“Can you show us the girl has no markers of illness anymore?” another senator requested from the back.
“I can,” Eleanor stated simply, and turned to Deliverance, pulling at the stretchy fingers of her gloves. Deliverance did the same and held out her palms, sweating for Eleanor. Eleanor’s hands, in contrast, were cool and dry with confidence. She readied herself, took a breath, and closed her eyes. Seconds ticked by as the entire hall fell under a spell of absolute silence.
Eleanor opened her eyes and just for a moment gave Deliverance the most bizarre look, before masking her face in calm collection again.
“There, you see, ladies and gentlemen? No magic spark. No green indicators. Nothing,” Eleanor said, without a shade of doubt in her voice.
“And can you, young lady, now control your gift without hurting anyone?” asked a shaky, elderly senator with blue lips.
“Aye,” Deliverance responded and did a quick spin around the room, pausing next to the Speaker. Her actions had been almost too fast for the eye to catch, so she made sure to stop in a different spot. Whispers washed over the hall like a summer rain.
“As you can see, Miss Deliverance is a prowess gifted and is in complete control. She is not in any danger of hurting anyone,” Jack asserted, gesturing.
Deliverance gave a look of apology to the startled Speaker and popped at magical speed back down to her place by Eleanor on the floor. A couple more senators, including the blue-lipped man, who needed assistance in moving, crossed over to Jack’s side. By Deliverance’s count, they were still lacking a majority.
Eleanor must have caught her counting and pulled her sleeve. Deliverance lowered her ear and Eleanor whispered, “Jack still has yet to present the plan and then there will be bartering on the terms. We have time.” Deliverance nodded grimly. But how many of these stodgy people, set in their ways, would stand and move?
“In fact, I have a whole team of people assembled to ensure no one is hurt on this endeavor. I have a powerful doctor-healer, several elementally gifted, a prowess gifted, and a few mind gifted volunteers ready for our mission,” Jack said, segueing into the next part of his plan.
“And what mission is that, pray tell Senator Quentin? Hopefully nothing brash!” Ned Turner mocked Jack.
Jack’s mouth hit a thin line, hesitating before deciding to plow forward. “This mission,” he said, clicking on the overhead computer to a different slide presentation. “Operation Liberty.”
The speaker bid Eleanor and Deliverance to resume their seats in the gallery. Deliverance walked away frustrated, feeling as if there were things left unsaid. There had to be something more she could have expressed in order to win more to their cause. Maybe she should not have been so confrontational.
Jack managed to outline the proposed mission despite the upsets and a couple Senators walking back to Ned Turner’s side. Deliverance could feel her future slipping away like grains of sand in the surf. It was all completely out of her control now. She found that feeling deplorable.
“So, let me get this straight.” Ned Turner sneered at Jack after he managed to gain the floor. “You want to sail to Nar and cure everyone on the island, then open the island up to the rest of the world? Sounds a little farfetched.”
“No, that’s only if everyone wants to be cured!” one of the senators on Jack’s side chimed in. “Otherwise they are only going to cure the ones who want to leave and take them with them.”
Jack outlined provisions for an encampment where they could conduct the healing process then coach the newly healed people in their gifts safely before boarding transport back to Arcanton.
“It’s entirely possibly no one will want to leave the island!” someone shouted.
Another rebutted, “No, there are at least a few!”
“All this trouble for a handful of people?” Ned Turner jeered, but his comment had the opposite effect he had intended as a couple more senators gave him a disgusted look and switched to Jack’s side.
“What if hundreds want to leave? Where will we put them? What will we do with them?” another voice rang out.
“Oxdale University has a team on standby ready to receive them, house them, and ultimately help them assimilate into society. A lot of grad students are set to do their theses on Narisis,” Jack answered cheekily, and this garnered some chuckles.
A few more senators switched sides. It was getting close!
Deliverance grabbed Addie’s and Eleanor’s hands in each of hers. Eleanor grabbed Mrs. Potter’s, who grabbed Stevens’, who looked at Lord Asher and shook his head. Together they watched with bated breath as the Speaker called for closing remarks.
Jack took the floor again. For the longest moment, he did not speak. But when he did, there was fire behind it. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate. What I proposed to you today was radical. I know, I have a reputation.” A few more chuckles here. “But what I am asking you to consider is not radical but fundamental. For hundreds of years the government of Arcanton has stolen from the Narisi. For hundreds of years we have kept them in the dark, bound them prisoner on their island. Some would say it was for fear and others a necessary evil to contain the spread of contagion.
“Now, however, things are different. Not only do we now have a way to cure the illness, but we ourselves are different as a people. We are making strides each generation for a better, kinder, worldlier, more humane Arcanton. How can we take up that mantle when a couple hundred miles off our own shore we are keeping people enslaved? We are letting people pass away of curable diseases, mothers die in childbirth, children grow wracked with illness, women remain enslaved to a tyrannical culture we created, aided, and abetted! It is hard to admit one’s mistakes. We can try to wash them away with excuses of historical context. Or…” Jack paused for dramatic effect. “Or we can begin to remedy our wrongs, take responsibility, and showcase the seat of Arcanton governance as it rightfully should be, as an enlightened nation of liberty and humanity!”
Deliverance held her breath as she counted…
“Now is the final call for standing!” the Speaker announced. No one moved. Deliverance’s heart plummeted to the floor. They were one short! Eleanor groaned, but Addie remained cool and collected as usual, her heart-shaped face belaying no worry.
“Then, unfortunately I must—” the Speaker began before a gravelly voice rang out from Ned Turner’s side.
“Wait!”
There were gasps, and whispers undulated through the crowd like wind over wheat.
A stately, older gentleman with a stern face and bushy brows stood, one hand in the pocket of his waistcoat. He gazed around him, as if everyone’s attention on him was a given right, and refused to speak until there was absolute silence in the hall.
“I have been told,” the senator said finally, “by my niece that I need to learn to change with the times. So, let the change begin.” With that he stood and walked purposefully over to Jack’s side of the floor.
“Senator Pennington cedes sides to Senator Quentin’s cause. Motion called in favor of Operation Liberty!” the Speaker called out and rang his fresh gavel.
Deliverance jumped to her feet with joy as the crowd erupted.
CHAPTER 29
Delive
rance
After much squealing, hugging, and dancing up and down, Deliverance’s new family broke apart to find Jack on the now adjourned floor.
“Senator Pennington?” Deliverance asked pointedly of Addie.
Addie smiled a knowing smile. “Ah yes, my dear uncle. He has a bit of flair for the dramatic.” Deliverance pulled her into yet another embrace.
“Thank you,” she whispered through tears of joy. Addie produced a handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to Deliverance.
“Dry your eyes, my dear. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
As the group waded through the crowd, Deliverance noticed the number of eyes on her had not lessened but there were many more sympathetic and friendly looks to be had.
“Jack! You did it!” Eleanor squealed as she darted through the crowd and attached herself to Jack’s side, reminding Deliverance rather much of a tree frog clinging to a branch.
“We. We did it,” Jack corrected her wrapping one arm around her and reaching the other out to Deliverance. “Tonight we celebrate! Tomorrow we sail!”
“Jack…we’re not sailing until the day after tomorrow,” Eleanor told her brother.
“I know…it just sounded better that way.” Jack replied cheekily and they all laughed.
***
Everyone gathered at Hathaway that night. Addie and her uncle were among the first to arrive, followed by a grinning Niles, and a now rumpled again Lord Asher. Mrs. Potter and Stevens were relieved of their duties for the night and bade to join them as well, which they did albeit somewhat uncomfortably. They were used to running the gatherings from behind the scenes, not being waited upon. The champagne flowed along with the laughter. The energy level in the room was high—they were all anticipating the next steps, the challenge to come.
“I was not, obviously, a fire breather,” Niles explained to her about their military days over a glass of bubbly. “Jack was a force to be reckoned with back then…after watching him today, he still is. Just a bit more focused and refined.”
Deliverance snorted. “I doubt Jack would consider himself refined.”
“Compared to the wildness of his younger years, he is an absolute pussy cat now.” Niles laughed, a catlike grin of his own upon his face. “Although this mission is unpredictable in nature. It will be good to have him on our side.”
Deliverance frowned. “Do you think there will be violence?” It was a thought she had considered.
“It’s possible,” Niles said thoughtfully. “We’re dealing with people who have, for all intents and purposes, lived in the 17th century. We’re offering a one-time chance to rip the life they knew away from them with promises of something better. It is a risky proposition.”
Deliverance’s frown deepened into a scowl. “Yes, I was annoyed they insisted on enforcing the military restricted after we leave the island. Anyone who attempts to leave afterward…well…”
“They’ll be shot,” Niles answered for her grimly. But he added, “It’s a one-time shot for now. Politics change. Minds change. With Jack in the Senate we may get another chance later to do another rescue mission.”
But would the Narisis view them as a rescue party? Deliverance pondered, sinking into her own thoughts. Or would they see them as dangerous interlopers?
Her reverie was broken when she heard Jack call out, “Serves her right!” She wandered over and took his arm. Jack had been chatting with Lord Asher with surprising amicability.
“Serves who right?” Deliverance inquired, looking up at Jack. The triumphant flush of victory suited Jack—his face was animated with vigor.
“That little back-stabber Dr. Phillips. She got canned from the university for her little stunt!” Jack crowed.
“Yes, the university does not look kindly on jeopardizing research subjects. She was told to look elsewhere for a teaching position…without a reference,” Lord Asher informed her. He seemed to be eyeing Deliverance’s hand upon Jack’s arm, but his face was inscrutable, betraying nothing of what he thought of their courtship now. For Deliverance’s part, she did not much care what he thought about it other than curiosity’s sake.
As the evening carried on it struck Deliverance deep in her core, as she watched this group of people whom she had come to regard as family, that Hathaway was a second home to her. These were her people. Addie laughing merrily as Eleanor did an impression of Senator Turner, Mrs. Potter warmly smiling upon them all, Stevens in an animated conversation with Niles and Lord Asher—his thin arms gesticulating wildly, and Jack…passionate, resilient, stubborn Jack. Jack who had been her stalwart companion and her constant ally. She realized she was far closer to these people than she had ever been with any of the villagers on Nar save her mother and Effie.
But it was time to collect the rest of her family and bring them home.
***
Jack and Deliverance held each other later that night, wrapped up in each other’s limbs. Together but silent. Eventually, Jack cleared his throat.
“Deliverance?”
She hmmed at him.
“I want you to keep the ring,” he said finally.
Deliverance propped herself up on her elbow and regarded him. “Are you asking me to marry you for real?”
“If you’ll have me I am,” Jack replied earnestly, his eyes open and searching her face. He looked so vulnerable.
“Jack Quentin. I love you,” she began but paused, rapidly searching her mind for the words.
“…but?” He asked like he was dreading the response.
She sighed. “But everything is so overwhelming right now. Everything that’s happened and everything that has yet to happen.” She could see the disappointment flare in his eyes. “I do love you, Jack! I want to marry you someday! I do.”
“Just not right now?” he asked.
“Just not right at this moment,” she confirmed, her heart twisting painfully.
“But someday?” he asked again, hope still lingering.
“Absolutely someday,” she replied, kissing him enthusiastically. His body responded in kind, rolling her into his arms and kissing her deeply.
“I thought that might be your response,” he said unexpectedly, then shot out of bed for a second, rummaging in the pocket of his shirt, which had been discarded in their hasty passion earlier that night. “Ah, here.”
He sat back on the bed and handed her a metal chain, meant for a necklace.
“Keep the ring with you. Keep it until you decide you want to marry me or until you’ve regained your sanity,” he joked and slid the delicate ring from her finger and then threaded the chain through it.
“Oh, Jack, what if I lose it?” she cried, looking at the necklace with the ring attached doubtfully. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to your mother’s ring!”
“This chain was forged by a gifted metal worker. It shan’t break. I promise. He used magic to sure up the links,” Jack explained.
“Then I accept if that is the case,” Deliverance acquiesced and allowed Jack to fasten the chain around her neck from behind. He did not stop with the fastening of the chain, though, his lips and hands finding mo
re and more interesting purchase upon her. And they fell into each other once more, the world falling away until the only thing left was she and he.
CHAPTER 30
Deliverance
“Ready, troops?” Jack barked at them two mornings later cheekily. Deliverance, Eleanor, Stevens, and Mrs. Potter were lined up with duffle bags, ready to depart.
When questioned as to why she and Stevens wanted to go, she looked almost offended. “You might need my healing herbs and I can help comfort the new ones on the ship! And Stevens is a fine air bender. He can hasten sails like nobody’s business. You shan’t leave us behind, no sir!” Deliverance loved her all the more for her plucky spirit.
They were all to meet Niles and Addie, who would be the head doctor on the mission, at the docks. The heady sent of salty fish and suspect river algae hung in the morning air at the James River docks. The brackish water was already full to the brim with vessels going about their mornings. The docks rose early, already hard at work bustling when the sun crested the horizon, illuminating the stately sandstone artifices on the banks.
Seeing Addie and Niles waiting a little farther down on the docks, Deliverance sped around moving crates and leapt over a wheelbarrow or two carting fishnets with supernatural grace.
“Very good, Miss Deliverance,” Niles greeted her approvingly.
“Aye, I am thinking I like this gift very much!” Deliverance said with a grin. She found the increased speed and agility to be exhilarating and fulfilling at the same time.
“It suites you,” he replied and turned to greet Jack with one of those complicated handshake jives only soldiers and pirates seemed to know.
The two women exchanged warm hugs as the rest of the party caught up. Before them, looking unusually more still on the river water than it was accustomed, was the Daedalus.
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