Otherbound

by Corinne Duyvis

No answer came. Nothing but the train’s pneumatic hiss and the dawnflies outside.

  “You can take control, can’t you? Here’s your permission.”

  She watched her hands intently, spreading them out, turning them. Maybe having someone take over would be a blessing.

  Her muscles went rigid, then disappeared from her reach. “Yes,” Nolan said. “Sorry. I think I fell asleep. The longer I keep my eyes shut, the more I … become you. Yes, we can talk.”

  Her hands returned to her, as did the rest of her body. She tested her toes and lips and lungs to make sure. “Good,” she said. “What do you mean, you become me? Explain. Explain everything.”

  Nolan’s movements came more fluidly as time passed. He talked about losing his foot, about never concentrating, about falling into a type of long sleep that he couldn’t find the word for in either signs or spelled Dit.

  The more Nolan talked, the more Amara knew he meant well. He paused between sentences, allowing for questions and interjections, but never at the right time. She still had to wait for him to allow her to speak. “Enough,” she said finally. She amended: “I think I know enough.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to thank him.

  Outside, branches scraped the airtrain windows like too-long fingernails. Amara let her hands drop into her lap. They’d slipped so easily from direct signs to rushed ones, from hard words to tentative gestures, that she didn’t know what to do with them now. They didn’t feel like hers. If Nolan wanted to say something else, he could. She supposed she should be grateful he didn’t, but she only felt like washing her hands and all the rest of her, like stripping and wading into the sea to rinse herself clean of him.

  Maybe she did care about having control.

  “That was a little weird,” Cilla breathed. She’d been quiet for most of the conversation, interrupting Nolan only when she needed clarification. “The way you two—all alternating and—” She hunted for the right word. “Weird.”

  “Yes,” Amara said. “It was.”

  A laugh escaped—hard and joyless—and the sound felt so foreign that for a fraction of a second she thought Nolan had taken over again. He’d made her laugh before. But, no, this was her alone. She hadn’t laughed in days, not since Maart … and he’d lain beside her and …

  She needed to keep that memory. All her memories.

  Nolan was recalling them alongside her, wasn’t he? The laugh faltered, but she didn’t want it to die. She looked at dead leaves blowing dizzily past the windows.

  “New rule,” she said. She felt as if she ought to subdue her movements, to apologize and shuffle out of the way. It wasn’t her place to make demands. She squashed that reluctance. “New rule. I can’t have you in my head. I can’t. Just … stay away. Check back in every now and then in case I need your healing, but don’t stay.” She paused. “Tell me you understand.”

  Nolan slipped in a moment later. “I understand. But when I’m asleep, I can’t go back and forth. Then it will need to be all or nothing. I’m sorry.”

  He returned her hands.

  Have him in her head for hours on hours or risk his being out of her reach when she needed him. Invade her mind or break her body.

  “When you’re sleeping, stay.” Telling someone what to do didn’t feel natural. However terrible her options, though, they were hers, and she would take what she could. “Warn me first. Tell me when you go to sleep and wake up, so I’ll know, at least.”

  Before long, the high masts of ships came into sight. The harbor. “We’re here.” She stood. Her thigh and elbow felt cool all of a sudden. They’d been pressed against Cilla’s in the seat in a way Amara suddenly missed. As long as they sat here, laughter or no laughter, Nolan or no Nolan, she could pretend nothing was wrong. They were simply on a supply trip or moving to another town.

  But now they stepped into the briny air, just the two of them without Jorn to clear their path or Maart by her side, and Amara wanted to run back inside the train for the return trip. Jorn might still be asleep at the granary. If they went back now, he’d never need to know they’d left. He’d never need to come after them.

  The determination she’d felt on leaving seeped rapidly away. She clung to it, thinking, Maart. She could do this.

  She would do this.

  Lamps lit the harbor streets, bathing the cobblestones in pools of warm yellow that made Amara feel too visible. She stepped around the lights, looking for rowdy market boys who weren’t paying attention, or holes in the pavement that Cilla might twist an ankle in. The lamps themselves caught her eye, instead: red-and-gold crowns sat atop them, so alien she had to stop and stare. She’d seen etchings of lamps and bridges decorated with crowns before, but the ministers had ordered the crowns snapped off long ago. Some bridges still showed the damage. Amara hadn’t known any had survived intact.

  Cilla’s family got crowns and etchings. Maart got—Maart got drowned in forest earth and she’d never have a chance to choose him—

  “Look,” Cilla whispered. She put a hand on Amara’s side-sling. “Were they here before?”

  Amara took a second to calm herself. A slow, hot breath later, she examined the harbor. They’d walked across this same street from the airtrain to the market the other day, but in the dark of predawn, everything looked different. The sea lay beyond the dunes, black as coal, and the harbor mill towered high over the other buildings, determined to catch every breath of wind. Workers walked lightly, trying to wake themselves up. They were mostly Alinean, readying their fishing boats or tugging along carts with covered goods.

  But those weren’t the people Cilla meant.

  Marshals patrolled the docks in padded winterwear and helmets painted leaf-green, the color only visible under gaslight. They’d speak to ship captains, then return to land, talking in low voices and pointing at another group of marshals coming in by horseback.

  “Jorn warned them,” Amara said. Their way out—gone. Could they run another way?

  Stay, she told Nolan. She hadn’t wanted to need him so quickly.

  “Even if Jorn’s awake,” Cilla said, “he couldn’t have called up so many marshals at such short notice. This is because of what I did at the pub. They’re looking for me.”

  Amara nodded, though fear still pinned her feet down. If Jorn hadn’t discovered their absence yet, returning to the granary was still an option. She tried to shove it from her mind. This was a trip like any other. Protect Cilla, avoid recognition, keep away from the marshals.

  They stayed huddled at the edge of the harbor, outside the reach of the lights, so that people wouldn’t spot Amara’s signs.

  “The rumors can’t have spread far. We might be safe once we leave Teschel,” Cilla said.

  “There’s still Jorn. And whoever the ministers might send after us. And the mages …” Mages like the knifewielder wanted Cilla dead. No question. But if the ministers wanted her alive—and they had to, based on what Amara had overheard—then who did the knifewielder and other mages work for? The question made Amara’s head hurt.

  “You’re not an optimist, are you?” Cilla let out a low, nervous chuckle.

  “We’ll need to sneak aboard a ship. They’re warning the captains about you.” Amara wanted to say more, but someone was headed their way—fast. She reached for her knife. The man might alert the marshals once he saw Cilla. She’d match the description the pub-goers had given, and while there were plenty of Alinean girls in the harbor, few wore topscarves, particularly ones so nice—scarves and winterwears were Dit clothing, unwieldy on boats. Alinean fishers wore sleeved tops and half-skirts over loose trousers.

  Amara pressed her knife flat to her ribs, under her topscarf. If she needed to, she’d slash and run. Without looking, she pushed her thumb against the blade. Her skin broke. Seconds later, the cut healed. Good.

  The man stopped footlengths away. The light of the nearest lamp caught his face. Though light red in skin, he had the distinct pinched nose bridge and rounded lips of an Alinean, and when
he opened his mouth, Amara recognized him straightaway. “I was sure you would’ve left by now,” he said.

  The bartender.

  Cilla knew him, too. “You helped us!” She seemed not to know what to do with herself. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips before she stood firm again. “Will you do so another time?”

  “Without question.”

  Amara stayed quiet. If not for Cilla, the bartender would have let her die. He didn’t even acknowledge her now.

  Cilla had the same thought. “If you’re loyal to my family, why didn’t you help in the first place? Wouldn’t you want to aid anyone escaping a minister, servant or not?”

  The man swallowed. The knob in his throat rose sharply. “If I’d known—”

  “That’s not what I asked,” Cilla said. A fisher approached, holding a small, furred Elig horse by its reins. It dragged along an empty cart smelling of day-old fish. The bartender waited anxiously to speak until the fisher passed.

  “I respect servants for their duty and escaped ones for their common sense, but publicly helping one would be dangerous. If the ministers found out, they’d ruin my business.”

  “Helping the princess seems even more dangerous.”

  “The alternative was disobeying my princess’s orders.”

  Cilla nodded. Being demanding came so easily to her. When she spoke, people listened. When she asked, people answered.

  “If you’ll permit me to help you a second time,” the bartender said, “I’m here to see off a friend of mine. She captains a ship that’s sailing for the mainland in an hour. She won’t betray you, though I can’t vouch for passengers and crew.”

  “We’ll have to risk it,” Cilla said.

  “Are you coming back?” the bartender asked. His eyes gleamed in the gaslight. “Not to the island. To the throne.”

  Cilla smiled uneasily. “Eventually. The question remains how.”

  “You have a lot of people behind you.”

  Cilla straightened her back and raised her chin. Amara had seen Cilla look genuinely regal; this was not it. She faked it well, though. “Show us your friend’s ship.”

  They’d go separately. If the marshals knew about Cilla, they’d also know about the Elig girl with her. If Cilla and Amara traveled side by side, they’d be checked for certain. But under the guise of being crew—there wasn’t time to find other clothes, but Cilla had rubbed sand into her scarf to stand out less—they might have a shot at sneaking aboard unnoticed.

  The bartender and Amara would board first, with the captain and Cilla following later. She’d have to rely on their loyalty to keep Cilla safe.

  Amara didn’t like relying on anyone for something this big. She reminded herself not to check on Cilla as she walked alongside the bartender, lugging a sack of supplies. She eyed the marshals instead. Two walked toward the harbor house, which an Alinean girl was just leaving, smoothing her shirt and looking displeased. She was Cilla’s age, maybe older. The marshals must’ve checked her for tattoos.

  The harbor air was filled with the scents of fish and salt and wet wood, and no trace of the sun, though the sky was slowly lightening. Their ship was a small fluit moored near the harbor house. The crew loaded crates via pulleys and thick ropes. They’d stop at an island or two, load passengers and cargo, then head for Bedam.

  Nearby, a fisher snarled at her crew. Amara jerked at the sound. It wasn’t directed at her, but still, she stood out too much. Elig were a rare sight around harbors. She stepped to the right to put the fishing crew between her and the harbor house.

  She meant to step right. But something glued her feet to the ground.

  “Keep moving.” The bartender passed her, looking straight ahead.

  Amara pulled at her foot again, then another time. She was stuck. Just as she was about to try to call the bartender back, the cobblestones let her go. She tumbled forward. Her kneecaps almost cracked. Her hands broke her fall, and as she hit the ground, something rippled through her—more than just the impact of bony hands on hard stone.

  Her hands pulsed. They lit up like the tattoo on Cilla’s chest. She tried to climb to her feet before anyone noticed, but it was too late for that—the glow wasn’t just in her hands. It shone through the threads of her winterwear and the folds of her scarf, and she had to squint to keep out the light that flared from the rest of her face.

  The ground glowed, too, pooling around her feet and running from there in a thin, smooth line to both sides, from the harbor house to the market, forcing anyone who wanted to board the ships to cross it.

  The marshals had gotten a mage to circle the area. Her crossing the line had activated a spell.

  Mixed magic.

  Panic rose in her throat. The line of light flared, turning the solid white of sunlit metal. The light fanned out, and cobblestones cracked all around it, their polished surfaces breaking open. She heard the pop-pop-pop of pebbles launching up and bouncing footlengths away.

  Just as quickly, it all died.

  Was that it? Was it over? The memory of the lightning at the market bright in her mind, Amara scrambled upright, as if she could escape further effects if she just ran quickly enough—though she couldn’t run at all. Her knees throbbed. She cried out the moment she placed her weight on them. They weren’t healing. Nolan had left. Right when she needed him. Or—no. The spell she’d crossed must’ve interacted with his presence. If he didn’t count as magic, nothing would. The combination had kicked him out and blown up whatever ward the marshals’ mage had put up.

  All these years, she’d been scared of crossing wards—and now, all she was left with were screwed-up knees. She might’ve escaped Jorn years ago and gotten off just as easily. Incongruous laughter bubbled in the back of her throat. If she’d known, maybe—no.

  She reeled herself in, locking down her laughter. Running from Jorn didn’t mean she could toss out her every last survival instinct. Marshals were headed her way. She gauged the distance between them. Even if her knees healed right this second, she wouldn’t be able to escape on time.

  “What the—” one marshal shouted as he stumbled over a cracked rock. “I thought the spell was just supposed to bind ’em!”

  “You’re enchanted?” The bartender kept his voice low.

  Amara nodded. The marshals were seconds away. What about Cilla? No sign of her.

  “Act sick,” he said from the corner of his mouth. He took a firm step toward the approaching marshals. “What’s going on? Don’t tell me you cast a public spell!”

  “Sir, we want to speak to the girl.” One marshal, the shortest of the crew, pointed his baton at Amara. She wrapped her hands over her stomach and squirmed as if in pain.

  “That girl is my employee,” the bartender said, “and what she wants is to go back to the carecenter. Your spell screwed up her healing. She could’ve died! All of us could’ve!”

  “Sir, we need to—”

  “You need to not cast spells willy-nilly where enchanted people risk crossing them! That’s such a minister thing to do! Don’t you have any consideration for the spirits? For basic safety?” the bartender fumed. “I’ve seen spells mix before. Do you know what happened? It picked up a house. A house! It rose right up off the foundation. Turned on its side, then crashed to the street. There was a family inside.

  “That could’ve happened here. Or worse! Is this a detection spell? It didn’t occur to you that a detection spell needs to check whoever crosses it? That its magic would interact with theirs? I’m not even a mage, and I know that! And the backlash—no, forget it. Let’s go, Immer. If we get you to the carecenter now, we might be back before the ship departs.”

  The bartender played his part well. Many mages took oaths to minimize magic use, but Alinean mages took it further than anyone and suppressed their abilities entirely. They said it was out of respect for the spirits. Alineans also had more mages than anyone else and simply couldn’t risk the backlash. Earthquakes and eruptions had already damaged the Alinean Islands enough.
They’d tried to institute a similar policy in the Dunelands, which were just as fragile in different ways: low to the ground and close to the water. The policy hadn’t taken, though, especially after the ministers took over, and now the sight of magic made most Alineans grit their teeth.

  So no one would question the bartender’s rant. Amara cringed, anyway. You just—you didn’t talk back to your betters. Not to ministers, not to marshals. How hadn’t they already whipped out their batons?

  At least Amara could pass off her wincing as illness. She took a wobbly step toward the bartender. Her knees stung with sped-up healing, signaling Nolan’s return. No matter how much she hated that Nolan was in her mind, she could use his presence. She directed her thoughts at him, telling him what had happened. Stick around.

  In the distance, a captain blew a whistle and shouted. A fraction of a second later, a collective no punctuated the sound of a crate smashing to the stones. The marshals ignored the accident. One grabbed Amara’s shoulder. “You match the description of someone we’re looking for. Immer, was it?” He watched her mouth.

  Just answer. Easy.

  Past the marshal, she saw movement—people staring at the crashed cargo, others ignoring it and continuing to work, and, more importantly, the ship’s captain and Cilla heading toward the boat at a fast clip. Amara stepped back. The harbor spell would react to Cilla’s curse; this time, the curse might be the one to go awry instead. She didn’t get the chance to warn her. Cilla walked safely past the boundary that had lit up earlier and that now sat on cracked cobblestones as a burned-out, wiggly line of ashes.

  At least that was a stroke of luck: Amara must have knocked the spell out completely.

  In a deceptively mild voice, another marshal said, “This ward was supposed to check for mages’ ink, like a minister’s or servant’s tattoo.” Or a princess’s. “Is there any reason you’re not talking, Immer?”

  The bartender tsked impatiently. “Yes. Her stomach. The healers don’t know what’s wrong with her. Besides, you know Elig. Pathetic snowhounds. Too dumb to ask for water if their hair’s on fire.”