Page 60 of The Isles of the Gods
“We’ll get to that,” he says. “The charm is only one half of it. The other you’ve seen plenty of times: a sacrifice, just like with the gods, but in this case much smaller. They’re simpler creatures—mostly they want a material thing worth something to you. So far on this trip I’ve given them my father’s ring, thenmy last copper coin, which was a lot smaller, but worth a lot to me right now, and the spirits sense that.”
“And what did you give them when we were running in theLizabetta?” I ask the question in a whisper, and his face clouds over.
“I truly don’t know. Time, maybe. Luck. Strength. Whatever it was, I feel the lack of it. But let’s keep our eyes on you. It’s a lovely view.”
“It’s a bedraggled view,” I mutter. But I can still see the shadow in his gaze, so to keep it at bay, I do as he asks. “Which are the spirit flags?” I watched Kyri string them hundreds of times, but I never thought to ask. “Charm or sacrifice?”
“Charm,” he replies, finding his smile again. “I suppose there’s a little sacrifice, a little effort in stringing them up. But mostly they’re flattery:Look how important you are—I’m showing off that I know you.”
The boat plunges down the back of a wave, and we each reach out to steady ourselves with a hand—they land side by side, his larger than mine, his skin browner, nails neater, his marks swirling and looping beside my thick green line.
“The spirits know I’m talking about them,” he murmurs. “Let me show you how to do this. I know you’ve tried before, but this time they’re everywhere. They…tend to show up where I am.”
“That’s an understatement, isn’t it?”
“A little. What have you got to sacrifice? Anything’ll do, if it means something to you.”
I look down at myself—I have the clothes I’m wearing, crusted in salt, and precious little else. I can’t afford to wastemy knife on a failed attempt—a sailor never gives up her knife. “An apple?” I ask, wincing at the suggestion. We have so few, and a full night and a day left—my belly’s already gnawing on itself, demanding another.
“What about a lock of your hair?”
I blink at him. “My hair?”
“It’s beautiful,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. You must like it, or you’d cut it just short enough to braid, instead of having it most of the way down your back. Must be a pain to wash it when it’s that long, and there wasn’t a shower aboard your ship—not that I saw, anyway.”
We look at each other for a long moment. I’m realizing he’s been paying more attention to me than I thought, and he’s realizing he’s admitted that.
And I’m also wondering if he’s thought about me washing my hair. His poker face is promising me he hasn’t.
Wordlessly I pull my knife from my pocket, flick out the blade, and use it to cut off the tip of my braid, careful to keep my leather band tight around the end. Lifting the pinch of hair, I rub finger and thumb together, and like snippets of golden thread, the scraps of hair are whipped away on the breeze. I try to see whether they vanish, like a magician’s would, but they’re too fine for me to tell.
“Good,” says Leander simply. He tilts his head, looking at nothing in particular, and frowns. “Huh, interesting. It’s like they can’t even see you. Like you’re invisible to them.”
My jaw aches, and I realize I’m clenching my teeth. “Great.”
“I’ve truly never seen anything like it. You’re unique, Selly—it’s fascinating. I’m going to point them at you. If you think you see any, make a respectful request.”
“How will I see them?” I ask.
He grins. “You see them by closing your eyes.”
“You what?” This is new advice.
“Focus on the sounds around you,” Leander says softly. “The waves, the water breaking against the boat. The sail flapping. Whatever that clicking noise is.”
“It’s the oar against the stern,” I supply.
“Doesn’t matter, just notice it. This is your place. Be a part of it. Hear your own breath and focus on sounds, nothing else.”
“Do you do this every time?” I ask quietly, trying to ignore the way the dried salt on my skin is suddenly itching, the way my lashes want to lift so I can check everything’s as I left it, check if he’s looking at me.
“No,” he murmurs, and I hear his smile. “But I’m exceptional, didn’t you know? Focus on the sounds, sailor.”
So I do, and after a few moments I’m surprised by how many more of them there are than I’d noticed. How many layers there are to all the noises around me. I thought it was silent out here, but it’s as complex and many-voiced as the bands I heard on the gramophone across the water, just a couple of nights ago.
“Now, without opening your eyes,” Leander says quietly, “push your mind out. You know what’s there without looking. The shape of my body sitting next to you, the shape of the boat. The planks under you. The mast up ahead, the curve of the sail, Keegan in the bow.”
I try to imagine these things, sketching them into the darkness around me, the sunlight playing across my eyelids. I don’t picture them in color, but rather as white lines roughly drawn in chalk. The sounds almost bring them to life.
