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06: Inari
Inari sat on the starboard railing, one leg bent up under her arm, the other dangling over the water. Saltwater splashed onto her bare toes. She scowled at the docks in front of her. She wasn't lying when she’d told Cas she hated this place. Ach Rhean and its shiny, perfect veneer made her skin crawl. Inari was made for thick forests and black soil, and she honestly couldn’t even remember the last time she touched a tree.
She was watching for Ollie, which was useless considering they were a shapeshifter. She knew what they looked like when they left, but there was no guarantee they’d stayed that way.
Her gaze caught on a tall girl in the midst of the harbor, a shock of dark skin and black braids. She was pretty, not that Inari cared about things like that. Walking with her was...Inari squinted. It was sort of close to Ollie's disguise, but that was ridiculous. Ollie wouldn’t have been stupid enough to…
Then the girl turned her head, and Inari saw the red-spotted bandages covering the left half of her face. Then the crowd parted enough for her to see all the supplies under the other person's arm. Okay, so Ollie would have been stupid enough.
And...was that a wolf?
“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Oleander,” she murmured, going to hunt Cas down. It didn’t take long; he was in his room, bent over a map and charting their course.
“Cas, Ollie’s back,” she said.
“How many times have I told you to knock?”
“The door was open.”
“And?”
“And they brought a girl.”
She watched Cas open his mouth for an automatic retort and then freeze in the middle of writing. He looked up. “They what?”
“You heard me,” she said over her shoulder as she sauntered out of the room.
Cas groaned. There was the sound of something small but solid hitting the wall and then a quiet string of curses.
Ollie and the girl were climbing onto the deck when Cas arrived, along with the wolf-dog-whatever. Inari grinned and leaned against the railing to watch.
“Oleander”—ouch, full name—”I hope you have a good explanation.”
“Sure wish I did,” Ollie said apologetically. “But Cas, look, I couldn’t leave her there, she’s—”
“This is not a floating orphanage that picks up any sad little strays it finds.”
Just to be contrary Inari cut in, “You picked up Ollie. And me. And Zephyra. And whatever the other two’s names were.”
Cas glared at her. “Zephyra is a cat, and if she wasn’t useful, she’d have been thrown overboard months ago. And you are not a sad little anything, but I’ll happily leave you here with your new friend if that’s what you want. And the other two paid for their spots, which I doubt she can do.”
The girl flinched. Inari watched Ollie watching Cas. Two on one, except that both of them owed Cas too much to defy him, didn’t they?
Ollie shifted back to their usual self, shoving auburn hair out of their eyes. Inari looked between them and the girl. Despite what she'd said, Ollie wasn’t stupid. They were the smartest of the crew. They wouldn’t bring this random girl here unless she was something special. Unless…
“Someone hurt you,” Inari said. “Why?”
The girl looked up, surprised, and looked at Ollie for help. They gave her an infinitesimal nod. “It...it was because of something I did.”
From Cas's expression, he knew where this was heading, too. “What did you do?”
The girl looked straight at Inari while she answered Cas: “Exist.”
The word sparked a memory in Inari. Once, some night after a mission gone sideways, all three of them sat together, drifting under wild stars on a wild sea.
We were criminals long before we stole or lied or killed, Cas had said. Our crime isn’t anything we can change or fix. Our crime is being alive.
His words rang true for every magical thing. And from the look he shot Inari, Cas remembered that night, too.
“You’re magic,” he said. A statement of fact, not a question.
The girl nodded.
“This has got to be some kind of goddamned record,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Fine. Whatever. We already have the other two. What the fuck is the difference? But the beast stays here.”
“No!” the girl burst out with surprising force. “No, he...he stays with me. Please. You won’t even have to feed him; I can share whatever you give me. He’s a good dog. He won’t cause trouble, I swear.”
Cas looked at her, then the dog, and a frustrated growl rumbled in his throat. “I’m holding you to that. If he causes any trouble, and I mean any trouble, we’ll be finding out pretty fast how well he can swim."
The girl’s eye flashed with fear, and she nodded. Cas was already walking away. Ollie murmured something to the girl and hurried after him.
She looked a little lost. Inari grimaced as she realized the girl was her responsibility now.
“Come on. I’ll take you down to my room,” she said. Only because the Ach kids were in the spare and putting her with Ollie when they weren’t around felt weird. It wasn't because she was cute.
She was pretty, though, and try as she might, Inari couldn’t stop noticing it. Soft, night-sky skin and a waterfall of neat black braids, and warm brown eyes that took in everything. Not that Inari cared. It was fine. She was just a girl.
Inari let her go first into the room. Then she leaned on the doorframe, hands in her pockets. The girl turned back to look at her, then gingerly sat down on the bed that didn’t have the sheets all tangled and a dozen random items strewn across it.
“I don’t think I caught your name,” she said after a beat of silence.
“I didn’t throw it." She smirked. "Inari. Devoras.”
“Daciana Feirmara.”
Hell, even her name was pretty. And now they were roommates for the two weeks it would take to reach Creulia. What had Inari done in a past life to deserve this?
Not that she needed a past life. She’d committed more than enough sins in this one to earn a punishment. Close quarters with a pretty girl she shouldn’t-couldn’t-wouldn’t get attached to didn’t even scratch the surface.
“Is your captain always like that?” Feirmara asked.
“Yep,” Inari said, popping the ‘p.’ “You get used to it. Or you try to take his head off, I guess.”
“Right.” She looked around nervously, resting one hand on her dog’s head and fingering a pendant around her neck with the other.
Inari shoved some stuff aside and sat on her own bed. “So. Magic. What have you got?”
“I can sense emotions. It's not very exciting, I know.”
“What, so you get to know what goes on in everyone's heads all the time?” Inari asked, pushing down mild panic at the thought.
She looked offended. “I do my best to stay out of people's business unless I have to.”
"That's noble of you."
"I don't think you meant that as a compliment, but thanks. And, uh, what about you? What's your magic?"
Inari stared at her. "You don't know?"
"Am I supposed to be able to guess?"
"No, I mean...you don't know who I am? Do you live under a rock or something?"
Feirmara frowned, shaking her head. "I try to stay away from news about magic. It's never anything good."
"Really. What about Cas, then? Todorova? Or the Gravestar? Any of this ringing any bells? I guess that explains why you were so eager to join us."
"It was a simple question."
"Fire magic," Inari said. "That's what I've got. I'm pretty damn famous for it, too, and not in a good way. Cas isn't popular either. More people would hate Ollie if they knew what their real face looked like. We're all criminals, Feirmara, sorry to break it to you."
"Well, I'm magic, too," she said, "so it's not like I'm much different."
"Trust me, you are."
Feirmara didn't reply. Inari couldn’t stop looking at her. She looked so damn lonely. She seemed small even though Inari didn’t even reach her shoulder, like there was less of her than other people. And there was so much gentleness to her it was almost painful. That last part wasn't surprising; in Inari's experience, it was always the soft things that hurt.
She picked up one of the knives lying on her bed so she had something to do with her hands (and something to look at besides Feirmara). Ollie always said that stashing weapons where she slept was a safety hazard. They were right, and someone was probably eventually going to get stabbed, but it wasn’t like Inari spent a lot of time in her bed. She pulled the blade from its sheath to examine it, and a low growl rumbled at her feet.
Wary, she turned to the dog, who was staring not at her but at the knife in her hand. Behind him, Feirmara was hiding her emotions well, but Inari knew what it looked like when people were afraid of her. She’d had years of experience with that. And it didn’t take a genius to look at the knife and the bandaged face and put a story together.
“You good?” Inari asked, going back to the knife as if she wasn't bothered.
“Fine,” she said in a strangled voice.
Inari was not the kind of asshole that stepped on fresh wounds, so she sheathed the blade. She tossed it onto the bed, out of reach. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl relax.
“I should go,” Inari said. “Cas needs someone who’s actually competent to make sure we don’t capsize.”
“Right." The disappointment in her voice was Inari's imagination. "Have fun with that.”
Inari shut the door quietly behind her and stalked down the hall. She wandered up to the deck and, predictably, found Cas there, fiddling with a tangle of rope.
“Hello, Cassie-boy,” she said with false brightness.
“Stop calling me that. Did you manage to scare off the new girl already?” he asked without looking up.
Yes. Sort of. “Nah. Just bored.”
Cas was never fooled by her. “It was bound to happen. Better to get it out of the way sooner.”
The reminder was almost comforting. “Yeah,” Inari said. “You’re right.”