Wicked as She Wants

  To my vexation, I missed Casper’s presence, if only for the comfort of not being alone. And where, for that matter, was Keen spending all her time? From what I could tell, she had been assaulted by one of the men, yet she had walked back out that door with her original confidence, never looking back. I had once dreaded sharing the tiny room with them both, but now the air grew cold and empty, humming with unanswered questions and my own conflicted emotions.

  While I was still tossing and turning, Keen sneaked in, fluttered around in the closet, and eventually settled into childish snores. Still later, I heard Casper’s boots on the boards and the whisper of his jacket hitting the desk. He paused there in the near darkness, and I gave my best imitation of sleep, curious if he could tell the difference—and if he could, anxious to see what we would have to say to each other. He cracked his fingers one at a time, as was his habit. And then I heard him sigh and slip to the floor. Even with the furs and rugs, it couldn’t have been comfortable. But since I wasn’t about to invite him into my large and comfortable bed, there didn’t seem any point in feeling bad about it.

  I listened to his breathing, even and deep in the shadows. I found myself unconsciously inhaling and exhaling in time with him, attuning myself to his body. And I was asleep before I could conclude what that might mean.

  I woke up on my side in the dark, and the first thing I saw by the light of a glowing clock was Casper asleep on the floor. My arm hung over the edge of the bed, and his outstretched hand was almost close enough to touch. Dear Aztarte, had I sought him while asleep? I snatched my arm back so quickly that he startled awake.

  “Ahna? What’s wrong?”

  I flopped back against the pillows, fumbling for something to say.

  “Where’d the clock come from?” was the first thing that came to mind.

  “Since you’re trapped in here, I thought you might like a little light in the darkness and a way to tell if it was day or night. It must be confusing for you.”

  He sat up, rubbing his eyes and running a hand through sleep-tangled hair.

  “I need fresh air,” I grumbled. “I vastly underestimated how cramped and airless a windowless cabin would be. I can’t breathe in here.”

  “Well, technically, you’re not supposed to leave the room.” He seemed bemused by my grouchiness, and it occurred to me that perhaps his hand had been the one to seek mine.

  “Daylight should be safe enough for me. Won’t they all be asleep?”

  “No time is safe for you on the Maybuck,” he said darkly. “But at least you have time to rest and get strong again before facing off with Ravenna. I’ve never heard of anyone surviving so long after being drained.”

  “My mother always said I was hard to kill.” With a sigh, I touched my shorn hair. “You know, it’s funny. I’ve missed four Sugar Snow Balls in Freesia by now. My beaux will have moved on. I’m past my prime, as princesses go.” I sighed. “A spinster.”

  “Anne.”

  He stood, forcing me to look up at him.

  I blushed at what I saw on his face. I was thankful that he didn’t have a Bludman’s eyes in the darkness to see my reaction.

  “Ahna. You’re not a princess anymore. You’re a queen. You know you’re lovely, don’t you?”

  “I don’t feel like myself.” I looked away, fiddling with the ermine tails on a pillow. “This isn’t my hair. These aren’t my clothes. I don’t have a purpose here. I’m drifting.”

  “We’re all drifting,” he said. “You just have to get to where you don’t mind so much.”

  “But I was raised to be someone special. To do something special. I used to be . . . extraordinary.”

  “Me, too. And tonight I’ll be playing an out-of-tune harpsichord while rich men dance badly with prostitutes on a zeppelin. And worrying about two ladies who mostly hate me but are, for better or worse, in my care.” He leaned over to turn on the light and look into my eyes. “Miss May is expecting me to play all night for the new passengers. Promise me you won’t open the door for anyone.”

  “As Keen says, you are not my father.” I sat up to glare at him with light-blind eyes.

  “I know that. Of course, I know that,” he snapped. “But you can’t protect yourself without revealing what you are. Cora already knows. We don’t need anyone else to. And we don’t want to end up on our own in Barlin, either. Unless you speak Prussian?”

  “Nein.”

  “Exactly. We don’t have any coppers. We’re stuck on the Maybuck, for better or worse. Once we’re on the ground in Freesia, you’re in charge. Until then, you do what I say.”

  “Do I?” I stood and took a step toward him, my mouth curling in amusement.

  “You do.”

  “And what if I don’t behave?”

  “You mean, if you go off on your own again? I’ll truss you up and lock you in this room.”

  He shrugged off his shirt, and I tried not to stare at his well-muscled torso as he rummaged through the trunk for another.

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “I brought plenty of cravats. Try me.”

  He pulled on a new shirt and turned to face me, standing so close that I could see his eyelashes. They were white-blond at the roots and auburn at the tips. Pretty. And there was a gruffness in him, a power I hadn’t seen before. Something he kept in check, lurking behind the sunshine and dimples.

  “No one’s ever threatened me before,” I said.

  “Except Cora.”

  “Right. Except her.”

  “And the pirate.”

  “Yes, and look what happened to him.”

  “It’s a good thing I can’t punch myself in the kidney.”

  And then, in perfect unison, we burst out laughing. I felt relief—and a strange giddiness, as though Cora’s wine still rippled through my veins.

  “But there has to be some way I can get a little fresh air. I’m practically swooning, Casper.”

  He smirked. “No one’s allowed above deck right now. The servants are decorating it for a special dinner. But I can take you to the library, if you’re not too worried about windows. Believe me when I say it’s rarely used, as the gentlemen are far too busy elsewhere and the chairs aren’t roomy enough for two. But it’s got a great view.”

  He handed me my gloves and held out his arm. I slipped them on to disguise my hands, and he led me down the hall in the opposite direction from Cora’s room. I added the new hallways to my mental map of the airship’s interior, but I was still surprised when we came to a set of winding wooden stairs. I hadn’t known that the ship had more than one level. When I should have been studying it from the ground, I had been cowering flat on my face.

  Instead of rooms named after fine fabrics, we passed kitchens, pounding machinery, and a butcher’s workshop filled with ice and hanging carcasses that smelled heavily of blood. Finally, Casper opened the door at the end of the hall, revealing a room filled with blessed light and fresh air. Two large stained-glass windows shaped like white roses gave everything a warm glow.

  No. Strike that.

  The windows were shaped like breasts. But one was open, letting in a crisp breeze and more sunshine than I’d seen in days. Cushy seats with plump pillows nestled under the windows, and the walls were solid with books. In the center of the room sat a table with a globe, several strange machines, a humidor, and a bottle of golden liquid that didn’t have a bottom but rolled back and forth as the ship moved.

  “You’re not going to find Sang’s greatest literature in here.” Casper held a slim volume upside down, and a fold-out tumbled from between the pages, showing a woman in a mask doing something unexpected with a parasol. I grimaced. “But there’s probably something better than Lady Gabriella’s Clockwork Cobbler.”

  I blushed and picked up the first thing that came to hand, one of the instruments on the table. So he’d noticed the book I’d hidden under the pillow. He chuckled, and I inspected the instrument further to hide my face.

  It was a spyglass, but I
couldn’t find the mechanism to expand it. Casper took it gently from my hands and flicked a switch, and the thing elongated in a manner that would have seemed more scandalous had we not been on a flying brothel.

  “There’s a cradle for it here, by the window.”

  He set it up and beckoned me over, and I looked out onto one of the most stunning tableaus I’d ever seen. A village was built into the mountains below, with picturesque Prussian chalets as dainty as cuckoo clocks leaning precariously over the snow-dusted valley. The spyglass brought the image so close that I could see clothes drying on lines between the buildings and goats grazing among the crags.

  “It’s amazing.” I held out the glass to him, and he swiveled it around and looked down.

  “It’s like a little Christmas village,” he said with a surprised chuckle. “The tiny flags, the goats. I can even see buttons on that boy’s jacket.”

  “What’s a Christmas village?” I asked. He left the glass to inspect the books, his back to me.

  “Oh. Just something from where I’m from.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever actually asked you where you’re from originally. I had just assumed it was Sangland. But you don’t always have the right accent. Almanica, perhaps?”

  “That’s right.” He feigned interest in the bookshelves. “From the east coast. I don’t like to talk about home.”

  “I don’t know much about Almanica.” I focused on the village through the spyglass so I didn’t have to look at him and feel clumsy. It was an awkward dance, trying to learn more about him. “My tutors always said it was a wild place, where people lived by different rules. Did you like it there?”

  “Very much,” he said softly.

  “Maybe you’ll go back one day.”

  The air went cold, and I looked up in confusion. I’d been on the verge of flirting with him, and now he was tense, his face unreadable as he looked out the window. I had definitely said the wrong thing.

  “Enjoy the library for as long as you like,” he said. “In fact, I’m locking you in to keep you out of trouble.”

  “I’m sorry—” I started, but he cut off my highly unusual apology.

  “Don’t be. You can’t possibly know what I lost. I won’t be going back.”

  He spun and stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. A key turned in the lock, and I knew that trying to force the doors would be useless. My anger only lasted until a fresh breeze blew in through the giant glass breast and some geese honked just outside. But my curiosity grew deeper still. I had to figure out where Casper had come from, and more important, why he couldn’t return.

  16

  My nose was so deep in a book on Almanica that I was startled by the sound of the key scraping in the lock. Panicking, I threw the thick volume out the window and put my eye to the telescope, lest Casper think I was trying to study up on his home. Unfortunately, I hadn’t learned anything that would help me understand him better.

  “May I escort you to your prison, my lady?”

  When I looked up at him, he smirked. He was wearing the same fancy outfit he had worn at the Seven Scars, the glittering tailcoat and tight breeches and high, polished boots. But the stubble had grown out on his cheeks, giving him a rakish air, and the cravat he was wearing was one of the ones I recalled from being tied up in his room.

  I returned the smirk. “I suppose I’m bound to accept.”

  He chuckled darkly. “Touché.”

  Down the hall and up the stairs, my hand felt oddly formal on his arm. The sequins on his jacket were cold and hard, and I was well aware that I was still in Cora’s flimsy blue dress. When he deposited me in our empty room, I felt the way I had as a little princess, sent to bed as all the adults arrived in their fine carriages for a ball. It was clear that he was in a hurry to leave, but I wasn’t ready to be alone.

  “Is it pleasant?” I asked him. “Playing for them?”

  Casper cocked his head at me. “I think you know well enough that nothing’s fun when you’re forced. No one wants to work at a party while other people dance. But at least I still have my music, even if the company’s horrible. If it gets too bad, I can always jump ship.”

  He sounded all too much as if he meant it. As he took a sip from his flask, I flopped backward on the bed in a huff and stared at the constellations painted on the ceiling.

  “How much longer until we’re off this monstrosity?”

  “We’ll be over Warsaw tomorrow. Just a few more days. Can you handle it?”

  “I can handle anything that will get me back to Freesia.”

  He leaned over me, upside down. “I bet you can. Just a little longer, darlin’.”

  I smiled. And then he was gone.

  “Blast.” I drummed my heels against the side of the bed, feeling cooped up and irritated and anxious to get off the airship and down to the business of killing Ravenna.

  “Blast yourself.”

  I yanked up my bare feet in surprise. The words had come from under the bed, and fabric rustled against the wood as Keen crawled out into the lamplight.

  “I thought you slept in the closet.”

  “I needed some elbow room.”

  She stood and stretched, and I noticed that she had traded the flimsy white dress for her old layers of ragamuffin gear.

  “Back to your hoodlum ways?”

  Her eyes narrowed at me, half angry and half desperate, like a starving dog.

  “You saw my dress last night. One of those bastards ripped it when I said no. This seemed safer.”

  “Does Casper know?”

  “About yesterday, but it happened again. That other girl, Milly—the one they call Colette. She likes it. They give her candy and coppers if she lets them touch her. She sent me over with the wine and watched him grope me and laughed when she caught me crying after I ran away.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I punched her smug face.”

  She grinned, and I grinned back, glad to know she still had her pluck. Despite my general disdain for anything unbludded, I felt a rush of protectiveness for her. If there was one thing I’d learned in the last week, it was that life outside the palace wasn’t easy for anyone. And I admired her for standing up for herself, refusing to be compromised for a few coins.

  “Once I’m in my rightful place, you won’t be at the mercy of such villains,” I said.

  “Oh, no. I’ll just be a servant and a bludmule. Kept in a posh cage to fatten up.”

  I stared at her, aghast. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but royal servants are treasured and pampered. I give you my personal guarantee that no one will drink from you unless you wish it.”

  “Why the hell would I want to be food?”

  “It’s not being food. It’s providing a service, and it’s richly rewarded. Our servants are carefully bred and tended—”

  She stabbed a finger in my face, and I very nearly bit it. “There! Hear that? Bred? Tended? That’s not a person. That’s cattle.”

  “But what else would humans do in Freesia? It’s cold, it’s dangerous, and with a population dominated by Bludmen, there’s no other need for food crops. We treasure our humans.”

  “Not enough to give them rights, apparently.”

  “I would think you’d be grateful.” I gestured to her outfit. “You have nothing. You come from nothing. But I have much power, and when I’m reinstated, you’ll have everything you’ve ever wished for.”

  “That’s a goddamn lie, and you know it! I have a life, and I don’t want the fake one you think I need. We had it good, me and the Maestro. Everything was fine before you showed up.”

  “Sorry to wake up mostly murdered and muck up your happy family,” I shot back without thinking. I instantly regretted it.

  “We weren’t happy. I don’t even remember what happy feels like. But we had a home, and we had each other. It was safe. And now you’ve got us running across the globe, surrounded by handsy jerks, and they keep trying to yank me into their laps, and
I hate it.” The last part came out as a desperate growl, and I could see that under her tough mask, she was pushed to her limit, just as I was, by being cooped up.

  “I never meant for any of this to happen, you know. I’m as much a victim as you. On the other side of this journey is a fight I might not win. And I’m not even allowed to leave this wretched little cube of a room.”

  She sat down on the stool, legs wide apart like a man in her grubby pants. “Says who?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Who says you can’t leave? You can walk out the door right now.”

  “Miss May made it quite clear. And Casper—”

  “Casper ain’t here. And he’s not our boss.”

  Keen grinned an evil grin, and so did I. She was right. I would soon be the Tsarina of Freesia. The threats of a madam and a musician couldn’t hold me.

  “What do you propose?”

  “I propose we crash dinner.”

  “I can’t do it in this . . . scrap.” I held out the whispery silk skirt of my dress.

  Keen’s grin widened. “You’ve never been to the costumer, have you? Come on.”

  She actually grabbed my gloved hand and dragged me out the door and down the hall. I was terrified that we’d see someone, but the halls were empty. Moments later, she shoved me through a nondescript door.

  “Back so soon?” a woman said. She sat on a tuffet, dressed in high fashion and magnifying goggles as she sewed a button onto a ruffled skirt. A clockwork insect buzzed around her head, tied to a brooch on her shoulder. I realized it was the kindly ex-milliner with the beautiful hat whom I had met at dinner my first night on the ship.

  “Can she borrow something, Kitty?” Keen asked. “Anne needs something more . . .”

  “Substantial?” the woman said with a wink, and I nodded. “Help yourself, dear.”

  It was a pleasure to choose my own attire again. The room was lined in racks of clothing, and although most of the offerings were the sort of revealing costumes favored by the Maybuck girls, I found a collection of more modest gowns in the corner. I couldn’t help wondering if these were the dresses women wore when they first set foot on the Maybuck, before they learned to show their skin.