‘Do you have a plan?’ she asked hopefully.
‘My people will come for me,’ Cherry said. ‘We never leave anyone behind. I’ll make sure we take you with us.’
‘Oh,’ Annalie said, rather deflated.
‘Rescuing people is what we do,’ Cherry said.
Annalie gave him what she hoped was a grateful smile, and said nothing.
When the sun went down, the room became utterly dark, and remained dark for a long time. Cherry eventually dozed off, but Annalie lay awake, listening to the sounds around her. She could hear the rattle and clatter of domestic life, both within the building and outside the walls: people cooking and talking, eating and laughing, babies crying and being soothed by their mothers. It made her feel sad and lonely and homesick. She wondered if she would ever see her brother, her friends or her father again. To distract herself, she listened to the putter of dinghies and the slap of water against walls outside, and decided her earlier guess was probably correct and they were holed up somewhere in the part of Dio with its feet in the water. Cherry snored gently; the moon came out and a thin silver glow crept into the room. The sounds of the city quietened, and Annalie, lying with her head close to the floorboards, could hear a sound coming up from below: the gentle boom of water lapping at internal walls. A waterlogged room lay below them. And perhaps where the water could come in, there might be a way for a determined person to get out.
Another buyer
Annalie woke to the jolting of floorboards.
Cherry was up and doing his mornin exercises. She recognised them at once: the Admiralty had compulsory calisthenics first thing in the morning, and they’d been one of her least favourite parts of the Triumph College curriculum.
Noticing that she was awake, Cherry grinned at her. ‘Exercise before breakfast. It’s the best way to start the day. It always helps put me in a positive state of mind.’
‘Even here?’ Annalie said sceptically.
‘Especially here,’ Cherry said.
He switched from star jumps to press ups. ‘Feel free to join me,’ he said. He was barely puffing.
‘Thanks, but I’ll pass,’ Annalie said.
‘We need to stay in peak condition if we’re going to escape,’ he said.
Annalie suspected he was teasing her. ‘You can’t blame a girl for trying,’ she said.
‘I don’t blame you at all,’ Cherry said. ‘I admire your spirit.’
His arms pumped up and down like pistons. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what brought you out here? The Sea of Brundisi is a pretty dangerous place to be.’
‘We were on our way to somewhere else,’ Annalie said. ‘Pirates attacked us.’
‘At sea?’
Annalie nodded.
‘What kind of vessel were you in?’
‘My father has a boat,’ Annalie said, a little awkwardly. ‘It’s only a little one.’
‘No such thing as too little for these guys,’ Cherry said. ‘So they chased you? Boarded you?’
Annalie nodded. ‘We tried to fight back, but then I was taken hostage.’
‘What happened to your friends?’ Cherry asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Annalie said. Suddenly her eyes were full of tears. ‘I don’t know if they were captured, or—’
Cherry stopped his exercising and looked concerned. ‘Who was on the boat with you? Your family?’
‘Family and friends,’ Annalie said, her voice wobbly. ‘Almost everyone I care about, actually.’
Cherry looked at her with sympathy. ‘They might have got away.’
‘Do you think so?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ Cherry said. ‘It happens.’
But she could see he was lying.
She turned her head away. She didn’t want him to see her cry.
Later that morning, Red Bandana came for her again. This time there were just three men in the lounge room: Red Bandana, the older man, and the boy. Red Bandana spoke first; he was in a bad mood.
‘You give us more names,’ the boy translated, echoing Red Bandana’s aggressive tone.
‘I don’t have any more names to give you,’ Annalie said.
‘We called. They don’t answer,’ the boy said. ‘Where are they?’
‘I told you, I don’t know,’ Annalie said. She turned to Red Bandana. ‘Your friends know where they are.’
Red Bandana shouted at her and waved his hand angrily.
‘You have to give us more names,’ the boy said. ‘Or we start looking for another buyer.’
Another buyer? What did that mean? Annalie wondered, worried. ‘Try them again, please. I don’t know where they are, they might just be out of range, but you’ve got to keep trying. I know they want me back. We don’t have much money, but whatever we can get, we’ll give you, I promise.’
‘You give us more names. Dux people.’
‘I don’t know any more people, I really don’t,’ Annalie said.
Red Bandana and the older man conferred, then gave the boy instructions. ‘We don’t talk to them today, you’re in big trouble,’ the boy said.
‘You won’t like it,’ Cherry said. ‘But they’re probably talking about selling you to a slaver.’
‘Oh,’ Annalie said.
‘They won’t get as much money for you,’ he continued, ‘but it’s better than nothing.’ He paused. ‘It may sound scary but it’s actually kind of comforting. This is a business to these guys. They don’t want to hurt or kill you. They just want to make some money from you—as much money as possible. They don’t really care where it comes from as long as you’re worth something to them.’
‘You mean they’d sell me to the highest bidder?’
‘Yep,’ Cherry said.
Annalie was stunned. She knew, of course, that Pod had once been a slave, but it had never occurred to her that such a thing could happen to her. A shiver of horror ran through her at the thought.
‘I’m not saying it’s a good outcome,’ Cherry said. ‘One of my first operations—No, never mind.’
‘What?’ Annalie asked.
Cherry looked at her sideways, considering whether or not to tell her his story.
‘I want to hear it,’ Annalie said.
‘We were sent to investigate a factory,’ Cherry said. ‘It was in Estilo, but the bad end of Estilo on the Sea of Brundisi. They’ve got a few towns over there that’ve set up as manufacturing hubs—they
