bracing himself. Or perhaps acknowledging that whatever he’d been thinking about was less important than this new mission.
“ Or acquire them for ourselves.” Amaranthe smiled.
For the first time since identifying Sespian, Sicarius looked at her. A rather sharp look that implied the thought lacked prudence.
“ Let’s find them before worrying about what to do with them.” Amaranthe waved toward the nearby engineering room hatch. Faint light escaped from a porthole beside it. “Think you can find those schematics without being seen by the night shift?” she asked Sicarius.
“ Yes.”
A long moment passed, with Sicarius eyeing Sespian and Amaranthe in turn, before he walked away. He disappeared into the shadows long before he reached the hatch. She waited, expecting to see it open, but it didn’t. Perhaps he intended to go in another way.
“ Are you all right?” Amaranthe asked.
“ I’m fine,” Sespian said.
“ You’re sure? I didn’t share that particular tidbit in the most judicious manner this evening.” Maybe she shouldn’t be bothering him. She’d aligned herself with the enemy, more so than ever, as far as he was concerned. Maybe she was the last person he wanted to confide in or even talk to. If not for the limitations of the boat, he might have walked much farther away to think. “I apologize for that. And for continuing to bug you. I’m not good at simply letting sleeping grimbals stay in their dens. Just ask…” She was going to say ask Sicarius, but bringing him up might not be wise. “Ask anyone who’s known me for more than a month.”
“ A month?” Sespian smiled faintly. “It didn’t take me that long to realize you have a nosy streak.”
“ Well, you’re more perceptive than most people.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but Sespian’s smile faded and his eyes grew sad. “When you and your team barged into the train for me, and I learned how much you’d done in the last year, in the name of helping the emperor, I thought… Well, that’s what made me think you might also have… feelings for me.” Amaranthe opened her mouth to say that she did care for him, but he lifted a hand to stop her. “I thought you wouldn’t have done all that, risked your life and those of your men if you weren’t guided by more than indoctrinated imperial loyalty to the throne. But it was for him, wasn’t it?”
Amaranthe didn’t know what to say. She wanted to deny the accusation, but couldn’t, not when Sespian seemed to finally understand that Sicarius cared for him. That mattered more than what Sespian thought of her. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to simply nod, because it wasn’t the full truth. “Partially for you, partially for the good of the empire-I’ve always thought you were a better option than Ravido or any of those old-fashioned war-war-war men-and partially, no, a lot, for him, yes.”
Sespian exhaled slowly and nodded to himself. “I’ll survive my dashed dreams. Don’t feel bad. I just need some time. All of this-you, Forge, my shattered identity-is difficult, but the hard part is that it’s him. A brutal murderer who I’ve seen…” He shook his head. “It would have been more palatable if it’d been someone else. Any one else.”
“ Come now, you wouldn’t want Maldynado for a father, would you?”
Sespian lowered his head and chuckled softly. “Perhaps not. His advice on winning women wasn’t particularly apt.”
Amaranthe didn’t want to bring the conversation back around to that topic again, so all she said was, “That’s one subject I’m fairly certain you’ll never have to worry about Sicarius advising you on. He thinks it’s appropriate to wear a dozen knives while leading a girl into the Imperial Gardens for a, uhm, chat.”
“ I don’t doubt it.”
Sicarius reappeared at Amaranthe’s side. For once, she didn’t twitch with surprise, but she did grimace, fearing he’d heard her comment.
“ Did you get the schematics?” she asked. Best to stick to business.
The hatch to engineering remained shut, the light glowing within. That didn’t mean much-Sicarius could have left a pile of dead bodies without her and Sespian ever having heard a thing.
“ They were on the wall,” Sicarius said. “I memorized them. To retrieve them would have involved revealing myself.”
“ Is there a secret cargo area?”
“ Inside and below the deck, yes.”
“ Lead the way then.” Amaranthe extended a hand toward engineering, though she had no idea where one might find an entrance to the storage area. “Let’s see if we can collect Akstyr on the way.”
They jogged around the deck to the opposite side of the steamboat, pausing only when they spotted Akstyr. He lay on his belly, face pressed to a grate near the boiler room.
“ This way,” Amaranthe told him.
They caught up with Sicarius at the door to the dining hall.
“ We already looked all around in there,” Akstyr whispered.
Sicarius didn’t respond. He found the door unlocked and disappeared into the dark interior. Amaranthe groped about until she found an unlit lantern mounted on the inside wall.
“ He’s heading for the stage,” Akstyr whispered.
“ How can you tell?” Sespian stood near the door, holding it open to allow in the faint lamplight from outside. It didn’t penetrate far.
“ I can see him,” Akstyr said.
“ Magically?”
“ With the Science.”
A moment passed before Sespian said, “How does he see?”
“ I haven’t noticed that he particularly needs to. I think he senses his way around.” Amaranthe took her lantern outside to light it from one of the burning ones. “You didn’t inherit that skill?”
“ Apparently not,” Sespian said.
Amaranthe stepped inside, shut the door behind them, and turned up her lantern. The flame illuminated tables with chairs turned upside down on top of them, along with Sicarius striding out of the shadows near the front of the room.
“ Training,” he said.
“ Is that an explanation for something?” Amaranthe asked. “Or a random statement of enthusiasm for the practice?”
“ Blindfolded training.” Sicarius took the lantern. “Get another light.”
“ Talkative, isn’t he?” Sespian asked.
“ Terribly so.” Amaranthe lit a second lantern, then weaved between the tables toward the stage.
“ So women wouldn’t be the only thing we’d not discuss if we spent time together?”
“ You’d probably not discuss a lot of things.”
Amaranthe smiled over her shoulder at Sespian, then focused on Sicarius. He’d knelt and unscrewed a panel at one end of the stage, revealing a trapdoor. Utter darkness waited through the hole. Amaranthe couldn’t tell if the space went back a few feet or extended the width of the stage. Akstyr stared intently into the dark space but didn’t say whether he sensed the artifacts more strongly there or not.
For a long, quiet moment, Sicarius gazed at the floor, his ear tilted toward the opening. Amaranthe was about to ask if he’d heard something or otherwise expected trouble when his head swiveled toward her.
“ Akstyr and I can go alone,” he said.
Akstyr frowned.
“ What’s in there?” Amaranthe whispered.
“ I smell something.”
“ What?”
“ Death,” Sicarius said.
“ Bloody bears,” Sespian murmured.
“ Death?” Akstyr eyed the hole. “As in dead rats and stuff? Or people?”
“ Humans,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe spread a hand. While she couldn’t claim to enjoy stumbling across corpses, it wasn’t anything
