by Sara Raasch
“Hurt myself?” Lu whipped out her copy of Botanical Wonders of the Grace Loray Colony, the reference book penned by the island’s first settlers. “Your bloodshot eyes say you are aware of Narcotium Creeper’s hallucinogenic properties—but did you know it can be combined with your overpriced Drooping Fern to create a tonic that—”
—will help my friend get some sleep. She’s dying up at the infirmary, and this is the only tonic that might help—
Lu stopped, desperation getting the best of her.
Clusters of Grace Lorayan soldiers moved across the muddied wharf, passing the end of Lu’s dock. The next dock over supported oceanworthy craft, and one, a three-masted ship, bellowed a horn of greeting before lowering its gangplank.
An immigrant ship from the Mechtlands, the northernmost country on the Mainland, carried those who fled their country’s clan wars for Grace Loray’s freedom.
The vendor waited until the soldiers had passed before he surged toward Lu over his table of wares.
“Quiet, girl! You Argridians are too good at gettin’ people in trouble.”
Offense surged hot into Lu’s chest. “I am not Argridian. I am Grace Lorayan.”
“What does that even mean, sweetheart? You look Argridian. Maybe Tuncian, too. Means somewhere along the way, you owe yourself to one of those countries, just like I owe myself to distant clans in a war-torn icy wasteland, no matter that we’re on this island. Ain’t no one from Grace Loray. Now, Argridian, you gonna buy something from me or not?”
Lu’s vision went red.
When Grace Loray had been discovered centuries ago, an uninhabited island with magic in its waterways, this land had stood for possibility.
When immigrants from the Mainland had flocked here, it had stood for freedom.
When, after two hundred years of tentative peace between the five Mainland countries, Argrid had claimed the island for itself and called it Grace Loray after one of its saints, this land had still managed to stand for hope.
And when, after fifty years of calling Grace Loray their colony, Argrid’s Church had decided magic made people impure and pushed them away from the Pious God, this island had stood for resistance.
That was what it meant to be Grace Lorayan. To believe in what this island used to be, and what it could be again. A country of unity, of acceptance of its wonders, of hope.
Lu was not Tuncian, and she was most certainly not Argridian, no matter that her mother’s heritage had given the Tuncian golden hue to her brown skin, or that her father’s heritage had given her the sharp Argridian angles of her features.
Her parents were Grace Lorayan now. And so was she.
“How can you stand here”—Lu leaned closer to the raider—“and sell magic freely (albeit illegally, as we both know you are a criminal) while dismissing the blood and sacrifices that went into giving you this freedom?”
The raider scoffed. “Oh, and you understand the sacrifices made, little girl? How old were you when the war ended, eh? Nine? Ten?”
“I was twelve when the revolutionaries overthrew Argrid,” Lu told him. Her grip tightened on Botanical Wonders, the cover worn and soft under her fingers. “But I was Grace Lorayan long before that. And I will be Grace Lorayan long after you realize that the Council provides the protection and security of your syndicate, only better.”
The raider syndicates began when Argrid first turned this land into the Grace Loray colony. They protected their own on an island where one oppressively religious country had broken the unspoken rule of peaceful cohabitation. The syndicates worried that Argrid’s colonization would mean oppression.
And they were proven right when Argrid’s Church started cleansing people.
But the revolutionaries won the war and formed the Council to enact laws, levy taxes, spread jobs and growth and assistance—to help everyone on this island. Grace Loray had no need for raider syndicates anymore. It was a country now.
The raider’s top lip curled. “You know what? Fine. Take the Drooping Fern for six galles, and get away from my boat.”
Lu buried her thoughts, her anger, her sadness. She plunked the money into the vendor’s outstretched palm.
“Thank you,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “Just let me carry on my business in peace.”
Lu took her purchase and turned down the dock.
No one wanted to interrupt this man’s business. The Council merely wanted him, and all raiders, to contribute to Grace Loray as a whole, functioning country, not four separate raider syndicates all vying for resources and warring with each other.
As she slipped the Drooping Fern into her satchel, Lu looked up, cradling her book, her finger worrying at the bullet hole in its cover.
The new Mecht immigrants had gathered near the market stalls. One child knotted her fingers in her mother’s petticoat. Hope, her wide eyes said. Wonder.
Lu’s heart ached. What would that family do once their hope wore out? Not everyone who immigrated to this island from the Mainland joined the syndicate that operated for their country of origin. And many raiders had given up their lives of crime once the Council had presented the chance to be Grace Lorayan. The island was alive now in citizens and immigrants with jobs, proper housing, and respectable, productive Grace Lorayan futures.
But almost a century of loyalty to syndicates could not be countered entirely.
Regardless, the Council would bring order. They would complete this peace treaty with Argrid. And Lu looked forward to focusing on something innocent—like botanical magic concoctions.
Lu closed her fingers tighter around Botanical Wonders, the mud of the shore pulling at her shoes as the market crowd enveloped her. Her hand dipped back into her satchel, to the vial of Drooping Fern.
But she found another set of callused fingers there already.
“Oh,” said the owner of the fingers, his lips curling into a smile. “This isn’t my satchel.”
Instinct got to Lu before she could react in a more proper, ladylike way: she wound her fist and socked the pickpocket in the nose.
The boy snapped his head back with a howl. He cupped his face, one wide, alarmed eye gaping at her, the other covered by an eye patch and a tangle of black hair.
“You hit me!” he cried, sounding honestly shocked.
He wasn’t much older than her, his features windbeaten and dark, so he likely wasn’t part of the local Mecht syndicate. His clothes were tattered, and the hand he had against his face showed a glossy branded R behind the curved V and crossed swords of Argrid. The brand Argrid’s Church gave to those they captured and cleansed of magic use.
As those details swept over Lu, so did dread. She had assaulted someone.
Vendors and customers stared. Two of the soldiers who had been overseeing the immigrant ship suddenly focused on her.
Lu looked back at the pickpocket. With the sharp points to his features and the russet hue to his brown skin, he looked Argridian, which annoyed her beyond her dread. Her father was Argridian, as were many of the former revolutionaries. Though they had all fought to be accepted as law-abiding Grace Lorayans, others, like this boy, encouraged the hatred most felt toward Argrid.
The boy patted his nose, hands coming away covered in blood. His dress was familiar, the eye patch in particular—
“Devereux Bell?” Lu realized, and the boy’s eyebrows vaulted toward his hairline. “You’re trying to look like Devereux Bell?”
A notorious raider known the island over by his missing right eye—and the fact that he wasn’t part of any raider syndicate. The only moral beacon most raiders had was loyalty to their syndicates. But Devereux Bell’s renown came from being one of the few raiders who dared to sail and thieve with only his crew on his side, successfully operating as an unaligned raider longer than anyone, more than a year.
Successful meaning he had neither yielded and joined a syndicate nor been killed by one.
Children mimicked his missing eye when they pretended to be the infamo
us brigand. The raider syndicates hated him for stealing magic from their territories without paying dues; Grace Loray’s Council despised him for much the same reason, but they had never caught him, as he knew the island so well that he could escape even the heaviest pursuits.
The boy smiled, teeth red. “Who wouldn’t want to be the most dreaded raider on Grace Loray?”
The soldiers were nearly upon them. The boy hadn’t noticed. Lu cut her eyes to them, something the raider was sure to note.
But he continued to smile at her. “Who are you?” he asked.
The soldiers descended on him, each grabbing an arm.
“Causing the lady trouble?” one bellowed.
The boy’s smile waned when he looked up at the soldiers. “Oh, take me away,” he trilled. “I dare not strive to again see the light of day.”
Lu and the soldiers raised three pairs of eyebrows in confusion. But the raider was still smiling pleasantly. Was he mad?
One of the soldiers cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon, miss—he won’t bother you again.”
Lu nodded absently. The soldiers hauled the boy away, and as well as he could with one eye, the raider winked at her, blood rushing down his face.
A sharp chime carved through the air, bells echoing the time. Ten thirty now.
Lu flexed her sore fingers and cut to the left, where the soldiers headed to the right, toward the castle that sat on a cliff over Lake Regolith. She was even more grateful now for her planned visit to Annalisa in the infirmary before she had to return to the treaty negotiations—it would give her heart time to come out of her throat.
But Lu looked back at the soldiers and the raider one last time, their group shuffling through a crowd of people in sweat-dampened neckerchiefs, salt-rimmed tricorne hats, crocodile-skin ornaments over tattered breeches and mud-soiled hemlines. Most were citizens of this island, good Grace Lorayans staffing Council-approved stalls or receiving shipments of plants from soldiers, working just as hard as the people who had spilled their blood to give them freedom.
This island had come far since Argrid’s rule. All the protection and support that the syndicates offered, the Council could provide; all the freedoms that raiders thought they had in disobedience would be so much more sustainable in unity. And boys like that raider, who wasted their days pickpocketing, could become something that would benefit themselves and society.
Grace Loray was a country of second chances. So Lu believed, with all her heart.
Of all the cities on Grace Loray, New Deza most represented the island’s history. The place had started as a Mecht settlement called Port Visjorn, for a type of white bear sacred to the Mechtlands, until Argrid picked it as their capital and renamed it in their own image. One-story cottages from the original Mecht settlement cowered beside six-story Argridian apartments, wood structures sulked against stone ones. It was chaotic to look at, and more than a little sad to see an obvious reminder of Argrid’s fondness for inserting itself where it wasn’t wanted.
But there was something comforting about New Deza. As if it said, Hey, I survived the revolution—you can too, and you’re probably far less mangy than I am.
Which was why Vex had picked it as the port he’d get arrested in. He liked this city.
But he hadn’t expected his mark to hit him. He’d thought she’d scream or struggle over her bag, enough to rile soldiers into arresting him—but he had not expected the girl to be so goddamn accurate with her fist.
By the time the guards tossed Vex into a communal cell under New Deza’s castle, his nose was still bleeding. He chose a spot where his uninjured eye could watch the rest of the cell, but since he had to keep his head tipped back, he couldn’t get a good look at who was in there with him. He heard voices—gruff, male—and had a moment of panic when he had to choose between not bleeding to death and getting a look at his cellmates.
He should’ve expected the girl to be aggressive. What had drawn him to her was the bullet hole in the cover of the book she was holding—it was clearly a memento of the revolution. Most people wanted to heal from the war’s scars and move on, but here this girl stood, in the middle of the marketplace after having outright yelled at a vendor who was clearly a raider, holding a relic of the war in her arms.
Vex had walked up to her and stuck his hand into her satchel. And only realized afterward what an asinine thing that had been to do. The girl had to have endured the worst of the war, if she had mementos with bullet holes in them, and he’d assaulted her without a single thought of what other scars she might have.
Vex closed his eye. Both his crewmates had told him his plan was idiotic. Nayeli had smacked him. Edda had told him that if he got arrested, the soldiers would toss him into a communal cell and someone was bound to recognize him.
“What good’ll that do, huh? What if the Council realizes they’ve got Devereux Bell in custody? You won’t have to fear Argrid, because Grace Loray will hang your ass.”
Though Argrid may have lost the war with Grace Loray, some Argridian lowlifes still lived on the island. And they thought a stream raider of Argridian ancestry with no syndicate to support him should have some allegiance to his country of origin. Or so Vex’s blackmailers continued to say every time they threatened to hurt him or his crew unless he stole magic for them. Over, and over, and over.
What the hell did Argrid need with magic anyway? Let them find some other raider to harass. Vex was done.
But getting imprisoned was the only way Vex could get the Argridian bullies off his back. He needed time to think of how to lose them for good, so he and his crew could return to their far more noble goal of buying the biggest, nicest, most well-fortified mansion on Grace Loray and staying the hell out of everyone else’s way.
Vex sighed and choked on the blood running down the back of his throat.
An hour passed before he could lower his head. Nine other prisoners were in here with him, all raiders, one so old he looked like a pile of dead rags and white hair in the corner. Magic may have been legal now, but stealing and reselling it, passing nonmagic plants as magic ones, or threatening people who refused to pay dues in syndicate territory? Still illegal, though most had to choose between that and starvation. Being an honest sailor cost a lot—your own boat, supplies, taxes. It was far easier to join up with a syndicate and let them take care of you in exchange for things you could actually give, like time and loyalty.
In New Deza, most of the raiders were part of the Mechtland syndicate headed by Ingvar Pilkvist. Not one of Vex’s favorite people. But then, none of the four raider Heads were.
Vex looked his cellmates over again, but this time, he caught one’s eye.
Damn it.
The man had greasy brown hair and tattered clothing over more tattered clothing, held up by a thick crocodile-skin belt. “What’re you looking at, Argridian trash?” he snarled.
Of all Vex’s shortcomings—not that there were many—the one he hated most was how damn Argridian he looked. He couldn’t get rid of the reddish hue to his skin or the sharp angles of his face that made people instantly classify him as one of the enemy, even if he’d been as victimized by Argrid as everyone else.
Vex smirked. “Hey, didn’t you arrest me a month ago? Aren’t you a soldier?”
The inmate’s wrist had no brand, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a raider. Just meant he hadn’t had the pleasure of going through the Church’s rehabilitation.
Vex kicked out his legs and leaned against the wall as leisurely as he could manage. He had the attention of the cell, everyone looking at him like he’d be a fun way to pass the time.
The greasy cellmate huffed. “What’re they doing now, roundin’ up Argridians? Hell, the Council lets those ones from Argrid in for peace talks, so they make up for it by arresting the dregs?” He paused. Squinted. “Wait. Aren’t you—”
“You’re almost too mangy.” Vex cut him off. “Like you’re trying to fit in. Isn’t he?”
A few of the other prisone
rs moved closer.
“You a soldier?”
“He’s here to spy on us! Get our confessions when we think we’re alone!”
“I AIN’T NO SOLDIER!” the man bellowed and snatched Vex upright. “Yer Devereux Bell! Saw him make off with a crate of Healica from the docks last month! It’s him!”
Shit shit shit.
Nayeli was insufferable enough when she was right. But Edda was worse.
“How long did it take ’em to notice ya? Uh-huh. I thought so. Brilliant plan, Captain.”
The rest of the prisoners twisted to Vex. The old man in the corner hadn’t moved. Yeah, he was probably dead.
“You’re Devereux Bell?” one repeated, disbelieving. “Yer so . . . young.”
Another grabbed Vex’s arm. “Head Cansu’ll have a thing or two to say to you!”
Vex hung his head. Great. Not only were raiders from Pilkvist’s syndicate in here, there were ones from the Tuncian syndicate too.
The first prisoner tugged on Vex’s collar. “No way—Head Pilkvist’ll deal with him!”
Vex could use this to his advantage, get the raiders fighting each other. But as he lifted his head to say something nasty about Pilkvist, the door to this wing of cells ground open. Half the prisoners retreated to the back of the cell. Four stayed to surround Vex.
“What’s the trouble?” a guard shouted.
Vex held his breath. The prisoners wouldn’t be stupid enough to respond, would they?
“It’s Devereux Bell!” said the one who’d claimed him for Cansu.
Vex groaned. Apparently, they were that stupid.
“It is him!” the greasy man confirmed, shaking Vex.
“They’ll take credit for finding me, and it’ll become a Council matter,” Vex whispered to the greasy man. “You won’t have a chance in hell of handing me over to Pilkvist.”
The man’s mouth dropped open. “I—uh—no, no, it ain’t him!”
“You said it was!” Cansu’s raider chirped.
Vex gave the first man a look of horror. “What did you say about his mother?”
