Page 22 of Ship of Smoke and Steel

I nod.

“If we’re lucky, we won’t run into anything nasty,” he says. “If we’re unlucky, it’s going to be on you and me to stop it. I’ll stay back, and you get in close and pin it down. Just keep it away from me and I’ll roast it.” He opens his palm, letting Myrkai fire flare briefly. “Think you can manage that?”

As plans go, it’s not much. But I nod again. No sense picking a fight here, not yet. I wish I had Hagan at my side, someone I could count on; then I remember what happened to Hagan, and my stomach knots.

Ahdron turns away, muttering. Meroe sits down next to me, a bowl of crab juice in her hands. She stares at it for a moment, as though unsure how to proceed.

“You use your fingers, apparently,” I tell her. “Once you’re done with the broth.”

She nods and lifts the bowl to her lips with an air of determined curiosity, like a traveler trying the customs of a strange new land.

“You grew up in a palace, I suppose,” I say, as she slurps her soup. “Silver spoons and crystal goblets, that sort of thing.”

“Oh yes.” She finishes the broth and attacks the rest with her fingers, shoveling mushroom and crab into her mouth. In between bites, she adds, “I had a tutor named Rimi just for table etiquette. How to tell a demi-forchette from a shell pick, and why you use one for nuts and the other for fruit, and so on.”

I shake my head. “Important things.”

“When my father dined with us, one of his courtiers would watch me for mistakes,” she goes on, finishing the bowl. “If I made a mistake, I’d be punished.”

“No dessert?”

“He had a black lacquer switch, about as wide as your little finger. There was a special box for it, in my anteroom.”

“Your father beat you for using the wrong fork?”

“Oh no.” She holds out her arms, showing smooth, unblemished skin. “I had to remain pristine against the day I married some prince. He beat Rimi, and made me watch. Every time I looked away, he’d add another stroke.”

Aristos. Whatever country they’re from, they live in a different world.

Meroe scrapes the bottom of her bowl with her fingers and sucks them clean. “That was good. Do you think I could have some more?”

A very, very strange princess. Wordlessly, I wave her on.

Haia and some other crew return after an hour, just long enough to let the crab juice settle. Ahdron calls us all together by the door, the two silent boys, me, and Meroe. The Moron looks at the two newcomers with interest, idly swiveling one finger back and forth in his ear. Berun is hunched in on himself, looking a little green. Ahdron looks from one of them to the other, sighs, and turns to me and Meroe.

“You. Southerner. Mero, is it?”

“Meroe,” she says. “Meh, roh, ei.”

“Whatever. Isoka explained how things stand?”

“She told me you’re in charge. And we have to go somewhere and do something.” She cocks her head. “I have questions, but—”

“She said you don’t know your Well,” he interrupts. “Are you good for anything?”

“I don’t have a Well,” Meroe says. “But I can dance, sing—maybe not well—speak seven languages, keep an account book up-to-date, follow trade law, and cook puff pastry.”

“In other words,” he growls, “you’re useless.”

“You haven’t tried my puff pastry.” Meroe grins at him fearlessly, and I suppress a laugh. Ahdron snorts. “If there’s a fight, stay out of the way,” he says, looking from her to Berun. To the Moron, he adds, “You can feel free to get yourself killed.”

“The mighty pack leader,” Haia drawls from the doorway. “Come on. You don’t want to keep the crabs waiting.”

We file out, and Haia leads us on another twisting journey through the ship. This time we don’t have far to go, though the direction is even farther down, via a rusting staircase and a long ramp. We finally reach a place where the corridor dead-ends in a large metal door, secured in place with a double bar and guarded by a pair of crew. A stack of lanterns stands against one wall, beside a pile of crude spears.

“Here we are,” Haia says. “Left at the second landing, then keep going until you get to the Silvercap Garden.”

“I’ve done this before,” Ahdron says, taking a lantern and ignoring the spears.