Borderlands

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  Quirin mutters some instructions to Silver, then crosses outside. He drops to sit upon the edge of the deck, ready to slide beneath the guardrail and down into the shallow water.

  ‘Wait!’ Clementine says. ‘I mean, please sir – can’t I come? I need to make sure . . .’

  Quirin glances back at her. ‘Your sister is still alive. If there’d been any deaths on the Forgotten, Laverna would have raised the flag.’

  ‘But if I could just come and see for myself . . .’

  ‘You’ll have to take my word for it, girl,’ Quirin says. ‘The Forgotten still has work to do tonight. I don’t have time to babysit you.’

  Clementine bites her lip, but doesn’t respond.

  As we watch, Quirin slips into the water. Here it’s so shallow that it barely brushes his waist. After a few steps, he reaches the edge of the rock plateau – one moment he’s wading, and the next he’s gone. His arms reappear about twenty metres away, churning like oars through the lagoon.

  I place a hand on Clementine’s shoulder, then help her to her feet.

  ‘What’s the Forgotten gotta do now?’ Teddy says. ‘I reckon they’ve earned a rest after all that.’

  ‘Emergency supply stash, hidden on the far side of the lagoon,’ Silver says. ‘Food, bandages, medicine. Alchemy juices, too. Quirin’s hopin’ to re-stock these boats, I’d judge, since everything’s been washed away.’

  ‘Well,’ Teddy says, ‘I’m not gonna argue if there’s food involved.’

  For a moment we just stand there, at a loss for what to do. I expect Silver to give us some instructions – to clear away the wreckage, perhaps, or venture down and salvage sheets from the draining bunkroom. But she just stands there, one hand upon the wheel, her eyes as distant as stars.

  ‘Should we . . .’ I hesitate. ‘Should we say a prayer, or sing a song or something? For the people on the Merchant’s Daughter.’

  Silver gives a bitter little laugh. ‘No songs’ll help them now, my friend. There ain’t no happy place in the afterlife for smugglers.’

  More silence. I don’t know how to argue with that. I’ve never had much time for religion myself. Only the sort of desperate prayers you make in Rourton on a winter’s night, when you pray the God of Mouldy Biscuits might prompt a richie to drop some edible rubbish out their window.

  I step forward, and place a hesitant hand on the wheel beside Silver’s. ‘You saved all our lives,’ I tell her. ‘No one else could have got the boat through that.’

  Silver looks down at my hand and stiffens. I think she’s going to yell at me for presuming to put my hand upon the captain’s wheel. Then I realise she’s staring at my mother’s bracelet – or more specifically, at the silver charms that dangle near the clasp.

  ‘Where’d you get those?’ Her voice is strange. Tight.

  I glance at the charms. ‘A friend gave them to me.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘My friend who’s missing in the borderlands. I thought he might have been the one nagging you to join his fight against the king . . .’

  But Silver is no longer listening. She pulls my wrist upwards into the moonlight, and runs a shaking finger across the charms. Her touch lingers upon the silver star. She rubs it between thumb and forefinger: back and forth, back and forth.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I say. ‘I didn’t steal them, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  Silver looks up at me. Her expression is oddly strained. When she speaks, there is barely a trace of the fake western accent in her voice. ‘I’ve seen these charms before, my friend. Many, many years ago.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I made them.’

  A breeze wafts across the surface of the lagoon, throwing ripples into a dance around the edges of our boat. I glance across at my friends, who look just as dumbstruck as I am by this revelation. Then I turn back to Silver. ‘You made them?’

  She nods. ‘I told you I was an alchemist.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘In my old life.’ Her voice is almost a whisper now. ‘In my old life, before I became a smuggler. I brewed alchemy charms, yes. And I was the best at it. Charms like these . . . they’re why I took the name “Silver” when I joined this clan.’

  Silver’s fingers tremble. Behind her, I see the Forgotten pull away into the night.

  ‘But I made other things, too,’ she says. ‘So many things, my friends. Things of which I am ashamed. Things that give me nightmares, that make my soul burn with every moment of the dark.’ She runs her fingers across the silver star once more.

  ‘You worked for the royal family?’ I say.

  Silver nods. ‘I led a crew of experimental alchemists. We were young and reckless, and we dreamed of earning our place in history. We invented such things . . . such wonderful things. Such terrible things.’

  My mouth goes dry. ‘Things like what?’

  Silver releases her grip on the star charm. She shakes her head, then steps away. A moment of agony twists her face – as though she’s been reminded of a terrible truth, a truth she has worked years to bury. Then she shakes her head again, runs a hand through her hair, and retreats into the shadows of the cabin.

  ‘Things like what?’ I repeat.

  Silver steps deeper into the shadows. She slumps against a wall, then slides down into a sitting position with her head in her hands. Her body shakes. She does not respond.

  For the rest of the night, we doze. There’ll be an almighty clean-up in the morning, but for now we’re too weary to care. I choose a position near the front of the boat, wrapped in a jumble with Teddy and Clementine. We lean our heads upon each other’s shoulders, sharing body heat. For the first time in days, there’s no awkwardness. There’s just the night, the water and our crew.

  Still, no one really sleeps. I feel the others tremble every now and then. My mind flashes with images. Maisy, bleeding. The surge. The Merchant’s Daughter going under . . . the moment its light snuffed out. The scream of thunder in my head. The moment I almost lost myself to the Night – and the horrific pleasure of that sensation.

  Finally, dawn pours across the lagoon, thick and sticky. We get to work in silence, as if by an unspoken agreement. Silver fiddles with her alchemy chest, rearranging the vials to take stock of her supplies. A couple of vials have smashed, despite Teddy’s efforts to protect the chest, so she cuts her sleeves into makeshift gloves to safely dispose of the mess.

  Teddy’s nose is tender, but not broken. The burn on Clementine’s palm is clean. I want to ask Silver to heal it with her bone charm, but the old woman doesn’t seem ready to talk. Besides, the last thing we need is to slip further into her debt. So we wash the wound and bind it ourselves. Clementine helps us haul furniture without a word of complaint. I know her mind isn’t here – it’s with Maisy, sailing off across the lagoon. But I’m still impressed by how she ignores the pain. I suffered plenty of burns when I worked for a Rourton blacksmith, and I know how much they sting. I don’t know if I’d be so stoic with an acid-burn across my palm.

  We haul blankets and pillows up from the bunkroom, which is now mostly drained. The bedding is sopping, of course, so we hang it to dry along the boat’s guardrail.

  The wooden chairs can’t be salvaged, so we dump them over the side. Chucking them into the water is oddly satisfying, and somehow – after a couple of winks from Teddy – we wind up competing for the biggest splosh. I’m quite happy with my contribution of a belly-flopping chair leg, until Teddy bowls an entire bum-rest over the side. It sprays water up to our faces before it floats to the surface, and Clementine lets out a splutter of disbelief.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Teddy says. ‘Nort wins by a mile!’

  Clementine stares into the water, where our wooden wreckage is bobbing. ‘It seems like such a waste,’ she says quietly. I don’t think she’s just talking about the chairs, bu
t before I can say anything Teddy pipes up.

  ‘Some lucky fish can get a nice new home out of them,’ he says. ‘There’s enough nooks and crannies in that lot to call it a mansion.’

  He grins, and tries to skim a chair leg like a stone across the water. It plops on the first bounce. ‘Ah well. You win some, you lose some.’

  As the day passes, the Nightsong slowly shifts back into a viable living space. Not a viable boat, of course – if we tried to steer off these rocks, we’d sink as fast as Teddy’s chair leg. But at least the cabin and bunkroom are clean, and the debris is cleared away. I even find a crate of honey-spice nuts down in some forgotten corner of the storage compartment. They’re soaked with river water, of course, but still look mostly edible. At this point, I’m willing to call them a feast.

  I offer the nuts to Silver first, since I guess they’re her property. But she shakes her head, still concentrating on her alchemy vials. Clearly, she isn’t in the mood to talk. So I shrug, and hoist the crate out onto the deck to share with my friends.

  We sit on the deck, dangle our legs over the edge, and watch the sun inch its way across the sky. Noon comes and goes. I suck on a nut, then another, and then an entire fistful at once. Sweetness melts across my tongue. The taste brings back a memory of the last time I tasted honey-spice nuts. It was just after we fled Rourton, when I’d stolen a bag of food from the guard tower.

  I hadn’t even known my crewmates then – at least, not in the ways that matter. I’d still thought of them as shallow, and easy to define. There was Teddy Nort, the famous pickpocket. Clementine and Maisy Pembroke, spoiled richie twins who’d never known hardship in their lives. And Radnor, their leader. The boy who put this crew together. The boy who –

  Don’t think about it.

  But it’s too late. The memory is back again. Blood in the water. A body slipping. A body tumbling, and the rush of the waterfall . . .

  The sweet taste sours in my mouth. I force myself to swallow, then lean further over the rail. Water laps beneath me, cool and green. I try to focus on it. It looks nothing like the waterfall. Nothing like the water of the storm last night. It’s just cold and pure, the colour of grass. The colour of bottles, or summer leaves.

  The longer I stare, the easier it is to let my mind drift away. The ripples are silent. Gentle. I rest my head in the crook of my elbow, and let the warm sun spill across my skin.

  ‘You know,’ Teddy says, ‘this wouldn’t be such a bad life, really.’

  His words are almost wistful. I look up at him, struck by his tone. ‘Living on the rivers, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah, exactly. It’d be pretty relaxing, I reckon, when you’re not off on smuggling trips. Sunshine, sand and –’

  ‘Deadly alchemical storms?’

  ‘Hey, two out of three isn’t bad.’

  I frown, not sure whether he’s serious. Less than a day ago, Teddy argued that the Valley was our only hope for a new life. But now, with his eyes fixed on the quiet water, there’s a strange sort of longing in his tone.

  I don’t know much about Teddy’s history. He’s never spoken of his childhood – how he became a pickpocket, what drove him onto the streets. I’ve tried to ask, of course, but he’s an expert at deflecting personal questions.

  I suppose that smugglers and thieves are similar, in a way. They live beyond the boundary of the law. They profit by inflicting misfortune on others – and as friendly as Teddy might be, I can’t deny that his burglaries have victims.

  But Teddy would never kill for a profit. He wouldn’t sell people to the hunters, like Hackel did. He wouldn’t smuggle weapons, or try to make money out of war. And if he faced a dying girl like Maisy, he wouldn’t demand payment to save her.

  He might be a thief, but he isn’t heartless.

  ‘So when we’ve paid off our debt to Silver,’ I say slowly, ‘you’re planning to ask her for work ­experience?’

  ‘That’s an awful idea,’ Clementine says, looking irritated. ‘You don’t belong with these people. I don’t trust these smugglers any more than I’d trust a thief.’

  ‘Er . . .’ Teddy says, ‘I dunno if you’ve noticed this, Clementine, but you’ve been hanging out with a thief for a while now.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘How?’

  Clementine hesitates. ‘Well, you’re not a nasty thief. Not like these people.’

  ‘Not a nasty thief?’ Teddy breaks into a grin. ‘That’s gotta be either the nicest or the most insulting thing a richie’s ever said to me.’

  ‘Do I want to know what most richies say to you?’

  ‘Depends,’ Teddy says. ‘Keen to add any new curses to your vocabulary?’

  ‘That depends,’ Clementine says, ‘on whether you’re serious about becoming a smuggler.’

  Teddy glances around the boat, then back towards the cabin. Inside, I see the silhouette of Silver, who’s still bent over her alchemy vials. There’s a weary hunch in her back, and she no longer resembles a spry old squirrel. I wonder if her earlier strength was the result of an alchemy charm, or whether she’s just worn down by the storm last night.

  Teddy waves a dismissive hand. ‘Nah, I reckon you’re right about the smugglers. Better not to trust them.’ He pauses, then offers Clementine a smile. ‘Anyway, after everything we’ve been through, do you really reckon I’d let you guys nick off to the Valley without me?’

  Clementine looks oddly touched, until Teddy adds, ‘I mean, who knows what kind of richies live on the other side? I’m not gonna miss out on a whole new nation of purses to steal.’

  His smile melts into a devious grin, and I can’t hold back a laugh. Perhaps my first impression of Teddy Nort was accurate after all.

  In the afternoon, we scrub the deck. There aren’t many other jobs left to do – not without building supplies, at least. It’s hard to patch up broken walls when all you’ve got to work with is a crate of honey-nuts and a few soggy blankets.

  Scrubbing isn’t much fun, but I’m still in a fairly decent mood. Mostly I’m grateful for the rest. It’s been a long time since I felt safe enough to relax – just soaking up sunshine under an open sky. My skin feels warm and toasty, and there’s a fresh spattering of freckles on Teddy’s nose.

  But as the afternoon light starts to fade, so do our newfound spirits. I know Clementine’s worried about Maisy; the Forgotten’s been gone the entire day. I’m worried about her too. And if I’m honest with myself, Maisy isn’t the only person I’m thinking about. Because the more I look at this lagoon, the less it reminds me of grass or bottles . . . and the more it reminds me of bright green eyes.

  I’ve blocked Lukas from my mind for the last couple of days. The hunters, the soldiers, the storm . . . they’ve all been more pressing, more urgent. First my friends were in danger, and there was Maisy’s wound to deal with. But now I’ve got no more excuses. I have to face the fact that he’s left us. That he’s running towards danger.

  And I have no idea how to save him.

  Clementine throws down her scrubbing cloth. ‘How long does it take to collect a few supplies?’

  ‘Maybe Quirin’s being extra careful,’ I say. ‘You know, to make sure they’re not being followed. If he’s going to some super-secret hideout, I bet he’s really keen to keep it hidden.’

  ‘If there was a problem,’ Teddy says, ‘Silver’d tell us, I reckon. She doesn’t look worried yet, does she?’

  We all glance back through the cabin window. The old woman is still inside, fiddling with the mechanics of the clockwork wall. I don’t know what she’s doing – cleaning out the river gunge from when the boat went under, perhaps.

  ‘Wish she’d just tell us what our job’s gonna be,’ Teddy says. ‘To pay off our debt, I mean.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say. ‘I want . . . I want to look for Lukas.’

  I drop my voice to a whisper. Even
though Silver’s inside the cabin, there are no more solid walls to block the sound of our voices. ‘If this job’s too hard, or too dangerous, I was thinking that –’

  ‘Maybe we should just nick off?’ Teddy says. ‘Yeah, I reckon so too.’

  Clementine bites her lip. ‘We have to wait until Maisy’s better. And as much as I dislike these smugglers, I don’t like to break my word. I was raised to see oath-breaking as . . . dishon­ourable.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, voice low. ‘But if Lukas is the boy who’s been following the smugglers around, nagging them to help him fight the king, then –’

  ‘But why would he do that?’ Clementine says. ‘I know you want to think it’s him, Danika, but I don’t think it makes any sense.’

  I bristle. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why would he enlist a bunch of smugglers, of all people? He’s a prince; he’s not about to join up with criminals to bring down his own family.’

  ‘Course he would,’ Teddy says. ‘He joined up with us, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We’re not smugglers, for one thing,’ Clementine says. ‘I’ll admit Silver’s done nothing to hurt us, but –’

  As if on cue, Silver steps out through the remains of the cabin wall. Clementine falls silent. The old woman has a distant look in her eyes – the same look she’s worn since last night.

  ‘Everything all right?’ I say.

  Silver stares out across the lagoon. There is a long pause, as though she is deciding what to say. Almost subconsciously, she fiddles with the alchemy charms around her neck.

  ‘I need to know something,’ she says finally. ‘The friend who gave you those charms. What was his name?’

  I don’t know what to say. Silver used to work for the royal family; if I tell her about Lukas, she’ll recognise the name of the prince. She’ll realise we’re more than just ordinary refugees. That we might be worth a lot of reward money . . .

  ‘It was Lukas Morrigan, wasn’t it?’ she says.