“I write many letters to friends,” she said, which was true enough—even if, as a reason for keeping her notebook, it was a lie. But Zenobia had told this one so many times, it almost felt like truth. “This reminds me of sights that I’ve seen, so that I don’t always struggle for topics. Why don’t the kraken attack the ironship?”
His gaze met hers again. “It’s too big.”
“That only explains why they can’t capsize it,” she said. “But the engines must draw the kraken—and the megalodons, too. That’s why no ships in the west use engines anymore. Only sails. And everyone knows that kraken fixate on their prey. That ironship should be covered with tentacles. Yet there are none.”
“You will write that to your friends?”
“Yes.”
He gave her another long look. “They drag nets full of jellyfish beneath the ship,” he finally said. “The venom stuns any kraken or sharks that come too close.”
Jellyfish. Incredible. She jotted the answer. The governor remained silent as he walked beside her. Did he think her rude? She hoped not. If she could accept his blunt manner, then he could wait for her to write a few notes when inspiration struck.
She tucked her notebook away again as they rounded the kraken’s cone. A stream of black ink darkened the sand.
Zenobia sighed. She needed ink. And more pens. She’d had the sense to bring Archimedes’ letters and her work—those would have been irreplaceable—but there was still so much that needed to be replaced.
“I don’t suppose that ink is usable?”
“No. But we’ll extract what’s left in the sacs.” He stopped to look down at her. “Would you like some?”
“Yes.” And she would write an adventure using the ink from a kraken. Simply wonderful. “Thank you.”
“You’re easily pleased. But so am I.” His gaze dropped to her smile before lifting to meet her eyes again. “I’ve been thinking of your valet.”
“Cooper?” Startled, Zenobia looked to the mercenary. He’d followed them around to this side of the kraken, keeping her in his sight. “Why?”
“Because he’s not with your husband.”
“My husband?”
“Your friend called you Madame Inkslinger. You
are
married?”
“Oh, yes.” Sometimes she forgot. “But Cooper is not just a valet. He fulfills many roles.”
“Except the role he was hired for. Your husband isn’t with you.”
“No.”
“Is he a fool?”
“No. He’s dead.” Zenobia expected some response to that announcement—sympathy, surprise—but she hadn’t anticipated the governor’s smile. “
That
pleases you?”
“Are you still in mourning?”
“No.”
“Then it pleases me. I feared I was too late.”
“For what?” she had to ask. Her heart thudded when he stepped closer.
His voice lowered. “On the flyer, I liked the feel of you against me. Now I’d like to feel you beneath me.”
Her lungs became a vacuum. She stared up at him, her mind just as empty. Had he truly said that? With no apology or hesitation in his expression—and no humor now, either. He watched her struggle for an answer, his intense gaze focused on her face.
“You’re very bold, sir,” she finally managed.
“Yes.”
Only a few minutes ago, she’d found his bluntness refreshing. Now she wasn’t certain whether to be flattered by his interest, or to be insulted that he thought she could be so quickly had.
But her sense was returning, and she realized there might be more to his request that hadn’t been said. “Is this a condition of our staying in this town?”
A frown darkened his face. “No. I ask because I would enjoy it.”
Of course he would. He was a man. It was common knowledge that they always did.
She pursed her lips. “But would
I
enjoy it?”
He gave a short laugh that spread into a grin. “If you’ll have me, I’ll make your pleasure my only goal.”
“Then I’ll consider it,” she told him, even as she told herself,
I won’t
.
Oh, but despite that quick resolution, she already
was
considering it. This could be an adventure of another sort. She was an independent woman. Everyone believed her to be a widow. Her reputation wouldn’t suffer. And like the kraken, lovemaking was something that she’d read about but had no real experience with of her own. What harm would it do to know firsthand?
So perhaps she could be tempted. Her body already was, with these flutterings and tightenings. Her attraction to him made little sense, but rejecting his offer didn’t make much sense, either. An opportunity like this with a man who intrigued her physically and intellectually might not come again. She just had to be careful.
“I’ll convince you,” he said softly, though she’d already done the job herself. But when she glanced up, he’d turned away from her to look behind them. “You should step back. We’re going to start cutting the tentacles.”
A dozen men were coming across the sand, shirtless and on bare feet, carrying two twenty-foot long serrated blades between them.
She looked at the governor in surprise. “You
saw
through the tentacles?”
“Yes,” he said, then called out, “Taka!”
His brother glanced over. She couldn’t understand anything of what the governor told him—but when he pointed to the top of the twisted heap of arms, she realized he was telling the other men which tentacle to start with.
She waited until he’d finished. “I assumed you’d use a cutting machine.”
He looked down at her again. “We used to. But when the tentacles tear free of the body, anything they land on is crushed beneath them.”
“And one crushed the machine?” Zenobia guessed.
“Yes.”
He stripped off his tunic as he answered, then bent to remove his boots.
Oh, my.
On the flyer, her fingers hadn’t deceived her. Tight muscles defined his broad chest and shoulders, his every movement a beautiful display of strength beneath smooth skin that glistened with perspiration. His abdomen rippled as he stood again.
Zenobia gestured faintly behind her. “I think I will stay and watch.”
“Stand clear of the tentacles.”
“I will.”
“And find shade. You aren’t accustomed to this sun.”
Or this heat. “I’ll send Cooper to find a parasol.”
He didn’t respond. After a long second, Zenobia looked up from his impressive torso. She expected a grin, but instead of laughing at her, his dark gaze roamed over her expression, as if slowly measuring the arch of her brows and the curve of her lips.
“My home is near yours.” His gaze settled on her mouth. “Come tonight.”
Yes,
she wanted to tell him. But she needed to be careful.
“I’ll consider it,” she said again.
***
At the bathhouse, Ariq soaped and rinsed away the squid, but skipped the soak. Any other night, ribald calls wondering at his hurry would have filled the bathing chamber, followed by sly observations about how well Lady Inkslinger held a pencil—most of them gleeful that it was finally Ariq’s turn to suffer through a courtship. His attention toward Zenobia hadn’t gone unnoticed. But after hours of sawing through a kraken’s tentacles, exhaustion had quieted the men sitting in the heated bath, and Ariq escaped with few suggestions tossed his way.
Fastening his embroidered tunic, he emerged from the steam-filled chambers into an evening almost as humid. Clouds gathered in the northern sky. More rain coming. Not an airship in sight. Now that the marauders were dead, the airships would come again, too.
Unless it hadn’t been the end of them. Ariq didn’t think that it was.
Not with two men waiting by the cliffs. When Ariq had hailed them, they’d responded with a barrage of bullets. They didn’t speak a word before Ariq and Taka’s answering shots had killed them, but their presence told Ariq enough.
They hadn’t participated in the attack on the airship. If destroying the airship had been their only goal, they’d have all gone. So those two men were supposed to report back. That meant there was someone to report back
to
. Someone giving orders.
That person could hire more men—or recruit them—and it could all begin again. Ariq and Taka had helped cut off the arms today. They hadn’t gotten the head.
And that head had decided to sacrifice a dozen men to bring down a French airship.
Maybe to target Zenobia and the documents she carried. Maybe another reason. But whatever the marauders’ goal, too many people had already died for it.
Ariq would find the head. Then he’d stick the bloodied skull on a pike and parade it through his town.
Quietly parade it. He paused as he caught sight of Yesui Besud. A former soldier with strong fingers and an archer’s eye, she came out of the women’s side of the bathhouse, her young son in tow. Yesui’s husband had captained one of the first airships destroyed. She might like a head on a pike. But Ariq couldn’t forget the boy. Destroying an enemy should never be more important than the people he fought for—and by the time he’d been her son’s age, Ariq had seen more heads than any boy should ever have to. He wouldn’t display one for her son to see.
“Good evening, Ariq Noyan.” Yesui still used his title, though he hadn’t commanded a unit of soldiers since they’d left the rebellion. She glanced at his embroidered tunic with a faint smile. “On your way to the soup house?”
Where he would have eaten anyway. But everyone knew that Lady Inkslinger would be there tonight, too. “I am.”
“I’ll walk with you.” Yesui fell into step beside Ariq. At a word from her, the boy ran ahead. “I spent ten minutes scrubbing the ink from his feet and hands.”
Ariq hadn’t spent so much time. Ink still stained his hand and arm. But he had two bottles to give Zenobia, and four barrels that would sell for a substantial sum in the Hindustani markets.
“So he learned to avoid the black sand,” Ariq said. “What did you learn?”
“Almost nothing,” she said. “She calls herself Mara Cooper. Her family fled Champa two generations ago.”
A region on the mainland’s southeastern peninsula. Her accent would be nothing like Ariq’s. “And her husband?”
“Is from England.”
The small labor colony at the far western border of the Golden Empire. Over a decade before, the native population had risen up against the empire’s occupation—an event made significant only because the Great Khagan had withdrawn his forces from the colony rather than crush the revolution. That withdrawal had been among the first visible cracks in the Khagan’s power—cracks created by the pressure of the rebellion closer to home, and from the efforts of soldiers like Yesui.
“Mara claims they are both servants, but she’s no more a lady’s maid than I am,” Yesui continued. “She asked questions.”
So had Zenobia. “About?”
“You.”
Yesui wouldn’t have answered them. No one in this town would say anything of their neighbors to strangers. She would have affected a shy smile and insisted that she didn’t like to gossip.
Neighbor to neighbor, they chatted like wagtails. By the end of the night, everyone would know that Ariq had worn his best tunic.
“She is always making notes.”
They weren’t speaking of the maid now. “Yes,” Ariq said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She glanced at his tunic again. “Is she fierce?”
He thought of Zenobia’s leap from the falling flyer, of her fight to reach the ocean’s surface after her pack dragged her down. He thought of her eyes, like a flame dancing through jade, and the intelligence behind them. “She is.”
“Mara Cooper said they hoped to leave for the Red City soon.”
“I know.” So little time. He couldn’t waste a second of it.
“I wish you luck, then.” Yesui’s steps slowed as they approached her home. Ahead, the boy ran through the wooden gate and up the path, red dust kicking up under his sandals. When she spoke again, her voice carried the dull ring of armor strapped too tightly around the flesh it protected. “It’s said that you and your brother have slain the marauders.”
Ariq couldn’t give her what she needed—the assurance that the men who’d fired on her husband’s airship were dead. “Only some of them.”
“I dream of shooting my arrows through each one of those filthy curs. For those that were killed, you have my gratitude. And my son’s, when he is old enough to know it.” She bent her head. “Please convey my gratitude to your brother, as well.”
“You should give it to him yourself.”
Yesui looked up with a laugh. “Even if I disrobed in front of him, he would not see me. But he might hear you.”
“He’ll hear you.”
At least, Ariq hoped he would. The more people who reminded Taka of his worth, the better.