Encante Read Free Page A

narrowed his eyes at me, considering. “And if my niece says he is not Kabbalah, then he is not Kabbalah.”
    He lifted the sopping hair curling around my ear and examined the skin beneath it. There he saw the network of interlacing cogs nestled inconspicuously behind my ear, before one by one coiling their way across my neck and descending down my spine. Cecelie loathed the tattoo of course; it was far too uncouth for her genteel taste.
    “He’s Loth Lörion,” the captain announced, and I heard his niece’s sharply indrawn breath. “All that is left of The Eldars.” The captain eyed me for a moment longer, his interest clearly piqued, then released my hair, allowing it to flow back across my shoulders and into my eyes. Another reason Cecelie despised the tattoo: the need to keep my hair so long in order to cover it. “You’re sure he’s unarmed, Newt?”
    At a nod from Newt, the captain’s gaze jumped to his niece, who also nodded, almost imperceptibly, and I had the strangest notion that she’d told him I spoke the truth. Satisfied, he smiled broadly.
    “Captain Micajah Everett,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder and offering me his hand. “You’re welcome aboard. You’ll not find us flat, so mind yourself. Tell me, what kind of fool are you, taking yourself to the bottom of an ocean? I’ve always wondered how the Loth Lörion travelled. How exactly did you end up at the bottom of the ocean, without any form of submersible? Or did you know we were here?”
    “Simeon Escher.” I shook his hand firmly, as my father had always taught me to do. “And I’d no notion you were here until this young lady brought me aboard . . . It was sheer luck.” I looked down once more at my saviour, grateful for an excuse to change the subject—I was not so foolish as to tell them about the compass.
    “I have always presumed you have portals in your possession,” the captain said, eyeing me as if wondering where I might have concealed one. “But that’s a dangerous business, hopping worlds using a timeless portal, no notion of when the next shift will occur. It’s not as if you can just jump home if you find yourself in bother.”
    “Indeed.” I smiled affably, hoping he’d drop it.
    “You were fortunate, then, that Vee happened upon you when she did; you would surely have drowned before the next time shift otherwise.”
    “That seems more than likely. A remarkable creature, Vee. But what’s wrong with her?”
    “Nothing a rest won’t cure,” the captain’s niece said, producing a radio much like Garrett’s. “Stella, can you send Tofa and Fanny up to hydroponicsm, please. That imbecile Garrett left Vee hanging on the rail in her tail too long; she can’t make it down alone.” The radio clicked off. “I’ll wring that lazy pig’s neck,” the woman declared.
    Evidently satisfied I was no longer in danger of being shot, she stalked off down the walkway in the direction Garrett had taken. Something about her slender ankles and soft-footed walk reminded me of the girl at my own feet.
    “Your niece is extraordinary also, sir,” I murmured, “if you don’t mind my saying.” I watched the retreating tails of her coat and marvelled as I realised her hair was adorned with a score of silver bells. They sang to each other merrily as she walked, as if eager to see Garrett reprimanded.
    The captain and I stared at each other for a long moment, as if he were sizing me up, deciding whether or not he would allow me to keep my secret. “I mind not at all, although she’s not truly my niece.”
    I suppressed a sigh, grateful he had not pressed me further. Still, I sensed it would not be the end of it; one way or another, Captain Everett would learn how I travelled. He had that way about him, the bearing of a man who always got what he wanted. I had the unsettling feeling that the only reason he had permitted me to evade the question at all was the fact he had realised my affiliations and sensed an