Page 76 of Dark Water Daughter

“Sit near me and I’ll teach you how to win,” the woman with the earrings put in, and the merriment in her eyes made my nerves soften. Her accent was Sunjani, and her skin a shade darker than Athe’s.

“I’ll just observe,” I said.

One of our other companions growled something to me in Usti, jutting their chin in Grant’s direction.

“He says if you do not play, you must not help Mr. Grant,” Mallan translated for me.

I nodded, cards were dealt, dice distributed, and the game began. Aatz proved to be a lively affair, earning shouts and laughter as the players traded combinations of cards for rolls of dice. The dice tumbled and the players obeyed a set of expectations attached to each number. They drank on one number, confessed a secret on another, told truth or lies, named a lover or recounted an embarrassingevent—thoughthe latter blurred together more than once. And on sixes they all drank their glasses empty, the serving boy appeared at their shoulders, and it all began again. Bets were set at the beginning of each round, wins and losses hinging on which numbers appeared the most frequently.

“Mary, my shy and sorcerous friend,” Grant said after the first round ended, leaving him with significantly less money than he’d initially put down. “Join the next round, I beg you.”

I glanced between him and the rest of the table, hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. “All right. Deal me in.”

The night began to blur. I tried not to drink much but six appeared often, and before long I had to fold out again. Grant showed no such reserve, his frequent losses punctuated with a few large wins that kept his fingers twitching.

Finally, a general hush fell over The Drowned Prince. Musicians climbed up onto a stage in one corner. Lute and drum appeared and a woman sang in Usti as the patrons fell to more intimate discussions.

Farro laid down his last card, rolled a three, and paused to formulate a truth or a lie. I watched light glint off the scars on his head. I knew I shouldn’t stare, but they were soobvious. What must it have looked like, having a morgory biting the top of his head? Well, something like a hat, I supposed, and that made me snort with laughter.

“Oh, think you can do better?” Mallan inquired, raising his bleached-bone eyebrows.

“Hm?” I blinked at him, startled.

“Do you think you can do better than the musicians?”

“Oh,” I hurriedly paddled backwards, stuffing my wine-sodden wits into an apologetic smile. “Oh, no, no, I was just pondering what a sight it must have been for Mr. Farro to wear a morgory like a hat.”

Grant choked on his wine and the rest of the table disintegrated into snickers. Farro himself let out a guffaw that shattered the peace of the room, and the music faltered.

Someone from another table scolded Mallan in Usti. Mallan replied levelly and gestured to me, saying something that earned another, collective hush.

I glanced from him to Grant and leaned closer. “What’s happening?”

“We were rude, it seems, so you’ll sing the next song.” My companion’s brow furrowed. “Is this wise? Perhaps it is. A chance to prove your quality? Or it’s bad. You’re rather valuable. I ought to have brought morepistols…Iought to have brought Athe. She makes me feel safe, Mary, she truly does.”

The singer whose performance I’d interrupted spoke up, first in Usti, then in Aeadine when I only blinked. “Come then, Aead!”

I stood, and though the attention of the whole tavern would have normally made me want to crawl out of my skin, I strode to the stage in a haze of liquored courage. The disgruntled singer and her musicians dispersed, taking their instruments with them.

Despite the wine, I disliked the thought of standing up there without accompaniment. Singing here wasn’t like singing aboard ship, where I was simply doing my job. This was for show, and my mother’s rescue could ride on the impression I made.

My mother’s rescue? I checked myself, blinking rapidly and biting my bottom lip to try and clear my head. That was the first time I’d thought of the prospect as fact, rather than possibility. Sometime in the crossing from Tithe, I’d come to fully believe Demery.

Well, then, I’d best make a good impression tonight.

My eyes drifted to the side of the stage, and I smiled. There, finely painted and propped open with a golden arm, was a harpsichord.

The crowd faded to the back of my mind. There had been some benefits to being the daughter of an innkeeper with enough pirate gold to pay a governess, and the instrument was one of my best.

I pulled out the bench, sat, and took a steadying breath. I let my fingers roam the keys, merging between various songs until my hands remembered how to move, how to flow. Then I cracked my neck and began toplay.

There was only one song that, as a child, I’d battled to learn. It was a complex, highly technical piece from an opera. In that performance, two women lamented the same lover, one in dark, vengeful tones, and the other sweet and melancholy. As the piece went on, the women’s lamentations turned to rage, then ended with them stabbing one another in the heart.

I sang both parts, here and there playing softly or more sparingly to let my voice rise. As I did, the air in The Drowned Prince subtly responded. When I lamented, it swirled, carrying pipe smoke in eddies about the ceiling. When I vowed bloody vengeance it stilled, trembling and brushing at the back of necks like spectral fingers. And when the protagonists of the tragedy lay dying, something like snow dusted through the air, slow and glistening and veiling me.

The last few notes faded and the tavern erupted into applause. My heart hammered but I glanced out over the room, lips twisted into a delighted grin.

“Another!” Grant bellowed.

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