18
	As soon as they boarded the Scylla, Robert took Megan to somewhere near the prow where, he’d said, she would be out of the way.  She sat down on a spare coil of rope that was so tall it reached the backs of her knees, and he rushed off, shouting orders.  They set sail five minutes later, and she was certain that the last few ropes were cut rather than untied.  Lanterns were lit all over the deck, and there was a great deal of confusion, with sailors running everywhere and working at cross purposes.  She remembered the ship she had come to Jaspertree on, a fast little schooner called the Northern Lady.  On it, none of the crew had ever moved faster than a walking pace and the captain had never raised his voice.  Compared to them, Robert’s crew acted like they had never been to sea before.  While her experience of ships was limited, she couldn’t ignore the sense of unease that was growing in her.
	Once they were away from the city, the lanterns onboard were the only lights she could see.  The darkness around the ship was so thick that she wouldn’t have known they were still in the water if not for the sound of it slapping against the hull.  If she were to fall overboard, nobody would ever find her.  So she moved slowly with her hands on the railing the whole time, and she wished she had learned how to swim.
	Only a few steps from her rope seat, she ran into someone coming the other way at a run.  Hitting him felt like being run down by a wagon, and she yelped with fright as she fell.  The fingers of her right hand scraped painfully on the rail and she landed on her backside in a pool of water.
	“There you are.  You should be more careful and stay where I put you, girl,” Robert said.
	His voice was tense and she could smell the fear and whiskey coming off him in waves.  He pulled her back to her feet and brushed her off with a few quick slaps, but he was careful not to hit her hard enough to hurt.  They were close enough to a lantern here that she could see him, dimly.  His ears were erect, one cocked back to listen behind him, but she could see the tip of his tail curling around one leg.
	“What’s wrong?  Why all the panic getting off?” she said.
	“There’s a ship behind us.  I don’t know which one, it was too dark to see the name.  But it’s flying the city colors,” he said.
	“What do you think they want?” she said.
	His fear was beginning to affect her, and she had to clutch the guard rail and take deep breaths to keep her voice from shaking.
	“I don't know.  But I don’t like the way they pulled out of port just after we did, so I’m going to have to confine you to below for a while,” Robert said.
	She felt a stab of nausea at the thought of being shut away.  The last time she’d been on a ship she spent all of her time on deck and she couldn’t stand the stink of stale air, or the way everything seemed to close in on her.
	“What about Jess?  Did you hear anything about her before we left?” she said.
	“Nothing that you don’t already know.  Sarah promised she’d send a message to my contact in Oseille, though.  We’ll know when we get there,” he said.
	She felt him put a hand in the middle of her back, and she let him guide her away from the rail towards the hatch in the middle of the ship.  The wind was picking up again, moving them faster across the water, and she took a deep breath and held it before going below.  It tasted of snow, but spring wasn’t far off and she thought she could smell the early flowers, too.