Blue Sea Burning (22 page)

Nobody said anything. We all knew the answer, and it was depressing.

But then Cyril—who, although he'd stopped sounding scornful when he pointed out problems, hadn't exactly been killing himself to come up with solutions—surprised us all.

“Oars,” he said.

We looked at one another. “Is that possible?”

“Long as we have enough. Forty should do the trick. We'll buy them from the shipyard here. Lash them to the deck of my sloop. Then either . . .”

He thought for a moment before continuing. “Either we'll sail straight into the cove, or dock at North Point and carry them overland in the middle of the night. Hide them near the stairs on the cliff top above the cove.”

“It'd take forever to get them overland like that,” said Millicent. “If we try to get it all done in one night—”

“Better to break it up,” said Cyril. “Land on the first night and stow the gear. Spend the next day resting in the woods and scouting the layout of the mine. Then the next night, you and I will create the diversion, and the others will lead the slaves down to the cove.”

He grinned. “By George, I think we've got it. All we need are forty oars and half a dozen skeleton keys.”

The grin on his face was annoying. I was glad we finally had a workable plan, but until that moment, I'd still been hoping that Cyril would back out of it and wreck his chances with Millicent.

“And two hundred slings,” Kira added.

“Are those really necessary?” Cyril asked. “I mean, we've gone to quite some trouble to put something together that'll avoid bloodshed. Do we really need to arm the Natives?”

“Maybe we don't—” Millicent began.

“No,” said Kira sharply. “We must have the slings. They will give the men who carry them confidence. And they will help solve any problem that arises.”

Cyril smirked. “Of course, by ‘solve any problem,' you mean, ‘kill anyone who stands in the way'?”

Kira narrowed her eyes. She didn't care for Cyril any more than I did. “Yes,” she said. “That is what I mean.”

“But it won't come to that,” said Millicent. “It's a good plan. It's going to work. And nobody's going to get hurt.”

Cyril winked at her. “From your lips to the Savior's ears.”

She smiled back at him, and for a moment, I felt like kicking something.

ONCE WE'D WORKED OUT
where we were going to buy all our supplies and how much they'd cost, it was my job to hit my uncle up for the money. I found him late that morning in a tavern off the main street, where forty of his men were celebrating Quint's initiation as a full-fledged member of the
Grift
's crew.

Apparently, the initiation involved quite a lot of drinking. When I got there, Quint was passed out on top of the bar, his skin bright red around the edges of the brand-new flame tattoo that had been inked on the side of his throat. Several crew members were standing over him, swaying boozily as one of them held up a scary-looking tattoo needle.

“Wot say we give 'im another? In a funny place?” the crew member slurred.

They all looked at Healy for his approval.

He shook his head. “One's enough, boys. Needle down. There you go.”

They looked disappointed, but quickly perked up again when one of them had the bright idea to shave a Healy mark into the jungle-thick hair on Quint's back.

“This way, Egg. Unless you're looking for a haircut.” Healy led me to a far table, where he ordered a beer for himself and a sugared lemon for me. The bandage over his eye had been replaced by a simple black patch.

“You got a patch,” I said.

“Mmm. Hoping the eye heals and I'm not stuck with it permanently. Rather annoying to be such a cliché.” He shrugged. “So! How are you liking Edgartown?”

“It's all right.”

“I see you managed to spring your girlfriend. Kudos on that.”

My cheeks flushed. “She's not my girlfriend.”

“She is a friend, isn't she? And rather obviously a girl. So, logically . . .”

“How's your problem with the bank coming along?” Anything to change the subject from Millicent.

He lifted his hand, palm down, and waggled it from side to side. “Seem to have hit a wall at six million. They've put the touch on some other towns in the Fish Islands for the last four. But it might be a while. Although”—he looked back at the bar, where the shaving of Quint's back was in full swing—“if the boys keep drinking like this, they'll end up spending four million on credit, and that'll be that.”

I nodded, not sure if I was supposed to act like that was a good thing or a bad thing. Or whether this meant I'd have any trouble getting the money we needed from Healy.

“So, um . . . I was wondering . . .”

He smiled. “Is this the part where I'm supposed to get my wallet out? How much do you need this time?”

“Eighty-six gold, three silver?”

“To spend on what?”

I got out the list and read it to him. “Six days' rations for five, forty long oars, one set of skeleton keys, four hundred yards of half-inch rope, ten square yards of sturdy cloth, fifteen spools of size twenty thread, and five darning needles.”

He gave me a blank stare. Not one of his terrifying ones. More just confused.

“Darning needles. Of course. I should have guessed.”

“Do you, uh, need to know why—”

“No, no! It's
far
more sporting to try to puzzle out just what on earth you're cooking up with those ingredients.”

He reached into his pocket and came up with a handful of coins, which he plopped onto the table in front of me. “Should be about twenty there. Get you started. Hunt me down tomorrow after lunch—I'll likely have the rest by then.”

“Thanks,” I said, getting up from the table.

“But could you do me just one small favor?” he asked.

“Anything,” I said.

“Come by sometime when you
don't
need money. Just to have a sit. It's good politics—gets me thinking you actually like me for me.”

“I do! Quite a bit! Really!” My stomach went queasy at the idea that he might think I only cared about his money, and that I wasn't thrilled just to have him for an uncle.

“If the money's a problem, you don't have to—” I started to say.

Then he smiled, in a way that I knew meant he understood.

“Go on. Spin your web. I'll still be here when the spinning's done.”

I EXITED INTO
the sunlit morning
and started up the street, gripping the coins tightly in my pocket so they wouldn't jingle and attract the attention of the soldiers who were still prowling the town, confiscating money to give to the pirates.

I was halfway to the corner when Millicent came around it at a run, followed by Guts, Kira, and Cyril.

“Egg!”
Her face was pale and anguished. As she approached me, she threw a nervous glance back over her shoulder.

“What's the matter?”

“My mother's here.”

The Other Pembroke

“PLEASE
, EGG! YOU'RE
the only one who can do it!!”

Millicent had me backed up against a wall. Literally. We were in a narrow alley about a hundred feet up the street from the jail.

She wasn't begging in a flirty way. She was too desperate for that. And I was glad for it—if she'd tried to be flirty, I would have seen right through it and gotten angry.

The desperation was more effective, anyway. I couldn't stand to see her in that kind of distress.

But I wasn't sure I had it in me to do what she was asking.

“Please!”

“Can't we just avoid her?”

“No! If she happens on us, she'll blow up the whole plan! And I can't have her
worrying
so—did you see the way she looked when she left the jail? It was heartbreaking!”

Millicent was right. The brief glimpse I'd gotten, from our hiding spot in the alley, of Edith Pembroke in tears as she walked out of the jail after learning that the daughter she'd come to fetch had vanished . . . It was definitely heartbreaking.

But that was just going to make lying to her face all the more difficult.

“Can't Cyril do it?”

Cyril shook his head. “Sorry, old boy. Afraid she'll never believe Millicent went home without me.”

“Then Guts or Kira—”

“She doesn't know them,” said Millicent. “They won't have any credibility with her.”

“Can I at least tell her the truth? That you're safe, but you can't see her right now, and she should just go—”

“No!
That'd be disastrous! If she thinks you know where I am, she'll never let you out of her sight. And if she knows I'm in Edgartown, she'll never leave without me. We need her back at home, on Sunrise. That way, if the plan goes wrong, she might be able to help us.”

It was the first time I'd heard Millicent admit that our plan might go wrong—and that she'd already been thinking about what would happen to us if it did.

“I thought you hated your mother,” I said.

Millicent sighed. “I thought I did, too. But I was just being a brat. After I came back from the New Lands, we talked for hours. Days . . . And I understand now. The way he kept her in the dark, about everything. I can't even be angry at her for being blind to it, because she's so angry with herself. And it's over—she's leaving him. Soon as she can get a boat back to Rovia. Even though it means she'll lose everything she's got.”

Millicent's eyes were glistening. “I'm all she has left—and I just keep running away from her. I don't want to hurt her any worse than I already have. Not if I can help it. But we've
got
to get her on the afternoon ship back to Sunrise.”

Guts and Kira returned just then, out of breath. They'd followed Mrs. Pembroke after she left the jail.

“Where is she?” Millicent asked them.

“The hotel,” said Kira. “She's trying to get a room.”

Millicent turned back to me. “You've got to go quickly. If she settles in . . .”

“What am I supposed to say to her?”

“That you paid Percy to bail me out. But then you and I had a fight. And I went back to Sunrise.”

“With me,” Cyril added.

“With Cyril.” Millicent took my hands in hers and squeezed them so tightly it hurt. “Can you do it, Egg?
Please?
”

I would have rather tried to save her from sharks.

“I'm not a good liar,” I warned her.

She winced at that, which didn't exactly make me more confident. “You
can
be. You've got it in you. I know you do!”

There was no getting around it. I started toward the mouth of the alley.

“Don't forget to act surprised! Like you're just bumping into her by accident.”

That stopped me short. It was one too many instructions. I was staring at my shoes, trying to remember them all, when I felt a hand on my back.

It was Cyril. He murmured advice in my ear.

“Here's the trick to lying, old boy: convince yourself that what you're saying is true.”

“How do I do that?”

“Any way that works. If
you
believe Millicent and I are headed back to Sunrise, Edith will, too. Good luck.”

He gave me another pat and then sent me into the street.

“We'll wait for you at Mr. Dalrymple's!” Kira called to me as I started for the hotel.

Millicent and Cyril are headed back to Sunrise . . .

No, they're not. They're right behind me.

This was going to be hard.

SHE WAS STANDING
at the hotel reception desk, her back to me, a uniformed servant on either side of her. Her long blond locks were done up in a complicated whorl of braids that fell just below the collar of her emerald silk dress. From a distance, she looked like a queen.

But as I got closer, I could see all the straggles of unkempt hair that had worked their way loose from the braids, and her voice was scratchy and ragged as she argued with the hotel clerk.

“My family has been patronizing this hotel for over a decade—”

“Terribly sorry, madam, but the circumstances are extraordinary—”

“It's
one room—
”

“If I may speak freely”—the poor man's eyes darted about, making sure there weren't any Healy men within earshot—“we're under siege. By a crowd that, frankly, I think it best you avoid at all costs.”

A burst of rough laughter went up from the nearby dining room. Judging by the sound of it, a few of the pirates had followed through on their plan to host a cockfighting tournament in there between meals.

Mrs. Pembroke's braids swished as she glanced in the direction of the dining room. But it wasn't nearly enough to scare her off.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself—”

I was nearly on top of them now, and so shaky with nerves that I knew if I didn't blurt it out and get it over with, I'd lose my courage.

“Mrs. Pembroke?!”
I tried to sound surprised.

Startled, she whipped her head around to face me. In the two months that had passed since I'd last seen her, she looked like she'd aged twenty years. Her face, which had always glowed with health, was gray and hollow.

As she stared at me, eyes wide as saucers, color began to return to her cheeks.

Then she started toward me, moving fast, her stare freezing me in place, and I was just getting my hands up to protect myself from the smacking when she pulled me to her chest in a fierce hug.

My whole body went stiff. It was the last thing I'd expected. I tried to wait it out, but she wouldn't let go. She just kept hugging me.

Then I felt her body start to tremble, and I realized she was crying. So I tried to hug her back as best I could, hoping it'd stop the tears.

“I'm so glad . . .” Her voice was as quivery as her body. “I thought he'd . . .”

She drew back, cupping my face in her hands and staring into my eyes.

“But you're all right! I'm
so
glad . . .” She was smiling through the tears.

I did my best to smile back at her.

“Where's my daughter?”

I shut my eyes and forced myself to remember how Millicent had looked when I first saw her in the cell. Cuddled up next to Cyril.

“She's gone.”

That was how I'd decided I could make the lie feel true. Because Millicent really
was
gone. At least to me. For a while, and maybe forever.

Mrs. Pembroke's smile vanished. “What do you mean?”

“She went off. With
that Cyril.
” The words came out in a hiss.

“Where did they go?”
Mrs. Pembroke's eyes burned as hot as her daughter's ever did. I could feel her fingernails digging into the flesh on my upper arms.

“Back to Sunrise.”

She searched my face. “Are you sure?!”

I nodded. “I paid someone. To get them out of jail. Thought she'd stay with me. But she didn't. She went home with him.”

The anger in Mrs. Pembroke's eyes was giving way to worry.

“They weren't going to do anything stupid, were they?”

“No.” Then I thought better of it, and backtracked. “I don't know.”

“Something to do with the silver mine? And the Natives there?”

She knew her daughter well enough. I had to throw her off. But not too far off.

“Nothing, um, dangerous . . . There was a book.”

“A book?”

“Yes. That Cyril said he had a book. And if he could get the men who run Sunrise to read it, they'd change their minds.”

That seemed to satisfy her.

“When did they leave?”

“Yesterday.”

“They left yesterday? For Sunrise? Millicent and Cyril?”

Her eyes were boring holes into mine. She looked like she wasn't quite convinced, and was searching me for something that would settle it one way or the other.

I shut my eyes again and saw Millicent's face, staring at me through the bars of the cell with that awful look of guilt.

I took a deep, shaky breath. “I wanted her to stay with me,” I said. “But she wouldn't. She went with him.”

Mrs. Pembroke's mouth turned down at the corners—but not from suspicion, or sadness, or even anger.

It was pity.

“I'm so sorry . . .” She hugged me again, and I realized I was a better liar than I'd thought. She believed the whole thing.

I just wished, for my own sake, that she'd only believed most of it.

I STAYED WITH HER
for the hour or so it took the Sunrise ship to board its passengers. It seemed like the right thing to do. But it was a hard hour, because the whole time I felt like I was just one wrong word away from wrecking the whole thing.

And the fact that she kept trying to be kind made things even more awkward. Early on, when we were first walking down to the dock, she started to ask me to come back to Sunrise with her.

But before she'd even finished the sentence, she remembered that her husband had tried to kill me on three different occasions.

Then her face turned bright red, and she got all flustered and upset.

“I'm sorry—”

“It's okay,” I said.

“It's
not
okay.”

“Please don't cry. I know it's not your fault.”

“But the way he . . . We're leaving, you know,” she said. “Millicent and I. We'll never see him again.”

I nodded. “Good.”

“We're going across the sea. Back to Rovia.” She slowed her pace for a moment, thinking. Then she put a hand on my shoulder.

“Perhaps you'd like to come with us?”

“I don't know about that.” Which was the truth. Right then, I wasn't sure if going to Rovia with Millicent would be the greatest thing that had ever happened to me, or some kind of excruciating nightmare.

I didn't even know if Millicent would end up going there herself. For all I knew, she was planning to run away again.

Maybe she'd run away with Cyril.

Best not to think about that.

We were nearly to the dock now.

“Who's looking after you here?”

“I have an uncle.”

“You do . . . ? I'd like to speak to him.”

I didn't see how any good could come of that. “I don't think you should,” I said. “He's Burn Healy.”

She sucked in her breath in surprise. “Really?”

I nodded.

“I don't believe you.”

Stick, the
Grift
's one-legged cook, was hobbling up the dock about thirty feet away. I called out to him.

“Stick! Who's my uncle?”

“Cap'n Healy!” he called back. “Wot of it?”

“Never mind! Thanks!”

“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Pembroke. She was quiet for a while after that.

When we reached the pier where the Sunrise ship was docked, her servants set down her luggage trunk for us to sit on. Then she sent them off with money to buy us lunch at the bakery, insisting on paying for it even though I told her I could put it on my uncle's tab, and warned her that flashing coins in public would get them confiscated.