Page 17

brITT

T wo awkward, cordial, strange days passed.

Henrik made himself scarce, mumbling something about jord and search and Einar, and they managed to carefully coexist without saying a word.

Tesserdress slept in Britt’s pocket. Denerfen twirled around, flapping in intermittent bursts around the cottage. Tesserdress’ Helandalenda potion drizzled down further with each application, and color leached from Tess’ scales with each day that passed. She slept deeper, ate less, and played rarely.

Britt returned and borrowed census leaflets as needed. She dove into the Archives and other places on Stenberg. She sorted through any possible option, including those away from the Archives and Library. She haunted the wharf to listen at pubs, and attempted to speak to sailors to discern what ships returned when. Anything to find Malcolm, but to no end. The cleansing severely limited her options.

The trouble brewing in Henrik’s gaze haunted her. From a distance and with the benefit of time, she more readily recognized that it hadn’t been a bad mood that sent her away from his side.

It was something else.

Sadness?

Depression?

“Relief,” she hissed to Denerfen from the depths of a pub near the wharf, but out of sight of the Quarter. “The man should have been relieved! He won five different matches. Was he? No.”

She tossed a coin on top of the table and pushed to her feet. Like the others, this visit had been fruitless in her search for Malcolm. Thanks to the cleansing, no recent sailors stepped in to provide news from the world outside Stenberg. Rumor stated that His Glory planned to close the port for another week, if not more.

A seedy, restless crowd of men slid inside.

Time to go.

She’d spent all of this day searching for signs of Malcolm, utterly ignoring Selma. As she climbed off the stool where she sat, her mind returned to her greater exasperation: Henrik.

With a shake of her head, she forced herself to leave the pub, glaring at a man with a leer. Stepping into the sunshine stirred Tesserdress. The dragul wriggled in her pocket with a dark reminder of needed progress. Britt’s stomach ached.

She had to find Malcolm.

Selma, too.

With exacting agony and a sense of hostile purpose, she forced herself to return to the Archives, but found little help there. She sorted through leaflets filed three months ago, but with a lost sense of momentum. Irritated that she wasted precious hours of Malcolm and Tesserdress’ lives, Britt folded her arms on top of a table, pressed her forehead on top, and sighed.

How would?—

A body sat next to her.

Britt startled from spirals of despair. Raquel, with her high brow, inquisitive eyes, and oddly subdued expression, sat close enough to touch. The droll expression on her neutral face sent Britt’s hair on end.

Denerfen shuffled around Britt’s neck, curling into a ball on the opposite side. To cover the unexpected shuffling, Britt ran her fingers through the strands near her ear. She smiled, though it felt painful.

“Ta, Raquel.”

Raquel set three leaflets in front of Britt, spreading them wide. “I brought something I thought you might be interested in.”

Their titles indicated they were from the same serial production, if not slightly different works. A beat of confusion passed before Britt understood.

She sucked in a breath.

CENSUS RECORD FROM STENBERG MAIN; NEW BIRTHS

Raquel spoke before Britt could betray her fear. The Sister of Stenberg faced ahead, her back straight, hands folded together in her lap.

“I hope those are helpful.”

Britt’s heart raced as she struggled to know what to say. These might be rather helpful, in fact. She could have sworn she had sorted through these years a day ago. Had someone removed them from the Archives while she searched?

“But—”

Raquel pushed off of the table.

“Have a good day.”

The sound of her retreating footsteps rang in the silence. Britt stared at her, convinced a ghost imparted them. Blood rushed through her ears as she slowly peeled the leaflet open. Words filled the paper. Her glassy eyes roved page after page until one name snagged her attention.

All the air left her lungs.

Selma Anderberg.

* * *

Britt stared out at the sea that evening, arms locked over her chest.

How to tell him?

Henrik, she practiced slowly, I . . . happened upon . . . three leaflets, each one corresponding with the birth year of people with similar surnames, Anderberg, and one of them is a baby named Erik born to one Selma Anderberg. I suspect your father is a man named Cristan Anderberg.

No.

One didn’t just say that.

Yet, how else? She couldn’t extract the words from her brain. Also, how could she possibly explain Raquel handing these three exact leaflets over? Or the fact that Raquel ignored her as she left, leaflets shoved into her dress, as she must have assumed Britt would do? The sense that someone else controlled this unfolding set her on edge.

None of it made sense.

Clouds piled high in the distant horizon, crackling with energy. A distant purr of thunder swept closer, borne on a brisk breeze. Sailors in distant places rushed to secure drifting cargo ahead of the storm.

Henrik stepped inside the cottage after securing the shed closed with a rope. Britt jerked out of her thoughts, caught his eyes with a dazed expression, and blinked free. He froze, halfway through the door.

“Sorry. Did I startle you?” he asked.

The tentative cordiality threatened to break. She wished it would. A good fight would help both of them settle down.

She shook her head. “No. I mean, yes, you startled me, but . . . it’s fine.” Britt gained her feet and reached for the window panes. The irritating whine of gusting wind ceased when she shut them, leaving a void. The stillness resembled a tomb.

“Should blow out overnight, I hope,” he said.

“Good to hear.”

“Okay day in the Archives?”

“Yes.”

He stood near the door, shifting his weight, his lips screwed into a tight bow on the side.

Britt set Denerfen on a nest of scrap material on the table. He curled up with a yawn and tucked his neck into a ball. By instinct, she set her hand inside her pocket, touching Tesserdress’s scales. Two of them flaked away.

Despair threatened.

What more could she do on Stenberg?

Nothing.

She’d found Selma, too. Better than that, she had a surname, a husband, Cristan’s name, and a previous address. How easy it would be to hand Henrik the leaflets, ignore the fact that Raquel gave them to her after they had obviously been hidden, and be done.

Nothing tied her to Stenberg . . . except her lessening hope to find Malcolm.

Dull as a shadow, Britt sat at the table, one hand on Tesserdress. The thought of leaving didn’t inspire excitement either. She’d been here a week, but it felt like a lifetime. Her other hand withdrew the three leaflets.

“Stealing again?” he quipped. The chair scraped against dirt as he slid it out and lowered onto it. His wary gaze held questions, clearly afraid she’d pounce. She pushed the leaflets closer, flipping the top page open to the most recent leaflet. The one that gave his name, as well as his birth parents.

“It’s worth it this time.”

Clarity came too slowly. Henrik studied the words longer than they should have required. She forced herself to wait for him to discover it. These words painted a surreality. An answer. All the years of his childhood, his teenage toil, his adult life, funneled to this exact moment. A random spurt of time, wrested from the string of a normal day’s events, borne on the cusp of a storm.

His breath caught.

He lifted a questioning, oddly still gaze.

She nodded.

Henrik chased the details a second time, a third. Sometime around the sixth and the seventh, it registered.

He breathed, “You found her.”

With one shoulder slightly lifted, she nodded. “A piece of her,” she amended. “I mean, them. All of you, I believe.”

Henrik swallowed audibly.

Britt leaned against her chair, both hands in her lap, and allowed him space to think. Denerfen whistled as he exhaled in sleep. Henrik blinked, studied, stared, shook his head, and read the pages a twentieth time.

The edge of his thumb traced along the last name. Anderberg. “A woman who screamed that loud,” he whispered, searching, “. . . a woman who screamed that loud wouldn’t have . . . she wouldn’t have wanted me to leave her. Right?”

His forthright demand, spoken in a whisper, stirred a welling of sorrow. Oh, sweet Henrik. The days of irritation melted free. She saw the lost expression in his eyes and wanted to cradle him close.

“No,” she said softly. “No woman from a proud, militaristic society that idolizes men in your position, that screams when she’s separated from her child despite the culture that surrounds the soldats, wanted you to leave. On the contrary. I can’t imagine what horrors and terrors she experienced, releasing you.”

He soaked that in.

“The soldats have your birth year wrong, I presume,” she added. “It’s different in the paperwork from what you told me.”

He grunted, reviewing it. Off, but not by much. The soldats didn’t celebrate birthdays, only the anniversary of their induction into the soldats, which they typically considered their fifth birthday even if it wasn’t.

“How?” he rasped. He shook the paper, which undulated. Outside, lightning streaked by with a giant snap . The bulkhead crashed close, whipping with rain. Thunder announced its inevitable arrival.

Britt held his gaze.

“Luck.”

If he doubted her, he gave no indication. Later, he might query with greater depth. For now, shock provided enough of a buffer to buy her time.

“Cristan,” he whispered. “If this is my Selma, which it must be, then my father is named Cristan.”

“The next step is to figure out where Selma lives right now,” she added. “There’s an address in that census, but it’s anyone’s guess if they still live there.”

“Probably the mainland. If so, she’s lost.”

Britt tilted her head.

“Lost?”

“Islanders go to the mainland to die.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked incredulously. “I’ve been there dozens of times, and it’s lovely.”

Henrik’s brow lowered into confused lines.

“You’re joking.”

“Not at all. Have you never been there? Not once, in all your assignments?”

“No.”

“Who delivers the goods to the mainland when you trade?” Her hair waterfalled off her shoulder as she tilted her head in curious inquisition. “You do trade with them, don’t you?”

“I’m not sure. His Glory has the soldats deal mostly in the Isles.”

“Hmmm . . .”

She attempted to understand that.

“Just because His Glory doesn’t like the mainland,” she said softly, “doesn’t make it a bad place. There are brilliant people there, and the place is absolutely huge. You can easily get lost without meaning to. If she’s there, we stand a chance of finding her. They keep a census, too. And I know people there. Besides, there’s far more arcane, and that makes everything in life easier than here.”

“We?”

His question, so calmly uttered, struck her. She couldn’t conjure a response, because she hadn’t realized she said it. Then, she realized how much she meant it. Of course, she had to find Malcolm before she could make more promises to Henrik.

But she didn’t want to let this go.

Henrik tapped the folded leaflets. They stood in a small stack of fate in the middle of the table. “You’re not calling it finished?” he asked. His neutrality vexed her.

“I’m not sure how to read you right now, Henrik,” she admitted with a calculated hesitation. “Do you want to proceed on your own? Do you want my help?”

With difficulty, he asked, “Why would you want to help? You have other reasons for being here.”

Britt drew in a curling, roiling breath that mimicked the gusts of wind outside. Steady. Long. Blasting, yet gentle. For several heartbeats, she searched within. Could she afford to help him?

Unlikely.

Unless . . . unless she took an equally great risk. Opened herself up for big help from an unexpected ally. Her desperation to find Malcolm and save the draguls surely rivaled Henrik’s drive to find Selma.

“I want to see it through, Henrik, and find Selma for you. I’m a Helsing. Britt Helsing. And no Helsing backs down from an agreement. But my time is running out.”

As expected, her declaration landed with the appropriate weight. Henrik’s lips parted. His eyes widened.

“Helsing?”

She nodded.

Henrik reared back just enough to impart straight shock. “You’re . . . the daughter of General Helsing?”

Another precise nod. “Niece, actually, but that’s semantics.”

“Norr’s breath,” he muttered.

She bit her bottom lip. Underplaying it hadn’t softened the blow, unfortunately. After an interminable pause, Henrik leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on the table once.

“Make me a counter offer. I won’t extend your bargain without extending mine. Thus far, I’ve given you access to the Archives, shelter, food, and privacy. What more would you require to accomplish why you’re here?”

Relief washed through her. This whole time, they’d been fairly equal risk takers. Henrik revealing his longing to find Selma and Britt staying with a strange man while hiding her draguls. But if they wanted to really succeed, there would have to be trust.

How unlikely.

How bold an ask.

How futile the effort.

She licked her lips, locked in the internal debate, until she threw her metaphorical cards on the table. Tesserdress’s life was at stake. She’d do anything to save her.

“It’s my brother,” she stated. “I’m trying to find my brother, Malcolm, and I don’t know where else to look. I need your help.”