Burning Up

down at the pieces of the Black Guard’s freezing device. She’d wound her hair around her head like a crown, each braid a coppery red in the soft glow of the lamp. Shadows formed half circles below her eyes.

She glanced up at him, her solemn gaze lingering on the blood staining his shirt. Stiffly, he turned toward the bureau to change and wash. He heard her sigh.

“This device isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen,” she said. “The power source—it’s a battery, but I’d need a thousand Kleistian jars to equal a few seconds of activation. And the circuitry, and these . . . these . . . I don’t know what they are. It’s like looking at a nanoagent. Somehow, commands are being processed, and I don’t know how.”

The last word came out muffled. Eben turned, saw that she’d put her hands over her face. She drew deep, steadying breaths. “The Blacksmith might know,” she added quietly.

“We’ll send it to him.”

Opening her hands, she looked at him through the brackets of her palms. “It’s Horde technology. But that man wasn’t Horde.”

“No,” Eben said. “None of the Black Guard have been.”

Ivy studied him for an endless moment. Then she nodded and stood, gathering the pieces into a small bin. “You were in the surgery a long time.”

“We lost two,” he said gruffly.

“I heard. I’m sorry.” Her searching gaze swept over him again. “Did you eat?”

“Yes.”

With her nightgown skimming the floor, she walked to the bed and lay down. When she awoke tomorrow, Vesuvius would be anchored near Trahaearn’s estate, and she’d be heading ashore to build the kraken. And although Eben had intended to stay with her, now he’d be sailing into the port at Holyhead, returning those who the slavers had abducted from Wales, and then on to London. He’d be away from her for almost a month.

Christ. For two weeks, he’d done everything possible to show Ivy he wasn’t a monster. One day had ruined all of that—and as soon as she left his ship, he’d have no way to prevent her from running.

Again.

His heart heavy, he finished cleaning off the sweat and blood. He looked toward the bed, then snuffed the lamp so that if she turned away from him, at least he wouldn’t see it.

But as soon as his head hit the pillow, she curled against his side and laid her cheek over his heart. His throat tightened. Eben stared up into the dark, trying to remember any moment in his life when a single action had affected him more. He couldn’t.

By God, he loved her.

And he’d kiss her now, if she would just give him the denier that they’d passed back and forth the past week. He waited, wondering if she held it in her hand—but he could feel her left palm flat against his arm, her fingers gently stroking his biceps, and her right was tucked loosely beneath her chin.

“You forgot the coin.”

“No.” Her warm breath whispered over his chest. “I know you’d never force me.”

He couldn’t respond for almost a full minute. Then he said, “I wish you’d figured that out after you’d earned your denier back.” Her laugh left him as full and light as an airship. “Tell me, Ivy: do I have to pay for a kiss?”

“I should charge you five hundred gold sous. I’m furious with you.”

She had an odd way of showing it. “I know what shooting that bastard looked like. But—”

“Not him. Good riddance to him, the murdering bumchute.” She lifted her head. His eyes had adjusted to the reflected moonlight coming in through the windows; there was no mistaking her fierce expression as she looked down at him. “I’m speaking of how you let me think you were stealing cargo and killing men. You didn’t mention that the cargo you stole was people, and the men were slave handlers.”

And that painted a fine picture of him. But as much as he’d have liked to leave her with that impression, he couldn’t. “I’ve still killed plenty of men, Ivy. The seas aren’t kind to anyone, and the jobs I take on for Trahaearn are usually the ones nobody else wants, because it puts a target on my ship. There’s been many a time that I’ve had to shoot first—and I can’t regret any of them. It just happens that in the past two years, I’ve been shooting at the Black Guard.”

She was silent, taking that in. Finally she asked, “What do they want?”

“I don’t know. They’ve always got a man on the ships they hire, but every time I’ve run into one, I’ve either had to kill him, or he kills himself after reciting the same speech that slave handler started up today. But I can tell you how they’re financed.”

Ivy beat him to it. “Selling slaves.”

“Yes. To the Ivory Market, or the Lusitanian mines in Appalachia.”

“Blue.” Her forehead dropped to his chest. “That night in London, they came into my room. I thought they were the Horde.”

Good Christ. And Eben wouldn’t have known that she was gone. The thought of it opened a hollow pit in his chest.

“Duckie said they tricked you,” she added.

Damn that boy. “He shouldn’t have. It doesn’t do me any good for people to know that I was taken in.”

She lifted her head. Humor lightened her expression. “It damages your reputation?”

“Yes.” Eben didn’t mind Ivy knowing the truth. He trusted her. But it still put a dent in his pride. “That reputation keeps my ship safe—but Duckie probably thought you already knew.”

“How would I?”

“Because it happened when I was looking for you.” When she frowned, he said, “I returned to the Star Rose that morning, and I assumed you ran to another ship. Searching from port to port would have been impossible. But Trahaearn owns those docks, and keeps a record of every ship docking and leaving—and a destination for most. I got that list, and tracked them all down.”

Her mouth had fallen open.

“So when I came up on that foundered ship . . . hell, I’d planned to board her anyway. Except it wasn’t you in the hold, and I stayed down there for a good bit of time with the others they’d taken from London. Duckie was one of them. Chained up right next to me.”

“Truly?” At his nod, she asked, “How did you get out?”

“They’d told Barker not to follow or they’d kill me—but if I don’t pay Barker, then he can’t pay the Blacksmith. He took the risk of following.”

“What’d they do?”

“Try to kill me. When Barker sailed in close, they counted on him slowing down to collect my body. So they took me topside, shot me in the chest, and I went over. I was just at Vesuvius’s hull when the shark took my leg.”

Her hand flattened over his heart. “My elbow really did save you.”

In more ways than one. He’d held on to her small flange in that stinking hold, his only thought of escaping and continuing to search for her. But he hadn’t. He’d gone after the slavers instead.

“I caught up with them—and that’s when I first heard of the Black Guard. The slave handler on that ship had been one, too.”

“Before you killed him?”

“Yes. And stranded most of the crew.”

Her gaze was troubled—but not by the fate of the slavers’ crew. “Have there been so many taken?”

“Probably more. I only found them because I went looking. Most of them don’t come through London— Trahaearn watches his docks too closely, and most of the mercenaries the Black Guard hires are too afraid of him to risk it. So the majority of the people taken have been smuggled out of Wales and Cornwall.”

“But Trahaearn’s the Duke of Anglesey. He has holdings in Wales. They aren’t scared of him there?”

“It’s easier to smuggle along the coast than the Thames.” But he agreed, “It damages his name that they’re doing it under his nose—even if he’s in London.”

Realization slowly spread across her features. “I see.”