He barely sees the slap coming, but feels the whip-crack sting on his cheek, spits blood into the dust and bones.
‘Every. Single. One.’ She repeats and her voice is hollow as the high valleys.
‘Every one,’ she says, in the husk of a whisper. He pulls her close with aching arms and feels her heart hammer against his chest.
‘Every one,’ and her breath lurches ragged and wet.
‘Oh gods,’ she breathes.
Slickwalker rocks her like a baby.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Not anymore.’
4
on anatomising the hearts
we found them strange
nacreous, rigid,
ringing like a struck bell
—Excursions in the Near Wreck, Wicktwister
Dawn rises shyly off the Hesperian coast, East Tide retreating from the beaches where grey gulls sweep, cackle and war with fat green crabs over the bounty of last night’s swell.
Four or five fresh bodies, bloated and scoured by the sea. Shroudweaver watches them. Shipwright watches Shroudweaver.
Her arms enfold him from behind and she murmurs in his ear.
‘Recognise them?’
Shroudweaver squints and his mind falls into a quieter space, rattles and hums with detail. The weave of cloth, the cut of boots.
‘Wreck of theVolante,’ he says and feels Shipwright’s arms stiffen. His sharp eyes scan cuts, abrasions, peeled-back grimaces, and the crabs squabbling over charred fingertips.
‘She went down to something big and noisy. Maybe guns. Maybe magic. Maybe sabotage.’ He rolls his shoulders. ‘Lots of fire. Not quick. Not pretty.’
Shipwright snarls, ‘Fucking Crowkisser.’ She ruffles Shroudweaver’s thin hair. ‘No offense, but your daughter’s a cunt.’
She turns to the crew.
‘Bring us in.’
A few minutes later and they’re standing knee-deep in the surf, watching the broken boards of theVolantemake their way to land for the last time. The crabs have retreated to a safe distance, their slick bodies jostling in oily, boisterous heaps.
The crew fan out, searching for salvage, and more importantly, for bodies. Names and faces to bring home to the widows on shore. Scoured fingers to break fathers’ hearts and salted hair to be clasped in lockets and shaking hands.
Shipwright squats on the tideline, an ache in the small of her back, and a harder ache in her heart. Never too many drowned young faces for the sea. She fishes around, pulls up a shattered plank, its edges burnt and curved smooth as glass. She sniffs it – lemon and grease – and bites her cheek to stop her breakfast from coming up.
‘Slickwalker. He’s getting better.’
Shroudweaver turns. He’s shivering already, the cold of the water stealing up his thin legs.
‘He shouldn’t even be able to get aboard. I thought you fitted the remaining ships with spinners?’
She nods, sloshes towards him to push him gently out of the water and up the beach.
