“Why not? You proved at Salamander Castle that you excel when properly motivated. This agreement may make you a more willing pupil. But, of course, our bargain will be binding only if you discover who killed Gabriel before I do.” He let this sink in. It wasn’t likely that Petra could beat Dee in a race where all of his connections and experience would give him more than a head start.
But Petra had what she wanted: a chance.
She nodded. The oarsman looked at her with disapproval, but Petra ignored him, and he didn’t say anything, because he was used to being ignored.
14
On the Ratlines
NEEL SPUN a little golden hoop between his fingers. He had stolen it in Sallay, along with a bolt of crimson cloth for Sadie.
On the night the Pacolet left Sallay, almost two weeks ago, Neel had eaten almonds until his stomach cramped. Today, looking at his sister’s red cloth made him feel even worse. He remembered their farewell. While the rest of the Lovari praised Neel’s theft from the Bohemian prince, Sadie had been silent and furious. When she finally spoke, it was to say that she was staying in Prague.
Neel had teased her. He sang songs about a castle stablehand who must have stolen her heart (he didn’t realize that he might have been singing the truth). She grew angrier and angrier until finally the very intensity of her emotion made her laugh.
She hugged him. In a low voice, she said, “If you had been caught, they wouldn’t have just killed you.”
Neel wished she were here, not holed up in Salamander Castle, smuggling messages through white traders the Roma trusted. He missed her. Sadie was good. A bright flame that made everyone around her glow.
Neel didn’t feel like a good person.
He opened the earring.
Then a pair of feet appeared on the ladder leading from the hatch in the ceiling.
“Neel, what are you doing down here?” demanded Nadia. “You should be working with the rest of us.”
“You should be working on catching Brishen’s eye, ’cause that’ll never happen on its own,” he sneered. He set the pointed end of the open hoop against his left earlobe.
“You’ll get an infection if you do it like that,” said Nadia.
He pushed the earring through. He heard as well as felt the tiny pop when it went through his flesh. He pinched the hoop closed, and blotted the blood between his thumb and forefinger. His earlobe throbbed, but he didn’t mind. It felt as angry as the rest of him.
“My fire’s burning just fine, so why don’t you mind yours,” Neel told Nadia, using the Lovari expression.
“The Maraki don’t have campfires. We live on ships.”
“I’m not Maraki, and you know what I meant.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was rough in that way that some people have when the only way they can apologize is to harden themselves first. “I’m sorry for what I said the night before we reached Sallay. I didn’t mean it. It doesn’t matter who’s in which tribe. We’re both Roma.” She sat down on the hammock next to Neel’s. “I know what your problem is.”
He kept his expression carefully blank.
“It’s him,” said Nadia.
Neel collapsed into his hammock and covered his face. “I hate him,” he groaned.
“Then why is he on this ship? You’re the one who made us keep him.”
Neel knew that, and didn’t understand why all of his reasons for doing so now seemed pale and insignificant next to his resentment. It hadn’t been right to sell Tomik as a slave, and Neel could work with the gadje if he had to, just like when the two of them had plotted out the scrying in Sallay. But now this handsome white outsider, who also happened to be Petra’s oldest friend, was here to stay—and, to Neel’s dismay, Tomik had become the darling of the Pacolet.
At least Nadia didn’t seem too keen about him. “If I go on deck,” he asked her, “will you leave me alone?”
“Yes.” She reached into Tas’s kit and pulled out a bottle.
“What’re you—”
“Hold still,” she ordered, seizing Neel’s head. “Or you really will get an infection.” She uncorked the bottle with her teeth and poured alcohol on his ear.
He shrieked.
IT MIGHT BE SURPRISING that Tomik was a favorite aboard the Pacolet. After all, its sailors had been ready to sell him into slavery, and their captain was disgusted with him. Even as Treb set the course for England, he complained to anyone who would listen that the gadje had screwed up the scrying, and that if they were chasing a phantom instead of the Celestial Globe, it was all Tomik’s fault. But from the first day that Morocco disappeared on the horizon, the Maraki adored Tomik with that easy feeling that comes from being relieved of guilt.
They also saw that Tomik was dedicated. He learned Romany more quickly than anyone would have guessed. He studied the parts of the ship, and never stopped asking questions. At first the Maraki pretended to be annoyed by this, but they soon gave in to feeling flattered.
Tomik’s sunburn darkened into a tan, his hair was streaked into an even brighter gold, his laugh was open, and he seemed to have forgotten that the sailors had once been his captors. The only person Tomik avoided was Neel, which everyone thought was strange, since Neel had raged at, badgered, and insulted the Maraki into keeping him.
The Pacolet had left the Loophole Beach families in Sallay to make their own way in life, since independence was important to the Roma and the ship had been a temporary (and cramped) solution to their problems. Neel and Tomik then became the youngest people on board, if only by a couple of years. It is perhaps natural, then, that Tomik became the pet of the Maraki, who showed him the same affection they would have toward a puppy taking its wobbly steps.
It didn’t occur to Neel that he himself was treated differently because the Maraki considered him an equal.
While Neel was below deck, slapping the bottle out of Nadia’s hand and cursing her, Tomik was making a discovery.
There was little wind that day. After the Pacolet had left Morocco, it sailed west past the Canary Islands. The ship would eventually turn to the northeast and England, but not before it had sailed far out into the Western Ocean. This route meant that the Pacolet could take advantage of good currents and the trade winds, which made the journey faster. But you can’t trust the wind. It has its lazy days just like the rest of us.
Tomik had little to do. He stood next to the railing, sweat trickling down his back. He was hot and bored. He had offered to fish with the Maraki who weren’t working the sails, but they had waved him away, telling him to take a nap in the shipmates’ cabin. Tomik left them, but he didn’t go below deck. That’s where Neel was. Tomik looked at the empty blue sea and wondered what to do.