I curse as I prick my finger yet again, trying to mend this damn balloon.
We barely have a day left until the death Selestra predicted comes. Until the king comes.
And our transport isn’t finished.
“I told you, go slow,” Irenya says to me.
“I don’t think he could go any slower,” Micah says, his needle threading easily through the fabric.
I scowl at him, then look over to where Irenya has worked her section of the balloon.
I knew she was skilled, but even I had underestimated her. Within just a single day she weaved nearly half the rips and tears our crash caused in the balloon fabric, stitching them back together with remarkable speed and delicacy.
I, on the other hand, have not been anywhere near as fast or delicate.
We work on the floor in one of the empty houses in the mourning street, where we have been staying for the past couple of days, leaving only for the rare food run and to gather any more necessary supplies for Irenya.
With the Last Army patrolling the streets, we can’t risk being seen too often. Even with so many women made up to look like witches, Selestra stands out.
She could be recognized easily by the wrong person.
I thread the needle through the fabric and then sigh when my carefully tied knot unties and the thread falls onto my lap.
“This is impossible,” I say.
I’m appalled at how Irenya could ever manage to weave dresses as perplexing as Selestra’s when I can’t even stitch in a straight line.
I’d thought fixing the balloon might take a few hours, but we’re on the third morning when Irenya finally holds up the last stitch with a satisfied grin.
“Fabric weavers across the Six Isles, bow down to me,” she announces grandly.
“It’s done?” I ask Irenya, a little too eagerly.
Not that anyone could blame me, when the next dawning of my death is only hours away.
“I present to you the gift of flight,” Irenya says, sweeping her hands over the last patch of fabric.
“Let’s hope Nox doesn’t crash this time,” Selestra says.
“You’re welcome to fly it yourself, princess.”
“And surrender the chance to see you fall on your backside again?” she says. “I wouldn’t deprive myself of it.”
“Enjoy looking at my backside, do you?”
Selestra gapes and I see the blush creep onto her cheeks, the red patching over her delicate freckles. It sends a rush through me.
How can she be so beautiful and yet so deadly?
I know I should focus less on the beautiful part and more on the deadly, but something in her seems to override all my sense. When she saw my latest future and fell to the floor, choking on my death, I wanted nothing more than to rush to her side. I was overcome with the urge to comfort and protect her when I know it should be the other way around.
After all, I’m the one on death’s list.
Yet when she blushes, tucking her newly cut hair behind her ears—when I saw her in that red gown—it set off a small fire inside me, catching me unawares.
She’s good at that: throwing me off-kilter and tilting the world so that things look different from how I’ve always known them.
She’s a witch. I repeat the mantra, but then another thought slips into my head.
Perhaps she wants to be more.
Not the evil witch who rules by the king’s side, stealing souls for him. Nor the princess who stays in her enchanted castle, enjoying life at court. I think she might want something else beyond all that.
I know because I want it too: freedom.
The chance to be more than the sum of our family’s pasts.
“With the balloon fixed, can we be off the island before nightfall?” Selestra presses.
Before the vision comes true.
I don’t nod, because something in me doesn’t want to lie to her.
The truth is, I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety. Not even my own.
Until we find the sword and kill the king, nobody in the Six Isles will ever truly be safe.
I’m quick to roll the repaired balloon into the large bag Leo provided and ready everyone to begin the walk back to the field where we crashed. The basket is still hidden there, far from any Last Army patrols looking for the king’s missing heir.
The walk is quicker than it was before. We’re all eager to leave Armonía before we’re caught. Selestra practically jogs halfway and even I struggle to keep up with her.
If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s more desperate than I am to get out of town and far from the clutches of my next death.
Her visions must be scarring.
I picture her again and how pained she seemed after seeing into my future. I’m not sure why the visions have such an effect on her. I’ve seen Theola recount countless people’s fates without even blinking, but with every death Selestra sees, it’s like she’s experiencing it for herself.
I haven’t quite worked out if it’s because her magic is still young or if maybe it’s because she actually cares.
It’s late afternoon by the time we reach the grassland and I nearly step into the back of Selestra when she stops abruptly at its edge.
“Is this it?” she asks, looking around the empty field.
I can see the skids and mud marks stretching for yards, marking our crash.
The tracks are there.
But now I see that the basket isn’t. I should have expected death wouldn’t let me escape this easily.
“Did it … move?” Selestra asks. She looks around the empty field, as puzzled as I am. “Where did it go?”
“Good question,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Though I think the better one is who took it.”
An empty basket in an empty field isn’t exactly a popular prize in Armonía. Without the balloon, it’s useless.
“Who could carry something that heavy?” Micah asks. “It would take a dozen people. That’s why we left the damn thing here.”
“And what kind of person would want an empty basket to begin with?” Irenya asks.
Another good question and I can only think of one answer.
One type of person who’d take whatever they found and claim it for themselves.
Scavengers.
More specifically, pirates. And if Selestra’s vision of a dragon ship is anything to go by, I know exactly which one.