The Language of Ghosts

by Heather Fawcett

  She stared at Julian. How did you tell someone something so awful? She prayed that Julian wouldn’t do anything reckless. He watched her with narrowed eyes, as if prepared at any moment to leap to her defense with some spell.

  “I think your tower is haunted,” she whispered so that Mite wouldn’t hear. “Not by just anyone. By people you killed.”

  Julian blinked. “Are they trying to hurt you?”

  Noa shook her head.

  “Oh.” His gaze drifted for a moment. “All right, then.”

  And he went back to his dinner.

  Noa stared at him. Mite’s gaze darted between him and Noa.

  “Is that all you have to say?” she said. “‘All right’?”

  “Is there anything I can do about this?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then yes. That’s all I have to say.”

  “But I just told you—” Noa couldn’t understand it. How was Julian not as distressed as she was? He didn’t seem to feel anything at all—he just sat there calmly cutting up his broccoli, as if she’d told him he was being haunted by a family of tortoises. “How can you be so heartless?”

  He looked surprised. “What does being heartless have to do with it? I’m fighting a war. People die in wars. How they choose to spend their time afterward isn’t my concern.”

  Noa’s mouth fell open. Her pulse was throbbing in her ears. She pointed at the ghost across the room. “Standing right there is one of the fishermen you tossed to Beauty a few days ago. Don’t you want to say anything to him? Don’t you feel the least bit sorry?”

  Julian’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I feel sorry? Those men were part of Xavier’s plot. Am I supposed to regret disposing of his servants, given that they would have happily taken me captive if they’d had the chance, and ki—” He stopped, glancing at Mite. “And hurt the two of you?”

  “I’m not saying you should regret it,” Noa said. “I’m saying you should feel sorry. That’s different. Just because you have to do a terrible thing doesn’t mean you should feel good about it. You’re not that selfish.”

  “Selfish?” Julian’s face grew cold, and a shiver ran up Noa’s back. “Believe me, I’d love to have the time to be selfish once in a while. But I don’t, and I haven’t since Mother died. All I have time for is this.” He gestured at the tower filled with grimoires and experiments. “And if I happen to enjoy giving Xavier’s followers what they deserve, why is that so wrong?” He laughed. “If I am being haunted by the ghosts of Xavier’s loyal subjects, then I say: good. I hope they enjoy watching me send their companions to join them in the Beyond.”

  Noa didn’t know what to say. Julian had never looked less like the old Julian, his eyes hard and glittering, and the amusement in his face turned into something dark and ominous as distant thunder.

  Mite ducked under the table with a whimper. Julian let out a long breath. “Maita, it’s all right.” He helped her out. “Noa, please pass your sister the bread. How about we practice making toast? Do you remember the spell for that?”

  Noa passed the bread, trying not to let her hand shake. What she had seen in Julian’s eyes frightened her more than any ghost. What was she going to do? She was convinced more than ever that her secret mission was in shambles.

  There came a pounding on the door. Julian stalked over and wrenched it open, revealing a sodden Renne.

  “What happened?” Julian said sharply. For it was clear that something had—Renne was pale and wild-eyed, and seaweed clung to the hem of his cloak.

  “It’s Beauty,” he said without preamble. “She’s in a frenzy, and none of us can calm her down. She’s claiming someone stole her child.”

  18

  Noa Goes Hunting

  When they got to the low cliff overlooking the water, all they could see was a whirlpool bubbling amid the crashing waves.

  “Beauty!” Julian called. He dashed his wet hair from his face. He hadn’t bothered to don his already sodden cloak, and he looked tall and sharp-angled framed against the storm. “Show yourself.”

  The bubbles grew larger. Then Beauty surfaced, or rather her tail did—it struck the cliffside, causing Renne to topple into the water.

  Julian lashed out his arm, calling out a spell in Salt, and a wave lifted Renne back onto the cliff, fortunately with all his limbs.

  “Do that again and I’ll see that you regret it,” Julian said in a voice like a knife’s edge. He murmured something in Marrow and Salt, the two languages he had used to bind Beauty to the island. Before he could finish, though, Beauty’s head surfaced. Her eyes were so wide there was a ring of white around the black, and her body shook. She was so large that the sea itself seemed to tremble.

  “Foolish, evil boy,” she spat in a voice that was nothing like her usual dulcet tones. “You’re responsible for this. You took my freedom, and now—” She let out a horrible roar and lunged forward with her jaws snapping a foot from Julian’s head. He put his hands out and forced her back down with a lash of magic that made the ground tremble, his body braced as if against a fierce wind.

  “Noa, go back to the castle,” Julian barked over his shoulder. Noa glared at him. She slunk back a few feet, but no farther.

  “Beauty,” he said, “control yourself, or I’ll do it for you. I’ve been generous enough not to keep you on a chain, my monster. That will change if you don’t behave.”

  “Oh, yes,” Beauty hissed. “Yes, that’s next. Go ahead, black-hearted child. Chain me, torture me, I care not. Nothing compares to the loss of my daughter.”

  Noa started forward. “You have a daughter?” She ignored Julian’s thunderous look and stepped to the edge of the cliff. “Why have we never seen her?”

  Beauty snarled. “She was born only days ago. I planned to tell no one, certainly not any of you Marchenas. The wicked king would have her on a leash alongside her mother. No, I planned to raise her until she was old enough to escape.”

  “That’s why you’ve been hiding under the island,” Noa murmured. “Then—then it’s not because you’re plotting against Julian?”

  Beauty struck the cliffside, hurling her entire body against it this time. Noa stumbled and would have fallen if Julian hadn’t caught her.

  “What do I care about the lives of human kings?” she snarled. “My daughter . . . They stole my daughter. . . .”

  After I take it from him, we’ll watch his defenses crumble. Noa drew a sharp breath. Xavier hadn’t been planning to steal the Lost Words.

  He had meant Beauty’s child.

  “Who took her?” Noa shouted over the waves churned up by Beauty and the storm.

  “One of his enemies.” Beauty shot Julian a look of pure hatred. “That raven-haired witch. He’s turned my child into a pawn in his wicked schemes. Oh, my daughter, my daughter . . .”

  Dread settled in Noa’s stomach. She felt Julian freeze, his hand tightening painfully on her arm.

  “Gabriela.” Her voice was hoarse. “How did she take your daughter?”

  “I know not. I only saw her leave, heading north. She took my child and sailed beyond the edge of my tether, and I couldn’t follow.”

  “Get every able-bodied sailor into a boat with a salt mage,” Julian snapped at Renne. His face was white and his gaze was as cold as it had been in the tower. “Gabriela can’t have gone far in this weather.”

  “There’s a slight problem,” Renne said. “We don’t know which boat is hers. We spotted six of them, each heading in a different direction—as they retreated from the island, they turned their fog lights on. They wanted us to know they were there, and that they were using decoys.”

  Julian cursed. Then he said, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll sink them all.”

  “No,” Noa said. “Julian, you can’t. Those boats will be full of sailors who are just following orders. You can’t—”

  “Noa, go back to the castle. Now.” Then he was gone, striding into the storm with Renne at his heels.

  Noa dashed the wat
er from her eyes and made to go after him. She froze as a horrible chuckle rose from Beauty’s throat.

  “He’s vulnerable now,” she crooned. Her eyes were so wide that Noa wondered if she’d gone mad. “That’s some comfort, at least. . . .”

  “What are you talking about?” Noa said.

  “My daughter and I are bound together,” Beauty murmured. “Until she’s old enough to care for herself. That’s how it is for my kind. If my child dies, I die. And then Julian will be without his fearsome guard dog. I wonder how long Xavier will wait to attack him after that?”

  Still chuckling, she sank beneath the waves.

  “Where’s Julian?” Mite hovered at Noa’s elbow, her eyes wide. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine.” Noa tossed aside the chest she had overturned, spilling Julian’s socks all over the place. She was in the tower loft, rifling through his things. “He’ll be back soon. He hasn’t forgotten your story.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Noa threw open a chest, but found it stuffed with useless books. Her hands shook, and her thoughts wheeled like panicked birds. “I’m going on a rescue mission.”

  Gabriela had kidnapped Beauty’s daughter. Noa didn’t understand how she knew that Beauty had a daughter, or that sea serpents died when their children were taken from them. She also didn’t understand how Xavier had known that Astrae had changed course. But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was that Gabriela and Xavier wanted Beauty dead, because it would weaken Julian. The part of Noa’s mind that loved strategy above anything guessed that Xavier was planning a one-two punch: eliminate Astrae’s strongest defense, and then attack them with the Lost Words. Perhaps that meant he was close to finding the other lost language.

  Noa wasn’t particularly worried about Julian being weakened, and as for Beauty, good riddance. What worried her more was the thought of Julian killing all the sailors in the Ayora Sea in his single-minded pursuit of Gabriela.

  Noa thought of the ice in Julian’s gaze. She didn’t know if she’d lost him or not—if he’d been entirely replaced by the ruthless Dark Lord who ordinary Floreans had nightmares about. But if she let him drown dozens of sailors whose only crime was being unlucky enough to get tangled up in one of Gabriela’s plots? She was certain it would push him over the edge. Well, Noa wasn’t going to give up on her secret mission—on Julian—even if he turned Astrae into a sea monster zoo or made necklaces out of their enemies’ teeth while cackling at the moon. It was Julian. She would rescue Beauty’s daughter and be back in five minutes, in time to call him back to Astrae before he did anything stupid.

  Mite looked over her shoulder. “What about the ghosts?”

  “They won’t hurt you,” Noa assured her distractedly. “They only care about Julian.”

  “They want to hurt Julian?”

  “Mite, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this,” Noa said. “Why don’t you go to bed?”

  Mite’s hands twisted around each other. “Will you come with me?”

  “No. I can’t waste a moment. Rescue mission, remember?”

  She dug around at the back of Julian’s wardrobe. Her fingers gripped the edge of an old chest, and she pulled it out. When she opened it, she found it empty save for a long rectangle of green fabric.

  Noa drew the scarf free. She knew it well—Gabriela often wore scarves, and it still smelled like her perfume, a sort of nighttime forest scent. Julian didn’t realize Noa knew that he’d kept it, nor that he had a letter Gabriela had written him hidden inside a particularly musty book, but then he’d always been terrible at keeping secrets from her. As much as Julian pretended to hate Gabriela, Noa knew otherwise.

  Mite had gone pale at the sight of the scarf. “Don’t leave, Noa. Julian got mad when you went to the palace—”

  “This is more important than the palace.” Noa’s voice was grim. “I have to do some hunting of my own. I’m going to get Beauty’s daughter back before Julian tracks them down. In the mood he’s in, he probably won’t even bother to rescue her—he’ll just throw magic at those ships until they vaporize.”

  Which, Noa thought, Gabriela had probably realized. That was why she’d included so many decoys in her plot. And even if Julian did find her, she probably had some clever escape planned. After all, Gabriela had always relied more on her brains than her magic. Well, if she thought she was cleverer than Julian, she was probably right, but if she thought she was cleverer than Noa, she had another thing coming.

  Noa lifted the nearest shadow and leaped into Death.

  19

  Noa’s Rescue Mission Ends Badly

  Ten minutes later, Noa fell through a shadow and onto the deck of a moving ship.

  She lay there for a moment, disoriented. She hadn’t been sure her plan would work. The otter had been silent for a long moment after she asked it to lead her to Gabriela’s ship. Then it had said that it was difficult to pass from Death onto moving vessels, that those were the most unpredictable doorways of all. It was possible, the otter warned, that Noa would fall out of Death and into the middle of the ocean, with no rescue in sight. Then Noa had shown it Gabriela’s scarf, and the otter had nodded once and led her to a shadow without further argument.

  Something inside Noa had known that the scarf would help the otter find a shadow door to Gabriela. Part of her noted that she was getting better at using her magic, but she pushed her pride away. She could gloat later—now she had to focus.

  The deck she had fallen onto was wet with rain, but the clouds were only spitting now. Gabriela must have sailed through the worst of the storm. The ship was a modest size, but well built, with a single lurid red sail. A lantern swung on a hook, illuminating the deck with flickering light. Noa was lying in the shadow cast by the ship’s figurehead, a fanged mermaid clutching a sword. Two mages stood only a few yards from her, their red cloaks the only vivid thing in the dimness, but fortunately they weren’t looking in her direction. She drew her black hood over her head and tucked herself deeper into the shadow until they walked away.

  Noa crept toward the staircase leading belowdecks, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. She guessed that Gabriela would have brought along only a skeleton crew to keep the ship light and speedy, and she hoped that meant she wouldn’t run into any mages.

  Noa paused and drew a shaky breath. She wasn’t going to run into Gabriela. Her mission was all about speed. She would find Beauty’s daughter, free her, and then leap through the nearest shadow.

  A sailor stomped up the stairs toward her. Rather than running in the other direction, Noa swallowed her panic and drew her hood farther forward as she continued down the stairs. As they passed, she said gruffly, “What a night, eh?”

  The sailor snorted. His face was lowered against the weather, and he barely glanced at her. “This mission can’t end soon enough. That thing’s still screeching.”

  Noa snorted back and kept going, her heart a wild thing in her chest. She waited for the sailor to turn, to call for her to stop, but he didn’t.

  People were good at explaining away inexplicable things, Noa had often noticed. The man wouldn’t have thought it possible for an intruder, let alone Julian Marchena’s sister, to appear out of nowhere on their ship in the middle of a storm, so he just told himself she was one of the crew. She was almost the height of a grown woman, after all, and in the darkness her hooded face was impossible to make out.

  Noa found a narrow corridor at the bottom of the stairs. To the left was an open hatch with a ladder leading down into the hold. The ladder disappeared into shadow, and from the shadow rose a horrible wailing.

  Noa’s hands flew instinctively to her ears. The sound was like a child’s cry mixed up with a kitten’s mewl and a snake’s hiss, baleful and uncanny. The last thing Noa wanted to do was go down into that hold.

  She set her jaw and stepped onto the ladder.

  “Hey!”

  Noa looked up, and found herself facing another sailor who had stepped out o
f one of the rooms off the corridor. The woman’s eyes were wide as she stared at Noa, who realized belatedly that her hood had fallen back.

  Noa scrambled down the ladder, reaching up to swing the hatch shut. The sailor thundered toward her, but Noa was quick: she fumbled for a lock, found one, and slid it into place. She heard the woman cursing as she wrenched at the handle on the other side.

  Filled with nervous panic, Noa half fell the rest of the way down the ladder. The hold was completely dark. The wailing was horribly loud and echoing, and Noa couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from.

  She ran her shaking hands along the wall, and hit a lantern suspended from a hook. Her pulse racing, she switched it on. She knew she had only moments, possibly seconds, before the sailor told Gabriela she was there.

  The light revealed a low-ceilinged space, narrow and long. And at the far end, in a dirty corner that smelled of old blubber, was Beauty’s daughter.

  The serpent hissed at Noa, but the sound died in an odd sort of gasp. She was perhaps as long as Noa was tall, and several times as thick as an ordinary snake. Her head and tail were cruelly bound with metal rings that dug into her skin. Her eyes were as black as Beauty’s, but she was toothless: when she hissed, Noa saw only pink gums like a human baby’s.

  Noa ran forward. The serpent was shaking—someone had wrapped her in wet towels to keep her skin moist, but most of them had fallen away.

  Noa had no love for Beauty, and she suspected that her daughter would grow into a similarly terrifying monster, but she nevertheless felt a surge of fury at Gabriela for treating the infant serpent like this. It hadn’t harmed anybody. Not yet, anyway.

  Noa pulled on the chains, and the serpent let out another wail. Fortunately, the chains weren’t locked with a key—they just needed to be unlatched, which the serpent wouldn’t have been able to do, lacking hands. Noa supposed that Gabriela wasn’t particularly worried about anyone on the crew trying to unchain a sea serpent, toothless or not.