by Claire Luana
“The word of an Aprican legionnaire?”
“The word of a Tamrosi blueberry farmer who found a girl who takes his breath away.”
Silence passed between them as Wren thought on that. Was it so impossible to believe that people could change? That Dash was a good man who had gotten swept up into the legion when he’d had no other option? Wren thought of Hale, her heart squeezing painfully.
“Okay.” She nodded. “Okay.”
“Good. Hey...” He trailed off as his eyes slid past her, peering into the mist. “Is that...?”
Wren turned to where he looked, squinting into the fog. It moved and undulated, revealing nothing of the secrets it held. Until...yes, she saw it. A solid object. A tree. “Land!” she cried and the sailors exploded into action, trimming the sails to slow the ship. The cry echoed down to the other ships in the line. It was dangerous to move at full speed in such thick fog with rocky shores about.
A gray, craggy coast appeared from the mist on their port side, which Wren had learned in sailor’s lingo meant left. The island brimmed with towering cedars and firs, catching wisps of mist in their needles like cotton candy. A tall, thin black bird sat on a rocky outcropping jutting into the water. It had a white patch around its eye. A cormorant. It opened its hooked beak and let out a strange, clicking cry that sent a pair of icy fingers running up her spine. She shivered. What a sad solemn place for Lucas and his siblings to be hiding. She prayed they would find them here—safe and unharmed.
Wren shoved her damp hair back from her forehead and walked to the others. “We’re looking for Fletch Island, according to Mac.”
“Funny place for a summerhouse,” Ansel remarked.
“But a good place to lie low,” Pike said. “Your man is here, Wren. I have a feeling.”
Ansel looked sharply at her at that, and Wren blushed.
Thom and Olivia emerged from below deck, a red plaid scarf rolled around Thom’s neck. They came to stand by Wren and she twined her arm through his. “Glad you’re feeling better,” she whispered.
“Me too,” Thom said. He leaned low and murmured into her ear. “Had to make myself presentable for Trick.” He winked at her, and she smiled. Of course. Thom must be feeling just as excited to see Trick again as she was to see Lucas.
“We have an old map of the islands.” Griff was smoothing the map’s edges. “Best I can figure, we’re here.” She pointed to an inlet between two of the outermost islands. “This one is Fletch Island. There should be a place to anchor around the other side. We’re making for that, and then we’ll send some skiffs out to see what we can see.”
“I’m going,” Wren said. “I should, so Lucas knows we’re friendly.”
“I’ll go too,” Ansel said. “For backup.”
“Fine,” Wren said. “We should take one more.”
“I’d like to go,” Thom said, straightening.
Callidus opened his mouth to protest, but Thom hurried on. “I’m well. I’ve been useless this entire trip. Let me help. Let me do something.”
Callidus gave a reluctant nod.
One of the sailors ran up to Pike. “We’ve spotted a structure.”
Wren’s heart leapt into her throat. This was it. Lucas. She could feel him out there in the distance, almost close enough to touch. She longed to press her head against his chest, to strangle him with a hug. Gods, she just wanted to see him. To know that he was alive and well and real.
The time it took to anchor the ships, drop a skiff in the water, and row to Fletch Island felt like an eternity. Wren’s knee bounced up and down with excitement, and she had to clasp her hands together to keep them from shaking. Lucas. Everything in this world made more sense with him at her side. She had made it through these last few weeks by the skin of her teeth. She hadn’t known if she could make it. But Lucas had never doubted her. He made her feel like she could do anything. Be anything. Even happy.
Wren leapt out of the rowboat before Ansel had even pulled it up on shore, her boots splashing in the freezing water. Ansel sprang out after her, catching her arm, ricocheting her back around towards him. “Wait,” he hissed. “We don’t know what’s up there. We go together.”
Wren wanted to scream with frustration, but some still-sane part of her recognized the wisdom of his words.
The path up to the house felt never-ending—a zigzagging line of stairs set into the sandy soil of the island. Up and up they went until they reached the broad expanse of windows at the front of the house. They were nearly at the top of the island now, and Wren knew the view must be breathtaking. She didn’t turn and instead continued forward towards her single-minded goal. Lucas.
Finally, blessedly, she burst through the carved wooden front door. It was unlocked. “Lucas!” she cried, her breath ragged from the climb.
Thom called from right on her heel. “Trick! Are you here?”
The house showed signs of use—the furniture was uncovered and free from dust. A vase of scraggly yellow dandelion heads sat on the table in the dining room to her left. An open book, turned over to mark the page, sat on the sofa in the living room on the right.
“Lucas!” she cried. “It’s Wren!”
“Wren.” Ansel placed a hand on her arm, stilling her. He pointed down the hallway. Broken glass littered the tiles of the kitchen floor.
Wren’s breath caught in her throat.
She and Thom exchanged a panicked look.
“We check the first floor,” Ansel whispered, motioning down the hallway. “Then the second.”
They moved silently through the house. The hammering of Wren’s heart and the thunking of their boots on the polished oaken floors seemed deafening enough, sure to alert any intruders. They rounded into the kitchen and Wren’s hands flew to her mouth. The back door behind the kitchen was hanging off its hinges, the glass of its leaded window shattered.
Apricans, was all Wren could think. She whirled, breaking past Ansel’s protective grip, dashing back to head up the stairs. No, no. To come all this way, to find Lucas gone...or worse. Her thoughts were wild with fear as she took the stairs two by two. She tripped, falling, bashing her shin, but she scrambled forward, ignoring the pain that exploded through her leg. At the top of the stairs was a hallway with a series of bedrooms, but there was another spiral staircase at the end. “Lucas!” she screamed, heading for the staircase.
“Wren!”
She could hear the others pounding up the stairs behind her, their steps sounding like thunder.
She spun up the stairs into the upper room of the house, a room encased almost entirely in glass. From up here, she could see in every direction, all around the island. The fog was starting to burn off, and a ray of sunshine broke through, displaying the green treetops below. And something in the distance. A ship. A fancy gold telescope sat on a stand in the corner, no doubt to watch birds or whales or whatever the idle rich watched for fun. Wren spun it around, peering through it, searching desperately for the vessel in the distance.
There. It came into stark relief. A three-masted vessel with sails being hoisted for a quick departure. Flying a light blue flag with a golden sunburst in the center.
The Apricans. The Apricans had Lucas.
Chapter 30
“We have to catch them.” Wren whirled on the others as they summited the stairs behind her. She felt like a wild woman. Unmoored.
“That’s a fast ship,” Ansel said, leaning forward to look through the telescope. “And they’ve gotta head start.”
“We have to try!” Thom said, shoving Ansel aside to peer through the telescope. “They’ll kill them.”
“Agreed. We haveta at least give chase, right?” Ansel shrugged.
A moment passed before they all flew into action, flying down two sets of stairs and out the front door, careening dangerously fast down the steep staircase to the beach. They leaped into the rowboat and Ansel dug his heels into the sand, manhandling the skiff into the waves before leaping nimbly in behind.
W
ren could hardly sit still. Ansel was rowing quickly, his thick corded muscles working tirelessly, but it wasn’t fast enough. Images of that day rose in Wren’s mind, of Virgil gutted by Hale’s sword, of Queen Eloise’s eyes bulging as an arrow pierced her through her swan-like neck. She closed her eyes to the memories, but they wouldn’t go. The emperor had declared that the entire Imbris line was to be exterminated. And he had just found the last three.
She felt someone take her hand and opened her eyes to see Thom, his face pale and grave. He didn’t look her way, instead merely holding on. She squeezed his hand, her frigid fingers grasping his so tightly they turned white. Please, she prayed to whoever might care to listen. Don’t let me get here moments too late.
They were nearing the Phoenix now and Ansel called to the crew. “Ready the sail and be quick about it! There’s a ship on the other side of this island we need to catch.”
The men on the deck scrambled into action.
They bumped alongside the Phoenix’s lacquered hull and hurried up the ladder to the deck.
“What’s going on?” Callidus asked as he met them at the rail, together with Pike, Olivia, and Dash.
“There’s an Aprican ship. They got them,” Thom said, the words choked.
“Swarms,” Pike swore, spinning on his heel to stalk across the deck, yelling at his men.
Olivia’s hand hovered before her mouth, her blue eyes wide. “Do you think...?”
“That they’re still alive?” Wren let out a hard laugh. “For now. There wasn’t any blood in the house. They took them—they didn’t kill them. But who knows how long that will last. If we show up on their tail...” She hadn’t even thought of that. By giving chase, would the Apricans decide to cut their losses? Kill the Imbrises where they stood? What were their orders?
“Dash, do you think they would kill them? If they think we were going to be able to free them?” Wren asked.
He ran a hand through his hair. “The order is likely to retrieve them dead or alive. Preferably alive, to go through the pomp of a public execution. But if they thought they were going to lose them...” He trailed off.
Wren felt a sob rising in her throat. She fought it with all her might. She stalked to where Pike, Griff, and Ansel were crowded around the map.
“To get out of the islands, the quickest way is to go through this channel between Fletch and Robinette island,” Pike said. “To come back out the other way, they’d have to come past us. It’s narrow, and they’ll have to be careful. Should slow them down. Maybe enough for us to catch up.”
“The brigantines have a shallower keel than that Aprican vessel. We should be more maneuverable in there. If we can catch them before they get out the other side, there’s a chance.”
“There’s a possibility that if the Apricans see that we’re winning, they’ll kill the Imbrises,” Wren said.
The three looked at her, unblinking. “You want to back off?” Griff asked.
Wren’s mind raced. They were all looking to her. For leadership. To make a decision. A decision that could mean Lucas’s life, if it was wrong. A decision like the one that had killed Sable.
“They’re goners if we don’t get ’em back now, right?” Ansel said. “I’d take maybe dead over surely dead any day.”
Wren nodded woodenly. Yes. It was true. She felt a surge of gratitude at Ansel for laying out the choices so clearly before her. “We have to at least try,” she said.
The time it took to round the island felt like an eternity. And when they finally made the turn into the narrow inlet between the two islands, the Aprican vessel was almost through, out into free water. Wren’s fingernails dug into the rail and she looked up at the sails, cursing them to move faster. Hold on, Lucas, she thought. We’re so close.
But they weren’t close, not at all. They weren’t going to make it. In open water, the sleek Aprican ship would eat up the distance, pulling ahead. They’d never get Lucas back.
Wren had never felt so helpless. There had to be something she could do to help.
And then a thought struck her like a ton of bricks. There was something she could do. Something forbidden and secret and magic.
Wren turned and raced across the deck.
Ansel raised an eyebrow as she passed and turned to follow as she half-ran, half-slid down the stairs below deck.
“I’ve seen that look before,” Ansel said. “What’re ya up to?”
“We need a little luck,” she said, throwing open the door to the cargo hold where their crates of chocolates were sitting quietly in the corner.
“Ya need a whole wagonload of luck,” Ansel retorted.
“Exactly.” She rounded on him, holding out her hand. “Give me your knife.”
“Wren—”
“Your knife!”
Reluctantly, he handed it over.
She wedged it into the crack under a crate’s wooden top and levered it down, popping the top off. Arrayed underneath were neat boxes of chocolates stamped with the Confectioner’s Guild gold seal.
Wren handed back the knife to Ansel and opened the box. She recognized the dulce de leche chocolate balls she had made. She grabbed one and shoved it in her mouth. The milk caramel sweetness barely registered as she chewed and swallowed, grabbing another one.
Ansel looked at her like she had lost it. “Stress eating?” he asked.
She shoved the box at him. “Eat one.”
“I’m more of a peppermint twist kinda guy myself—”
“Eat!” She shook the box at him, and he took one tentatively. “Come on,” she said, making for the upper deck.
Back on deck, Wren raced first for Olivia and Dash, the closest victims. “Eat one.” She thrust the box at them. “Is this...?” Olivia asked, but she broke off as Wren shook the box again. “Eat!”
They obliged.
Callidus and Thom next. “Wren, what are you doing?” Callidus hissed, looking around. “Someone might notice that something’s off... about these chocolates. Not everyone on this ship knows. We’re not supposed to use them.”
“I don’t care. And that was before anyway, under Imbris. Now he’s dead and we need luck. A miracle. I am going to make this the luckiest ship in Nova Navis.”
Callidus heaved out a breath, but he and Thom each took one.
Wren made her way around the ship until all her chocolates were gone. Then she turned to watch the vessel, shaking hands and clutching the empty box to her chest. Let it be enough.
Griff had a spyglass to her eye and lowered it before raising it again. She handed it to Pike. “What do you make of that?”
Pike let out a laugh of delight. “They’ve run aground! They hung up on something! Guess these islands are bad luck after all.” He lowered the spyglass and winked at Wren.
An earsplitting grin broke across her face as relief flooded her, leaving her weak and shaky. It had worked. Thank the gods.
Her elation was short-lived. As the Phoenix, the Black Jasmine, and the rest of Griff’s fleet drew closer to the Aprican vessel, cannons extended from the side like iron fingers.
“Blooming hell. They have black powder.” Griff swore. “Tell me this thing has more powerful guns.”
The first cannonball slashed into the sea about a hundred yards before them, sending up a column of water.
“I’ve got something better. Centese dragon fire,” Pike said, his dark eyes gleaming. “Catapults at the ready,” he shouted, and Griff directed Pike’s sailors to hoist flags that would signal the other vessels to array in defensive positions.
“Fire,” he shouted, and trebuchets on the bow and stern sent pots of dragon fire sailing across the water towards the Aprican vessel.
One of the pots smashed into the side of the Aprican vessel in an explosion of green flames.
“You could hit the hostages!” Wren turned to Pike. “We don’t know where they are.”
“You want me to just sit here and wave at them while they fire at us? Ask them to come over nicely? Lucas is a tou
gh lad. He’ll figure out where not to be,” Pike said. “Load another round!”
The Aprican ship was at a marked disadvantage, as it was trapped where it sat, run aground on a hidden obstacle in the water. And its guns didn’t have the reach Pike’s catapults did. At this rate, Pike would destroy the Aprican ship, sending everyone aboard to their deaths. The dark waters around them were frigid; those aboard wouldn’t last long if they plunged into the icy depths. Thom had shown them that.
Wren bit her lip, turning to look at where the little skiff had been pulled up alongside the stern. Someone needed to get them. To be there, in case Lucas, Trick, and Ella went into the water. She was moving before she realized she’d decided. Luck was thrumming through her veins from the two pieces of chocolate she had eaten. She could row right through the middle of the battle without a scratch—she knew that down to her toes. Lucas might not be so lucky.
“What madness are ya up to now?” Ansel met her at the stern as she began lowering the skiff with the pulley system.
“If they go into the water, they only have minutes. Someone needs to be there.”
“You’re goin’ to row into the middle of a war zone?” Another catapult snapped on the deck of the Phoenix, tossing Wren against the rail. “This guy really worth that?”
“Yes,” Wren said, her hands moving on the rope.
“I better help ya get ‘im then,” Ansel said.
“You’re coming?” Wren asked.
“My grandma could row faster than ya, with those skinny arms. I’m comin.’”
Wren felt a surge of gratitude at Ansel’s presence as she hurried over the side and down the ladder. They had fallen into their old pattern so easily. It was so familiar. She had forgotten how good it had felt to have him to protect her, to watch her back. Ansel was like a fire. He warmed you just by being close.
She shoved the thought aside. Lucas. She needed to get to Lucas.
The Aprican vessel was listing in the water now, flames licking up the rigging with greedy fingers. Callidus caught sight of their little rowboat as they passed into the space between the two vessels. Wren could hear his shouts on the wind, but the words eluded her. No doubt he was telling her she was crazy, that she was going to get herself killed. He might be right.
