Hands grabbed at her and pulled her down. She fought back.

  “No!” she cried out as she twisted to get free, but it only worked to tangle her up tighter and tighter.

  “Amanda. Hey! Amanda! It’s okay!”

  Sirius?

  She stopped struggling and slowly she realised that the hands that were touching her were Sirius’s. Soft soothing strokes meant to calm. And it wasn’t water she was all caught up in but the bedsheets that she’d somehow twisted tight around herself. She sat up and cleared sweat-coated red strands of hair from her face. Just a bad dream.

  “I’m sorry,” Sirius said. His hands graced her back gently, bringing her some comfort and calming her rapidly beating heart.

  “Huh? What do you mean you’re sorry?” she asked him in confusion.

  “I think I gave you my bad dreams.”

  She laughed at that. The very idea of it eased all her tension. “I don’t think that’s how it works.” It was true though. It seemed like his sleep had been a little better than usual lately while hers had gotten worse.

  He pulled her into a hug. “Want to talk about it?”

  “I keep seeing Pinto. The way his head turned all the way around. And the men on the Slicer. The zombies. I know things could have gone a lot worse but I still see them…”

  She felt his warm breath on her neck and behind her ear as he brought his head down next to hers. It was comforting. It didn’t change the past but it did help ease her thoughts about it, softened the edges a little.

  “I know,” he whispered.

  “It’s not like I haven’t killed people before but…”

  “You didn’t kill Pinto.”

  “Then why does that one feel the worst?”

  “Because you knew him.”

  “Not for very long.”

  “No, but you talked to him and shared some of his interests.”

  “I knew some of the crew who were killed last night too. Talked to them.”

  “Not as much. Short time or not, you didn’t know them as well, didn’t have as much in common.” His words were calm and reassuring.

  “But you did…” she said suddenly realising that he’d probably known them even better than she’d known Pinto, and here she was getting his sympathy.

  He was quiet for a moment. “I’ve talked to them sure but it’s mostly to give orders, and I know them in the sense that I know who can fight, who will do what they’re told, who’s likely to drink too much at port. I don’t talk to them like you do. In the short time you’ve been here you’ve asked them questions that I never even thought to wonder about. Part of it’s intentional you know. It makes it easier to keep your head when you’re less attached. I generally try not to get too attached or involved, especially since I became captain because it makes me a better captain. Shiv thinks I’m more attached to the books and maybe he’s right. Then you come in here and make friends with everyone. There are some people it seems it’s just harder not to like. Neko’s one of them. And you.”

  “Maybe I didn’t get to know them well enough,” she lamented, now feeling sad for how little of them she could remember.

  He gave a short laugh. “I think that would have made this harder. They know what they’re getting into when they choose to sail these waters.”

  “What was it like for you? The first time you took a life or lost someone?”

  “The first person I lost was my mother.”

  “Right.” She barely breathed the word out. Then she turned her head to the side and pressed her cheek against his chest. How could she have forgotten that?

  “After that, nothing really compared. The first life I took,” he whispered, “I didn’t even know his name, but I knew the name of the person he was about to kill and that was all that mattered that day. I can’t say it got easier but you do kind of get used to it or at least the feeling fades faster, becomes just a part of life. I don’t know. For me, it was all still better than where I’d come from. The highs and the lows. Everyone dies eventually. At least out here, you also feel like you’re living.”

  She said nothing. She just leaned against him. She understood what he meant. For her that was what it had always felt like whenever she’d gone on a muster through the desert, or done anything outdoors really. Scaled a wall, explored a cave, rode a pegasus. Danger lurked everywhere but at the same time, it made one feel alive. She felt bad for the ones who no longer got to feel like that, but she also knew them well enough to know they’d all enjoyed what they’d had when they had it, that likely none of them would have chosen to have been anywhere else.

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  They stayed like that, just quietly holding each other for awhile, until eventually she felt sleep calling.

  “Sorry for waking you,” she whispered as they got comfy under the sheets again.

  He answered with nothing but the gentlest squeeze of his fingers on skin.

  She woke again early that morning as he was getting out of bed.

  As she raised her head from the pillow he whispered, “Shhh, I’m just going out to meet with Sandy. I’ll be back soon. An hour tops.”

  She drifted off back to sleep easily, barely registering as the door to their room closed quietly behind him.

  A few hours later she woke again and glanced at the clock. It was still early but not far off from the time they’d agreed to get up to get ready to leave. The sun would probably be rising soon and the tides would be on their way out. She’d always been pretty good at waking naturally roughly close to the time she’d planned to.

  There was no sign of Sirius in the room. For a moment she thought he might be in the bathroom but the door to the ensuite was open and she couldn’t hear any movement from inside.

  She got up and got dressed, wondering if maybe he’d simply gone ahead to the ship to check on things. His bag was still here but that didn’t mean anything if his intent was to return back here once he’d made sure sailing preparations were underway.

  She grabbed their bags on her way out, neither was larger than a simple rucksack, and neither contained much. She found Shiv, Bob-bee, and Neko all waiting in the lobby by the aquarium as they’d planned the night before.

  Shiv’s eyes narrowed when he saw her. “Where’s Sirius?” he asked.

  His question didn’t give her much confidence. Surely if Sirius had gone ahead to the boat he would have told either her or Shiv? Maybe even taken Shiv with him?

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “He wasn’t there when I woke up.”

  Shiv’s frown deepened. Neko looked surprised. Bob-bee didn’t look too worried though.

  “Maybe he went ahead to the ship?” Amanda suggested hopefully.

  “Maybe.” Bob-bee replied with a nod.

  Neko shrugged.

  Shiv scowled. “We might as well check.”

  They walked in silence to the port. Amanda’s worries grew the whole way there. What if he’d just gone to get food or something? Except she’d been up long enough that if that were the case he would have returned. Had his meeting with Sandy gone longer than expected? If so, it was by quite a bit.

  They found no sign of Sirius on the ship. Fallon reported that Sirius hadn’t be by at all but they were almost ready to set sail.

  “We’ve got an hour or two yet to catch the tides,” Neko remarked. Even he sounded worried now though.

  Shiv was more blunt. “I think they’ve done something to him.” He eyed the shoreline and the workers who were already up and moving things on and off other ships.

  “We don’t know that for sure...” Neko started.

  “What we know is Sirius isn’t here and the last person he talked to was one of them,” Shiv replied. “Maybe it’s time a few of us went and had a little chat with them.” Shiv’s hand rested threateningly on the end of his dagger.

  “If we threaten them without proof, we risk endangering our access to this port,” Neko argued. He looked at Shiv’s dagger with worried eyes.

  Amanda understood Neko’s fear. Shiv was not one for a great amount of diplomacy. He was good in a fight but he was too ready for a fight. That was why he wasn’t captain. Shiv had told her as much himself. But Sirius wasn’t here to counterbalance him.

  “I think we need to handle this delicately,” Neko added.

  “That’s not your call to make,” Shiv argued.

  “Isn’t it?” Amanda butted in. “I thought this was a democracy, that the crew gets to vote?”

  Shiv narrowed his eyes. Neko gave her a thankful smile.

  She’d come to understand, partly during her conversation with Sirius the night before, something she hadn’t understood earlier. Back when they’d been kicked off the ship she’d thought it was Shiv’s doing, and in a way it was, but for all the ways that Shiv and Sirius were different they had something in common. Both kept some distance between themselves and the rest of the crew. It made them efficient and effective during times of stress. They didn’t get attached, didn’t feel loss of life as hard as their men. Shiv joked and drank with the crew more than Sirius did but he wasn’t personable. He didn’t mingle in among them the same way Neko did. He was in many ways still their superior. It was only because of Neko that Shiv had managed to convince the crew of anything. Neko who everyone liked. Neko was good at convincing people, and so was she. Against the two of them, Shiv had no power. There were some rules that could not be broken.

  “But we can’t just wait either,” she added.

  Neko nodded.

  She was taking charge. She needed help though. She didn’t know the culture here well enough to know the right action to take. Neko too seemed unsure. The one thing that was certain was that something a little more subtle than whatever plan Shiv had was needed.

  “Who’s the most familiar with the council?” she asked Neko because while he may not know what to do, he did know the crew. “Who in this crew knows the culture of Capilliaria best?”

  Neko considered it. “Thatch or Benny, one of those two.”

  She nodded. “Go get them.”

  Shiv was watching her closely now, silently, curiously, and without objection.

  Neko returned with Thatch and Benny a few moments later. Amanda explained the issue to them and then asked them for suggestions.

  “We could try sniff him out,” Thatch suggested. “If we go back to where he was last seen then me or one of the other shifters can try an animal with a good sense of smell. See if we can track him down that way.”

  “Or a tracking spell,” Benny added. “Maybe Fallon could make one?”

  Shiv shook his head. “You need blood and other ingredients.”

  “We don’t have a tracker,” Thatch pointed out, “He needs a tracker to infuse from doesn’t he? Even with the other stuff.”

  Neither of them seemed too sure but Amanda could answer those questions. “He needs a tracker or a tracking infusement,” she answered. “For a skilled witch to use it that’s all you need. For an infusement anyone can use or for more precise tracking then you’d need more. Do we have any tracking infusements?”

  “Fallon, would know," answered Benny after some thought.

  Amanda sent him to fetch Fallon while she considered the shapeshifting tracking idea. She’d done a bit of shapeshifting and while often the animal senses could easily take over, making use of them was at a whole different level. She would have had trouble doing it, even if she had shapeshifting magic but maybe a true shapeshifter like Thatch or Bob-bee could? If they were skilled enough. She didn’t want to risk going on a wild goose chase or getting lost in the city.

  “How easy is this tracking thing? Which animal would you use?” she asked Thatch.

  “It takes a little bit of skill. I could probably do it. The likes of Bob-bee would probably struggle though. Elephants have the best sense of smell.”

  “Elephants!?” She imagined an elephant running through the city with its trunk to the ground. She wasn’t even sure it would fit down some of those narrow tunnels.

  He nodded. “Not very subtle,” he agreed reading her expression well. “Dogs and rats are almost as good though.”

  “Rats would fit into a city well and we want to be stealthy right.”

  Thatch nodded. “Bloodhound is easier though.”

  Amanda nodded. “Bloodhound it is.”