Page 39 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)

ARTHIE

Arthie lifted a brow when the Siwangs unrolled blueprint records of the sanatorium, and even a layout of the fort. The sheets were thin and coated, stamped in the corners with the sigil of the EJC, a mighty ship in the center of a circle, the words East Jeevant Company running along the curve.

“Am I to believe you had these lying about?” she asked.

“This sanatorium is our domain, essentially, so we were a part of its construction,” Sora explained. “I might have snuck some records away after. Shaw and I repurposed little nooks throughout as safe spaces for notes, goods we’ve stashed over the years, and the like.”

Arthie could see where Jin had gotten his sticky fingers.

Shaw was staring at the EJC sigil. “I don’t know why it came as such a shock to hear that the Ram is Lady Linden. The crown and the EJC work so closely together that I can’t not see them as one and the same.”

Arthie didn’t say it was a shock to them all, even Lady Linden’s daughter. When the Siwangs turned to Jin, she took the blueprints over to Matteo.

“These are excruciating to read,” she said, smoothing her hand over the many layers and trying to make sense of them. She didn’t need the minute details that constructing a building required, she needed something that was as easy as their Athereum infiltration plans.

She looked at Matteo. He was waiting.

“I do offer my services, for a fee,” he said with a wink, his low voice meant for her alone.

Arthie chewed the inside of her lip, shutting down the prickle in her chest. Goodness, now was not the time. “We can discuss payment later.”

“What a flirt, darling,” he replied, pulling the sketches toward him and plucking a pen from Sora’s desk. He paused. “There’s another option, you know.”

“Oh?” she asked, indulging him. “I didn’t realize my scheming skills had competition.”

He removed the Horned Guard uniform and folded up his sleeves to his forearms. Arthie removed hers too.

“Fight our way out,” he said. “We’re armed. The Siwangs are bound to know where we can find weaponry. This sanatorium is vile. Do they deserve anything less than our worst?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. There was chaos, and then there was reckless abandon. Arthie liked to think she had a handle on the balance.

“I don’t see us leaving without a fight, but we can’t rush out of here guns blazing. We need a plan.”

Matteo gave her a dramatic sigh. “As you say.”

It wasn’t his usual cavalier attitude. He was afraid, Arthie realized. He was standing in the middle of a place he had feared since vampires went missing off of White Roaring’s streets.

But when he sat in Sora’s chair and smoothed out the clean sheet of paper, a calmness seemed to come over him.

His lean arms flexed as he traced neat lines, the green of his eyes intent.

That’s enough of that . She swallowed and turned to give Jin his umbrella, surprised he hadn’t noticed it in her hands.

“You picked it up,” Jin said.

“Of course I did.”

Shaw noticed. “Is that my old umbrella?”

“It’s Jin’s weapon of choice,” Arthie quipped.

Shaw looked to Jin for an explanation, and Jin shrugged. “You never did like guns, so I decided not to either.”

His voice cracked as he said the words, and Arthie knew what he was thinking. His father hadn’t liked guns because he was a man of peace. Instead, he’d come to an island where he’d done worse without one.

“Not that he doesn’t know how to use one,” Matteo added without looking up from his work. “He shot me in the heart.”

“At Arthie’s behest!” Jin protested, pointing at her.

Shaw looked among them. “I would find this raillery amusing if the humor wasn’t so dark.”

“He’s fine,” Arthie said, even as Matteo pouted. “Dark is all we know.”

“Unfortunately,” Jin groused. “On both counts.”

Sora walked over to them. “Bloodworth will be here at seven bells.”

Arthie recognized the name from the letter Jin had shown her.

“He’s… our handler, if you will,” Shaw explained. “He reports directly to the Ram, controls the guards, and the man is in a fouler mood than usual because he seems to have lost a shipment of vampires that were due to arrive today.”

Jin snorted.

Shaw narrowed his gaze. “You three don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”

Jin tilted his head from one side to the other. “Strictly speaking, a ship of vampires did arrive today. They’re just not in coffins, you see.”

It took Shaw a moment to catch on. “You three.” His eyes flew wide. “You—you commandeered an EJC ship?”

Arthie shrugged as if that was an everyday occurrence.

“Oh, Pa,” Jin said. “I have so much to tell you.”

“Later,” Matteo said, returning to them with a neat roll of paper. “As requested, milady.”

Arthie unfurled it and was transported, for a moment, back to his parlor and the warmth of his house.

“It’s perfect,” she said. The sanatorium was large, but not as elaborate as Arthie originally thought, with rooms and corridors arranged in a modular fashion. She gestured to the chandelier they’d seen when they’d entered the facility. “You even captured its splendor.”

“Only a fraction of my art skills, darling,” Matteo said. “Though I do agree that a chandelier is a peculiar addition to a place such as this.”

“None of our planning will matter if we can’t unlock the door,” Jin said, looking over Arthie’s shoulder. “It’s our only exit. I didn’t see it, but I heard enough to know I can’t pick its lock.”

“Arthie and I saw the mechanism leading—” Matteo began.

Jin’s father shook his head. “Unfortunately, the door is monitored, and only Bloodworth and his trusted staff can operate it. There are master keys, but they’re on Bloodworth himself. Believe me, we’ve tried to get them replicated.”

Arthie pulled out her pocket watch. “Right, we have just under an hour before Bloodworth arrives.”

“I would suggest hiding when he does, but the captain was far too excited at the prospect of having caught Jin to not tell him about a newly captured vampire,” Shaw said. “Bloodworth will want to see.”

“I expect nothing less,” Arthie said. If he had the keys to their one and only exit, Arthie didn’t want to avoid him.

“Why? What do you mean to do?” Sora asked.

“I intend to have us escape in an hour, and Bloodworth is going to help us.”

As Arthie studied Matteo’s sketches, she slowly began to lose focus on his neat lines and the task at hand, for now she knew how to answer that woman in the sari the color of blood who had scrutinized her. She knew how to answer the sea’s whisper when she’d set foot on Ceylan’s shore.

She knew why she’d returned.

The Ram would learn at some point that Arthie had returned to her homeland. And when she did, Arthie wanted the Ram to know the heart of her trade route had fallen, that her vampires were gone, that the land had been returned to the people it belonged to.

And she would be afraid.

Arthie remembered the red canisters lining the perimeter of the fort, gathered neatly to fuel the EJC ships. She was going to give them a new purpose.

“I need oil,” Arthie said, standing up. The others looked at her. Jin looked concerned. “Lots of it.”

“Whatever for?” Matteo asked.

“I know how I’m going to leave my mark and hurt the EJC. Jin, you wanted to free your parents. Matteo, you wanted to free the vampires,” Arthie said. “I’m going to burn this entire operation to the ground.”

Matteo burst into a broad grin.

“I know they’re colonizers, but you can’t mean to kill them,” Jin said, brow furrowed.

“Oh, no,” Arthie said. “I intend to drive them into the sea, as they did with my parents and my people.”

“And make a statement,” Matteo said. “I like it.”

“They can scramble on board their ships and go back to where they came from, if they’ve enough fuel for it.

Or into the wilderness if they so choose,” Arthie said.

“The fort is stone. The fire will be contained. There are plenty of shops and goods outside the fort, yes, but why have a fort if not to protect what’s important?

When it burns, we’ll be setting them back years, from reserves to fuel, and in the meantime, my people will rebuild.

If Ettenia finds itself starved of Ceylani resources, they can forge agreements, establish contracts, and act civil as civilized people are wont to do. ”

Arthie had not returned to leave the island as she had left it before. She wasn’t a child anymore. She wasn’t torn between the living and the dead.

She never felt more alive.

“Ceylan is the heart of the EJC’s trade route. If there’s one thing we have no shortage of, it’s fuel for the ships, imported and safely stored here in the fort, since we’re close enough to the harbor. We’ll get you what you need,” Shaw said with a nod.

Arthie hadn’t expected Jin’s parents to leap on board so quickly, but she was grateful for it. The Siwangs had said it had taken them ten years to build their way to this point—Arthie intended to bring it all down in a night.

“Now, the vampires,” she continued, beckoning them closer and gesturing to Matteo’s sketches.

“I must say,” Shaw interjected, “this is well done for the time you spent on it, Matteo.”

Matteo inclined his head. “Thank you.”

“A good portion of our vampires will be angry, possibly violent,” Shaw added. “We can feed them and free them, thus ensuring they’re clearheaded, but many of them have been confined for a very long time.”

“A number of the vampires are Athereum members who will recognize me. I can’t imagine someone not wanting to side with us if we promise vengeance,” Matteo said.

“And how exactly are we going to feed and unlock all the vampires at once?” Jin asked, ever pragmatic.

“Funny you should ask,” Shaw said with a grin. “Actually, it’s best if we show you, and it’s right next door, so we won’t need to worry about being seen. Grab your things.”

Arthie shook her head. “We don’t have time to—”

But Shaw was already unlocking a door tucked into the side of the laboratory. He stepped into the hall, peering every which way before he beckoned for them to follow.

This had better be worth it.

They crossed the short corridor and he pulled out a different key from his pocket, one that wasn’t connected to the ring hanging from his side. The door swung open to a room as large as Spindrift’s floor, and a scent she craved hit her like a wave.

Arthie prided herself in rarely being taken by surprise, but in this case, her jaw dropped. “So that’s where they went.”