Still, doubt niggled at me. As excited as I was to see beyond the shores of Kjora, I couldn’t shake the discomfort that something was wrong. Kolur couldn’t do magic beyond the same few charms everyone can do, and it was strange that Kolur, who aside from his friendship with Mama was one of the most conventional Kjorans in the village, would have a friend on another island.
That his friend was a witch, well, that was even stranger. Exciting, too. But mostly strange. And I didn’t know why.
Kolur set down his ale and leaned back on the bench. Something in his expression was off—not wrong, exactly, but different, the way the wind had felt as it blew through the town. It gave me the same sort of chill. He looked across the table at Frida and I followed his gaze, peering at her over my soup bowl. She stared back at me with eyes like oceans. They were just as unpredictable.
CHAPTER THREE
As it turned out, the repairs were even more minor than Kolur had suggested, and by the next afternoon the Penelope was fit to sail again. I hardly had to do anything at all, mostly just hand Frida foul-smelling powders and unguents as she made her way around the ship, casting unfamiliar spells. It was the closest I’d ever come to apprenticing as a wizard, and it was a disappointment to learn that it didn’t feel all that different from apprenticing as a fisherman.
I could sense Frida’s power crackling against my own, but there was a restraint to it. She wasn’t showing me everything she could do. Every time I handed her something—some ground-up shells, a bit of dried seaweed—that magic would arc between us and then fizzle away, and I wondered what she was keeping from me. All her spells were sea-magic, something I was familiar with but hadn’t really seen, and it was frustrating to sense her power but not be able to fully experience it.
I wondered if proper witch’s apprenticeships were this frustrating.
Kolur watched the repairs from his usual place up at the helm, eating dried wildflower seeds. When I asked about them, he said they were a Skalirin specialty.
“How do you know about Skalirin specialties?” I said. “Are you telling me you’ve been off Kjora before?”
“I’m a fisherman,” he said.
“That doesn’t answer my question. My papa’s a fisherman and he’s never sailed out of Kjoran waters.”
Kolur just ignored me, though. “Here, try one.” He handed me a wildflower seed. It was a small, dark dot in my palm. I glared down at it, angry with Kolur for keeping secrets.
“You wanted adventure,” he said.
I wanted answers, too. Still, I tossed the seed into my mouth, figuring I could ask him again once we made sail. The seed burned my tongue and I spat it out on deck. Kolur laughed at me.
“Ass,” I said, wiping at my mouth. “Is this really all I’m going to get to see of Skalir? Some burning seeds and a shabby dock town?”
“It’s probably for the best,” Kolur said. “Skalir’s a backward little island. Isn’t that right, Frida?”
She glanced up at him from her place at the bow, where she was finishing the last of the repair spells.
“Not so backward when you leave the shore and go into the mountains.” She blew a swirl of glittering powder out into the water, and the ocean churned around us. “For good luck,” she added, looking at me.
I’d never seen that kind of good luck charm before, but before I could ask more about it Frida was walking back toward Kolur.
“Too many fishermen around,” she said. “That’s why Skalir seems so backward.”
She grinned, so I took it for a joke and laughed, even though I was technically a fisherman. But Kolur didn’t find it so funny.
“Fishermen are honest folk,” he snapped. “Unlike your lot.”
“My lot?” Frida said. “You would know—”
“Hanna.” Kolur stood up and shoved his package of wildflower seeds into his pocket. “Check with the shop to see if our supplies are ready.”
I looked back and forth between Kolur and Frida, wondering what Frida was going to say that got Kolur all worked up. Kolur jerked his head at me. “Go on,” he said. “Frida’s done here, and I want to get to the water as soon as we can.”
Frida crossed her arms over her chest. “You best do what he says,” she told me. “Kolur never liked being disobeyed.”
I scowled at both of them but I knew she was right, even if I didn’t understand how. It still didn’t make sense that Kolur knew so powerful a witch, that we just happened to land on the island where she lived, three days’ sail from where we ought to be . . .
I didn’t like it.
The supply shop was a little store right at the point where the docks gave way to Beshel-by-the-Sea proper. The owner recognized me when I walked in, even though I’d never met him before. Kolur must have told him to be on the lookout for a Kjoran-Empire girl. Not a lot of us around.
“You Hanna?” he asked, straightening up from where he’d been wrapping packages in rough tunic fabric.
“I’m picking up Kolur Icebreak’s order.” I stood in the doorway, fidgeting, looking around. It wasn’t much of a store, just a room stacked with packages. I wondered what was in each of them. Goods from all over Skalir, probably.
“Certainly.” The shopkeeper turned to one of his stacks. It was a dull sight, his hunched-over back, and I knew it was likely the last non-Kjoran sight I’d see for a good long while. “Here you are.”
He dropped the packages on the counter. There were about ten of them, rather large, all wrapped in the same rough fabric. He read off the list—food mostly, dried fish and some sea vegetables, skins of fresh water. An awful lot for a three-day trip.
“Need any help carrying it to your boat?”
“No, thanks.” I scooped the packages up by their tie strings and staggered out of the shop, where I called on the south wind to help lighten my load. Those ten packages felt like two as I walked back down the docks, the wind bearing the bulk of their weight. So far, adventuring was pretty dull. About the same as being in Kjora, all things told.
I carted the supplies back to the Penelope and set them up in the storeroom. The sun was sinking pale gold into the horizon, and I figured Kolur was anxious to be out on the open sea. So it was a surprise, when I climbed up from down below, to find Frida still on board.
And a bigger surprise still that she was standing over the wooden map with a sextant.
“What’s going on?” I whispered at Kolur. “I thought she was finished repairing our boat.”
“She is.” Kolur stared straight ahead, out at the water. “I didn’t ask her just to repair the boat, though. She’s coming with us.”
“What?”
Frida straightened up from the map and brought a roll of parchment over to the helm and handed it to Kolur. I fell quiet and watched her the way I would the poisonous spiders that crept through our house. But Kolur just glanced over the parchment once, nodded, and then rolled it up and stuck it in his coat pocket.
“Route calculations,” Frida said to me.
“I know what they are.” My confusion spiraled out like some unwieldy plant. Why was Kolur bringing a powerful witch back with us? Why would she agree to leave her home so easily?
What did they expect to happen?
“How are you going to get back to Skalir?” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“We’re going home to Kjora. Don’t imagine we’ll ever come back—it was just a fluke that brought us here. So how are you going to get home?”
Frida glanced over at Kolur.
“Make sail!” he hollered out. “That means you, Hanna.”
“Are we coming back here?”
“That ain’t anything you need to worry about. Make the damn sail, girl.”
“I’m on this boat, so it is something I need to worry about.”
“I’m the captain, and I’m telling you it’s not. So make the sail.”
I glared at him, but I knew it was pointless; he was going to ignore me. So I did as he asked, dropping the sails down and
tying them into place, my anger bubbling up under the surface. It was hard to concentrate. I kept glancing over at the helm, where Kolur and Frida stood side by side like old friends.
“Which direction for the wind?” I shouted at Kolur, my voice snappy with irritation.
“Oh, don’t worry, I can do it.” Frida strode to the center of the boat. My anger flared again. She lifted one hand. The direction of the wind shifted, filling up our sails and pushing us out away from the docks.
I gaped at her.
“You conduct through the air,” I said, my anger with Kolur vanishing. “But earlier—”
“I do.” Frida smiled. “I find simple water charms work best when repairing a ship. I can do both.”
Both? That was a rarity. And maybe it explained why she was willing to leave Skalir so easily. That sort of power didn’t make her typical of the north.
The wind gusted us out to sea. Frida walked back over to the map and looked over it again, nodding to herself. So she wasn’t just a witch, she was a windwitch. Same as me.
Maybe that was why Kolur brought her on board: because I wasn’t good enough at magic, because I wasn’t a proper witch. Ass.
I walked to the stern and leaned against the railing as Beshel-by-the-Sea drew farther and farther away. Their lanterns were already switching on, pale blue like the lanterns back at home. Home. Maybe when we got back, I’d convince Mama to send me to the academy to apprentice as a witch the way I wanted. I’d tell her Kolur was a liar. She didn’t abide liars.
Frida materialized beside me, the wind blowing the loose strands of hair away from her face. A northern wind. She seemed to have an affinity with it, the way I had an affinity with the south. This fact irritated me for some reason.
“Have you left before?” I hoped I could get some information out of her if I came at it sideways.
“What?” She looked at me. “Oh, you mean Skalir. Yes, of course.”
I looked down at the dark ocean water and shivered. She was so nonchalant about crossing the waters. I’d always wanted to try it, of course, but I was my mother’s daughter, and that made me different from most island folk.
“I’m not from there, actually.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and smiled mischievously. I wondered if I looked surprised. “I was born farther north.”
Farther north. I looked at her more closely. Her accent wasn’t the same as mine, of course, but now that I thought about it, it wasn’t the same as the Skalirins’, either. More lilting, like a lute. And her black hair, that was unusual around Beshel-by-the-Sea too.
“My mama sailed far north once,” I said. “All the way to Jandanvar. She said it was full of wonders.”
“Wonders.” She nodded and looked back out at the land slowly diminishing into the sea. “Yes, I suppose you could call them that. But it’s dangerous there too. The Mists are closer, the cold is crueler. The people are further from human than in the rest of the world.” She let out a long sigh. “I much prefer it here.”
It rubbed me raw that Kolur had brought another windwitch aboard, especially one who kept her power close by. But at the same time, I wanted to ask her about the north, about Jandanvar, about all those wonders Papa never expanded upon.
Kolur called her over to the helm, claiming he needed her advice. He didn’t call me. So I stayed put, long past the moment Beshel-by-the-Sea vanished into the darkness, until all that surrounded us was water.
• • •
The next day, the ocean was as calm and smooth as glass, which meant there wasn’t anything to do. Kolur handled the wheel and Frida tended to the wind and the sails, and that pretty much took care of all the morning chores aboard the Penelope. Under normal circumstances, I would have appreciated the chance to laze about on deck, maybe practice my magic. But every time I tried, I’d start dwelling on all of Kolur’s and Frida’s secrets. The fact that I’d been so neatly removed from any duties aboard the ship didn’t help.
Midmorning, I gathered up the nets, preparing to cast them out into the sea.
“Girl!” Kolur barked. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“We’re a fishing boat, aren’t we?” I held up the nets. “Gonna do some fishing.”
Kolur glared at me. “We already got a catch.”
“Yeah, hardly anything. And it’ll be all dried out from the preservation charm by the time we get home.” I hooked the nets into place. “Might as well see what else we can find.”
Frida watched us from the bow. Kolur stared at me for a few minutes, then pushed one hand through his hair.
“Liable to be disappointed in these waters,” he muttered.
I pushed the nets into the sea. They fanned out and sank below the surface. Now I was back to where I started. Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Lunchtime came around and the nets still weren’t full. We ate up on deck despite the cold, huddled around a little heat charm that Frida had cast. I’d never seen anything like it before, a perfect glowing ball the same color as the summer sun. It radiated warmth for a few paces, but it never got too hot, the way a fire would. The really remarkable thing was that it didn’t seem to drain anything out of her. She’d fixed up the ship and she’d drawn down the wind and now she was heating the deck, too, and she didn’t seem pale or worn out or anything.
I didn’t know what to make of Frida. She was probably the most interesting person I’d ever met, and if she’d wandered into the village one afternoon, I bet I would have tried to be her best friend. But out here on the cold water, with all those looks between her and Kolur, and all those secrets, she left me nervous. Unsettled.
“That’s some pretty interesting magic,” I told her between bites of dried fish, trying to find out answers.
“Thank you.” She smiled. “It’s a northern charm. The winters are much longer up there.”
“Northern?” I frowned. “Is it Jandanvari?”
She laughed. Kolur shifted a little in his place and stared off at the horizon.
“There are places in the north besides Jandanvar,” she said.
I blushed. “I know. I just—” I tore angrily at a hunk of bread. “I was just curious.”
“No, this particular charm isn’t from Jandanvar.” She drew her knees up to her chest. “I can show you some Jandanvari spells, though, if you’d like—”
“No.” Kolur stood up and tossed his half-eaten fish back in the jar. “There’ll be none of that on this ship.”
“You’re no fun.” She winked at me, which I found startling. It made me feel like she and I were conspirators against Kolur.
“You’re too reckless.” Kolur stomped over to the wheel and whipped off the premade steering charm he’d bought from a wizard in the Kjoran capital. “Keep to the winds. What I brought you aboard for.”
I frowned. My control of the winds was enough to get us home. It wasn’t as if I’d never been aboard the Penelope before.
Frida laughed. “Is he always like that?”
Her question jerked me out of my thoughts. “Don’t you know?” I said. “I thought you were friends.”
“Oh, but that was a long time ago. He had a sense of humor then.”
“How long ago?”
“Too long to count.” She laughed. “We did have our adventures, though.”
I looked over at Kolur. It was like I’d never seen him before. I’d always assumed he’d lived in Kjora his whole life, like everyone else in the village. He was a fisherman. Fishermen didn’t have adventures. That was the whole problem with them.
Frida stood up and stretched. The wind swirled around her, its magic glinting in the sun. Back at home in the village, I would dream about looking like that, a proud windwitch who had seen the world. It was one of my favorite daydreams this past winter, when the night crept in early on and the snow froze around our little cottage. Henrik would be playing by the fire, making nonsense noises to himself, and Mama would be singing pirate songs, and Papa woul
d be repairing his fishing nets, and I’d look at all of them and know I wanted something more to my life. And so I thought about my future.
But looking at Frida didn’t feel like looking at my future. It just made that future seem even further away. Her life wasn’t going to be mine; my life was going to be more like Kolur’s, a bit of adventure in the past and nothing more. That’s what comes from growing up in the north. Your life is bound by the rocks and the cold and the sea.
It was depressing.
I gathered up the leftovers from lunch and put them back in the food stores down below. Then I checked on the nets. They weren’t full yet, but I was so bored, I pulled them up anyway. The catch wasn’t too bad—mostly seaweed, although a few ling flopped among the ropes. I sorted them out and cast a new preservation charm over them. Kolur watched me, but he didn’t say anything.
Night fell. We ate another meal by the light of the heat charm. I went down below and fell asleep.
The next day was the exact same. Still no chores for me to do, so I cast out the nets again. This time, I left them floating for longer. The wind gusted and swelled, ruffling my hair so badly, I finally combed it into two thick braids.
The wind was a true wind, not anything that Frida had manufactured, and it smelled sweet, the way the Abelas had back in Beshel-by-the-Sea. I stood up at the bow and let the wind blow over me, my eyes closed, feeling for the enchantment veining through the air. This was an old wizard’s trick, meant to bring you more in tune with the world’s magic. I tried to practice it as often as I could.
But today, I couldn’t feel the magic, not exactly—or rather, I did feel it, but it seemed different, more of a presence than magic usually is. Like a predatory animal watching you from the shadows of a tree.
I didn’t like it.
I opened my eyes and pulled myself back into my own head. The wind swept around me, although it no longer smelled of flowers. Maybe we were too far north. Maybe it was the Mists—
I shivered. No. The presence hadn’t felt frightening; it hadn’t felt dangerous. It was just there.
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