12th of Eylestre, Continued

Denzig had been steaming north for several hours, stopping in the occasional village along his route to drop off and pick up parcels and special deliveries. Not only was he a decent human, he was conveniently heading the right direction, taking us closer and closer to the border with Altyr and away from the Magis of Vreis and their wanted person's bulletins, all at a speed we wouldn't have been able to travel on land.

That would end, quite possibly sooner rather than later. We were coming up on Vorrim, a town built around the restorative qualities of its hot natural baths and medicinal mineral tonics , or so quoth the River Destinations pamphlet that fell out of the maps packet I found in Denzig's kitchen. The mineral tonics and bathwater were hardly cause for concern. The star that designated Vorrim a Port Authority checkpoint was making my stomach churn.

I had made use of my time by figuring out Denzig's tiny bathing system, washing my hair and putting on a clean blouse and skirt. It felt strange to be doing normal things only a day after losing everything that had become normal, but my dirty clothes weren't doing me any favors, and becoming smelly wouldn't make a good impression on anyone. Bad impressions were generally a bad idea when trying desperately to hide.

Arramy, on the other hand, had done something actually useful. Typical.

When I came topside, he had just finished wiping down the forward railings and gunwales with riverman's wax and was gathering a collection of scrapers and rags into a tool bucket. He picked up the bucket and came ducking back along the narrow walkway between the wall of the pilot's nest and the side of the boat.

He paused when he saw me, his eyes finding mine for a moment before sliding down my person. Then he glanced away and edged around me. "You're looking a bit better."

"Thank you. I think." I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms over my chest. I hadn't grabbed my coat, and the air had a bite of winter to it, the scent of frost unmistakable in spite of the early afternoon sun peeking through the clouds overhead.

Arramy stowed the cleaning bucket in one of the deck lockers beneath the transom and turned back to face me.

A chilly breeze was teasing a few curls free of the combs I had tried to secure them with, and I lifted a hand, trying to snag them and tuck them back in. Arramy went still, watching me, and for some daft reason my heartbeat skipped a peg.

Again, he looked away, then went stumping past me and down the stairs into the hold. 

What had gotten up his nose? "You should probably take a turn in the bath closet," I called after him. "You smell like an jar of sealant."

A door opened below, releasing the sound of water already running in the tiny upright bathing stall beside the scullery. Arramy's brogue was ripe with sarcasm as he yelled back, "Why thank you, my dear! I never would have thought of that on my own."

I rolled my eyes and straightened, only to find Denzig giving me a knowing, cheeky grin through the aft window of the pilot's nest.

If I had to guess, I'd say he was buying our ruse.

Which meant that so far, we had convinced him we were a couple.

Oddly flustered by that thought, I wheeled around as though I had seen something interesting in the rocks on the riverbank. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt... whatever this strange tension was, this itch at the back of my mind shaped like Captain Rathe Arramy of the Coalition Navy.

No. I was going to slip up if I kept thinking like that. He had to be Kaen in my head. Kaen with the dark hair and the grey eyes and the fierce glower and the deep, raspy Northlander brogue. Kaen, who knew how to fix boat engines and wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. Kaen, who I was supposed to be convincingly in love with.

There it was again, that twist in my middle and the plunge in my heartbeat. I'll always come back for ya. 

I sank my teeth into the inside of my lip. It had never been like this with NaVarre. With NaVarre, I knew exactly where the lines were between fiction and reality. Pendar had been easy. I took her off and put her on. She was quite literally a face in a box, no more real than the Braeton pretense NaVarre wore to fool his elite friends.

With Arramy, all the lines were getting muddled and smudged. I couldn't quite figure out how to keep Larra safely in any sort of box. Larra was just little old me, and Kaen was just Arramy without the 'yes sir.' There were no masks to put on or take off. It was just the two of us, trying to survive the mess we were in.

I contemplated all of that, then heaved a sigh and sat down on the transom bench to wait. I was cold, but there was no way I was going down in the hold while Arramy... Kaen... was in that tiny bathing cupboard, soaking wet and clad in nothing but his own skin. He was so tall that the ridiculous little folding door probably wouldn't hide all that much.

And there went my face, right on cue, hot as a firepoker. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and muttered one of Arramy's favorite curse words under my breath.

~~~

An hour later, the beautiful oxidized green spires of Vorrim's hospital came into view as the limestone bluffs on our left gave way to the gently sloping bowl of a valley. The hospital campus itself rose in graceful lines above a sprawl of pre-war buildings that descended from the surrounding hills to a bustling wharf and quay along the edge of the river. The spires were followed shortly by the spine of butter-yellow girders that formed the Vorrim tollbridge and locks, spanning the broad mouth of the Second Pearl Lake, with the thick, bulky Port Authority towers on either end.

The Port Authority docks were marked by yellow and blue pennants, and there were several hundred boats already lined up, waiting to get the required stamp of approval before finding a berth in the Vorrim quays for the night, or continuing on into the Second Pearl.

I swallowed around a knot of worry and told myself not to fidget. We would get to the checkpoint when we got to the checkpoint. And then Marin's papers would get us through, or they wouldn't. It would be that simple. If our papers got us through Vorrim, they would get us through everywhere else. If they didn't get us through Vorrim... It wasn't too difficult to imagine how badly that could go. Arramy wasn't exactly the surrendering type.

The back of Denzig's head was all I could see of the man through the aft window as he brought us into line behind a coal barge. He was paying attention to what was going on up ahead, totally ignorant of the trouble that would land on him if this didn't work. If the Coventry found us on this boat, there was no way he wouldn't wind up dead.

I pressed my lips together and looked down at the deck boards beneath my boots. It was hardly fair. Having lived a lie and lived with liars, I could read them on other people, now. Things I never would have noticed before stood out like warning flags. The shift of the eyes when a story wasn't quite true. The little tick in the cheek when a person was trying not to look nervous because their lies had high stakes. The hitch in the breath when someone was trying to make you believe they were innocent. But there were no lies on this man. I hadn't known him more than half a day, but already I knew he was genuinely kind. Caring. A bit lonely, too, but most of all kind. Kind enough to help total strangers.

He was in his late sixties, perhaps, and his skin was a deep, rich, weathered Ronyran brown. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair cut severely short in the way of a man who values efficiency over appearance, but he still reminded me very much of my father. Worst of all, he trusted easily. Or didn't consider his own safety. One of the two. Both. My father wouldn't have asked questions either, and he also would have accepted Arramy's... Kaen's... story of a sick Altyran aunt at face value.

Unlike Denzig, though, my father had known what he was getting into.

I took a breath and let it out, absently flipping our Standing and Documentation binder over in my hands. We needed Denzig. The river was the safest way to travel, and the parcel quog was perfect. We wouldn't bump into Magis if we kept to the boat, and there weren't any other passengers to worry about. Denzig wasn't even asking for money, which was good since we had hardly anything left. If we did get through the Vorrim checkpoint, we would be free to go on up through the Second Pearl, the Third Pearl, and into the Fourth without running into any more trouble.

Assuming we made it through this checkpoint. Always, it boiled down to that.

Arramy came up from the hold, then, his coat slung over his shoulder, his dark hair sticking up in damp, unruly waves along the top of his head.

He was actually quite good looking. It wasn't anything like NaVarre's immediately obvious, magnetic kind of beauty. It was subtle, sinking in slowly, sneaking up on me, launching an ambush when I least expected it. When he smiled, for instance. Or put one long-fingered, tan hand on the lintel of the pilot's nest doorway and leaned inside to speak to Denzig. My gaze lingered before I could stop it, following the flex of his arm above his head and the way his back tapered from the breadth of his shoulders to a long waist and narrow hips.

A blush scalded my face when I realized what I was doing, and I yanked my gaze away, my heart thudding in my ribs. That had also not been a problem with NaVarre.

Arramy finished talking to Denzig, pushed away from the wall, and began pulling his coat on as he came around to face the aft end of the boat. His brow furrowed slightly when he saw me sitting on the transom bench. "Did you stay up here?"

I gave a haphazard shrug, face still flaming away. "The fresh air is nice." I hugged my arms around my middle, trying not to let my shivers show.

His studied me for a moment, then just shook his head and shrugged back out of his coat, coming to sit next to me. Without a word – without asking or offering – he draped his coat over my shoulders.

For some absurd reason, that rankled. "I'm fine, I don't want your —"

He planted one arm behind me, keeping me from shoving his coat back at him, then leaned in, his words warm against my neck as he whispered, "Denzig has a quick-process flag. We got bumped up the line... The Port Authority men are going to board in a few seconds. Your lips are blue and your hands are shaking. You think a freezing woman won't attract attention?"

I went still, my eyes flying to the rowboat approaching Number 47 from the shore. It was blue and yellow, and the men inside it were wearing blue roundtops, the yellow bars on the sleeves of their indigo jackets proclaiming them Port Authority Agent status.

Grimly, I pulled Arramy's... Kaen's.... coat closer around me. Then I handed him the binder. Once more, our fate hung on a single, slender thread, and everything depended on how well we played out parts.

A matter of seconds later, the Port Authority boat was alongside, and Denzig came out of the pilot's nest, that big smile making wrinkles around his eyes. "Ayo, Patharkos, how have you been?"

Patharkos – the first agent to climb over the gunwale – was a tall, portly gentleman about Denzig's age, who returned Denzig's cheerful handclasp with a chuckle. "Oh, fine and all, fine and all, can't complain, can't complain..." Patharkos stepped out of the way so his partner could come aboard, the five of us filling up the small aft deck.

"What's this, then, Den?" the partner asked, jerking his chin in our direction.

My fingers curled up tight around my thumbs beneath Arramy's coat, but I kept my face carefully neutral as Denzig turned his smile on us.

"That's Kaen Anderfield and his wife Larra. I'm taking them upriver to visit an aunt in Altyr."

Patharkos grinned and chuckled some more, but the partner gave us both a thorough once over as he took a step toward us. He held out his hand. "Papers please."

"Oh come now Groston, Den isn't going to be carting any of your Wanted Bulletin people," Patharkos started, but Arramy got to his feet.

He held out the binder. "It's alright, we've got nothing to hide."

For a half-second, Groston had to tip his head back to keep eye contact with Arramy, and I caught the flicker of alarm in his eyes as he took the binder. But then Arramy promptly sat back down, the moment passed, and Groston flipped the binder open.

I made myself smile a little when he glanced at my face, comparing me with Marin's papers. He spent a few minutes going through the rest of it, then folded it all back up and handed it to Arramy again. He cleared his throat. "Everything appears to be in order. Sir."

Six little words that made my blood start running again and my muscles loosen. My smile was just a touch more real when Denzig brought out his manifests and Patharkos signed off on his pass through the locks, keeping up a steady stream of chatter with Denzig while Groston took a look through the cargo bins in the forward hold.

And then they were gone, and Denzig pulled Number 47 out of line, steaming toward the quays.

He had deliveries to make and some cargo to load, and then we were going to stay in Vorrim for the night and cross the Second Pearl in the morning.

I glanced at Arramy. While Orrelian and Cog and all of those rescued slaves were being taken who knew where, somehow our little thread of safety had held true again.