Rosaliy

Rosaliy was sure Cliff should have been doing something about the gang threatening him rather than having a brunch picnic on the beach, but when she announced her intention to wait for Drake, he insisted on keeping her company. There was still a thin possibility Daniella had left herself a way to travel to Bayselle. Cliff’s cheerful spirit and spiced fish wrapped in dried seaweed were a surprisingly welcome distraction from the “get to Flifary Island” problem she currently faced. How did one travel to a magical island that was impossible to locate? The problem was especially troublesome considering she had been there already and knew what a mess the island was right now. There was no common sense in purposefully becoming trapped on an island with enemies who wanted her dead.

She stewed over this while she watched huge ships dock and unload on the pier while tiny fishing boats bobbed in the distant ocean and seabirds scouted for anything resembling food. A few of the speckly birds with spindly legs had landed on the beach and were not-so-subtly creeping closer to her lunch.

“I don’t think Drake’s coming,” Rosaliy finally admitted.

“If he said he was coming, he’ll come,” said Cliff brightly.

“I don’t think he has any way to get here,” Rosaliy admitted, “and I’m pretty sure he has no idea where I am.”

“I see your point,” said Cliff. “Is there anything I can help with?”

She was about to answer when she noticed a cut on his neck, a thin red line just under the collar of his shirt. “What happened?” she exclaimed, scrambling over to examine. She pressed a napkin to the seeping red line.

“I ran into my Crocodillo friends in the fish market this morning,” he admitted, taking over the cloth and holding it to his own neck. “They like to make points with pointy objects. Literal points.” He chuckled at his pun.

“I really think you’re the one who needs help,” she insisted. “What are you going to do about the Crocs?”

He nodded thoughtfully but had no response. He was clearly going to lose some toes. Rosaliy felt terrible for him. Really, it was her fault Drake had not returned to Seavale with Cliff days ago. And maybe meeting some of the unsavory, powerful elements in town would give her a clue how to battle the Flifary. Maybe Rosaliy was just terrible at doing nothing when she could see someone needed help.

Whatever the real reason, she stood up, brushed the sand off herself, and declared, “I’m going to go talk to them. Stall for more time.” The creeping seabirds took a few nervous hops backwards, and Cliff looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she did need more of a plan. “I’ll tell them I can give Drake a message because he is far too busy to meet with them in person. At least we’d know what they wanted.”

He gathered up his picnic supplies, unable to offer a reasonable argument. Finally, he shrugged. “I guess seeing them now to find out what they want is much the same as hearing it tonight.”

“Great,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She tossed one final glance at the spot on the beach where she had arrived and felt a pang of worry for Drake. She felt a much tinier pang of worry for Daniella, but Rosaliy even worried for her. What if the Flifary had survived and come after them? At least neither Drake nor Daniella had any real information to pass on, she decided, as she followed Cliff into the town of Seavale.

Wait. Information the Flifary wanted. She stopped in the middle of a busy market street. A few passersby jostled her. Cliff pulled her to the side of a booth full of fishing equipment.

“What’s wrong?”

The book. They had Arlana’s message. Cliff could do nothing about the problem, and knowing only put him in danger, so she forced a shaky smile.

“Nothing, sorry,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Where will we find the Crocs?”

Cliff was happy to chat about them, which helped take Rosaliy’s mind off her mountain of problems with no solutions. The Crocodillo gang’s home base was just next to a busy dock in the middle of town. Much of the smaller boat traffic came through there, and the Crocs liked to keep an eye on all the important merchandise. They were not as in control of the town as the Escorpia gang had been, but they were meaner, according to Cliff.

“The Scorps weren’t really much better, but they were smarter about how they siphoned money and goods off people,” Cliff told her.

Rosaliy had plenty of questions about Drake, but they had reached their destination. Several wide, low docks stretched out over the calm water in a cove. The docks were lined with little wooden buildings on the left and wooden pegs to tie up boats on the right. The entire cove was full of boats coming and going, tying up on the docks or sliding onto shore. Cliff led her to a grimy building that could hold no more than a tiny office. He rapped on the door.

“This is the Crocs home base?” asked Rosaliy, not impressed.

“Oh, no,” Cliff started, “they—”

A metal plate in the door slid aside, and a pair of eyes peered out.

“We’re looking for Carmell and Felipe,” announced Cliff.

“Really?” said the voice, doubting how much Cliff wanted to see Carmell and Felipe. The pale blue eyes gave Cliff a once over. “All right. Hands up. Step back.”

Cliff and Rosaliy put up their hands and took a big step back. The metal plate slid back into the door, and the sound of chains clinked on the other side of the worn, green door. Finally, the little door creaked open, and a sun-browned boy half Rosaliy’s size stepped out, brandishing a harpoon. He gave them a stern “don’t try anything” glare.

“You that do-gooder who knows Drake?” asked the boy after he had thoroughly conveyed his point with glaring.

“That’s me,” Cliff agreed.

The boy lowered the harpoon. “Probably should have brought him with you,” he suggested. Then the barefoot boy took a giant leap over the side of the dock. He was standing in midair—or mid-water.

Rosaliy did a double take. The boy was not standing on the water. He was standing on a metal hull just poking out of the water. His perch was a submarine painted with the toothy, peeling green face of a crocodile. He banged the staff of his harpoon on the hull next to a hatch three times. After a moment, the metal squeaked and screeched and shifted, until the hatch was thrust open.

A woman who must have been Carmell emerged from the opening and rested her arms on the rim of the hatch. Her hair was so pale, it was almost white, a sharp contrast to her Bayselle-cocoa skin. She shaded her clear blue eyes, took in Rosaliy and Cliff in a glance, then cocked her head to the boy.

“He asked to see ya,” offered the boy in explanation.

“Ugh,” said Carmell, rolling her eyes. “You’d better not be wasting my time.” She pointed a knife at Cliff, then jerked it back in her direction. She was beckoning him into the submarine. Rosaliy was not familiar with gang dealings, but she was not going into an enclosed, underwater space.

“Drake can’t be here by sunset, but I can take him a message,” Rosaliy half-lied. She was still holding out hope he would show up eventually, and she could certainly pass on a message.

“That is not the deal, whoever you are,” Carmell threatened, brandishing her knife generally in Rosaliy’s direction.

Rosaliy crossed her arms and glared back. After the Flifary and nearly being buried alive, she would not be intimidated by common criminals. “Tell me what you want from him, and I’ll see what I can do,” Rosaliy countered.

Carmell grinned and shook her head in amusement. “All right. Felipe,” she yelled down, “Drake’s sending us representatives now.” She pulled herself out of the hatch and leaped up onto the submarine in a fluid, feline motion. “I can respect that. But I’m not going to announce our business to the town at large. You’re going to have to come down.” She waved her arms toward the open hatch in mocking welcome.

Rosaliy traded a glance with Cliff. She was not familiar enough with underworld behavior to know if this was an incredibly bad idea or just how business was done. He shrugged unhelpfully.

“If we don’t leave, Drake doesn’t get the message,” Rosaliy pointed out.

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Carmell replied innocently. “This is just a friendly, everyday chat. Underwater.”

Rosaliy stepped off the dock onto the hull of the submarine. The curved metal surface was dry from the already hot sun, so Rosaliy was saved the embarrassment of falling flat on her face in front of Carmell. She peered down the hatch, seeing a metal ladder and not much else. Because Rosaliy’s sense of danger must have been officially broken, she hopped onto the ladder and climbed down into the metal tube of a vessel.

Inside, the curved walls were hung with weapons—a few crossbows and swords caught her eye among the smaller weaponry. One end of the submarine seemed to have levers, controls, and a big window looking out into the sun-filtered green water of the cove. The other end had what appeared to be a meeting area, an arced bench around a long, narrow table.

A man appeared just behind Rosaliy. She jumped; her sense of danger was still working after all. He breezed past her to lounge on the bench. Cliff followed Rosaliy down the ladder, and Carmell hopped down, deftly pulling the hatch closed behind her, severing them from the outside world.

Rosaliy shuffled through the narrow walkway down the center of the vessel past the weapons, noticing seaweed waving outside the thick, circular windows like it was being blown in the wind. A purple and yellow striped fish ogled her through the porthole behind the man lounging on the bench with one leg resting on the table. Rosaliy took a seat opposite him on the bench and scooted down for Cliff. Carmell pitched her comrade’s leg off the table and sat down next to him.

A loud thud reverberated against the hull of the submarine. Rosaliy tried not to show fear, but her heart sped up.

“What do you want from Drake?” Rosaliy asked immediately, wanting to hurry this up. This was exactly the kind of place where people were murdered and pitched overboard at night.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” countered the man, eyes boring into her. He had withdrawn a knife from his belt, and he was twirling it point down on the table. The table was covered in gashes and divots and the roughly hewn face of a crocodile. Points must often be emphasized by knife in the underworld.

This was a time for a fake name if ever there was one. “Nia,” she invented.

“Felipe,” he answered, dipping the knife toward the woman next to him. “Carmell.”

“How do you know Drake?” asked Carmell.

“None of your business.” Rosaliy thought it sounded like a good answer, all things considered. “Your message?”

Felipe waved for Carmell to explain.

“Fine,” she sighed. “We need Drake to procure something for us.”

“He would never work for the Crocs,” Cliff declared smugly.

“Word is he doesn’t work for the Scorps either, so you can shut your puffer mouth for five seconds,” Felipe threatened.

“Just tell us what you want,” coaxed Rosaliy.

Carmell continued, “In order to operate in Seavale, the resident pirates set a price for doing business.”

“Ha,” crowed Cliff. “It’s getting a little tougher to make ends meet on the black market now that legitimate trading has a foothold, is it?”

“You’re going to need to advise him to stop talking if he wants to keep his tongue,” growled Felipe, supposedly to Rosaliy, although his eyes were burning straight through Cliff. It really was amazing Cliff had lived so long in this place and still had all his limbs.

“What’s their price?” asked Rosaliy to move this along. “What do you need?”

“The pirates have nearly all the supply of a very valuable healing draught,” Carmell explained. “Nearly. There’s a woman near town who procures it somehow. Makes it. Has a vat. No one knows. She won’t sell them any, and the Ingobernables aren’t happy about it.”

“They want you to get the healing draught for them,” Rosaliy guessed.

Carmell confirmed with half a nod.

“They’re pirates,” Cliff ventured to state the obvious. “Why don’t they just take it from her? Why don’t you?”

“She is…” Carmell hesitated.

“Protected,” Felipe filled in.

“Are you talking about Senira Luza?” Cliff exclaimed.

Felipe and Carmell exchanged a glance.

Cliff chuckled, “You’re scared of an Old Coaster living by herself in a hut by the sea caves.”

Carmell tensed, gripping her knife menacingly. “She’s your problem now. I don’t know if you really can get a message to Drake or not, but I hope for your sake you can. Bring us the healing draught by tonight, or—”

“No way,” Rosaliy objected. “If you had been able to talk to Drake personally, you would have given him time to get what you want. Your timetable is unrealistic.”

“You are in no position to argue,” Felipe exploded.

Rosaliy prodded Cliff to slide toward the hatch. He stood, but before she could follow, Carmell took Felipe’s knife and slid herself in between them.

“Do you want your healing draught or not?” Rosaliy argued back, glaring from Carmell to Felipe.

“Tomorrow,” said Carmell. “Sunset. And we’ll just keep him as insurance.”

Rosaliy huffed a breath, more annoyed than threatened, but she was also wearing a magic belt that had been very successful thus far. Cliff was not. For a hundred reasons, she could not leave without him. She stood, stepping up to Carmell and Cliff. Before she could second-guess herself, she grabbed the blade of the knife pointed toward Cliff, clamping her fingers around it tightly.

“Back off,” Rosaliy told Carmell, pulling the blade away from Cliff. Under normal circumstances, Carmell would have been more than a match for Rosaliy in strength, but Carmell was startled by this brash behavior. She did not need to know the blade was not, in fact, slicing into Rosaliy’s skin. Rosaliy managed to push herself between Carmell and Cliff. “Hey, Cliff,” she called. “Why don’t you open that hatch so we can leave.”

Since her hands were blocked, Carmell’s eyes shot daggers at Cliff as he scrambled up the ladder. “If you’re not back by tomorrow night, we will find you,” she fumed. “Both of you.”

Cliff had thrown open the hatch, so Rosaliy let the knife slide out of her clenched palm and turned to follow him. She had bought Cliff one more day. At least that was something.