Page 128 of Tempest

The breath felt heavy in her body. Her eyes darted again, picking out scarred hands and bronze faces.

It must be.

“I suppose it is only a matter of time,” Fell said, sighing as he looked up at the ceiling. While the interior walls were carved as ornately as the rest of the stone city, the ceiling above them was dark-brown wood to match the furniture, slotted together in smooth planks. Unlit lanterns hung overhead, unneeded against the shimmering daylight.

“Until what?” Cat replied, startled by his reluctant tone. Under the table, she counted again, this time her fingers drumming against the smooth grip of her pistol.

“Until the Meridian takes all this for her own,” he said plainly, as if it were obvious. “Or Esperin. Whoever fires the first shot will have quite the jewel.”

His tone was even, detached. And chilling. Cat shuddered to think of an island like this claimed by the Empire or another kingdom, subject to a crown it would never know, thousands of miles away.

But she shook it off, trying to hold steady on her course.

Her laughter was soft, almost lost beneath the many voices of the tavern. With another deep breath, she willingly took the plunge. As it had before the Key Keeper in Alvaris, the mask slipped and fell away from Cat Rose.

“Like I said, Fell, you are desperately stupid sometimes.”

Across the table, he grinned, like they had only returned to their usual game of insults.

“Oh? I think I should procure a drink before I listen to this—”

Her hand darted out and stopped him before he could move, holding his forearm to the table. Fell looked up at her, confused. Then his fist clenched, the muscles going taut as her grip tightened.

Though Fell was the stronger of the two, easily capable of breaking her hold, he did not move.

“The problem is you see the world as you wish it to be, and not as it actually is,” Cat murmured, never releasing his arm. “It was the same all those years ago, when you could not see things changing right in front of you. It’s no wonder they threw you back here, clinging to your orders, eager to prove yourself to men who would never see your worth.”

His lip curled.

“They see it now,” he said hotly.

“Do they?” Cat drawled back at him. Her eyes flickered, finding the silver ring on his hand. The image of the swan stared up at her, the emblem of a bloodline with no name. “Do the lord officers of the Meridian navy, born noble and rich and powerful, all playing at war—do they see you as you are, Captain Fell? A decorated sailor, loyal to the Crown. Or do they see a debtor’s son, an orphan, a victim of the press-gang—shamefully striving for heights he will never quite reach?”

Fell looked like a pot on the boil, ready to spill over.

“I choose to be who I am,” he hissed, muscles like stone beneath her touch.

“So do I,” she murmured. “You are right about one thing. We are alike in our nature.”

The rainbow light gleamed in his silver eyes, turning them yellow, then pink, then the blue-green of a swirling tempest. For a moment, Jasper Fell was not himself but Valerian Kane, sitting across from her in another time, in another life.

But the flesh beneath her hand was not Valerian’s. Cat knew that by feel, even if her eyes deceived her. There was no substitution for the touch or taste of Captain Kane. Fell lived up to neither. Much as she once hoped he would.

“Cat—”

“Look around this tavern—filled with sailors, right?” she cut him off, blinking as the light shifted, and Fell was Fell again. He peered at her curiously, then glanced through the bar. “Are they merchants? Traders? Men of the Empire or Esperin?”

She paused, watching him scan the room.

“Or something else?”

Beneath the table, his body shifted, and Cat knew his free hand strayed to his pistol.

“We’re surrounded by pirates,” Fell said, his voice flat even as anger washed his face red.

Cat nodded once, face still shadowed by her hat. “We are.”

“Pirates you know.”