Scrimshaw was still asleep, and she didn’t figure it was worth it to rouse xin for a meal xe probably couldn’t stomach. What xe was going to do for food now was beyond her. They’d returned that barrel of whatever edibles xe’d brought aboard, and xe hadn’t eaten since they left Talonpoint. If that leg didn’t kill xin, they’d lose xin to starvation.
Sophie and Tisker took the seats on either side of Talis. Dug sat next to Sophie. They grouped tighter than they’d normally pull up to her table, as if shielding her from their pathetic guest. There wasn’t much he could do to her one-handed, but she couldn’t say she wasn’t glad of the defense.
Then again, maybe they were protecting him from her.
Maybe she ought to blame Hankirk for all the misery that had befallen her ship and her crew. But she didn’t have room for the anger around her shame and self-loathing. From the moment she took that sour contract, every decision she’d made had led them further and further into this mess. She’d always relied on the compass of her instincts, but they’d led her wrong this time. And by following them, she’d led her crew wrong.
They ate quietly, slurping from their bowls. The loudest noises came from anyone attempting to break off a piece of the hardtack, either with their fingers or, in the case of Hankirk and Tisker, whose hands were not up for further strain, between their teeth.
A captain’s first duty was to the well-being of her ship and crew. That failure swirled in her mind. She kept her head down and ate without seeing or tasting the food. Which may have been for the best, bad as she’d botched it to start with.
But that wasn’t fair, amid all the other unfairness she’d cast on Sophie. She focused for a moment, took a bite more mindfully.
It was good.
There were spices, gods knew how she’d managed that. Some savory, earthy flavor that Talis didn’t recognize but which seemed to balance and cut the burn of the over-salting. A little heat, and the familiar sweet tang of garlic, complementing the mix and accentuating the creaminess.
She looked up sharply, letting her eyebrows lift on her forehead in wonder. Only Sophie wasn’t watching her. She and Tisker were grinning at each other, eyes twinkling in the half-light of the chandelier above them.
Dug was smiling, too. Actually smiling, with the sharp edges of white teeth catching the candle light. He squinted and his skin creased with muffled laughter.
“What?” Talis winced at the icy tone in her voice. So she did have room for anger, it seemed.
Whatever had dammed their laughter broke. Unable to answer her, Sophie, Tisker, and hells, even Dug shook in the grip of their secret joke. Tisker slapped a hand on the table, winced, but kept laughing. Dishes, cups, and spoons jumped and rattled in response. Sophie held a hand over her mouth, lest she spit out the bite she’d just taken.
Talis felt a tug at the corner of her mouth, though it hung slack in confusion. Trying to comprehend the impossible mirth that spilled across the table and washed up against her. Opposite her, Hankirk looked up and his eyes met hers. There was no wonder there. Just… sadness, or something like it. The whole scene felt like a fever dream.
“What?” she asked again, a tiny bit of the laughter contagion creeping into her voice. It was hard enough to resist Sophie, but that Dug had reason to laugh, that overrode her senses. The part of Talis’s mind that only wanted to wallow in her misery flared briefly in annoyance at the lack of explanation.
But her crew was lost to her, laughing too hard to answer. Tears gathered in the corners of Tisker’s eyes. Their guffaws echoed off the bulkhead and buffeted her eardrums.
Sophie wiped a tear from her eye and put a hand out, clasping Talis’s wrist. Like being zapped by static, Talis understood.
She let the smile that was pulling at her lips have its way. Tentatively, laughter followed. A chuckle first. It shook her gently by the shoulders, before seizing her round the middle. The anxiety that had found a home in her gut uncoiled, loosened.
Sophie squeezed her wrist, and Talis rotated her hand so she could grip Sophie’s wrist in return.
Talis’s shameless laughter joined the din. Her aches and bruises protested, shooting with flares of pain at the staccato movements. It only made her laugh more. Whether they were tears of pain or tears of relief, or just the water chased out by the pressure of the hysterics, she didn’t care. She wiped her eyes on the cotton wristband of her jacket and leaned back, slouching comfortably into her seat.
There were no words for what had brought on the mirth. But she knew, somehow, after everything, that they’d be okay.
Chapter 43
The dregs of the chowder hardened inside their bowls long before they left the table. Tisker rose after they ate and put a drum on to play, a collection of shanties with driving rhythm. Talis opened a new bottle of spiced rum, courtesy of the restock back at Subrosa, and they—all five of them—emptied it. In celebration for once, rather than as a salve.
It seemed all during dinner that their laughter couldn’t reach Hankirk, wherever his mind had strayed. Except, when Sophie and Tisker got up to dance, the fingers of Hankirk’s ruined arm, blue from the tourniquet, twitched as if trying to match their steps.
By then, Talis must have had more than her captain’s ration of drink, and she watched in horror from the back of her mind as her body got up and invited the bastard to dance. They didn’t speak. They just danced, their frivolous movements intended, finally, not to run for cover or to start a fight. Just to move. Just to be alive.
Hankirk’s eyes were still guarded, but he at least found the wherewithal to smile. Talis could almost remember what she’d
