The Navigator

by Sky, Erin Michelle; Brown, Steven;

  “I … you were?” Wendy was so surprised, in fact, that she hardly knew what to say.

  “I was. The Pegasus cannot yet fly, and we need her to. Desperately. A flying ship of our own is the only chance we have against a flying enemy. And so far, Miss Darling, you are the only one who has had any luck getting any of these creatures to do anything. We have to get that ship in the air tonight—before Blackheart can either steal it back or sink it.”

  “He’s returning in the morning?” Wendy asked.

  “I have no idea. But we can’t afford to take the chance. We’re risking everything on this mission. That ship is close to flying, and we can’t be sure how much time we have left before Blackheart returns. We’ll transfer to The Pegasus tonight—crew, cargo … all of it. We’re sending The Tiger back to England, so it won’t fall into enemy hands. But if The Pegasus can’t fly before Blackheart returns …” Hook trailed off and raised a meaningful eyebrow.

  “She’ll be dead in the water,” Wendy said.

  “We’ll be dead in the water. So, can we do it?”

  “I don’t know how long the process will take,” Wendy admitted, “meaning the magic itself. But I’m sure the innisfay will help. And the quickest way to do that is to give them their freedom. Immediately. Not to make them bargain for it. They’ll work much harder for us, and much faster, if they see us as allies.”

  Hook regarded her, lightly tapping the point of his hook against the desk, and then he finally made his decision.

  “So be it,” he said. “I hope you’re right, Miss Darling. Our very lives may well depend on it.”

  o Wendy returned to the quartermaster with a renewed sense of purpose. She explained the situation to the innisfay, who could all understand her perfectly even if she could not understand any of them. It also helped that Charming spoke to them on her behalf, assuring them he had been living on the ship of his own free will—and that they were all being freed, whether they chose to help or not.

  But the innisfay were no friends to Blackheart, not after the way he and his crew had treated them, and they seemed more than willing to stay and help the enemy of their enemy.

  The imps, on the other hand, were a different story. They were all members of Blackheart’s crew, and while the loyalty of an imp to any master might well be questioned, they were clearly not loyal to Wendy.

  “Let me out of here, and I’ll bite your nose off!” one of the imps in the back shouted. He growled and spat through the bars.

  “That’s an awfully strange lie to tell,” Wendy muttered.

  “Who says he’s lying?”

  It was the closest imp who answered her, even though Wendy hadn’t been speaking to anyone in particular—an imp wearing a light blue linen shirt tucked into wool breeches as black as his boots. His skin was a slightly more golden hue than the imp Wendy had already met, and his eyes were a deep amber to match.

  “Why, no one,” Wendy replied. “But I thought …” She trailed off, but the imp raised one finger and tapped it knowingly against the tip of his nose.

  “Oh, I see. Yes, I understand. You’ve met Barnaby. That explains where he was all day. But he’s not here with us, now is he? I suppose you’ve killed him already.” The imp scowled and gnashed his teeth, glaring at Wendy through the bars of his cage.

  “Of course not!” Wendy protested. “He’s in the doctor’s quarters.”

  “So you didn’t kill him, then. You just beat him up a bit, is that it? I’m supposed to feel better about that?”

  “No! No one beat him. That’s where he’s staying, that’s all. He’s perfectly healthy, I assure you.”

  “Oh, you assure me. Yes, that makes me feel much better. The lady sailor who has me prisoner is assuring me that Barnaby is in perfect health. Well, forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

  “Look,” Wendy said, frowning, “I promise you there is an imp in the infirmary who is perfectly healthy. I can’t promise you it’s this Barnaby fellow. He never told me his name.”

  “Right, well he wouldn’t, would he? He’d tell you every other name in the world, though. Jim, Lawrence, Clementine, Anastasia … but never Barnaby. On account of he always lies, which is why I know it’s him. He’s the only one what always lies. We’re not all the same, you know.”

  “I … I didn’t assume—”

  “Bah! Course you did. Humans always assume. Meet one lying imp, expect us all to be liars. Bloody fools, humans.”

  Wendy narrowed her eyes. “And how many of us have you met?” she shot back. “Perhaps it’s you who’s assuming things about us. Maybe we don’t all make those kinds of assumptions.”

  “You did, though. You practically said so yourself.” The imp placed his hands on his narrow hips and scowled again, all but daring her to deny it. Which she could not. Because what he said was true.

  “Yes, well,” Wendy said quietly, “that doesn’t mean we all do.”

  “Doesn’t mean you don’t either,” the imp said, grunting at the end.

  “Well, why does he always lie, then, if it isn’t in his nature?”

  “It is in his nature. It’s just not in his nature as an imp. It’s in his nature as Barnaby. Imps are all born with, well, let’s call them idiosyncrasies. Barnaby’s is lying. He can’t help it. Just like Scrant threatens everyone with violence.”

  “Shut your mouth, Goldie, or I’ll shut it for you! Permanently!” Scrant yelled from his cage in the back.

  “See?” Goldie commented.

  “Well, what’s yours then?” Wendy asked.

  “He’s a thief!” Scrant yelled. “But he’ll be a dead thief soon!”

  Goldie just grinned and pulled a small coin from his pocket, flipping it into the air before catching it and stowing it away again.

  “Mr. Quinton,” Wendy said, getting the quartermaster’s attention.

  “Yes, Miss Darling?”

  “I have orders for you, from the captain. We are transferring to The Pegasus. Everyone and everything. Tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Mr. Quinton repeated.

  “By morning, with a little luck, she’ll be flying!”

  “Flying,” he repeated.

  “Flying, Mr. Quinton!” Wendy rocked back on her heels and grinned. “We must be ready!”

  “Right! At least this will be a smaller job than the last. We’ll be ready,” Quinton agreed. And then he added, speaking only to himself, “Of all the things I never thought I’d see. A flying ship!”

  He shook his head in wonder, but there was much to be done and very little time in which to do it. Even as Wendy left with her newfound flock of innisfay, the quartermaster was already barking out orders.

  The rest of the night sped by in a whirlwind of activity. Wendy and Charming organized the innisfay into an energetic crew that flitted back and forth over the deck of The Pegasus with obvious enthusiasm, dropping innisfay dust anywhere and everywhere. They left bright, glittering trails in their wake, shimmering by lamplight as they darted between and around Hook’s men, who carried barrels and crates and chests from The Tiger to The Pegasus (and sometimes from The Pegasus to The Tiger) in a flurry of organized chaos.

  Because they could not rely on the imps, it fell to the human crew to oil the dust into the deck. Wendy had no idea whether the oil itself was magical, but they found plenty of it in the hold of The Pegasus itself, and Hook assigned Wendy’s Fourteenth Platoon to the detail.

  “Watch out!”

  “Mind your head.”

  “Coming through!”

  Men shouted warnings to each other as the platoon scrambled to keep up with the innisfay, rubbing dust into the deck with as much vigor as they could muster while trying to stay out of everyone’s way. There was more than one instance in which warnings went unheeded and someone tripped over a scrubber, their crate crashing to the deck and skidding along the boards. This was always accompanied by loud hollering and explosive accusations in both directions, but in the end no one was seriously hurt, crates w
ere repacked and stowed away, and the night progressed until Mr. Quinton proclaimed that, miracle of miracles, the last of the cargo had been transferred and the ship was ready to sail.

  “But is she ready to fly?”

  Hook stood at the helm, directing the inquiry to Wendy, who stood next to him, her eyes bright with excitement.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. She leaned toward him, and Hook took a quick step back in surprise. But she was just reaching through the spokes of the ship’s wheel to find the hidden compartment.

  Only, it was empty.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” Hook asked. He could see from her expression that something unexpected had just happened, and day was already beginning to dawn. They could not afford any miscalculations.

  “There’s supposed to be a thimble,” she said, feeling around in the compartment again, but it was just as empty as before. “We need it to fly the ship.”

  “A thimble?” Hook repeated, his voice incredulous.

  “I know how it sounds, but yes. A thimble. It’s tied magically to the ship. And the dust. And it makes the ship fly. By thinking.”

  “Miss Darling,” Hook said, his eyes narrowing considerably, “you seem to possess a rather extensive knowledge of how all this works. I don’t suppose there was anything you might have left out of your reports?”

  Wendy gave up fishing around in the compartment and knelt on the deck, searching the area beneath the wheel to see where the thimble might have fallen.

  “I was already pushing the boundaries of your belief by claiming that the ship could fly, Captain. If I had mentioned a thimble being its primary source of movement, would that have made me seem more or less credible, do you think?”

  She stopped searching the deck and stared up at him from where she was kneeling.

  “I see your point,” he admitted. “But where is it, then?”

  “If I knew that, would I be down here looking for it?”

  Hook sighed. “What does it look like?”

  “Like a thimble,” she replied, looking around again. “Like any other thimble. Although, I suppose it wouldn’t have to be a thimble. It might be anything small, really. Metal, I expect. Something that could fit into your hand. A bullet, perhaps. Or … oh!”

  Wendy sprang to her feet.

  “Mr. Quinton!” she shouted. “Where is the armory? I need to see the new armory at once!”

  “Miss Darling,” Hook growled, “are you about to tell me that we have to search out one particular bullet in the armory?”

  “No, sir!” Wendy said, grinning. “Just one particular imp.”

  “That one!” Wendy declared, pointing toward the imp they called Goldie. “You! Give us that coin!”

  “What coin?” Goldie asked. He raised his eyebrows and opened his empty hands as though to say, I have no idea what you’re talking about. But, of course, he knew perfectly well what coin she meant.

  “The coin you tossed in the air before,” Wendy told him. “You thought I wouldn’t know what it was. And I didn’t. Not at first. But you’re a thief by nature, and there’s nothing more valuable on this ship than the token that flies it. Now, hand it over.”

  “Or what?” Goldie crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her smugly.

  But Hook had had enough. He raised a pistol and aimed it squarely at the imp’s chest. “This is not a negotiation. Hand it over, or I will take it from your dead body.”

  “Do it!” Scrant yelled from his cage, which had yet again been positioned near the back—for good reason. “Kill him! Stupid imp doesn’t know how to keep a secret! I told you not to show ’em, you arrogant imbecile!”

  Goldie scowled, but he fished the coin out of his pocket and handed it over. Wendy took it, and already it felt warm to the touch. She thought about moving, just an inch, and the coin twitched against her palm.

  “This is it, Captain!” Wendy handed it over, placing it carefully in Hook’s good left hand, and in that precise moment, they heard Smee’s whistle from the upper deck.

  Enemies spotted.

  Blackheart had returned.

  hey ran through the ship as shouts filled the air. Sailors rushed past them heading for the cannons even as Hook and Wendy raced for the deck.

  “How does it work?” Hook shouted back over his shoulder.

  “Just hold the coin, and think about moving—both speed and direction,” she told him. “Don’t think about moving the ship, though. Think about moving yourself. The coin binds you to the ship. So wherever you imagine yourself going, the ship will go instead.”

  “Simple enough.”

  “Well, yes and no. Make sure you hold the coin tightly. It …” She wanted to say it would feel like the coin was fighting him, trying to jump out of his hand, but how would she know what it felt like? Hook had no idea she had navigated a flying ship before. “It’s important,” she said instead.

  “Understood,” Hook barked.

  “And set the sails as though we were at sea. The wind helps, even in the air.”

  “Right. Anything else?”

  There was, of course, one more thing. And since it was a matter of safety, she could hardly fail to mention it, no matter how much she might prefer not to. By now, they had reached the final ladder to the deck, and Hook began climbing it hand over hand. Or, rather, hand over hook.

  At least she didn’t have to look at him.

  “When you first take off," she said, trying to speak casually, “do it quickly, so the keel doesn’t catch in the water and tip her. But not so fast that you toss the men overboard.”

  Unfortunately, Hook was starting to know Wendy a bit too well for her own good. He emerged from the hatch and turned to watch her as she climbed onto the deck behind him.

  “This is getting awfully specific, Miss Darling. I’m beginning to think you left more out of your reports than a thimble.”

  He had not technically asked her a question, so Wendy did not reply. But he held his hook out in the air in front of her to stop her from walking away, and he looked her straight in the eye.

  “Miss Darling, have you flown an everlost vessel?”

  There was no escaping it. He already knew the answer to his question, and Wendy knew that he knew it.

  “Aye, Captain,” she admitted. “The night Pan showed me his ship. He let me fly it to Dover.”

  “Then tell me what to do—specifically, step by step—before that ship gets close enough to realize what is happening and sink us right here in this cove.” Hook gestured toward Blackheart’s ship, flying above the distant horizon in the early morning light.

  “Just hold the coin,” Wendy told him. “Tightly. And think about moving forward through the water, without moving your feet, at about the speed we would normally sail. We have to get the ship out from under the rock before we can fly.”

  “Think about flying the ship without flying the ship?”

  “Think about moving yourself along the water,” Wendy told him. “The ship will move for you.”

  Hook stood and stared at her, doing nothing.

  “Captain, we’re running out of time. Do it. You have to trust me.”

  “I am doing it,” he growled. “Nothing’s happening. What am I doing wrong?”

  “I have no idea,” Wendy admitted. “You just think it, and it happens.”

  Hook glanced at Blackheart’s ship. It was not flying especially fast—they clearly had no idea yet that The Pegasus had been captured by the enemy—but it was already significantly closer.

  “Show me,” he said. He turned back to Wendy, his eyes snapping to hers, and he handed her the coin.

  The instant she took it, she felt its magic surge through her. She thought forward, and the ship moved forward, even with the sails still furled.

  Hook stared at her for the briefest of moments, and then he made his decision, leaving all hesitation behind.

  “Follow me,” he barked, and he led her to the ship’s wheel, where Charlie stood read
y.

  “Miss Darling has the helm,” Hook muttered to Charlie.

  “Aye, sir,” Charlie replied, matching his captain’s quiet tone. His face registered no surprise, but when Hook turned back toward Blackheart’s ship, Charlie flashed Wendy a grin.

  “You’ll still need to steer for me, Charlie,” she told him. She smiled back for just a moment, but there was no time for any more celebration than that. Wendy had the feel of the ship already, the coin tapping frenetically against the palm of her hand, and she began to accelerate, moving out of the cove as quickly as possible.

  “Sails now?” Hook asked under his breath.

  Wendy nodded, focused on the horizon.

  “Set sail, Mr. Smee!” Hook hollered. The crew, which had been staring in wonder as their ship moved under no power they could discern, exploded into life.

  The square sails unfurled from all three masts at once as the men in the rigging released them. Other men caught the ropes and lashed them into place, the sails snapping one by one as they caught the wind. And Wendy lifted the vessel into the air.

  Immediately, Blackheart’s ship picked up speed.

  “They’ve seen us,” Hook said. “Rise above them, Miss Darling. If they can fire downward upon us, we won’t have a hope of returning fire. We’ll be dead before we’ve even started.”

  “Aye, Captain,” she replied.

  A memory flashed before her eyes—of stopping too suddenly in Pan’s ship, and of the everlost being tossed overboard in midair. She gritted her teeth and rose as quickly as she dared, careful to keep their motion smooth and steady.

  But Blackheart saw their intention, even at a distance, and his ship rose, too, faster and faster. Wendy struggled to keep pace without losing control, as the wind raged around them, howling as though it wanted to hurl The Pegasus back into the sea.

  They left the tropical morning below as the air got colder and colder, and eventually it became hard to breathe. Their height was dizzying now, the island so far beneath them that it seemed as small as a child’s toy. But Blackheart was still gaining on them, almost in range to fire.