Page 86 of Tempest

She forced a tight laugh and gestured to Ana with her scarf, pushing on. “When we first met, you said you would never make a good lady. That you weren’t the obliging sort. Now an old monk bosses you around a crumbling church.”

“Brother Fiero is just so demanding,” Ana said, rolling her eyes. She moved around the bell, closing the distance between them. “But a small price to pay, I think.”

“To survive,” Cat replied, speaking the words they both knew hung in the air.

“To be useful,” Ana shot back.

Cat remembered that too, the broken sound of Ana’s voice so many years ago. I can still be useful, she had said, slumped against Valerian, her usual light stolen away with her freshly severed arm. And she was not wrong. She could not climb rigging or load a pistol or haul rope anymore. But she could keep a weather eye on the horizon for years to come.

“And yes,” she added, her voice thickening. “To survive. To survive then and to survive now. The Meridian fleet would happily hang the Seawolf. And they would hardly pause to kill an Arcayan woman. What is another in the sea of thousands already dead at their hands, on my island or any other? But they would not hang an Esperese nun,” she added, gesturing at her roughspun wool and plain appearance.

Once more, her dark eyes flared.

“But that’s just me. What price did you pay, Kitten?”

Now the nickname sounded like a curse.

Cat stiffened, refusing to flinch. “I don’t follow.”

Ana was not so easily thrown off. This time when she took another step, Cat mirrored her without thought, holding the inches between them.

“What did you do, Catrine Rose? How are you standing in front of me, alive and breathing?” Ana said, her voice shifting to a snarl as she continued her forwards motion.

Cat took another step backwards and yelped, her heel hitting open air, the archway of the belfry yawning behind her. And beyond it, nothing but sky. She reached out with one arm, catching the stone edge to stop herself from pitching backwards.

“Ana—” she began, stopping short as a flash of silver sliced through the air.

Not teeth but a blade.

Even one-armed, Ana moved with lightning precision and control, perfectly balanced. The knife lay cold against Cat’s throat. Under different circumstances, she would have enjoyed the cool metal against her flushed skin.

“Ana,” she said again, trying to gather herself, to sound calm and collected in the face of looming death. Her free hand strayed, playing with the chain of her watch to hide the tremble in her hands. “What are you doing?”

But the Seawolf did not relent.

“I remember that officer. What was his name?” she said, holding Cat in place, balanced between blade and empty sky. “The one who survived the Venerable with you and your rat husband.”

“Jasper Fell,” Cat answered flatly, trying not to move.

“He kept your secret, didn’t he?” Ana laughed, the sound cold as her steel. “Of course he did, or you would not stand before me now. They’d hang you for it, even ten years later.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cat glimpsed the tops of the palm trees, very far below. Her vision spun and she clawed at the archway, trying to hold steady.

“I owed Fell a debt, yes. And I paid it, long before the Meridian navy returned,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “Long before any of this.”

Ana only hissed back. “That doesn’t answer my question. How are you here without Valerian? How are you walking free? How are you still alive?”

There were too many options to weigh, too many lies to choose from. Cat tried to calculate her bluff, sifting through the cards she had to play.

“It was only a matter of time,” she said again, but firmer, her teeth bared. “I warned Valerian. I told him.”

Her voice broke, true frustration boiling over. In her anguish, she pushed forwards, away from the edge of the bell tower. Her neck pressed against the knife and a bead of blood welled on her skin.

To Cat’s relief, Ana moved with her, relenting just enough not to cut her throat.

“I tried, Ana,” she murmured, taking another step, forcing the pirate to shift or kill. “I tried to save him with everything I had.”

She shifted.