"You should come away from the railing, miss. We're doing thirty knots, easy, with the wind in our favor like this, and the water's absolutely frigid. We lose anyone overboard, they're in trouble. Plus, I heard, the uh, the second mate, she said, uh…"
The catboy's tail swung nervously behind him, side to side.
"Spit it out, Henley," she said without turning away from the churning ocean.
"She said dolls don't swim so well."
"Yeah, all right," she grudgingly admitted, stepping well back from the wooden rail between her and the icy brine. And then, "Aren't you cold?"
"Nah. Cold-weather breed, me. Triple coat. And I swim just fine." he said proudly. "Proud nautical family, mine. Still, not looking to take a dip today. Aren't you cold, miss?"
"Can't feel cold any more."
"Huh."
"Captain awake yet?"
"Yes, miss. Captain's just finishing breakfast."
"Heard you were roaming around and scaring the crew," the captain said, spreading a piece of toast with jam.
"Hardly. Henley doesn't seem to mind me."
"Henley's blessed with the daftness of youth and an untrained eye for magic. The ship's witch refuses to come out of the crow's nest; they're sleeping up there now, even in this chill."
"My compliments to the ship's witch on our speed, captain," the doll said, dipping a precise curtsy. She'd meant it to be a halfassed curtsy, but even after years of upgrades, there were reflexes built into this body that were too strong to shrug off.
"I suspect they just want you delivered and off this ship."
"The winds have been good, so I'm not fussed as to whatever they think of me. Whatever gets me there fastest."
"And you will consider our debt settled then, I hope," the captain said, in a much-put-upon voice.
"Captain! I thought we were friends enjoying a sea voyage together. I had no idea you were such a mercenary."
She raised an eyebrow, a feat that had been beyond her until fairly recently, due to her previous set of eyebrows having been painted on.
"Yes, of course we're done, old man. I'm not an unreasonable person."
"You're not a person at all," he grouched.
"So I can't be an unreasonable one," she said happily, having scored a point in the long-running game that she played against the rest of the world.
"There we go, miss. That's the last of your things."
"Thank you, Henley." She slid an intricately jointed hand into the long-unused pockets of her old Academy greatcoat, found what she knew would be there. "Here. Little something for you."
"A pocketknife, miss? Thank you. This will come in handy under way."
"An Academy pocketknife. Take two steps back and open the big blade."
The catboy put a thumb over the tab for the big blade. She made a sharp noise.
"Ah-ah, Henley. Two steps back."
"Yes, miss."
The knife unfolded, an aurora-blade of ghostly light three feet long. Henley's fur stood on end.
"I… I can't take this, miss."
"You can take it, and you can use it, so you should. Most people can't even open one. Maybe your ship's witch…" She tilted her head, crystal eyes scanning nothing visible, and added, "I have to admit that it's not just out of the goodness of my heart. We're about to get jumped."
"You hear them too, miss?"
"Not hear, but… yes. I make three."
Two figures in crimson cloaks rappelled down from the roof of the building to the right. Another from the left.
"Four. Behind us."
She turned. A fourth cast aside their dull grey overcloak and tray of eel pies.
"Good ears on a good boy. They're Crimson Fist, Pact executioners. They're far from home, but so am I: no one's going to help us here."
The not-person in the Academy greatcoat adjusted a crystal cylinder in the open metal webwork of her left arm. Within it, something hissed; chill blue-grey fog streamed from vents, pooled at her feet, and began drifting in all directions.
"You don't have the stomach for a fight? Run now, quickly, back to the ship as fast as you can. But I think you'll be better off if you hold that blade and stand with me. And Henley?"
"Yes, Miss?"
Two of the three in front drew blades: jagged, showy things. The Fist was here to leave a mess and send a message. They'd leave witnesses. But Henley had helped her. Henley had carried her baggage. They probably wouldn't leave Henley.
"You said you were a cold-weather breed."
"Yes, Miss!"
"Still. Ware the ice."
She stepped forward.
"Hey. Hey," she shouted, as loud as she could; it had taken months of tuning to get it this way, and her voice still wasn't that loud, but it carried well enough. "Pact puppets. Future corpses. You know who I am?"
The center cloak unrolled a scroll. The Fist loved their drama. The scroll-carrier intoned, "The failed mage of the Splinter Territories known commonly as 'Bree the Blessed' has been convicted of high crimes against the people and order of the Crimson Pact—"
"Yeah, that's me… wait, 'the Blessed'?"
"–for which the sentence is death. Judgement will be rendered here forthwith—"
"You probably won't take it, but: one chance. Just walk away."
They never walked away. Except that one time they actually did. She felt a little better, given that one time. But so far it had just been the one.
"—so let all who have eyes take heed."
The one behind them incanted something she couldn't quite pick up. The two holding swords rushed her and Henley.
Right into the fog.
They never learned. Except that one time. This didn't seem like it was going to be like that one time. You had to stay alive to learn.
Bree snapped her fingers; the fog erupted into jagged blue-black ice; the two sword-wielders staggered, impaled by lances of horrible cold. She snapped again and they shattered.
Quick, at least, and limited. She'd used fire often enough that she'd come to appreciate alternatives. This one wouldn't spread past the targets of her wrath and burn the town.
Henley screeched and came swinging wildly for the one with the scroll. They caught the catboy's stroke easily on an armored wrist.
Too bad for them. An aurora-blade touching skin could burn. An aurora-blade reacting with a metal gauntlet sent fat sparks crawling over the Fist assassin's body and dropped them. The catboy might have a little more magic than she had thought.
So far, so good. She took a half-step back, turned, and opened her hand, willing the fog to condense for her into a keen-edged rapier, glinting icy blue light from its blade and freezing a trail of frost in the air.
The trip to the utter north had been worth it just to see what lay pooled there, where the world touched the cold void beyond, and on top of that, she'd been able to take some for herself. So far, it obeyed her, and she loved it for that.
The last Fist assassin, the false seller of eel pies, lunged at her, their own blade glimmering lucent gold with some invocation she didn't recognize.
She iced the ground beneath them just barely enough to trip them up. When they stumbled, she thrust, her rapier accompanied by a half-dozen reflections of itself, a hexagonal column of frozen death.
A hexagonal column of frozen death tore seven long slashes through a crimson jacket and skidded off the material underneath. She barely kept her balance. The Fist stood up, apparently unhurt, shrugging off their ruined uniform.
Bree stared, crystal eyes scanning again and again over what was clearly no armor. Her opponent bore articulations in metal and ceramic in a way that admitted no human occupant.
The Crimson Pact was human, by and large, except for the ruling minority that famously was not. The demons suffered no power that threatened theirs, and especially no permanent interference with the flow of souls.
"So you're making dolls now?" she said aloud.
The Pact assassin ran her free hand through her hair, fanning golden tresses behind her. Shreds of crimson trailed her in the slight wind. Crystal eyes met hers. They looked just like hers — or Lyric's — if rendered in pitiless ruby.
"Only," the Pact doll said, "in the service of unmaking other dolls."
The Fist really did love their drama. But she had to admit that the other doll was a work of art, a sculpture of martial glory.
"That's a hell of a compliment," Bree said. "Good luck with that."
She moved to interpose her armored frame between the Pact doll and Henley, and then let go of her mind's grip on the frozen rapier and the surrounding fog, all at once.
In the chaos of the ensuing cryonic explosion, she picked up the catboy, threw him over her shoulder, and ran. This wasn't his fight. She'd dump him somewhere safe, and then…
Her mind already churned with plans and stratagems and half-formed invocations. Another doll… Had she become threat enough to actually rattle the Crimson Pact? What could that other doll do? And were people really calling her Bree the Blessed?
She thought that, just for a moment in her flight, she saw the flicker of a certain silver radiance, but told herself it was just sunlight off the harbor. Had to be. It wouldn't dare get in her way.
