I was stumbling and panting for air when Tess caught up with me. Her expression looked grim. That meant I’d failed. The nightmare was still in place. I wanted to scream in anguish. It was grotesquely unfair. Cruel. How could so much rest on one failure? One mistake? And dear God in heaven, why must it be my mistake?
My stride faltered. I wanted to collapse right there on the street, wanted to crumble into tears of regret, wanted to scream at the perverseness of the universe. But I couldn’t. My lungs burned like the fires of hell and my heart felt heavier than a fieldstone, but I knew if I gave up now Sebastian would die. That lone thought drove me forward. The whole continent might sink into ruin because of me, but the truth is I thumped each bruised foot, one after the other, because of Sebastian. Call me selfish, I could not bear the thought of living in this muddled world without him in it. He would surrender his own life to save all those thousands of strangers. I could do no less, to save him.
While a single grain of hope remained, I would not give up. The fact that Tess ran alongside me meant there was still a chance. She scooped my arm and tried to tug me faster, but my short legs were no match for hers.
I pointed ahead, into the darkness. “They turned up there,” I gasped. “You’re faster. Go!”
She took off and I pressed forward. The sound of hooves clanking against the cobblestones alarmed me. I glanced over my shoulder and a horseman bore down on me. I ran even harder to escape.
“Miss Fitzwilliam!” I knew that voice and slowed my steps. Captain Grey galloped up beside me. His mount shied at the sudden stop but he held out his hand to pull me up behind him. “Which way?” he shouted.
Ravencross and two other men reined in beside us.
“There,” I wheezed, and pointed. Ravencross took off after Tess.
But I’d been so far behind, and the night so dark, I couldn’t be certain where they’d turned off. “That one. I think.” The hesitancy in my voice was unmistakable. Captain Grey barked orders for his men to scour each of the side roads.
The captain and I rode straight to the street I’d indicated. We no sooner turned than my hopes crashed against the bricks beneath us. There were a dozen side streets and alleys. “They could’ve gone anywhere,” I groaned. “We’ve lost them.”
The moon skated out from behind the clouds for a moment, and I thought I glimpsed the back edge of the cart turning down a side street at the far end. “Down there!” He followed my shaking finger and we raced down the street and took the turn, but they were nowhere in sight.
“Of course!” the captain exclaimed. “Hold steady, Miss Fitzwilliam. I know where they’re headed.”
I gripped the sides of his coat and we took off at a gallop. The smell of the Thames was unmistakable. It reeked of sewage and rotting garbage, and we raced straight into the salty stench.
The banks of the Thames were chaotic; every inch crammed with ships and boats. We had to slow our pace to pick our way around fishing traps, piles of refuse, and broken oars. Even at that late hour, men were in our way, loading crates, hauling racks of fish ashore, and repairing hulls. Torches mounted on docks and a fire heating a drum of smoking pitch obscured our view. I strained to see past the smoke and flickering flames, into the darkness beyond.
“We’ll never find her.”
He urged his horse onto a quay. “Watch for movement on the water. My men reported a suspicious-looking sloop moored near here. She won’t be in full sail.”
“There!” I pointed at a ship moving quietly across the water.
“Right.” He headed straight down the nearest dock, but the clutter slowed his horse. He swung me down and I ran to the edge of the pier.
“Daneska!” I shouted.
Like Queen of an armada, she stood tall in the port stern, surveying the shore. I wanted to jump in and swim after them, but that would accomplish nothing except my capture or more likely my drowning. Even if I managed to climb aboard, I’d be no match against her four burly oarsmen. “Come ashore!” I yelled. “I’ll trade the formula for Sebastian.”
“Meet me in Calais.” And just like that, she waved farewell.
“No! Wait!” I shouted so loud all of London surely heard. “Come back!”
Her wicked laugh rippled across the black water.
Captain Grey tied off his horse and ran up beside me. I clutched his sleeve. “Do something!” In a mad flash, I remembered the day my father’s favorite dog had turned rabid. He shot the bitch rather than let her destroy the rest of his pack. It had to be done. “Shoot her!” I couldn’t stop myself from yanking on his coat. “You must shoot her!”
Grim-faced he clasped my shoulders. “Would you have me sign his death warrant?”
I blinked, not understanding.
“How long do you think that hired crew would keep him aboard if she were dead? As soon as they hit open water they’d toss him overboard for fish bait.”
He was right. The men at the oars looked like pirates at best. Daneska’s ship sailed silently into the black mists of the Thames. My voice cracked with anguish. “But we must do something.”
“I’m going after them.” He let go of my shoulders. “To Calais.”
I shook my head. “But it’s a trap.”
“Undoubtedly.” His torment mirrored my own as he watched her ship fade from sight. I knew then how like a son Sebastian was to him.
“I’m going with you.”
“Impossible.”
I didn’t explain that it was all my fault, that I needed to right my wrongs, or even that I loved his almost son. It would have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, I stated the facts. “You need a counter trap. I have something she wants. I will be your bait.”
He said nothing for a moment. Lines of misery deepened on his face. “She wants the ink, yes, but surely you realize she intends to extract much more from him.”
I hadn’t thought of that. The truth of it set my insides to bubbling; a caustic mix of terror and anger like the vat of stinking tar boiling on shore. “All the more reason to bring me with you.”
He squared his shoulders and with a hard sigh said, “Miss Stranje will have my head.”
“She is practical. She’ll understand I’m the only coin you have to barter with.”
He said nothing, but I knew he’d relented. He walked back to his horse just as his two men rode up and hailed him. Captain Grey issued quick hushed orders. I overheard him say something about Miss Stranje. One of them took off with all three horses and the other strode with us down the banks of the Thames. We hurried along the shore, around broken lobster traps, stepped over mooring lines, passed beached fishing gigs, until we came to a good-size dock where we boarded a sleek cutter.
He roused the crew from where they slept under tarpaulins. “Cast off,” he ordered.
To his companion he said, “Our best hope is to catch them before they leave the river.”
They untied the ship from the pilings and two sailors set to the oars, while another worked on unrolling the sail. We’d maneuvered to the end of the pier and had just caught the flow of the river when I heard Tess shout my name.
She rode on horseback behind Lord Ravencross. At our dock she slid down and ran. She hitched up her skirt and ran even faster. Alarmingly fast. I was afraid she would surely fly straight off the dock and land in the swirling water of the Thames. Lord Ravencross pursued her on horseback, but his mount balked at the change from the sandy bank to the shifting boards of the dock.
Tess leaped off the end of the pier.
I screamed, certain she’d splash into the fast-moving river and drown. Instead, her hands slapped over the side of the ship. I lunged and grabbed hold of her forearms. My mouth gaped open as I tried to pull her up.
“You’re going to need me,” she rasped, just as if she wasn’t dangling over the side of a ship moving at a rapid clip down the Thames.
“Good God!” Captain Grey reached over the gunwale and hoisted her higher.
“Permission to board, sir,” she said, only slightly out of breath.
“Do I have a choice?” He heaved her onto the deck and shook his head.
I glanced back to where she’d jumped from. We were now seven or eight meters from the end of the dock. Lord Ravencross sat astride his horse looking as stunned as I felt.
“By all the stars, Miss Aubreyson!” Captain Grey stared at Tess, aghast, and shook his head some more. Finally, he jerked off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve never witnessed a leap that daring. Or foolhardy. Certainly not from a girl. All you need is a cutlass between your teeth, young lady, and you’ll have a splendid career as a pirate.” He slapped his hat on and went back to hoisting of the sails.
Tess watched him go, and then fussed with her ball gown, smoothing down the soiled fabric of her skirt. “Drat. My best gown.” She scrubbed at a smudge of dirt. “I might be able to get that out with a little lemon juice.”
I don’t know what it was, relief that she hadn’t drowned, or amazement, but I felt a sudden overpowering urge to hug her. So I did. To my surprise, she hugged me back. When I finally gathered my wits and let go, she shrugged as if her extraordinary boarding method was nothing at all.
Feeling awkward, I said, “We’re going to Calais.”
Calais. France. A foreign country. And I’d never been away from home on my own before Stranje House. I knew, without a doubt, Tess was right. I would need her.
She nodded.
“Have you foreseen this? In a dream, I mean?”
She shook her head.
“Then why did you jump?” Just thinking of that feat made both of us glance back at the dock. We could no longer see Lord Ravencross. He and the pier were lost in the darkness and jumble of boats and ships along the bank.
“He’ll be angry with me.”
I suspected Lord Ravencross was more astonished than angry. From what I’d seen he’d looked shocked and bewildered, and then I thought I’d seen a glimmer of admiration. I couldn’t be sure, it had all happened so fast and the river had carried us away so quickly.
“But you said you knew I would need your help.”
Her mouth crooked to the side. “Doesn’t take a dream to know that much.”
Captain Grey brought us two woolen blankets. “It’s five hours to Calais. You’d best get some sleep.”
“But if we should catch up to them—”
“You’ll know,” he said curtly, and turned to leave. Then he hesitated and added in a gentler tone, “It’s unlikely. Unless we spot them soon, we’ve no way of knowing what route they’ll take.”
“Why Calais?” I asked, knowing he was in no mood to answer questions, but if I was to plan, I needed to know.
“Since the war ended, it has become the busiest port in the world. Troops from many nations are there awaiting transport home. It is easy to slip in and out unseen. The city is rife with allegiances to both Royalists and Napoleon. The Iron Crown has a stronghold. A house. Heavily guarded.” His shoulders slumped. “That is where she will take him.”
He looked so disheartened I withheld the rest of my questions.
Tess and I found a perch atop some boxes away from the slosh and spray and settled in. But for me, sleep was out of the question. I had five hours in which to plan. Five short hours to work out a strategy to right my wrongs. Five hours to regret that I hadn’t learned more at Stranje House. If we ever returned, I would rectify that. Top of my list of things to learn was how to swim properly. Oh, and how to escape from being tied to a chair. So many things I could’ve learned. I shook off those regrets. They wouldn’t help me now. For the nonce, I needed to devise a plan.
“Do you know anything about their stronghold?” I whispered.
Tess shook her head.
We fell silent for a long time. The gentle wafting of the river changed hands for the harder slaps of ocean waves against the hull.
“I wish Jane were along,” she murmured. “No one can pick a lock as well as Jane.”
“That would be handy.”
“And Sera,” she added. “Sera would be able to take one look at the building and know exactly where they were holding him and what our best approach would be.”
“We might try using her techniques.”
“I’m no good at it.” Tess fidgeted, trying to get comfortable. “I’m always too busy thinking of what might be. I miss nine-tenths of what she sees.”
“I might give it a go.”
“Phfft. I doubt it.” She pulled the blanket up and tried to tuck in. “You’re always too busy drumming up your next question.”
She rested her head against my knobby shoulder using me for a makeshift pillow. “If Maya were here we could sleep. She would sing to us, or say something comforting.”
I didn’t say anything. I simply rubbed her hand. Warming it in mine, knowing even Maya’s mystical murmurs wouldn’t have put me to sleep that night.
I had planning to do.