship was safer now than it would be at anchor. She heeled the wheel round, Holden shouted his orders, and they were underway.

“Why can’t you do that?” Van Gast demanded of Guld as they watched Josie’s ship turn and head out to sea in a protective bubble.

“I—well, that’s to say—it’s—I don’t know.” Guld stared open-mouthed after the ship.

“Well, bloody well think of something. There’s something odd going on here and I want to find out what. I want to follow, now.”

“I could…no, that won’t work. Um, I could—” Guld’s larynx bobbed up and down worriedly under Van Gast’s glare. “Yes, yes, I can dampen the winds a little. Not as much as that, mind. Remorian mage, see, they’re powerful.”

“Get on with it then.” Van Gast squinted into the wind-lashed rain as Josie sailed farther and farther from him. She had far too much sail. Her ship should have lost a mast at least by now, the way the wind was tearing at him. Yet her ship moved easily over calmer waves, the sails bellied but not stressed.

Van Gast had never seen anything like it, and that twisted the dread in him. What had Josie got herself, and now him, involved in? And why? If this Holden was on her ship, why didn’t she just take whatever it was she planned to steal? A Remorian in the bar had been bad enough—but she’d let them on board her ship and let a mage have control. There was no way in the Deeps the Josie he knew would even entertain the idea. No. Way. If he hadn’t seen her wrists were clear, he might have thought she was bonded.

Yet there had been something odd about her tonight, something very different. It worried him that even he, with his little-magic in that specialty, couldn’t work out what was making it itch. The Remorian? Maybe, but Josie wasn’t stupid, far from it. She’d not be trying to twist him if she thought she’d end up bonded. A surprise for him, hadn’t she said that last time he saw her? A surprise, all right, but not a good one.

It wasn’t the Remorian who was causing the itch behind his breastbone. Her, that was it, and that was stupid. She’d definitely been different though. Closed in, he’d thought at the time. Paler, and gaunt, as though she’d lost some weight. Maybe her bringing out the old Ten Ruby Trick was some kind of message, but what? Or maybe the itch was trying to tell him not that Josie was getting him in trouble, but that she was in trouble. Best to wait and see. Play it canny, see what occurred.

The wind lessened around them as Guld got to work, not much but enough that Van Gast thought they could ride it. Out to sea and running before it was a better chance than squashed up here with half a dozen ships, any one of which might rip free from its anchor and slam into them. A lot better chance than ending up on the rocks that lurked under the shallows. He had his crew reef most of the sail—he might want to catch up with Josie and her new friends, but not at the expense of a mast. Still, this was reckless, even for him.

Dillet was the one who finally said it. Van Gast’s first mate waited till he was alone on the bridge except for Guld, who was lost in concentration, and sidled up. “What we doing following her, Van? We all saw the Remorian on the longboat. Josie and a Remorian? We ought to be sailing the other way, if we sail anywhere in this muck. The lads—the lads don’t want to go, Van. Too bloody dangerous by half.”

Van Gast contemplated how much to tell him. Not all of it, not even half of it. Yet the ship wasn’t just his to run as he saw fit. If he didn’t consider his crew, they’d leave, quicker than rats. So, just enough to mollify them for now.

“Dillet, if they can sail this, so can we. Or you think a Remorian a better sailor than us? She’s all caught up in a twist, and while she’s otherwise occupied with him, I want to twist her, twist her so fucking hard she bleeds. She’s the one taking the danger with him, not us. We’re just going to keep a weather eye and see what drops. All right?”

“I don’t know, Van.” Dillet spat on the deck and chewed at his bottom lip. “One of these days you and her’s hatred is going to bring some bad luck our way, and you know it. Don’t go pushing it too far. You listen to that trouble bone of yours.”

Van Gast tried a reassuring smile. “Currently, it’s telling me no trouble. Now do we sail?”

Dillet regarded Van Gast thoughtfully. “You reckon Guld is up to it? We ain’t getting through this storm without a powerful bit of magic.”

“Guld?”

The mage jumped, startled out of his muttering reverie. “What? Oh, yes. I think so. I think I can get us through it. Might be a bit choppy, but we should be all right. I just need to…” He trailed off, his eyes glazed over, and he started muttering again. The wind around them dropped appreciably.

“All right,” Dillet said grudgingly. “But any trouble and we wants out of it, got that, Van?”

“Absolutely.” Lying was as easy to him as breathing, but it never really felt right lying to his crew.

Dillet jerked his head in agreement and went back to the crew, shouting orders as he went. Van Gast watched him go and tried not to feel the itch that was building to a burn behind his ribs.

Holden tried to hold on to Josie but it was like trying to manage an angry octopus. Cattan was losing control—the rain was too heavy, reflecting his magic back to the ship maybe. With his loss of control, the wind ripped at them, a sudden blast that stretched the sails to breaking point.

“You’re going to sink my fucking ship! Now either help me sort the sail or get your mage to do his job.” Josie pulled herself from his grasp and ran for the rigging.

Holden lurched after her, but she slipped through his fingers and was at the first yard before he could blink, shouting for the rest of the crew to help her reef sail.

The worst of it was that she was right. He’d relied too heavily on a magic he’d never understood, and risked her ship in a storm he’d never have sailed in his own ship. He clattered down the steps and ran along the aisle to Cattan, hunched over until he reached the compartment. The sailors weren’t outside the door—and the door was open. The ship heaved in the wind and tried to tip him from his feet, but he grabbed at the doorway and hauled himself through. It hit him immediately why the spell had failed, why even now his crew were risking their lives trying to reef in sail.

Water was everywhere, spraying in between a rent in the planking. One of the sailors was trying to halt the flow, shoving spare sail into the gap, but still water seeped and spurted over the other sailor as he tried to protect the mage—and water spilled over Cattan.

Dissolved magic flowed and ran across the deck, multicolored puddles that glistened in oily splendor. Cattan screamed breathlessly, silently, and Holden didn’t know if it was for pain or for the loss of his power. Holden had never, in all their years working together, seen his skin. He’d never known how wrinkled and shriveled it was under the crystals, how atrophied the muscles. How pathetic a mage of the power was when stripped of his only strength. How easy it would be…

A crash from above decks, a series of screams, ripped through his thoughts. Magic, the magic that ruled his whole life, was gone. It was just them, what they could do against the storm. They were dead, sunk as a stone. Fear paralyzed him. Fear of having no magic to back him up, the one constant in his life. Fear that now he had to be a better sailor, not rely on an intangible, ephemeral power. That he had no orders for this, he had to think it for himself.

Another crash shook the ship as this storm saw only a leaf in its way, one to toss around as it saw fit. More screams. He had to do it, and only one person to help him, one person who knew how to survive without a Remorian mage to stifle the weather. Almost before he was aware he’d moved, he was up the steps and back on deck. Into chaos.

The main mast lay in ruins, the tip of it a mangled mess dangling over the side. Three men were trapped beneath it, one screaming as blood spurted from his leg, the other two still and pale and silent. Rigging and sail tangled the deck, and rain lashed everything into a blur. Holden ran to the steps, jumping splinters of the mast, and staggered into the wind. No one at the wheel, the first mate’s face a mask of blood as he wilted against the rail.

Holden grabbed the wheel and lost the skin from one hand when it whipped round. It took all his strength to pull it back to center. Rain blinded him and he jumped from his skin when Skrymir appeared at his side, a grey humped shape in the darkness.

“She’s gone!”

Skrymir’s mouth was by his ear and still Holden had to strain to catch the words. When they finally penetrated, it wasn’t the wind and rain that ran goose bumps up his spine.

“What?” Another blast of wind tore the wheel from his hands, and Skrymir lent his weight to keep the ship straight. Straight to where was another question.

“She was on the main mast when it busted. She’s overboard. She jumped.”

Holden staggered back from the wheel, forgot even to hold it. Josie was his chance, his only chance at doing what he had to. His only chance of catching Van Gast, of a life free of the pain and suffering an unfulfilled bond would mean. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Josie represented everything he wanted for himself, the person who’d begun to wake him up to the possibilities of life without bonds.

He ran to the rail and stared out desperately, as though he could see farther than ten feet in the rain, as though she wouldn’t have been swept away to who knew where. As though she had a chance to survive.

Van Gast peered out into the storm. Guld could calm the wind some, but there was nothing he could do about the increasing rain. It lashed across decks and men like well-aimed whips, stung face and hands and eyes until Van Gast was blind with it. He kept them headed right more by feel than sight and with the knowledge that, at the least, Guld could scry ahead for danger, for sudden rocks or coastlines that otherwise might catch them unaware in the storm. Yet all the scrying in the world couldn’t help him turn the ship against this wind if he needed to.

Before they’d even properly left Sarigin behind them, Van Gast was soaked and shivering, even under the heavy cloak he’d tied around himself. The humid heat had fallen away as soon as the wind had started, but now every moment the temperature seemed to drop further until he wouldn’t have been surprised to see the rain turn to ice or a frost giant’s hand loom over them.

Guld huddled close by the wheel, the light of his scrying spell guttering in the wind. They toiled through the storm for an indeterminable time, the crew tiring rapidly. Van Gast’s arms were heavy as lead from holding the wheel steady, his legs as unresponsive as tree trunks. Then, as suddenly as the storm had brewed, it was gone. One look at the sky though told Van Gast that this was only a temporary reprieve. They ran before the wind, but not so fast they’d outrun the storm. Rather, it was outrunning them, and this was the eye, the deadly still center of the shrieking winds that still whirled around them. They had minutes or less before the rest of the storm overtook them.

“Captain!”

Van Gast started at the sudden sound of Guld’s voice, at the urgency of it. “What?”

“Someone in the water, just off the port bow. Look.”

Van Gast peered into the swirling depths of the spell, as always slightly nauseated by the way it spun and swayed in his vision. True enough, someone floated out from the storm ahead of them, moving feebly. Only—only the fair hair looked familiar, and how many people did he know with fair hair? Not many. A brief, hopeless struggle in the water brought her face into view.

Josie.

With only a terse word to Dillet to take the wheel, Van Gast ran for the bow. How in the gods’ names did she end up in the water? That didn’t matter, his ship didn’t matter or the storm. All that mattered was that she’d never learned to swim. He leaped a coil of rope, shedding the cloak as he ran, placed one foot on a locker and, with a well-placed spring, dove into the water.

Cold slammed into him like a wall of ice, robbed him of breath and made stars spin in his head. Sarigin might be tropical, but this current came from the farthest south, straight from the ice-fields that could eat a ship and spit out its bones. Van Gast dragged himself to the surface and clenched his teeth against the shivering that threatened to shake the skin from him. It wouldn’t take long in this to die from cold, and there was no telling how long Josie had been in the water.

Treading water, Van Gast shook the sea from his face. There she was, only a few strokes away. His ship slowed and began to heel to, ready to come about and grab them. He started toward Josie with strong, swift strokes, came alongside and slid an arm around and under her, pulled her icy body to his chest. Not shivering, and that wasn’t a good sign, that meant she was well on her way to freezing to death, though she wasn’t dead yet because she spoke.

“Van?” He could hardly hear her over the crash of waves. “Van, you idiot.”

He didn’t spare the breath to answer her, but turned and began to pull for his ship. They had only heartbeats before the eye passed over and the storm caught them again, and if the wind should catch her broadside, they’d be sunk.

Guld shouted something from the deck that Van Gast couldn’t make out past the water in his ears. Then the mage pointed behind him and he knew what was coming. The swell lifted him as high as the deck, and then the storm swallowed them.

Chapter Fourteen

Cold water hit Van Gast like a frozen cannonball as the swell overwhelmed him again. Josie was a limp weight on one arm, one hand clutching his shirt.

Her frozen lips moved against his cheek. “Van, you can’t.”

“Just you watch me.”

The sea sent them where she wanted them, rocked them this way and that, and by now it was all he could do to keep both their heads above water. The current dragged at his numb legs, his arms screamed with holding her, with the desperate struggle to keep both their heads above water. Rain pounded on them, drove into his scalp like freezing needles, lashed about by the wind to blind him. They could be a thousand fathoms from shore—or it could be just beyond the next swell. He had no way of knowing.

Every muscle twitched and shuddered, beyond his control. Josie didn’t say any more. She could be dead for all he knew, but he couldn’t let her go, not even to save himself. He doubted that either of them could be saved. Shivering with the deadly cold, with the effort, with bone-deep tiredness, he shut his eyes. It would be all too easy to just lie back, to let the water wash over them both and pull them down to the Deeps. He just needed to let go, sink back and—what was that noise?

There it came again, just on the edge of hearing. The hissing splash of waves breaking. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t feel his legs, yet somehow they were warm. He pulled Josie closer to him, sure she was dead. Dead together then. Good. Waves breaking. His shivers lessened, too cold now even for that. His face felt detached, as though someone else were wearing it. He hoped they were warm.

Waves breaking. He wished his mind would shut up about waves and let him sleep. It would be warm there, and he had Josie with him. Waves—he snapped his eyes open. Waves breaking. His frozen brain was trying to tell him something. If he could hear waves breaking—and he could, louder now—then they must be close to something for them to break on.

Josie had slipped from his numb arm and he dragged her back to him. He waited till they crested the next swell and struggled to raise his head. Nothing. He couldn’t see a damn thing in the rain-swept darkness, but it had to be close for him to hear it over the storm. Another swell and he hauled himself upright in the water and strained his eyes.

There. The faintest luminescence of breaking waves. A big, long beautiful line of them. A shore, only the swell was taking them along it, not into it. He had to get them out of this current. It wouldn’t take much and then the sea would do the rest, spew them up on the shore like so much driftwood.

It wouldn’t take much, but he wasn’t sure he had anything left, no strength, barely even the will. The swell tugged at Josie, tried to yank her from his arm. He held on tight to her, as though that could save him. He might not have the will for himself, but he had her to think of. He gritted his teeth and tried to force his legs to move, his free arm to stretch out and scoop them through the water to safety.

It seemed an age before his muscles obeyed. His legs kicked feebly and he only knew from the way he moved through the water—he couldn’t feel them moving. His arm reached out with a jerk, round and back, pulled him inches closer. Another reach, another pull, another kick. Another inch. His breath burned in his open mouth as he fought to drag in air and brought in seawater with it, making him gag weakly. He barely had the strength even for that.

Finally, just as he thought he couldn’t do it, that they’d be swept on past the headland that loomed closer in the darkness, past into the open ocean, one last kick moved him into a different current. No longer swept along the shore, but swept to the shore. Each swell now took them closer before it pulled them back, yet each time just a little nearer.

“Not far now, Josie, love. Going to get you warmed up, don’t you worry.” He didn’t know why he spoke—he wasn’t even sure she was alive. She’d been in the water longer than he had, and he was near enough dead from cold. Maybe it was just that talking made him feel better. “See, almost there.”

When the sea spat them out onto a shingle beach, Van Gast didn’t have the energy to move. He barely had the energy to breathe. He lay there, gasping like a landed fish, relishing the rain that speared him. If he could feel the sting of it on his face, feel the wind whipping his hair, then he must be alive. There didn’t seem any other way to tell, because he couldn’t feel his arms or legs, and his brain kept wandering off into little foggy dreams.

The sea forced him to move. It crashed over him, up and down, up and down, each time higher. Tide coming in. Get washed back out to sea if you don’t move.

He tried to get up but his legs were wobbly as jellyfish. Finally he rolled onto his stomach and elbowed his way up the beach, stopping every few inches to pull Josie along with him. He reached the high tide line and stopped to rest. Can’t get me here, you bitch. The rain had lessened, dulled down to a quiet roar around him. The wind tugged at him, tried to turn him over, but it didn’t have quite the deadly force of before. Maybe the storm was blowing out.

Josie lolled beside him and he leaned over to check whether she was breathing. If her chest moved he couldn’t feel it. He inched upward and laid his cheek on her frozen one, tried to feel a breath. He couldn’t tell, so he chose to believe she was still alive. Otherwise all this was for naught. Had to get her warm, get both of them out of the rain. Have to get up for that. Shit.

It took every bit of willpower he had to push himself to his knees and he swayed there a moment, dizzy and sick. The rain was definitely less now, and the wind was dying. He thought he could see something through the grey curtain, up ahead where the shore petered out and trees thrashed in the wind. Have to get out of the rain.

Van Gast forced himself to his feet on the second attempt and almost fell when he bent to pick up Josie. She was heavier than she looked. The muscles in his back and arm protested loudly at her dead weight draped against him, and his hand didn’t seem to work properly as he tried to hold her.

“Not far,” he said, and though he spoke to her, it was he who took the encouragement. “Not far. Few steps and we’ll be in the trees. Out of the rain.”

Her voice, weak and wavering but there, surprised him enough he almost dropped her. “Good.”

He staggered up the slope, Josie’s feet stumbling and dragging a furrow behind them, but she was moving. When he cleared the shingle, he stopped to rest against a tree, but he dared not sit or he’d never get up. He peered around. There, behind that big tree, what he thought he’d seen from the beach. One of the fisherman’s huts that dotted the coastline for miles either side of Sarigin. It wasn’t much—the typhoon had taken half the roof. At least it’d be empty this time of year—all the fishermen would be celebrating in the local village—and it was mostly out of the rain, out of the wind. If luck was with him, and he said a quick prayer to Kyr to show him mercy for once, there’d be some way to start a fire, maybe even some dry clothes.

“Not far.”

Josie didn’t answer except with a faint nod.

They got to the hut, supporting each other over the rough grass and shingle. Josie slid to the floor, spent from the effort to reach this little protection, and shut her eyes. Van Gast wasn’t much better and resisted the urge to lie down with her, pretend that just holding close would give them enough heat to survive. They were both too far gone for that. They needed heat, and they needed it now.

The doorway let in no light, the rent in the roof was a blank against the darkness outside, and Van Gast stumbled around blindly until his eyes got used to the dimness. Just a one-room shack, and his cold-clumsy hands lurched over a table, a wall, an empty grate, two chairs sodden under the break in the roof, and then he was back at the door. Maybe there was something on the table, there had to be.

His numb fingers closed over something and he raised it to his face, unable to tell what it was from the feel because he had no feel. A candle. That would do for a start, let him find out what else was there, but it needed lighting. He leaned against the table and forced his hands inside his shirt to one of the pouches he kept there, where they were least likely to get wet. Not that there was a hope they weren’t soaked now. The tinder was, as expected, good for damn all, but the wet didn’t hurt flint.

He half looked, half felt around but he found nothing to use for tinder. No scraps of paper or dry cloth. Maybe something was left in the grate, some scrap of wood that might take a spark. He meant to lower himself to his knees but it turned into a fall when his legs gave way and he ended up sprawled across the floor. Too much effort to get up. Getting out of the crushing cold of the sea and onto dry land had revived him, for a time, but now that small surge of energy was gone. Cold was seeping everything from him, the use of his legs, the feeling in his hands and arms. The ability to think clearly. Flint, he had the flint in his hand. Needed a spark. Knife.

His hand groped across his chest, missing the gap in his shirt and snagging against linen instead. On the fourth try, when he’d nearly forgotten what he was trying to do, his hand slid in and grabbed the haft of his knife. He shuffled, caterpillar-like, across the floor till his head was in the grate and managed to get the flint and the knife in front of him, over whatever ash and cinders might be left. Not much hope, but that was better than none.

The flash of the first spark blinded him after the long dark and he dropped the flint. Fuck. He scrabbled for it desperately, his only hope. There. Again and again, but nothing caught. Nothing there to burn. Tears stung his frozen eyelids. He’d got so far; he only needed this one last thing. Please, Kyr, you haven’t shown me much mercy of late. Show me some now.

Another strike, a second, and for just a heartbeat something glowed before the heat died. Van Gast didn’t dare to breathe as he struck again. The spark flew off the knife, fat and yellow, and landed on a scrap of charcoal. It spat a little, quivered as though deciding whether to live or die. Live, please live. If you do, so do me and Josie.

The spark settled down into a red glow and then a tiny tongue of flame leaped up and Van Gast could breathe. He held out a shaking hand and put the wick of the candle to it, as fast as he dared. The wick caught and flared and Van Gast sank back, staring at the flame. Light and a flame. Now he just needed something to burn.

He found it harder and harder to move, think. His muscles popped and shrieked at every small movement, but he rolled onto his side and used his new-found friend to light the hut. Kyr, thank you. A stack of firewood, tucked under a washstand, that his blind hands had missed. On top, a heap of kindling, and above all it was dry.

Even with his hands fumbling everything, dropping kindling and firewood all over the floor as he tried to lay the grate, it wasn’t long before a fire grew. The warmth kissed his skin and he leaned forward to it, holding his hands close enough that any nearer and they’d burn.

When he was sure the fire wouldn’t go out, Van Gast used the table to lever himself to his feet. The heat of the fire at the back of his legs was bliss. He could stand here and warm up. No, Josie, he had to get her warm too.

As he began to thaw, just a little, his thoughts became clearer, more lucid, but his muscles spasmed violently until he couldn’t hold the table. He sank to the floor and lay there for an unknown time, his limbs knotting and shuddering and sending wave after wave of pain. He almost wished to be colder again, so that he’d not feel it. The fire burned along his back, sent its blessed warmth that loosened his body, let him unclench himself. Shivering, still cold to his core, but able to move.

The fire was half burned down. How long had he lain there like that? He got to his feet, steadier now though still shaky, added some more wood and turned for Josie.

He dragged her closer into the circle of warmth by the fire. If she was breathing, he couldn’t see it. No perceptible rise and fall of her chest. After all this, she couldn’t be dead—he wouldn’t let her.

“Josie?” It croaked out of a cracked throat. Her lips were a blue-tinged purple, but not because she was dead. Just cold. Yes, just cold. “Josie, come on, love. Show me you’re still here.”

“Take more than that to get rid of me.” She didn’t open her eyes and her words were hardly more than a breath. But she was alive, if only just. He had to get her warm.

Her clothes—they were soaked and freezing. A blanket lay scrunched up in the corner. He pulled it toward him and set about getting her out of her wet clothes, getting something warm and dry on her skin. His numb fingers couldn’t manage the buttons on her shirt, so he ripped it instead. Buttons popped and pinged along the wooden floor. He yanked again at the linen and got the overshirt off her limp arms, the undershirt soon following. Then his own shirt, dragged it off, the knife sheath and pouches too.

He lay down behind her, his chest to her back, laid the blessedly dry blanket over them both and wrapped himself around her frozen body. That in itself was bliss. He shut his eyes and thought of the many times they’d slept like this, only not in such dire circumstances. The heat of the fire was making him drowsy. He laid his head on his arm, snuggled in closer to her and drifted.

A shudder started him to wakefulness. Josie lay curled into a ball, his arm entangled with hers, her fingers gripping his painfully. She shook and jerked every few seconds with a moan. He sat up and bit back a groan of his own as his muscles protested. Josie’s eyes flickered, but he didn’t think she saw anything. He slid her onto his lap and laid her head on his shoulder, whispered into her hair as the shudders abated into violent shivering.

“It’s all right, Josie, love. Just got to get you warmed up. Better already, see?”

She nodded faintly against his shoulder, turned into him and raised a shaking, cold hand to his neck. He took it in his own, kissed the top of her head and looked at the beads and braids in her hair. That strip of ribbon from the time they’d conned a whole shipload of silks. A tiny shell dangling from a braid, and that was a different memory entirely. Two days marooned, and neither of them too keen to be found.

He smiled into her hair. No one knew, except them. Their hatred of each other was a useful thing, and a fun one too, though Josie found it more to her liking than he did. It meant they didn’t see too much of each other, that she didn’t feel trapped or caged. Or, more like, that she didn’t have to feel she relied on him. Butterfly Josie, too slippery to be pinned.

She turned toward him, her breath quick and warm on his neck. “Holden?”

The shaft of hurt that speared his heart robbed him of breath, that she thought he was that Remorian. What else, other than scamming, had she been doing with him? She might as well have taken her knife and twisted it in Van Gast’s chest. He waited until he was sure of his voice, that it betrayed no hint of that. “No, Josie. Not Holden.”

She relaxed onto his shoulder and nestled her lips by his throat. “Good.”

The tightness in his chest loosened and he pulled her closer, let his hand slide down her back. His Josie, not anyone else’s. Certainly not Holden’s. He didn’t know Josie like Van Gast did. She was his, and he knew her like he knew his ship, or his hand, knew her better than anyone alive yet would never know her, not entirely.

They must have slept like that for a time, because when he opened his eyes again the fire was dying and the last dregs of the storm ragged the trees outside. He tucked Josie in the blanket and got up to stoke the flames. When he sat down, he propped himself with his back to the table leg and lifted her up again. She murmured something in her sleep and he wrapped them tightly together again, her on his lap and her head on his shoulder. Skin to skin. She was warmer now, at last, and it seeped into him, the sheer vitality that always seemed to ooze from her every pore. He thought again of their nights together and pulled her closer, shifted so that he could see her face and let his hand drift lightly over the familiar curves of her back.

“Andor Van Gast, is that all you ever think of?”

He held on to the sigh of relief and grinned at her tone. Not angry with him, ready to tease him.

“Why yes, Josienne, yes it is. Plus, it’s a great way to warm up. How about it?”

She cracked open an eye and grinned back. “I suppose I owe you.”

“It’s a heck of a way to get some time alone, love. I know I’m irresistible, but you couldn’t think of an easier way?”

Josie slapped at his shoulder, sat up with a groan and tried stretching her arms. “I feel like I’ve been run down by a herd of cows.” She sank back onto his chest and tilted her head to kiss him lightly. “How did we end up here? And where is here?”

“Gods only know. Guld will find us, once the storm’s blown over. As for why, how did you manage to fall overboard?”

“Bloody man insisted on sailing that storm. And you, Van, why in the gods’ names did you follow?” She raised an amused eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you were jealous?”

“Need I be?”

“Maybe, maybe.” She grinned at the look on his face, reached up and kissed him again. “Don’t be stupid, it was for show, for the twist, nothing else. So why did you?”

Van Gast settled back against the table leg. “Because I wanted to know where you’ve been all this time, what the fuck you thought you were doing with a Remorian on your ship, hmm? And his mage. What the fuck are you doing with them and why Ten Ruby Trick? Trying to scam a Remorian. That is what you’re trying to do?”

She tensed under his hand and turned to the fire, threw on the last two logs and poked at it till the flames were rustling again. “Something like that. I knew you’d know something was up if I used Ten Ruby. And I knew you’d play along. He thinks we’re scamming you.”

“But Remorian, Josie—Kyr’s fucking mercy, woman, you want to get bonded?”

She went very still. Even her ribs didn’t move to breathe for long moments, though the muscles bunched along her throat and jaw, as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Then she leaped to her feet with a yelp of pain and massaged at one leg. “Cramp,” she said at last. “Just cramp.” But her hands were shaking and, if Van Gast hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she was making an effort to hold in some vast pain.

After a time she settled again and he massaged the last of the cramp from her thigh. “But why, Josie? I mean, Remorians of all people.” Van Gast shuddered and not with cold. Just the thought of the mage-bonds, of a country full of brain-dead slaves, was enough to bring him out in a rash. He’d no wish to join their ranks, and that was what happened all too often when you dealt with the Remorians, or even if you didn’t but got too close.

She let out a long sigh and leaned back against him. “Just another scam, Van. One too big to miss, Remorians or not.”

Hiding something, that was plain. Her shoulders were stiff as planks and she didn’t relax into him. Something was off, and though he didn’t want to entertain the possibility it might be her. He had a very odd feeling about this whole thing. “So, tell me then. What’s the plan?”

“You and me are going to scam them and get very rich. Rich as kings. Richer. He’s got something priceless to us.”

“That’s it?” He couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. She thought they could just dance in and scam Remorians, and with one of their mages about? Clearly she wasn’t telling him everything.

She didn’t say anything for a while, but it was only when her leg spasmed again and she hissed out a breath of pain that he realized she was trying to talk, only the words wouldn’t seem to come. She rubbed at her eyes, and Van Gast tried not to think how odd she was being. That she might not be his Josie anymore.

“Do you trust me?” Her voice was very small in the quiet near-dark.

Now that was a loaded question. Trust didn’t come easily, to either of them. He pulled her closer. She didn’t object, only laid her head on his chest. She was shivering again, and from the heat that radiated from her, he didn’t think she was still cold. “Yes,” he whispered into her hair. “Yes, Josienne. Yes, I do.”

“Then just go along with the trick. I have a plan, a good one. I had to change it a bit, but it’ll work, all right?” Her hand trailed up his arm, along his neck, and her fingers touched on his lips. She tilted her head to look at him, a sheen of worry in her eyes that he’d never seen before.

That was when he had to ask, had to know. “Josie, do you—”

“I hate you,” she whispered into his chest before he could finish. “I hate that you make me like you, make me trust you. That it’s too easy to be with you. You’re the only man in my miserable life who never let me down, never betrayed my trust.” Fear shrouded her face. That he’d be like the rest of them.

Not if he could help it.

Van Gast tried a grin and asked the question he’d wanted to ask for far too long, had put off for fear of the answer. “But you love me too, right?”

She must do. Or else why would she still come to him? Why would she still kiss him and take him to bed, even if she always left too soon? Yet those were the only clues he really had, because she’d never said. Oh, he thought she did, but she danced around the words, said all of them but the ones that really mattered, and because she didn’t say it, he’d never dared to, never dared to open himself to the answer that he was just a tumble, a way to pass the time, a warmth in her bed when she needed it.

The corner of her mouth twisted down and she tried to turn away, but he caught at her chin and turned her back, his heart grown colder than the sea. “Josie, I swear to all the gods that I trust you. Do you trust me?”

She pulled away, turned her back and brought her knees up to her chest, laid her head on her knees and her head on her arms.

“Josie?” Van Gast held out a hesitant hand for her shoulder but didn’t quite have the nerve to touch her. She wasn’t the same Josie, not his Josie.

“Will you do it, play the scam?” Her voice was muffled by her arms, but he thought he heard a hint of tears.

That couldn’t be. Josie had never cried, not ever. She’d fought and spat at and bitten her enemies, laughed with him and called out breathlessly in his bed, but not cried. He wasn’t sure she could.

“Yes, I’ll do it. It’s worked often enough, I don’t see why a little twist shouldn’t work too but, gods damn it, Josie, Remorians?”

She lifted her head and there was no hint of the tears now, if ever there had been. “Andor, I—whatever happens, you have to trust me, all right? I’ve got a plan, and it’ll work, even now. We’re going to twist Holden till his balls bleed, and then we’ll all be free. Whatever it is you think I’m doing, whatever I do, you have to trust me.”

She unfolded herself and knelt in front of him, and he couldn’t tell, he never could with her. Couldn’t tell whether she was angry or afraid or just resigned. Then she flashed him her lopsided grin, as capricious as the sea, more changeable than the wind. That grin—robbed, killed or have the time of your life. Odds were one in three. Fuck it, it’d be a good way to go.

He pulled her toward him and she wriggled away, just out of his reach. The old game. She laughed when his hand missed her arm, back to being Josie, his Josie. He grabbed for her, wrestled her to the blanket and buried his face in her hair. She smelled of brine and seaweed, and a hint…he would have sworn the blood drained from his face. His lips were frozen again, his insides as cold as when they’d pitched up on the shore. Just a hint, but she smelled like them, like the Remorians. Their stink was all over her.

Then she turned her face up to his and kissed him, and all thoughts of that fled. None of it mattered anymore, just that she was here, with him, she maybe loved him even if she could never say it, she was kissing him and they had time and to spare. He kissed her solidly, slowly and thoroughly, pulled her tight to him, let his hand roam over the familiar curves of her, and he didn’t know or care where they were, or what she was planning. None of that mattered when he kissed her.

“Josie, I—”

She interrupted him with a laugh. “Van, shut up and get our clothes off.”

Fuck it. “Aye, aye, Captain.” He slid his hand down, undid the ties on her breeches and pinned his butterfly with kisses.

When Van Gast woke the sun was well on the way to noon. The muscles in his back groaned as he stretched, turned over sleepily and put an arm out for Josie. Nothing there but cold, empty space. He blinked himself properly awake, sat up and ran a hand through salt-laden hair.

The hut was empty but for him, the blanket wrapped round him to keep out the chill. The fire had long since died and while the storm had blown itself out, the wind still blustered through the trees and crept in the cracks between the boards and the gap in the roof.

Bloody woman, never would stay in one place for long, even with him. Still, worth it when she was here. He whistled a jaunty little tune as he got up and looked out of the door.

Josie’s tracks led off along the beach, making for the headland that was, even in the bright sun, a looming dark beast that commanded the bay. The beach was a mass of broken trees, rafts of weed, a ragged length of sail. All the flotsam and jetsam of the storm to bring home just how lucky they’d been. Just outside the door sat a pile of stones that, if they’d been there the night before, he’d not noticed. On top perched the fake ruby. Ten Ruby Trick. She meant to go on with it then.

He bent down to pick up the ruby and, at the different angle, saw the pattern the stones made. A V and a J, intertwined. A message. Trust me. He rubbed the pattern back into a mosaic of shingle. No good telling anyone they’d been there.

The ruby flashed in the sunlight as he tossed it in the air and caught it. He whistled a lewd shanty that reminded him of Josie on her wilder days and made off down the beach in the opposite direction to her tracks. No sense in this Holden knowing they’d met up, giving him any hint they were anything other than enemies. So he whistled his way down the beach and tried to guess how big a prize scamming a Remorian man would have to be worth for Josie to risk it.

Chapter Fifteen

Holden stared out into a day scrubbed clean by the storm. A fresh breeze, whitecaps on the sea, a scud of grey clouds to the west all that was left of the wild winds that had nearly killed them all. The deck was a tangle of rigging, mast, spars and rope, which the remainder of the crew were trying to set right as best they could. Holden held on to his temper, his voice coming out clipped and cold as he rounded on his mage.

“Gods damn you to the Deeps, Cattan, I don’t care how much power you’ve lost. I’ve lost a half dozen of my men and a mast, because of you.” Holden regarded the pathetic remnants of the mage in front of him, who’d done little but bleat how it wasn’t his fault. Pale, wizened skin, arms like sticks, a few clusters of crystals hanging on to his skin for dear life, and the rank smell of the terminally unwashed. Even Holden could smell it—it didn’t take Josie to point it out to him.

Cattan’s eyes rolled feverishly in their sockets and he shivered under his raft of blankets, not used to the outside air, not accustomed to as much as a breeze on bare skin. Yet Holden wanted him to see what his failure had cost them. Not just in men and mast, but that Josie, their one best hope of catching Van Gast, was gone.

It wasn’t just that which had Holden having to restrain himself from throttling the wretched mage. They hadn’t only lost their chance, he’d lost Josie too, and that was too hard to bear. He’d forgotten what it was like, what she was like, how she’d breezed into his life so many years ago and shown him…everything. The endless, joyful possibilities that life had to offer, before the Islands had sucked it out of him. Now he’d found her again, found the sense of hope that possibilities bring, only to lose her.

“I don’t care how you do it, Cattan. Frankly, I don’t care if it kills you. If you want to make amends to our Master, to me, you’ll find her. She’d better be alive too, or you won’t be making it back to port.”

Cattan somehow managed to sneer and cower at the same time. A mage of the power, who no longer had the strength to do much but cast a spell to track Josie’s bond.

Holden left him to it and went to see how the repairs were coming along. A couple of Josie’s crew had been allowed on deck under Skrymir’s watchful eye, and they’d brought out the spare rigging and sail. Maybe enough to get them to a port to refit. Barely. Some of his men were doing what they could with the mast, and at least they’d managed to plug the hole, temporarily, but it wouldn’t get them far. The rest of the crew were in the hold shoring up leaks, only the one bad one but several smaller. If they didn’t get to port by sunset, Josie would be proved correct. He would have sunk her fucking ship.

He joined his men on the mast, stripped off his shirt and hauled with them to get it upright again, strap the fragment to what remained. By the time his first mate called him up to the wheel, he was dripping sweat.

Cattan had found her, alive, and not too far away. Holden reined in the relief and snapped out orders to set sail as soon as they could. Other repairs could be done as they sailed. Strange though the looks he got were, he went to make himself presentable, to wash the sweat and grime and fear away.

The fear seemed to stink to him worse than anything else, a rank odor he’d never smelled on himself before. Fear that they’d all die in that storm, because he couldn’t sail well enough, because he’d never run a storm without a mage to dampen it. Fear of his Master’s wrath when he found that Josie, their one leverage on Van Gast, was overboard, and worse than that, worse than everything else. The night had been full of fear that Josie was dead, and that it was his fault, that he’d driven her to it.

A man overboard was rarely found alive and Holden had given up when Skrymir had screamed his words through the storm. His lovely beautiful dream, blown apart by a storm. The dream to find Josie, or someone very like her. A woman who’d never known bondage, whose very freedom lightened his own heart. He’d dreamed his dream and known it could never be real. Someone very like Josie, he’d always thought, not her. He’d doubted he’d ever see her again, and there, she’d dropped in his lap.

Perfect, it had been perfect. Until he’d had no choice but to bond her. That he could get round, he’d planned for it. Once they had Van Gast, he’d release her. Not for his dream, but in gratitude, for all she’d shown him when they were young and foolish and full of stardust and moonbeams. Before reality, and his bond, had asserted itself.

His bond was the problem, the one sticking point that made his plan only a dream. There was no way round a bond, no way to take it off except by permission of the one who put it on, or their death. But his Master did not die, had lived a thousand years, survived a thousand assassination attempts. Bonded men would die, willingly, to keep him alive. No matter what Holden might dream, there was no way out for him. Not now, not ever. Best to accept it as he had once done blindly.

He slumped down to the bed. He’d never allowed himself to think it could ever really happen before. Hope was too much to bear, so he’d told himself it would come to nothing, that it was nothing but a nice fancy to fall asleep to. But to have it dangled in front of him and then ripped away…

He dunked his head in a bowl of cold water and shook the droplets away. She was alive, and they’d find her. Do what had to be done, and he’d see that at least she was free, if he could. If he got Van Gast, that was his only hope of freedom, what his Master had promised him if he brought that bastard back. Freedom from his bond, at least his direct servitude to the Master. Bonded to the Archipelago, yes, unable to go against it, but in every other way free. If Holden could do that, could give Josie back her own life…he could have his dream. If he couldn’t, he was a dead man. Yet she was more than a means to an end, to his freedom.

Skrymir knocked at the door. “Almost there, Commander.”

Holden tried to still his racing heart. If he played this right, he could have everything. One slip, and he could lose it all. This was his second chance, his last chance. He slipped on a clean shirt, hoped the wash had cleaned the Remorian stink from him, and made his way on deck.

Grey clouds scudded along the horizon in a stiff wind, but the mast seemed to be holding up well enough. A great rocky headland loomed off the port side, waves crashing far up its sides. As they got closer, a bay opened out on the other side, the water calmer there.

“Up at the top,” Skrymir said.

A thin plume of smoke puffed from the rocks, soon ripped to shreds by the wind. Something fluttered by it, a shirt maybe, a flash of blond hair. Holden’s glance at Cattan, and a curt nod in return, confirmed it.

“Get out the longboat.”

It took all Skrymir’s muscle, and that of three other men, to get the longboat over the waves that thundered along the shore, still turbulent from the storm. All manner of things had been dredged up by its ferocity. Fresh splinters of wood from some ship not as lucky as theirs. A broken barrel, trees ripped in half, yard upon yard of seaweed clogging the edge of the waves, part of a dead shark, gulls already feasting on the softest parts. They screamed their anger at the boat’s approach.

Holden leaped onto the beach, his boots sinking halfway up to the top in detritus, and made his way up the rocks. He left the rest behind. His mind was folding in on itself in secrecy now, because he knew, none better, that a Remorian mage could read a mind in their sleep, for little or no power, and Cattan was not a happy mage. No, not happy with him at all, and it’d only take one little peek and Holden was as good as a dead man.

The rocks were slippery with wet and moss, but he made it to the top with little trouble. The dying fire guttered in the wind. Josie sat with her knees up, her arms crossed over them and her chin perched atop, staring out to sea.

Holden took a step toward her, but her sharp voice stopped him before he could get any farther.

“I really can’t go against it, can I? Jump to escape you and the pain near enough knocks me out so I all but drown. Can’t disappear, can’t run away because you can find me. Can’t do anything but get Van Gast into your trap. Can’t even speak out of turn. Tried it in a village over the way there, can’t even speak against the bond. Bonded to you. You’ve got me good and proper. I had to stay here like a good little girl and wait for you. Is that what you wanted, Holden?” She lifted her head to look at him, her eyes hot and angry under lowered brows. “A good little slave for you. Well?”

“No, I just—”

“Just! It’s always just this or just that with you, isn’t it? Never the guts to say it right out. Never the guts to even try and fight it.”

“You can’t fight it. You can’t.” He pulled at her shoulder and got her to her feet. Gods knew how she was alive and not drowned or frozen to death, but she was still cold, still shivered in the wind that whipped across the bay and swirled around this bare outcrop of rock.

“I can and I fucking will.” She shook off his arm. “I’ll fight it and I’ll fight you, every step of the way.”

Gods damn the woman, why did she have to make it so difficult? He grabbed her by the arms, and this time when she tried to shake him off he held tighter, till he had to be hurting her, though she never showed it. She just glared at him with thinly disguised contempt.

“Josie, if you keep doing this, keep struggling against it, it’ll kill you all the quicker, and it’s not just you, is it? Not just you who’ll die, the boy too, dead or bonded, and that’s just as bad as far as you’re concerned, isn’t it? I don’t want either of those on my conscience. Eight days till we meet with Van Gast. Just eight days, and when we have him, you’ll be free, you and the boy. I swear it. But if you keep fighting against it, you’ll be dead before then, or so far gone that taking the bond off will kill you.”

It had started already. Her breeches were loose on her where weight had dropped away. Her eyes, even when angry as now, had a dead, hollow quality to them, sinking back into her skull as though she were a corpse already.

Josie pushed him away and turned for the rocky track. “If you think I’ll stop fighting it just to ease your conscience, you’ve got another fucking think coming.”

They reached port before sunset—just. The squat brown buildings of Gerran intermingled with dusty palms, and the occasional lofty spire of a temple appeared on the horizon just as Holden started to fear they’d sink before they reached shore.

The ship limped into the small harbor as the sun touched the waves, and a horde of men swarmed the jetty, offering their services, anything from ship repairs—“Mage-nailing, sir, best mage in port, get your mast good as new by morning”—to more down-to-earth needs. If all the hawkers said were true, half the city must be brothels populated with only the finest whores, and that was closer to truth than to lies.

He checked in with the harbormaster, made arrangements for repairs and returned to the ship. No matter what the hawkers promised, even magical repairs took time, and a snapped mast would take at least a day, probably more. In the meantime, he gave leave for some of his men to go ashore under Skrymir’s watchful eye. The Gan would say nothing of what they were about, and of the rest of his men only Cattan and his first officer, in charge of guarding Josie’s crew until Skrymir came back, knew.

After the last day, gods knew they needed something, some beer and bad women, even if the Archipelago frowned on both. They were close enough to home that the port catered for them with no qualms—because of the Master’s guarantee to a trade ally that no men would be bond-ganged into service—and far enough away that Holden could turn a blind eye, because they were far enough away that the Master’s vision was weaker, though not so weak they could do anything else. They might manage that, and Holden had before, before his bond was tightened, but there were still constraints. Out of Remorian waters, their bonds were his to control.

Once all was settled, he went to see Josie locked up in their quarters. She lay on the bed, sullen and shivering.

“Come on, up you get.”

She turned a baleful eye on him, but didn’t move.

“Josie, we haven’t taken on new supplies yet, most of the food was ruined in the storm, and we’ve little left but hard tack. You’ve wrecked all the furniture in this room except that one bed. Unless you really want to share it with me tonight, I’ve arranged some quarters with good food, comfortable, separate beds, and a bath. I don’t know about you, but I could really use all of those.”

“It won’t work, you know.”

Holden suppressed a sigh. “What won’t?”

“Being nice to me. It won’t make me all nice and pliable, ready to do everything you ask.”

“I don’t expect it to. But it’d be nice to be comfortable while you’re busy hating me. Besides, I’m going, and I’m not letting you out of my sight again. So come willingly, or come in pain when the bond takes you.”

Josie struggled up off the bed and limped toward the door, clearly favoring her bonded leg. “I used to really like you, once upon a time. Whatever you say, Master.”

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped and shoved her through the door.

She grinned up at him, pleased at the reaction maybe, and raised an eyebrow. “But that’s what you are, isn’t it? A master of slaves and a slave of masters, and you don’t even have it in you to fight back. A gutless wonder. I can’t think what I ever saw in you.”

He concentrated on her bond, on wanting her to be quiet, and was both satisfied and mortified when she tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out past a clamp of pain. The worst of it was she was right, had nailed exactly what it was that he loathed about himself. He dragged her down the gangplank, off the harbor and away from the parched and crowded city into a broad, dusty avenue dotted with palm trees.

The houses here were larger than on the shoreline, though still squat, still a sandy, burnt-terracotta color that made them blend into the earth. However these houses were for the rich, or at least the well-to-do pretending to be rich. In an arid land, the gardens were green and verdant, not-so-subtly proclaiming how much water the owners could afford.

Holden led them to a smaller house with just a strip of grass between it and the road. Still, the wealth was clear in the flowers that dripped from boxes in every available space, their perfume scenting the sunset air with a heady fragrance. A tasteful sign swung from the eaves, depicting Forn surrounded by the silver bells that every sailor wore around his ankle, chiming his prayer, his supplication to the god of the sea.

Holden stopped concentrating on her silence and turned to see her reaction.

She opened her mouth hesitantly, her words tumbling out when she realized she could speak without pain. “Oh, very fucking funny.”

“You remember it then?” he asked innocently.

She glared at him and made for the door. He followed her through, into dim-lit darkness. Discreet, Forn’s Bells had always been, and the inn where he and Josie had first met all those years ago. The place he’d been due to meet her that last time, and never made it.

The taproom wasn’t the straw-strewn mess of a low tavern but all wooden panels carved with images of Forn, lamps that glittered and shimmered behind carved glass and leather-bound chairs. The staff were subtle, courteous and willing to turn a blind eye provided the rules were followed. Anyone was welcome if they wore the bells, kept their voice low and had the money to spend. Oh, and preferably tried not to kill any of the other patrons. That kind of behavior was frowned upon.

So you were just as likely to see one of the richer racketeers as a minor noble or Remorian peering out from the wing of one of those chairs. Forn’s Bells was as indiscriminate yet tasteful as the god it chose to represent.

A servant glided toward them, bowed to Holden and looked at Josie’s salt-crusted hair and ripped clothes. “Welcome back, Commander. Your usual rooms are ready, but the lady—”

Holden concentrated on silence again and cut off Josie’s protest in a strangled squeak of outrage. “She’s bonded to me, Garlo.”

“Oh, I see.” Garlo seemed flustered. “Well, the Archipelago has its own customs, I’m sure. Would you like me to…?”

“I can find my own way, thank you. Have dinner sent up, and two baths, good and hot. Some new clothes for the lady.”

He pushed Josie up the stairs before she could explode and made for his usual room. At the back, nice and secluded yet handy for the back door if need should arise to leave quickly. One reason it had been his and Josie’s preferred room all that time ago.

He shut the door behind them, locked it and slid the key into the pocket she’d least likely be able to thieve from.

Josie stood in the center of the room, stared around with a softening of her eyes. Less dead, as though something filled the hollow of late. She looked as if she might say something but seemed to think better of it, sat on one of the beds and stroked the cover, embroidered in a striking gold-and-green pattern. Holden could only watch her, unable to speak or even move.

“Still here,” she said softly. “Still the same. But we aren’t the same, are we? What happened to you, Holden? What happened to the boy I knew, the one who dreamed a dream big enough for the world? Where did all your fight, your passion go?”

He was saved from answering, from letting it all pour out of him, by a discreet knock at the door. Dinner and baths. He fished out the key and opened the door. Garlo came in first, a vast covered platter almost filling his arms, which he set by the fire to keep warm. A small army of boys followed, bringing copper baths, hot water in huge jugs, fluffy towels and a clean shirt and breeches for Josie.

They set one bath behind a screen in the corner and the other by the fire, filled both with steaming water and left, one of the boys giggling behind his hand.

Josie stared at the steam, as though she couldn’t decide whether to hate him or be grateful for the chance of a bath.

“Come on, bath then dinner,” he said. “You’ve not really warmed up since, have you?”

She bit her lip as though trying not to grin. “Yes and no. But a bath would be good. It won’t make me like you any more, mind.”

“I don’t expect you to like me.” Though there it was, at the back of his mind. If he could get Van Gast bonded, win his almost-freedom and his life, then maybe, just maybe…Too much the dreamer, he always had been.

“Good.” Her lopsided grin was back. How could she do that? Go from cold, blind hatred to grinning acceptance in a heartbeat? She was as unpredictable as the sea.

She slipped behind the screen and they both slid into their baths with a sigh of relief. The hot water soothed tired muscles, stripped away knots Holden hadn’t even been aware of. Knots that maybe were always there, he’d just not realized how deep, how tangled, until he’d seen Josie again. Realized just what he’d become. He sank farther down till his nose touched the water. Last chance, last chance maybe of any rest before they sailed to take Van Gast. To maybe everything he’d ever wanted, the lessening of the bond to more manageable proportions the least.

Josie splashed behind him and all he could think of then was that she was naked behind that screen, of how she’d looked like that when they were younger, of what she’d meant to him. What he wanted her to mean to him again.

He got out of the bath, grabbed a towel and dried himself off before he tied it round his waist. He couldn’t lie to himself, or her, anymore. As soon as he’d known it was her, he’d wanted her back, had let all those long-forgotten dreams bubble to the surface. Yes, he was following his bond, the best way he could, to get Van Gast. But that wasn’t all, not his only motive. He wanted what he’d always wanted—and had tried to forget—and tried not to let that seep into his bond over her.

He came around the screen just as Josie stepped out of the bath. Naked and glorious. She held still for long moments while he stared before she smiled slowly, stood up straight and walked toward him with that fluid grace that always set the hairs on his arms quivering. When she stood in front of him, not quite touching him, she was completely at ease. No embarrassment for her at her nakedness, no subservience, not like the bonded girls of the Archipelago. Fighting it every step of the way.

She cocked her head and smiled at him, warm, like the Josie of old, as though he was the Holden of old. Maybe he was that Holden, doing this, because he shouldn’t, oh, he shouldn’t. But he was going to.

She leaned into him and planted a kiss on his mouth, hesitant at first before she moved closer. Her wet skin against him was warm and silky, her lips soft as velvet as she kissed him harder. She pushed against him, soft and strong at the same time, and he kissed her back, let his arms pull her in, let his hands find the back of her neck, twine in her hair. He pulled his mouth from hers and drifted his lips across her cheek, down round her neck, and she shivered against him.

“Stop all this,” she murmured. “Stop this ridiculous chase for Van Gast. Break your bond, fight it, and then…” Her hands slid down his back and pulled him in closer, pressing him against her, her thighs against his as his mouth kissed back across her cheek. Her lips curved into a grin under his. “Oh, I see some things haven’t changed.”

He shut her up with another kiss, harder now, his tongue and hers, and it was as though they’d never been apart, all those years had never happened. She was everything he wasn’t, everything he wanted to be, letting him dream of who he could be. Free, unbound, open to every possibility.

Van Gast glared at Guld. He’d taken precious time away from repairs, from trying to get to port and refit. Guld was the one who’d found him with his spells, so his crew could pick him up. He’d had no worries on that score. More pressing was the need to be trim and shipshape before he got to Tarana, and Josie and the scam. It would be a drowning in the Deeps before he’d knowingly meet a Remorian without his ship ready to fight. He dropped into the captain’s chair and swung round to pour himself a brandy. “Well?”

Guld shuffled from one foot to the other, blinking rapidly. “It’s Josie. That Remorian. I saw him on the longboat.”

“What about him?”

“I think I recognized him.”

“Oh, yes?” Van Gast savored the burn of the brandy. He still couldn’t quite get rid of the chill from his bones, but the brandy surely did help. “Who is he then?”

“Holden, I think his name was. He was—well, I knew Josie before I knew you, and, er, so did Holden.”

The glass stopped halfway to Van Gast’s mouth. Something about the way Guld said it, about the diffident way he held himself, as though he thought Van Gast might explode and he was ready to dive for cover. “And?”

Guld flinched at his tone and swallowed a couple of times, as though he had something stuck in his throat. “Well, they were, um, lovers, you see. Besotted, Josie was. She didn’t care he was Remorian, didn’t care what anyone else said about him, and it’d better not be bad, because anyone who dared that got the sharp end of her sword.”

Lovers. Guld wasn’t born a racketeer, and it might mean something different to him, but he’d been on this ship long enough to know the difference between a quick tumble and a lover. A lover was who you loved. A tumble was, well, anyone else who ended up in your bed. There probably wasn’t a racketeer of age who hadn’t done that, gone to bed with someone for a night or two. If your lover was on a different ship, you might spend months apart. There was an etiquette to it all the same. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and love your lover, no other.

Van Gast drained the glass in a swallow and tried to still the tide of jealousy, that Josie had been besotted with this—this Remorian. That they’d been lovers, as he knew the word. Van Gast was fairly sure Josie loved him. Probably. He couldn’t ever say she’d been besotted with him. Too fiercely independent for that, too wary. She’d said that every man in her life had betrayed her trust at least once, excepting Van Gast, and the way she said it, the way her eyes darkened with fear, he knew she was just waiting for him to do the same.

This Holden had been one of them then, and now she was risking her neck to get her revenge, scam him stupid and getting Van Gast involved too. Why?

Strange that Josie had never mentioned this Holden before, that she’d never mentioned this last night. Or maybe not, maybe sparing his feelings, though he doubted that. Not her style. If she wasn’t hiding something, she’d have told him, would have mentioned that she was using their past relationship to gull this Holden. There’d been something she’d tried to say, but couldn’t, hadn’t there? This? Or something else?

Van Gast was torn between a fear that she’d found a lost love, one she loved as she never had him, and was trying to scam Van Gast, and fear that she was risking everything she had to scam her ex-lover. If so, Holden would betray her, of course he would, he was Remorian. Or maybe—and this thought made his balls shrivel—maybe she loved Holden and he’d betray both her and Van Gast, because nothing could beat the bond.

Once on, it had a stranglehold on you, would wring the life from you. Poor bastards that were born into it never knew anything else. They thought it was the right way to live, and if they bond-ganged you…Well, Brandick had told him once how he’d seen it happen, a long time ago. It was like the man’s brain had drained out of his ears, leaving him just a plaything of the mages who ran the Archipelago. That was how they liked it, complete and willing subservience. That thought was enough to curdle the brandy in his stomach.

Dillet standing at the door, a little huddle of crewmen behind him, made all those thoughts vanish.

“Where we going now, Van?” Dillet’s voice had a defiant edge to it, as though he was winding himself up to something. Time to tread carefully.

“To Ruisden, get repaired. Then we’re going to Tarana.”

The crewmen murmured behind Dillet but only the first mate spoke aloud. “Why we going there?”

“Because we’ve got a nice little deal going down.”

“You’re still bent on following her, aren’t you? I don’t know what you thought you was getting when you dove overboard last night, but it was something to do with her, wasn’t it? Well, I for one ain’t going. I don’t know what’s the matter with you lately, Van, but you been leading us into nothing but shit. First all that business in Estovan, then you been acting all odd, disappearing in Dorston. Had us haring up and down the coast for no reason we can see, making no money. Now you want to follow Josie and a Remorian on the off-chance you can screw some money out of her. Well, I know that bastard Holden from afore, and not just me. He’s Remorian, Van, and not just that he’s a fucking commander now. Not just any old sailor, he’s got ships and to spare at his command. If Josie’s stupid enough to get mixed up with him, that’s her lookout. We ain’t going to follow her down to the Deeps, and I can’t see one reason why you should.”

“I told you, we’ve got a deal going on at Tarana. I never said it had anything to do with Josie, did I?”

“Damn it, Van, I know you’re lying about something. I don’t mind as a rule, because you keep me in booze and women, but I ain’t going to get mixed up with no Remorians and that’s flat. You find somewhere else for us to go, or me and the lads will, and you can swim to Tarana.”

Van Gast leaped to his feet and dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. “Don’t make me beach you, Dillet. I’m the captain on this ship.”

Dillet snorted derisively. “I’d fucking jump myself rather than get caught up with the Remorians, or Josie. You may be captain, but you need a crew to run this ship, and there ain’t no racketeers who’d help you in this one. Not here, not in Ruisden, not anywhere. What’s your trouble bone saying lately, Van? Itching much?”

Van Gast didn’t say anything for a moment. Trouble was, he couldn’t blame Dillet or the rest. As far as they knew, Josie wasn’t to be trusted, she was to be feared, and Van Gast had the same misgivings about Holden as they did. He had to tell them something. “Priceless, that’s what this is about. There’s a twist to be had, what we’ll get from it is priceless, and it’s ours for the taking. Priceless.”

A few of the crew muttered in appreciation and their stance softened. Van Gast almost had them, pulling them along by their greed. Dillet was another matter.

“Van, you nearly got this ship sunk once already. You ain’t been acting right for weeks, and priceless ain’t no good when you’re dead, is it? I—”

Van Gast held up his hands. “All right, Dillet, all right. When we get to port, I’ll go see Quint. Find out everything I can. I can get Guld to do a bit of scrying, talk to the other mages. If it looks too dangerous, or if anything makes my trouble bone itch, we’ll find something else. I just don’t like turning down this kind of opportunity. Deal?”

A couple of the crewmen nudged at Dillet from behind and whispered in his ear. “Aye, Van, all right. Just don’t you go pushing on your luck with our lives. I don’t want to be bonded or deaded, none of us does.”

“You think I do?” Van Gast shuddered and turned to his desk. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out some of Haban’s golden sharks, kept against just such an emergency. “In the meantime, when we get to Ruisden, I’m sure you can all cheer yourselves up. The last share of the Sea Witch money until I can get to Haban again.”

Dillet laughed, took the pouch and hefted it. Fifty gold sharks was enough to get every man aboard drunk for a month and still have enough to try half the whores in Ruisden. “Aye, reckon that’ll do for now, Van.” Yet when he turned to go, his eyes were sly in a way that made Van Gast think he’d best start watching his back.

He slumped back down in his chair when they left. It would take more than money to mollify them if they found out what he was really up to. He looked up at Guld. “Any chance you can find her with that scrying spell of yours?”

Guld flinched. “With a Remorian mage around? I could end up with my head in ten different places. They know some pretty good blocking spells. I did try when they sailed, but all I got was noise.”

“I’ve got a hair now.” Van Gast delved into a pocket and dragged out the fake ruby, a half dozen fair hairs tied round it. “On the blanket this morning. Saw them and thought of you. That help?”

Guld took them from him and held them up to the light. “It might be. I can try, Van, but I can’t promise. Not against a mage of the power. I like my head where it is.”

“So try. If you find her, you’ll find him, and maybe we can find out what this is really about.” Van Gast leaned back in the chair and balanced it on its rear legs. Faking nonchalance out of habit. “So, why did you tell me this about Josie and Holden?” He had to work at keeping his voice level. Everything he’d been sure of had started to twist under his feet like quicksand and the itch was back, worse than he’d ever known it. He couldn’t tell if it was for him, or for her. It pervaded everything now, every thought, every possibility he could imagine.

“I just thought, um, that you’d like to know. It could change things, couldn’t it?”

Yes, it could, but that all depended on Josie. This was all part of the plan, it must be. It couldn’t be anything else, and her mind was too twisty for him to have a hope of knowing where she was going with this. She wouldn’t betray him, and not for a Remorian, wouldn’t fall for him. He’d just staked his ship on it. Not his Josie.

Would she?

“See if you can find them.”

Chapter Sixteen

The skin of Josie’s neck was salty under Holden’s tongue as they lay on the covers. Her hands ran over the muscles on his back, lighter than a feather, making little shivers run along his spine. One hand fluttered along his cheek, pulled his face to hers, and she kissed him again, hungry now, wanting, her hips pressed tight to his.

She shivered and pulled away, her storm-grey eyes searching his. “Holden, please. I always loved you because you weren’t like the rest. Your bond didn’t reach your heart. Let the boy go, let me go, out of your bond. Let Van Gast rot in Tarana and I’ll stay here with you.” She let a leg slide over his, tantalizing him with the dark gap between. “Forever, if you like. Just give up this foolishness. Let him go, and stay with me. I’ll choose to stay with you.”

He ran his hand down her neck, over a breast, a nipple that became sharply pointed at his touch, and he was tempted, had never been so tempted by anything in his life. If only it was possible. “Later,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

Then it was as it always had been, though he had enough knowledge of himself to recognize this wasn’t love, this was memory. This was the thought of what could be, and Josie was the beacon that called to him and led him on, that would show him everything he’d been denied. She was warm and vital and so very alive against him, only now she knew the constraints that had bound him, that still bound him. It tempered her, made her hesitant, but he made sure not to use the bond against her, not to make her want it because he wanted it.

They tangled together and it was sweet sweat and warm breath and whispered, wanting words. Only when she arched against him, when of old she would have called his name, now she kept the words back, clenched her teeth against it. He couldn’t blame her. He was her master, as unwilling as she was, but she was his again.

The bang of the door hitting the wall as it burst open made Holden start awake, unsure where he was, or when. Forn’s Bells, he recognized the room, and Josie was in his bed. Was it then, or now?

Cattan stood in what was left of the doorway, a ragged excuse for a Remorian mage, but still with more power than any other outside their odd world. Holden’s heart felt like it stumbled to a stop, but he scrambled off the bed. Here was someone who could ruin him, ruin every dream he’d ever had and render his soul to dust by thinking about it. Even now, even with half his crystals melted away into the sea, Cattan could kill him with barely a word and would if he knew half of what had been going through Holden’s mind of late.

Cattan was weak physically from the loss of his magic, from muscles that had atrophied from lack of use, and he had to prop himself in the doorway to recover after his spell to blast it from its hinges. Only a moment though. By the time Holden stood, Cattan was across the threshold.

A word, that’s all it took. One word and Holden was plastered up against the wall, barely able to breathe for the pressure that crushed his chest, the bond throbbing and burning up his arm and over his ribs like a vise.

“I know what you’ve been thinking.” Cattan’s voice was weak and thin now, without enough of his stored magic to aid it. Nothing like the rich voice of one with the power. A small cluster of crystals tinkled as they hit the rug. “I know. I know why you’re using her. And I know why she’s using you, what she’s doing.”

Another word, another lance of pain. Cattan was taking his time, gloating, because of what Holden had said aboard ship. Thinking he had the upper hand, and he did. Holden had no refuge from sudden, wrenching death if a mage wished it. He was only the servant of their power, no more worthy of notice or mercy than a beast of burden. He lived to serve. It pulsed in his mind, in his arm and on through to every muscle. There was no fighting it, no escaping it, no matter his dreams. Not ever.

Cattan leaped for Holden, a surprise move that took him off his guard. He’d never expected an attack from Cattan to be physical—the man was a stick under his magic. Yet Holden couldn’t move, not even a finger, so what had a mage to lose? Cattan’s hand, cloaked in flame, closed around his throat. Flames seared him, sent black, spiraling bits of his skin into the air, and he couldn’t fight it. The Master’s will. He’d been a slave too long and now he’d die a slave. His eyes flicked to Josie, to where she slunk off the bed, her eyes hard and calculating.

Cattan’s pale, crystal-flecked face bored into his. His free hand made for Holden’s wrist, for the bond-scars there. Holden couldn’t move, could do nothing but try to gasp for a scorched breath as Cattan’s fingers sank through his skin in a burst of bright white agony. They scrabbled around, nails scratching on bone, and Holden didn’t even have the breath to scream. Cattan grinned in triumph as his fingers closed over the bond, tangled in it and pulled.

Something tightened in Holden, around his head, his heart, his soul, an iron band he’d forgotten was there squeezed everything in, threatened to crush it, crush him. He was bound, more than bound. Bond screwed so tight, he wasn’t sure he could ever move again. Only his eyes stirred, tracked Josie as she stepped up behind Cattan.

The mage watched him closely. “I will keep you both tight in your bonds, as the Master orders. Holden, stay here. See, and now you can’t move, even when I take the spell away. She can’t save you. She has nothing that can harm me.”

“Except this.” Josie stood behind him, stark naked, with a jug of bath water. She tipped it over Cattan with a smile.

Holden’s breath was thin bites of agony, his throat seared inside and out, his back a rod of fire where he was pinned to the wall, his limbs too heavy, his heart twisted too tight to move. Cattan writhed on the floor, magic washing away from his skin in rainbow rivers. It didn’t stop him, he was a mage, and he still owned the bond. Nothing would stop him but death.

Cattan glared up at Josie and spoke a word. Not much power behind it but enough. Josie clutched at her throat, trying to pull invisible hands away, trying to let in a gasp of air. Her face and lips began to purple and still Holden was pinned naked to the wall by his bond, by Cattan’s order.

Cattan shook the bathwater off, droplets spraying everywhere along with spent crystals of magic. Enough were left, enough for him to do what he’d come for and kill them. More of the crystals dissolved into vapor as he gathered his power. He dragged himself to his feet and stood over Josie, gloating as she sank to her knees, clutching at her throat and staring at Holden with desperate, bulging eyes.

He could hear her, almost. In his mind she was telling him to fight it, fight the magic that bonded him, but he couldn’t. Not now, not when it was so strong. To fight it was only more pain, to die, and he wanted to live. He sank back into it, into the bond, into the way his life had always been, the comfort of having no will, no thought of his own, and the pain faded, leaving his limbs weak and watery.

Cattan shoved at Josie and she fell to the tiles, her legs to one side. How had Holden not noticed the blackish-purple bruise around the bond he’d put on, the way little lines of it were working their way up her leg like a poison? Cattan’s fingers dove into her skin, moved around underneath like worms in the earth as he searched for the bond.

“I made this,” he said to Holden. “You may have put it on, but I made it, and I at least still serve our Master in my heart. As you must now, Holden. As she must.”

Cattan grinned as he found it, twisted and pulled it tight against Josie’s thrashing. When he pulled his hand out of her skin, he laid his fingers gently on her and took off his spell. Josie’s breath came in great harsh gasps as she tried to draw in air, but her face subsided to a more normal color. He stroked her cheek and she flinched away from him with a halfhearted snarl.

“See, now it doesn’t matter that my magic is weak,” Cattan said. “It doesn’t matter because I control your bonds, both of you, until the Master gets here. I need no magic. I merely need to speak what I wish. Holden, attend. Watch what the bond can do, what I can do. Josie, stop breathing.”

Josie’s face contorted again, but she didn’t scramble for her neck this time. No spell to throttle her. Her ribs just ceased to move, to draw in breath. She fought it, always she fought it, managed one strangled gasp, but the purple-black lines grew each time. Up to her knee now. The bond was killing her, as Holden had known it would in the end, and killing her faster now that it was tighter, that she had to fight harder. “Josie,” he whispered. “Josie, you have to let it, have to accept it. There’s no other way.”

She managed to lift her lips in a sneer and took in a scant breath.

Cattan patted her cheek. “You should listen to him. That’s good advice. Accept it, and the pain will go. Josie, breathe.”

Her ribs moved in jerky spasms and Josie managed to hiss a “Bastard!” through a hoarse throat. Cattan smiled down at her and stroked along her stomach with one crystal-free hand. She lifted a hand to smack him away, but got no further than trying before a spasm of pain ripped a scream from her throat and the lines crept farther up her leg.

“Shhh now, Josie, just stay still. Stay quiet.” Cattan’s voice was very soft, but Josie’s cry cut off in midscream. “Ah, now it’s most interesting to see in both your minds. Holden dreams of freedom, but he knows he’ll never get it, so he uses you to make himself believe it could happen. You though, Josie, you’re using him too, aren’t you? A way to distract him from what you’re really about. Of course you are. Josie, you may speak. Tell Holden, do you love him as he dreams you do?”

Josie struggled against it, but it was useless. “I always did love him.”

“Ah, trying to be clever, answer the question without answering the question. How about this then, Josie? Distraction is the essence of all your little tricks, your twists. You’re using Holden, I know, using him, the situation you find yourself in, for your own ends, whether you love him too or not. What are you distracting him from, using him for, tempting him and his dreams with your love for? Or rather who are you distracting him from and why?”

She clenched her teeth against it, her lips tight, but the words were dragged out by Cattan’s will.

“Andor.” The sound was hardly more than a whisper and her eyes were wild under the fan of braided hair. “Keep Andor free from you.”

Cattan ran his hand over her forehead, searching inside, his face twisted with the effort. The few crystals on his back evaporated in a little cloud of oily vapor, extending the last of his power. Josie stared at him, her face stubborn as she tried to resist.

“The boy, you want to keep the boy free of a bond,” Cattan said at last, his voice wavering and weak. “We know the little lad’s name now then, and how you’re trying to twist Holden. Maybe you’ll be as keen to persuade me, now Holden is indisposed. It won’t work, of course, but you can try. I would very much enjoy that.”

The way Cattan was looking at her made Holden’s skin itch. Like he owned her. His hand ran up from her stomach and over one breast, along to her neck, where he stopped to stroke it. Soft, gentle caresses like a lover. Josie tried to pull away, tried to twist herself from his touch, but she was held fast.

“Shhh, now. See, now I have your bonds so tight, I need no magic, I’ve time to wait for it to grow again. But it’s been such a long time since I’ve seen my skin, I hanker to use the time until it’s covered again wisely. And with just a word, I can make you want that too, Josie. Can’t I?”

Josie’s eyes went very wide, but though she struggled to say something, no words came, only angry, frightened tears. Holden had never thought to see her cry.

“It’s as well that I won’t risk the reforming of my magic on someone like you, isn’t it? Though I may, if you give me trouble. I will, however, keep you with me where you can’t influence Holden any more. Provided you do as I say, you’ll be harmed no more than the bond is doing already. That should be more than enough to keep you from interfering.”

Cattan stood and held out his hand to her. “Stand up, Josie.”

She stood jerkily, as though her limbs obeyed something other than her mind, and Holden supposed they did. They obeyed Cattan’s voice now, the bonds on both of them so tight that to move without permission was unthinkable.

Cattan smiled at her, ripped the green-gold cover from the bed and wrapped it round her quivering shoulders. He didn’t look at Holden as he spoke. “Holden, go to bed. Don’t leave till I tell you. Josie, come with me. The healer does a tincture to draw the poison. It’ll keep you alive for long enough.”

No matter that he knew it was a battle he couldn’t win, Holden tried. Tried not to walk to the bed and get in. Tried to grab for Josie. And couldn’t.

It was long gone midnight by the time Van Gast sailed into Ruisden, but the noise of carousing floated out over the water to greet him like an old friend.

He didn’t wait for the gangplank, but leaped to the dock as his crew were still tying up. This couldn’t wait. He strode along the jetty, flung some coin at the harbormaster and all but ran into the warren of streets that surrounded him. Even at this late hour, crowds buffeted him, but he ploughed on through, pushing and shoving and earning more than a few dark looks. If it weren’t for the fact that he kept his hand on his sword, and more than a few people recognized him in this racketeer haven, he’d never have made it to the end of the street without a knife in his back.

The light was on in Quint’s window. Always open for business. Van Gast wrenched the door open, ignored the girl who tried to stop him, take his weapons and boots, and dived into the open taproom. His itch was driving him insane, too strong to ignore, but he couldn’t make any sense of it and maybe Quint could. He needed something, some reassurance, because if the burn in his chest carried on much longer, it was going to tip him over the edge.

The smoky air fell quiet, but he didn’t care, barely even noticed. Quint was at the far end of the room surrounded by a drove of admirers and he strode toward her. She got up and for once there was no elegance in her movements, only jerky nervousness at his face perhaps, or the pistol and sword that still hung at his hips.

“Madam, I tried to—”

Van Gast didn’t let the girl finish but grabbed Quint’s arm and pulled her, protesting, into her back room. He slammed the door shut behind him.

“Van, what in Kyr’s name—”

He pushed her into a chair. She sprawled into it, all her composure gone. Van Gast went to the drinks and messily poured two, slammed one down his throat and poured himself another. He handed one to Quint and she took it with a shaking hand, her eyes wide.

“What is it? The price on your head in Estovan that’s enough to tempt even me? When has a little local trouble ever bothered Van Gast?”

He slumped into a lounger and licked at some spirit he’d managed to slosh on his hand. The price wasn’t a surprise. It barely even registered. His other hand traveled aimlessly through his hair and tried not to scratch at the burn in his chest. “What do you know about Commander Holden?”

Quint sat up and tried to regain some poise. She sipped at her drink thoughtfully. “This is about Josie then?”

How did she do that? “It might be.”

Quint laughed, a sweet little sound that made Van Gast smile despite himself, despite his worry. “Van, you’re such a child. I’ve known for a long time about you and her. Don’t worry, I’d never tell. Your ‘hatred’ of each other makes things so very interesting.”

“How in the world—”

She smiled secretively. “Not long after your Tilly died, wasn’t it?”

Van Gast stared at her. How could she know? How could she know that in a half-drunk stupor, almost wanting to be caught, he’d burgled Forn’s Bells? That he’d slipped into a room and there she’d been. Josie, lying on the green-and-gold bed, a hand stroking the pillow next to her as though expecting someone to be there. She’d looked as desperately lonely as he’d been, until she’d seen him and sat up, become all bright sparks and cutting words. She’d never let him see that look on her face again.

He’d seen her before, of course, but he’d had Tilly, and Josie had just been a pretty face in the crowd. He’d heard of her too. Sharp as a cutlass and twice as dangerous. Only then, when he’d seen her like that, she hadn’t seemed dangerous. She’d seemed…hurt, like he was. It’d been slow, what they had. He hadn’t pushed, and neither had she, but when finally he’d come to know her, that was it for him. Josie, well, whatever Josie’s hurt had been, she’d never said, and she’d never quite got over it. It’d left her wary and mistrustful. Van Gast often thought if he knew her a hundred years, he’d still never know the half of her.

“Knew she’d found someone,” Quint said. “Never shy to tumble was Josie, not when she didn’t have a lover. But when she did…when she did, she didn’t tumble, not anyone else. Holden was gone, and she wasn’t tumbling, so I knew. And then you, you were different too. Don’t come to see my girls so often now, do you? You half lived in here when Tilly died, drank me dry more than once. And the girls, well, the girls all liked you. Know why?”

Van Gast shook his head dumbly. He’d never realized, never thought that Josie wasn’t out there when she wasn’t with him, that she didn’t take the chance for a quick bit of comfort where she could. Any racketeer would. Any of them. Only he hadn’t either, had he? It wouldn’t have mattered to him if she had, as long as she didn’t love them. Not like he wanted her to love him.

“Because they can’t know you, but yet when you love someone, you really love them.” Quint smiled fondly in remembrance. “Sometimes too well.”

Van Gast cleared his throat and ducked his head. This was all very well, but it wasn’t what he’d come for. “Commander Holden.”

“Ah yes, Holden. Not a bad one, for a Remorian. Or he didn’t used to be, not when him and Josie were lovers. You know about that? Yes, I see you do now, but I’d bet a week’s takings she didn’t tell you. Wouldn’t tell anyone the color of her eyes if she didn’t need to, not anymore, not after Holden left her. Changed her, that did, when he just stopped coming. So, then the Remorian Master chose him to be their little hound dog, bound him up good and tight. Didn’t see him for a long time, and when I did, he was…” Quint trailed off, considering. “He was hard in his heart, the hunting hound they’d turned him into. He’d lost a piece of himself to his bond. And he was looking for someone.”

“What?” So it wasn’t her scamming him, or it was—Holden had been looking for Josie, had to be. Holden looking for someone, Josie goes missing then turns up with him. Had to be. “He found Josie.”

“Did he? I didn’t know that. But no one’s seen her in weeks, nor talked to her mage, that I do know.”

Van Gast couldn’t sit still, leaped up from the lounger and paced up and down the thick rug. He picked up a little carved wooden trinket, tossed it, caught it and put it down, only to pick it up again. “I saw her. With him, running a scam on him. If they were—well, like I heard, then he betrayed her when he left her and she won’t forget it. She wants her revenge, I know her. She wants me to help too, but it’s all wrong. She’s all wrong, Quint. It’s all so wrong it makes me itch.”

He ran his hands through his hair and paced. He couldn’t work it out. Didn’t know what to trust, his instincts which told him that this was all wrong, that he should quit, sail away, far away and stay there for a time. Plenty of places he could go, but that meant betraying Josie, being just another man who’d let her down. Or he could trust the other instinct, that she was scamming a Remorian Commander and either she wanted his help or she was in trouble, bad trouble, and trying to tell him. Trust her, like she’d asked.

“So, Van Gast, what are you going to do?” Quint was smiling at him, like he was a small child who’d just learned to add two and two together. She’d worked it all out long ago, he was sure. “The sensible-but-boring thing, or the stupid-but-exciting thing?”

It wasn’t really a question. Only one thing he could do. He had to trust that Josie knew what she was doing. That she was on his side. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

Chapter Seventeen

Cattan left Holden there all that night and part of the next day. He couldn’t move, his whole body seemed tied to the bed. His throat was hot and blistered, his arms and legs aching. Every time he tried to move, it only brought a fresh wash of pain so intense, his brain spun and his stomach heaved. He was left with nothing but his own thoughts.

When dawn came chill and drear through the windows, he was bathed in his own sweat of fear and pain and shame, and the bed was soaked with his waste. A last effort, one that sent black waves through his head, got him off the bed and on to all fours. That effort was too much and he passed out to drown in dreams of fire at his wrist and Josie staring at him, her eyes full of pain of his making, and Ilsa beside her the same.

A new pain roused him—Cattan pulling him up by his hair. Holden struggled to gain his feet and grabbed at the bedpost when Cattan let him go. His left hand refused to grip the wood. His wrist was swollen, red and puffy with little black lines leading from his bond, snaking their insidious way up to his elbow.

“You should take your own advice,” Cattan said. “Accept it, truly, as you once did, and all the pain will fade. You will have comfort again, and blankness, and sweet forgetfulness. It’s too late for Josie, you know that. Don’t let it take you too. You’re too valuable a servant to the Master to be allowed to die. Accept it or you will die like her, and what about your other bond, Ilsa? What will she do then, with no bond to help her? The Master will find her a new man to bond to, I’m sure. Maybe me. Or you can accept it and your pain will go, and Ilsa will be safe. You know that better than any.”

Holden bent over his hands. He had no more fight, he’d expended whatever little there had been in him. The tiles on the floor called to him, their patterns, their straight lines. Cattan’s voice was soft, soothing, and he let it hypnotize him, let the clouds take the pain away. He had no other way. He only had the bond, his only future.

Cattan led him away in a blur of sounds and colors where the only thing that was solid and real were the patterns he let soothe him, the only protection his mind had. The floor moved under him and he became vaguely aware that he was on a ship. Josie’s ship, must be. Cattan let him lie on a bed and he slept again, a dark hole of absence which he hoped he’d never leave.

Hope was not rewarded. Shouts above and around him as the ship made ready to sail revived him and he opened his eyes into almost-dark, his whole body throbbing with the effort not to think or move. A faint pool of light from a tallow lamp made the rest of the cabin darker. He wasn’t alone. The boy sat on the bunk above him, swinging his legs disconsolately in time to the swell. When he realized that Holden was awake, he poked his head over the edge and regarded him, his thumb wedged in his mouth.

Slowly, deliberately, the boy took his thumb out, leaned farther into the room and spat on Holden before the thumb went back in with a satisfied nod. Holden raised a palsied hand to wipe the spit away.

“Andor?” His voice sounded like someone else’s, an old man’s, cracked and weak.

The feet withdrew up onto the top bed and the light went out with a hiss. Holden’s first thought was to get up. This was his ship to command, but his legs, and his will, were weak.

He stared into the dark, tried to remember the face that was trying to break into his thoughts, sometimes with fair hair, sometimes with a swing of chestnut hair. With a pang of guilt he realized he’d not thought of her in days. Ilsa who waited at home for him, her pretty, blank face and…and what was it? He struggled to think, to break whatever hold was on him. Lions. She wanted to see lions.

He worked his way through it, through the whole sorry mess and the bands on his memory, a piece at a time. Not all of it would come, some was lost beyond recall, but the patches he could find were enough. With each image came a feeling, a pang of guilt, a wash of want, a glut of shame, even if he couldn’t always connect the feeling to the image. He was lost in himself, each remembrance a new twist in the maze that his mind had become.

Only one thing was clear, one thought that throbbed over every other, one that no matter how he tried, he couldn’t banish. Serve the Master. Yet it was the Master who had done this to him, to the women he saw, to all of them. He’d gone without fighting it all his life, but the memory of fair hair and salty sweat and a face just beyond his vision taunted him.

He must have slept again then because when he opened his eyes, a grey light was filtering in through the tiny porthole. Every muscle ached, and yet he couldn’t quite seem to remember why. He sat up with a grimace, hitting his head a glancing blow on the bunk above. A pair of small feet dangled at the far corner and Holden stood up.

“Andor?”

The boy glared at him from behind his ragged dark fringe, his thumb again wedged in his mouth. Holden took a step toward him, thinking maybe to reassure him, though he wasn’t sure what about. The boy lashed out with a foot and caught him a weak blow before he could jump back.

A key scraped in the lock behind and the door swung open, letting in fresher air, the scent of deep water that cleared Holden’s mind.

“Commander, if you’re ready now?” Cattan’s voice, oily and smug.

Holden turned. Cattan stood before him, pathetic without his magic but with more than enough power over Holden. The mage stepped forward and placed his hand to the side of Holden’s head, his fingers wrinkled and cold. More than fingers—Cattan’s hold on the bond flowed through his head in icy rivers, probing and pulling, turning over every conscious thought like a man prospecting for gold.

“Very good, Commander.” Cattan withdrew his hand with a satisfied look. “Very good. You may take your place on the deck but remember, if any thoughts should come to you, don’t act on them. You are mine now, until the Master comes. Don’t forget it. Plot a course for Tarana, and let’s get off.”

He had the crew-hands beside him shut and lock the door behind Holden and they made for the quarterdeck. The hatch to belowdecks opened and Skrymir ducked through. Cattan carried on up the steps but Holden was held by the snarl on Skrymir’s face, one that lingered on Cattan’s back but slid away to him. Then Skrymir turned away and opened the door to the captain’s quarters.

Before the door shut he saw her on the bed, and for all Cattan’s magic he remembered. Josie, her leg black to the knee where the bond was taking her, held in her quarters, apart from Holden so she couldn’t cause more trouble. Then Skrymir bent over her and she was lost to view, if not to mind.

Van Gast leaned back in his chair, feet up on the desk, and watched Guld, the play of nerves and a quiet satisfaction that took turns on his face.

“Van, I er, um…”

Oku’s Oath, Guld’s hesitancy grated on Van Gast’s nerves, already strung out like rigging. “Come on, man, out with it. I haven’t got all day.”

“It’s Josie,” Guld whispered.

Van Gast fumbled his glass of brandy, the mage’s tone sending a twist of extra worry through him. He slid his feet off the desk and sat on the edge of his chair. “Is she all right? She’s not—”

“She’s fine. Actually she’s more than fine, or she was.”

“Then what the fuck are you giving me palpitations about?”

Guld didn’t say anything, maybe he couldn’t past the way his larynx bobbed up and down. He held out his hands so Van Gast could see into the scrying spell he held there. Finally he managed to force some words out. “I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

The way the silver sheen roiled over the surface of the spell made his stomach turn, but Van Gast looked past that, into lamp-lit darkness. The image was faint and grainy, but he could just about make out Josie and that Remorian, Holden. Josie was sitting on his lap and—no, not his Josie. Not with a Remorian.

“This isn’t now,” Guld said. “I thought, see, I thought maybe best to try and see what’s going on under the surface. Trace them back. I couldn’t find much, his mage is too powerful and he screened them mostly, but it wears off after a while so I can see ghosts of what went on. I only found this. It’s about five or six days ago.”

Van Gast couldn’t speak. Oh, he’d known there were other men for her sometimes, Quint was surely wrong about that. They were at sea so much, apart for long stretches at times, and when they were running a scam, more often than not she’d at least hint at the promise of a quick tumble, just to get the mark onside. But a Remorian…“Can we hear what they’re saying?”

“I, er—are you sure you want to?”

Van Gast glared at him and Guld did something complicated with his hands. The sphere swirled in front of Van Gast’s eyes till he had to look away, and then came the voice, faint and kind of blurred, but it was Josie’s voice.

“…out of the scam, then you take him to your cells and I’m free. In the meantime, we can enjoy ourselves…”

The grainy ghost of Josie leaned forward and kissed Holden, soft and slow.

Van Gast’s stomach rolled over and he had to fight the urge to be sick. “Shut it off.”

“There’s more…”

“Shut it off!” Van Gast stood up and went to the desk, poured himself a generous tot of brandy and swigged it like it was the cheapest grog. “She’s just setting him up for the scam, that’s all. Same way she always does when it’s a counter-scam. Makes them think they’re going to get a piece of her, going to twist me, only it’s us twisting them.” Only she didn’t always set them up like this, or not that he knew of. Of course, for her this man was different, might expect more from her.

“Van, I don’t think—”

“I don’t pay you to fucking think!” Van Gast threw his glass against the wall with all the force he could muster and ran his hands through his hair. “She’s setting him up. Same as she always does. That’s all.” That was all, except for this damn burn behind his breastbone and the thought of her with Holden, that it might be more this time. Might be more, or she might be in worse trouble, getting twisted by Holden because she was blind to see.

“If you say so, only Josie’s—”

“Josie again, eh? Knew you was up to something.” A new voice. Dillet, quiet and sneaky by the door that Van Gast had been too busy to notice open. “Told you, Van, told you we ain’t going nowhere near a twist on them Remorians.” His hand was on the butt of his pistol as he stepped back through the door and onto the deck, his voice getting louder all the while. “Told you, we ain’t doing it and you can swim to Tarana.”

Van Gast pulled his sword and stepped out onto the sunburned humidity of the deck. The heat dragged sweat out of him, stuck his shirt to his back, the fair wind snapping at the sails doing little to alleviate it. He dragged a sleeve across his face to wipe away the sweat there and Dillet did the same.

Dillet pulled his pistol out, but it was only a one-shot deal and he wasn’t the best aim there was. Van Gast raised his sword and walked toward him at the ready. He could beat Dillet if one of his arms fell off and he was struck blind.

“We’re going where I say we’re going, and that’s Tarana. Got a meet there, and a deal.”

“With that Josie bitch? No, Van, we ain’t. You take one step closer and I’ll shoot you.”

Four crew-hands appeared behind Dillet, all with pistols drawn.

Fuck it, fuck the lot of them. He lunged forward and slashed his sword along Dillet’s arm. Dillet managed to squeeze off his shot before he dropped it but it went wild. Van Gast didn’t wait to see if it hit him but brought an elbow round into Dillet’s face and lashed out with the sword again, at the hand behind him, drew blood and a scream and another pistol on the deck.

Then they were on him, and he was grinning with the stupidity of it, the thrill as he kicked and slashed and elbowed. He took a cut to his arm but barely noticed.

“Van look ou—” Guld’s voice, shrill and panicky.

Something smacked into the back of his head and the last thing he saw was the deck rushing up to greet him.

Chapter Eighteen

Two days later Holden hovered by the steps that led up to the quarterdeck. The wind was stiff enough to billow at his tunic, and the ship was scudding along fair. It wasn’t the ship that worried him, or whether they’d get to Tarana in time, but who lay in the captain’s quarters and whether she’d make it to port alive.

The hatch opened and Skrymir came out, his face pale and drawn with worry. He saw Holden watching, stopped dead and looked around to see who was about, more likely to see if Cattan could see them, but the mage wasn’t on deck. His magic had begun to grow back and being on deck was a risk to it, so he mostly kept below.

Skrymir stalked toward Holden, his usually amiable face drawn into a glare, and stopped a pace away, arms folded and legs planted like cannons. The disgust was plain to see. Holden had to fight the urge to look away.

“Closest I got to kin this far from home,” Skrymir said at last. “And you’re killing her, you and your mage, and I helped you do it.”

Holden’s mouth was helpless to speak, he could only stare. Skrymir pulled a knife from a sheath at his hip, reached up into his hair and with one deliberate stroke, cut off his braid. “You’ve taken my honor from me. I’d break my oath, cut off my braid, my family, my honor and go to the Deep rather than be oathed to a man who would do that and think it ‘right’ and ‘necessary.’ You said to me it wouldn’t kill her, that you’d see her right, and that’s the only reason I went along, that and I’m oathed to you. I told her you were a fair man to be oathed to. I thought you were a man of honor, that you would do what was right. I was wrong, I see that now. Without that chain about your wrist, you’re nothing, and I’m not oathed to you anymore. I’ve broken it, and given my word to her instead.”

He held out his braid, blue on white, the colors of his house, and pressed it into Holden’s hand. He’d cast himself out of his people.

Without a backward glance, Skrymir wrenched open the door to below and slammed it shut behind him.

Holden stared at the braid for a long time and recalled a time when Skrymir had told him what that meant. To break an oath was a choice, one that would cast him from everything he held dear, all that made him a man in the eyes of his people. A choice that the bond never gave. Holden had thought that his Master was the benevolent one, to welcome him back when he’d failed, that the Gan were the barbarians. He’d been wrong too.

He moved over to the door to the captain’s quarters, to a small pane of glass set into the surround. Josie lay on the rumpled, filthy bed dressed only in a shirt, her leg black with poisonous lines than were more than halfway from her knee to her hip.

With a glance around him to make sure no one was watching, he slid into the cabin. The air reeked of illness and decay. Josie lay still on the bed, curled around herself, her skin pale where it wasn’t black from poison.

“Josie?” He stepped forward, wanting to reach out, reassure her.

She said something in a language he didn’t understand, all throat sounds and brutality. All he caught was “Skrymir.” Their language then, spoken while the big Gan took what care he could of her.

A tingle in his wrist, the threat of pain made him turn. Cattan, his skin glittering in the morning sun. “Holden, attend to your duties. Now.”

His feet turned of their own accord and made for the stairs to the quarterdeck. He gripped onto the rail, tried to stop his steps, but the grinding pain thwarted him. When he looked at his wrist, a black line had begun to snake its way toward his elbow. There was no fighting it, not for him. He looked again at the braid in his hand. A man’s honor.

He’d failed her, failed them all, and all he could do now was to catch Van Gast and hope that Josie would live long enough to get the bond off her.

Van Gast cracked open a bleary eye against a blinding pain and a searing sun. He didn’t recall falling asleep on deck and, besides, the ship was rocking far too much. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes in the vain hope that would push the pain back and sat up with a groan. When he blinked his eyes open again, everything swirled around him. Blue sky with a furnace of a sun nailed to the center. Darker sea slapping against wood, the rhythm all wrong. A vague face, round and nervous. He squinted at it, and it swam into focus. Guld.

The true-mage sat in the stern of the longboat, swallowing rapidly, his skin pasty and sweating. He looked as if he were about to be sick, but he had the tiller under his arm. They were in the little dinghy, and Guld had managed to raise the small mast kept inside, but the sails and rigging had defeated him. They lay in a tangle of knots around his feet.

Van Gast shut his eyes again. Fucking Dillet, the little bastard had always had his eye on the ship. Van Gast should have been more careful—he was more careful usually, but this twist had got his head all spun round. He didn’t want to think about that right now, or what Guld had seen in his spell. First things first.

“Any idea where we are, Guld? How long we’ve been on this dinghy?”

“Since midmorning.”

Van Gast shaded his eyes and gauged the sun. Not much past midday. He reached down into the bottom of the boat and began the laborious task of unknotting the sail and ropes that Guld seemed to have knitted together. A task which would be a lot easier if his head didn’t ache so much or the knots didn’t keep swimming in and out of focus.

“Why did they put you in here with me?”

“Um, well, I said maybe they shouldn’t do that to you. I mean…well, anyway. They tied my hands and mouth, so I couldn’t even cast a spell. Not too tight, though, I managed to get them undone after a time. Managed to get a quiet spell off before they tied me too.” Guld grinned shyly and ducked his head.

“What did you do?”

“They’ll be going round in circles for a while. Maybe then they’ll realize what they’ve done.”

Van Gast laughed, glad to be distracted. “Good man, Guld. Good man. So did they give us any supplies?”

“Enough water for two days, same with the food. They let you keep your sword, knives and pistol too, and they gave me a gold shark ‘for my trouble.’ That’s it.”

Van Gast squinted up at the sun again and across to the horizon. “At least half a day, probably more in this thing, till we get to land, if I’m figuring it right. Then it’s at least three days’ sail to Tarana, in a ship. It’ll take more than a week in this shitheap. And we don’t have a week, or enough money to buy a passage.”

“You still want to go to Tarana?” Guld hunched over the tiller as though he was afraid of Van Gast’s reaction. “I mean, after what we saw…”

Van Gast stared down at the knot in his hand. “I have to. I said I’d trust her, and I do, Guld, fool that I am. Never trust a woman or a rack, and a woman rack doubly so, isn’t that what they say? Then I’m a fool thrice cursed. Setting him up, that’s what we saw. Just setting him up. You said it was days old. She often does it, makes them think they’re getting more than they will.” At least, he hoped that’s what it was. “Just a game, part of the twist.”

It was obvious Guld didn’t believe it from the way he wouldn’t meet Van Gast’s eye. “So how are we going to get there in time?”

Van Gast looked at the horizon to the east. A faint smudge of something there, a sliver of brown, a haze. “First you’re going to use a bit of magic to make this shitheap go as quick as we can to land, find a port. Then, my dear Guld, we are going to steal ourselves a ship. I may not be much good at planning a twist, but I can steal like a god.”

By the time they sailed into the village harbor and tied the dinghy up between two fishing smacks, it was long gone sunset. Nice and dark, all the better for stealing. Guld was whey-faced and weary from using his magic for so long to call up a good wind, and he stumbled getting out of the dinghy. Van Gast’s head had cleared by now, at least enough that he could keep his footing properly as he slipped along the jetty looking for a likely ship, but Guld tripped on a rope and fell into a pile of creels. The noise brought a glorified watchman who called himself harbormaster and a pair of brawny-looking lads carrying a long fishhook apiece.

Van Gast swore under his breath as the harbormaster disentangled Guld, picked him by the scruff of the neck and stood him on the jetty under a lamp.

“True-mage,” he said and clapped a meaty hand over Guld’s mouth just as he began a spell. “You can tell by the stains on their fingers. Bloody racks about. You two, look lively. You bind this ’un and you there, get the rest of the lads if you want to have boats to fish in tomorrow.”

This time Guld wasn’t bound lightly. A length of cloth cut into his fleshy cheeks and turned them a dark, disturbing red while his hands were all but covered in rope and knots.

“Fucking mages,” Van Gast muttered. “Only good for one thing, and that’s getting themselves killed.” He slipped behind the harbormaster as he marched Guld off to a small shack on the shore, shoved him inside and spent some time playing with a lock before he got it shut. One fisherlad stood beside him with his fishhook ready, but looking in all the wrong places.

The other lad was off running along the shorefront street, knocking on doors and calling up to windows before he headed to the small inn at the end. Not much time before the whole place was overrun with pissed-off fishermen.

Luckily the jetty was a mix of wavering shadows, pools of light and darker patches where a man could move unseen, if he were careful not to be heard. Van Gast slid through them, his feet soft and careful, his pistol out and sword drawn in his off hand.

The fisherlad was cannier than he looked—he swung round as Van Gast stepped up behind him and the blow from the hilt of Van Gast’s sword meant for the back of his head landed across his cheek and only knocked him back rather than knocked him out. The fishhook whipped across where Van Gast’s stomach had been a heartbeat before and the harbormaster turned from the lock.

The pistol shoved into his face stopped the harbormaster and gave the fisherlad pause, but not for long. He made the mistake of going for the gun and forgot about the sword, or maybe thought Van Gast wasn’t as good with his off hand. He forgot about feet too, and a crunching boot to his knee followed by the point of the sword as he fell took care of him.

“Open up, if you please,” Van Gast whispered to the harbormaster. Shouts reverberated along the street. The shack hid them from the fishermen for now but it would be only moments, and Van Gast’s heart thudded in painful, glorious anticipation. “Quick, if you like your nose where it is.”

The harbormaster fumbled the key but got the lock open quick when Van Gast jabbed the barrel of the pistol farther into his flesh. The door swung open and Guld stumbled out. A swift kick up the arse and the two villagers were in the shack. Van Gast slit the ropes and gag on Guld. He’d had an idea.

“You up for a spell?”

Guld gasped and rubbed at his cheeks but nodded.

“Good. This one.” He leaned down and grabbed the harbormaster. “Send him off, down the jetty. Make him scream good. You can do that?”

“Um, yes, I think so.”

“Don’t think, Guld, do.”

Guld bobbed his head and muttered the words to a spell as Van Gast used the ropes to tie the lad and then locked the door shut.

A bloodcurdling yell made Van Gast bite back a cry of sympathy and he leaned against the shack while his heart steadied. The harbormaster ran screaming down the jetty as though every malevolent spirit in the world was chasing him, his bare feet slapping on the wood. He didn’t stop for the end of the jetty but kept running right over, landing with a splash and another scream.

Van Gast didn’t stop either, to see what the villagers were doing. He grabbed Guld’s elbow and dragged him into the darkness between two smacks where they could watch without fear of anyone coming up behind. They slid into the water and kept a lookout, Van Gast holding his pistol above his head in a vain hope of keeping the powder dry.

Villagers swarmed across the jetty and wharf. A gaggle of them ran after the harbormaster. A few more dithered near the shoreline, unsettled by his screams and looking fearfully around them, brandishing a mish-mash of weapons—fishhooks, spears, the occasional sword. At least half had pistols too. A few of the bolder began to search, including a man with forearms like masts wielding a blacksmith’s hammer who came straight at Van Gast and Guld.

“Hope you can swim,” Van Gast whispered and kicked into a slow, quiet backstroke, pulling Guld with him. His other hand kept the pistol above the water as far as he could. Never know when you might need it.

He scissored his legs under the water, trying to keep the splashing to a minimum and rounded the smack to their left, keeping it between them and the searchers. Treading water, they hung on to the fenders on the smack, their heads only just above water. Lamps moved up and down the jetty, onto and off boats, hung over the side to blind Van Gast, but they kept to their hidey hole and soon enough most of the fishermen went back to their houses, muttering and complaining about being dragged out for nothing—no rack ships in harbor or waiting outside, no racks waiting with cutlasses between their teeth to pillage and loot, like the stories said. Van Gast got the impression many of them were disappointed.

They left a goodly contingent behind though, just in case.

“If we try this again,” Van Gast whispered, “you reckon you can walk without falling over?”

“Yes, Van.” It was too dark to see Guld’s blush but it was evident in his voice, along with a deadly exhaustion. His magic was powered by his own strength, by the energy in his blood, and it was running dangerously low.

“Good, because I’m getting fucking cold and I’ve almost frozen to death once too often over the last few days. Right, see that ship over there? The two-master? That’s the one. Fastest ship in this harbor, see, you can tell by the lines, and she’s near enough pointed the right way. You, young Guld, are going to make it even faster. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, Van.”

“Good, because you’re fucking this up something awful. Come on, follow me and try not to drown. If you do drown, try and do it quietly, all right?”

They swam, round the patches of light that swung randomly over the water, and on toward the ship Van Gast had pointed out. Not big, but it had a sleek look to it that made him hope it’d be fast enough. Be a job and a half to sail with only two of them, and one of them not a sailor, but you had to take your chances. The boring thing would be to wait for daybreak and try and pay someone to take them. That would be no fun, and probably useless anyway because they didn’t have anywhere near enough money. No, this was the way. If you’re going to do it…

He pulled himself up and over, dripping onto the deck, leaned back and helped Guld. The pistol had got damp, but he couldn’t help that. With luck they’d not need it now.

“Now what?” Guld asked.

Van Gast looked around as best he could in the dim light from the lamps along the jetty. Wouldn’t take too much to get her ready. She wasn’t a big ship and he could manage one sail all right on his own—the second if he got it tied right for the wind—but swinging about would be a pig with Guld being so hopeless with a rope or sail.

“Two things from you. One, once she’s untied, I need a nice big distraction while I get her round pointed toward the entrance to the harbor. Then I need a bloody big wind, preferably also heading toward the entrance to the harbor.”

Van Gast ran off without waiting for a reply and set about getting the ship ready. He kept low—there wasn’t much light but you never knew when some eagle-eyed lookout was going to prove his worth. He crept along the rail and used his knife to hack the ropes and then they were gently sliding away from the jetty on the tide. He grabbed Guld’s arm, pulled him up from where he hunkered below the rail and got them up on the quarterdeck.

“Ready?”

“Um, well—”

A shout went up from astern and a shot whizzed over their head. Another soon followed and embedded itself in the main mast.

“Now would be good.”

Guld muttered under his breath and winced as another shot went overhead, missing him by a finger’s breadth. The smack of metal into wood, of splinters flying in his face, jolted him in his words and a flare of magic shot out backward, barely missing the rail and skipping over the water toward the watchers.

“What the fuck was—”

Magic bloomed silently along the jetty, a flare of bright white and scintillating green, blood-red and the black of the Deep, all spiraling inward and outward and every damn way till Van Gast felt seasick for the first time in his life. After the light came a great wash of air and heat, filling the sails and driving them toward the harbor wall.

Van Gast leaped up and grabbed at the wheel. The watchers were scattered, or dead, and no shots rang out when his head rose above the rail.

“Toward the sodding entrance I said!” Van Gast struggled with the wheel and only barely got it to turn the right way. He chanced a look at Guld and the mage was a crumpled heap on the deck. So much for magic and a steady wind.

It took all the strength left in his arms to get the ship through the harbor entrance and not end up on the rocks that lined the wall. Then they were free and clear, he was captain of a ship even if it did stink of fish, and they were three days from Tarana.

Chapter Nineteen

Three days later, Holden had his crew tie Josie’s ship up in Tarana at sunset. He’d barely seen Josie the whole time, and when he had she’d looked like the walking dead, and not a thing he could do about it. Only what he was ordered, in the vain hope it would be in time. Sleep was hard to come by, and what little he got was tormented by the blue-black lines snaking along her skin, the dead blankness of her eyes.

Cattan came on the deck, carefully. His magic was beginning to form again, a thin sparkling crust over his skin. Josie staggered after him, the limp so bad now she could barely walk and Skrymir had to help her. Her clothes hung off her in copious folds, and the purple-black lines were visible, peeking above the waistband of her breeches through the thin shirt. Skrymir’s face was like a storm at sea as he glared first at Cattan and then Holden. His fault, that glare said, his fault that she was like this, and soft-hearted Skrymir didn’t like it, or him, one bit.

Neither did Holden, but there was little he could do. Little, but something. He’d made sure the healer had sent plenty of his numbing balm, made sure the boy was all right, that Cattan hadn’t bonded him. He’d done everything he could, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t anywhere near enough.

Still, Holden could think of no way to help her that his bond would allow, to help them both, except go through with this, catch Van Gast so he could take the bond off her. If Cattan and the Master would still allow it. If she wasn’t so far gone that the pain of taking it off would kill her. Holden tried not to think of that possibility. Catching Van Gast was the thing and here they were at Tarana a day ahead of plan. Not long now. He willed Josie to hold on, just for long enough.

Cattan stepped down the gangplank and gestured, a word jerking Holden and Josie after him like puppets on strings. Skrymir helped Josie onto the jetty while Cattan looked round with a disapproving frown. “So, Josie, where to? We’ve a day’s start before we meet with Van Gast. I want to make sure of the meeting place, and make sure he can’t escape our net.”

The word was pulled out of her through clenched teeth. “Moorain’s.”

“Very good, my pet, very good. Now lead the way, Josie. Holden, help her.”

She sagged against him, a feverish heat from her dampening his shirt. Holden held her with an arm around her waist. “Stop fighting,” he whispered, advice the only help he had for her. “You’ll die before we even get to meet Van Gast else.”

Those purple-black lines, that was the source of the heat. All up her leg, just passing her hips, they burned into him. Snaking their way toward her heart. And now Cattan had taken the bond over, Holden had no way to stop it until the bond was fulfilled. Bonded unwilling. A worse fate than hanging, the worst punishment the Archipelago could bestow. He’d heard it said in whispers, but not believed it until now. If the bond killed you, it didn’t stop at your death. Some said that was where the Master got his more formidable power, but they didn’t say it loudly.

“Please, Josie. Accept it.”

“No. And why do you care?” Her voice had lost all vibrancy, all essence of her except that one little spark of fight left.

She led them forward, down a dank alley where rats skittered from their steps and drunks slept off hangovers in doorways. Cattan came behind them with Skrymir and a half dozen men. The path led them past brothels and inns spilling out their customers and sucking in new ones. Past stinking fishmongers and tanners until the street opened out into a square Holden had never known existed, despite that fact he’d been to Tarana on many occasions.

Every building was an inn, some little more than stalls where their customers drank at a rough plank over two barrels. At the other end of the square, real inns towered over the cobbles, leaning in toward each other as though huddling together for warmth. Josie led them across the square to one of the larger buildings, grey with age, Moorain’s spelled out in crooked letters across the front.

People moved sluggishly out of their way, one or two wrinkling their noses and muttering under their breath about Remorians. This port was close enough to Holden’s home, made enough trade with Remorians that they didn’t mutter too much. The door to Moorain’s hung haphazardly from one hinge, all the paint long since worn off. The slurred insults of a drunken brawl floated out to them.

“Nice place,” Holden muttered under his breath.

“They don’t ask questions,” Josie said.

Cattan murmured some order and the crewmen disappeared into the crowd one by one, leaving only Skrymir behind.

“And you,” Cattan said. “Go on.”

Skrymir folded his considerable arms and planted his feet. “I’m not bonded nor oathed to you. I’ll do what Commander Holden tells me and nothing else.” He glared at Holden as though daring him to say that was no longer true.

“And I tell Holden what to do, so let’s just cut the middleman, shall we, and you can bugger off and do as you’re told.”

Skrymir lifted one shoulder and stared down at Josie, his eyes confused and helpless. “I’m coming with you lot, and you ain’t got enough magic yet to be stopping me. Besides, much longer and you’ll need someone to carry her.”

Cattan’s lips pressed into a white line and a thin crystal flaked off his nose. Vapor oiled from the back of his neck and his eyes changed, became darker, blacker than the end of the world. Skrymir staggered back a step, then held firm. A smile crept over Cattan’s face, slowly, slowly, so as not to dislodge crystals. The vapor spread to his cheeks, sent out wafts of greenish steam that stung the eyes and choked the throat.

Skrymir’s hand fell to the hilt of his sword, though surely he couldn’t see through the tears that streamed his face. Josie’s soft voice brought them out of their impasse.

“Skrymir, Cattan needs someone inside the inn, in the bar. I’ll be fine with them for now. I promise.”

Cattan straightened with a smug look, almost crowed when Skrymir backed away, but he said no more and ushered Josie and Holden inside.

The taproom was dark as night, the few windows covered with grime and letting in nearly no light. The only relief to the gloom was a large lantern that hung over the bar, shining off the bald pate of the giant who stood behind it. What looked like half a tree, stripped of its branches and studded with square-headed nails the size of Holden’s fingers, stood propped next to him as he poured pints with the ease of long practice. The other patrons were lost in the gloom, only their voices betraying their presence. Occasionally a face would appear out of the fug, demand more beer and disappear again once satisfied. A perfect spot for what they had in mind.

Holden held on to Josie’s arm as they headed for the bar. The barman raised an eyebrow at Josie but said nothing when she asked for her usual room, only nodded.

The stairs were darker than the taproom, the treads worn smooth and slippery. Josie stumbled more than once but Holden kept her on her feet. She led them past a rubbish-strewn landing and the rhythmic grunting coming from a room to the side, and opened a door that looked like it was held together by spit and hope.

Into a room that would make a palace seem shabby. The walls were hung with black-and-purple velvet threaded through with gold, and Holden’s feet sank into a sumptuous rug of Dorston weave, picked out in the same colors. A brazier stood in the corner, lit and welcoming, driving away the chill damp of the evening mist that had just started to creep the streets. And the bed—the bed was huge, decked with silk and velvet and thick cushions. A bed you could lose yourself in.

Josie sagged into a stuffed chair by the fire and held her hands out to warm them, the shudders that ran through her almost tipping her from the seat. Cattan stalked round, checked behind wall-hangings and a tapestry that covered one wall. Apparently satisfied, he strode to the window, pulled back the thick curtains and peered out across the square.

“This will do nicely. Holden, have some of the crew in the rooms on this floor, make it look natural. No escape other than out that door or the window, so have some men in the square too. When will he be here, Josie?”

“Tomorrow, sunset.” Her voice was flat, devoid of any life or hope.

“Ah, Josie, what’s wrong? I thought this was what you wanted—Van Gast dead.”

She turned toward Cattan, her eyes full of dull hatred. “The boy, I’m doing this for the boy.”

“And your own sake too, don’t forget, though you’ve no say in the matter now.” Cattan perched on the arm of the chair. “The Master might even keep that agreement, even though it wasn’t what Holden was ordered to do, or not quite. They gave him too much leeway, you see. Not anymore. My orders will be followed to the letter, and the Master here to see it.”

The Master here to see it… Holden’s stomach clenched and rolled at the reminder, and he had to force down the urge to be sick. The Master, come to gloat at what he was doing, at his grand plan to get Van Gast, show the world that Remorians couldn’t be made fools of like that. Any little hope that Josie might live, that he might come out of this alive and in one piece, that there might be a way out of this mess, faded into nothing. The Master was coming and that meant no hope for any of them.

Van Gast watched the little procession march across the square, Josie limping and Holden with his arm round her in far too familiar a fashion. Just the scam, that’s all. No way Josie would—what was he thinking? She had once taken a Remorian as a lover, and nothing to stop her doing it again. She’d never promised him anything and he’d never asked her, or promised anything in return—faithfulness or loyalty or to not love another. Never asked her because she’d take a tumble, like they all did, and he’d not wanted to ask her for anything more than she gave him freely. Not wanted to drive her away. Idiot.

“Well?” he snapped at Guld, who stood next to him in the shadowed window of an inn across the way from Moorain’s. They had a good clear view of the room from here.

Guld gulped noisily. His hands trembled from the strain of getting the little ship here in time, of the constant magical winds. It’d been too much really, more than a mage should contemplate without a week to recover after.

Van Gast didn’t have a week. His little-magics felt like they were lifting him off the floor, worse when he looked at Josie. A burn in his chest, an itch in his head, a desperate craving to run—now, get the fuck out of here—that made rational thought impossible. Not yet, not without her. It was both of them, he knew that now even if Josie didn’t. Both in trouble up to their eyebrows and sinking, but he wasn’t about to stand here and let them both drown. Run the twist, get Josie and whatever it was she was after, get out. Good plan. He raised an eyebrow at Guld in question.

“Well, I can see it all right, but the curtains, you’ll need to make sure—”

“Of course I’ll make sure they’re drawn back, what do you think I am? A half-wit?”

“Oh, er, no. No, of course not. It’s just, that man with them. I think he’s their mage.”

“What?” Van Gast looked down again, where they’d stopped at the entrance to Moorain’s. He’d never seen a Remorian mage before. He didn’t know anyone who had. The Archipelago guarded them jealously, and all anyone knew was rumors and gossip, and what their own mages, such as Guld, told them. That every racketeer and merchantman mage was terrified of them was enough to know. “He just looks like a man. I thought he’d at least have two heads, the way you mages talk.”

Guld stared down into the square. “He’s not at full strength, I can tell that. I’ve felt them before and if this is Holden’s mage, he was very, very powerful. Maybe controlling that storm drained him?”

“Good, so we’ve an advantage then. Think you’ll be able to do it, if we need you to?”

Guld muttered under his breath, his face grey and ill-looking round the edges. “Um, I can try. But not at his full strength may mean he’s still as strong as I am when I’m rested, and gods damn, Van, I’m tired. Never been so tired.” His face split into a jaw-cracking yawn and his eyelids fluttered.

Van Gast shook him until they snapped back open. “Guld, I need to know. If it all goes tits up, I need to be sure you can get me out, and Josie too.”

Van Gast was fairly sure tits up was how it was going to go. It didn’t matter, because no matter how wrong it went, he was going to make sure they got what Josie was planning to steal and make sure she was safe. The stupid, exciting thing. If anyone could do it, it was him. He was Van Gast, wasn’t he? Safe and boring was for other people.

Guld stood up straighter and squared his narrow shoulders. “I’ll do my best, and yes, I can probably get you out. If you keep the curtains drawn back, or it might not be you who gets out. And if he’s caught unawares and if he’s weak and a whole boatload of other ifs.”

The stupid-but-exciting thing. Scamming Remorians, and if they lost, if the scam didn’t play out as planned, him and Josie bonded, slaves, good as dead. “Fuck it, we’re going to try.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Van Gast checked his weapons one last time. Everything was ready for the next part of Ten Ruby Trick. Captain of the ship and his mage ashore, in the room. Guld in their room nearby, ready to get him and Josie out if it all went wrong. Sword, pistol, knife in boot, knife hidden in shirt. All there, plus two more knives, one hidden in his belt and another on a contraption on his wrist, just in case.

He took out the fake ruby and flipped it up, caught it again. Ten Ruby Trick. Appeal to a man’s greed, make him think he’s getting one over on you, and while he’s too busy counting his future profits and gloating, rob him stupid. It had never failed yet. So why the burn, why the nagging, itching feeling that he didn’t know what he was getting himself into and if he did know, he’d regret knowing it? Enough. Trust her, she’s got more brains than you’ve got brass neck. She won’t let you down. She won’t.

The sun touched the horizon and Van Gast slipped out of a window away from the eyes of Moorain’s, pulled up onto the roof and steadied himself. The clay tiles were slippery and loose, but his tread was light and sure as he ran over the rooftops. Tiles were simple when you were used to a yardarm in ice and sleet and wind. It wasn’t long before he was above the window he was after. He checked on Guld and saw him standing at the window, his hand raised in acknowledgement. All set. Nothing for it now but to do it.

He slid down onto the sill, keeping hold of the eave with one hand while the other pushed open the window, slow and quiet. The murmur of voices wafted out on the breeze. Two men, Holden and his mage no doubt, and no doubt the mage would know he was there by now, at the window rather than the door, but if Josie had played her part right then they’d have no suspicions. Just a business meeting, a gathering before they stole enough rubies to see them right for life.

Van Gast dropped in through the window, aiming to land on his feet by the brazier. Only something hit him from the side, drove all the air from his lungs and his face into the rug. He lashed out, caught someone with a fist and flipped over. Holden landed on him again and thrust a knee into his chest in a whoosh of pain.

Van Gast punched again, had a clear target this time and connected with Holden’s nose. A spray of blood misted his face, blurred his vision, but with a violent heave and a labored gasp for breath, he got Holden off him and leaped to his feet. Before Holden could do anything else, could even try and defend himself, Van Gast twisted his wrist and the knife came into his hand.

Something heavy glanced off the side of his head, not hard enough to do any real damage. Van Gast reeled sideways away from it, onto the bed, only barely managing to turn so he could face his attacker. To be confronted by Josie, wielding a club. What the fuck—

“Again Josie,” a voice said behind him.

A grimace split her face, twisted it out of all recognition as she raised the club. It quivered in her hands for a moment, as though she debated whether or not to use it, her mouth shaping words that never came.

“Josie, again I said. Knock him out so I can bond him.”

She wouldn’t, gods no, Josie wouldn’t—The club whistled down and Van Gast twisted out of its path half a heartbeat before it hit the bed where his head had been. Betrayed, she’d betrayed him for that fucking Remorian. He couldn’t think for the cold twisting of his heart, the pounding in his head, the sharp agony of trying for breath when winded stabbing his chest but still not as bad a pain as this. Betrayed.

He lunged for the window with a shout of “Guld!” Immediately the air shimmered round him but the curtains were closed, Guld couldn’t see to aim. Van Gast grabbed for the curtains, meant to pull them from their rail, but at a snapped command from the voice, Holden barreled into him and smacked him into the wall. Just in time to get caught in Guld’s spell. The room spun out of existence, and the world was black as the depths of Van Gast’s betrayed heart.

Chapter Twenty

Holden was a mass of pain. Everything hurt, every bone, every muscle and sinew, throbbed with it. He was sure he’d passed out at some point, but he was in no hurry for consciousness, not if he had to bear the pain that thrummed along every nerve and beat in time with his heart. He kept his eyes shut and tried to work out what had happened. He’d had Van Gast pinned against the wall, finally managed to lay hands on the slippery bastard and then…and then what? Voices floated round him, but he didn’t pay them much attention.

Fingers probed at the skin on his wrist, delving into his bond-scars. No, no—Cattan couldn’t tighten it any more, it’d kill him. A moan escaped him at the thought and he tried to drag his arm away, but his body didn’t seem to want to respond. The hand tightened its grip.

“Can you do it?” The voice was Van Gast’s, harsh with hate.

“No, um, that’s the whole point of a bond. Only the person who put it on can take it off. If I try, it’ll probably kill him.” This voice was gentler, nervous.

“A plan with no downside then. If he dies, then we can just leave the body and they can track us to here, where we won’t be. No loss. I still say we should kill the bastard anyway.”

“But—”

“Who’s captain here, me or you?”

“Well, you, of course,” said the gentler voice. “But—”

“Look, Josie’s betrayed me—us—for this—this fucker. I don’t care if you can get it off or not. I changed my mind. I want him dead, so get out of my way and let me kill him before he comes round and tries to kill us.”

“He might be able to help us, though. Get away from that mage, he knows how they work. Because if Josie has betrayed you, um, us, then she’ll be after us, won’t she? And she knows all your hiding places, every place we might run. They want to bond you, Van. And the Remorians don’t stop when they know what they want. Not ever. There won’t be a man alive who’d sail on your ship once he finds that out.”

“I haven’t got a ship, or nothing decent, in case you’d not noticed, thanks to fucker here. And if we kill him, we’ll—”

“Van, you’re in no fit state for anything, let alone thinking clearly. She betrayed you for him. And now you have him. You can’t think of any way to use that? He knows their plan, whatever it is, and we need to know it too if we hope to avoid it, and we need to know it quickly, without them tracking his bond. If we can get it off, we can make him help us, and we’ve got a chance of escaping, maybe find a way to stop them coming after you any more. But not while he’s bonded.”

Holden was beginning to like the gentler voice, whoever it was. It was keeping him alive. He cracked open an eyelid. Van Gast stood over him, sword in hand, flecks of blood staining his chin and shirt. His breathing was erratic and a look of flat, dead hatred burned in him. A smaller man stood next to him, podgy and nervous, as though he couldn’t quite believe that he had the courage to say what he did.

Van Gast paced up and down, glaring at the nervous man before he threw the sword against the wall hard enough that sparks flew when it hit a picture frame. He stalked over to a window and stared out into the night.

“How do we get the bond off then? You said it couldn’t be done.”

“Well, um, there could be one thing we could try, not taking the bond off, but removing what it’s bonded to. I heard of one man who did it, and it worked. And it could help us throw them off the scent.”

“Is it quick? Because we need to get out of here as soon as we can, with him or not.”

“Get your sword and bring it over here.”

Holden struggled to open his eyes fully, to sit up, anything. What were they going to do to him? Taking the bond off would kill him, everyone knew that. His heart pounded painfully as he tried to speak, but his mouth was puffed and swollen and his tongue couldn’t form the words, welded to the top of his mouth in dread.

The bond was all he knew, like it or loathe it, he knew nothing of living without it. It was everything, no matter his dreams. Even in those he was loosely bound, not entirely free. Now it looked like he might get his wish, and the thought of release from its confines, of never knowing what to do except what you wanted, was more terrifying than whatever they wanted to do to him.

“I’ll hold him, you cut.” The hand grabbed at Holden’s wrist again and pulled his arm out straight. “There.”

“My pleasure.” Van Gast advanced toward him, a nasty little smile twitching at his face. He raised the sword.

“No, please no,” Holden managed to murmur but try as he might, he couldn’t summon the strength in his limbs to move.

Van Gast stared at him, his lip curled into a grinning sneer. “Who cares what you want? You should be thanking me.”

He brought the blade down, and Holden’s only clear thought was that even the bonding hadn’t hurt as much as this. Nothing had hurt like this in the history of the world. Then he screamed until he couldn’t scream any more.

Van Gast sneered down at Holden where he sat propped against the wall, soaked in his own blood. At least he’d stopped screaming, and Guld had cauterized the arm with one of his spells. He’d live. Van Gast crouched down in front of him. Fucker. Josie had betrayed him with this? He spat onto the floor and tried not to breathe too hard for the bruising of his ribs.

Holden stared at the stump where his hand had been and muscles flexed along his arm, as though he was trying to move fingers that were no longer there. His eyes were wide and white and he hadn’t blinked in what seemed like forever. Van Gast poked him in the chest with the barrel of his pistol. No reaction.

Van Gast didn’t have time for this. He had them holed up in a shitty little tavern up the shore from the docks. They were looking for him, Remorians, looking to bond him, and that filled him with dread. Worse than dying. That Josie was helping them just…he couldn’t think about it, or he’d start laying about with his sword and kill everyone in sight. His beautiful, twisting, butterfly Josie had betrayed him for this pathetic excuse for a man, one who did only what he was told. A slave, a willing, brain-dead slave with no will or desire or mind of his own.

All Van Gast had was one nervous and exhausted mage, the weapons he had on him, a Remorian man who he’d rather was dead, a burning need to kill someone, anyone, and a pack of Remorian hounds on his tail. That was the only reason Holden was still alive, that Van Gast hadn’t let himself go and stabbed the bastard through the heart. He was a wanted man, and Holden knew why, and where and maybe how they planned to get him.

Because Van Gast wasn’t going to do the sensible thing and run the fuck away. He couldn’t run far enough, or fast enough. If they were after him, they’d get him in the end. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when. So fuck it, he was going to do the stupid thing.

He poked the pistol into Holden’s chest again, harder this time. “Hey, you, look at me.”

Holden’s head lolled round and he looked blankly at Van Gast.

“Why do they want me?”

Holden grinned, a dreadful, sickening stretch of the lips, and Van Gast had to wonder if the loss of his hand had sent the man mad, or maybe it was the loss of the bond. Holden chuckled, shook his head and looked back down at the stump.

Van Gast poked him again. “Why? Come on, man, why do they want me? If they find us, it’s your skin too, because I’ll make damn well sure you die before I do. So, why are they after me, what do they want?”

Holden looked up at him and his eyes seemed to clear a little. “You cut it off me. Only the person who put the bond on can take it off, or it kills. I’m dead already. You cut it off. Now what do I do?”

“You should be thanking me, because you’re a free man now. Do what you like, when you like. But first, you’re going to help me.”

“Free? Never free. Bond’s in the head, that’s where they get you. Right from the day you’re born. Tell you what to do, what to think. Bonded in the head.”

“I’ll fucking shoot you in the head unless you start talking. Why do they want me?”

Holden chuckled again and the sound sent icy little rivers of dread down Van Gast’s spine. “You made the Master angry, oh yes. Never seen him so angry, and you don’t want to do that. You made the Remorians look weak, and that’s bad, very bad. Wants to watch a bond kill you, wants to watch it eat away your heart and then your soul and when you’re dead you’ll still be bonded to him. Bonded unwilling, worst way to go. Worst way to go.”

Kyr’s mercy. Van Gast was speechless and Holden rambled on into the silence.

“Took a ship, few moons back. Had his new wife-to-be on board. You took her, you stole his wife, not Remorian, a trade deal with the Yelen. Not a good plan. Sea Witch, you remember it?”

The Sea Witch, hadn’t that been—oh gods, he had. He’d taken the ship and everything on board, sailed it out to some gods-forsaken islands and marooned everyone. After he’d stolen everything of value they had on them, obviously. He’d left them food and water, made sure the island had enough of everything to feed them, and left them there. Quite merciful as racketeers went, but he’d been in a good mood. He’d taken that diamond to Haban and—wait, that must have been who had chased him in Estovan. Remorians, not the Yelen, had been after him even then.

“Who?” he asked. “Whose new wife?”

“Master. The Master, Master of all, Master of mages, Master of everyone. We found them after a time, but it was no good. She’d been spoiled by then, one of the sailors, having his baby. You humiliated him, and he doesn’t take kindly to humiliation.”

The Master? Van Gast could only assume he meant the shadowy power that lurked behind the Archipelago, one few ever spoke of. No one outside knew who or what he was, only that to sail in their waters was worse than a death sentence, that he ruled the servitude of his subjects with a ruthless efficiency. And Van Gast had unwittingly deprived him of a new, virginal, un-pregnant wife.

Shit on a stick, he was in trouble. Josie’s betrayal sank into nothingness in comparison. Almost. But Remorians after him…

Van Gast tried to clear his head, but it was spinning with wisps of cloud and confusion and despite his first question, there was only one truth he wanted to know. “You and Josie, you, well, you and her…” He licked at dry lips. He couldn’t even bear to say it.

Holden seemed to guess his meaning. “Yes. She always did love me, she said. Cattan made her say it. She was helping me find you, catch you. The ruby trick thing was her idea, she thought you’d know what we were about otherwise. This way, we could get you close enough to Remorian waters, get you out quick, and you wouldn’t sniff a rat because you’d just think she was trying to twist you. You wouldn’t think she was turning you over to us.”

Trust me. And like a fool he had. Van Gast sank down to the floor. Trust me.

“She was going to help me find you, catch you, and then I was going to be free, or as free as a Remorian ever gets, and she’d be with me. Only Cattan, Cattan…” Holden trailed off for a moment and Van Gast was glad, because he wasn’t sure he could listen to any more without being sick or shooting someone. “Cattan got our bonds and he…he controls us. He twisted them so tight, so tight. Nothing to do but what he wants, can’t even think what he doesn’t want us to think, for the Master. And it’s killing her.”

Holden stared down at his stump and thrashed it on the floor till new blood sprang from the wound. “My fault. After she told me about the trick, I put the bond on her, and it’s killing her. I never thought she’d fight so hard. I thought I’d have time, and I would have, if you hadn’t brought me here.”

Shock, and a glimmer of hope, brought Van Gast’s voice back. “You bonded her? She only did this because you bonded her?”

“No, she agreed even before that, she suggested it. She hates you, true and true, do anything to get you. That’s why she did it, that and for her own life and the boy.”

Van Gast lurched to his feet and staggered to the window. He wasn’t going to show this bastard how much those words hurt him. That Josie had always loved this fucker. A tumble, that’s all he’d been, a fucking tumble. He leaned against the sill and let his head hang between his arms. He thought it’d been bad when Tilly had died, and him not there to help her. Death was common enough, too common for him to think it tragedy, though he grieved. He’d thought it bad when her family closed ranks against him, against the racketeer who’d taken their respectable daughter, and refused to let him know where she was buried, or what she might have said before she died, whether she’d asked for him, or even how she died. Anything that might have helped him, have given him a crumb of comfort. He’d thought that was bad, but it was nothing, a gnat’s bite compared to this gut-wound.

It was a long time before he stood up straight, anger burning a hole in him, so bright it should shine through his skin. Wallowing wouldn’t achieve anything, only gave them more time to find him. Take the anger and use it. There were racks aplenty in this town. He could round them up, get them to take her ship. Not a one would think anything of it. He hated her, didn’t he? And every rack feared Remorian. One hint they were here bond-ganging…her crew, her crew would be bonded too, no doubt. He could get it off them, save them from that, from the worst nightmare of any racketeer. He could kill a few Remorians while he was at it. Kill this Cattan and maybe ensure the Remorians stopped hunting him, because otherwise half a world away wasn’t far enough. “What will they do next?”

“Find you, depend upon it. You’ve got rid of my bond, and so they can’t use it to track me. That’ll slow them down but not by much. Cattan lost a lot of his power in the storm, washed away when we sprang a leak. Josie got most of the rest but it’s coming back. Every hour he’s stronger and even now he’s stronger than any of your mages. He’ll find you and bond you and then the Master can watch you squirm.”

Van Gast turned on him. “Are you enjoying this?”

Holden smiled and whacked his stump on the floor again. He hardly seemed to know he was doing it. “Honestly? Yes. They’ll catch you, then I can get that bond off her. Only I can take it from her, not even Cattan can do that and have her live. If it’s not too late. She’s weak, maybe too weak to withstand that. The longer she fights, the weaker she’ll be. Sooner they catch you the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

Van Gast cocked the pistol and aimed it at Holden’s head. The barrel made little figures of eight as his hand shook. Too much, it was all too much, he was stretched too far. “And maybe I should just shoot you now and have done with it. Give me a good reason I shouldn’t.”

“I don’t have one.” Holden looked up at him, his eyes clear now, steady, as though daring Van Gast to pull the trigger.

Fuck, he was tempted. Tempted to blow a hole through his stupid, treacherous head. Blow away the words and pretend they’d never been spoken, so he could pretend it wasn’t true, that she hadn’t done this. Laid with this fucker, told him she loved him. Told him, and never Van Gast. The end of the barrel swayed wildly and he brought up his other hand to hold it steady.

Only shooting him wouldn’t make it untrue, wouldn’t make things undone. And Van Gast had a good use for Holden. A very good use indeed. Not the sensible thing, the stupid thing. He couldn’t run, but he could kill. And he was in just the mood for it.

Chapter Twenty-One

Holden stared at what was left of his arm and barely even noticed when Van Gast left except that the room seemed less full, as though he’d taken up all the available space while he was there.

It wasn’t the loss of his hand that bothered him but the gap in him where the bond should be. His mind felt too big for his head, all the fears and uncertainties the bond had repressed expanding to fill him. He had nothing to hold on to. No certainty, no order, no pattern. Just loose, swirling thoughts in his head with no direction. He was free, and it stupefied rational thought for a time. Maybe for always.

Ilsa. Would Ilsa be all right? He’d lost his bond, would that change hers to him? He tried not to think of her terror, of her being alone and lost without it, that his freedom might be her downfall. Bad enough that he was the cause of Josie’s.

The mage hunkered down in front of him, out of reach, plump and nervous. His tatty robes dragged on the floor and swept the dirt into little piles. Guld, Van Gast had called him. “I should stop that bleeding. You’ve lost enough blood already.” He nodded at Holden’s stump.

Holden stared at it again, tried again to move fingers that were no longer there and only now noticed the blood that seeped from pink, scabby tissue. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But, um, well, you’re free now. That’s good.”

“Is it?” Holden had dreamed of it for long enough, but not this total freedom, not this fear. It wasn’t as it had been in his dreams. “I don’t know what to do, to think.”

“Anything you like, that’s the point.”

Holden couldn’t tear his eyes away from the part of him that was missing. “Anything I like.”

Life was too big to comprehend. That word, it could encompass universes. Anything. Anything. It repeated in his head, bounced around the inside in all its permutations. Anything. He could do anything, and all he could think of was to get back to the Master, get back the basic bond. Not too tight, just enough to hold him in check, to pull his thoughts into order and show him the patterns. Back to normality, to peace and stillness and knowing what the right thing was.

“You need to think bigger,” Guld said.

“Bigger? It’s already too large to hold in my head. Smaller, that’s what I need. Smaller.”

Guld smiled, soft and understanding, as though he’d been through just the same once. “Start with small things then. First let’s stop the bleeding. Then I think you should do what Van wants. Plenty of time after to figure it all out. Just concentrate on one thing at a time.”

Holden took a deep breath of the rancid air that leaked through the open window. It even smelled different, sharper than he remembered. “What’s Van Gast going to do?”

Guld muttered under his breath and Holden’s stump felt like it was on fire. The stench of seared flesh added itself to the general stink, and Holden gritted his teeth against the scream but the bleeding stopped.

“Good question. I don’t think even he knows. I suspect that some people will regret pissing him off, though. You included. Sorry about that.”

Van Gast left Guld with Holden, and orders to follow on quietly when the Remorian was able. He ran toward the docks, hiding in shadows, jumping half out of his skin at every movement. He had to see what they were up to, decide what he could tell the racks in the inns and whorehouses round about. See what he could use to rouse them. Maybe offer them the chance of a ship or two to rob blind before Cattan and Josie returned from the meeting. Only it had taken him too long, they’d be too late, and the Remorian mage would be back aboard Josie’s ship by now. Probably starting a search for Van Gast.

Forget Josie, what she’d done to him. His mind said that wasn’t important now, though his heart was screaming at him that of course it was important, more important even than avoiding getting bonded. He told his heart to shut the fuck up, and stopped listening. Get organized and then stop the Remorians hunting him, for good. He could deal with everything else later.

He slipped into a side alley as two men loped down the street. Even from where he hid, Van Gast could smell the Remorian stink on them. Looking for him already. The chances of him making it through this alive got slimmer with every passing minute. He slid along behind the Remorians in the shadows. It wasn’t long before he was at Booze Square.

It was a nightmare. Remorians were everywhere, in every inn, at every stall. Looking for him and not being gentle about it. Blood spotted the flagstones outside Moorain’s. The inn that he and Guld had hidden in earlier was empty, windows out and blood smeared up the walls. They weren’t only aiming for racks, either—two painted doxies ran screaming past him, one with a gash to her face that would put paid to her only source of income.

A group of Remorians came out of an inn, arms bloodied to the elbow, copper-bronze skin shining in the lamplight, their faces blank and purposeful. The muffled scream of someone begging to be spared the bond turned Van Gast’s stomach. The begging turned into a full-blown screech, bouncing round the square and picking up counterpoints and echoes from other inns, other men begging then screaming.

Brandick fell out of an inn not four doors away, dead eyes turned up to the stars that had always guided him, a crude, jagged slash across his throat and a broken sword in his hand. Even Brandick.

Van Gast took a shaking step back. He could do nothing here, nothing to help except to be bonded with them. He turned away from Brandick’s accusing face, the eyes full of death and recrimination, and ran back the way he’d come as fast as his reeling head would let him.

He stopped for breath in a fishmonger’s doorway, the stench suiting the rolling of his stomach. No help here, not now. He’d brought death everywhere. They’d come for him and taken them. He ran on in a shambling, hopeless lope. Bastards. Fucking bastards. He let the words repeat in his head, over and over in time to his steps. Fucking Josie. Bitch.

A thundering boom from ahead jarred him to a halt. Cannon, in the docks. He ducked into an alley as a huddle of Remorians hurried past. Cannon in the docks? When the street was empty again, he stumbled on.

Josie’s ship, another two alongside, stood lonely at the far end of the wharf. Tarana’s cannon, ones Van Gast had been sure were just for show because they’d never been fired in living memory, peppered shot at them and were answered by the ship closest.

Two Remorians stood guard by the end of the gangplank of Josie’s ship and the rest spread out along the wharf, boarding the merchantmen to soon-subdued protests. Van Gast slipped behind a little shack that housed the harbormaster’s staff during the day and from there slid back to where he was to meet Guld and Holden.

That fucker was going to pay for this—him, and Josie, and the mage. They were all going to pay. In blood.

Van Gast spat bitter fear-spit on the muddy road and pushed Holden forward. He’d had Holden put on his cloak and it lay draped over his stump, hiding it to all but anyone who got really close. Guld brought up the rear, and Van Gast could smell the terror on him. “Stay close,” he hissed. “And stay ready.”

Guld swallowed heavily, blinked at everything they passed as though he expected it to turn into a dragon, and hurried to catch up.

Almost back at the docks now, in that maze of higgledy-piggledy houses, inns, warehouses and brothels that crammed every available space, leaving only the narrowest of roads to follow. The damp, misty darkness enveloped Van Gast like a friend, kept them safe, or safer, from prying eyes. Guld tripped over a half-empty barrel of fish just on the turn and tried not to retch at the smell. “Are you sure about this, Van?”

“No, but I’m doing it anyway. You can bugger off if you like, see how far you get. I won’t hold it against you. But I swear I’m going to get these bastards. I won’t be bonded.”

“I, um, no, I’ll stick with you. Behind you is usually the safest place to be.”

Holden chuckled under his breath. “Kill them? You can’t kill them. The Master can’t die. He’s lived a thousand years, survived a thousand attempts on his life, because every bonded man would die rather than see him wounded, would die if he so much as wished it. Don’t you see? That’s what we’re for, because without the bonded to serve his every wish, all he can do is magic. All, what am I saying? His powers make Cattan’s seem pitiful, and he could squash you to dust without a second thought. And he’s on his way, his ship’s only a bell away, at most. Waiting for them to catch you. He’ll find you and then you’re shark bait, and that’s just to start with.”

“It isn’t him I’m going to kill. Unless the opportunity arises, perhaps, and they won’t need to find me, because we’re going to find them. Walk right in and say hello.”

Holden stopped dead and turned a pale face his way. “Walk right in? Are you mad?”

“Do you know, yes, I think I am a little.” Van Gast thought about it. “Maybe a lot right now. Walk right in, and make sure they won’t ever come after me again. And you’re going to help me.”

Something settled on Holden’s face, cleared the shock once and for all. His eyes tightened and his lips set in a stubborn line. “Why should I do that?”

“This Cattan, he fucked you over, yes? Took your bond and tightened it, made it so you couldn’t talk even without permission, you said. I had to cut half your arm off to get rid of it. You going to let him get away with that?” Van Gast forced a sickly grin. “Get away with Josie? Going to be a coward your whole life?”

Holden’s lip twitched and his words were forced through clenched teeth. “What do you mean?”

“I mean from everything you’ve told me, you’ve been a coward your whole useless fucking life. Let them run everything in your head, your life, your soul. You let them take it and you thanked them for it and asked for more. This is your chance. You help me kill Cattan, help me stop them chasing me, and I’ll let you take that bond off her.” Van Gast couldn’t even bring himself to say her name. “I might even let you both live after. Might. It’s all the chance you’ve got, because it’s that or I shoot you dead right here, right now, and I’d not even think twice about it.”

“I’m beginning to wish you would.”

“Don’t tempt me. I’ve given you the freedom to think for yourself, choose for yourself what you’re going to do for the first time in your miserable life. So, here you are, out in the free world with the rest of us fuckups. No one to make your choices for you, not even me with this gun in your back. Your choice to help me, or get a bullet in the head. Make your choice. Yours and yours alone. But with you or without you, I’m going on that ship and I’m killing every last Remorian bastard I can find. Yes, even her, if she’s still bonded when I find her. Maybe even if she’s not. Put them all out of their fucking misery.”

Holden took a step back, his eyes flicking back and forth as he thought, but not for too long. He stared down at the stump. “I always dreamed to be free, one day. Always, but the bond in your head…” He stood up straight, decision made, not that he really had much of a choice but maybe these things were best approached in baby steps. “You stay your hand on her. Stay your hand, and we’ve a deal.”

Van Gast hesitated. If he were honest, it was her, her betrayal, that had him all fired to kill. He wasn’t sure he could look her in the face. The thought of her and this, this—he had no words, no thoughts, nothing but a whirling mash of images in his brain, of her laughing, of her in his bed, of her kissing him. Of her saying Trust me. He couldn’t think of it, so he wouldn’t, and any word he gave to Holden would be a lie anyway. Odd, the man didn’t stink of Remorians anymore. “As long as I don’t have to see it, or her, you’ve a deal.”

Holden’s lips twitched in a smile. “I could get to like this. And straight in isn’t the best way. What we need is Skrymir.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Holden lurked in the mist, shadowed by the tumbledown wall of an old tannery. Josie’s ship, like the other two ships crewed by Remorians masquerading as racketeers, was seemingly empty of crew. All off looking for Van Gast, scouring street and inn and brothel and not taking no for an answer. Cattan, and the Master once he arrived, would be aboard, using their magic and their will to guide the crew. Not looking close by. He hoped.

The faint strains of screams wafted along the mist, muffled, indistinct, but evidence of the thoroughness of the search. Holden tried not to think about what his men were doing, what, until a few hours or so ago, he’d have been ordering them to do whether he liked it or not. The emptiness, the sense of the world being a vast place of nothing with him a dot in it, of the walls of his existence falling into rubble, began to fade. He had choices now. Good ones, bad ones, but his. His mind still shuddered from the implications, but he could see a glimmer of light. He was drunk with blood loss and a sense of freedom he never thought his.

So, ship almost empty. Almost, but Skrymir would be there. Nothing would induce him to break that, to break his new oath to Josie. Holden marveled that Skrymir chose it, chose the oath, chose to follow it or not according to what his heart told him.

He shook himself. No time for this, no time for marvels. He had to get that bond off Josie before it killed her. There might still be time. Two crewmen stood at the end of the gangplank, blank-faced and implacable. Ignoring Van Gast’s whispered threat behind him, Holden adjusted the cloak to hide his lack of a left hand, and strode toward them.

They straightened as he approached, the one on the left giving way to a look of frank astonishment. “Commander?”

“Get Skrymir, quick, and as many men as you can muster. You, stay with me and take your orders.”

The left-hand guard ran up the plank quick smart, and Holden turned to the other.

“We heard you was taken, Commander.”

“You heard correctly, though they didn’t bother with me for long. Van Gast is injured, and I know roughly where he’s hiding. He can’t get far like that. Badly concussed, broken ribs maybe, and who knows what else. He won’t run, he’s got nowhere to run to and his mage is pathetic, even if he weren’t exhausted. Won’t be long before we find them.” Even to lie like that was an extraordinary thing, a zing in his blood for the audacity of it.

Skrymir trotted down the plank, half a dozen ratings behind him. He looked Holden up and down with barely hidden disgust. Holden didn’t blame him. Now the freedom was rushing through him like the finest wine, he knew just why the Gan hated what he’d done so much.

“Skrymir, you stay with me. The rest, I last saw him on the east side, tatty little place called the Rat’s Castle. He can’t run far, he’s injured and no one will help him, not against us, not against the threat of a bond. Get him and bring him. The Master will reward whoever takes him first, reward him very well, as long as he’s alive to be bonded. Go!”

The two lead ratings nodded and led them out, across the refuse of the docks and up into the warren of streets on the east side. Van Gast had assured Holden that anyone asked would give directions to the Castle—an inn that didn’t exist, an old trick he said, one that the racketeers paid well for, for protection.

Skrymir watched them go and then turned his implacable gaze on Holden. “She’s dying.”

“I know, and I’ve come to take it off her, if she’s still strong enough.” He let the cloak fall, just enough to show the stump. “I’m not bonded anymore, not Cattan’s slave. I need to get to her, quick and quiet, take the bond off and get out. Help me and you can keep your oath to her after all.”

Skrymir nodded slowly. “Yes, I’ll help. Breaking an oath, it’s a terrible thing for a man’s soul. Only a Gan man, he has one oath above all, to his king and their kin. That braid of hers—she’s Jornn’s house, king’s house. I’d rather break no oath, but if it came to it, it’s the first I’d keep. Even if not…she’s, well, she’s a woman. You don’t treat women like that. It’s the law.” A choice, even for the hidebound Gan.

Holden wanted to laugh with the joy of it, half-mad with desire to do whatever he felt like with nothing to stop him. “You won’t need to. Get us in, get us on board and let me take the bond off. Then we’ll see about Cattan. I’ve a score to settle with him.”

“Us?”

Holden beckoned to the racketeers. Van Gast slipped through the fog like a shadow, and they only knew he was there when his dark, angry eyes and false grin appeared before them. Guld tried to copy him, but the gulping and nervous “um” gave him away long before he reached them.

“Let’s get on board quick,” Van Gast said, and he set off at a light, loping run. By the time Holden was on board, he’d disappeared.

Van Gast wasn’t sure where he was going, or what he was going to do when he got there. He only knew that he was angry enough, hurt enough, to kill everyone here. Remorian stink was everywhere, sticking in his nose and making him sneeze and cough. He would save the captain’s quarters to last, savor it and hate it. With any luck, he’d not have to face her. He never wanted to see her, think about her ever again, and yet it was all he could think about.

Kill the mage, make sure they wouldn’t come after him again, fill his mind with that less painful thought. Make it so that any chase would be too costly in men, in mages, in defeat. First make sure any crew aboard were good and dead, then sneak up on the mage and kill him. Even a mage couldn’t do much against a pistol shot from behind. Or—and now here was a pleasant thought—the whole fucking ship going up like a firework. Now that was a plan.

He leaped down the steps and headed aft, down another set of steps to the brig. Some of her crew would be around—he’d seen them in Sarigin—but he doubted they’d have free rein. They could be useful allies, if they weren’t bound. If they were, he’d give them the choice he’d failed to give Holden. Arm or life.

Only a few lamps were lit and it was dim down there. Van Gast made his careful, soft way along, using the faint light and his knowledge of the ship to guide him. Vague shapes moved around behind the bars of the brig. One came toward the door as he came level. Josie’s first mate, Galdon. In the half light his face was skeletal, the eyes blank, pleading holes.

“Van Gast?” he whispered in a voice as dead as a month-old corpse. He thrust a hand out to grab at Van Gast’s arm with a viselike grip. Van Gast stared at the exposed wrist. A purple line encircled it, darker lines radiating from it in malignant waves, and he stank of Remorians, of betrayal, of hopelessness. “Help me, please, for Kyr’s mercy. They bonded us, and it’s killing us.”

Half a dozen others crowded forward, reaching out to grab at him, at his shirt and hair and hand. “Kyr’s mercy,” they whispered to him.

He staggered back out of their reach, his stomach ready to betray him at the stench, at the disgust and pity he felt. “Are you all bonded?”

“Aye,” Galdon said. “All bonded, all dying, slow and sure, all but the boy. That fucking mage plans to do him as soon as his Master gets here.”

“Boy? What boy?”

The crew parted and a figure came hesitantly toward him. A small dark boy stood just out of reach behind the bars and stared up at him, his eyes round with fright.

What in the world…? “Why’s Josie got a boy on board? You, boy, what’s your name?”

The boy’s lip trembled but he took a deep breath and spat on Van Gast’s boot.

Van Gast grinned despite himself. A fine racketeer in the making. Out loud, he said, “No one’s taught you any manners then, but I didn’t expect that on her ship.”

He looked back to Galdon, and the rest. “I can free you of the bond but it’ll cost and, until you get out to Guld on the dock, you’re still likely to die. Or I can make it quick. Or you can keep the bond and get the fuck out of my way. Your choice.”

“And Josie, you’ll be getting her too?”

“What for?” he snarled. At least this newfound hatred went with the sham they’d practiced all these years, made it easier to pretend that drove him. “She can stay, serve her right. If she wants to take a bond to those fuckers, that’s her lookout.”

Galdon stared at him with barely concealed contempt. Van Gast was going against everything, every custom, every vague moral that a racketeer had. They didn’t have many, but they kept what they had. Against the Remorians they should be together, no matter how much they hated each other. Van Gast told himself he no longer cared. She was Remorian now, had thrown in her lot with them.

“Then do what you got to, Van Gast. Let us out and we’ll get out of your way, leave your black heart free to do what you will. Be glad to throttle that mage meself, after what he done, if I can find it in me to fight this thing.”

Once Galdon told him where the key was hung, it didn’t take long to get them out. Van Gast stopped Galdon as he darted past. “You’re one of them now, and fair game, but I’ll give you a shot. Get off this ship while you still can.”

Galdon nodded a thanks and they headed for the stairs. The boy hung back, looking over his shoulder at Van Gast.

“You go with them, boy, you’ll get bonded soon as one of them mages finds you. Her crew will see you off the ship, then you’ve got to get away, understand? My mage is waiting on the dock, hiding by the tannery. Find him if you can, if not, find somewhere, anywhere, away from the Remorians. Got it?”

The boy frowned, thinking hard, his thumb shoved in his mouth. Finally he nodded and trotted away into darkness, leaving Van Gast alone with his hatred and his plan.

Now he could make sure they never came after him again, and repay Josie a thousand-fold for her betrayal. He headed for the cannon.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Holden stumbled at the top of the gangplank, icy tingles playing over his skin. He’d lost too much blood, and that and the lack of bond made him lightheaded.

Skrymir caught his arm and steadied him. “What we going to do?”

“I have no damn idea. Tell me everything that’s gone on, quick.”

“Cattan’s got her in the captain’s cabin. It’s—I was thinking of killing him myself. A mage, he’s weak. Isn’t a neck alive stands up to a sword through it, mage or no, and Josie’s got a little plan for him. Might work, might not. Only she’s awful weak now, and the Master’s here in port, be pulling in less than half a bell from now. Whatever we do, it’s got to be quick.”

Holden shook his head. “There’s a reason that mages have such power among us, enslave us. Even if you aren’t bonded, so he can’t see in your head, you’d not live to finish your stroke. Not unless he’s concentrating on something else. On me. That’s the weakness, that they think everyone in thrall to their power, helpless to resist. Complacent, and with good reason.” He looked down at what remained of his left arm. “Until today.”

He led the way to the captain’s cabin aft of the main deck and hesitated by the door. Did he know what he was doing? No. Did he even know who he was anymore? No. Did it matter? He smiled. No. All that mattered was that he was free and Josie needed him and he could redeem himself for bonding her. Everything else was fluff.

Skrymir drew his sword and faded into the shadows as Holden opened the door.

The stink of the Remorians stung his nose, rank and animal. He knew what it was then, why they reeked. The sour scent of hopelessness, the acridity of despair, the stench of magic used wrong. It was all he could do not to vomit on the floor there and then. His whole life, slave to wrongness.

Cattan rose carefully from the bed, making his movements smooth so as not to disturb the rapidly accreting crystals that shone like diamonds on his skin. Not yet malformed again, but still apart from normal men. Apart from decency, morality. How had Holden never seen it before?

Cattan smiled slowly and a flake of magic drifted from his skin, fell to the floor in little zigs and zags that hypnotized Holden. He took in the room, the half-empty bottle of brandy, the blood that spotted the floor, the rumpled, dirty sheets of the bed. He couldn’t see Josie anywhere.

“Ah, Holden, there you are. I was worried. Have we caught Van Gast then? Good, in time for the Master to appreciate.”

“No.” Holden’s heart was loud enough to deafen him. He couldn’t go against a mage of the power. No one could, no one could ever survive. One word and he was shark-bait. Cattan knew even the thoughts that ranged his mind…or had, when he was bonded. It wouldn’t take him long to realize he no longer had any hold. Now. It had to be now.

Cattan cocked his head listening and frowned as though what he heard displeased him. “Holden, you—”

Holden launched himself, threw his fist in the face of a mage who had the ability to kill him with a word, and he never thought twice. Men like this had ruled his life, ruled him, heart, mind and soul. Dragged him from his dreams and smothered him in their own till they became his.

Cattan staggered back and tried to hold him to a bond that no longer existed. “Holden, stop!”

Holden just laughed, a jagged sound with a hint of hysteria in it, and punched him in the nose. Crystals cracked under his knuckles, dropped away in flakes like snow. Cattan fell awkwardly, and Holden’s heart soared. So easy, when you were free of the bond, when your will was your own. So easy to take down a stick of a man. Holden punched at his mouth before he could say any more, could attempt a spell. Cattan lay, broken and bleeding under him, helpless as Holden had been in his bond, and it felt good.

A scuffed step behind him. Skrymir. Holden turned to him, flying in his victory, higher than the sun.

Only it wasn’t Skrymir behind him. Half a dozen bonded men, swords out and ready, pointed at him. Skrymir was a boneless heap on the deck.

The stench of hot, fresh blood filled Van Gast’s nose, his brain. The whole world was nothing but blood and the screams of another dying Remorian choked his ears. He tried to shut his mind to it, but the only way that worked was to say fucking Remorians in his head, over and over so it drowned out everything else. Almost.

His little-magics had been burning so long now, so fierce, it was hard to tell what was what, if any more trouble made its way for him. Everything was trouble now.

The gun deck was clear of Remorians, and Van Gast stepped over the latest body, heading for the cannon and the powder. A soft sound behind made him turn, sword out and dripping blood onto the deck. The boy, his thumb still socketed in his mouth, his dark eyes glaring hatred and fear.

Shit.

“Boy, you need to get off the ship.”

The boy shook his head, eyes fixed firmly on Van Gast’s, so intent it unnerved him. The thumb came out of his mouth and, at last, he spoke. “What about Josie?”

“What about her?” It came out harsher than he’d intended, and the boy flinched. Van Gast didn’t have time for this, didn’t have time or patience or the inclination to help anyone right now. All he wanted, all that burned in him, was to get the powder and blow the fuck out of the ship, let some of his anger burn with it.

He turned away from the boy and rummaged around till he found what he wanted. Fuse. Powder.

“You can’t blow up Josie.”

“I’ll do what the fuck I like, and you can help or you can get off the ship before I blow it up. Or you can stay and get blown up, I don’t really care.”

There, a nice locker that would take a good lot of powder. He began to pour it in, liberally sprinkling in some shot for good measure.

“You can’t blow up the ship with her on board!”

Van Gast finished with the powder and started on the fuse. Long enough so he could get ashore, not so long someone might find it before it went off. “Can and will. Look, you get off the ship, like I said. My mage Guld’s out on the dock, you might make it there before one of the crew finds you, or the Remorian mage works out what you’re about. Once this ship’s blown, and hopefully the mage with it, you might be free.”

He looked up from the powder. The boy was crying, silent tears that made his nose run. Oh fantastic, just what Van Gast needed. He dropped the fuse and knelt down in front of the boy. “Look, boy—what’s your name?”

“Ansen.”

“All right, Ansen. See, Josie’s—she’s, well—” Van Gast ran his hands through his hair distractedly. How did you explain to a five-year-old? Especially when you couldn’t even explain it to yourself, not without wanting to choke. “Josie’s different now. If I don’t blow this ship, right now, you and me are going to be made different too. Like those men, her crew, see. We won’t have minds left.”

“You can’t blow Josie up. Josie’s nice.”

“Ah shit, boy.” Van Gast turned away in disgust, more at himself than anything else. He wasn’t even going to try, was he? Not even try. You trusted her, gambled your ship and crew on her word and she betrayed you, she deserves it. She deserves a thousand times worse. Yet even the coward Holden was trying.

Shit, fuck and double shit. He looked at the fuse. Should take at least half a bell. Enough to get out and with time to spare. He shut his eyes and tried to will everything back, only he couldn’t. Couldn’t rid himself of the memories, ones he wanted to think weren’t false. Or the other memory, of her standing over him, the club whistling toward him. A betrayal that hurt worse than any wound.

He knelt down and groped for his flint, the fresh tinder and the knife. Fat sparks flew and one caught. The fuse sizzled merrily. Van Gast leaned down and picked Ansen up, put the wriggling, biting boy firmly under one arm, still unsure what he’d do once up on deck. At least the little bastard didn’t make any noise.

“Too late.”

He recognized the oily voice that had told Josie to hit him again. Three Remorian crewmen stepped out of the shadows. The mage Cattan lurked behind them, his chest and chin covered in oddly glittering blood. Van Gast let Ansen clamber down and the boy hid behind his legs.

Van Gast slid a hand in to his flint and knife and glanced at the locker full of powder, right by his feet. One spark and they’d all go up, boom. A good way to go. He laughed, a low-pitched sound touched with the madness that swirled around his brain. He and the boy were right next to the porthole. They might even make it out before the explosion, if they were quick.

His hand slid nearer to the flint and closed round it. He just needed a moment. The Remorians stepped forward, swords already drawn. One took the time to stamp the fuse out with a twist of his heel. Then Cattan said something, only one word, and Van Gast’s head felt as though his brain had swollen, threatening to push out of his ears, bulging his eyes from his head. He dropped to his knees with a grunt of pain, and something warm and wet trickled from his nose. A Remorian raised a lamp and Van Gast’s blood spotted the deck. He sank down, his vision becoming blurred with red, and a pair of silk shoes stopped in front of his face as he dropped farther, prone against cool wood.

“Someone’s been dying to meet you, Van Gast. Bring him. The boy too.”

The pressure in Van Gast’s head bloomed in a dark spiral and sucked him in, ate him up and spat him out.

When Van Gast came to again, he was lying facedown on a different floor with a weight pushing into his back. He turned his aching, splitting head and squinted into a light.

Josie’s quarters, that was where he was. He recognized it. Only there was no furniture left, nothing but the bed. On the bed was…it couldn’t be a man, could it? Man shaped, yet with a thin crust of blood-spattered crystals covering him like a second skin.

“Welcome back.” It was only then that Van Gast realized it was the mage, Cattan.

Cattan indicated something on the bed with a wave of his hand. A leg, black with bruising up to the hip. Van Gast’s gaze carried on, slid up and over the hem of a shirt and up to a face. A gaunt, skeletal face, the dead face of someone he knew. Josie.

Cattan’s crystalline finger stroked one cheek and she wasn’t dead, not yet, because she flinched at the touch. Not dead, but close. Purple-black lines snaked out of the shirt, twined up her neck and over her cheeks, picked out her eyes in fanciful whorls. Rotting away from the inside. Her eyes opened a crack and looked back at him blankly. Oh, Kyr’s mercy, his Josie, and she was dead inside already.

Cattan spoke, lips moving slow and careful. “At last, we catch you, for my Master’s will. A shame, really, to bond you. But bond you I will. Or rather not me. That would have no…irony about it, no poetic justice.”

His hand twitched, just the smallest motion and something moved across his fingers. A little silver flash. He stared at Van Gast when he spoke. “Josie, my sweet, bond him, make him ours.”

Josie sat up with a drawn-out groan. Oh gods, oh Kyr’s fucking mercy, she was dead but still moving. There was nothing behind her eyes, no warmth, no emotion, no thought. Nothing left of the Josie he’d loved, that Josie was eaten up and gone. She’d thrown in her lot with the Remorians, betrayed him, and they’d taken her, mind, body and soul. The length of one leg was black and festering from the bond. No wonder he’d not seen it when he’d thought to check her arms. Even when they’d been beached, he’d not seen her in full light, must have missed it between the dim firelight and concentrating on other parts of her. She could barely put any weight on her leg but she staggered toward him like a machine, fell to her knees next to him with a gasp of pain.

The silver thing, a writhing blind snake, lay under her hand on the wood of the deck. The bond, it had to be. He tried to struggle, tried to get away but nothing moved. The weight on his back pressed him down into the wood until just breathing was agony and all he could manage.

She stank of Remorians, a smell so rancid he would have thrown up if he’d had anything in his stomach. Where had his Josie gone, and why had she left him?

“Turn him over,” she said. The weight left his back for an instant. Someone grabbed him and turned him so he faced the ceiling. Then the weight was back and he couldn’t even lift his head to see who it was who held him. It didn’t matter, all that mattered was that Josie, his beautiful, free, butterfly Josie, had betrayed him, was bound and dead and trying to bond him with her.

Her hand slid along his cheek, down over his neck and into his shirt, her fingers cold, sleek as ice. She leaned forward, her lips brushing his skin, her breath Remorian rank. The silver snake in her hand strove to be free, to burrow into him, under his skin and make him like her. Dead but not dead, alive but not alive.

“Had a plan,” she whispered, so soft he could hardly hear her. “They took me but I had a plan, keep you and Ansen safe, unbonded. Keep you free. Priceless. Lie to Holden, all of it, all a lie. Believe me. All a lie. Had a plan, a good plan. Only the plan got fucked up.” Her hand closed over the hilt of the knife in his shirt. All he could do was stare at her, into eyes the color of the sea before a storm, at the fact his Josie—fighting, biting Josie—was crying, long, soft tears that burned him where they fell. “Got to fight the bond, got to. Always fight, fight what they want, what they tell you. You fight it, Andor, you hear me? You fucking well fight it.”

Before he could do anything, say anything, think anything, she pulled the knife from its sheath and launched herself at the mage on the bed with a scream of pain and anger.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Holden sat, spelled to a standstill up by the door, glaring at Cattan’s back, an unconscious Skrymir next to him. A crewman held the boy’s shoulder tight, too tight, and the boy squirmed in his grip. Still he didn’t say a word. Holden had begun to wonder whether he could.

One look at Josie had told him it was too late for her. Taking off a bond was worse than putting it on, stretched muscles and heart to breaking. She was stretched too far already, as he’d feared. Fought too hard, too long, and it was killing her. And it was too late to take the bond off, now the lines had closed in over her heart. He’d seen it before. If only she’d listened, if only she hadn’t fought, had accepted it, she could have lived. But then she wouldn’t have been Josie.

She staggered over to Van Gast, the bond in her hand, knelt by him and whispered something as she ran a hand over his chest. Van Gast lay stunned, only able to look at her, speechless for once in his life. Then Josie stood and whirled toward Cattan, a knife in her hand.

Cattan gestured and spoke one thunderous, terrible word. Josie smacked into the wall with a sickening crunch, slid down in a heap and lay there, still, her eyes half-open. The knife fell from limp fingers and clattered to the floor where the bond crawled round and over it. She was smiling.

There was a moment of stillness and then Skrymir was no longer a heap next to Holden, he was up on his feet. He grabbed a sword from a surprised crewman and was at Cattan’s back, the sword slicing straight through the mage’s neck in a shower of blood and bone.

Cattan’s body slid to the deck, and Holden could move again. He staggered to his feet and held himself upright against the wall. Skrymir turned, an exultant look on his face, one of mingled grief and victory. The crewmen who held Van Gast leaped up, but too slow to avoid the sword that scythed at them or the vast anger behind it. Holden had never seen Skrymir angry before. It was like watching a typhoon rage. The Gan crunched into the crewmen with a savage grin, the blood that spattered over his cheeks and eyelids only adding to his barbaric look. Finally he stopped, breathing hard.

“She said to be ready,” he said to no one in particular. “Said to be ready when she made her move. Might be too late though, for her.” He turned away, his teeth grinding and his jaw clenched hard enough to crack rocks. An oath broken, to her. To the Gan, it meant his soul was forfeit, that he had no way to redeem himself, had nothing to look forward to but the Deeps when it came time for Kyr to choose for him. “She’s still breathing, maybe we’ve got time. Holden, get this thing off her.”

Holden stared down at her where she lay, half propped up against the wall. The purple lines were vivid, even through her shirt. They curled around her in a lover’s embrace, over her shoulders, down across her breasts, pooling over her heart. The bond meant for Van Gast lay a black and shriveled string beside her, its power gone with the mage, but hers was still strong and would be unless Holden died. He didn’t want to say it, admit that he’d failed, but the words fell out of his mouth anyway. “She fought too hard, that always makes it quicker. She wouldn’t stop fighting it, and that last was too much. See how the lines have reached her heart? Taking off a bond is a hard thing for a body to bear, as bad as putting it on. It’s too late. Maybe if she had a Remorian healer…If I do it now, she’ll die just the same.” She was alive, but he’d killed her anyway.

Holden tried to think past the fear, past the shock, past the coldness of uncertainty. He looked at the planking of the deck, the straight lines. The patterns as they linked together helped him think. More crew would come. The Master, in the end, would come. He lurched toward the door and fumbled the key round in the lock. It’d hold off the crew for a time. Maybe time enough to work out what to do. All he wanted was for someone to tell him what that should be. He’d wanted his freedom long enough, yet now he had it, he wanted certitude back, he wanted the security of decisions made for him. Freedom was cold and lonely, and had got Josie killed.

When he turned back, Van Gast had hold of Josie, had her draped across his lap with her head on his shoulder. Holden couldn’t see his face for the hair that dropped forward to cover it. Holden grabbed at Van Gast’s shoulder and yanked him round so he could see his face.

Madness scored harsh lines there, and grief and a hatred so strong and twisted that Holden took a step back. “Put her down,” he managed to say. It wasn’t right that her poor dying body was on the lap of a man whose hatred of her, and her hatred of him, had brought her to this.

Van Gast shut his eyes, as though he refused to believe Holden was there. He murmured something to Josie, something about getting her warm, love, not to worry. Holden couldn’t bear it—it was bad enough she was as good as dead, worse that he’d put that bond on her, that his desire to be free had cost her everything. This was too much. He was a free man now, he had to keep reminding himself. A free man with his own choices to make.

“Put her down. You hated her, don’t now pretend—”

Holden never even saw Van Gast move before he was flat on his back, Van Gast above him, hands about his neck and squeezing, putting all his weight to bear on Holden’s throat. Flecks of blood dripped off his chin and splattered on Holden’s face, and in his eyes the flat depths of madness, a chilling calculation that here, this was the man who had made him this way. This was the man who’d taken every scrap of everything he had and thrown it to the Deeps. The room began to darken, though little white points of light appeared and floated round Van Gast’s head.

“You—you killed her, fucker. I loved her and you took her, made her betray me, got her to—to—to be with you. You took her from me and then you killed her. You did, you, and I’m going to do what I should have done earlier and choke the fucking life out of you.”

“She didn’t do it for you.” It wasn’t words, speech, and he wasn’t even sure why he used those words. Holden’s lips moved but little more came out than a puff of air. Van Gast understood though. The pressure lifted from Holden’s throat and light came back to the room.

Van Gast reached for his belt and pulled out a knife. His lip curled into a sneer. “Still the Remorian man, eh, even though you’re free.”

“She did it for the boy, for Andor, to keep him unbonded. I didn’t bond him, I kept him free. For her. In the rest I had no choice, she gave me none. I’d have taken off the bond if I’d found her in time. I swear it. She did it for Andor.”

The blade stopped in its slice down toward his neck. “For Andor?” Van Gast shook his head and Holden was stunned to see tears running unheeded down his cheeks, but the madness seemed to have passed, his eyes clearer now, but still cold with hate. He got up on jerky legs, his face grey and sick looking. “Boy, come here and tell Holden your name.”

The boy stood next to Van Gast, disheveled and tearstained, his thumb firmly in his mouth. Skrymir knelt next to him and murmured encouraging words, and Holden remembered that he’d spent a fair bit of time with the boy before they’d reached this damn port. Holding his loyalty to Josie, to the Gan, Holden had thought then.

No matter Skrymir’s urging, the boy wouldn’t speak. Finally Van Gast spoke for him. “I’m Andor, not him. Andor Van Gast, and Josie the only one alive—” He choked off before he gathered himself and went on. “Josie’s the only one knows my real name, like I know hers. Josienne ne Fiel eldan Van Gast. Josienne of Fiel, beloved of Van Gast. The hatred was a game, a twist, something we used to scam gulls like you out of money. We were the only people we could be truthful with, each other, and you took that from her when you bonded her and she had to lie to me. You took her and now she’s dying. She had a plan, that’s what she said at the last. She’d a plan to keep me free of you, of the bond, only it got fucked up. And I thought she’d betrayed me, so I didn’t save her. I didn’t even try until it was too late, because of you.” Van Gast scrubbed his sleeve across his face and his breath was quick little spurts of anger as he tried to calm himself.

They watched each other warily, Holden expecting that knife to come down and take his life any moment, slice him ear to ear, and he almost wanted it.

Skrymir broke the tension with sharp words. “So if you’re Andor, who’s the boy?”

The boy tried to fade away but Skrymir’s gentle hand stopped him. “It’s all right. Josie told me to protect you, and I will, I oathed it. Do you know what that means to a Gan?”

The boy nodded, his thumb jerking up and down with his mouth. Finally he pulled it out and spoke. “Josie told me. Her left leg is Gan, she said.” The thumb went back in.

Skrymir smiled at him and laid a huge hand on his shoulder. “And she told you not to say who you were too, I suspect, didn’t she? Names are important things among the racketeers.”

Again the thumb jerked up and down, though the mouth round it turned down into a perfect half circle as only those of the very young can. He tried to sniff back the tears, but they came anyway.

Skrymir patted his shoulder, nearly knocking the boy from his feet. Van Gast stood over them, the knife seemingly forgotten as he stared at the boy. “Yet you told me one of your names. You don’t need to say the rest, not to anyone, ever.”

The thumb came out again, though the boy bit at his lip before he spoke. “Your name’s Van Gast. Like mine. Josie said it’d be all right, if we could find you. I was a surprise, her surprise for you. It was all right to tell you, wasn’t it?”

Van Gast’s legs belonged to someone else; they wouldn’t move as he wanted them to. The knife fell from his hand and he barely noticed. He rattled the handle on the door, he had to get out, get Josie out too, had to, but the door wouldn’t move and he couldn’t seem to grasp why.

The room blurred in front of him when he turned. Voices were stretched, dull booming things that made no sense. He had to get out. Trust me, she’d said, and he hadn’t. In the end he’d let her down, betrayed her trust like every other man in her life. He’d been going to blow her up for fuck’s sake. Yet she’d done it for him. Lied to Holden to keep him free, taken the bond to keep him free. Had a plan, but the plan got fucked up, and still she’d fought and bit and scratched. Van Gast hadn’t cared; he’d only cared what he thought she’d done, eaten up with anger for a lie. And at the end, she’d risked death to keep him free. Was dying even now, for him. He should have known—his Josie would never give in, never give up. And now he had a surprise—the good surprise she’d told him about. A son. He couldn’t, it wasn’t possible.

He tried to open the window. If he didn’t have air soon he’d be sick. It wouldn’t budge so he punched the glass out, vaguely noticed the blood dripping from his hand. He took in a deep breath of cool sea air, and then he was sick, great heaving spasms that brought up nothing but bile that burned his throat. He reveled in the pain of his poor bruised ribs as he retched, wished he could have more. He could have helped her if he hadn’t been so insanely jealous, if he’d trusted her. He’d trusted her with his name, the biggest trust for a racketeer, but not in this. He’d believed this fucker over her.

Hands pulled him back, but he couldn’t see faces, only blurs, one dark and one pale with blond hair a nimbus round their head. All he could see clearly was Josie, dying on the floor. She shouldn’t be on the floor, that was no place for her, not among the bodies of the crewmen that had held him. He fell to his knees and got his hands under her.

When he struggled to his feet, she was nothing in his arms, a pale ghost of the woman she’d been. The warmth had gone, the vitality. That, more than anything, drove it home she was dying and he couldn’t save her. For long moments he could do nothing, think nothing, only feel the limpness of her seeping into him, into his skin, into his head.

He laid her on the bed and covered her, covered the bond, the purple festering lines of its poison, with cool sheets. He had no blame left in him for her, he reserved it all for himself, for Holden and for the Master, but mostly for himself who should have trusted her. He couldn’t blame her when he couldn’t forgive himself. All she’d done was try and fight back, and failed.

The voices were back, echoing round his skull without meaning. Hands grabbed him but he shook them off. Something struck his cheek, rocked his head and his eyes came back into focus. The Gan, Skrymir, stood in front of him with his arm raised to do it again.

Van Gast held a hand up, palm out to stop him. “Leave me be.”

“No,” Skrymir said. “No I won’t.”

A hand the size of a ham grasped him under the arm and dragged him up. Van Gast staggered but managed to stand, even though all he wanted to do was sink down onto the bed and lay next to her, stay there, be with her while the life leeched away from her. It seemed the least he could do. Skrymir slapped him again, like being hit by a pouch of shot.

“Wake up, man! We need to get out of here, quick.”

Van Gast shook his head numbly but out of the corner of his eye he saw the boy. His surprise. His lips twisted. Ansen Van Gast. It couldn’t be. He had no son. “Ansen, who was your mother?”

The door rattled behind them before Ansen could say anything, then someone began thudding on it, trying to kick it in.

“We got to go.” Skrymir pulled his sword free of its scabbard.

“I’m not going with you,” Holden said, his voice quiet but firm. “I—I can’t. I don’t know how to do this.” He was staring at Josie as she lay on the bed. Van Gast wished he wouldn’t.

“Crazy,” Van Gast muttered. “You’re all mad.”

Holden ignored the thumping on the door and turned to him. “You don’t know…you have no idea. Bonded in the head.”

“Then get the fuck off her ship, and if I see you again, I’ll kill you.” That was when Van Gast laughed, an empty pulling out of everything left inside him. The stupid thing. Always the stupid thing. He had nothing else to do now, had nothing left. No ship, no crew, no hope for Josie, nothing inside him that resembled any emotion other than an ocean’s worth of regret, nothing outside of him worth more than half a thought.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Holden eyed Van Gast warily, the jagged laugh unnerving him. The man hated him, and with good cause, would probably stab him in the back without a backward glance. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. He was at a loss as to what to do, his mind too whirling with possibilities to settle on one course of action. He wanted his old life back, he wanted not to have to choose, not to have to think. He wanted patterns and order and numbness. Freedom hurt. As a free man he was a failure.

The door gave way at last, sprang from its hinges with a crash and a Remorian fell through, half a dozen more behind him. There was no time for thought, only action. One glance at Cattan’s decapitated body and the crew launched themselves.

Holden could do nothing but defend.

Van Gast beat him to it, the pistol shot whizzing past Holden’s face with a rush of sulfurous air to smash into the face of a crewman in a welter of bone and brain. Skrymir yelled hoarsely and leaped into the doorway. Holden grabbed his sword from where Cattan had thrown it.

Bodies were everywhere. Van Gast, grinning coldly, fast and loose and full of a panache he seemed unable to suppress even now as he lay about him with a sword. Yet for all that, his face was vicious, the lips pulled back to show small, even teeth very white against his brown skin. Like rats’ teeth—once they started, they’d never give up gnawing.

Holden thrust and parried, ducked and almost fell over Ansen huddled near the corner. A Remorian came straight for them both, a man from Holden’s own crew, a man he’d known for years, and there was a kind of hopeless recognition in him. Yet his eyes were dead, the smell coming from him in waves, the rankness, the sour odor of nothing, no hope, no dream, no thought. Holden shoved the boy behind him and took the attack on his sword, pushed it to the side and sank his blade into the now unprotected gut. The body slid away, blood running over the deck, and Holden could feel no regret, only the wish that he was like this man.

Skrymir left a trail of body parts and vicious curses behind him. Nothing left to lose, no soul to forfeit for any action.

Then they were free, only the blood and bodies there to accuse them.

“Master will be here soon.” Skrymir wiped his blade on the silk trousers of a crewman. “You want to go to him, Holden? Then go.”

“Wait.” Van Gast glared at him and Holden couldn’t look him in the eye. “Not yet. You take that bond off. Josie never stops fighting till the end, you know that if you know anything about her. I’ll stop fighting for her when she does.”

Holden shook his head helplessly. “Isn’t it bad enough I put it on? If I take it off, she’ll die. I can’t, I can’t.”

“She’ll die if you don’t, and this way she has a chance. And if that chance fails, at least she’ll die free.” Van Gast took a menacing step toward him, his sword ready and already grisly with blood. “And you’ll die if you don’t. Right here, right now. If that’s all we can do for her, then we’ll fucking do it. She was always free, till she met you again. You have to make that right. You understand me?”

Holden’s eyes were drawn to Josie, to the pale skin with the cruel lines of poison eating into it. The half-open eyes, the mouth that would never give him that lopsided grin again. Dead whichever way. Van Gast was right. At the least he could make her free, the way she should be. He swallowed past a dry click in his throat. “Yes, I understand you.”

When he sat at the end of the bed, he could hear her breath. Short little puffs, too far apart. He laid a hand on her leg and she didn’t flinch or move. Her pulse was far too slow, almost imperceptible. He had to do this. His fingers delved into the scar far too easily past the decay. When he touched the bond, she moaned, a soft sound, not pain-racked but almost pleading.

Van Gast leaned down by her head, held one limp hand and murmured soft words to her. His eyes shone with unshed tears, maybe with knowing they were doing the one thing they could for her, for her peace. Holden wished he felt the same, that this didn’t feel like murder. That things could have been different.

He lowered his eyes and pulled. The bond came away in his hand, a blackened, useless string. Josie arched off the bed, her eyes wide and staring, and her breathing stopped for long, agonizing moments. When it started again, it was even weaker than before, maybe a halting breath every thirty heartbeats. He’d done it. He’d finally killed her, the woman who’d given him his dreams.

He stood up and backed away on shaking legs. He couldn’t do this anymore. He could make a choice, couldn’t choose to let her die. He wanted to forget. All of it, but especially her. He wanted the bond to make him forget. “I can’t stay.”

It was almost as if someone had spoken for him. The horror in front of him, Van Gast’s grief-stricken eyes, made everything unreal. Only one thing was solid in his head. If he went back to the bond, he’d never have to face making the wrong choice again. It would make him blind to everything he’d done. Because to live with knowing that he’d killed her…

“Now get out,” Skrymir growled.

Van Gast glared at Holden and seemed to test the weight of his sword. “Might be a mercy not to let him go. Make me feel better if I kill him.”

Holden looked Skrymir in the eye and saw the contempt there. Skrymir turned away and spat on the deck. “Leave, quick, before I let him.”

Holden backed out the door until he could no longer see them, see the accusing body on the bed, the breaths that were coming further and further apart. Could no longer see her dying. He was a coward. He had his freedom, and now he couldn’t stomach it. All he wanted was to forget. For someone to tell him what to do, the comfort that order had given him. Freedom was nothing but a whirl of confusion he had no hope of untangling. Freedom, the wanting of it, had got Josie killed, would get them killed, all of them. Him too.

He ran.

Van Gast couldn’t take his eyes off Josie. He hadn’t even taken the time to clear his sword of the grisly debris but let it drip onto his boots. She was slipping away from him again, as she always did. Slipped away in the night, never there in the morning. This time maybe for good.

“I need you to take her to a healer. It might do no good, but at least make sure it’s as…as easy as you can,” he said to Skrymir at last. “Start by finding Guld, he’s on the dock. Find a healer, find yourselves somewhere safe for a while. Maybe it’s too late for her, and maybe it’s not. Be with her for me, because…because I—”

He almost couldn’t say it, too awful, too soul-shredding to contemplate her death. He’d done the best he could for her. Now he was going to make everyone pay. “Can you stay with her?” While she dies, he meant, but he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t stand by and watch it either, the slow drain of her vitality, of the breath that kept her alive. He couldn’t watch her stop being her. “I won’t be long, or I’ll be forever. You’ll know pretty soon which it is. Then you can decide what to do after that. How long till this Master gets here?”

“Not long. What do you have in mind?”

“I have it in mind to finish the trick and steal everything that isn’t nailed down. Ten Ruby Trick. Just like Josie’s plan. Scam the Archipelago, scam Holden. There’s two of his ships here in port and I doubt either of them have much crew on just now. Nice and easy. Steal what we can and then blow him the fuck up. With me?”

Skrymir considered gravely. An important decision for someone like him. He’d broken an oath, at least one, and that made him unpredictable. He was soulless and lost, at least according to his own customs, but Van Gast didn’t think he’d fall apart like Holden had when his world crumbled. The Gan were too strong in the head for that, too bloody stubborn.

Just like Josie. Too stubborn to know when to quit.

“I made an oath to her,” Skrymir said at last. “After you got Holden, when she knew it was too late and she was going to die. I shouldn’t have—but I did. Look after the boy and get him to you, I didn’t know why. She said…she said he was a gift for you, to show you. I got to keep this one. I can’t go breaking more oaths. I just can’t. Understand?”

Van Gast gathered his thoughts before he answered. “Aye, I understand. And I can’t let this go. I’m going to kill every last Remorian I find. If you—well, you can keep your oath if you keep Ansen safe, yes?”

“That’ll do, though I need to bring him to you, for your keeping.”

“You’ve done that, but can you keep him, them both, for me a little longer?”

Skrymir squeezed his shoulder. “I will.”

Ansen tugged at Van Gast’s trousers. “Josie wants me to stay with you.”

Van Gast hunkered down next to him. “I want that too, boy. But we can’t. You have to help me keep her safe from the man who did this to her, help Skrymir find a healer. That’s all we can do. You go with Skrymir. Josie did a lot to see you safe, no point in ruining it now, eh?”

Ansen nodded hesitantly and stood up, now on eye level with Van Gast.

“She got you something, a surprise,” Van Gast said, remembering the toy men. “You were my surprise, but there’s one for you on my ship if we can find it. You go with Skrymir and we’ll go get it when I’m done.”

“She left you something too. In her secret place in the bed.”

“She did?” Van Gast managed a strained smile. “I’ll be sure to find it.”

Skrymir fiddled with the hilt of his sword, looking lost and angry. “I wish I could have stopped it. I should have—she was Gan. Kin. Only—only I thought it would work out. I mean, I thought we’d catch you and then Holden would take off the bond and she’d be fine. By the time I realized, when she told me that keeping you free was the aim, it was too late and Holden wasn’t here to take off the bond.”

Van Gast wasn’t quite up to forgiveness yet, so he said nothing about it. “You get her to Guld. If this all goes right, I’m going to need some help. I’ll need a crew-hand or two. But give me a moment with her before you go.”

There was nothing more to say, so Skrymir picked up Ansen and gave Van Gast some time with her before they left. The boy struggled, but he couldn’t escape the huge embrace of Skrymir. Whoever the boy was, whatever Josie had brought him for, he’d be as safe as he could be, and Josie would be with someone she trusted.

Skrymir didn’t get far before he turned and called through the open door. “Master’s here.”

Van Gast sat on the bed. Now he was alone with her. Now it was time. Time to say goodbye, and he couldn’t. He lurched to his feet and paced around, trying not to look at her. Trying to remember how she’d been before this, before the bond. Not at Sarigin, it had been too late for her even then. When he’d given her the knives, and the night before, when she’d looked at him with soft eyes, the way she looked at no one else. When he’d had hopes she might love him.

Tears stung his eyes but he knuckled them away. He had to take away anything now, while he still could. Just one thing to remind him of her. Something in her secret place, Ansen had said. Every ship had one, and the boy had said in the bed. He felt around the frame, trying not to look at her. He didn’t have much time. There, underneath, in the box that supported the mattress. A splinter poking out, only too smooth to really be a splinter. He pulled and a drawer popped out.

Van Gast knelt on the floor and looked inside. A bag full of gold sharks, just like the one he’d had in his secret place. He slid it inside his shirt absently, because it wasn’t money that was holding his attention for once. It wasn’t even the two glass daggers, wrapped up in a piece of soft leather, the oily liquid inside them sloshing gently with the movement of the ship. He took those too and looked down at what was left. A waterproof pouch, bigger than his hand.

No time to look in there now—the shouts of the Master’s crew as they negotiated the harbor mouth reverberated along the dock. The rumble, blast and splash of a cannon firing and missing, the shot sinking into the water.

He couldn’t put it off any longer. If it weren’t for the purple whorls, the pallor, the halting little breaths, she could have been sleeping. He had to do this quickly or he’d never let her go, and if he stayed with her, Holden and the rest wouldn’t die, wouldn’t pay.

He tried to see her how she had been, not as she was, and it was simple. The easy grin that meant trouble for someone, the fluid grace, the way she used to flutter her hands, grab for things when he loved her. He shut his eyes to the poison that was killing her, leaned down and kissed her cool lips. He didn’t want to stop, but he didn’t want to feel the lack of life, the lack of her in her mouth. Butterfly Josie, pinned at last. “I’m sorry.”

It was all he could say, and it would never be enough.

He blundered out of the cabin with Josie laid carefully in his arms, and took a deep, deep breath that made his bruised ribs complain. Didn’t matter. Normally the salt air would revive him from anything, but he didn’t even smell it. Tarana’s cannons roared again, the shot whizzing true toward the new ship gliding into port, smooth as you like, even with no wind. The shot never reached it but skipped off some invisible force and shattered in midair, the shards raining down harmlessly over open water.

The Master. Their mages had a lot of power, but that one in particular wouldn’t have it for long.

It had all settled in him for now, solidified into a cold, hard ball in his stomach. Later would be time enough for grief, and there would be a lot. Now he had to make sure they all stayed alive, and that bastard paid for what he’d done.

He joined Skrymir and the boy at the port rail. “You think he’ll come aboard?”

“I doubt it,” Skrymir said. “You’ll have to go to him.”

“I heard tell,” Van Gast said at last. “Heard tell there’s a race of people, over across the ocean, near the Gan. They don’t bury their dead. They burn them, so their souls can fly quicker to Kyr’s embrace. That true?”

“True enough.” Skrymir’s voice had lost its gruffness. “We bury ours, keep them under the mountain so they can be together. But there’s a race that builds a great pyre and burns them. The bigger the fire, the more honor to the dead. But she’s not dead yet.”

A slow smile spread across Van Gast’s face. “Oh, this will be a fire to end all fires. And she may not be dead yet, but it will be a tribute to her. To everything she is. And a fine distraction for what I have in mind.”

Stupid. Very stupid, but for once Van Gast wasn’t doing it for thrills. He stared intently at the ship as it dropped its anchor three berths down. Holden had chosen to go back to that. Van Gast’s lip curled in disgust. No time for that now, though.

“So how are you going to play it?”

“Like you and Josie did. Something to draw his eye—that’s the key to any scam. Even as powerful as he is, he can’t look more than one way at a time. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. If it all goes tits up, tell Guld to get you all back to that tavern. You should be safe enough there until you can work out what to do.”

He held out his arms and had to brace himself not to grab Josie back when Skrymir took her.

Skrymir blinked heavily and looked as if he were about to say something, but changed his mind. He nodded once and left the rail, his shoulders sagged and heavy. Ansen trailed behind him, a disconsolate ghost.

Van Gast took the steps down to the gun deck, down to the powder and fuse, three at a time.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Holden had to clench his teeth to stop them from clacking together as he made his way to the Master’s ship. He stared at the cobbles that paved the wharf, tried to see the patterns, the order, tried to calm his mind with it. But the cobbles were laid randomly, lining up only in swoops and swirls. He couldn’t find a pattern to anything. He was on his own, nothing left of what he’d once known to help him. He clenched his teeth so hard they squeaked.

The gangplank just touched the jetty as he reached where it led onto the empty wharf. Guards trotted down smartly and took up their positions. The harbormaster came out from his office at the end of the wharf and puffed over. He slowed as he came nearer, staring at Holden, then down the jetty to the guards.

“Not more of your lot? That’s—that’s against the bargain. No more than two ships at a time, no bond-ganging, or no trade and no harbor. They’ll have to bugger off and come back later. The militia’s on its way already, what with the havoc you lot have been causing tonight. They’ll be here right soon, then you lot’ll catch it. So tell ’em to sling their hook.”

As if it had heard his words, the cannon up the hill roared again, first one then another and another. The harbormaster pulled himself up to his full height and looked smug. Holden followed the trajectory of the blast. The shot bounced off nothing and blew apart in midair. The smug grin slid off the harbormaster’s face.

The cannon fired again, the blast deafening, and the tang of acrid smoke drifted down to them. Again, the shot never made its target. Dark shapes scurried on the Master’s decks, portholes were uncovered below and a bank of cannon poked out. The harbormaster looked up at the vastness of the Master’s ship, at the size of the cannon, and all the color left his face except for an angry brick-red flush across his forehead. The ship let loose its volley, the noise staggering them, the ground vibrating under their feet. Smoke wreathed the ship in greasy coils. Holden didn’t need to look—Tarana’s cannon would fire no more.

“Kyr’s mercy.”

Holden turned to stare at him and the harbormaster seemed to shrink back in his clothes.

“They’ll be gone soon enough. Now get along, before I bond you.”

The harbormaster lifted his lip, contemplating snapping back no doubt, used to being king of this little domain.

“I’ve got one right here.” Holden delved into a pocket. What was he doing? What he always did, that was what. Imposing order. The thought made him sick yet at the same time he welcomed the comfort of it, the return to his normality from the uncertainty of everyone else’s.

The harbormaster took a hurried step back. “Now, no call for that. You lot done enough damage tonight, and you’ll not be welcome back here ever again, or anywhere else once word gets out.” The harbormaster turned and walked away, his back straight, trying to appear dignified and unafraid, but the way his steps got faster and faster till he ducked round a corner told another story.

Holden turned down the jetty and the guards eyed him warily to start, until he stepped into the light cast by a line of lamps along the rail. They relaxed a little. The nearest nodded a greeting. “Commander, Master says to report straight to him.”

Holden’s feet dragged as he went up the gangplank and he stumbled onto the deck. The heady euphoria of earlier had abandoned him to cold reality. There was no order without the bond, only chaos.

Holden thought he could feel every man’s eyes on him as he made his way below deck. Not for the Master the risk of being topside, open to the rain. Not for him being too close to the keel, like Cattan, and be vulnerable to a leak, to a single warped plank. His chamber took up half the second deck and, for a moment when the door opened, vertigo made Holden’s head swim. It was the same as the Master’s chamber in Remon, at home. Pillars ringed it, each with its own guard. The Master sat on a dais, filled with purple cushions. Only the women were missing.

Holden approached and, from force of long habit, made sure to keep his eyes on the floor. Patterns, the same patterns. Black into white into—no. They swirled in front of him. No more comfort, not without the bond to order his mind. Bonded in the head and he couldn’t break free. He’d tried—Kyr’s mercy, he’d tried—but he couldn’t. Josie had been wrong about him. All he could do was follow the bond. Everything else was too much, too big for him to comprehend.

How could they, those others, how could they live with such ambiguity, how could they ever be sure of anything? The bond was wrong but he needed it, like a ship needs wind or a cannon needs shot. It was wrong, but without it he was nothing.

He looked up at the Master. Not recognizable as a man, more a shining, misshapen monster. Dark eyes stared back at him from their crystal caves, assessing, calculating. “Commander Holden, where is your bond?”

“I no longer have a bond.” He let his left arm slide out of the shelter of Van Gast’s cloak. He tried to keep his voice strong, but even to him he sounded aggrieved, bewildered. “Cattan abandoned me to a fate any Remorian fears. He left me to have my bond taken from me. I—I have come for another.”

The Master jerked on the dais, and the sound of crystals tinkling to the tiles was loud in the silence. “Cattan is dead. I felt that. Who did this to you?”

“Van Gast.”

The Master’s lips pursed, carefully. “Van Gast. And do we know where he is? Cattan caught him before he died?”

“No, Master. But he’s injured, and I know where. I know where he’ll be.” With Josie. Catching Van Gast made no mind to him now—all he wanted was the comfort back, to be able to soothe his shattered mind with patterns and forget, forget her, forget everything. Van Gast had taken that from him, and he could rot, die painfully from the bond. Holden no longer cared.

“Commander, you surpass yourself. Loyal even with no bond. Take some men and fetch him.”

Panic swirled his thoughts. He couldn’t. Couldn’t make a decision on anything, let alone lead men. All he could do was stand there. He stared at the floor, at the tiles, willed them to show him their patterns. He wasn’t a man, not in any sense of the word, he knew that now. Knew the worst about himself, that he was a coward, a failure. He wanted to forget what he’d done, and failed to do, the one choice he’d made as a free man that had meant Josie dying. He had only one way to regain the order in his life, bring back the numbness and forgetting.

“Commander?”

“I—I would take my bond, Master. Please.”

“Of course, Commander. Come forward. You!” The Master called one of his captains. “Once the bond is on him and I can see his mind, be ready to take your men and help him find Van Gast.”

Holden walked toward the dais without hesitation. He wanted this. He wanted his life as it had always been. Where there was no grief, no memories of what he’d done, no choices, only obedience. He lifted his right arm and held out his bare wrist. This time he wasn’t afraid. This time he welcomed it. A good thing, a necessary thing. He didn’t even scream, just sank back into lines, patterns, purpose and a fog of not knowing or caring.

Van Gast dropped his flint with a curse at the sound of footsteps marching up the gangplank and peeked out of the porthole. Remorians, lots of them. He’d thought he’d have more time before Holden sent anyone. He never thought he’d see the day he was willingly on a ship with them. No sign of the mage. Good. Get this lit, get out and sneak on board the bastard’s ship and blow that up too. He was going to light up the sky with his hate.

A heavy thud shuddered the planks above him. He grabbed for the flint again and struck. Minutes he’d have, at most, once he’d lit the fuse. Probably a lot less. Maybe, hopefully, these bastards wouldn’t find it in time and would burn too. It didn’t take him long before a spark landed on the end of the fuse and caught. It sank into a sullen red glow for long moments, and then flared, yellow and spitting. Time to get out of town. Time to go and do the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life.

Murmurs came from above, near the top of the stairs. Van Gast squirmed through the porthole and steadied himself on the side of Josie’s ship. Nice and quiet. Not quiet enough. The little-magics that had itched him all night flared, a burn, a tear, over and above the bruising pain of his ribs. He flattened himself to the planks as a bullet whizzed past from the deck, close enough to tear a hole in the sleeve of his shirt. A shout went up. Another bullet, closer this time. Hot metal ripped through the top of his arm and he dropped into the water, straight down, feet first. Hardly a splash as he let the water close over his head and hide him. Like to see the bastards shoot him now.

Again. Metal fizzed through the water and punched a hole in his side. The force of it knocked him into the side of the keel and thrust precious air from his lungs. Shards of glass whirled in front of his face and mixed in his hair. The knives, the bastards had shot the knives.

Barnacles ripped at his hands, tore the skin from his palms as he tried to still himself on the keel. The water round him tasted of copper, of his own blood. He had to breathe, he couldn’t stay down here. For once his little-magics had let him down. He knew where trouble was already, and couldn’t escape it. Fuck it. Fuck everything. He forced his arms to move, to pull him deeper, toward the pilings of the wharf. The ship would be nothing but flaming wood in moments. He’d escape or die trying. He had people to rob and kill. Had to finish the trick.

His lungs heaved, trying desperately to make him breathe, to kill him. He struggled on and then stone was under his hand. The wharf. He had to surface, had to or he’d drown. Just as he’d made up his mind to try, to hope they were looking still in the water and not at him, a dull whump pressed him flat against the wharf. Heat bloomed through the water and even with his eyes closed the light was blinding. Now. If he was going to get out it had to be now. He kicked his legs and broke the surface, his lungs gasping, choking on saltwater. He spat out a mouthful that had a coppery taste of blood to it and rested with his face pressed to the stone. Flames seared him from behind. He turned to watch. Couldn’t stop long, but he had to see the flame he’d made.

If Skrymir was right, the bigger the fire, the bigger the honor, she was the most honored woman ever. Flames rose to touch the sky, higher than the mast, higher than the world, the whole ship a crackling, splintered mess of fire. He shut his eyes against it and prayed, for maybe only the third time in his life. Please Kyr, when she dies, choose well for her. Keep her for me.

Then his eyes crept toward the Master’s ship. Time to honor Oku too. Chief god of the Gan, one Van Gast had never honored before. God of justice, oaths—and vengeance.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

When Holden came back to his senses, he was kneeling on a familiar patterned floor. Black into white into blue into grey into black. The stump of his left arm cradled his right, but the pain wasn’t too bad. Not as bad as what he was sure lay behind his new numbness. It was a good thing, a right thing. It was. Everything now was order. His mind need not flay itself with the agony of choice. Of possibilities that only tantalized him and couldn’t be fulfilled. He was home.

“Commander.” The Master’s voice, soft with understanding. The Master understood everything.

“Yes, Master.”

The tiles tilted beneath him and sent him crashing to the floor. His freshly bonded wrist caught beneath his ribs, the pain a lance of white-hot purple through his brain. Then the sound came, a hollow boom and with it a faint wash of heat. When Holden looked up, the Master was akimbo on the dais, surrounded by a shimmering lake of dislodged crystals. Holden struggled to his feet, his first thought to the Master. Everything else was secondary.

Holden helped the Master to sit and tried not to see the sheen of sweat that melted crystals on his top lip, or how they flowed across his brow. The Master had his power still, a good thick crust of it. The Master was infallible, unending.

“Her ship—her ship’s gone.” The Master’s voice faltered. “And with it my men.”

“Van Gast?” Holden was numb, but the thought that the racketeer was gone somehow twisted him a little, though he couldn’t quite remember why. It would come back to him, or not. The man was a menace, that he did know. An enemy of the Archipelago for—for—for something.

“Captain.” The Master’s voice had lost some of its richness with his crystals, a hint of hoarseness to it now. One of the captains of the guards presented himself smartly and saluted. “Make the ship secure. Every man on alert until I can ascertain where Van Gast is. But if you find him, bring him alive if you can. That racketeer shall squirm for this.”

“Yes, Master.”

The captain left with his men, and Holden and the Master were almost alone.

“I thought you were lost,” the Master said. “You always dreamed, Holden. Fatal for one of my people. I sought to show you the futility, the pain of what you dreamt of. Do you know it now?”

Vague images floated through Holden’s brain. A blonde woman, a grin, a laugh. Purple black lines over her skin. Her face, her halting, dying breath. For nothing. Freedom was pain, disorder, panic, that was all he could remember. “Yes, Master. I know it well now.”

The Master smiled his careful smile, distorted now by the melted crystals that mortified Holden. “I know you do, I can see it in your head. I’m glad you came back to us, Holden, very glad.”

Van Gast dragged himself onto the wharf and took stock. It didn’t look, or feel, good. Bruised ribs aching like buggery. His head still foggy from the blow Holden had given it. Blood on his breath. A hole in his side that was leaking blood at an alarming rate. Bits of glass sticking out of the hole and catching on the tear in his shirt. Didn’t hurt yet, thank Kyr for small mercies. Later it would be a bitch, if there was a later. If only Guld were here to cauterize the wound. The arm wasn’t too bad, just a bloody crease in his skin. He’d still be able to use his sword, though for how long who knew. His clothes were heavy with water, and the pistol was wet through and useless. His knives were all there though, and the burning need in him to use them.

He spent a heartbeat to look at Josie’s ship. The Jesting Queen, gone now, just a shell of blazing planks and spiraling ash, the spirit of Josie with it. A message, a plea to Kyr, to embrace Josie when her fight ran out, and that would be soon. Even Josie couldn’t fight forever.

Yet no time now to wonder. Now was the time to use the distraction. He ducked behind some bales of cotton, out of the glare of the fire, and studied the vast brooding hulk of the Master’s ship. Guns, lots of guns. Where there were guns, he could find powder. It had worked well enough on her ship. Why not on his? He’d have laughed if it weren’t for the pain in his side. Instead he spat onto the cobbles and tried not to see the hint of pink in it.

As he watched, men trotted down the gangplank. He could smell them from here. Coming to check on the Remorians aboard her ship. Tough luck there. Coming to check on him too no doubt, whether he was still alive. Tough luck there too, because he wasn’t to be found.

He waited till they were past, until they were stopped by the heat. As they watched the ship burn, he slipped along the wharf, behind a barrel here, a bale there. His breath was odd. Bubbling, not hurting but short, as though something clogged his lungs. Noisy enough that it might give him away. He tried to breathe shallower and almost choked. He’d have to make the best of it.

His little-magics screamed at him, worse than the hole in his side. Trouble was everywhere, surrounded him and suffocated him as though he were drowning. Not an itch, not a burn, not a tear. It was a fucking explosion in his chest, and it didn’t matter. He was well past trouble and into suicidal.

The Master’s ship was in front of him and he studied it intently. Two rows of guns, silent now. Tarana’s guns had stopped too—probably realized they weren’t getting anywhere or had run out of shot. It wasn’t as though they’d needed them in the last twenty years or more.

But the important part was that the portholes of the Master’s ship were empty. The important part was this—could he get in and rig another explosion? He rather thought he could. The stupid-but-exciting thing, always. His mouth stretched into a grin.

He grabbed a cotton bale and tried to pull himself up. The glass in his side moved and he had to stop halfway. Just as the pain subsided and he was about to try again, a hand landed on his shoulder. “Sit.”

The hand pressed down and it was sit or get a bone broken. Van Gast sat. Skrymir appeared in front of him and shook his head ruefully. “You’re in no state for this. Whatever it is you’re planning, you’ll be dead before you do it.”

“You underestimate the importance of being incredibly stubborn. It’s not as bad as it looks. Just a bit of a hole. Josie?”

“Still fighting, but it won’t be much longer if I’m any judge. Guld’s watching her and Ansen, they’re hiding in the tavern.” Skrymir gestured at the hole in Van Gast’s shirt. At Van Gast’s nod, he peeled away the cloth carefully. Glass glittered in the mess in Van Gast’s side and he tried not to look at it, but the shine of blood, his blood, dripping from the glass all but hypnotized him. Skrymir made to pull out a shard. “Stubborn won’t help that. What’s the plan?”

“It made such a nice fire I thought I’d try again. No, don’t touch it.”

“You’ll get caught again. There’s a mage on board, stronger than Cattan, and plenty of his men too. This time Josie won’t be here to save you from the bond.”

Van Gast shoved Skrymir’s meaty arm away. “I don’t care.”

“Josie did. Does. I can’t let you do it, she’d kill me rather than let you. And it’s not just the Master on that ship. Holden…he’s not a bad man, not really. I oathed to him, and though I told him I’d break it rather than go along—I had a choice. He didn’t.”

“Fine. One punch from that anvil you call a hand should finish me off, though why a man so full of Gan honor should give a shit about that fucker is beyond me.”

“Van Gast, you don’t understand. He was a good master, or I’d never have oathed to him. He was as kind to Josie as he was allowed to be.”

“Not fucking kind enough and now he’s gone back to that, to the bond, to slavery. Willingly. Coward.”

A stream of Remorians ran down the gangplank from the Master’s ship and clattered onto the wharf. Skrymir got his arm under Van Gast and they sidled farther into the shadows, hidden in the doorway to a silk shop.

“He’s afraid.”

“Like I said, coward.” Van Gast wiped a sleeve across his sweating face. “This is a lovely chat, but I don’t have time. I’ve got a ship to blow up.”

“Maybe he is a coward. He only had time for one choice as a free man. One choice, he tried to best a mage for her even though it was too late to save her, and that choice may yet end in her death. He wants to forget that, he wants to forget her. That’s what the bond does, it makes men forget. What happened, their past, who they are.”

“I don’t care about him! Fucker can drop down dead for all I care.” The Remorians had spread out now, farther down the dock, some boarding the other ships next to Josie’s, trying to stem the flames that leaped and spread. Now was the time. Now, when all their attention was outward, not inward.

“If you kill the Master, all his bonds die. All those men free, and what’s left of her men, the ones they’ve bonded in town, all free again.”

Van Gast managed to get to his knees and used the doorjamb to pull himself up to shaky feet. “Still not caring.”

“Josie did. Does. She cared enough about you to spend everything she had keeping you free. That’s what this was all about, the whole time. She told me, after Moorain’s, when she knew that you’d hate her, knew you’d think she betrayed you. Didn’t matter, she said, didn’t matter because you weren’t bonded and neither was Ansen.”

Van Gast leaned his head against the doorway. The wood was cool against his skin. “You’re a bastard. A complete fucking bastard and I hope you drown with all your oaths broken.”

“Yes. Now, what’s the plan and how can we use what we have?”

“I blow the ship up, you bugger off back to Ansen and Josie. That’s about as far as I got. Josie was always the planner. Twisty mind she had, the best.”

“Well then, what would she do?”

“No fucking idea. If I knew that, I wouldn’t be standing here bleeding all over my boots—I’d be doing it.”

Skrymir chewed on a lip thoughtfully. “What if—what if you try, to blow the ship I mean, but plan for if you get caught?”

“Like how?”

Skrymir grimaced and pulled out his pistol. “I wish I knew. Here, take this at least, it’s dry, and if you can get a clear shot at the Master, then all those Remorians will be like Holden when you took his bond off. Shoot the Master and the rest will fall, you’ll not have to worry about a Remorian ever again. The mages are nothing without the bonded to do everything for them. Got anything to keep it dry?”

“If they didn’t shoot it.” Van Gast reached carefully inside his shirt for the waterproof pouch he’d taken from Josie’s special place. Should be big enough. He slid out the papers inside and handed them to Skrymir. “You look after these. If I don’t come back, if Josie…They’re yours, all right?”

“What are they?” Skrymir looked at the papers as though the thought of writing was a mystery to him. Most Gan never learnt to read.

“That, my good man, is almost certainly a shitload of land.”

Skrymir raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “If you say so. I’ll keep them safe. Are you sure you don’t want me to—?”

Van Gast slid the pistol into the pouch and found a place for it in the mess that was left of his shirt. Maybe they wouldn’t see it amongst all the blood and glass. Not likely, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was going to fucking well do this, however he could. “No. No, this one’s for me to do. You’ve got an oath to keep, right? You stay with her, let her have someone she trusts with her, because I can’t watch her slip away from me again. She always did, you know? Always slipped away, never there in the morning. Difference is, before, I always knew she’d be back.” He took a deep breath against the way his heart clenched at that, and regretted it when his ribs and side protested. “Besides, you’re too big to fit through the porthole. You can help me up though.”

Skrymir got an arm under Van Gast’s shoulder and hauled him to his feet. “I reckon I’m going home after this. Back where people are sane.”

“Probably a good idea.” Van Gast leaned on a barrel. The shard of glass in his side was doing strange things to him, and blood trickled down the inside of his breeches.

With a last look around to check that he wasn’t being watched, he slipped along the shadows on the edge of the wharf and into the water, the giant looming bulk of the Master’s ship dwarfing him.

“I must be fucking mad.” He was, but not the insanity kind. A blazing anger was all that was keeping his limbs moving, that and the need to make as many people as possible pay. He gritted his teeth against the pain and swam.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Holden led half a dozen men into the guts of the Master’s ship. Most of the crew were out on the docks, searching for Van Gast or what might remain of him, but the Master was taking no chances. Sentries on every deck. Van Gast was too tricky to be complacent about. Holden left three men on the top gun deck and led the rest down. They moved quietly among the cannon, unmanned now that the incoming barrage had stopped. Holden paused by the bulkhead. A scratching sound came from ahead, loud in the otherwise soft silence. He pulled out his pistol, cocked it silently and crept forward. Someone moving where there should be no one, a shape in the dimly lit deck.

One of his men came level at the other run of cannon and Holden nodded at the shape. They advanced cautiously. It soon became clear a man was huddled between two guns. A succession of sparks lit the underside of his face. Van Gast, dripping water and blood onto the powder he was trying to light.

Holden raised his pistol. “Too late.”

Van Gast swore under his breath but didn’t turn. He kept on bringing sparks, trying to light the fuse at his feet. Holden moved forward, wary. This man had eluded him for far too long, far too well. He was just within reach when Van Gast stood, quick as a snake, and whirled round with his sword out.

Too late, as Holden had said. His man cracked Van Gast on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol and the racketeer fell like a stone. Odd. Holden felt nothing, no satisfaction in finally catching him.

He crouched down next to the limp body and turned Van Gast over so he could look at his face. The nut-brown skin was crumpled and grey now from loss of blood, the hair matted and tangled, with shards of glass sticking out here and there. Nothing to show the man he’d been. Would never be again. That thought echoed in Holden’s chest weirdly.

No matter. He had done his Master’s will, at last. No more punishment, or not for him. Van Gast’s was just about to begin. He couldn’t understand why that thought brought only pain in his head.

Blood. That was Van Gast’s first sensation other than blackness. The taste of blood in his mouth. He tried to spit it out but that only sent waves of pain through his chest and stomach.

He was lying on something smooth and hard, cool against his face. Tempting, very tempting to go back to sleep. Things didn’t hurt when you were asleep. Footsteps clacked across the floor and stopped by his head. Go away. Someone grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him off the floor. Van Gast forced his eyes open.

“Ah, you are awake then,” a voice said behind him. He didn’t recognize it, but he did know the face of the man forcing him to stand. Fucker, that was who it was. Probably had a better name, but Van Gast couldn’t remember it. Whatever his name was, he gripped Van Gast and turned him round.

A dais covered with cushions took up most of one wall, and a figure perched atop them like a goat on a mountain. Not a man, some vast heap of glittering crystals, sparkling red and yellow in the lamplight. A pile of rubies maybe. Then Van Gast noticed the holes at the top, the dark, gleeful eyes peering out from a mountainous range of diamonds, the slash of lips below. What the fuck?

“Don’t look at the Master, look at the floor.” Holden, that was his name. Still a fucker though.

Van Gast looked at him, to see himself reflected in the blank eyes of the bonded. “Coward.”

Holden’s eyes tightened for a heartbeat, almost too quick to notice before his face slacked out into impassiveness. “Look at the floor.”

“Commander, it’s all right. I want this man to look at me. I want him to see his Master. Bring him to me.”

Holden shoved Van Gast and he staggered forward, leaving a trail of blood and bits of glass on the tiles. One of the bigger shards twisted in his side at the movement, and his feet refused to hold him but Holden’s hand gripped his arm tight and held him up.

Up close, the craggy hills and valleys of the Master’s crystals winked brightly. “His wrist please, Commander.”

Holden took Van Gast’s left arm and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to expose the wrist. Only then did Van Gast’s tired, pained mind realized what was about to happen. He wrenched his arm away, tried to grab for his pistol in its pouch and end this. No good, something he hadn’t planned for—Holden’s grip was too tight, himself too weak, even if the pistol was still there, which he doubted. The Master wasn’t stupid.

Van Gast shoved into Holden and twisted, managed to get his arm free but staggered without anyone to hold him up. Get the gun, got to get the gun out of the pouch. If he still had it, if they’d not taken it. He’d not thought he’d be blacked out, thought at the least he’d get to shoot someone. Then Holden’s arm was round his waist, gripping him and squeezing the glass in his side. The blackness that had been lurking at the back of Van Gast’s mind loomed like a thundercloud, threatening to blot out everything.

“Why are you doing this?” He could hardly hear his own voice over the bubble of his breath. “You were free, why did you come back? You already killed her with a bond. She’s dying out there somewhere in a shitty little tavern, because of you. Because of your Master. How many more, after me? How many people are you going to kill for this, Holden?”

The arm holding him tensed, and glass grinding in his side made pain bloom large in his head. Only Holden kept him upright. “Patterns. Lines. Purpose.” Holden’s voice was flat and colorless. “Choices turn order into chaos. Choices…I couldn’t, I can’t.”

“Commander?” The Master’s voice, deep and rolling, compelling.

Holden pushed Van Gast forward again and raised his wrist. His hand was shaking and when Van Gast turned his head, Holden wouldn’t meet his eye. That could be him, would be him if he let them bond him. That colorless, lifeless thing that had, briefly, been alive. Been human.

The Master raised his hand and a silver string writhed over his fingers. Looking for flesh to bond.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Holden couldn’t watch so he stared at the floor. Patterns to soothe a disordered mind. Only the patterns weren’t soothing him anymore. It was Van Gast’s fault. Van Gast who’d taken the bond from him, exposed him to a world he couldn’t comprehend, that had so overwhelmed him he longed for his shackles again. Had robbed him of his only real comfort, of what he dreamed he might be. Holden glared at the tiles, as though they were the source of his doubt. A jumble of images ran through his mind but they made no sense, the bond smoothing everything into one mess of color and sound, making him forget. Only he wasn’t sure he wanted to forget. There was something, something important that he should remember.

“Commander?” The Master’s voice, deep and rolling, compelling.

Holden pushed Van Gast forward again and raised his wrist. He couldn’t meet Van Gast’s eye. Who had killed her, him or Van Gast? The thought blew through him like a typhoon, shredded the forgetfulness, rolled away the fog. They both had. Van Gast in making her fight it, making her do everything she could to keep him free of it. He had killed her just as surely as Holden himself had, as Cattan had, whether he knew it or not. And Holden, who’d bonded her, who’d wanted her not just because he loved her but because she represented every dream he’d had of freedom, a freedom that, when he got it, he wanted rid of. And in that freedom, he’d taken everything from Van Gast. Everything.

The Master raised his hand and the silver string writhed over his finger and leaped. It burrowed into Van Gast’s skin as though made for it, as though they were one and the same. Van Gast jerked in Holden’s hands, his jaw clenched against the scream, against the pain that was racing through him, stretching every sinew, twisting every muscle as it bit and burrowed. Holden let him slide to the tiles.

Van Gast thrashed against the pain, but his dark eyes were locked on Holden. Accusing, full of hate. The circle on his wrist, the mark of the mage-bonded, darkened from red to blue-black and little tendrils worked their way up his arm. Holden couldn’t look—and couldn’t look away.

Josie had died to keep this man free, and here Holden was, helping to bond him. Van Gast’s back arched, every muscle stretched to breaking, and still he didn’t scream, didn’t beg. Holden glanced at the Master. His mouth was curved in a sly smile, his eyes glittering with satisfaction. Enjoying the pain, enjoying the power. Holden’s stomach turned. The bond had started, long ago, as service to their mages and had become this.

Finally, mercifully, Van Gast’s writhing slowed and stopped in gradual steps. First his muscles loosened so that he was no longer bent like a bow. Then the violent shudders grew less, the sweat thinned, the clench of his jaw relaxed. He lay shivering on the floor, blood staining the tiles underneath him, his eyes still radiating hate.

“Up,” the Master said, putting every ounce of compulsion into his voice.

Van Gast grinned, a lopsided, blood-tinged thing that reminded Holden inescapably of Josie. “Fuck you, pig-fucker.” He twisted with new pain, his feet tattooing a beat on the tiles, his arms outstretched, fists clenched.

Holden reached down when it was past, slid a hand under his shoulders and helped him to his feet. Van Gast sagged against him, his blood soaking into Holden’s tunic.

“Fucker,” Van Gast whispered and was rewarded with another shudder of reprimand and the black lines raced up his arm. It wouldn’t be slow this time, not slow but just as painful.

Holden got a better grip on him and let Van Gast’s head loll on his shoulder. He’d never give in, never stop fighting, Holden knew that now. Like Josie. He’d rather it killed him than submit to it, serve the Master or anyone.

Josie had died to keep this man free.

There was only one way to make her wish come true, and only Holden to do it. He pinched his eyes shut in terror at the thought, and wondered just how much of a coward he was.

Van Gast tried to breathe in short bursts, tried to ignore the surges of bright light in his vision. He clamped his teeth down on the screams that wanted to escape. She hadn’t given in, she’d fought it all the way, was still fighting even now, he hoped, and so would he. Someone was holding him up but their face was a blur. All he knew was a hand held him, kept him from falling to the floor. That, and the bond in his wrist was trying to take over his mind. Pain radiated from it in ripping waves, made the hole in his side seem insignificant. Pain that seeped into his brain and tried to numb it, tried to make him forget. He fought against it, the thought that he would forget—who he was, what he’d done, but most of all her.

Josie. If he forgot her, then when she died it would be as though she’d never existed, as though everything she’d tried to do was nothing. So he fought the greyness that seeped into him through muscles and nerve and blood. If all he could do was remember her, then he’d do it.

“Fucker,” he whispered, the last, useless gesture of defiance.

Finally he realized it—the enormity of what she’d done. Lived with this for weeks, tried to tell him the only way she could, by twisting the trick. She couldn’t say it in words—the bond wouldn’t let her—so she’d tried to show him, tried to make him think, and he’d thought nothing except unease, suspicion of her. Nothing except that she’d betrayed him when it had been all she could do, the one thing she could show him to let him know the danger he was in: miss her second swing with the club and give him a brief chance of escape.

Josie never missed except on purpose.

Something clicked quietly by his stomach. He knew that sound—a pistol being cocked. Kyr’s mercy, they were going to put him out of his misery. He would have cried in thanks, if crying wouldn’t hurt more, wouldn’t test the hole in his side to the limit. He didn’t care what Kyr chose for him—not as long as Josie was there too. Even the Deeps, the dark twisting depths of torment, would be preferable to this, if she was there, if he could spend his wretched time telling her that he was sorry.

Whoever was holding him shifted their stance and Van Gast was helpless to right himself. His fingers, his hands were numb and he couldn’t hold on. He slid to his knees, a penitent. When the gun went off next to his head, the blast deafening him, the flash of powder blinding him, he was sure he saw Kyr coming to choose for him. He welcomed her with an open heart.

Chapter Thirty

Holden kept his eyes on the Master and willed his mind to the blank fog of service. Straight lines, patterns, purpose. A mage of the power could see into the head of any bonded man, and his thoughts were not for sharing. He hid them behind the tiles. Black into white into blue into grey into black. Straight lines, patterns to soothe a disordered mind. He let the patterns fill his thoughts.

The Master gloated over Van Gast, at the way he stumbled in Holden’s grip when he shifted. Then the Master’s smile slipped, became a grimace of hatred. He raised his hand, farther than Holden had ever seen him move before. He had no doubt what was coming, and he couldn’t let it. At last, at last he’d found his fight. Too late, but it was there. Maybe it would be enough, maybe you only needed to want it enough, as Josie had.

Keeping his mind blank and grey, Holden dropped his hand to his pistol. He cocked it, quiet as he could, and let go of Van Gast. The Master’s eyes, his focus, followed Van Gast as he fell to his knees as though worshipping the power before him. The Master didn’t see Holden, or anything but the spent and twisted body of his enemy.

Holden raised the pistol, forcing his hand up against the pain, against the will of the bond that pulsed through his arm. Black tendrils snaked their insidious way from the wound at his wrist and toward his heart. It didn’t matter. She’d done it, she’d fought it. It could be done. It could. It was right that he fight it. Necessary. His arm came up level with his shoulder, shuddering with pain. He kept his teeth clenched against it, against the bond that shot white arcs of agony across his brain, tried to twist his muscles. He could do this, if he wanted it enough.

He shut his eyes at what he was about to do, and fired. The noise echoed round the chamber, bounced off pillars and tiles and rumbled back to Holden. When the sound died away he was still standing with his arm out, eyes shut. Waiting for the guards to run him through, the Master to grind him to dust, because he couldn’t have done it, couldn’t have killed the Master. The Master was unending. But the Master had never thought it would be a bonded man who tried for his death.

Holden’s arm shook as he waited and he dropped the pistol. It started as a tingle in his wrist, the light touch of nerve-endings tickled. His eyes snapped open as it grew, as the silver thrill crept up his arm, faster now, racing through his body with a sudden, joyous lightness mingled with a burning pain and a thread of panic. Guards murmured around him, gasped in surprise or fear. Metal clanged on the tiles as one and then another dropped their swords. Holden looked up.

The Master half sat, half lay across the dais, propped against a pillar. A dribbling black hole marred the crystals on his chest, and chunks of them lay over his lap or sprinkled across the cushions. Crystals slid from one side of his face, a tinkling avalanche of them. The face beneath was pale, wrinkled and slack. A sharp nose, a slash of a mouth, eyes open but not seeing. Holden sat down abruptly next to Van Gast. He couldn’t seem to do anything but stare for long moments.

“Nice shot. Didn’t think you had the balls for it, to be honest.” Van Gast’s breath bubbled in and rasped out.

The Master was dead and his bonds would die, even now were fading away to nothing. Some of the guards huddled in a group, silent and watchful. A few ran, panic etching their faces in white. One of the captains came forward, his footsteps an irregular beat on the tiles as he hesitated.

“Commander? I—I—” His mouth hung open but all he could say was that one word, over and over.

Holden stared at the tiles. No order. No purpose. This time he couldn’t go back, this time he must make his choices and live with them, not retreat like a turtle into the safety of its shell. This time he wasn’t going to be a coward. “We’re free, Captain.”

The captain stepped back and stood straight, at attention, as though that could hold all his thoughts together. “But, Commander, but what do we do now? Who will tell us? We need that, I need that. I can’t, it’s all too big. Should we wait for another mage to come? They can give us another bond. One will become the new Master.”

“Not if I can help it.” Holden stood up, a newfound determination lending him strength, giving him purpose. No more mages. No more bonds. The mages were nothing without the bonded, could do nothing but magic. Bondsmen did everything for them.

“Then who?”

Holden bent down and helped Van Gast to his feet. He was very pale now, his skin cool and clammy. “This man. He knows what it is to live without a bond, he knows the world that we’ve never seen. For now, we do what he says. Van Gast?”

Van Gast raised his eyes briefly, as though it took a great effort. “Two things. Skrymir’s probably just about to storm the ship. Get him to bring Guld and the boy. Josie too, if she’s—” His voice faltered. “If she’s still alive. Then we finish it, Ten Ruby Trick.”

“What is the end of it, the true end?”

“We steal every fucking thing we can and we sail away quick.”

“Commander, are you—”

“You heard the man,” Holden snapped. “Now do it.”

Van Gast sat propped against a pillar on the dais and felt the swell of the tide underneath him as they got underway. They’d stolen the ship, not just any ship, but the Master of the Archipelago’s. The other two ships, the ones that had been masquerading as racks, would follow with what was left, or what they could find, of Josie’s men and a crew of Remorians. A Remorian crew who knew nothing except how to take an order. His orders now.

He watched as Holden smashed the tiles on the floor one by one with a hammer he’d found somewhere. There was a pattern to it. First black, then white, then blue, then grey then back to black. Methodical. Soothing in a way. Holden looked different, something different in the way he walked, the way he held himself. That and the grim little smile as he smashed another tile.

He lifted the edge of his shirt and looked at the hole in his side. He’d been right—it did hurt like a bitch later. The blood was starting to clot at least, but it would start afresh when they took out the glass and the bullet that was still in there somewhere. Hopefully someone could find him some booze on board to help him through that part. Something else was there, hidden by all the blood. He pulled it out gingerly. Kyr’s mercy. One of the daggers, still intact, without even so much as a chip. He wiped at the blood but only succeeded in smearing it around. The liquid inside sloshed gently.

One wedding dagger, what good was that? What good was he without Josie? Just a smash-and-grab merchant. A bit of panache and no head for twists. Nothing really, and without Josie seemed to be where he was. Oh, she was here, on board. She was even still alive. Just. Skrymir had brought her aboard and Holden had told him where to find the Remorian healer, one used to dealing with bonds, and all the chance she had. She was still fighting, but there was no movement, no life in her, only purple lines and the smell of death. As soon as he could move, he’d find her, watch her slip away from him again, for good. He laid the dagger on his lap and only realized he was crying when tears dripped off his chin and splattered on the glass.

“What’s that?” Holden crouched down on the dais next to him with his back to the body of his late Master.

Van Gast looked up and scrubbed at his eyes, pretended he was just weary, not crying. Holden saw, he could tell in the way he looked, but he said nothing and Van Gast was glad. “A wedding dagger. I had two, but the other one got shot. I was…” He shut his eyes briefly and willed his voice to keep calm. “I was going to use them to see if she loved me.”

Holden frowned and smiled at the same time. “You needed them to tell you?”

Van Gast glared at him. “How could I know, she’d never tell me. Too bloody slippery, too wary after you left her. She wouldn’t say it, see? Because of you, because every other man in her life had let her down, betrayed her trust. I thought she did, I hoped. But I didn’t know, and now I’ll probably never know. Now I’m just another man who let her down. She asked me to trust her, and I couldn’t. Just another bastard in a long line of bastards.”

Holden tried to hide a smile behind his hand. Funny, Van Gast had never seen a Remorian smile before.

“You think she needed to say it? You couldn’t tell?” Holden laughed, a rough jagged thing, as though it had been years since he’d had cause.

Van Gast turned his head and busied himself sliding the dagger away, on the other side to his wound, next to the waterproof pouch and the pistol he’d never had a chance to use. How could a Remorian understand?

“She said you weren’t so bright, but I thought that was just another lie. Maybe she was right.”

“Now hold on a fucking minute—” Van Gast sat bolt upright and instantly regretted it. Godsdamn, hurts more than a bitch. He slumped back against the pillar.

“You didn’t know then, maybe. Do you now?” Holden watched him carefully, still smiling like a man set free from a death sentence.

Van Gast shut his eyes again, too tired and heartsick to keep them open. All he could see was her, different times, different places. How she looked at him when they were alone, when she lost her sharpness. The way she’d kissed him. The way she’d tried to kill that mage, tried everything she could to keep him free. Maybe he did know now, but by every god there was, he’d have liked, just once, to hear her say it.

“Um, I think you need me to do something about that.”

“Hello, Guld. I think you could be right.” Van Gast sat up straighter, clenched his teeth against the dig of glass into his side and opened his eyes. Guld stood on the dais, hopping from one foot to the other and glancing round nervously. Ansen hid behind his legs, his eyes wide as he took in the blood.

The floor shifted under them, swayed with the tide. Van Gast lay back against the pillar, took the bottle of spirits from Guld and took a good, long draught.

“This, um, might hurt.”

At least with this pain, he didn’t feel ashamed when he cried out.

Chapter Thirty-One

Holden stepped into the cramped cabin that housed the healer. The stench was the first thing that hit him, a stinging assault on his nostrils. Then came the noise. It wasn’t loud. No screeches or screams. A soft, wrenching sobbing. Holden stared round the dim interior. The cabin was packed, men hunched into corners, under tables. Eyes wide and staring, come to the only place they knew to get help. Only help was the last thing they were getting. The healer was as bad as the rest, his eyes fixed on the bank of tinctures and ointments that were his trade. His brows were worried, his mouth trembling.

Skrymir had laid Josie on a bed and was doing his best. But it would take a Remorian healer, one who dealt with the bond, who knew them, to help, if help there was. Holden didn’t know how he knew that, but it was graven in his head. Her only, faint, chance.

Holden took hold of the healer’s arm and guided him round, gentle because he knew the desperation, the shaking hands of a man who’s lost his source of reference. “You have a patient.”

“I have nothing, not for this.” The healer’s arm trembled under Holden’s hand. “Not for this.”

“For her. For bonded unwilling. You have something for that? I know you do.”

The healer looked up at him, confused and scared. “I don’t know. In my head—it—I don’t know.”

“There are no more bonds.”

“I—”

“You’re a healer. Heal.”

The healer seemed to come back together then. “A patient, yes. Unwilling, I have something that helps, but she won’t—”

“You do it. Whatever you have. Do it now.”

“I’ll try. There’s the tincture we use to make it go slower. It draws the poison. That might work?” The healer’s hands trembled over a bottle. “Or not?”

“Do whatever you can. Whatever might work.” Holden thought of Van Gast, of Guld drawing the bullet. “You’ll have another patient soon. An easier one, a bullet wound. You have to deal with this. On your own, make your own choices. Understand?”

For a moment, Holden thought the healer might cry, but Skrymir loomed over him and made to grab for the bottle. That galvanized the healer into action, his instincts taking over. “No, you can’t. If it’s not done right…” He glanced at Holden. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all any of us can do.”

Holden stood aft and watched the sun as it crept over the horizon and flashed off the waves to dazzle him. A new dawn that would change his life forever, the Master had said. Changed it beyond imagining. Fear still clogged his head, fear of uncertainty, of possibilities, choices, but he was determined to master it. He would master it, be his own Master.

A bell rang behind him and men ran to change watch, scuttling up rigging or going below. A good wind snapped at the sails and the salt-laden freshness blew Holden’s tiredness away. Whatever else was different, this was the same. They were sailors, Forn’s children first, and always had been. The sea would be his new constant. Capricious, loving, vicious, ever-changing. It seemed fitting.

Van Gast hobbled over to him. He was still pale, haggard around the edges with a stillness, a seriousness to his eyes, that hadn’t been there before.

“You’re supposed to rest,” Holden said as Van Gast made a grab for the rail and leaned on it, breathing hard.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

He didn’t need to say any more. The sight of Josie lying in a cabin, barely breathing, the poison still working on her, had made sleep impossible for Holden too. There was little enough hope for her, only that she’d held on this long, and she fought, always she fought everything. All they could do was wait, and that was almost worse.

“Why are we sailing west?” Van Gast asked. “I said to sail to Dorston.”

“Not yet,” Holden said. “First we have to sail to Remon.”

“I realize this sounds like a stupid question, but why the fuck are you sailing us to Remorian waters?”

Holden leaned his elbows on the rail. It had taken him a long time, half the night, to decide. A choice, only his second ever. He was going to get it right this time. “The Master’s dead, the bonds are dead, or those he put on. Yet there are other mages, other bonds. They won’t let this go. A new Master will emerge, new bonds, if I do nothing. Men will be confused, they might take the bond again, as I did, in fear of what their new life is. But it’ll take time, and in the meantime, if this crew is anything to go by, there’ll be chaos. For a time. I mean to see to it that the bond doesn’t re-emerge. Mages of the power are nothing without us to serve them, to do everything for them.”

Strange, how differently men took it, this new-won freedom. Some embraced it, hugged it to them with a furtive joy. Others retreated, sat in corners and refused to talk, only shuddered with the enormity of it. Some, as Holden had, wanted the bond back, wanted the certainty back and only barely held on to themselves. They lost themselves in the familiarity of life aboard, in sorting rigging and sail, in the mindless tedium of scrubbing or a hundred little jobs that always needed doing. Still others were filled with nothing but rage. Two crew-hands had been killed in knife fights already.

“A good reason not to go there, I would have thought.”

Holden looked across at him. “And I thought Van Gast always did the thrilling thing, no matter how stupid.”

Van Gast’s lips thinned and he blinked rapidly. “The old me may have done. Look where it got me. Sail to Dorston. We can sell the ships and I can settle down to raise chickens or something.”

“Remon first. Something I need to do. I may not be the man to make sure the Archipelago is no longer yoked, but there is just one thing I have to do.”

“Getting used to it now then, this deciding lark? Can’t you put us off somewhere first? I don’t care where.”

“Not really, and no. I want you to see what you helped do, you and Josie.”

The lookout shouted from atop the mast, “Ship ahoy, starboard. A rack ship.”

Van Gast raised his eyebrows and motioned Holden to pass the glass. Using the rail to support himself, he raised it and looked at the incoming ship. He began to laugh, then had to choke it off in a spasm of pain.

“Holden,” he said when he could speak again. “First, I’d like to you to prepare to board that ship, guns at the ready. It’ll be easy, three ships to their one.”

“Board the—? I’m not a rack.”

“No, but that’s my ship. Those bastards stole it and I want it back. There’s something on board I need. Time for you to earn your keep.”

Van Gast sat on the side of the bed, willing himself to get up. It wasn’t happening just yet—going out on deck earlier had been a bad idea. Every time he moved, the stitches in his side pulled and chafed. At least Guld had managed to get the bullet out without too much screaming, and one of the crew-hands had fetched some weird ointment from the healer that stank worse than week-old meat but at least numbed the pain a little. Brandy was helping numb it a lot more, and other things besides.

When the door opened and Ansen came in, it was a good excuse not to try moving for a bit. The boy still had his thumb plugged in his mouth and he eyed Van Gast warily, but in his other hand was a little sack. One of the toy men, the racketeer, poked out of the top. Dillet and the rest of Van Gast’s crew were contemplating the error of their ways in the brig. All in all, Holden hadn’t done a bad job of boarding. In fact he’d had something of a flair for it. Van Gast would get him converted to his way of life yet.

He and Ansen stared at each other in silence. Van Gast didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. If Josie died, this little scrap of a lad would lose as much as him, and if what he’d said was the truth, he was part of Van Gast. He jerked his head in invitation and Ansen shuffled over and sat on the bed, as far from Van Gast as he could get. The dark eyes never left his, as though he was just waiting for Van Gast to send him away, or maybe die on him.

“Did you like your surprise?” Van Gast asked finally, backing out of what he wanted to say, what he needed to know.

Ansen didn’t answer at first. He took out the toy racketeer and dug into the bag for another figure. A woman this time, a racketeer again. All bright breeches and tangled hair. Ansen stroked its arm, as though the feel of it comforted him. Finally he nodded and held out the woman to Van Gast.

He took it and set it in his lap. He didn’t want to think too closely about what it represented.

Ansen took the thumb out of his mouth and chewed his lip. “Did you like yours?” His eyes were wide and grave, and he blinked rapidly at the tears that gathered.

“Yes, very much. Though I think mine was more of a shock.”

Ansen let the tears fall then, let the sobs out, and Van Gast put a hesitant arm around him. What did you do with children? It seemed the arm was the right thing to do, because Ansen flung his arms around Van Gast’s waist and began to cry in earnest. Van Gast tried not to wince when the hug pinched his stitches.

“Why, Ansen, why did Josie bring you? Who’s your mother?”

“Surprise for you. She said it would make you happy. My mother died two years ago and—and my granny said I was too much like you, too much trouble. So she sent me away, to the workhouse in Beneran. Josie came and found me.”

“In Beneran?” Tilly. Ansen’s mother was Tilly, and that was why they’d never let him close after. And she’d only died two years ago—they’d had him thinking she was dead years before. Now he knew why they hadn’t let him go to the funeral, because there was no funeral, they just didn’t want their daughter mixed up with someone like him.

Ansen sat up and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “You never came and found me. Josie’s nice. I like her.”

“So do I, Ansen, so do I.”

“She was only trying to help you.” Ansen’s face screwed up in sudden anger and he thumped at Van Gast’s arm. “And you wouldn’t help her. She’s dying because you wouldn’t! I won’t let her die, even if you would.”

“No, no I—”

Ansen batted away Van Gast’s hand, but he pulled the boy back.

“I didn’t know, Ansen. I thought her and Holden, I thought…well, I thought she liked him more than she liked me.”

“Don’t be silly.”

Silly. Yes, that’s what he’d been, more than silly. “I’m sorry, Ansen. I wish I could save her.”

“So do I. Do I have to stay with you now?”

Van Gast looked down at him, a little copy of himself. A reminder of both the women he’d loved, and maybe all he had left of either. “Only if you want to, but I hope you do.”

“You won’t make me? Granny always said I had to do what I was told. Only I never did, that’s why she sent me away.”

Van Gast leaned down and looked him straight in the eye. “First thing you learn if you want to be a racketeer. No one ever tells you what to do. You just do it, whatever it is you want to do.”

“Like when Josie wouldn’t do what Holden told her, even when she had the bond?”

Van Gast’s smile was strained. “Exactly like that, yes.”

Ansen stuck his thumb back in his mouth and frowned. The other hand stroked at the wooden racketeer. Finally he came to a decision and the thumb came out. “I can keep the toys?”

“You can keep the toys.”

Ansen nodded gravely. “All right.” He took back the toy from Van Gast’s lap and shoved them all into the little sack.

Only after he’d gone did Van Gast realize the little bastard had taken one of his knives too. A fine racketeer in the making. Van Gast wasn’t sure what being a father was about, but if there was one thing he was good at, it was stealing and not getting caught. He would make the boy the best racketeer the mainland had ever seen.

Van Gast made his unsteady way to where Josie lay. He reached the door, and found he couldn’t bring himself to open it. She was there on the other side, and he wasn’t sure he could take it, not again. Look at her and not know if she was going to live or die. She had to live. She had to. She would. Whether she’d forgive him was another matter entirely. He took a swig of brandy and opened the door.

He didn’t get any farther for long moments. She’d moved, now on her side with her eyes open. Ansen was sitting next to her, and it seemed Van Gast had arrived in midconversation. Or at least Ansen was talking. Van Gast was sure his heart actually stopped before it restarted with a pounding that was painful from relief. But when she saw him—ah, when she saw Van Gast, she turned her head away, not much, but enough.

The pleasure-pain drained from his heart, replaced with a cold foreboding.

“Ansen,” he said, “Skrymir wants to show you how to take the wheel.”

The boy looked up under sullen lashes and shook his head, thumb once more planted firmly in his mouth.

Van Gast didn’t know how to say it, was too caught up in how Josie refused to look at him, so it came out all wrong. “Ansen, you get topside, right fucking now.”

The boy looked at Josie and only moved when her head inclined slightly. Ansen barged out. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Josie was alive, against every expectation.

And she wouldn’t look his way. Van Gast stood by the door, for once with no words to call on, no flip remark. He slid into the seat Ansen had just vacated and tried for her hand, but it was no longer there.

“Josie, Josie love, look at me. Please.” He couldn’t bear it. She was alive. Alive, damn it! And yet her face was turned away, her shoulders hunched against him, her hand sliding away from his touch. “I should have trusted you, I know. I know. I’m sorry. Only Holden told me how you loved him, and I, I…” And he’d believed it, like the fool he was.

“You blew up my ship. And you meant to blow me up with it. You blew up my ship, you bastard.” Her voice sounded odd, sort of metallic. Cold, hard and unyielding.

Fear grew in Van Gast’s belly, wormed its way down to his balls. Please no, she was alive. And he was losing her anyway.

“You tried to kill me. You slept with—with him. You told him you loved him. You never told me. What else was I supposed to think? And that it was you, I—”

She shifted on the bed. The purple lines were still there, the poison still in her, but she was alive and moving. She’d fought and won. She always did.

But when her head moved round, that was when he saw. The poison was nothing compared to what he’d done to her. Her storm-grey eyes didn’t leak tears. No, not his Josie. He’d never see her cry again, he knew that. But there was a bewildered hurt there, one he never thought to see, never thought he’d cause. One he didn’t know how to undo. But, Kyr help him, he wanted to. He wanted nothing else.

She said the words that he dreaded, ones he had no defense for. “You doubted me. After everything, you doubted me. I never, not once, doubted you. Never. Until now. I said I always did love Holden, and that was true. I did, but not now, but there was nothing else I could say, not under that bond. And I did love you. But not now. Leave me be. Let me think.”

“Josie, I—”

She turned over, slowly and painfully still, and her back faced him, stiff with hurt. He had his answer, and he almost wished for the bullet in his stomach back, for her to be lying there and him not know whether she’d live or die. At least then there’d be hope.

She’d loved him. Damn it all, she’d loved him—she’d finally said it, and it was in the past. She’d said it, but he’d fucked it up.

He stood up. It was too late, but he had to say it. “I love you, Josienne. Not did. Do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have cared that you tumbled him. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have wanted to make you pay for what I thought was your betrayal. I wouldn’t have done any of it, if I didn’t love you. I love you. I always did. You just never let me say it.”

He pulled out the wedding knife, turned it over thoughtfully in his hands, watched the play of light over the oily liquid. Drink the liquid, then take the blade in your heart to show you’re true, that you marry for love. He had no heart left for her to plunge it into, only a cold, aching emptiness. He laid it on the bed next to her. “I brought you these because it was the only way I could know, because you wouldn’t let me know any other way. And it was the only way I could let you know too. But one on its own is no good.”

Her shoulders twitched but she said nothing, kept her face turned from him.

She’d fought. He’d lost.

He went to drown himself in brandy and regret.

Chapter Thirty-Two

They approached Remon just as dawn began to touch the sky. Holden watched the white houses appear out of the sea, shimmering ghostly grey in the new light. He had the Master’s ship pull into the harbor and tie up. The other ships followed silently, Van Gast’s re-taken ship last. Van Gast had insisted that the harbor would be too dangerous, that if they had to do this—and he’d sworn vociferously about it—then they should tie up somewhere out of sight. But Van Gast was asleep and Holden was at the wheel. He wanted his men to see, he wanted everyone to see.

The harbor was deserted of men. Instead of a spotless wharf, broken barrels littered the stone, trickling their wares in little pools of stickiness. The harbormaster’s office was burned to the ground, and the warehouses were ripped open, roofs gaping up to the sky. Two ships lay at berth, their decks tangles of shattered wood and ripped sail. No one here to help them as Van Gast had, with Skrymir and what they’d found of Josie’s crew. No one here who knew what life was like beyond the bond.

“Keep everyone on board for now,” Holden said to Skrymir. “On board, but ready.”

Skrymir looked out over the ruin of the harbor and nodded absently. “Is it safe?”

“Safe enough.” The crews had settled down in the last few days. Still nervous, some of them, still unsettled and unsure, but the violence had subsided. Holden hoped the same could be said for the people in Remon. They’d be safe—if the mages hadn’t got back in control. “We won’t be long.”

Holden ducked into the captain’s quarters, where Van Gast was sleeping. The wound was healing well enough, but the man…they’d taken his ship back, yet he didn’t seem to care. He didn’t seem to care about anything, because although Josie had managed to live, she wouldn’t speak to him, to anyone except Skrymir and the boy. Van Gast’s spark had gone, the panache, drained away with his blood maybe, or with the poison that was drawn out of her. All he did was drink brandy and sleep.

He slept now, the new day’s light just touching the edge of the bed. Van Gast lay on his back, one hand in a fist, his eyes squeezed tight shut as though warding something off. Holden shook him gently to wake him. The eyes blinked open with a start and Van Gast sat up straight in the bed with a grimace of pain. His skin was grey-tinged and slicked with sweat.

“What do you want?” Van Gast’s voice was still slurred with last night’s brandy.

“We’re at Remon.”

“And? I told you, I don’t care. Just put me off somewhere. Not here though.” He shuddered.

“And I want to show you. Come on, get out of that bed.” Holden had wanted to show Josie too, show her what she’d helped him do, but he couldn’t even get past the door.

Van Gast glared at him sullenly but he swung his legs out of bed, careful of his wound still, and muttered to himself as he dressed. “Didn’t take you long to get bossy.”

Holden led Van Gast up the hill, past all the little houses with their identical doors and identical flowering shrubs. Only Remon wasn’t as ordered now. They walked past two houses burned out and another with the doors hanging off. A dead mage lay in the middle of the road and Holden stopped beside the body. He couldn’t conjure any pity for the man. At least it seemed the worst was over here. The yoke was lifted.

Van Gast labored on up the hill in the growing light. The darkness that had seemed to brood over Remon with the threat of violence lifted as they passed the mage.

“Are we almost there yet?” Van Gast was sweating with the effort. “And why did you bring me?”

Holden stopped to help him, and a gaggle of children ran past, shouting, laughing and giggling. Sounds Holden had never heard here before.

Holden nodded at the children. “For that.”

Van Gast frowned. “Children. So?”

“When did you ever hear a Remorian laugh?”

“I—” Van Gast looked after the children thoughtfully and followed Holden.

Van Gast’s wound was healing well enough, but this hill was probably too much for him. Yet Holden needed him to see. The marketplace no longer had stalls in neat little rows. No longer clean, or ordered. Stalls lay broken or overturned or trading in haphazard places. Cats and dogs ran wild among them, picking at the bits of food spilled over the flagstones. Some traders were out, bakers with their bread, spice merchants weighing and sifting, silk merchants showing off their wares, and everywhere there were bubbles of talk and laughter and life behind eyes that had once been dead.

Holden and Van Gast carried on in silence, up the hill to a little house that looked over the harbor to a far horizon. By the time they made it, Van Gast was almost spent.

“This one,” Holden murmured.

Van Gast frowned at the door, then up and down the street. “How can you tell? They all look the same.”

“This one.” Holden pushed open the door. The hallway was strewn with scraps of paper, an overturned cupboard that spilled clothes onto the tiles, and the remains of some crockery. Holden went inside, Van Gast half a step behind.

“Not a tidy person, then?”

Holden shut the door behind them and went in farther, his breath rasping. He could only hope he was in time, that the chaos they’d witnessed around the rest of Remon, the dead bodies, the looted shops, had not come here. That she hadn’t suffered when he’d lost his bond. Her bond to him would still be intact. How many men would take them from their wives?

He opened the door into the main room. A shadow detached from the rest in the room, someone getting up from the chair by the fire. The fire in the grate was dying but in the faint glow Holden could make her out.

“Holden?” Ilsa stumbled toward them and threw her arms around him. He gently prised her arms away.

“Ilsa, are you all right?”

She stared up at him for a second then remembered herself. “Your wish is my desire to fulfill, Holden.”

“I thought you said the bonds would die,” Van Gast muttered behind him.

“The ones the Master laid on, yes. This is different. I laid on this one. Ilsa, my wish is to take off the bond I gave you.”

She took a faltering step back but a grimace of pain twisted her face—the bond, his bond. He took her arm and pulled her close. “It’s all right, Ilsa, I promise. It’s all right. I know it’s frightening, but I don’t want you under my bond anymore.”

She shook in his arms, the way she had when he’d asked her before. When she’d been frightened even by the thought, frightened of what life would be like without the comfort of it. This last week must have been a nightmare for her, free of the Master’s bond, beholden to his still. He wanted her to be free, as free as he was. It was hard, and he woke often in the night with fear an acidic hole in his gut, but he meant to do this. He meant to make sure the Islanders never took the bond again. There was hope here in Remon now. People would get used to it, and they’d be free to do that how they wanted, free to live any way they chose, and to choose who ruled them.

“Please, don’t,” she whispered against him. “It’s all I have left.”

He slid his hand down her arm, stroked the skin down to the scar on her wrist. He didn’t love her, she didn’t love him. They were only bonded together. He didn’t want it to be like that. If they were going to be together, and nothing was sure, he wanted her to be there because she chose to. His fingers closed over the bond and he pulled. She cried out, a trembling scream of pain and terror, the bond hurting her even as he took it off. He pulled her closer as her muscles tightened and her whole body clenched, and covered her lips with his, covering her fear with his new purpose, and drew the bond out through her skin.

The scream shuddered Holden’s ears, the way she twisted with it making his hand tremble. Worse taking it off than putting it on, especially for Ilsa, who’d known no other way. He let her slide down to the floor and cradled her head in his lap as she thrashed, soothed her as best he could until it passed. Gradually the tattoo of her feet on the floor grew less, the pulse at her throat steadied and became less frenzied.

They stayed like that for long moments, her shivering against him and him lending her what strength he had. Finally he stood her up on shaking legs. She huddled in her arms, small and unsure, deathly afraid.

“Holden…I don’t know what to say, what to think, what to do.”

“Lions.”

“What?”

“I have a ship, several ships, and people to crew them. We’ve racketeers and Remorians working them together. We can do anything we want, Ilsa. Anything at all. But first we’re going to see lions.”

Van Gast watched Holden bring the woman aboard. The look in her eyes was painful. The clenching fear of the unknown, the wide-eyed stare at everything. Van Gast made his aching way to the aft rail and kept busy staring at the waves, losing himself in the ebb and flow rather than think.

He’d thought he could do it, learn to be a father to Ansen, teach him to be a rack. But now that it had all sunk in, he wasn’t so sure. Ansen was wary of him, kept out of his way as much as he could and stuck by Skrymir like a faithful dog. Van Gast had nothing left. He was lost and rudderless.

Holden brought the woman to the rail. Ilsa he’d called her. Some of the fear had left her now and her eyes were wide and bright with wonder in her copper-bronze face. Her mouth turned up at one corner as she watched gulls swoop on the water in the hope of a stray morsel. It was as though a blindfold she’d had on her whole life had dropped away and now she saw what had only ever been described.

“You gave her that.” Holden’s clipped accent didn’t sound so strange now. “You and Josie did. And I and every Remorian thank you.”

Van Gast stared back down at the water. He didn’t care. He’d send every one of them back into slavery if it meant getting Josie back. But his eyes slid back to Ilsa, at how she leaned precariously far over the rail to watch the fish that sported at the entrance to the harbor. She caught him watching and smiled hesitantly, the muscles on her face stiff at first. Then she leaned out farther and laughed.

“You took Josie and you had that at home.” Van Gast hated the bitterness in his voice, the resentment that festered in him.

“She’s not mine. She never was, not really. Now she’s her own. Because of you.”

Van Gast snorted. “Me? You shot him.”

“I shot him because Josie loved you and wanted you free, and I couldn’t deny her that.”

Van Gast’s mouth twisted with words he couldn’t say. Holden had everything he’d wanted—his freedom, his wife—and taken Josie from him doing it.

Only that wasn’t true, was it? No, he’d managed to fuck it up all on his own. She might have forgiven him the ship, but not the doubting.

A flicker of movement caught his eye. His ship, Gast’s Ghost, was moving away from the wharf. Neither he nor Holden had given any order. He leaned over the rail to get a better look. Skrymir was at the wheel, grinning stupidly, Ansen holding on to one of his tree-trunk legs. What was he—Josie. There she was, leaning over the rail, watching him. The purple had faded from her face now and, though too thin, she looked almost back to normal. Physically.

“What’s she doing?” Holden stood next to him, his voice incredulous.

“She’s stealing my ship.” He nodded in her direction, accepting. “I owe her that, and a lot more besides.”

Josie turned from the rail and shouted out orders that sent men scurrying to obey. More sail snapped from the yards, and the Ghost turned for the harbor mouth. The wind caught her, bellied the sails and scudded her away from him.

“Van.” Guld, shaking on Van Gast’s arm. “Van, you have to see.”

He didn’t take his gaze off the ship. Off her. “Not now, Guld.”

“Um, actually, yes now. She left you something.”

“What?” He dragged his eyes away, down to what Guld was holding. The wedding knife, with something wrapped round it.

“She left it on your bed.”

Van Gast unraveled the scrap of cloth wrapped around the knife and almost dropped it. Josie had never learned to write other than making a few wobbly letters. But there, scratched laboriously on to the cloth. A V and a J, twined together. Trust me. The knife had no oil in it. Ready to be used. To show him what he needed to know. He didn’t look up, not just yet. He wasn’t sure he could. He wasn’t sure he could breathe.

“Holden, which way is she going?”

“I’m not—wait. Estovan, on that heading.”

Of course Estovan. The one place where they wanted his head as bad as anything. Where he was worth more dead than alive. The stupidest place for him to go. Only she’d be there too, and maybe he had a chance with her, a chance to get her forgiveness. A small one, but a chance. He slid the empty knife into his belt, the scrap of cloth into a pocket in his shirt, near his heart, and looked up.

Josie flicked a last glance over her shoulder. Her eyes held Van Gast’s, just for a heartbeat. Then she grinned at him, that lopsided smile that always shivered his heart. Josie, the stupid-but-exciting thing, the never-quite-in-his-grasp thing. Like the sea. Ever vicious, ever loving, ever changing. Capricious, volatile, and all he ever wanted. Never gave up till the end of the chase. Rob, kill or delight, that grin said. If you can catch me.

Odds were one in three. But he was Van Gast, wasn’t he? Finest racketeer on the mainland coast. The racketeer. When had he ever let a little thing like stupidity stand in his way?

Fuck it. Let’s do it.

About the Author

Julia Knight lives in Sussex, U.K., with her ever-patient husband, two kids and the world’s daftest dog. Her interests include motorbikes (men in leather), wrestling (half-naked men covered in muscles, sweat and baby oil) and exploring new ways to get a giggle out of life. She was recently diagnosed with bipolar, prompting cries of “Tell us something we don’t know” from people who know her, and making sense of much weirdness in her life. It also gives her an excuse when she does something daft. Which is often. Her first book, Ilfayne’s Bane, won the 2010 EPIC award for fantasy romance, with the same awesome editor as Ten Ruby Trick. Ilfayne’s Bane, together with the sequel Love Is My Sin, and a red-hot historical romance novella—with pirates!—named The Wicked Lady, are available from Samhain Publishing.

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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9106-9

Copyright © 2011 by Julia Knight

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