Tress of the Emerald Sea (The Cosmere)(53)

Salay stopped, then walked back to Tress. “And you just manipulated me into telling you about our secret meeting! Damn you’re good.”

Tress sighed.

Salay held her eyes again. “Cold as ice. With a heart of unyielding steel.”

“Really?” Tress asked. “That’s what you get from my expression?”

“Indeed,” Salay said. “Behind the fake fear and confusion you’re trying to use to distract me. But I believe you on one thing: you’re no royal inspector.”

“Oh?”

“You’re far too clever for one of them,” Salay said. “You must be a King’s Mask!”

Oh. That explained everything. Or, Tress assumed it would, if she knew what on the twelve seas a “King’s Mask” was.

“Everyone knows the King’s Masks must lie when asked what they are,” Salay said, putting her hands on her hips. “To protect their secret missions. So I won’t try to get you to confirm it. Will you bring one of those cannonballs tonight?”

“If you think it will persuade the others,” Tress said, “then I will.” She wasn’t certain what any of them could do against someone like Crow, but it would be good to talk about the things she’d discovered.

“Great,” Salay said. “Meeting is in the quartermaster’s room after second evening mess, when night watch is called.” She started toward the door, then hesitated. “Please don’t assassinate anyone before then.”

With that, she was out the door. Tress sat back on her bed, stunned, as Huck emerged.

“So, King’s Mask, eh?” he said. “You sure had me fooled.”

“I—”

“That was a joke,” he said, nibbling on his stale bread crust again. “I’m guessing you don’t even know what they are.”

“Not a clue.”

“Secret assassin group,” Huck said. “Maintained by the king to carry out important missions. Supposedly, there are never more than five at a time. They are the elite of the elite.”

“And she thinks an eighteen-year-old girl happens to be one.”

“The Masks supposedly take youth potions to disguise their ages,” Huck said. “But…it’s possible they don’t really exist, and the king encourages the rumors to make people fear him.

“Don’t blame Salay. People on ships like this one hover at the edges of the law, even when they’re not pirates. Someone like Salay lives her entire life full of suspicion. She’s not dumb; she’s just not accustomed to dealing with someone so genuine. It’s like you speak an entirely different language.”

“I’ll need to convince her of the truth,” Tress said. “Somehow.” She found it physically painful to know someone thought she was an assassin.

“I don’t know if I’d go to that meeting, if I were you,” Huck said. “Captain Crow is suspicious of Salay and the others. I think she’s planning to kill them.”

“What? How do you know?”

“When I spied on them for you the other day? I caught a little bit about ‘secret meetings’ and ‘being rid of them finally.’ That was before they got to the juicy stuff I told you.”

That sounded bad to Tress, but also too vague. She stood up again, pacing through her small quarters, listening to the scrape of spores on the hull outside. “We don’t know enough, Huck. We don’t know why the captain wants to make the others into deadrunners. I mean, she wants to order them to do something dangerous, but why?”

“Yeah,” Huck said. “I’m baffled too. Reminds me of a friend of mine. He was a character, I tell you. Once, he was offered cheese—by the way, we don’t like cheese as much as people think. Wonder how the rumor started. Anyway—”

“I think,” Tress said gently, “we should stay focused, Huck. We need more information about the captain.”

Huck dropped his crust. “Okay, I suppose,” he said. “I mean, if you really want me to…”

Tress immediately felt guilty, remembering his earlier objections. She had no right to ask him to put his life in danger.

“Never mind,” she said, tucking an unruly strand of hair behind her ear. “I think there’s another way.” She looked in the secret compartment under the bed, then brought out the little box full of midnight spores.

“Tress…” Huck said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m completely out of my element, Huck,” she said. “I’m just a girl with a fondness for cups. I have no special training, no special experience. I can’t outmaneuver Crow unless I use the resources I have.” She held up the box. “My only real advantage seems to be the fact that I’m slightly less terrified of spores than everyone else.”

“Yeah, but midnight spores? Shouldn’t we…you know…work our way up to something like that? You don’t start by running a full regalthon. You jog a little first.”

“A what?”

“Regalthon,” he said. “Forty-mile race, held every year on the king’s birthday.”

“Forty miles?” Tress said, fishing in the various drawers in Weev’s cabinet. Hadn’t she seen a silver knife in here? “They’d run out of land and fall off the island if they raced that far. Do they go in circles?”