He pressed the bird nearer his ear. At first he didn’t hear much—breathing, the muffled voices of two men. But then suddenly a man was shouting, and a woman shrieked.
He knew that shriek like he knew his own—it was Annaïg.
“Back here, girl!” a hoarse voice growled.
“Just tell my father you put me on the ship!” he heard Annaïg shout. “He’ll never know the difference.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t,” Hoarse Voice grunted. “But I would, yeah? So on the boat you go.”
Annaïg then vented a string of profanities, some of which she almost certainly had made up on the spot, because Mere-Glim hadn’t heard them before, and he had pretty much heard all of her arsenal of swear-words and phrases—or thought he had.
With a grunt he turned around and started back down toward the docks. It seemed Annaïg’s father did know something, something so bad he’d had his own daughter kidnapped to get her out of town.
Well, that was great. Now he felt worse about everything.
He began to run.
FIVE
Annaïg thought she would have a chance to escape when they reached the ship, but her father’s thugs—and his money—seemed to convince the captain, an Argonian so old that patches of his scales had become translucent. She and her things were placed in a small stateroom—about the size of a closet, actually—and that was bolted from the outside, with the promise that she would be free to wander the ship once they were a few leagues from land.
That didn’t stop her from trying to find a way out, of course. The small window was no help, since she couldn’t shape-shift into a cat or ferret. She tried screaming for help, but they were facing away from the docks, so there was no one to hear her above the general din. She couldn’t find a way through the door, and as it turned out, if someone had built any sort of secret doors or panels into the bulkhead, they were far too clever for her.
That left crying, which she actually started before completing her search. Her tears were thoroughly mixed—anger, grief, and terror. Her father would never think of treating her like this unless he was certain that remaining meant death. So why had he decided to stay and die? Why did he get that choice and not her?
Once she got past the noisy stage of crying and settled into more dignified, ladylike sniffling, she realized someone was saying her name. She looked at the door and window, but the sound was funny, very small …
And then she remembered, and felt really stupid.
She took off the locket and opened it up and there was Glim’s familiar face. His mouth was slightly open and his teeth were showing, indicating his agitation.
“Glim!” she whispered.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m on a ship—”
“Did you get the name?”
“The Tsonashap—‘Swimming Frog.’”
The tiny figure of his head turned this way and that.
“I see it,” he said at last. “It’s making ready.”
“I’m in a small stateroom near the bow,” she told him. “There’s a short corridor—” She stopped and bit her lip. “Glim, don’t try it,” she said at last. “I think … I think something really awful is about to happen. Trying to get me out of here—you’ll only get caught. Get out of Lilmoth, as far and as fast as you can.”
Glim blinked slowly.
“I’m going to close the bird and put it away now,” he said.
“Glim—” But the image vanished.
Annaïg sighed, shut the locket and her eyes. She felt tired, hungry, worn-out.
Glim was coming, wasn’t he?
The first hour, she waited anxiously, preparing herself to spring into action. But then she felt the boat moving on the water. She looked out the window and saw the lanterns on the quay receding.
“Xhuth!” she swore. “Waxhuthi! Kaoc’!”
But the lights, uninterested in her expletives, continued to dim and dwindle.
She opened the locket, but no image greeted her. She held it up to her ear, but she didn’t hear anything, either.
Had he heeded her advice, or had he been caught, injured, murdered? In her whirling thoughts he was all of them. Glim, missing an arm; Glim, headless; Glim bound in chains and about to be thrown overboard …
Something rattled at her door, and her heart actually skipped a beat. She’d always thought that was just an expression. She stood, fingers knotted in fists she didn’t really know how to use, waiting.
The door opened, a snout appeared, and large reptilian eyes that sagged deep in their wrinkled sockets.
“Captain,” she said, making her voice as cold as possible.
“We’re in deep water,” he grated. “Don’t be foolish and try to swim for it. You’ll not make it, not with the sea-drakes hereabouts.”
He glanced down at her clenched hands and flashed his own claws, shaking his head.
“Never think that,” he said. “I’d see you safe to your destination, but no one attacks a captain on his ship and doesn’t pay hard. It’s law.”
“Law? Kidnapping is against the law!”
“This isn’t kidnapping, it’s your father’s wish—and you aren’t old enough to go against his wish, at least not in this sort of matter. So best resign.”
He hadn’t said anything about Glim, and she was afraid to ask.
She loosened her fingers. “Very well. I’m free to move about the ship?”
“Within reason.”
“Right. Here’s me moving, then.”
She pushed past him into the brief hall, up the steps, and onto the deck.
Above her, sails billowed and snapped in the plentiful wind that always drove off the coast early in the night, and the bow cut a furrow through a sea lacquered in silver and bronze by the two great moons above. For a moment her fear and dismay were overcome by an unexpected rush of joy at the beauty of it, the adventure it seemed to promise. Across the sea to the Empire, and everything she’d always wanted. Her father’s last, best—almost only—gift to her.