Nightsea Outlaw

Erin's chest burned as she tried to breathe in the aether, but nothing came into her system besides the normal air. Whatever the cell was made of, it sapped her strength away. She couldn't help but think back to Glory Plateau, where her curse had been entirely blocked in the maze.

"Do you know where we are?" she asked the person across from her who had called himself Artur.

"Trapped we are, alas," he said, putting one dirt-smudged hand up to his forehead. "It is so crass.

"Are you doing that on purpose?" Erin narrowed her eyes. "Why are you rhyming?"

"It is the nature of my trade," Artur said, cracking a smile despite his squalor. "I am a prince who a knight was made."

"And that makes you rhyme?"

"It is this way in the old stories seen." Artur nodded. "Before a damsel, a knight's word gleams."

Erin took in a few deep breaths as she solidified that she was trapped in a cage, bereft of her curse, with a crazy, dirty man in the cage. She supposed she had to count herself lucky that he hadn't tried to do anything to her while she slept. The knight persona could have been a facade to hide who he was.

"I remember working with a merchant," she said, rubbing her head. "Then someone hit me from behind."

"Roy Harper was the man who brought you in." Artur nodded. "He is a slaver, like William, his kin."

Erin remembered the two men from the shuttle ride to Dry Turtle. They must have followed the group and saw the opportunity to take one of them. She had just been the unlucky one to be alone. She thought about that for a second before a heavy weight settled into her stomach.

Mari.

"Did he just bring me, or was there anyone else?" she asked, locking eyes with Artur.

"Alone, alone, you were placed in the cage," Artur said, frowning and nodding. "No one else was captured that I can gauge."

Erin nodded a few times. She was already getting used to how he spoke, even if the situation was weird. She slowly scanned the dim room around them, her eyes finally adjusting to the low light. Several other cages covered the room. A sharp, sour odor filled her nose as she realized she was in a room full of people in cages.

She should have known immediately, but the reality was only just sinking in. Slavers had captured her. She had to hope that Sayed had found out and picked up Mari. Otherwise, Mari would be running around Dry Turtle completely alone. She also had to hope that Sayed knew where she had been taken or that the rest of the crew could figure it out.

She liked them, but she already knew she should be more proactive than that. Pushing herself up to her hands and knees, she crawled over to the end of the cage. There had to be a door to the cage; that's how she would have been dropped in. She fumbled around in the darkness as she searched the bars for the lock.

"What are you planning?" Artur followed after her, crawling behind her. "Is it going to be daring?"

"I want to see if I can get out," Erin said as her hand ran across the cold metal.

It leeched at her as she touched it, but that had to be a property of the metal. It pulled the aether out of the air and restricted her curse. She felt the hole for the key and found it too small to fit her pinky inside.

"But I could pick it," she said, reaching beneath her cloak.

Empty pockets and straps greeted her, and she frowned. Roy had been smart enough to search for any items and throw her in a cage to block her curse. She remembered what he had said right before he had knocked her out: 'Thorn Queen, ' Leah. He even knew her bounty name.

"Sha-om," she whispered, clenching her fists tight. "Did he leave me with anything?"

"Roy is well versed in a search." Artur shuffled closer to her. "He is why I was left in a lurch."

Erin's jaw moved back and forth as she ground her teeth together. She needed a way out, and Artur's rhyming wasn't helping her in the slightest. She might have found it charming if she wasn't in a cage—however, the reality of where they were made it so much worse.

"You." She pointed at Artur. "Don't talk for a minute. Let me work through it."

Artur frowned but sat back on his legs, holding his hands over his knees, one over the other. Erin thought through what he told him and forced her thoughts together through her hazy mind. Piece by piece, she recalled all the man had told her so far.

"You're a knight," she said slowly. "And a prince. You were captured by Roy and his brother. You're from the Lopold family."

She paused. She had heard that name before. She wracked her brain, thinking through meetings and secret conversations over the aetheric radio with her boss, Lenenski. Where had she heard that name before? Then it hit her harder than Roy had when he knocked her unconscious.

"Grim Aegis," she said. "The Lopold Family are the rulers of Grim Aegis."

"Indeed, we are." Artur smiled. "I have traveled far."

"Why would a noble, much less royalty, be in Dry Turtle." Erin furrowed her brow. "Much less in a cage?"

"Betrayed I was on a trip." Artur leaned forward, a smile cracking his dirty face. "My butler, the traitor, gave me the slip."

"And your name is Artur, Artur Lopold," Erin said.

"It is indeed." Artur nodded. "Call me if in need."

Erin sighed. She would have to accept it. However, there was a more glaring problem sitting in front of her. Both the nobility and the royalty were all arms of the Scions. They may not work directly with the Scions, but they ruled over islands where the Scions held sway.,

As a member of the People's Revolution, someone like Artur was her enemy, plain and simple. At best, he was an ignorant bystander, festooned in the prestige of his power as a son of a royal family and unknowingly hurting the people below him. At worst, he was an active abuser who hurt his people and lived off the wealth they generated, like Bibi on Diamond Peak.

Neither option was good in her book. However, that didn't change the fact that she was stuck in a cage with him. What good would it do for her to strangle him? Could she even manage a fight without her curse? No, she needed to escape, just as he did.

"Okay," Erin said. "But why are you so anxious to help me?"

"Is that not obvious? Am I not showing bliss?" Artur stood before bumping his head against the roof of the cage.

Bang!

Metal rang out before he fell back to his knees, holding his head and whimpering softly for a moment. After he recovered, he quickly assumed his heroic stance, though not going as high as he did the first time.

"You are obviously a lady most fair," Artur said, holding out an open hand. "As a prince and a knight, I am in your care."

Erin's ears burned a little at the words, but that didn't change the situation.

"Okay," she said. "Let's work together to get out of here. After that, you're on your own."

He nodded a little too vigorously and nearly fell forward onto the cage's floor.

"So, what is the plan?" he asked. "How will we escape this pan?"

Erin hesitated to say, 'Out of the pan and into the fire.' Instead, she licked her lips and cast about the room for anything that might help. She wasn't Alex, but she hadn't worked with the People's Revolution for years with nothing to show for it. She would come up with a plan.

Miss Brooke slipped off Ortega's clothes as part of the dripping water. She lay on the metallic floor until she was absolutely sure that no one was watching. As Ortega and a large, burly man left the ship, she guessed that the amount of people inside was reduced as much as it would ever be, and she let her face reform from the puddle she had been in.

She only let her face form completely out of the water as she searched the area. She lay in a small room next to a set of stairs leading deeper into the ship. Miss Brooke smiled. Her curse made infiltration as easy as murdering a baby. She shuffled over to the stairs and let her body drop down them to the hallway below.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

That's all she was when she used her curse. She knew of very few people with one like her curse. She could turn herself into water, retaining her consciousness even as a puddle. She could also manipulate and control the water she became, turning herself into a variety of shapes and other related things.

It made infiltration far too easy. Why bother with a challenge when the easy path lay before her?

As her form coalesced in a puddle below, she again waited. There was no movement in the hall, no sound of people moving. Slowly, she let her face form and peered around her, raising part of the liquid to peer down each side of the hall. Not a single soul moved down the hallway.

"Wen!"

Plop!

A tall, dark man came out from a door, and Miss Brooke immediately dropped down into a flat puddle. Through her other senses, less so through sight, Miss Brooke was aware that he had walked past her and that he was now in a different room. A moment later, a child ran after him, and Miss Brooke waited yet again for the hallway to clear.

Once she was certain he was gone, she rose again, peering down the hallway before slinking toward where the man and child had come from. She wanted to explore the ship as much as possible while they were occupied.

She slurped around the ship, bit by bit. She had heard of the newer models, the ones made with the new blueprints after Roald's message was sent across the Erth. Of course, she wasn't that interested because those ships solved problems for people who didn't have access to the Underground.

She didn't need a slipship to travel between islands or to the Dark Meridian. She was a Finger and had access to the Ways. At the right location on an island, she could travel to any place she pleased, so long as it was connected to the Underground.

Fingers and Hands could be almost anywhere at any time, making them the perfect operatives for the Underground Lords. Combine that with their personal power and curses, and there was a reason that the real rulers beneath the Scions, the ones who supplied rulers beneath the table, were the Underground Lords.

That was why Miss Brooke had chosen that side, after all.

"But is this worth missing my possible appointment?" she mused as she rose from her puddle and entered a kitchen area.

She assumed her full form, warping from the puddle and stepping lightly onto the metal floor. It was cold against her bare feet, and she had to focus to form a pair of shoes over her skin. Truly, she had trouble maintaining such things when using her curse, and she also had to focus on restoring her long black dress to her naked body.

Taking a path down the hall, again away from the direction the man and child had gone, she focused on exploring the ship. She would search every nook and cranny she could before escaping out the door. Whether it led to anything was irrelevant. Miss Brooke was only concerned with learning as much as she could.