Beneath the Surface

CHAPTER 2

Though Evrial had been sharing a cabin with Amaranthe since they boarded, she hesitated outside the door and decided to knock instead of walking inside unannounced. More than once, she’d found the assassin in there with her. They’d never been doing anything except playing strategy games, but Evrial had been forced to hold back a snippy comment that perhaps Amaranthe and Sicarius should be roommates. But she didn’t particularly want to stay with any of the men either-she flicked an irritated finger at her mind when it conjured Maldynado’s face-so she said nothing.

When the door opened, her hunch proved correct. Sicarius stood inside, using the door to block his body, no doubt prepared to defend-or attack-if she’d been an enforcer. Or anyone who dared give him a cross look. The man’s hard, angular face could have been chiseled from ice, for all the warmth it ever held, and Evrial, familiar with the number of soldiers and enforcers he’d killed, had a hard time thinking of him as anything other than “the assassin.” Maldynado had admitted to being perplexed by Amaranthe’s willingness to spend time with Sicarius. Evrial could understand that feeling. Still, having seen Amaranthe charm and manipulate a number of people-herself included-Evrial suspected she teased more out of the man than he gave others.

Without a word, Sicarius stepped aside to let Evrial enter.

“ Good evening, Sergeant Yara.” Amaranthe smiled from a stool perched before a Stratics game.

Like most of the others, she’d been wearing the same clothing for a week-in her case, a long-sleeved wool shirt and sturdy green trousers with numerous pockets-but, unlike the others, her garb appeared clean and freshly ironed. Even Maldynado rarely looked so crisp-apparently his love of fashion didn’t extend to a love of doing laundry. Amaranthe wore her hair in her typical bun, and not a single brown strand dared escape its confines. Her nails were clean-if short-and not a smudge of dirt darkened her hands or face, though an uncharacteristic white streak-was that frosting? — smeared one cheek.

On the table, a mosaic of tiles sprawled across a brown and green “battlefield” board. The face-down, not-yet-played tiles on either side sat in tidy stacks, three deep. Though Evrial was clearly interrupting the game, Amaranthe’s smile seemed genuine, even hopeful, as if she wanted some news to add interest to the days of confinement. One would think she’d appreciate a chance to rest. Before striking the blow that had destroyed Forge’s underwater base, she’d been captured and tortured. Most of the bruises mottling her face and hands had faded, but she likely had wounds that the eye couldn’t see, wounds that would take far longer to heal.

“ Lokdon,” Evrial greeted. Though she’d started thinking of the former enforcer by her first name, it seemed like a good idea to keep professional distance. Especially since Evrial wasn’t certain she’d stick around for the next phase of Amaranthe’s plan.

“ Did you enjoy your training?” Amaranthe asked.

Evrial had almost forgotten she’d gone. “It was adequate. I saw someone though. I thought you should know.”

Amaranthe stood up and glanced at Sicarius. “Oh?”

The assassin remained by the door, blending in with the shadows, though his tousled patch of short blond hair didn’t quite fit in with his neat, tailored black clothing. Bed-head, Evrial’s mother would have called it, though Sicarius always wore it that way, apparently too busy being dark and deadly to bother with hairbrushes.

“ An older woman,” Evrial said. “Someone I recognized from the Forge meeting.”

“ I thought some of them might be on board,” Amaranthe said, “as we seem to have flooded the tunnels before all of them could have escaped in their underwater conveyances.”

“ We? ” Evrial asked. She’d had nothing to do with collapsing the tunnels; in fact, Amaranthe had handled that all by herself.

Amaranthe offered a sheepish shrug. “Either way, it’s not surprising that others found their way back to the Goldar River and booked passage on the first steamboat heading north to the capital. What was this Forge lady doing?”

“ Sneaking about furtively. With food.”

“ Why would Forge have to sneak?” Amaranthe asked. “They’re not… wrongfully accused outlaws.”

Tactfully, Evrial decided not to mention that Amaranthe and her team had committed numerous crimes, crimes that might have one day been justified if it’d come out that they’d been working to protect the rightful emperor from assassins and usurpers, but now that Sespian was just one of more than a half-dozen people with enough royal blood to make a claim on the throne…

“ I don’t know,” Evrial said. “I followed her from the kitchen up to the top deck. I didn’t see which cabin she went into, but it was a dead-end corridor, so that narrows down the possibilities.”

“ And you came to… suggest we go for a visit?”

“ We?” Evrial asked at the same time as Sicarius said, “No,” the first word he’d spoken since she entered.

Amaranthe spread her arms and managed an expression of sheer innocence. “Where there’s one Forge person, there could be others. Don’t we need to keep an eye on them? And see if they’re up to anything besides catching a ride upriver?”

“ What could they be ‘up to’ on a steamboat?” Evrial asked.

“ I don’t know, but you’re the one who suggested furtiveness was going on.”

“ I will search the cabins tonight,” Sicarius said. “ You will stay here.”

Amaranthe’s eyebrows rose. “I will thank you not to give me orders.”

Sicarius did not respond, though his gaze seemed to grow a shade flintier. Amaranthe returned the stare. Evrial didn’t imagine “quelled” was a word many people had used to describe her.

“ I suppose a nocturnal search would be better than nothing,” Amaranthe mused when she and Sicarius finished their staring contest-Evrial couldn’t tell if anything had been resolved during it. “ But, wouldn’t it be better if we could chat with the woman as well as searching her belongings?”

Yet another degree of coldness descended upon Sicarius’s glare. Evrial had teased Maldynado once, about kowtowing to the assassin, but she had to admit those glares were unnerving-knowing all the people he’d killed only made them more so-and she was glad she wasn’t the recipient.

“ What are you suggesting?” Outside of kidnapping and torture, Evrial couldn’t imagine a scenario where they’d walk up and chat with the enemy.

“ Those upper-deck cabins are more posh than ours, I hear,” Amaranthe said. “Built-in washouts instead of pots you have to dump, and I believe there’s maid service, isn’t there?”

It took Evrial a moment to catch on-she was too busy wondering where Amaranthe had heard anything, since she was supposedly staying out of sight in her cabin for the whole trip. “Maid service? Are you suggesting we dress up as servants and clean people’s rooms?”

“ Why, that’s an excellent idea. Thank you for suggesting it.” Amaranthe beamed.

Evrial crossed her arms over her chest and added her glower to the glare Sicarius was still sending across the room. She was beginning to see how Maldynado got blamed for so many things that may have not been his fault after all.

“ We will speak.” Sicarius flicked his gaze at Evrial, then focused on Amaranthe. “Alone.”

Amaranthe’s beaming smile didn’t fade. “Sergeant Yara is my roommate. I’m not going to ask her to leave.”

Sicarius took a step toward Evrial, and she tensed. Fighting him would be ludicrous, but she wasn’t going to stand meekly and let him shove her out the door either.

“ You’re not going to ask her to leave either,” Amaranthe said, coolness creeping into her own tone for the first time.

Sicarius stopped a step away from Evrial, his face impossible to read. He had a knack for that expression. Evrial noticed that her fists were clenched, her arms up in a defensive posture. Though he’d stopped, she didn’t lower them.

“ Asking isn’t what I had in mind,” Sicarius said.

“ Yes, I can see that.” Amaranthe planted a hand on his chest, fingers splayed. “Why don’t you give Yara and me a few minutes alone to discuss this? I’ll brief you on whatever we decide to do before we do it. And you can loiter nearby in case anything goes wrong.”

His face didn’t soften exactly-and he gave that hand a long look before meeting Amaranthe’s eyes-but the hostility he’d been oozing did seem to lessen. “Assassins don’t loiter,” he said.

The comment startled Evrial, and she wondered if she’d heard it correctly. The man hadn’t uttered much that could be classified as humor, not with her around anyway. Maybe he was simply feeling indignant.

But Amaranthe smiled. “What do you call it?”

“ Standing. Purposefully.”

“ I’ll note that for further discussions,” Amaranthe said. “In the meantime, would you mind standing purposefully in your own cabin? I’m sure Basilard has missed you, and we girls need to chat.”

Sicarius didn’t sigh-his expression didn’t even change as he backed away-but something about the way he looked over his shoulder implied he thought Amaranthe was going to stir up trouble. Evrial had a feeling she should be thinking the same thing.

After the door snicked shut, Amaranthe waved for her to take a seat. “I suggest we sneak into a maid’s closet during dinner hour, grab uniforms and a cart, and go see if anyone needs their beds turned down.”

“ What if we run into the real maids?”

“ Oh, I imagine we can talk someone into distracting them.” Amaranthe nodded toward the cabin Maldynado shared with Books.

Evrial scowled at the idea of Maldynado flirting with a couple of young women, but she didn’t say anything. Apparently, as the pretty face on the team, this was his job. “He’d better not distract them with more than words.” She regretted voicing the threat as soon as it came out, for Amaranthe’s nod was a little too knowing. Evrial’s feelings weren’t anyone else’s business, so she ought to keep signs of them to herself.

“ I’m sure he won’t,” Amaranthe said. “And if he does, then it’s better to know that now than six months further into the journey, isn’t it?”

“ There aren’t any journeys happening there.”

“ Hm.” Amaranthe stood. “I guess that’s everything. Shall we have something to eat before our adventure?”

“ That’s all the planning we’re doing? Why’d you send your assassin away?”

“ Because all the protective looming he’s been doing this week has left me feeling smothered like an egg under a chicken’s bu-, er, behind.”

Evrial almost snorted and asked which of her men she’d gotten that phrase from.

“ Don’t misunderstand me,” Amaranthe said. “I certainly appreciate his solicitude, but I’m concerned he’s seeing me as some frail, broken being not capable of taking care of herself anymore.”

“ Solicitude?” Evrial asked, her mind snagging on that word. “From… Sicarius?”

Amaranthe hesitated, as if she held some secret she wasn’t sure she should be sharing. “Not so most people would notice it, but yes.”

That was hard to believe. “Was that an example of it?” Evrial waved toward the door to indicate the stiff order tossing the assassin had done before stalking out.

“ No, that was the protective looming.”

“ All right…”

Amaranthe cleared her throat. “Enough girl talk. There are enemy cabins full of dastardly old ladies that we must infiltrate.”

“ Unbelievable,” Evrial murmured.

“ What is?”

“ That you can say things like that and still get those men to rally behind you.”

“ Sometimes I also have to gaze into their eyes with youthful exuberance that they find impossible to resist.”

Evrial could imagine that working on Maldynado, but Sicarius? “Unbelievable,” she repeated.

There were times when Evrial’s height came in handy; being squished into a dark cleaning-supply closet with another woman wasn’t one of those times. A laundry cart was digging into her ribcage, her foot was in a bucket of mop water, and the overpowering scent wafting from stacks of lye soap tempted a sneeze. She dared not rearrange herself, not with people talking on the other side of the door, so she suffered in stillness.

“ Surely, there’s no rush, my lovely ladies,” Maldynado was saying, his smooth baritone floating through the door. With luck, he was leaning against it so the “lovely ladies” couldn’t enter.

“ Please, my lord,” came a young woman’s voice, “if we’re tardy, we’ll be punished.”

“ Again,” another woman said. Neither sounded older than twenty, twenty-five.

“ There are things in life worth risking punishment for,” Maldynado said.

Evrial imagined a suggestive smile on his face, and he was doubtlessly touching his chest. Knowing him, he’d found a way to unbutton his shirt to display the swell of pronounced pectoral muscles.

“ Are you changing clothes?” Amaranthe whispered.

“ Er, what?” Evrial blushed, glad for the darkness. It wasn’t like her to let her mind wander when it should be focused on work. “I mean, there’s no room. I couldn’t change without making noise.”

Amaranthe pushed a stack of clothing into her hands. “Try anyway. They won’t hear anything over the sound of how beautiful Maldynado is.”

Evrial held back a snort, barely. She unfolded the clothing and, by touch, soon realized she was holding a dress. She grimaced. “I hate dresses. They always snag on something.” She remembered running through the briar patches behind the smithy as a girl, trying to keep up with her brothers. “I haven’t had to wear one since…” She realized she was complaining-whining, she’d say if Maldynado were doing it-and clamped her lips shut. The situation was what it was.

“ Since when?” Amaranthe’s voice came from the floor-she must already be changing shoes.

“ Nothing.”

The voices continued outside, but an expectant silence came from Amaranthe’s side of the closet. Or maybe it was only in Evrial’s imagination that it was expectant. Either way, she felt compelled to explain. “My mother used to make me wear them as a girl and later on, too, when we visited grandmother and grandfather’s ash cairn.”

“ She stopped doing it?” Amaranthe asked. “Or…?”

“ She’s dead.”

“ Oh. How’d it happen?”

“ Are you always this nosy, Lokdon?”

“ Always.” Amaranthe’s voice held a smile.

“ She was murdered when she was in the city trying to sell the family’s wares. It’s why my brother and I became enforcers. My father never approved of the career, not for me, but I think he understands it.” Evrial extricated her foot from the bucket, propped it against a shelf, and unbuttoned her utility belt and trousers. She wriggled out of the clothes, wincing when her elbow clunked against a shelf. Wood bars fell into her-mops. She growled and tried to straighten them without making more noise.

“- hear something?” one of the girls outside asked.

“ Bloody balls,” Evrial whispered and almost crouched to grab her knife. She caught herself. What was she going to do? Stab some twenty-year-old girl?

“ Nah,” came Maldynado’s voice, followed by a response too low to hear through the door. Whatever it was, it caused the girls to giggle.

“ It’s good that you still have your father,” Amaranthe whispered. “I lost both parents before I was eighteen. I was too young to remember Mother much, but Father… He was sick, and the disease ate at him over the months. It was hard.”

“ Oh,” Evrial said, for lack of a better response. Somehow she hadn’t pictured Amaranthe as someone who’d ever lost anyone. She was too… optimistic. And spunky. Evrial had imagined her as a spoiled city girl, having a mother and father who were still alive and living in some upper-middle class brownstone near the University.

“ I think they’ve left,” Amaranthe said.

Evrial almost said, “Who?” but realized the corridor outside had grown quiet. “Right.” She wrestled with her clothing, nearly tearing her sweater in the removal process, and banging more elbows. One bang resulted in bars of soap tumbling off the shelf around her. “Can we risk a candle now?”

Before she’d finished the sentence, the door opened, allowing in light from a lamp mounted across the corridor. The soft illumination didn’t do much more than cast shadows into the cleaning closet, but Amaranthe was visible, unbelievably neat and trim-given the limited space for changing-in a white fitted dress and apron. After checking the corridor, she pulled the rolling laundry-and-cleaning-supply cart out of the closet, leaving more room. Evrial rushed into her own dress and a pair of white slippers designed to mash five toes into the space for three. She much preferred enforcer boots.

Evrial picked up her utility belt. “Where do I put my knife?” She’d left her short sword in the cabin, but to wander about without a single blade was asking for trouble. Of course, so was masquerading as a maid.

“ You need a thigh holster with a dress. That’s what I’ve used when Maldynado has picked out… disguises for me.” Amaranthe made a disapproving clucking sound and stepped back into the closet to pick up the soap bars and mops littering the floor. “If you don’t mind a bit of advice, never let that man shop for you.”

“ I figured that out already.”

Evrial picked up a soap bar and set it on the shelf with the others-she had made quite a mess changing in the dark-but Amaranthe plucked it from the chosen spot and put it on another shelf, lining it up just so with others. Evrial shrugged and figured out a way to loop her belt twice around her thigh to ensure the knife was at hand.

“ Are you sure there’s time for all this?” Evrial whispered when the tidying continued for more than a few seconds. “It wasn’t this clean when we came in here.”

“ I’m sure Maldynado will keep those ladies busy.”

Evrial didn’t want Maldynado keeping any ladies busy, but Amaranthe brushed off her hands, smoothed her dress, and returned to the corridor. When they stood by the wall lamp, she paused to wave at her dress. “Is everything tucked in and proper looking?”

“ It’s fine.” A twinge of jealousy rose within Evrial at the fact that Amaranthe, despite all the training she did, managed to look feminine in a dress. Evrial always felt… hulking in such attire, when she could find clothing to fit at all. “Mine?”

Amaranthe gave her a toe-to-head perusal. “Well, you’re the most intimidating maid I’ve ever seen.”

Evrial scowled.

“ Sorry, you look fine. Just keep your face down and try to appear servile.”

Pushing the cart ahead of her, Amaranthe headed for the corner and the dead end Evrial had seen earlier in the day.

“ In regard to faces,” Evrial said, “aren’t you worried someone will recognize yours?”

“ I doubt any of the Forge people spend much time looking at the faces of their servants, but I’ll keep my eyes down too.” Amaranthe knocked on the first door.

“ They might have a special place in their memories for the person who blew up their secret meeting place.”

“ I didn’t blow it up. I flooded it.” When nobody answered, Amaranthe tried the knob. It was locked. “And I didn’t show my face before I did it.”

“ I don’t suppose that cart comes with a universal key?”

“ Not that I noticed. That’s why we stopped in the laundry room.” Amaranthe produced a rectangular palm-sized punch card dotted with holes. “I borrowed this from one of the automated machines.” She slipped the card into the door crack next to the knob. She tilted it toward her, pushed it in further, then bent it the other way as she turned the knob and leaned into the door. It popped open. “A handy trick,” she said and slipped the punch card back into a pocket.

“ One I do not recall learning at the enforcer academy.” Evrial supposed Amaranthe had been an outlaw long enough to become proficient in numerous means of illegally entering premises. Yet another sign that she should rethink her association with these people.

“ Oh?” Amaranthe peeked into the dark cabin, then slipped inside. “Perhaps you were absent that day.”

“ I was never absent.”

When she didn’t find anyone sleeping inside, Amaranthe pulled a lantern off the cart and lit it. The twin bunks were side-by-side instead of stacked against the wall, and the cabin offered a desk, table, chairs, sofa, and water closet.

“ A little more luxurious than our accommodations,” Evrial noted.

“ I didn’t think we should waste Sespian’s money on fancy rooms. Unless I think of something terribly clever during the next week, we’ll likely need it for buying weapons and troops to oppose Ravido.” Amaranthe turned down the beds, handed Evrial a wastebasket to empty, then poked through the desk drawers.

“ You believe it’s appropriate for Sespian to head an army to take back the throne when he’s not the true heir?” Evrial looked at the wastebasket. Did Amaranthe actually expect them to service all the cabins?

“ Nobody’s the true heir, and he’s got as good a claim as anyone else. We don’t want some power-grubbing relative of Maldynado’s to simply take the throne.”

“ But is it up to us to decide?”

Amaranthe slid a desk drawer shut. “Empty that, will you? If anyone wanders past, we want to look authentic.”

Evrial dumped the contents of the wastebasket into a larger refuse bin on the bottom of the cart. A man and woman, arms linked, turned the corner and walked toward her. Ducking her head-and attempting to appear servile, or at least not intimidating-Evrial pulled the cart to the side. The pair walked by without glancing at her.

Inside the cabin, Amaranthe closed the last drawer and rose. “As to who’s responsible for deciding… if everybody leaves it up to someone else, only those who seek the power of the position will be involved in the decision making, and those are probably the last people we want controlling our destinies, don’t you think?”

While mulling that over, Evrial followed Amaranthe into three more cabins. She watched in bemusement as her fastidious companion turned down all the beds, tidied the areas, and removed rubbish. Perhaps Ms. Lokdon should have opened a cleaning business instead of pursuing an enforcer career.

In the fourth cabin, Evrial stumbled to a stop on the threshold. A familiar gray cloak hung on a peg. She caught Amaranthe’s arm and nodded toward it. “The woman was wearing that.”

“ Excellent.”

Amaranthe waved Evrial toward the closet while she dove into the desk drawers. Evrial searched through dresses and robes, patting down pockets. The closet was divided in half with different person’s garments occupying each side, both belonging to women. She wondered if both wardrobes represented Forge people. How many of them might have lost their underwater vehicles and stowed away on the steamer? Not stowed away, she corrected herself. These people had purchased passage and in the nicest cabins too. So why was one of them sneaking about, pilfering food and wine?

She didn’t find any answers in the closet. “Do you have anything?”

“ Maybe.” Amaranthe leaned against the desk, a large book open in her hands, columns of ink handwriting scrawled down the pages. “It looks like… someone’s business expenses for the year.” She flipped a few pages. “Or maybe just the current quarter. There are at least three businesses being tracked in here. I don’t recognize these two, but this information is for the Traveling Ice Show and Circus.”

“ The same people somersaulting and juggling all over the boat?” Evrial asked.

“ The same. They’re-”

Voices sounded in the corridor, and Evrial threw up a warning hand. The doorknob rattled as someone applied a key. Amaranthe shoved the book back into a drawer, and Evrial closed the closet doors, careful not to slam them. Amaranthe lunged for the beds and started turning down the covers. Evrial grabbed a wastebasket a heartbeat before the door opened.

“- didn’t know they were on this boat,” a woman, one of four standing around the entrance, was saying.

“ Sssh, someone’s in there.”

Surprised by the number of people coming in, Evrial stared for a moment before she remembered she was supposed to be keeping her face down. Not before the gray-haired woman who’d been sneaking about met her eyes. Evrial dumped the wastebasket into the bin on the bottom of the cart. She didn’t think the woman had seen her following before.

“ It’s just the maids.” Gray-hair walked in first, grunting when her arm caught the corner of the cart. “Get this garbage out of my way.”

“ Yes, ma’am,” Evrial said.

“ Ma’am?” one of the other women asked. “That’s ‘my lady,’ to you.”

“ Yes, my lady.” Evrial hated debasing herself before anyone, but she’d had to suffer through worse as a low-ranking enforcer.

“ Not me, you dolt. Her.”

Amaranthe, who was doing a better job keeping her head down and staying unnoticed, shot Evrial a stop-talking look. She took her time creasing the sheets and fluffing the pillows. Evrial just wanted to get out of there. She tried to pull the cart to the side so the women could pass, but even the more luxurious cabins were small.

“ Out of the way, you hulking behemoth.” A woman tried to brush past Evrial, but bumped into her thigh instead.

The poorly-fastened knife fell to the floor with a noticeable clunk. Evrial dove down to pick it up, trying to hide it before anyone saw what it was. It didn’t work.

“ Uhm, the maid’s got a dagger the size of a broadsword.” The woman who had knocked it free hustled backward, almost tripping over her feet in her haste to find the corridor.

Evrial didn’t know whether to deny that her dagger was that big or claim she’d found it somewhere or “ Well, of course she does,” Amaranthe said. She kept her face down as she stepped up beside Evrial, but she was clearly addressing the women. “Have you seen the womanizing leers of some of the men working in the kitchens? A girl has to defend herself.”

Judging from the way the rest of the group was backing toward the corridor, the women weren’t believing the story. “Those aren’t the usual maids, are they? That one has muscles like a wrestler in the Imperial Games.”

“ We’re from the second deck,” Amaranthe said. “Your regular maids didn’t show up for work, so we had to take over.”

That much was true at least. The women kept backing away though. Only one of the four was still in the cabin, the rest having slipped into the corridor. Nobody had bolted off to find security yet, but they were exchanging a lot significant glances with each other.

Evrial crouched, thinking to spring after them, but Amaranthe stopped her with a hand on the arm.

The last woman hustled into the corridor. “You stay here. We’ll just check out that story.”

The door slammed shut, trapping Evrial and Amaranthe in the cabin.

Evrial spun on her comrade. “Why did you stop me? We could have dragged them in here, tied them up, and locked them inside.”

“ Of that I have no doubt,” Amaranthe said, “but then what? Unless we wanted to kill them, they’d be found eventually, at which point they’d identify us and cause a search. We’d have to grab the entire team, jump overboard, hike to the next port, and wait for another steamer to come. We need to get to the capital as soon as possible.”

Evrial propped her hands on her hips. She wanted to point out that this scheme had been Amaranthe’s idea, and it’d be her fault if that happened, but she lowered her hands again. Her knife had been the one to fall. “Can your card open it again?” she asked.

“ Not from this side.” Amaranthe jogged to the door and tried the knob. “Hm, I didn’t know you could be locked in from the outside. Not very safe in the case of a fire.”

“ We won’t stay locked in. Move.” Evrial flexed her shoulders. She’d had to ram down more than a few doors in her years as an enforcer.

“ I don’t think that’ll work,” Amaranthe said, but she evacuated the threshold.

Evrial backed up a few paces from the door, then ran at it, shoulder leading. She smashed into it with a jaw-rattling thud. The wood trembled but held, though her teeth might be in danger of falling out. “Tougher door than it looks like.”

Amaranthe delved into the bottom of the cart.

Evrial kicked off the stupid slippers and measured off a pace-and-a-half for a step-behind side kick. Striking with her heel hurt less than with her shoulder, but it didn’t open the door either. She glowered at it. Those women hadn’t had time to push something in front of the door, had they?

Amaranthe tapped her on the shoulder. “You’re a lot like Maldynado. You should be nicer to him.”

Evrial turned her scowl onto her comrade.

Amaranthe waved toward the hinges. “It’s tough to kick open a door in the opposite direction from which it usually opens.”

Evrial’s scowl turned sheepish. Good point.

Amaranthe slipped something under the door. She grabbed a lantern and lit a-was that a fuse? What had she been doing in the laundry cart? Evrial eyed a bar of soap on the carpet next to a glass jar emitting pungent fumes.

“ Back around the corner, please,” Amaranthe said.

“ What?”

“ Quickly.” Amaranthe sprinted away from the door, grabbing the wall to swing herself around the corner.

Before Evrial could more than stumble after her, an explosion roared. Something slammed into the wall behind her-a piece of wood. The arm-length wedge had embedded itself into the wall where it quivered like a thrown knife.

Amaranthe peeked around the corner. Evrial leaned over her shoulder, crinkling her nose at the burning-chemical scent of the smoky air. When it cleared enough to see the door, or rather the two hinges that were the only things left hanging on the frame, all she could do was gape. Amaranthe pushed a piece of wood off the desk and pulled out the business book.

She patted Evrial on the way past. “Time to go.”

Evrial couldn’t disagree with that. She jogged after Amaranthe, leaving her slippers and the cart-what was left of it-behind. Before they reached the corner and access to a service ladder, footsteps pounded up nearby stairs. Evrial jerked to a stop. Someone must have heard the explosion and was running to check.

“ It’s those maids!” a familiar voice screeched.

“ Back, back,” Amaranthe whispered.

Evrial was already opening the door of one of the cabins they’d serviced, one that didn’t have any people in it-or hadn’t when they’d been in earlier. Amaranthe pushed in right behind her. She shut the door, and darkness fell over them. Footsteps thundered past in the corridor.

“ I’m not sure your plan was better than my idea of beating those women up and locking them in their cabin,” Evrial whispered.

Amaranthe locked the door. “We’ll be fine so long as this cabin’s occupants don’t come back from dinner in the next few minutes.”

“ And security doesn’t decide to search the entire deck. Where’d you learn to blow up doors? That wasn’t a class at the academy either.”

“ I have Sicarius to thank for my lock-picking skills and Books for an education on the properties of certain household chemical compounds. He made smoke bombs in someone’s kitchen once.” The darkness hid Amaranthe’s smile, but it came through in her voice.

How could she possibly be having a good time?

Evrial pushed away from the door, stalked into the room, and promptly rammed her shin against the corner of a bed. “They may not have identified us, but they’re going to be suspicious when that book comes up missing.” She rubbed her shin. What a deplorable night. “Those people probably have enough money to order the captain to search the entire boat.”

“ Maybe,” Amaranthe said, “but the older lady has been lying low. Maybe they all have. They may not want to stride into the captain’s cabin. I hope the explanation as to why is in here.” Thumps sounded as she knocked on the book’s cover.

Evrial found that she could see the movements. A porthole on the far side let in faint nighttime illumination. “Maybe we can go out that way.” She pointed toward the window. Wedging her shoulders through it wouldn’t be easy, but she thought the feat doable. “There’s not a deck out there, is there?” Evrial pictured the layout of the boat in her mind. “But we’re near the top. Maybe we could climb up to the roof. As long as the helmsman is looking forward instead of backward, he wouldn’t notice us crawling across to a ladder going down.”

“ We may have to try that,” Amaranthe said from the door. “They’re going to search every cabin on this end of the deck.”

Evrial grumbled and groped her way past the furnishings to the porthole. Something scraped over the thin carpet-a chair? Amaranthe must be wedging it under the doorknob.

Evrial patted around the porthole, searching for a handle, but didn’t find anything. “It doesn’t open. You don’t really think I’m like Maldynado, do you?”

“ You favor a similar approach to opening doors.”

Heat flushed Evrial’s cheeks, and her shoulder ached in reminder of the ill-advised bashing. “He doesn’t take anything seriously, and he has the work ethic of a… a… well, an indolent son of the privileged caste. I’ve worked my entire life, and I…”

“ Take everything seriously?” Amaranthe suggested.

Evrial crossed her arms. “Maybe. So, what? Life isn’t a joke.”

“ No, but it’s easier to enjoy if you can find the humor in even the grim moments. Perhaps it’d be healthy for you to let someone bring a little levity into your life.”

Evrial dropped her arms. Maybe it would be if… “He’s silly about everything though. How could you count on someone like that to be serious when it counts?”

“ He is. Didn’t he stand by your side for the fight on that steamboat?”

“ I suppose. And he did risk himself to pull his comrades out of that booby-trapped building in that park. I guess I have seen him be serious and take responsibility, but he’s always… He says the dumbest things to me. I can’t imagine what’s inside his head.”

“ His smiles and silly lines usually work on women,” Amaranthe said. “And I think they’d actually work on you, too, if you weren’t worried about being hurt.”

Scowling, Evrial patted around the porthole again. They ought to be focusing on getting out of there, not talking about such unimportant matters. Unfortunately, the porthole still lacked a latch. She rapped a knuckle against the glass, wondering if they might break it. It sounded thick, but she still had her dagger.

“ It’s understandable,” Amaranthe went on. “If you believe half of what comes out of his mouth, he’s loved and left a lot of women.”

“ I don’t know why he’s bothering with me,” Evrial muttered, drawn back into the conversation despite her thought to drop the topic.

“ Even if you had no features which men find alluring, which isn’t true by the way, you represent a challenge to him. It’s human nature to want that which we can’t have. If you were so inclined to give in to his advances, that’d be the point where you could find out if there might be more to it than that.”

“ What more could there be with someone like him? I figure he’ll get his itch scratched, and that’ll be that.”

“ Do you want something else?”

“ With him? No. I don’t know. I don’t really see what we have in common or how it’d work or anything.”

“ If you decide you do want something with him, show him that you trust him,” Amaranthe said. “I gather his family never did, and he’s been upset of late with how many people here have turned suspicious eyes in his direction.”

“ I’m not suspicious of him. I just-”

“ Growl at or insult him every time he tries to start a conversation with you.”

“ That’s because he starts them with stupid lines,” Evrial said.

“ That’s his way of protecting himself, by not expressing true feelings. Just as you protect yourself with those insults. Perhaps if you both dropped your defenses long enough to have a serious conversation, you could find out if you have any commonalities after all.”

Evrial pressed her hands on either side of the porthole. She remembered a conversation with Maldynado that had gone that way. One where they’d been crouched on a boiler in the darkness. And it’d been… not unpleasant. Until he’d voiced that stupid spelunking comment. She caught herself smiling at the memory. Maybe Amaranthe had a point. Maybe The doorknob rattled.

“ Uh oh,” Amaranthe said. “Any progress with that porthole?”

“ No, it’s-”

A pale blob appeared on the other side of the glass. Evrial yelped and jumped backward faster than a dog bit by a snake. Her calf caught on the edge of the bed, and she tumbled onto it.

“ Good timing,” Amaranthe said.

“ What?” Bewildered, Evrial stared at the porthole. Only on the second long look did she recognize the pale blob. It was Sicarius’s face-upside down.

Amaranthe pointed to the porthole frame and mouthed something.

Sicarius’s head rose out of sight. Evrial rolled off the bed, embarrassed by her startled-and ungraceful-stumble.

“ I hope you don’t mind,” Amaranthe said, “but I’ll have to let Maldynado know.”

“ What?”

“ That you are capable of shrieking.”

Evrial would have snapped a retort-she hadn’t really shrieked, had she? Surely it’d been more of a surprised grunt-but thumps started up at the door. Whatever had escaped her lips, it must have been loud enough for the team in the corridor to hear her. “I’ll refrain from asking after the context of that discussion,” was all she said.

“ Wise woman,” Amaranthe said.

Sicarius’s head reappeared along with a hand holding a narrow razor-edged blade. A louder thump sounded in the corridor, followed by a crack. It might have come from the door or the chair bracing it. Either way, it didn’t sound auspicious.

“ He better hurry up,” Evrial said.

Sicarius applied the blade to the glass and cut a circle. Something else struck the door-it sounded like wood rather than a shoulder this time. A battering ram?

Sicarius waved for them to back up. Conscious of her bare feet, Evrial leaped onto the bed. Sicarius thumped the glass circle with the heel of his palm, and it popped out of the porthole. It landed on the carpet with a crack.

Amaranthe moved it out of the way. “You first.”

Evrial’s first inclination was to argue that she should go last-after all, she’d been the one to drop the knife and rouse suspicions-but another blow at the door convinced her there was no time to argue. Amaranthe draped a towel over the sharp edge left in the porthole, and Evrial jumped, caught the frame, and did her best to wriggle through. Her momentum only took her halfway before her hips stuck in the narrow opening.

Sicarius, still dangling-what he had his feet hooked around, Evrial could only guess-caught her under the armpits and pulled her out. His grip was about as gentle as a vise clamp, and she was certain she left flesh and clothing on the frame, but her hips were freed. Her legs followed, and she barely managed to catch the frame with her feet, so they wouldn’t tumble out before she could right herself. She doubted Sicarius would appreciate having to hold her weight thirty feet above the water. Nor did she want anyone walking on the deck below to see her dangling legs.

With his help, Evrial pushed off the porthole frame and clawed her way to the roof. She dropped onto her belly and turned around, thinking to offer an additional hand to Amaranthe. Sicarius’s black boots were hooked around nothing more than a cable attached to an eyelet on the edge of the roof. Evrial couldn’t believe he could hold himself up that way. Before she’d done more than stick her head over the edge, Amaranthe’s hands appeared on the roof. She pulled herself up without help and dropped into a crouch. In an acrobatic move that would have impressed the circus performers, Sicarius flipped up beside them.

Wind gusted down the river, ruffling his short hair. Enough of a moon peeped between the clouds to illuminate his face-and the cool stare he leveled at Amaranthe.

“ I heard your explosion,” he said, apparently assuming Amaranthe, rather than Evrial, had been responsible.

“ Good.” Again unfazed by the glare, Amaranthe gripped his arm. “We’re fortunate you decided to loiter up here.”

“ Stand purposefully,” he said.

“ Yes, that too.”

Shouts erupted from below-security breaching the cabin.

“Time to go,” Evrial said at the same moment as Amaranthe. Only as they crept across the roof toward a ladder, did she realize she’d adopted Amaranthe’s phrase. She wondered if she should be worried about that.