Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [33]
Or perhaps the woman was simply watching the aerial acrobats.
He saw them now, swooping their gliders around The Grecian Queen. Two of the four broke their arrow formation and spiraled upward, before dipping back around the Queen in a long, looping dive. Late for practice, but some of the troupes that traveled the North Sea guarded new maneuvers as carefully as state secrets, to build anticipation for their shows.
As skilled as they were, these acrobats would be nothing compared to some of the spectacles the woman saw in Temür Agha’s court.
He looked toward the west end of the docks. She wasn’t there. His heart seized, but he didn’t dare poke his head up over the crates. He waited, stiff with tension. Footsteps approached on the boards. Not the assassin. He wouldn’t hear her.
A sailor swaggered into view, with a satisfied puff to his chest that told Archimedes he’d spent time in the bawdyhouse or a serving girl’s bed.
Archimedes cleared his throat as the sailor passed. “Do you see a woman in a black djellaba? A Musulman’s robe,” he clarified when the sailor simply looked at him.
Recognition lit the man’s eyes. “I saw her. A pretty little raven. She turned onto the north dock.”
Away from them. Thank God. Archimedes tossed the sailor a gold sous and took off at a run.
That silver-tongued bastard.
Blissed and spinning, Yasmeen kicked out four times before her foot connected with the wardrobe lever. She felt total shit: cotton-mouthed, feverish as hell, her lungs aching. She didn’t trust her legs to stand. Opium had never affected her like this before—and it wasn’t the first time she’d taken two darts in less than an hour. But her head wouldn’t clear. Her eyes burned. She smelled smoke.
Smoke?
“Captain?”
The voice echoed in her head. Yasmeen struggled to her knees, fell against the hideaway doors. They slid open, vomiting her onto the cabin floor. The pattern on the rug beneath her cheek blurred. The edges of her vision narrowed, darkened.
“Captain! You have to come!”
Strong hands grabbed her wrists. Wool burned across her back, and Yasmeen recognized Ginger, blood dripping from a gash on her forehead, cheeks wet with tears.
Dragging her toward the door . . . because there’d been smoke.
Oh, Lady. No.
Viciously, Yasmeen bit her own tongue. Blood flooded her mouth. Clarity flooded her mind. She pushed her feet under her. Ginger hauled her up.
“I’m up.” And steady enough. “To the bell, girl. Wake the crew!”
The girl shook her head, more tears spilling. Her tunic was soaked in blood, Yasmeen realized. Too much to only come from the cut on her head. “They’re dead, Captain. They’re all dead.”
“What? How?” Had the boiler exploded? Without waiting for an answer, she raced for the corridor. Her feet slipped just outside her cabin door. Her hands slapped against the bulkhead, and she caught herself before—
Oh, God. Sarah. Thema. The two girls lay in the passageway, throats slit.
Yasmeen stared, horror and disbelief filling her stomach with bile. Behind her, Ginger’s chest heaved on a wretched sob.
Hardening herself against the sight, the sound, Yasmeen drew her pistols. “Who did it?”
“I didn’t see. I ran to your quarters. They hit me coming through.”
They. Yasmeen stopped breathing and listened. No steps. No sounds but a deep crackling. “Are they still here?”
“I don’t think so. I closed the ladders to the lower decks, Captain, and cut off the air. But she’s burning down below.”
Burning. The word slashed across Yasmeen’s heart, but she forced herself not to feel it. “Take a glider, Ginger. Go to Vesuvius. Tell Mad Machen everything you know.”
“But—”
Yasmeen turned, looked at the girl.
Ginger’s mouth snapped closed, and she nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
By the time the girl unhooked the glider from the bulkhead, Yasmeen had searched the remaining cabins on the deck. Not one of her aviators had been caught in bed. Though some were in their smallclothes, each had daggers in their hands or guns at their sides.
They were all dead.
The iron