The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1431: A Fishy Opportunity (Part Two)

"Every man and woman in your household is here because they chose to be," Devlin reminded Jocelynn. "If there’s danger coming, we’re not going to leave you to face it alone. We’ve already set sail, my Lady. Once we’re on the sea, the whole crew fights together or we all go down with the ship."

"You don’t understand," Jocelynn said, and the frustration in her voice cracked against the wine like a wave against a hull. Everyone who had come out here with her had thought they were coming to support her and Ashlynn together. They didn’t know that her sister was already dead when they left Blackwell, or that it had been her fault, almost as much as it had been Owain’s fault for beating Ashlynn to death.

They didn’t know that they woman they were staying to protect was unworthy of their devotion, or that her plans would place them in the greatest danger of their lives. She was grateful to them for their loyalty... but the time had finally come to put an end to the mockery she’d been making of it. It was time to let them go...

"I can’t... I need you to..."

But the words wouldn’t come right. The wine had them, muddling the meaning, softening the edges of the desperate, precise instructions she needed to give into something vague and worried and easy to dismiss as the anxious rambling of a young woman who had drunk too much at her sister’s wake.

Devlin watched her struggle, and something shifted in his weathered face. It would have been too easy to dismiss Lady Jocelynn’s fears as things conjured by the cups she’d drunk during the memorial, but clearly this was something deeper. Something more than the grief and the pain that came with the tragedies she’d suffered over the past few days.

"We’ll talk about this tomorrow," he said gently as he retrieved a small, wool blanket and draped it across her lap. "When your head’s clearer. Whatever you need, my lady, I’ll see it done. But let’s do it properly, when you can walk me through it all."

Jocelynn wanted to argue with him. She wanted to grab him by the collar of his oilskin coat and shake the understanding into him. She needed to make him see that there might not be time to do this properly and that every hour counted.

But the wine was heavy in her blood, and the urn was warm in her lap, and the rocking of the carriage was pulling her toward a drowsiness she couldn’t fight. She nodded, because it was all she could manage, and leaned her head against the side of the carriage.

Devlin watched her for a long moment. Then he turned to the window, and in the grey reflection of the rain-streaked glass. Albyn would be back in the morning, and the former pirate was closer to Jocelynn than Devlin had managed to grow in the past few days.

Silently, he promised to find the soon-to-be knight as soon as he returned from the hunt in order to explain what Jocelynn had just asked of him. Maybe together, the two of them could figure out what they should do.

Lady Jocelynn wasn’t telling him everything. He’d served enough captains as a younger man to know when someone was giving orders for a voyage they didn’t expect to survive, and the shape of what she’d asked him to do, get everyone out, before the feast, before everything...

Those words sat in his chest like an anchor, dragging him down even as they kept him from reaching out with more questions that Lady Jocelynn clearly had no intention of answering.

He’d talk to her tomorrow. And if her answers didn’t satisfy him, he’d talk to Albyn, Sir Elgon or the ladies who had attended the memorial if he had to. Lady Jocelynn might be the captain of their ’ship’, but if she wanted him to be her first mate and take charge of things, then he was going to make sure he understood the dangers they were facing so he could find a way to avoid them.

The carriage rolled through the darkening streets of Lothian City, and the rain came down harder, drumming on the roof like the fingers of a restless hand.

When they reached the manor, the carriage yard was slick with rain and lit by the guttering torches set into the walls. Devlin helped Jocelynn down from the carriage with a steadying hand, and she stood for a moment in the rain, blinking, the urn clutched to her chest, looking small and young and slightly lost in her black mourning dress.

As soon as the carriage had rolled to a stop, a footman approached, his head bowed against the weather.

"My lady," he said once Jocelynn emerged from the carriage. "I have a message for you from the kitchens. Master Jean sends his respects and asks whether you might have time early tomorrow morning to visit the fish market at the docks. He’d like to discuss your preferences for the Grand Ceremony feast."

Jocelynn stared at the footman for a moment, the words filtering slowly through the fog of wine and exhaustion. The fish market. Jean. The cook she’d been trying to meet for weeks, the one Owain’s household obligations had kept her from. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Tell Master Jean I’ll be there," she said. "First thing in the morning. Captain Devlin will make certain I’m there," she promised, giving the man a brief look to make sure he understood what she was asking of him.

It would be hard to pull herself out of bed so early in the morning after the amount of wine that had passed her lips today, but she wouldn’t miss this meeting if she had to be dragged to it in her dressing gown. Not after the way this ’Master Jean’ had cooked for her, suggesting that he not only knew her far better than he should... but that he knew her sister just as well.