Brightly Burning(52)

“This isn’t over, Mr. Fairfax. Sleep tight.”

I shivered while Hugo seethed all the way to the outer bay, where we watched Mason depart. Questions bubbled onto my tongue, but I didn’t let them escape. The moment was wrong, with Hugo wound tight and likely to snap. Such a different mood from a few hours ago. We were less than fifty feet from the storage room, where a stolen moment in the dark had made my insides writhe. Now all that coursed through me was apprehension.

“I’ll see you to your quarters.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“I insist.”

We didn’t speak in the elevator, or in the icy blue lower-deck hallway. I walked slowly, forcing Hugo to keep my pace, working my way up to the right moment. It didn’t come. I asked anyway.

“Who attacked Mr. Mason?”

“Nobody attacked him.”

“Then what happened?”

“He fell. Down the stairs.”

“Which stairs?”

“To the upper deck.”

I didn’t believe a word of it. His answers were too quick. I felt sick at the fact he was lying to me. Keeping secrets. The hallway widened, bringing us to a stop at the crew corridor.

“And why did he come in the first place?”

Hugo sighed. “A surprise inspection.”

That, I could tell, was the truth. I opened my mouth, ready to ask a follow-up or three, but Hugo stopped me.

“I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you are too. It’s nearly three. Good night.”

“Night,” I said a moment later, into the dark space where Hugo used to be.


I awoke confused.

Thankfully it was the weekend, so I had no class with Jessa, leaving me to do some sleuthing. I waited until long after breakfast, until Lizzy and Preity headed for the drawing room to tend to their ladies, finally up and past their hangovers, so that their fun could start all over again. The sweet spot was the hours before dinner, while everyone was busy drinking and gossiping. No one would see me exploring the upper deck.

I’d passed it dozens upon dozens of times. The elevator and the staircase were just to the right of the bridge, but I’d never ventured there. I was a rule follower, and no one had given me permission to go above decks. I’d heard it called cold storage, though that’s what they called the library, too, so who knew what secrets were up there? And if Mason fell down the stairs, the place where he’d fallen had to have been here. I’d checked the only other stairs on board—?aft, leading down to Deck Three; and forward, leading into Jessa’s quarters. Neither held evidence of a fall or injury.

The foot of the stairs to the upper deck was clear too. Still, I ventured up, willing some bloodstain to appear. I wanted what Hugo had said to be true. I climbed up the winding stairs until I came to the top of what should have been the landing. In front of me was a haphazardly erected barrier, old ship parts piled on top of one another and fused into a makeshift barrier. It was bizarre. Why would someone block up the stairs like this?

A high-pitched giggle floated up to my ears. Bianca. I crept back down to the bend in the stairs, keeping just out of sight.

“While I’m perfectly happy to have you as my neighbor, I don’t get why you don’t sleep in the captain’s quarters,” Bianca said.

“I prefer my old room is all.”

She was talking to Hugo. Of course.

“You were always too modest.” A pause. “Come on. Take me up there, for old times’ sake.”

“There’s nothing to see up there. I don’t see the point.”

“The point is that I’m asking.”

Silence. Then Hugo spoke. “Rori, unlock the elevator.” The doors dinged open a moment later.

I rushed back up the stairs to the barrier, pressing my ear against a metal fixture that likely used to be the hatch of a shuttle. A moment later, I heard the muffled rush of the elevator opening, Bianca and Hugo stepping out. I pictured a corridor, gunmetal gray with a pop of pastel from Bianca’s dress and heels.

“I want to go in—”

“No.”

I imagined Hugo’s face as stony as his tone, Bianca pouting.

“Why not?”

“I always keep it locked. No one goes inside.”

“Hugo, you have to get over this. You’ll have to go in there eventually. When . . .”

She drifted off. I pressed harder into the barrier, ear stinging cold from the metal. Did she touch him? Kiss him? I couldn’t hear anything. Then, a scoff.

“What? When you marry me? Cool your heels, B; it’s not your ship yet. Rori, elevator open.”

Thankfully the ding covered the happy laugh that slipped from my lips. Hugo putting Bianca in her place was the best entertainment I’d had in weeks. I supplemented the lack of visuals with a scene in my mind of Bianca’s face colored bright red, shooting daggers with her eyes.

I waited for the elevator to deliver them downstairs, and for them to wander in the direction of the dining room, where drinks started pouring at seventeen hundred hours. I crept down the stairs, rounding on the elevator and trying my luck.

“Rori, can you open the elevator doors?”

“You are not authorized to access this elevator,” she said, monotone as ever, yet I swore I detected an undercurrent of judgment. “I’m sorry, Stella.” I was imagining sympathy now too.