by Claire Luana
A few days before, he and Trick had celebrated their decision to return Maradis and fight alongside the Falconer, their hearts soaring. The excitement had very quickly fizzled as they realized how long they’d have to wait. It would be at least the two weeks before Greyson returned with his next shipment, and even after they got to Nova Navis, they’d have to figure a way to smuggle themselves back into Maradis without being caught. Once they were at the city walls, they could use Trick or Ella’s keys to access one of the secret passageways back into the city. But it was a long trek between Port Gris and Maradis, with no doubt at least a few Aprican checkpoints to cross.
Lucas sighed. He’d been thinking on it for days, his mind racing and spinning. But without more information from Greyson, they couldn’t plan anything.
He ran his finger around the rim of the glass, his mind wandering to Wren, his memories of her sugar scent and the silk of her skin. Where was she now? Had she fled Maradis too? Or was she living in the city under Aprican rule? Did they know she’d had a hand in getting him and his siblings free? Worries crowded at him. They hadn’t been able to say goodbye, not really. He’d been in and out of consciousness from the wound on his back as Trick’s friends had transported them in a wagon to the port. He remembered the murmur of her voice, the flicker of her wide chestnut eyes. His groggy move of pulling the ring from his finger and pressing it into her hand. That was it. There was nothing else until he had come to on Greyson’s ship. Now, the ring seemed a fool’s errand. How could she ever figure out such an obscure clue? He wished he had a way to get her a message. Or to find out her fate.
He rotated his shoulder in its socket, feeling the pull of the skin of his back where the wound had been sewn shut. It was mostly healed now. Trick had removed the stitches a few days ago. Ella had offered, but he hadn’t trusted the gentleness of her hand.
A light flickered in the dark windows outside the house and Lucas’s head jerked up, his eyes searching for what he’d seen. He sat still, his breath stuck in his chest. He peered into the darkness, slowly scanning the wide set of windows on the main floor of the house. Nothing.
He let out a shaky breath. The flicker must have been his imagination.
But there it was again. Like a flash of a lantern. He leaned forward, squinting.
Glass shattered behind him as the back door exploded inward, kicked off its hinges.
Lucas flew to his feet and twisted just fast enough to catch glimpse of a man in a pale blue uniform. And then a sharp pain bloomed on the back of his head, and his world went dark.
Chapter 29
They had left that afternoon, sailing the majority of the way to the Odette Isles under the dark of night.
Captain Griff was a short, thin, tough-as-nails woman with steely eyes and wild, red hair. She’d brought six ships with her to ferry Ansel’s men to the Odette Islands, and then on to Maradis. The ships were sturdy two-masted brigantines with crisp white sails and scrubby ginger crews. It seemed most of the sailors were Novan. The sailors and the mercenaries had clearly sailed together before, because the excruciatingly long process of boarding all the men and supplies had been interspersed by cries of recognition, claps on the back, and good-natured ribbing.
As they neared the Odette Isles, a layer of heavy fog fell over them like a quilt. The mood on the ship dampened with each passing minute.
Pike stood by the wheel of the Phoenix, talking to Griff, Ansel, and Callidus. It was a strange group they had collected, each skilled in their own way, each dangerous. Wren stood off to the side, not sure if she belonged. Would they include her at all in the planning once she had retrieved Lucas for them? That was her primary use here, wasn’t it?
“Strange place, the Odette Isles.” Dash appeared at the rail next to her. With his clothing changed to nondescript trousers and shirt and his long, brown hair pulled into a ponytail, she hardly recognized the Aprican legionnaire anymore. Somewhere he’d gotten hold of a toothpick, which was stuck in the corner of his mouth, just like the first day she’d seen him. He was handsome, with kind eyes and an easy manner. Wren could see what Olivia liked in him, and the feeling unsettled her. Callidus may had agreed to give him the free reign of the vessel, and to consider his assistance with their plans to retake Maradis, but he was still a legionnaire. Wren couldn’t forget. He couldn’t be trusted.
“Everyone keeps saying it’s haunted,” Wren said.
“I don’t believe in such things.”
“Me either,” Wren said. “There’s plenty of horror in mankind alone. Don’t need to add supernatural horrors to the mix.”
Dash looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t meet his gaze, instead staring back into the endless fog.
“Life hasn’t been kind to you, has it?” he remarked.
“Sometimes I think I’m especially unlucky,” Wren said, trying to ignore the irony that her Gift presented. “But other times life surprises me. Not sure anymore that I’ve had it any worse than anyone else.”
Dash said nothing, instead leaning down on the rail, looking out into the silent dark water beneath them. The occasional crack of a sail in the wind, the creak of the rigging, and whispered conversations of those on deck were the only sounds that accompanied them through the mist. It was eerie.
“I’m sorry you’re here, Dash,” she said. “It wasn’t our intent.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I might not have gotten to know Olivia otherwise.” A secret smile curved across his face.
Wren turned to him. “Don’t hurt her, Dash.” Her voice caught in her throat. After all Olivia had been through, after all she had lost, Wren thought another betrayal might break Olivia. Gods, it would break her. They were all stretched thin by grief and hardship and sorrow. They needed people they could count on. Trusting him was such a risk. Not just for the cause. If Dash betrayed them—
“I won’t.” Dash rested his hand on hers, and though Wren tensed, he looked at her with such earnestness in his eyes that it overwhelmed her. His hand was large and warm, a strange comfort atop her frigid fingers. “You have my word.”
“The word of an Aprican legionnaire?”
“The word of a Tamrosi blueberry farmer who found a girl who takes his breath away.”
Silence passed between them as Wren thought on that. Was it so impossible to believe that people could change? That Dash was a good man who had gotten swept up into the legion when he’d had no other option? Wren thought of Hale, her heart squeezing painfully.
“Okay.” She nodded. “Okay.”
“Good. Hey...” He trailed off as his eyes slid past her, peering into the mist. “Is that...?”
Wren turned to where he looked, squinting into the fog. It moved and undulated, revealing nothing of the secrets it held. Until...yes, she saw it. A solid object. A tree. “Land!” she cried and the sailors exploded into action, trimming the sails to slow the ship. The cry echoed down to the other ships in the line. It was dangerous to move at full speed in such thick fog with rocky shores about.
A gray, craggy coast appeared from the mist on their port side, which Wren had learned in sailor’s lingo meant left. The island brimmed with towering cedars and firs, catching wisps of mist in their needles like cotton candy. A tall, thin black bird sat on a rocky outcropping jutting into the water. It had a white patch around its eye. A cormorant. It opened its hooked beak and let out a strange, clicking cry that sent a pair of icy fingers running up her spine. She shivered. What a sad solemn place for Lucas and his siblings to be hiding. She prayed they would find them here—safe and unharmed.
Wren shoved her damp hair back from her forehead and walked to the others. “We’re looking for Fletch Island, according to Mac.”
“Funny place for a summerhouse,” Ansel remarked.
“But a good place to lie low,” Pike said. “Your man is here, Wren. I have a feeling.”
Ansel looked sharply at her at that, and Wren blushed.
Thom and Olivia emerged from below deck, a
red plaid scarf rolled around Thom’s neck. They came to stand by Wren and she twined her arm through his. “Glad you’re feeling better,” she whispered.
“Me too,” Thom said. He leaned low and murmured into her ear. “Had to make myself presentable for Trick.” He winked at her, and she smiled. Of course. Thom must be feeling just as excited to see Trick again as she was to see Lucas.
“We have an old map of the islands.” Griff was smoothing the map’s edges. “Best I can figure, we’re here.” She pointed to an inlet between two of the outermost islands. “This one is Fletch Island. There should be a place to anchor around the other side. We’re making for that, and then we’ll send some skiffs out to see what we can see.”
“I’m going,” Wren said. “I should, so Lucas knows we’re friendly.”
“I’ll go too,” Ansel said. “For backup.”
“Fine,” Wren said. “We should take one more.”
“I’d like to go,” Thom said, straightening.
Callidus opened his mouth to protest, but Thom hurried on. “I’m well. I’ve been useless this entire trip. Let me help. Let me do something.”
Callidus gave a reluctant nod.
One of the sailors ran up to Pike. “We’ve spotted a structure.”
Wren’s heart leapt into her throat. This was it. Lucas. She could feel him out there in the distance, almost close enough to touch. She longed to press her head against his chest, to strangle him with a hug. Gods, she just wanted to see him. To know that he was alive and well and real.
The time it took to anchor the ships, drop a skiff in the water, and row to Fletch Island felt like an eternity. Wren’s knee bounced up and down with excitement, and she had to clasp her hands together to keep them from shaking. Lucas. Everything in this world made more sense with him at her side. She had made it through these last few weeks by the skin of her teeth. She hadn’t known if she could make it. But Lucas had never doubted her. He made her feel like she could do anything. Be anything. Even happy.
Wren leapt out of the rowboat before Ansel had even pulled it up on shore, her boots splashing in the freezing water. Ansel sprang out after her, catching her arm, ricocheting her back around towards him. “Wait,” he hissed. “We don’t know what’s up there. We go together.”
Wren wanted to scream with frustration, but some still-sane part of her recognized the wisdom of his words.
The path up to the house felt never-ending—a zigzagging line of stairs set into the sandy soil of the island. Up and up they went until they reached the broad expanse of windows at the front of the house. They were nearly at the top of the island now, and Wren knew the view must be breathtaking. She didn’t turn and instead continued forward towards her single-minded goal. Lucas.
Finally, blessedly, she burst through the carved wooden front door. It was unlocked. “Lucas!” she cried, her breath ragged from the climb.
Thom called from right on her heel. “Trick! Are you here?”
The house showed signs of use—the furniture was uncovered and free from dust. A vase of scraggly yellow dandelion heads sat on the table in the dining room to her left. An open book, turned over to mark the page, sat on the sofa in the living room on the right.
“Lucas!” she cried. “It’s Wren!”
“Wren.” Ansel placed a hand on her arm, stilling her. He pointed down the hallway. Broken glass littered the tiles of the kitchen floor.
Wren’s breath caught in her throat.
She and Thom exchanged a panicked look.
“We check the first floor,” Ansel whispered, motioning down the hallway. “Then the second.”
They moved silently through the house. The hammering of Wren’s heart and the thunking of their boots on the polished oaken floors seemed deafening enough, sure to alert any intruders. They rounded into the kitchen and Wren’s hands flew to her mouth. The back door behind the kitchen was hanging off its hinges, the glass of its leaded window shattered.
Apricans, was all Wren could think. She whirled, breaking past Ansel’s protective grip, dashing back to head up the stairs. No, no. To come all this way, to find Lucas gone...or worse. Her thoughts were wild with fear as she took the stairs two by two. She tripped, falling, bashing her shin, but she scrambled forward, ignoring the pain that exploded through her leg. At the top of the stairs was a hallway with a series of bedrooms, but there was another spiral staircase at the end. “Lucas!” she screamed, heading for the staircase.
“Wren!”
She could hear the others pounding up the stairs behind her, their steps sounding like thunder.
She spun up the stairs into the upper room of the house, a room encased almost entirely in glass. From up here, she could see in every direction, all around the island. The fog was starting to burn off, and a ray of sunshine broke through, displaying the green treetops below. And something in the distance. A ship. A fancy gold telescope sat on a stand in the corner, no doubt to watch birds or whales or whatever the idle rich watched for fun. Wren spun it around, peering through it, searching desperately for the vessel in the distance.
There. It came into stark relief. A three-masted vessel with sails being hoisted for a quick departure. Flying a light blue flag with a golden sunburst in the center.
The Apricans. The Apricans had Lucas.
Chapter 30
“We have to catch them.” Wren whirled on the others as they summited the stairs behind her. She felt like a wild woman. Unmoored.
“That’s a fast ship,” Ansel said, leaning forward to look through the telescope. “And they’ve gotta head start.”
“We have to try!” Thom said, shoving Ansel aside to peer through the telescope. “They’ll kill them.”
“Agreed. We haveta at least give chase, right?” Ansel shrugged.
A moment passed before they all flew into action, flying down two sets of stairs and out the front door, careening dangerously fast down the steep staircase to the beach. They leaped into the rowboat and Ansel dug his heels into the sand, manhandling the skiff into the waves before leaping nimbly in behind.
Wren could hardly sit still. Ansel was rowing quickly, his thick corded muscles working tirelessly, but it wasn’t fast enough. Images of that day rose in Wren’s mind, of Virgil gutted by Hale’s sword, of Queen Eloise’s eyes bulging as an arrow pierced her through her swan-like neck. She closed her eyes to the memories, but they wouldn’t go. The emperor had declared that the entire Imbris line was to be exterminated. And he had just found the last three.
She felt someone take her hand and opened her eyes to see Thom, his face pale and grave. He didn’t look her way, instead merely holding on. She squeezed his hand, her frigid fingers grasping his so tightly they turned white. Please, she prayed to whoever might care to listen. Don’t let me get here moments too late.
They were nearing the Phoenix now and Ansel called to the crew. “Ready the sail and be quick about it! There’s a ship on the other side of this island we need to catch.”
The men on the deck scrambled into action.
They bumped alongside the Phoenix’s lacquered hull and hurried up the ladder to the deck.
“What’s going on?” Callidus asked as he met them at the rail, together with Pike, Olivia, and Dash.
“There’s an Aprican ship. They got them,” Thom said, the words choked.
“Swarms,” Pike swore, spinning on his heel to stalk across the deck, yelling at his men.
Olivia’s hand hovered before her mouth, her blue eyes wide. “Do you think...?”
“That they’re still alive?” Wren let out a hard laugh. “For now. There wasn’t any blood in the house. They took them—they didn’t kill them. But who knows how long that will last. If we show up on their tail...” She hadn’t even thought of that. By giving chase, would the Apricans decide to cut their losses? Kill the Imbrises where they stood? What were their orders?
“Dash, do you think they would kill them? If they think we were going to be able to free them?” Wren asked.
He ran a hand through his hair. “The order is likely to retrieve them dead or alive. Preferably alive, to go through the pomp of a public execution. But if they thought they were going to lose them...” He trailed off.
Wren felt a sob rising in her throat. She fought it with all her might. She stalked to where Pike, Griff, and Ansel were crowded around the map.
“To get out of the islands, the quickest way is to go through this channel between Fletch and Robinette island,” Pike said. “To come back out the other way, they’d have to come past us. It’s narrow, and they’ll have to be careful. Should slow them down. Maybe enough for us to catch up.”
“The brigantines have a shallower keel than that Aprican vessel. We should be more maneuverable in there. If we can catch them before they get out the other side, there’s a chance.”
“There’s a possibility that if the Apricans see that we’re winning, they’ll kill the Imbrises,” Wren said.
The three looked at her, unblinking. “You want to back off?” Griff asked.
Wren’s mind raced. They were all looking to her. For leadership. To make a decision. A decision that could mean Lucas’s life, if it was wrong. A decision like the one that had killed Sable.
“They’re goners if we don’t get ’em back now, right?” Ansel said. “I’d take maybe dead over surely dead any day.”
Wren nodded woodenly. Yes. It was true. She felt a surge of gratitude at Ansel for laying out the choices so clearly before her. “We have to at least try,” she said.
The time it took to round the island felt like an eternity. And when they finally made the turn into the narrow inlet between the two islands, the Aprican vessel was almost through, out into free water. Wren’s fingernails dug into the rail and she looked up at the sails, cursing them to move faster. Hold on, Lucas, she thought. We’re so close.