57

NOTHING CHANGED AT BALLANTINE’S ANNOUNCEMENT; THE SAILORS still moved as though fixed pieces in the mechanics of the ship, the sails still billowed and strained against the wind, and we still stood rooted to the deck.

“Shouldn’t they ready the guns, or have some sort of battle stations, or—”

Ballantine answered his brother’s questions with a single look. “That frigate is fitted out with enough twenty-four-pound guns to make matchsticks of this vessel if it came to a proper broadside. Not to mention she’s manned by His Majesty’s sailors and officers, and likely a complement of His Majesty’s marines, and you’ve got Serafan sea rats who have no skin in this game past their pay, and, might I add, a rather green commanding officer.”

“Can we outrun them?” Theodor asked. “We don’t have to fight, that isn’t why we’re out here. We just need to make port.”

Ballantine pressed his lips together, running quick calculations he didn’t verbalize. “It’s possible. Not plausible, mind you.”

“What choice do we have?” Kristos asked.

“We don’t know what they want,” Theodor cautioned. “That is—we know they want us out of the fight. But that doesn’t mean…”

“Even if it doesn’t mean execution. Yes, I’ll say it even if you won’t.” Kristos turned his face back toward the frigate’s bright sails. “It means the war is over before it’s under way, if you’re correct in your assessments that what’s needed is centralized leadership. If you’re right that we can give the Reformists that leadership.”

“I’m not going to sacrifice this crew fighting for me,” Theodor answered.

“Very gallant of you,” Kristos answered. “I’m willing to sacrifice anything for Galitha.”

I swallowed. I knew Kristos believed he would—he’d been willing to sacrifice me once. “Whose decision is it?” I said. Both of them looked at me, confused. “It’s the captain’s decision, isn’t it? And our captain is currently Lieutenant Westland.”

“I’m hardly qualified—”

“You’re the only one even close to qualified to decide what this ship does. You say she might be able to outrun them. You say she can’t win in a fight. We all know that we could surrender.”

He sighed. “It’s a long way to Hazelwhite.”

“Do we have to get all the way to this Hazelwhite?” Alba interjected with calm confidence.

“We could go overland,” Kristos said. “If we can outrun them far enough to get us safely ashore somewhere.” The imposing gray cliffs of southern Galitha seemed to mock us.

Ballantine considered this, glancing from Alba to Kristos, assessing both the idea and the speakers. “There’s a cove perhaps twelve miles ahead. If we can outrun them that far, we could lower the longboat and you could make your way from there. If we’re particularly good about it, we could have you out of sight before they can see, and continue on as a decoy.”

“That could actually work,” Kristos said with a wry grin.

“Just a moment. What if this ship were caught, what would they do with Sophie? And you?” Theodor asked.

“I’d be court martialed, most likely,” Ballantine said. He held up a hand at my protest. “No, I knew it was a possibility. It’s conceivable my father would intervene, but it’s also likely that, out of principle, he won’t. The foreigners—they wouldn’t, if they were wise, harm them. They’d give parole and send them on their way.”

“And Sophie?” Theodor asked again.

“I don’t know,” he said softly, glancing at me. “Truly. I don’t know if she would be considered worth taking prisoner, or if she’d be let go, or…”

“Then we can’t worry about that now,” I said, as boldly as I could. My voice still wavered, but the salt wind blew hard enough that I didn’t think anyone heard.

“Do you think,” Theodor said, glancing at the billowing sails, “that there’s anything you can do to assist?”

I felt the pitch and roll of the ship around me, the salt spray peppering us, the steady wind. I didn’t understand how any of it worked. I would have to trust Ballantine to capture that wind and use it to our advantage even as the frigate on our trail would be doing their damnedest to utilize it, as well. “If I knew what would help, I—”

The report of a cannon interrupted me, its hollow echo amplified over the water and resounding in my chest. Behind us, the shot plunged into the ocean with a plume of white spray. Ballantine snapped to attention, watching our pursuer through his glass.

“We’re still out of range,” he said, “but I’m needed to direct the sailors.”

“What can I do?” I asked, catching his sleeve before he could leave.

“You mean, with your…?”

“Yes. With charms.”

“You can’t curse them to a watery hell?”

“No,” I answered, not interested in explaining that I wouldn’t curse them even if I could, and that of course I had no idea how to cast anything on a far-distant ship in any case.

“Can you protect things?”

No time for complicated explanations of the limits of casting or the difficulties with my abilities. “Yes.”

“The rigging. The sails. Unless I miss my guess, they will not want to sink us. So they’ll fire chain shot at the rigging to disable us.”

“The sails,” I confirmed, letting the silver-braided sleeve of his coat go. He disappeared. I swallowed, forming a plan quickly. Charm magic, embedded into the weave of the sails and the twist of the ropes. As swiftly as I could, I began to tease grudging light from the ether, summoning more and more of it under my control.

“Do you need my violin?”

I almost lost control of the threads but held them steady as I answered Theodor. “I don’t.” It sounded almost like an apology. This was faster, if I could manage it, but I realized as well that I missed our tandem casting. I didn’t need him in this tangible, immediate way.

But I didn’t have time to explain that to him. Instead, I turned my attention back to the protection charm, pulling it from the ether and twining the light into the fibers of the ropes that made a web of the masts. Sailors moved past them, through them, moved the ropes themselves, but if the length of hemp twist I was working on moved away, I simply cut off the charm and moved on to another. Soon the ropes were awash with light, visible to me and Theodor alone, glittering unevenly due to my hasty work.

I continued on to the sails, this time attempting to craft a webbing from the light, imagining it becoming loosely woven swaths like nets. I wove and threw, wove and threw, settling the nets over the sails, and then pressing the charm into the fibers of the sails, messy crosshatches sinking into the fabric itself. Where it crossed the seasoned wood of the masts, I didn’t bother trying to embed the charm—it took too much effort, too much time to work with the solid, hard grain of wood.

I began to weave another net from the charm magic, but an echoing cannon report broke my concentration.

“They’re still out of range,” Ballantine said. I glanced at him. He was pale, but no hint of panic breached his voice. “For now. I think they know we’re not up for the fight and are trying to outpace them.”

I worked another layer of protection charm into the sails. They fairly glowed with a web of charm. If we survived this, if the ship wasn’t sunk or smashed to bits, I wondered how long the tangled charms would last in the ropes and canvas, if the salt spray and sea wind would corrode the magic from them as it wore away the fibers themselves.

A confident pessimism settled deep in the pit of my stomach, assuring me that my theory would likely remain untested. Out of my sight but in Ballantine’s glass, the frigate’s guns were readying charges for us.

“So that’s what you can do, now.” Theodor stood beside me, scanning the sails with wonder and, I thought, a bit of fear. Fear of me, or of the swiftly approaching frigate?

“The inlet is just ahead. Ballantine says there’s space to land a small vessel easily enough, a longboat or the like.”

“The longboat.” I could try a charm on it—even though embedding charms in wood was more difficult, any bit of luck was better than none. And we needed luck. “Where is it?”

Theodor led me to the wooden vessel, intended for small landing parties, outfitted with several rows of oars. I hastily wove a charm, a weak, messy one, and pressed it into the wood with all my will. I repeated the process, beginning to sweat, my stomach knotting. The work of casting from the ether, without my needle and thread, was more taxing, and solid wood less pliable to the inclusion of the charm. I pushed through it, layering light on the small boat, willing luck on it as though my hope alone could ferry it to safety.

“There,” I said shakily. “I wish… I wish I could do more.”

“It’s more luck than the Galatines behind us have,” Theodor replied with a small smile. “I have the best kind of luck on my side.”

“And then this is farewell.” It didn’t feel like a proper goodbye, hastily said on the deck of a ship now keening a bit to starboard as Ballantine pushed us toward the cove. But what romantic fantasy had I concocted without meaning to? A winsome private moment on the deck of a bustling ship? Being swept into arms that were holding too much already, gazed upon by a man who was focused on far bigger things than me?

“Only for a while. You’ll be safe in Kvyset with Alba,” he added, reassuring himself, perhaps, but not me.

A while—who knew how long? It was pointless to ask now. “I care less about being safe than about being useful,” I said.

“You’ve done more than you know,” Theodor whispered into my hair. I closed my eyes, briefly, and took in the scent of his clove pomade and his finely milled soap, let my fingers close over his.

Kristos joined us. “Readying the longboat now. I hope these Serafans can row.”

“They can,” Sianh said with a grim smile, striding toward us. “I’ve a feeling half of these fellows were prison galley fodder before this.” A passing sailor gave him a wide berth.

“Good luck, Sophie,” Kristos said, pushing Theodor aside and wrapping me in a hug that, once, would have felt familiar. “Good luck with the Fenians.”

“I’ll need good luck getting there first,” I said.

“I figured you had that in the bag,” he said with a grin. “Aren’t you wearing a charm?”

“You know I don’t wear my own charms.”

Kristos shook his head, admiration beaming in his cockeyed smile. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

“It’s time,” Ballantine called. We passed a rocky outcropping, heavily forested, that would hide our maneuvers from the frigate, but only for a few minutes. If we were lucky, the Galatines pursuing us wouldn’t realize that we had dropped a longboat into the waters of the cove, and if we continued to be lucky—very lucky—the boat could be ashore and hidden before they passed the cove. The former was likely enough; the latter, I knew, would push even the best charms, and mine had been a sloppy one.

I would blame myself, I knew, if they didn’t make it. I would blame the charm’s weak potency and messy casting, not the impossibility of the plan, not the superior manpower and strength of the ship behind us. My head swam, and I fought the feebleness that rapid casting had left in me.

Kristos took his seat in the longboat first, followed by Sianh and a complement of sailors who were ordered to remain hidden in the forest until the frigate had passed and rendezvous in the nearest town with any Serafan vessel that would take them home. Ballantine doled out pay equal to three times what they had been promised. Their mood lifted tangibly.

Theodor pulled me toward him in one final embrace, hurried and painful. I bit back sobs and saw that tears sprang into his eyes, too. “I love you,” he whispered.

“And I love you. Albatross,” I added with a laugh.

“Now, Princeling,” Kristos called.

“Please,” I called back, “don’t you two kill each other.”

Kristos forced a grin, Theodor took a seat and an oar, and the sailors lowered the boat over the side. We were well hidden by the outcropping, but the process was too slow for my liking. I gripped the rail, wishing I had either Galatine faith in the Sacred Natures or Pellian faith in my ancestors to cling to, to beg for succor, to believe would aid me. Instead, I had to rely on the strong arms of the Serafan sailors and the luck I had cast myself.

The moment the boat was lowered, Ballantine began shouting orders to move us quickly toward the open water. As they rowed away, I forced myself to watch, to show both Theodor and Kristos that I was there for them, that I wouldn’t turn my back on them. They grew smaller, closer to the shore as we moved farther from it. I couldn’t yet see the frigate; she couldn’t yet see us. Just a few more minutes, I wished silently.

“They’ll be fine,” Alba said. I hadn’t seen her approach. She had given us the dignity of our farewells with what small amount of privacy her absence offered. “Regardless of when the Galatines realize they’ve landed, they’ll have a head start. And with only three of them, they’ll move quickly through the forest. It isn’t easy to track men through wild country like that.”

“And have little chance in a fight,” I said.

“It won’t come to that.” She placed a hand gently over mine. I let her. “Come now, a woman who bids luck and controls fortune is a pessimist at a moment like this?”

The white sails of the frigate emerged from behind the trees, their thick green foliage dark like spilled ink where the ship passed behind them. “No,” I said, straightening my slumped shoulders. “For whatever good it might do.”