Fire & Frost (21 page)

Caius didn’t move. “Elizabeth—”

“I’m
not
going back.” Her voice shook with resentment and frustration. “Get out. Leave me be.”

He would. But not yet. “Come up on deck with me.”

Her mouth compressed into a tight line. She averted her face, eyes bright with sudden tears.

Caius knew she would hate that. When he’d been twenty years old, no longer an apprentice but a huntsman, she’d happened upon him unexpectedly in the sanctuary’s keep, her arms full of the alfalfa she was carrying to the giraffe paddock. Her startled gaze had met his before she’d given him a wry smile—and, as if they conversed easily every day, she’d suddenly told him,

“Do you know what I despise? That I cry when I’m upset. I especially hate it when I’m upset and having an argument, because as soon as the tears begin falling they undermine my every point, no matter how rational.”

He’d noted that her eyes were red, then. As if she’d been crying—and arguing.

And he’d hated his desperate need to go to her, to offer comfort. He couldn’t remember now what he’d said in reply, but it had probably been similar to so many of his responses to her.
What had upset her? Was her feather mattress too soft or her clothing too fashionable? Did she have a bag of jewels that was too heavy to carry?

Caius didn’t remember. He only remembered how hurt had darkened her eyes. He remembered the ache in his chest and the heavy weight of the shackle on his wrist. He remembered how she’d softly said,
“My father doesn’t believe that I don’t like apples,”
and how he’d scoffed and walked away, telling himself with every step that she wasn’t worth the hours he’d spent wanting her, thinking of her.

He’d been such a fool.

Gently, Caius cupped her cheek in his left hand, wishing he could feel the warmth of her skin through his glove. “I know I’ve upset you. But I’m here to help. Your father has an airship and he’s not far behind.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. Her gaze searched his face as if looking for the truth. “I don’t believe you.”

He knew she wouldn’t. “That’s why I want you to come up on deck with me. I’ll show you.”

As if his offer was evidence enough, her gaze tore from his and wildly swept the cabin. Already beginning to panic. Trying to think of where to run.

But there was nowhere to go.

“Elizabeth,” he said softly and waited until her eyes met his again. “I won’t let him take you.”

She shook her head and slid away from him, reaching for the door. “I have to see.”

He caught her hand. She tried to yank it away but he held fast. She glanced back, her gaze snapping with anger.

“You asked me to go up on deck with you.”

“Yes.” His fingers tightened around hers. “But I won’t let you jump again. I’m here to protect you.”

Frowning, she glanced down—not at their hands, he realized, but looking for the shackle. Wondering why he would risk helping her when the price of breaching his contract of indenture was so high.

His coat sleeve and glove covered his left wrist, but she wouldn’t have seen a shackle beneath them, anyway.

“I don’t wear it anymore,” he said.

Surprise lifted her gaze to his. “Did he give you your freedom?”

“No.” On his last visit to her father’s sanctuary, Caius had
taken
his freedom—along with something far more valuable: his daughter. “A friend helped me remove the shackle.”

“Unlawfully?” Understanding lit her face. “So he’s not only chasing after me.”

“No.”

But he wasn’t chasing after Caius, either, as she probably assumed. For now, however, Caius would let her think so. Elizabeth would more likely let him help her if she believed they were running for the same reasons: they both wanted to remain free of her father.

On a deep breath, she closed her eyes. Debating whether to trust him, he knew. After a long second, she shook her head. Not rejection—resignation. Acknowledging how few choices she had.

But Caius swore that by the time they reached the Ivory Market, she would have as many choices as she wanted.

She reached for her coat and satchel. “Let’s go up, then.”

HER MIND WHIRLING like an autogyro’s blades, Elizabeth didn’t know what to think or what to believe. Everything was different. Caius had found her…but he wanted to
help
her. And when he looked at her or when he spoke, she didn’t see coldness in his eyes or hear ice in his voice, as she always had before. There was no frost now. Only fire.

She couldn’t make sense of it. She couldn’t make sense of
anything
.

Especially those kisses. The first one, maybe he’d meant to silence her scream. But the second…

No.
She wouldn’t think of it. Because she couldn’t make sense of her response, either, and remembering the heat of his mouth and his taste made everything inside her clench into an unbearable ache.

And he’d called her Elizabeth.

She hadn’t even had to remind him that was the name she preferred now. All her life, she’d been called Mary—after her mother, Mary Elizabeth. Growing up, she’d taken comfort knowing that her father had given her the name of the woman he’d loved beyond any other, even though Elizabeth’s birth had killed her.

After she’d learned the truth, the name hadn’t comforted her any longer. And when Caius had captured her in the Ivory Market, she’d demanded that he call her Elizabeth instead of Mary…though not a single person aside from herself ever had. While on the run, she’d always used false names. But Caius had done as she’d asked—though he’d obviously thought she was being ridiculous. And he hadn’t believed her when she’d told him
why
she called herself by another name.

Yet he’d remembered. And he’d called her Elizabeth.

Maybe he believed her now.

Or maybe he just wanted her to believe that he did. This could all be a lie.

He’d said his shackle of indenture was gone and that a friend had helped him remove it, but taking off the clockwork device wasn’t easy. If it had been, many more indentured servants would tamper with them. Few people knew how to remove a shackle and even fewer could do it without triggering the blades or the poison inside the device; it was difficult to believe that he’d found someone who could help him.

If Caius
had
removed the shackle, she was glad for him. Abandoning her father’s service would make him a fugitive and jeopardize his mother’s and sister’s freedom, but of all people, Caius would know how to protect his family and hide them away.

But he might have lied. Her father might have removed the shackle so that Caius could pretend to help her and lull her into complacency—not hunting her down but setting a trap. Giving her reason to trust Caius and to keep him near after she arrived at the Ivory Market, until her father could catch up.

Yet that made no more sense than anything else did. Caius must have boarded the airship in Brighton. He could have taken Elizabeth to her father then.

And she didn’t know what to believe anymore.

Caius preceded her up the ladder to the main deck and took her hand as she emerged into the stinging cold. The wind caught the long length of his coat and swept it behind his legs like a brown woolen flag. The snow was falling more heavily than before. The speed of their flight made the flakes whip by at a near horizontal angle. Near the bow, an aviator cleared a drift piled up by the storage crates, tossing shovelfuls of snow over the rail. Lanterns cast a warm glow over the deck and illuminated a thick halo of white around the ship. Elizabeth couldn’t see anything in the darkness beyond.

Caius adjusted his grip on her hand, turning their palms together and lacing his gloved fingers through hers. Her heart thumped. He didn’t hold her hand like a captor holding a captive’s. He held her hand like a lover.

No matter what he thought, Elizabeth wouldn’t have jumped. He had no reason to keep hold of her. But she didn’t pull her hand away.

He led her along the deck toward the stern, and she didn’t look at the aviators they passed. She knew what they must be thinking—that she and Caius had planned an airship tryst. She’d heard it was common for illicit lovers to book different cabins to give the appearance of propriety and then spend the trip together. No doubt the crew believed that was what she and Caius had done.

Briefly she considered appealing for help from the aviators before discarding the idea. Caius wouldn’t be an easy man to subdue, and any attempt would just endanger the crew.

And if Caius was telling the truth about his intention to help her, she might lose a strong ally. If he wasn’t telling the truth…she couldn’t do anything about it now except play along. Eventually, he might lower his guard, just as he had in the railcar two years before.

They passed the quarterdeck. The wheel stood at the center of the deck, behind a thick plate of glass that shielded the pilot from the wind. Approaching the stern, the noise of the engine rose until it reached a deafening roar. The twin propellers spun in a blur of steel, spitting swirling sheets of snow into the billowing trail of steam and smoke.

Without relinquishing his hold on her, Caius pointed beyond the propellers.

Elizabeth struggled to see anything beyond the white. The lanterns’ glow illuminating the nearby flakes made it all but impossible—but even if the lamps had been extinguished, the snow fell so heavily she doubted there would be more than a few dozen feet of visibility beyond the sides of the airship.

How had Caius seen
anything
in this snowstorm, let alone an airship in the distance?

He couldn’t have, she realized. He couldn’t know whether her father was following them.

So he’d lied.

The pain of that realization was an unexpected knife through her chest. Blindly, she stared into the distant dark, her throat thick and her eyes watering.

Except…
there
. A pinprick of yellow light. She blinked.

It was gone.

Heart pounding, she watched the same spot, wondering if the light had been her imagination or if she’d truly seen it.

There it was again. A faint light in the distance. A lantern from another airship.

Caius
hadn’t
lied.

The ache in her fingers made her realize how tightly she’d been gripping his hand. Now he was looking at her with concern, and when she eased her hold on him, he gently squeezed her fingers—as if reassuring her.

Because he thought that seeing her father’s ship had upset her. It
should
have. But she’d been far more upset by the belief that Caius had lied to her.

Now she was overwhelmed by relief that he’d told her the truth, but she had nothing to be relieved about. Her father’s hunters were on that airship, and they wouldn’t wait until they reached the Ivory Market before attempting to capture Elizabeth. As soon as they flew near enough to
Kingfisher
, they’d come aboard.

And Caius intended to stop them. Two hunters against one. Why would he take that risk?

She glanced up at him with a frown. “Why are you helping me?”

Shaking his head, he leaned closer. To kiss her again? Her stomach clenched in anticipation.

But he turned his face away at the last moment and waited with his ear near her mouth. Just coming closer so that he could hear her over the engine’s roar, she realized.

Elizabeth didn’t know which was sillier: the anticipation she’d felt in that moment when she’d thought he might kiss her, or the heavy weight of her disappointment when he didn’t.

Pushing that disappointment away, she called over the noise, “Why are you helping me?”

He pulled back to look down at her, the golden light from the nearby lantern warming the left side of his face and casting dark shadows over the right. His gaze searched her features for a long second before he answered.

His mouth moved. She didn’t hear him over the engine. Yet she recognized the shape of those words, and they made her heart careen wildly in her chest.

But she couldn’t believe them. His reply had to be a lie.

She’d thought he’d been lying about her father’s airship, though—and he hadn’t been. There was no reason to believe he’d lie now.

So she’d just mistaken the words, had misread the shape.

“Because I lost you”
made more sense than what she thought he’d said. And he
had
lost her in that railcar. She’d escaped him.

But that wouldn’t be a reason to help her. He’d failed to bring her home. If anything, that would be more reason to hand her over to her father.

It had more likely been
“Because I loathe you”
—because he
had
for so many years. She’d seen his resentment and dislike every time he’d come into the sanctuary. But that wouldn’t be a reason to help her, either.

What she thought he’d said made no more sense, though—and Elizabeth was too afraid to ask him again.

Too afraid to find out it wasn’t what she’d thought.

But she shouldn’t care what it was or wasn’t—she needed to focus on what to do now. Either Caius was truly here to stop her father, or he was just keeping her occupied and complacent until her father arrived. If it was the first, she would let him help her. And if it was the second…Elizabeth wasn’t sure what she would do.