Read Chapter 31: The Stowaway's Secret

The stern was a furnace. Harlow could feel the heat through the deck planking beneath his boots, a sickening warmth that had no business existing in a world of ice. The Discovery listed hard to port, her wounded rudder groaning against the strain, and the smoke that had first appeared as a thin ribbon now boiled from the aft hatch in greasy black columns.

"Pumps are losing ground, sir." Davies appeared at his elbow, face smeared with soot and seawater. "She's taking on more than we can shift. If we don't get her beached soon, she'll founder where she sits."

Harlow stared at the glacier wall looming above them, at the dark mouth of the cave where Mercer and his men had vanished with the whaleboats. The channel existed. The passage was real. And every man who could have helped him fight for the Discovery had just walked away with the man who'd crippled her.

"We beach her," Harlow said. "Run her bow onto the shelf near the ice wall. It's shallow enough there."

"She'll freeze in place within hours. We'll never get her free."

"She's already dead if we don't." Harlow turned from the smoke. "We're not leaving her. Not yet."

The work was brutal and silent. Men hauled on lines, their breath crystallizing in the frigid air, and the Discovery answered slowly, grudgingly, her hull shuddering with each foot of progress. The ice shelf ground against her bow like a jaw closing on a bone, and when she finally settled, the list eased enough that the pumps could keep pace.

Harlow stood at the rail, watching the waterline. The fire had been contained—smothered with wet canvas and snow—but the damage was done. The rudder was a wreck of splintered timber and twisted iron. The smoke had come from a slow-burning fire set in the tiller room, meant to chew through the steering mechanism while they were all distracted by Mercer's grand reveal.

Whoever had done it knew exactly where to strike.

"Mr. Harlow." The voice was small, thin as wind through a crack. Harlow turned.

Liam stood at the edge of the companionway, wrapped in a coat far too large for his narrow frame. The boy had been with them since the beginning, a stowaway discovered in the hold during the first week out of Portsmouth. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Harlow had never quite known what to make of him—quiet, watchful, always underfoot but never in the way.

"What is it, lad?"

"I need to speak with you. Alone."

Harlow studied him. The boy's face was pale, but not from cold. There was a tightness around his eyes that spoke of something held too long.

"Davies, take the watch." Harlow nodded toward the aft cabin. "Come on, then."

The cabin was small and cold, the brazier long dead. Harlow gestured for Liam to sit, but the boy remained standing, hands clasped in front of him like a schoolboy called before the headmaster.

"There's something I should've told you," Liam said. "Something I was sent to do."

Harlow waited.

"I'm not just a stowaway." Liam's voice cracked, and he steadied it with an effort that made Harlow's chest ache. "I was sent. By my father."

"Your father." The words came out flat, but Harlow felt the cold creep deeper into his bones.

"My father is Captain Mercer."

The silence stretched. Harlow heard the ice grinding against the hull, the distant shout of men on deck, the creak of a ship settling into her grave.

"Sent to spy," Harlow said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, sir." Liam's shoulders hunched. "He wanted to know about you. About the crew. Who was loyal, who might turn. He knew the passage existed before we ever left England. He just needed a way to get to it without drawing attention."

"So he used me. Used the whole expedition." Harlow's voice was quiet, dangerously so. "And he used you."

Liam flinched. "I didn't want to. But he's my father. He said—he said if I did this, if I helped him, he'd take me with him. To the other side. And then we'd sail home together. That's all I wanted. To go home."

"Where's home?"

"Portsmouth." The boy's voice was barely a whisper. "My mother's there. She's sick. Dying. He said—" Liam stopped, swallowed. "He said if I helped him, he'd make sure she was looked after. That I could see her before she—"

The words died. Harlow looked at the boy—really looked—and saw the truth in the trembling hands and the red-rimmed eyes. Not a spy playing a part. A child trying to save his mother.

"How long have you known?"

"Since before we sailed."

"And the men who went with Mercer? You know who they are?"

Liam shook his head. "He didn't tell me. He didn't trust me that far. Just said to keep my eyes open and report to him when we made landfall."

"Report what?"

"Everything. Who you trusted. Who was having doubts. The state of the ship and her provisions. Whether you meant to press on or turn back."

Harlow turned to the cabin window, watching the smoke still curling from the stern. "And the fire? The rudder?"

"No." The answer came quick, fierce. "I didn't know about that. I swear. He never told me he meant to—he said he'd leave you the ship. That you'd find your own way out. He promised."

"Promises." Harlow heard the bitterness in his own voice. "Men like Mercer make promises the way winter makes ice. They look solid until you put your weight on them."

Liam's face crumpled. "I know. I know what he is. But he's still my father. And my mother—"

"Is dying." Harlow completed the thought. He turned from the window and looked at the boy, truly looked. "Why are you telling me this now?"

Liam's chin trembled. "Because I saw the smoke. I saw what he did to the ship. And I thought—I thought if he'd do that, if he'd leave you all here to die—" He stopped, wiping his eyes with a grimy sleeve. "He wouldn't do that for me. If I wasn't useful anymore, he wouldn't."

Harlow understood. The boy had seen his father's true face in the smoke and flame, and the vision had shattered something he'd been holding together since Portsmouth.

"Your mother," Harlow said slowly. "What's her name?"

"Eleanor." Liam looked up, surprised. "Eleanor Mercer."

"I knew a woman named Eleanor once," Harlow said. "In Portsmouth. She ran a boarding house near the docks. Always had a pot of tea on, even for sailors who couldn't pay."

Liam's eyes went wide. "That's her. That's my mother."

Harlow nodded slowly. The world was small, and it was strange, the knots that bound one life to another. He hadn't thought of Eleanor Mercer in years. A kind face, a warm room, a moment of grace when he'd been young and penniless and far from home.

"Is she truly dying, lad?"

"I don't know." Liam's voice was raw. "I haven't heard from him since we left. He said the letters would find me, but they never came. I don't know if she's alive or dead. I don't know anything."

Harlow was quiet for a long moment. Outside, he could hear the wind picking up, the first whisper of a storm coming down off the ice. Inside, something else was settling—a weight, a decision, a path forward through the wreckage.

"Your father has three days to reach his depot," Harlow said. "And we have a ship that can't move and a hull that can't hold. He's got what he wants. He's got no reason to help us."

Liam nodded, miserable.

"But he's got you." Harlow met the boy's eyes. "Or he thinks he does."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me you were expendable." Harlow chose his words with care. "Before he left, in the cave. He said it plainly. That he'd not delay for a boy he barely knew."

Liam's face went white. "He said that?"

"He did." Harlow let the truth settle. "I didn't know he meant you then. Now I do. And I think your father has a choice to make: he can keep walking toward his passage, or he can come back and face the fact that he left his own son to drown in a frozen bay."

"He won't come back." Liam shook his head. "He won't. Not for me. You said it yourself—I'm expendable."

"Maybe." Harlow moved toward the door. "But he doesn't know I know. And he doesn't know you've told me. That's something we can use."

Liam looked up, a glimmer of something—hope or fear, Harlow couldn't tell—flickering in his young eyes. "What are you going to do?"

Harlow paused at the door. The weight of his command pressed down on him, heavy as the ice pressing against the hull. He thought of Eleanor Mercer, of tea and warmth and a kindness shown to a stranger. He thought of the men on deck, trusting him to find a way. He thought of Mercer, walking through his hidden channel toward a passage that would carry him to glory and leave them all behind.

"I'm going to get my crew home," Harlow said. "And I'm going to make your father face the cost of what he's done. One way or another."

He left the boy in the cold cabin and stepped out onto the deck, where the smoke still rose and the ice still pressed and somewhere beyond the glacier wall, Mercer was moving toward the open sea.