“Do you want us to try to get your tome back?” Dane asks.
I startle, looking at him. Even Karis seems surprised.
“We’re in this together now, right?” Dane says. “All three of us.” He glances awkwardly away, rubbing the back of his neck. “And I’m not sure what it’s worth, but I’m sorry for those things I said before. On Tallis and the wild island. I was wrong.”
It is worth a lot. More than he could know. Perhaps I judged him too harshly as a Scriptorium soldier. However we started, he’s not looking at me as if I’m some mindless automaton now.
“If you want us to try to get it back,” Dane says, “we can.”
They could try, and even by trying they could risk everything. I press my hand to my temple. “I don’t know. Even if we got my tome back, it’s not as if we could run. I’m not even sure what Zara might do. I’m just... I’m scared.”
The word rasps in my ears. Before all this happened, my entire world consisted of my father and our villa. It might not have been large, but it was home, and it was safe. Now the fear inside of me is a cold leech, and I don’t know how to stop it.
Karis gets up, wincing as she does and hobbles over to me. She sits down on the ground and takes my hand. The contact grounds me, pulling me back up out of the anxiety. Even though it’s only a touch.
“It’s all right to be scared, Alix,” she says. “And Dane and I will be there tomorrow, no matter what.”
I look at Karis. When I first met her, I didn’t expect this softness from her. I felt as soon as I woke up for the first time that I knew my father. He was always open with me. Karis, though... I keep discovering sides to her that I don’t quite expect. Both of us have lost and are lost. We both have to find our way forward again.
“Everything seemed simpler before,” I whisper, and yet even as the words leave my mouth, I wonder if that was a good thing. Could I be content again living with the walls of a villa dictating my whole world? The thought bothers me. I’m not sure I’m ready to grow into someone bigger than my father’s home.
“What was it all like back then?” Karis asks.
“I never had the chance to see most of what was out there. I was always in our villa.”
“Will you tell me about that, then?”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I’d like to know,” she says. “More about your old life. More about you.”
Warmth filters into my chest. It’s strange, how emotions can tear me down and build me up. People, too. I think back, and even though the memories are painful, this time I don’t shy away. I’m the only one who remembers who my father truly was: not a villain, but a gentle, fervent scholar. His memory deserves to be kept alive.
“My father was always kind to me. He never treated me like a thing. He never once used my tome. When I wasn’t hiding, he’d take me out into the garden. I loved gardening.”
Karis smiles. “You did?”
I nod. Unlike all the blurry memories that still beat like bird’s wings against my mind, these come back whole and bright and good. “I liked watching things grow and bloom. There was something special in knowing the plants were only alive because of us and our care. The gardens were beautiful.” Pale stone walls scrubbed clean by the sun, fig trees casting shade onto the paths, orchids and hyacinths growing like living splashes of color. I remember walking through them as if it were yesterday. Now that yesterday was centuries ago. “I suppose that’s all gone now.”
I miss him. I keep thinking this ache will go away, but it stays lodged in the center of my chest.
“Gardens grow back.” Karis shifts closer, leaning her head against my shoulder. I’m caught between the urge to stiffen or to ease into that touch. “What else did you like to do?”
“Well...” I fiddle with the hem of my chiton. “I liked singing. Still like singing.”
Her head pops up. “Really?”
I nod, pleased and embarrassed.
“Will you sing something?”
I should have expected that. I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. My repertoire is dated and—”
“I’d like to hear.”
Karis looks at me, expectant, and any refusal I might have made falls away. She woke me up, gave me back my tome, and didn’t reject me. I never thought that anyone besides my father would look at me and see anything but a monster.
I never thought I might have a friend.
I think back, looking for a song she might like, and then begin to sing.
“‘The moon was bright, the night was fair,
I wandered far not knowing where.
And at a spring where paths did meet,
I heard a song so low and sweet,
And saw a minstrel standing there.
And saw a minstrel standing there.’”
I start out hesitant, but the more I sing the more I remember, and my voice grows stronger. Pirates from some of the other beds poke their heads out to listen. Dane’s hammock rocks slowly along to the melody, one leg hanging out. Karis leans against my side, a comforting warmth. Someone, it must be Kocha, begins to play his flute, the haunting melody winding with my own. I hear the gruff tones of a low voice joining in, too. I guess not all of these songs were lost to the ages.
My father was never a musician. Yet here, in this pirate ship, other voices join my own.
And together we sing in the night.
* * *
Finn and Ava lead us back to Zara’s cabin. I tap my fingers on my father’s pendant, now gleaming as it hangs around my neck. I can see its sigil again, a swan with olive branches twining around its open wings. It took me the entire night to clean two centuries of sea grime off of it, but it’s not as if I could have slept anyway. Besides, it makes me feel stronger, having this piece of my father with me. The world is harder to navigate without him. Perhaps I’m ready, though, to be a bit braver and bolder.
Zara stands by one of the shelves, flipping through a dusty, leather-bound ledger. It’s not my tome, but I can sense it’s near, perhaps even in this cabin. I can’t quite tell where, though. Being so close to Zara again, I feel that familiar tug once more, muddying even my connection with my book.
Zara sees us and slips the ledger back, swiping her hands on her pants. “Good, you’re all here.”
“Captain,” Karis says with a slight nod.
Zara flashes a grin. “And you’re learning. Even better. Well, Alix, front and center if you’re ready.”
I’m not ready, but I won’t learn anything standing by the door. I step forward and unbutton my shirt before slipping it off. It’s only my chest, but I still feel bare.
Zara’s fingers float over my runes, not quite touching them. “Look here. This one is see.”
Finn nods. “Over here is touch.”
I twist so I can see, and Zara tuts at me to stay still. She steps over to my arm and frowns. “These I’m not so sure about. This one up here almost looks familiar, but I can’t place it.”
I glance at the rune she’s examining, which has minimal damage. It’s one of the few I do remember. “It’s decide.”
She looks up and her eyes meet mine. “Decide? Did your father teach you what your runes mean?”
I don’t particularly want to talk about my father with her. She probably thinks of him exactly as everyone else does in this time. It’s not something I relish being reminded of. “We said you could look at my runes, not that I’d tell you about them or about me.”
“So, you do have a bit of a backbone.”
I frown. “No, I don’t. My back is metal.”
Zara barks out a laugh. “It’s an expression.”
If I was able to blush, I’m sure I would be. “Not a very accurate one,” I mutter.
Zara folds her arms, still grinning. “You know, we’ll get furth
er on this if we work together.”
I sigh. I don’t think I’m going to win this argument. “Yes, my father taught me all of my runes.” I’m sure he did. “The problem is, I don’t remember all of them.”
“That’s a pity.” She leans in again to the decide rune. “It’s fascinating, though. The marks on this side almost resemble a pattern from the Agafya scrolls.”
She knows about the scrolls by Master Agafya? The woman’s work was ancient even in my father’s time. They are among the oldest preserved rune studies. How does a pirate captain know about them?
“Er, yes. That’s what my father said he modified them from.”
A flare lights in Zara’s eyes, reminding me so much of my father I pause. He always got that look when he discovered something new. “So the stories are true,” she says. “He did manage to modify runes. What about these other lines? Do you know where they come from?”
“I don’t, but I think that maybe...” I hesitate, trailing off. My father taught me runes, but that was only for the few short years when I was with him, and there are so many gaps in my memory. Only then I see Zara looking at me, expectant. Waiting for whatever I’m going to say. “I think they might be from Master Hieronymus’s work.”
She sucks in a breath. “Of course. Now I see the pattern.” She steps back and gives me an appraising look. “Impressive.”
A bit of a glow lights in my chest. I’ve never been called impressive before.
“So just how many of your runes do you remember?” she asks.
“Perhaps half of them.” I gesture to the ones on my arm. “Most of these are gone, though.”
“Well, what about special talents, then? Skills? It might help us to figure some of these runes out if we have an idea of what they should say.”
“I can undo lock runes.”
Zara taps my side. “That must be because of this one, unlock.”
“I can feel runes, too. I used to be able to feel automatons.”
“You could?” Karis asks.
“They let off this—” I search for the right word, but nothing can quite capture the way they used to feel, as if they called to me, as if they were a part of me “—this buzzing sensation. They don’t do that anymore.”
Come to think of it, the energy I remember from the automatons, the familiarity of it, isn’t all that different from what I’m feeling from Zara. I glance at her. Why does she feel like that?
“Tell me about your tome, then,” Zara says. “What limitations does it have? Do you have to keep it nearby?”
I’m sure I could claim that I’ve forgotten. The truth is, though, the day I tried to get rid of it is burned in my memory. I had finally worked up the courage to ask my father about why I had to be so careful with my tome, and so he told me.
The centuries that have passed have done nothing to numb the loss and confusion I felt at what he said. The anger, too. At it, at him. I was so new to my emotions back then. Each one burst too brightly inside of me. A few days later, when one of the woodworkers in the city came to deliver a new desk to the villa, I sneaked out and hid my tome deep in the scraps in his cart. It was naive, but tomes were so common those days I convinced myself that no one would be able to trace it back to me. The tome would be gone and I would be free.
Barely a half watch later pain had lanced through my head. My limbs had started jerking. My thoughts began to scatter. Panicked, I gasped out the truth to my father and he’d run from the villa, chasing after the cart.
When he came back, the tome in his hands, I was curled up in the corner of his study, phantom pain still lingering down my limbs. The cart hadn’t even made it halfway across the city.
I shake my head, dissolving the memory. “It doesn’t have to be right on me, but I can’t stray far.”
“And if your tome were destroyed?” Zara asked.
I startle, looking at her, and she holds up her hands. “I’m just asking.”
If straying from my tome managed to hurt me like that, I don’t want to know what destroying it would do. “I don’t know. I don’t...” I shake my head, forcing down the panic welling in my chest. It’s better to live with the thing than to find that without it I’m nothing. “If that happened, I don’t think I’d survive it.”
Zara nods and perhaps she heard the strain in my voice, because she doesn’t press any further. Her fingers tap meditatively on the hilt of her dagger. “All right, here’s where we’re at. I was hoping Finn and I would be able to figure these out on our own, but I don’t think that’s going to work. Most of these runes aren’t even close to any I’m familiar with.”
“How do you even know the runes that you do?” Dane asks. “Unlock and see and touch?”
Zara smiles and there’s something dangerous in that expression. “What can I say? I have many talents.”
Dane folds his arms. “Karis and I worked at the Scriptorium for years and even we weren’t allowed to study runes like that.”
“The world is bigger than your little island, soldier boy,” Zara says.
Dane’s eyes narrow. “I know that,” he snaps.
Ava flips out her dagger and steps toward Dane, and as she does her sleeve shifts up, showing lines tattooed on her skin.
“You have a rune on your wrist,” I say.
Ava stiffens. Something like pain cracks across her face, bright and sharp.
Zara steps forward, her hands slamming into me as she shoves me away. Even though she’s not strong enough to do it, I’m so surprised I let her, stumbling back. I’m fumbling for words to apologize, not even sure what I’m apologizing for, when Ava reaches down and pulls up her sleeve.
It is a rune. One I recognize because every single automaton has it on their body, even me, right in the small of my back.
Obey.
The silence in the cabin is so thick it presses into me like a palpable thing, stifling fingers smudging out all lightness.
“I don’t understand,” I finally manage.
Finn’s staring at the ground, hands clenched at their sides, white-knuckled. Zara’s angled herself toward Ava, as if sheltering the other girl. I can’t quite make out the expression on Zara’s face but her voice is cool and clipped when she says, “No. Though of everyone here, maybe you would.” She looks over her shoulder at us. Dane stares at the lines, openmouthed. Karis just looks sick. “I wouldn’t pry too deeply into the secrets of this crew. You might not like what you find.”
I already don’t like what I’ve found. Of all the lines in my skin, the obey rune is the one I hate the most. It’s what forces an automaton to carry out any command they’re given, even me, who has a mind and will of my own. There it is, inked on Ava’s skin. Only, surely runes wouldn’t work on people.
Would they?
The silence is growing thicker and I have to break it, so I say the only thing I can. “Why did you want to see my runes?”
Zara leans against the table, her eyes boring into me. There’s a challenge there, and for the life of me I can’t look away, as if her gaze is a snare that’s rooted me to the floor.
I gather every bit of courage I possess. “I won’t ask about the inked rune.” I wouldn’t. I know better than most how deeply some secrets are carved. “However, I deserve to know about mine. I want the truth.”
I don’t really expect that to sway her. She has all the power here.
Then, to my surprise, Zara tips her head toward Karis. “Your friend said that before all this happened, before you ever fell asleep in that cave, you remember this glowing light, this heat.”
I knew I saw her interest when Karis told her about that. “Do you know what it is?”
“Perhaps. And perhaps your runes might have something to do with it.” She looks so serious. So different from the unflappable, grinning captain we first met in that cave. Then she pushes off the table and the mo
ment breaks. I’m left blinking as she goes to the map on the wall. “Unfortunately, as I said, I don’t think we’re going to be able to figure this out on our own. Luckily—” she taps an island on the map “—I know of someone who can help. He’s a bit out of our way, but not too far, and he knows more about runes than any of us. What do you all think about a detour?”
A detour. I look over my shoulder at Karis. She shifts, biting her lip. I know how much she wants to go to Valitia to find her brother. I want to help make that happen.
Only, Zara is offering me a chance to figure out my runes, my memories.
I give her a pleading look, hoping she’ll understand. She hesitates, and then gives a small, almost imperceptible nod.
14
* * *
KARIS
The Streak cuts through the waters, sails unfurled to catch the wind. I pull myself up the riggings, hand over hand, a salty evening breeze snaking through my hair. I try to focus on the feel of the wind and not on our detour. Zara said we’ll reach where we’re going by tonight, that we won’t stay long. But we’re still heading in the wrong direction, away from my brother.
The thought is unbelievably selfish. I know that as soon as I have it. This is important for Alix. Especially after what I saw in Zara’s cabin.
Obey. Maybe some part of me knew that Alix probably had that rune. Every automaton I’ve ever climbed on or heard about has had that rune. But seeing Alix’s expression when he looked at those lines still jabbed into me like a knife. I glance down at my wrist. Even when I had that bracelet on, even when it trapped me, at least it wasn’t a part of me.
I want to help Alix find some answers. Because maybe that’ll take away the pain that seems to cling to him. I’m not sure when I started feeling that way. It’s like Alix is making me softer. And I haven’t truly been soft with anyone since my brother. I could never afford to be.
Can I afford it now?
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