Page 19 of Bound and Tide

“Nope, it’s the whole thing.” Maia was grinning. She really shouldn’t have been—she was in debt well over the ridiculous hair knots tied up atop her head thanks to her father, and from what Xander gathered, she and her brother were doing increasingly seedy things to keep all their fingers intact. “But if you can’t get us one, then I guess our deal’s off.”

Xander scoffed. “I didn’t say I can’t, I’m just flummoxed. How does one owe another the entirety of a boat?”

“A ship,” corrected Costa again. “One that can cut through ice.”

“What-bloody-ever.” Xander paced up to the edge of the dock. In this part of the river, the low harbor they called it, there were at least plenty to choose from. “If Stavros managed to steal one, I suppose I’m more than capable too.”

“He didn’t steal anything, not this time.” Maia was frowning when Xander paced back to them. “He was being paid to watch it overnight, but he got drunk, and it went up in flames.”

Xander waited for her to admit she was joking, but her smirk never returned. Instead she stared down at the weathered boards beneath their boots as if the shame were her own. “You’re telling me an ice ship burnt down? Ironic, eh?” He nudged Costa with his elbow.

The boy winced. “Is that what irony means?”

“Oh, I don’t know, I doubt she even knows.” Xander gestured broadly to the sky where there was probably some divine force controlling everything who indeed might not have known either but would undoubtedly get him back for that.

“You can’t steal one anyway,” Costa said miserably. “They’re pretty easy to identify.”

Fed up with the cold and the smell and the guessing, Xander snorted. “Then who sells ice-breaking boats in this gods-forsaken shithole?”

Maia jerked her head toward a structure jutting out over the water on stilts. “It’s going to be awfully expensive.”

Xander turned his lip up at the barnacle-encrusted vessels along the wharf. “It’s one boat, Maia, what could it cost? A hundred gold?”

The number that the boatsman scribbled on a slip of parchment was much larger than one hundred gold—so much larger that it wouldn’t have the same impact if a reader knew it exactly.

Xander’s jaw clenched; he did not have that much gold on him. Maybe if he hadn’t replaced his wardrobe for the third time earlier that year or if he’d been a bit more frugal on his last trip across the Maroon Sea, but even then, it was just a bloody boat!

“For some planks of wood nailed together and a bit of linen tied to a stick? The way those things creak and smell, I would think they’d be heavily discounted at the least.”

“That’s the cost to have a new one built. And it’ll take a year.”

Xander snorted and snatched the man’s reed away, scratching out a much more acceptable number and shoving the parchment back at him. “You’ve not got mages who can manipulate the wood and do it faster?” He should have been able to do a little of that himself, or at least summon the help from another realm, but of course nothing was going right with his noxscura, and he was far from a craftsman anyway. He did know a mage who worked with the earth, but she probably liked trees a little too much to turn them into a boat. That and she might not be so willing to pay him a favor after he’d killed her that one time.

“You want an arcane ship?” The boatsman began to scribble again. “That’ll be a bit more…”

Xander raked a hand through his hair and yanked out the tie that held it back. The tug was reminiscent of the previous night, and he should have been delighted by the memory of Red’s claws on his scalp, but he was instead annoyed that he hadn’t been able to offer up his assistance to her again and was instead here doing this.

Maia had gone back to grinning, the little shit, and Costa swallowed so hard a lump traveled down his thin throat.

“Let me guess, an ice breaker’s even more?”

The boatsman’s light eyes flicked up, but this time there was no condescension. Without a word, he left the desk and went to the back door of the stilted building.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Xander muttered, following. “Use your words, man.”

But the boatsman didn’t have to, pointing out a window. In the greying darkness of early evening, a ship bobbed beside a lone dock, dusted in icy crystals. It was set into a slight cove along the river, the docks beside it empty and a mist gathering around its base as if to say, Yes, this is exactly what you’re after, and isn’t it just terribly spooky?

“All right, what’s wrong with it?”

The boatsman’s milky eye was tracked on the bobbing vessel, face gone slack. “You can afford her, but you’ll be buying a curse along with.”

“This whole bloody situation’s cursed. What—is my cock going to fall off if I step on board?”

He shook his head and took a long, rattling breath. “Frost’s Plunder has been marked by demons.”

At his side, Costa shuddered.

“Is that all?” Xander clapped, and everyone else jolted at the sound. “Fabulous, we’ll take it!”

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