City of Islands

by Kali Wallace

“We have a trespasser,” said the cloaked woman. She released Mara’s arm and shoved her forward, hard.

  Mara stumbled to her knees, jumped up again. Figures moved in the dark corners of the room, emerging from the drifting smoke. One, two, three—no, there were four of them. Mara held herself very still as they approached. There were no other exits from the room. The only way out was the one behind her, and that was blocked by the tall cloaked woman—who was now lowering her hood. She smirked at Mara’s gasp: she had been waiting for that reaction.

  Instead of skin, the woman had a hide of deep green scales covering her face and neck. She pushed back her sleeves to reveal fingers tipped with long, curved claws the color of pearls.

  That was what Mara had felt beneath her chin: not a blade but one of those fierce claws.

  “Show-off,” muttered the winged girl.

  The woman narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

  The winged girl jabbed at the embers with a skewer. “I was just saying how nice and green you look in the firelight, Captain Amanta.”

  The others murmured. Mara couldn’t tell if it was anger or amusement.

  “Watch your mouth, child,” the woman said.

  “Sure, Captain. Who are you?” the girl asked Mara.

  Mara didn’t want to tell these people anything until she knew more about them. “I was about to ask you the same thing,” she said.

  “Allow us to introduce ourselves,” said Captain Amanta with an amused twinkle in her eyes. “We are this city’s worst nightmare.”

  One by one the others emerged from the dark corners of the room. There was a teenage girl with large webbed feet and a long curling tail like a monkey’s, and a skinny man with splayed fingers tipped with sticky pads like a frog’s. Another woman, older, had big, round fish eyes and gills in her neck like the gray men. She grinned when Mara stared at her, revealing two rows of pointed teeth; Mara stepped back without meaning to, and the woman laughed. A grizzled man with a gaping hole where his left eye ought to be had a pair of curling mountain goat horns growing from his head and tough plate-like scales covering his neck and arms.

  They all gathered closer, grinning. Mara knew they wanted her to burst into tears or collapse in a faint, so she tried very hard to look unimpressed. Her heart was racing so fast she was sure they could hear it; she balled her hands into fists at her sides to keep them from shaking. The strange bones, the gray men, the animals in the Muck’s laboratory, and his terrible and beautiful drawings—those had all been bad enough, but she hadn’t thought he could do this. She didn’t think he could actually change people into other creatures.

  But from the looks of the pirates gathered around her, he was getting close.

  And the next person he meant to experiment on was Izzy.

  “Um,” Mara said. “What do you mean?”

  The tailed girl was carrying a long, curved knife. She touched the point with her fingertip and grinned. “I still think it’s better if we say we’re worse than the worst nightmare. Worse than anything they’ve dreamed.”

  The frog-fingered man shook his head. “Nah, that’s too much, you know, it might backfire? How do we know what they’ve dreamed? One time I had this nightmare about a giant clam with teeth and a cooking pot—”

  The tailed girl snickered. “We can call ourselves the city’s worst nightmare, except for the chowder nightmare.”

  “I like the sound of that,” said the winged girl.

  “Quiet,” snapped the captain. “This is not the time for joking.”

  The girls subsided with only a little bit of grumbling. The frog-fingered man rolled his eyes.

  The captain flexed her fingers; each claw glistened in the firelight. “My name is Amanta, and this is my crew.”

  “Do they get their own names?” Mara asked, proud that her voice didn’t shake. “Or should I just make some up for them?”

  “Why don’t you tell us yours first? And the name of whoever sent you to spy on us.”

  Mara swallowed, her mind racing. “Nobody sent me. I didn’t even mean to come here. I just needed a place to rest for the night.”

  The tailed girl laughed. “You want us to believe that you swam here? Do you think we’re stupid?”

  “I don’t care if you believe it or not. It’s the truth. Who are you?”

  “The whole city will soon speak our names in fear and awe, so you might as well be first. I’m Ketta,” said the tailed girl. She pointed to the frog-fingered man. “That’s Yousef. Neske’s the one with the horns. Feather”— a nod at the winged girl—“used to have another name, but she insisted we change it.”

  “Everybody’s going to call me something birdy anyway,” Feather said. When she shrugged, both her shoulders and wings moved. “Might as well pick for myself.”

  “And that’s Mya Storm-Eye over there,” Ketta finished.

  Surprised, Mara looked at the old woman with the fish eyes. “I’ve heard of you. You’re a storm-mage. You used to have that tower on Quarantine Island.”

  Mya Storm-Eye, if Mara remembered correctly, had drawn the ire of the High Mage when she had persuaded some students to steal the magical journals of the infamous mage Greengill from the Citadel library in exchange for teaching them forbidden spells. Bindy had taken Mya’s side in that particular disagreement, claiming that if the students were stupid enough to go along, then the Citadel deserved to lose its precious books.

  Mya Storm-Eye was pleased. “I like this one, Captain. Can we keep her?”

  Neske, the horned man, laughed. “She didn’t say she’d heard you were a good mage. Captain, you’re asking the wrong question.”

  Captain Amanta glared at him. “Am I? What should I be asking?”

  Neske shrugged. “Don’t want to tell you how to captain or anything, but maybe you could ask why she doesn’t seem all that surprised to see us, with us looking like this. Ask why she hasn’t run away screaming.”

  They all turned to look at Mara, their eyes glinting.

  “That is a very good question,” Captain Amanta said.

  Ketta’s tail flicked back and forth like a whip. “She came looking for us. Why else would she be here?”

  “I wasn’t looking for you,” Mara said. It was the truth, but she didn’t think they cared much about that. “I wasn’t looking for anybody.”

  She glanced around, weighing her options. What she needed—more than answers, more than explanations, more than anything—was help getting back to Tidewater Isle. That meant she needed them to be on her side.

  “But I did come from the Winter Blade. I saw the people he’s holding there. The people he hasn’t experimented on yet.”

  Even though the pirates seemed more proud of their hybrid features than ashamed, Mara was still expecting them to flinch, at least a little bit. The pirates might be free now—if hiding away in an Ossuary crypt was free—but the Muck was holding prisoners. Had the pirates been prisoners too? Had they escaped? She was expecting anger and scorn. She was expecting fear.

  She was not expecting the captain to whirl her around, grab her by the shoulders, and shake her so hard her teeth rattled.

  “You’ve been inside? In the dungeon?” Captain Amanta wasn’t hissing or whispering now; her voice rang through the catacombs. “What did you see? Who else is there?”

  “Did you see them?” Feather asked, jumping to her feet.

  At the same moment Neske said, “Did you talk to them? Are they all right?”

  Mara twisted out of the captain’s grasp and backed away. She looked over the pirates, confusion turning her thoughts around and around. “The prisoners? You want to know if the prisoners are all right?”

  “Yes, we want to know!” Feather said. “Are they hurt? Who did you talk to? What did they say?”

  “But . . .” Mara was having trouble making sense of anything. If they had escaped from the dungeon, why would they keep going back? Why would they agree to help the Muck at all? “Aren’t you the ones who captured them? They said they
were grabbed by people with . . . masks. They thought you were wearing masks.”

  It was hard to be sure, with their faces and claws so terrifying, but Mara thought the pirates might look a bit sheepish.

  “That was you, wasn’t it?” Mara said.

  “We had no choice,” Feather said, when nobody else spoke. “He said—”

  Captain Amanta cut her off. “Tell us who you saw. Tell us exactly.”

  “It was dark,” Mara said slowly, stalling for time. “It’s a dungeon. It was hard to see anything. Haven’t you . . . Weren’t you prisoners? Didn’t he do this to you? Did you escape?”

  “It’s not like that,” Feather said. “He didn’t capture us.”

  “Then what is it—”

  Mara stopped to think. If they hadn’t been prisoners, why had the Muck experimented on them? Why weren’t they still in the Winter Blade? She had so many questions, and the only way she could think to get the answers was to offer the same in return. She had information the pirates wanted, but she wasn’t going to give it away freely.

  “Tell me why you’re—why you’ve got all this, and why you’re kidnapping people for the Muck, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  Captain Amanta looked over her crew before answering. After a moment she nodded slightly. “We had a business arrangement with the mage.”

  “You mean . . .” Mara made herself think it through without jumping to conclusions. Had was not the same as have. “What was the arrangement?”

  “The master of the Winter Blade has long had a reputation as a mage who is willing to entertain clients requiring something more than the standard magical services,” Captain Amanta said.

  Neske snickered. “She knows we’re pirates, Captain.”

  Captain Amanta silenced him with a glance. “We approached him with—let’s call it a problem, one that we believed could benefit from a magical solution.”

  “What did you want to do?” Mara asked.

  “That’s not important,” the captain said.

  “If it’s not important, then you can tell me,” Mara countered.

  Mya Storm-Eye laughed. “I really do want to keep this one, Captain.”

  The captain hissed at both of them. “All you need to know is that we approached the Lord of the Muck for help in gaining access to somewhat remote parts of the city.”

  “What parts? Do you want to break in somewhere?” Mara asked.

  But even as the words flew from her tongue, Mara knew the answer. Ketta with her webbed feet. Yousef with his sticky fingers. Feather with her wings. And most of all Mya Storm-Eye, once a respected mage, disgraced as a thief for stealing some valuable old journals from the Citadel. They were pirates. They might look strange and frightening now, they might be hiding away in the catacombs, they might be doing business with the Lord of the Muck, but they were pirates. And there was one thing pirates wanted above all else.

  “You want to find Old Greengill’s treasure,” Mara said.

  There was a brief, stunned silence.

  “You”—Mara pointed at Feather—“you’ve got wings to fly up to the top of the Broken Tower and find the map. But the rest of you—” Mya Storm-Eye grinned, and Neske began to chuckle. “The legends say it’s hidden in sea caves so deep nobody can reach them, so you asked the Muck to— What? Make it so you could swim like fish?”

  Ketta snorted. “Our plans are so much bigger than that, little girl. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe not, but I bet he told you he would help. Then he told you what he was going to do, and you thought it was crazy.” Mara knew she was right from the way they avoided her eyes. “But then he explained that it wasn’t just about . . . fins and scales and tails. He told you the transformation would give you magical abilities like the founders had. Did it work? Are you magical now? Magical in a way that mages have never been able to manage?”

  The pirates glanced at one another and said nothing.

  Mara pressed on. “I guess not. But I’m right, aren’t I? That’s why you let him do this. You were never his prisoners. You offered yourselves up willingly.”

  “We had a business arrangement,” Captain Amanta said stiffly, “but he broke our agreement. He refused to release two of our crew.”

  Understanding dawned. That was why they were so eager to hear about the people in the dungeon.

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  “My daughter, Jemi, and Feather’s father.”

  Feather stabbed at the fire with a skewer, not seeming to notice that the chunks of fish had blackened to a crisp. There was a glimmer of tears in her eyes.

  “He said he would release them if we brought him new subjects for his experiments,” Captain Amanta said. “First it was one group of prisoners, then two. We’ve now delivered three. Still he says he’ll release them next time.”

  “And every time you believe him, you become more of a fool,” a new voice said.

  It came from the corridor outside the catacomb room, echoing dully on the stone. Captain Amanta turned, but the pirates didn’t look surprised or alarmed. This was somebody they had been expecting. Mara couldn’t yet see the newcomer through the doorway.

  “But your foolhardy path began when you went to such a man for help in the first place.”

  A shiver of recognition snaked down Mara’s spine. Her legs wobbled, suddenly so weak she was afraid they wouldn’t hold her up. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Her tired, muddled mind was playing tricks on her.

  “He’s never going to let your people go. Surely you know that by now.”

  The speaker appeared in the doorway. The firelight caught her familiar smile in its warm glow.

  It was Bindy.

  15

  The Bone-Mage

  Bindy had disappeared on a stormy night at the beginning of winter.

  Rain and wind had lashed at the islands, and a bitter cold had crept into Mara’s drafty attic bedroom. She had gone to fetch an extra blanket but stopped when she heard voices below. She hadn’t known Bindy had a visitor. When she heard the Muck—he wasn’t lord of anything yet—she settled on the top of the stairs to listen. She didn’t like the Muck. She didn’t like the way he looked over her as though he couldn’t see her, she didn’t like the way his eyes glittered when Bindy worked her bone magic, and she especially didn’t like the way Bindy had lately begun snapping and sending her away when he came by. She was ten, not a little baby, and soon she would be Bindy’s apprentice. She shouldn’t be sent out of the room for mage talk anymore.

  Finally Mara heard the Muck say, “We don’t have time to argue, Belinda. Meet me at the docks. Don’t be late.”

  A moment later the door slammed.

  Mara ran down the steps. “What did he want?” she asked.

  Bindy didn’t look up; she was shoving a stack of her journals into a satchel. “You should be in bed.”

  “Are you going out tonight?”

  “Just for a bit,” Bindy said distractedly. She looked around, tapping her fingers thoughtfully on the table. “Now, where did . . . There!” She grabbed one more leather-bound journal and added it to the satchel. “I’ve just got to run out and help that fool with a little project of his.”

  “What do you need all that for?” Mara asked. “Where are you going? Can I come?”

  Bindy slung the bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. “Go to bed, Mara. I’ll be back by morning.”

  But she never came back. A fisherman found her abandoned rowboat east of Quarantine Island. Bindy and her spell books were gone. The Muck was Lord of the Winter Blade.

  Mara had searched for days and days, scouring all of Quarantine Island, hoping against hope there had been some terrible misunderstanding. Bindy wouldn’t abandon her shop. She wouldn’t abandon Mara. Mara had tried to tell people that the new master of the Winter Blade must have done something, must have tricked Bindy and stolen her spell books and pushed her overboard, but they chased her away and scolded
her for telling tales. The other mages helped themselves to Bindy’s shop, never mind that they had always scorned her bone magic. Mara lived alone on the streets for months, until she met Fish Hook and he convinced the fishmonger to give her a job.

  That had been two years ago.

  Bindy’s black hair had more gray now, and it was shorn close to her head in a curly cap. There were more wrinkles around her eyes, a more pronounced stoop to her shoulders. She wore patched trousers and a simple linen shirt. Her brown eyes warmed when she smiled.

  “It’s good to see you again, Mara,” she said.

  Mara was so stunned she couldn’t move. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She had to be dreaming. So many nights she had gone to sleep wishing with all her heart that Bindy would be alive again, that she would come back to her shop on the Street of Whispering Stones and throw open the windows to air it out, and she would prowl the streets and markets of all the islands until she found Mara and took her home.

  Bindy’s expression softened. “Mara. I’m so sorry.”

  That was all Mara needed. She was awake and Bindy was here. Mara flung her arms around Bindy’s waist and buried her head against her shoulder. Bindy had never been much for hugging, but she closed Mara in a tight embrace. She smelled faintly of seawater and smoke, scents so familiar Mara’s heart squeezed.

  “I thought you were dead,” Mara said, sniffling.

  “You’ve gotten so tall,” Bindy said fondly. “How I’ve missed you.”

  A million questions crowded Mara’s mind, each one more plaintive and confused than the last. “What happened? Where have you been?”

  “Oh, my dear child,” Bindy said. “It’s a very long story. And look at you! You’re all wet and shivering. Haven’t my friends offered you a spot by the fire and something to eat?”

  Mara had forgotten all about the pirates.

  “Do you know this child?” Captain Amanta said.

  “Mara is my apprentice,” Bindy said. “But I’m just as surprised as you are to see her tonight.”

  Mara’s still-stunned, flip-flopping heart swelled with pride. She had never really been Bindy’s apprentice; she had been too young. But she liked to hear Bindy say it anyway, especially to the pirates who had been looking at her like she was a sea slug that slumped out of the water and into their secret lair.