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Shit.
He spun, his toes tearing along the muck of the roadway.
Down the pier, his too-small boots thudding on the rough wooden planks.
The ship was gone.
It had been right here and now it wasn’t.
Gone.
He grabbed the nearest sailor, shaking him. “TheFirefox—where—where is it?”
The sailor shoved Strider away from him. “It left port, mate. Ye missed it.”
Blast.
His stare on the water, Strider trudged to the end of the pier. He sank down to the wood, sitting, his legs hanging off the edge and dangling above the water. He stared out at the sea, trying to make out which of the ships bobbing along the waters was theFirefox. The only true friend he had in the world was on that ship. And he was here.
But he’d been here before.
Alone.
Nothing but the one coin in his boot and the clothes on his back.
“Hoppler, what ye doin’ sittin’ there?” Gordy, the meanest of the mean fifteen-year-olds, kicked his side, the toe of his boot wedging into Strider’s ribs.
Strider smacked Gordy’s boot away from his torso. “Nothing. Watching the sea.”
Gordy looked out at the water. “There ain’t nothin’ good out there.” He looked down at Strider. “Where’s Rune?”
Strider couldn’t speak the words, only point out at the waters turning inky, darkening with dusk.
“Gone and left ye?” Gordy shrugged. “No matter. A crew of us is headed into the taverns to roll drunks. That ship from Spain made port eight hours ago, so that mess of sailors should be ripe fer pluckin’ ’bout now.”
Strider closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. Rolling drunks was something he and Rune would never stoop to. They worked wherever they could, unloading ships, hauling goods. They didn’t steal.
But Rune was gone.
Alone. He was alone and no one survived alone.
He’d seen the bodies of those that tried.
His legs heavy, Strider found his footing along the edge of the pier and stood up. “I’ll come.”
Gordy nodded, his smile flashing, the one that looked like a snarl no matter how pleased he was for the gaping hole of three missing front teeth. Gordy liked others’ pain. Lived for it. Lived for the squeal of digging a knife into the already injured. He’d seen it on Gordy’s face too many times, the sick glee he took in it.
But no one survived alone.
And it was better to be on the back end of Gordy’s knife than the pointy end.
Above everything else, Strider was a survivor.
{ Chapter 1 }
August 1826, London
Penelope Willington scooted across the busy street, barely dodging a wildphaetondriven by a reckless fop singing—no, screaming—lines from a ballad over and over—“the wise are fools, with all their rules”—as he set his horse to trample anything in his path.
