Free Patterns in the Dark (Dragon Blood Book 4) by Lindsay Buroker Page A

smile over his shoulder before opening the door. It didn’t reach his eyes.
    “I’ve been wanting that bath for you, too, you know,” she called after him.
    He lifted a hand in parting, then was gone.
    “Men,” Cas grumbled, then wished she had turned that same question on Tolemek. If the situation demanded it, would he choose her over his sister? No, she was glad she hadn’t asked. She didn’t want to get angry and say something she would regret. She would find the washroom, clean up, then go back out again and see what that dirigible was doing here. The number of pirate ships in port didn’t suggest this would be a popular tourist area.
    * * *
    Finding the washroom proved more difficult than Cas expected. She had to go back downstairs, then push past sweaty natives mingling with sweaty pirates of various ethnicities, most shouting at each other in broken Cofah. She found a hallway and started checking doors. None of them had pictures or words or even graffiti that might have identified the contents. The second door she opened revealed a man peeing in a hole in the ground. He smiled over his shoulder at her, too drunk to be embarrassed, at least she hoped that was the explanation for why most of the stream was splashing off the tiles. Grimacing, Cas backed out, deciding to try the rest of the doors before resigning herself to the men’s latrine.
    The next door held a storage room full of casks of rum, but behind the fourth, she found Sardelle. She was standing with her chin in her hand, considering a hole similar to the one the drunk man had been defiling.
    “Sorry,” Cas said when she looked up. “There don’t seem to be locks. I’ll wait.”
    “No, no. I believe it’s a communal lavatory and washroom. There’s a second hole, you see.” Sardelle stepped back, extending a hand. There wasn’t any sort of divider for privacy. At this point, Cas was glad she wasn’t supposed to pee out the door and into the alley from her room. Men might be able to handle such feats, but it sounded messy to her.
    “Not quite up to the standards of the Iskandian capital.” Not that Cas cared. She had peed in more uncomfortable places during her army training. “Did you say washroom?”
    “Apparently. There’s a hose, and that bucket has a sponge in it. I was just debating if one put the water down here when one was done or…” Sardelle sighed and lowered her hand. “It’s not that I haven’t roughed it in the past, but I was hoping for a warm bath after nearly being annihilated by that volcano.”
    “It’s warm out. We could go dip ourselves in the bay.” Cas was mostly joking—she hadn’t planned to take anyone with her to spy on the dirigible—but Sardelle’s brows rose thoughtfully.
    “That might be more hygienic.”
    “I don’t know. I’m guessing the sewer dumps out over there somewhere.” If there was a sewer. For all Cas knew, the holes in the ground might simply drain into a pit in the alley.
    “You didn’t see the sponge, did you?”
    Cas peered into the bucket and made a face. “When you said communal, you did mean communal, didn’t you? And, uhm, used.”
    Sardelle smiled. “Let’s check out the bay. I’m curious about that dirigible.”
    “You are ? I mean, I was going to investigate it myself, because I’m concerned trouble may be following us, but I thought you and the colonel might, ah…” Cas rocked her hand, deciding to keep the gesture vague instead of employing one of the cruder ones to suggest coitus.
    “He’s having his beer with his father. I thought I should let them bond. Besides, I don’t think Moe is that enthused about me.”
    “Because you saved our lives and our fliers?”
    “Because I knocked him unconscious and he woke five thousand feet up in the sky.”
    “Ah.” Cas pushed open the door. “To the bay then.”
    After she retrieved her pistol and rifle—Sardelle already had her sword belted around her waist, having perhaps had an inkling of how scary the