Milo Deepcrest's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The hour in the record stalls gave Milo a name. Her parents had died on a chartered ship, and the charter bore a council seal she knew. But the knowledge cost her. Cleo now held Milo's secret about the wreck, and Cleo could tell the thief in Milo's seat that Milo was still digging. One whisper would warn the killer. Milo needed something to trade back before Cleo talked. So Milo followed the pirate to land. The tavern sat above the waterline, its sign dark wood and smoke-stained. Only hard people drank there. Milo could not walk on legs, so she rose from the shallows at the dock edge, gripping the slick pilings, and watched through a gap in the wall. Cleo stood inside, arguing with a woman Milo had never seen. The woman wore a red coat and black hair past her waist. She spoke in short, cold words, and the room gave her space. This was Trina, Cleo's aunt, the pirate queen whose ship Cleo needed to reach the deep wreck. Milo heard enough. Trina was circling Cleo for something Cleo's captain had taken. Trina would lend the ship only if Cleo paid her back. That was the trade Milo needed. Cleo came out alone to the dock, jaw tight. Milo let her get close before she spoke. "Your aunt won't move until you give her what her captain stole," Milo said. "You don't have it. I can see that." Cleo stopped. "You followed me." "You hold my secret. I went looking for one of yours." Milo pulled herself higher on the piling. "I know these waters better than any ship's charts. The thing Trina wants was aboard a boat that went down near my reefs. I can find it." Cleo's green eyes stayed flat. "Prove it." "I can't, standing here. But you can't reach your own wreck without her ship, and you can't get her ship without me." Milo kept her voice level. "So we're even now. You don't tell the council I'm still asking questions. I help you pay your aunt. Neither of us owns the other." For a long moment Cleo said nothing. Water slapped the pilings between them. "You're sharper than you look," Cleo said at last. "Fine. The leverage dies. We trade straight from here." "Straight," Milo agreed. Cleo turned back toward the tavern, then paused. "My aunt doesn't forgive. If you can't find what she wants, she takes it out of both of us." Then she was gone through the dark door. Milo sank back into the shallows. Her hold over her investigation was safe. But she had traded one debt for a harder one. Now she owed a pirate queen a thing she had not yet found, in deep water she had not searched. And the name on that charter seal was still waiting.