They were sitting on either side of Evelyn’s casket as the Dove groaned beneath them. The sea was a bit choppier that day, so now and again all of Evelyn’s belongings slid about the cabin loudly. Florian didn’t seem to notice or mind, but it made Evelyn terribly nervous.
“The point?” Evelyn swallowed her indignation. How could he know? She hefted a book into her hand. “I know a book doesn’t seem like much, but I promise you, there are worlds in here.”
Florian eyed the book dubiously. “You’ll forgive me, milady, but it’s hard to trust something worth more than a week’s supply of food, something that wouldn’t keep me warm for a night if I burned it.”
Evelyn’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you dare burn a book.”
Florian chuckled. “They’d be terrible kindling anyway.”
“Look. I know a book can’t feed you, or warm you at night, or, I don’t know, wipe your ass —”
“Could do that, actua —”
He stopped himself. As soon as he said it, Evelyn could see he regretted it. It was not proper to joke with Imperial ladies; Evelyn knew this. But he was right. She laughed, and as soon as she did, she could see relief spread over him like a sunrise, his gray eyes alight. She liked him, even if he didn’t like her yet.
“My point is not about the physical merits of books. But about what they contain. Master the syllabary and you’ll have access to all of it.”
“Secrets?”
“No, better. Stories. There’s freedom in stories, you know. We read them and we become something else. We imagine different lives, and while we turn the pages, we get to live them. To escape the lot we’ve been given.”
Florian picked up a book and idly flipped through its pages. “My life is fine,” he said.
“I’m sure yours is. You live on the open sea! You have the kind of life I read about in my books.” Evelyn took the book back from him and flipped to a page where a drawing showed a soldier, his hands to his belly, which bled from a mortal wound. “We don’t just read to imagine better lives. We read to be introduced to all kinds of lives. Any kind. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us. To understand others better. It’s escape, and it’s also a way to become more connected to everyone around you. There’s power in that, you know. In understanding. It’s like magic.”
“I’m not sure you’d want to understand the people I know, milady.”
Evelyn chuckled, but Florian only looked at her, his eyes serious.
“I’m not sure that’s for you to say,” she said.
She wondered what kind of men he knew. Maybe he had met pirates on his voyages. Maybe he knew the Pirate Supreme. She thought of the people who surrounded her parents — desperate social climbers, boring officials and their bored wives. No, it wasn’t for him to say at all.
Silence spread between them then. Above them, the footsteps of the sailors pounded and the wood of the Dove creaked. She wanted so badly to give Florian this gift, this access, but he just didn’t want it. Disappointment rose in her throat, and she felt suddenly that she wanted to cry. Which was pathetic, of course. She was pathetic. That she thought she could just mince onto this boat and force a sailor into lessons was so arrogant and foolish. She was as worthless as her parents had so rightly noticed. She took in a breath and tried to steady herself against her own burning humiliation.
Florian watched her, his face impassive.
“I’d be more interested in books if they had secrets,” he said finally.
Evelyn laughed, her relief infinite. “Fine. Some of them do. Will you concentrate now?”
Flora wanted to hate the Lady Hasegawa, but the Lady made it difficult.
Where other Imperials were stiff and proper, she was breezy and — Flora hated to admit it — funny. She seemed to live for startling Flora into laughter, and she was deadly good at it, no matter how stiff an upper lip Flora tried to keep.
Flora was lying in her berth, willing sleep to come, but she couldn’t get the sight of the Lady talking with her hands out of her mind. All around her, men of the Dove snored and farted in their sleep. Usually at this point in the voyage, Flora couldn’t wait until the passengers were moved to the brig so that the men could spread out across the cabins. But somehow, this time, that expectation felt like dread.
A skeleton crew still remained abovedeck, but Flora’s new posting had seen her promoted to the day schedule, which was a blessing. Initially, she’d looked forward to all the extra sleep she’d get, but night after night it seemed that sleep would not come.
She was awake still when Alfie came trundling into his own hammock, just below hers. When he saw she was awake, he stood so that his face was uncomfortably close to hers.
“Saw you having a good laugh with her Ladyship today,” he whispered.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She did know what he was talking about. During one of the Lady’s supervised walks about the upper deck, she had told Flora a joke so crass it might have offended even Fawkes, and Flora had been so shocked that she’d let out her full laugh, her real laugh, her girl laugh, and had only stopped when she realized at least three men from the Dove were watching her. Alfie included.
“You know, you weren’t assigned to watch over her so that you could moon about in her skirts.” His voice was a hiss, and Flora sat up, angry now.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Remember, we’re here for us.”
Flora scoffed. “Yeah, all right, brother. I’ll remember that the next time I come back to our savings and find them empty.”
Alfie’s face fell, and Flora knew right away she’d swung hard and aimed low. But she was too mad to care. “I said I was sorry for that,” Alfie said. More than that, he’d practically groveled for her forgiveness.
“Doesn’t change anything.” She glared at him then, and it was as if he shrank beneath her, as if her gaze made him as small as he was inside. “It’s me earning the extra coin this go-round, and I don’t need you nagging me as I get to it.”
Alfie took a deep, steadying breath and held his hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying. I saw you laughing today, and you looked so — happy. And I wanted to remind you what she’s here for. What we’re here for.”
Happy. As if that were a bad thing. As if that were not allowed — not for Flora, at least.
“You think I could ever forget?” She wanted to hit him, to slap him across his stupid face, that face that looked so much like her own. “I’m the one with blood on my hands, remember.”
Alfie glared at her then, and she knew she’d come at that all wrong. “I don’t think you want to start playing the suffering contest with me, Florian. It was me that took Fawkes’s hazing. Or did you forget?”
Flora could never forget, but worse, she knew Alfie never would either. When they’d first joined the crew of the Dove, Fawkes had insisted that some hazing was in order. Alfie, being the elder brother, stepped in and took it so that Flora didn’t have to. If he had known what would happen, the extent of the pain Fawkes would deal to him, maybe he wouldn’t have, Flora knew. But he had, and now, Flora also knew, it was not for her to judge his need to forget. She wished she could forget, too. She wished they both could.