Nicholas had worked hard to earn back the trust of Chase and Hall after abandoning them for false promises and hollow revelations. Hall had done everything in his power to dissuade him from leaving with Ironwood, and Nicholas had waved away his every concern like a fool.
“Why the thirtieth?” he asked again. “What is so important about that date?”
“It is merely a deadline,” Cyrus said, “to hold the girl accountable.”
The old man never did anything without a reason. There was something important here that he was withholding, but the man’s chosen currency was secrets. Nicholas wasn’t sure he was willing to trade to find out what this one was.
“Say yes, Nicholas,” Cyrus coaxed, holding out a hand.
Did it matter so much? Nicholas saw the future he’d built during all of these years, and it was resting in the old man’s calloused palm. He only had to agree. A few words to seal that fate…
Perhaps they were more alike than he’d care to admit.
“I need this in writing—a proper contract,” Nicholas heard himself say.
The old man’s eyes lit up. “I’ve already taken care of it. There’s a copy for you to keep.”
The contract was waiting in his trunk, along with a ballpoint pen for signing. It had been so long since Nicholas had used one of them, the weight felt unfamiliar in his hands as he brought the metal tip to the parchment. He felt sick to his stomach reading through the terms. The old man had known he’d be weak enough to give in—should he have put up more of a fight? Were there better terms to be had?
“Good man,” Cyrus said, taking one copy and folding it neatly into thirds, and held out his hand. Nicholas gave it a brief, firm shake, and felt the burn of it as if he’d taken the devil’s hand, still warm from the fires of hell. Cyrus continued. “You’ll leave tomorrow with the girl, just as soon as she has deciphered the next clue.”
Nicholas nodded, a stone lodged in his throat.
Forgive me, Mother, he thought, taking his leave as quickly as possible. I will do what I must.
He was not doing this to take up the Ironwood name, to stay within a family that had never wanted him in the first place. He was not doing this to take up the life of a traveler again, or to see beyond the horizon of his natural years. He was not doing this for a girl who would never truly belong to him. He was doing this for his future. For Julian’s memory.
He would master his feelings.
He would see this arrangement through.
And he would close this chapter once and for all.
NICHOLAS WALKED.
For miles, heading nowhere in particular, he walked for what felt like hours, trying to force his legs to grow reacquainted with the steadiness of land. He carried only his freedom papers in his coat pocket and the money Ironwood’s man had provided for bringing Sophia and Etta to New York—neither of which he was foolish enough to leave behind at the tavern. He passed the time under an unusually cloudless sky, as night edged into the earliest morning hours and the world slowly began to lighten around him. And when those thoughts wove into a long, dangerous rumination on the color of Etta’s eyes in comparison to that same faint blue, he turned his mind back to another unwelcome task: mentally composing his letter to Chase. Dear friend, you were right. I’ll be very late seemed too short, and would give his friend far too much to crow about; but I must venture through time with the pirate queen would be met with confusion, and fear for Nicholas’s mind.
I’ve further business to attend to here in New York. I’ll be in New London by the start of November. That was better.
He felt a pang at the thought of the others sailing without him. But you’ll be sailing on your own ship soon enough, he thought. What would Hall think of him, knowing he’d thrown in his lot with Ironwood again? Nicholas couldn’t imagine better business partners than Chase and Hall—perhaps they would come to see reason once they took a look at the plantations’ ledgers?
The road rose and fell beneath him, riddled with puddles of stale, festering water and sun-roasted mounds of animal droppings, as he passed fields of crops and country homes. It remained empty as he turned back in the direction of the Dove and the Royal Artillery Park.
He knew a hanging would take place within hours. A spy had been caught behind enemy lines, and this was the natural outcome; it was a testament to how rattled he was by Ironwood that he felt the old, foolish guilt come creeping into his heart. A man was set to die, and none of them had done a thing to stop it. If he knew them at all, both Cyrus and Sophia would take in the execution as spectators, and add it to the tally of noteworthy events they’d witnessed.
If Nicholas had not looked up from the mud, he might have missed the distant, dark streak that crossed the road as it blazed a path toward the Royal Artillery Park. A swirl of sapphire fabric, long gold hair braided like a rope down her back—
He took off at a run, cursing. Veering off the road, he followed the tracks that led into a cluster of nearby trees, behind what must have been the officers’ quarters. The air smelled of wet animals, gunpowder, men—all evidence of the camp nearby.
“Miss Spencer!” he hissed into the silence. The river rose up before him, a glimmering line of blue waiting to be lit by the sun. Where had she gone? Had it been a trick of the mind?
No—he found the trail of footprints again. Ironwood had been right after all; Etta was attempting to trick him, in this case by leaving under the cover of night without his knowledge. No doubt in possession of the actual meaning of her mother’s letter as well.
As he pushed forward, a crackle of power snapped against his skin. He knew that sensation. The passage was no longer singing in his ears, but there was a powerful hum below the quiet chatter of birds: a faint burning hiss that reminded him of the moment after a flash of lightning appeared over the sea. Of the rare white-blue lights that sometimes danced upon the masts and sails.
The entrance to the passage was a glimmering wall ahead, just at the edge of where the land met the river. It was still rippling, as if someone had only just passed through it.
“Bloody fool,” he breathed out, rubbing a hand over his head to force down the fear. For a moment, he was at a loss as to how to proceed. There wasn’t time to go back to the tavern to collect the rest of his belongings. She could fully escape, or, worse, be injured or killed in the time it took him to return to the Dove and tell Ironwood what had happened.
Nicholas shook his head. The old man had given him explicit instructions to gain the girl’s trust and return with the astrolabe by any means, both of which seemed impossible if he were to fetch her back. She would doubt his motivations when he needed her full confidence. And he couldn’t predict what punishment Ironwood might levy on her, her mother, or both, for this.
He had signed Ironwood’s contract, and both he and Ironwood knew his punishment for failure; Nicholas would have to trust that the old man would recognize the truth of what had likely happened when he woke in a few hours to find them both gone. Besides, in the end, all that mattered to the old man was that they returned with the astrolabe in hand. What was it that Julian had always said? Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
His brother was still on his mind as he took a deep breath and walked steadily toward the passage, trying to quell his wariness as he approached. How long had it been since he’d felt a passage enclose his skin, his bones, crush the air from his lungs? Longer than a year. Long enough to force him to take a deep, steadying breath.