Page 31 of Tempest

“Thank you for the birthday gift, Lieutenant,” she said, her voice soft and demure. The kind of voice heard in ballrooms and salons, pleasant and engaging. Certainly not the sad, sullen voice of a shadow. “I am happy to wait for Captain Quine. Perhaps he can show us the entire ship. I should like to see it and hear more of what awaits us in the city.”

Fell nodded once more, silver eyes catching the sun.

“Very good,” he said, drawing backwards.

But Cat stopped him short, her hand darting out to brush the edge of his sleeve. Fell froze beneath her fleeting touch, and Cat delighted to see two spots of pink appear on his cheeks.

“What of you, Lieutenant?” Her voice changed, sharper than before. “You do not seem the type to give gifts without expecting something in return.”

Jasper Fell did not disappoint.

A corner of his mouth lifted, the rogue smirk returning for an instant.

“No, I am not.”

Chapter Seven After

VALERIAN KANE IS alive.

Cat had watched the hangings, all of them, searching for his face hour after hour, day after day. Until the sound of breaking necks and strangled throats grew dull in her ears. Then she feared he would meet Morovant’s fate, tortured and torn apart, then nailed to her front door. But he did not march with the captured. He did not swing with the dead. His bones were not at the bottom of the sea or feeding crows in the square.

And that alone was worth the cost. The diminishing numbers in the ledger. The corpses in the streets. Morovant’s body slumped at her door. The Meridian flag flying over the fort. And the gnawing shame in Cat’s gut, the one she woke to every morning and dreamed of every night.

She did not know what to call the sensation now burning in her chest. It was too many things at once—hope, relief, anger. Vindication. And desire too, all pulling her in opposite directions, overwhelming her until she could feel nothing at all.

Nothing except fear.

She told herself to try to memorize the path through the fort, to better know her prison should Fell throw her behind bars again. But the world blurred, her mind tossing like a ship in a storm.

Valerian Kane is alive.

She was a shadow next to Fell, following the navy captain back down the corridors of Fort Morden’s prison. The limestone walls glowed golden with torchlight, then blinding white as they stepped out into the sun.

The daylight shocked Cat back to her senses, and she raised a hand to shade her sensitive eyes as they crossed the courtyard. The officer’s carriage waited by the gate and Cat eagerly climbed in after Fell, though her thoughts were elsewhere.

Val is alive.

A whip cracked and the carriage rolled, catching Cat off guard. She lurched, almost falling off the padded seat and into Fell’s lap.

His lips twisted, betraying his amusement. “You seem unmoored.”

Cat bristled and settled back against her seat, painfully aware of her ragged state within and without.

“I slept on a bench last night,” she snapped back at him. To calm her shaking hands and distract her mind, she set to fixing her tangled hair, pulling apart the knots as best she could. “I beg your pardon if I am slow to return to my senses.”

“You best hope they return quickly,” Fell said. “You’ll need them to face the governor.”

His lips twitched.

Cat’s fingers froze, wound around a bronze lock of hair.

“Jasper,” she hissed.

He gave a tight-lipped smile and tapped his medals. While Cat felt sweaty and disheveled, Fell looked annoyingly put together. His infernal ring gleamed, the silver swan like a star on his smallest finger.

“You will call me Captain Fell.”

But for the circumstances, Cat might have laughed. Instead, her voice dropped to a growl.