Noa drew back. Her heart was thudding. “The island, is it . . . is it underwater?”
“Yes,” her mother said. Her hair floated in a nonexistent breeze, framing her blurry face like tentacles. “Not only that. After the mages hid the Lost Words on Whelm, they turned it upside down.”
That sounded even worse than an inside-out island. “Then how am I supposed to get to the book?”
“There are shadows underwater,” her mother said. “They’re finer than ordinary shadows—closer to cobwebs. If you lift the right one, you’ll find your way to Whelm.”
“Okay,” Noa said slowly. “But I can’t breathe underwater.”
“The book is in a cave,” her mother said. “There’s a shadow that will lead you right to it. You’ll only need to swim a short distance, and then come right back.”
Mother would never allow you to put yourself at risk. Noa balled her hands up—they were trembling and clammy. She thought again of that cold, black sea. How much colder and blacker would it be deep beneath the waves?
“Don’t worry, honey,” the ghost said. “I’ll be with you the whole time. You’ll just go in, grab the book, and then come right back out. It will only take a few seconds, I promise. I know where it is.”
“How?” Noa said.
“Because Xavier’s mages know,” her mother said. “I’ve been spying on them.”
Noa shook her head. “If they know where it is, why haven’t they swum down to get it?”
“It’s deep, deep down. The light mages have been able to locate the cave, but no one has managed to reach it—yet.”
“Salt mages are excellent swimmers,” Noa pointed out. “Surely there are salt mages on those ships.”
“There’s more than one spell hiding the book,” her mother said. “Just as there was more than one hiding the language of Death—not only was Evert inside out, but you could only reach it by sailing backward. There’s a spell on the cave preventing salt mages from reaching it. Salt mages can’t even see Whelm.”
“Oh,” Noa breathed. That meant that Julian wouldn’t be able to get to the book, even if he did find the island. She drew a shaky breath.
“All right,” she said.
Unfortunately, finding the right shadow was every bit as difficult as Noa feared. The shadows that led underwater slipped through her hands, less like cobwebs and more like kelp dragged along by a powerful current. After an hour of struggling, she hadn’t managed to hold on to one.
As time passed, her mother grew fainter and fainter, as if she was having a hard time holding her shape. “Try picturing the place you want to go,” she said. Her voice barely sounded like her own anymore—it was as soft as a whisper. “It’s a shallow cave with a high ceiling half covered with anemones. The book is in a wooden chest on a ledge.”
Noa wiped the sweat from her brow and focused. She pictured the place her mother had described, and plunged her hands into the shadows again. This time, one shadow in particular drifted toward her—as if the shadows sensed what she wanted and moved to obey. Noa dug her nails into it before it could slip away, and lifted.
Darkness. She could see nothing through the door below the shadow. Water sloshed against the edges of the door but didn’t spill into Death. Noa brushed the water with her hand and instantly recoiled. It was like touching ice.
“That’s it,” her mother breathed. Her hand went to her chest in a gesture of relief. “That’s the entrance to the cave. Oh, my clever girl, you found it.”
Noa swallowed. “I don’t see a chest.”
“It’s close, honey. You only need to swim a few feet, pop your head into the cave, and you’ll see it. I’ll stay here and hold the door open for you.”
Noa nodded slowly. She couldn’t afford to be afraid—this was too important. “You’re sure it’s just beyond the door?”
“Positive,” her mother said. “It won’t take five seconds for you to fetch it. Trust me, sweetie. I wouldn’t think of suggesting this unless I was certain.”
Noa felt her uncertainty wash away. “I know, Mom.”
She removed her cloak and boots, and also her socks—she had a strong suspicion that she would want dry socks when she got back. She paused at the edge of the shadow door. The last thing that she wanted was to plunge into that icy darkness. She looked back at her mother, and could have sworn she saw, through the blur of her features, the hint of an encouraging smile.
Noa dove.
It was like striking stone. The force of the cold shocked Noa to her bones, and it was all she could do not to gasp in surprise. She treaded water, so startled she couldn’t think of anything but the cold, let alone the directions her mother had given her. Finally, she realized that her eyes were closed, and she opened them.
Darkness all around. Looming before her was a huge shape that tapered down and down to a rounded peak.
It was the island.
Whelm had probably been a small volcano at one point. Its caldera looked like a mountain with a scoop taken out of it, and it was small, as islands went, perhaps half the size of Astrae. For a second, Noa simply stared at the impossible sight: an island growing into the water rather than out of it. She felt a little sorry for Whelm, as she had felt sorry for Evert—it seemed like a waste of a perfectly good island. Then she remembered her mission. She glanced over her shoulder, and was relieved to see the door back to Death floating in mid-water. Noa decided that if she thought too much about that, or about Whelm, her head would explode.
There was a cave in the flank of the island only a few yards away. She swam toward it, trying not to focus on the fact that she could barely feel her arms anymore. Noa felt her way inside the cave with her hands, which slipped on the slimy, weedy stone. She could barely see anything in the cave, though she felt the sea anemones nestled into the floor—or, depending on how you looked at it, the ceiling.
She turned to the right, feeling as she went, and was relieved beyond words when her left hand struck a sharp wooden edge.
Noa pulled on the chest, but it didn’t move. She felt a moment of panic—was the chest too heavy for her to lift? Then she realized that a layer of barnacles had crawled up the wall of the cave and glued the chest to the rock.
Noa swam backward so that her feet were pointed at the chest. She kicked with all her might.
Nothing.
She kicked again. Still nothing. Her lungs were beginning to ache. Normally, Noa could hold her breath for several minutes, but the chill of the water had weakened her. She kicked again, a desperate kick, and finally the chest came free. Noa grabbed it and swam out of the cave so fast, she banged her head against the rock.
She swam back to the shadow door, which seemed to grow farther and farther away. She focused all her might on gripping the heavy chest. If she dropped it, it would fall to the ocean floor, which was lost in the deep-sea gloom. She looked up and realized that she couldn’t make out the surface, either. The water pressed down on her. She heard—and felt—the eerie, wavering cry of a blue whale ripple through the sea. Noa began to panic. The whalesong only drove home how far she was from everything and everyone she knew. She didn’t belong in this world.
For a moment, it seemed as if the shadow door flickered, and Noa almost screamed. She couldn’t be trapped here. She couldn’t. She kicked frantically, and surged through the opening, shoving the chest ahead of her. She landed in a sprawl on the sand, coughing and sputtering.
“You did it!”
Noa’s mother was less distinct than ever. “Are you all right, sweetie?”
“I—” Noa coughed up more seawater. She was trembling so hard it felt like her bones would shake apart. With difficulty, for her hands could barely close on it, she wrenched off her sodden tunic, revealing her thin undershirt, then wrapped her dry cloak around herself. She immediately felt better. She shoved her feet back into her socks.
Noa forced herself to crawl over to the chest. The bronze fittings were rusted through, and there were barnacles still clinging to
the side. It had clearly been submerged for a long time. It was hard to imagine anything, let alone a book, surviving inside it.
The chest was locked. Noa tried hitting the lock with a rock, but it wouldn’t break. She found a larger rock, so heavy she could hardly lift it, and dropped it onto the wooden lid. She had to lift it and drop it half a dozen times, until her arms ached and sweat trickled down her neck, and then finally the lid cracked in two.
She peeled the wood back. There, nestled in a silk wrapping, was a large book with a plain leather cover. It was perfectly dry and showed no signs of damage, apart from a musty smell. It looked almost identical to the book Julian had found on Evert. But unlike that book, Noa didn’t feel strange when she looked at it. What language had she found?
Her mother drifted over to the broken chest. She stretched out a hand like a tendril of fog and lifted the book.
“Thank you, Noa,” she said in a strange voice. “It’s done.”
“What’s done?” Dread settled in Noa’s stomach. “Mom?”
The ghost laughed, and the laughter wasn’t her mother’s. “King Xavier will be so pleased.”
26
Marchenas Are Always First
“Xavier?” Noa sat frozen, one shaking hand still on the chest. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry, Princess,” the ghost said, though she didn’t sound sorry. She sounded exultant. “But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get back at that wretched boy.”
Noa clung to one last ember of hope. “Mom?”
The ghost was coming into focus now. She was nothing like Mom. She was younger, for one thing, and her hair was auburn rather than black. Mom’s eyes had been warm and creased at the corners from laughter, but this woman’s eyes had a sly twinkle. The last time Noa had seen those eyes, they had been frozen in a look of pure horror.
“Esmalda,” Noa whispered.
“It was a cruel trick to play on a little girl,” the mage said. “But you’re not exactly innocent, are you, child? You’re a Marchena, and you’re all rotten to the core. ‘Marchenas are always first,’ are they? First to betray an ally? First to murder a friend? You’ll be just like them in a few years.”
Noa couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. “Them?”
“Your mother,” Esmalda spat. “And your brother. I was always loyal to her. And how did she thank me? By throwing me into prison. And Julian!” She gave a frightening bark of laughter. “Dear, handsome Julian. He charmed me into thinking he was different from her. But as it turned out, he’s even worse. I’ve killed plenty of people in my day—oh, yes. For gold. For revenge. But I do it honorably.” Her voice was silky. “What Julian did to me had no honor.”
Noa knew she should have been furious at being tricked. But all she felt in that moment was grief colder than the bottom of the sea.
Her mother hadn’t come back to her.
“Do you know what it feels like to be turned into a statue?” Esmalda’s voice was horribly pleasant. “To feel the blood freeze in your veins? To choke on the metal rising in your throat?”
Noa backed up a step, feeling sick. “I don’t understand—”
“You don’t understand how I tricked you.” She laughed again. “I knew your mother well—I served her for years, after all. Impersonating her wasn’t difficult. And it’s not hard for a ghost to spy on Xavier’s mages, learning everything they knew about this book and its undersea hidey-hole. Come now, I thought you were the smart one! Julian’s clever little sister, always saving him from himself. . . . Well, let’s see if you can save him now. I’m going to give this book to Xavier’s mages. They’ll surely be surprised to find it on their ship, but I doubt they’ll spend much time puzzling over the mystery. Do you?”
Noa’s head spun. “Why . . . why didn’t you just get the book yourself?”
“I’m a ghost,” Esmalda spat. “We can manipulate objects in the living world, but only to a point. I couldn’t have opened that chest. Nor, for that matter, could any of Xavier’s mages—do you know how many times they tried to swim to that cave? Well, I tracked down one of the dead mages who hid the book, and she told me the truth: Xavier never had a chance of finding it. No, the book could only be rescued by someone of royal blood.”
“Royal blood?” Noa whispered.
“Yes.” Esmalda’s lip curled. “The ancient mages were terrible snobs. They didn’t want this book found by the common riffraff, but if a future king or queen of Florean needed it, well, that was all right with them. Groveling fools.”
Noa felt as if she were still under the sea, its weight pressing down on her, harder and harder, until she would surely break apart. “What language is it?”
“Oh, that’s the best part.” Esmalda stroked the spine of the book as she drifted just out of Noa’s reach. “It’s fear.”
Noa froze. “Fear?”
Esmalda’s voice took on a singsong quality. “Oh, Princess, you’re not going to like what’s coming to you. But it’s nothing less than what you and your brother deserve.”
Noa’s heart thundered in her throat. Steeling herself, she leaped at the ghost. But Esmalda drifted away, laughing.
“Wait,” Noa cried. “Wait—stop.”
The last word came out in Shiver, a sharp sound like the crunch of bone breaking. Esmalda froze, her face contorted in fury, drifting several feet off the ground. Noa was astonished—had she done that? She launched herself into the air and managed to grab hold of the book. But before she could get a better grip, Esmalda shook herself, and Noa fell to the ground with only one ripped page in her hand.
“Stop!” Noa cried again, but her voice was broken by a sob.
“I don’t think so,” Esmalda said. She began to fade, and the book faded with her, until all that remained were her fever-bright eyes and the hint of a grinning mouth. “Good night, Princess. Tell King Julian I said hello.”
Noa sat frozen, unable to think. Eventually, an otter appeared and offered to lead her home. Something about its nosy, whiskered face unstuck something inside her, and she was able to stand.
“Bad news, that one was,” the otter said. “We keep away from the bad ones. You should do the same. Oh, did you hear that? I just gave you advice, and I didn’t ask for anything in return. Only the noblest of creatures would do that.”
Noa didn’t say a word. When they came to the place where Noa had entered Death, she grabbed the first shadow she touched, and simply fell through. Not surprisingly, this didn’t turn out well. She ended up in the ocean. There was Astrae a few hundred yards away, yet she couldn’t bring herself to swim toward it. She could barely bring herself to tread water.
Just my luck, a distant part of her thought. I’m going to die escaping from Death.
She laughed. Once she started, she wasn’t able to stop. She was still laughing—and coughing, because by that time she’d breathed in a certain amount of seawater—when a strong arm hooked under hers and pulled her toward the shore. Noa supposed that a sailor must have seen her from the beach and swum out to save her. It was dawn, and the sky was full of pinky-purple clouds. As they drew near the island, Noa heard shouts and applause. Great—that was just what she wanted right now, an audience. Her laughter had died away to noisy, embarrassing hiccups, and she thought she might also be crying. It was hard to tell. Before, Noa had felt as if she had been hollowed out, but now she felt as if she had been hollowed out and then filled up again with small, sharp things, like thumbtacks and crab claws.
Once he reached the shallows, the sailor tossed her over his shoulder and carried her to the dry sand. As soon as he put her down, a wrinkled snout tipped with cold nostrils pressed against her face, snuffling. Its breath was an odd combination of campfires and tuna. Reckoner! Was he her rescuer? But he didn’t have hands. For a moment, Noa thought she was going to start laughing again at the image of the dragon heroically dragging her back to shore, but then a familiar voice said, “Get off her, you smoky old lump,” and Reckoner’s face was replaced
with Julian’s. He was dripping wet, his shoes were gone, and his face was very pale.
Noa burst into tears.
Julian pulled her to his chest, murmuring soothing words. “Black seas, Noa, you’re freezing. Everyone, move back. Give her some space.”
“I was underwater,” Noa said. “That’s why I’m cold. It was deep, deep underwater, and there was a whale. . . . Mom told me to swim to an ingrown island, but it wasn’t Mom after all, it was Esmalda. She made me give her the language of fear, and I’m sorry, Julian, I thought it was Mom, but she lied. . . . She wanted to hurt you. . . . I’m sorry. . . .”
She wasn’t sure how much of this Julian understood—the words kept mushing together with her sobs. She was dimly aware that they were surrounded by a circle of staring faces, mages and sailors and villagers, but they all moved away quickly after Julian cast a black look in their direction. He stroked her hair until she had no tears left, which took a while.
“What’s wrong with Noa?” said a hushed voice. Mite’s face popped into view behind his shoulder. “Did the ghosts attack her?”
“Mite, go back to the castle,” Julian said, pushing a hand distractedly through his sodden hair. “The servants will get you some breakfast.”
Mite’s small face slowly got redder and redder. Then, out of nowhere, she yelled, “No!”
Julian turned back to her, astonished. “Mite—”
“I don’t want breakfast!” Mite yelled. “I don’t want to go back to the castle! Why do you keep telling me to go away? You can’t make me! I’m staying right here!” She began to cry.
“Maita, Maita, it’s okay.” Julian looked from Noa to Mite, trying to figure out which sister was more in need of comforting. Since Noa was not currently crying, he gathered Mite into his arms. “You can stay. I just thought you might be hungry—”
“I’m not hungry!” Mite yelled through her tears. Noa didn’t think she’d ever heard Mite make so much noise, except when she exploded. Julian gave Noa a help me look.
“It’s my fault,” Noa said glumly. “I told her to go away. Mite, I’m sorry. I didn’t really want you to go away.”
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