“You should go,” Tamsin said. Her voice came out raspy, and her eyes were still closed. She didn’t feel particularly inclined to lift her lids.
“I beg your pardon?”
For all the words were polite, Serafina still somehow sounded as though her tongue were made of acid.
Tamsin forced herself to open her eyes. The princess was standing halfway between the elm and the road. Her waist-length black hair was sweaty and snarled, and for the first time it occurred to Tamsin that the woman must have dragged her to this shaded spot.
“You should go,” Tamsin said again. “As soon as they realize we’ve gone, they’ll be back this way searching for us.”
A muscle flexed in the princess’s angular jaw. “I await Zenobia.”
“Oh for God’s sake.” Tamsin dropped her head back against the tree, which seemed more comfortable by the moment. “You mean to get yourself killed over a bloody dog?”
“Do not speak her name.”
“Ididn’t.” She gritted her teeth and tried to keep her eyes open.
The princess stepped closer. Her olive skin was sun-flushed. In the last rays of daylight, her hair looked like shimmering onyx.
Tam suspected she was succumbing to some brain fever, no doubt occasioned by whatever had happened to her right ankle. “I’ll watch,” she got out. “You go hide yourself. Find a hayloft or a pub or something. Don’t—tell them who you are. I’ll wait here for Zenobia.”
“Oh yes. A perfect plan. Then you will give Zenobia the direction of my hayloft, and when the men with guns return, you will subdue them single-handedly.”
“Single... leggedly. Perhaps.”
The princess did not laugh, because fiends possessed no sense of humor. She said: “I am not leaving.”
Tamsin groaned. Her eyelids seemed impossibly heavy, and she let them fall with some relief. “Fine. Have it your way. Come along, assassins. We’ve put out a welcome sign for you, right here under this goddamned tree.”
But the princess was not done. She was, somehow, at Tamsin’s side. Her small hands wrapped around Tamsin’s biceps, and she leaned in.
She smelled of rosewater and caraway, Tam thought dizzily. Which was absurd. She ought to smell of brimstone.
“I am not leaving you,” Serafina hissed into Tamsin’s ear. “Brace yourself. This is going to hurt.”
It did. It hurt spectacularly, extravagantly. As the princess dragged Tamsin deeper into the woods, Tamsin’s ankle transformed itself into a molten iron bar made of piercing agony.
But the pain was short-lived. Tamsin took a gulping breath, looked up into the princess’s face, and then—to her intense and everlasting regret—swooned again.
Chapter 25
Ruby stood on the deck of theDelphinium. The little ship had dropped anchor just outside of Southampton, and it rolled gently beneath her feet, forward and back. The spray stung her cheeks, soaking through her dress as she stared out into the starless dark.
They had been searching for Verdura’sVulcanofor nearly a week—all of Archer’s crew except Wall, who had remained at Pomeroy House to care for the dogs. They’d stopped at Plymouth, at Torquay, at Exmouth—every harbor large enough that a black sloop with an Italian name might hope to escape notice. Archer had produced as if from nowhere a whole network of old friends, and shipmates, and cousins of friends, and wives of shipmates, passing word of their search all along the coast. They’d heard rumors of theVulcanobut nothing tangible.
Nothing—until it had been sighted in Southampton.
The information, according to Archer, was ironclad. They’d broken anchor within an hour of receiving the express, which had been posted by Mr. Polkinghorne’s spinster sister. The winds had been favorable, and they had made excellent time—so good, in fact, that Ruby had been astonished when Archer had ordered his crew to do something with the sails that made the ship slow abruptly and then dropped theDelphinium’s anchor before they drew close enough to discern theVulcano.
As it turned out, he did not intend to let Ruby within striking distance of the people who’d abducted Tamsin and Princess Serafina. He had waited until night fell, and then he and Gerry and Lamentation, armed to the teeth, had made for theDelphinium’s dinghy.
Preparing, it seemed, to row themselves to theVulcanoand mount a surprise attack.
“No,” Ruby had said stubbornly. “You’ve brought me this far. Let me go with you.”
Archer had stepped close to her. Pushed her wind-tangled hair back from her face and then cupped her cheek in his hand. “Ruby,” he’d murmured. “I need you to stay here. I know how hard it is to wait for word and not to act. But I can’t—” He’d broken off, his hand tightening on her jaw. “I can’t do what must be done if my only thoughts are of you.”
“And how am I to do what must be done?” she’d whispered. “Do you think it’s any easier for me?”
