Borderlands

by Skye Melki-Wegner

  Silver’s gaze lingers on the door. ‘Quirin’ll keep his family on the Forgotten, I’d judge. Laverna, of course, and the kid. First boat gets the brunt of the storm, and others’ll follow in our wake. He won’t want his family taking the hit.’

  ‘What about the other boat?’ Clementine says. ‘The Merchant’s Daughter?’

  Silver shakes her head. ‘Been needin’ repairs for weeks, that one. Normally Carrilla fixes the boats when they need a patch-up, but she’s gone north to offload a litter of foxary pups. We were waitin’ for her to get back before –’

  There’s a strange howl out in the dark. Teddy, Clementine and I all jump in alarm, but Silver just gives us a reassuring scoff. ‘Nothin’ to worry over yet, my friends. Just the Merchant’s Daughter startin’ up. Kenton always feeds her the wrong vial – good smuggler, but he don’t know his toes from his elbows when it comes to alchemy.’

  Silver heads to the front of the cabin, where a pedestal of knobs and equipment gleams in bronze. She hauls back a pair of velvet curtains, and I suck down a sharp breath at what lies beneath. An entire wall of cogs and levers, tubes and buttons. They shine with an odd sort of light, despite their placement in the gloom of the cabin. When she tugs a tiny copper lever, a cluster of bright alchemy lamps flares at the front of the boat. They dapple light across the river, like headlights on a carriage.

  Silver pulls out a wooden chest filled with small glass vials of liquid and smoke. She considers her options, then selects a vial and holds it up to the light. She looks oddly distracted, running her fingers down the vial like it’s a loved one’s shoulder.

  ‘Where’d you nick those from?’ Teddy says, his eyes wide. ‘Gotta be worth a fortune, I reckon.’

  His words stir a faint memory. Back in Rourton, my father worked at an alchemics factory. I remember that place as though it were another world. Thin light from high windows casting eerie lines across the floor. The crank of machinery, the stink of fumes. And those unnatural fluids, smoking in funnels and bubbling through pipes, while a team of supervisors watched from on high . . .

  I’ve never seen raw alchemy juice outside that factory. Only alchemists can brew it, mixing spellwork and chemistry to draw out the power innate in such a substance. Yet here it is: vial upon vial of deadly magic, stashed in an old woman’s boat in the borderlands.

  Silver takes a low breath. ‘Do you wish to know the real reason Quirin puts me in front?’

  I’m struck dumb by the change in her tone. Her western accent is gone. For that one moment, Silver sounded like a different woman entirely – a richie, with a lilt in her voice that could rival the twins. I’m not the only one who notices it; I glance across at Teddy, whose eyes are wide.

  But Silver isn’t looking at us. Her concentration is fixed on the contents of that chest. She replaces her initial choice, reconsiders, then selects another vial.

  Teddy says, ‘Yeah, we do.’

  Silver turns to face us, a tight smile upon her lips. ‘Because to captain these beauties through a storm, you need more than just a boatman. You need an alchemist.’

  And with that, the storm hits.

  It begins with thunder. But if normal thunder is a lion snarling, this is a hundred lions being crushed by an avalanche. It builds and builds, layering upon itself, so that every second ramps up the assault on our eardrums. The sound smashes through my pores, beneath my fingernails, into my nostrils and eyes and teeth. It makes my very brain reverberate, until every bit of me is shaking and quaking, and still the sound builds. We drop to the floor and clutch our heads, fighting a stream of involuntary tears.

  Only Silver seems able to fight it. Her eyes are streaming but she clutches one of her silver charms – the bone, perhaps? – and manages to stay upon her feet. With her other hand she uncorks the vial and stumbles across to the clockwork wall. As the boat lurches, she pours its contents into a funnel in the machinery. Nothing happens.

  Then the Nightsong explodes into life around us. Cogs turn, wheels churn, levers crank. Silver places both hands upon the wheel: a massive contraption near the front-facing window. As the thunder finally dies, I manage to clamber to my feet. I feel like every cell in my body has been broken and remade.

  ‘What was that?’ gasps Teddy, still reeling on the floor. Clementine hasn’t removed her hands from her ears. Her eyelids are scrunched so tight I think her cheeks are in danger of swallowing her lashes.

  ‘We call ’em Growls,’ Silver says, guiding our boat out into the river. ‘You’ll hear a couple more of those, I’d judge, before the storm’s through.’

  I notice that her western accent is back, and suddenly think of her earlier words: ‘Ask no questions, you’ll hear no lies.’ Whatever Silver’s past life was before she joined Quirin’s crew, she wasn’t just some scruffer from the west. This old woman has secrets in her past, and if she’s willing to adopt a fake accent to hide them . . .

  ‘What can we do to help?’ I say. ‘I mean –’

  ‘You can stay out of my way,’ Silver says. ‘This is an alchemy boat, my friend, and you ain’t no alchemist. I don’t need a crew. Just my wits, my wheel and my vials.’

  She wrenches on the wheel, spinning us further out into the river. Lightning flashes outside. It lights up the cabin’s interior, glaring through gaps in the curtains. Thunder follows a moment later, but this time it’s not a Growl. Just a normal grumble, which quickly fades into wind and rain.

  Silver fiddles with the wheel then checks some navigation dials on the wall. ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘scratch that. You’d best empty out the bilge.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The bilge!’

  I glance at Teddy and Clementine, but they look just as lost as I am. ‘We grew up in the city, we don’t know –’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ Silver says through gritted teeth. ‘The basement, then. Empty out the water, and be quick about it. There’s a pump down in the bunkroom.’

  ‘How do we work it?’

  Silver gives us an exasperated look. ‘Shove its rear end down into the bilge, feed the hosepipe outside and get crankin’. Best get any water out of the bottom of this boat – there’ll be more floodin’ in soon enough.’

  The Nightsong lurches as we descend into its bunkroom. A lantern swings wildly from the ceiling and for a moment we’re plunged into darkness. I stagger across the room, fighting to keep my feet. The light flickers – black, light, black, light – and a chair skids across the floor to bash my shins. I grit my teeth against the pain and grab the nearest bunk for support. The boat gives another roll and bedding cascades around me. I struggle to free myself from a particularly enthusiastic blanket just as the lantern dies.

  It doesn’t flicker back on.

  ‘Damn!’ Teddy says. ‘Who’s got a match?’

  A moment later, I feel something wet around my toes. Water. Whatever this bilge thing is, we need to start pumping fast because clearly it’s already overflowing.

  Teddy manages to strike a match. He trips through ankle-deep bedding, now slippery with river water, and reaches the ceiling lantern. With a growl of frustration he manages to snare it on an upswing.

  There’s a fizz as the oil catches, and light swings back through the bunkroom. It doesn’t really improve the mood, though, since now we can see the full extent of the danger. Water pools and sloshes around our toes, creating a sea of wet blankets and sliding furniture.

  I glance around. ‘Where’s the pump?’

  ‘There! That must be it.’ Clementine staggers to the corner, slipping against a bunk as the Nightsong lurches. When the lantern swings back towards this corner, I see it: a dark metal cylinder sitting in the corner of the room. Beside it, a hole in the floor drops into a compartment below our feet.

  ‘Must be the bilge down there,’ Teddy says, pointing out the obvious.

  We feed the pump’s bottom down into the bilg
e. A long metal hosepipe extends from the top of the cylinder. I grab it, just as Teddy reaches for the pump’s handle.

  ‘You start pumping,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll get this outside.’

  Teddy nods grimly. He gives the handle an experi­mental push, and looks even grimmer when he realises the strength required to work it. But it does work; a moment later, dirty water spews from the end of the hose in my hands.

  I clamber up into the main cabin, where Silver is adding another vial to the funnel. A few lamps have smashed, despite their alchemical toughness, and night leaks coldly through the room. I feel it for a moment on my skin: a prickle of proclivity magic.

  Silver stares out the window with manic eyes and wrenches the wheel like she’s fighting off a wolf. I decide it’s best not to break her concentration. But she notices me, and the hosepipe in my hands.

  ‘Outside!’ she shouts. ‘There’s a clamp for it on the rail!’

  It takes a moment to push the door open; the wind rushes against it, pinning it back into place. But I throw all my body weight against it, let out a snarl of effort and manage – barely – to bust my way out onto deck.

  Rain kicks me in the face as the door slams shut. I wince at the sound. If this boat weren’t built to withstand storms, I’d expect the entire wall to shatter. As it is, there’s a crash of glass from one of the windows. Velvet curtains flap, suddenly set free, and rain pours in like a diagonal waterfall.

  I stagger forward and collide with the rail. The rain grows stronger by the second; it doesn’t just fall, it whips around me. I can barely see now – I hold a hand to shield my face and squint through soaking fingers. My hair is already plastered across my scalp, and I feel like I’ve just been dunked into a lake.

  It takes almost a minute of slipping and stumbling to find the clamp. Every ten seconds or so there’s a mighty slash of wind, and I drop to my knees to protect my face and hands. All the while, Teddy is pumping the bilge, so a stagnant spew of water and grime spouts from the pipe all over my trousers. I swear a few filthy curses at the storm, which makes me feel a little better even though I can’t hear myself over this ruckus.

  I thrust the hosepipe into place and screw the clamp awkwardly with numb fingers. I wrestle with the door, then give up. I re-enter the cabin through its broken window, careful to keep my bare palms off the shards of glass. The curtains slap me in the face a few times, but finally I spill inside onto a pile of glass and rain.

  Silver whips around to face me. ‘Done?’

  I nod. ‘What else . . .?’

  ‘Help your friends pump the bilge.’ She turns her full attention back to the wheel, and thrusts it sideways. The boat lurches, like a foxary making an oversharp turn. I trip onto the floorboards, and a painful jarring shoots into my kneecaps.

  Down in the bunkroom, Teddy is slick with sweat. Clementine has taken control of the handle for now, but she’s struggling. She has to throw her entire body weight onto the lever with every push, since there’s not much hope of her muscles doing the job. Walking for days on end doesn’t do much for tricep development.

  I stagger across the room. The pump must be achieving something, because although wet bedding swims around my ankles, the water seems a fraction lower than it was before.

  ‘I’ll take it.’ I reach for the handle.

  Clementine shakes her head. ‘No, I . . . I can . . . just a bit . . . longer.’

  I’m about to argue, but there’s something odd in her eyes. It’s more than just determination, it’s like she’s bottling up a scream, and the only sane way to release it is by thrashing her body to exhaustion on this pump. I think of Maisy, lying injured in another boat. The twins have hardly been separated before, and never like this. If this is how Clementine wants to cope . . .

  ‘Did you stick the hose outside?’ Teddy says.

  I nod. ‘One of the windows broke.’

  Teddy winces. ‘Don’t fancy cleaning this boat up when it’s over.’

  ‘At this rate,’ I say, ‘the rain’ll do it for us.’

  ‘How long do you reckon it’ll take to get to this Green Lagoon place, then?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t even know what it is, let alone how long it’ll take. And to be honest, I don’t see how a lagoon’s supposed to help us survive a storm. Wouldn’t it be better to find shelter?’

  ‘Not a natural storm, though,’ Teddy says. ‘Bet the smugglers know something about this lagoon that we don’t.’

  ‘What, it’s storm repellent?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Teddy says, brightening up, ‘but it’d be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? Picture it: the storm runs up to this lagoon and – pow!’ He smacks a fist into his opposite palm. ‘Sorry, Stormy, you’ve made a wrong turn, nick off and bluster over that way inste–’

  There’s an almighty crash from overhead, and the tinkle of splintering windows. Silver lets off a barrage of curses, loud enough to hear through the cabin floor. A moment later, water slops down the trapdoor into our bunkroom. We all shriek, momentarily convinced that the boat is going under. Then I realise what must have happened: a huge wave has smashed through the windows, then spilled down the trapdoor to meet us.

  ‘Since when do rivers have waves?’ I say, shaken. ‘That’s not normal.’

  Teddy shakes his head. ‘I don’t reckon “normal” and this storm have ever been introduced to each other.’

  I glance across at Clementine. She’s stopped pumping. Instead, she stares at the stairwell where the wave sloshed down, her lips trembling.

  ‘Clementine,’ I say, ‘do you want me to do it?’

  She shakes her head, as though jerked out of a reverie. ‘No,’ she manages. ‘No, I just . . . Maisy.’

  ‘She’s fine,’ I say, with as much confidence as I can muster. ‘She’s safer than us, remember? Quirin won’t let anything happen to the Forgotten – not with his family on board.’

  Clementine gives a jerky nod. She looks like she wants to believe me, but there is something else in her eyes. In the quiver of her lip, in the way she avoids my gaze.

  Guilt.

  I know that feeling well. It’s the same one I get when I think about letting go of Radnor above that waterfall. When I think of how Lukas is out there, alone in this storm, and we’ve done nothing to find him. And if I think back far enough, how I let my mother walk ahead into our apartment – just a moment before the bomb crashed down . . .

  I shake my head. This isn’t the time for moping. We have to hold ourselves together if we expect this boat to do the same.

  ‘What about Silver?’ I say, trying to refocus as Clementine resumes her pumping. ‘I don’t think we can trust her. She’s been faking that accent, lying about her name . . .’

  ‘She’s an alchemist,’ Teddy says. ‘She didn’t tell us that until now. I reckon that’s an odd thing to hide.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t relevant,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, but alchemy’s not just any old job,’ Teddy says. ‘It takes decades of training, years of exams and studying and stuff. If I’d done all that, I’d be bragging about it left right and centre.’

  ‘Decades? Really?’ I screw up my face. ‘That seems a bit much, just to brew up a few magic charms.’ I pause. ‘Hang on, how do you know so much about alchemists?’

  ‘Hoped I’d be one when I was a kid,’ Teddy says. ‘You know, until . . .’

  He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Until he ended up on the streets. Until his quick fingers lost their hopes of brewing magic, and moved instead to picking pockets.

  We sit in silence, while Clementine wears herself out upon the pump. After a gruelling ten minutes she hands over to me and staggers across to collapse beside Teddy. He hesitates, then rests a hand upon her shoulder.

  Pumping, as it turns out, is hard. At first I manage with my arms alone, but soon they’re burning and I bring my body weight into play. I
stand and spread my legs apart, struggling for a pose that will maintain my balance. Then, with every stroke, I push my entire body down on the handle. It groans and complains, fighting to push the water up the hosepipe, but I don’t give in. I can’t afford to.

  And so time wears on. Moments turn into minutes, and minutes turn into an hour. The storm shows no sign of slowing. If anything, it grows stronger. We survive another Growl, cowering on the floor with desperate hands across our ears. We take it in turns to operate the pump, each of us fighting until we can’t move our arms any longer.

  When it’s someone else’s turn to work, I flop onto a bunk and focus on breathing. I can’t waste energy on chatter – not any more. None of us can. These moments of rest are too precious, and my time to pump again will come all too soon.

  Just as another Growl dies away, something bangs against the back of the boat. ‘What . . .?’

  Clementine looks pale. ‘I think we just bumped into something.’

  She’s right. I whip my head around to face the impact, searching for signs of damage. Nothing. The back of the boat is fully intact and I can feel that we’re still surging forward, rolling roughshod down the river. The boat lurches, the rain roars, and I hear Silver swearing her head off again from above.

  Perhaps it was just a little bump against the shore. Perhaps the noise was just amplified oddly down here in the bunkroom . . .

  Then I hear the voices upstairs. Not just one voice, like Silver swearing. Two voices. A man. His tone echoes deep, almost like a continuation of the thunder itself, and I exchange a glance with Teddy to make sure I’m not imagining it. I realise with a tingle what the bump must have been. Silver and another captain drew our boats together for a moment, allowing someone to leap the gap . . .

  Teddy looks as though he doesn’t know whether to be appalled or impressed. ‘These people are bonkers!’

  A moment later, Quirin appears at the top of our stairwell, his beard dripping with rain. He barrels down into the bunkroom and rips off his cloak. His shirt underneath is sopping wet, although I can’t tell whether it’s from sweat, the rain or the river.