FOR MOLLY AND FOR EVERY GIRL WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE PIRATE KING, ELIZABETH SWANN
“Dead men tell no tales.”
Hiram Beakes,
Eighteenth-century pirate of Saba
PROLOGUE
People called them “pirates.” And the sailors who lived in the world of the Break wore that title with pride, because when you live on a ship, and your life includes a lot of skulduggery and skally-waggery, what else would you call yourself but “pirate”?
Every one of them certainly looked the part, and the crew who called Nyfe Shaban their captain were not without style. The sailors’ appearance was as artful as it was necessary. Prosthetic legs were carved with delicate rising waves, and eye patches were made of softened leather with the crest of the ship sewn on to them. Captain Nyfe’s own eye patch, nestled in the hollow of where her left eye used to be, had a spray of blue embroidered on it, a homage to her flagship the Aconite, named after the poisonous blue flower.
That night, Nyfe was engrossed in a map in front of her. She had not looked at the clock in her cabin for some time. Clocks were very important in the Break because the sunrises and sunsets were so unreliable. Nyfe had been poring over a collection of maps and charts for most of the day. A half-eaten meal had been buried under an unfurled scroll several hours ago.
Nyfe ran her hand over the map. It was circular, colored in vivid inks and sealed with varnish. The surface shone and crackled. It was a map of her entire world. The world of the Break.
A knock sounded on her cabin door.
“Yes?” she said, keeping her eyes down.
“Captain.” Jereme, the second mate, stuck his head around the door. “It’s getting dark and there’s still no sign of the Nastur.” He paused, shifting the weight of the truth he carried before dropping it. “The ship’s gone, Captain.”
Nyfe looked up from her chart. For a moment, worry flickered behind her eye. Then it vanished, replaced by her usual unreadable chill.
“Tell the crew to batten down and get themselves some food. If they can’t find the ship in the light, I doubt they’ll find it in the dark.”
Jereme nodded and excused himself.
Nyfe leaned back and adjusted one of the markers on her map. In the center of the mostly blue world was a brown island that looked like a round of bread torn open: the Break. The largest island in the waters, and the one Nyfe’s world was named after.
A splatter of other islands spiraled out into the blue, but none of them rivaled the land mass of the Break. A sailor would need more than a day to walk from one side to the other.
There was a time, when Nyfe was younger, that the map she was looking at had been twice the size. Over the years, the map had been trimmed down, cut away as the sea became smaller. It had been happening for so long now that Nyfe couldn’t remember a month going by when the map had stayed as it was.
Nyfe Shaban took out a thin blade from the collection at her belt. She stabbed quickly into the edge of the map and skimmed the blade around the edge of the circle, shaving off a slice no wider than her thumbnail. She picked up the hoop of chart and crumpled it in her hand before dropping it into the wastepaper basket.
“The world is shrinking,” she said to no one. Then she took out a piece of thick recycled paper and a writing set.
She had a letter to send.
No—not a letter.
A summons.
1
Flick twirled the magnifying glass between her fingers. The brass handle was speckled with little marks and imperfections. There was a deep scrape close to the round lens, there were little scratches running down the slender, pen-like handle, and a dark smudge of something that refused to budge, no matter how often Flick cleaned it.
She looked over the little instrument, not through the glass itself for the moment, enjoying the anticipation. Looking through the magnifier was a treat to be savored.
She spun the handle quickly, tripping it through her fingers in a practiced movement that she’d spent far too many nights perfecting. She was lying on her bed, the pink glow from the agate slice on top of her old lamp lighting up the room in a way that reminded her of the gentle glow of a forest made of crystal and magic, a whole other world away. A world she had walked in.
Flick closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Then she raised the magnifying glass to her right eye, keeping her left closed. The first time she had tried this, lying on her bed, she had dropped the instrument on her head.
Because this was no ordinary magnifying glass. And Felicity Hudson was no ordinary person. The magnifying glass in Flick’s hand contained glass that came from another world, and the little instrument had been made by someone who knew the nature of the enchantment.
To look through it—if you had the right gift—was to see a hidden magic. Quite literally. And as Flick looked through it, she smiled.
The air around her swarmed with magic. Glittering, golden, white-crested glimmers on the air that drifted silently, unseen by everyone but her. Flick’s smile grew into a wide grin as she watched the golden sparkles swirl and ballet-dance around her bedroom. They rolled and dived through the air like glitter in water, tumbling in a swarm of magical particles.
Flick raised a hand, and the swarm of magic floated soundlessly over to her, draping across her hand, fitting around her fingers like a glove. Flick could feel nothing at all, even when she squeezed her fist around some of the particles.
Flick lowered the magnifying glass and pressed the round bit of it to her mouth. It was cold, and tasted a bit like a two-pence coin she’d once licked, just to see what it was like.
The magnifying glass had been made more than one hundred years ago and had once belonged to a member of her friend Jonathan Mercator’s family (the initials N.M. were scratched into the rim of brass). The magnifying glass wasn’t exactly magical by itself—it was merely a way to see the magic that was already there. Magic, Flick now knew, was everywhere in the whole world.
But that wasn’t all that Flick could see.
She got up off her bed and clicked the bedside lamp off before peeping through her curtains. With the light off, she could see past her own reflection, right into the garden and the housing development beyond.
The rows of houses looked dark and gloomy in the overcast night. It had been a hot and muggy day, the air full of moisture that refused to condense into rain. There was no moon to be seen, and the sky was the sort of deep purple that promised a thunderstorm later. Flick pressed a palm to the glass and wondered if that static feel in the air you got just before a storm really was just static, or something more magical. A prickle crept over her back at the thought. It was entirely possible that storms stirred up magic in the air. Anything was possible, really.
She stared out at the dark for a few minutes, watching the occasional light come on in a house she didn’t recognize. She waited until she couldn’t stand it any longer, before raising the tiny brass magnifying glass to her eye once again.
This time the effect was electric.
A bright scratch of light lit up the play area in the center of the housing development. It was jagged, like a lightning bolt drawn by someone whose hands were shaking. The line in the air glowed with yellow-white light, tiny particles of magic moving in and out of it. It was carved into the air about two meters above the top of the slide, just waiting.
A schism.
A tear in the fabric of reality.
A gateway to another world.
A massive shiver ran over Flick’s body. She had spotted the schism the day before yesterday. Although it wasn’t hurting a soul, the schism reminded Flick of what could happen. And what she had done, only a few weeks ago, in another world.
Flick stared at i
t until her eye started to water, then lowered the magnifying glass and rested her head on the window. The cold glass felt nice against her warm skin, and as she listened to the creaking nighttime sounds of her home, gradually the frightened feeling gave way to a soft calm. She was safe here, and loved, and with the family she had come so close to losing. The memory of that near loss was now forever associated with schisms. Even looking at one through the magnifying glass made her feel sick with nerves.
Flick had only found out about schisms recently, when she had joined the secret society that was part of the Strangeworlds Travel Agency.
A place of travel, and magical objects, and the home of the only friend Flick had made since her family moved to Little Wyverns.
The Strangeworlds Travel Agency was also the reason she was grounded right now. Her parents were acting as though Flick had gone out and robbed a bank, when all she’d really done was disappear for a day and a night.
Flick pulled a face. She wished she didn’t understand why they were so mad. But she did. She hadn’t expected to be grounded for the whole of the summer vacation, though. There was only a week and a half left, and then she’d be off to her new school and would only have the weekends and holidays to visit the travel agency.
In the distance, a siren sounded and blue lights flashed. She jumped slightly at the sound, knocking a mostly empty piggy bank off the windowsill and onto the floor with a crash.
She stayed still, listening.
From her parents’ room, she heard a cough and the creak of their bedframe. She ought to be back in bed.
Flick left the piggy where it was, pulled the curtains closed again, and slipped back into bed. The magnifying glass was still clutched tightly in her hand.
2
The kitchen was so full of carrier bags and boxes the next morning that Flick wondered if they were moving again. Fortunately, it was just one of her dad’s semi-regular attempts at a clear-out. This time, he was planning on taking things to the flea market at the town hall.
“Last chance saloon,” he said, as Flick shoved some fruit loaf down into the toaster and took a swig of orange juice directly from the carton on the table. “Any old clothes, shoes, toys, books, get them bagged up. And don’t do that,” he added, nodding at the orange juice. He stacked another box onto a cardboard tower. The box at the bottom sagged. “Your mom doesn’t like it.”
“We’ve all got the same germs.” Flick rolled her eyes and went to get a glass. “Besides, you kiss Freddy and he should be condemned under the public health act.”
Isaac Hudson looked at his son, who was currently sporting two green, candle-like protrusions from his nose. “Maybe you do need a wipe, young man, eh?”
“Put him in the sterilizer,” Flick suggested.
Freddy laughed, and Flick felt mollified. At least someone was prepared to humor her for her jokes. She felt a lot more affectionate toward Freddy these days, despite the snot.
Moira Hudson came in then. She was wearing jeans instead of her post office uniform. “Aren’t you ready yet, Felicity?” she snapped.
Flick paused with her fruit toast halfway to her open mouth as she tried to remember what it was she was supposed to be ready for.
“It’s Saturday,” Moira sighed. She clicked her tongue in the way that usually meant trouble was coming. “You said you were going to come with me into town.”
“But—”
“The shopping needs doing.”
“But—”
“And Freddy needs some more trousers; he’s wearing through the knees with crawling.”
“But—”
“So get ready, and don’t spend half the day in the bathroom. You’re beautiful enough as it is. Chop-chop.”
Flick resignedly shoved the rest of her breakfast in her mouth.
* * *
Ever since Flick had failed to return from the Strangeworlds Travel Agency a few weeks ago, she’d had about as much freedom as a spider trapped under a glass. She had turned up at home in the small hours of the morning, with no reasonable explanation. And understandably, her parents had questions.
In an attempt to stop them giving her the third degree every five minutes, Flick had eventually come up with a half-hearted lie about getting “lost” in Little Wyverns. Her parents hadn’t bought it for a second of course, but they seemed to prefer even an obvious lie to no explanation at all. Her dad had stopped being angry after the first week or so, but Flick’s mom was like a pot of water simmering on the stove—anything could turn up the heat and send her boiling over, so Flick had been trying to just do as she was told. Her parents, and her mother in particular, were determined to keep her busy. But Flick’s parents didn’t know about Strangeworlds, and Flick had no intention of telling them about it, either.
She had made it back to the travel agency twice. The first time, shortly after her disappearance, she had managed to skive off a piano lesson to tell Jonathan she was grounded semi-permanently. The second time, Freddy had chosen the pavement outside Strangeworlds as the perfect spot to throw one of his Mega Tantrums™, giving Flick the chance to wave frantically through the glass as her mother wrestled with him.
Though Flick was grounded, apparently there was no harm in her leaving the house to entertain her baby brother around the shops.
Since it was the holidays, the supermarket was packed full of parents and their offspring, who were either being kept quiet with crisps, or screaming because they weren’t being kept quiet with crisps. Freddy was among the latter, alternating between bleating like a goat and trying to swallow the trolley’s connector key. Flick wandered over to the soft fruit while her mother complained loudly to no one that now that the cucumbers were not wrapped in plastic, they didn’t last as long. There had been an argument at home about single-use plastics the day before, when Flick crossed cling film off the shopping list in a moment of feeble rebellion. Flick was wondering why her mother thought a firmer-for-longer cucumber was more important than the great whales when she saw a familiar tousle of dark hair and a terrible tweed waistcoat that could only belong to one person. She peered around the banana display, hardly daring to hope.
But it was.
It was Jonathan Mercator.
Flick’s heart soared.
He was really there! Out of his precious travel agency, standing looking at fruit as though he was as boring as everyone else in the multiverse.
Well, not quite as boring. Though it was August, and everyone else was in shorts, Jonathan’s only concession to the weather was to have left his suit jacket off. Even his shirt was still buttoned to the neck. Flick felt weirdly tickled. Seeing Jonathan in the supermarket was like seeing a turtle out of its shell.
She walked over.
“Hey.” She grinned. She suddenly felt as though her legs were filled with springs. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Oh!” Jonathan blinked rapidly behind the lenses of his glasses, and a smile spread across his face. He put the avocado he’d been examining into his basket. “Hello.”
Flick glanced over to where her mother was trying to wrestle her shopping list out of Freddy’s mouth. “It’s been like trying to escape Alcatraz at home. How are you?”
“Better, thank you.” He patted the back of his head, where there was a ridge of scar where a rock had hit him only a few weeks ago. It was a reminder of the dangers of his line of work.
Jonathan’s travel agency was the only one like it in the world. And Flick was one of only a few people who knew the secret—that when the Strangeworlds Travel Agency sent you on a trip, they didn’t send you on a plane. The old travel agency was filled with an assortment of old suitcases, each one different from the last. And each one of those suitcases could transport you to another world; all you had to do was step inside.
Flick glanced at the contents of Jonathan’s basket. There was a tin of vegetable soup keeping the single avocado company. It was weird to think of Jonathan doing anything as mundane as eating meals.
“Does my shopping meet with your approval?” he asked.
She laughed. “I guess. So, how’s business?”
“Slow and steady, as the saying goes.” He shrugged. “I revisited the City of Five Lights, recently. The place seems to be getting better. Thanks to you.”
“Thanks to Nicc DeVyce,” Flick said, suddenly missing the pink and gold city and her red-cloaked Thief friend with a heart-aching intensity. “She was the one who agreed to release the stolen magic back into the world. She could have kept it.”
“Not everyone is that kind of Thief,” Jonathan said. “I spoke to Miss DeVyce, as it happens. She’s heard nothing of Overseer Glean, or her cronies. It seems as though you trapped them in that other world for good.”
Flick stared at some kiwis, the heavy feeling in her chest dissolving into liquid guilt.
Jonathan seemed to sense how she was feeling. “You saved yourself, saved Strangeworlds Society members, and ultimately the world of Five Lights itself. Without you, Overseer Glean and her Thieves would have journeyed to another world and drained the magic—the life—out of it.” He adjusted his grip on the shopping basket. “That doesn’t mean you have to feel good on a personal level about trapping people in another world.”
Flick hummed. “Still not even sure how I did it.”
“Have you tried to do anything since you’ve been away?”
Flick shook her head, feeling as though spying through the magnifying glass didn’t really count.
“No experiments, with your gifts?” Jonathan’s eyebrows rose. “Why ever not?”
Flick shifted awkwardly. During her time with Jonathan, it had become clear that she was magically gifted, more so than he was, and more so than he had ever seen before. On her last adventure with Jonathan, she had done the impossible: torn open a schism between two worlds—and survived. But back in Little Wyverns, quite possibly the most mundane village in the multiverse, it barely seemed real.
Jonathan smiled. “I do miss you being there, you know. You should have come in, the other week. I saw you waving.”
The Edge of the Ocean Page 1
