Unraveled (Turner #3)(95)

Aboard a ship that was abandoned because it was too large to fit out of the locks.

“What do we do now?” Miranda asked.

“What do you think? I march on board and act like I know what I’m doing.” Jeremy strode forward.

Miranda followed. A rope ladder had been cast over the side of the ship. Jeremy caught one end and scampered up. Miranda climbed after him more slowly. When she reached the top, instead of starting down the middle of the deck as Jeremy did, she crouched off to the side.

The deck of the ship was punctuated by six great masts. In the middle, the dark, silent chimney of the funnel rose. And all around them were…were those things called hatches on a ship? Robbie would have known. Miranda shook her head.

There were two men on board, not just the one she’d seen earlier. Their burly forms huddled together; they watched Jeremy’s approach in tense anticipation.

Jeremy had a confident swagger to his step, and a commanding, cheerful ring to his voice.

“You’ve been expecting me, I imagine.”

“Sir.”

“Where are they, then?”

A murmured answer, too indistinct for Miranda to make out. Then Jeremy’s response floated back to her. “No. No need for any of that. Leave me the keys and get on with you. I’ll take it from here.”

Miranda held her breath and shrank back into the darkness on the edge of the ship. The men glanced at one another. Surely they had to hear the beating of her heart. But Jeremy betrayed not the slightest uneasiness. He held out his hand.

“The keys,” he said. “And the lantern. You know the Patron’s always intended to let them go. There will be riots if we don’t.”

Slowly the man extended his arm. Miranda heard a jingle of metal.

“Now away with you. You don’t want Lord Justice seeing your faces. He has a memory like a steel trap. He’ll never forget you.”

The watchman shook his head hastily, and the men decamped. Jeremy stood in the center of the ship, waiting, tossing the keys in the air. After the other men had disappeared, Miranda crept out to join him. The rain had turned to freezing slush. She could scarcely feel her hands through her gloves.

“Come on,” Jeremy said. “We haven’t much time.”

Chapter Twenty-four

THE SECOND LOCK AT the end of the room where Smite had found Patten proved harder to undo. The dim hint of light that filtered under the doorway made it all the more difficult. It made Smite want to rely on his eyes, when all he could see was shadow. Trapped with water nearby—he was glad to have something to do, just to distract himself.

He’d bent, crouching at the door, for the better part of half an hour. But it wasn’t the sound of pins falling into place that made him straighten and swear under his breath. It was the soft rhythmic tread of footfalls.

Beside him Dalrymple reached out and tapped his shoulder.

“We need to take them together,” Dalrymple whispered. “They won’t expect us to be here. The instant the door opens, we jump on them.”

Smite nodded.

“Patten,” Dalrymple whispered.

“Mmm.” The man, it turned out, was in chains. He could scarcely hobble.

“Stay back. If anything goes wrong, you’ll be able to claim you had nothing to do with this.”

“As if I would do anything so cowardly,” came the scornful response.

A key scraped in the lock. Smite’s muscles tensed, waiting. The door opened.

Dalrymple jumped ahead of him, screaming and flailing wildly. Smite couldn’t see anything—just a mess of tangled limbs, illuminated in the faint moonlight that spilled into the room.

He could see two silhouettes, and beyond them, a ladder leading up to salvation.

“Wait!” a familiar voice was saying.

“Smite!” called someone else. Miranda’s voice. It brought on a moment of panicked unreason, where he imagined the worst thing in the world—that he was trapped under rising water, and Miranda was with him. There were voices all about, people surrounding him. The incipient panic that he’d been suppressing broke, and he struck out wildly around him.

He had no notion of anything except that he must be choking on water. He was being restrained. Hands caught at his wrists. He fought back.

“Don’t touch him!” Miranda’s voice again.

He whirled about, but all was still.

“Good God, Turner,” Dalrymple said nearby. “What the hell was that?”

His knuckles hurt. For a moment there… They’d been in close quarters. He’d glanced ahead, and seen steep stairs leading up. So much like that cellar ladder. He took a deep breath.

“Everyone has moments of irrationality,” he said into the silence.

“You’re well?” That was Dalrymple’s dubious comment.

“I’ll feel substantially more at ease once I’m off this vessel.”

“Amen,” said a voice. It took Smite a few seconds to place it. Jeremy Blasseur. Miranda’s friend; the grandson of the Patron. He didn’t want to think what it meant, that her friend had been able to find them. He heard the sound of metal clinking.

Mr. Blasseur, apparently, had the keys to Patten’s chains.

“George,” he was saying, “I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I didn’t know what to do.”