Harlow finds a mismatched collection of bottles piled under the desk. She uncorks one and drinks all the water herself. Markham hands a second bottle to me.
“Drink up, Evie.”
“Don’t call me that.” I begrudgingly accept the bottle, drink my portion, and pass it on. “How long have you been here, Markham?”
“Long enough for the merrow’s singing to interfere with my sleep. By netting her, I thought I could quiet the wretch.”
Laverick passes the bottle to Jamison. He pours water in a tarnished silver spoon he found on the floor and lifts it for Radella. After she drinks, he takes a swig for himself.
Markham opens a tin box of hard biscuits and sets it out for us. “How much time has passed in the Land of the Living?” he asks. “Time moves differently here.”
“You left with Dorcha two months ago,” I reply, uncertain what he means. My clock heart beats more softly than usual, but no differently than before we left my world.
“‘Left,’” he says, quoting me. “I was not swallowed by a whale by choice.” Harlow slides him a sly glance, and he laughs. “You weren’t taken here by Dorcha on purpose, were you?”
“Everley was frantic to follow you,” Harlow replies, kissing his cheek. “All I did was sit back and wait.”
“I wasn’t following him,” I mutter. Harlow didn’t inform Captain Vevina about my ticker because she correctly assumed that my hunt for my sword would lead her to Markham. She’s as irritating as he is, and together, with all the touching and kissing, they’re insufferable.
“Did you see anyone else on the beach?” Laverick asks.
“Just the lot of you.” The prince runs a suggestive finger down Harlow’s hip. “The merrows lure the surviving crewmen of these shipwrecks into the sea until they’re all gone. No one survives the Skeleton Coast for long.”
The Skeleton Coast must be what this graveyard is called. An eerie name for an eerie place. “For someone who hasn’t been in this world long, you seem to know a lot about it,” I note.
Markham uncorks an amber bottle of grog, a mixture of rum and water. “You forget I’ve walked the worlds a long time.”
I haven’t forgotten he tricked time and gained immortality. At over 350 years old, he has seen more days than he deserves. “If you have so much experience, why are you here on this deserted coastline? Why did Dorcha bring you to this world?”
Markham chuckles. “I’ve missed your bluntness, Evie. Did you know you have something on your chin?” He peels his lips back over even white teeth, amused with himself for pointing out the most recent scar he gave me.
“Where’s my sword?” I snap.
“Where’s my heartwood?”
“It’s gone.” At his appalled look, I explain, “You saw me throw it overboard.”
“I didn’t think you would let it float away! Heartwood is the most precious, most powerful element in all the worlds.”
“Then you shouldn’t have let me take it from you.” His habit of redirecting attention from himself to others incenses me. He animated an army of wooden soldiers with the heartwood of an ancient elderwood tree. I tossed the heartwood overboard to remove it from his reach, thus ending his control over the arcane army. “I’ll ask one more time. What did you do with the sword?”
“You can ask me as many times as you’d like. I still don’t have it.”
“You were holding it when Dorcha took you,” says Jamison.
“Dorcha was hired to bring me to this world so I could repay a debt. The sword was seized soon after my arrival, and I was marooned here on the coast.”
“Seized?” I ask, my voice pitching higher.
Jamison gestures at me to quiet down and addresses the prince calmly. “Killian, who has the sword?”
“I had an outstanding payment with a pirate captain for a few barrels of rum. He stole the sword as payment.”
I inhale sharply. “You let the hallowed sword of Avelyn be taken by a pirate? To pay for your rum?”
“The pirates took it, so I don’t know why you’re badgering me,” Markham replies, setting his bottle of grog down with a clunk. “I’ve already explained I don’t have the sword, but you insist on not listening.”
I take a charged step forward to show him just how well I heard him.
Jamison slips between us. “Remember what you came for, Evie.”
He isn’t protecting Markham from me, but me from myself. Though I could beat the prince for his carelessness and disrespect, I’m not here for him. Hearing my father and uncle’s conversation reinforced the importance of my task. Though I often say the sword is mine, Father Time is its appointed keeper. The sword of Avelyn does not belong in Markham’s custody, and it certainly shouldn’t be in the possession of a pirate. The prince probably relinquished the treasure at the first hint of opposition, the bloody coward.
“What do we do?” Laverick asks, chewing the inside of her cheek. “How do we find the sword and Claret?”
“You don’t.” Markham shoves a biscuit into his mouth and speaks as he chews. “Your companion should have washed ashore by now. If she doesn’t surface soon, she has either drowned or been taken captive by pirates or merrows.”
Laverick blanches. “You said women aren’t enchanted by the merrows’ song.”
“I said young men are more receptive to their summons. Women are not immune.” He brushes crumbs from his fingers. “You should abandon your cause and return to your world. There’s nothing for you here.”
His dismissiveness incenses me, yet my main concern is for Laverick. I extend a hand to let her know I do not share his opinion. She balls her quivering fingers into fists and storms outside, slamming the door so hard a plank falls from a porthole.
“She’s pleasant company,” Markham remarks dryly.
He cares nothing for Claret, and I’m beginning to question how invested he is in the sword. But Markham is an exceptional liar. He hid his identity as the lost prince of The Legend of Princess Amadara for centuries. He’s so gifted that not only did he rise through the ranks of the royal navy to admiral but Queen Aislinn appointed him governor over her penal colony. I don’t believe for one second that he doesn’t know the exact location of the sacred sword.
Harlow wraps her arms around his neck and presses her bosom against his chest. He entangles his hands in the ends of her loose blond hair.
“I’ve missed you,” she purrs.
“And I’ve missed you, honeysuckle. We have lost time to make up for.” He takes her by the hand and leads her into an adjoining cabin, probably the officer’s quarters, and closes the door.
“Honeysuckle?” I say to Jamison.
“Would you like a nickname?”
“Only if I can give you one too,” I reply. He stares at the floor, his attention wandering elsewhere. “Jamison, are you all right?”
He shakes his head, his focus returning. “I’m fine.”
“The merrow can’t get you in here.”
“Of course not.” His gaze probes into mine. “How did you survive falling into the water? Your clock heart—?”
“Radella repaired it,” I say, though a piece of what happened still feels missing.
He touches his fingertips lightly against mine. “I thought you were gone.”
He doesn’t say he missed me. He doesn’t need to. I feel his worry. “How did you make it to land?”
“The current carried us to shore, and then the surf destroyed the longboat. We tried to find you and Radella, but we couldn’t see through the fog. Then I heard singing. Next thing I remember, I was in the sea, swimming toward you and Killian.”
“Markham is too at ease,” I say, frowning. “Can you distract him tomorrow while I search the ship? He may be lying about the pirates.”
Jamison’s slight grip on my hand falls away. “Everley, my coming here wasn’t on purpose. I went down into the water to help Claret. My opinion about your obsession hasn’t changed.”
“My obsession? I don’t want
to be here any more than you do.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.” He turns away to gaze out the porthole. A thick silence expands between us, and I exchange frowns with Radella. She appears no more certain about how to address his moodiness than me.
“I’m going to check on Laverick,” I mutter, then slip outside.
Laverick sits on the gunwale, her feet dangling over the side of the ship. Patches of the fog float away, offering glimpses of a silver moon and icy stars. I prop my hip against the wooden rail beside the Fox. Despite the wind and sand and sea, the details of the vessel’s craftsmanship have weathered well. If only my clock heart were so resilient.
“Don’t pay any attention to Markham,” I say. “He wouldn’t know the truth if it landed on his head.”
Laverick stops swinging her feet. “Claret said everything would be fine as long as we stayed together. I tried. We both did, but she was already tired from falling into the water the first time. Her hand slipped through mine, and then the waves came . . .”
“You did everything you could.”
Laverick’s stricken gaze slides to me. “Have you ever had a secret you couldn’t tell because it could ruin everything, but holding it inside you is like trying to trap a giant in a hatbox? The thing’s so immense you don’t know how long you can stuff it away?”
My ticker skips three beats in a row. Does Laverick know? “No, but I can imagine that would be difficult.”
“It is.”
My concern that she has guessed my secret slowly dissolves. She’s too immersed in her own emotions to grapple with mine.
Jamison comes out on deck, and his arrival instantly shifts the mood. A strained pause stretches between the three of us, tightening and tightening until Laverick hops down from the rail. She bids us good night and goes inside.
“I’ll stand watch tonight,” Jamison says, joining me at the rail, “and tomorrow I’ll distract Killian for you.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said, but I also know Killian. He has more patience than the Creator, and no one can force him to do anything against his will. I don’t know what he’s after, but his coming to the Land Under the Wave was not to settle a debt over stolen rum.”
My intuition says the same, but not understanding what Markham is after only frustrates me more.
Jamison kicks at a sand pile. “I don’t want to contend with you, Everley, but I must be clear: My priority is to find a portal back to our world. I’ve been away from home far too long.”
“Home . . . You mean Dorestand.”
He studies the dark spots on the moon. “The man we saw on the ship is the queen’s secretary of state and a friend of my father’s. When I first enlisted in the navy, my father said if he ever needed me, he would send Secretary Winters. After my sister died, the secretary tracked me down and advised me to return to Wyeth.”
I’m loath to consider what news could have sent the secretary of state to find him this time. “Are you certain he came to deliver a message to you?”
“That was my first instinct. My second instinct was to run.” Jamison bows his head in regret. Clearly, he wishes he had stayed in the Land of the Living. “My father is an old man. Our last words to each other were of anger. I cannot let that be our final memory together.”
I envy his chance to make amends with his father. It was late autumn the night my parents died. The first hard freeze was collecting on the field outside. Our manor was like an elderly woman with a chill in her bones, so my entire family had gathered around the fireplace in the study. Put another log on the fire, I said, my final words to my father. Directly after, Markham knocked on the door and Father left to answer it. My brother Carlin threw another log in the hearth for us. My last words to him were less polite. Carlin had played a musical number on his flute as a birthday gift for Mother. I told him his song was dull. Whenever I hear a flute, I think of how contemptible I was to him.
I have carried these regrets alongside others—little things my uncle did that I didn’t appreciate, times I didn’t say “I love you” to my parents, and patience I didn’t have with my siblings. If I can, I will spare Jamison the anguish of similar regrets.
“We’ll find a way home,” I say. “I promise.”
Chapter Six
My grumbling stomach wakes me well before dawn. The biscuits have all been eaten, including the crumbs, so I slip past where Radella is asleep and sneak outside into the early morning mist. The fog has skulked in, closing in around the shipwreck like a vise. I wrap my cloak tighter around me to offset the gloomy cold.
Jamison sits against the gunwale and rubs his bad knee. He was too spooked by the merrow to sleep before, but exhaustion should remedy that now.
I smooth hair from his tired eyes. “Go to bed, honeysuckle.”
One corner of his mouth curls up. “I will, darling dearest.” He hands me the sharp end of a broken broomstick, my defense against intruders, and lumbers off.
In the predawn quiet, the sounds of the sea are richer. The melodic waves drum a rhythm not unlike my ticker. As dawn burns through the fog, I lay my hand over my clockwork heart. The ticktock is still muted, perhaps even more so, but its beat is unmistakable.
Radella flies out on deck and plunks down in a pile of sand beside me.
“Did I imagine last night?” I ask. “Or did the monster who murdered my parents invite us aboard this ship?”
Radella holds her hands up and out.
“That’s what I thought. Radella, how did my clock heart survive me falling into the sea? It should have been waterlogged. Even if you vanished the water, it still would have stopped.”
The pixie draws a circle in the sand and adds half circles around it. She steps back to show me the daisy—the emblem of Father Time and our other two deities. Mother Madrona and the Creator are of one heart and one mind, but I have an inkling they’re not who preserved me. Father Time can grow daisies spontaneously, transforming thorns into flowers. His regenerative power must have preserved my ticker.
Harlow comes outside from the cabin she shares with Markham and pads over to us in her bare feet, smoking a tobacco pipe. A man’s dressing robe is wrapped about her, and a silver necklace hangs around her slim throat. They appear to be all she’s wearing.
“We’ve run out of food,” she says. “Everley, you and I will search another shipwreck for more.”
“Why don’t you take Markham along?”
“He’s still asleep, and I want to go and be back before the day heats up.”
I had intended to hunt for my sword, but this way, Jamison can sleep too. When we return, he can distract Markham while I check the ship. “Fine. I’m ready when you are.”
“I’ll get dressed.” Harlow sneers at the pixie. “Your flying rat isn’t invited.”
Radella sticks out her tongue at her.
As Harlow goes, Laverick steps on deck wearing men’s attire and dragging a fishing net. “I’m going to the sea to catch a merrow,” she declares.
“Does Markham know you have his net?” I ask.
“I didn’t steal it.” Her color rises. “I’m borrowing it.”
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”
Laverick shrugs, though I think I’ve hurt her feelings. “The merrows might know where we can find Claret. I’m going to hide the net in the water. When they see me, they may come closer to investigate, and I’ll catch them.”
I hope the stories about merrows having poor eyesight are true. Laverick may have shoved her hair into a floppy hat and put on men’s clothes to resemble a fisherman, but her facial features are distinctly female. Even so, this gives her something useful to do and makes her feel proactive. As she plods into the fog, I say to Radella, “Maybe you should go with her.”
The pixie nods and zips off after the Fox.
Harlow returns fully dressed, carrying an empty sack and bottles of water. She drops over the gunwale into the sand and sets off.
“Where are w
e going?” I ask, jumping down after her.
“To a wreck up the coast.” As she consults a crudely drawn map, her sleeve slides up her arm, revealing bruises along her wrist. She catches me staring and covers them again.
Golden daylight melts away the sea haze, revealing a vivid sky and shimmering coastline. We cannot have walked for more than fifteen minutes when Harlow stops at a strange wooden post sticking out of the sand. As she circles it, I notice the fine workmanship.
“What is it?” I ask.
“A mast.”
This must be the very top. We sidestep down the dune to an exposed section of the ship’s hull. The majority of the vessel is buried in sand.
Harlow discovers a hole leading inside the vessel and scoops more sand away from the opening. A strong gust rains granules down on us that I brush off my shoulders. Dunes migrate, their mounds toppled by the wind and rebuilt again. Soon, the entire ship will be covered.
“Is it safe to go in?” I ask.
“Are you scared?”
She’s provoking me, just like the old days when we dueled in swordplay. She tucks her necklace under her shirt and crawls inside.
I go in after her. The only light within the ship comes through the hole we entered. The interior is massive, the corridors at least ten feet tall. We stroll past a chair twice the size of any I have ever seen and a hook on the wall as big as my head.
“Harlow, whose ship is this?”
“Why are you whispering? The crew is long dead.”
She leads us down a very tall corridor, over broken planks and sandy deposits. As we turn a corner into the hold, we lose most of our visibility. I stay back while Harlow slides down the sloped floor inside.
Huge barrels have toppled over and lie strewn across the ground. A large rack stacked to the ceiling with more barrels hangs forward, partially tied to the wall with taut ropes. Sand trickles in through fist-size holes in the hull where the ship was damaged when it ran aground. Harlow pries open a barrel that has tipped on its side, standing very close to the tilted rack. She holds up a handful of dried apricots and throws me one. I turn it over in my hands. The fruit is three times the size of ours back home. She stuffs the sack with more while snacking on one. When she doesn’t immediately keel over from sickness or poison, I nibble a bite. The apricots may be large, but they taste the same as I’m used to.
Into the Hourglass Page 6
