Her shoulders tensed and she stopped writing.
‘Neither are for me,’ he assured her. ‘I won’t be going. Don’t fancy meeting your father again. And you know I’m not very well trained in etiquette. But I do have a friend who is. I’ll need his help.’
‘And the other?’
‘Well, you have to take a lady to these things, don’t you? Turning up without a date looks a bit odd.’
‘And I suppose you happen to know one?’
‘She’s my navigator, Amalicia,’ said Frey. He leaned over and kissed her between the shoulder blades. ‘Just my navigator. And it won’t be me that’s taking her.’
‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Two invitations.’ She resumed writing, then signed with a flourish and laid the letter on top of his piled-up clothes.
Frey began getting to his feet. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you out of here. I promise.’
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
Frey looked towards the door of the attic. ‘Well, I’m technically not supposed to be here, so I should really be gone before everyone wakes up.’
Amalicia pulled him back down again. ‘It’s not even close to dawn,’ she said. ‘I’ve had nobody to lie with for two years, Darian. We still have some catching up to do.’
Sixteen
It was midday by the time Frey made it back to the grassy valley where the Ketty Jay waited. There was a cold breeze, but the sun warmed the skin pleasantly, and most of the crew were outside. Harkins was tinkering with the Firecrow; Jez was reading a book she’d picked up in Aulenfay; Malvery was lying on his back, basking. Silo was nowhere to be seen. Frey presumed he was inside, engaged in one of his endless attempts to modify and improve the Ketty Jay’s engine.
Frey strolled into their midst, whistling merrily. Pinn - who was lying propped up against the wheel strut of his Skylance - lifted the wet towel off his forehead and gave an agonised groan. He was still wearing his Awakener garb, although the Cipher he’d painted on his head was now just a red smear.
‘I see you managed to keep yourself entertained while I was gone,’ Frey said. ‘Heavy night?’
Pinn groaned again and put the towel back on his forehead.
‘Mission accomplished, Cap’n?’ Jez called, looking up from her book. ‘What happened to your face?’
Frey touched fingertips to his bruised jaw, probing the skin delicately. ‘Little misunderstanding, that’s all,’ he said. Jez ran her eye over his shabby, soot-covered clothes and let the issue drop.
Bess was sitting on the grass, her short, stumpy legs sticking out in front of her, like some vast and grotesque mechanical infant. Crake was cleaning her with a bucket and a rag. She was making a soft, eerie cooing noise, like wind through distant trees. Crake said it meant she was happy, rather like the purring of a cat, but it unsettled Frey to hear the voice of the daemon that inhabited that massive armoured shell.
‘You look chipper today,’ Crake observed.
Malvery sat up, took off his round, green-lensed glasses and peered at Frey. ‘Yes, he has a definite glow about him, despite the battle damage. I’d say he had a very happy reunion with someone.
