CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Engines to half speed. Harwell, plot a new course out of here. Nettle, release the helm for a minute and follow me.”

Nettle hesitated so briefly Caledonia almost missed it, but she stepped aside, giving the helm over and following Caledonia outside. Quiet echoes of the eruption rumbled along the canal walls, sending smaller stones skittering onto the deck of the Luminous Wake. The crew hurried to assess the damage, every one of them aware that the danger might not be over just yet.

Caledonia directed Nettle to the rail. “Three deep breaths,” she said.

A frown appeared on Nettle’s slender lips, but she complied. Closing her eyes, she filled her lungs three times, releasing each breath in a slow, steady stream. When she opened her eyes again, a thin wall of resistance had crumbled. Her shoulders deflated and the tension she’d clung to while driving the ship backward at high speeds without being able to see where she was going lifted, leaving her shuddering in the rush of wind.

Caledonia let her feel it all, and then she pulled the girl against her own chest, wrapping her arms firmly around Nettle’s slender shoulders.

“Good work,” Caledonia said, brushing a hand down the back of Nettle’s hair.

“I don’t know why I’m shaking.”

“If you weren’t, I’d be concerned,” Caledonia soothed.

“You never shake.” Nettle sounded disappointed in herself, and for that Caledonia felt a stab of guilt.

“You just never see it,” she admitted. “I trembled for hours after we sailed through that whirl. I just have more practice hiding it.”

Nettle was quiet for a minute, shoulders shivering against Caledonia’s touch. It was easy to forget how young she was. She’d joined this crew with such insistent bravado and proven herself both brave and skilled. Giving her control of the helm had been one of the most natural decisions Caledonia had ever made. Nettle demanded responsibility in a way that placed her on equal footing with everyone else in Caledonia’s mind, but she was barely fourteen turns. And here she was, having just carried them through an impossible situation in the wake of a tremendous loss, trying desperately to hold on to her stony exterior.

Caledonia struggled to mark the moments when her crew was more in need of a kind word than a stern one, but she could see this clearly. Cloudbreak had been Nettle’s home before it had been any of theirs. Hesperus, Mino, and Kae were her family, and for all they knew, all three of them were gone.

“You shouldn’t hide that sort of thing,” Nettle admonished her captain. “Hiding it from us doesn’t make us stronger, you know. We know you’re not made of steel.”

“I wish I were.”

Laughing lightly, Nettle leaned back. Her round cheeks were flushed around the delicate scrolls of her scars. “That’s not a real wish, Caledonia.”