We continued on our journey to the north, and I continued my nighttime visits with Isolfr. Talking with him was like trying to figure out a puzzle: I’d ask him questions, he’d give me vague answers, but only if he was of a mind to. Frustrating, to be sure, but exciting, too. Something to distract me from the boredom of life at sea.
“So, if you won’t tell me what you are,” I said, leaning up against the railing, a blanket pulled around my shoulders, on top of my coat, “can you at least tell me where you’re from?”
Isolfr bobbed in the water. He looked like a patch of moonlight.
“I’m from up there,” he said, and pointed straight to the stars.
“The sky?” I said. “You’re from the sky?”
He nodded. “I miss it too. My family has a palace in the air, and it’s quite a thing to see.”
“I’d imagine so.” I’d no idea if he was joking, if this was in any way an honest answer. I’d never heard of creatures living up among the clouds, but then, neither Mama nor Papa knew about much in the way of spirits.
Whatever Isolfr was doing down here, I suspected it was more involved than protecting the Penelope from the Mists. I also suspected he didn’t want to do it. Now, he never came right out and said that, because Isolfr never came out and said anything, at least not anything useful, but I got the sense of it anyway from how wistful he’d look when he talked about his home up in the clouds.
And then one night, when we’d been talking for a week or so, he startled me with a sudden burst of straightforwardness.
“Do you trust me?” he said.
I blinked at him in surprise. I was out at the bow, our usual spot. The nights kept getting colder and colder, and the stars were sharper now, like flecks of diamonds up in the sky.
“What?” I said.
“Do you trust me?” He sounded out of breath, like he was nervous. He lifted himself up out of the water, his eyes fixed on me.
“Truthfully?” I hesitated. Isolfr looked so hopeful I didn’t want to tell him no. “I’m not sure.”
He furrowed his brow and dropped low into the water. Even in the darkness, I could tell my answer saddened him.
“Wait,” I said. “It’s not—please don’t take it personally.”
He lifted his eyes, and that wounded expression made his features even more unearthly.
“You have to admit you’re a little hard to trust,” I said. “Since you can swim in freezing water and claim you live in the clouds.” I paused. “And you keep warning me about the Mists.”
“That’s to help you.” He pushed himself up. “I want you to trust me,” he said. “I have to show you something and I don’t want you to be afraid.”
A chill went through me, and I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep warm. “This is new,” I said.
“I’ve been delaying it.” Isolfr looked down at the water. “Kolur is a fool, you know, and he’s on a fool’s errand.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it, because I certainly have no idea what he’s doing. I keep pressing both of them, but they never give anything away. I’m not even sure when we’ll be making port next.” I clung to the railing and pressed myself over the side of the boat. The sea spray stung my face and made my eyes water. Clouds drifted over the moon, turning everything dark. “What do you want to show me? Is it related to where we’re going?” I felt a little thrill of curiosity—maybe I’d finally found a way to get Isolfr to tell me what was going on.
“No.” He hesitated. “It’s related to—it’s from—the Mists, actually.”
“The what?” I jumped away from the railing. The open ocean was too open, and I felt exposed. “No. Absolutely not. You won’t even tell me what you are, and now you—”
“I’m not from the Mists!” He drew himself up and his skin gleamed and his eyes flashed with a ferocity I would never have expected from him. “I’m trying to protect you from the Mists. And that’s why I need to show this to you. Please.” A wave swelled and almost swallowed him up. He looked deflated after his outburst, a piece of silk caught on the current.
“I was tasked with warning the Penelope of the danger she’s sailing into.” Isolfr’s voice was quiet. I had to strain to hear it over my racing heart. “I was asked to show you the threat you’ve been facing. I’ve put it off, because—” The waves surged again. “Because I was afraid. But I can’t delay any longer. So even if you don’t trust me—you’ll have to trust me.”
He smiled then, that charming bright smile, but I could see through it. And what I saw was fear.
I thought about my family’s stone cottage on the road to the sea. I thought about Mama’s garden, the way it looked in the summer, when all the herbs were blossoming and the vegetables were growing. I thought about Henrik playing in front of the fire, about Papa coming home from his fishing trips smelling of the ocean, about Mama singing pirate songs as she swept dirt out the back door.
I wondered if I’d experience any of it again.
I looked down at Isolfr floating there in the dark ocean. His eyes reflected the starlight. In the last week, I’d begun to set aside the reality that he wasn’t human. I hadn’t even realized I’d been doing it until now.
“Please,” he said.
“What are we sailing into that’s so dangerous?” My voice wavered. “Just tell me. I’ve thrown the fortunes, and I didn’t see anything—”
“Because this part of your future is blocked. But you’re traveling north, to the far north, the top of the world.” Isolfr swam up to the Penelope and touched his hands to her side, the first time I’d ever seen him do so. Nothing happened. The boat kept moving through the water. The protection charms didn’t even ripple.
That, more than anything, convinced me.
“Jandanvar?” I said.
He didn’t answer.
I threw my hands up in frustration. “I still don’t understand why you won’t just tell Kolur, if this is so dangerous. I don’t have any control over what he does.”
Isolfr’s face darkened. “I can’t tell him. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head and the freezing wind blew my hair into my face. “This is pointless, Isolfr. Fine. Whatever you need to show me, show me.”
There was a long pause. The wind picked up, blowing in from the north. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep warm. One hand brushed against my bracelet, and the magic in it hummed, telling me everything was all right.
Isolfr climbed over the railing.
Out of the water, he moved like a dancer, graceful and serpentine. When both feet were on deck, he looked at me shyly. His hair clung to his cheek. Water pooled at his feet and shone on his skin. That dark tunic was plastered against him.
“Hello,” he said, like we hadn’t just been speaking.
“Hello yourself. Are you sure you’re not cold?” I nodded at his soaking tunic.
He shook his head. The Penelope rocked in the frigid wind.
“Well?” I said. “What is it you want to show me?” My heart started beating fast when I asked the question. And the boat’s rocking made my head spin.
Instead of answering, Isolfr began to sing.
I was startled to hear which song: it was one in the old language that I knew well, about an ancient queen who was the first to sail between the islands. A wizard’s song. The words were carefully chosen, the sort of words with magic in them that would weave in with the invisible veins of magic flowing all around us.
As Isolfr sang, he knelt down on the deck, his eyes closed. He lifted his left hand in an arc, palm flat, and his right hand thumped out a beat on the deck. The wind roared, bringing snow and chips of ice and a faint sparkle that looked like stardust. I was too astonished to be afraid.
My eyes itched and watered, and I rubbed at them. Splotches of light appeared on my closed eyelids.
When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer standing on board the Penelope.
I screamed and whirled around. We weren’t even at sea anymore. The sky overhead was the thick golden color of autumn sunlight. The ground beneath us was flat and reflective, like a mirror. When I looked down, I saw myself staring back at me.
My chest hurt, and I took deep breaths, trying to capture air. “Isolfr!” I shouted. “What the hell did you do to me?”
Someone grabbed my hand, a touch gentle and cold. Isolfr. I shrieked and pulled away from him, terror vibrating inside me. He let me go, saying, “Wait. Hanna.”
“Where are we?” My voice bounced around in a tinny, haunting way. “What did you do? Sea and sky, I should never have trusted you! You’re a monster, aren’t you? You—”
He grabbed my hand again and squeezed. “You’re safe,” he said. “I swear it.”
I shook my head, but my panic was ebbing in spite of myself. The golden light cast a sense of calm over everything. It was obviously enchanted, but it didn’t strike any warnings with the magic residing inside me, or the magic residing inside my bracelet.
“We’re in a liminal space,” Isolfr said. “The place between worlds. No one can hurt us here. Feel.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “Concentrate. You’re a witch; you can feel it. We’re safe.”
His hand was as cold as the night air aboard the Penelope, but it was pleasant, like the day after the year’s first snowfall. I concentrated, steadying my breath. He was right. That sense of calm came from a protection spell, a sort not so different from the one Frida had cast over the Penelope. Only it was deeper, and older, and stronger.
I’d never felt magic like it.
“We’ll only be here a few minutes. I want you to meet someone, but we have to do it someplace safe.” Isolfr let go of my hand and raised his own hands up over his head as mirrors of each other. “Gillean of the Foxfollow, I call you!”
His voice rang out, sonorous and rich. It didn’t echo emptily the way mine had. I stared where Isolfr stared. I had no idea what I was going to see.
Shadows appeared, moving together into vague shapes. They lightened; they distorted. It was a man. A skinny man, with a mop of tousled gray hair and a shuffling, awkward walk. When he saw Isolfr, he let out a sigh.
“Mr. Witherjoy!” he exclaimed, clutching at his chest. “Oh, you had me for a fright.”
“I’m sorry, Gillean, I couldn’t warn you.”
“Your name’s Isolfr Witherjoy?” I said.
Isolfr tilted his head. “It’s both. Hanna, I’d like you to meet Gillean of the Foxfollow.”
Of course it was both. I’d just said that. I was about to protest when Gillean turned toward me, and my body froze.
His eyes were gray.
Matte gray, like stones.
He was from the Mists.
He gave me a bow, practiced and easy. I stared at him in horror.
“You lied,” I said to Isolfr, my voice deep in my throat. “You are from the Mists.”
Gillean laughed.
I turned sharply to him, wishing I had a weapon beyond my bracelet. I didn’t keep a knife on me, not when we weren’t bringing up the nets. There was no reason.
“Forgive me,” he said, and he smoothed down his dusty old jacket. “The notion that Mr. Witherjoy would be from the Mists—” He chuckled again and shook his head. “I assure you, he’s quite of your world.” Gillean’s expression softened slightly, and he said, “And I don’t mean to harm you. I can’t harm you, in fact, even if I wanted to.”
The golden light brightened, and my thoughts were suffused with peace. A world built of a protection charm. This would be a place to live.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.
“I was wondering the same thing myself,” Gillean said. He looked at Isolfr. “You said you wouldn’t need to speak with me again, after the last time.”
“I know. I’m sorry. My orders changed.”
Orders? Who was he working for?
“I need you to tell her about Lord Foxfollow,” Isolfr said.
“Who?” I said.
Gillean’s face went pale. He trembled and rubbed at his shoulder distractedly. For all the stories I’d heard about the Mists, my first encounter with a man from those lands wasn’t particularly frightening. And yet not even that golden light could melt away the tiny chill of fear still crawling under my skin.
“It’s all right,” Isolfr said gently. “It’ll be just like before. I need her to hear, though, from you. If I could have found another way to do this, I would have.”
Gillean hesitated. “And you’re sure I’m protected?”
Isolfr paused, just for a fraction of a second, before answering yes. It left an uneasy feeling in my belly, that pause.
“I was valet to Lord Foxfollow,” Gillean told me. “He is a dangerous man, my dear. He has tired of all the power in our world, and so he wants to go after yours.”
“Is that where Kolur’s going?” I said. “To meet with this lord?”
Gillean didn’t answer. He had a glazed look, like the past had entangled him completely.
“I served as valet to his father, too,” Gillean said. “That had been pleasant enough. But when he died, and this Lord Foxfollow assumed his title—” He closed his eyes. Isolfr moved forward by a step, one hand held out as if to catch Gillean before he fell.
Gillean took a deep, shuddery breath and regained his composure. Isolfr stepped back. “Oh, it was awful, my dear. He’s an awful man. You wouldn’t know it speaking to him, not at first, because he’s quite charming. He always knows what you want to hear. It was through pure manipulation that he gained all the lands in the Mists. But I don’t imagine your world will go so easily. You humans have always put up a fight.”
I was at once horrified and bewildered. Of course the Mists had tried to gain access to our world before—Ananna had stopped one such man, and her lover Naji had done the same long before he met her. But Ananna was a pirate queen and Naji was one of the Jadorr’a, and it made no sense to me that Kolur would be swept up in that sort of destiny. He was a fisherman. And not even a very good one.
“But the worst is when Lord Foxfollow’s charm fails him.” Gillean let out a ragged breath, and Isolfr moved close to him and put his hand on his arm. Gillean nodded. “When he can’t manipulate you into doing what he wants, he sends out his horrors. They were formed out of the magic of our world, a dark spell banned many decades ago. Lord Foxfollow pays no attention to such rules. His horrors take no solid form. They’re constantly shifting, constantly changing. I can’t imagine the havoc they would do here if they were released. I remember when he sent them after his cousin Rothe, when he learned that Rothe had been meeting with one of Foxfollow’s rivals. It wa—”
Another ragged breath. Tears shimmered on his cheeks. Isolfr wrapped his arm around his shoulder with a gentleness I didn’t expect.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t need to go on if you don’t wish to.”
Gillean sighed, a shuddery, start-and-stop noise. “Thank you.” He looked up at me. “Forgive me, Miss Hanna. I wanted to be more helpful to you.”
He seemed so small and frightened, standing there in the golden light. He wasn’t what I imagined the Mists to be at all.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I think you have—helped me.” That wasn’t true; I still didn’t understand why Isolfr had brought me here, or what Lord Foxfollow had to do with Kolur. But Gillean looked so shaky and awful that I couldn’t express my confusion out loud. I didn’t want him to feel his pain had been for no reason.
“Give me a moment,” Isolfr said. “I want to see him back to his home safely.” He and Gillean walked several paces away from me. I fiddled with my coat and watched as Isolfr conducted a simple protection ritual. Wizard’s magic; human magic.
Cold swirled through the liminal space, the first wind since we had arrived. I could tell that it came from somewhere else.
Isolfr kissed Gillean on the forehead, and then Gillean evaporated on the wind.
Everything stilled.
Isolfr turned back to me. I straightened up, ready to demand answers. Before I could, though, Isolfr said, “Blink.”
“What?” I willed my eyes to stay open.
“Blink.”
“No. Tell me what’s going on.” I opened my eyes a fraction wider. “You warn me about all this danger, and then when I ask where you’re going, you just say north?” My eyes were dry and itchy. “You tell me to watch for the Mists, and then you bring me here and show me this poor terrified man who tells me that a man is after us, a man who’s a terror in a land of terrors.”
“It’s not a land of terrors,” he said quietly.
“Shut up!” My eyes burned. “He’s going to send horrors after us? Why? What did Kolur do? Just tell me wha—”
We were standing aboard the Penelope. The wind rattled the sails. Kolur snored over by the helm. Everything was dark.
Gods damn him. I’d blinked.
“Thank you.” Isolfr materialized at my side, his skin glowing silver like magic. It made him lovely to look at, but I shoved him away, furious.
“Tell me what’s going on!” I shouted.
“I am!” Isolfr twisted his pretty features into a scowl. “Lord Foxfollow knows that Kolur is coming. I can’t warn Kolur myself, because it will only make matters worse. Kolur doesn’t like me. So I’m warning you.”
“What? Kolur doesn’t like you?”
Isolfr pointed out at the sea. “Those terrors that Gillean spoke of are tangible. Real. Lord Foxfollow will find a way to send them through the gaps between the two worlds. I can’t tell you what they’ll look like, because they’ll adjust to whatever veins of magic they came riding in on. They may be beautiful; they may be ugly. I hope they won’t look like any creature you’ve ever seen before, but I’m not sure I can guarantee that either.”
He took a deep breath. I gaped at him and shivered in the cold.
“I’m trying to keep you safe,” Isolfr said. “It’s my duty. I don’t have any say in the matter. I can’t explain further, not right now. But I won’t let Lord Foxfollow hurt you. Any of you.”
He stopped, his chest heaving. I’d never seen him so sure of himself, and it disoriented me, to see him standing on the deck instead of swimming in the sea, his expression burning and intense.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just don’t understand.”
Isolfr’s shoulders slumped. He looked sad. “You will, eventually. I promise.” He put one hand on the ship’s railing. “But you can understand this: feel the magic.” He looked me right in the eye, and for a moment I was mesmerized. “Feel the wind. Don’t worry about the direction. You’re a strong enough witch that when the horrors come, you’ll feel a shift, like the whole world’s gone dark.”
My heart fluttered at the thought that I was a strong enough witch, and so I nodded even though it wasn’t much to go on. But before I could ask him to clarify, he vaulted over the side of the boat with a splash.
When I rushed up to the railing, the water was empty.