Page 22 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“You see it?” breathed Kestra. “It’s beautiful, Mai. I want to watch. I want to go in there and touch everything.”
“I felt that way earlier, at the chemist’s shop,” Mai admitted. “You can’t though, or you’ll get kicked out. Like I was. Go, Kestra. On with you.” She took her cousin’s upper arms and steered her along, between jovial men and laughing women, all the way to the back table.
Before squeezing herself between Corklan and Baz, as she’d promised, Mai looked the length of the table. The rest of the crew were accounted for, either at this table or another nearby, but she didn’t see Flay or Jazadri. They must have found a quiet corner in which to speak about the Meridian Games.
The long table was already laden with a tureen of soup, a pile of rolls, a dish of soft melted cheese, sausages, crackers, roasted vegetables, and fried fish. Corklan filled a plate for Mai before she could request anything, which irritated her deeply. It annoyed her even more that he was mostly right in his choice of food for her. She began to eat, chuckling vaguely at Baz’s jokes and nodding half-heartedly at Corklan’s attempts to converse about weather patterns.
She enjoyed the study of weather, and back home on Kiken Island she could predict it with startling accuracy. While at sea, though, she’d discovered there was much she didn’t know, which unsettled and frustrated her. So much to learn. So much to attempt and achieve. After the stimulus of the market that afternoon, her brain was rolling like wagon wheels down a mountainside, and she wished it would stop.
A ringing laugh at the door of the pub, and a shout from a dozen or more throats, and then the milling patrons parted to make way for Flay. Jazadri loomed behind him, his muscled bulk and striking dark features garnering as much attention as Flay’s tanned face and golden hair. They were quite the pair. Mai could see it objectively, though the sight of them didn’t make her flush and titter like some of the female patrons in the pub.
Flay practically danced through the guests, spinning to shake someone’s hand, bending to kiss the fingertips of a woman, whirling to knock another man’s hat askew on his head with a good-natured chuckle. A barmaid presented him with a mug of ale and her ample chest at the same time, dimpling and winking. Flay swept the mug from her hand, blew her a kiss, and sauntered on, scanning the room, hunting for someone.
The light in his eyes when he saw Kestra made Mai’s heart ache. She didn’t want Flay—cared about him as a brother, nothing more. But shedidwant that look, that sense of a search finally over, a resting place found, a surety gained.
“Did you see the kitchen here, Blossom?” Flay said. “I know the owner and the cooks, if you want to have a look around later.”
Kestra leaped up onto her chair, and without bothering to go around the table, she stepped right onto its surface, between the mugs and dishes, before launching herself into the captain’s arms. The crew roared, lifting their cups, as Flay swirled her in a circle before setting her down.
Mai’s gaze fell to the captain’s bandaged arm, and her brain began to whir again, mentally overlaying various mechanical alternatives onto it. Designs she had aplenty, but the skill and materials and machinery to make them—not so much. She needed to see the university of Stragnoag and explore its facilities. Flay had promised her that his name would grant her passage into that world of knowledge.
She poked at her food, finding it suddenly tasteless. With her whole body and spirit she longed to explode from her chair and race through the city straight to the university gates. She yearned to plunge through them, to immerse herself in books and experiments. What if her bones ached and her eyes itched by the end? If she could solve at least one of the irritating problems she’d encountered while trying to make the mechanical hand, she’d consider the hours well spent and the sleep well lost.
But she couldn’t get there tonight. No one would agree to take her—she was stuck at the pub with everyone else. At least she had books and new tools to occupy her mind later that evening—but her heart sank again, because she would be in the room with Kestra, and Kestra wouldn’t appreciate having a lamp burning too long. Mai had shared a bedroom with her for years, and the use of lamps or candles late into the night was their most frequent argument.
Maybe Kestra would go sleep with Flay, and Mai would have the room to herself. She could stay up as late as she wanted then. Though she probably shouldn’t.
As Flay tossed himself into a seat, with Kestra on his right and Jazadri on his left, Mai decided that she would be wise this evening. She’d had enough excitement for one day. She needed rest if she was to encounter the wonders of the university with a fresh mind.
“Corklan,” she said abruptly. “I need a drink. A strong one.”
“Ale!” exclaimed Baz, shoving his own mug in front of her face.
Mai peered at the greasy-looking film on the surface of the brown liquid. “No, thank you. Something else.”
“I know just the thing.” Corklan left his seat and hurried away to the bar.
While he was gone, Mai scanned the faces at both tables again and realized that the physik Graves wasn’t present. Kestra had said he stayed behind at the offices to register for the contest and turn in the shipping manifest. So why hadn’t he joined up with everyone else afterward?
Personally she’d hated the man ever since he had talked Rake into dying with the rest of his “foul spawn,” as Graves had called the mermaids. She knew Rake had his own reasons for making that sacrifice, but she couldn’t avoid assigning Graves some of the responsibility. He’d been the instigator, the match to the coals.
She hoped Graves hadn’t decided to instigate anything else, or undermine Flay to his father. The whole crew had agreed to tell a carefully fabricated story about the voyage, because there were certain things they had to keep quiet about Kiken Island.
What if Graves decided to whisper the truth into the Magnate’s ear?
Corklan returned with a thick amber glass and set it down in front of her. The liquid inside looked colorless, but it had a sharp scent. When Mai sipped, it seared her tongue and burned along her throat. She looked up at Corklan and nodded. “This will do.”
Swallow by swallow, she took the alcohol like medicine, a tonic to slow her mind and soften her thoughts so she would be able to sleep. She didn’t often saturate her mind with liquor; she valued its quickness too much to risk permanently drowning any of its pathways—but now and then, a girl needed a good stiff drink.
She was halfway through the glass when one of the sailors said, “Well, Captain? How did it go today? With the Magnate?”
Around their table and the adjacent one, the laughter and chatter faded into silence.
Flay was sitting askew with one leg flung over the arm of his chair while Kestra ran her fingers through his golden hair. Her hand stopped moving at the question, but Flay only smiled and took the cinnamon stick he’d been sucking out of his mouth.
“How did it go with the Magnate?” he said musingly. “Well, lads—I know you all feared, as I did, that the Magnate might punish us for our lateness by taking our profits or forcing us into a slave route.”
Murmurs of assent circulated around the table.
