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"Not if you're a sprite," she retorted.
"Are you one?"
"Not that I know of, how could I tell?" She seemed sincere in her question.
"You'd be mischievous," I said evenly. I tilted my head. "Energetic. Devious and smart." I knitted my brows. "I'll get some peas."
She socked me on the arm. "Keep those things away from me. Besides, I'm sure there are none on board. Next time I arrange a ship, I'll make sure there aren't."
I shook my head. I knew she wouldn't bother. Still, I enjoyed our banter. She still looked at me with accusation in her eyes, but she wouldn't let it get in the way of our mission. That was the only thing that truly mattered right now.
That and getting Viva back. After that, I would do everything to make her understand, if it was the last thing I did.
"When we reach Cape Massin, I'll find a candle and some peas." In the back of my mind, I had the growing feeling neither would help and that the kid was important in some way. I had no idea how though and that bothered me more than anything. I didn't like unexplained things.
"Get some rest. You'll need it."
"Of course, brother dear. You too."
I gave her a nod and headed back up on deck.
17
Bain
Cape Massin grewup on the side of a cliff. The port itself was nestled against it. Long docks wound around a spit of land high enough to avoid all but the highest tides.
Here, it looked like people lived a couple of hundred years ago. Most of the ships and boats tied to the docks were made of wood. Many had sails, now lashed out of the breeze. A wide vessel bobbed beside a narrow one with twin hulls. A large ship with a sea serpent figurehead sat low and heavy beside a sleek seventeenth century-style warship.
Most of them would have an engine, and the power of any modern navy, or billionaire's super-yacht. Why didn't Dex have one? I would have to ask him if I saw him again.
"We could have traveled in that," Kerina remarked. She nodded toward the pseudo warship.
I eyed her. "That wouldn't be very stealthy. Besides, it was on the wrong side of the straight."
"A minor detail or two," Kerina said with a grin. She looked as though she'd slept well, in spite of having bedded down in a bed as narrow as mine.
I, on the other hand, had lain awake. When I had slept, people passing in the passage outside my cabin woke me. Some stomped by like a herd of elephants. The quiet ones sounded like cattle.
"Perhaps we can sail home on her," I said, distractedly. My mind was on other things.
"Or we could fly home on the back of a dragon," Kerina suggested.
"What?" I frowned before her words and sarcasm sank in. I snorted. "I suspect they would sooner eat us than let us ride them."
"Same here," Kerina said. She grinned and swung her bag onto her back.
I rolled my eyes, threw my own bag over my shoulder before I followed her down the gangway. I glanced back to see a sailor watching with half-lidded eyes. The man scowled before he turned away. I shrugged to myself and trotted to catch up to Kerina.
"We'll need to wait for the lift." She gestured up toward it.
Suspended by enormous cables, the lift was a wide platform, capable of holding a few dozen people at a time. Drawn up by a large wheel at the top of the cliff, the lift stopped at each of the two levels of buildings built into the cliff face, and moved slowly toward the very top. Right now, it hung beside the second level and seemed in no hurry to finish the journey up or start the journey back down.
"In times past, they had a ladder as well," I remarked. I don't know why they burrowed into the cliff to put a modern elevator in there. I supposed the old ways die hard the further from the city we went.
"Yes, it was burnt when some tiger shifters tried to take the town over a hundred years ago. Would you really want to climb all the way up there?" She pointed.
"If it got us there faster, yes," I replied. Thank Hades I didn't have to follow through with that claim. I was fit, but the cliff was a long way up. It would suck if I almost made it, then slipped on the top rung. If the fall didn't kill me, the landing would. If I survived that, I would have to endure a lifetime of Kerina reminding me about it.
