A Swift and Savage Tide (A Captain Kit Brightling Novel Book 2)

Two days passed, and the sailing was smooth and uneventful. They passed two Islish blockade ships, made the appropriate signals. If Gerard intended to keep pushing toward the Isles, either he’d taken a break after Auevilla, or the fighting had moved farther from the Gallic coast.

On the third day, just as they passed the border between Gallia and Hispania, they found a terrible clue.

Timbers. Rigging. Bodies.

A field of debris spread over nearly a mile, and it told a miserable tale. A ship burned to the water, bearing an Islish flag. It was a trail leading toward the man who’d put them there, and the ship that had carried him to and from the atrocity. The current was another marker, still bearing the scar of whatever he’d done to cause this much fire and death so far from shore.

So they would follow these markers, and they would find Doucette and put an end to the misery he created.

For the first time, Kit touched her amulet for comfort, for consideration, then tossed a coin into the sea. By one method or another, she’d need the gods’ help.

Five hours later, as the sun rose to midday, Tamlin spotted the ship. It was the same ketch in which Doucette had sailed before, albeit repaired since their last confrontation, and likely because of the stone platform they’d mounted there. It would have required extra bracing and wouldn’t be easily moved from one ship to another.

“Do we need a rousing speech?” Kit asked, trying to keep the crew’s mood up.

“I love a good rousing myself,” Watson said with a grin. “But I don’t believe they need encouraging, Captain.”

Kit followed her gaze to the bow, where the eldest member of the crew, Mr. Smythe, was using Mr. Wells to explain how to slice a Gallic soldier from bow to stern.

“Mr. Smythe,” she called out. “Please stop mock-fileting Mr. Wells.”

“Aye, Captain,” he grumbled, and let the man go, but not without obvious disappointment.

“If I had a coin for each time we asked him to be less violent,” Kit said, “I’d be neck-deep in pistachio nougats.”

Watson made a sound of disgust that had Kit looking over. “Problem, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, I respect you a great deal. It’s just—isn’t that a square of white tar with little mealy bits in it?”

Jin and Simon took large steps backward, as if putting space between combatants about to come to blows.

“If I was a lesser woman, I’d call you out.”

“It’s the best of all sweets,” Watson said dryly. “I was plainly incorrect in my assertions otherwise.”

“Apology accepted,” she said. “And best you call all hands, Jin.”

He frowned but did so, and the sailors gathered round.

“Today, we will face down La Boucher, a man who has shown himself willing to slaughter. To kill without honor. To kill without cause. And to use whatever power he wishes to do so. Alain Doucette is called the Butcher because he is bound by no conscience. We’ve all seen what he can do.”

“Does he outmatch us, Captain?”

The question was asked by young Mr. Wells, and she knew there were plenty of captains—including some she’d served under—who might have punished the inquiry, or become enraged by it. But Jin had already told her of their fears, and she’d rather address them head-on. So while Cooper chucked the boy on the shoulder—as was appropriate—Kit met his gaze.

“Marshal Doucette has skills that we do not understand. Yet. And we are learning each day, as our awareness and attitude shift, how to make use of the current. Without unnecessary risks,” she said, trying very hard not to look at Grant. “Without harming those we purport to protect. I do not know what we will find today. But I give you my word that I will do my best to protect you from whatever he brings. And to capture him, and see him in prison, or in hell, where he belongs.”

When shouts of approval rang out, she turned back to the officers at the helm.

“Watson, you’ll take the helm with Mr. Pettigrew. Jin, you’ll monitor the cannons. Give them as many shots as they can take.”

“Aye, Captain,” Jin said with a frown, “but why are you giving us these orders now?”

“Because I’m going in the water.”

They went silent.

“In the water,” Jin repeated, as if the words made no sense.

She slid her gaze to Grant. “Although it’s been suggested I could be more use fighting from a bucket of water on deck, that’s not the most practical idea in a rolling ship. I think it’s time to see what else the current can do. Not by manipulation,” she said, and thought of Nelson and Mathilda, “but by listening and hearing what it desires to do. What freedoms it requests, and perhaps granting it what freedom I can. I need to be in the water to try that.”

“You’re going to try something new,” Grant said. She looked at him, nodded, and couldn’t quite read what lay behind his eyes.

“Try being the key,” she admitted. “It’s important for the Isles, for the queen, for the war effort, that risks be undertaken. That attempts be made. And I need to be in the sea to do it.” Not just because it would be the most efficacious method, but because she hoped she might shield her sailors—and Grant—from whatever might happen there.

There was silence for a good long minute, and the looks on her officers’ faces told her they understood that terrible math.

Grant spoke first. “Aye, Captain,” he said, meeting her gaze. “How can we help?”

She just stared at him.

Of all of them, she’d expected his objection to be the loudest. For him to proclaim that her plan was too dangerous, too risky. That she should stay on board, guarded by the rest of them, while they faced down danger.

He looked at her—not as a bauble to be placed in a cabinet, to be held back and protected—but as a trusted friend and colleague. As someone he respected. As someone with whom he’d confronted demons, and would again.

Maybe it wouldn’t be seclusion in Queenscliffe and warm punch at mandatory balls. Maybe it would just be . . . a partnership.

But she put that away. “Let’s get ready,” she said.

They stayed in the ship’s wake, sufficiently behind to allow cannons to be readied, and Kit to prepare her plan. She left her coat and sabre in her quarters but kept boots and dagger . . . and her amulet.

She lifted the charms, looked them over again. “You know more about this than me,” she said quietly. “Any assistance you can provide would be appreciated.”

But if it was intended to respond, it said nothing. And Kit began to wonder if she’d been bamboozled.

There was a knock at her cabin door, and Kit was glad she’d thought to close it before talking to inanimate objects. She opened it, found Cooper in the doorway. “We’re ready above, Captain.”

Kit nodded. “Thank you, Midshipman. Let’s finish this.”

“Honored to be part of it, sir.”

Kit snorted. “Generally best to wait until after the battle to express your appreciation, Cooper.”

“Noted, sir,” Cooper said. But that didn’t wipe away her grin.

On deck, they’d gathered buckets of water and had provisions in the jolly boat in the event they needed to search for Kit. But once she was off the ship, she knew she’d have to rescue herself. The sea was much too large.

“Wait until we’re in range,” Kit told Jin. “I’ll touch the current until his first volley of magic is done. Even he would need time to replenish after that.”

“And then you swim,” Jin said.

“And then I swim.”

“And after that?” Jin asked.

She was still considering the details, but she knew that if she told them even that much, they’d try to dissuade her. She didn’t have time for an argument, and she wanted them focused on the Diana, not its captain.

She reached out, squeezed his arm. “I have an objectively reasonable plan with a very high possibility of success.”

His mouth narrowed to a line. “You’re a very bad liar.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Pishposh.”

“Captain,” Watson called out. “They’ve seen us. They’re beginning maneuvers.”

“All hands,” Kit said. “Be fleet, be canny.” She looked at each of her senior officers, then gave herself a bit of space.

She closed her eyes, reached out . . . and felt Doucette’s manipulation immediately.

“Down!” she warned them, and enveloped the boat just as the current he’d cast in their direction struck. She could hear sizzling of current against current, land against sea, and felt the shake of every timber in the Diana’s hull. She apologized to the current, for what little good that did, for setting it against its brother. But she kept her hand on the power until she felt Doucette’s diminish again.

She let the current go with a Dastes for its trouble, then opened her eyes, watched Mr. Smythe stamp out a spark near the bow. But that was the only obvious damage. So it was time for what came next.

Grant took her hand, squeezed it hard, but made no objection. And she could see what it cost him. “Be good,” he said. “Be careful.”

“Always,” Kit said, and dove into the water.

The water was brilliantly clear here, and deliciously warm. The southern edges of the Narrow Sea were a wonderful change from the frigid temperatures farther north. It was also much easier to see in the water now, before it was littered with the scraps of human war—or sea dragons—and that might make her task a bit easier.

She turned toward Doucette’s ship and considered her plan: If she could envelop the current around a ship, to propel it, then why not herself?

Grant had been right—life, much less war, required risk. It all depended on how much. True, she’d once cracked a dory in half when she’d given it too much current for the small vessel to bear. She was smaller than a ship, certainly. But she touched the current with some frequency now, and other than the scars—and nausea from her trip from Auevilla—it hadn’t torn her apart.

She steeled her nerves and reached down for the current, leaving her eyes open given there were fewer distractions in the water—and could feel it thrumming below, its pulse slower than before Doucette had touched it. She extended her hand, let it flow around her. And as she did, she felt something warm against her chest.

She looked down, afraid she might have been shot, and found the amulet floating. But not just that—it was vibrating, as if it, too, could feel the current. The warmth wasn’t uncomfortable; to the contrary, there was something rather comforting about it—like the touch of a hand. It was . . . familiar.

The amulet had the same Alignment as she did, Kit realized. She wasn’t sure what luck or skill or craft had allowed Mathilda to manage that, but she didn’t mind the sensation that she wasn’t facing the current alone. Wasn’t fighting alone.

It would help her. Kit wasn’t sure how she knew that. But here—in the water—she was absolutely certain. So it was time to begin.

She narrowed her gaze on a spot in the water ten yards from Doucette’s ship. Let the current gather, spill from the boundaries that usually contained it, and surround her in its—if she was honest, prickly—embrace.

She did not force it to move. She did not demand it follow her orders.

Just as she had with the Diana, she simply let it go.

And she flew. Just as she’d planned—and just like the Diana—she sliced through the water like an arrow, propelled by the current she’d released. If she’d been above the surface, she’d have screamed with joy. No horse could move this quickly, she bet.

But this wasn’t a lark. The current’s power had weight, and it pushed against her skin in every direction, as if it might collapse and run right through her. The amulet vibrated harder now, so hot, the water seemed to boil around it. She thought of the dory she’d cracked and wondered if that would have been her right now, but for the strange collection that hung about her neck.

She had questions for Mathilda. And suspected she owed the woman a large debt of gratitude.

Doucette’s ship grew closer and closer still, and Kit had some concern she’d drawn too much current and it would propel her right into the oak like a human torpedo.

Kit extended her arms, grimaced at the pressure against her limbs, but managed to slow to a stop just beyond the hull of Doucette’s ship.

But the current hadn’t yet exhausted itself. It struck the hull, pushing the ship with enough force that Kit could feel the shudder of oak, hear the groan of it. And all that power—all that displaced water—bounced against the hull and reflected back again, sending her tumbling backward through the water, ocean and sky blending into a disoriented haze.

Her head was spinning now, her body aching from the power she’d taken on, the excess not absorbed by the amulet. Added to it, she was running out of air. Her Alignment allowed her leeway underwater, but she still had to breathe, and could feel the tightening in her lungs.

She was nearly out of time, and she’d be damned if she died alone down here.

Focus, she silently demanded, and shook her head to clear the growing fog. She righted herself again, then turned until she faced Doucette’s boat.

One more shot, she promised—herself, the current, and the amulet—and knew it would be her last, and best, chance to win this battle.

She’d nearly struck Doucette’s ship in the flow of the current—and the excess she’d released had struck the boat with some force. Why couldn’t she use the water as a weapon? If water could move ships and ships’ captains, why not move itself?

So she set her sights on the hull of Doucette’s ship, the planks just above the keel.

She touched the current, let it gather and grow around her, let it flow into the water where it would. The amulet was nearly hot now, vibrating furiously from the power, as if funneling some of it away from Kit.

She let the current go and let the water fly.

It hit the side of the hull with a deep rumble of sound, as if the ship was groaning with pain.

For a moment there was nothing, and Kit feared she’d used the last of her energy for naught.

But then a muffled crack sounded through the water . . . and a foot-wide section of the hull simply disintegrated, oak and tar disappearing as water rushed into the hole she’d created.

The pull was strong, and she had to push aching muscles to get away from the stream. She wanted so badly to rest, to close her eyes and sleep. To open her mouth and breathe deeply.

She pinched her cheek sharply, hoping the pain would keep her conscious. She had orders. She couldn’t leave this fight until she was satisfied Doucette was in the Diana’s brig—or no longer breathing.

She found the handholds in the hull, began to climb up the side of the ship, and when she broke the surface, gasped for air. “Dastes,” she said, and kept climbing.

And as she climbed, she realized there were no new scars on her palms, nor any other injuries that she could feel, despite having been ensconced in magic. She surmised she had the amulet to thank for that.

The Diana fired, the cannoneers unaware their captain was attempting to board Doucette’s ship. She covered her head with a bent arm, felt the ship shudder around her and the sprinkle of debris from the explosion.

She reached the gunwale and saw only chaos. There were few sailors on the ship; they’d either gone below to try to staunch the rising water, or they’d taken boats to escape. Soaked through, the amulet still and cool again, she strode toward the bow, and there found Doucette.

He lay on the deck, his back against the raised glass of the forecastle, a splinter extending nearly a foot from his chest.

She might have taken the ship, but the Diana had taken Doucette.

He looked up at her, blinked. “You are the one who stopped my fire.” His voice carried a heavy Gallic accent, and it was hoarse, as if fire and smoke had scraped it raw.

“The current did the work; I just gave the current the opportunity.”

He snorted. “We control the current, not the opposite. We are gods. Not in myth, but reality.”

“If you’re a god, why do you bow to Rousseau? Why aren’t you the emperor? And why are you lying on this deck, your blood seeping into the wood?”

She heard the order from the Diana to cease fire; they’d seen her on deck. Then she heard members of her crew board the ship but kept her gaze and attention on the man at her feet.

“We are not gods,” she said, when he didn’t answer. “We bow to its whims, and not the reverse.” She crouched in front of him. Death was near; she could see and smell it. But she’d have what information she could. “How do you avoid the consequences?”

His mouth formed a thin line. “There is always a consequence,” he said, and pulled up his shirt. His abdomen was so thin, it was nearly concave. And it was crossed by dark veins that beat like monsters beneath his skin.

“Vas tiva es?” she murmured, and stumbled backward.

“Yes,” Doucette said. “Now you can see the price that will be paid. By flesh or by blood, there is no way to avoid it. The world, the current, takes what it will. And leaves us to die alone. So we ought to take what we can, when we can.” He turned his gaze to hers, offered a hard laugh. “You are on the precipice of something monumental, and you hardly know it.”

Was this the cost of manipulating the current? The penalty the human body must bear? And what the amulet had really protected her from?

Doucette coughed until blood stained the deck, drawing her attention again. She would not lose him without getting the information she needed. “Where is the map?”

“What map?”

“The map you had at Auevilla—the map in the red leather portfolio. The map you showed to Monsieur Sedley. Where is it now?”

He looked momentarily startled that she knew of it, but then his smile grew again. “You will get no help from me.” One final cough, and the light faded from his eyes.

“And you’ll get none from me,” she said. “Everything on this ship, including the map, now belongs to Her Majesty Queen Charlotte.”

The cloaked woman pulled her sabre, silk flowing like water around her.

Kit’s sabre was on the Diana, but she had her dagger. She pulled it from its sheath, circled the woman.

She moved forward with purpose, cloak flying, and no question about her intention. The sabre was aimed at Kit’s heart. Kit used her dagger arm to deflect. But the sabre’s tip grazed her forearm, sending hot pain across her skin.

Kit spun and came up hard, slicing against the woman’s boot and into tender skin beneath. The sabre flashed again and Kit jumped back, kicking upward as she moved.

That had the hood of the woman’s cloak flying back, revealing her face.

And Kit stared into the face of a woman who looked like her. Not exactly the same—her chin was rounder, her nose a bit longer. But she had the same dark hair, marked by decorative braids of silver, and her eyes—wide and gray—were the same. And the bow of her lips matched Kit’s nearly exactly. She could have been a sister.

She might have been a sister.

Kit’s hands shook. “Who are you?”

The woman’s expression went cold and unreadable. “My name is unimportant. He was only one, as am I. There are many more of us, and you cannot stop the Resurrection.”

With a burst of speed, as if to punctuate the statement, she jumped onto the gunwale, then propelled herself into the water.

“Wait!” Kit said, and ran to the gunwale, gripping it with white knuckles as she searched for the woman. But the woman had disappeared beneath the waves.

Kit could take that fight, she thought, and prepared to go over the rail. But she found an arm on hers, gripping tightly.

She looked back, found Grant shaking his head. “You’re bleeding,” he said, and gestured to the cut on her other arm. “Even if you weren’t exhausted, you’ll call the dragons and whatever else lurks in the deep. You can’t fight every monster yourself.”

She was furious that he was right, and furious the woman had disappeared. She stared at the water for what felt like an hour, looking for some sign the woman had reappeared, had taken a breath. But she saw nothing.

Either the woman hadn’t survived the deep, or she could hold her breath as long as Kit.

“She looked like me,” Kit said after a moment.

“I know,” Grant said. “But she wasn’t you.”

You are on the precipice of something monumental.

The remaining Gallic sailors were taken as prisoners of war, and then the ship was quickly searched for contraband, munitions, and, of course, wine. With no one to pump the ship, it wouldn’t remain afloat for long.

Kit searched Doucette’s quarters personally. She found she needed the quiet, needed the space to think. To brood. To wonder at the girl who’d looked like her, who’d been willing to kill her on sight, and who’d then disappeared into the drink.

The room was bare as a gaol cell. Hammock, small desk. Nothing else. She found no map, no plans for the invasion of the Isles, no hint of what might come next, and no study of how Doucette managed to use magic so skillfully. Although the decay that had spread across his chest was probably explanation enough.

The ship was beginning to list, so she walked toward the door, but as she did, she spotted a bit of white near a plank in the wall. She walked to it, cocked her head, and wiggled the board. It was loose, so she pulled it away. The paper, a scrap of something torn, fluttered to the ground.

She picked it up, found a sketch in dark ink. Thirteen circles, or circular objects, drawn in a rough ring to make a larger circle. None were perfect, and there were gaps between them. But Kit had seen this shape before. She knew what it was.

A henge. A magical circle from the time of the old gods, used to calculate or communicate or otherwise structure the lives of the peoples who believed in them. Or, perhaps, used for some purpose no one had imagined.

Something related to Alignment?

She flipped over the paper, found nothing on the back. Found no other paper in the room but this one small piece, with its one small drawing. She didn’t know why it was in Doucette’s room, and the only ones who could tell her were dead or gone.

That was one more mystery she’d have to solve.

There were celebrations in the officers’ mess, and Kit gave them the evening for their fun.

She made her way to her cabin and felt suddenly nervous. There were things she needed to say to Grant. Things that made her palms sweat.

“Did you find the map?”

She nearly jumped at his voice in the doorway.

“Not as such,” she said, when her heart had slowed. “If there was a map, it wasn’t there. But I did find this.”

She offered him the bit of vellum.

“A henge?” he asked, glancing up at her.

“That would be my guess. Magic in the landscape and all that. Perhaps it meant something to Doucette, given his Alignment.”

Grant nodded, offered the paper back. Kit put it in the portfolio on her desk, then turned back to him.

She nodded. “There are things—”

“I need to—”

They both began talking at once, then stumbled over the pardons. Before Kit could speak again, Grant walked to the door, closed it, locked it, then came back to her. And there was misery in his eyes.

“Seeing you go into the water nearly killed me.”

She just looked at him. “You said nothing.”

“Because you needed me to say nothing. You needed me to support your position. So I did.” He dropped his forehead to hers. “I want you, Kit. At my side, in my bed. And the wanting doesn’t stop, despite the force of my will—or the fact that I’m a viscount. Irony, that.”

She said nothing, as she wasn’t sure what she ought to say, or what he needed to hear.

“So I’ll withdraw my demand.”

She went very still. “You’ll . . . withdraw it?”

He took her hand, placed it against his chest. His heart, beating hard and strong, was an instant comfort. “Assuming you’ll still have me, I will take as much as you’re willing to give. No wedding, if that’s not what you want. If that’s not what you need.”

That, for some absurd reason, was all she’d needed to hear. His support on the deck had been more than enough, more than she probably deserved given the things they’d said to each other. And that he was willing to let her be who she was—even if who she was wasn’t a viscountess—was the most important thing.

“Just . . . come back to me.”

“No,” she said.

“No?” He looked absolutely baffled, and very insulted, and a little hurt. But there was a story she needed to tell yet.

“I slept in the window seat. At Grant Hall,” she added lamely, as if he might be confused by the number of places she’d slept in window seats.

He watched her for a moment. “I know. Did you think Mrs. Spivey wouldn’t tell me?”

Kit opened her mouth, closed it again. She hadn’t thought of it at all, frankly.

“She was concerned you hadn’t slept well,” Grant said kindly, “and worried the room wasn’t to your liking. I described to her your berth in the Diana and told her we had, as observing officers, been trained to sleep with our backs to a surface—boulder, wall, sandbank—that would provide us protection from enemies behind. It was one less vulnerability for us to concern ourselves with.”

And yet, he’d not only allowed her to sleep behind him on the island, but had encouraged it. Because he trusted her. Because he understood her.

He smiled now. “I also told her you’d almost certainly let me know if you found your quarters lacking.”

Kit snorted. “I’m not sure anyone could find that much silk and down and sunlight and art ‘lacking.’ ”

The look he gave her was dry as the sand at Auevilla. “And yet,” he said, with no little irony in his voice, “the point is, how you sleep is not a deficiency. Unless, of course, you think a soldier with nightmares of war is less of a man because of it?”

Her stare was flat. “Of course not.”

“Well, then.” He watched her carefully.

“I couldn’t sleep a single night in that big bed in that big house. I don’t know if it’s something I could accustom myself to.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Do you think it’s really possible?” she asked finally. “To be a different kind of viscountess?”

There was a light in his eyes, as if he saw victory on the horizon. “I think, Kit, that you have the courage and will to be whatever kind of viscountess you deem possible. I don’t want you because you could become Viscountess Queenscliffe, but because Viscountess Queenscliffe could become you. My viscountess will not kowtow to the expectations of society, whatever those expectations may be. She will be loyal to herself, her family, her friends. Her crew. And if the Beau Monde doesn’t like it, then damn the Beau Monde.”

The words, the warmth in his eyes, put a warm glow in her belly. The kind a sailor could carry with her and use when times were cold and dark.

She cleared her throat, as this was the nervy bit. “In that case, I suppose I’d like you to withdraw your withdrawal.”

The room went absolutely silent. So quiet, in fact, that Kit could hear her heart pounding against her chest. Since he said nothing, but just stared at her, she continued. “And I suppose I’m open to a betrothal. A very long betrothal.”

He paused. “Is that the best offer I’m going to get?”

“Yes.”

He looked down at her, hands linked behind his back. She had the decided sensation of being inspected by the viscount. Which would be an excellent penny-novel title. “You’re quite certain.”

“Yes, Rian.”

His eyes glittered like fire. “You called me ‘Rian.’ ”

“This seemed like an appropriate occasion.”

He embraced her then. “Sometimes, Kit, circumstances bring us low. Sometimes, circumstances give us the opportunity to fly. I will never bring you low. And I will always help you fly.”

“Give up your horses.”

“No,” he said. “Impertinent minx.” He tugged her hair. “Let’s go get drunk on very good Gallic wine.”

“Very well,” she said, in crisp aristocratic tones. “Maybe there are biscuits, too.”