I push aside my plate. “Let’s go meet the governor, Quinn.”
She grabs her crust of bread and scurries after me. I set my shoulders and fortify my heart as I do when approaching an opponent in the trench. My ticker obeys, thrumming excitedly. Finally, it is time to meet our monster. We stride right up to the men.
“Sir,” says Jamison, “this is Lady Callahan.”
I don a smile, my heart thudding a battle march.
Markham bows. He looks the same as a decade ago. How has he not aged? “Lady Callahan, you’ve a fine husband.”
Sweet words from poisonous lips.
I double the width of my smile. Markham reveals no sign of recognition. The conceited bastard must not remember me from the clock shop. Oh, but I will be of importance soon.
“Lieutenant, did we run out of frocks for the women?” Markham asks, studying my masculine attire.
Jamison glances from me to the governor, stumbling for an excuse that does not label me as overly particular. “She, ah . . . we—”
“None of the dresses were to my taste,” I say.
Governor Markham answers with a “hmm” and bends over Quinn. I squelch the urge to disarm Jamison of his pistol and knock Markham over the head with it. “Is this the lass you told me about?”
Quinn stares up at him, her little chin out.
“This is your serving girl,” Jamison explains. “As I said before, Cuthbert didn’t harm her, thanks to my wife.” He’s generous to defend me, but if he calls me his “wife” one more time, I may boot him.
Markham nicks Quinn’s chin with a friendly scrape of his knuckles. “You’re stronger for it, aren’t you?” He bestows her with a dazzling smile, and a blush blossoms in her cheeks. “You and I will get along well, lass.”
His closeness to her person unnerves me. “Please excuse us, sir, I must put Quinn to bed.” Without waiting for permission, I take her by the hand and lead her away.
“The governor is fetching, isn’t he?” Quinn asks.
“He’s not to my taste.”
That did not go as I hoped. I wanted to radiate flinty detachment. Instead, I hardly managed not to scream. I glance over my shoulder at them. Markham and Jamison have gone on to the dining tent. It’s infuriating that Markham has no recollection of me, but this could give me an advantage. No one anticipates the danger they do not see.
Back inside our tent, Jamison left clothes for us and stashed my sword under a cot. While I help Quinn change into her nightgown and slide into bed, she asks me to recount the origin story of the sword of Avelyn. I’ve no tolerance for storytelling right now, but it’s a short tale, so I appease her.
“Before the worlds came into existence, the heavens were dominated by thousands of stars. Two of the biggest and brightest stars wanted to prove they were the greatest light in all the heavens, so they agreed to race each other. Whichever could fly the farthest would own the sky. The stars took off, streaming as fast as they could. They were so fixated on how far they had flown, they weren’t paying attention to their direction and the stars collided. Upon impact, one of them splintered into a million pieces. The second star broke apart, shedding its tines until only the sharpest, strongest prong remained. Eiocha plucked that new blade from the sky and, with it, cut the seven worlds from the cloth of the eternities.”
“Eiocha was brave to touch a star,” Quinn says, yawning.
“As the Creator, she was made to wield them. Now it’s time to go to sleep.”
I tuck Quinn in and leave her to sit on the opposite cot. As the sun dips behind the treetops, exhaustion overcomes her. I sit and listen to the animal noises in the forest, insects buzzing and owls hooting. None of them sound otherworldly.
Jamison enters and sinks down beside me on the cot. He stretches out his sore leg and undoes the top button of his collar.
“You’re back soon,” I remark.
“The governor and I have a meeting tomorrow morning.” He bends forward to rub his knee, and a folded paper sticks out of his jacket pocket.
“What’s that?”
“A list of the settlers.” He tucks the paper away and peeks at Quinn sleeping. “I need to see Commander Flynn. The bed is yours. I’ll be back soon.” Jamison retrieves my sword from under the cot.
I straighten in alarm. “You’re taking my sword?”
“I’m returning it to you,” he answers slowly. He passes me the weapon, his grip on it lingering. “I’ve given you my trust, Everley. Don’t exploit it.”
“I won’t.” Fortunately, my regulator is broken and the bell is no longer attached to my ticker to expose my lie.
Jamison releases the sword, tugs the blanket higher over Quinn’s sleeping form, and ducks out. I wait one hundred ticks of my heart, then tie on my cloak for cover and go outside.
The most sheltered path from our tent to the cabin is along the Thornwoods. I dart across the clearing to the tree line and pad down the trail. The shadows whisper hello. Bugs flit past my nose and crickets chirp from the thorny branches. My destination is not far, and soon, the cabin comes into view. Lamplight glows from the windows. I dash across clumps of grass to the rear of the cabin and squat below one. In the stillness that follows, voices sound from inside.
“I need you to organize the matrimonial ceremony,” says Markham. “The queen has tasked us with establishing the colony’s first families. We cannot disappoint her.”
“How would you like me to match the convicts, sir?”
The second man sounds faintly familiar. I peer inside the window at Markham’s profile. The other man stands with his back to me, his head covered by a cap.
“Let the men choose their mates,” replies the governor. “Encourage them to decide in the next few days. We’ll give the first five couples double plots of land as a reward for their decisiveness. We’ll speak again in the morning. You’re dismissed.”
I crouch lower as footsteps thunk across the wood floor and the door creaks open. I creep to the corner and look around it. The governor’s clerk exits the front door and then treads toward the rear of the cabin. I draw my hood down and press against the wall. The man does not notice me masked in the shadows as he passes by, but I see him.
Thousands of memories crash down on me. The moment my family died, I was cast off from the world I loved, anchorless and adrift. Until this moment, I thought a homecoming was impossible, yet my soul runs aground, scraping along the bottom of astonishment.
My eldest brother is alive.
Chapter Thirteen
Sharp prickles pour out from my ticker. I breathe through the pain, willing it not to seize. Tavis is older than I remember. His chestnut hair is longer and his clothes coarser. He is supposed to be dead, killed by the man he just took a meeting with. I remember nothing that links him to Markham, yet betrayal is the only conclusion for what I witnessed.
Tavis travels near the tree line. I prowl after him, not bothering to hide my approach. I should return to my tent, think now and react later.
I draw my sword.
Tavis whirls around. I shove him into the woods, far from the moonlight, and slam him into a tree. He winces as the thorns on the trunk burrow into his coat. I throw back my hood. “Remember me, Brother?”
His eyes broaden. “Evie?”
“Traitor.” I press my blade to his gullet.
Fear fills his green eyes, the same shape and color as our father’s. He’s a younger version of him, from his hooked nose straight down to his pronounced throat knob. “I had no choice. Markham would have killed me.”
“You should have let him. Isleen, Carlin, Mother—” My voice cracks and then returns on a snarl. “Did you know he was coming that night? Did you know what he would do?”
“I didn’t know, I swear. Father betrayed him.”
“Markham betrayed Father.”
Tears simmer in my brother’s gaze. “Evie, you’re alive. Praise Madrona, I’m not alone.”
His words should be a joyous sentiment, yet they bli
ster my soul. I lower my sword and step back, disgusted by his weeping. “You’re a coward.”
“You were a little girl. You didn’t hear the conversations between Mother and Father. You didn’t see his relationship with Markham. Father wasn’t blameless. He hid relics that didn’t belong to him. He had no right—”
“You have no right!” Stabbing sensations spread out from my rib cage, little shocks jolting down my arms. “How could you, Tavis? Do Isleen’s screams haunt you? Do you hear her cries at night?”
He draws into himself, his gaze flat. “Those men were punished.”
“You should be punished too.” I raise my blade again. My ticker swings off tempo, each labored beat a burst of agony.
“Father’s sword,” he says, gaping.
“My sword.” I press the tip to his cheek, my fingers tingling.
“Meet me here tomorrow at noon and I will answer your questions. It isn’t safe near the woods at night. The trees have ears, and the beasts of the Thornwoods are always hungry.”
I hear a noise then, coming from farther within the Thornwoods—breathing. A chill ripples along my bare skin.
“There are things you don’t know, little sister.”
“Tomorrow.” My arm gives out, dropping to my side. “Don’t tell anyone you spoke with me or that I’m your blood, or I will gut you.”
I stomp away, my firm paces swiftly giving way to rickety steps. Markham’s cabin falls from view. The forest tilts as my knees wobble, but I stay upright, my sword dragging beside me. The tree line leads me to the white tents. There, my legs fail me, and I crumple to the ground. I turn onto my front and drag myself through the underbrush toward the grass. Through an opening in the woods, a man appears by the tents.
“Jamison!” I call. He stills, then comes toward me. I beckon him again and again, my voice fainter and fainter until he parts the ferns.
“Everley, what—?”
“Do you have the clock repair kit?” I wheeze.
“I think it’s still in my bag in the tent. Why?”
“Bring it, and hurry.”
He runs into camp. I drag myself onto my elbows and rest my head against a stump. The cold circles in, gnawing away the feeling in my nerves and devouring my vision. My heart kicks my insides, its irregular beats reverberating to my bones.
Jamison tromps through the ferns and kneels beside me. “I brought the tool kit.”
“I need your help,” I rasp. “Any second now I’ll black out.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Open my shirt.”
He hesitates half a breath, then undoes the top four buttons of my tunic. His fingers halt and his voice pitches higher. “What is that?”
“A clock. I need you to reset the balance wheel and torsion spring. Remove the glass facing, then use the silver instrument with the flat head to reach the gears.”
Jamison pries off the glass front and finds the correct tool. My sight goes fuzzy, winter’s grasp tightening its hold.
“The big cog in the center,” I mumble. “It’s slowing.”
The balance wheel stops and my limbs wilt. Jamison says my name, a distant and garbled sound. I try to answer, but my words have no life. A curtain lowers over my vision, as bleak as a frozen fog.
Cranking sears through my chest, boring into every bone, muscle, organ. In the absence of life, silence ensnares me.
Tick . . .
. . . tock.
My heart recalibrates, the cogs and windup gears reanimating. The beautiful, burdensome tapping awes me once more, but the aftershocks of pain alternating with numbness are hard-pressed to retreat. I borrow Jamison’s haven and imagine daisies bobbing in a clarion breeze, and the snarled aches and pangs gradually uncoil.
Jamison strokes my forehead, pushing back strands of hair stuck to my lips. “I knew we’d met before the clock shop. Years ago, you and your uncle delivered a timepiece to Clayborn Manor. You were the saddest girl I’d ever seen.”
I clutch my shirt shut and will myself not to cry. Uncle Holden brought me along to the west end of Dorestand amid the manors with gleaming windows, fragrant gardens, and picket fences. While he unloaded the wagon, he told me to be polite, a marquess lived there. A butler answered, followed by a boy and girl come to gawk at my uncle’s timepiece. Jamison had no limp and his little sister held on to a well-loved doll. I stood in the entry of their manor, so similar to my family’s home, and cried. Jamison saw me, so I fled back to the wagon.
His attention falls to my ticker. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know how it works. It just does.” I sit up and struggle to refasten my shirt buttons with my tingling fingers.
“Let me.” Jamison closes my top, pausing over my scar.
Shivers shoot out from his touch, so I shift back. “I didn’t want you to see this.”
“On my sister’s grave, your secret is safe. Does this have to do with why you’ve come to Dagger Island? Why you were out in the woods alone?”
My brother’s reappearance returns to my mind, bringing with it the increased desire to weep. I stamp down that urge and speak quietly to stop my voice from quaking. “I can stand now.”
Jamison assists me up, his warm hands splayed across my back. The tick of my heart is a clap of thunder, exacerbated now that he has seen the source of my secrets. “Who hurt you?” he asks. “Your scar—”
“It’s an old wound.” Once more, I think of my brother. Whatever he has to say will not change what Markham has done.
“Everley, I want to help you.” Jamison’s grasp on my lower back tautens. His lips are slightly parted, like an open door. The truth builds upon my tongue. I want to tell him, but my success depends on my silence. Secrets only hold power when they are locked away.
“You can help by forgetting this happened.”
Slipping from his hold, I stride for camp.
Shouts wake me from a heavy sleep. Everything in my body aches, especially my chest. It feels as though a giant has sat on my ribs. Jamison and Quinn are gone from the tent, her figurines on the floor. I duck outside into sunshine and follow the noise to the middle of camp.
Vevina has set up a gambling table near a hollering crowd of men. Quinn watches off to the side, chewing her cuticles. Two cats, one much larger than the other, are trapped inside a wire circle. A bald soldier takes turns poking them to provoke a fight while Vevina takes bets on which cat will win. The bigger cat, a tabby, pounces at the other, claws flying. The smaller feline, a black-and-white one that reminds me of Tom, swipes at its larger opponent.
“Everley,” Quinn says, “can’t you do something?”
Intervening won’t gain me any favors, but I cannot allow this cruelty. I push through the crowd to the enclosure and high-step over the wire into the circle. The black-and-white cat is bleeding from a slash across its nose. I scoop it up and the spectators boo.
“What are you doing?” asks the bald soldier. “Put him down.”
“You’re done harassing these creatures. Let the big one go too or camp will be overrun with vermin. I doubt the governor would be pleased to find mice in his cabin.”
Mention of the governor quiets them. The bald man opens the holding pen and the cat runs off.
I pass the runt to Quinn. “Careful, he’s hurt.”
“Oh, precious one,” she says, cradling him.
The spectators amble away, some of them complaining about having their merriment ruined. I glare at them until they leave us be.
Vevina swaggers over, her fist full of coins. “Thanks to you, I’ve taken a loss.”
She has never pitted animals against each other for earnings. Either the island is addling her brain or she was worn down by her empty pockets. “Put the Fox and the Cat in the pen next time. The men will appreciate the show.”
“That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” says Vevina. “They shouldn’t be parceled off for marriage. Captain Dabney said he would request the three of us for the right price, but I ne
ed more coin to make it appealing to him.”
“The captain can take you all as wives?”
“Scullery maids for him and his officers. The governor may not allow it, but we’re going to try. Those lasses are all I have.”
Her optimism comes from desperation. Vevina must know Markham won’t hand over three women to one man. Still, I respect her efforts to keep them together.
Vevina loops her arm through mine. “I saw you met the governor yesterday. Perhaps you or the lieutenant can put in a good word for us?”
“I’ll, ah, think on it.”
“There’s your husband now.” Vevina nods down the way at Jamison, Dr. Huxley, and Commander Flynn exiting the infirmary deep in conversation. Are they discussing the list of settlers Jamison had in his pocket?
A meal bell rings.
“That must be breakfast,” I say.
“Breakfast,” Vevina says, laughing. “That’s the call for midday meal. You’ve slept half the day away.”
Indeed, the sun is too high in the sky for morning. Often after my ticker is recalibrated, I sleep longer to recover my strength.
“Quinn, let’s take the cat to our tent.”
We make haste to our lodging and set the cat down inside. As he sniffs around, Quinn pours him the last of our water in an empty cup. He rubs against her and purrs.
“What will you name him?” I ask.
“Prince,” she says, “like the lost prince of legend.”
“A notable name for a brave cat.” I pet the feline’s long back, from his head to his tail. “I’ll refill our water flask. Stay here until I return.”
Quinn swings a lock of her hair in front of Prince. The feline bats at the tress and she giggles. I grab my sword, covering it with my cloak, and go to meet my brother.
Chapter Fourteen
Tavis waits in the trees behind Markham’s cabin. His physical appearance is torturous. He takes after our father in every way, except his smile. When he smiles, I see Isleen.
“I’m glad you came, Evie.”
Before the Broken Star (The Evermore Chronicles Book 1) Page 12
