Lev shot them each an apologetic look at the bathhouse exit. “Zander went to find clothes for you,” she said, then she took up position behind the women and sent them marching back to their fourth-floor room.
They found Zander waiting inside, his face turned down to his toes. “I got several gowns. I wasn’t sure what ladies like you might want to wear.”
Safi didn’t need her magic to feel the honesty shivering off Zander’s proclamation. Against her better judgment, she caught herself smiling. “Thank you, Hell-Bard.”
Then she and Vaness were left alone, while Lev and Zander began a hushed conversation in the hall. Caden was nowhere to be seen.
“Two against two,” Vaness murmured in Marstoki as she glided for the bed. “Had I not this collar on”—she jiggled it, the wood darkened with water—“then there would be no contest.”
Safi, meanwhile, shot for the window. The shutters were open, and while four stories was undoubtedly a long drop, hell-flaming goat tits, she was willing to try.
She reached the window. The Pirate Republic spanned before her, the arena thrusting up in the distance. She tried to dip her head through …
A burst of warmth and light lashed out. Safi’s forehead hit solid air—and her heart surged into her throat. Magic. Wards, Safi realized, although what they protected against or how Hell-Bards could even do magic, Safi had no idea.
She tried again, and again, but her skull simply smacked an invisible wall each time. Light flashed, shimmering along the edges with golden dust.
“So that is what the wards do,” Vaness said from her spot at the bed. “It is good to know.”
Safi grunted, scowling, and finally turned away from the sunny seascape outside. At the bed, she made quick work of her ruined gown, stripping it off in one move. Vaness, of course, was undressing more patiently, carefully removing her dirty gown and folding it neatly on the bed.
Safi’s heart panged. It was such an Iseult-like thing to do. Such a familiar balance of Safi charging ahead, heedless and hurried, while her companion lingered, contemplated, gathered her thoughts.
Safi wavered, fingers gripped tight around a hunter green gown while her free hand moved to the Threadstone. The leather thong it was looped on now rested damp against her collarbone. She pulled it out.
And horror shoveled through her. The stone was blinking. Iseult.
“What does it mean?” Vaness asked quietly.
“It means my family is in danger.” Safi’s voice sounded so far away. She swiveled about, trying to gauge in which direction the Threadstone would lead. In which direction Iseult might be. “Somewhere … that way.” She faced northwest.
All exhaustion was gone now. Safi wanted to move. She wanted to run.
The empress seemed to understand, for she said in Marstoki—and with a false layer of nonchalance overtop—“I have a plan to get us out of here.”
Safi blinked, rounding on Vaness. “Earlier. You lied about the Baedyeds wanting to kill you.”
“I did.” Vaness eased a mustard gown from the stack and draped it against her body, checking the length. “Just before the Truce Summit, I came to an agreement with the Baedyed Pirates. I will return much of the Sand Sea to them, and in return they will become an extension of the Marstoki navy. So you see, they are not my enemies at all but are in fact my allies.”
Safi’s magic purred, True. “So they will help us?”
It took Vaness three yanks to get the neck of her gown past the wooden collar, and by the time it was on, Lev had poked her head in the room. “All ready?”
“Almost,” Vaness trilled. Then, in a hurried whisper from the side of her mouth, she added, “Be ready, Safi. For soon, the Baedyeds will come for us.”
“Good.” Safi couldn’t resist a dark, triumphant grin while she tugged on her forest green dress. It was a loose in the bodice and the skirt barely made it mid-calf, but she preferred it that way. There was room to move. Room to fight.
I’m coming, Iz.
The door whooshed wide, and Caden strode in. He aimed straight for Safi, eyes flying over her gown—and chin dipping ever so slightly in approval. He too was clean and freshly clothed. His armor, however, was absent. No chain mail or brigandine, no gauntlets or steel helm.
Yet a sword still hung at his waist, and his shoulder appeared leagues sturdier than it had an hour before.
“Heretic,” he said, coming to a stop before Safi, “don your boots.”
Safi arched a cool eyebrow. “Why, Hell-Bard?”
“Because you and I are taking a little trip, and there’s a reason the locals say the streets of Saldonica are paved with shit.”
* * *
Though Caden didn’t tie up Safi, he did keep a dagger out, and he forced her to march directly before him. Within grabbing distance, should the need arise.
The need wouldn’t arise, for Safi had no desire to bolt. Her Threadstone might have stopped flashing, but that didn’t change her need for escape—and her odds of survival were much higher with an entire contingent of Baedyed Pirates coming to her aid than all alone on the streets of Saldonica.
Which were indeed layered in shit and trash, something she noticed as soon as they left behind the clean corners of the Baedyed territory.
“Where are we going?” Safi asked, her head dipped back so Caden could hear. They were once more in the open market, but there was no missing the Red Sails’ scarlet banners flapping ahead. “I thought you said the Red Sails would kill us all.”