Page 102 of A Steeping of Blood
“They are indeed,” Shaw said.
“Of course they are,” Matteo drawled. “Still, the person they appointed isn’t the person who she is today. Nor do they know a fraction of what she’s done. Once they know of her deeds, they’d want to help.”
Arthie worked her jaw.That’s not enough, the set of her mouth said. “We don’t want help; we want to hurt her image. Irreparably. Let’s move on so I can think. Do we have to fear Ripper vampires in Ettenia?”
“Would the Ram risk deploying them?” Jin asked. “She’ll have little ability to control them, and White Roaring is far more populated than the Ceylani colony.”
No one responded because the answer was clear. The Ramwouldrisk it. She didn’t care for her people. She was kidnapping humans off the street simply to build a lie, to cause havoc.
Shaw shook his head. “The moment we caught the mutation, we contained the vampires. There are inoculated vampires in Ettenia awaiting shipment, but none of them sit there long enough for the possibility to mutate. The Ram believes it’s a new serum we developed but haven’t perfected and delivered yet. Once we arrive, we’ll ensure the inoculated vampires are cared for as well.”
“Pity we can’t strap the Ram to a chair and demand the answers we need,” Matteo said.
Arthie looked as though she’d considered the same. She always did like going to the source.
Shouts echoed from above deck, and Jin straightened, reaching for his umbrella before someone threw open the hatch and shouted, “Land ho!”
“Home,” Jin murmured. He almost laughed at that. He didn’t have a home. The home from the first decade of his life had burned down just like the second one had. And yet he was eager, for home had never been about the walls he’d stood within, but the people standing around him. Like Arthie, like his crew.
Like Flick.
“I don’t say this because I doubt Flick’s capabilities,” Arthie said, following his line of thought, “but we need to dock with the possibility that the Ram might ambush us.”
“It’s a good thing we have an army of vampires down there, then,” Jin said with a sigh, gesturing to the hold.
“An army that needs rest,” Jin’s father said.
Jin and Arthie had prepared for as much. Sidharth promised to have runners monitoring the seafront for their return, after which he’d send carriages to take the vampires to the Athereum and provide aid, care, and eventually reacclimate them into society. They’d have to tell him about the coconuts too.
“And a balm for their pain,” Matteo countered. “If the Ram ambushes us at shore, we won’t be able to hold them back.”
“That may be true,” Shaw conceded, “but it must end there. If you want vampires to infiltrate the tribute with you, we’ll need allies capable of blending in with high society lords and ladies. Our vampires are too angry to hold themselves back, nor are they in the best of shape.”
Jin and Arthie shared a glance, for they knew exactly where they’d find such vampires: the Athereum.
“Hold on—‘high society lords and ladies,’” Arthie repeated, straightening with an idea. “We’re counting on Flick to forge invites to people who aren’t fond of Lady Linden, but how many of her own guests do we reckon were denied a contract with the government because Lady Linden could handle it herself through the EJC?”
Jin had never considered that. Even he and Arthie had partnered with a lord who owned multiple shipping warehouses, to store their teas for Spindrift. A country was bound to need all that and more at any given time, but if the Ram could pay herself to do what was needed, why distribute the wealth?
“Even more reason to unmask her, then,” Jin said. “Make high society angry, and they’ll tear her down themselves. We’ll have ruined her forever.”
As the Ram had ruined each of them in some way. They wouldn’t even have to worry about convincing the Council. High society would do the work for them. No one was more dangerous than a rich man scorned.
“You’re a clever one, Arthie,” Shaw said. “See, that is a far more excellent end than death.”
Arthie said nothing. She didn’t voice a concern or make a comment, but Jin knew that look: She was scheming. Unmasking the Ram was well and good, but was it enough?
It was indeed a pity they couldn’t sit the Ram down and get answers out of the woman themselves.
33ARTHIE
Arthie made her way to the hold to speak to the vampires, leaving the others. Leaving Jin with his family, with his father who had decided she could be his daughter too. Arthie was overwhelmed by the warmth that rushed through her veins, the strange fuzziness.
The dark passageway enveloped her, and when she heard thehush hushof the sea against the side of the ship, she didn’t feel that incessant guilt eating away at her with each push and pull of the waves. She felt a sense of calm. Not because she’d burned down the fort, really, but because she had gone to Ceylan and returned. Her guilt hadn’t consumed her; her past hadn’t swallowed her whole. No, she was closing in on the monarch of Ettenia.
They still didn’t know what the Ram planned for the tribute, but the more they spoke of their own plans for that night, the more it felt as though it was a trap of their own making and the Ram would be their unwitting prisoner.
Footsteps thudded behind her, and Arthie glanced back, seeing his blood-streaked white shirt before the rest of him.
