The Ino drifted in open, glassy water, her sails furled, her anchor dropped. The sea lay as still as it ever was, but Raef rocked as though he’d been hit by a storm.
He missed Maurin with a sudden fierceness. She would have known what to make of this, and probably would’ve made some crass joke. Her blunt manner always helped him sort his thoughts.
He had a father. He had a parent, alive, and he’d been nowhere nearby when Raef had needed him.
The crew had abandoned the deck. Raef circled it and found Kinos standing near the prow, staring out across the water, toward the east, toward his island.
Raef almost walked away. He could climb to the crow’s nest, give himself the chance to untangle the ball of barbed feelings writhing in his guts.
A father would have meant everything during his years on the streets, and a noble father? He needn’t have starved. He needn’t have eaten garbage. He needn’t have felt so utterly alone.
But he was grown now. He didn’t know what sort of relationship they could have.
Kinos stared east as Raef approached, his green eyes so intent, like he might leap overboard and start swimming toward home.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Waiting for you,” Kinos said without turning. “How did it go?”
Raef did not know what to say, how to explain, or if he even wanted to try.
He’d meant what he’d told Kinos on their way to the Garden. Phoebe’s tower had been his home, her priests and children had been his family. Only during his worst punishments, the most boring of them, or the hardest nights after, had he fantasized about the life he could have led, the food he would have eaten, if he hadn’t been gifted to the goddess.
It had happened how it had happened. Cormac had thought him dead and sailed away.
“You were right,” Raef said. “He wants me to stay.”
“And will you?” Kinos asked.
He still hadn’t looked at Raef, and Raef was glad for it.
In time he could make peace with it, with what had been and what could have been. It would not be tonight, but some night, sometime, it would not hurt.
Raef moved to stand beside Kinos at the railing. Had there been a hymn for when the moonlight made a silver road atop the waves? He could not remember one, but perhaps, just maybe, he’d have the chance to write one someday.
“No,” he said. “Not right now. I promised to get you home, and I will.”
“You don’t . . .” Kinos trailed off. His chin dipped toward his chest. “Thank you.”
“Tell me about it,” Raef said, trying to make a joke of it and knowing he failed. “Tell me about what I’m giving all this up for.”
“Eastlight isn’t a big place. We get people passing through, sailing between Delia and Aegea, but no one really stops there. There are olive trees. We shake them in the fall and press the oil. There are grapes, closer to town. There’s almost nowhere that you can’t see the ocean.”
“It sounds pretty,” Raef said.
“You mean boring.” Kinos nudged him. “Don’t you?”
“I’m never bored by food,” Raef grinned. “But no, it sounds peaceful. Sometimes, we’d be up until dawn for moonset prayers. It surprised me, every time, that Versinae could be so quiet.”
Raef rested his hands on the rail and slipped a little closer.
“You know, Raef—you’re a bit of a poet.”
The churning ball of revelations settled, and Raef smiled.
“Is that why you slept in the crow’s nest at Eleni’s?” Kinos asked. “It reminded you of the tower?”
“Yeah,” Raef said.
There it was again, that way Kinos had of knowing him without having been told.
He was thoughtful, careful. He didn’t do things without intention. The way he looked at Raef when they lay together was hopeful, wide-eyed, in between the gasps and the kisses.
“I’m glad you’re coming with me,” Kinos said.
“Are you certain?” Raef asked.
Kinos often sounded hesitant about it, like he might not want Raef there.
“Yes. I want you there,” Kinos said.
“What happens then?” Raef asked. “When you’re home?”
He did not add with your family. Raef did not know how he’d fit into that portrait, and he did not know how Kinos would respond to the fear that they might not be there.
“I don’t know,” Kinos said. He reached, put his hand atop Raef’s on the rail. “But I am hoping we can make this work.”
“This?”
“Us. I wasn’t expecting you, Raef, and I’m glad that it’s you I feel this way about.”
* * *
The sweat from his morning lesson chilled Raef as the Ino sailed into fog.
“Here,” Cormac said, handing Raef a long coat in his usual black.
“Thanks . . .” Raef trailed off as he shrugged into it.
He still hadn’t come to terms with the idea of calling Cormac father. He probably never would.
Cormac reached to tug the coat straight on Raef’s shoulders.
“I’m glad she led me to you, Raef. I’m glad that you’re alive.”
“But she’s dead.”
It was one more sign, one more chance that he had heard her in the crypt, had seen her in the alley. He’d felt the rose petal between his fingertips and knew he hadn’t imagined it.
She hadn’t spoken to him before, not in the hardest times, the moments when his faith had nearly broken. Maybe she’d saved it for when she most needed it, when he could open the box. Then again, he had to wear the cuff to hide the mark. Perhaps she’d only given him the knife when she had to. Perhaps she’d protected him from exposure.
Raef wished he could ask her, but he hadn’t seen or heard her again. His own dreams had been quiet. Even the flames had let him be, though he had to wonder how much of that was from having Kinos lying beside him.
He’d never been initiated, but it pained him to think that she hadn’t come to him. He had to hope, had to take it on faith, that some piece of her, some echo, had reached beyond the Ebon Sea. He decided that he could understand why Kinos was both excited and not to reach their destination.
“Perhaps she’s not dead, just trapped,” Cormac said.
“The priests said she had to die, to descend. Every month, she died and was reborn as her light returned to the sky.”
“Whatever it means, I’m grateful she brought me to you, that she gave me the chance to know you.”
Raef did not know how to take that. Were he still a boy, he’d have beamed. His heart would have swelled.
The bell rang.
“Ship!” Kinos called from the crow’s nest. “There’s a ship in trouble!”
The crew gathered at the prow.
Raef willed the shadowsight to part the mist, but it clung too thick atop the water.
“Spill wind!” Cormac called.
The crew rushed to obey, letting out the sails.
A corpse, floating facedown and unmoving, drifted by as the Ino slowed. A barrel knocked against the hull.
More refuse and bodies emerged from the fog.
Kinos reached the deck.
“I don’t see her,” Raef said.
“It’s there,” Kinos said. “I only caught a glimpse, but she’s big.”
“It’s a Turtle Ship,” Cormac said, squinting as the wreck emerged from the swirling gray. “She’s Delian.”
Raef had never seen a ship so large.
A wooden dome covered her upper deck. She listed to the side, broken. Something had ripped a hole into her. She bled cargo and corpses like a dying beast.
Kinos gripped the rail.
“Do you think there’s anyone alive in there?” he asked.
“We should try to help them,” Raef said.
Cormac squinted at the break in the hull.
“That’s a big hole.”
“A rammer?” the quartermaster suggested.
“Maybe,” Cormac said. “But the height’s off. Whatever hit her is a lot bigger than us. It would have to be to crack her open like that.”
“Could have been a storm,” the quartermaster said. “They left a lot of cargo.”
Raef could see the calculations behind the big man’s eyes.
The rest of the crew leered at the lilting turtle.
“We’ll take a long boat, see what and who we can find,” Cormac said.
Raef eyed the ship’s dome.
“There’s bound to be Grief in there.”
“Then we’ll need to be careful,” Kinos said.
“You should stay,” Cormac warned. “Both of you.”
“I want to help,” Kinos said. “We’re supposed to earn our keep, right?”
“And I want to see,” Raef said.
He didn’t mention the shadowsight. He wondered if Cormac knew about it, and how close his father had really been to Phoebe’s priests.
Father. He’d thought it. Maybe in time it wouldn’t seem so strange. Maybe someday he’d even say it aloud.
“All right,” Cormac said. He turned to the quartermaster. “Keep sharp. Be ready to sail.”
Raef kept close to Kinos as the longboat descended, jarring them with every turn of the winch and grunt of the man at the crank. They settled into the water with a gentle splash. Raef couldn’t see more than a few arm’s lengths ahead as the sailors rowed.
Their excitement had dimmed and they kept quiet.
The fog rose goose bumps on his skin. Kinos hugged himself and Raef pulled him inside Cormac’s coat. They shivered together until the warmth built.
The shadowknife woke. It began to pulse, perhaps responding to Raef’s concern over what they would find.
“Why isn’t she drifting?” Raef wondered, watching the waves brush the wreck.
“She’s heavy,” Cormac said, cocking his head to the side. “I don’t see any longboats. They might have tried to escape.”
“Not all of them made it,” Raef said, watching another waterlogged corpse drift past. Waxy, green, and black, it had already half dissolved, leaving no way to tell who they’d been.
“Bring us alongside,” Cormac told the rowers. “Let’s hook her.”
The pirates tossed ropes with iron hooks into the breech, snagging holds and dragging the longboat to tap against the turtle’s tilted hull.
Cormac strapped a bundled ladder to his back and climbed. He held the rope tight, planted his feet flat against the wreck’s hull, and ascended.
Raef held his breath as the captain disappeared inside.
He poked his head out a moment later.
“It’s fine,” he called, unspooling the ladder for them.
One by one the pirates climbed. Raef checked that his knives were on his belt and went ahead of Kinos.
The wreck’s interior was vast, wider than some of Versinae’s canals. Her tilt made it hard for Raef to find his footing, but at least she was heavy and didn’t rock much.
“We’re going to need more boats,” one of the pirates said, eyeing the crates and barrels strewn about in piles. He brandished a crowbar.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Cormac said. “See what she was carrying first.”
“We’ll look for survivors,” Kinos said, nudging Raef to follow.
“Empty,” one of the pirates called as he pried open a crate.
“No Grief,” Raef said, eyeing the shadows. Glass prisms set in the decks cast greenish light here and there. “I thought there’d be shades. There’s plenty of bodies in the water, but none in the ship.”
“So far,” Kinos said. “Maybe it’s all the saltwater?”
“I don’t know,” Raef said as the shadowknife pulsed again. “Something feels wrong.”
“You’re turning into one of them,” Kinos said, nodding back toward the crew. “Superstitious.”
“Maybe,” Raef hedged. “Let’s keep looking.”
They went farther inside. The cargo was piled in the main hold, tossed back and forth by the wreck’s tilting. Most of the space was open, with bunks and hammocks enough for a crew of hundreds. There should have been something, someone.
A pile of toys, woven dolls and wooden swords, occupied a corner.
A flicker of black, like a dark-robed figure retreating up the tilted stairs, caught the corner of Raef’s sight.
“This way,” he said, leading Kinos by the light of the prisms.
The wreck pitched suddenly, rumbling with a death throe. Raef and Kinos held fast to the stair rail until she settled again.
He remained there a moment, hand clutched to the rail, hoping that he’d seen what he thought he had.
“She’s not drifting,” Raef said. “She’s dragging her anchor.”
“So?” Kinos asked.
“So who put her in place?” Raef asked. “Let’s get to the wheel.”
Open on all sides, the wheelhouse stood soaked in spray. The fog remained, but the waves had deepened to a heavy roll.
Raef wasn’t surprised to see that the wheel was chained.
“She wasn’t fully abandoned,” he said. “Someone fixed her in place.”
“There’s blood,” Kinos said, peering out at the deck. “A lot of it.”
It stained the edges. The crew had died here, likely had their throats slit, and been pushed overboard.
“Who would do this?” Kinos asked.
“Someone desperate. Someone powerful,” Raef said. “Tetheans, most likely. They took her cargo, but didn’t sink her . . .”
“Why?” Kinos asked.
“Bait.”
Raef looked to the sea, to the fog, and tried to force the shadowsight.
He’d never pushed it like this before, willing it to work despite the gray light filtering through the mist. He’d never been able to use it during the day.
Something snapped between his eyes. The fog didn’t part, but it became translucent, thin like spiderwebs.
The Ino floated in the distance. Beyond her, he saw sails.
“There’s another ship,” he said. “We have to warn them.”
He raced to the stairs, shouting.
“Cormac!”
“Here,” the call came from below.
“We’ve got to get back!”
They reached the hold and found the crew in the middle of a pile of empty crates.
“There’s nothing here,” Cormac said.
“The Tetheans took it all,” Raef said. “This is a trap. There’s another ship.”
“How do you know?” Cormac asked.
“I can see it,” Raef said. “You have to believe me.”
“Back to the longboat,” Cormac ordered without hesitation. “Quickly.”
The crew scrambled for the hole. The shadowsight flickered. Raef could see through the fog and the water. Dark hulks, sunken ships, surrounded them. He couldn’t discern their make or markings, but each bore a gaping hole like the wreck. Raef felt certain they were victims of the trap the Ino had sailed into, the same bait she might become.
“Get us back,” Cormac told the rowers. “Now.”
A needle of pain pierced Raef’s forehead. The shadowsight flickered and faded.
“You’re bleeding,” Kinos said, sounding worried.
Raef felt the drip on his upper lip. He wiped it on his sleeve. He swayed, almost tipping over. Kinos caught him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Just light-headed,” Raef said. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Put your backs into it!” Cormac shouted before looking to Raef. “How many masts did you see?”
“Four. Tall ones.”
“That’s a carrack,” Cormac said. “Not good.”
“Can she catch the Ino?”
“Not at speed, but we’re not at speed.”
The Ino’s bell pealed through the fog.
“They’ve spotted her,” Cormac said. “They’re calling us back.”
“Will they leave us behind?” Raef asked. He gripped the longboat’s side as a wave of dizziness washed through him.
“They won’t get the chance.”
Raef lay still, trying to stop the spinning inside himself until the Ino’s hull loomed over them, a glossy wall of blackened wood. Their longboat knocked against it as Cormac caught the rope the quartermaster tossed him. The big man went back to shouting orders without waiting for Cormac to climb up. The crew dragged the anchor onto the deck.
“You first,” Cormac said, handing Raef the rope. “They won’t cut us loose.”
“Why haven’t they closed?” Kinos asked as Raef scrambled up after him. “They could have hit us by now.”
“We’re missing something.”
They reached the deck. Raef stared, forcing his way through the pain, trying to see again.
The carrack remained at a distance. Raef looked back toward the wreck. The pain felt like a nail hammered between his eyes. Blood snaked out his nose, but he saw.
Another ship, flying the Tethean flag, sliced the roiling waves. She’d been hiding behind the turtle.
“There’s another ship!” Raef shouted, his voice shaking. “She’s coming at us from the other side.”
“Turn!” Cormac bellowed. “Hard to port!”
Cormac reached the wheel and gave it a spin with all his strength.
“Toward the carrack?” the quartermaster asked.
“The carrack isn’t the threat.” Cormac shot Raef a proud glance before saying, “Go keep an eye on her.”
Kinos at his side, Raef dashed to the opposing rail. The new ship raced toward the Ino. Propelled by dozens of oars, her strange, wide nose curved beneath the water’s surface.
“What is she?” he asked.
“A rammer,” the quartermaster said, speaking up from behind them. “She’ll break our hull and sink us.”
“Oh, Raef. That’s a lot of blood,” said Kinos with concern.
“I’m fine,” he said, wiping it on the coat sleeve.
He could hear something over the crew’s frantic work, a whine like a mosquito.
“Down!” Raef shouted, tackling Kinos.
The deck exploded. Bodies and wood flew. Raef lost his grip on Kinos. Raef threw his arms up to shield his face. He swallowed a yelp when pain erupted in his side. His vision cleared slowly. His ears rang.
A giant splinter had buried itself in his side. Raef yanked it out with a groan.
The quartermaster had vanished along with much of the upper deck. The Ino listed, weighed to her side by the giant bolt fired from the carrack. The rammer closed at a deadly speed from the other direction.
“Kinos?” Raef called, looking for him through the dust and fog.
A terrible crunch, louder than anything Raef had heard, cracked like thunder in his ears. He flew through the air and slapped against the water to sink limply into the cold.
He broke to the surface, tried to shake the stars from his vision. A bit of broken deck floated nearby.
Raef swam, clung to it, and cast about for Kinos, for Cormac—for anyone.
The Ino groaned as she sank. She tilted into the water, gulping as she went down. Raef screamed for Kinos. He screamed for Cormac. No one answered.
He tried to call the shadowsight and was rewarded with only pain and the taste of copper on his lips.