“Yes.”
The anchor was lowering now, and the launch was being prepared for Theodore, me, and a handful of guards. My stomach clenched with nerves. “Come with us.”
Agatha snapped her head toward me and swatted at the air. “No.” she said, “I’ll be resting.”
“You’re not spending another day in your dark cabin alone,” I insisted. “Come ashore with us. We need clothes, you can buy us some dresses.”
She looked to the launch, then back at me warily. A self-conscious hand rose to touch the brim of her hat, but I took it into mine and gave her a gentle smile.
“It will be just fine. Please. Come. You pick whatever you like for me, I won’t complain,” I teased. It took a long moment, but she finally gave my hand an agreeing squeeze. “Wonderful.” I scanned the deck, looking for Theodore. “And to boost your mood further, let’s find the king so you can give him a good tongue lashing.”
Agatha gave a snort as we moved closer to the launch, and though she clung tightly to my hand, a faint smile—the first I’d seen since we’d found her—lifted the corners of her mouth.
Four soldiers rowed Theodore, Lachlan, Agatha, and me across the dancing water of the bay, toward the packed docks. Agatha sat straight-backed, the small smile I’d seen on her face long gone. She stared at the choppy waves.
“What sort of gowns will you look for, Agatha?” I asked, trying to take her mind from whatever dark corner it had curled into.
“Gowns of misty gray.”
I flicked my eyes to Theodore beside me, then to Lachlan, who met my look with an uncertain one of his own. “Oh? Why gray?” I asked.
“So that when I meet the empress again…” She paused. Fear made her voice fragile. Her breathing went shaky. “She will think I’m a portentous apparition, come to haunt her and make her pay.”
“Oh.”
Lachlan pulled in a deep breath, and while I saw concern course through him, he nodded mildly and said, “I think a veil would be a nice touch. If you wish to give her arealfright.”
I pulled the golden chain I wore out from beneath my shirt and unlatched it so I could take the rings from it. They rattled against each other in my palm—one sunny gold, one stormy gray—as I extended them toward Agatha. “I assume one of these will be enough to get both of us new gowns and underclothes, but take both just in case. I don’t know the cost of Dellen silk.”
Beside me, Theodore went so rigid he might as well have turned to stone. Both Agatha and Lachlan grew quiet at his sudden turn of mood. I looked to him slowly, cautiously, and when I met his glower, a little thrill of fear ran through me. “What is it?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.
He cut a glance to the rings in my hand, then back to me.
I sat up straighter, flustered. “I—Oh. It’s not a personal slight. They’re the only things of value I have.”
Theodore’s jaw worked. “Ihave money, Imogen. And it is at your disposal.”
I drew my hand into a fist around the rings and spoke through my teeth. “Well, thank you, but you don’t carry money on your person, do you? How will wepayfor the clothes?”
“Lachlan will simply tell the shop owner they are being purchased by the Varian crown. Funds will be sent at a later date.”
He’d said it like I should have guessed such a transaction were possible. Like my naïveté was the most grating thing he’d ever experienced in his life. “How will the dressmaker feed their family in the interim, how will they—”
“Fine,” Theo said, his voice deep and chagrined. “Use the ring.”
The launch was nearing the docks now and not a moment too soon. Lachlan raised a quiet hand. “In a lucky turn of events, I suffered tremendously and went to Markis for money before leaving the ship.” He looked to me. “So you can keep your rings.” Then he scowled at Theo. “And you can unreel yourself.”
I don’t know what compelled me to do it, but I put the ring Evander had gifted me back onto the chain around my neck and shoved Theo’s ring onto my fourth finger with a huff. The launch docked, and all of us, soldiers included, wound our way through the densely crowded docks, to the even denser streets of the city. Kardinia had been built in a compact circle, the streets crooked and arching, the buildings stacked high.
Lachlan and Agatha turned left into the crowd, while Theodore and I carried on side by side, surrounded by his guards. We dodged rushing city folk and squeezed through long lines that seemed to have no beginning and no end. Nearly everyone wore bright, rough-spun silks that flowed and flashed as they went. In comparison, Theodore and I looked like winter shadows haunting theedges of spring. We wore full sailor’s regalia. Black trousers, white shirts, deep-green coats.
I glanced over at him, and though he still brooded, I smirked at the sight of him. His cheeks were unshaven, the wind in the bay had roughened his hair, and even so, he looked nothing like a common sailor. He was too removed, too straight and refined.
“You still look like a king,” I whispered to him, amused.
He kept his attention ahead, but he scratched at his stubbled cheek. “My sigil is on the soldiers’ breastplates, Imogen. This ruse can only go so far.”
We wove through the long, curving street. The smells and sounds and heat began to overwhelm, growing around me, pressing in. I latched myself to Theodore’s arm and kept close.
