Dawn’s light always woke Ume at sea. A night owl by nature, on land, she could sleep like the dead, but there was something about the way the whole ocean seemed to wake in the first glow of half-light—pinks and golds on the water, and the change in color of the sea itself from the ineffable gray depths to the vibrant turquoise and aquamarine of the open water—that Ume couldn’t resist. It was chilly this morning, though. She wrapped the headdress that doubled as a scarf tighter around her neck—this one was the color of the pre-dawn sea, with beads of opal decorating the hem—and leaned against the rail to watch the sun make its late-autumn debut.
“Good morning, Maiden Sky.”
Ume stiffened at the address from behind her. Only one person besides Cree knew her by that name on this voyage. She’d done her best to avoid Pike, and except for a nod in her direction from the dining hall one evening, he’d stayed out of her way.
She turned and gave him a swift up-and-down with her eyes—a silent indictment of the inferior cut of his suit and the slicked-down, side-parted salt-and-pepper hair he’d tried to style like his fellow travelers—to put him in his place. “Pike.”
“Ah, I see we’re dispensing with formalities.” He approached the rail, and Ume pushed away from it, turning to go, but he laid his hand on her arm. “No need to be unfriendly.”
Ume resisted the urge to yank her arm away in disgust. Other early risers were about, and she didn’t want to make a scene. “There is every need to be unfriendly.” She used the excuse of tightening her scarf to move her arm, covering her mouth with the cloth as if to keep him out. “We are not friends.”
“Yet we share a common interest. You’ve avoided me since your ‘husband’ let you know I was on board, but I thought it only polite to inquire about our mutual friend.” Pike smiled at her scowl. “After all the trouble you took to procure him, I thought surely the boy would be traveling with you. Or did he give you the slip?”
“You’re a repulsive swine. I did not procure him. He’s not a thing. I liberated him from you. And it’s none of your business where he is.”
Pike shrugged, watching the horizon. “There’s no reason to be so defensive. He’s not my bounty. We made a fair deal, and I’ll stick by it. I’m a man of my word.” He dug in his pocket for his ubiquitous tobacco tin, and Ume seized the opportunity to take leave of him, but his next words stopped her in her tracks. “Only so long, of course, as the boy is without words of his own.”
Digging her nails into her palms, Ume turned back. He was grinning that arrogant Meerhunter’s grin, knowing she’d have no choice but to take his bait, as he pinched a wad of tobacco from his can.
“You know very well he can’t speak.”
“I know he won’t speak. Long as it stays that way, he’s nothing to me. But I acquired old Nesre’s bag of tricks after his untimely demise, and if he speaks, I’ll know it. And I’ll be honor-bound to do my job in that regard. It’s one thing for him to draw his little magic pictures, dangerous enough, but manageable. But once he’s opened his mouth, you’d be wise to seek my services. His kind has no loyalty to their keepers. Either way, though, he’ll be fair game.”
Ume turned on her heel and hurried into the salon, closing the door on him. He wasn’t aware that Pearl had spoken to her before. If he had been, he’d never have let Pearl go. Whether that meant his talk of Nesre’s “bag of tricks” was hot air or whether he simply hadn’t used them yet, she couldn’t be sure. But she knew Nesre had kept an “apothecary” of Meeric relics.
Her stomach churned against a roll of the sea at the memory of one of the relics Nesre had shown her—an eye preserved in Meeric aqueous humor—that had allowed him to spy on Pearl within his mirrored cage. It wasn’t much of a leap to imagine there might have been some other vile thing Nesre had procured that would allow him to hear the utterances of the Meer. For the first time, Ume was almost glad Pearl was under the hill, and out of reach of the likes of Pike.
“What did he say to you, damn him?” Cree came toward her brusquely from the other end of the salon, black fury in her eyes as she gazed past Ume through the glass at Pike on the deck. “I’ll toss his ass overboard.”
Ume dropped her hand, realizing she’d been holding it against her mouth in dismay, and pressed her back against the glass door to keep Cree from it. “Don’t, love. Let it be.”
“Did he insult you?” Cree touched Ume’s cheek with concern, even as she yanked on the door handle with the other hand as if she’d pull Ume with it out of the way. “Did he touch you?”
“No, love. It’s nothing like that.” Ume grasped Cree’s hand and drew her focus away from Pike with a soothing stroke of her thumb against Cree’s palm and a concentrated communication with her eyes. “Don’t give him any attention. It’s what he wants.”
Cree’s eyes settled on her, the outrage calming with Ume’s touch. “He did something. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I was seeing a ghost. Something Nesre showed me. I’d forgotten it, and Pike said something that reminded me. But Pike himself is harmless.”
“What ghost?” Cree’s look was guarded now with wary recognition, having grown used to sharing Ume with the memory of Alya.
Nesre had a…a talisman he used to spy on—” Ume broke off. Hearing this would be more painful for Cree than the present threat she was trying to distract her from.
“Pearl.” Cree gave her a tight nod. “Go on.”
Ume sighed. “Pearl couldn’t see outside the glass, and no one could see in—except Nesre. He had an eye.”
“An eye?” Cree blinked hers, puzzled.
“Alya’s eye.” Ume hadn’t meant to say it with such a hard edge, but bitter anger propelled the rest. “One that escaped being pulverized by the blows to his head, apparently.” Ume had been standing right beside him on the steps of the temple when the iron club was swung, both of them dragged from MeerAlya’s bed after he’d blessed her with his divine embrace. He’d been reaching for her as the blow fell, confused, smiling, still half in Meeric regenerative sleep after the expenditure of magic he’d used in giving the people of Soth In’La the blessing they’d asked for.
Pieces of his brain had spattered her face.
Cree’s fingers closed around hers. She’d been in the crowd before the temple and had watched it happen. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“He kept pieces of him, Cree. Not just his seed. Everything he thought he could make use of.” Like a carcass after a hunt. A shudder went through her, and she hoped Cree would assume it was more ghosts from the past, and not the present realization: that Pike would like nothing more than to add a few more of Nesre’s “relics” to his bag.