Текст книги "The Pirate's Wish"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clarke

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Naji and me didn’t say a word to each other. I got flashes of his thoughts: wonder, confusion, a little bit of fear. Or maybe it was my thoughts. They were all mingled together.

The box came to a tunnel, encased in shining shells, with words spelled out across the top in a language that didn’t look nothing like anything I’d seen before. The tunnel sucked us down to a sort of dock, and the box lifted up, water streaming over the sides. We weren’t underwater no more.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

The box lid hissed open. Air rushed in, damp and musty.

Naji looked at me and I looked at him, and then he climbed out.

“It’s fine!” he said. “There’s air, a place to stand–”

“I can see that,” I snapped, since I could spot him, a little wavy from the cut of the glass, but definitely standing. I climbed out, too, though I kept one hand on my pistol as I did so.

We stood in a hallway as big and empty as the desert. It was all made out of glass, too, except this one didn’t flood with sunlight and rainbows. It didn’t flood with anything, thank Kaol, although every time I thought about all that ocean water crushing in on us I took to shaking.

Naji and me stood on the platform and waited. Our box bobbed in the strip of water that flowed in through an opening in the wall, and I could feel the magic sparking around us.

A shark’s fin appeared in the water. Part of me wanted to grab for Naji’s hand, but I grabbed for my pistol instead.

A shark lifted his head up out of the water. It wasn’t the same one that brought us down, and he wasn’t wearing no armor, neither, just a circlet of seabone around his neck.

“Follow me,” he said. “Along the walkway.”

I couldn’t stand it no more: I took Naji’s hand in mine. Like a little kid, I know, but swords and pistols can’t save you from drowning.

Naji dipped his head politely and together we followed along with the shark, our footsteps bouncing off the glass. When we came to the end of the hallway, the shark said, “You may open the door. Preparations have been made for your arrival.”

I murmured an old invocation to the sea, one Mama’d taught me years ago, while Naji pushed open the door.

No water. Just air.

It opened up into a big round dome, the way I’d always imagined a nobleman’s ballroom to look. Only the floor opened up here, too, a ring of cold dark seawater. The shark’s head popped up.

“Our soothsayer will be here soon,” he said. He disappeared into the darkness.

“What do they need a soothsayer for?” I muttered.

Naji wrapped his arm around my waist and buried his face in my hair. I was too startled to react, so I just stood there and let him touch me. “Thank you for coming with me,” he whispered, and his gratitude rushed into my thoughts, turning all my fear into a weird sort of happiness.

“Thank you?” I laughed. “I thought this was proof that it wasn’t dangerous.”

“That too.”

It’s funny, cause even though we were at the bottom of the ocean with only a layer of glass between us and the deep, I still couldn’t get enough of his hands on me. I leaned against him, his body warm and solid and reassuring, and thought about giving him my blood the day of the battle. It wasn’t so bad, being in his head now and then. It was the whole reason I knew he cared about me.

Water spilled across our feet.

“Naji of the Jadorr’a!” The voice boomed through the big empty room. “Is this your companion?”

I pulled away from Naji. An octopus bobbed in the water, its tentacles curling around the edges of the floor, its skin a rich dark blue, bright against the water’s black. He wore a row of small white clam shells strapped to one tentacle.

“Yes,” said Naji. “This is Ananna of the Tanarau.”

“Of the Nadir,” I corrected.

The octopus heaved itself out of the water. “How lovely to meet you. My name is Armand II, and I saw you,” he turned to me, “in my visions as well, in the swirls and mysteries of the inks.” He looked at me expectantly.

“Uh, that’s good.”

“I’m afraid the King of Salt and Foam is not a two-way creature, like myself.” Armand lurched forward, dragging across the floor, his legs coiling and uncoiling. “But we have made preparations.”

He opened up one of the clam shells and pulled out a pair of glass vials filled with a dark, murky liquid. “It will not harm you,” he said.

I got this slow sinking of dread, but Naji took one of the vials and held it up to the light. He opened it up and sniffed. Looked at me.

“It’s water-magic,” he said.

“So? You’d expect sand-magic down here?”

Naji brushed his hand against my face, his touch gentle, almost as soft as a smile. “Forgive her,” he said, turning to Armand. “Her profession requires a certain amount of wariness.”

“As does yours, I imagine.”

Naji looked at the vial again. “Less than you might think.”

“What’s it gonna do to us?”

“You will be able to breathe water,” Armand said.

I frowned. Of course. And Naji was right; that was old sea-magic, the sort of thing Old Ceria would know how to do. It wasn’t impossible. It was dangerous, I suppose, but then, so’s all magic. So’s cutting open your arm and giving your blood to the man you love.

“I’ll give it a shot,” I said. I took off my shoes and my coat, though I figured I shouldn’t meet the King of Salt and Foam, whoever he was, in my underwear. I left my pistol cause there was no point having it underwater. Then I took the vial from Armand, unscrewed the lid, and shot the stuff back like it was rum. Immediately my lungs started burning, and I gasped and choked and clawed at my throat. Naji pushed me in the water.

Release.

The water filled up my lungs and then pulsed out though gills that appeared on my neck. The lights from the city swirled and bled into one another, bled into the darkness of the sea.

It was beautiful. And I’d never even have to come up for air.

Another muffled splash and then Naji was beside me, barefoot and coatless, his hair drifting up in front of his eyes. I laughed, bubbles streaming silvery and long between us, and for the first time in a long time I wished I could do sea-magic myself, so I could swim through the water undeterred by breath, and Naji could come with me, and we could swim and play and entwine ourselves together.

“This way,” Armand said, graceful now that he was underwater. He propelled himself forward, toward the blur of lights, and Naji and me followed with slow easy breast strokes.

The King of Foam and Salt held court in a big curling palace that looked like more bones. Everything glowed with the light of that weird algae.

I’ve never been to court before. In Jokja Queen Saida didn’t hold court, just met with petitioners in her sun room. Court’s an Empire thing, and the Empire don’t like pirates. But I bet the Emperor’s court had nothing on the Court of the Waves.

It was full up with all manner of sea life, rows of little clams and a whole school of flickering fish that turned to us like one person when we swam in. There were big sharp-toothed predators and slippery sparking eels and the rows of shark sentries, swimming ceaselessly in circles around the room.

And then there was the King.

He wasn’t like any fish I ever saw. He reminded me of the manticore, cause he had a long curling shark’s body and the wide graceful fins of a manta ray and the spines of a saltwater crocodile, all topped up with a human face with pale green-gray skin and flat black eyes and hair like strips of dark green seaweed.

He was coiled around a hunk of coral when we swam in, and as we approached he rose up in the water, his full length taller than any human man. Naji stopped and bowed his head best he could in the water. I figured I should do the same.

“Are you Naji of the Jadorr’a?” the King asked, his voice booming through the water like the blast from a cannon.

“I am.”

“And who is your companion?”

“I’m Ananna of the Nadir.” Water flooded into my mouth when I talked, only to pour back out through the gills in my neck.

“And how do you know Naji of the Jadorr’a?”

I didn’t want to talk again, cause of the way the water rushing through my head made me dizzy. But everybody was staring at me, especially the King with his flat black shark eyes.

“I saved his life,” I said

The King smiled, showing rows of teeth. Exactly like the manticore.

“Well, I am grateful for that, Ananna of the Nadir.” He swam toward us, his tail flicking back and forth in the water. “I suppose you’d like to know why you are here.”

“Yes,” said Naji. “Your Grace.”

The King of Salt and Foam stopped a foot away from us. I kept picturing his teeth sinking into my arm, into my belly – but no. He was like the manticore, right? He wouldn’t hurt us. His shark-sentries hadn’t hurt us–

“You created this,” the King said to Naji. His manta-ray fins swooped in and out, like they were trying to gather the city up in his arms. “All of this.”

Naji stared at him.

“It was your magic, the soothsayer told me.” The King nodded. “You cast wave after wave of magic into the sea, and from that magic we were born.”

“That’s impossible,” Naji whispered.

“But it isn’t,” the King said. “Look at all this. Our city, our people. We can feast you in our hall, we can entertain you in our gardens…”

I wondered how an underwater city could have gardens.

“All of this came about because of you,” the King said. “The soothsayer saw it.”

Over in the corner, Armand bowed.

Naji shook his head. “No, no… My magic… it doesn’t create, it destroys…” His voice trailed off. He was shaking, I realized, the water bubbling around him. And his skin had gone pale and sickly-looking, even in the soft glow of the algae. I pushed over toward him, wound my arm around his, touched his scars.

“You told me blood-magic can do whatever you will it to do,” I whispered, cause he was wrong, his magic had saved me from a gunshot wound.

Naji shook his head. “No,” he said. “No, I never willed–” He stopped and looked at me. His eyes widened. “Your blood,” he said.

“What?” Water swooshed through my head. I did my best to ignore it. “What about–”

“Your blood mixed with my blood…” His hands were on my face, his touch muted by the water. “We did this. Together. And I think…”

Lightness passed over his face like sunlight. He drifted away from me and floated up toward the ceiling, his mouth hanging open in something like surprise. Tiny white bubbles spun around him.

“Naji of the Jadorr’a?” The king flicked his fins at the courtiers and the school of fish flashed forward and swarmed around Naji, brought him back down to the floor. “Is he hurt?” the King asked me. “I don’t understand what he’s saying.”

I looked at Naji out of the corner of my eye, caught up in all those flashes of light and silver. “I helped him,” I finally said. “Whatever he did to make all you…”

And then I understood too. The battle with the Hariris. The magic we created. That violence, it all spilled into the ocean. This was all the magic-sickness. This was clams growing out of the side of the Tanarau, this was blood staining the walls of the Ayel’s Revenge, this was Queen Saida’s garden house collapsing into jungle plants in the middle of her garden. All that left over magic sank to the floor and brought forth this city, this whole civilization, with a king and a court, with soldiers and soothsayers. Life.

The third piece of the puzzle.

Once I understood what had happened, I felt the curse dissolve away. There was a sharp and sudden crack, like what I felt when I kissed Naji back on the Isles of the Sky, and then there was only a lightness, an absence of weight. This was northern magic, after all, unknowable and strange – we might have created life during the battle, but the curse had stayed in place until this moment, when Naji learned, when we both learned, that the third task wasn’t impossible. Completing the task wasn’t what broke the curse, it was learning that the impossible wasn’t really impossible at all.

Naji burst out of the school of fish, his clothes and hair fluttering around him. “Thank you,” he said to the King. “Your hospitality is most kind.” He seemed back to himself. My head was reeling from what I’d just figured out. It’s gone, his curse is gone.

The King looked confused. “No,” he said. “I am thanking you.”

He lowered himself to the ocean floor, and then so did all the rest of the courtiers, until everyone, every fish and clam and eel in the Court of the Waves, was bowing to me and Naji.

Naji’s face was full of light. He wasn’t smiling, but he was happy, and his eyes were gleaming, and his hand looped in mine and squeezed tight as we kicked our feet there in the water. I pressed against him and held his hand as tight as I could. Music was pouring through the hall – not like the music up on land, but this soft creeping echo, like the reedy melody of a flute.

“Is it true?” I murmured to him, wanting to feel his body close to mine, wanting to hear him say it even though I already knew for certain, even though I could feel that the weight of the curse had drained away from him. “Is it broken?”

“It’s broken.” His hand squeezed mine. The King rose back up, solemn-faced and grateful, and the rest of the courtiers followed. The water churned from their movement.

“You’re free,” I said.

“Yes,” Naji said. His hand gripped mine so tightly my fingers ached. “Free of the curse.”

The King was smiling at us. Water rushed into my head and out through the gills in my neck.

“We broke it,” Naji said. “I didn’t know until I understood, but we broke it.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The King of Salt and Foam gave us gifts: sacks of pearls, vials of Armand’s potion that granted breath underwater, hard pink shells lashed together into strange clattering sculptures. They were brought in by a school of fish, all those tiny silvery bodies buoying up the gifts as they swam beside the King.

“The art of our society,” the King told us. We were in his garden – turned out it was all seaweed and coral and glowing algae, beautiful and haunting. “We shall erect statues of your faces, Naji of the Jadorr’a and Ananna of the Nadir. Our children’s children will not forget what you gave us.”

“I thank you deeply,” Naji said, bowing his head low, all serious and respectful. When I tried to do the same thing I almost turned a cartwheel in the water.

“Come,” the King said, “swim with me.” And then he began to slice through the water in his graceful, fluttering way, bubbles forming at the tips of his fins.

Naji and me paddled along beside him.

“I would like to know the story,” the King said.

“The story?” I asked. Naji kicked me, hard and on purpose.

“Yes. The story of how this all came to be.” The King stopped and floated in place, his seaweed hair drifting up away from his shoulders. “I know it was your magic–”

“And Ananna’s,” Naji said.

The King gave him a polite smile. “Armand saw you,” he said firmly. “He saw the spells you cast into the sea. You were trying to defend your vessel, I know.” The King fluttered his fins. “Armand saw that as well. But what we know of magic – it is all intention, yes?”

“Technically,” Naji said. “But when a great deal of magic is cast, the way it was when I – when Ananna and I – were working to defend our ship… it sometimes takes on a… a life of its own.”

The King gazed at him with flat black eyes. “Our life,” he said. “Our lives.”

“Yes.” Naji bowed.

“So we really are creatures of magic.”

“Magic and the sea,” Naji said. “And yourselves, given the time.”

That was a nice touch, I thought. You could tell Naji was used to dealing with royalty.

The King nodded. “I don’t entirely understand,” he said, “but I will set my scholars to studying the phenomenon.”

Naji frowned a little, but I thought that was reasonable enough. Why wouldn’t they want to know where they came from? ’Sides, the King was a fish. Couldn’t expect him to understand everything about the land, just like we can’t be expected to understand everything about the sea. Any pirate in the Confederation and any sailor on the up-and-up could tell you that.

“Regardless of our origins, you are welcome back to my kingdom any time you wish,” the King said, and he gave one of those bows, deep and sure-finned in the water.

“I will visit as often as I can,” Naji said, returning his bow, and I knew he meant it.

Armand appeared at the entrance to the garden, accompanied by a pair of shark sentries.

“Ah,” the King said, “it’s time.”

“Your water-breath will wear off soon,” Armand said. “We should wait in the air-hall.”

The King turned to us. “Are you certain you wouldn’t like to stay longer?” he asked. “You can stay in the air-hall. I’m certain we could provide food for you.”

“We need more than food, I’m afraid.” Naji smiled, polite as could be. “We can’t go long without fresh water – ah, that is, water without salt.”

“And we want to make sure our ship’s still waiting for us when we get back,” I added.

Naji’s voice flashed a warning in my head, but the King only nodded. “I look forward to your future visit,” he said to Naji. “I will investigate this matter of saltless water. And remember, all you must do is come to these coordinates. We will know it’s you.”

Armand rippled in the water like he was impatient. “I don’t wish to be rude, your Grace,” he said, “but if the water-breath were to wear out here in the open, the effects would be disastrous.”

“Ah yes, of course, Armand.” The King bowed one last time.

We swam out of the garden and through the city to the big empty hall where that hissing glass box sat waiting for us. The potion kept working all through the trip, and for about five minutes or so after we arrived in the big empty hall. When it did wear off, though, it wore off quick as it had come on. One minute my breath was churning through my head and the next I had that tightness in my lungs that meant I was drowning. I pushed myself out of the water, onto the platform. Naji shot up a few seconds later, gasping. It felt weird to breathe air again. It was so thin and insubstantial, like spun sugar. I felt like I couldn’t get enough of it.

Naji and me didn’t really talk on the ride up, though he held me close like he was afraid I would disappear. I didn’t feel all that different now that the curse was broken, but Naji was filled up with light, like the glow of the algae down there in the depths of the ocean.

Part of me was afraid he’d leave, now that he wasn’t bound to me, but I told myself over and over that he was bound to me in other ways. I told myself he didn’t have to be bound to me at all in order to love me. And the way he held me on the way up, his face pressing into my hair, water pooling at our feet, it helped convince me that I was right.

The Nadir was waiting for us when we surfaced. Thank Kaol.

Naji watched us load up the treasure, crewmen carrying it down to the holding bay – we were gonna split it proper, on account of how little actual pirating we’d been doing. Me and Marjani’s idea. Naji didn’t seem to care at all, and he watched us load up the cargo in happy silence. The only time he spoke was when he leaned over the railing and thanked the shark sentry.

“No,” said the shark. “Thank you, Naji of the Jadorr’a.” Then he turned to me and said, “And you, Ananna of the Nadir.”

The shark and the glass box disappeared beneath the waves. You’d never know there was this whole city down there, full of talking fish and a king like an underwater manticore. Naji slipped off into the captain’s quarters, and I moved to chase after him, but Marjani stopped me.

“What happened down there?” she asked. “Naji seems–”

“Cured?” I asked.

Her eyes widened.

“Yeah,” I said. “The last part of the curse, remember? Create life out of an act of violence?”

She nodded, and I told her about the city and its inhabitants, the overflow of his magic. I told her how my blood, with its little trickle of ocean-magic, had mixed with his, and that’s how everything came together.

“So we’re done,” she said. “We don’t have to sail around chasing after his curse anymore.”

I nodded.

“Now what?”

“You’re captain,” I said. “What do you want to do?”

She stared at me for a few seconds. “You know what I want to do,” she said softly.

I got a heavy weight in my chest. A realization. “Yeah.”

We stood in silence for a few moments. Then Marjani broke off from me and stood next to the railing. The Nadir bobbed in the water, held in place by sea-magic. She was waiting to be set free. I could feel it thrumming through her planks and her sails.

“I had a thought,” Marjani said. “A few days ago, actually, sitting in the garden room with Saida.”

“Well, I’d hope you’d had more than one thought the last few days.”

Marjani laughed. “Saida was playing an old Jokja song on the reed, and I was sitting there listening – I never did care for sitting around listening to palace music, but with her it’s different. Anyway, I was listening to this song and thinking. Thinking about the Nadir and her crew. And you.”

The wind blew across the water, slammed against the frozen sails. Everything tasted like salt. I didn’t want to go back to Jokja, I didn’t want to live in the palace and smell the flowers blooming in the jungle. I didn’t want to watch the rains fall every afternoon. Most things are only nice for a little while. Jokja was one of ’em. The sea wasn’t.

“It’s your boat,” I said, voice small enough that the wind swallowed it whole.

“Not anymore,” Marjani said. “It’s yours.”

I didn’t speak, didn’t move, I just kept staring out at the ocean.

“That was my thought,” Marjani said. “When I was listening to that music from my childhood. The thing is, I became a pirate to run away from Jokja. But I don’t have to run away from it anymore. And if anyone deserves her own boat, it’s you.”

“The crew’ll never–”

“The crew’ll listen to anyone who takes them up to the Lisirran merchant channels and pays them fair. And they’ve listened to you before.” She smiled at me. “They’re as tired of Arkuz as you are.”

I didn’t bother to correct her; she was right.

Another wind-blown pause.

“Don’t let some Confederation scummy blow a hole in her side,” Marjani said, “that’s all I ask.”

I nodded out at the sea, a nervous happiness churning up inside me. “I’ll try my best, Captain.”

She laughed.

“Lady Anaja-tu,” I said, correctly myself.

“More accurate.” She paused. “Go plot the course back to Jokja. We’ll tell the crew about the trade-off once we make port in Arkuz.” Then she pushed back away from the railing and hopped up on the helm and shouted, “Get your asses back to work! We make sail for Jokja and then Lisirra!” She gazed across the deck. “You can all quit your bitching, cause it seems we’re pirates again.”

That got a roar out of ’em.

As they readied the boat to turn back toward civilization, I slipped into the captain’s quarters to draw up our route. When I walked in, though, Naji sat up on the bed and said, “Come here.”

“Don’t have time for that now.” I nodded at the navigation maps. “Gotta chart us a new course. We’re heading for Jokja and then…” I couldn’t help myself; I broke out into a grin. “Marjani gave me the ship! So we won’t be staying in Jokja no more. I figured we’d make sail for the Empire merchant channels and then head to Qilar. Ain’t been that way in a long time, and–”

I stopped. He doesn’t have a lot of expressions, sure, but I can tell happy from sad. And he wasn’t happy right now.

“I know,” he said quietly.

“You know? How the hell… Oh.” I frowned. “You were in my head, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” No apology, no explanation. “Ananna, I won’t be able to sail with you to Qilar.”

“Why not?” I could feel his thoughts pressing against mine, but I shoved them away.

“Because I will have to stay behind in Lisirra.”

The room got drawn and quiet. The curtains hanging over the port holes shimmered in the sunlight as the Nadir made her way east.

“Ananna,” Naji said, “one cannot just leave the Order.”

I stared at him. My heart felt the way it had when he didn’t smile at me. Like it was frozen.

“But you did,” I said. “You ain’t been a part of the Order–”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

He didn’t answer right away, and I lunged across the room and made to hit him, though he caught me by the wrist and sat me down on the bed. “I don’t understand!” I shouted again. “You haven’t been part of the Order for going close to a year now! I ain’t seen you take no commissions or meet with any of them–”

“That’s not true,” he said softly. “You saw me in my trances. I didn’t take any commissions, no, because I was cursed. It was a… hindrance.”

I went limp. All the anger just collapsed out of me and turned to sorrow.

“I’m so sorry.” He reached to touch my hair, but I slapped his hand away. He didn’t try to touch me again. “I didn’t think we’d break the curse, and in truth, some days I didn’t… I didn’t want it broken, despite the pain, because I didn’t–”

I stared down at my knees, heat rising in my cheeks. “You should have told me.”

“I know.”

“So now what?” I asked. “You go back to… to wherever, to your castle in…” I didn’t know where the Order was located. Lisirra? Or the capital city? Who gave a shit?

“It’s not a castle,” Naji said.

“Whatever! I won’t ever get to see you again.”

“That’s not true,” he said, and he pulled me close to him. “You’re a pirate, Ananna, you can sail to wherever I am, and I can come to wherever you are.”

I was hot with anger and I thought about how he wouldn’t once smile for me and then I thought about how he kissed me like I was the only person in the whole world. I thought about the light in his eyes whenever he was happy. I thought about how he shied away whenever I touched his scar and the way his hands traced the tattoos on my stomach.

“I love you,” I said.

He blinked.

I don’t know why I said it. It was true, but I was also furious with him. I guess I just wanted him to know what he was leaving behind.

“I love you, too,” he said.

My face got real hot, then, and it wasn’t just the anger.

“Then don’t leave me!”

“I’m not,” he said. “I just can’t… I just can’t stay.”

“What!” I shoved him away. “That’s what not staying means, you idiot. Leaving.”

“Ananna, I’m bound to the Order. If I try to leave, permanently, they’ll kill me. A permanent death.”

“As opposed to an impermanent one?”

“Yes,” Naji said, his eyes serious. “I work blood-magic, remember?”

He reached out to touch me, but I jerked away from him. He said my name again, and it was full of all this sadness and longing, but I refused to look at him. I gathered up the maps and the divider and carried them outside, up to the helm. The air was calm and I could weigh the maps down with some bottles of rum if need be.

Anything to get away from Naji. At least for a little while.

Marjani glanced at me but didn’t say nothing when I stretched my maps out on the deck of the ship. The wind blew my hair into my eyes, and I cursed, trying to get the divider to slide across the map.

“I got Jeric to cast the fortune,” Marjani said. “Looks like the air’ll be clear from here to Arkuz. How long are you thinking it’ll take? We had that storm on the way out…”

I was grateful to her for giving me the ship to talk about so I wouldn’t have to think about Naji. “About a week and a half, looks like.” I smoothed my hand over the paper. “We should have enough supplies. I haven’t checked the stores in a while. Have you?”

Marjani didn’t answer. And I realized with a start that the entire ship had gone silent: there was no creaking of the masts, no thwap of water against the boat’s side.

For a moment, my heart froze.

“Marjani?” I whispered, and I twisted around to face her.

A man was standing at her side, one hand grabbing her arm and the other holding a knife under her chin.

The knife looked like it was made out of starlight.

The man’s feet ended in mist.

“No!” I jumped to my feet and drew out my sword.

“Ah, that got your attention.” The way he talked reminded me of Echo, cold and empty. He kept his knife at Marjani’s throat and she stared at me, shivering, although her hand was creeping up to her pistol. “And you know what I want.”

He grabbed Marjani’s hand and twisted it around behind her back. Marjani let out a muffled scream.

“Let her go!” I shouted. “She don’t have anything to do with this.”

“Of course she does,” the man said. “She denied my offers as well.” But then he shoved her away from him so that she stumbled up to my side. I didn’t waste a second: I swung my sword at him. It sliced through his shoulder and came out at his waist. All he did was laugh.

Marjani pulled out her pistol and pointed it at him. He laughed again.

“The ship is mine,” he said. He jerked his head toward the crew, who were doing their work all neat and orderly with faces as blank as masks. “They aren’t as protected as you–” he jerked his head at me. “Or as knowledgeable as you–” At Marjani. “But I can’t captain her to the assassin until you tell me where he is.”

My heart jolted. He doesn’t know. Naji’s charm was still working. He doesn’t know Naji’s on the boat.

“We don’t know where he is,” I said. Marjani stayed quiet, just kept her gun trained at his chest.

“Lies.” And he reached back his hand and slapped me hard across the face, hard enough that I stumbled back and slammed against the railing. I was stunned that he could touch me. My fingers grasped for the charm. It still hung around my neck. He laughed. “I’m not Echo, child. Echo is only a piece of me.” He leaned closed. “I can smell him all over you. His magic. His filthy little dirt-charm.” He sneered at me. “You don’t protect him as well as he thinks.”

“Shut your mouth.” I darted forward and grabbed Marjani and pulled her close to me. She gripped her hand in mine.

The man slid toward us. His mist curled around my bare legs. One of the maps had blown over beside us and the mist smeared the ink into long unreadable streaks.

“I’ve sent Echo to you so many times,” he whispered. “Both of you.” He grazed his fingers against my cheek and his touch burned with cold. When he touched Marjani she flinched away. “Did you not believe her? All those things she offered?”

I spat on him.

He laughed and wiped the spit away. “That’s no way to treat a lord, my dear.”

“You ain’t no lord.”

“But I am. Of course you know that. He told you.” He smiled again, only this time there was something strange in his smile, like part of his face didn’t work. The left side. Like it was scarred–