By that afternoon, they’d found a home aboard Our Dear Lady, an enormous cargo boat. Captain Ellsworth, whose bright red hair and eastern lilt labeled him Detenian, had proved to be none too selective about his passengers, as long as they seemed useful or could front an unreasonable amount of money for the voyage. With two Court Alchemists—Destry and Henric had both ditched their Military Alchemist jackets but kept their rings and holsters—and the enormous Ruhen in their party, Ellsworth seemed to know he’d get his money’s worth out of them. He hadn’t even asked for identification.

While the mariners had claimed Destry, Henric, and Ruhen at once to help them carry out wildly interesting seafarer tasks, Sepha found herself on her hands and knees, scrubbing at a spot of sticky black sludge that had spilled onto the main deck. Fio was sitting not far off. She’d refused to let the mariners assign him work and had also refused to pawn her own work off on him. He had looked thunderously grim ever since they’d boarded the Dear Lady. Angry about leaving those homunculi behind, if Sepha had to guess.

But now was not the time to think about that.

From here, safely removed from the railing and the long drop to the water below, Sepha had a clear view of Port Balarat. Tall statues of Lael and Amin stood on either side of the market street leading up to the port, each reaching one hand toward the other so that they could touch palms above the center of the road. In all of the teeming crowd that mingled beneath Lael and Amin’s arms, Sepha hadn’t spotted a single Military Alchemist. Not one.

Was that a good sign or not? Shouldn’t a rogue alchemancer be their top priority?

A rogue alchemancer.

So, she wasn’t even an alchemist at all. To think, the skill that had made her the proudest, the only thing she really liked about herself, had been a lie all the time. She’d known she was lying to everyone else; she hadn’t known she was lying to herself, too.

But if she was truly an alchemancer, that meant her mother had been one, too. Alchemy always ran in families, sure as blue eyes and buck teeth, so alchemancy must be the same. Father wasn’t an alchemist. Wasn’t anything. Whatever she’d inherited had to have been from Mother.

Mother, who’d been lovely and smart and perfect, if a bit strange and sad. Mother, who could’ve explained all of this to her, if she were still alive. Mother, who’d still be alive, if not for Sepha.

Sepha waited for guilt to sting her, for tears to prick her eyes; but the guilt was less sharp than before, and the tears slow to come. The memory didn’t have the power it used to.

Or maybe you’re just in shock, crooned the snide voice.

It was probably right.

The last twenty-four hours had been relentless. Sepha’s world was tipping and turning in a vertiginous whirl, and she was barely managing to stay upright.

She plunged her scrub brush into the bucket of sudsy water and forced the brush across the thick sludge, loosening it slightly. She ignored the ache in her shoulders, the hole inside where her magic had been, the tether that told her Ruhen was several decks below.

She scrubbed and did not worry about how she’d ever kill the magician with the Military Alchemists in pursuit.

She scrubbed and did not wonder what else Mother had kept from her.

She scrubbed and forced every thought out of her mind.

 

 

 

 

“I thought I might find you here,” Destry said.

She’d come upon Sepha, Ruhen, and Fio crowded together on the main deck, a few paces removed from the railing. The mariners had kept Destry, Henric, and Ruhen busy all day yesterday and this morning, too. Ruhen had only sat down beside Sepha a moment before, and he exchanged a wry glance with Sepha at the immediate intrusion.

“You do have a talent for finding us,” Ruhen said, and Destry smirked.

She strode over to where Sepha and Ruhen were sitting on a large shipping crate and leaned her hip against it. “Listen,” she said, leaning over Fio to get closer to Sepha and Ruhen. “Your plan with the Spirit Alchemists. I’ve been thinking, and it really might be the best place for you to be, Aunt Isolde notwithstanding.”

“Why is that?” Sepha asked. She’d spent the day scanning the horizon, waiting for a ship, which in her imagination would be huge and monster-quick, to bring the Military Alchemists straight to her. But the sea had been empty, except for the Dear Lady and the occasional fishing boat.

“The magician said he’d died and come back from the After, correct?” Destry asked.

Sepha nodded, impatient. Ruhen fidgeted beside her, curling his fingers into fists and releasing them; he was impatient, too.

“We need to know how his soul could have returned from the After. It’s a plane of existence, after all, just like Tirenia and whatever the magicians call their land. So, if a soul has returned from the After, then—”

“Then it must’ve been alchemists who made it happen!” Sepha gasped.

“Exactly!” Destry said, sounding pleased. “And this smacks of Aunt Isolde. Something about it—well, I don’t like it. Why would she be interested in retrieving souls from the After? And if she brought back a magician, why set him loose on Tirenia?

“I think dear Aunt Isolde has designs against Mother again. If she’s toying with souls and summonings, it’ll be chaos. Look what just this one magician has done! She’ll be the death of thousands, send us all into ruin. I need to know if it was her, and I need to know why.

“Once we’re there, we’ll have to get to the bottom of things quickly. And by the time we get there, I hope to have thought of a way to talk you out of trouble with Mother. I am still determined to have you at my side once I become Magistrate, you see.”

Sepha blinked. Destry might still want her, but she wasn’t sure she still wanted Destry. Not after … everything. “Oh.”

Destry’s expression tightened. She shifted her gaze to Ruhen. “You’ll be easier to talk out of trouble, especially if you manage to become a Court Alchemist after we sort all of this out. I’d be glad to have you with me, too.” She glanced at Sepha, clearly hoping to have won her over.

Ruhen smiled, but something about it seemed forced.

The silence went awkward. Sepha broke it. “Tell me why you kept everything a secret from me.”

Destry’s eyes flickered, as if she couldn’t decide whether to be calculating or honest. After a moment, she sighed. “At first, I didn’t tell you because I thought you knew what you were, and I wanted to see how long it would take for you to tell me. When I realized you had no idea what you were, I still held back. I knew it would be a shock to you, finding out, and I thought it would be healthier for you to figure things out for yourself. Mother didn’t have any harm planned for you, and I really did think it would be for the best, you working with us. I’d planned on telling you everything once you realized what you were. Once you came to me for help. Whether you believe me or not, I truly meant no harm by it. I hope you understand.”

Sepha understood. Of course she did. But she also understood that Destry had, on some level, viewed Sepha as a stratagem and not a friend.

But that was Destry. That was Destry’s world. That was the only way Destry knew how to think, the only way she knew how to deal with people. Sepha couldn’t change Destry; she could only decide whether Destry was still worth being around.

And she thought … she thought maybe she was.

And now for Ruhen. “And you knew about all that?”

He nodded. “When we realized we both knew about you, we started checking in with each other. Talking things through. I know you feel terrible, knowing we’ve been talking about you, but we just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

Sepha frowned down at her hands in her lap. “Is there anything else you two are keeping from me?”

She looked up just in time to see Destry give Ruhen a significant look. Ruhen’s lips thinned. With a roll of her eyes, Destry said, “Fine, I’ll tell her.” Ruhen and Sepha both went tense. “Sepha, we both think you have the loveliest hair.”

Sepha grabbed her braid with one hand. “If you don’t want to tell me, you can just say so,” she said, and Destry laughed. Ruhen hid his face behind his hands.

“There you are!”

Henric’s voice rang loud across the deck. He was approaching fast and was already within a few paces. He drew the mariners’ notice, and they saw Ruhen and Destry standing idle.

“Ho! Ruhen!” cried one of the mariners. With a sigh and the lightest touch on Sepha’s elbow, Ruhen slid off the crate and jogged over to meet the mariner.

“Destry,” Henric said, sending a disapproving glance toward Sepha. “Are you sure—about her?”

“I would trust her with my life,” she said, placing the slightest emphasis on her.

“And I would never dream of questioning your judgment in trusting an alchemancer who tricked our mother the Magistrate and used her unnatural abilities to gain both wealth and status,” Henric said. “But we’re taking on quite a lot of risk, you and I. Going to Aunt Isolde, bringing her.”

“You didn’t have to come,” Destry said, crossing her arms.

“Yes, I know,” Henric grumbled. He leaned against the chain-linked rail, unperturbed by the deadly drop behind him. “But you’re the only thing saving me from having to sign my future away to Tirenia. Nothing matters more than keeping you safe.”

Tired of being discussed as if she weren’t there, Sepha said, “Not that you’ll believe me, Henric, but I have no interest in harming Destry. Or even your mother. I might be—what I am. But I’m Tirenian first.”

Destry flashed a rare smile at Sepha and said, “See, Henric? Nothing to worry about. She’s Tirenian first, just like us.”

“Destry! Henric!” another mariner shouted, and twin expressions of annoyance flashed across the siblings’ faces. With a nod at Sepha, Destry turned and left.

Henric lingered long enough to say, “You really won’t harm her?”

“I would never.”

He gave her a searching glance, his green eyes nearly blue against the backdrop of the sea. Whatever he saw seemed to convince him that she was being honest. “Good,” he said, and stalked off.

Leaving Sepha alone with Fio once again.

Although Sepha’s list of things to fear was always growing, she didn’t put Fio on it. She was safe from him, even though he’d been doing things he shouldn’t be able to do for quite a while—coming and going as he pleased, when he shouldn’t be able to please in the first place. He was unusual and impossible, but that didn’t make him an enemy. She watched him from the corner of her eye, waiting for the next impossible thing, because he was a wonder and her only distraction. The only truly unhomunculus thing he ended up doing, near dusk, was to get up and trot away of his own volition.

Hours later, Sepha was still on the Dear Lady’s main deck, staring up at a blue-black sky swollen with stars and moonlight. The night was cool and calm, and the sound of the ship’s great engine filled the air with a gentle, endless roar. The horizon was empty, the breeze soft and teasing, and Sepha felt nearly calm for the first time in … Gods! A while.

Which should have been her first sign.

Without warning, Sepha’s right hand cramped with a sharp, deep ache.

The ship gave an almighty lurch, throwing Sepha from her feet. She fell hard onto the deck, and the deck’s scratchy coating gouged her skin.

The Dear Lady gave a loud groan and tipped even more drastically, making Sepha slide uncontrollably down the deck’s steep slope. She scrabbled against the deck, slicing her skin open, but there was nothing for her to hold on to. Even the huge shipping containers were coming loose, crashing down the deck and plunging into the sea.

Just when the metal railing and a long fall into the dark water were mere feet away, there was a loud, metallic squeal, then a rumble from deep within the boat, and the deck righted itself.

Heavy-headed and disoriented, Sepha struggled to her feet and scrambled away from the rail. The wind was fiercer now—or was the boat merely going much, much faster?

“All hands! All hands! Report to Main Deck!” blared the captain’s voice from the tinny loudspeakers. Then there was absolute chaos. A keening whistle sounded, and men and women poured onto the main deck, bursting through doors and clambering up ladders.

A hand around her knee told Sepha that Fio had found her. He looked terrified, just like he had on the night of the library fire.

The deck was teeming with mariners who were confused and afraid and glad to be alive. They were shouting, the alarm was blaring, the wind and water rushed and roared, and the magician was here. But why? What was he going to—

Sepha went still.

Destry and Henric were both on board.

Both of the Magistrate’s heirs were in the same place, away from the safety of the Military Alchemists and the high Institute walls.

“Sepha!” Henric growled from close beside her. She jumped. “What was that?”

“It wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re asking!” she snapped. “Where’s Destry?”

The tether rapidly tautened, and Ruhen materialized from the crowd. He looked terrified and relieved all at once.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

Sepha waved a dismissive hand. “He’s here.”

Ruhen’s eyes widened.

“Who’s here?” Henric cut in.

Sepha ignored Henric. “We need to find Destry.”

“And him,” Ruhen said. He tucked one hand around her elbow and swiveled his head, searching.

“All hands!” bellowed a rough voice. She spun and saw that tall, ruddy Captain Ellsworth had leapt onto a wooden crate. “Everyone! To me!”

The mariners milled over to him, crowding close. Sepha reached for Fio’s hand and joined the crowd, tugging Ruhen along with her. Henric followed. Destry was still nowhere to be seen.

The wind ripped and roared, but the mariners were utterly silent, and stared at Captain Ellsworth.

“Something’s afoot,” Ellsworth shouted, “and I don’t know what. But something’s changed our course. The rudder’s jammed, and the engine accesses are melted beyond repair.” The mariners shouted questions, but he silenced them with a sharp gesture. “I need the party of alchemists to join me immediately in the wheelhouse. Everyone else, secure what cargo you can! Now!”

Without another word, Ellsworth leapt off his crate and stalked toward the cargo boat’s wheelhouse. Sepha and the others followed.

The wheelhouse was a small, dim room. On one wall were gigantic maps of Tirenia and the surrounding Anguan Sea, and on the others were floor-to-ceiling windows that were sparkling clean, without so much as a stray fingerprint to obscure the helmsman’s view.

The captain’s first mate and navigator, Ms. Elos, was hunched over a table near the wall of maps. Destry, looking pained and clutching her own arm, stood beside her.

“Destry!” Sepha cried. “Are you all right?”

Destry nodded, vainly attempting to suppress her grimace of pain. Before Sepha could ask what had happened, Ms. Elos spoke.

“Captain,” said Ms. Elos, a statuesque black woman with close-cropped curls and a resonant voice, “we’re headed west-northwest. Straight for cleptapod territory.”

Captain Ellsworth swore. Behind Sepha, Ruhen and Henric swore, too.

Sepha glanced at the table. There was a map lying there, on which Ms. Elos had hastily plotted their new course with a complicated set of angles and calculations. From what the map showed, the ship was headed toward a forest of sea stacks. There was hardly any space between the marks on the map for their ship to pass through.

“And we can’t change course or access the engines,” Ellsworth muttered.

“Even if we could,” Ms. Elos said, “with things the way they are, anyone inside the engine room would be cooked alive. It couldn’t be done, regardless.”

“What are you doing to arm yourselves against the cleptapods?” Destry asked, looking up from the map.

“We have some armaments,” Ellsworth said, running both hands through his bright red hair. “But this isn’t a military vessel. It’s a rudding cargo boat. Easy prey for those godsdamned demons.”

Feeling distinctly that she was the only person in the room who didn’t know what they were talking about, Sepha asked, “What’s a cleptapod?”

Ms. Elos and Captain Ellsworth gaped at her as if she was the stupidest person they’d ever seen. Destry spoke before they could. “Cleptapods are giant octopuses, about the length of this boat. They’re strong enough to break a boat in two, if there are enough of them. They hunt humans specifically, and when they eat people, they use the bones to create armor for themselves.”

“Damn near impossible to kill and smarter than half the men on this boat,” Captain Ellsworth added. “Thank After they’re so damnably slow above water. It’s the only reason anyone’s ever survived.”

They all went silent for a moment, digesting this news. Sepha shifted uncomfortably, acutely aware, for the first time, of the framework that held her muscles together and kept her upright.

After a fidgety moment, Ms. Elos said, “Fixing the rudder would solve our immediate problem. If we can change course, we can deal with the engine later.”

“But can it be fixed?” asked Ellsworth, his voice a deep rumble.

“An alchemist could do it,” said Ms. Elos. “Probably.”

Sepha looked at Destry, her mouth already open with the offer to help, but Destry shook her head fiercely—a silent order not to say a word.

“Henric will do it,” Destry said. “And afterward, he will stay belowdecks and transform weapons from whatever metal you have available.”

Henric twisted his lips at her commanding tone but gave a single, tight nod.

“For my part, I’ll make whatever weapons I can for your crew as well, Captain. When we reach cleptapod territory, I’ll fight with you. If you have any lifeboats, you ought to—”

“None of the crew will go,” Ms. Elos said. Something like pride gleamed in her midnight eyes as she said, “If the captain stays, we all stay.”

Destry glanced from Elos to Ellsworth. “All right, then.”

“How long until we get to cleptapod territory?” Henric asked.

“Not long, and surely not long enough to waste any more time,” Ms. Elos said and led Henric out of the room. Captain Ellsworth’s gaze snagged on Sepha for half a second, and then he stomped out after his first mate and Henric.

“Do you have any alchems left, Sepha?” Destry asked. Her voice was businesslike, direct. As if this were only another mission with her Military Alchemists. As if her arm weren’t dangling uselessly at her side.

“No.”

Destry slipped a rolled-up alchem from her holster and handed it to Sepha. She winced at the movement, even though she’d used her uninjured arm. “Take this one,” she said. “Don’t freeze. Don’t overthink things. Your body will remember your training.”

“It’s the magician,” Sepha said. She took the alchem from Destry and stuffed it into her holster. “He’s here. I can feel him.”

Destry loosed a quick breath and stared up at the ceiling, pulling apart and reassembling her plans. “All right,” she said after a minute. “One magician. I can handle that.”

“What happened to you?” Sepha asked. “How can you fight with a broken arm?”

“It’s not broken. I only fell on it wrong,” Destry said, sounding distracted. “The magician doesn’t know you’re an alchemancer, Sepha,” she added abruptly. “Try not to use your magic tonight—unless it’s to kill him, to get out of the contract.”

Sepha gaped at Destry. “What?”

“He’d never have made that bargain with you if he knew you had magic,” Ruhen explained. Ruhen and Destry’s inexplicable conversation after the fire suddenly made sense. This is what they’d been talking about. “He still might not know. It’ll be good to keep him in the dark.”

Sepha’s thoughts were scattered, scrambling. “I couldn’t use my magic even if I wanted to,” she admitted. She didn’t know if the shame that colored her cheeks was because she had magic or because she didn’t know how to use it.

“Good.” Destry’s eyes hardened. “You watch out for her,” she said to Ruhen. “Keep her safe this time.”

“I will,” Ruhen said, his jaw set. “And you as well, if you’ll let me.”

“No need,” Destry said, and left without another word.

Yet another unspoken thing had passed between Destry and Ruhen, some understanding beneath the short verbal exchange. She stared at the door through which Destry had disappeared, wondering whether she should ask about it. Wondering whether it mattered.

Wondering whether anything mattered anymore when it was likely that they were all about to die.

About to die.

The thought should’ve sent Sepha into a panic and filled her mind with a hundred ways to escape, to prevent, to delay.

But her only thought was of Ruhen and regret.

At the same moment Sepha spun around, Ruhen said, “Sepha, there’s something—”

He saw the look on her face and went still. His throat bobbed.

Sepha closed the space between them, curled her hands around the loose folds of his shirt, and pressed her lips against his.

It only took half a second for her brain to catch up, to notice Ruhen’s stillness, and she pushed away.

“Sorry,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. She raised a hand to her lips. She’d just kissed Ruhen! Just like that! “We’re about to die, and I wasn’t thinking. I—”

Then Ruhen was there, one hand at her hip, the other sliding to her neck, tipping her face toward his.

He kissed her back.

Only for a moment.

And she was ablaze.

This time when they broke away, Ruhen rested his forehead against hers. Their lips were inches and universes apart. Sepha’s breath snagged in her throat as she hooked one arm around him and sent the other hand trailing up his chest. His hands moved, too, heavy and slow, and a blossoming heat that transmuted her flesh to pure liquid trailed after his touch.

And rightness, and relief, and danger, and desire. Breath and touch and autumn and the sea.

He’d kissed her! She’d kissed him, and he’d kissed her back! And now—now, she wanted to—

The words “Kiss me” had barely left Sepha’s mouth when he obliged, kissing her so powerfully, so urgently, that she gasped in surprise. He must have noticed, because he smiled against her and kissed her more strongly than ever. His lips were needful and firm, his touch overwhelming enough for her to lose herself in it. A thrill shot from her lips all the way down to her toes, and her knees nearly buckled. Nothing else existed. Nothing else, nowhere.

When he pulled away at last, it was only so he could press his lips against her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Sepha’s eyes fluttered shut as relief and something else thrilled through her again and again. When the thrum of her contract became too clear a warning, Sepha rested her hand against Ruhen’s cheek and pulled away.

They shared a sheepish grin. In the dim room, Ruhen’s face was all softness and desire, and maybe a touch of fear.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” Ruhen said hoarsely.

Feeling not entirely herself, Sepha smiled. “Tell me, then.”

Ruhen’s hands tightened on her waist above her holsters. “Since just after the Willow. When I looked at you, and you looked at me. Since then.” He bit his lip, and Sepha watched his mouth move as he said, “And you?”

Sepha’s cheeks went crimson. “Almost as long.”

Ruhen hid his face in her hand and pressed a kiss against her palm. A frown passed over his face, and he opened his mouth to speak.

The Dear Lady gave a sudden jolt, as if it had collided with something huge and strong.

Sepha and Ruhen scrambled apart. A sudden panic replaced the heart-pounding frenzy in Sepha’s core as the wheelhouse began to reverberate with a rolling metallic sound. Something hard was scraping along the side of the boat.

“Cleptapods!” she whispered, because she didn’t have enough breath to scream, and she scrambled to the windows. The ship’s deck was completely deserted. Captain Ellsworth must have ordered everyone belowdecks. And so here she and Ruhen were, the only idiots who weren’t safely hidden away.

But where were the cleptapods? Sepha ran from one side of the room to the other, searching the water, which was lit by the ship’s bright floodlights. All the while, the dreadful scraping continued.

There! To the starboard side, she could see a great swelling in the water of something enormous just beneath the waves. Then, as if it had felt her eyes upon it, a cleptapod broke the water’s surface.

Huge tentacles rose up and calmly explored the main deck, their sinuous curves hampered by the ribbing of stolen bones. Then came the body, bulbous and huge, a demon who’d escaped from Darkest After, covered with thousands and more thousands of human bones.

The cleptapod, seemingly in no hurry, latched onto the side of the Dear Lady with its huge suckers and allowed itself to be pulled along with the boat, which was still churning too quickly through the water.

A strangled shrieking sound behind Sepha made her spin around. “Ruhen?” she cried.

“It wasn’t me,” Ruhen said, sounding confused. “It was Fio.”

Fio? Sepha ran to where the homunculus crouched beneath the table. He looked terrified.

“No!” he shrieked horribly. “No, no, no,” he whispered to himself, rocking back and forth and working his fingers anxiously.

“Go hide, Fio,” Sepha said. “Don’t come out until the cleptapods are gone.”

Fio shot out from under the table and sprinted away. The door slammed behind him, the sound as loud as a thunderclap on the apparently deserted boat.

“Sepha,” came Ruhen’s urgent voice.

“What?” she whispered, and then saw what had frightened him: two cleptapods were approaching from either side of the boat, onerously pulling their massive, bulbous bodies arm over arm toward the wheelhouse.

Sepha and Ruhen, the only prey stupid enough to hide in a room lined with windows, had been spotted.