Burning Bright by Melissa McShane

of rendering those attacks useless; my power at igniting fires is unmatched; and if enough of our enemies realize that tangling with our ships will bring only death and disaster, they will look for easier targets elsewhere.”
    She was not actually certain of her second point, as she had never yet had reason to test the limits of her power, but she could feel the fire call to her, and believed if she asked it, it would rage hot and bright enough to immolate this building and everyone inside. The image sickened her.
    The silence persisted for a few seconds more, then both Admirals spoke at once, their words tangling in the air so they never reached Melville’s ear. The First Lord bent to right his chair, then sat in it, fixing his eyes on Elinor’s. Years of turning a calm visage to her father’s scorn and anger kept her from flinching at the intensity of his gaze. “Hold a moment,” he said, and the admirals went silent. “You are a woman,” he continued.
    “I realize that. I have been a woman my entire life. Do you think a woman might not feel some desire to defend her country?”
    “Women do not serve in the Navy. For a well-born woman, even an Extraordinary, to do so is unthinkable.”
    “Yet you would accept my offer were I a man. You need me, my lord, and I think under such circumstances, neither of us can afford to entertain such niceties as pertain to my sex.”
    One of the admirals said, “My lord, she’s not wrong.”
    Melville looked at him in astonishment. “Stanhope? You, of all people, entertaining this radical notion?”
    The admiral stabbed at the map with his forefinger. “Six merchant vessels lost in the last month, my lord. And that upstart Wellington has been foaming at the mouth, complaining that we are not making any effort to keep that rabble of an Army of his from starving to death. If she were a man, you wouldn’t think twice. You would probably have gone out of your way to recruit such a talent. And you know the government expects all Extraordinary Seers, Shapers, and Bounders, male
and
female, to serve four years in the Army’s War Office. We’ve been rejecting female Extraordinaries based on long-standing naval policy, but it might be time for us to rethink that policy. If this young lady is willing to take the risk, I say we allow her to.”
    “That’s preposterous!” the other admiral said. “Miss…Pembroke, was it? Miss Pembroke, you have no idea what conditions on shipboard are like. You know nothing of the privations of war. We cannot guarantee your safety, let alone that you will be treated with the respect a gentlewoman deserves. There is little privacy, the men behave in a coarse fashion that will surely offend your delicate sensibilities, and what they will think of any unmarried woman who—they may offer you insult—”
    “I believe any Scorcher is more than capable of defending against such assaults,” the captain drawled.
    “But no lady should be subject—”
    “I appreciate your concern, Admiral,” Elinor said. “You are correct that I have never experienced such conditions as obtain aboard a ship. I am, however, willing to endure if that is what I must do.”
    Melville shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
    “We haven’t become the preeminent naval force in the world by failing to innovate,” the admiral Melville had addressed as Stanhope said. “Consider it, my lord. Those da— those accursed pirates fleeing before
us
for a change.”
    “But your reputation—” the other admiral began.
    “Need not suffer if you do not publicize my involvement,” Elinor said, smoothly heading off his objection. “Although that does bring me to the second part of my offer.”
    “And what is that?” Melville said. Elinor thought his opposition might be weakening. What she was about to say might cause him to throw her out of the office entirely.
    “My services do not come free,” she said, “much as my offer is made in a spirit of patriotism. I want fifteen