“I’ll have to go look for her,” Casper said.
“Don’t go unarmed. You look enough like a woman from the back, and the pirates are animals.”
Casper grimaced, and I scoffed. There was nothing remotely feminine about him, except possibly his hair, and even that was wilder than any woman’s hair had a right to be. He stretched his shoulders and stooped to pluck a wicked machete off the big pirate.
“I had hoped I wouldn’t ever have to find out how bad I am with a knife.”
“Then hurry. Your only hope is to find your friend while the men are still busy with swiving.”
“Where could she be? Where would she run?” I would have paced, but the already small room was cluttered with bodies, their stench rising in the tight space. My heart jolted with an uncomfortable tightness as I thought of Big Gar reaching for his pants. What would a man like him do to a tiny thing like Keen?
“Someone’s coming,” Mikhail said, and then I heard the boots pounding down the hall.
“C’mon, girly,” a man shouted just outside, and Keen bolted into the room with a pirate grabbing for her jacket. With a casual flick of his arm, Mikhail drove a knife into the old man’s belly.
Keen hid behind Casper, shivering and panting as another dead pirate fell to the ground.
“That’s one problem solved, then,” Mikhail said, absorbing Keen’s appearance with ease, his head to one side.
“Pirates,” Keen panted, eyes wide with terror.
“We were just leaving,” I added, holding out my hand to her.
Much to my surprise, she actually came to me, nervous as a colt. I held her close as she shivered.
“What about the . . .” I gulped. I couldn’t say it.
“Parachutes,” Casper supplied.
I shot him a dark look.
“I know where they are. I can be there and back in a few minutes.” With Keen returned, his attitude went from worried to confident, as if jumping off an airship was nothing. For once, I envied his recklessness.
He quickly stripped the long duster from Gandy’s body and buckled it across his chest, before tucking his hair up under the dead pirate’s disreputable-looking bowler. The coat was too small and tugged across the shoulders, but Casper looked piratical enough.
“As long as you don’t talk to anyone and they don’t look too closely, that should do,” Mikhail said. “I’ll keep the princess safe.”
“Be sure that you do.”
Casper looked at me, and the strangest feeling took me over. There was possession there, and concern, and warning, and I found myself stepping forward, saying, “It’s fine. We’ll be fine. Go.”
Not until he was out the door did it occur to me to wish him luck.
Not until Mikhail turned to me, his smile wide and sharp and his eyes fever-bright, did it occur to me that we might not, in fact, be fine.
Mikhail turned to Keen where she sat on the bed. I went on alert as he reached into his coat, but he withdrew a fist, not a weapon. His arm snapped out, dusting Keen with powder, and he muttered, “Sleep, child.”
Keen’s eyes drooped closed, her head falling gently to the side and her mouth going slack. I hissed. Magic set my teeth on edge after Ravenna, but now I knew how Criminy Stain had arranged our private meeting in Dover.
Mikhail turned back to me, lit with energy and stepping too close. “You’ve nothing to fear from me, princess. I want the same thing you do.”
“And what’s that?”
“The safety of our people. The return of the land to her ancient rulers. A world free of them, except as cattle.” He glared at Keen’s sleeping form, so childlike and soft. His eyes shone feverishly when he looked at me, and I leaned back against the closet door, trying to get my bearings. In a heartbeat, he was on his knees, my bare hand clutched to his lips.
“My princess. My queen. The throne is yours for the taking. Come back with me to Freesia. Together we can gather the deposed barons, the forgotten sons, the dukes shivering in the forest. They’ll rally to our cause, to your cause. My queen, we can take it back. We can make it better.”
The message was more than welcome, and yet his words, his fervor, his magic repelled me. It was my mission, to be sure. Everything I’d done, from visiting the tasseinist to enlisting Casper and Keen to ignoring my fear of heights and impropriety to board the Maybuck, had been in service to that goal. I had decided from the very first that nothing would stop me, that I would use every advantage to attain my throne.
And yet.
There was something in his disdain for Keen, something cruel behind his eyes, that twisted my stomach.
He was a zealot, and zealots were dangerous.
As gently as I could, I extricated my hand. Mikhail moved just a fraction of an inch, tilting his head in a way that was cold and calculating, like a snake I’d seen once at the zoo. He was all sharp lines and warning as he stood. With great control, I pulled my lip back to expose a single fang and let out a soft hiss of warning.
“Is this not what you wish?” Hearing the threat in his words, I showed more fang.
“I have my own plans.” I clutched the ring of succession where it rested, hidden in a pocket of my dress.
“Are they . . . soft plans?” He glanced at Keen, one eyebrow cutting upward. “Because Freesia is not a land of softness.”
With a speed even he couldn’t match, I slapped Mikhail hard across the face, my fingers curled just so. He held perfectly still, unflinching at the perfectly parallel cuts I’d left on his cheek. My mother had slapped me like that once, and I had worn the shame of it for a week before I’d been allowed to drink enough blood to heal it smoothly.
“It is not yours to choose what Freesia will be, little half-baron,” I said in Sanguine, the words falling as heavy as icicles from my chilled lips. I could taste the sharp, sweet bite of the winter wind in every word, and he must have felt it, too. Mikhail dropped to his knees before me and kissed the hem of my dress, a display my mother had always enjoyed but that had always made me squirm.
“Your word, my life,” he muttered, the traditional pledge of fealty, but it didn’t feel as if his heart was in it.
He stood and inspected Keen with impersonal curiosity.
“How do you stand it, my queen? Trapped in these tight quarters with such tender prey. She smells as pure as the first snow. A delicacy. Have you tasted her?”
My stomach, so heavy with blood, rebelled at the thought of hurting Keen after what we’d been through together on the Maybuck.
“She’s my servant. I forbid you to touch her.”
“So exotic,” he murmured, sniffing the air. “I wouldn’t hurt her. I’ll just have a taste. I would say you owe me, wouldn’t you?” He gave a significant glance to the hulking corpse of Big Gar.
“Owe you?” I felt the anger rising, the beast and princess in me demanding his blud. But I heard my mother’s voice in memory, reminding me that the best punishment was turning an enemy into a tool. “Very well. Allow me to repay you.” I reached for the ring of succession, sliding it onto the correct finger. The fervor lit his eyes again when he looked on it, for the thing had a certain magic even for those who didn’t know of its legend. “You want a true ruler? Give me your wrist.”
He held out the same arm he’d shown me earlier, the one Ravenna had branded. Grasping his wrist in one hand, I pressed the ring firmly into Ravenna’s mark, and Mikhail hissed as a cloud of cold steam rose from his skin.
“That is the Tsarina’s Crest. You are sworn.”
I pulled the ring away, and my first subject inspected his new sigil. Dark red patches marked the large center stone and the crown of topaz around it. Ravenna’s brand had disappeared.
Mikhail’s eyes shone with respect and awe, a correct and natural result of the ceremony.
“It’s true, then,” he breathed, and I nodded solemnly.
“You’re a knight of the crown now. Betray me, and you buy your own death. But know that I’m taking Freesia back at the first snow.”
“Your word, my life—my queen,” he said again, more sure this time. “I am yours to command.”
I smiled, cold and certain. “You always were.”
“What first?”
“Get me off this ship. I can’t be discovered. Where is Casper?”
Mikhail shrugged with a wry smile. “He is late.”
I stared at him, silent and unblinking, until he bowed his head and said, “So it begins. I will find him for you or die trying.”
He slipped out the door before I could respond. His quick acceptance of my rule was gratifying but strange. The enormity of taking control of my country from Ravenna started to sink in. Whether or not I wanted the heavy mantle of responsibility, seeking it was the only acceptable choice. And Mikhail had taught me that even those who professed to be on my side would need to be gathered, rallied, dominated, and commanded.
On the bed, Keen mumbled and yawned, sitting up and looking around in confusion. “What the hell?”
“We’re about to go. If you have valuables, stow them.”
Keen had to nudge Gandy aside to open the closet, but she must have seen enough of the pirates by then not to resent his fate. I knew where she hid her golden ball, but I didn’t know what else she might have that she cared about.
Taking my own advice, I made sure that the ring, the necklace, and the mysterious paper packet from Criminy were all firmly lodged in my corset. I tightened the laces even further and checked the mirror and smoothed down my hair. By the time male laughter sounded in the hall, I had decided that there was nothing more I needed from the Maybuck.
Keen sidled into the blind corner behind the door, Kitty’s knife in hand. Mikhail entered first, looking vexed. Behind him, Casper appeared with his arm around another man, a pirate and a stranger.
“What about pizza? And chicken wings?” the man said.
Casper laughed, an easy and mellow sound. “Oh, law. You could just pick up the phone, and they would deliver it to your door. With Coke and those little cheesy things and cinnamon bread. And what about TV game shows?”
