I wandered down to the galley, still pondering the incredible strangeness of Rafe McCrea. I was greeted by a wall of steamy, pungent air. Coughing, I made my way over to where Sal Dixhe was leaning over his stove. I could understand why Marlowe didn’t want to work down here. It was cramped, humid and wretched. A bony gray cat twined itself around my ankles, and I pushed it away with my foot.

“What… what are you cooking?” I choked out, not truly convinced that I wanted the answer.

“Supper,” Dixie said simply.

“Mmm,” I murmured. No shit. “What’s… that smell?”

He pointed wordlessly to the stove. I paused for a moment, trying to decide if my curiosity was worth my sense of smell. Then, still apprehensive, I peered into the large pot. Several slices of lemon floated in the broth, mixed with some greenish, feathery stalks of dill and something else. Up close, the smell was overpowering.

I retreated from the simmering brew. “Lemons,” I said, bemused.

Dixhe grunted, but he was beaming. Or perhaps he was just sweating. In the dim lantern light, it was hard to tell. “Use while they are fresh,” he said brightly.

“Interesting addition,” I puzzled. “Where did you come up with that?”

“Motherland,” he said. “Lemon keep you strong.”

I considered how to phrase my question without sounding too hopeful. “How…how many lemons do we have?”

“Fresh, enough for week. Brined, enough for whole voyage.”

Brined. As if the strong, sour odor of fresh lemons was not repellent enough, they had to be brined. I fought back an impending gag and nodded instead. “Interesting,” I said, hoping that he would not pick up on my lack of enthusiasm. I had missed the salt in the air and the sight of the sun on the vast, glittering expanse of sea, but I had never once missed ship food.

“I’d best be going,” I added, making for the door. “I expect the dinner bell will ring?”

“Da,” Dixhe said amiably, which I assumed meant yes. “Before go,” he continued, “say hello to Koshka.”

I glanced down at my ankles. The beast was half-skeletal and missing a large chunk out of one of its ears. One eye was yellow, and the other milky white as it stared up at me, begging to be picked up. Repulsed, I did not pick it up. I elected to give the cat what I hoped was a courteous nod and quickly backed out of the room.

Merdagh, I had never been so grateful for fresh air.

In my distracted relief, I nearly tripped over my greenhand, who was on his knees scrubbing the deck. I barely dodged him, accidentally tipping his bucket of water in my clumsy dance. “Merdagh, Freyne,” I snapped without thinking. “Watch yourself.”

He gaped at me for a moment, and I immediately felt guilty. He had a strange, youthful face and wide blue eyes, which I had only seen in little glimpses. Eye contact seemed to be the bane of his existence. As usual, his gaze quickly returned to his knees.

“It’s alright, lad,” I said carefully. “You startled me, is all.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” he squeaked, and cleared his throat.

“It’s alright,” I repeated. Then, after a moment, I crouched beside him. “You know, we left Port Adonis this morning. The decks aren’t particularly dirty yet.”

He swallowed, still staring at his hands as they twisted around his cloth. Water seeped through the tight clutch of his fingers. “I…didn’t know what else to do, sir.”

Amusement tickled my lips. His voice had a forced depth, as though he was trying to come across as a man. Oh, I remembered the days when I had worried about such things. “This is your first voyage, yes?”

His head bobbed a little.

“Got fair sea legs about you,” I commented. “Haven’t seen you heaving over the side yet.” That was impressive enough. I vividly remembered spending my first few days aboard the Skybound Jenny with my head tipped over the rail. It had taken near a week before I could function to Captain Searly’s standards.

Kiran fiddled with the edge of the cloth, barely acknowledging my words. In anyone else I would have considered it a sign of blatant disrespect, but the kid was so painfully timid. His intentions were far from impure.

“You can look at me,” I told him. “I’m not going to bite you. You’re safe aboard Flux Levity, do you understand? No one here will hurt you, and no one will judge you..”

At last, he met my gaze. Such a strange collection of features, with his narrow chin and wide eyes. Strange and youthful.

“You should be learning,” I said. “Learning from the men. How to tie knots and…and read the winds. Ask Grady if he’ll show you how to climb the rigging. Thorpe was a whaler before, he can tell you what they’d do with a whale once they caught it.”

“Which one’s Grady?” he asked.

I pointed across the deck to where Grady was hanging out of the rigging. He was halfway as thin as McCrea and I'd never met a man more adept at climbing. Fear seemed absent from him, replaced by an excess measure of good humor. He vaguely reminded me of a younger Marlowe. It had always been Marlowe midway to the crow's perch before the Captain finished asking someone to take view of the horizon. It had always been Marlowe hanging upside down off the rigging to scare Jute and Marlowe getting scolded as Old Frankie patched his torn eyebrow after he fell off.

Oh, but Marlowe wouldn't be climbing the riggings any time soon. A wooden peg did not catch on a width of rope like a boot did. He would remain firmly planted on the decks as long as he was under my watch. Dixhe may have been a clever surgeon, but I had my doubts that he would have much luck repairing a shattered skull with his limited resources.

“Thank you, sir,” Kiran murmured. “I’ll see to that.”

“Bucket can be dumped over the side,” I said. “Pin the rag to the ropes and let it dry.”

He grinned. It was a strange look on his thin face. At my nod, he scampered off with his bucket in hand, slopping water all the way. A smile tugged my lips as I watched him go. He had to have been older than I was when I had voyaged on the Jenny—I guessed maybe sixteen—but his youthfulness was a breath of wind in the doldrums.

“You have a dimple,” McCrea noted loudly from halfway behind me.

I jumped out of my skin. “Merdagh, you bastard,” I spat. Then, collecting my wits, I added, “Where the hell did you come from?”

His ghoulish face became a mask of vicious humor. “Well, my mother…”

“Never mind,” I interrupted, standing up. The wind blew my hair into my eyes. “What do you need, McCrea?”

He eyed me for a moment, and I was fully prepared for him to make another snide comment on my appearance. It was a talent of his to make me feel grubby and wanting and ultimately ugly, one that he had been exercising since the first day we had met.

“Is supper ready yet?”

I snorted. “Not yet, thank Merdagh.”

His eyebrow twitched. “I’m hungry, Owen.”

Shaking my head earnestly, I said, “You won’t be when you smell it.”

--

Later that night, I sat with the majority of my crew on Levity’s decks as the vast wheel of stars freckled the darkness above us. Such a display could not be seen from land, not on the clearest of nights. But even so, it had nothing on the colors of the aurora in the north. The thought of those set my heart dancing.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Thorpe commented timidly.

His remark was greeted with a peal of dissenting groans.

“Don’t tell Dixhe,” Grady said, “but I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten sour soup before.”

“And I’m not sure I want to repeat the experience,” Herriott added. That was met with murmurs of agreement.

“Turned my stomach,” Grady said. “Thought I would vomit it back into the bowl.”

“Looking in your bowl, I thought you had.”

Marlowe joined the group as quietly as he could manage with a wooden leg, levering himself into a stiff seated position beside me. His sleeves were pushed up to his elbows and his brow was shiny with sweat.

“Alright?” I murmured.

“Sea doesn’t agree with me anymore,” he muttered back. “And that sludge didn’t help.”

I glanced at him. “You, seasick?”

“Shut up.”

“Anything I can do?”

“You can shut up and stop worrying. I’ll sleep it off.”

I glanced at McCrea, who was perched on the railing with his head tipped back so he could watch the stars overhead. A slice of wonder carved his face with a kind of softness I had never expected.

“How are we going to tell McCrea that we’re going north?” I murmured.

Marlowe stared at me. “How are you going to tell McCrea? I merely played along with your lie, Captain. You have to support it. You have four days before we turn.”

Merdagh help me. Four days was not long enough.

“You could give me a hand,” I muttered bitterly. “He trusts you.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Marlowe replied. “And the truth is going to kill him if it comes from me. Decide what you are going to do, and decide quickly.”