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Reality returned in what felt like a blink, but my episode of incognizance must have lasted longer than that. The darkness cleared, and I found myself in a tiny, dim room lit only by sunlight streaming through a pair of round windows. No, not windows. Portholes. I sniffed, detecting odors of brine, fish, and starch. As I sat up, the room swayed and my vision swirled.
“Hey, girl, take it easy.” A woman wearing rumpled white trousers and a navy-blue jacket glanced over her shoulder. Hazy light crowned her short dark hair as she crouched in the narrow space between my berth and another one abutting the compartment’s opposite wall. She dipped a rag into a pail at her knee, squeezed it out, and dabbed the bare shoulder of the figure lying before her. Although I couldn’t see his face, I recognized her patient’s long white-gold hair and alabaster skin.
Ignoring my dizziness, I slid from my bunk and crouched beside the strange woman. She swabbed the open wound in Jackie’s shoulder, wiping away blood. “Since you’re awake, why don’t you help me?” She pointed at a bundle at her feet—a folded square of white cloth, a squat round tin, a packet of thread with a needle, and a pair of bent-nose pliers. “Hand me that needle and those pliers.”
Still dazed and muddled, I obeyed her orders without realizing at first that she’d spoken in clear, unaccented Inselgrish. She squinted, threading the needle as I knelt at Jackie’s head and pressed the washcloth against the bloody hole below his clavicle. “He said it was just a flesh wound.”
“Well, technically speaking, he was right.” Gritting her teeth, she motioned for me to move my rag. “Hold him still. He’s mostly unconscious, but this part will hurt bad enough to wake a dead man from his grave.”
I gripped Jackie’s shoulders as she prodded his wound. His back bowed, hips jutting. I pressed hard, forcing his shoulders down as a shrill moan escaped his gritted teeth. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell silent as she pulled her pliers free, bullet pinched between its jaws.
“You know how to stitch a wound?”
I swayed again as blood drained from my head, rushing to my feet. “Never.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lot of help you are.”
“If he bleeds to death, I wouldn’t shed a tear. I’m only here because he kidnapped me.” I stepped back, turning away as she poked the needle into his flesh. Likely unconscious, Jackie remained still and silent as she worked needle and thread through his skin, closing his wound. My stomach swirled, protesting the gore and the remnants of whatever Magic that still clung to me after Jackie brought me through time and space to this place.
I wondered how Jackie and I had gotten aboard this boat. And what had happened to Gideon? My heart thumped a heavy beat of despair, fearing the worst, but I checked my pocket and found the coin Brigette had given me. It was a token representing the possibility of reunion—if she wasn’t already somewhere far away, running away from her failures. I hadn’t trusted her completely, but I had hoped, and her disloyalty hurt. I clenched the coin in my fist and sent a silent prayer to my ancestors, begging for Gideon’s safety.
“Master Faercourt told me to expect a companion. Didn’t mention she’d be here against her will.” She snorted. “He doesn’t seem the type to have to force a woman—”
“What type is that?”
“Rich and handsome and full of Magic. Usually young men like him have to beat ’em off with a stick.”
“It’s not like that with Jackie and me. He doesn’t want me for...” I shuddered. “That.” Or perhaps he did, but his want for me was less physical than this woman likely presumed. I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what he’s said. I don’t know who you are or what he’s told you—”
“Clarice McKimmon.” She knotted her thread and cut the excess string with her pocketknife. “I’m captain of the Velox. Mr. Faercourt paid me an exceptional sum to sail him and a companion”—she tilted her head toward me— “from Isolas Bay to Braddock.”
“Inselgrau? We’re going to sail all the way to Inselgrau?”
“If the gods be merciful, we should make it there in a week or so.” She opened the squat little tin, scooped out a dab of pearly-white ointment, and smeared it over Jackie’s wound. I caught a whiff of witch hazel. My nursemaid, Gerda, was an herbs expert and had shared her knowledge with me when she could convince me to help her in her garden. The witch hazel would help stave off infection. As if Jackie couldn’t do the same with his own Magic, but I supposed his injury had left him too weak to heal himself. Again, I tried to muster some pity for him but failed.
“A week, trapped on board with you and”—my lip curled—“him.”
“You, me, him, two hands, and my first mate, Anscombe. My crew doesn’t talk much, tend to keep to themselves, so you’ll hardly know they’re here.” She stood and slapped a square of folded white cloth into my hand. “You get Faercourt bandaged up. Won’t do for him to get an infection in the middle of the ocean. If he dies, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, you don’t get home.”
“You’re saying you’ll throw me overboard?”
“I’m saying it’s in your best interest to keep Faercourt alive.” She stepped outside our compartment into a narrow hallway and climbed a short set of stairs to the deck.
I left the door open, letting the breeze dilute the odor of sweat, blood, and unwashed body. Jackie’s chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. The black threads from Clarice’s suture job stood out starkly against his ashen skin, and I shuddered again. “My life might be easier if I cut your stitches and let you bleed out.”
I startled when his eyelids fluttered open, and his glassy gaze caught mine. “You’d never be that callous.” His voice was a raw whisper. “If I die, Inselgrau is lost to you.”
“That’s what you say.” I harrumphed and glanced around the room, searching for a pitcher or bucket of clean water, but found none, so I collected the dirty rags and bloody bucket and marched to the deck, calling for Clarice.
“I’m not your ladies’ maid, girl.” She stood near the bow of her small ship, hands on her hips, feet spread wide. The Velox was a narrow boat with one mast, a single deck, a square stern, and one huge paddle wheel. A giant man with deep-brown skin stood behind Clarice, eyeing me warily. The rest of her crew was nowhere to be seen.
“If you ever get tired of calling me girl, you can call me Evie. I don’t need you to serve me. Tell me where I can find drinking water, and I’ll get it myself.” I stepped to the deck railing and poured out the bucket Clarice had used to clean Jackie’s wound.
“There’s a cask in the galley.” She pointed toward the stairway I’d just come up. “Help yourself. And leave that bucket there at the rail. A crew member will collect it later.”
“Um, and how about a—” I cleared my throat. “The head?” I motioned to my salt-crusted clothes. My rope belt was still fastened around my waist, my knife securely snugged against my ribs. I was more than a little surprised Clarice hadn’t stripped me of my weapons. “I’d like to bathe.”
The captain rolled her eyes and jabbed her thumb toward the prow. “Head’s in the head, hence the name. It’s on the same level as your cabin, opposite end. No running water, but you can find a toilet, plenty of soap, and another cask of fresh water. I shouldn’t have to tell you to be prudent with it, should I?”
Shaking my head, I returned to the ship’s dark, dank interior and followed my nose, literally, trailing the strong scent of garlic into the ship’s galley. The garlic must have lingered from a previous meal, though. I found only a basket of lemons and a hard bread heel left out on the counter. My stomach growled, insisting it cared less about quality and more about quantity. I gnawed the bread heel as I ladled water into two pottery mugs that seemed clean enough.
Jackie had dozed off in my absence but awoke when I poked him.
“I couldn’t find anything to eat,” I said, “but at least I can do something about that dry throat.”
Despite my revulsion for him, I wouldn’t see him suffer. Besides, I needed him as much as he needed me, if the next phase of my plan was going to work. I cradled his shoulders and helped him sit up enough to sip his water without choking. When he’d drained his cup, he scrubbed his chin and slumped against his pillow. “Thank you.”
“Getaway plans work better if you don’t get shot during your escape, you know.” I unfolded the fabric Clarice had given me and wound it around Jackie’s shoulder and neck, covering his wound. His skin felt cool and clammy, but his pulse beat steadily in his throat.
“There were a few things I could account for,” he said. “The ones I couldn’t, I left in fate’s hands.”
“I wonder if fate wants you to survive or if this the beginning of your defeat.”
“I think it’s no coincidence that I’ve been placed at your mercy, Evelyn.”
“You said Inselgrau will be lost to me if you die.”
“Le Poing Fermé won’t negotiate with you if you fail to bring them the bargaining chip they asked for.”
“Who are you kidding? We both know there will be no negotiations. The second I step through Fallstaff’s gates, I might as well be stepping into chains.”
He squinted at me. “You’ll surrender so easily?”
“That’s for me to know and for Le Poing Fermé to find out.” I crawled onto my bunk, leaned against the wall, and sipped my water, washing down the coating of salt encrusted on my tongue.
“You don’t seem surprised to be here.”
“Of course not. The whole purpose of freeing you from the Council was to reunite you with your cabal. Why should you let anything, including a bullet, delay you from returning to Thibodaux’s side?”
“I didn’t so much mean that you don’t sound surprised to be going to Inselgrau, but that you don’t sound surprised to find yourself aboard a ship. With me.”
“From the moment I agreed to undertake your rescue mission, I knew it was pointless to try predicting what would happen after you were freed. Once your Magic was restored, anything was possible.”
“And you haven’t tried preparing for those possibilities?”
I smirked at him. “I’m honored that you think I could.”
“I didn’t say you’d be successful at it.” He sniffed. “But I know you better than you think I do. You wouldn’t have risked freeing me unless you’d taken steps to protect yourself first.”
I blanked my face, giving nothing away. The gold chain around my neck felt warm, as if he’d evoked its power when he talked about me making preparations. “Is it even possible to protect myself against you?” Brigette’s necklace was supposed to have shielded me against Jackie’s Magic, but somehow he’d managed to take me from the basilica to this ship without my awareness. I feared what that meant about the strength of Brigette’s Magic compared to Jackie’s.
A muscle under his eye jumped. “You give me too much credit. Your lightning is formidable, my queen. Your power has grown. It’s”—he closed his eyes and inhaled—“intoxicating.”
I appreciated the irony of my situation: I’d survived tremendous tortures and suffering to escape Jackie’s control. I’d trained hard with the Fantazikes to master my powers and make myself less vulnerable. In the end, all I’d done was make myself more alluring to him.
“Before we go any further,” I said, “I want to make a few things clear.”
He arched a single eyebrow.
“I’m going along with you, for now, because our goals are complementary. We both want to get to Inselgrau. We both want to reach Le Poing Fermé. However, I won’t abide being treated as either your slave or your hostage. The moment you try to shackle me or Magically manipulate my free will, all bets are off.”
“My, my.” He clicked his tongue. “You’ve grown to be a fierce one, haven’t you?”
“Don’t tell me fierce women intimidate you.”
His eyebrow twitched. “Quite the opposite.”
“What happened at the end, Jackie? Before we escaped the basilica, what did you do to Gideon?”
Jackie’s jaw worked as he gritted his teeth. “He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re worried about. Or at least, I didn’t kill him. Who’s to say what happened after our... departure.”
His answer left me unsatisfied, but I suspected he’d given me as much information as I was going to get from him. I drained the rest of my cup, set it aside, and stood. “I hope you’ve arranged provisions for me.”
“Provisions?”
I motioned to my salt-stained clothes and bird’s-nest hair. “A wardrobe or at least a clean change of clothes. Toiletries, perhaps?”
He bobbed his chin toward the room’s corner where a steamer trunk hunkered in the shadows. “You should find everything you need in there.”
I opened the trunk and bit my lip before I could gasp at the pile of sumptuous fabrics folded and stacked to the brim. He treated me like his doll, picking out the things he preferred to see me in rather than considering my own tastes. I shook out a white muslin mull dress embroidered in intricate patterns. “You’ve been planning this getaway for a while, haven’t you?”
Instead of confirming my guess, he asked for another cup of water. By the time I returned with refilled mugs, he had dozed off again. I let him sleep, careful not to wake him as I slipped Brigette’s thin gold necklace around his neck. I whispered the Magic words she’d given me, and the necklace disappeared—not merely invisible but insubstantial as well. “Well, that part of the plan went easier than expected.”
Don’t let your guard down, Grandfather said. The rest won’t be so simple.
Don’t you think I already know that?
You think he won’t sense you using Magic against him?
If Brigette is as good of a Magician as she seems to be, perhaps he won’t. There’s no guarantee.
If you can’t control him, then what?
Then there’s always the lightning, I guess. As long as I have you, Jackie can’t cut me off from it again.
You’re sure he doesn’t know about me?
He suspects something. I recalled the look of horror on Jackie’s face when he encountered me on our battlefield in Barsava and discovered my wound. He’d sensed Svieta’s Magic inside me and had called it foul, but I didn’t know how much he understood about what Svieta had done to save my life. I’m not inclined to give him details or confirm any of his guesses. The less he knows about us, the better.
After bumbling along a dark, narrow hallway, I arrived at a short door near the boat’s bow. I knocked, and when no one replied, I stepped into the head, a tiny cubby barely wide enough for a rudimentary toilet and a barrel of water. On its lid sat a pitcher, a ewer, and a round cake of soap that made my eyes water when I sniffed it. The bathroom wasn’t much to speak of, but at least it smelled and looked bearably clean.
I stripped, bathed, and fastened my knife to the inside of my knee, looping my length of rope to secure it in place. I combed and braided my hair and refused to think about how the man I loathed most in the world had picked out my undergarments. Slipping into silk and lace, I tried not to shudder.
***
I avoided Jackie for the rest of the afternoon, preferring to laze away the day on deck, sitting alone on a bench in the sail’s shade, inhaling fresh air and letting the breeze do its best to blow away my anxiety. As the sun dropped, I joined the crew for supper in the galley—stewed, salted-beef with potatoes and carrots cooked to mush. Not having much of an appetite, I didn’t complain, and Ambrose seemed surprised when I offered to scrub the dishes after everyone had eaten.
“You would risk running your dress?” he asked in his deep booming voice.
“I don’t give a damn about this dress.”
He arched his thick eyebrows but handed me a scrub brush and a cake of soap and left without arguing.
Later that night, I returned to the cabin I was forced to share with Jackie and found him flushed and red faced. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and chest. He moaned as if in pain but was otherwise listless. I peeled back his bandage and discovered enflamed and swollen flesh around his wound. His skin felt warm to the touch.
“Looks like you’ve gone and gotten yourself an infection.” I set my hands on my hips, examining him again. For the first time, an inkling of pity stirred in my heart, but a dark urge to let him fester warred against it. I wasn’t a killer, though, not even a passive one. I loathed Jackie, but if it was his fate to die, it wouldn’t be at the hands of some ordinary illness.
Remembering my own experience with bad fever as a child and the treatments Gerda had used to ease my symptoms, I hurried to the deck and found Ambrose standing at the helm alone. His huge figure loomed, tall, dark, and imposing. “I need your assistance, if you could spare a moment.”
He tilted his head in a curious way, encouraging me to explain.
“Master Faercourt has developed a fever. I need someone to bring him to the deck.”
He recoiled. “Why the deck?”
“The cabin is stifling. He needs fresh air, a cool breeze, and lots of water.”
He waved at the flat sails. “Not much of a breeze tonight.”
“There will be if the gods want him to live.”
“Then you better start praying, miss.”
By the time I returned with supplies, Ambrose and Leo, another crewman, had arranged Jackie on a pallet near the starboard rail at the center of the ship, away from where we might impede the ship’s workflow. I thanked them, and they left me to play nursemaid alone. I dunked rags in a pail of water drawn straight from the cool night ocean and plastered compresses over Jackie’s brow and chest. Slipping an arm under his shoulders, I raised his head enough to poor cool peppermint tea down his throat.
With Jackie hydrated and bathed, I called on the winds, drawing air from the north. The cool front collided against the warm air mass surrounding us and announced its displeasure in an explosive crack of thunder. Lightning split the sky. The breeze raised goose bumps on my arms. I wondered if it offered Jackie any relief.
Gerda had told me fevers were the body’s way of burning out impurities, and to let them run their course. In rare cases, an exceptionally high fever could cause further injury or death, but the best I could do was to keep Jackie hydrated and comfortable and let nature take its course. “I’m surprised your Magic hasn’t saved you,” I said, brushing a lock of pale hair from his brow. “Not so terribly powerful now, are you?”
A flicker of movement in the darkness startled me. The cool front had brought in clouds and blotted out the moonlight, but Clarice’s lantern shined brightly over Jackie’s wan figure as she approached. “Heard he took a turn for the worse.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But a fever seems a rather natural reaction to being shot.”
She huffed. “I’ve brought you some more of the salve I gave him earlier. It should help.”
I muttered my thanks as she smeared a thick glob of ointment on Jackie’s wound. “Leo has the night watch,” she said. “If you need anything else, ask him, and he’ll get it for you.”
“You’re very kind and generous with your supplies.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? Faercourt has paid me well, and there’s more waiting for me if I get him to Inselgrau alive.”
“What’s to hold you to that bargain? You could take his money, throw us both overboard, and save yourself from the trouble.”
She huffed and rose to her feet. From a coat pocket, she withdrew a pipe and a packet of tobacco. “I’m a sailor, girl. Not a pirate.”
She strolled off toward the stern, and moments later the sweet scent of pipe smoke wafted through the air. I swabbed Jackie’s brow again and called for another gust of cool air. The sails billowed, and the waves swelled, rocking the ship like a cradle. I stretched out beside him and closed my eyes. Just for a second, I’ll rest my eyes... just for a second...
***
Jackie’s thrashing and yelling jarred me awake. With a yelp, I sat up, clawing hair out of my eyes. My heart raced, panic swirling my thoughts until I remembered where I was, how I had gotten there, and why. A pale light on the horizon’s edge implied I’d slept for a while—much longer than a brief nap. The cool front had drifted away, and the air had turned still and stagnant again.
I touched him, and he yelled, gnashing his teeth. Before, his skin had been warm, but now it felt like fire. The compress on his chest had dried out. Jumping to my feet, I grabbed a bucket, refilled it, and doused him as though he were a raging campfire burning out of control. Over and over, I drenched him. Calling the winds, I brought in more cool air and vowed to remain vigilant this time. On my knees at his head, I pulled his shoulders into my lap and poured fresh water down his throat until he gagged. Once he caught his breath, I made him drink more.
I was drenched and chilled by the winds, my teeth chattering, but still Jackie blazed in my arms. “I hope you’re not planning to die here on this godsforsaken ship, you bastard. You and I are due for a final reckoning, and you better not deny me. If you’re going to be beaten, it’ll be on Inselgrish soil with me as the victor, not here in the middle of the ocean with no one to witness your sad, weak defeat.” I shook him. “Come on, Jackie. I’ve spent months preparing myself to stand up to you in a fair and honest fight. This is not how things end between us.” Words lodged in my throat. My eyes burned, but I wouldn’t cry for him. If he died, then good riddance, right?
Love and hate, remember? Grandfather said. You don’t love Jackie, but the emotions you feel for him are just as strong.
What’s your point?
There’s power in your hatred. It is the fuel that keeps you fighting, keeps you going when you would have given up or surrendered. If Jackie dies today, then maybe so does your ambition, and then where will you be? What will fuel your lightning then?
Oh, believe me, Grandfather, I have plenty of hatred for Le Poing Fermé. I don’t need Jackie to keep me motivated.
Are you certain?
I thought of Gideon, of his loyalty, conviction, and sacrifice. He’d said he would risk everything for me, and I believed him. Believed him to my core. I might hate Jackie, but I love Gideon more, and I love my people. If anything is going to motivate me as a queen, I choose love. Every day I will wake up choosing love.
Having caught on to the frantic scene, Leo appeared at my side, eyes wide, ginger hair blowing wildly in the breeze. “What’s happened, miss?”
“His fever is worse.”
“How can I help?”
“Get another bucket of water. Keep him wet.”
Leo snatched the bucket and returned moments later with water spilling from its brim. “Step back, miss.”
“Don’t worry about me. Just get him cooled off. Keep it coming.”
The winds howled, cold and frigid. A steady shiver vibrated in my bones. When Leo proposed we take a break, I ordered him to keep going. But when his lips turned blue and his own teeth started chattering, I relented.
“Miss,” he said, “you’ll get the chills if we keep this up.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
“If you get sick, too, I’m not sure the captain’s generosity will extend to you.”
“Fine.” I laid Jackie on the deck, scraping his sodden hair off his brow. “We’ve done what we can. The rest, I suppose, is up to the gods and to whatever source feeds his Magic. May they have mercy on his soul.”
