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The man snorted. “Why, I seen you eyein’ me, I have, and I’m here to say I’m not opposed.”
“Opposed to me stuffing your bits down your throat?” The woman delivered these words in a voice so flat, so emotionless and frank, that Deans’s sidling step abruptly switched direction.
I looked quickly down, trying to stifle a snort of laughter.
Beside me, Penn pinned his lips closed and gave a strangled hiccup.
“Meant nothin’ by it,” Deans hastily amended.
“Be sure you didn’t.”
My amusement faded as the reality of the situation sank in. Lirr’s crew knew we were inport—butof course they knew. We had made no attempt to hide. And the singer they referenced; did they mean Mary Firth? What did Lirr want with her?
The answer, naturally, was already there. Lirr had been Kaspin’s final guest, the fourth man who had declined his invitation. Perhaps he had done so because he heard Slader was in port. Or perhaps he had simply decided kidnapping the woman would cost less.
But why would a man like Lirr need to buy a Stormsinger? Everyone knew he had a singer aboard and something of a cache of them back in the Mereish Southern Isles, where he lived like a king. Had his current singer unexpectedly died, perhaps, leaving him stuck in Aeadine in an early winter?
I stirred. If Lirr was short a Stormsinger, our chances of capturing him had vastly increased.
The woman spoke again. “We’ll have her before they leave free waters,” she said in a tone that forbade further discussion, then turned away to supervise the unloading of the cart.
I looked at Penn and saw my own urgency reflected in his eyes.
“Mr. Penn, please recall all the scouts and return to the horses.” I spoke in a low voice, already retreating across the forest floor. “Then make for the ship with all haste. Warn Captain Slader that our quarry is here, preparing to depart, and intends to attack John Randalf’sJuliette.”
“Yessir. And you, sir?” Penn whispered.
“I will warn Captain Randalf myself.”
***
My coat snapped around me as a storm descended upon the docks. It came from the heavens in a great waterfall of snow and grey cloud, striking the waves and billowing out in tumbling swirls. These clawed towards Whallum’s huddled houses and bobbing ships, and walled off the entirety of the harbor mouth in a deafening, muffling roar.
Breathless, I skidded to a halt on the end of the dock where Randalf’s schooner ought to have been. Snow swallowed me in a whirl of bone-cracking cold, peppering my face with ice and freezing the sweat on my skin.
I threw up an arm to shield my eyes and squinted through the tempest. The ship was gone. I realized that at the same time as I heard a voice on the wind, low and sweet and sad. I lowered my arm, staring as if I could make out Mary Firth singing down the storm and bearing Randalf’s vessel out of Whallum.
The smuggler must have already learned Lirr was coming for her. Relief, trepidation, and a spark of disappointment turned in my stomach. The Stormsinger was gone. All that was left was her voice on the wind, her indistinct words teasing the edges of my hearing.
Slowly the wind lessened, and a form materialized beside me. He was hatless, the wind tossing his blond hair as he squinted through the snow. But there was satisfaction around his eyes, the grim contentment of a man who has both won and lost.
“I heard the rumors and warned Randalf,” Charles Grant informed me, clearing his throat and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Sorry to spoil your heroics. You look quite dashing, if that’s any consolation.”
I opened my mouth to say something curt, but caught myself. The Stormsinger was safe from Lirr, if not from Randalf. They had been warned. That was all that mattered, and now I needed to get back to my ship.
There was no wayHartcould navigate that storm, not without its own Stormsinger, but neither could Lirr. As soon as the weather cleared, we would be ready to meet him. We would ensure that he never threatened anyone again, and my name would be associated with something good, something honorable.
“Why?” I asked Grant as I turned away. “Why warn her?”
Grant shrugged. “Mary Firth saved my life. I figured I should begin repaying my debts.”
The Girl from the Wold
The Girl from the Wold decides that the trees love music as much as she. There is no magic in her voice yet, only a child’s innocent exuberance, and she sings every song she knows in the mossy shade and tall ferns. She is sure the boughs of a hemlock dip a little lower at her voice, and that a ghisting in the form of a doe watches her from beyond a willow veil. The doe trails her for a time but eventually fades, at the end of her roots’ reach.
One day, in the very heart of the Wold, the girl discovers a new tree. Its branches rise above the rest and its roots stretch so far over the ground the girl cannot find where they end. She sits herself down in a cradle of those roots and sorts through a pocket full of foresttreasures—acornsand feathers, a fine bone and carefully plucked wildflowers.
As she sorts, she sings softly to herself. A voice responds in perfect harmony. But though the girl looks around, she is alone in the forest.
