“Oh, absolutely, Captain,” said Jin, whose uniform was in the same style. “Should I just slit his neck here, or haul him up with the others? August said the dragons are swarming again. Sampson is strong enough to throw him over.”
Sampson, another of Kit’s crew, nearly filled the doorway with muscles and strength. He smiled, nodded.
That was enough to prompt a response. “I’ve got information,” the smuggler said, words tumbling out.
“About what?” Kit asked. “Because I don’t want to hear any further details about the queen’s unmentionables.”
“Gods save the queen,” Jin said with a smile.
“Gods save the queen,” Kit agreed, then lifted her brows at the smuggler. “Well?”
“I’ve information about . . .” His eyes wheeled between them. “About smuggling?”
That he’d made it a question suggested to Kit he really was as oblivious as he pretended to be.
She sighed, made it as haggard as she could. “You know, while Commander Takamura is quite skilled with that sabre, and the dragons probably are swarming—it’s that time of year,” she added, and Jin nodded his agreement. “Those aren’t the things you should be really and truly worried about.”
The smuggler swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
Kit leaned forward, until she was close enough that he could see the sincerity in her eyes. “You should be afraid of the water. It’s so dark, and it’s so cold. And sea dragons are hardly the only monsters that hunt in its depths.” She straightened up again, walked a few paces away, and pretended to look over the other furniture in the room. “Being eaten quickly—devoured by a sea dragon—would be a mercy. Because if you survive, and you sink, you’ll go into the darkness.”
She looked back at him. “I’m Aligned, you know. I can feel the sea, the rise and fall, like an echo of my heartbeat. I hear a tune just for you, ready to call you home.” She took a step closer. “Would you like to be called home?”
She wasn’t normally so poetic, or so full of nonsense, but she found getting into character useful in times like this. And it had the man swallowing hard. But he still wasn’t talking.
She glanced up at Jin, got his nod. And then he braced an arm against the hull. Behind him, Sampson did the same. They knew what was coming. Knew what she was capable of.
She had to be careful; there was a line that couldn’t be crossed, a threshold that couldn’t be breached. But before that border, there was power. Potential.
Using her magic, Kit reached out for the current, for the heat and energy, for the ley line that shimmered below them in the waters. She touched it—as carefully as a violinist pressing a string—and the Amelie shuddered around them, oak creaking in the wake.
Her trick wasn’t familiar to the prisoner. “Gods preserve us,” he said, stumbling forward, face gone pale. Jin caught him by the collar, kept him upright, and when he gained his footing again, his eyes had gone huge.
“More?” Kit asked pleasantly.
“I don’t know where it came from,” the man blurted out, “and that’s the gods’ truth. I’m in the—I only make the deliveries.”
“You’re a smuggler,” Kit said again, tone flat.
“If we’re not being fine about it, yes. I pick up the goods in Fort de la Mer, and I get a fee for delivering them. I don’t ask what’s in the cargo.”
Fort de la Mer was a Gallic village perched on the edge of the Narrow Sea in the thin strait that ran between the Isles and Gallia. It was a busy port for merchants and smugglers alike.
“Delivered to whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Kit cast her glance to the window, to the ocean that swelled outside.
“All right, all right. There’s a pub in Pencester,” he sputtered. “The Cork and Barrel. I’m to drop it there.”
Pencester was directly across the sea and strait from Fort de la Mer. “To whom?” Kit asked again.
“Not to somebody,” he said. “To something. I mean, there’s a spot I’m to leave it. A table in the back. I’m to leave the box beneath the bench. That’s all I know,” he added as Kit lifted a dubious brow. “I deliver, and that’s all.”
Kit watched him for a moment, debated the likelihood he’d told the entire truth. And decided the Crown Command could wring any remaining information out of him in New London.
“Sampson, put him with the others.”
The smuggler blustered as he was led away, muttering about prisoners’ rights.
She glanced back, found Jin looking at her with amusement. “‘I hear a tune just for you,’” he intoned, voice high and musical, “‘ready to call you home.’ That’s a new one. And very effective.”
“Total nonsense,” Kit admitted with a grin. “Sailors like him don’t care much for the sea. There’s no love, no appreciation. Only fear. One might as well make use of it.” She gestured toward the box. “Do you think you can manage the lock?”
Jin just snorted, pulled a thin metal tool from his pocket, crouched in front of the box, and began to work the complicated arrangement of gears and cylinders. He closed his eyes, face utterly serene as, Kit imagined, he focused on the feel of the metal beneath his long and slender fingers.
He’d been a thief once, and very accomplished. But war had made patriots of many, including Jin, who’d used his spoils to purchase a commission. She’d met him at a pub in Portsdon, a lieutenant who’d just lifted from an arrogant dragoon the coins the dragoon had refused to pay for his dinner. The pub owner was paid, and the dragoon was none the wiser. But Kit had seen the snatch, was impressed by the method and the kindness. And was pleased to discover he’d been assigned to the ship on which she served as commander. That wasn’t the last time his skills had come in handy.
“There’s no ship that’s floating but has a thief aboard,” she murmured, repeating the adage.
Jin smiled as he tucked away his tool. “We are useful.”
He flipped open the latch and lifted the lid, the hinges creaking slightly against humidity-swollen wood. And then he reached in . . . and pulled out a thick packet of folded paper. He offered it to Kit, and it weighed heavy in her hand.
The papers were bound with thin twine and a seal of thick poppy-red wax. But no symbol had been pressed into the wax, and there was no other mark of the sender on the exterior. No indication the packet was from anyone official. Except that it had been sealed into this very nice box with the very nice lock, and hidden away in the captain’s quarters, such as they were.