by Jake Halpern
“Of course not,” said Wren. Her lips trembled. “A couple Suns killed him. But I found his body right before Fat Freddy’s followers showed up, and they think I did it.”
“Oh my God,” muttered Alec. He had guessed Wren was in trouble, but nothing this bad. “We need to get you on that ship.”
“I’ve got no money—zero,” said Wren. “Weren’t you listening? My stash is gone.”
Alec’s parents had given him some money, but it wouldn’t be enough. And besides, he kept it at the Suns’ treasury, which would already be closed with sundown so near. But there was another option. A better option. The furriers’ sunstones. Isidro had promised him four.
“I can get the money,” said Alec. He glanced at the House Aron pier and then looked at Wren. “I’m due four sunstones. Run to our old spot in the cave. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”
Wren dashed off, taking a path along the shoreline, passing the same descender that had killed the little grayling. She gave it a wide berth and continued onward, clambering over the slippery rocks.
Alec returned to the pier, where Ellie was waiting for him.
“Who was that?” asked Ellie, head tilted ever so slightly.
“No one,” said Alec.
“Was it Wren?”
“Keep your mouth shut,” said Alec. His tone was like a lash. Ellie winced and took a step back.
“Not a word,” said Alec. “Do you have the amulets?”
“Yes,” said Ellie, grateful to speak of something else. “I found them and made sure they were exact copies.” She gave Alec a small velvet bag.
Alec took the bag and headed to the end of the pier. Ellie trailed several steps behind.
House Aron had worked fast, and the scene was set for the furriers’ send-off. A dozen or so dockhands—burly men dressed in gray overalls—worked on preparing the nine funeral scows. All of them except for Isidro’s were House Aron scows, and while Isidro’s was longer than the others, it would still fit through the Ramparts.
Alec walked alongside the boats. Each one held four blocks of ice. Some of the blocks had begun to melt, and Alec could see air bubbles creeping up along the limbs of the entombed. Iron chests laden with sunstones and gems lay nested in the hull of each ship.
Several Blind stood at attention nearby, ready to participate in the send-off ceremony.
Everything was exactly as it should be. Except for Isidro, who was standing at the edge of the pier, staring off to sea.
Sami Aron watched from several feet away.
“Lola, my love, where are you?” Isidro called to the waves. “Lola!”
Alec hurried to Sami Aron.
“He won’t get in his scow,” said Sami Aron, using his yellow rabbit cloak to wipe the sweat from his brow. “He keeps calling for Lola.”
Alec nodded. “Lola was his daughter.”
Sami nodded. “Perhaps I gave him his last drink too early.”
Ordinarily, Sami Aron would not take such an active interest in a funeral, but this one paid more than others.
“I’ll talk to him,” said Alec.
Sami Aron nodded, happy to pass the problem to someone else.
Alec took a deep breath and turned to Isidro. Be calm. Someone in House Aron had put together the last drink—a fatal mixture of spirits and spring-harvested hemlock. It was supposed to take hold quickly, but was not meant to be fatal until the funeral scows were well on their way to the Drain. Alec hoped the drink had been properly made. He knew that those who took the drink often had visions. On rare occasions, they went mad.
Alec walked to the edge of the pier. He shooed away a few seagulls, then approached the old furrier. “Honored Furrier—Isidro,” he said. “It’s me, Alec—I’ve found what you asked for.”
Isidro turned toward him and blinked heavily. “You have the amulets?”
Alec nodded.
Isidro’s eyes were cloudy, as if already veiled with death.
“I have them,” Alec said. “One for your daughter and one for your grandson.” He forced himself to look into Isidro’s watery eyes.
“Show me,” said Isidro hoarsely. His cheeks began to twitch. Alec opened the velvet bag and handed the amulets to Isidro. Ellie had done well to find them so quickly. He glanced back and saw her standing a few feet away, her face white with worry. After this was over, he’d apologize for snapping at her.
Isidro cupped the three amulets in the palms of his thickly calloused hands.
“Thank you,” said Isidro, whispering the words into his hands. “Now I need to say my mantras … Drown the Serpent of Fear … And I’ll be …” He paused. “I’ll be done.” Tears began to roll down Isidro’s cheeks. “I have been sick with worry,” he said. “This island is cursed. Smoke rising from the pipes. Children being hunted. None of it is right.” He started to cough. Flecks of spittle gathered at the edges of his mouth.
Alec shut his eyes. He envisioned the boy lying in the coffin, but for a second, he saw Wren lying there instead of the boy.
“I can help,” said Alec, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“No you can’t!” snapped Isidro, shaking off Alec’s hand. “You’re just a boy. You think you know what you’re doing because you got me two amulets and a vial of poison?”
Alec shook his head. “I meant that I could help you find your fearstone,” said Alec finally. “You do want to throw it, right?”
For those who believed they were near death, the Common Book advised throwing a fearstone into the water. The stone, it was said, represented life’s worries and dreads.
“Yes,” said Isidro, scratching his beard and looking around. His anger seemed to cool. “Yes … my fearstone.”
Alec pointed to a large, rectangular slab of rock that had been placed nearby, in preparation for this moment. Isidro picked it up and heaved it high into the air, then hurled it down, creating an enormous splash.
“Yes,” muttered Isidro. “That was proper.”
Alec lifted his arm. Isidro took it and allowed Alec to walk him to his scow. Alec could sense dozens of eyes on them, including those of Sami Aron and Ellie. He tried to ignore them, and remain focused on Isidro. He just had to keep the old furrier calm.
“The last drink,” muttered Isidro, clamping Alec’s arm with a vise-like grip. “I can feel it working … It’s making me … muddled in the head.”
“You’re doing fine,” said Alec.
Before Isidro climbed into the scow, he stopped and patted Alec on the arm. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ve left an iron chest with a hundred stones for House Aron,” said Isidro. “You earned it. I included four extra stones in a cloth sack marked for you … as promised.”
Four sunstones, just for him.
He still couldn’t believe it. Four sunstones was a small fortune.
But then he remembered something.
“Left it?” said Alec. “Left it where?”
“In the basement,” said Isidro.
“Basement?”
Isidro nodded. The light in his eyes was fading quickly. “I tried to find you, but they said you were attending a boy’s funeral … So I left it … Don’t worry—it’s all there.”
Alec frowned. He was supposed to collect the payment himself, then transfer it to the vault. But he’d always assumed that Isidro would pay him here—on the pier. It had been careless of him, but there was nothing he could do until the furriers had been launched.
The scows creaked as they rubbed against the pier. Alec gripped Isidro’s thick forearms. “Thank you,” he said. “You are very generous.”
Isidro stepped off the dock and into his scow. He teetered down the length of the boat, stepping over various iron chests, past the slabs of ice, until he found his seat on the bow. Then he sat and closed his eyes.
Alec turned to the dockhands and nodded for them to untie the boats. As they set to work, Alec began to sing the words of “The Northman’s Dirge.”
Death chills the blood,
Ice binds t
he limbs.
The trees that built the boats
Sink now to the depths.
The ghost-child comes to take away your fear,
To bless these lives
That began
In the mists
And crags and whorls of ice shadow.
May the Sun warm you
So you may thaw in the world-after, and live again.
It was not a hymn often heard in Edgeland, but its effect was immediate. Sami Aron stood behind Alec, tears in his eyes. Ellie dropped to her knees and recited the sunset prayer. Farther down the pier, even the watchmen—who had been standing at attention—set down their rifles and bowed their heads respectfully.
The first star emerged in the eastern sky. With its arrival, bells began to ring in spires and turrets across the island. The seventy-two-hour day was nearly over.
As soon as Alec finished singing, the dockhands pushed the boats into the water. The current took hold of them as they floated slowly away. House Aron’s pier was on the sheltered side of the island—not the side facing the Drain. For this reason, the scows would have a longer journey before being swept over the falls.
Sami Aron stepped forward, a broad smile on his face.
Alec stopped him before he spoke. “There’s a problem.”
“Nonsense,” said Sami Aron, shaking his head in disbelief. “The ceremony was wonderful!”
“Isidro left his payment in the basement,” said Alec.
Sami Aron’s face whitened. He pursed his lips. “Alec! You of all people—you should know we never send them off without confirmation of the payment. Run and secure it. And pray it’s all there!”
Alec nodded and turned to go, but Sami Aron stopped him. “Go to my storage locker in the middle of the pier and take a Shadow cloak.”
Alec’s eyes widened.
“I know, I know,” said Sami Aron, taking in Alec’s expression. “It is a sin, but this business with Fat Freddy will get worse, I fear, and I don’t want you harassed by Shadows. The rest of us will go back to House Aron together. No one will bother such a large group.”
Alec hurried to get the Shadow cloak, and hid it under his arm until he’d exited the pier. He waited for the watchmen to look away before sliding the cloak across his shoulders.
He was back at House Aron within minutes.
Using his master key, he unlocked the back door, which opened directly to the rear staircase. He ran down the stone steps two at a time and entered the basement.
The room was cold.
And empty.
Alec raced along the perimeter, but there was nothing there. Sweat blossomed across his chest and back. He circled the room again, slowly and methodically.
“Alec, it was so beautiful!”
Alec looked up. Ellie was at the entrance, beaming.
“I cried—the way you sung those songs—it was so, so wonderful!” But then she looked at his face. “What’s the matter?”
“Isidro said he left an iron chest here.” He looked at her, panicked. “Where is it?”
Ellie’s eyebrows narrowed in thought. Then her face lit up. “Yes, we realized it had been brought down here by mistake. It’s all taken care of. One of the Blind brought it to the pier. We put it in Isidro’s scow.”
Alec gasped and took a step back. He almost lost his balance. “The chest that was here … in this basement … It’s on Isidro’s scow?”
Ellie’s face fell, and she nodded.
“Ellie,” he said, his voice cracking. “That was House Aron’s payment. Our sunstones, our jewels—everything the furriers gave us—it’s going over the Drain.”
For several seconds Alec’s mind went blank. And then he was charging up the stairs, leaving Ellie behind. He burst through the back door of House Aron and ran to a bend in the road overlooking the harbor.
There they were. The scows were a half mile offshore, bobbing up and down in the chop.
Alec felt pressure rising with his chest. He wanted to scream. That payment was everything. If it fell into the Drain … When it fell into the Drain, he’d be ruined. Alec drummed a clenched fist against his forehead—hard. He could think of only one person: Wren.
What would happen to her? They needed those sunstones to save her life.
Alec stared at the boats in the water, as if the intensity of his gaze could turn them around. Isidro’s scow was in front. If he had a telescope, he could probably see the chest that should have been in House Aron’s basement.
And then a crucial thought broke through his despair: Isidro was in the scow he had made. It was thirty feet, longer than the others. Thirty feet. The vents beneath the Ramparts were only twenty feet wide. If the boat were spun in the right direction, at the right time, it would be trapped in the vent. Stuck.
There might be a way to retrieve those sunstones after all. It would mean jumping into the boat, grabbing the chest, and getting out again. How long would that take? Less than a minute. Getting down to the right place would be hard, but not impossible. There were maintenance ladders all over the Ramparts. All they’d need was a long pole to spin the scow and jam it. And all the luck in the world.
He looked again at the funeral scows, bobbing in the current.
But was there enough time?
Alec sprinted down the road, toward the seashore and the cave. As he ran, he watched Isidro’s little flotilla move slowly around the island and toward the Drain.
Soon, he approached the cave and called for Wren.
She was inside, crouched against the slick wall, but rose quickly when she saw him come in—with such hope in her eyes that Alec felt thoroughly miserable.
He paused, reluctant to speak. The cave felt clammy and disgusting, like it was sweating.
“Alec!” she said, her eyes boring into his. “What’s wrong?”
It was too difficult to hold her gaze. He looked away. “There was a mistake,” he said. “Our money is on Isidro’s scow—and it’s gone.”
“What?” Wren whispered. “How?”
“Wren—listen. We can fix this,” said Alec, quickly explaining his idea for recovering the chest at the Ramparts.
Wren looked out the mouth of the cave, toward the sea, and nodded several times. “It’s worth a try. I have nothing left to lose.” She rubbed her forehead, wiping away the sweat that had gathered there like dew. “I know the quickest way to the other side of the island. Let’s go.”
Seconds later, they’d left the cave and were scrambling over the rocks like alley cats. With Wren leading the way, they hurried past the great seaside warehouses of the Coffin District. Afterward, Wren turned inland and cut across the island on a stretch known as Mourners’ Way. If you needed extra people to cry, wail, and tremble at a funeral, you came here to hire them. A few mourners were standing about, looking bereft and ready for employment.
Alec glanced at their somber, silver-streaked faces, their gleaming robes and their blessing staffs. He had never been down this road at the beginning of Night. He wondered whether they could tell he wasn’t a Shadow—and sped up.
They soon arrived at a long stone pier that jutted into the sea. They had made it there faster than Alec had thought possible. His chest heaved with exertion, and a cramp stabbed at his stomach like a knife.
“Do you have any water?” he asked Wren.
She shook her head. Her mind was elsewhere. Alec followed her gaze to the end of the pier, where curling waves frothed and crashed. A rickety vessel was moored there—a schooner with peeling red paint.
“Wait here,” said Wren.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to talk to Crown,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
Wren dashed down to the schooner and climbed aboard, while Alec remained crouched on the rocks beside the pier. He glanced about, searching for signs of trouble—sentries or curious Shadows. But there was no one. Come on, Wren. Be quick, be quick.
He had to get those sunstones back. For himself, and House Aron, but most of
all for Wren. He owed her. Alec thought back to the night when she’d been thrown out of House Aron. There’d been a hunt to find the person who’d stolen that diamond ring. Sami Aron was enraged, screaming and threatening people. He was a bear when he was angry. Sami had come to Alec’s room, pounded on his door. “Wren’s the thief, isn’t she?” demanded Sami. “Confess, little whiff, or I’m sending you home with a note saying that you failed me. What would your parents say? It was Wren, wasn’t it?” And then Alec nodded and sealed her fate. The memory of it still made Alec wince.
Less than five minutes later, Wren returned with Crown, who was wearing an oilskin rain slicker, heavy boots, and a knit cap—a man ready for a sea journey. Alec climbed back onto the pier. Crown nodded and smiled, revealing a mouth crowded with yellowing teeth.
“So this is your client?” asked Crown, eying Alec. “The boy with the sunstones?”
“They’re not on him,” interjected Wren. “It’s like I said—they’re stashed down by the Ramparts.”
“Right,” said Crown. “And you need a skiff to get down there.”
“Yes,” said Wren. “You give us a skiff, and then at sunrise—when you sail—all you need to do is pick us up at Needle Island.”
She pointed to a small outcropping of rocks that extended from the Ramparts to the sea, large enough to hold a lighthouse and a small temple.
“And when you get us,” said Wren, “we’ll give you a sunstone.”
“A sunstone!” said Alec. Wren had lost her mind. It was an exorbitant sum. Plus, she was promising a sunstone they didn’t even have.
“Haven’t you two discussed this yet?” asked Crown, pulling at his scraggly beard.
Wren said yes at the very instant that Alec said no.
Crown tsked, and glanced back toward the schooner. “I have to get this boat loaded for another job. Do we have a deal or not? I think a sunstone is a fair price for smuggling a grayling off Edgeland right about now—given what’s going on—eh?” He looked meaningfully at Wren. “By the way,” he said, “your wig is crooked.”
Wren held his gaze, stony-faced, and adjusted the wig.
Alec drew his unfamiliar Shadow robe closer to his body to ward off the evening chill. “How do we know you’ll be there?”
