A Swift and Savage Tide (A Captain Kit Brightling Novel Book 2)
A Swift and Savage Tide: Chapter 3

They went ashore as far from the dock as they could manage, landing on the sandy beach where gentlemen and ladies strolled in gleaming boots and fine frocks, the ladies with angled caps or feathers bobbing in their hair. They’d move toward the docks on foot.

“Those are awfully nice gowns to douse in saltwater,” Cooper said, when she and Kit had jumped into knee-deep water, grabbed ropes to haul the jolly boat into the dun-colored sand.

“I suspect the women who can afford those fabrics aren’t obliged to clean them,” Kit said.

The sand sucked at their boots when they reached the water’s edge, and Kit had to pause as the world shifted. She’d been on board, on the water, for two weeks.

“Alignment?” Cooper asked beside her.

Kit nodded. “I’ll be fine. Just takes a moment for the world to settle again.” For Kit to accustom herself to the vacuum created by the loss of her connection to the sea, to the absence of the whisper that was her near-constant companion on board. It was as if total silence had fallen over a boisterous crowd.

After a moment, she looked at her sailor. “You’re Aligned, aren’t you, Cooper?”

She nodded. “To the land, sir, but it’s particular to the Isles.” She looked toward the shore, disappointment on her face. “I don’t feel anything here.”

“Alignments are particular,” Kit said, “and each in its own way.” She looked back at Sampson. “Be careful and be smart.”

“Always, Captain. Tiva koss,” he said. It was literally “gods’ kiss” in the old language, and a hope that you’d be protected by the gods as you faced your enemies.

“Tiva koss,” Kit said, turning toward the town and rolling her shoulders against the jacket’s thick seams; Georgina hadn’t spared Kit the experience of wearing a poorly fitting garment.

“Let’s go,” she told Cooper. “From here on, we speak only Gallic. But stay quiet unless I signal you.”

“Oui,” Cooper said.

They made their way through shifting sand toward the town’s frontage, which lay a hundred yards away from shore. If the strollers found anything odd about the sight of them, they made no sign of it.

There were small cottages on this bit of sea, bathing houses where women could enjoy the water—as long as they remained swathed in voluminous bathing dresses. Being a sailor, thanks to the gods, gave Kit an excuse to swim in much less constricting attire. If she opted for attire at all.

When they reached a main road, they turned toward the river. Buildings lined the road, each grander than the last and painted in brilliant pastel shades. The shops were small but lively. Doors were open, with merchants doing brisk business. People filled the roads, gathering necessities or foods for dinner. Auevilla hadn’t been spared during the war, but you couldn’t tell it here. Kit deemed it a pretty, pleasant sort of town and, with its options for gaming and horses, could understand the appeal.

The sounds and colors changed when they reached the dock. Every quay was different, but the sounds and smells and activities were similar regardless of the location. Creaking rope and calls for crew and larks seeking customers. The air smelled of tar and wood and bodies at work and whatever foodstuffs the nation’s sailors preferred. Here, the yeasty scent of bread was a lusty note beneath the others.

Kit pulled a silver coin from her coat. “Buy us some bread,” she said in Gallic, and gestured toward the man who sold demi-baguettes from a basket under his arm.

“Sir?” Cooper asked, and took the coin.

“We’re merely a pair of hungry sailors, walking the dock as we wait for our ship.” The aroma was too tempting to pass up. But it would also add to their disguises, which might prove necessary given the burly guards who moved among the workers. They weren’t in uniform, but their roving eyes and careful movements—avoiding the weapons tucked into trousers and boots—signaled their military connections. So there were soldiers in Auevilla, Kit thought, and kept a wary eye on them. Enemies, she knew, until proven otherwise.

Cooper strode to the bread man, did just enough haggling to come back with a pair of loaves. She handed one to Kit, tore a chunk off the other, and began chewing.

“Don’t bother waiting for me,” Kit said with a smile.

Cooper grinned over her mouthful. “When food’s at issue, sir, I rarely wait.

“It’s very . . . chewy,” she decided.

Kit took a bite, smiled with pleasure. “That’s part of its charm.”

They walked down the wooden dock toward the Fidelity’s berth, passing a dozen ships with sterns both narrow and wide. There were smaller ships that probably fished the coastline, and wider vessels with deeper drafts that hauled cargo across the Narrow Sea—or would have, before the blockade.

A man with a copper chit pinned to his threadbare coat, his license for begging, sat against the wooden planking that held up the road behind the boardwalk. He had one leg, the empty trouser leg folded over. Maybe a veteran of the war, Kit thought. And given the rope-calloused hands, likely a sailor. The war had been unkind to so many, and in the year since, the treaty had only perpetrated its violences. Soldiers and sailors alike bore scars both physical and emotional.

“Hungry?” she asked in Gallic, and pulled away half the loaf.

He nodded wordlessly, took it, and ate with a speed that had sadness and fury battling in her gut. She pulled a silver coin from her pocket, put it in the tin cup at his feet.

“For your next meal,” Kit said. “From one sailor to another.”

The man’s eyes widened. He nodded. “Dastes,” he said, using the old language instead of Gallic, and slid the coin from cup to pocket.

They walked on, both nibbling their baguettes as they dodged sailors.

“Captain,” Cooper said, and Kit followed the direction of her gaze.

Hanging over the doorways of buildings along the road were narrow linen banners bearing the image of a golden lion circled by stars. This was the symbol of Gerard’s rule—a symbol the king had banned from Gallia after Gerard had been exiled.

“He’s been here,” Cooper said.

“Or word has spread that he’s escaped, and there are supporters in town.” She knew he wouldn’t get the same greeting in every village—not the ones where boys had died in droves, farms had burned, and the king had repaired what could be fixed. But any such animosity had apparently faded here.

How much of the town’s business, Kit wondered, was because of Gerard? Because the possibility of war, or the preparations for it, had brought coin back into the village?

They reached the area of the dock where larger ships were berthed, found a half dozen at anchor. Among them was a gorgeous ship of ivory with simone in gold across her stern. She was being loaded for departure, either to deliver goods up the Gallic coast or in the hope of running the Isles blockade. More likely the latter, as the possible return on the risk would be significantly higher. Smuggling simply paid better.

“A handsome ship,” Kit said to a man who looked to be supervising the loading. “Good captain?”

“You’ll not find another captain so good,” the man said. “You!” he called out to one of the workers. “Lift that line, you lazy mongrel!”

“Is there work for those who aren’t lazy mongrels?” Kit asked.

“Aye,” the man said, and looked them over. “We’re to attempt the blockade and make a run to Akranes. Captain’s in the inn. He wants to speak to all personally. Mention you talked to me; it will smooth the way.”

Kit pulled out a copper, offered it. “Thank you.”

The man took the copper, slipped it into his pocket.

Having reinforced their cover story, they resumed their journey down the dock to the final berth and the wide-arsed ship that filled it.

She was undoubtedly the Fidelity. With multiple decks and gilding that no one had dared paint over, she was big, bold, and brash enough for a former emperor.

Kit’s heart thudded with the thrill of success, and she had to work to keep her expression bland. She made a point of chewing as she looked it over, just as a sailor might have done, considering the size, the cannons, the enormous span of windows across what was likely the captain’s cabin—probably four times as large as hers—and the awkward bow.

“The figurehead was definitely removed,” Cooper said, tossing up a crumb of bread to a jackgull. “If you look at an angle, you can see where the brackets were. The holes were filled, but not very well.”

Kit took a closer look, nodded. “Good eye, Midshipman.” And those in charge of the renovation, such as it was, had failed to remove the long, horizonal lines of molding that ran just below the ship’s gunwale. It had been painted, of course, but there was a story behind those lines that even color could not erase.

Kit spotted two guards near the ship, which wasn’t nearly the number she’d have expected if Gerard was still on board.

One of the guards called out, approached them. “If you don’t have business here,” he said in Gallic, “be on your way.”

“We’re just taking a stroll until our ship departs, aye?” Kit said, and chewed. “This is a big lass. Don’t recall seeing her before.”

“New, ain’t it? Been in port two days.”

So recently, Kit thought. What had the ship been doing in the meantime? Or, more important, where had it been?

Kit made a point of looking at the Fidelity, seeming impressed by its size. “Helmed by a fancy sort, aye? With coin to spare?”

“None of my business, is it?” His eyes narrowed at her. “What damned business is it of yours?”

Kit settled her face into surprise. “Touchy, aren’t you?” She held out what remained of her half of the baguette. “You need a bit to eat?”

“No, I don’t want your damned bread,” he said.

She gave him a level stare. “Not especially friendly in Auevilla, are they?”

“No,” Cooper said. “Rather antagonistic.”

“A woman’s got a right to look at a good ship and inquire if there’s coin to be had.”

“There’s no coin, and no berths, for nosy women,” he said. “Get on with you.”

Something more here, Kit thought. Keeping her gaze on him, she bit off another strip of bread. “You’re my mum, now? Giving me orders?”

He turned fully toward them, hand at his belt and the dagger tucked there. “I’m the man’s in charge of this dock. Move off, or you’ll be moved.”

“Not friendly at all,” Kit muttered. “Come on, Yvette. Let’s ‘move off.’ ” She rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Where to?” Cooper asked. “I’ve some coin to spend.”

“Looks like there’s an inn just there,” Kit said, pointing toward the main road and speaking loud enough for the guard to hear her. “Let’s get what food we can before we board. Gods know we’ll be eating hardtack soon enough.”

She tossed the final bit of bread into the air. A jackgull dropped, snatched it midair before circling toward the masts again. All apparent ease, Kit dusted the crumbs from her hands. But she knew they’d drawn attention to themselves and were running out of time. They climbed up toward the main road in silence, and Kit worked very hard to ignore the itch in her shoulder blades and not glance behind her to see if they were being followed.

When they reached the main road, the scents of saltwater and working bodies gave way to horses—Kit never had met a horse she could abide, damn their evil souls—and the rank smells of humans living in close proximity. Two officers stood together at a corner, bodies close enough that Kit surmised they were sharing information they preferred to keep secret from others. Then the taller man turned, giving Kit a clear view of his face.

Kit stopped—and felt cold settle into her bones.

A complex web of scars marked the right side of his face, but there was no mistaking the hard line of his jaw or the malice in his deep-set eyes. Only a few feet away stood the only man who scared her more than Gerard Rousseau. The only man who, to her mind, was more dangerous. A man who was supposed to be dead.

“La Boucher,” she murmured.

The Butcher.

His given name was Alain Doucette. He wasn’t just an enemy, one of the thousands who’d tried to seize the Continent for their own glory, but a soldier with a powerful Alignment. A man who could access the current, and had done so to hurt others.

Doucette was a former Gallic army officer, and his unit of Aligned soldiers had helped him do the unthinkable, the seemingly impossible. At Contra Costa, a town in Hispania, they’d dragged the current to the surface, where Doucette hoped he could use it—the magic itself—as a weapon. But he’d been unable to control it, and thousands of soldiers had died in the resulting inferno, including Doucette.

Or so the Isles believed.

She’d only seen him once, years before Contra Costa, across the deck of the Gallic ship attempting to breach the Isles’ defenses and make a landing at Faulkney. She’d watched as he’d whipped a boy who hadn’t been fast enough with a spark. The sailor had barely been out of leading strings, and there’d been a sickening satisfaction in Doucette’s eyes. He’d escaped capture that night, and every other time the Isles had tried to end his reign of terror.

Contra Costa had only been the last of his atrocities. Or so Kit had thought, as here he was in Auevilla and not rotting in hell as he ought to have been, his scars the only visible mark of what he’d done. He wore gloves, and she wondered if his hands bore the same marks.

The gloves matched his ivory uniform, which marked him as one of Gerard’s imperial guards—a significant promotion over the position he’d held during the war. The jacket bore enough braid and medals to add half a stone to his weight. Both were a damned insult to every sailor and soldier in uniform, and one that she took very personally.

Brave of him to wear the uniform of a dethroned emperor, wasn’t it? And a direct insult and threat to the reigning king. Kit guessed the pennants meant he had some protection against the obvious treason. Saint-Denis was, after all, very far away.

Was he the source of the magic Tamlin had felt? Kit tried to feel for the current threading the ground below them, but could sense nothing but a dull echo through rock and stone.

“Captain?” Cooper whispered. “Are you quite all right?”

“I’m fine,” Kit snapped, and forced herself to fake a smile, to point up at the jackgulls circling and not stare at Doucette’s damned face. “Do you feel anything unusual?” she whispered. “Magically?”

Cooper gave the tiniest shake of her head. “No, sir.”

“Those are birds,” Kit said without segue, before they were overheard.

“Yes,” Cooper said, playing along. “Decidedly birds.”

Kit turned to lean against the seawall so she could keep the man at the edge of her vision. “What do you know of Contra Costa?”

Cooper’s eyes grew wide. “As much as there is to know for a sailor who wasn’t there. I hadn’t yet entered service, but I read the sheets and announcements. My brother was in the infantry.”

Kit nodded. “A unit of Gallic soldiers, led by an Aligned commander named Alain Doucette, had been unable to dig Islish and Hispanian soldiers out of a cantonment near the village. He tried to bring the current of magic to the surface, use it as a weapon. He and his soldiers created an inferno that killed thousands, including Doucette and others in the unit. They posthumously named him ‘La Boucher.’ ”

“La Boucher,” Cooper said quietly, as if testing the sound of the words. “Not so posthumous, if he’s the man with the scars.”

“He is,” Kit said, her voice grim with determination. “And it appears he’s been promoted. This visit is no longer just about the Fidelity.”

“We’re going to follow him,” Cooper guessed.

Kit didn’t want to follow Doucette, didn’t want to be any closer than necessary. Would have preferred never to have seen him, to be ignorant of his survival for the rest of her life, and for the Isles and Continent to be equally unaware. His actions during the war had been abhorrent, his loyalty to Gerard unfathomable. And beyond that, there was something almost physically repellent about him that had instinct demanding she put as much space between them as possible.

But that didn’t matter. She’d follow him regardless, because she understood how lucky she’d been—how lucky the Isles had been—to have come ashore at the right moment, to have been in town at the right moment, and to have seen him. Now they knew he was here. Now they could defend against him.

“We need to find out what he’s about. What he’s doing here—and why.” And what Gerard had planned for him. Because there was undoubtedly a plan.

She looked at Cooper. “If I tell you to wait here?”

“I won’t,” Cooper said. “So better you don’t ask.”

Loyalty had a keen edge, and it cut both ways. “Behind me then,” Kit said. “Make no noise, attract no attention, and do exactly as I say. If anything goes wrong, run and find a place to secret until you can make it back to the boat and report what we’ve seen.”

“Aye,” Cooper whispered.

After finishing his conversation, Doucette strolled with purpose away from the sea and deeper into town. Kit let him get thirty feet ahead before she and Cooper slipped behind, strolling in the rolling gait that marked them as sailors to anyone who might be paying attention.

He had an uneven gait, Kit realized, favoring his right side. Perhaps the scarring extended down his body, or he’d been thrown in the explosion he’d helped trigger.

They paused at a corner, peering around it to see Doucette knock at a slender building with a gold knocker that glinted in the sunlight. The building bore no numbers, no name. The façade was nearly covered by an overgrown yew bursting up from a small patch of ground that fronted it. Might have been nice to see secrets of international warfare exchanged here in gilded letters on the door, but one couldn’t have everything one desired.

The door was opened. Doucette glanced around, ensuring he was alone, and walked inside.

Kit and Cooper waited for a minute, then two, then five. It took all Kit’s strength not to pace down the sidewalk, back again. She didn’t care for waiting.

“He’s going to be a bit,” Kit said. “And we need something to do in the meantime lest the neighbors decide we’re malingerers.”

“I’m not sure I’d know how to malinger if I tried.”

Kit snorted, glanced around. A teller of fortunes was seated at the nearest corner, a scarf-covered table in front of her, complete with tin cup for coins and stack of cards atop a bit of royal blue silk.

“There,” Kit said, pointing to the woman. “I’ll handle the transaction. You keep a wary eye.”

“Aye,” Cooper said, and they ambled across the road.

“A diviner of futures?” Kit asked with a smile, elbowing Cooper a bit. “That could be worth some coin.”

The woman who looked up at them had green eyes, which contrasted against her light brown skin. Her dark hair was wrapped in a scarf, and another ensconced her shoulders.

“I am Madame Mouret,” the woman said. “And you need no divination from me. Your future is wind and water, sailor.”

Kit’s brows lifted. “Sailor?”

The look Mouret returned was, to put it mildly, withering. And, if she was being entirely honest, Kit felt a bit withered.

“You move like a sailor,” Mouret said. “You’ve salt stains on your coat, and freckles across your nose that you’ve not bothered to powder. You’ve been in the sun and water but don’t much care who knows it.” She surveyed Kit again.

“Not just a sailor,” she added. “But an officer, at that.”

“Oh?” Kit asked, now interested. Fortune-teller or no, Madame Mouret had a very good eye for detail.

“You stand with authority, as if you expect others to obey.”

Maybe she wasn’t as good an actress as she thought, Kit mused, more withered.

Mouret held out a hand. “For the right coin, perhaps we can be a bit more specific.”

Kit pulled out a silver coin, presuming that offering the woman a copper would result in Kit being dissolved on the spot.

Mouret dropped the coin into the cup, then picked up the stack of cards. One by one, she spread them across the silk. The first in the center, then four surrounding it at each cardinal direction. They were playing cards—worn at the edges—but not like any Kit had seen before. Instead of suits and royals, there were illustrations in red, blue, and yellow. A nobleman pulling a chariot with two horses. A man hanging from his foot. And, in the center, a skeletal man rowing a boat.

Goose bumps pebbled her skin. “La Morte?” Kit asked in Gallic, pointing to the card—which was helpfully named in black script—but not touching it. That seemed unwise, and she was as superstitious as any smart sailor ought to be.

“Perhaps,” the woman answered, placing the remaining cards aside. “Or perhaps the end of a journey, or the beginning of a new one.” She pointed to the card with the hanging man. “But that journey will not be smooth, and will require sacrifice.” She pointed to the chariot. “You will meet power with power. And the outcome is uncertain.”

Mouret placed three more cards in a column beside the cross she’d made. A queen on a throne. A soldier on a horse with a golden staff. A man in torn clothes named “Le Mat.” The hermit, Kit translated.

“And what do these portend?” Kit asked.

Mouret studied the cards. “Again, a journey. Not just physical—across land or sea—but . . . of the mind?” She asked it as a question, as if even she was unsure of the answer. “No, of the heart. Of the . . . spirit.” She nodded. “Yes. And that will be a great battle, too. It remains unseen what will be found as you emerge.”

It was all generalized nonsense, Kit thought. She knew there were some fortune-tellers who were Aligned, and who leveraged their access to the currents for divination. But there was no magic here.

“You’ve been to Saint-Étienne?”

Kit blinked back at Mouret. “What?”

She dropped her gaze to Kit’s jacket. Kit looked down, realizing her ribbon was visible in the turned edge of her lapel.

“The pattern is traditional of Saint-Étienne, so I presumed you’d purchased it there.”

For a moment, Kit simply stared at her. In all her years, no one had suggested an origin for the ribbon, not even the milliners she’d asked in New London.

“No,” Kit said finally, covering the ribbon again and hoping her voice didn’t shake. “I’ve never been.”

“Ah.” Mouret made a very Gallic shrug. “It is no matter.”

“Movement,” Cooper said quietly.

Kit forced herself to concentrate. She made a show of knocking a bauble from the table—not hard to fake, since her hands were now shaking—and managed a glance back as she crouched to pick it up. Doucette had come out of the building and stood twenty feet to their left. He patted the front of his jacket, as if reassuring himself that something was safely tucked away, then began walking again.

“Thank you for your time,” Kit said, replacing the bauble. Without looking back, she began following Doucette, expecting Cooper would follow.

“You’re welcome,” Mouret called out behind them. And Kit thought she heard the woman murmur, “Be careful.”

“He has something,” Kit whispered, as Cooper fell into step beside her. “Something he didn’t have before, now in his front pocket.”

“How do you know?” Cooper asked, surprise in her voice.

“He touched his jacket there,” Kit said. Hadn’t she done the same thing to her coat—to the spot where her ribbon lay—innumerable times before? “And it hangs differently than it did when he went in.”

Something heavy, Kit thought. Not just a note or letter. A collection of them? A weapon?

“Let’s begin our great battle,” she murmured, eyes narrowed on Doucette’s back.

“Do you believe the fortune-teller?” Cooper asked collegially.

“Of course,” Kit said.

She kept her eyes on the street but could feel Cooper’s surprise. “You’re quite serious? A teller of fortunes?”

“She said we’ll have a journey, it won’t be smooth, and the outcome is uncertain. Those are always the fortunes of sailors. It takes little talent to tell that particular truth.”

But the ribbon’s supposed origin—that was something she hadn’t heard before, and she still wasn’t sure how to make it out. But there was no time for the personal now.

Doucette led them farther into town—and farther from the shore and the Diana—and through narrow passages that moved like canyons through the town’s buildings. It was quieter here, and every footfall seemed to echo like thunder in the silence. Kit didn’t care for the squeeze of brick and stone around her, but she had no choice but to follow. The information she might obtain from or about Doucette was too great an opportunity to pass up.

The road spilled them out into a perpendicular lane and park across from it, bounded by a low fence of wrought iron. Kit waited in the arched entry of a building fifteen feet behind, pulling Cooper into the small space behind her.

Doucette stood alone. Some minutes later, they heard the sound of boots scratching on the crushed stone road. A man appeared. Also in uniform, with dark hair that swooped a good two inches above his narrow head.

“Sedley,” Doucette said by way of greeting.

“Marshal,” Sedley said with a small and obsequious bow. “Congratulations on your promotion,” he said in crisp Gallic. “The Imperial Battalion will be unstoppable under your command.” Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

So Doucette wasn’t just part of the battalion, Kit thought with a curse, but the damned commander of it.

“Thank you,” Doucette said.

“His Highness?”

“Safe. And plans are proceeding apace.”

Doucette looked around, then slipped something red from his interior coat pocket. It was long as a sheet of foolscap, perhaps half as wide. A document portfolio, she guessed, that he’d retrieved from the building.

Doucette glanced about, then opened it like a trifolded letter, pulled out a folded bit of paper. Kit was too far away to guess its contents, but she could see areas of blues and greens.

“A map,” Cooper whispered beside her.

“Aye,” Kit said, gravity in the word. And an important one, given its case and its apparent secrecy. She watched the men’s faces carefully, as if she might be able to read its contents in their gazes, their expressions.

She saw surprise in Sedley’s eyes. Doucette’s just looked . . . dead. Empty and cold, as if he was devoid of humanity. Had he lost it at Contra Costa, or had it never been there?

“He is certain?” Sedley asked.

“He is rarely otherwise,” Doucette said, and tucked the paper and portfolio away again. “Your forces are in place?”

“As much as possible, but—”

Doucette held up a hand. “The course is set and the way is determined. If you cannot make the necessary arrangements, he’ll find someone who will.”

The tone was flat, but the threat behind the words was clear enough to Sedley, who blanched. “Of course, Marshal. I was not questioning the order. Merely . . . clarifying.”

“In that case, as the situation has been clarified, you know how to proceed. And watch your step. There are enemy eyes about.”

Sedley nodded and, having been dismissed, turned on his heel and strode down the street, a bit more deflated, and his step a bit quicker, than when he’d arrived.

Kit didn’t consider herself a particularly covetous or greedy person, but that was before she’d seen the damned portfolio and the hint of its contents. If she hadn’t been in Gallia and literally surrounded by enemies, she might have run forward and snatched it out of his hand. But she knew both men could outpace her in the maze of narrow streets, and she and Cooper wouldn’t survive the race. That meant no intelligence would return to the Diana, to the Crown Command, to the queen. And that, now, was her singular mission.

“It’s time to go,” Kit said. “And quickly as we can.”

She ignored the tangled knot of lanes behind them, intending instead to head down this straighter main road in the direction of the sea.

They rounded the corner . . . and walked straight into three men in uniform: buff pantaloons, black boots, red jackets, and tricorn hats. Each bore a rifle and bayonet, and they were pointed at Kit and Cooper. They were led by the bruiser from the dock, the one who’d threatened them when they’d asked questions about the Fidelity.

Damnation, she thought, and hoped against hope the men were simply out on a neighborhood stroll, taking in the village sights. But when the man from the docks pointed at Kit and Cooper, she knew they were sunk.

“There they are!” the dock man shouted in angry Gallic.

“Cooper.”

“Sir?”

“Run.”

She couldn’t lead them back to the Diana; she needed to lose them in and among the stone and mock-Islish buildings of Auevilla. She wished she’d had bread crumbs for a trail, presuming the ubiquitous jackgulls wouldn’t have simply plucked them up. The sun, thankfully, gave Kit enough of a compass to let her roughly gauge her direction. So she veered southwest and led Cooper back through the winding streets at the fastest pace she could manage, pausing at corners to listen for the waves that would confirm their position.

They ran beneath a woman hanging linens from a balcony, could hear her shouting at the gendarmes behind them. “They’re here! They’re here!”

She’d usually given civilian Gallians the benefit of the doubt, until now. She didn’t like Gallians or Gallia, Kit decided, bread be damned.

She heard a grunt behind her and glanced back, found Cooper on her knees. Fear was a shot through her heart, but Cooper climbed to her feet again.

“Tripped,” Cooper said, and hobbled to her feet. Her mouth was grim and set, her eyes determined. But hobbling was hobbling.

Footsteps echoed behind them. Kit dashed back, took Cooper by the arm. Then she looked around, found a narrow passageway between two stone buildings, and led them into the shadows there.

Footsteps—running now—stopped only feet from where Kit and Cooper had pressed themselves against the shadowed wall.

“Which way?” one of the gendarmes asked, feet shuffling as he searched the road outside.

“Split up,” another decided. “You two continue toward the harbor; they might try to board a ship. We’ll go back in case they turned a corner.”

Kit held her breath until the road was silent again, waited another minute for luck, and looked out. The road was empty, the only sounds the flap of Gerard pennants in the breeze and the distant beat of wave against shore.

She glanced back at Cooper. “Can you run?”

Cooper nodded.

“To the Diana,” Kit said. “And don’t stop.”

Quietly as they could manage, they crept out of their passageway, began to run in the direction of the beach and shore, keeping as close as they could to the buildings that lined the cobblestone road.

They followed a curve in the road, and both stopped short when they found the dock guard, huffing more than a little bit, standing with a gendarme in the middle of the street. More footsteps, and Kit glanced behind them, found two more.

All of them raised rifles.

“Damnation,” Kit murmured.

Jin was going to be livid.

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