Page 13 of The Isles of the Gods
But a magician with powerful marks just came up the gangplank.
“He’s here?” Kyri asks Rensa, glancing up.
“Getting comfortable,” Rensa says, hands on her hips. “He asked where the bell was, in case he needs anything, if you can believe it.”
Kyri snorts, and I allow myself an eye roll in the darkness. Sounds like the boy I met today, for sure.
“This is going to be a story to tell,” our first mate supposes. “The spirits are having a lot of fun, though. They love him.”
“I’m told he has that effect,” Rensa replies, dry.
Kyri looks past the captain, straight at me. “Selly, ready to cast off in a minute.” Then her attention is back on thecandles slowly disappearing in front of her, and the spirits she’s charming.
I bite my lip against a curse. When they know each other well, magicians can often sense each other, and though my magician’s marks are duds, hidden beneath my gloves, that gift has been getting me in trouble since I was toddling across these decks.
Rensa whips around, staring into the dark until she makes out my shape, and with a soft growl, she lifts one finger to beckon me out of the shadows.
There’s no point pretending, so I step forward. “Captain, what—” And that’s when Kyri’s words hit me, and my eyes widen. “Did she saycast off? What in the seven—”
“We’re leaving,” Rensa says, voice low and tense as she cuts me off. “Take your station.”
“Leaving?”The word’s driven out of me like I’ve been punched in the gut, and as her gaze drifts over my shoulder, I whirl around to see what’s left of the crew emerging onto the deck, spreading out silently to head for the mooring lines. “What’s going on? Who is he?”
There are a thousand protests I want to make, but they die on my tongue. If we leave port tonight, I’ll lose my last chance to get up north to Da. TheFreyawill be gone in the morning, and the storms will close the passage behind her.
I’ll be stuck right here until spring, at least. The air goes out of my lungs, and it feels like someone’s squeezing my ribs.
I can’t do this any longer, not when it was supposed to be finished.I can’t.
“Rensa, I—” My gaze leaps from one silhouette in thedarkness to the next as sails silently begin to unfurl above us. “No, I—”
“Not now, Selly,” Rensa snaps, hurrying around to the wheel and running her hands over the smooth wood with a soft prayer under her breath.
“But I—”
“If you were ever wondering,” she whispers, aiming the words at me like a weapon, “this moment isexactlywhy your father left you here to learn. I’m only sorry I haven’t managed to teach you. We’re leaving half the crew ashore to fend for themselves, we’re creeping out of the harbor without a proper cargo to balance the books, and we’re doing it under sail, no tugboat, no help, in the dark, without the harbormaster’s clearance. And yetyourfirst protest begins ‘But I.’ As if I didn’t just give you a whole list of things you should have thought of before yourself.”
I stare at her, wordless, but she’s already looked away—she’s watching the sails, her hands ready on the wheel.
“My father…” But I don’t know how that sentence ends. She’s just given me the list of reasons we can’t be doing this. And yet we are.
“Your father would doexactlyas I am,” she growls softly, finally dropping her gaze to meet mine again. “And he left you to take my orders, sotake your place.”
I’m frozen where I stand. I can’t do it. The months stretch ahead of me—shut outside the captain’s quarters, never knowing where we’re going or what the next plan will be, treated like I’m fit for nothing but crawling around the bilges or mendingsails.
Footsteps sound behind me, and I whirl to find the boy from the city sauntering up to kneel beside Kyri, setting down a candle of his own. He doesn’t seem to notice Rensa and me as he rolls up his sleeves, revealing those magician’s marks coiling and swooping across his skin, more intricate and complex than I’ve ever seen.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he says cheerfully, offering Kyri his hand, his vowels rounded and expensive.
She stares at him like she has no idea how to respond, then blushes and reaches out to shake.
“Kyri,” she stammers, and the pain in my jaw tells me I’m clenching it hard enough to nearly crack my teeth.
“I hope you won’t mind showing me how it’s done,” he says easily, shooting her a dazzling grin, and then tilting his head back to look up at the silent sails.
The remains of the candles in the little shrine flare as the spirits respond to his touch.
“Selly,now,” Rensa snaps, and for a wild moment I swing toward the dock.Could I make a leap for it?Could I leave them all—the boy from the city, the captain, my crew—behind?
