When the Sea is Rising Red (11 page)

“Shake his hand,” says Lils, “before he decides to throw himself from a window or something.”

So I extend my hand and take his. His grip is firm, his palms dry, and he seems utterly at ease with handshakes. Most Hobs are not interested in the practice. “Wonderful,” he says. “I’m off to bed.” And with that, Dash disappears behind the longest curtain, to an area of the house I’ve not yet been in.

“High as a Hob-kite,” says Verrel.

“Verrel, you go put a water-urn by him. Stupid bugger is going to need it when he wakes. Otherwise he’ll be bitching about his bad head for the whole of tomorrer,” says Lils.

Verrel sits up and stubs out the dog-end of his ’grit in a mermaid’s-ear shell near his hip. “Lucky me,” he says. “Lucky, lucky me.” He fills a small urn from one of the water pails that are spread out along the balcony and lopes off to Dash’s room, stepping carefully over the scattered bales.

“Here,” I say, nervous now, worried that I’ve botched this meeting and that when Dash wakes he’ll find a reason to throw me out onto the street. I fumble in my pocket and hand Lils the rough paper envelope. “For the bowl,” I say, nodding at the communal bowl that takes pride of place on the highest crate.

“You don’t have to give me all of it, you daft Lam,” she says, and tips five bits back into my palm. “Now you go get some sleep. I’ll introduce you to Dash when he’s himself again.”

“You mean … he’s not always like that?”

“Sweet Gris, no.” She makes a growly
huk huk
sound that for Lils is what passes for laughter. “We’d have strung him out on the rooftops long since if he was.” Lils takes a sip of her stock and licks her lips. “He has his moments, and when he does, we just leave him be until he’s worked through them. Then things get back to normal sharp-like.”

I cast a glance at the closed curtain and wonder just what kind of person he can be to somehow have all these people at his heel.

9

T
HERE’S NO SIGN
of Lils the following morning. With the fading of the spring storms, she’s back at work in the fish markets before dawn.

Dash is there though, talking quietly with Esta. He looks up as I push my curtain open but continues speaking in a low whisper, so as not to wake the others. The selkie-girl is curled up tight with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head bowed. She nods as she listens but says nothing. She blinks when she sees me, her dark seal eyes fathomless as a wild animal’s.

“I have to go,” Esta says as I draw closer. She leaps up and is running down the stairs before I even get a chance to greet her.

Dash raises one eyebrow at me. “And that?”

I shrug. “I’ve no idea—she hasn’t liked me from the first day we met.” I neglect to mention that the first time we met she tried to brain me with a piece of windowsill.

“How interesting. Normally she reserves her hatred for old men and House Lams.” He pats the cushioned sacks next to him. “Sit. Believe it’s time you and me had a little chat.” Then he grins at me. “I’ll make us tea.” He’s clean, dressed in unstained clothes, the stubble scraped from his chin. There’s still a slight bitter herbal smell to him from the poisonink, but it’s barely noticeable.

My heart is pattering as I sit uncomfortably cross-legged. The burlap is rough, and all I’m wearing is my long shift. I feel exposed.

“See now,” Dash says as he flicks a match against his thumb and lights the bundle of driftwood in the stove, then sets the little copper urn to boil. “Isn’t this cozy?” He half smiles at me.

Uncertain, I half smile back and wish I’d just stayed in bed.

“You’re working down at the Crake?” He tosses the spent match into the fire.

“I’ve paid my share into the bowl,” I say, already on the defensive.

“I daresay you have.” The little fire flickers, catching on the dry wood. Soon he’ll have the water at a rolling boil. “Do you like it there, working for old Breadloaf?”

“It’s … fine.” What does he expect me to say?

“Yeah, she’s a good sort—makes you work like a dog but it’s not like we’re not used to that. Leastwise she pays on time and there’s cake if you’re lucky.”

“Yeah,” I murmur in agreement. “Every little bit helps.” I relax. All he wants to do is make sure I’m bringing in my wages and helping to feed and look after the rest of the crew.

Dash grins. “Soon we’ll be bonding over redbush, sharing secrets like old friends, and you’ll feel all like you’re ready to trust me, and then you’ll tell me exactly why it is that a House Lammer is hiding out in Whelk Street with a bunch of half-breeds and Hobs.” Dash glances at the urn, then back at me. “Won’t you?”

“I—I’m not a House Lammer.”

“’Course you’re not. Firell, is it?”

I nod vigorously and will the water to boil faster so that I can have a cup to hide behind. Something—anything—to do with my hands to hide their shaking.

“You’re no low-Lammer,” he says. “Do you know how I know that?”

“How?” I swallow, and watch the steam rising so that I don’t have to look him in the face.

“Your hands are too white.” Dash takes the urn from the fire and adds a generous pinch from the tea box. “Your accent is wrong.” He glances over at me, smiles thinly, and sets the redbush to steep.

Someone has shoved a lump of coal down my throat and I can’t swallow properly. “My mother was a servant and for all that I’m a bastard, my father raised me in his House—gave me the best tutelage—” I cough, a small dry sound.

“A likely story. Pass us the teabowls,
Firell
.”

The porcelain bowls are cheap, made of thick white clay, cracked and chipped. I take two from the crate and hand them to him. If I keep my mouth shut, I can leave him to his guesswork.

After a few slow sips of hot tea, Dash speaks again. “Sphynx got your tongue?”

“Why should I say anything if you won’t even try to believe me?” I sit straighter and glare at him. I won’t be cowed by a Hob.

Dash laughs. “What House?”

“Pardon?”

“What House did your mam work for?”

Thoughts race through my head, and I settle on the first and most likely story I can imagine. “Malker.”

Dash swishes tea in his mouth, then twists his body so he can spit out the window. “The witch-cursed House. Go on.”

And with that, he’s given me my lie. Inwardly, I’m smiling, but I keep my voice shaky and nervous. “I left after Malker Ilven took the Leap.” I even let myself shiver—just a slight tremble of the shoulders—before continuing my story. “I couldn’t stay there, not after that. The bad luck would have killed me, driven me mad. You know what they say about suicides crawling back from the deep and bringing death with them.” I put my half-empty bowl down on the floor and pull my knees to my chest. “Don’t make me go back,” I mumble. “Please.”

Dash frowns, and I feel him staring hard at me. It’s like spiders crawling over my skin, and I want to shake my head, scrub at my face with my fingernails.

“And so you came here,” he says very softly, his eyes never leaving my face. “Why?”

“I—Anja said I should go to you.” The hairdresser’s words, an instruction I never really questioned until now. I try to keep myself steady, to not blink or waver. “She said to tell you that.”

He watches me for a moment more, his face smooth, expressionless, then he quirks one side of his mouth up in amusement. “Welcome to Whelk Street, Firell.” He stands and straightens his rolled sleeves and his emerald-green waistcoat. “See that the teabowls are washed before Lils gets back,” Dash says. “Girl can get right shirty if she thinks you’re skiving.” He grabs a dark blue scarf from one of the lines that crisscross the room, picks his way through the piles of material, and heads downstairs without another word to me.

After a few minutes I pick up the teabowls and go to fetch a pail of fresh water for rinsing them. Water, icy from the night, slops over my shift, and I curl my toes and mutter a few newly learned expletives. Working at the Crake has taught me more than merely the ins and outs of dish washing.

I hope the arrogant little gutter-dandy stays away for another week.

He’s very …

… tiring.

*   *   *

A
LAS,
I
HAVE NO SUCH LUCK.

Dash returns just after we’ve eaten breakfast. Nala’s still here with Verrel, gathering her bag so she can buy bones from the butcher and treat her dogs. Verrel is sitting by the window, blowing smoke out into the morning air. The room smells like salt and tobacco.

“All right, crew,” Dash says. “I need everyone here to buckle down.”

Nala stares at him. “Dash,” she says patiently, “I’ve dogs that need walking.” Her bag is slung over one shoulder.

“Walk them later.” He stoops over to grab a slice of flame-blackened toast and chews it hurriedly. “I need this lot shifted before the sharif get wind of it.” He gestures at the covered bundles stacked on the floor.

Nala scowls and crosses her arms. “It’s illegal?”

“Not really.” He shrugs, then kneels down to untie the twine around the first of the white-shrouded bales. “It is stolen though.”

“Oh sweet Gris, Dash! You said last time was the … last.”

“Too good an offer to pass up, Nala. Now, run down apothecary way and get as many glass jars as you can carry. Money’s in the bowl.”

She scowls and turns away, but not before digging through the communal bowl for a handful of brass. The slap of her bare feet against the wood falls to silence, and then it is only Dash, Verrel, and me. We stare at one another. Verrel raises one eyebrow as Dash pulls the bale open to reveal a mess of stems with tiny furred gray leaves. Poisonink.

“And you want us to do what with it?” Verrel rolls a new ’grit with one hand and drinks tea with the other.

“Sort it, pack it. We’ve got a buyer for the finished product, and the sharif are only looking for the raw stuff.”

“The sharif? Wonderful.” Verrel takes a deep, thoughtful drag and eyes the poisonink. I look at it in horror. The damn stuff will get me caught—ruin me.

Dash looks across at me and grins. “You ever sorted ’ink before?”

He knows I haven’t, the little shit. I scowl at him and shake my head. If he brings the sharif down on us and they realize who I am … Damn. I need to get this stuff away from me as soon as possible. “What do I have to do?” I say between gritted teeth.

“Here.” He kneels down and lifts a single branch. “Go like this.” Dash runs his hand loosely down the branch, and the twisted gray outer leaves fall onto the white sheet. “That’s the stuff you want to get rid of. What’s left”—he flicks the small tightly furled new leaves—“that’s what you want to put in the jars.”

“And this?” I point at the mess of dried leaves on the open sheet.

“Ah, save that for me,” Verrel says. “I can compost it for the garden.”

Garden? The whole house is slowly sinking into mud. Obviously, Verrel is as insane as the rest of the Whelk Streeters.

Dash just nods as if this is the most normal conversation in the world. He unwraps another bale and then opens up a second sheet. “Good stuff here.” He points at the one sheet. “Compost there.”

I stare at him.

“Get on it then, kitty,” he says.

“Firell.”

“
Firell
.” He smiles, then shakes his head.

Verrel stubs out his ’grit and drinks the last of his tea in one gulp before sitting cross-legged on the floor and taking a branch. With a sigh, I fold my skirt over my legs and sit down next to him.

It’s mindless work and strangely soothing. The poisonink leaves a sticky black residue all over my fingers and thumbs, but after a while I find myself feeling almost content. The sweet sharp scent of the ’ink cleans the air of the sour smell of bodies and poverty. Verrel sings and hums while he works, and occasionally Dash will join in. Verrel’s voice is strong and sure, while Dash’s is thin, although, thankfully, in tune.

Nala gets back after about an hour. We can hear her coming up the stairs, swearing and clinking glass. Dash puts down his branch and rises to go give her a hand.

“This is the last time, Dash.” Her voice comes up from downstairs. “And I need to go to work, or I’m going to lose my job.”

“You can get another.”

“I
like
this job. I’m not the same as you, always running off to find something else to do.” Dash and Nala appear at the top of the stairs holding a large burlap bag between them. “Besides, the dogs love me, and I’d miss them.” She sets her end of the bag down. “I’m going now, all right?”

He stares at her, mouth twitching, then looks over at where Verrel and I are making considerable progress through the collection of bales. “Fine.” He drags the bag the rest of the way to us and starts pulling out glass jars. He sets them out with a meticulousness I didn’t expect from him, all the jars in order of size and shape.

“Dash…”

“What?” he snaps back at Nala. “Go on then, I said it was fine.”

“You’re going to hold this against me?”

He pauses with an opal jar in his hands, turning it over and over. Finally, Dash shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Go before your dogs all die of broken hearts.” But he says it with a smile, and his voice is easy.

“You’re a changeable little monster, you do know that?” Nala says.

Next to me, Verrel laughs and begins to fill the first jar, packing the ’ink in tight. “Of course he does.”

“It’s part of my charm,” Dash adds.

“
Charm
—is that what they’re calling it now?” Nala’s relief is clear in her voice. I do not think that Dash is always so easily mollified.

By mid-morning, we’ve done most of the bales. There are two left, and we’ve filled about fourteen of the glass containers. My hands are black and so sticky I can barely touch anything. I crick my neck from side to side, trying to ease the tense muscles.

Esta’s come back from combing the beach with Kirren for signs of her brother and is sullenly making tea.

“Time for a break.” Dash stands. He stretches his arms high above his head, exposing a flash of stomach. He is the very opposite of Jannik, brown and wiry with workman’s muscles. I copy him, pretending I haven’t seen this arc of skin. Verrel also stretches; something in his back
clicks
loudly, and we laugh at each other.