The waves lapped at the dark shoreline. Rémy shivered in the breeze that whisked across the pale sand. Now that the sun had set — had been set, in fact, for an hour or so — the air had chilled again. In fact, it was becoming so cold that the two pirates holding her captive were in the process of building a large fire. Flames licked at the dry wood they had collected from the shore, the orange flickers growing by the second, their crackle and fizz filling the restless salt air.
Rémy sat on the sand with her back against a rock, her hands and feet tied so that she could not move even to rub her cold arms. The fire had been constructed in the sheltered shadow of a spit of stone that jutted out from the even taller cliffs around them. It would be invisible to anyone looking toward the shore from the ocean, and indeed to anyone looking from inland, too, unless they happened to lean directly over the crumbling cliff edge and look down. It was a good spot to hide — one that her captors were obviously very familiar with, judging from the remains of old fires dotted about the shore.
The airship stood behind them where Rémy had been forced to land it, a safe distance from the growing fire. The balloon was almost completely deflated — the ruby exhausted from its long two days of flight.
Rémy rolled her shoulders, hating being so helpless. As she watched, the female pirate moved slowly in Rémy’s direction, her attention on the fire as she rubbed her hands together. Rémy watched her profile with interest. She didn’t think this girl was much older than she was. Her face was built of sharp and elegant angles — a proud forehead, a pointed nose pierced with a tiny diamond that glinted like a star against her skin. Her eyes were large and clear, even in the darkness. The girl’s long black hair swept back from her face in a thick, unfussy plait that fell almost to her waist. There were scars, too — almost as many as Rémy had noticed on the men — slashes that patterned her arms and neck, a testament to a hard life. The girl’s clothes were shabby and functional — a cropped green top without sleeves, baggy brown trousers bound with a belt at the waist and what looked like strips of leather at the calves, where they were pushed into scuffed tan boots that laced almost to the knee. The talwar hung in a leather scabbard from her belt, her hand hovering near its hilt as if ready to draw it at a moment’s notice.
“How long have you been a pirate?” Rémy asked quietly.
The girl started as if she’d forgotten Rémy was even there, looking at her for a second before setting her mouth in a line and looking away.
“I used to be part of a circus,” Rémy went on, trying to find something that they might have in common. “My master made me steal almost as soon as I could walk. It’s not a great life, is it?”
The girl turned and looked at her again, her eyes piercing and disdainful in the firelight. “Speak for yourself, anukarana,” she said in a low voice. “I have a very good life. I am my own master.”
“You called me that before,” said Rémy. “Anu … Anukarana?”
The girl stared hard at the fire, her eyes glittering in the flickering light. “Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
The girl was silent for a moment, her shoulders hunched against her knees. Then she looked at Rémy, her face expressionless. “In my language it means ‘imitator.’”
“Why do you call me that?”
She turned back to the fire. “You know.”
“I don’t,” said Rémy. “I promise you, I don’t. Please tell me.”
The girl didn’t look at her again, or speak another word, as if the fire was telling her secrets that she had to strain to hear.
“I can’t explain how I found your ship,” Rémy said quietly. “I don’t think you would believe me if I told you. But I had a reason — a good one. I was looking for my brother. My twin.”
Rémy saw the girl’s shoulders tense and knew that she’d heard what Rémy had said.
“Is there someone aboard your ship who looks like me?” Rémy asked. “Is that why you called me an imitator? Is that why you all look at me,” she indicated Scar Face, sitting on the other side of the fire, “as if you have seen me before?”
The girl turned to look at her again. “Who sent you?” she asked. “Your ship bears the Union Jack. Have the British paid to put a curse upon Kai’s soul? Is that why you are here, anukarana? To trick us into betraying him because they can find no other way to catch him?”
“Kai?” Rémy asked, her heart speeding up. “Who is that? Does he — does he look like me?”
The girl smiled, though the gesture was far from friendly. “If you truly do not know, you will find out soon enough. When he comes with the others.”
“Do you mean your ship?” Rémy asked. “How do you know they’ll make it? They took heavy damage. What if they were destroyed?”
The girl put back her head and laughed. “Impossible, anukarana. Kai leads a charmed life. He will survive, no matter what you or his other enemies throw at him.”
“I’m not — I’m not his enemy,” Rémy said, frustrated, then stopped as a thought occurred to her. “He — Kai — you say he has a charmed life. Does he have a talisman? Perhaps a precious stone — an opal, maybe — that he wears around his neck?”
The girl looked at her sharply, eyes narrowed and fingers flexed. She relaxed a little and looked back to the fire. “I am Upala,” she said softly. “I am his opal, and his talisman. I will always keep him safe.”
Rémy was about to ask her what she meant when a mighty yell echoed against the cliff walls and reverberated around the beach. At first Rémy thought it was the wind playing tricks, but then it came again, closer this time. She twisted around, looking toward the water as Upala stood.
The pirate’s vessel crested the waves as it rounded the cliff to enter the cove. It was battered and scarred, but it was whole — and on its deck stood every one of Upala’s shipmates, apparently unharmed.
The ship dropped anchor and the pirates began to jump over the side, splashing into the shallows and wading through the water like a tide of their own making. They were singing and dancing, swaggering as they drew nearer, evidently pleased with themselves.
The pirates rushed up the beach toward the fire, scattering sand into the breeze around them. All around her, they moved in flurries of color and sound. It felt unreal to Rémy as she watched everything from very far away, atop one of the cliffs that served as their shelter. Gone were the terrifying cries that had greeted the airship, replaced now by laughter and wild yells of celebration.
For a second, the mass of bodies parted, like two tides drawing away from each other. Rémy looked through the gap and saw a pirate striding up the sand against the wind. He was thin and wiry, dressed all in black — black boots, tied up to his calves, black breeches, black shirt. On his head was a black tri-corn hat.
Rémy felt her heart judder as he turned, knowing what she was about to see even before she had actually seen it. And suddenly, there he was. It was like looking in a mirror where everything is recognizable although very slightly skewed. This man, this pirate dressed in black — he looked like her. He looked like Rémy.
He didn’t look in her direction at all. She watched him stride across the sand, weaving around his carousing shipmates with complete determination. Rémy realized that he was making for Upala. A smile burst across her face as she saw him — the first genuine one Rémy had seen her give in all the hours they had spent together that day. The two pirates walked toward each other and Rémy expected them to embrace, but instead they stopped a pace or so in front of each other, seeming suddenly awkward. Upala dipped her head, nodded, and then shrugged at something he said. Then she looked in Rémy’s direction, said something, and pointed.
The man turned. He looked straight at Rémy with a look sharp enough to pierce stone. Her heart began to thump as he strode toward her, no trace of surprise on his scarred face. The pirate walked until he stood a hair’s breadth away, his face a mirror that Rémy could easily have pressed her nose to.
“Well, well,” he whispered. “So here you are at last, Rémy Brunel.”
Rémy opened her mouth, but found it impossible to get any sound past the lump that had unexpectedly formed in her throat. In any case, what was she to say? It seemed that this pirate knew her, and of course she should know him, but she did not.
The face before her — so familiar and yet so completely unknown — studied her carefully. The pirate’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“My name is Kai,” he said softly. “Do you not even know that, little sister?”