She lifted Keiko’s chin with her finger, tipping the girl’s face toward hers. Keiko’s freckles blurred beneath the tears that converged at her sharp chin. Evelyn stopped to consider Keiko’s lips before she kissed her.
Keiko’s kisses tasted of salt. Like the sea. It was odd, so unlike Keiko. It was equally unsettling and lovely. With each kiss Evelyn felt further from her new life as a casket girl and closer to Keiko. Closer to home.
But even as she tried to lose herself in the softness of Keiko, of her mouth and her legs and her neck and her cheek, Evelyn couldn’t help but wonder if her parents’ choice to deprive her of her most beloved lady’s maid was not just frugal but calculated.
It was rare that the crew spent much time ashore. Even more rare that they should do so in Crandon. It had been years since Flora had last seen this cursed city, last witnessed the horrible stone statue of the First Emperor crest over the horizon, to loom, enormous, over everything. She hated that statue nearly as much as she hated Crandon itself. But the captain had paid out all the men so that they could enjoy their stay here. Crandon sprawled with offerings for nearly every appetite, assuming one had coin. There were good times to be had in Crandon for a man with money, and since most of the crew called the city home, they knew just where to find it.
All except Flora, it seemed. Being back in Crandon made her nervous. She felt compressed here, small.
On the other hand, the Dove had been to Tustwe’s eastern shores twice, and it was not until she had visited there, had been in a place where she looked like everyone else, that she realized the power of blending in. Why her mother had left her native shore only to come to a country where everyone hated her, and her children, was beyond Flora’s understanding.
As Nipran’s nearest southern neighbor, it was miraculous that Tustwe had not yet been colonized. But it held its own in trade against the Empire. Flora loved it there — loved the heat, loved the way Imperials looked nervous as they walked through the dusty streets and startled at the oryxes.
Someday, she and her brother would live in Tustwe. They talked about it frequently. They’d learn the language — Alfie first, of course; he had a knack for languages, for picking up words and phrases like souvenirs from the different places they visited. Flora would follow. They would blend in. And they’d never return to Crandon again.
That time was nearing, too. They’d been saving. Each voyage on the Dove added to Flora’s unease that Alfie would do something stupid, that the captain would decide they were no longer worth their weight. Or worse, that they’d become like the rest of the crew, indistinguishable from the murderers and rapists whose ranks they shared. It had not been so long since they started sailing with the Dove.
She remembered the ears, severed and cold, handed to the captain as their ticket aboard.
Their ticket away from this place. Crandon. The Empire.
Luckily, shore leave was nearly over now. Unluckily, Alfie was not back on the Dove.
So off Flora ran, through the city she hated, through every back alley and dingy pub Sty’s End had to offer. They’d grown up in Sty’s End, but that didn’t mean it was exempt from Flora’s hatred. If anything, her ire was inflamed in those narrow gray streets, as if their very dimensions were too small to contain it.
They had been reared on Imperial hate. Rejected from the orphanage. They’d rarely found a roof to sleep under. Amid the desperate and the dying, the funeral homes and the pubs.
This one, the Tipsy Pig, was the last Flora would check. After that, Alfie would be on his own, she vowed.
This was a lie and she knew it. Alfie was the only family she had — she’d never leave without him.
The pub smelled of piss and wine, cheap rum and sweat. Familiar smells, smells she hated. She pushed her way through the bodies, the men bellowing, loud with drink.
Leaning over the bar, propped up on his elbows and nearly passed out, was Alfie. Though he was the elder of the two, Flora felt as though she were his keeper, today especially. Any time he had access to drink, really.
She tried to push down the resentment, hot and red and burning, that flared in her chest. She knew why he drank, knew too well that there were memories he’d rather live without. And that if he hadn’t interceded to protect her, he’d not have them. But his burden became hers each time they hit the shore. Any shore.
“You idiot.” She tried to shake him awake. “Get up.”
He groaned but didn’t move.
“Come on,” said a woman behind the bar. She was old, the passage of time plain upon her face. Like Flora and Alfie, she was not Imperial-blooded, though she was pink, which was worse, really. There wasn’t an uncolonized country left in the Cold World.
Sty’s End was full of immigrants from all over the Known World. Hardly anyone there could boast pure Imperial blood.
The barkeep’s immense bosom was hardly contained by her yukata, and Flora felt her face flush at the sight of it.
“Let him be,” she said warmly. “Have a drink.”
She poured a draft of muddy ale into a dirty cup and pushed it forward.
“I’ve got no silver.”
The woman nudged it closer, a wry half smile on her face.
“Or copper.”
“You don’t look like you do,” the woman said. “But then I bet a boy like you has plenty to offer a poor lady like myself as compensation for this here spirit.” She gave Flora a long, lascivious look up and down. “You ever been with a woman?”
Boy.
Flora took the cup and drained it. It was horrible — flat and stale. It tasted the way a horse smelled.
“If I hadn’t,” Flora said carefully, “I wouldn’t start with you.”
The woman laughed a deep belly laugh. “S’too bad!” she said merrily. “Your mate here was much more obliging. My biggest customer all night.”
Alfie groaned. It wasn’t until then that Flora could see he wasn’t just drunk. His stare was focused, but not on anything in the pub. His gray eyes were eclipsed black with dilated pupils. Flora’s heart raced. She had not checked their stores, had not seen what he’d taken from them, had not counted their savings before she left the ship.
Just how much did he spend?
“What has he been drinking?” She feared she already knew the answer.
The woman smiled, clearly pleased to be the bearer of bad news after Flora’s rudeness. “Mermaid’s blood. Had it in fresh from the port just this afternoon.”
Flora’s eyes fell shut.
Mermaid’s blood was the oblivion drink. Men drank it to escape the cruelty of their lives. Drink the blood, they said, and you’d see beautiful things. But memories would disappear. Gone, gone, gone. Which was what most drinkers wanted. It was mermaid’s blood that made the Nameless Captain nameless, after all. He’d had enough that he’d forgotten even his own name.
Mermaid’s blood changed men. And the cost was high.
How much had Alfie had? Flora wondered. How much of Alfie is left?
Flora shoved her shoulder beneath her brother’s arm and hoisted him swiftly to his feet. It was a practiced gesture, one she’d made countless times before all around the Known World. With Alfie muttering to himself, she supported him out of the Tipsy Pig and into the gray Crandon sun.