by Amy Ewing
“All right, come, we’ve got to get going.”
“What does Father want us for?” Leo asked as Kiernan knelt to pack up his bag.
James’s eyes filled with pity. “Sorry, old chap, but he didn’t ask for you, just Mr. Kiernan.”
“Oh,” he said, trying to swallow his disappointment. “Right.”
He had thought things would be different now, after the talk in Xavier’s study. He supposed he should have known better.
“Just about ready,” Kiernan said. “We need to get her back into the—”
Suddenly, the girl leaped to her feet in a movement so fluid Leo could not discern the shift from when she was prostrate on the ground to when she was standing.
“Hey!” James cried, stepping back.
Her eyes darted from Kiernan, to Leo, to Francis still hovering off to one side through this whole conversation, to James, then up to the glass ceiling, then back to Kiernan.
“How is this possible?” Kiernan said with astonishment.
The girl looked down at her wrist, then clutched at her neck in desperation and let out a mournful stream of unintelligible words.
“I think she wants her jewelry back,” Leo said.
Her head snapped toward him and she growled.
“She doesn’t seem to like you,” James noted. “All right then, my lady,” he said gently, taking a careful step toward her, hands outstretched like he was talking down a skittish horse. She stepped back. “No one is going to hurt you. I promise. We just want to keep you safe.”
Another round of gibberish followed that remark. She was backing up closer and closer to the Arboreal, which, Leo noticed somewhere in a distant part of his mind, was far more beautiful than in the photograph he’d seen, with silvery bark and turquoise leaves. It was also quite small, six feet tall at most. He’d thought a magic tree would be more intimidating.
“Francis, get the dogcatcher,” Kiernan said, keeping his focus on the girl. Francis looked torn, staring at her with pity until Kiernan snapped, “Dammit, Francis, now!” and he jumped and scurried offstage. The girl’s eyes were wild, desperate to find an exit, as Leo, Kiernan, and James began to encircle her. Leo was closest, on her right side, with James in the center and Kiernan on the left.
Quick as a whip, she darted toward the space between James and Kiernan, knocking over the medical bag and spilling its contents across the stage.
“My vials!” Kiernan cried, as James reached out to grab her. She wrenched free of his grasp and ran in the opposite direction, around behind the Arboreal, as Kiernan bent to collect the spilled items. Leo stepped on something and looked down to see the necklace with the star pendant—without thinking, he picked it up and put it in his pocket. Francis came running back with a long pole with a loop on its end, and Kiernan snatched it from him.
“Get her in a corner,” he demanded. Leo could see her through the tree’s branches, her face alight with fear. He took a step closer.
“Leo, to your right!” James called, as the girl shot out from behind the Arboreal and made a mad dash for the edge of the stage. Just as Leo reached for her, something rough and solid smacked him across the face, sparks exploding in front of his eyes as the theater and the girl were swallowed up in darkness.
He awoke in his bed.
His head throbbed, and he moaned and touched his cheek. Pain shot through his jaw like fire.
“Swansea!” Janderson’s voice was muffled, as if Leo was hearing it through a headful of cotton. “He’s awake.”
Leo’s vision was blurry, and it took a second for the world to focus. His body was stiff, the slightest movement setting off a series of jagged aches. A minute later, his father entered his room, followed by Kiernan and James. Having James Roth in his bedroom was not something Leo had ever anticipated, and he tried to sit up and look nonchalant but instead cried out in pain.
“Be still,” Xavier said.
“That was quite a blow to the head you took,” James said.
“It was absolutely incredible! I had no idea the Arboreal could move.” Kiernan seemed delighted, as if it was a minor detail that Leo’s skull had been the price of this discovery.
“Incredible, indeed.” There was a feverish look in Xavier’s eyes. He turned to James. “And you said it was trying to protect the girl?”
“That’s how it looked to me. Just as he reached for her—wham! One of Boris’s branches shot out across his face and knocked him to the ground.”
“Luckily, she seemed as stunned as we were,” Kiernan said. “I was able to catch her, and James and I returned her to the crate.”
“Is this something we need to be concerned about?” Xavier asked. “We can’t have the Arboreal attacking our buyers.”
“Or actors,” James added.
“I’m not rightly sure, to be honest,” Kiernan said. “I’ve never known it to happen before. Boris has not moved once, in all the months we’ve had him. He mostly hums those strange songs that help his saplings grow.”
“Francis said he’d never seen anything like it, and he spends the most time with them,” James said.
“Such a wondrous turn of events,” Kiernan was muttering to himself. “First this girl appears, then those ruins in Braxos, then Boris comes to life.”
Leo could see the gears in his father’s head working. “Wondrous,” he murmured. “Yes. But fortuitous or something more?”
“You think these events are connected?” Kiernan asked.
“I do not believe in coincidence,” Xavier replied dryly. “I told you, Ezra. I told you the island existed. We must get to it before anyone else. That is imperative. A Pelagan ship is what we need—it’ll be faster and will draw less attention once it reaches Pelagan waters. There are going to be a lot of people, Kaolin and Pelagan alike, who will be tracking Braxos down.” His eyes grew distant. “Braxos,” he murmured, as if the name was a long-forgotten friend.
But the moment vanished as quickly as it had come, and when he spoke again, his voice was stony.
“Ambrosine will be assembling ships as we speak. We have to act quickly.” The name Ambrosine was familiar, but Leo couldn’t seem to place it. Everything felt dull and fuzzy, as if this conversation was happening in a dream.
His father turned to James. “You still know people at the Seaport?”
“A fair few, from my old days playing the taverns and such.”
“Yes,” Xavier drawled. “And such.” James’s face flushed, and Leo felt he was missing something. “I want to know everything that goes on down there—who is setting sail, and in what ships. I need a sense of the competition. And the rumors, too, no matter how far-fetched. Is that understood?”
James nodded curtly. He looked down at Leo. “Your son should put some ice on that cheek. He’s going to have one hell of a bruise.”
The word dislodged something in Leo’s brain. When he’d been with the girl, stared at her face, noticed the color of her eyelashes . . . there had been no sign of Branson’s fist, of the bruise he had seen forming the day before. How was that possible? Surely there should have been some mark left at least.
“No bruise,” he mumbled. His jaw ached.
“Not to worry, it will be gone in a couple of weeks,” Kiernan said.
“The ladies like a man with some battle scars,” James said with a wink. “Just don’t tell them it was a tree that hit you.”
They weren’t understanding at all. “No.” Leo pushed himself up on his pillows despite the pain. “The girl. She had no bruise.” He looked to his father. “You saw how hard Branson hit her. Her face should have been bruised, but it wasn’t. It was . . . like he hadn’t hit her at all. You saw her,” he said, turning to Kiernan.
“I did,” he said. “She was assaulted, you say?”
“She was trying to run,” Xavier said. “Something of a pattern, it would seem.”
“But the boy is right, she did not have a scratch on her.” Kiernan rubbed his chin, muttering to himself, then gasped. “Perh
aps her blood.”
“Her what?” James asked.
“Her blood—it is blue and . . . and it sparkles.”
James snorted.
“See for yourself,” Kiernan said indignantly, taking the vial out of his bag and holding it up. It was even more impressive drenched in the sunlight pouring through Leo’s windows than it had been in the theater. The light that flickered through its rich blue depths was captivating to watch, like flames of silvery fire. James’s doubtful expression turned to one of wonder.
“Perhaps there is something of a healing nature that lives in her blood, an antibody of some kind, or . . .” Kiernan sighed. “But I am just guessing.”
“Test it.” Xavier’s voice had the edge of a man trying very hard not to sound too excited. His eyes were fixed on the vial.
“I beg your pardon?”
He nodded at Leo’s face. “If this blood has healing power, test it. On him.”
“Sir, I do not think that would be wise. It was merely speculation on my part. We have no idea what—”
“Leo, will you allow Ezra to test his theory on you?” Without waiting for a response, he turned back to Kiernan. “It’s only blood, for god’s sake. What’s the worst it could do?”
Leo was not thrilled with the idea of being a guinea pig for this experiment. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut about the bruise. But he could not disappoint his father.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t mind.”
Kiernan hesitated. “I don’t know. . . .”
“He said he didn’t mind,” Xavier said.
Kiernan looked as nervous as Leo felt as he took out the vial, unscrewed the top, and then carefully inserted an eyedropper into the blood. “We do not know if it should be ingested, or if a topical application will suffice.”
“Let’s try topical first,” Leo suggested, before anyone could say otherwise. He did not want to drink blood if he didn’t have to. But he knew that if push came to shove, he would do it if his father ordered him to.
Kiernan approached the bed like he was approaching a wounded animal. He held the dropper over Leo’s battered face, took a deep breath, and carefully released three drops of blood.
The effect was instantaneous. Leo could not help the moan of pleasure that escaped his lips as a soothing coolness spread across his face. He could feel the blood seeping into his wound, the bizarre sensation of his skin knitting together, the swelling decreasing until the pain had vanished completely. A crackle of heat ran through his veins, making his scalp prickle, and he heard the sound of a girl’s laugh as a familiar scent filled his nostrils—it was the one he had detected in Sera’s hair but more potent. Flowers, Leo realized, but also not flowers; the alluring smell of freesia mixed alongside the freshness of basil with an undertone he couldn’t place but that made him think of starlight. Then it was gone, and the laugh disappeared, and the heat vanished.
“Holy shit,” James muttered, staring at Leo, awestruck.
Kiernan was shaking. Leo sat up, rubbing his face. The aches were gone. He opened and closed his jaw, and it felt like it did on any other day.
“I have never seen anything like this in all my years,” Kiernan murmured. “And I have seen a fair many things.”
“How do I look?” Leo asked, and James laughed.
“Good as new,” he said. “My god. Who is this girl?”
Triumph lit up Xavier’s eyes, small torches of greed that made Leo wish for a split second that the blood had done nothing and he’d been left to suffer the pain. He could still hear the laugh in his ears; it was carefree and full of joy, and something about it made Leo feel deeply ashamed.
“That,” Xavier said, “is not our concern.” He took the vial from Kiernan’s hand and held it up to the light. “We are going to need more of this. Much, much more.”
They left him to convalesce, even though he didn’t really need to. Leo felt that they wanted to talk about all this without him being there, which shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up gingerly, testing out his newly healed head. He walked to his vanity, staring at his face in the mirror. It was exactly the same as it had been this morning.
Incredible, he had to admit. But also confusing and a bit worrying. He felt like he’d unlocked some secret door that wasn’t his business and was best kept closed. He straightened and put his hands in his pockets, wondering what he should do now, when he felt something sharp against his palm. He pulled out the star necklace, its stone glowing like moonlight.
He held it up, deliberating. He should hand it over to his father—surely Xavier would be pleased by the show of loyalty. But he remembered how desperately the girl had clutched at her neck, the agonized wail when she discovered it was gone. The stone was cool against his hand, reminding him of the soothing sensation as her blood had healed his wounds.
His father had the girl locked in a crate in his theater. Surely that was enough.
Leo hid the necklace in the back of his sock drawer.
19
Agnes
ENEAS DROVE HER TO THE SEAPORT AFTER SHE LEFT THE Grange house.
The docks were always bustling with activity, but they were more crowded this afternoon than usual. In addition to the ships unloading various cargo—large crates of produce and heavy sacks filled with spices and olives or ornate trunks stuffed with Pelagan aurums ready to be exchanged for krogers—there were now hastily erected tents promising maps to Braxos, infallible compasses, and manuals for discerning gemstones. Signs were posted in front of most ships, announcing exorbitant prices for berths and schedules of departures. Agnes knew it would only get worse in the coming days, as more and more treasure seekers swelled into Old Port in search of passage to Pelago.
Fishermen sold skewers of grilled cod and scallops while fresh octopus tentacles cooked under their watchful gaze; prostitutes leaned out of the windows of brothels, wearing wisps of clothes and calling down to the sailors below. The wide main walkway was spattered with blood, cigarette butts, fish guts, and other fluids whose origins Agnes did not wish to think about.
She had told Eneas to wait by the car, that she was only going to buy some bracelets that the fishermen’s wives sold, but she wasn’t sure he believed her. She made certain to pick up a few at the first stall she passed as evidence; she bought him a bag of his favorite candied walnuts as well, hoping that might placate him.
Agnes kept her eye out for the Pelagan flag, green with the silver crest of Pelago emblazoned on it, two horses rearing on either side of an olive tree. But the only flags she saw bore the red stripes and golden sun of Kaolin. Then she noticed two women wearing the traditional lace gowns and ornate shell headdresses of the Pelagan upper class, weaving through the crowds arm in arm. She fell into step behind them, hoping they might be searching for a ship as well.
They spoke in Pelagan, and Agnes’s grasp of the language was not strong enough to understand them. But they led her to a ship and her spirits leaped. It was a large but graceful galleon with a horse’s head carved into the bow. The captain, a middle-aged Pelagan woman, called out to the ladies on the dock. She strode down the gangplank and welcomed them in their native tongue, kissing their hands and fawning over them. Agnes loitered around, waiting for the women to finish their dealings so she could approach the captain herself. She felt in her pocket for the bag of jewelry and worried that this ship might be too grand for her meager payment. If only she could access her account at the bank herself! She had a trust with enough krogers to buy her passage on this ship, she was sure. But her father would never give her permission to take out so much money.
Suddenly, a sign by the gangplank caught her eye.
PELAGAN PAISIVATIS MONACH
And underneath, in Kaolish, was written:
PELAGAN PASSENGERS ONLY
Agnes’s heart sank. This ship wouldn’t take her no matter how many krogers she offered. She left the women and wandered down the docks, seeing similar si
gns on other ships flying the Pelagan flag. She reached the end of the docks and was about to turn around and head back to the car, in shame and defeat, when she saw the schooner. It was unimpressive and ramshackle, a tattered flag hanging from its prow, faded to nearly colorless, but Agnes could make out the shape of a horse and part of a tree.
The ship appeared to be deserted except for a single girl, maybe a year or two older than Agnes herself, sitting on a wooden bollard at the foot of the gangplank, smoking a clove cigarette and whittling away at a chunk of driftwood. Agnes stood for a moment, unsure of what to do, if this girl was even part of the crew of this schooner or if she’d just found a convenient spot to sit and smoke. Finally, she decided she had to try.
“Hello,” she said. “I would like to book passage on your ship.”
“This is not a passenger ship,” the girl said in heavily accented Kaolish without looking up from her whittling. Her skin was freckled and sunburned, her thick auburn hair tied back in a loose braid. Agnes cursed herself for not saying hello in Pelagan.
“Se parakhair maitorese mi,” she said, and the girl looked up at the formal Pelagan apology. “It is of great importance that I get to Pelago as soon as possible.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed. They were a gray as soft as a mourning dove’s wing but keen and full of suspicion. Agnes felt this was someone who had seen much over her short lifetime.
“A Kaolin lady who speaks Pelagan?” she said. She took a long drag of her cigarette. “Now that is not something one sees every day.”
“My mother taught me.”
The girl raised an eyebrow, her face skeptical. “That is a lie.”
Agnes flushed. “It was my chauffeur,” she admitted.
“And what does the lady’s parents think of a servant teaching their daughter such a heretical language?”
This really wasn’t the direction Agnes wanted the conversation to be going in, but she felt if she pushed her agenda too hard, the girl might balk.
“My mother was Pelagan,” she said. “But she died when I was born. My father . . . doesn’t know.”