I’m getting better at that, too. I feel a burst of triumph, which is a little ridiculous for what is, after all, only a door. Having spent so long bashing my head against Soliton’s obstinate, inscrutable system, it still feels like a revelation when I can make it do anything like what I intend. In theory, the authority I was granted at the Harbor gives me complete control over the ship. In practice, things are … more difficult.
Hagan is better at it than I am. Of course, being dead, he has a lot more time to practice.
Jack is waiting for us, bouncing idly from one foot to another, animated as always by a manic energy that never seems to take a breath. As Zarun hauls the dead crab over the threshold and lays it out on the grassy meadow that occupies the first layer of the Garden, Jack follows close behind, practically drooling.
“Good eating, indeed,” she says. “And none too soon, for Clever Jack has a hunger. And a thirst, come to think of it, if there’s any wine left in that jug. But mostly a hunger.”
“Let’s get it properly butchered first,” Zarun says, igniting his own Melos blades. “Otherwise half of it will go bad before we get the chance to cook it.”
I ignite my blades as well, ignoring a twinge in my singed hand. “Show me where to cut.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Zarun says. “Go upstairs and tend to your princess.”
“Yes, go!” Jack says. “You, at least, should enjoy the voyage.”
“But—”
“And by that,” Jack interrupts, “I mean engage in the lustful press of flesh against warm, yielding flesh, skin against skin, tongue against—”
“Jack,” Zarun says.
“Apologies.” Jack bows, panting, her purple hair flopping forward. “Every mile Soliton puts between Lovelorn Jack and dearest Thora is like a thorn in her heart, and every day that passes adds to her … frustration.”
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“Don’t put that on Isoka,” Zarun says. “You volunteered for this, same as I did. Now go and fetch the pick and the shell-spreader.”
“Useful Jack will retrieve the tools of slaughter!” Jack says, bounding off toward the stairs.
Zarun shook his head. “Don’t mind her.”
“I try not to,” I say. “But I can help with this, if you need me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Zarun said, stretching. “It keeps me busy, at least.”
Keeping busy, I reflect as I ascend to the Garden’s upper floors, really has been the biggest problem we’ve encountered so far. We spent the passage through the straits near the Vile Rot sealed up tight inside the Garden, and since then it’s been a steady run northward, the temperature slowly rising as we parallel the coast of the Southern Kingdoms and make for Imperial shores. With control of the angels, crab attacks aren’t a worry, and the Garden provides more than enough food now that the four of us are the only ones aboard.
Even my worry about Tori has receded a little. Not much, of course, but at least we’re headed in the right direction at the best speed I can manage. When we arrive at Kahnzoka—another two days, according to Meroe’s charts—I’ll start to worry again. Until then, all I can do is wait, while mighty Soliton sweeps the miles under its keel.
Tori will be fine. She has to be. It’s months, yet, until Kuon Naga’s deadline.
And Kuon Naga would never lie to you? a traitor part of my mind whispers.
Meroe and I share a chamber in the highest part of the Garden. It’s not large, but it feels positively luxurious compared to the voyage to the Harbor, when hundreds of us were crammed into these rooms. It’s furnished haphazardly, out of the superstitious offerings of goods that have accumulated over decades all across Soliton. Our bed is a nest of cushions and thick carpets, our fire-pit is a brazen shield carved with a lion’s head, and we eat off gold and silver plate that would be at home in the Imperial palace. When she’s not looking through her telescope or plotting our course on her maps, Meroe makes herself clothes from scavenged fabric, strange hybrids of Imperial kizen and Jyashtani dresses that would draw attention on the street of any city in the world. She always looks beautiful, of course.
When I arrive, she’s busy sketching something, sitting at a small desk we’d made from the remnants of a heavy sea chest, carefully husbanding a stub of a pencil from her small, precious stock. Her brow has a single, adorable furrow of concentration, and her tongue pokes ever so slightly out of the corner of her mouth. Back in Kahnzoka, I’m going to buy her a crate of pencils, and inks in every color she can imagine, and a bigger telescope and—
“Isoka!” She looks up and gives me that smile that makes my stomach wobble. “Everything went all right?”
“Fine,” I say. “Zarun and Jack are butchering a blueshell downstairs.”
“Nobody hurt?”
I grin and flex my hand. “I may have burned my fingers a little finishing it off.”
“My mighty hunter.” She gets to her feet, all smooth, automatic grace. She’s wearing pale green, setting off her brown skin and the silver of the asymmetric armband that’s her only jewelry. Her hair is tied into an untidy pile at the back of her head. “And you’re not helping?”
“They told me to head upstairs and ‘tend to you,’” I tell her. “Well. Zarun told me that. Jack specifically told me I should go and rut you. Something about the lustful press of flesh against warm, yielding flesh?”
Meroe laughs, covering her mouth with her hand. She steps closer, lively red-brown eyes flashing, one eyebrow quirked.
“Something like that,” she says, “could be arranged.” She halts, and sniffs. “After you wash, though. You smell like crab.”
I sniff, and have to agree with her. I make a great show of an exasperated sigh, and she laughs again.
The Garden, it turns out, has showers. That’s what Zarun calls them, anyway. In Kahnzoka we have baths, but apparently in Jyashtan the rich like to have warm water pumped up into the ceiling and drizzled on them like a kind of private rainstorm. Zarun says this is a recent invention, but the ancients who built Soliton must have had a similar idea, because there are little rooms adjacent to our chambers that produce a spray of hot water on demand. Just another benefit of finally achieving real control over the ship. I still prefer a nice hot soak to relax, but for getting yourself clean the shower beats dumping a bucket over your head.
I strip down and start the water with an Eddica command, leaning against the wall and letting it beat down on my shoulders. After a few moments, the tension goes out of my muscles, and I shiver.
Meroe leans her head around the corner, smiling wickedly. I raise my eyebrows.
“Can I help you?”
“Just watching,” she says. “Pay no mind.”
Frankly, I don’t know what she’s so eager to look at. I’m certainly no beauty, more muscle than curves, with my history written on my skin for all to see. Pale ridged scars on my back and thighs, from the Kahnzoka streets, a dozen overlapping cuts from various blades, healed into puckered lines; and of course the line of cross-hatched blue marks that cover my leg and run up my torso and across my face, legacy of the time Meroe’s Ghul power saved my life in the Deeps.