“You wonder what need we shall have of you,” Jade supplied. He had finished his bath and was curled up on a coil of rope.
“That’s selfish, isn’t it?” She couldn’t explain to them how much she loved it here, and how, if she weren’t needed, if she never returned, how bleak everything would seem. She gazed out at the black sea, which glinted here and there in the starlight. “You need all the help you can get, and all I can do is point the way to this island. Almaric said it too. I need to be trained if I’m going to be any good at this stuff.”
“Your reason for coming to us is not yet clear,” Ranulf said, inclining his head to the skies. Holly winced; he was still too thin, his bruises not quite healed. “It is not just to find the Adepts. You have a special purpose of your own.”
“And the training?”
“There must be a way. We will keep searching for it. Perhaps you will apprentice with one of these Adepts we seek.”
Her heart lifted a little. “That would be cool.” On her shoulder, the little Salamander shifted his sticky feet and warmed her skin. The desire to stay here in this world, with Jade and the others, suddenly overwhelmed her. “Do the stars say how long I’ll stay?”
Ranulf smiled. “They do not predict exact movements, but they predicted your coming. The final outcome is a more cloudy matter.”
“That figures.”
“Do not let it trouble you. None of us knows his or her true purpose. Only that we have one.”
“To pass between worlds is an unusual feat,” Jade added. “That alone says much about your need to be here, beyond serving as a pirate’s compass.”
A warm gust of wind ruffled the main staysail above her head. Their course was true and steady now. She gazed out to sea again and thought she saw, in the blackness of the horizon, a tiny bump. The waves swelled. The Sea Witch pitched astern, then down again into the well. The spray hid anything further from sight. But she thought, if only for a second, that she had spotted land.
Chapter 31
* * *
What the Compass Did
Everett crept after Avery back down the hatch, the compass clutched in his hand. His face felt very hot and his chest fluttery and shaky. He had hoped that the compass would help Holly, not hurt her.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” he whispered fiercely to the prince.
Avery stowed the wand as they made their way back to the brig. “It seems the ship is doing what it must, whatever we have done.”
“We nearly mucked up the whole thing. And why’s the locket acting this way? That’s what was pulling the ship. I know it was.”
“Only think of its power.” Avery didn’t sound nearly as worried as he ought to, Everett thought. “We were able to move an entire ship, Everett!”
Yes, Everett had felt that too. The question was, ought they have done it at all? He knew in his gut he should’ve told Holly and the others about Avery’s plan, though it seemed harmless enough at the time.
Watch the Adept take her bearings, Avery had said. He had wanted to see the magic.
Avery caught him staring at him. “You do not trust me.”
“Should I? Why were you so keen on sneaking up there?”
“I wish to study magic, Everett. You yourself have said the lady does not favor me. How else am I to learn, if not in secret?” They approached his cell.
Or, Everett thought, he’d wanted to sabotage Holly’s navigation.
Everett closed the door on him. Avery immediately turned away and drew out the wand, making little glowing lights dance around the cell. Just beyond, he could hear Pike working the pumps to rid the ship of bilgewater.
Everett walked away from the brig’s smell and settled in another corner of the hold. He pulled out the locked compass. He didn’t want to rely on Avery’s wand—his wand, as it originally was—to explore its properties. But it scared him a bit as well. It wanted something. It didn’t just point the way—it pulled, directing the ship just as Holly’s wand had.
Could Avery have known that would happen? Or did he just want to study magic, as he said?
Everett pushed his thumb against the catch. Now that Avery had unlocked it with the wand, it came open easily. The needle spun crazily in its housing, and Everett held the compass up to one eye.
Even in the dim light, he could see the castle to the northeast, and through the forest, Almaric’s little cottage. Away to the north of Anglielle, moors rose out of the dun-colored earth, and farther north still, something dark was moving. A horde of creatures. Though he couldn’t make out what they were, they had to be enormous—one of them crawled over a mountain like it was a hillock, turned, and opened a gaping mouth of fangs in his direction.
Everett slammed the locket shut, and the ship rolled, throwing him into a corner near the rack of muskets.
The ship righted itself. It yawed in the other direction—toward the southwest, where Holly had directed it. Everett stood. He had nearly dropped his lantern.
The flame flickered, and a stream of black smoke flowed out of it, as if the wick had been wetted. The tendril wafted from the lantern up to his nose, then around his head. For a moment, he thought he heard a hissing right inside his ears.
Open me.
Startled, he opened his hand. The locket hadn’t spoken—couldn’t have spoken.
“Everett?”
He startled. Ben was standing at the other end of the hold. “I thought I saw a light down here. Did you feel the boat going back and forth? I was afraid it was a storm.”
“Um, yeah, that was weird,” Everett said, stowing the locket. “I was just . . . checking something. For the captain. Stores and stuff. Looks like we’ve got plenty of . . . stores.” He was glad it was dark, because his face felt very hot.
“Riiiiiight,” said Ben slowly. “Well, I’m going back to bed.”
Everett followed, ignoring Ben’s chatter. He no longer heard the whispers. But somehow he knew they still lingered in the dark.
Chapter 32
* * *
The Gale
Later that morning Holly found Ben and Everett up on deck, braced against the gunwale, enjoying the stiff breeze that urged the brigantine ever westward.
“Wow, that was a big one.” Ben lurched against the railing. “We went right down into a big water-trench thing.”
“It’s choppy this morning.” Holly’s stomach tightened. She hoped she wasn’t suddenly getting seasick.
Everett nodded. He looked a little green too. “How did your navigation go?”
“Kind of weird, but I think the ship is moving in the direction I pointed it to. The helm moved on its own. All I did was stand there.” The sun hit a glint of gold in Everett’s hand. “Is that the locket you found?”
“It’s not just a locket,” Everett said with some pride. “Look, I finally got it open.”
He handed it to Holly, though she noticed he didn’t take the chain from around his neck. What had looked like a pocket watch was an intricate compass with hundreds of point markings around the dial. Too many, it seemed. And yet it did look like a watch as well. She could see tiny gears revolving behind the needle, which spun with the pitch of the waves. And she thought she saw—
She turned the compass over and snapped the lid shut.
“Hey, don’t lock it again!” Ben said.
“I’m not.” She hoped. She wanted to see the symbols on the lid, the wave and the swirl and the earth and the flame. She was sure she had seen something glow on the surface, but now the symbols looked quite ordinary. Jade leaped onto the railing beside her and peered at it.
The wind calmed, and the ship settled into the water.
She turned the locket over. “Are you sure it’s all right? It almost feels . . .” Alive, she thought. Like the wand. Was that another thread of smoke uncurling from the hinges? A wave of nausea washed over Holly. “You should show it to Almaric. Make sure it’s nothing dangerous.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Everett, taking it fro
m her. “You just don’t like that I found something cool before you did.”
“Don’t be stupid. Keep it if you want, what do I care?” She couldn’t see why Everett insisted on taking things she said the wrong way, but there was something odd about the compass. Jade frowned at her the way he did when he was guessing her thoughts. She gazed back at the horizon, which was finally level. “Hey, what’s that?”
She pointed at a red spot in the sky to the east. It grew steadily bigger. Áedán tensed on her shoulder. Jade lifted his nose to the air. “I cannot tell. The wind is against us.”
The spot flashed, changing color from red to blue, and it wobbled, moving irregularly. “Maybe it’s a UFO,” Ben suggested. Holly gave him a look.
“What? It’s an O, and it’s F. And it’s definitely U. So technically—”
“It’s a parrot!” Everett cried as it landed on the mainsail yard.
It wasn’t just a parrot. A bit larger than a crow, it was covered with scarlet plumage, except under its wings, which were a deep indigo—in fact, it was exactly like the bird Holly had seen in the Hawkesbury forest, the one that had showed her the bridge across the stream. But how was that possible? The bird glided down to the poop deck, where it flapped importantly and raised a high crest from its forehead. “Captain!” it squawked.
Morgan emerged from her cabin. “Has Crews arrived?” She smiled warmly when she saw the parrot. The bird lighted on her hand.
“That’s Crews?” Ben whispered.
The captain and parrot cooed at each other until Morgan realized the crew was staring at them. Then she cleared her throat and said gruffly, “Well then, Crewso, what news have you?”
“What news, what news?” cackled the bird. “The king has been told of his son’s ransom. He is willing to pay, Captain! Most handsomely. He awaits your return, he does!”
“Very good,” said Morgan. “Aught else, friend?”
“Aye, Captain! Seven leagues to the northwest, the black schooner sails in our direction.” Crewso fluffed his feathers and nibbled on one wing. “That is all.”
A sudden gust of wind toppled the bird from the captain’s hand. Morgan scooped him off the deck and shielded him in her coat. With a groan, the Sea Witch reared like a stallion and the bow popped out of the water, then fell with a crash. Holly stumbled backward, then scrambled up again. “Jade!” she called, her heart sick.
“Here, Lady,” said the cat at her feet. Somehow he had not been swept off the railing to sea. Holly’s stomach heaved, and a cold sweat spread across her face and shoulders. Áedán made a kind of urggh noise as if he wasn’t feeling too good either. The ship reared again. It was like having the flu. Her breakfast gurgled, threatening to resurface.
Holly dropped to the deck again, with Ben and Jade beside her, as the deck pitched. “It can’t be a storm,” she said weakly. “There aren’t any clouds.”
She pulled herself up to find the captain beside her. Morgan clapped a glass to her eye and swore. “It can’t be! How’d the devil find us?”
“How did who find us?” Ben asked.
“Who d’ye think?” Morgan muttered, then called up to the poop deck. “Rowan! He’s closing fast, but likely he’s not espied us yet. Let this gale take its toll. Spanker to windward, and topsails, too!” She curled her lip at Holly and Ben. “And you lot, get below. This’ll get worse, I reckon.”
“Come on.” Holly crawled along the deck to the railing. “Where did Everett go?”
“He just went below. He said something about looking at his compass again.”
Holly took Ben’s spyglass and peered over the gunwale. “Who do you think that ship belongs to?” She could see the black schooner for herself now, a three-masted ship quite a bit bigger than the Sea Witch.
“I don’t know, but look up there.”
Ben pointed at the clouds. How had they gathered so fast? Holly squinted. She thought she could see fingers of black smoke roiling out of them, but it must have been a trick of the light as the clouds changed shape. Morgan and Rowan shouted as the breeze whipped the sails. The waves and wind were pushing them closer to the other ship, which bobbed calmly on the waves. The sky darkened. The next moment the wind turned cold, and fat raindrops began to fall.
“All hands on deck! Aloft to furl the sails!” shouted Morgan, and suddenly everyone was very busy. Quelch nudged by Holly and Ben to ring the ship’s bell. The crew poured from the hold and the forecastle. Rowan stayed at the wheel as the others clambered up the ratlines to furl the topsails, spanker, and foresails. It was wretched to watch the crew clinging to the masts as the ship rolled and pitched. But they scurried down to the deck unharmed as the wind cranked up several notches. Holly threw open the main hatch and followed Ben belowdecks.
The gale blew all that day. Two of the crew—usually Morgan and Rowan—hauled on the ship’s wheel at any one time, while the rest of them tended the sails or bailed water. Three different times, Morgan called Holly on deck and had her touch the wand to the ship’s broad compass. The moment she did so, it was like the Sea Witch suddenly remembered where it was supposed to be going, and it bucked against the storm to pull back to the proper direction. Holly only stayed on deck long enough to reestablish the direction; it was all her stomach could take. The deck pitched like a big amusement-park glider, its stern heaving up one minute, its bow the next, and Holly heard the most awful crackings and groanings, as if the ship were an old soldier trying to hold itself together. At one point the bowsprit snapped in half, and the jib sails fluttered free; but Morgan managed to keep them from capsizing.
Meanwhile, life belowdecks was dull and punctuated all too often by someone retching into a bucket or moaning, holding his or her stomach with both hands. The passengers stayed together in the open room between cabins for the most part. Holly tried to make up games for her and Ben and Everett to play, but at times they felt too ill even for that. Everett, Holly noticed, continually toyed with his locket, gazing at it, opening and shutting it, sometimes holding it right in front of one eye. She couldn’t help thinking that the storm had hit right after he’d shown it to her.
She noticed he still hadn’t shown the compass to Almaric, who was oddly unaffected by the storm. Jade, and even Ranulf, who was obliged to sit with his horses’ hooves tucked beneath him, didn’t seem too bad off. The galley fire had been put out at once when the wind had started, so there was no tea or soup, only hardtack and some kind of chewy dried beef that Holly wisely avoided.
It was on the second day that, as the group sat morosely in their usual spots (everyone had found a particular place to hold on to something heavy as the ship rolled and pitched), a face appeared from the bow end of the hold—a face as green as Holly’s and Ben’s. It belonged to the prince.
“What are you doing here?” Holly demanded, then turned on Everett. “Did you let him out?”
“What if I did?” Everett said. “Have you seen where they’re keeping him? It’s horrid.”
“Then maybe he shouldn’t have come aboard in the first place,” Holly shot back, though she felt a twinge of guilt. The prince was filthy, his clothes muddied, his hair matted with something. Clearly, he’d been sick too, and looked like he soon would be again. Was he thinner since they’d set sail? She didn’t even know if he’d been fed.
“Are you okay, Avery?” asked Ben, who looked about as far from okay as anyone could get.
“The stench.” Avery’s voice sounded croaky. “I could bear it no longer.” He stumbled forward, and the rest of the group backed away. He did smell foul. He collapsed in the middle of the floor, gasping big gulps of air. “Is there water?”
“Oh, here, I’ll get you some,” Holly said crossly, heading to the barrel. “Don’t sit on anything of mine.”
“His Highness has not been treated well,” said Ranulf from the corner. His jaw was hard, and Holly remembered he had lately been a prisoner himself. “He could be granted fresh air, at least. He cannot escape.”
“The captain
does not mean to keep me alive for long. She has no cause to bother with me.” Avery grasped the ladle Holly brought him and downed the water before she could pour it into a cup. “My thanks, Lady.”
“But she doesn’t mean to kill you, surely?” Almaric said.
The prince shrugged.
Holly remembered what Morgan had said about the rations. She wondered if the captain would keep Avery alive, ransom or no. “Well,” she said, unable to keep from sounding irritated, “it’s not like we’d let her kill you. Give us a little credit.”
“How would we prevent it?” said Jade. “As captain, Morgan’s word is as good as a king’s aboard ship. And she is not above stealing into the night and slitting His Highness’s throat.”
“Okay, cut it out,” said Ben. “This is sounding creepy. The crew isn’t like that. Oggler, for example—”
“He may teach you to sail, and seem amiable enough,” said Ranulf, switching his tail, “but he has killed before. They all have.”
“Then we stand up to her,” Holly said. She couldn’t quite believe she was talking about sticking up for Avery, who had tried to kill her own brother. But Avery’s thin face and racking cough made her stomach even more queasy. The wand trembled and shifted in its scabbard, as if it, too, was unhappy.
“What’s that mean, exactly?” asked Everett. Ben turned an even ghastlier shade of green.
“It means we protect him,” said Holly. “I’ll try to convince the captain to let him out of his cell once in a while. He may not be my best friend, but—well, just look at him.”
The rest of them looked at the prince’s tattered clothes and greasy hair. Avery widened his blue eyes and cast his gaze down like a whipped puppy.
“Okay,” Holly said. “Don’t overdo it.” She crawled back to her place against the barrel, but not before she saw the prince give Everett a satisfied smirk.
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