Rook

Benoit took her hand and kissed it. “Do not try to please her, Mademoiselle. It is my best advice.”

“Call me Sophia,” she said, before he melted away into the shadows.

The middlesun was hidden behind thick clouds when Sophia’s boots hit the shallow water of the Bellamy beach. She splashed and ran across the pebbly sand, leaving René and Benoit and Tom to get out of the boat. Orla was standing at the end of the cliff path, waiting for her. She must have spotted the ships and come ru

“Well, you need a wash, don’t you?” she said in Orla fashion, pulling away from Sophia’s hug. But Sophia had seen the tension leave her shoulders when she recognized Tom getting out of the boat. She dreaded telling her who wouldn’t be getting out of the boat.

“How is Father?”

“Not well,” Orla replied.

Sophia grimaced. “Has the sheriff been here?”

“Yesterday.”

“Will he give us any extra time?”

“I think not.”

“Right. Let’s see what Tom can do, then. And, Orla …”

She saw Orla’s eyes fix beyond her shoulder, where she was certain there must be another ship coming in. “We have the entire Hasard family, including René’s mother, and one hundred and twenty-three extra people coming to stay. And some of them will be sick, and …” she met Orla’s gaze “… they will have prison lice. Most of them. Or all of them.”

Orla’s face remained expressionless. “Well. We’ll see if Nancy can bring in her husband and daughters for a few days, and if she can kill some ducks. I’ll find more coal and get the oil and the combs. How long will they be here?”

Sophia smiled. She was glad to be home. Even if it was just for a little while.

By dusk Sophia had oiled her own hair, tied it in a kerchief, bunked René in with Tom, put the uncles on the ships, Je

“I would have thought you could make your guests more comfortable, Miss Bellamy.”

Having just left the bedside of a sick child with prison dirt still on his face, Sophia had found it necessary to actually bite her tongue.

“And your father has taken to his bed, I hear,” she continued.

“Stop it, Maman!” René had warned from behind her. He was hauling buckets of water up the stairs. Madame ignored him.

“Isn’t that considered rather … weak in the Commonwealth, Miss Bellamy?” Madame ventured. “I thought you were all for self-sufficiency here.”

Sophia had merely walked down the hall and shut a door behind her, putting a barrier between them, just as she was shutting the door to her father’s room now, attempting to block out what was on the other side. Though there were people all over the house, it was quiet outside Bellamy’s room, mostly because the prisoners were exhausted and in need of rest now that they had been fed; probably that wouldn’t be the case tomorrow. She sank down along the polished paneling until she was seated on the floor, St. Just immediately crawling into her lap.

Her father had been refusing food and he’d drunk very little since she’d left for the Sunken City; now he was as wasted beneath his blankets as Tom. Only Tom would heal, was already healing, while her father was determined not to. He did react to Tom’s voice, however, giving him a slight squeeze of his hand. Sophia had stayed back, fearful of distressing him.

She looked up as Tom came out of Bellamy’s room, still bearded and in the uniform jacket of the Upper City. He sat down beside her with a little difficulty, stretching out his bad leg. He took her hand.

“Sophie,” he said. “Father’s gone.”

She said nothing, just frowned and petted St. Just. For a few blissful moments she felt nothing but numb shock.

“I tried to do the right thing,” she said.

“I know you did.”

“Do you think he ever forgave me?”

Tom put his arms around her. “Yes, Sophie. I think he did.”

They both knew Tom couldn’t know that, but Sophia chose to be comforted by it, anyway. First Spear, and now her father. The five of them reduced to three. Her grief for both of them was flavored with guilt the way salt flavors the sea; she could taste it in the tears.

It was after highmoon when Sophia stood in the Bellamy stables, watching Cartier get Tom’s horse ready, Spear’s horse and her own beside it. Nancy’s husband had been caring for them all together in Cartier’s absence. She was grieved, still dirty, and so tired she could barely stay on her feet. Je

“I’ll see you up on the hill first thing,” Sophia said. They were burying their father there at dawn, like people did in the years after the Great Death. No coffins and no fuss. “And don’t start any fires!” she added.

Tom rolled his eyes once. “I’m not an idiot, Sophie.” But then he smiled at her through his sadness, and smiled even more at Je

“Will they arrest him?” Je

“Not if they can’t find him.” Her meager plans, begun in her head during the landover ride, had not changed in light of her father’s death. Now, it was just Tom she was keeping out of prison, instead of her father. And she would see her brother back in a prison cell over her own dead body.

“I knew it was you,” Je

Because he is Tomas Bellamy, Sophia thought, though she didn’t know quite how to express that to Je

“I think it is because he is the best man in the world,” Je

Sophia looked again at Je

She gave Je