Night of a Thousand Stars. Deanna Raybourn

this. It’s not just Sebastian, Masterman. Can’t you see? It’s something much bigger, and I don’t understand it yet, but I know I have to go looking.”

      Masterman said nothing for a long moment. Then she took a deep breath and exhaled it very, very slowly, and the fight seemed to go out of her. “Very well, miss. We’ll go.”

      “You don’t have to—” I began.

      The expression on her face was so fierce I flinched. “Yes, I do. However long it takes, wherever it takes us. ‘Whither thou goest,’” she finished.

      I smiled weakly. “You’ll be my Ruth, then?”

      “However long, wherever it takes us,” she repeated.

       Six

      A week later, I stood at the rail of the ship, watching the southern coastline of France recede, butterflies hurtling around in my stomach like bees in a jar. I was always slightly unsettled when I started a new sea voyage, but this time the feeling was largely one of pure elation. I had done it. Seizing every opportunity that had come my way, I had secured a position as companion to the elderly Colonel Cyrus Archainbaud, packed my bags, and set sail for the Holy Land. It had been a whirlwind of activity, from the first interview with the colonel to boarding the train in London. And in the meantime, there was Masterman to argue with. After an initial ding-dong that nearly had her marching straight to Mother to Reveal All, she gave in and packed my small trunk with perfect precision and very bad grace.

      I had intended to talk her out of coming—the passage was eye-wateringly expensive and consumed almost all of the salary the colonel had advanced me—but she refused to let me go alone, and with a little careful extortion, she persuaded me that it would be far better for her to come along.

      “I can keep an eye on things,” she said firmly.

      “Masterman, a companion cannot travel with a lady’s maid,” I pointed out acidly. “How can I be in the colonel’s employ when you are in mine?”

      She shook her head. “I won’t be in your employ, at least not publicly. I will go on my own, as an independent traveller. That way I can be at hand if trouble comes, and I can go and find things out. Two pairs of eyes and ears are better than one,” she added slyly. “And if it means we find poor Sebastian sooner, well, miss, it would be criminal not to try. As you said, what if he is come to some harm? What if he’s in need of friends to aid him? Just think of it, that poor fellow, perhaps chained to a wall somewhere in those heathen lands—”