by E J Kitchens
“And the harpoon gun—Second Chance and Redemption, it’s called—isn’t for killing but for giving pirates a good scare and uninterrupted exposure to Scripture while in a … uh … open frame of mind. I did steal Colin O’Connor that way. He chose to stay with me. We both felt it best if his father thought him dead. I’m sorry for the danger you’re in, but I’m not sorry your father sent you.”
Prism stared at him a moment, her thoughts impossible to guess under her goggles, but then she smiled a sad smile, and covered Davy’s hand with hers. “Thanks, Davy. I wish I had what you need, and you can call me Prism. I see more colors than most, and I can see differences in—There he is! Captain O’Connor!”
“Curse you, Bowditch! You’re going to get us all killed!” O’Connor roared as they approached.
“Not today, I hope.” Davy released him into the Escaper and left the nets dangling as they soared back over to O’Connor’s airship.
8
“And I want my automaton back.” Seated in Davy’s study, Captain Cavan O’Connor braced his hand on his knee and leaned toward Davy. After a day to see to their ships and injured men, Davy and O’Connor had met again, as agreed, having tethered their airships together so as to not lose the automaton-less pirate ship.
“Not with my route programmed into it.” Davy’s smile turned into a flinch as he lifted a steaming cup of coffee to his mouth with his injured arm. He switched the cup to his other hand. He felt naked without a weapon—well, something more substantial than hot liquid—in or near his hand at the best of times, but especially with pirates on his ship. But O’Connor had come unarmed, and he was, in some ways, a man of honor. So Davy would have to trust him and suffer through being weaponless.
Of course, neither was alone. A burly pirate stood beside O’Connor. Philip sat beside Davy; Colin stood behind him. Cavan O’Connor cast rather sentimental glances at his son when he thought no one was watching. Davy repressed a smile. So the scruffy old pirate had a heart after all.
A box of parts and a pile of automatons, some whole but most in segments, formed a mound between the two groups. Apparently, if one cut off the head first, they didn’t explode when one tried to open them. Who knew?
Prism, back in a rather fetching cobalt blue dress, knelt beside the pile, examining the crystals studding the automatons’ chests. He’d convinced her to abandon her goggles unless she needed them. Now he only had to convince her to look people in the eye without them.
O’Connor’s arguments plunged into silence as he joined Davy in watching Prism. Her fingers hovered over a particular crystal in the chest of O’Connor’s current automaton. Her jaw clenched.
“What is it, Prism?” Davy rejoiced inwardly when Prism looked him in the eye … and he didn’t flinch. He smiled, and she shifted her gaze, which hardened into a glare, to O’Connor.
“You were going to Amezak, weren’t you?” she said.
The man actually squirmed. And looked contrite. “I’m sorry, lass. One of your mates tipped us off about you going with the captain and the prince’s reward for you. How did you—”
Prism touched a crystal. “You have the Amezak crystal.”
“Her bloody eyes,” O’Connor whispered, gaping. Prism dropped her gaze.
“There’s nothing wrong with her eyes,” Davy exclaimed. “They’re beautiful. As soon as you get used to them.”
O’Connor rolled his eyes. “Besotted fool. I meant, they’re exactly what we need.” He caught Prism’s gaze. “There’s a different crystal for each port of call, isn’t there? But how did you know? They’re all the same size and shape. We’ve checked.”
“They’re slightly different colors.” When O’Connor protested, Prism shook her head. “I see more colors than anyone else, even my father. The crystals in the automaton’s chest and in the night sky may all be the same to you, but I see faint colors there, differentiating them. I don’t know why. A certain kind of faerie blood perhaps; more than a drop of it on both sides.
“I’ve traveled all my life. I noticed patterns in the automatons’ crystals and the sky crystals. Each automaton has a crystal matching the sky crystal for a particular city, a crystal to find a reference point, and one for itself.” She hesitated, then met Davy’s eye, and he got the feeling she had a bigger secret she was about to share, and he was beginning to suspect what it was. “I can make maps and navigate more than three miles because I use the sky crystals themselves. It’s a strain, but I can do it. For a ways, at least.”
Davy stared at Prism, then laughed. “Your father wasn’t sending me a part. He was sending me you! Have solution. Prism. He meant you were the solution. He knew we needed you, that you weren’t safe in the circus, and he just couldn’t bear to say goodbye. He didn’t abandon you.”
Prism blushed and ducked away from Davy’s admiring gaze. “Except for the maps I can make,” she said, “I’m not sure how my gift will aid in the long-term solution you’re hoping for.”
“It will,” Davy said with a smile. “The maps too. You don’t know how much they’ll help.”
She smiled back at him, then continued, turning to O’Connor, “Once the port has been reached, or forbidden by the Time Keepers, the crystal cracks and dulls. I imagine it’s no longer usable.” She pointed to a crystal in a dismembered automaton. “This is for Sheffield-on-the-Sea. It’s not cracked. Not being in use, the navigator didn’t receive the order against that port.”
“What!” With a joyous cry, Philip dragged Prism up and danced around the room with her. Davy rescued her and seated her beside himself, and was pleased when she didn’t scoot away from him.
O’Connor alone looked grave. “You’re in a hurry to get supplies to Sheffield-on-the-Sea and build the Star Clock”—he paused, picked up Davy’s book from the table beside him, and removed the torn page tucked inside the cover—“but you’ll need more than that.” He stood and handed the folded page to his son.
Colin unfolded it and spent a moment reading over it. “It tells how to build something called a sextant for calculating something called latitude.” He paused. “Miss Andrews, can you see Polaris, or the Southern Cross?”
Prism shook her head.
“What’s Polaris?” Philip asked.
“With Miss Andrews’s help, we might be able to get to places we have crystals for,” O’Connor said, “but even with a hundred Prisms and Star Clocks, the Star Veil will still conceal and befuddle.” O’Connor turned to Davy. “I think there’s something else you’re—we’re—supposed to do, Captain: take down the Star Veil itself.”
The room exploded into questions, with Davy’s “How?” being the loudest.
O’Connor’s whiskered, weathered face crinkled into an unfamiliar pattern: a smile. “You’re not robbing me of all my secrets at once, boy.”
“Don’t try me,” Davy growled, fighting back a grin.
O’Connor barked a laugh. “You captured me fair and square, so by rights I must answer you, I suppose.” He shook his head grimly. “And to think I owe this idea to the Vanons themselves.” He roused himself, then focused on Davy. “When I was a boy, I knew one of the Vanon family. Each member of the Vanon family meets with their accursed ancestor once or twice a year. I bullied the boy into asking the Rí Am to read a book from his private collection, just to prove he wasn’t afraid of the old man. He asked, and Ulrik Vanon gave him one hour with his choice of books. The book he chose was on faerie spells and faerie-created things.
“According to what he read, the Star Veil, if the faerie queen cast it as you say, would have to be a curse-creation, a real thing with magic woven into it, and since it’s such a big thing, it would have to be anchored to the earth, likely to a tree, at or near the queen’s faerie mound. And it follows that it would be easiest to destroy at its smallest point—its anchor.”
“But legend claims the faerie mound’s on an uncharted island!” Davy exclaimed. “That we’d only find by chance or curse! Even if we found the island, we probably couldn’t s
ee this Star Veil anchor, much less destroy it.”
Philip’s pinched expression eased, and he leaned over to whisper to Prism. “Aye, so he thinks it can be done then. Davy always points out the biggest issues first in that petulant tone when he thinks it can be done but hasn’t figured out how yet. It’s as if he thinks whining will make the answers present themselves.”
Davy jerked around to glare at his first mate.
“Just giving the girl a lesson on how to understand you,” Philip said with an unabashed shrug of his shoulders. He elbowed Colin, who was busy clearing his throat.
A slight smile tugged at the corners of Prism’s mouth. She turned to O’Connor. “Could I see it?”
“I don’t know about that, lass. Those with a touch of faerie blood might see the Star Veil at its anchor, I suppose, so you might. But as to the captain’s other argument, I’m pretty sure it could be destroyed with iron.”
“So,” Davy said, with more excitement than complaint this time, “we need to find an island that’s impossible to find—even if we could navigate ourselves—and destroy a curse anchor we can’t see, with iron, which we don’t have.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’ve always wanted an impossible quest.”
O’Connor leaned back, shaking his head. “We can be a narrow or broad term, lad. You’re going to need help. You and Miss Prism there must get food to Sheffield-on-the-Sea before those good people starve, and you must let me take you there. And then let me take you everywhere Miss Prism still needs to map out. If the Time Keepers were after you in Dondre, they’ll be after you anywhere you stop. It wasn’t hard to get crystals to find you—the Time King wouldn’t mind if something fatal happened to you, I suspect. Let Colin finish your route. He can tell people you and Miss Prism were taken for her reward. Don’t scowl, lad, she’ll never get to Amezak.
“I think you’ll find I and my brethren can help you finish this Star Clock and keep the two of you safe. Everyone knows I hate you for supposedly killing my son. My airship is the last place they’d think you’d be. We want to be free of the Rí Am as much as you. Let your Sky Keeper network know about all this; they can help figure out the faerie queen’s island and so on. Colin, if he hasn’t intentionally forgotten, can use my connections to get the iron for the Star Veil.”
“I have connections of my own to get the iron,” Davy said smugly.
O’Connor’s eyebrows rose, then his eyes twinkled. “Of course. I’d forgotten. That’s partly why your sister’s on the run. You smuggle for the Sky Keepers. Captain Bowditch, I’ve a new regard for you. You’re neither a Pharisee nor a hypocrite.”
“The regard of a pirate is a dubious thing, yet I thank you, sir. But I think you’re right. Marianna and Bertram need time to study, copy, and distribute the books and equipment they found, traveling and getting help from others for that. Removing the Star Veil before the world’s ready with an alternative method of travel would be disastrous. We’ve got to feed the people of Sheffield-on-the-Sea and figure out how to work the old navigation methods first.”
“What about the mine on Sheffield-on-the-Sea?” Philip asked. “I hate to think of those men enslaved there any longer. On my island.”
Davy frowned. “We can’t risk an open assault, even if we could find it. Now that we know the crystals are necessary for automatons to navigate, we know the importance of that mine, or mines if there are more elsewhere. We can’t close down production without stopping all trade and travel—and we know that would hurt a lot of people dependent on it. We’ll have to strike there last, but we will free them. We’ll just have to pray for a miracle, that all plans are ready soon.”
O’Connor’s eyes twinkled again. “I think it interesting that your miracle involves a pirate.”
“Perhaps that is the miracle,” Davy said with a smile.
The adventure continues…
THE STAR CLOCK CHRONICLES, BOOK 3
* * *
Former pirate Colin O’Connor swore never to return to his old ways, but when Davy Bowditch goes into hiding and tasks Colin with gaining the iron harpoons needed to destroy the faerie queen’s Star Veil, he’s forced to go to his smuggler cousins for help gaining the forbidden metal. But neither the smugglers nor the Time Keepers trust Colin now that he’s a Sky Keeper, so it’s no surprise when a mysterious stowaway warns him he’s walking into a trap. But Colin’s determined that either he gets the iron or dies trying.
* * *
Coming December 14, 2020. Sign up for my newsletter for a special release edition with fun facts and activities related to the story.
A Free Novelette
The Mouse King Has Taken One Crown too Many
Janawyn Stahl is convinced there’s a connection between her godfather’s suspiciously talkative automaton named Theo and his lost nephew, but can she protect Theo from the evil Mouse King long enough to find out?
This short retelling of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” is available for free when you sign up for my newsletter.
About the Author
E.J. Kitchens loves tales of romance, adventure, and happily-ever-afters and strives to write such tales herself. When she’s not thinking about dashing heroes or how awesome bacteria are—she is a microbiologist after all—she’s enjoying the beautiful outdoors or talking about classic books and black-and-white movies. She is a member of Realm Makers and lives in Alabama.
May she beg a favor of you? You’ve already kindly read her book, would you also leave a review? Those gold stars can power more than fictional worlds: they encourage, inspire, and help authors through hurdles so we can seek out the people looking for books like ours. It’s a daunting quest, and without you, fearless reader, it would fail. Will you join it?
* * *
To learn more about E.J. Kitchens and her books, visit her website and sign up for her newsletter.
www.ElizabethJaneKitchens.com
ADVENTURE AND ROMANCE IN A FANTASY WORLD
Book 1 of OF MAGIC MADE
* * *
With a malevolent prince stealing her kingdom and her magic one dance at a time, Princess Thea must win the loyalty of a mysterious guard to save her kingdom.
* * *
Wrought of Silver and Ravens is a clean adventure-romance retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” set in The Magic Collectors story world.
Jane Austen Romance Meets Fairytale Adventure
THE MAGIC COLLECTORS
When prim and proper enchantress Lady Alexandria attempts to bewitch a magic mirror, she ends up cursed—powerless, penniless, dumped in a strange land, and stuck in the body of an old hag. But the cure to her curse isn't what she expects, for one curse won't cure another. Or will it? The story of the enchantress from “Beauty and the Beast.”
He’s a non-magic who wants a respite from all things magical. She’s an enchantress hiding a secret that could lead to her enslavement by the sorcerers. Together, they find themselves in a game of cat and mouse with the notorious Magic Thief. But who is the cat and who is the mouse?
A CURSE KEEPER, CURSE BREAKER Fairytale
Belinda Lambton knows a curse when she sees one. She also knows the wisdom of agreeing with a powerful enchantress. So when she gets mixed up with a cursed Beast and his enchantress, she finds herself tasked with the role of Curse Breaker. That’s not an easy position, for Beast has reasons of his own to keep his curse. There’s also someone determined to break it by whatever means possible and claim Beast for herself, and she doesn’t take competition well.
With wit, clean romance, and a touch of danger, Midnight for a Curse is a retelling of the beloved “Beauty and the Beast” tale.
The Omnibus List
THE MAGIC COLLECTORS: Of Magic and Mirrors
THE ROSE AND THE WAND*
TO CATCH A MAGIC THIEF
* * *
THE MAGIC COLLECTORS: Of Magic Made
WROUGHT OF SILVER AND RAVENS, book 1
WROUGHT OF LIONS AND SAND, book 2 (coming soon)
CURSE KEEPER, CURSE BREAKER
MIDNIGHT FOR A CURSE
CURSED FOR KEEPS (coming soon)
* * *
THE STAR CLOCK CHRONICLES
* * *
SHORTER WORKS
“Caught on Film” (Mistry and Wilder series)
“A Spell’s End” (ENCIRCLED)
“How to Hide a Prince” (TALES OF EVER AFTER)
“The Seventh Crown”
* * *
*Also available as an audiobook
