59

ALBA ADJUSTED MY VEIL AS THE FRIGATE SAILED ONWARD. “PROBABLY ought to have considered a bit of costuming subterfuge from the outset,” she whispered in my ear. “Just stay quiet. I’ll tell them you’ve taken a vow of penitent silence.”

I pulled away, shaking and watching the marines as though I could do anything to avoid them on this small ship. Ballantine held the rail, still sporting all the pallor of a corpse. He directed his mate to take charge of the vessel and keep her at a more leisurely pace, allowing the frigate to move ahead of us. I had seen her name and the brightly painted lady at her prow—the Hopeful Wayfarer. Hopeful, indeed.

I leaned against the rough sides of the ship, snagging the plain gray wool and not caring. If it had been my own good silk or expensive printed cotton, I would have cared. Sastra Lieta wouldn’t care about clothing. She had dedicated her life to the worshipful contemplation of the Creator.

How long was I Sastra Lieta? My head thrummed with confusion—how to playact something I didn’t understand? I shook my sleeve free and a wave of dizziness swept over me. Too much casting. I knew the feeling well, the bone-deep exhaustion reminding me that I was not Sastra Lieta, but Sophie Balstrade.

I nearly slipped as I tried to step away from the wall. Ballantine shot away from the rail and caught my arm.

“What’s the matter?”

I stared balefully back at him, remembering myself and refusing to speak.

“Overtired,” Alba said. She studied me carefully—did she guess that my weakness was from casting? She couldn’t say in either case; the marines still stood watch not ten yards away. “She has a delicate sensibility for shocks, you see,” Alba said, taking my hand. “I’ll have food brought to you.”

I didn’t stay awake long enough for it. Sustained charm casting pulling directly from the ether, attempting to protect both the ship and the longboat, had exhausted me. Despite my best efforts to keep myself awake fretting over Theodor and Kristos, sleep washed over me within minutes of lying down.

I didn’t wake until late in the night, already used to the steady wash of the waves on the sides of the ship and the movements of the crew keeping their watch. I sat up, still a bit shaky, and completely ravenous. I didn’t want to intrude on the galley, but my empty stomach pitched and rolled with the ship and I knew I’d be sick if I didn’t eat soon.

I tiptoed onto the deck, acutely aware that I knew nothing of the workings of the ship and crew, fearful I would get in someone’s way. Rationally, I knew that the likelihood of a misstep from me causing any great harm was about as high as a wrongly turned seam ruining a gown; pick out the stitches and start over, no harm done. Still, the foreign movements and terms I didn’t understand frightened me a little. I was an outsider here, no question.

I was growing tired of having to trust that those around me were working in my best interests. I was growing tired of having allies instead of friends. I missed Galitha City, missed my shop and Alice and Emmi. I missed my Pellian friends, and our lively talks about charm casting that, at their heart, were truly about family and community and tradition.

The moon bathed the deck in pale light, softening the hard edges and painting the unfamiliar tools and riggings with shadows. The ship looked friendlier with fewer people swarming it, as though, in the quiet, I could begin to understand how sail and rope and rigging worked together like fabric and thread and seams.

“It’s late—past midnight,” Ballantine said. I hadn’t seen him until he spoke, but he didn’t startle me. His voice was as pale and melancholy as the moonlight. “They’re asleep,” he added.

The marines, of course. I spoke quietly, in a single low breath. “I was hungry.”

He didn’t reply, but strode past me toward the galley, indicating I should follow. Inside, he produced a hunk of brown bread and some cheese, which he presented to me on a crude wooden trencher.

“If it’s not enough, I—” He stopped with a wan smile as I tucked into the leftovers as though they were a fine feast.

I swallowed and nodded my appreciation.

“You missed supper.” He shrugged, thin shoulders straining the uniform he hadn’t taken off since we left port.

I felt I owed him some explanation. “Casting—it’s more physically taxing than it looks,” I apologized in a bare whisper.

“And it worked?” He coughed. “That is, both this ship and the longboat escaped unscathed, or nearly so. It took barely two shakes to repair the slight bit of damage we sustained.”

“It’s hard to say if it worked, exactly, or not.” I always floundered in explanations of charm casting’s efficacy. “It wouldn’t have saved us from a direct broadside. But a bit of luck—it helped us. I’m sure your captaining of the ship helped more.”

“That, I doubt sincerely.” He sighed. “And my parole—it’s temporary amnesty at any rate. You don’t think—were your charms part of that, too?”

I set down the wedge of cheese I had been gnawing. “It’s possible,” I said, “but I think that was more Alba’s doing than mine.”

Ballantine considered this, unconvinced. In contemplation, his face looked much like Theodor’s, more so now that both wore a drawn, tired mask of worry. “We’ll make it through, one way or another. Now—back to your penitent vows,” he said with a smile.

The days passed in sickening silence, the marines patrolling the deck like cats prowling for mice. Their uniforms, a washed-out green, made them easy to spot against the dark wood of the ship, but I didn’t risk speaking or even leaving my cabin much. Instead, I hid inside and practiced the delicate work of controlling the casting I pulled from the ether. What I had done before had been crude, and I didn’t trust that it was sufficient for the work that everyone expected of me. Already I noticed a weakening in the charms laid over the salt spray–scrubbed ropes and sails, the light scoured dimmer by the harsh conditions. My needle and thread would have secured a more lasting charm, but if I was to infuse good fortune in molten iron or the warp and weft of wool on the loom, I would have to refine this new mode of casting.

Alba slipped quietly into my cabin in the middle of a practice session. I had several threads of light held aloft, slowly spinning them into one another as I drove them into a bowl of water. I let them drop as the door opened.

“We’re nearly to the port outside Galitha City,” she said. I nodded. “When we come into port, I will do my damnedest to move us quickly to another ship. The less time we spend in port, the better.”

I questioned her with a silent raised eyebrow.

“The port remains open, tenuously held by the Royal Navy. Tenuous, yes,” she said in response to my unspoken question, “because the city, everything within the walls, is held by the Reformists.”

“How do you know?” I mouthed silently.

“Those marines talk. This is, of course, news that’s half a week stale. So it might be outdated. Regardless—the capital port is not a safe place to linger.”

There was much I wanted to say, and Alba’s fidgeting told me that she, too, wished to discuss more but couldn’t. The cabin walls weren’t thick, and nothing we might say now was worth being discovered.

Instead, I walked onto the deck, looking out over the rail, straining to see the coastline. The green tangle of forests gave way to the high cliffs and the stone walls of the city. My heart leapt at the sight of home, and I almost began to cry at the immediate demand to leave it. Was my shop still there? It hardly mattered any longer, with a city broken down the fault lines of civil war. What of Alice, and Emmi? My neighbors, the shop owners in my quarter? What of the Pellians who had chosen Galitha City for its opportunities, who were now folded into its crisis?

I turned away, my eyes swimming with tears. I loved my city. Everything I had done in the past months had been a sad, doomed love song to her, in a way. Despite everything I had done, everything Theodor had tried, war had cracked Galitha City open and her people were bleeding for her.

“My home port,” Ballantine said quietly. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been behind me—likely long enough to watch the city spires and rooflines come into focus as we drew closer. “You can see the palace from here. I used to watch for it, when we came into port, knowing my uncle was there, and later my father, that my family might well be gathered in the private dining room or the gardens. It was as though all was right with the world, when I saw the line of the palace roof. It doesn’t mean the same thing anymore, does it?”

I shook my head, wanting very badly to embrace Ballantine or at least lay a comforting hand on his arm but knowing that Sastra Lieta would not do so.

The marines strode onto the deck. “As soon as the ship is secure, you’ll be with us,” the taller of the two said. He had the dark hair of a southerner and the creased, tan skin of someone who’d spent more time in sunlight than indoors. Ballantine nodded and took his leave of me.

The Hopeful Wayfarer already stood in port, her sails tucked like birds’ wings waiting for flight. Alba stood nearby while we maneuvered close to her. I couldn’t bring myself to look for Theodor’s brother, to watch him taken away, to trial and possible execution.

Before we could depart, Forsithe was on the deck, flanked by more marines. I lowered my eyes, staring at my still-bare feet, as he passed, but I listened as he directed Ballantine’s arrest. I met Ballantine’s eyes as they escorted him from the ship and he gave me a small smile. I closed off the cries that threatened to erupt from my throat. He was led with little ceremony down the gangplank and I saw him, briefly, looking up at the city before he was taken to the Wayfarer.

“And her, too.” A firm hand gripped my arm. The sea-green uniform of a marine brushed my gray habit. I gasped, looking to Alba, who watched with shock. She shook her head, confused and frightened, as another marine flanked me.

“Sophie Balstrade, you are under arrest, as well.” Forsithe strode toward me, his boots echoing on the deck.

Alba forced herself between us. “I don’t know what manner of jest this is, but—”

“I can’t arrest you, Sastra. It would threaten an international incident if we arrested the high sister of a convent, and a member of a patrician house at that. But you will keep out of this.”

“I will do no such thing with a member of my order.”

“I’ve known since I set foot on this ship that this woman is no member of your order. I knew we were pursuing a ship with three fugitives we very much wished to apprehend. The crown prince, the revolutionary leader Kristos Balstrade, and this witch.”

“You…” My knees felt like water and I could hardly breathe. “You knew? Why did you let us come all this way?”

He rested a hand on his sword. “For one, I had hoped you might lead us to the others. That there would be some rendezvous or rescue attempt. That gambit didn’t work, and so you are now of little use. But further, I don’t know what witchcraft you’re capable of. If you’d bewitched this crew or some such dark arts.”

“I have no such powers.” I struggled to speak.

He raised a brow as though wagering a sporting guess at whether I was telling the truth. Of course, now it didn’t matter. “You are under arrest for conspiracy against the king. Remove her,” he ordered the marines.

The hand on my arm forced me forward. I nearly fell on the gangplank, my balance canted with the weight on my arm, and foolishly, briefly, considered flinging myself and the marine into the oily water below. It would do no good; they’d either let me drown or fish me out quickly enough.

As we stepped from gangplank to dock, I glanced at the man charged with my keeping; he avoided my eyes. Frightened of me. Could I harm this man, if I wanted to? I could almost sense the dark curse magic throbbing around me, waiting to be drawn out. Could I drive it into him as I’d driven it into the water, crumple him as I’d wilted the lilies? Was that even how it would work?

No, I screamed at myself. It was wrong, despicably wrong. And even if I could control it for this one man, there was no way I could wrangle enough curse magic under my control to dispatch every marine, sailor, and soldier bustling around the port under Forsithe’s control. Even if I killed Forsithe first, I acknowledged, hating myself for both identifying this best tactical move and for being too frightened to attempt it.

The bright crack of a rifle broke the low murmur of voices around me, and the hand on my arm first tightened, then fell away. I backed away from the marine, assuming he was readying his musket, but then felt the wet slick on my arm and saw the blood spatter on my skirt. He lay gasping on the dock beside me.

Someone screamed. Another rifle report, and another marine dropped. Forsithe shouted behind me, but I couldn’t make out the words. I tried to blend into the crowd that pulsed and quivered on the dock, but it pulled away from me.

A strong hand gripped my arm; I wrenched away from it. “Quit it!” The voice hissing at me was familiar, and I realized with a start that the arm holding mine was clothed in rough brown linsey-woolsey, not the seafoam color of the marine uniform.

I met Niko Otni’s eyes. “Come quick,” he said.

“Alba, too. And Lieutenant Westland.”

“We’ve got the nun already. Westland—” He shook his head. Westland had already been on board the Wayfarer. “Put this on.” He handed me an oversize brown linen smock, something like a laundress would wear to protect her clothes from soap and steam.

I let Niko push me through the crowd on the dock. He ripped the veil from my head and threw it into the water between the docks, the filthy water soaking the white cloth quickly and muddying it, disguising that we had ever passed by. The sheer linen was now just more refuse in the thick water of the port.

We ducked down an alley and snaked quickly upward, the steep incline shortening my breath. Only a few avenues led from the port to the rest of the city, secured behind cliff face and wall. A red cap greeted us at the entrance to a fortified staircase. The symbol that once spelled danger to me now meant safety. More guards closed behind us, and we began to climb. “They know they’re in for a fight if they try to search for you in the city proper.”

“No one’s following,” one of the red-capped guards said.

“Good. They didn’t see us leave the docks.” He offered me a hand. “Well met, Miss Balstrade.”