by Keith Walter
“It’s all right,” Charles’s voice added, “because Grace is shifting her own weight every time a wave hits.”
“Oh,” Leslie replied, chagrined.
“Look, she’s not…” He trailed off as he muffled the microphone into his shirt, but clearly forgot to take his finger off the talk button. Serin and Leslie were audience for a one-sided conversation. “They knew enough to change course… I wasn’t yelling at them… They need to be smarter, they can’t just… No, I’m not saying you can’t… Well it’s still not smart… Fine, I’m not going up there…” There was a static sound and shuffling before Charles brought the microphone back to his mouth. “Look, just give a heads up if you’re going to do something like that again. Grace can keep us in one piece, but only if she knows what’s coming. Her senses are somewhat limited right now while she focuses.”
The bonded exchanged rueful glances before Leslie squeezed the com to reply, “Sorry, Gracie. We’ll let you know if anything changes.”
Serin waited for Leslie to click the com into place on the dash before asking, concern clear in her voice, “You don’t think we hurt her, do you?”
Leslie refused to meet Serin’s eyes, replying with forced confidence, “I’m sure she’s fine.”
With Leslie right next to her, Serin could feel the guilt rolling off her bond. “She’d let us know if she couldn’t handle it,” she stated firmly. The question had been ill-advised; she should have known Leslie would take it personally. Thinking quickly, Serin added, “You know, I’m getting pretty worked up, your singing was always calming.”
Leslie acknowledged the sudden topic change with a sad smile. “What should I sing?” she asked.
“Whatever that tune was you were humming,” Serin replied.
“Oh,” Leslie replied, brows furrowing in thought. “I don’t actually remember the words.”
“What song is it, maybe I do,” Serin offered, though almost certain she wouldn’t. Leslie was the far more musically inclined of the two, and Serin hadn’t been facetious when she suggested Leslie’s singing had a calming effect.
“It’s ‘The Edmund Fitzgerald,’” Leslie replied.
“Who?” Serin asked. “Is that the singer?”
“Not who, what. The Edmund Fitzgerald is a boat.”
“Grace is a boat, and she’s a who,” Serin grumbled. She sometimes hated how Leslie knowing everything could make her sound dumb. “So what’s so special about the Edmund whatever that it got a song?”
“Like Grace, it sailed the Great Lakes through a great storm,” Leslie responded tentatively, realizing too late it wasn’t, perhaps, the best song to be humming.
“Ha, and I bet it kicked tail through the storm just like Gracie here,” Serin laughed, determination hardening in her eyes.
“Well, actually,” Leslie began. If there was one fault she wished she could avoid, it was correcting misconceptions. Perhaps it was all the time she spent reading histories, the extreme attention to detail that she so loved in those books, but she just couldn’t let a false idea stand unopposed. “The Edmund Fitzgerald was something like a super ship in its day, so that’s like Grace, but the song is about the night it sank under mysterious stormy circumstances.”
Serin’s eyes widened comically, and she turned to her companion with her jaw hanging low. “What?” she yelled. “You’ve been humming a song about a ship sinking? Why would you even tell me that?”
Leslie blanched. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”
Resting her head against the wheel, Serin sighed. “You are so lucky I love you,” she grumbled.
“Maybe I could sing something else,” Leslie offered.
Serin took her right hand off the wheel to place it over the left of her lover. She waited for Leslie to lock gaze with her own before adding, “I would really appreciate that.”
Leslie smiled, and songs filled the bridge.
◆◆◆
Talmer realized he hadn’t prepared as much as he’d thought. Sure, he had dozens of spells memorized for precisely this purpose. Love was a well-researched phenomenon, and multitudes of spells had been developed around it since the birth of the fey.
Any attempt at swaying one toward true love was complicated. Love wasn’t just one emotion, it was many, all working in tandem with exquisitely fine ratios. One couldn’t simply cast an attraction spell and expect it to make much of a difference. Some fey didn’t even care about attraction, just as others didn’t care about personality, lineage, or offspring.
He had reviewed everything he knew of Grace. She was most comfortable with him when he shared his similar past. She was cross with him when he fought with the women. She found him attractive, because who wouldn’t. She was shy when put on the spot, but firm with her decisions, something he had just recently understood. He had to hope that would be enough. In all other situations, he’d studied his target for months before crafting the perfect spell and rune combinations. He cursed his own hesitation. Had he begun this process the moment he learned of her true nature, he would be so much further along.
Still, he didn’t have the time or patience to wait. The storm, as ill-advised as it was, was proving both a boon and a hindrance. A hindrance as he couldn’t see what was coming and found himself tossed through the kitchen more than once without warning. At the same time, it was certainly a boon in that it had forced interlopers to leave him alone to do his work. He didn’t have to worry about anyone walking in and disrupting his focus or, worse, messing with his runes.
He’d managed to apply runes to the four corners of the kitchen representing Grace’s greatest desires: joy, understanding, freedom, and contentment. On each wall, he’d applied his own greatest desires: strength, ambition, pride, and longevity. It mattered little how her desires clashed with his own, only that he had gotten them right. In between each greater rune, he wrote the emotions and memories they had shared together. It had taken a few bruises along the way, but soon he had surrounded the kitchen in runework. Now he just needed to activate them with the appropriate spells, in the appropriate order, and with the appropriate magnitude.
Giddiness threatened his focus, but he pushed it down. There would be time to revel and rejoice later. This magic was too delicate to allow even the slightest extra emotion. He stepped toward the large double-decker oven on the back wall, pulling both doors down. Reaching one hand into each oven, he let his fingers slide over the top and bottom, the space between each. There was the pulse, Grace’s beating heart. Gently, he felt for a lip around either side, smiling when his fingernail caught on a groove around the bottom of the upper oven. He pulled out his other hand, brought energy to his fingertips and jammed the nails of both hands into the groove before pulling hard. With a pop, the panel on the upper oven jumped up, revealing the heart beneath.
The heart was more machine than organ, hard and metallic, pulsing with magic but not motion. It was no longer than the distance from his elbow to his fingertips, cylindrical, and if he wrapped both hands around, he would nearly be able to touch his thumbs and middle fingers. It was oblong, like a stretched egged, tapering to rounded ends. The outside was perfectly smooth and silver where veins weren’t present. The heart itself had a spreading web of veins, glowing red lines that were neither raised nor indented. Each vein originated from a wider red glow at the horizontal center of the heart, and they spread out straight toward the ends before splintering along perfect ninety-degree angles like a phylogenetic tree. The heart itself was held in place by two silver rods at the rounded tips, each which glowed in a rainbow from red to blue where the veins touched.
Awe took hold as he stared long at the heart he had searched for. Grace, he realized, was nowhere near her peak. He knew through his father’s work that the greatest of fey weapons, the cannons on the stronghold of the Union capital, said to be able to kill a noble in a single blast, were built around the stolen heart of a fey ship. But such harvesting always waited until the ship had reached its peak, when the entire heart
would glow with power, washing out individual veins. That Grace still showed such distinct and thin veins meant she was still young, still capable of incredible growth. If she was this powerful now… He became lightheaded just thinking about the future possibilities. Before he had just guessed, but now he knew that the rest of the crew really was holding her back from her true potential. If not now, someday she truly would have the strength to demolish even the great Entregon.
Taking careful, deep breaths, Talmer calmed his mind. The only thing that mattered was the present. Keeping hold of the oven door, he spread his legs just wider than his shoulders. Bending down quickly, he spoke whispers to the fine black wingtips on his feet and they grew tiny tentacles, each of which immediately plunged into the floor. Now that he didn’t have to worry about being thrown around, he spread his arms wide, spreading his fingers and pointing them to the ceiling. He spoke the old language, clearly and confidently. As seconds passed, his words sped up until they became unintelligible. As each spell completed, a lazy blue flame would spark to life from one finger. Each flame remained alight as he launched into the next spell and the next.
When he finished the last spell, he gasped for air. Every finger now held at least one blue flame, the thumb and pointer on each hand holding three each. He took deep breaths to calm his nerves and alleviate his body’s need for oxygen. Once he had composed himself, he spoke to the empty room. “Obey my command.”
The runework around the kitchen walls pulsed with light before each character squirmed and pulled itself free of the wall on which it had been applied. Floating freely, the characters danced in a circle like a gathering of fey all holding hands. With each revolution around Talmer, they danced nearer and nearer, until they were packed like a great yellow ribbon just outside the his reach. He lifted his hands up and the ribbon followed. He brought his wrists together, and the ribbon compacted again into a perfect circle around his flaming fingers. Slowly, gently, he reached into the upper oven, the ribbon barely fitting without touching the walls. He took a final breath, held it, then touched the flames on his fingers to Grace’s heart.
The ribbon of yellow burst with light, so bright Talmer could no longer see the heart below his hands. The runework characters spun at dizzying speeds around his hands. The ribbon of light flowed down over his fingers before latching on to the heart, spinning now under the flames at his fingertips. He willed the flames out, and they jumped one by one onto the yellow sheath at odd intervals. By the time his fingers were clear of flame, the yellow sheath around the heart was dotted with flame spots like the pimpled drum of a music box.
Talmer let out the breath he had been holding to inspect the results. All appeared well. His runes fully coated the heart and should filter Grace’s perception of him. The spells would control and alter the strength of that filter so as to meet his desires. He smiled in relief and joy. Finally, things were looking up. At least, until he heard a whooshing intake of air from the heart.
He stared closely, waiting, and startled when one of his spell flames suddenly snuffed out as if sucked into the heart underneath. Before he could react, the spells were each sucked in with a hiss like a short breath. The yellow light of his runework began to dim and bubble before it, too, began to stretch, pulled toward the center of the heart. With a muffled pop, the yellow light sheath split like a balloon and was consumed.
“No,” Talmer said aloud. “No! How could that not work?” He pounded a fist into the side of the oven, trying to calm himself. “My spells were impeccable, my runes were precise,” he whispered. “It was a fluke,” he declared, though his voice shook from lack of confidence. “I just…need to try again.”
Whispering at his shoes, Talmer lifted his feet, walked to the northwest corner of the room, and began drawing once again.
◆◆◆
Barclay awoke to a dark room with thick fabric straps across his forehead, chest, and ankles. His thoughts immediately jumped to capture, wondering what torture the Union had in store. His whole body tensed, sparks of magic surging through his limbs as he tore off his restraints. He could feel the room moving around him, and every few seconds a loud banging. He tossed his legs over the side of whatever he’d been laying on, and pressed down thankfully to find a floor. Just as he started to stand up, light flashed from outside a small circular window. It was brief, but enough for his eyes to have caught the layout of the room around him and to realize he was still in his cabin, not captured at all.
“What the hell?” he asked the empty room.
He felt his way to the cabin door, acutely aware of a full-body soreness in his muscles. Better than the searing pain he’d felt before, he mused. He grabbed a waist-high railing that seemed to run around the entire room. He was almost sure that wasn’t there before. He snuck his fingers into the indented cabin handle and pulled. The door clicked, and before he could stop it, the door swung inside as if rammed. He was immediately assaulted with wind and rain, and a small wave of water that had apparently been sloshing around outside the door. The water made the floor slick, and only by clenching his fist around the handle did he stop himself from sliding backward.
He tried to push magic to his working arm, but seemed unable to find much power. He just barely managed to pull himself forward against the wind. Clamping his legs around the door, was able to claw forward and grab the edge of the doorway. Summoning enough magic to hold himself steady, he stared out into night. The sea was alive, and so very angry. He got the distinct impression something big had happened.
Sticking his head farther out the door, he checked both directions, noting immediately that Grace had changed. He was on the second floor, with a long balcony walkway and a number of similar white doors closed in both directions. As he tried to figure out which way to go, lightning flashed and he caught sight of the frothy white top of a twenty-five foot wave. He clenched the doorframe hard just as it swept over the ship. The roof above the walkway took the brunt, but it was all he could do to hold on and keep from being swept back.
Well, if they’d made it this far, he figured they must be heading into the waves. That meant the bridge was likely to his left. Giving himself a moment to scan the walkway, he was relieved to see a railing running up the interior wall. With only his left hand able to do anything right now, he could make that work. Before another wave could come through, he kicked off the doorframe and grabbed the railing outside. He pulled his body as close to the wall as he could, and began the laborious process of walking through the storm. Whenever a big wave came by, he’d make himself as flat as he could to avoid extra push from the incoming water. In between, he scramble three or four steps as quickly as he could and jumped past doors to the next rail.
What felt like an hour later, the railing gave out and he found himself next to a narrower white door before an expanse of windows. He waited for a wave to pass before he released the railing, grabbed the indented door handle, and pulled up in one fluid motion. The wind at his back pushed him inside, and he found himself face-planting on the wet floor.
“Behemoth!” Leslie cried as the door blew open and a large, dark figured tumbled in. Seconds later, the next wave hit and gallons of water blasted through the open door. The figure on the ground was swept up and bashed against the back wall, while Serin and Leslie found themselves soaked to the bone in an instant.
“Damn it!” Serin yelled. She glanced at the dark silhouette on the back wall before screaming, “Talmer, you idiot! What the hell are you doing up here?”
Leslie, less perturbed by a little water, tried to keep her head. Already she could see another wave coming, and didn’t want to see the bridge become an aquarium. Her hands darted to the clasps holding her. She twisted the locking mechanism then unhooked herself in one smooth motion. With only moments to spare, she kicked her whole body toward the open door, slamming it shut with a soft thud. At almost the same time, the loud banging of thousands of gallons of water against the windows drowned out the quiet click of the latch. Grace had bu
ilt everything sturdy, and everyone on the bridge could appreciate that tiny latch keeping the water out.
With the main problem resolved, Leslie turned to the heap of a person struggling to get up from the floor. She strode through the inch-deep water, grabbed the man by his right shoulder and slammed his back into the wall. “Talmer, you son of…” Her voice died in her throat when she recognized the unnatural blue eyes staring back. She glanced to the still-shriveled shoulder clad in bandages and let go quickly. “Captain,” she breathed out, “what are you doing here?”
“Where’s Grace?” he responded gruffly. Despite the rough treatment, he was a little relieved to be back on his feet. Trying to stand on a wet floor with just one good hand to stabilize himself had proven more difficult than he expected.
“Downstairs in the engine room with Charles,” Leslie answered.
Barclay mused over the information. “How do I get there?”
“You don’t,” Serin called over her shoulder, “unless you wanna end up overboard. Seriously, though, why are you even awake?”
“Not sure,” he admitted. Flexing his good hand, he felt the weakness and sore muscles throughout his arm. “Healed enough, I guess. The power was off when I woke up.” He suddenly stared forward at the raging seas, watching as a large wave assaulted the bridge windows. He pointed forward, “Where are we? How long was I out?”
“What do you mean?” Leslie asked, confused.
“This isn’t the kind of storm you find on Lake Ontario, did we make it through the locks?” he asked incredulously.
Serin smirked. “You sound surprised. What? Didn’t trust us to get anywhere without you?”
“So we’re in the Atlantic?” Barclay demanded.
“No, this is Ontario,” Serin answered.
Barclay stared at the back of Serin’s head, wishing he had the magic to throw something at her. Instead, he turned to the taller woman, still staring eye to eye with him. “What’s she playing at?”