AS WE LEFT the Adamant, Grey held on to my hand so tightly that it hurt, but I didn’t try to pull away even as the strap on the heavy copper crucible slipped on my shoulder uncomfortably. He licked his lips, nervous. “The ironic thing,” he said without a trace of irony in his voice, “is that I wanted my parents to stay. Face their trial and then come home. And . . .” He tugged my arm, pulling me closer. His voice was almost a whisper, meant only for me, not the bustling crowd of workers and sailors around us. “And while I wish I could be with you, I want you to go.”
“We’ve discussed this,” I started, but Grey cut me off.
“They’re right to go!” Grey said so loudly that a few people nearby stopped to stare. He looked over his shoulder as the Adamant sailed into the bay. “It’s safer.”
I squeezed Grey’s hand. “I don’t care about safe.”
I reached out mentally for my revenants. Silence.
I stopped in my tracks. “Nedra?” Grey asked. I shook my head tightly, teeth clenched, eyes shut, concentrating as hard as I could.
Ollah? I screamed silently. Ronan? Kessel? Anyone?
Several heartbeats later, images flashed in my mind—different views around the quarantine hospital. My brow creased in worry before I realized what was happening.
My revenants couldn’t transmit their words to me any longer, though they could still show me what they were seeing. I choked back a sob. It was worse than I’d thought—they were fading so rapidly. If I didn’t act now, soon there would be nothing left of them.
I swallowed down the fear rising within me, straightened, and looked Grey dead in the eye. “I’m going to Miraband,” I said. Somewhere out there, there was another necromancer. Someone who might be able to train me, help me restore my revenants fully. Help me save Nessie.
Grey knew better than to argue with me. We headed toward the Emperor’s cruiser. I was glad I carried my belongings with me. When I’d gone home after Yūgen closed, I had left behind several things in my dormitory, including the map my father had given me. By the time I returned to campus, there was no time to go back to my room and reclaim the items. I had learned the hard way to carry everything I needed with me wherever I went.
Before we reached the ship, Grey grabbed my shoulder, holding me back. I whirled around to protest, but he silenced me with a look. “The deal was that the captain would take you to Hart, but no farther.” I hefted my bag onto my shoulder. “But I think I might know a way around it.”
I stood behind a mooring as I watched Grey dart up the gangway, looking for the captain. They talked quickly, heads bowed, then disappeared into the captain’s quarters. Enough time passed for me to grow nervous before Grey raced back down the gangway toward me.
“Can you lose the cloak?” he asked me, somewhat breathless.
“My cloak?” I touched the silk cords at my throat. Mama had woven the wool for me, and my sister had sewn it as a present when we found out I’d be attending Yūgen last year. It had taken her a week to embroider the tiny, almost invisible little flowers along the hem.
“It’s the only way,” Grey said, shooting a look back at the ship. “It won’t be cold in Miraband.”
“The captain wants my cloak?” I asked.
Grey shook his head. “No, no—you’ll see.” He held his hand out.
“I suppose,” I said, still unsure of whatever plan Grey had come up with.
“Great. Come on.” Grey hurried back up to the ship, as if he was nervous the captain would change his mind if we didn’t act soon enough. As we strode across the deck, I heard the voices of the crew following us, questioning loudly why I was allowed back on board the cruiser. We went straight to a room on the opposite side of the captain’s quarters—spacious for a ship, but still rather small.
I gazed around the room, then nearly gasped in surprise—in the far corner, mostly hidden from view, stood a tall, slender boy I’d never seen before, his wide eyes fixed on me.
“Who—?” I started, but Grey grabbed my arm, squeezing hard.
“Astor!” The captain stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, glowering at Grey.
“But, sir,” Grey started, a pleading tone in his voice.
“I told you we weren’t taking passengers, least of all a witch!”
“I can pay,” Grey started, jangling the coins in his purse, tied to his belt.
“It’s not about payment!” the captain’s voice rose, and I could see through the doorway that some crew members had stopped what they were doing, watching us. The captain stomped into the room, slamming the door behind him.
“You are under the Emperor’s authority!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. But rather than protest, Grey turned to me.
“Quickly,” he said, reaching for the silk cords of my cloak. He fumbled with the knot, then whipped the material off my shoulders, crossing the room to where the boy stood.
“And I expect you to fully obey all my orders!” The captain was still shouting, loudly. So the crew can hear, I thought as Grey wrapped my cloak over the boy’s shoulders. He adjusted the hood, lowering it well over the boy’s face.
The boy was half a head taller than me, but he hunched over, keeping the cloak low.
“The Emperor may have saddled me with your dead weight on this journey, but you’d best stay out of our way!” The captain was practically hollering, the wooden walls vibrating with his loud voice. “Just stay in your room and don’t bother my men!”
“Ready,” Grey said, pushing the boy wrapped up in my cloak toward the captain.
The captain paused, looking over the disguise, and shrugged. “It’ll do,” he said in a lower voice, one that wouldn’t leave this room. He pinned Grey with a pointed look. “And you’ll remember the deal?”
“Yes sir. Half now, half when we return.”
Half? I wondered, before realizing what Grey meant—he’d paid off the captain. I wondered how many golden allyras had been exchanged for my passage.
“Stay out of our way,” the captain added. He started to turn to the door, then looked from Grey to me and back to Grey again. “Well?”
“Yes!” Grey said, jumping to attention. He reached for me and dragged me over to the corner of the room—the one place that no passerby could see without actually coming inside.
The captain swung open the door and shoved the boy wearing my cloak out into the hall. “Get off my boat and curse it with your presence no more!” he shouted.
I could hear the crew jeering at the boy, laughing, tossing slurs at him as he rushed from the deck and back to the dock.
Grey crossed the room and closed the door. “Well,” he said, turning to me, “that actually worked. I had to pay the captain from my own finances,” Grey continued. “And I had to swear to him that you’d come back—he doesn’t think the Emperor would look too kindly on him transporting a criminal, but apparently he also doesn’t think the Emperor pays him enough.”
I narrowed my eyes. Grey was trusting, but I doubted the captain would so readily risk his own skin to transport me, given my criminal status. Maybe he was secretly sympathetic to Bunchen’s rebel network or planned to extort us for some other form of payment. I flexed my fingers. We would deal with that when the time came. Meanwhile, I had to get to Miraband.
I rubbed my shoulder, already missing the feel of the warm cloak resting against my skin.
“Good thing you had a cloak,” Grey said. He gestured over his shoulder. “That was Jarron, the captain’s nephew. He’ll dump the cloak once he’s out of sight and then return to his post as cabin boy.”
“Oh,” I said. I swallowed down the hard lump forming in the back of my throat.
It was just cloth.
“You’ll have to stay hidden here for the remainder of the trip though,” he said apologetically. “It’s only a week, though, and the room is . . . cozy.”
“You’re right,” I said, offering Grey a weak smile. “One week to Miraband.”
“Is this okay?” Grey asked. The room was small, with one bed hammered to the floor and a single shelf built into the wall. I set the copper crucible Bunchen had given me onto the bed, noting the thin mattress and thinner blanket that covered it. “I can sleep on the floor,” he added.
“It’s fine,” I said, without elaborating on sleeping arrangements.
This will all be worth it, I told myself. I tried to calculate the odds of someone attacking the quarantine hospital while I was away, then I pushed down the thought. In its place, worry for Ernesta boiled inside. Worry for all my revenants, if I couldn’t reverse the way their souls were slowly seeping from their bodies.
While I sat, motionless, on the bed, Grey paced the cabin. I couldn’t help but smile, knowing that his only worry was for me. “Peace,” I told him, laughing. “This is going to be a long journey if you intend to walk across the ocean.”
Grey paused, looking down at his feet. He moved to the bed and collapsed beside me just as the ship pushed away from the dock. His body lurched into mine, but when he righted himself, he didn’t shift away. Our knees touched.
“This has all been moving so quickly,” he said finally. “Just a few weeks ago, I was having dinner with my parents at their house. I was returning to Yūgen, planning out my last semester. Hoping to see you.” His eyes cut to me with a flash of the schoolboy innocence they’d held when I first met him before quickly fading to something darker.
I moved to wrap my arm around him, pull him closer to me. But he sat at my left side, and I realized too late that there was nothing there to drape over his shoulders.
“Yes,” I said simply, resting my residual arm against my side.
The ship moved with the rhythm of the waves and my whole body seemed to sway with it. Some people, I knew, got seasick, their stomachs turning with the uneven movement of the sea, but not me. Not us.
“Grey,” I said, staring straight ahead. “How do you think this will end?”
It took a long time for him to say, “I don’t know.”