They sat together in the small kitchen. Fish stew simmered in an iron pot on the stove, sending the aroma of paprika, onion, and black pepper around the room. On any other day, Rory’s mouth would have been watering, and he’d have been eager to fill himself a bowl. But not today. Myth had turned into reality. He was stunned. Flabbergasted. The man sitting across from him was his father. His father.
“You’re real?” asked Izzy, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the strange man yet.
He smiled grimly. “As real as you, girl.”
“Izzy,” she said, with a little bow of her head. “My name’s Izzy . . . sir.”
“Izzy,” he murmured, as if he were trying out the name for size. “Yes, Izzy. I am the one they call Goldenrod, but I’m afraid the tales of my adventures have been told so many times they no longer bear the ring of truth.”
Hilda Sorenson rested her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together. “I thought you were dead,” she said, an edge to her voice. “I told Rory that you drowned at sea. And now you come back, calling yourself Goldenrod?” She shook her head.
“I did not give myself the name,” Rory’s father said, a note of contrition in his voice. “It was given to me by . . .” he paused, “others.”
Rory stared down at the stained wooden table. He bit his lip. He didn’t know what to say. The father he never knew was suddenly sitting right next to him. Not just his father. A legend. A myth.
Rory raised his head. His father had dark, almond-shaped eyes, just like his son, and a scar on his left cheek. They had the same nose, too—somewhat sharp with a little bump in the middle. Rory’d thought he’d gotten the bump when he had fallen out of a tree at six years old. But now he knew the truth. It was something that had been passed on, from father to son.
“I was gone for many a year,” the mariner said. “And for that, Hilda, I beg your forgiveness.” He turned to Rory. “Your mother didn’t know I still lived. I have been . . .” He paused again, as if at a loss for words. “There is much I must tell you.”
He lifted a mug of water and took a long drink. The room was still. Not even the creak of a chair could be heard. Goldenrod set the mug back onto the table. He rubbed his knuckles, which Rory noticed were badly scarred. “Many years ago, before you were born, Rory, I was a mariner for the Yellow Trident Sea Company. I traveled far and wide, to distant lands uncharted by any map.”
“Did you ride a seahorse?” Izzy asked, wide-eyed. “That’s what the stories say. That you tamed a wild seahorse and made it your steed.”
Goldenrod smiled, and the lines around his eyes crinkled. “Tell me . . . Izzy. If I had a seahorse, wouldn’t I have to breathe underwater?”
Izzy screwed up her face. “I guess so,” she said, deflated, and then: “Or not?”
Rory almost chuckled.
“No,” Goldenrod said. “In all my travels, I have never found a seahorse big enough to ride.” He looked at Rory’s mum for a long moment. “But I did find a woman I fell in love with—in a small, odd little town—and she was as beautiful as the sea itself.”
Rory’s ears burned. He felt like he’d just heard something private. He glanced at Izzy, who seemed to be thinking the same thing.
Hilda Sorenson remained stoic.
“But I was called away,” Goldenrod said. “It was my duty. I had to leave the Yellow Trident.” He studied the table. When he looked up, Rory saw his eyes sparkle. “I’ve walked the red sands of Amerand, met the Chevalier of Mercia, and dined on pomegranates with the Emperor of Asiata. I’ve sailed to an island in the Black Sea called Quis, where the only form of life is a species of bird with wings of fire.”
Rory was swept away as his father’s deep and resonant voice reverberated in the room.
“What happened to your hair?” Hilda asked, unimpressed. “When you left all those years ago, it was as black as coal.”
Goldenrod leaned back from the table and released a sigh. “The bane of my existence,” he said, almost in embarrassment, it seemed to Rory.
“Soon after I left Gloom, my crew docked in a place called Otak. There are enchanters in that city who say they can read the future. Over a blazing fire of purple flames, one of them told me I was destined for great things, and that I should have a name worthy of remembrance. He said I would be called ‘Goldenrod.’ When I awoke the next morning . . .”
He ran a finger through a loose strand of golden hair and then raised his eyebrows.
“Your hair changed color overnight?” Rory asked, amazed.
His father only nodded. “From that day forward, in every town, hamlet, village, and city I left, people spoke of the Black Mariner and his golden hair, and thus, the legend was born.”
“So are the stories true?” Rory asked. He wanted them to be true, more than anything.
His father smiled. “Some are. But facts have never stood in the way of a good tale.”
Hilda shook her head. Izzy sat silently, wrapped up in Goldenrod’s history.
“You said you were called away,” Rory said. “By who? Where did you go?”
Goldenrod fingered the rim of his mug as he spoke. “There are things in this world that most would think are merely children’s stories, Rory. Creatures not known to man. And . . . even more terrible tales.” He kneaded his temples with his fingers. “I was on the far side of the globe, where a battle raged for many years. A battle that the folk in Gloom could have never imagined in their wildest dreams.”
“A battle,” Rory whispered. He remembered what Vincent had said: that a war was being fought, with flames in the clouds and vengeful spirits riding the wind.
“What . . . kind of battle?” asked Izzy tentatively.
Goldenrod inhaled and then blew out a weary breath. “We were at war with a creature known as Mara. Mara of the Shadows.”
Panic rose in Rory’s throat as the name was spoken aloud. His father eyed him intently. Izzy seemed to be holding her breath.
“A creature,” Hilda said, more a statement than a question. She knew what Rory and Izzy had been through.
“Indeed, Hilda. There are . . . things that exist in the dark corners of this world, things best left unseen. Mara is one of them. She is a sorceress.”
Rory’s mum turned to her son and then back to Goldenrod. When Rory didn’t speak, Hilda did it for him. “Was a sorceress,” she declared.
The mariner leaned back in his chair and locked eyes with Hilda, and then gazed at everyone, as if seeing them for the first time. “Was?” he questioned. “Of what do you speak? How . . . ?”
“Me and Izzy,” Rory started cautiously. “We . . . I was . . .”
“Arcanus Creatura,” Izzy blurted. “They’re evil people. A man named Lord Foxglove was one of them. Rory went to work for him as a valet, thinking it was just a job.”
“But it wasn’t,” Hilda said, picking up the thread. “He saw things at the manor. Unnatural things. They tried to beat him! And worse!” A tear sparkled in the corner of her eye, and she angrily wiped it away.
Rory reached out and touched her hand.
A host of emotions played on Goldenrod’s features: wonder, anger, and, Rory thought, fear.
“Somehow,” Rory said, “they stole the shadows of every person in Gloom. No one knew.”
“They don’t know it’s missing until they look,” Izzy said once more.
“And those blasted dark skies hid the sun and light,” Hilda added. “It was near dark before noon for the past several weeks.”
“But Izzy and I found out about it,” Rory said. “We had to stop them.” He paused and licked his lips. “I heard Foxglove and the others talking about a great harvest. Me and Izzy figured out that it was probably the carnival folk that came to Gloom, that they were going to harvest their shadows.”
“Just like everyone else’s in Gloom,” Izzy said.
Rory released a breath. The mere memory was painful.
“We found her,” Izzy continued. “Mara of the Shadows. She was . . . feeding on shadows that Arcanus Creatura stole for her.”
No one had touched the fish stew, which still sat on the stove.
“It all makes sense,” Goldenrod said in a faraway voice.
“What?” Izzy and Rory asked together.
“I was called away by my order to stop this very creature. Years ago now. But as the battle wore on, I was captured, locked in a prison not of this world.” He rubbed his temples again. “That is why I did not return, Hilda. My companions tried to free me, and it cost them dearly, as they lost their lives in the attempt. But Mara was weakened, and she fled—”
“To Gloom,” Rory said.
“A place she had followers,” Izzy added, “that could help her regain her strength.”
“‘My wounds are many,’ she told us,” Rory finished.
Goldenrod looked at them with wonder in his eyes. “And you stopped her? The two of you? Mere children. How?”
“My shadow,” Rory said. “It . . . killed her.”
Goldenrod knit his brow. “How?” he asked again, his voice serious and curious at the same time.
Rory absently raised his hand to the chain he once wore, but it was no longer there. “It was in the stone Mum gave me. My shadow.”
Goldenrod turned to Hilda and shook his head, as if trying to loosen a memory. “The stone, Hilda,” he said urgently, a gleam in his eye. “The one I gave you before I left. I said to always keep it close. Remember?”
Rory’s mum blinked, as if awakening from a dream. “I . . . I gave it to Rory. I told him it was something to remember you by.”
The sea captain nodded. “It was imbued with strong magic,” he declared. “The power of my order. If any harm came to its bearer, the stone would protect them.”
Rory thought his father’s eyes were glassy, but he couldn’t be sure. “So when they tried to steal my shadow,” Rory said, finally understanding, “it went into the stone, where it would be . . . safe? To protect me.”
“I think that is true, Rory,” his father replied.
A long moment of silence descended on the room. Rory saw his mum’s stern expression lessen somewhat when she looked at his father. Perhaps they’ll be okay, he thought. I hope so.
Goldenrod looked at Izzy and then Rory, with what Rory thought was respect. “When you defeated the Queen of Sorrow,” his father began, “her power was shattered, as well as the bonds of my prison, and I was finally free to sail for home. I’m here because of you, Son.”
Son, Rory thought. He called me “Son.”
Izzy smiled wide.
Rory blew out a breath. He stared at the table for a long moment, then swallowed loudly. He and Izzy had not only saved all of Gloom, he’d rescued his father as well. It was a tale beyond belief, and yet, it was true. But he had one more question.
“You said your order,” Rory started. “What order are you talking about?”
A few birds chirruped outside.
“The Order of the Mage.”
“Mage?”
“Yes, Rory,” Goldenrod said. “I am a mage. And so are you.”