6

  At a secret pier, on the floating island of Big Rock:

  Kaazin followed Tess down through a tangle of creaking and rickety scaffolding. He had an elf’s fine head for heights, while the mortal girl had been healed by a magical spring, so their descent was much faster than climbing up had been. But getting back to the ship still took a while. Kaazin had ample time to observe the vessel’s repairs, which were nearly half done. Most of the holes had been patched, at least, and all marks of fire were gone.

  Their cavern shelter was enormous, with a wide, gash-like mouth screened by swaying dead vines and long shards of ice. Red-golden twilight seeped in through the cave mouth, but it didn’t reach very far. A few drifting mage flares bobbed in the wind, casting a feeble glow. Kaazin paid just enough attention to his surroundings to not slip and fall, but the drow’s mind was elsewhere.

  He dropped the last ten feet to land on the Flying Cloud’s deck before Tess, whose perpetual scowl deepened further. Any more scrunched, and her face would fold in half, he thought. She'd grunted and thumped, clambering down from that vine-lashed wood ladder. Kaazin made no sound at all, rising from a crouch to stand alongside the Cloud’s impatient first mate.

  “The fey-market’s late,” she accused, as if the delay was somehow his fault.

  Kaazin shrugged.

  “They may have heard that you were coming, and decided to peddle their trinkets elsewhere,” he suggested.

  And he’d been wrong. She could scowl harder.

  “Or else, they smelled you,” Tess shot back, reflexively catching a plummeting Skelly.

  The phantom cat was on shore leave, too. Its bones were now covered in patchy yellow-grey fur. Skelly did not fall apart at a touch in this form, and it intended to eat, clutching an oozy dead mouse in its jaws. Tess put that feline murderer down, grinning when Tidbit thumped onto Kaazin’s right shoulder, springing down from the ladder above.

  Unlike Tess, the drow wasn’t wearing much… breeches, boots, an open, black leather vest and his own vile temper… so the meat-cat’s talons drew blood. The dark-elf was too proud to flinch, though. Not even when that big brown tabby yowled and jumped off to race after Skelly.

  “We may not have time to wait for the market,” said Kaazin, now that mutual insults were out of the way. “Flint will surely use what you’ve told him to hunt down our prey. We need to get there first. Loose Ends will likely start out for Broz or Rich Port…”

  “And Rich Port’s bigger,” mused Tess (who was feeling the cold again, now that her dose of healing spring water had faded). “If I had a drek-ton of blood money and needed a safe place to spend it…”

  “I would choose someplace safer and farther away than the mainland,” finished Kaazin. “Put in there, yes. Buy supplies and absorb all the scuttlebutt, certainly… with no free spending or loose talk to arouse suspicion. Next, I would beat for the mortal realm. Tys-by-the-Sea, or Port Awful. Break up my crew, sell the ship. Disappear.”

  “Umf. And overboard with anybody who likes to blab, too,” said the girl, drawing her big, red-velvet coat tighter around herself. Her breath misted sparkling white in front of her, rising to freeze on her eyelashes.

  Kaazin edged a bit closer. Near enough that his personal aura dispelled the girl’s gooseflesh and shivering. Tessa turned on him, ready to cuss the drow out for his unwanted help. Then,

  ‘Incoming,’ remarked the Flying Cloud, inside of their minds. A dull, somber bell tolled, and the ship added, ‘Alert! You have just gained a fresh crewmate.’

  Tess and Kaazin leapt at the pirate ship’s warning, reaching for weapons. New blades were always confused and sometimes quite dangerous. Then a dim, reddish light flashed. Dust and dry, hissing wind shot through a sudden rift in the air just over the Cloud’s warped deck.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Next, a slimy and pallid creature flopped out of that ragged opening, shedding blood, drek and torn entrails everywhere. It flopped and writhed like a gaffed, gutted fish on their deck. Literally gutted, by someone who’d apparently meant to show off their handiwork. The creature’s abdomen had been torn open from groin to ribcage, creating a mess that the Cloud noisily slurped and devoured.

  The mortally wounded creature ignored them all, seemingly focused on something it clutched. Looked like an ornate ivory case and some kind of glittering card. Kaazin and Tess started forward, but…

  ‘Ware. Our catch is a skin-changer,’ advised their ship. ‘Even in death-throes, it is able to steal your appearance and soul.’

  Both pirates nodded. They circled that groaning intruder at a distance, their footfalls stirring the ash and dust that had come through that rift along with it. The opening vanished moments afterward, sealing up tight, as a spent card went dark in the creature’s hand. It… she… dropped the velum square and then pawed at her ivory card box, fighting to draw out another. Got one half loose, till her own bloodied and twitching grip sent the card flying. Kaazin caught it reflexively. Not thinking, not looking. Instead, tucked it deep into one of his faerie pockets, well out of sight. The Cloud didn’t notice, focusing its attention on the creature who’d just become part of its crew.

  ‘Ah, ah, ah,’ chided the Flying Cloud. ‘New-blades are not permitted possessions or shore leave for the first fifty years, except through meritorious service.’

  The airship’s wooden deck crackled and flowed as it spoke, rising to envelope the skin-changer’s hand and that blood-soaked ivory case. Just like that, it bit the creature’s right hand off with jagged wood fangs, swallowing flesh, vellum, ivory and velvet.

  Then, as Tess and Kaazin looked on, the Flying Cloud dissolved their new crewmate, absorbing the squalling creature’s spirit, life force and blood. Soon, nothing remained but dust, ash and a vaguely person-shaped stain.

  ‘She it was, who hired and paid the assassins we hunt,’ said the Cloud, once it had finished sorting the newcomer’s memories. ‘This skin-changer caught and devoured a Layla Outlander, gaining her place on the elven grand council. Before being wounded unto death by the prince consort, she called her assassins back.’

  Tess rubbed her hands together, starting to smile.

  “Uh-huh. Right… so Flint, Sasheen and all the rest ‘ll be wasting their time on the mainland, ‘cause Loose Ends is doubling back to Karandun.”

  ‘So it would seem,’ agreed their monstrous vessel, sounding remarkably smug.

  Kaazin drummed the fingers of one hand against his spiked sword belt, hiding most of his thoughts.

  “Cloud,” he began carefully, “About those cards…”

  ‘They are accursed, Quartermaster,’ snapped Stormy. ‘They give once and take twice, down to the spirit and bone. No one plays Titania’s game and wins. Not for long. Best to forget them.’

  Kaazin inclined his head. Loose, silver-white hair screened his face, while magical skill concealed a sudden, wild notion. There was no use arguing, for the Flying Cloud could read nearly all that passed through his mind. He changed the subject.

  “The fey market will have some supplies that I require, after that fight and all of our subsequent healing. Once the dark of moon arrives… despite grasping misers and foul-smelling drow… the fey-wild will surely appear. Extend shore leave to the market’s opening, let us complete some shopping, and then we’ll head off to ambush Loose Ends.”

  Tessa studied her partner’s handsome face, for she’d seen him catch and hide that darkly enchanted card.

  “We need more pepper,” she announced. “Meat and fresh fruit, too. It’s Roughhouse’s turn to cook, and he likes spicy dishes. We’ll go out and top up our galley supplies, Stormy, while you finish repairs and train the new hand.”

  Her tone and expression were perfectly neutral, but the ship said,

  ‘There is no escape for those who have served me, Tess, except for the final death. Here you are and here you shall always return. Not even the fey wild can alter our pact.’

  Kaazin stirred restlessly, about to speak, but the dark-haired girl just reached out to pat her ship’s rail.

  “It’s been almost five years, Stormy,” she soothed. “I’m wanted all over the drekking realm. Where would I go and why would I ever leave you?”

  Kaazin had a few suggestions, but this wasn’t the time or the place.

  “If you will crack your purse long enough for the moths to fly out and those imprisoned coins to blink in the sunshine, I’ll search our stores and compile a list, First Officer,” he goaded her.

  Tess glared at the drow.

  “It’s not too late to eat him, too, Stormy,” she snapped, not really meaning it. Much.

  ‘I do not like the taste of drow,’ replied the vessel. ‘They are a bitter and wrathful lot. Besides, I enjoy hearing you argue… and you might yet breed. There were small children here, once. I marooned them.’

  Uh-huh. Tess didn’t protest when Kaazin got close enough to warm her, again. Just said (still hiding her thoughts the best way she could),

  “Get below, make that list, and let’s go, Kaazibal.”

  (Which wasn’t fair. He hadn’t eaten that shape-changer, who wasn’t even his species.)

  “As you will, First Officer.”

  And then, while the Flying Cloud digested its newest captive… as the candle burned over to nightfall… the ship’s young officers put a half-baked plan into motion.