“I’M NOT SURE I UNDERSTAND what you mean, Archie.” Houndstooth’s voice was low. If Archie hadn’t known better, she’d have thought he was furious. But she did know better—she’d saved the man’s life somewhere between nine and a half and ten times, and she knew his moods better than her own.
So she knew that he was perched on the edge of panic.
“Dead means dead, mon ami. Nothing more to it.”
Houndstooth ran his hands through his hair as he paced back and forth, staring at the carpet. Hero, seated on the divan, followed him with their eyes. “But . . . but if he’s dead, then—then I can’t—then I didn’t—”
Archie put a quelling hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps it is best this way, non?” she whispered. “Without the revenge.”
He looked up at her, his eyes flashing. “How did you know?”
She looked uncomfortable. Before she had to answer—before she had to tell him what Cal had said just before he died—the door banged open. Adelia stared in at the two of them. “Well, Archie. I suppose this means you and I each get our own suite.”
“It also means we’re all up to our necks in the bog without so much as a hop to ride,” Houndstooth said in a clipped voice. “We can’t do this without Cal.” He began to pace the suite, running his hands through his hair.
Hero didn’t look up from their whittling. “If you’re so beside yourself about it, Winslow, I can chew on toothpicks and sling racial slurs with the best of ’em. Might need to practice some, but I’m sure I can get in fightin’ shape by mornin’.”
Houndstooth laughed—a genuine, easy laugh—and then sat heavily on the bed next to Archie.
“Look around the room, Hero. What’s missing?”
Hero glanced around the suite. “Palpable body odor.”
Houndstooth laughed again, but this time, the laugh seemed forced. Adelia and Archie exchanged a glance.
“We’re missing a white boy,” Adelia murmured, stroking her belly.
“So what?” Archie huffed. “If we need one so bad, I am sure I can drag one back up here for you, Winslow. There’s no shortage.”
Houndstooth was staring at Hero. Hero stared back at him for a long moment.
“What is it? What are we failing to understand here, Winslow? What’s so tough about pulling off this hippo caper without Cal on board?”
Houndstooth dropped his head into his hands. “We need your supplies, Hero. And nobody on the Harriet is going to sell your supplies to a stranger, not even for easy money. We’ve been corresponding with a dealer and he’s expecting Cal to come buy the goods from him, and we’re working with him on the strength of Cal’s reputation on the Harriet. He’s expecting Cal. He’s expecting a white man with a terrible mistake of a moustache.” He rubbed his face with his hands, groaning. “And it’s not a caper; it’s an operation.”
Hero whittled faster, sending hickory shavings flying into the plush red carpet. “Right, right. All aboveboard. So, ask your federal boy. I’m sure the army can send something.”
Houndstooth looked uncomfortable. “I can’t ask him.”
Hero’s lips quirked into a half smile. “Oh, honestly. You’re embarrassed?”
Houndstooth scowled at them. “No, I’m not embarrassed, it’s just that—he doesn’t know what we’re going to do, here. He’s assuming we’ll net each feral, one by one, and escort them out of the swamp. That’s why the contract is for a full year.”
Adelia swore under her breath. “That’s . . . idiotic.”
“That’s dangerous,” Archie added.
“That’s why we’re not doing it that way,” Houndstooth said. Houndstooth slapped the edge of the map, his cheeks pink. “It was a great goddamned plan, and it’s sunk.” Hero put a calming hand on his arm. His cheeks reddened further.
“So we need a white boy por quoi? To buy dynamite?”
Hero nodded. “Lots of it. And detonators. Fuses, timers—oh, and wax. A lot of wax.”
Archie left the room without saying another word.
“Where is she going?” Adelia asked.
“Probably to go charm some poor kid into buying Hero’s groceries,” Houndstooth replied. “I suppose that’s why she’s on the team—she could talk a hippo into thinking it was a rhinoceros without breaking a sweat.”
A few minutes later, the door burst open again. Adelia smirked.
“Giving up so soon, eh Ar—oh,” she said.
Archie stood in the doorway, transformed. She’d slicked her hair down on either side of a part so razor sharp it put Houndstooth’s to shame. Her pinstriped breeches and satin waistcoat had been exchanged for a flawlessly tailored three-piece linen suit. She spun a matching bowler hat between her hands. Her boots were half-covered by diamond-white spats. A blond moustache—one that would have kept Cal up at night with envy—bristled its way across her upper lip.
She had become an impeccably outfitted gentleman.
“You needed a white boy, oui?” she asked, her voice pitched an octave lower than usual. “Et voilà.”
Houndstooth gaped at her as Hero crossed the room to examine her. “Where did you get this suit?” Hero asked. “I don’t mean any offense, but I can’t imagine you just grabbed it off some poor mark in the hallway just now. And that moustache—good God, Archie, it’s nothing like Cal’s, but it’ll do!”
“I keep it around for special occasions,” Archie replied with a grin. “Sometimes my heart calls more to suits than skirts. It is fluid, oui?” She waved her hand vaguely through the air. “It changes. The tailor, ’e was confused when I told ’im what I wanted, but for the right price, anything can be ’ad. Isn’t that right, Adelia?”
Adelia’s head snapped up from where she was staring at the map. “Que?”
Houndstooth seemed to come to his senses. “Archie, you . . . you brilliant woman, I could kiss you!”
Archie and Hero both scowled. “You will ruin my moustache, ’oundstooth. Best to keep that kiss for someone who wants it, eh?” She placed the bowler hat on her head and turned to Hero, whose eyes went wide.
“Do you ’ave a list for me?”
“A list? Oh! A list. Of course, yes, let me just—” Hero scrambled for paper and scrawled out a list of supplies, handing it to Archie.
“Well, my friends, off I go. I expect all three of you to be drunk at the bar by the time I return.” She tipped a wink at Hero. “We must make a good show of enjoying our stay on the Sturgess Queen, non?”
* * *
Archie didn’t return until the wee hours of the morning. As she and Rosa approached the dock, she looked around at the Harriet. She hadn’t really paid attention to it the day before—she had been more focused on the guns Travers’ goons were carrying. Through the night, it had been too dark to really take in. As the sky began to lighten, she realized that the Harriet was precisely what she had expected: a huge, flat, muddy stretch of water, dotted with tiny islets and bracketed by humps of dogwood-covered land. She found herself wishing it was more beautiful, more shaded and lush—but then, she thought, it would be good marshland for hippos rather than a prison for ferals and riverboat thugs.
She unloaded Rosa’s saddlebags onto the floating dock that bridged the gap between the Sturgess Queen and the paddock. She brushed Rosa’s teeth and put medicated drops into the albino hippo’s pink eyes. Then, she sang Rosa a short lullaby and began dragging her load aboard the boat.
She tapped on the door to Hero and Houndstooth’s cabin with one fingernail, then with two. When there was no answer, she gave a single rap on the door with her knuckle.
Hero answered the door, breathless, still tying the belt of a robe around their waist. Their eyes were glassy—their lips, swollen. Archie grinned wickedly.
“I’m glad to see you, too, ’ero.” She thrust the saddlebag at Hero and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Hero panted. “Wait, this isn’t—this can’t be enough. I need at least four times this much dynamite.”
Archie turned back, her eyes still glinting with delight. “Ah, well, you see. They were all out of dynamite.” She patted the top of the bulging saddlebag. “This is something different. Something . . . better. You’ll see. We will discuss it further in the morning, oui? You’re busy now, and I’m so very sleepy.” She yawned theatrically. “Off to bed with both of us, is it not?”
She sauntered away down the hallway, pulling off the false moustache. “Oh, ’oundstooth,” she murmured to herself, a smile overtaking her face as she remembered the longing look on Winslow’s face when Hero had touched his arm the day before. “I can’t save you this time, mon copain. You’re done for.”
* * *
Archie, Hero, and Houndstooth met in the lounge at noon, each of them still blinking sleep from their eyes. Adelia was already seated in her chair, a small armory’s worth of freshly whetted knives on a table by her side. The knife she was sliding along the whetstone was familiar; Archie noticed it before Houndstooth did.
“I thought that thing was lodged too deep in the bull’s brain to get out? And—’ow did you get those back from Travers? I thought they were all locked away . . . ?”
Adelia grinned and continued sharpening Houndstooth’s ivory-handled blade. “I’m determined, Archie. Determination is everything. Besides, I had a few years of saving Cal’s pistol-ridden ass. You know how it is, in the water.”
Archie watched Adelia’s expert hands work. “I do know ’ow it is. Knives are a ’opper’s best friend. Pistols that can’t get wet, on the other ’and? A nightmare.”
Adelia laughed. “Well, Cal was an idiot, wasn’t he? I told him, a hopper with no knives is a dead hopper. But he didn’t want to listen.” She lowered her voice in a perfect imitation of Cal. “‘Well, actually, Adelia, a gun is more effective at a distance.’ See how well that worked out for him, hm?”
Hero and Houndstooth walked to the dining room for coffee, their heads tilted toward each other as they walked. Archie sat across from Adelia, her elbows resting on her knees.
“Adelia, mind if I ask you a question?”
Adelia did not look up from the knife. “Yes. It’s Cal’s baby. No, I am not sorry that he’s dead.”
Archie shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that’s . . . that’s good to know, but it’s not what I was going to ask.”
That made Adelia look up. Her face was, for the first time, completely open—Archie realized she had not seen plain emotion on the woman’s face before.
“What would you like to know, Archie?”
“I don’t mean any offense, of course—you are incredibly skilled, obviously you are an asset. But . . . why are you ’ere?”
Adelia’s face split into a wide, white smile. Archie realized that one of Adelia’s canines was made of gold, and she was reminded strongly of Ruby’s deadly sharp tusks.
“Why, Archie. I’m here to kill you.”
Archie was startled into laughter. Adelia went back to sharpening Houndstooth’s knife. She tested it against her thumbnail, then returned it to the whetstone.
“What? Me?”
“Well, not you precisely. But, all of you. Everyone on the team.”
Archie went very still. “I think perhaps I misunderstand your joke, madame.”
“Oh, it’s not a joke,” Adelia said, although her smile had not faltered. “I’m here to kill you all. If anyone goes rogue, if anyone tries to steal the money, if anyone sabotages the plan. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, per the boss.”
“You mean the Bureau of Land Management? Or ’oundstooth?”
Adelia did not reply.
“Aha,” Archie said. “So you’re keeping an eye on us for this ‘boss’ of yours. But who keeps their eye on you, Adelia Reyes?”
Archie stood after a long, silent moment, and walked into the dining room after Houndstooth and Hero. Adelia watched her go, testing the knife on her thumbnail once more. This time, she found it more than sharp enough.