stride into the captain’s cabin. I hope the explanation as to why is in here.” Thumps sounded as she knocked on the book’s cover.
Evrial found that she could see the movements. A porthole on the far side let in faint nighttime illumination. “Maybe we can go out that way.” She pointed toward the window. Wedging her shoulders through it wouldn’t be easy, but she thought the feat doable. “There’s not a deck out there, is there?” Evrial pictured the layout of the boat in her mind. “But we’re near the top. Maybe we could climb up to the roof. As long as the helmsman is looking forward instead of backward, he wouldn’t notice us crawling across to a ladder going down.”
“ We may have to try that,” Amaranthe said from the door. “They’re going to search every cabin on this end of the deck.”
Evrial grumbled and groped her way past the furnishings to the porthole. Something scraped over the thin carpet-a chair? Amaranthe must be wedging it under the doorknob.
Evrial patted around the porthole, searching for a handle, but didn’t find anything. “It doesn’t open. You don’t really think I’m like Maldynado, do you?”
“ You favor a similar approach to opening doors.”
Heat flushed Evrial’s cheeks, and her shoulder ached in reminder of the ill-advised bashing. “He doesn’t take anything seriously, and he has the work ethic of a… a… well, an indolent son of the privileged caste. I’ve worked my entire life, and I…”
“ Take everything seriously?” Amaranthe suggested.
Evrial crossed her arms. “Maybe. So, what? Life isn’t a joke.”
“ No, but it’s easier to enjoy if you can find the humor in even the grim moments. Perhaps it’d be healthy for you to let someone bring a little levity into your life.”
Evrial dropped her arms. Maybe it would be if… “He’s silly about everything though. How could you count on someone like that to be serious when it counts?”
“ He is. Didn’t he stand by your side for the fight on that steamboat?”
“ I suppose. And he did risk himself to pull his comrades out of that booby-trapped building in that park. I guess I have seen him be serious and take responsibility, but he’s always… He says the dumbest things to me. I can’t imagine what’s inside his head.”
“ His smiles and silly lines usually work on women,” Amaranthe said. “And I think they’d actually work on you, too, if you weren’t worried about being hurt.”
Scowling, Evrial patted around the porthole again. They ought to be focusing on getting out of there, not talking about such unimportant matters. Unfortunately, the porthole still lacked a latch. She rapped a knuckle against the glass, wondering if they might break it. It sounded thick, but she still had her dagger.
“ It’s understandable,” Amaranthe went on. “If you believe half of what comes out of his mouth, he’s loved and left a lot of women.”
“ I don’t know why he’s bothering with me,” Evrial muttered, drawn back into the conversation despite her thought to drop the topic.
“ Even if you had no features which men find alluring, which isn’t true by the way, you represent a challenge to him. It’s human nature to want that which we can’t have. If you were so inclined to give in to his advances, that’d be the point where you could find out if there might be more to it than that.”
“ What more could there be with someone like him? I figure he’ll get his itch scratched, and that’ll be that.”
“ Do you want something else?”
“ With him? No. I don’t know. I don’t really see what we have in common or how it’d work or anything.”
“ If you decide you do want something with him, show him that you trust him,” Amaranthe said. “I gather his family never did, and he’s been upset of late with how many people here have turned suspicious eyes in his direction.”
“ I’m not suspicious of him. I just-”
“ Growl at or insult him every time he tries to start a conversation with you.”
“ That’s because he starts them with stupid lines,” Evrial said.
“ That’s his way of protecting himself, by not expressing true feelings. Just as you protect yourself with those insults. Perhaps if you both dropped your defenses long enough to have a serious conversation, you could find out if you have any commonalities after all.”
Evrial pressed her hands on either side of the porthole. She remembered a conversation with Maldynado that had gone that way. One where they’d been crouched on a boiler in the darkness. And it’d been… not unpleasant. Until he’d voiced that stupid spelunking comment. She caught herself smiling at the memory. Maybe Amaranthe had a point. Maybe The doorknob rattled.
“ Uh oh,” Amaranthe said. “Any progress with that porthole?”
“ No, it’s-”
A pale blob appeared on the other side of the glass. Evrial yelped and jumped backward faster than a dog bit by a snake. Her calf caught on the edge of the bed, and she tumbled onto it.
“ Good timing,” Amaranthe said.
“ What?” Bewildered, Evrial stared at the porthole. Only on the second long look did she recognize the pale blob. It was Sicarius’s face-upside down.
Amaranthe pointed to the porthole frame and mouthed something.
Sicarius’s head rose out of sight. Evrial rolled off the bed, embarrassed by her startled-and ungraceful- stumble.
“ I hope you don’t mind,” Amaranthe said, “but I’ll have to let Maldynado know.”
“ What?”
“ That you are capable of shrieking.”
Evrial would have snapped a retort-she hadn’t really shrieked, had she? Surely it’d been more of a surprised grunt-but thumps started up at the door. Whatever had escaped her lips, it must have been loud enough for the team in the corridor to hear her. “I’ll refrain from asking after the context of that discussion,” was all she said.
“ Wise woman,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius’s head reappeared along with a hand holding a narrow razor-edged blade. A louder thump sounded in the corridor, followed by a crack. It might have come from the door or the chair bracing it. Either way, it didn’t sound auspicious.
“ He better hurry up,” Evrial said.
Sicarius applied the blade to the glass and cut a circle. Something else struck the door-it sounded like wood rather than a shoulder this time. A battering ram?
Sicarius waved for them to back up. Conscious of her bare feet, Evrial leaped onto the bed. Sicarius thumped the glass circle with the heel of his palm, and it popped out of the porthole. It landed on the carpet with a crack.
Amaranthe moved it out of the way. “You first.”
Evrial’s first inclination was to argue that she should go last-after all, she’d been the one to drop the knife and rouse suspicions-but another blow at the door convinced her there was no time to argue. Amaranthe draped a towel over the sharp edge left in the porthole, and Evrial jumped, caught the frame, and did her best to wriggle through. Her momentum only took her halfway before her hips stuck in the narrow opening.
Sicarius, still dangling-what he had his feet hooked around, Evrial could only guess-caught her under the armpits and pulled her out. His grip was about as gentle as a vise clamp, and she was certain she left flesh and clothing on the frame, but her hips were freed. Her legs followed, and she barely managed to catch the frame with her feet, so they wouldn’t tumble out before she could right herself. She doubted Sicarius would appreciate having to hold her weight thirty feet above the water. Nor did she want anyone walking on the deck below to see her dangling legs.
With his help, Evrial pushed off the porthole frame and clawed her way to the roof. She dropped onto her belly and turned around, thinking to offer an additional hand to Amaranthe. Sicarius’s black boots were hooked around nothing more than a cable attached to an eyelet on the edge of the roof. Evrial couldn’t believe he could hold himself up that way. Before she’d done more than stick her head over the edge, Amaranthe’s hands appeared on the roof. She pulled herself up without help and dropped into a crouch. In an acrobatic move that would have impressed the circus performers, Sicarius flipped up beside them.
