Passenger (Passenger, #1)(21)

“I’d imagine not,” said Nicholas crisply as he turned. “I will make your excuses at meals.”

“You must love this,” Sophia snapped. “How quickly the worm has come to try to inch its way back in. If I had known it’d be you, I’d never have agreed to this!”

They know one another, Etta realized. She looked between their faces—the obvious hatred on Sophia’s, the careful impassivity on Nicholas’s—and wondered how it was even possible.

“If you need something from the surgery or the galley,” Nicholas continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “please let one of the boys know. They’ll fetch it for you.”

“Not playing the servant today, are you?” Sophia taunted.

At the rear of the ship where they stood were three doors. Nicholas opened the first one on the right, and Etta recognized the cramped space as the one she’d burst out of. Rather than let the two girls walk in, he glanced around, as if checking to make sure no one was in earshot. They were alone, save for the young sailor on his knees, carefully scrubbing the deck with a stone.

“It’s my understanding,” he said, his voice low, “that you knew a ship would be intercepting yours. Is that correct?”

Etta gaped at him. No, they hadn’t known that. An hour ago—wait, how long had it been since they were in the museum?

“Grandfather is clearly losing his mind in his advanced years,” Sophia said, “to have trusted you.”

“Perhaps it was desperation that forced him to appoint you,” Nicholas said. “I have been tasked with bringing you to New York, and as far as I am concerned, that is the beginning and end of our business.” He glanced over their shoulders, toward the forecastle. “To avoid unnecessary questions, the other men should see this as nothing more than a regular prize we’ve captured. Do you take my meaning?”

New York? Etta thought. The two words teased out a tiny bit of hope from the tangled mess of the day.

“What would happen if the truth did slip out, I wonder?” Sophia asked, all sweetness. “What would the crew think of you, risking their lives for a reward they’ll never see?”

Something about those words fractured the control over his temper that he’d clearly been wrestling to maintain. Nicholas’s arm lashed out, his palm slapping against the wood beside her head. He had loomed over Sophia at his full height, but now he stooped to stare her directly in the eye. “Disparage me all you like, Miss Ironwood, spit out every vile curse you can think of at me—but if you threaten my livelihood again, know that there will be consequences.”

Ironwood?

Sophia didn’t so much as flinch. She brushed the threat away with a smirk, sickly green face and all. Nicholas shifted back, eyes flickering with a fire that seemed to burn to his core. In the silence that followed, with only the rhythm of the creaking bones of the great ship to mark time, Etta realized what she’d just witnessed, what the girl had found: a weapon to slice open old wounds.

If this was Sophia weak from seasickness, then she was mildly terrified of what the girl would be like at full steam.

Torn between letting the conversation continue, perhaps with more useful information, and watching them spar, Etta dug the dull edge of the knife against her thigh again, and breathed in the cold, briny air.

“We understand,” Etta said finally. “Thank you.”

It had the effect she’d hoped for, drawing Nicholas’s attention back toward her.

He gave a curt nod. “I will have dinner sent to your cabins. Rest well, Miss Spencer.”

Etta nodded, keeping her eyes on the toes that peeked out from beneath her dress. Nicholas moved toward the steps, and the air and smoke around them shifted, the skin at the back of her neck prickling with awareness as his eyes combed over her one last time.

When the sound of his feet on the stairs disappeared, Etta whirled to face the girl beside her. “What the hell is going on?”

Sophia sagged against the wall, the back of her hand pressed against her lips. At Etta’s words, her face drew up. “Don’t breathe another word until I say so, otherwise I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Etta pushed the cabin door open again, and stepped inside with her fingers around the warm metal of the knife.

“Tell me who you are,” she demanded. There was a small porthole window in the wall, but the light that filtered in was minimal. Sophia bent on unsteady legs to lift a metal lantern onto a small desk.

Etta shifted, trying to get some distance from the smell of vomit and Sophia’s cold, assessing gaze. She wanted her back to the door—if this took an ugly turn, she could get herself out and lock Sophia in.

The girl sat heavily on the edge of the built-in bunk, drawing a bucket over to herself with her foot. “Damned ship, damned traitor, damned task—”

“Tell me!” Etta said. “How did we get here—and where is here? And who are those people?”

“I shouldn’t tell you anything after that truly breathtaking display of stu—” Sophia heaved slightly. “Stupidity.”

“You pushed me,” Etta said, letting her words rage on. “You did something to me—you brought me here!”

“Of course I pushed you.” Sophia sniffed. “You were as slow as a cow. We would have been there for ages, you crying all over yourself like a fool. I did us both a favor.”