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The cabin only had the one bunk. When Captain Ryan first offered it to us, we’d said we’d be fine sharing it. That was before we knew how narrow the bunk was. Since Ace was still sick, I took half the blankets and made a nest on the floor, mourning my real bed back home at the palace.
It wasn’t comfortable. I stole a few hours of uneasy sleep, and my body protested. Everything ached, and I wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath.
Ships were, surprisingly, not stocked with bathtubs. They weren’t stocked with any kind of tub, and when I asked a sailor about it, he’d laughed and offered to dunk me in a water barrel if I wanted.
We had to drink out of those barrels so I respectfully declined.
But as I lay in the blankets, feeling the grit and grime and the aches and pains of the last few days, I was tempted. Drinking water or not, I felt disgusting. It made it hard to sleep.
Ace didn’t seem to have that problem. He was practically comatose, curled up under the blankets without a care in the world.
I almost regretted letting him have the bed. He’d have no problem sleeping on the floor. I felt terrible for thinking it. He was sick, and this whole mess was my fault to begin with. The least I could do was let him have the bed.
Rolling over to face the wall, I watched the swaying shadows caused by the dim oil lamp until drifting off.
A hard thud woke me up some time later, followed by a sharp “Shit” and heavy breathing.
I sat up and turned to Ace, who now sat on the floor, face in his hands, tangled in the blankets. “Ace?”
He started, dropping his hands and whipping his head up to face me. “Jack.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” His voice had that tight, clipped tone to it he got sometimes when he didn’t want to talk about something.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“I’m going to get some air.” He jumped to his feet and ran out the door.
I blinked from my spot on the floor, lowering myself back down. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and he wanted to be alone. It wasn’t like we were that close; I wouldn’t want to explain my dreams to him either.
But we were all each other had out here. I probably would have told him anyway. Ace wasn’t like that, though. Should I push him? Maybe he thought I didn’t want to listen. Maybe he’d at least appreciate not being alone.
He had looked pretty shaken.
I breathed deeply, debating a few moments longer before following him. He was easy to find on deck, curled around the railing. He still had on my jacket from earlier, had apparently never taken it off. I didn’t know what to think about that, so I filed it away for later and joined him.
“You didn’t have to come out here,” Ace said. He didn’t look at me.
“I know,” I said. “Just thought you might want company.”
“Not really.”
“I won’t say anything.” I wanted to, though. I wanted to ask what his nightmare had been about, or offer comfort if I could. But words didn’t seem to work much with Ace, so I stayed quiet.
After a few minutes, he relaxed next to me. I waited a few more minutes for him to make the next move.
“Can you...distract me?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Sure.” My mind raced for a topic, something that wouldn’t upset him. “Did I ever tell you I paint?”
“No, you didn’t. What do you paint?”
“Landscapes, mostly, and flowers. We have a ton around the castle.”
“Are you any good?”
I laughed. “Depends on your idea of good. You can always tell what I painted, at least.” My best paintings were of flowers my best friend Miranda sent me from her garden. I seemed to put the most effort into those. But I didn’t practice as much as I should, so my skills could only improve so much.
“Do you ever paint people?” he asked.
“No, people are hard,” I said, pulling a face and making him laugh.
“Okay, I have another question. What are things you’re bad at?”
“Why?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I expect you to be good at everything, so it’s kind of nice hearing the things you’re bad at.”
My face twisted again. I didn’t follow his logic. But, to be fair, I was decent at anything I tried, or I had the best tutors possible to help me learn to be decent. “Well, I’m not that great at horseback riding.”
“But that’s so easy,” Ace said.
“And where have you had the chance to learn how to ride a horse?” I demanded.
“There’s an inventor outside town. He keeps a horse in case he can’t fix his steamcar and lets me ride when I stop by.”
Was he for real? “You know how to ride a horse?”
He nodded. “Usually bareback.”
I couldn’t even ride bareback, though that had more to do with my respect of the large creatures and their deadly hooves. “That’s impressive. Can you do jumps and stuff?”
A smile warmed his face, something I hadn’t expected to see. “Yeah. Old Harry would set up tracks and jumps for me sometimes.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You are full of surprises.” He’d get along with Dad, at any rate. Dad was crazy about horses and went riding every morning before breakfast. He’d tried to pass on that same love to me, to no avail.
Ace shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a useful skill to have.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it,” I said. “You’re allowed to do things because you like them, you know. Not everything has to have a purpose.”
He hummed, which wasn’t an agreement, but it wasn’t an argument either, so I’d take it.
“So, what else are you bad at?” he asked.
I sighed. Of course this would be the one thing he wants after having a nightmare. At least it seemed to be working; he was more relaxed now. “Fencing, I suppose. I can hold my own in a duel, but I think everyone expects me to win all the time.”
“You mean you’re not one of those dashing princes off to save the princess?” he asked.
“What princesses?” There’d been only one royal family for the last eight hundred years, ever since the end of the Civil War that united all the provinces under one banner: my family’s. The upside to no other royal family was that we weren’t married off for political alliances, and everyone in my family had been able to choose who to marry.
“Ah, I see, lack of motivation,” Ace said.
I rolled my eyes. “Can you fence? You seem to know how to do plenty I wouldn’t expect.”
“Of course I can’t fence. I’m good at running away, though.”
I laughed. “I guess you’d beat me in a race, then.”
“Easily,” he agreed.
We fell into silence. I shivered in the night air.
“You can go back inside, you know,” Ace said. “I’m fine. You...helped a lot.” His face scrunched as he said it, like he didn’t want to admit it.
I bumped my shoulder against his. “You’re welcome. Are you ready to go back to bed?” The medicine Petra gave him had worked, and his fever had broken earlier that day, but he was still pale and exhausted.
He snorted and shook his head. “Not a chance. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go get some more sleep if you can.”
“I’m not that tired right now.” Even if I was, it was hard to sleep in that cabin. So, I stayed on deck with him, telling him more about what my life in the palace was like. I dropped small things about my parents, too, like how Dad loved horses and Mom loved to read.
He didn’t act interested in these tidbits, but he didn’t get upset when I talked about them either.
We stayed on deck until sunrise, and then we went back to sleep for a few hours. When I was up, I played cards with the sailors again. I was still abysmal at it, which they found endlessly entertaining. If they were some kind of smuggler ship or pirates, then they were really good at hiding it. They seemed so friendly; I couldn’t imagine them attacking another ship.
After I grew tired of losing so much, I abandoned the card game to explore the ship a little more. Previous attempts ended with crewmen shooing me out of the way; the corridors were narrow, and with all the pipes and boilers, there wasn’t room for an extra body. That didn’t sate my curiosity, and I kept wandering down for another look whenever I could.
This time, no one stopped me as I went below deck. Excited, I kept going, examining every gauge and tank to figure out what their purpose was.
“...needs to be visible,” someone said. They had to talk loudly to be heard over the boilers, and I couldn’t make out what direction it came from.
“We could probably get him up in the crow’s nest,” someone else replied. “Be easy to lure him up there and tie him to the mast.”
“Good. We can lock the other boy in his room,” the first voice said, and I realized it was Captain Ryan. “He’s not important.”
A stone sank in my stomach. Why did I feel like the boys in question were me and Ace?
More importantly, why were they tying anyone to the mast? What did they need to be visible for?
“Are you sure we can pull this off?” the second voice asked. Was that the first mate? “Attacking the palace directly is a huge risk. We should call in reinforcements at least.”
My blood turned to ice. They wanted to attack the palace?
Oh, King’s beard, these guys were chimers, weren’t they?
No wonder they wanted me nice and visible on the mast. They knew my parents would never allow anyone to attack this ship once they knew I was on board. They’d decimate the palace, kill hundreds of servants and dozens of nobles, maybe even my parents themselves.
“No time,” Ryan replied. “We have the ammunition; we need to strike while we can.”
I backed up one foot at a time. They hadn’t noticed me because of the boilers, but I didn’t want to risk hanging around.
Once my foot hit the stairs, I fled back to the cabin.