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There is a lot Jester doesn’t know about the world. For all she has seen and learned and experienced since leaving Nicodranas the first time, it is only a small fraction of what there is in the world – a small corner of a map that remains mostly blank. She knows that; knows she is sheltered and naïve.
But what Jester does know is people. She has spent most of her life watching them, her face pressed between the railings of the balconies in The Lavish Chateau and sometimes, later, when she learned to disguise herself to wind her way through the crowds unnoticed, from right beside them. She has watched her mother charming her clients, smiling, laughing, touching, using eyes and fingers and lips to entrance and beguile them.
So she knows what it means when she sees Avantika greet Fjord the next day, a satisfied curl at the corner of her mouth. She can see that Fjord is looking back at her with new knowledge in his eyes, that the way they move in each other’s space is different. The tension that has thrummed between them so unbearably from the start has altered, and maybe if her mother were not the Ruby of the Sea Jester wouldn’t have noticed but she is, and she does.
If she is absolutely honest with herself, she knew last night. She couldn’t sleep until he was back in the room with them all, safe, and as the night dragged on it became less and less easy to believe they were still just talking.
He didn’t realise she was awake when he did get back. There’s a lot he doesn’t seem to realise.
Or maybe he does, and he doesn’t care. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much.
It’s all part of the game he’s playing, she’s aware of that. He said he doesn’t trust Avantika, doesn’t want the power that she does, and Jester believes him. As he said, he’s doing what he has to do – and Jester understands. Truly, she does. Another thing she learned from the Ruby is that sex can have all sorts of meanings and reasons behind it and most are simply about bodily desire. Sex is sex, and it doesn’t have to involve the heart.
Understanding doesn’t stop her from feeling though, and oh, how she feels.
She feels the ghostly press of Fjord’s lips against hers, his hands rough as they held her face, fingers pressing into her neck and the desperate push of air into her lungs. She feels her heart, already beating wildly in panic, stutter and jump and start to beat harder, more painfully and somehow more joyfully against her ribs.
And when she sees the truth of it in Fjord and Avantika’s faces, she feels that, too.
Before today when she watched them, the jealousy that grated beneath her skin was hot, fierce, akin to anger but not quite, winding its way around her core in thorny snarls and making her want to break things.
Now it’s cold. A slow frost freezing her from the inside out and making her feeling brittle, like she is the one that might break. It bites at her like the bitterest winter wind, but she’s not angry any more. She’s just … tired. Drained.
The others notice.
Beau, with those eyes that pretend to be indolent and uncaring but actually see so much, glances towards her after Fjord leaves to discuss the route the ship will take with Avantika.
“You okay, Jess?” she asks quietly.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Jester’s voice is too bright even to her own ears. Her smile feels tight, strained. “I think I’m gonna go for a walk. It’s too cramped in here.”
“Do you want company?” Worry is clear in Nott’s voice and eyes.
Jester shakes her head. The clamouring in her head is too much and she needs to be alone. “No, that’s alright. I’ll be back soon.”
Neither Caleb nor Cadeceus says anything, but Caleb’s gaze is soft and Cadeceus touches her arm gently as she passes hm on the way out the door.
It makes it so much worse, somehow, that they can see so easily, that they know. They can see and he can’t. She smiles and shrugs and tries to skip out, because she can’t bring herself to acknowledge it, but she thinks she must look like a puppet jerking along on its strings.
Thankfully the pirate crew take no notice of her as she climbs her way above deck and walks over to the lean her arms on the edge and gaze out at the endless, glittering blue expanse of ocean. The wind runs long, cool fingers through her hair, tangling it around her horns, and a lash of salty sea-spray catches her face. She closes her eyes, a long sigh escaping out through her lips.
How long she has been stood there when he comes she’s not sure, but she tenses as she realises he’s beside her.
“Hey, Jester. The others told me you were up here.” His voice is quiet, the drawl soft. She wonders if Avantika heard his other voice last night, and the thought is like a shard of ice stabbing through her.
“I wanted to get some fresh air.”
“Uh-huh. Listen, uh … you, um. You okay?”
She looks up at him and feels her heart constrict painfully. There’s a wariness in his eyes, a kind of guilt, all tangled together with warm concern.
She remembers standing at the side of a ship like this with him before, jellyfish glowing around them like tiny nebulae. She said to him then, Sometime the most beautiful things can hurt us the most.
Maybe everything clawing away at her insides shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s certainly the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
“Me? I’m fine.” She smiles and shrugs, waving a hand airily. “Are you okay? Did everything go alright with the Captain?”
It’s a dare, in its way, and maybe he knows that, because he visibly falters. “Uh, yeah. Yeah everything’s … we’re good.”
She smiles until she’s not even sure it is a smile any more, but just teeth. “Good.”
“You … uh. Listen, I thought maybe … we should talk, about yesterday …”
“Which part?”
A furrow appears in his brow, and uncertainty flickers on his face. “When we were tryin’ to get out, and you were struggling in the water --”
“Oh that.” There’s a bitter kind of satisfaction in seeing him so clearly taken off guard. Perhaps her acting skills are better than she thought. “Thank you for saving me, Fjord. Again.”
Despite herself, her voice softens on the last word.
Fjord nods. “You’re welcome. But um, you don’t …”
“Don’t what?”
Part of her wonders what she’s doing, pushing this way, because she doesn’t want him to say it. If he does – well, she’s not that good at pretending, and it’s taking everything she has to hold herself together as it is.
Maybe he senses that, or maybe he just wants to be let off the hook, because he shakes his head. “Never mind. We’re call in at another port before setting out properly, take some time to resupply. We’ll probably be there in a couple of days.”
Nausea rolls in her stomach. Two days? Two days of this? Of them, together? Maybe more, once they start towards this pirate port.
“That sounds good. I’ll come back down in a bit, okay?”
He hesitates, looking like he’s about to say something. There’s a flash of hurt and confusion in his eyes and Jester almost breaks right there and then.
Slowly, he nods and retreats away across the deck. Jester waits until she’s sure he’s gone, then her shoulders drop and she leans back against the ship’s railing. Her legs are shaking and she feels kind of ragged, frayed at the edges, and wraps her arms around herself as if she can physically keep the pieces together.
Tears slip from the corner of her eyes, and she spins round so no one else can see as they fall into the ocean, salt mingling with salt.
Traveller, she says in her mind, Please, do you know any spells that can … that can take this away? That can stop me feeling like this?
Even as she asks she’s not sure she would use them if there were.
There’s no reply, but briefly she feels the warm weight of a hand on her shoulder.