CHAPTER 7

Without a Flame

That evening, rust red flecked the gold surface of the Stream. Clouds stretched like veils across the drowning sun. And for the second time in as many days, Marrill stood next to Fin, consoling him over the loss of someone he cared about. She grabbed his hand and squeezed tight.

“This is starting to be a habit,” Fin said. “One I really don’t like.” His voice broke, giving away the deep pain his flippant words were struggling to hide.

Marrill couldn’t have agreed more. They’d lost too many friends. And with this one, she didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t really known Fig, after all.

It was hard to really know someone you couldn’t remember.

“Hey,” she said, thinking back to the last time they’d been in this position. “Remember what Fig said before? Maybe the Iron Tide isn’t forever.”

Fin eyed her suspiciously. “Hold up a tick. You remember Fig?”

“Of course I do,” Marrill declared automatically. Then she laughed as the reality of what she’d just said sank in. She hadn’t even thought about it—Fig had slipped into her mind just as easily as she used to slip out of it. “She saved our lives,” Marrill told him. “How could I ever forget that?”

“Huh,” Fin said. He nodded, once, twice to himself. “Worse comes to worst, she’ll be remembered.”

“No doubt.”

For the first time since leaving the Citadel, he smiled. “Well,” he said, “maybe that alone is enough.” But his eyes fell back to the light playing on the golden water. “She was a good friend,” he added softly. “To both of us.”

“She was,” Marrill agreed. “And thanks to her, we’ve got the Evershear. And Serth’s stuff. And now that we’ve dropped off Hedgecaw and Bull Face, all we have left is a little light time travel before we’re able to stop the Master of the Iron Ship.” She nudged him with her elbow and smirked. “We’re practically done already.”

Unfortunately, her attempt to lighten Fin’s spirits didn’t work. He shook his head sadly. “What if we can’t? What if the Iron Tide is irreversible? What if everyone it’s taken, all those worlds… what if they’re just gone forever, like all the things the Lost Sun destroyed?”

Marrill couldn’t think about it. Wouldn’t. Otherwise, the fear would paralyze her. She shook the doubt from her head and plastered a smile on her face. “Look, Ardent said the Pirate Stream is pure, endless possibility, right? Which means that somewhere out there is the possibility that we stop the Tide and fix everything. Right?”

“Sure.” He wasn’t very sincere. But clearly he wanted to believe it just as much as Marrill did. And she needed him to.

She grabbed the idea and ran with it. “So there’s definitely magic in the Pirate Stream more powerful than the Iron Tide.”

Uncertainty coiled in Fin’s eyes. “How do you know?”

She leaned forward. “Because if the Iron Tide were all-powerful, it could take the Rise. It could stop the Salt Sand King.”

Fin straightened suddenly. His eyes widened. “Marrill, you’re right! The Salt Sand King was alive, even after being turned to iron.…”

“So Fig might be, too!” Excitement flooded through Marrill. She hadn’t actually expected to come up with a good answer, but the more she talked, the more she began to believe. “And not just Fig—everyone and everything else touched by the Tide as well.”

“The Parsnickles.” Fin’s voice cracked. “And the Khaznot Quay.”

Marrill nodded. “If the magic of the Stream can protect the Rise and the Salt Sand King, then it must be able to reverse the Iron Tide, too.” She smiled at him. “We can still save them.”

The next thing Marrill knew, she was wrapped up in a huge hug.

“I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again,” Fin whispered in her ear. “Marrill, you’re a genius.”

Marrill laughed. Together they rocked with the force of the moment. It was amazing. The Iron Tide really could be stopped and its damage reversed. And they were on their way to do it.

But later that night, as Marrill lay in bed with the walls around her shimmering with starlight filling an infinite sky, she couldn’t keep the doubts from creeping back in. She’d stayed on the Stream because she was determined to find a way to make her mom well again. And if the possibility existed that she could fix the Stream, then the possibility had to exist that she could fix her mom as well. Didn’t it?

Even if those possibilities existed, though, what were the odds of both happening? Even if she and Fin did fix the Stream, even if they did undo the Iron Tide’s damage, she still might not find a way to make her mom healthy.

Marrill rolled onto her side, pulling Karny tight and burying her head in the fur of his neck. She squeezed her eyes against the burn of tears. She missed her mom. And she was terrified that she might never see her again.

The next morning, it was hard to believe the Iron Tide existed at all. The sky above was an arc of blue. The Stream was shimmering gold, laid out before them like the yellow brick road. Overhead, sails snapped in the wind, and the deck swayed softly beneath their feet, rhythmically rocking as the Kraken cut through gentle waves.

The Naysayer sat in his usual spot at the stern, simultaneously fishing for prollycrabs, tending the rumor vines, and petting Karny. Remy stood by the wheel, stifling a yawn while Marrill and Fin perched on the forecastle railing, kicking their feet in the breeze and watching the horizon for signs of their destination.

Not that any of them had any clue what they were looking for. None of them knew what their destination actually was. Serth had been just as cryptic about this stop as he’d been about the last one.

But now that they had the Evershear, it was on to step two of their plan: time travel. Marrill had no idea how that was even possible. And Serth hadn’t bothered leaving his cabin since they’d fled the Citadel, so she hadn’t been able to ask him.

“If we can go back in time, why not just go back early enough to stop all of this?” Marrill wondered aloud to Fin. “Keep Serth from drinking the Stream water. Stop Annalessa from turning into Rose. Keep the Master from…” She waved a hand in the air.

Just then, the door to Ardent’s cabin burst open, startling them all. Karny bolted from the Naysayer’s lap, darting down the stairs and past Serth’s feet as he strolled onto the deck.

“Not possible,” said Serth, stretching as though he’d just woken from a nap.

Marrill and Fin exchanged a confused glance. “What isn’t possible?” she asked.

“What you just said about stopping me from drinking Stream water.” He didn’t even bother glancing her way. “Prophecy is inevitable. Even if you changed that one moment, the Prophecy would still come true. Somehow, some way.”

Marrill frowned. “But how did you hear what I was say—”

He didn’t wait for her to finish before he strode past them toward the bow, effectively dismissing her question. Serth, Marrill was learning, wasn’t one to continue conversations that no longer interested him.

He seemed to reach an arbitrary point on the deck and stopped, looking around. “Almost there, I see,” he pronounced.

Marrill nearly dropped the chunk of potatofish she’d been gnawing for the last hour. There wasn’t a single object between the Kraken and the horizon. No ships, no islands. Not even a sign, like there’d been for the Khaznot Quay. Things had a way of popping up on the Pirate Stream, but usually there was some indication that you were somewhere.

“Almost where, exactly?” she asked.

“Nowhere exactly,” he told her. “Here, more or less.” He took two steps across the deck, looked down at his feet, licked a finger and tested the wind, then took a long, deep sniff of the air. “Captain,” he called, “take us two degrees to starboard.”

Remy nudged the wheel wordlessly. Marrill took the opportunity to ask the question she hadn’t been able to ask the last time Serth showed his face. “Speaking of time travel,” she tried again, “how exactly is it possible to, you know… travel back in time?”

Serth held out an arm, twisting slowly until his shadow lined up. “Time is just another current on the Stream,” he explained. “Slow and strong—so strong, in fact, it is virtually impossible to fight against. But a current nonetheless. With enough strength, and the right line, one can travel upstream.”

Remy’s ears seemed to perk up with that. “So it’s a navigational challenge?”

He looked over at her sharply. “No.”

She scowled. Fin swallowed a laugh.

“Besides,” Serth continued with a dismissive wave of his hand, “there’s no possible way you and I could ever hope to muster enough power to actually follow a current of time upstream. It’s essentially unheard of.”

“Oh.” Marrill slumped. So time travel was technically possible, it just wasn’t something they could do. “So how are we…”

“We’ll cheat,” Serth said simply.

Fin straightened. “Now you’re speaking my language.” He slipped from the railing and sauntered across the deck. “What’re we talking here, the old loopty-eyeballs trick? The nottaday-nottamarra head fake? A salmon drop with a Webonese switch?” He snapped his fingers. “I got it: the Manomarion tea party. Point me at the mark and let’s go!”

Serth’s eyebrow twitched, but he said nothing. Instead he turned to Remy. “Another two degrees if you will, Captain.” From where they were standing, Marrill could just make out the unhappy curl of Remy’s lip as Serth directed her.

“We cannot possibly muster the power to travel back through time. But with both the Lost Sun and Pirate Stream at his fingertips, the Master has already done exactly that,” the wizard continued. “If time is a current, think of the Master as one of those massive ships we so deftly navigated around two days back, just smashing its way across the Stream. What did those create?”

He waited patiently, like a schoolteacher calling on a student. It reminded her of Ardent. Marrill wondered if it was a trick they learned in wizard school.

She pondered his question. The ships hadn’t created much of anything, other than a huge mess, and very nearly a wreck. She closed her eyes, visualizing the ships crashing toward the Kraken. She could practically feel how the deck pitched wildly as they passed.

Then it came to her.

“A wake,” she declared, remembering how the two big ships had dragged Stavik’s ship along with them.

Serth nodded. The hint of a smile played across his lips. “Precisely,” he said. “Another two degrees, Captain!” He looked down at Marrill as the Kraken changed course, so slightly she could barely tell. “That’s exactly where we’re headed. To a place where we can catch the Master’s wake through time.” He frowned at Remy. “I said two degrees, not one and three-quarters. Where did you learn to pilot a ship?”

Remy made a big production of barely tapping the wheel with the tip of her finger, grumbling under her breath the whole time. Marrill couldn’t make out what she was saying but was pretty sure she caught the word “keelhaul.”

The ship shifted again, or so Marrill assumed. To her there was no difference. Fin leaned toward her. “Is now a good time to go back to the whole should-we-be-trusting-the-evil-wizard conversation?”

Before Marrill could answer, Serth froze and raised his hand, as though pausing for a sneeze.

“Aaaaannnnnnnnnddddddd…” He held the word for a moment longer than it seemed like he should. “SWING TO PORT!”

Remy reacted instantly, spinning the wheel hard. The ship tilted. All at once, the wind died, the sails falling empty and limp. The ship coasted a few yards more before momentum drew it to a dead stop.

“Here we are,” Serth declared, holding his hands wide.

Marrill looked around. They were in the middle of a big, empty ocean. Same as before. Except now they were at a complete standstill. She exchanged a glance with Fin, who seemed just as confused as she was. “But I don’t see anything.”

Serth nodded, reaching into his robes. “Obviously not. I haven’t lit the candle yet.” He knelt, producing the candle they’d retrieved from Flight-of-Thorns.

Remy snorted. Marrill caught the word “maroon” as the older girl stepped away from the wheel and leaned against one of the masts, arms crossed, waiting.

Marrill moved closer, trying to see what was so special about the candle. It looked perfectly normal as far as she could tell. Seemingly regular wax, white and clearish. Shaped just like any other candle. Unexciting. There was only one thing about it that was unusual at all.

“There’s no wick,” she pointed out.

“Good point,” Fin said. “How are you going to light it?”

With the very tips of his fingers, Serth carefully adjusted the candle to one side, then the other. “Technically,” he murmured, “it will light itself.”

Marrill squinted at it again, wondering if she’d missed something. “But… it’s just wax.”

The wizard shook his head. “It’s not the wax that’s important. It’s what’s in the wax that we want. Just have to find the right spot.…”

“But—” she began again. Serth turned toward her, and Marrill felt the protest stick in her throat. Her body still automatically cringed at the sight of him, the black grooves down his face from centuries of crying inky tears still causing her heart to trip with fear.

Then all of a sudden, the candle burst into flame. And the lights went out.

Night dropped on them like a stage curtain. The bright light of day simply… stopped. No stars glimmered overhead, but a hundred thousand seemed to have gathered upon the surface of the Stream in the distance. They danced and shimmered in the sudden blackness.

Marrill blinked. Not stars. Candles. A hundred thousand candle flames. Lit across the face of huge wax towers—candles themselves, Marrill realized. Some were tall, some were small, as if they’d burned at different speeds. But an intricate lattice of wax bridges and buttresses strung them together, connecting them into a single whole. Elegant but melty, like a drip-sand castle.

Beside her, Fin let out a breath of wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Tallowtrees,” announced Serth. He faltered, seemed almost to stumble. Instinctively, Marrill reached out to steady him, stopping herself just before grabbing his arm. Even if his skin no longer froze, she couldn’t bear to actually touch him.

“Are you okay?” she asked instead.

Serth nodded. “Yes. Yes, it’s just… not as I remembered.” He placed a steadying hand on the railing. “I am not used to things being different than I remember.” He shook his head, regaining himself. “See how there is a great clearing in the heart of it?”

Marrill nodded. Even in the dark, she could tell that the candle towers formed a ring around a large open area.

“That is the place where something old and awful clawed its way up from the dawn of time. When it emerged, it tore a hole through the Stream itself. A hole where the time currents flow fast and free and closer to the surface. That hole will give us access to those currents.” He waved the ship forward. “Incidentally, you may hear something calling to you in the voice of lost friends or dead family members. Just ignore it, and it won’t eat your emotions.”

Marrill gulped. She liked her emotions. “But—”

Serth didn’t wait for her to finish. “Take us in, Captain,” he ordered.