Above the city, I pick up speed and zip into a blanket of stars. My spirit seems to have memorized the heavens’ pattern, for I navigate them like a map and fly back into my body.
Neely is still on the stool and bent over me.
I sit up onto my elbows, my stomach queasy, as though I’m recovering from a sudden drop. My clock heart has been reassembled. “Are you finished?”
“I’ve been done for some time. You drifted off.”
“Did you learn anything?” I ask, buttoning my shirt.
“The cogs and gears and balance wheel are in prime condition. Everything seems in working order.” Neely shakes his head woefully. As he puts his stool away, I swipe his chisel and slide it beneath me. He regards me again. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news, poppet. I will notify the captain.”
The giant plods out with his tool bag. I wait until I hear the lock slide shut in the door and then tuck the chisel into my back pocket.
As I get up, my hand presses down on something under me. I pick up the daisy and twirl it in front of my nose. Father Time said I need the sword to stop Markham, but am I to use the blade against him or does the sword hold another power?
I feel wretched about leaving my uncle, as though I left him to care for an ailing child on his own. That horrifying night has long since passed, but the memories of the years in between are strong. He nursed me back to health and made his home mine. I ran to him when I lost my first tooth, and together we learned how to cook my father’s plum pudding recipe. Uncle Holden was my best friend, my only friend, and he kept the secret of my clock heart from me. For so long, I felt as though I was living the years my family would not. I haven’t been living their years but his.
A sense of panic grips me. The tenth anniversary of my family’s death—of my clock heart—is soon. I don’t know how time moves differently here from my world, so I cannot say today’s date with certainty, but the time remaining until the anniversary was numbered in days when I left home. What happens when the ten years my uncle gave me are spent?
The ship begins to slow. I quit twirling the daisy and get up.
Osric throws open the door. “The captain requires your presence on deck.”
“Why?” I ask, tucking the daisy under my pillow.
His attention snaps to the movements behind him outside, then back to me. “Come along, Countess.”
I don’t want his hands on me again, so I tug up my red gloves and follow him out.
The entire crew appears to have congregated on the main deck. Even Jamison, Laverick, and Harlow are here, their hands bound. Radella too, though she’s sulking in her cage. Harlow’s head is down to hide her face behind the curtain of her hair.
Laverick’s gaze flits across the crewmen, never settling on anything or anyone for long. She must be worrying about Claret, as am I. The longer we take to find our friend, the less likely it seems that we will.
A plank has been extended over the water and held in place with sandbags. Markham stands near it, his hands and feet tied. Bloody bones, it’s high tide already. Neely was with me longer than I thought. Markham is going right up to the minute on this. I send him a look that says, This is your very best?
He lifts his hand loosely, palm up, in a What can I do? gesture.
Osric leads me to the other prisoners, leaving me between Harlow and Jamison. Jamison scours me for a sign that I have followed his advice and allied with Markham. I shake my head slightly, because I honestly have no idea what the prince has planned.
Captain Redmond marches out of his quarters. His crocodile sunbathes on the upper deck, its toothy mouth open wide and eyes glassy. The captain, once again dressed elegantly in velvet and satin, halts before Markham. The giant could crush the prince’s neck with one hand. Perhaps he has already tried, in which case, I commiserate with his frustration.
“Let us begin,” announces the captain. “Killian Markham, crown prince of the Land of Promise—”
My eyebrows shoot up, and I hear Jamison choke on his breath. The captain must have misspoken. Markham is from the Land of Youth, the world he destroyed, not the elves’ world. Captain Redmond blusters on before I can correct him.
“You are hereby banished to the bottom of the sea for misusing a battle carnyx, attempting to trade a faulty clock”—I blanch at his reference to me—“and generally being a thorn in my side.”
Osric clears his throat.
“And in my first mate’s side,” adds the captain. “String him up!”
While two men tie millstones to his ankles, one of the pirates yawns and another one gazes off at a cloud. It is odd to attend an execution where people are daydreaming. I suppose this is somewhat anticlimactic, considering the accused cannot perish.
Osric and two elves hoist Markham onto the gunwale. Now would be a good time for Markham to implement whatever plan he has devised.
“Are the sharks circling yet?” Osric asks.
Markham peeks over the edge of the ship. “It doesn’t appear so, but there’s time yet.”
Osric shoves him forward. Markham shuffles out to the middle of the plank, his steps weighted by the millstones. Harlow has yet to lift her bowed head.
Captain Redmond’s voice booms across the deck. “Will you regain a kernel of honor by jumping, Prince Killian? Or must we pull the plank?”
“I need no assistance.” Markham tips his head at me. “Thank you for tossing in the pearl, Evie. Best of luck beating us to the sword.”
Before I can stammer out a reply, Markham walks off the plank.
Chapter Twelve
No sooner do I hear the prince splash into the water than someone has me by the throat.
Harlow locks her bound wrists around my neck and digs a sharp metal nail under my chin that she must have pried from a floorboard. The crewmen around us draw their cutlasses.
“Stay back or I’ll bleed the life out of your precious timepiece,” Harlow says.
Captain Redmond waves at his pirates. “Pull back.”
Harlow forces me to sidestep with her to the gunwale and peeks over the side. I cannot move my head to see what she’s looking for.
“Let Everley go,” Jamison says, his knees bent, ready to spring even with his hands tied.
“Stay out of this, Callahan.” Harlow pushes the nail into my skin, and hot pain shoots out from the sharp prick. The chisel I swiped is in my back pocket, out of my grasp.
“You’re a coward,” I growl.
Harlow presses her lips against my ear. “Race you to the bottom of the sea.”
She lifts her arms, sliding them up over my head. I duck down to avoid the sharp nail, and she climbs onto the rail and jumps overboard.
A dozen blades are suddenly in my face as pirates rush the gunwale. I rise as the sound of Harlow’s splash carries upward. Jamison and Laverick come up behind me, and everyone leans over the gunwale to see where she’s gone.
Harlow surfaces, and she has company.
Markham treads water beside her, his bindings removed. He unties her, and they start to swim away, moving unusually fast against the current. The farther out they travel, the more the shadows underneath them become visible. They seem to be standing on something under the water that is carrying them away.
The captain takes a cannonball from a crewman—I missed where they came from—and presses it between his ear and his shoulder. Everyone stands back as the giant rotates in a wide circle and flings it over the rail. The cannonball arcs high in the sky and falls to the sea, landing remarkably close to the targets. The large splash slows Markham and Harlow down momentarily before they speed off again.
“Aren’t you going to chase them?” I ask.
Osric exchanges a glance with his leader. “Another round, Captain?”
“Make it two for good measure.”
Captain Redmond and Neely each pick up a cannonball and repeat the spin-and-throw maneuver, tossing them even farther than before. Neely is spry on his toes, and his cannonball gets more lift
than the captain’s. Though they both miss their target, it occurs to me that this is why they don’t require cannons on board.
Markham and Harlow slow to a stop out on the water, and then several man-size fish surface around them. Even from a distance, the newcomers are frightening. Deep blue and scaly on their upper halves, the creatures have fins along the tops of their heads that trail down their backs. Their bottom halves are legs like ours, and their upper halves are aquatic.
The fish people stand while riding upon armored turtles. Their shells are as wide and long as wagon wheels. The turtles are harnessed for the ease of their riders, who each grip the reins with one fin and wield a golden trident in the other.
The largest of the fish people lifts a trident over its head in a triumphant salute or gesture of greeting, I cannot tell which.
Osric waves back, his voice mockingly cheerful. “Rot your eyes out, you filthy finperson.”
I recall from stories about the Land Under the Wave that finfolk share these seas with the merrows. The two groups are age-old rivals, each with their own territories and leadership.
A turtle rises from beneath Harlow and Markham, so they are standing on its huge shell, and then they and the finfolk set off for the horizon.
“Let them go,” Captain Redmond says. “We’ve put on a believable display.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“This was our only course of action against him,” Osric replies. “You dropped the blue pearl into the sea.”
“I did that to stop the merrows from singing all night.”
“Is that how Prince Killian persuaded you to assist him?” The first mate grunts, laughing at my stupidity.
Heat climbs up my face. Of course Markham was lying about the pearl.
Captain Redmond adjusts the sleeves of his velvet jacket, turning down his cuffs over the ink markings on his wrist. The marking of the clock has clouds on the face, just like the pocket watch he’s searching for. “At least the prince didn’t take all his human companions. The lot of you will fetch a bundle of gold from the traders, and you, Ticker, you are too precious to stow away in my collection. Novelties draw in considerable interest on the high seas. Osric, lock them in the day cabin. I want them close by.”
“Are you certain you don’t want them in the brig, sir?” asks the first mate. The brig must be easier for him to guard.
The captain regards him coolly. “Are you questioning me, Officer?”
“No, sir,” replies Osric.
He rounds us up while more crewmen remove the sandbags and pull the plank back onto the ship. I pick up Radella’s cage and carry her with us into the cabin. Once inside, Osric removes the bindings from Jamison and Laverick.
Jamison dabs the cut on my throat with his sleeve. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.” In all the upheaval, I forgot I was bleeding.
“Hold this against it,” he says, passing me a piece of canvas he found on the workbench. “The mark is shallow, but it may scar.”
Another scar. Grand.
Osric drops more sacks of dried seaweed and chewy kelp pods onto the table. Another crewman brings a full pitcher of water and cups. Osric pours our drinks, his movements short and jerky.
“Would you please enlighten us as to what just happened?” Laverick asks.
“Isn’t it clear to you by now?” Osric rejoins. “We needed to make the prince think he escaped so he would leave. Killian is a danger to everyone around him; trouble follows wherever he goes. When I saw Everley drop the pearl in the water last night, I knew this was our chance to get rid of him.”
“You left my door unlocked on purpose,” I say, my pride stinging. It hurts to have been manipulated once, but twice?
“It was only a matter of time before Killian maneuvered someone into giving him what he wanted,” says Jamison. Since he encouraged me to align with Markham, he must also feel the burn of embarrassment.
“I still don’t understand,” Laverick interjects. “How did a pearl help the prince escape?”
“Dropping a blue pearl in the sea is Killian’s personal call to the finfolk for aid,” Osric replies. “Markham allied with them long ago. He told Everley the pearl would silence the merrows’ singing, but the merrows only fled to avoid a skirmish with the finfolk. Recently, the two rivals have been quarreling over borders.”
This goes beyond Markham’s deception about the pearl. He led the pirates to our location, and when they seized us, he came aboard this ship with every intention of getting off without us. He’s a monster who preys on the desperate and needy. I know that, I have always known that, yet I was so focused on escaping, I put my instincts aside.
“Why did the captain say Killian hails from the Land of Promise?” Jamison asks.
“Prince Killian is not as he seems.” Osric removes an apple from his pocket and shines it on his chest. “Centuries ago, he had a glamour enchantment put on him by a powerful sorceress so he could pass between the worlds without being recognized. Before marrying Princess Amadara of the Land of Youth, he was Prince Killian of the Land of Promise, second in line for the elven throne.”
“He’s an elf?” says Laverick.
“The spell hides his elven features, thus he resembles a human.”
I am so full of shock I am almost vibrating. Markham is a gifted deceiver, but the Land of Youth was his home, and he was wed to Princess Amadara . . . unless he was from the Land of Promise first?
Osric downs one of the cups of water that he poured for us himself. “Killian left our world long ago, after he was estranged from his family. He’s been trying to find a way back ever since.”
“Why doesn’t he just go home?” I ask. “The portals are open between your world and the rest, aren’t they?”
“It’s much more complicated. Killian was banished for falling in love with someone beneath his station. When his sister, the queen, found out, he ran away with his companion and they were both declared deserters.”
“Were you banished too?” Jamison asks.
Osric stares into the bottom of his empty cup. “Unofficially. Killian was in love with my younger sister, Brea. I discovered she was meeting him in secret, but I never thought he would forsake his throne for her.” The first mate grinds his jaw. “My parents blamed me for introducing Brea to the prince. Mother told me to find my sister and bring her back, and my father warned me not to return home without her. They thought if I could convince Brea to end her infatuation with Killian, our queen would welcome her home. I searched all over and finally found her and Killian holed up in the wreck on the Skeleton Coast.”
The ship we took shelter in, the one Markham brought us to, did belong to the elves—the prince of the elves. “Radella, you knew about his upbringing. The family portrait we saw. Was that of him and his family?”
The pixie nods.
Suddenly, this no longer feels like some olden tale far removed from myself and my reality. I stagger to the table and sit down, my ticker pounding fast.
“Brea was heavy with child,” says Osric, his tone despondent. “She had several weeks until her child’s delivery, but the tides pulled at the water in her belly and started her labor early. While Killian was out looking for help, I remained with Brea. She and her unborn child died before he returned.”
No one speaks.
Osric stares at the apple in his hand, at a loss for what to do with it. “Killian and I buried my sister and stayed on the coast to mourn her. A long while later—I lost track of how many months passed between—a ship bottomed out offshore. When the twilight hour arrived, so did the merrows. The crew jumped into the sea one after another to heed their summons. Killian and I saved only two of them—Redmond and Neely. Their ship, the Undertow, was damaged but salvageable. The four of us worked together to make her seaworthy again, living aboard the vessel and taking in other castaways as crewmates. Markham struggled to cooperate with the crew. He was a prince unaccustomed to hard work and didn’t respect the hierarchy on the sh
ip. He thought he deserved the position of captain and would not accept any disagreement. We marooned him, but he eventually came back, and Redmond took him in again. Over and over, Killian would overstep his authority, we would maroon him, and he would find a way back to us. The last time we forgave him, he stole our rum, sold it to traders, and bought passage out of this world. Then we heard tales that he had married a princess from the Land of Youth, but I didn’t see him again until recently, when Dorcha brought him back to us with the sword.”
“What did Markham plan to do with it?” Jamison asks.
“He never said.” Osric turns the red apple in his hands like he’s spinning a world. “But Prince Killian never bleeds a drop of blood that doesn’t serve him.”
I massage my temples to quiet my drumming headache. Jamison sits at the table beside me, our water and food in front of us untouched.
Osric finally bites into his apple and speaks around the chunk in his cheek. “None of you should feel ashamed. The prince has fooled many well-intentioned creatures. You aren’t the first, nor will you be the last.” He picks up a sandglass from a shelf and turns it over, triggering the sand inside to pour through the hourglass vessel. “It won’t be long before the captain sells you to the traders. Enjoy the time you have left with us. Whoever purchases you may not be so kind.”
The first mate sets the sandglass on the table and walks out.
Jamison has not moved from his chair. He stares at the hourglass as the sand filters from the top to the bottom of the vessel. When the time is spent, he turns the sandglass over again. He seems to be watching and waiting for something to happen. Maybe he thinks when the sand fills up the bottom enough times, he’ll have an answer to our problems.
I released Radella from her cage right after Osric left. She perched on Jamison’s shoulder and is still there. The two of them have been brooding for hours.
Laverick and I haven’t been good company either. I sit at the bench overlooking the stern while she stretches out on the bunk. I’m loath to think of Captain Redmond selling me like a timepiece in my uncle’s shop, and I dare not imagine what awfulness he has planned for my friends. I have said nothing to anyone because all I can offer my friends is an apology, and an apology is less than they deserve.
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