City of Thirst

by Carrie Ryan

  And with that, Ardent cut his hand through the air again, sending a wave to pick up the Monervans’ ship and slide it down the whirlpool.

  The beetle’s ship pulled up along the other side. “I fear I, too, must be leaving,” Rysacg buzzed. “We owe you all a great debt for tearing down the Wall. For bringing us back to our lost cousins. And for mastering your desires as my people could not.”

  Fin waved furiously, even though he knew the beetle probably wouldn’t notice him. Ardent shoved the air again, and soon Rysacg, too, was gone.

  Which left the Enterprising Kraken, alone, against the Iron Tide that had devoured Monerva. The Wall was a cracked black slab, mired as if melted in the unyielding iron water below. The spires of the Highest now stood rigid, cold and dark. For once, the sinking city remained still.

  The wizards both braced themselves, holding the final barricade in place with all their might. Remy gripped Marrill by the shoulders as the vibrating waves grew higher. All around, Fin watched pieces of the city and bits of Marrill’s world wash out toward the mouth of the wobbling whirlpool.

  “Ardent,” Coll gasped. “The chop’s getting too much. We have to go, now!”

  Annalessa dropped her hands. One of them, though, she slipped around Ardent’s arms. “We’ve done it,” she said to him. “Come now. Let’s go, dear.”

  The wizard bit his lip. Fin could tell he was straining, trying to hold on until the last possible second. And for that moment, it was almost as if his will alone was a perfect match for whatever force propelled the Iron Tide.

  But then he, too, let his arms fall and nodded. Coll gave an audible sigh of relief and yanked the wheel sharply. The Kraken turned. Behind them, the final barrier groaned.

  Then they were full about, heading away as fast as they could. The bow of the Kraken crashed through the waves, her course set for the shrinking whirlpool… and home.

  CHAPTER 33

  Full Circle

  Hey, check it out!” Remy pointed as they neared the whirlpool. “Isn’t that all junk from home?”

  Marrill caught sight of a balding tire floating through the water along with an old, rusted train caboose. Even Roseberg’s, the empty store from the abandoned strip mall, bobbed a few dozen yards away.

  “You know, it seems really unfair that all that stuff’s still intact, while my car’s probably mounted on some pirate’s wall as a trophy by now,” Remy grumbled.

  “Different currents,” Annalessa pointed out. “With your world practically touching the Boundary, these objects are likely caught on a brackish current.”

  “What’ll happen to it all?” Marrill asked.

  “It’ll get sucked through the whirlpool just like the ships.” Annalessa shrugged. “According to everything we know, it should go back to where it came from as though nothing happened.”

  “Wait.” Remy pushed to her feet, face draining of color. “Does that mean that we could go home, too? Like, if we were in that store when it crossed back into our world, it would take us with it?”

  Annalessa ran her finger down her nose as she considered the question. Marrill’s pulse skittered. It hadn’t occurred to her that getting home could be so easy.

  “Theoretically, it’s possible,” Annalessa finally pronounced. “We know everything will return to its own time, but we always just assumed everything would be going back to the same place: the Shattered Archipelago. That store, though, is crossing directly into your world. It’s hard to say when you would show up, but it’s quite reasonable to think you could, essentially, ride it home.”

  Marrill grabbed the rail to steady herself. A way home. But how could they be sure? If Annalessa was wrong, they could end up doggy-paddling in Stream water.

  She stared across the short distance to where Roseberg’s floated past. Something moved, somewhere inside of it. She squinted. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn there was a frog hopping along one of the shelves.

  She sucked in a breath as the revelation hit her. It was the speakfrog—the one Talaba had lost just minutes ago. The same one she had found days ago, in the gully by her house.

  Or rather, would find.

  She closed her eyes. Ardent was right. This whole time business was tricky.

  But it didn’t matter when the frog ended up in Arizona. What mattered is that it did end up in Arizona. Which meant she could, too. So it was true: Roseberg’s was her ticket back.

  Home was only a few yards away.

  “The speakfrog rode it home,” she said. “We can, too.”

  Remy looked at her, eyes wide. “So I guess that means…” She bit her lip and glanced down at where Coll hunched over the wheel, still wheezing. She swallowed. “We should go?” But the babysitter didn’t move.

  Marrill stared at the abandoned store, feeling strangely empty. Yes, she’d be going home, and her parents would never even know she’d been gone in the first place. But her mom would still be sick. Nothing at all would have changed.

  “Would we be able to come back?” she asked, chest squeezing tight.

  Ardent and Annalessa exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Annalessa said.

  Marrill nodded. “And if I don’t go now… will I be able to get home later?”

  Again the two wizards exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Annalessa said again.

  Ardent cleared his throat. “You’ll have to do it soon, before the store hits the whirlpool.”

  She glanced over at Fin. He stood with his arms crossed and his shoulders braced, waiting for their inevitable good-bye. He blinked back something that looked suspiciously like tears. A spike cut through Marrill’s heart.

  He stepped forward then, holding out the yellow wish orb. “Take this—you can use it to make your mom better.”

  Marrill stared at it. It was tempting. Deeply, severely tempting. But she couldn’t. The risk was too great. She shook her head. “Remember what the Salt Sand King said: If we wish, he’ll be freed, and the whole Stream could go up in flames.”

  “Okay. Marrill,” Remy called. She’d made her way up to the quarterdeck. Her hand lingered lightly on Coll’s arm. “It’s time. We gotta go if we’re going.”

  Marrill met Fin’s eyes. He cleared his throat and jerked his chin toward the floating store as it grew closer and closer to the edge of the whirlpool. “You should hurry.” But as she started toward the railing, his hand shot out, stopping her. “Why did you remember me, back in the catacombs?”

  She swallowed. It was the same question she’d been asking herself. Now she thought she might have the answer. “Before all this, back when we first met, I think I remembered you because I felt like you needed me,” she said. “And I forgot you because you didn’t need me anymore.”

  She stopped herself. “That’s not true. I forgot you because I took you for granted. That’s what really happened.”

  She chewed her lip. “But now… now I remember because I care about you. It’s because I can’t forget you, no matter what happens, no matter what you or I do, no matter how things go. You’re my best friend.”

  He looked back at her. “You said that before, you know,” he reminded her.

  Marrill hung her head. “I know,” she said. “And I took that for granted. I shouldn’t have.”

  Fin glanced away and then back at her. “I did the same thing,” he confessed. “I put what I wanted ahead of you. And I don’t want to ever do that again.” His voice cracked as he spoke. “But… how do we know this time is different?”

  More than anything else, she wanted to reassure him. But how could she know for certain? Whatever made him forgettable was far beyond anything she comprehended.

  All she could tell him was what was in her heart. “We don’t.” She lifted a shoulder. “But isn’t that the way it always is with friends? You just have to trust they’ll be there for you.”

  He thought this over for a moment. “That’s pretty scary.”

  She felt the sides of her mouth lifting into a smile. “Yea
h. It is.”

  “Will you do me a favor?” he asked. She nodded without hesitation. “When you get home, will you make yourself one of those sail scraps with my picture on it like the ones you made last time? To remind you of me, just in case?”

  Marrill felt tears burn in the back of her throat. “I’ll make a hundred of them,” she told him.

  He smiled. She waited for him to crack some sort of joke. But instead he just said, “Thanks.”

  Marrill took a deep breath as she searched the deck for Karnelius. She had been here before. On the verge of leaving everything, with nothing to take back but memories. Serth had been right, she realized. She hadn’t just come back to the Pirate Stream to help Fin and the others. She’d come to run away from not being able to help her mom.

  And yet, here she was now, on the Pirate Stream, where magic flowed like water. Where wishes came from machines. Where else could she find a way to help her mom.

  So why was she leaving?

  As she was wrestling with the thought, the Wiverwane, forgotten in her pocket, crept out and skittered across her bare arm. A flood of memories filled her. Some from home. Some from the Stream. Some from an ancient time, from a small, golden, whiskered little thing, a being of immense, incredible power, but so, so lonely, she could scarcely even imagine. The Dawn Wizard, last of its kind, building a machine to grant wishes. Wishing for the friends it had left behind.

  Marrill rubbed her palms against her shorts brusquely. “You know what?” she told him. “I’ll do you one better. I’m not going.”

  Fin opened his mouth. Marrill held up a hand. “At least, not yet, anyway.” She jerked a thumb at the store. “Counting that thing, I’ve found my way home twice already. I can do it again. And this time, when I do go, I won’t regret not doing what I could for the people I love.”

  She smirked and put her hands on Fin’s shoulders. “I’ll be able to do something when I get home. And,” she said, her resolution growing as she spoke the words out loud, “I won’t leave you to get forgotten again. We’re not giving up on my mom or yours. We’re going to find her. Together. So yeah. I’m staying.”

  Fin looked away for a second. She could see him trying to figure out how to screw up his face so it didn’t look like he was getting teary. She pretended not to notice.

  “Then I’m not going back, either,” Remy announced.

  “But, Remy—” Marrill protested.

  The older girl cut her off. “Like I said, Arizona’s best babysitter doesn’t lose a kid.” Her eyes flicked to Coll and then away. Two bright spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “Besides, maybe I’ve got my own reasons for staying.”

  A broad grin devoured Marrill’s face. And when she looked back down, Fin was shoving the wish orb into her hands. “Okay,” he said. “But keep this.” He looked her dead in the eye and winked. “At least you’ll know you can go home, if worse comes to worst.”

  She threw her arms around him. “Thanks, Fin,” she whispered in his ear.

  “Aw, ain’t I proud,” the Naysayer mocked. “I knew one day, if you tried real hard, at least one of ya could make a friend. Now wrap up the snuggle-huggin’ and the cheerleadin’ and get us out of here before the world collapses, how ’bout?”

  “I told you,” Remy shot, “I’m not a—” Before she could finish, the deck tilted and she scrambled for purchase.

  The Naysayer was right. The vibrating waves had grown to a fever pitch. The whirlpool yawning before them wobbled unsteadily, ready to collapse at any second. Behind them, iron spotted the surface of the barricade. If they didn’t get out before the Boundary collapsed, they would be stuck here with it.

  But still, Ardent didn’t give the command for the ship to leave. Anguish wrinkled his brow. And suddenly it dawned on Marrill as to why.

  She turned to Annalessa. “If everything goes back to where it came from, what will happen to you?”

  Annalessa glanced at Ardent, her eyes watery. “I’ll return to my own ship and time.”

  “So you’ll go back to the past,” Fin said. She nodded. He frowned. “But you know the future now. Doesn’t that mean you can change it?”

  Ardent stepped toward her, taking her hand. “You can, you know—change the future.” His voice held so much pain that Marrill’s heart ached for him. “Go back to see me again,” he urged. “I’ll listen this time. I promise.”

  She laughed softly, but it was marred with sorrow. “But I can’t, Ardent. Because I didn’t. My future is already your past. What I’ve done—it’s all been written and set. There’s no changing it.”

  The Kraken pulled to the edge of the ever-shrinking whirlpool. Behind them, the final barrier crackled as the Iron Tide consumed it. “Guys!” Remy called. She sounded on the edge of panic. “It’s coming! And Coll’s getting worse!” She crouched next to him as he struggled for air, his fingers clutching his neck.

  Ardent pressed his lips together until they disappeared into his beard. “Ropebone,” he called, his voice flat. “Take us in.” Rigging snapped tight, the sails filled as the Kraken turned toward the center of the swirling whirlpool.

  Annalessa placed a hand against Ardent’s cheek. “Good-bye, Ardent Squirrelsquire.”

  He placed his hand on top of hers. “I’ll never stop looking for you, Annalessa. I will see you again, though all of the Pirate Stream should stand in my way.”

  The Kraken wound tighter and tighter, the bowsprit almost piercing the center of the vortex when Annalessa smiled and stepped toward Ardent, as though about to kiss him. But before her lips could touch his, she vanished.

  “My stuff!” the Naysayer cried. “What’s happening to all my stuff?!” As the Kraken passed into the whirlpool, pile after pile of junk began to disappear. He dove onto the remaining bits, pawing pieces aft in a desperate—and pointless—effort to save them. Karny skittered after him, batting at the loose scraps as they bounced free and evaporated into thin air.

  Marrill started to laugh. But it caught in her throat when an octagonal plate of bright metal came skittering across the deck to rest right at her feet.

  Almost in a trance, she picked it up and flipped it over. STOP, it said in white letters, glaring against a bright crimson background.

  For a moment, Marrill thought about writing a message to her parents, telling them not to worry. Telling them that she had returned to the Pirate Stream, and would be back once she’d found a way to fix her mom. Under her feet, the deck pitched upward. The Kraken was falling. There was no time. Frantically, she searched through her pockets, pulling out the hunk of charcoal she’d snagged on the Burning Plain.

  And in the end, she knew exactly what she had to write. The very words that had gotten her here in the first place:

  Because it was the truth. Just not the way she’d first understood it. She was needed to stop the Iron Tide. But not just that. Fin also needed her. To be his friend. To help him find his mother. And if she was honest, she needed herself to be here, too.

  She’d just finished drawing the sigil of the Salt Sand King when the stern of the ship plunged into the whirlpool. A second before it disappeared, Marrill whipped the stop sign out into the air. Knowing, without a doubt, that it would find its way home.

  CHAPTER 34

  Promises to Keep

  Fin let out a long whoop as the Kraken rocketed down the swirling funnel of water, swooshed through the hairpin turn at the bottom, and shot upward once more. Behind them, the tunnel collapsed in on itself, creating a massive tidal wave. But Fin wasn’t worried. Because after everything they’d been through, there was no way they were dying now.

  Up ahead, the churning water gave way to bright blue sky. The wave lifted them from behind, raising the ship up and out of the whirlpool. “Whoa, bwah, whoa!” he yelped.

  “All hands, brace yourselves!” Coll shouted.

  “Floating islands ahoy!” Ardent called as they moved through the heart of the Shattered Archipelago.

  “My stuff!” the Naysayer wailed.
“Why did it have to be my stuff? Why couldn’t it be the cheerleader!”

  “IIIII AAAM NOOOOT AAAA CHEEEERLEEADEERRR!!!” Remy shrieked.

  The Kraken surfed the magical wave as it crashed through broken islands. Some of them vanished, turning into a flock of butterflies and the taste of butter on a hot roll as the wave consumed them. And then, finally, slowly, the wave subsided. The ship drifted down onto now-calm seas. No hint of the whirlpool remained.

  Fin braced himself for the crack of red lightning, the punishing roll of thunder. But they didn’t come. Above, the sky was a brilliant blue, the Stream an endless expanse of emptiness. There were no other vessels in sight. “But the Iron Ship—it was right here when we went through the whirlpool. If we came back at the same time we left…” He trailed off.

  Marrill finished the question for him. “Where is it?”

  “Um, isn’t it a good thing it’s not here?” Remy asked. “Besides, I thought you said you guys took him out with that magical death-star thingy.”

  Fin caught Marrill’s eye. “We did, it’s just…”

  Coll stepped forward and took a long, deep breath. His tattoo no longer wrapped around his neck but snaked down his arm instead. “It’s just that for now, we’re okay. Why don’t we enjoy it for a while before looking for more trouble?”

  The captain had a point. Fin collapsed on the deck, exhausted. Marrill pounced on his chest, making him groan and laugh all at once. “We did it!” she shouted. “We made it!”

  A second later, Remy dog-piled on top of them. “I can’t believe you talked me into staying here, young lady!” she chided. “If you think for a second we aren’t getting back in time for my exams, you’ve got another thing coming.” But her voice was anything but unhappy.

  Karnelius let out a contented purr. Marrill’s Wiverwane flexed its fingers happily on the sunlit railing. Even Coll laughed. Loud enough that the rumor vines along the stern took up the sound, amplifying it across the Stream.

  It took Fin a moment to realize that the only one who hadn’t joined in, other than the Naysayer, was Ardent. The wizard stood at the bow, staring off toward the horizon, his face drawn and anguished.