She laughed, incredulous. “You’re never going to believe this, Fin, but we’re actually beating the Rise! They’re still on the second tier!”
When Fin didn’t respond, she turned. “Did you hear me? We’re winning.…” But the words died in her mouth. Fin stood behind her, seemingly anchored in place, eyes wide with shock.
Alarm fluttered in Marrill’s chest. “Fin?” she asked. “You okay?”
Slowly, Fin raised one hand, groping blindly through the empty air. As though he were trying to reach the Rise warship looming closer as their tier spun. “Marrill,” he whispered, “that’s… that’s…”
Marrill peered past him, following his gaze. For the first time she could see the Crest of the Rise clearly. A woman with dark eyes and olive skin stood razor-straight with one foot on the base of the ship’s bowsprit as though she were standing on the neck of her foes. Her fingertips rested on the game board by her side. Not a trace of passion or compassion crossed her face. Deftly, she raised one of her pieces.
Fin glanced back at Marrill. Awe and fear and desperation mingled in his eyes. His outreached hand curled into a pointing finger.
“Marrill,” he breathed, “that’s my mother.”
CHAPTER 8
Meet the Family
Her dark eyes weren’t as gentle as they were in his memory. Her voice was sharper, too, but now that he saw her, he recognized it. He wondered how he could ever have not recognized it. After all, in his head he’d heard her speak the same words a thousand times:
No matter what happens, so long as that star is still shining, someone will always be out here thinking of you.
Fin’s heart clenched so tight he thought it might implode on itself. He’d never thought this day would come.
All these years he’d spent searching and wondering.
All the times he’d almost given up.
All those nights he’d ached to feel her arms around him.
His mother had come for him at last.
Behind him, Marrill let out a tight breath. “That woman is your mom?”
Fin nodded. “I remember her, Marrill! I saw her when I used the Map to Everywhere after we first beat Serth, before you went home.” Back then, Fin had taken the Map without anyone knowing, when everyone believed he’d destroyed the Key. “She was standing on the prow of a ship just like that one.”
If Marrill said anything in reply, he didn’t hear her. He was too busy studying his mother’s face, tracing every line of it as the game board rotated them closer. He’d imagined this moment a million times, wondering what he would say to her. But the words got tangled in his head, and his tongue felt frozen to the roof of his mouth. In the end he could only manage to squeak, “Mom?”
Her eyes regarded him coolly—the same eyes that had glittered beneath the sky of the Khaznot Quay in the only memory of her he had. He waited for her to say something, anything. But her gaze slid past him, as though he were no one.
Fin staggered back, his insides collapsing. She didn’t even see him. No, it was worse—he was used to not being seen. She saw him. She knew who he was. She just didn’t seem to care.
A hand grabbed his, holding him in place. “Lemme go,” he grunted, struggling to break free. He wanted to run away. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to go home, but he wasn’t even sure where that was anymore. The Parsnickles’ attic where they thought he was a ghost? His cabin on the Kraken where they constantly forgot him?
Marrill tightened her grip. “It’s not your turn,” she reminded him. “Moving now could be deadly.”
“I don’t care,” he argued, fighting to pull away.
She clamped her hands on his shoulders, refusing to let him budge. “Well, I do. We’re in this together, Fin, from the beginning until the end.”
Their tier continued to rotate, dragging them farther away from the Rise warship. His mother was almost out of sight when Fin saw her slam her next piece against the game board, her sharp voice calling, “Vell, go!”
As Fin watched, the smallest of the three Rise players began his move across the board. He didn’t bother to zig or zag or move in the shape of an L, or anything like that. Obstacles popped up before him: fire, lightning, water, wind. But they didn’t slow him. In fact, they didn’t seem to even touch him.
He simply barreled straight forward, heading directly for the other staircase leading to Fin, Marrill, and Fig. Fin had never seen anything like it.
“How’s he doing that?” Marrill breathed.
“He’s Rise,” Fig answered from her spot behind them. “They’re the army unbeatable. No blades will cut them; no magic will harm them.”
“But—” Marrill’s protest cut off when the Rise player reached the stairs and vaulted up them. At the top, a three-legged stone statue wielding a triple-sided scythe waited for him. The kid didn’t pause or hesitate; he simply leapt onto the statue’s back and vaulted over it, spinning a somersault through the air straight toward them.
The player landed smartly in a ball before Fin and rose with a flourish.
Fin gasped.
Because he was looking in a mirror.
This, Fin knew, was the boy he’d seen in the Map to Everywhere, standing next to his mother. At the time, he’d thought the boy might be his brother. But in person, it was more than that. He didn’t just look similar to Fin. The boy looked exactly like Fin. If they were brothers, they were twins.
There were some differences, of course. Fin’s hair was shaggier, his face dirtier, his frame a bit more wiry. And they held themselves differently, too. If Fin was an alley cat, at any moment half swaggering and half ready to run, this other Fin was a lean, young tom, all effortless power that didn’t need to strut to be seen.
The boy’s eyes traipsed over Fin. “My Fade. We’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“Wh-who…” Fin’s voice cracked. “Who are you?”
“And more specifically,” Marrill said, stepping forward, “why do you look exactly like Fin?”
“I am Vell.” The boy lifted his chin. “Your Rise.” He ignored Marrill, speaking only to Fin. “And I don’t look like you. You look like me. Because you are me, to the extent you are anything.”
Fin frowned. “What?”
“The Rise are strength, power, resolve,” the boy said. A look of disdain crossed his features. “When we are born, we cut the weakness out of ourselves so that only our true selves remain. That weakness coalesces into the form of the thing that once gave it purpose and meaning.”
He stabbed a finger at Fin. “You are what was removed—my Fade. I am the real you. The memorable part. The noticeable part. The thing that commands attention. You slip in and out of memory, in and out of notice, because in truth, you really aren’t a person at all.”
The words hit Fin like a wall. He looked to Fig, hoping she would tell him this was all a cruel joke. But she just nodded sadly.
It was true.
Fin’s lungs became heavy; his legs grew weak. He really was no one. Literally not a person. Worse, he was all the bad bits: the gristle and fat that gets tossed to the dogs when the butcher carves the meat. A sudden sick feeling growled in the pit of his stomach; he felt light-headed.
Marrill shoved her fists against her hips. “No one talks to my friend that way!” she shouted. “Fin is someone! He is a real person! And he’s memorable to me.” At her feet, Karny hissed in agreement.
Vell shrugged. “Fade sometimes are to those who have a particular attachment to a certain kind of weakness. A weakness for a weakness, if you will.”
Marrill paused, finger held high in midresponse. “I—was that an insult or a compliment?”
The boy dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “A statement of fact. But you indulge his weakness, when what is proper is to use it.”
“People aren’t meant to be used,” Marrill spat.
Vell’s grin turned brutal and sharp. “Fade aren’t people.”
Marrill sucked in a breath, her face reddening wi
th rage. But before she could say anything, she was cut off by Fig clearing her throat.
“It’s your turn, Fin,” she said softly.
Vell rounded on her. “You call him Fin now? Like Fade deserve names?” He snorted, as though the very notion was ridiculous.
Fig instantly curled in on herself, her shoulders slumping as she murmured an apology and dropped her eyes. Gone was the cocky tilt of her chin, the confident smirk, the perpetually crooked eyebrow. In the face of Vell’s ire, she’d turned into someone totally different.
Someone who believed she didn’t matter. Fin knew the feeling well—he’d felt that way much of his life.
“Vell!” the Crest shouted. “Quit toying with them and finish the game. The Salt Sand King is waiting!”
Vell nodded coolly. Turning, he dismissed Fig with a wave of his hand. “You’re their piece for the game, Sister Fade. Hurry to the top, and try not to die.” He spun sharply on his heel. “It would so pain your true self to have to remove you again.”
With that, he took off across the game board, joining the other two Rise players as they advanced toward the next tier. Fin’s team had lost its lead.
“Knight, go!” He heard Ardent bellowing in the distance. His gut roiling with new revelations, Fin glanced toward Fig and Marrill, wondering what to do. Marrill clutched Karny to her chest and stared back at him, chewing her bottom lip as her eyes clouded with concern. Fig still kept her focus on the ground.
And just like that, Fin decided it didn’t matter. Suddenly, whatever he was feeling, whatever thoughts he was having, he didn’t need to deal with them right now. He could just bite them back and focus on the game.
He forced a smile. “You two don’t look like you’re having any fun at all.”
Marrill started to protest, but he placed a hand on her shoulder. He clapped his other hand on Fig’s shoulder, pulling her into the huddle. Marrill quietly introduced herself.
“Look, we’re kids,” Fin said. “For once, let’s act like it. Because you know what I care about more than anything else? Playing a game with my two friends and having fun. Now who’s with me?”
The girls looked uncomfortable for a long moment. Then slowly, Marrill smiled. “Done and done,” she said. “Just try to keep up!”
She took off, zigzagging across the ring, then tossed Karny through the air. He landed on his feet, darted across the open space, and sat casually on a tile. The tile lifted into the air, ropes trailing off it.
“Swing time!” Fig announced. “Nobody look at me!”
Over the next twenty minutes, they laughed, shouted, played, and cavorted their way across the face of the Great Game. Fin squared off against a towering, evil-looking knight. He ducked, he dived, he reached up and tweaked its nose. Marrill clapped as Karnelius discovered a tunnel slide that they all piled into. They laughed as it spun them around in loops, somehow taking them up instead of down.
Finally, they stumbled onto the second-to-last tier, the castle towering high above. They were in a forest of towering trees, with leaves that shone in a cacophony of bright colors. Karny dashed into the branches, raining candy-tasting fruit down on Marrill as she zigzagged in circles through spun-sugar underbrush.
Fin stopped to have a casual conversation with a selkie that was interrupted by Fig calling out, “I’m the queeeeeen!” as she hung, giggling, off the side of the castle in the middle of the forest.
She’d made it to the end!
Marrill balled her hands on her hips. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said, with mock severity. “Wait for me!” Grabbing Karny, she rushed forward, and a zig and a zag later, a glass tile raised into the air, shooting her straight up next to Fig.
Fin moved in a straight line, the length of the L taking him to the edge of the next tier. But he couldn’t move up on his own—he would have to wait for Fig or Marrill’s next turn.
Fin glanced across the gap in the middle of the tier. On the other side, Vell and his comrades were chopping their way grimly through their own side of the forest, but for them it was a tangle of traps and adversaries. Invincible as they were, they were still getting bogged down just forcing their way through.
The Rise were taking the game too seriously, Fin realized, and the game had found a way to punish them for it. Even so, their next move would take them to the castle. If Fin didn’t make it up right now, it would be too late.
He took a deep breath. “Get ready!” he called to Marrill and Fig.
With his last move, the crook of his L, Fin leapt straight into the air. Fig stretched out as far as she could, but the timing was off; she couldn’t quite reach him. He yanked hard on the strings of his skysails, feeling them billow out, supporting him. Just long enough for Fig’s hand to touch his.
At the brush of her fingertips, a sudden gust of wind billowed him straight over the wall to land on the edge of Margaham’s castle.
Marrill grabbed him in a hug. “We did it! We actually did it!” she shouted, bouncing up and down with joy. “You know what this means? The wish orb is safe!”
“I can’t believe it,” Fig said, incredulous. “We won. Against the Rise. But we can’t beat the Rise. The Rise can’t be beaten.”
A wide smile broke across Fin’s face. “Well, sure looks like they can!” He stared down at where the Rise stood with eyes wide and jaws slack, as though they, like Fig, couldn’t believe what was happening.
He had to admit, it felt good to be a winner.
Just then Margaham’s voice bellowed through the air, blowing the feeling to pieces.
“The game is ended. YOU LOSE!”
CHAPTER 9
No One Said the Game Was Fair
Marrill’s heart clenched. They’d lost? How? She stomped toward the castle and pushed her way inside. “But we made it here first!”
Margaham waited for them in a small chamber, a dark outline against the sunlight streaming in from outside. Beside him stood a pedestal with three white envelopes resting on top. “The rules have been rewritten. Now, the defender wins when player one’s team reaches the castle.”
“But that’s how we’re supposed to win,” Marrill argued.
“The win condition has changed.” The wizard’s voice echoed from bronze piping that covered the ceiling.
Marrill couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What? That’s cheating! How were we supposed to know? That’s not fair!”
“No one said my game was fair.”
She was about to keep arguing when Fin tugged on her sleeve. “Look,” he said under his breath, pointing at where the piping carrying Margaham’s voice converged on a single point next to a stool.
But it wasn’t Margaham sitting on the stool, speaking into the pipes. It was a brown-and-yellow frog.
Marrill’s eyes widened. “A speakfrog,” she whispered. Speakfrogs were the tape recorders of the Pirate Stream. They took messages and repeated them in the same voice that dictated them in the first place.
Marrill’s anger turned swiftly to unease as the frog opened its mouth and Margaham’s voice echoed forth: “There, that’s everything you wanted me to say. Congratulations, you’ve rigged the game.”
She turned to face Margaham himself, who still stood wreathed in deep shadows by the window. Her heart tripped inside her chest as she stepped closer. Close enough to see the hard edges. Close enough to know that the darkness covering him didn’t just come from the shadows. Close enough to realize that the man before her wasn’t made of flesh and blood. At least, not anymore.
The Inevitable Margaham had been turned to iron. Just like Forthorn Forlorn back at the Ashen Flume, he’d been frozen in place, petrified. As if he’d been taken by the Iron Tide.
Like the entire Pirate Stream would be if the Master of the Iron Ship had his way.
“Blisterwinds,” Fin breathed beside her.
The frog continued speaking, running through his script. “I doubt they even have what you want. Am I done now? What will you… Wait, what are you doing? What’s h
appening? My legs are so cold. I can’t move! Waaai—”
The echo of Margaham’s voice lingered for a long moment. The frog let out a ribbit and yawned.
The Great Game of Margaham was finished.
Marrill’s throat dropped into her gut. “If we weren’t playing against Margaham, then who were we playing against?” she croaked. “Who won?”
But even as she said it, she didn’t need to see the shadow fall across the doorway to know. She didn’t need to see the blank visage, the black iron, the thick beard and blue eyes that were the only signs of humanity. Metal-clad fingers sliced through the air as the Master of the Iron Ship curled and uncurled his hand.
Marrill’s insides froze. Even after all they had seen, up to and including Margaham petrified in iron, she almost hadn’t believed it could be true. After all, they’d blasted the Master with the rays of the Lost Sun of Dzannin back in Monerva. He’d fallen into the pit of Stream water collected beneath the Wish Machine. He should have been dead.
But here he was, cold and cruel, standing before them.
Outside, red lightning crashed across the suddenly dark sky. The Master reached out one sharp-edged finger, pointing past them to the pedestal containing the three crisp white envelopes, one for each of the players.
Marrill’s chest squeezed tight. She plucked the one that had Defender scrawled across the front of it, ran her thumb under the flap, and pulled free the card inside.
Her eyes went wide and blood drained from her cheeks. It was worse than she’d thought. “Oh no,” she whispered.
“What?” Fin pressed. “What did the Master play for?”
She flipped the card so the others could see. “The Bintheyr Map to Everywhere,” she told them, her voice cracking, “complete with its Key.”
As soon as she uttered the words, there was a loud pop, and the other two envelopes disappeared from the pedestal. In their place sat a rolled piece of parchment and a carved crystal sun.