Page 32 of Virelai's Hoard
Riley remembered how to breathe. The not-quite compliment made her feel… strange, so she moved to fix that by throwing a playful smile over her shoulder. “If you wanted to hold hands with me you could’ve just asked.”
The comment didn’t quite land. Sable raised an eyebrow at her. “And get ink all over my fingers?” The corner of her mouth twitched in amusement as she said that, though, so Riley considered it a win.
She turned back to the parchment, hiding her smirk as she said, “If a little mess concerns you so much, maybe I could teachyouto let go a little.”
This was bold, even for her. She really was starved.
Even footfalls resounded in the empty hold as Sable made her way around to lean against a beam, arms crossed as she stared evenly at her. Riley stiffened at the intensity of the gaze and tried not to look as if she was waiting for her reply with bated breath. Because she wasn’t.
“You talk a great deal for someone who barely knows how to spell ship,” Sable observed. “Let’s tryseanext. And you’re welcome totalkabout your progress over the past days while you think.”
Had it all been only in her head?
“You really like bossing people around, don’t you?” Riley asked, getting bolder despite her better sense telling her not to. “Is that what this is? Should I start calling you captain in private?”
Riley realized her misstep a moment too late.
The signs of it were subtle. A stiffening of the shoulders, a clench to Sable’s jaw. Deeper creases in the woman’s coat where fingers dug into her arms. But the words that followed weren’t subtle at all. “Careful. I could have you thrown overboard for that.”
Riley could believe it, despite the sudden shift in the air confusing her. Why was Sable doing this if she didn’t want to overthrow Calla? And why was she still here if she didn’t trust the captain? Riley remembered the speech earlier, the way Calla’s voice had softened when she nearly begged Sable to walk away from this. There was a story there, between the captain and her first mate, but now wasn’t the moment to ask.
“She’s still not giving me the time of day,” Riley said, brushing past both her misstep and Sable’s overreaction. “Just staringover a handful of maps and scribbling in her journal all the time. I couldn’t make out anything yet. Some of the maps seemoldand… weirdly empty. I’d expect an old map to be denser with information. But other than that…” A useless lift of her shoulders. “I even tried bringing her food once, but she didn’t touch it.”
A strange feeling in her chest stirred as she mentioned that. Was Calla eating at all? Shehadto, didn’t she? But she hadn’t seen the captain taking her dinners with the rest of the crew either, ever since the storm.
“You… brought her food.”
It wasn’t a question. Riley tilted her head. “Yes,” she confirmed carefully.
Sable’s shoulders stiffened again, but in a different way than before. More guarded. “What did you bring her?”
Riley shrugged. “Fish.” Boarley hadn’t cooked anything else in days, much to Pip’s dismay. Something about a few barrels going bad and needing to use them up. She didn’t know what the kid was complaining about, as the food continued to be delicious.
The words that came from Sable’s lips next were stiff, as if she forced them out. “She doesn’t eat fish, that’s why.”
Riley blinked. “Oh.” Then, “Why didn’t she just tell me that?”
Sable relaxed into a long, suffering sigh, leaning more comfortably against the beam. “I suspect she’s not telling us a lot of things.” She gave Riley a pointed look. “You could take example. Less talking, more writing.”
You told me to talk.
Even in her own head, that sounded petulant, so she kept it to herself. She’d tested Sable’s patience enough for one day.
So she looked down at the paper again, her frown coming back as she pondered the new sequence of letters.
10. Shadows Beneath the Surface
Riley
Patch’s imprisonment seemed interminable. Every day Riley walked around without his reassuring weight on her shoulder, she felt vulnerable, as if she’d forgotten to put on clothes after getting out of bed in the morning. They’d never been separated like this before, ever since they’d first met. This whole situation frayed her nerves more than usual. Not to mention the sheer exhaustion.
Kittredge, with her ankle still healing, had been spending her pent-up energy drilling her on knots and sails and climbing the ratlines safely. She’d also taken up juggling, and while Riley fumbled with ropes and questions, Kittredge kept herself entertained, painting her balls in pretty colors and throwing them in the air. One of them was making steady progress, and according to Gadrielle, that person was certainly not Riley. Even though the ship could’ve used a replacement rig monkey, the boatswain had been adamant on waiting until she was ready and kept assigning her deckhand tasks instead. On top of that, Riley was supposed to get up earlier than everyone else, and go tosleep later than everyone else, so she could sneak in the hold and have Sable drill her some more on reading lessons. Between the physical exhaustion of working on deck all day and the mental exhaustion of trying to make sense of lines and curves on paper, Riley didn’t have time, or energy, for anything else.
Calla was the only one who expected nothing of her. The captain was just content ignoring she existed during the duration of her visits. Ironically, she was also the only person on this ship Rileywantedto get noticed by. She wasn’t sure when that had happened. Perhaps it was natural to be curious about someone so intent on ignoring you were there. It stung, somehow, though she couldn’t quite say why. Riley stared down at her meal as she thought.
Calla had shown her respect for her resourcefulness and… kindness. The night of the storm, for one. The captain had sent everyone to work, in that precise moment, to keep their focus off Riley and her butchered fingers. Stepping in during the stolen spoon incident had also been a kindness, as was Calla’s sentence to Patch, not to mention the decision to keep him under watch inside her own quarters. Judging by the crew’s surprise at Riley being allowed in there at all, it was clear the captain hadn’t been comfortable making that choice.
That didn’t mean the captain had any special fondness for her, no, but the small gestures still added up and slithered their way right under her skin. To the point where Riley was feeling conflicted about trying to spy on her. Which was very unlike herself, and completely illogical.
