Page 156 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“That woman,” he said, “owes me a favor.”

Nore frowned. “Woman? She looks fifteen?”

Cas shook his head, but he was already walking.

She shrugged. She’d said she was going to trust Caspian, and this was proof—and besides, when she looked at that woman who was barely more than a girl, she felt something in her stomach—it was something, she suspected, quite like she felt when she looked at Locke. It was power. Certainty.

Caspian led the way. “Miss Cross,” he drawled, grabbing a chair and flipping it around to sit in it backward. He nodded to the boy, too, perfunctory. “Nic.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed, and Nore wondered for just a moment if she’d made a mistake. “Khari.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Dead,” she said, sitting back and crossing her arms. “As I heard you were, too.”

Caspian raised an eyebrow. “Captain Cross, then. I’m sorry to disappoint.”

“Hmm.”

Nore didn’t think this was going in the way Caspian had hoped. She hurried to intervene, moving to Cas’s side. “Hello,” she said in Lindle, which the others had just been speaking.

The girl immediately tensed, looking at her companion and then at Nore. Nore didn’t need to look closely at her to see her hand on her weapon. “These aren’t the kind of parts for pleasantries,” the girl said in Idistran.

Nore switched languages. “These places rarely are. Do you sail? My husband seems to think you can help us.”

“Husband?” the boy, Nic, said. At the same time, Cross let out a low whistle.

“Looks like he wasn’t lying,” Cross said to her companion. “Who bet on that?”

Nic snorted. “Fifty marks to Easy Blue.”

“Fuck,” Cross said pleasantly.

Nore didn’t have time for this. But if Caspian thought these people would help them… it was long past time she started trusting him.

“I’m looking for a ship,” Nore said. She set her hands down on the table, palms flat. Caspian was glowering beside her, but nothing could be done about that.

The girl sat back, crossing her ankle over one knee. A position that lied—it said the girl wasn’t afraid of Nore. She was cautious, though, Nore suspected, and for good reason. It was the type of caution that kept someone alive in these parts.

“How much?”

“Four thousand marks for a three-day journey,” Nore said smoothly. “An additional thousand if you can shave a day off.”

The girl was unable to contain her shock—her eyebrow rose before she could school it back down. She took a sip of her own drink. Nore mirrored the movement. “There’s not much within three days of here,” she said.

“Idistra,” Nore said.

“You want to go to Idistra?” The girl nodded her head to the port. “There are five ships taking passengers out there for a tenth of that price.”

Nore swallowed her ale, half for courage, but it tasted awful. “None that will take us directly to the Isle of Locke.”

There was that eyebrow again. The boy said only, “Captain.”

Cas said, “I think it was Jacko that won the bet, if my wife proved to be existent and wealthy.”

“Directly to Locke?” Cross said, ignoring both Cas and whatever council her companion was trying to offer.

“I imagine you’re familiar with the geography,” Nore said, perfunctory. “I believe the easiest way is north, around Eprain—”