The boats pulled away from the vessel, speeding across the water, driven by magic-fueled motors. The magic residue slid off the propellers, turning their wake into a glowing trail of yellow-and-emerald radiance.
Small tongues of green lightning flared at the brigantine’s aft. They had a cloaking device, and they were priming it. Of course. The South Fleet of Adrianglia possessed three corsair-class vessels, five hunters, and an aerial-support dreadnought. Each carried pulverizer cannons as well as a host of other deadly toys. A fast and light civilian brigantine like this one couldn’t take more than one or two shots. Its best strategy lay in speed and in not being detected in the first place, which is where the cloaking device would come in handy.
A cloaking device was also hellishly expensive. The slave trade must’ve served them well. He ground his teeth again.
Jack bared his teeth, his voice a vicious whisper. “Stop grinding your teeth.”
“Shut up,” George whispered back.
“It bugs me.”
“Cover your ears, then.”
The crooked ribbons of magic lightning built. George opened the box he’d brought. Inside was a single glass bubble. He twisted it open, plucked out a glass lens edged with tiny metal cilia, and slid it into his eye. The lens’s delicate metal tendrils moved, searching, and locked onto his nerves. The pain shot straight into his brain, as if someone had hammered a wooden spike through his eye socket. The Mirror’s gadgets could do incredible things, but they always came with a price. He shook his head and looked up. The brigantine slid into clear, sharp focus, as though he were standing right next to it. He could see the carved sides and the slender lines of the ship’s rigging. If this brigantine followed the Adrianglian Maritime Code, the name would be near the bow.
Next to him, Jack growled. “Are we just going to lay here like idiots?”
“Yes, we are.”
Lightning dashed from the stern toward the bow, dancing over the vessel’s sides, illuminating the ship. That was the moment he was waiting for. He trailed the lightning with his gaze.
“This is wrong,” Jack said.
“We stay put.”
The green sparks illuminated the name, written in thick black letters on the bow, and faded into darkness. George sucked in his breath.
No. No, he must have read it wrong.
He waited for another flash.
“George, breathe,” Jack growled into his ear.
The lightning flashed, illuminating the letters once more. It still said the same thing. George went cold. There could be only two possibilities for this ship to be here now, and he couldn’t deal with either.
Again. He had to see it again.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Jack hissed.
The magic sparked off the boards, and he read the name again, for the third time, each letter like the stab of a sword into his gut.
George yanked the lens out of his eye. “We have to get down there.”
“You said we had to stay put.”
“And now I’m saying we have to get down there.”
He slithered backward off the dune and took off running toward the beach.
Jack caught up with him. They went to ground again just behind the “slaves.”
“Why?” Jack whispered, barely audible.
George paused for a second, weighing Jack’s right to know against his explosive temper. If Jack blew up, they would never get on that ship.
He deserved to know. Better do it now.
“Because that ship’s name is Intrepid Drayton.”
Jack recoiled. For a moment he thought it over, and then the right gears caught in his mind. He made the connection between their last name and the name of the ship. His eyes sparked with fire. “Did they kill Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Dad selling slaves?”
“I don’t know.”
“He left us to rot in the Edge so he could sell slaves?” A snarl roiled through Jack’s voice.
George grabbed his shoulder. “Hold it in. Not until we’re on board and know exactly what’s going on.”
Jack ducked his head, hiding the changeling glow of his eyes, and sucked in the air through his nose.
They would have only one shot at this. The boats had to be close enough for Richard to be unable to do anything about their presence but far enough away that the sailors wouldn’t see any commotion.
George took a deep breath.
The leading boat rolled over the surf, its crew distracted.
Now.
George lunged forward, and Jack followed. They dashed into the line of slaves and thrust themselves behind Charlotte.
“What the devil are you doing?” Richard growled under his breath.
He didn’t even turn. The man must have eyes in the back of his head.
“Changing the plan.” George ripped off a piece of his shirt and twisted it around Jack’s hands into a makeshift tie.
“Go back,” Charlotte hissed.
Richard dismounted and walked toward George, pulling a pair of handcuffs off his belt. They stood face-to-face, Richard glaring down from the height of an extra four inches. It was a furious glare suffused with so much menace, it could end a riot. George stared straight into it. Today, he had the will to match it.
“You gave me your word,” Richard ground out.
George took a step forward, his voice barely above a whisper, meant for Richard alone. “The vessel’s name is Intrepid Drayton. Before Earl Camarine adopted me, my last name was Drayton. There is a painting of that ship in my dead grandmother’s house.”
He took the cuffs out of Richard’s hands and slipped them onto his own wrists with a click. “It’s my father’s ship. Either the slavers killed my father and took his vessel, or he’s working for them, and he’s responsible for his own mother’s death. I need to know which it is. If you stand in my way, I will move you, Richard.”
* * *
FOR a moment Richard stood there, glowering, then he checked the cuffs on George’s wrists. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
He turned around and strode to the front, next to Jason.
George exhaled. To Richard, family was everything. He understood blood debts and the right to exact justice for one’s family, but it had been a gamble.
His father couldn’t work for the slavers. Even he couldn’t have sunk that low. Even Rose, who bordered on hating the man, always said that he was never mean or violent. Opportunistic, unwise, and selfish, yes. Could he be selfish enough to work for the slavers? George was thinking in circles. He had to get a grip.