Lindsay Buroker: Beneath the Surface

“ And you came to… suggest we go for a visit?”

“ We?” Evrial asked at the same time as Sicarius said, “No,” the first word he’d spoken since she entered.

Amaranthe spread her arms and managed an expression of sheer innocence. “Where there’s one Forge person, there could be others. Don’t we need to keep an eye on them? And see if they’re up to anything besides catching a ride upriver?”

“ What could they be ‘up to’ on a steamboat?” Evrial asked.

“ I don’t know, but you’re the one who suggested furtiveness was going on.”

“ I will search the cabins tonight,” Sicarius said. “ You will stay here.”

Amaranthe’s eyebrows rose. “I will thank you not to give me orders.”

Sicarius did not respond, though his gaze seemed to grow a shade flintier. Amaranthe returned the stare. Evrial didn’t imagine “quelled” was a word many people had used to describe her.

“ I suppose a nocturnal search would be better than nothing,” Amaranthe mused when she and Sicarius finished their staring contest-Evrial couldn’t tell if anything had been resolved during it. “ But, wouldn’t it be better if we could chat with the woman as well as searching her belongings?”

Yet another degree of coldness descended upon Sicarius’s glare. Evrial had teased Maldynado once, about kowtowing to the assassin, but she had to admit those glares were unnerving-knowing all the people he’d killed only made them more so-and she was glad she wasn’t the recipient.

“ What are you suggesting?” Outside of kidnapping and torture, Evrial couldn’t imagine a scenario where they’d walk up and chat with the enemy.

“ Those upper-deck cabins are more posh than ours, I hear,” Amaranthe said. “Built-in washouts instead of pots you have to dump, and I believe there’s maid service, isn’t there?”

It took Evrial a moment to catch on-she was too busy wondering where Amaranthe had heard anything, since she was supposedly staying out of sight in her cabin for the whole trip. “Maid service? Are you suggesting we dress up as servants and clean people’s rooms?”

“ Why, that’s an excellent idea. Thank you for suggesting it.” Amaranthe beamed.

Evrial crossed her arms over her chest and added her glower to the glare Sicarius was still sending across the room. She was beginning to see how Maldynado got blamed for so many things that may have not been his fault after all.

“ We will speak.” Sicarius flicked his gaze at Evrial, then focused on Amaranthe. “Alone.”

Amaranthe’s beaming smile didn’t fade. “Sergeant Yara is my roommate. I’m not going to ask her to leave.”

Sicarius took a step toward Evrial, and she tensed. Fighting him would be ludicrous, but she wasn’t going to stand meekly and let him shove her out the door either.

“ You’re not going to ask her to leave either,” Amaranthe said, coolness creeping into her own tone for the first time.

Sicarius stopped a step away from Evrial, his face impossible to read. He had a knack for that expression. Evrial noticed that her fists were clenched, her arms up in a defensive posture. Though he’d stopped, she didn’t lower them.

“ Asking isn’t what I had in mind,” Sicarius said.

“ Yes, I can see that.” Amaranthe planted a hand on his chest, fingers splayed. “Why don’t you give Yara and me a few minutes alone to discuss this? I’ll brief you on whatever we decide to do before we do it. And you can loiter nearby in case anything goes wrong.”

His face didn’t soften exactly-and he gave that hand a long look before meeting Amaranthe’s eyes-but the hostility he’d been oozing did seem to lessen. “Assassins don’t loiter,” he said.

The comment startled Evrial, and she wondered if she’d heard it correctly. The man hadn’t uttered much that could be classified as humor, not with her around anyway. Maybe he was simply feeling indignant.

But Amaranthe smiled. “What do you call it?”

“ Standing. Purposefully.”

“ I’ll note that for further discussions,” Amaranthe said. “In the meantime, would you mind standing purposefully in your own cabin? I’m sure Basilard has missed you, and we girls need to chat.”

Sicarius didn’t sigh-his expression didn’t even change as he backed away-but something about the way he looked over his shoulder implied he thought Amaranthe was going to stir up trouble. Evrial had a feeling she should be thinking the same thing.

After the door snicked shut, Amaranthe waved for her to take a seat. “I suggest we sneak into a maid’s closet during dinner hour, grab uniforms and a cart, and go see if anyone needs their beds turned down.”

“ What if we run into the real maids?”

“ Oh, I imagine we can talk someone into distracting them.” Amaranthe nodded toward the cabin Maldynado shared with Books.

Evrial scowled at the idea of Maldynado flirting with a couple of young women, but she didn’t say anything. Apparently, as the pretty face on the team, this was his job. “He’d better not distract them with more than words.” She regretted voicing the threat as soon as it came out, for Amaranthe’s nod was a little too knowing. Evrial’s feelings weren’t anyone else’s business, so she ought to keep signs of them to herself.

“ I’m sure he won’t,” Amaranthe said. “And if he does, then it’s better to know that now than six months further into the journey, isn’t it?”

“ There aren’t any journeys happening there.”

“ Hm.” Amaranthe stood. “I guess that’s everything. Shall we have something to eat before our adventure?”

“ That’s all the planning we’re doing? Why’d you send your assassin away?”

“ Because all the protective looming he’s been doing this week has left me feeling smothered like an egg under a chicken’s bu-, er, behind.”

Evrial almost snorted and asked which of her men she’d gotten that phrase from.

“ Don’t misunderstand me,” Amaranthe said. “I certainly appreciate his solicitude, but I’m concerned he’s seeing me as some frail, broken being not capable of taking care of herself anymore.”

“ Solicitude?” Evrial asked, her mind snagging on that word. “From… Sicarius?”

Amaranthe hesitated, as if she held some secret she wasn’t sure she should be sharing. “Not so most people would notice it, but yes.”

That was hard to believe. “Was that an example of it?” Evrial waved toward the door to indicate the stiff order tossing the assassin had done before stalking out.

“ No, that was the protective looming.”

“ All right…”

Amaranthe cleared her throat. “Enough girl talk. There are enemy cabins full of dastardly old ladies that we must infiltrate.”

“ Unbelievable,” Evrial murmured.

“ What is?”

“ That you can say things like that and still get those men to rally behind you.”

“ Sometimes I also have to gaze into their eyes with youthful exuberance that they find impossible to resist.”

Evrial could imagine that working on Maldynado, but Sicarius? “Unbelievable,” she repeated.

There were times when Evrial’s height came in handy; being squished into a dark cleaning-supply closet with another woman wasn’t one of those times. A laundry cart was digging into her ribcage, her foot was in a bucket of mop water, and the overpowering scent wafting from stacks of lye soap tempted a sneeze. She dared not rearrange herself, not with people talking on the other side of the door, so she suffered in stillness.

“ Surely, there’s no rush, my lovely ladies,” Maldynado was saying, his smooth baritone floating through the door. With luck, he was leaning against it so the “lovely ladies” couldn’t enter.