Page 53 of Tempest

Slowly, she forced herself to her knees, rising up a little for a better view of the debris. The water sloshed over the wreckage, but she kept her balance, hands outstretched.

Now she glimpsed the bodies amongst the debris, felled like their great ship. Men of the Meridian to the last. A tricorne hat floated by, the edge of it decorated in gold filigree. Cat recognized the pattern.

Quine.

Worse was the shock of dark hair, blacker than the waves, never to be woven into a severe braid ever again. Sara already looked like a ghost, the nightgown her shroud. In the smallest of mercies, she floated face down, and Cat did not have to look into her lifeless eyes.

Cat expected another wave of tears, if not sickness. She touched her arm, feeling the still-blooming bruises of Sara’s terrified grip.

Sorrow washed over her. But the tears did not return.

What good will it do? There is no point, Cat told herself again, turning her gaze away.

She searched, not for the uniform of a navy officer, but a stained nightshift. A head of dirty blond hair. Bare feet and soft hands.

Let him be dead at least. Show me this mercy, she begged.

Then someone groaned, and her body whirled so fast she nearly plunged into the water.

Cat tracked the sound like a hunter, finding the overturned longboat again. One side of the broken hull dipped into the water, with an odd shape clinging to the wood.

It was moving.

Cat bent to the water’s edge. Her hands clawed through the waves, working furiously to paddle herself towards the longboat.

“Hello!” she screamed once more, her arms already burning with exertion.

The shape groaned again in reply. It sounded more like a growl this time, bitter and annoyed. One arm bent, pushing up through the haze, bringing his face into sharper focus.

Foolish though it might have been, Cat plunged into the sea. Her nightshift like a cloud around her, she swam the last few yards to the longboat.

And Second Lieutenant Jasper Fell.

He stared down at her with a strange look, in a daze. Black hair clung to one side of his face, and a vicious cut sliced across one dark eyebrow. His arms, bare to the elbow, were striped in angry, pink burns. They almost obscured a tattoo on his left forearm, a navyman’s mark—the Meridian lion with an anchor in its paws.

“Lady Rose?” Fell said softly. The cut through his brow dripped red, a bead of blood working down his cheek.

“Under the circumstances, I suppose you can call me Cat,” she sputtered, fighting to float.

The lieutenant’s pale face only went paler.

“Are we alive or dead?”

Cat swallowed a bloom of frustration and reached out to grab the lifeboat, her shift tangling around her legs. She tried to steady herself, but the current was stronger than she realized, pushing at her limbs. With a will, she twisted in the water and caught Fell around the wrist.

His skin was cold beneath her hand, unmoving, as if he could not feel her grasp. For a second, Cat wondered if he might have struck his head or lost his senses entirely. Then his gaze sharpened, and he twisted his hand so it gripped her own. His fingers closed around her wrist and he flexed, hauling her up next to him.

“Alive,” she answered, clambering up onto the longboat. She tucked her shift, sitting astride the hull, all thoughts of etiquette drowned with the Venerable. “For now.”

Her eyes still burned, but the tears were gone. Her sorrow was spent, for Quine, for Sara. For the rest of the crew lost. She had strength enough for herself and her predicament. It was a strange feeling, to shut out the horrors in front of her eyes.

Fell did not. He blinked at her slowly, still in shock. He seemed half a ghost himself, ready to fade into the smoke.

Cat clenched her teeth and tightened her hold on his wrist, hoping to rouse him.

“What now, Jasper?” she said sharply, but he only looked at her in that detached way again.

As if he saw through her, as if she didn’t exist at all.