Chapter 5

Janie looked at herself in the mirror. She barely recognized the person she saw.

Her had been styled with hot metal rods and some kind of light, fragrant oil that held it’s shape as it dried. It had taken a while, sitting there and letting Tonya do who-knows-what to it. Then Tonya had put makeup on her and helped her pick out an outfit from a communal closet. After all that work she could finally see it all. Her hair tumbled to in loose flowing waves. A small black hat with a white band was pinned into place at a jaunty angle. A lightweight mesh veil of white lace covered the top half of her face. Makeup gave her a smoky, upswept look that turned her eyes into dark pools behind the veil. Her lips were painted with a deep red stain, like she’d eaten too many cherries. A ribbon of white was tied around her slender throat.

She wore her white bustier, with nothing to cover it but a gauzy black shawl that was nearly as see-through as her veil pulled around her shoulders. A long flowing skirt cinched around her waist. It was made of ruffled layers of thin black material that was gathered all the way up to the hip on her right side, revealing her white stockings and part of her shapely thigh.

“I don’t know about this,” she said. “Can’t I at least have a blouse?”

“Well you could, but that booster thing is just too fantastic not to show off,” Tonya said from the bed behind her.

“Bustier,” Janie corrected.

“Boosty-aye?” Tonya said, sounding it out to make sure she had it right.

“That’s right,” Janie said over her shoulder.

“Well, it certainly does make you boosty-aye,” Tonya snickered, eyeing Janie’s impressively accentuated chest.

“I feel like I’m naked,” Janie grimaced.

“If you saw another woman dressed the way you are, what would you think?” Tonya asked.

“That she needed to put on some clothes,” Janie snorted.

“In a place like this?” Tonya laughed. “You’re going to be practically overdressed.”

“It was not my idea to come here,” Janie retorted.

“Would you rather just hide here in the room?” Tonya asked. “You said you didn’t want to be alone.”

“Can’t I ... do something that doesn’t involve dressing like this?” Janie asked.

“Well, there’s kitchen work. I don’t recommend it,” Tonya shrugged.

“Why not?” Janie asked.

“Because new kitchen staff are put on potato and dish duty. Feel like eight or ten hours of peeling potatoes and washing pots and pans?” Tonya asked.

Janie shrugged. “I’ve worked in kitchens before. All the Acolytes had to take a turn once a month.”

“Well, it’s an option. Or you could actually enjoy your night,” Tonya said. “It’s up to you.”

“When I mentioned the possibility of disguise, this was not what I had in mind,” Janie looked at herself in the mirror again. She had to admit, she liked the outfit. She just didn’t like the idea of everyone seeing her in it.

“What’s a disguise for?” Tonya asked with one eyebrow arched.

“Not being recognized,” Janie said incredulously.

“Who do you think is going to recognize you?” Tonya laughed.

The incorrigible young woman had a point. Her face was made up in a way that drastically changed her appearance, and it was half covered too. Her outfit was eye catching, but fit right in with what the other people working wore. “Probably no one,” she admitted.

“Who’s going to be looking at your face anyway?” Tonya snarked.

Janie looked down at her breasts. They certainly did stand out. “I’ve spent my life trying to dress in ways that avoided exactly that sort of attention.”

“And you still can. Tonight it’ll be like you’re a different person. We’re even going to come up with a different name for you,” Tonya said. “What do you think?”

The idea had its appeal. She had to admit that she actually did like the idea of so many eyes on her. She just didn’t want them to know who she really was. The fantasy was exciting, but the reality scared her. If anyone recognized her she’d never be able to live it down.

Did it matter? She was going to leave this place anyway. Will would come back, and then she would be swept away on a ship into some grand adventure.

She scoffed at herself and rolled her eyes.

“What?” Tonya asked.

“I’m thinking like a ridiculous schoolgirl with a head full of nonsense,” Janie said bitterly.

“Oh, that’s good. Listen to your inner schoolgirl,” Tonya grinned.

“Why?” Janie asked, genuinely confused.

“Because she hasn’t forgotten how to hope,” Tonya shrugged.

Janie stared at the mirror, lost in thought. Was this what hope felt like? Was this what hope looked like? Was this what a schoolgirl’s dreams turned into? An unrecognizable harlot in the mirror?

It really was a good disguise and the idea of pretending to be one of Mary’s girls for a night was a bit exciting. Far more that peeling potatoes, at the least.

On the other hand, she didn’t know if the person she saw in the mirror was the person she wanted to be. Her family would be horrified at her. Prelate Alexandra would never approve. All the other Scribes and Guards would judge her horribly, save for Thomas.

Thomas would ask her if she was alright.

Her eyes narrowed. She did not care about the opinions of any of them, save for Thomas. Once she explained everything to him, he’d think it was hilarious. He’d never think less of her for this.

“Alright,” she nodded.

Tonya clapped her hands. “Oh good! What made up your mind?”

“Anyone who’d think less of me for dressing this way isn’t someone who really cares about me in the first place. They’re just wanting me to be someone who does what she’s told,” Janie said with a small shrug.

Tonya nodded. “That’s true. Just remember that anyone who thinks more of you for dressing this way doesn’t really care about you either. They’re just wanting to see you on display.”

“Didn’t you want to see me on display? This was your idea,” Janie said with a bit of reprimand in her voice.

“Yes, but I wouldn’t have thought less of you for saying no,” Tonya shrugged. “It’s only fun if you decide that it’s what you want.”

“You remind me a lot of Bella,” Janie said, smiling even though her eyes suddenly felt misty.

“I’ll never get tired of hearing that,” Tonya grinned, hopping off the bed and coming closer to hold Janie’s hands. “So what do you want your disguise name to be.”

“Evangelina,” Janie said with a devilish look in her eye.

“Well that’s a fancy name,” Tonya said with a small snicker.

“Only my mother and my grandfather call me that,” Janie said with a small glare. “I hate it.”

Tonya laughed. “Your inner schoolgirl is a rebellious little thing, isn’t she?”

“She is now,” Janie said. She lifted her chin, looked at herself in the mirror and loved the person looking back.

Will was sweating profusely.

The galley was not a fun place to be. The stove had to be kept well-stoked to heat the kettles so they could wash the dishes that had accumulated. The Galley was little more than a wide hallway lined floor-to-ceiling with cupboards and drawers on one wall, and a long work table and a two-oven stove along the other. Against the back wall was a large sink with a single porthole window above it. The porthole was open, but between the ambient humidity, the heat of the oven, and the steam from the boiling kettle, the small space was still sweltering.

Will, Jack and Lace were packed into the room working at getting all the day’s dishes cleaned. It was hard work. They scraped at cat iron pots with dirty rags, wooden scrapers, and even with a metal wire brush that looked like it had been stolen from a blacksmith shop.

Will pushed his wet hair back and out of his face for the fiftieth time, envying Jack’s braid. The two of them were shoulder to shoulder at the sink, scrubbing at the endless pile of pots and pans. At least she was suffering too, he scowled. Her face was bright red. He beige shirt was soaked through and clinging to her body. Will could clearly make out the curves of her breasts and the dents her nipples made in the fabric. A few loose strands of her long brown hair were stuck to the side of her face. The force with witch she was scrubbing a cookpan was causing her whole body to shake in ways that were very hard not to watch.

“Make way,” Lace growled from behind them. Will and Jack leaned to opposite sides, putting their shoulders against the wall as Lace unceremoniously poured another kettle full of boiling water into the sink. Another plume of steam billowed up. Will sighed.

“I thought it was normal to do dishes after each meal,” Jack muttered, passing the cookpan she was working on over her shoulder.

“Normally, it is,” Lace said, taking it back to the rinsing and drying station she’d set up. “Today wasn’t a normal day. The whole crew was working on splicing ropes so I can secure Sterling’s stupid boats.”

“Of all the days to volunteer for dish duty,” Jack sighed, tugging at her sopping shirt. “I wore the wrong clothes for this.”

“Turn around,” Lace said.

Jack turned and waited, not sure what wa about to happen.

“Unbutton your shirt,” Lace said.

Will slowly turned his head, his curiosity suddenly piqued. Lace’s hand grabbed him by the back of his skull and turned his head back the other way. “Eyes front, dish-swab,” she said flatly.

There was a rustling of wet fabric. “Alright, now pull your arms free and tuck the sleeves under them, here,” Lace said.

“Ugh, it’s sticking to me,” Jack said in a disgusted tone. There was some pulling and wet tugging.

“Now gather it all, fold the bottom up over the top and around again into a roll, and tie the whole thing in front,” Lace said. There were more wet fabric sounds. Will had been absently washing the same pan since Jack had turned around.

“Oh, I see. That’s much better,” Jack said. Will turned to look again. Lace gave him an arch look. Jack had taken of her shirt, rolled it into a narrow band, and tied it across the front of her chest. It looked a bit like the red sash thing Lace wore across her own chest, save that the sleeves of Jack’s shirt hung down her front, and her chest was quite a bit larger than Lace’s. Still, she wasn’t quite endowed enough that the makeshift halter top didn’t work.

Jack looked at Will as he looked at her. She put her hands on her hips and waited for him to see enough. Their eyes met for a moment. He was keeping his face deliberately expressionless. She was not. Sardonic was the word that came to Will’s mind to describe her expression. He turned back to the pan he hadn’t ever stopped scrubbing.

“I think that one is clean,” Jack said, an amused expression on her face. Wordlessly he handed it back to Lace. She glanced between the two of them, then took the pan and left.

They worked in silence for a time, then Jack managed to drop a large cast iron pan. She’d grown up with servants, so in spite of having broken away from that and developed her own independence and and impressive skill set of survival skills, she didn’t have a lot of experience with basic household tasks like washing dishes. Little things, like washing pan under the water rather than balancing them on the edge of the sink like one might do with a plate, were completely foreign to her.

The plume of water that exploded up from the sink when the iron pan slipped soaked them both. Will stopped what he was doing, wiped away the soap from his face and turned to look at Jack. She gave him an appropriately shocked look that quickly faded to embarrassment as water dripped from her face. Behind them Lace started laughing. Jack did too after a moment.

“This is a profoundly humbling experience,” Jack muttered.

“Here, switch with me. You still look like a drowning rat,” Lace snorted. The two women did an awkward shuffle around each other, jostling Will a bit. He leaned to the side again to give them room. Lace stepped in and pulled a pan out of the steaming, soapy tub. Her tight braids and penchant for not wearing much was serving her well here. Her upper body glistened, but she didn’t look half as miserable as Jack had, and Will still did. The red band tied across her chest didn’t retain much water.

Deciding he’d had enough, Will peeled his shirt off and hung it from one of the many hooks in the ceiling that were normally reserved for large pots. Lace eyed him a bit with an amused look on her face, taking note of the sprawling treasure map tattooed on Will’s chest and back, then went back to scrubbing her pot.

There was a clatter behind them. Lace spun. Will just looked over her shoulder. Jack was standing, bracing herself on the wall as a dozen pots and pans finished falling out of a cupboard and skidded to rest on the floor. Lace winced in sympathy. Will really tried not to laugh. Jack glared at both of them.

“This entire setup is miserable!” Jack spat, her embarrassment finally becoming frustration and anger. “The sink doesn’t have anywhere stable to balance what we’re working on! And are we really supposed to just pile everything into the cupboards and and latch the doors? That doesn’t stop them from crashing around and falling over! We’re on a ship! Everything moves! It’s like rolling the dice every time we open a new cupboard door!”

Will continued to keep his mouth shut. He’d been doing that ever since Mister North had led them back here and put them to work. It seemed like the wise thing to do when in close quarters with two women with sharp weapons and sharper tongues. He had to admit that watching Jack struggle with something as simple as watching dishes was deeply satisfying.

“When you’re the cook, you can decide how you want things done,” Lace shrugged.

“Your cook is an idiot,” Jack said, starting to pick up the scattered cookware again.

“He feeds the whole crew three times a day, every day. He gets up first and ends his duty day last. He works his ass off harder than anyone else on the ship. I doubt he has a lot of energy left for redesigning the storage system,” Lace said flatly.

Jack wiped her hand across her face to clear away the beaded sweat and water. “No, I suppose not.”

“You want to spit out whatever you’ve been chewing on since we got down here?” Lace asked in a not very comforting tone.

Jack’s eyes flicked to Will’s back. Lace raised an eyebrow at her and snorted. Jack looked affronted. “I could ask you the same thing,” Jack countered.

“Oh, I think it’s obvious,” Lace said, side-eyeing Will. She went back to scrubbing pans, but kept talking to Jack as though Will wasn’t right next to her. “Our new jackass Navigator has disrupted every single part of this ship’s operations, and he hasn’t explained why to anyone.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him,” Jack agreed, filling the kettle again from the barrel near the door and setting it on the stove.

“Miss Webber, you’re Akula, right?” Will asked conversationally, not stopping his work.

“Only the Captain calls me Miss Webber. And yeah, why?” Lace asked. Her tone wasn’t conversational at all.

“I got to see an Akula fishing web in action once. Have you seen that?” Will asked.

“Of course I have. My parents are both fishermen. What about it?” Lace asked, not following Will’s thought process at all.

“The day I saw it, an Akula fishing crew waited until a large school of Tuna were migrating through a nearby reef. I was anchored there looking for particular wreck and the islanders came out to fish. It’s an ingenious system. All those fishermen, working together like that. They caught more fish in an afternoon than I’d ever seen before. I heard a haul like that would have fed the whole community for a month on one day’s catch,” Will said.

“Yeah, so?” Lace shrugged. To her, that wasn’t special. It’s how her people had been doing things for hundreds of years.

“They were able to work right in the reef itself, without any trouble at all. They never even snagged a net or scraped a hull,” Will said.

“Are you going to get to the fucking point sometime this century, or what?” Lace asked flatly.

“The Kestrel will never make it through the Drifts. She’ll end up as kindling,” Will said. “Getting a ship this size through that channel is impossible.”

“Then why the hell are we going?” Lace demanded.

“We aren’t going to take the Kestrel through,” Will said.

“I thought as much,” Jack said from behind them. “You’re thinking that all those smallboats will get through the Drifts where the Kestrel can’t. It’s madness. Those little ships will never carry all the gear we need to transport, and they’ll be dashed on the rocks just as fast.”

“No...” Will said, giving Lace a meaningful look. She stared back at him, her face slowly going from annoyance, to bewilderment, to dawning realization.

“Oh fuck me,” she muttered. “That could work.”

Will slowly nodded. “She doesn’t get to know. Nobody does, save for the Captain.”

“What!” Jack exploded. “Why not!”

Will turned around and leaned against the sink. “Morant.”

Lace looked back and forth between them for a moment, then nodded. “I know the rules, and why we have them, Sterling. Navigators don’t give up the route plan. The tricks of your trade are your own. I won’t tell anyone your plan.”

“Well I sure as hell don’t understand your sailor tradition garbage,” Jack huffed. “Why? What does Morant have to do with anything?”

“If Morant knew Will’s plans, he could drop Will off at the next port and continue on without him,” Lace said. “I’ve seen it happen. Navigators are only valuable if no one else can do their job. If other people know the route, a navigator is a pointless job. Just another mouth to feed. Ship owners are a cutthroat lot. If there’s a sailor on a ship collecting pay for a job that isn’t needed, that sailor is going to find themselves dropped at at the nearest port.”

“That’s why we all guard our skills and our maps so closely,” Will said with a small shrug.

“I still don’t see what that has to do with me, but fine. Keep your secrets,” Jack said, drying more pots and pans furiously. Will watched her breasts bounce, feeling conflicted about enjoying the sight. As much as his feelings about Jack had changed, she was still quite nice to look at.

“If you find out, you’d tell Morant. It’s part of your job,” Will shrugged.

“I would not! I work for him, but I certainly don’t like him. Why would you think I’d ever betr-” Jack stopped. A muscle clenched in her jaw. Will watched her, waiting. She went back to drying. Will turned around and went back to the dishes.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence Lace looked back and forth between the two of them, her brows high on her forehead. “What the fuck was that?” she asked, confused. She felt like the room had gotten even smaller.

“You want to tell her, or should I?” Will asked without turning around again.

“Go ahead. You wouldn’t believe my side anyway,” Jack muttered.

“Maybe I would if you’d ever tell it,” Will shrugged.

“I did!” Jack yelled. “I told you I had to!”

Will turned around to face Jack again. “Oh yes, it was very clear explanation,” he snarked.

“What did I tell you before we went into that chamber?” Jack asked fiercely.

“You asked me to trust you. Then you let me take the ring, knocked me out and stole it. Then you left me for dead, cursed, in the middle of a trap-filled ruin in a jungle full of angry cultists,” Will said like he was explaining arithmetic.

“Fuck me...” Lace said, shocked at that revelation. “You really did that?”

“No!” Jack snapped. “Well, sort of. I didn’t have a choice. I tried to tell him after he made it back.”

“A year later,” Will said. “I lost count of the number of times I almost died, and the number of people I watched die around me before I figured out that I was a walking bad luck charm, and when I finally made it back you couldn’t even tell me why.”

“I did it for Bella,” Jack said grimly. Then she cursed under her breath. She looked angry that she’d said anything, frustrated with herself for not being able to hold her tongue. She fumed.

“I had no designs on Bella. You two had a good thing going as far as I was concerned. I didn’t even want to be around her after I got back because she reminded me too much of you,” Will said. He was starting to have a hard time staying calm. This was exactly where he didn’t want to be in this situation. Why had he even started talking?

“No, not like that,” Jack said. “I did it to save Bella.”

“From what?! From me?” Will snarled. “What could you have thought I was going to do to Bella?”

“You aren’t listening! Again!” Jack yelled. “Bella was dying!”

“What?” Will asked. His building anger suddenly emptied and he felt confused and hollow.

“Fuck,” Jack scowled down at the pan she was still clenching in her fist.

“Fuck is right,” Lace said with a half grin on her face, She had her hands on the sink, leaning back against it and unashamedly watching the drama unfold. “You two put on a hell of a show.”

“Not the time,” Will said with a small shake of his head toward the dusky skinned woman next to him. He turned back to Jack. “Explain.”

Jack shook her head. “Bella was dying. I had to save her. That’s why we went to that ruin.”

“Explain more.” Will didn’t move. His head was spinning in too many directions.

“Do you remember the mural we found?” Jack asked.

“Sure. It was only partial. Something about giving up your heart, and something else about unimaginable wealth. Standard cultish sacrifice and reward nonsense, and a list of trials we had to get through. We figured it all out. It wasn’t even that difficult aside from that bit with the ropes that had rotted away. Why?” Will asked.

“You were the sacrifice, Will. That was the last trial,” Jack sighed. She dropped her pan and sat down.

Will’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He shut his mouth again and thought for a bit. “You tried to sacrifice me?”

“I did sacrifice you,” Jack said sadly.

“No you didn’t. I survived,” Will said, gesturing at himself to draw attention to the obvious.

“Sacrifices don’t have to mean death, Will. They just have to mean loss. I sacrificed you. I know I did because it worked,” Jack said, sounding as hollow as Will felt.

“Great. You know that explanation doesn’t actually make anything better, right?” Will asked. “It kind makes things worse.”

“The whole ruin was a trial to get the ring. The last trial was a sacrifice. A betrayal. That’s why I brought you along in the first place.” Jack sounded completely defeated.

“That’s definitely worse,” Will said.

“I had to sacrifice the thing dearest to me! That was ... you. How I felt about you. I sacrificed us,” Jack’s stared at the floor at Will’s feet, not willing to look up and meet his eyes.

Lace snorted. “I feel like I’m reading a penny dreadful. This is some melodramatic bullshit.” Jacks eyes snapped up at her and glared. Will snickered, then started laughing. Lace started laughing with him. Jack glared at Will.

“You asshole!” she snapped “I finally tell you! I finally admit it all, and you ... You think you can just laugh at me?”

Will wiped his eyes and then swept his hair out of his face. “Well, she’s right. This is pretty melodramatic. If we were watching someone else have this conversation, you’d be the first one to roll your eyes.”

Jack stopped and rubbed her temples. “I would. This is such nonsense.”

“Alright, so it was a trial and you had to sacrifice me for the ring so you could ... what? Save Bella with it somehow?” Will asked.

“Exactly right,” Jack nodded. “I knew you would be fine. You were alive, and still the most capable man I’ve ever known.”

Lace looked at Will like she thought maybe Jack had him confused with someone else. She was about to open her mouth, but Will held up a finger. “Save it for later,” he said. She sighed and shut her mouth again.

“I had to save her, Will,” Jack said.

“How do you know she was dying?” Will asked.

“She told me. She’d done the divinations. She knew exactly how long she had left,” Jack said with a small shake of her head.

“That’s why you wouldn’t let me take the time to do any research,” Will said.

Jack nodded. “I’d already done enough on my own. There was no time, and I was afraid you’d figure it out if you started researching that ruin.”

“So you knew what you were doing from the very beginning,” Will said.

Jack gave a small nod.

“Before we’d even left, you’d already made the decision to ... sacrifice me.” Will continued.

Jack nodded again.

“Because that’s what you had to do in order to save Bella’s life.” Will said.

Jack took a deep breath and nodded again.

“You could have told me. I’d have stayed there willingly, taken the curse and everything,” Will said.

“That isn’t a betrayal, Will.” Jack said. “I had to betray you. That was the point of the trial.”

“That’s a messed up trial,” Lace said.

“Yes it is,” Jack agreed firmly.

“Why? What was so important about that kind of sacrifice?” Will asked.

“It’s what the wards protecting the ring demanded,” Jack shrugged. “It was like a lock, and that was the last part of the key.”

“Who would design a key like that?” Will asked.

“Someone who didn’t want any decent person to ever have that ring,” Jack said.

“Why? You said you used it to save Bella’s life, right? Why shouldn’t a good person have that?” All the bitterness had unexpectedly drained out of Will, leaving him feeling strangely hollow. The kettle on the stove started whistling. Will picked it up and dumped it into the sink behind him. The mundanity of the chores suddenly made the whole conversation seem almost normal.

“Because it’s a curse, Will. I can’t tell you anymore than that. Just please believe me when I tell you that it isn’t something that any decent person should have to experience,” Jack said, sounding as hollow as Will did.

“You’re saying you are a decent person?” Will asked.

“No. I’m saying I’m not. I deserve this, and I think that was the point of the trial,” Jack took a deep breath and closed her eyes.Will said nothing. She’d finally told him. She’d been wanting and dreading this moment for years, and now he was just ... quiet. She had no idea what wa going to to happen next and it was gnawing at her. “Say something,” she said quietly.

“What happens now? Does the magic go away? Does Bella die now that you’ve broken the rules?” Will asked.

“No, that was just for the trial,” Jack said.

“So you could have told me sooner?” Will asked, a bit of an edge to his tone. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because now you’re going to ask questions and eventually figure out what all of it means, and I ... I don’t want you to do that. Please don’t ask me why,” Jack said.

“First you tell me to talk, then you tell me to shut up.” Will let out a single laugh.

“Yes. I suppose so,” Jack shrugged.

“Alright. It’s going to take me awhile to process all this anyway.” Will said, turning back around to keep washing. “I guess I can’t say that I don’t understand what could have driven you to do what you did anymore. I don’t know what I would have done if it had been me in your shoes.”

“I appreciate you saying that,” Jack said.

Will didn’t reply to her. Instead he looked to Lace, who was still leaning against the sink, watching the whole thing unfold like she was at a play. “What were you going to say earlier,” Will asked.

Lace eyed him up and down, her eyebrow slowly raising. “That if she thinks you’re so incredibly capable, she needs to meet more men. You don’t even know how a fishing web works.”

Will blinked. “What?”

Bella’s vision swam in the mirror. She pushed herself along by her will. Her face in the mirror never wavered, but behind her reflection it was all churning fog and flickers of half formed shapes and light.

This was the dangerous part. The Ways Between had no maps, no paths, no stars to navigate by. The only guiding light was a distant point to focus on, a destination, and if she lost her focus for a moment she’d lose sight of where she was headed and the whole ritual and all the energy she’d spent preparing would be wasted. Worse yet, she might upset the Traveler, who was not known for patience or forgiveness. It was difficult to earn the attention of a higher power. The Traveler did not have to allow anyone to travel her Ways. Supplication was hard, and maintaining the Traveler’s continued ambivalence to her presence meant upholding what she said she was going to do. The Traveler cared little for destinations or reasons, but cared a great deal about broken promises and unkept oaths. The Ways were full of people and ... other things, which had set out with purpose and lost their way. Worse yet, the Ways Between were home to many things which had no set purpose beyond cruelty, capriciousness, or simple hunger.

She ignored the whispered voices and faint cries for help. She ignored the glitter of faintly seen treasures and the distant songs and chants. All that mattered was her destination. Finding what was hers. Connecting what was here and what was there.