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The Powers That Be must have heard my words and felt merciful, after all. Jackie’s fever broke around noon, and he slept through the next three days, waking only to take water and food or rising to let me help him stumble to the head when he needed to relieve himself. I played the role of attentive nurse to perfection, holding back my distaste long enough to bathe him and keep him comfortable. He never questioned my assistance. Perhaps his ego had convinced him I was sympathetic and had discovered tender feelings for him. Maybe he was too tired and hurt to question my motives. Maybe he was too smart to ask.
Once I was certain he would recover, I could’ve ignored him and let him care for himself, but Jackie valued the appearance of civility and manners. If I kept him in a good mood, he’d be more likely to humor me and perhaps be less likely to use his Magic against me. Hopefully it meant he’d be less likely to discover the Magic I intended to use against him, as well.
By our fifth day at sea, he’d recovered enough strength to apply a bit of Magic to speed his healing. I returned from a late-morning stroll around the deck to find Jackie bathed and dressed. His hair shimmered, and the pallor had drained from his face. He was as pale as always, but pink undertones warmed his skin.
“Don’t you look like a new man,” I said, appraising his improvement.
Bare toes peeked from the cuffs of his blue linen trousers. He wore a thin cotton shirt, open at the neck—his façade more casual than the one he normally presented.
“Feeling better?”
A flush rose in his cheeks. Something warm burned in his eyes. “Thanks to you, yes.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” I tilted my chin toward the hallway. “I was just coming to see if you wanted anything to eat. Clarice says there’s lunch in the galley. It’s not much, some fish filets and bread, but it’ll keep your stomach full.”
“Can we eat it on the deck? I feel like I haven’t seen the sun in days.”
“Can you manage the stairs? Go on up. I’ll get our plates and join you.”
He nodded then shuffled out, still in bare feet, and worked his way to the deck, one slow step at a time. After filling two plates with fish, bread, dollops of butter, and a few chunks of fried potato, I joined Jackie on a bench near the portside rail. With his eyes closed and face tilted toward the sun, he looked like a nymph as the wind played with his hair. In so many ways, he was a lovely young man, and with his abilities, he could’ve been a strong ally. A friend. Instead, his powers had corrupted him, and he’d forever be my enemy. That realization saddened me, and I grieved the friendship and bond that would never exist between us.
“What’s that look on your face?” he asked as he accepted his lunch plate. “You look so sad.”
Settling beside him, I handed him a fork. I considered telling him to mind his own business, but what was the harm in being frank for once? I’d probably never have the chance to talk to him so openly again. “I was thinking about the loss of friendship.”
“Do you mean between you and me?”
I forked a piece of fish and inspected it, searching for bones. “If our conflict was a simple disagreement, there would still be amity between us, and I think you could have been a very good friend, Jackie.”
“You’re right. I could.” He set his plate in his lap and smeared a thick layer of butter on his bread. “I still can be.”
“No. It’s too late for that.” The fish needed more salt, but at least it tasted fresh, and Anscombe had managed to keep from burning it or drying it out. “There’s nothing between us for the kind of foundation a friendship requires. We share no mutual goals or beliefs. You want power, and you’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”
His brow furrowed. “If only you could see the world through my eyes.”
“I have seen it through your eyes, and it scares me.” His dream of creating a child born of goddess and Magician... If such a thing had ever happened before, I’d never heard of it. Probably for good reason.
“Only because you don’t trust me.”
“Why should I? You attacked my friends, suppressed my powers, held me captive...” I gestured to the ship. “Kidnapped me.”
The knot in his throat bobbed. He poked at his food, pushing potatoes around his plate. “Don’t think I don’t know that I’ve hurt you.”
“Then why do you do it?”
He set aside his plate, stood, and leaned against the rail, gazing at the endless ocean. “My need for you, for what we’ll achieve together, outweighs all other considerations. It must, if I’m to succeed.”
“Le Poing Fermé—”
He sliced his hand through the air. “Le Poing Fermé has nothing to do with this. They have never shared my vision. They’ve always been a means to an end, nothing more.”
“Just like me.” His confession about Le Poing Fermé was an interesting admission. I tucked the information away, more ammunition for my growing arsenal.
His already-fierce expression blazed brighter. The earnestness in his face scared me. He was a zealot, and that made him oh so dangerous. “No, not like you. You are the end game.”
“Until I give you a child. Then I will be nothing more than chaff to be cast aside.”
He grabbed my shoulders and yanked me to my feet. My plate crashed to the deck, but he ignored it. “I would never cast aside the woman I love.”
I’d intended to make Jackie my pawn by using Magic, but he might have been even more vulnerable if I’d simply gone after his heart. What would he be willing to do for me if I let him think there was a chance for us to have a future together? Could I manipulate him that way and not lose my own soul? “You don’t know what love is.”
He released me and stepped back, his face going dark. “My sister would disagree.”
“You’re not asking me to be your sister, though.” I wrapped my fingers around the railing and clutched it until my knuckles pressed white against my skin. The skies had darkened, winds kicking up. The waves swelled.
He eyed the sky and turned his wary expression on me. He pointed at the clouds. “This is your doing?”
“I’m not going to electrocute you. Don’t worry.”
His severe posture eased ever so slightly. “If you wanted me dead, you had plenty of opportunities already.” He cleared his throat. “What you did for me... You saved me. Was there no love in your efforts at all?”
There was a great deal of love in my efforts but not for him.
A dead Jackie might’ve made my life easier, but the thought of murder sickened me. If I started down that path, killing to reclaim my throne, I wasn’t sure I’d know where to stop. That was how tyrants were made—one dark and violent action at a time, all the while making excuses about ends justifying means and sacrifices made for the whole of the good. Eventually those excuses would become lies to rationalize evil, and once I reached that point, there would be no coming back. I would’ve already lost myself. “I only want to go home and try to be a good queen, without outside interference.”
“There will always be interference. As long as you’re the last of your kind, there will always be someone who wants to take what you have.”
“So why not let that someone be you, right?”
He shook his head and backed away from the rail. “We’ll never agree on this.”
“What made you this way?” I followed him down to our cabin to avoid the sudden rain and to prevent him from escaping my questions. “What made you so unyielding? So obdurate?”
He snorted as he slouched on his bunk. “You’re one to talk.”
“I don’t really know you that well. Not the real you.” I crawled into my bunk, the ship rocking us back and forth as rain pattered on our portholes.
“There’s nothing much to say. I told you my parents died when I was young. I grew up taking care of myself and my sister.”
“You’re a survivor.”
He shrugged and picked at his cuticles. “I guess you could say that.”
“You loved your parents?”
A hurt expression flashed across his face. “Of course I did.”
“You miss them?”
“As much as you miss your own father, I’m sure.”
“There was a time, after his death, when I would have sold my soul to get my father back.”
“You think that’s what I’ve done? Sold my soul to get the things I want?” He punched his pillow, molding it into a soft mound to cradle his head. He stretched out and stared the ceiling. “You’re trying to rationalize me, make me fit into your understanding of the world in a way that makes you feel more comfortable. But you’d be wrong to do that.”
“You could do a lot of good in this world.”
“Who says I won’t?”
A knock on our doorjamb cut through the heavy mood. Clarice stood in the doorway, wearing a wary smile. “Anscombe wants to know if you’re going to come clean up the galley.”
Nodding, I pushed myself off my bunk. “I’m coming.”
“They’ll be playing cards after you’ve finished. It’s likely the only entertainment you’ll find for now.”
“Thank you, Captain. I’ll consider it.”
Clarice nodded and retreated down the hall.
“With a little Magic, I could have the galley cleaned in an instant.” Despite his offer, he made no effort to follow me, and his protest seemed halfhearted. “A queen shouldn’t have to wash dishes.”
“A queen shouldn’t have to do a lot of things, but sometimes there’s a lot of satisfaction in a little bit of hard work.”
***
By the time I’d dried and stowed away the last dish from lunch, the storm had disappeared and the ocean had calmed. But the thought of returning to Jackie made me clench my teeth so tightly my jaw ached. The more time I spent with him, the more I thought about what was to come and all the things that could, and likely would, go wrong.
Being with Jackie also compounded my grief over losing Gideon. Again.
I hated not knowing what had happened to him and Brigette. Not knowing if Niffin and Malita had escaped Isolas without the Council’s interference. I’d told Gideon the not-knowing was the hardest part of being separated from him, and here I was, proving myself right—cold sweats, twisty gut, and all.
In need of distraction, I climbed to the deck. Although Clarice was absent, her crew had set up a table and chairs in the sunshine. They’d dealt out cards, betting chips, and cups of something foul smelling poured from an earthenware jug.
I pointed at the jug. “Is that liquor or turpentine for cleaning the ship?”
“Some of both?” Leo was the Velox’s all-purpose handyman. A slouchy hat covered his thin red hair, and his face was a contour map of lines and wrinkles. He pointed at the empty chair beside him. “Care to join?”
“What’s the buy-in?” Clarice’s sailors never played simply for fun. There were always stakes—the higher, the better.
Leo’s gaze narrowed as he scanned the details of my undoubtedly expensive dress—another from Jackie’s collection. His inspection paused at my hair. He waggled a finger at my left temple. “That.”
I patted the comb I’d fastened in my hair that morning. I’d found it in the steamer trunk while searching for a ribbon to tie around the end of my braid. Inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the comb had caught the afternoon sunlight, and its rainbow nacre reminded me of the sheen on my Thunder Cloak. A Thunder Cloak I’d discarded on the basilica’s beach. I cursed myself for letting Taviano talk me into leaving it behind.
I removed the comb and presented it to Leo. “Deal me in.”
Not only did he give me a share of the cards and chips, but he also poured me a shot of his homemade brew. I wrinkled my nose but gulped it down. If I drank enough, I might temporarily forget all my fears and regrets. I might also open myself to Jackie’s manipulations and dampen my connection to the storms—risks I couldn’t afford, not even for a few welcome moments of numbness.
Instead of offering my cup when Leo poured the next round of drinks, I waved him off and focused on my cards. Although if I lost the game and forfeited my fancy hair comb, I wouldn’t cry. Gambling away Jackie’s fineries appealed to my sense of defiance. It was a small and petty rebellion, but I didn’t care.
We played until the booze ran out, which was around the same time Clarice demanded that everyone get back to work. By then I had lost a second hair comb and a pair of slippers. Anscombe said he was saving them to give to his daughter when he returned home—somewhere on a small island off the southern coast of Agridan.
Still hoping to avoid Jackie, I asked for a chore or task to keep me occupied. Leo lent me a huge fishing pole from his personal collection and a bit of salted fish from the galley for bait. “How about you try catching us something fresh for supper?” he suggested.
I cast my line over the port rail near Clarice’s position at the helm and waited.
She pointed at my pole. “Hoping to catch a sea monster?”
“Maybe? At least it would be something exciting.”
“You want excitement, you came to the wrong place.” She folded her arms behind her back and narrowed her gaze, staring at the prow. The sun had darkened her skin to deep, rich ocher, and the lines around her eyes and mouth spoke of age and experience. If I had to guess, Clarice was about as old as my father would have been if he were still alive. “It’s a lie, you know, the romanticism of a sailor’s life. The young folks dream of running away from home, setting sail, exploring the world. Then they find out how much of that adventure is composed of drudgery. The days of bobbing on an infinite ocean, staring at a horizon that never changes. The endless chores. The boring food.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because there is one truth mixed into those lies, and it is that truth that compels me.”
“And what is that?” I cast my line again and watched the bait sink below the surface.
“Freedom.” She waved her hand in a gesture encompassing our surroundings. “Out here there is no government, no society, no laws other than those imposed by Mother Nature and Father Time. No one to tell me what to say, how to behave.” She pointed at my dress and wrinkled her nose. “What to wear.”
“But what about when you’re in port?”
She raised her shoulder and dropped it. “For a few days I put on my human suit and pretend to be one of you. It’s the cost of living life on my terms, and it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
My line tugged, a tickle of movement, like a fish taste-testing the bait. I kept my pole still and waited. “You don’t consider yourself to be human when you’re out at sea?”
“Not by your definition.”
The tip of my pole bowed as my tentative fish committed to taking the bait and running. “You might be surprised by my definition.” Gritting my teeth, I braced against the rail, clenching my muscles to fight against the fish. It seemed determined to drag me overboard. “Not all of us are always what we seem to be.”
Clarice’s expression brightened as she scurried to my side and whooped. “You got yourself a sea monster after all, didn’t you, girl?” The fish roiled beneath the surface, churning foam. Flashes of gold glinted as scales caught sunlight. My biceps bulged, tendons straining to hold the pole while Clarice shouted: “Bring us the gaff! Somebody bring us the damned gaff!”
I expected a fish that heavy and vicious to snap the line, but it held. Clarice’s demands and the fish’s thrashing drew Ambrose and Leo’s attention. They scurried to my side to cheer me on, but both fell silent as they peered overboard.
“That’s no fish,” Ambrose muttered in his deep baritone.
Clarice’s third crew member, Mariana, produced the gaff—a wicked hook at the end of a long pole—and passed it to the captain. “What is that?” she asked, eyes wide.
Clarice jabbed the hook at the creature. It darted, tugging on my line, and she missed. She cursed and aimed again. “Hold it steady, girl.”
Gritting my teeth, my knuckles white as I struggled to keep my grip, I grunted at her. “I’m trying.”
She squinted, shoulder muscles bunching, and jabbed again. The gaff pole shuddered, and Clarice hissed. “Got it. Ambrose, pull it in.”
He grabbed the pole, and his massive arms flexed as he hauled up our catch. The moment the creature broke the surface, my breath froze. My eyes bulged. “What in the Shadowlands...?”
With some help from Leo, Ambrose managed to bring the creature over the rail and onto the deck. It landed with a metallic clank, and something inside it rattled and clicked. What I had thought were golden scales turned out to be brass—thick plates of armor, each riveted in place. The creature shrieked an unearthly noise and gnashed serrated teeth, each as long as my finger. It writhed on the deck like a serpentine nightmare.
“I’ve seen mechanical creatures before,” I said, “but nothing as horrible as this.”
“This thing is nothing like your circus friends’ undead menagerie.” Jackie’s sudden presence startled me, and his disgust showed plainly in the curl of his lip. “This is purely mechanics—gears, cogs, and springs.”
“What’s it doing out here in the middle of the ocean?” I asked.
“Scouting,” Clarice said.
“Scouting?” I asked. “For what?”
“For us, or any other targets it could find. If we hadn’t caught it, it would have recorded our location and returned to its master.”
“How would it record our location?”
She clucked her tongue. “Do you know how a phonograph record gets made? Wax cylinders and all that?”
I frowned. “I’m not familiar with the process, no.”
“Well, I’m not going to waste my time explaining it then, but it’s a similar mechanism, recording longitude and latitude as it moves through the water. Once it finds a target, it stops making notes. The last position marked in its record tells its master where to find us. So we better get underway, quickly, unless we want company. And let me assure you, the master of this monstrosity is not the kind of company we want to keep.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because this is not my first encounter with one of these beasties.”
“Who’s its master?” I asked.
“Zhou Min, fiercest pirate on the seven seas.”
Clarice charged toward the helm. Jackie and I followed.
“She’s damned smart and one of the most cunning women I’ve ever met. She’s also one of the most ruthless. If she catches us, I’ll lose my ship, and she’ll take us all prisoner... if she doesn’t just kill us.”
Clarice pointed at Mariana, who stood along with Ambrose and Leo beside the creature. She wore a look of horror as she watched it squirm at the end Ambrose’s gaff. “Marina, you’re on watch. Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t let Zhou sneak up on us. Leo, start shoveling coal. Get this paddle wheel pumping.”
Jackie gazed at the expanse of water behind us, as if searching for another set of sails. I searched the horizon, too, and the dread rising in me stirred up a stiff wind. The water turned choppy. I took a deep breath, trying to ease my nerves. We might need the lightning if Zhou caught up to us, but for now the storms would only get in our way.
“How do you know so much about this pirate?” I asked.
“Because,” Clarice said, “I used to be on her crew.”
I flinched, but Jackie chuckled as if delighted. “Does she have a Magician? Oh, please do tell me she has a Magician.”
Clarice shook her head. “No, not since I left her crew. But she does have several very fine engineers, and they shouldn’t be underestimated.”
“Not since you left?” I gasped. “You’re a Magician?”
She snorted. “I prefer to rely on the strength of my own flesh and blood rather than the capricious whims of an unknown force. I prefer winds and currents... and a paddlewheel when things get desperate.”
A realization hit me like a dash of cold water. “You were the one who brought me and Jackie here, weren’t you?” It explained why Brigette’s charm hadn’t worked. I thought Jackie’s Magic had overpowered her protection spell, but it hadn’t been his Magic at all.
Relief swelled through me. Perhaps there was still reason to hope my plan might work. And it might, as long as the others were able to keep up their end of our arrangement, and that depended on whether our backup plan had worked. I wouldn’t know for certain until we arrived in Inselgrau, and the uncertainty gnawed at me.
Clarice’s jaw clenched, and she refused to answer. It was true. I could see it in her eyes. Perhaps she didn’t like using her Magic, but Jackie and Le Poing Fermé had deep pockets and no moral qualms against manipulating a person to get what they wanted. I wondered what they’d done to coerce her cooperation.
“There’s still a chance Zhou hasn’t even started looking for us yet, right?” I asked.
“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t bet on it. She doesn’t send her scouts out far. By now she’s already missing her little beastie and is probably following the path she originally sent it on.”
“Can’t we make a change in our course?”
“Already have, but I don’t want to get too far off. Making it to Inselgrau is still our best bet.”
“You said it would take us a ‘week or so’ to get there. We’ve been at sea for five days now. How much farther do we have to go?”
She glanced at Ambrose, who worked compass, sextant, and nautical maps like an artist worked brush, paints, and canvas to create a masterpiece. He held up three fingers and waggled a fourth. “Three days, give or take,” she said, translating his gesture. “If we continue at this pace.”
“So we’re going to run for three days?”
“Unless you have a better plan.”
I glanced at Jackie.
He tilted his head inquisitively at me. “What’s in that conniving brain of yours, Evelyn?”
“Am I really the first of us to consider altering the creature’s record?”
“Send Zhou chasing a ghost?” Jackie asked. “Brilliant.”
“Can you do it?” I asked Clarice. “You’ve seen these creatures before, and you know how their mechanisms work.”
Her lips twisted into a crooked grimace. “Zhou’s smart. She’ll suspect something’s up. She might even suspect it’s me. She and I have been dancing around each other ever since I ran away from her. We’re long overdue for a reckoning.”
I looked at Jackie. He gave me a dark look in return as if he could read my thoughts. “That day will come for all of us eventually,” I said. “But not today, if we can help it.”
Ambrose and Mariana wrestled the mechanical creature—a long, snaking body with dorsal, pectoral, and caudle fins and a face like a lion—closer to Clarice. It still writhed but halfheartedly. Its clockwork mechanisms seemed to be winding down. Ambrose dug up a toolbox from somewhere on deck and popped it open beside the monster.
Clarice crouched and inspected the creature, prodding it with a long, slim screwdriver. Ambrose braced a knee on the monster’s head, careful to avoid its nasty teeth, and Clarice leaned closer.
“Ah,” she said, setting her screwdriver in a joint under the creature’s jaw. After several twists, the jaw opened, swinging on a hinge, and revealed the interior mechanisms. She tapped her tool against a small amber-colored cylinder twice the length and thickness of Ambrose’s thumb. “That’s what we’re looking for.”
Carefully, she pried the cylinder loose and squinted at its surface. “Without the device Zhou uses to interpret the data stored on these things, I can’t be sure how accurate my markings will be.”
“If it’s enough to throw her off course,” I said, “that’s all that matters, right?”
She selected another item from her box, a long-pointed bit of iron that looked more like a weapon than a tool. Carefully she etched the cylinder’s surface, drawing a ring and several crosshatches around its circumference. She inspected her work then popped the cylinder back in place. “That should do it, I guess.”
She jabbed her screwdriver into the monster’s gears. “Hold tight, Ambrose. I’m going to wind it up.” The creature thrashed as she twisted something in its innards. Ambrose strained, teeth clenching, to keep it from leaping off the deck while Clarice closed the jaw and locked it in place.
With Mariana’s help, Ambrose wrestled the monster over the rail and dropped it in the water. It slapped its tail against the water as if rebuking us before darting away. “We’ll set up a watch schedule,” Clarice said. “Everyone takes a turn keeping an eye out for Zhou, just in case. Maybe this will keep her off our trail, but when it comes to Zhou, it’s best not to take anything for granted.”
