Madame Celeste Gearhart's Arc

Chapter 11 of 24

Three days after Percival vanished into the fog, a crow dropped a scrap of oilcloth on Celeste's workbench. She unrolled it beside the cauldron. The words were burned into the cloth with a hot iron. "Prove the totem still answers only to you. Come to the market barge. Bring it." No name. None was needed. Celeste knew the pirate she owed. That one had sold her the ghost-silver on credit, and now the debt had teeth. The message meant the pirate had watched her sink Mei-Ling's boat. Anyone who could do that was a weapon worth testing, or worth stealing. Celeste weighed the choice by the fire. Refuse, and she broke a debt no witch survived breaking. Obey, and she carried her totem out where a rival could grab it. She looked at the taxidermy platypus on the mantle and thought of Percival's flat eyes. She wrapped the totem in oilcloth, took her cane, and went. Captain Zhou Ming stood at the barge rail when she reached the water. Forty years on the river had carved his face. He had barred her from these decks once, then relented only when her spirits threatened his cargo. He did not smile now either. "You bring trouble aboard again," he said. "The Guild watches my locks. I cannot host a fight." "No fight," Celeste said. "A test. Then I'm gone." Zhou Ming studied the bundle under her arm. "One test," he said. "Then off my deck." He stepped aside. The pirate waited beneath the hanging lanterns. She was young, one eye covered by a patch, a sword at her hip, a peg for one leg. Earrings caught the lantern light when she turned. This was Akiko Stormsail, who had bound Celeste with a loan and never once named her price. She smiled like the debt already belonged to her. "Show me it obeys you," Akiko said. "Only you. Or I take it as payment now." Celeste set the totem on a crate. Crewmen crowded close. She pressed her hands to the stone and called the spirits she held. The ghost-silver hummed. She sent them up into the lantern ropes and made every flame gutter at once, then snap bright on her word. Cold wind swept the deck. The crew stumbled back. Akiko did not move. Celeste twisted the valve shut. The stone cooled. The spirits went still, hers alone. Akiko's smile faded to something harder. "It answers you," she said. "So it would answer me, if you were gone." She had come to prove the totem loyal, and Celeste had proven it too well. "The debt still stands. I'll call it when I choose." She turned and limped down the deck. Celeste gathered the totem. She had passed the test and kept her weapon. But Akiko no longer wanted a debtor. She wanted the witch dead and the totem hers.