The Cerulean (Untitled Duology, #1)(50)

“Hello,” she said. “I would like to book passage on your ship.”

“This is not a passenger ship,” the girl said in heavily accented Kaolish without looking up from her whittling. Her skin was freckled and sunburned, her thick auburn hair tied back in a loose braid. Agnes cursed herself for not saying hello in Pelagan.

“Se parakhair maitorese mi,” she said, and the girl looked up at the formal Pelagan apology. “It is of great importance that I get to Pelago as soon as possible.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. They were a gray as soft as a mourning dove’s wing but keen and full of suspicion. Agnes felt this was someone who had seen much over her short lifetime.

“A Kaolin lady who speaks Pelagan?” she said. She took a long drag of her cigarette. “Now that is not something one sees every day.”

“My mother taught me.”

The girl raised an eyebrow, her face skeptical. “That is a lie.”

Agnes flushed. “It was my chauffeur,” she admitted.

“And what does the lady’s parents think of a servant teaching their daughter such a heretical language?”

This really wasn’t the direction Agnes wanted the conversation to be going in, but she felt if she pushed her agenda too hard, the girl might balk.

“My mother was Pelagan,” she said. “But she died when I was born. My father . . . doesn’t know.”

The girl laughed at that, slapping her knee. “Good for you, Kaolin lady. A girl must have some secrets, right?” She winked and Agnes felt herself momentarily exposed, as if this girl could see right to the heart of her.

“Will you give me passage to Pelago then?” she asked. “I can pay.”

She held out the bag and the girl took it and peered inside.

“This is not enough to get you to Pearl Beach, much less across the Adronic to the great nation of islands,” she said, handing the bag back.

“How much would it take to get to Ithilia?” Agnes asked.

The girl’s eyes roved over Agnes’s body, taking in her fine dress, gold jewelry, and the little hat perched on her head. Everything about her screamed money, and this girl knew it.

“One thousand krogers,” she said.

“One th—have you lost your mind?” Agnes cried. “That’s highway robbery!”

The girl shrugged and stubbed her cigarette out on the bollard. “That is my price. Take it or leave it.”

Agnes was about to storm away when a thought occurred to her. She glanced at the empty ship and then back at the girl. “You aren’t the captain of this vessel, are you?”

The girl’s posture shifted slightly. “So?”

Agnes folded her arms across her chest. “I would like to speak to the person in charge, if you please. Perhaps we will be better able to negotiate a deal.”

At that, the girl stood. She was taller than Agnes had expected, and she wore supple leather boots, dark pants, and a black vest over a white shirt, a fang hanging from a leather strap around her neck. The overall effect was quite impressive.

“I am Vada Murchadha,” she proclaimed. “Daughter of Violetta, who is captain of the Maiden’s Wail, and I am charged with its protection until my mother and the crew return from their business outside this filthy city. So as far as this Kaolin lady should be concerned, I am the captain and I make the decisions.”

If they were going to be throwing around mothers, then two could play at that game. Agnes saw an opportunity and drew herself up, trying to imitate her brother’s swaggering arrogance as she said, “I am Agnes McLellan, daughter of Xavier McLellan and Alethea Byrne, and I demand you give me passage on the Maiden’s Wail so that I may return to my mother’s family in Pelago. You have heard of the Byrnes, I assume?”

Vada rolled her eyes. “Of course I have heard of the Byrnes. Who in Pelago has not? But you do not have the look of a Byrne.” She spit on the ground at Agnes’s feet.

“If you could see my brother, you would believe me,” Agnes grumbled. Goddamn Leo and his goddamn face.

Vada looked with exaggerated movements from left to right. “I see no brother,” she said.

“He isn’t here now, but—”

“Then you have no proof. Am I just to take your word?”

Agnes was beginning to feel helpless, and the worst part was that Vada seemed to be enjoying herself.

“Besides,” she continued, sitting back on the bollard and taking up her whittling, “I know how things work here. You need your papa’s permission for travel.” She looked from side to side again. “I also see no papa.”

“I did not think a Pelagan sailor would care a whit for Kaolin rules,” Agnes said. “I thought she would respect a woman’s right to do as she pleases.”

“Ah, but Kaolin women are not women. They are mice.”

Agnes bristled. “I’m no mouse. And I don’t think my grandmother would appreciate me being treated so rudely.” For the first time in her life, she prayed her father was right—that Ambrosine Byrne really was as intimidating as he had made her out to be.

Vada hesitated. Agnes could see her deliberating and held her breath.

“Eight hundred krogers,” she said.

“Five,” Agnes countered.

“Seven.”