Anita's head had never hurt so badly.
It felt like each strand of hair on her head had been replaced by a piece of metal wire, and someone had stuck the other ends in a furnace. She wanted to dunk her head in a bucket of ice water, or better yet, cut the damn thing off and have done with it. She groaned, and covered her face with her hands to shield her eyes from the darkness.
Blessed darkness. Anita was fairly certain sunlight would feel like a needle in her eyes.
"You awake?" Mercy asked, somehow screaming her gentle whisper into Anita's ear.
"Shush. Too loud," Anita grunted, and covered her ears. She rolled over, picked up her pillow, and covered her head with it.
"Cover your eyes," Mercy ordered. There was a single second wait, before the switch on the wall made its familiar tick, and the room erupted in light.
"Ow, I hope your teeth rot from scurvy. You and your stupid hat," Anita cursed, pushing the pillow on her head down tighter.
"Sit up," Mercy said. There was a subtle change in her voice, but a familiar one. Like the velvet glove now had the iron fist beneath it.
"Aye, Lieutenant," Anita said immediately, even as she sat up. Her head swam, her eyes watered, but she closed her eyes until the feeling passed.
Mercy pressed a pair of goggles into Anita's hands. Blessedly, they were the tinted ones, meant for working around the furnace. Anita put them on, and the stabbing in her eyes faded to a dull throb. "There are two glasses on the table. The shot-glass is a concoction of the captain's, will help your headache. Drink it first. Tall glass beside it is water. Drink it next. Then get ready for work, I don't think you'll want to wear that dress in the engine room."
"Getting caught and churned-up in the gears might hurt less, Lieutenant," Anita grumbled, but she pulled her feet to the side of the bed and leaned forward to reach for the glasses. The small one was filled with a liquid so dark it might as well be tar, and as she lifted it to her nose, thought it might smell worse.
"Medicine is supposed to taste awful. Captain would tell you it's because the strong stuff can cause crippling addictions, but I like to think it's to help make sure you regret your earlier decisions," Mercy said. Anita swore the woman was talking quite a bit louder than she needed to. "Leslie had to explain what a 'death in the afternoon' was twice, even the captain hadn't heard of it."
"I regret every decision that ever lead me to taking orders from a heartless harpy like yourself, ma'am," Anita said as she drank the small glass. It tasted like mouldy tree bark boiled with old leather.
"Good, but try to focus on having chased a glass of wine with two shots of absinthe diluted in champagne. Not one of your better decisions," Mercy said, and Anita couldn't tell what kind of smile Mercy was wearing. "Once you're dressed, come to the top deck. Captain would like to get back to pursuing the Matilda, and this detour is starting to wear on his good graces."
"Wait, we're flying already?" Anita asked, as she set the glass down and reached for the water. "Spit and soot, I'll get down there right away."
"Top deck, Hoffman. We have something to do first," Mercy said, as she reached for the latch. She pushed the door open, and stepped into the hall. "Get dressed, ready to work."
Anita fumbled with the dress, leaving it laid out on the bed rather than trying to put it away. She fished out her usual overalls. As she gripped the rough cotton-twill, dyed in a dozen different greases and oils, it felt rough for the first time in her life.
She dressed, strapped on her tools, gloves, clips and harness, goggles, and everything else she would need for the engine, and made her way up the stairs. Her head hurt less, or at least she couldn't feel her steps stabbing between her eyes. By the time she made it halfway up the stairwell, the prospect of spending hours running the Child's engines didn't make her want to jump off the side.
She pushed open the hatch to the top deck, and stepped out into the light.
Drummond's Spite was on the ship's port side, the houses and trees passing along at a deceptively slow drift. Being able to watch a building pass between one safety rail to the next in just a second meant they were already making over forty knots.
Focused on their speed, Anita nearly missed seeing Leslie waving to her. Leslie and Mercy were both standing on the port side, near a gap in the rails where several large wooden boxes were arranged in a row.
"Miss Hoffman," Vincent said from behind her. Surprised, she stepped forward and out onto the deck, clipping in. The captain followed her out, and pointed to a spot at the middle of the deck. "Come over here for a minute, and help me set up the auxiliary helm. We might be in a scrap as soon as we catch up to the Matilda."
"Aye, captain," Anita said. They made their way about two-thirds of the way to the back of the deck, where three closed hatches were recessed into the steel. Vincent slid the first one open, to reveal a simple metal wheel with a few controls attached. He pushed it up, and used the attached metal pins to lock the controls in place.
Anita did the same thing with another nearby hatch, pulling up a set of controls. She attached the cabling, and then attached the speaking tube at the end. She then stood up, and turned to head to her post. "Connection's live, sir. I'll check it once I'm down in the engine room."
"Not yet," the captain said, as he set up the third control panel. He reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a leather-bound book a little larger than the average library novel. "I'll admit that having Volante's naval intelligence reports is about our arrangement with the Monastery. There's a job we're going to do for them in the near future that might be the most important job anyone can do under the sky. But I promise, that isn't all I am going to use those reports for."
Anita took the book, and opened it. The first page unfolded into a chart, a surprisingly comprehensive chart that encompassed all of the known skies. She could see the Core in the middle of the map, where Bankerloft and The Monastery were. She recognized Volante, Olencia, Calmoori, Mythra, Aventila, and even the black skies around Abyddon. Looking closer, she could make out the dozens of small islands that lingered around each of the great isles, as well as the clusters of small islands in the more distant skies, like the Palost Free Republic and the lawless skies of the Reach that ended at Freeman's Hold. Many of those islands had small notes attached to them, including page numbers.
Anita flipped a few pages further into the book, picking an Island known as Valia's Wharf, at the edge of the Reach close to Olencia. The notes detailed the size and disposition of the island, and at the edge, a note ruling it out as the place Anita came from.
"Captain?" Anita asked. "What is this?"
"I've kept an ear out, since you first joined me on the Hood, for the Corsair Island you escaped from. And the navy was kind enough to allow me to keep my charts. I've been adding to them when I can, speaking to traders at the Roost, and I'll keep adding to them when and where I can."
"Captain, this book, this whole chart, this is just for me?"
"You're crew, Miss Hoffman," Vincent said, as if that simple statement were more exposition than her surprise should require. "We're a clan. I'm going to have to get used to saying that, or Mercy might take it poorly. We might not have the luxury of being able to make a dedicated search, but I'll keep an ear out and cross off every island I can, until we find where you came from."
"Captain, I, I don't know what to say," Anita admitted.
"How would Mercy put it." Vincent glanced over to the Lieutenant, and rubbed his chin. "Rare are the moments where our words carry a proper part of what we feel. The deeds usually hold more. Now, we have one last thing for you."
Vincent walked over to where Leslie and Mercy were waiting, near the half-dozen wooden crates. Anita's eyes widened, when she saw what they were. Dark blue berries, nearly black, the same Boysenberries Vincent had accosted a merchant about, just a few hours ago. "Captain, are we getting into smuggling contraband?"
"Not today, at least," Vincent said, with a smile. "But we are disreputable sailors. I figure we should start doing more to earn the title."
"We were on Drummond's Spite for six hours, Captain," Mercy said. "We shot and stabbed several people, our ship was anchored, we were arrested, and Anita ruined a Merchant Charterhouse. I rather doubt we'll be welcome back here ever again."
"Fair," Vincent admitted. "But Anita, you said you wanted to burn this place?"
"I didn't mean it, Captain."
"You did. And it's a sentiment I share. Not that I'm willing to by a barge full of naphtha and let you firebomb the place, mind. But doing it this way is almost as good." Vincent patted the closest crate. "And a lot cheaper."
"Captain?" Anita asked.
"If we drop these crates of berries off the side, they'll fall like rain all over Drummond's Spite. And the reason the berries are contraband, is the damn things grow like nothing else under the sky. Big, thick vines that choke out the local flora. Once the navy gets wind of contraband berries ruining an island's ecosystem, so close to Volante, and they'll be the ones to burn this place down." Vincent stepped over to one side of the closest crate, and put his hands on the edges. "You might not get to see this island burn, but at some point we should be able to see the smoke plume."
Leslie stepped between them, and put his hands on the crate. "I can't say I know your pain, but I know pain. We all do. The thing I didn't know I could find, until the three of you, is a chance to answer that loss. This moment, right here, it feels good."
"I do regret losing that dance hall," Anita admitted. "I never enjoyed myself quiet the same as I did there."
"There are other dance halls out in the blue," Leslie replied, with a wry smile. "And most of them don't try as hard to put on airs."
Mercy stepped next to Anita, and gripped the box. "This is our clan's story. One I'll enjoy telling."
"On three," Vincent said. "One, two..."
And on the three count, they tipped the box over, and sent its contents raining down. For a moment, it looked like a black cloud, the berries were so thick. A moment later, more a swarm of flies, or flock of birds in the distance. A few seconds later, Anita couldn't see them, lost to the blue until Drummond's Spite finally pulled them into its embrace.
They did the same with the other boxes, and eventually chucked the boxes themselves off the side. Mercy came up after them with a broom and inspected the deck, to make sure the metal wasn't carrying any unwanted cargo.
"Let's leave this cesspit of pretentious decadence behind," the captain said. "Miss Hoffman, to your post. Check to ensure the flight controls work as soon as you get down there. Mister Madrigan, inspect the Banshee. I'd rather not get into a scrap with an un-tested weapon. Lieutenant, check the sails and the lift-bag, then make yourself available in engineering. We're going to be running this ship hard until we catch up to the Matilda."
"Aye, sir," Anita said, her heels clicking and her posture as rigidly straight as it had ever been on the Hood.
As she ran over to the hatch to the lower decks Anita could hear — faint against the growing wind — Leslie humming a familiar tune. One that put a little rhythm in her step, even as she made her way down the stairs to the engine.
One two three.