“I wouldn’t know,” she answered, sucking in a deep breath. “I turned myself in.”
Fin pulled up short. Marrill caught a glimpse of the bay past the mouth of the alley and started toward it. They must have been close to the docks.
“How did you join up with this crew exactly?” Fin trotted after her.
“I met them in a parking lot,” Marrill told him.
“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of Ahparkenlot,” Fin mused. “Is that near the Longtooth Kingdoms?”
Something tickled her nose. “Do you smell that?” she asked, walking faster. Smoke. She had smelled a lot of things burning in the Quay so far. Candles, meat, incenses, things she couldn’t identify. But this she knew—wood. Like the kind you build stuff from. The air was getting hazy, she realized.
“The docks are on fire!” someone screamed.
“Oh no!” Marrill gasped. She took off running. Fin called after her, but when she burst out of the alley, she found herself in a sea of panicked people rushing franticly in all directions.
Ahead, the wharf blazed with fire, most of the ships moored along the piers burning with it. Marrill raced closer, searching unsuccessfully for the Kraken through the wall of flames.
Frantically, she pushed through the crowd, trying not to think about the Kraken being destroyed. She didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath until she caught sight of a familiar pointed purple cap.
“Ardent!” she cried. To her enormous relief, the wizard turned, his face splitting into a huge grin. Coll was with him, and he seemed to relax a little when he saw her.
“Thank goodness you’re safe, my dear!” Ardent said. He laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled. “I saw you picked up by the wind and tried to track after you, but the treacherous vapor told me you’d learned to fly.”
Marrill glanced around and lowered her voice. “I found what we were looking for,” she told him, patting her pocket.
The wizard clapped his hands. “Excellent work!” He hesitated, smacking his lips as if tasting the air. “Though I’d ask for a refund on that flavor if I were you,” he said. “Far too much worstedwort for toadbutter.”
Coll grabbed them both and pushed them through the gawking crowd. “We don’t have much time. Our ride is leaving.” He pointed. Out past the burning docks, the Enterprising Kraken drifted unmoored, her anchor dragging as she headed for open water.
“But the fire…” Already Marrill could feel the heat blasting between them and the water. “There’s no way we can get through it!”
Ardent turned to her. “Did you ever learn to ice-skate?”
“No,” she said, puzzled.
“Pity, that.” He raised his arms and turned to the bay. His hands swept out, then pulled in toward him, his fingers tugging at invisible threads. A chill bit at Marrill’s toes, leapt up her legs, and wrapped around her body. She gasped to see her breath come out in a thick wintery puff. “I suppose,” the wizard said, little flecks of snow gathering on his beard, “that it’s never too late to learn!”
He thrust his arms forth. The cold immediately left her as a thick trail of frost shot out down the beach and across the water, freezing it solid. In the blink of an eye, a bridge of ice stretched from the shore to the Kraken. The entire crowd gasped at once. Marrill clapped her hands.
“That may not last long,” Ardent noted. And with that, they took off down the beach, onto the ice. It was slick, but Marrill remembered the trick Fin had taught her. She put one foot in front of the other, balancing on her heels, and barely fell once.
Fin! She had completely left him behind and never thanked him for bringing her safely to the wharf! She dug her toe into the ice, ground to a halt, and spun back toward the city. Already the smoke was thicker, obscuring her view of the crowd. She squinted to find him.
Only one person seemed to be moving on the shore. She immediately recognized the way he slipped through the throng of onlookers.
“Fin!” she called, cupping her hands around her mouth.
The boy hesitated, jerking his head in her direction.
“Thank you!” she yelled, waving a hand in the air. Then she turned and skated toward the ship.
To her left, a narrow pier collapsed on itself, sending a shower of sparks towering into the sky. Ardent yelled for her to hurry, and Coll was already climbing a rope ladder up to the main deck. Through the crackling of the flames, she never even heard the growing sound of sobbing coming from the shore.
CHAPTER 17
The Compass Rose
Fin’s heart froze, and not just because the wizard had dropped the temperature of the docks by forty degrees. His stomach flipped. She’d recognized him. She’d spotted him in the throng of people and recognized him. And remembered him!
He didn’t know what to do, so he did what came naturally: He hid. He ducked from person to person, peeking out from the mass to see if she was still watching. Her eyebrows squished together as she searched the crowd for him. After a second, she shook her head and skated away across the ice.
But she’d remembered him! She had even waved at him, like she wanted to see him! It was the most incredible thing that had ever happened, ever.
Also, the docks were on fire, an old man had conjured a bridge of ice out of nowhere, and the girl and her friends were skating across it to a gigantic pirate ship. All that was also impressive. But she had seen him! He bounced a little with joy.
And then he heard the crying. A chill shot down his back. In the moment’s excitement, he’d almost forgotten why he was here in the first place: to stow away on that ship. He just needed to wait a second so Marrill could really forget him—because she would, of course—and then he could follow.
“It’s okay, dear,” he overheard someone say. “It’s horrible, I know. There, there. No one was hurt, dear, no one was hurt.”
Fin twisted slowly toward the sound, not sure at all he wanted to see where it was coming from. His eyes met those of a girl about his own age, an orphan he’d seen around the Preserve. Tears flowed in torrents down her cheeks.
“So sorry, kid,” she muttered at Fin. “So, so sorry.”
Fin stepped backward, stumbled, and fell. Someone to his right started sobbing. Then on his left. He scooted away on his hands, his eyes darting all around. In front of him, someone doubled over, choking and shuddering. Behind him, someone wailed like the world was ending.
The Oracle was near.
“My stuffins, peeps are fallin’ apart!” an alarmed voice called out. Everywhere he looked, crying faces waited. And each crying face stared straight back at him.
He clawed his way to his feet. No time to hesitate. It was time to go, now! He shot through the crowd in a full-out scramble, urging himself on: Dive between legs. Shove to one side. Run, run.
He broke free of the throng and took off toward the path of ice leading from the shore. The girl and her companions were gone, already on board their ship; he could just make out the sailor grappling with the rigging. But Fin’s foot crashed straight through the ice the moment he touched it, splashing into frigid water underneath. It was already melting!
Without thinking, he changed direction and leapt toward a burning pier. The roaring inferno greeted him with a shower of embers. Nearby, ships blazed, offering no escape.
All Fin knew was that he best get on Marrill’s ship. He raced down the pier, the back of his mind spinning. He could run out the dock, try to skysail off it. Fire meant drafts and a good lift, but also could mean a burning death. The only other option was to try the ice path again and hope that farther out it hadn’t melted as much. But if it had, that meant drowning for a boy who couldn’t swim.
He glanced back. The mourners had spread out now, blocking every exit back to the Quay. Fin’s gut clenched. So which would it be? Ice or fire or all those tears?
“Don’t shed too many for me just yet, old bloods,” he told the crowd. “You won’t even miss me when I’m gone.”
Then he took off, headed s
traight down the burning dock. Just before he reached the flames, he veered to one side, scampering on the very edge of the charred boards.
Heat swelled around him like a wall. Sweat slid down his body. He leaned away from the flames, momentum alone keeping him from falling. It wouldn’t last, and the gap between the dock and the ice widened with every second. This was going to be close.
Right as he was about to topple into the water, Fin spread his arms wide, yanked the strings in his sleeves, and let all that heated air catch in his skysail. It buoyed him outward, away. His feet left the dockside.
For a few pounding heartbeats, his toes skidded over the surface of the bay. Then they touched ice. He kicked against it, praying the lift from his skysail would be enough to keep his full weight from crashing through.
The ice groaned beneath him. “Come on, come on,” he breathed, his veins pumping with adrenaline. Behind him, the ice cracked as mourners chased after him; it gave way beneath their weight, turning their wails to gargles. Ahead, the girl’s ship loomed. And it was weighing anchor.
“Well, of course,” he said to himself. He could already feel the breeze leaving him, his footsteps getting heavier. He leapt from iceberg to iceberg now, stifling his urge to shout every time he almost slipped off the edge. The last thing he needed was to alert the crew of the ship. Who knew what they did to thieves?
At last he reached the end of the ice. The ship had pulled away, its massive squid-shaped anchor just clearing the water. He jumped, pulling his skysail strings as hard as he could. And flew straight into the thick, dripping anchor chain.
All the air rushed out of him in a great big “Oof!” but he clung to the slippery metal links as hard as he could. He dared a glance back as the anchor rose toward the deck. The surf was full of flailing bodies, struggling back to shore.
Fin hugged one stout metal tentacle as the squid-anchor carried him upward. Water poured off it, soaking the front of his shirt and pants on its way down to the bay far below.
As the main deck drew near, Fin was able to shimmy from the anchor out onto the ship’s brightly colored trim, just avoiding the dark hole the anchor chain clanked into. From there, he caught a bit of rope netting hung from the deck rail and rested his head against a thick, scratchy knot. Very, very far below, the water looked a little less oily, a little more golden than he remembered. And just a touch glowing.
He swallowed. This was it. As long as he had known about it, as long as he had heard the sailors talking, Fin had never actually been out on the open waters of the Pirate Stream. Not until now.
Excitement surged through him, blunted just a bit by the thought of what might happen if he fell and hit that magic water. Can’t sail a chicken, the old saw repeated in his head. It seemed a lot funnier when he wasn’t the potential chicken.
As he mulled the thought, voices filtered down from the deck, not far above his perch. Fin tilted one ear up. He could make out words here and there, but not everything.
He eased closer, trying to keep quiet. A stale salt smell crept into his nose as it pressed against the rope. “But why burn all the docks?” Marrill asked above him. “Why not just burn the ships?” He’d never forget the sound of her voice calling out his name. A smile came to Fin’s face. The girl who had remembered him, if only for a minute.
“They did that, too,” the sailor said. “All except the streamrunners. Dullwood doesn’t burn. At least, not quick. Doesn’t do much of anything, really. Better to cut those ships loose, let the tides carry them back out while they were sure no one was on them.”
“Quite so.” The old man sounded distracted. “Whoever set fire to those docks fully intended that their quarry would never leave the shore, and that no one from off the shore could come in and pick them up. Someone, I think, was quite irate with another someone over some thing.”
Fin gulped. He had a good guess that one of those someones was the Meressian Oracle. And a bad feeling that the other someone might just be him.
“None of our business, really,” the sailor grunted.
“Indeed,” the wizard affirmed. “And in the meantime, our wonderful Miss Aesterwest has found the first piece of the Map!”
Fin lifted himself to peek up over the fat wooden lip of the railing. Not more than four strides away, the wizard sat on a stool before a table. Marrill, standing next to him with a large orange cat in her arms, craned her neck to look over his shoulder at whatever he was holding. The sailor leaned back casually against a thick mast, his arms crossed.
“So how does it work?” Marrill asked, readjusting the bulk of the cat.
The wizard rocked back on his stool, his purple hat tipping one way as his body tipped the other. “So glad you asked!” he said, chortling. “Watch!” He touched it gently with one hand, the other waving in the air. Marrill gasped. Even the sailor leaned in.
Fin still couldn’t see. He climbed higher, slipping over the railing and landing softly on the deck. In a moment, he was behind the mast a mere arm’s length from the trio, staring at the wizard’s back.
And then the wizard shifted, giving Fin a clear view of the table and the torn piece of paper atop it. The paper was old, yellowed, and so crumpled that it made it look like the star drawn across it was actually moving.
Except that the star was moving. As he watched, it fell apart and rearranged itself, a river of ink streaming down the page. Little lines and spirals stacked on top of each other and swirled together. Some kind of self-redrawing parchment, Fin thought. It was a neat trick.
And then the ink stood up, raised itself off the page entirely, and took flight.
Fin jerked his head up, following it as it swooped around the deck. It was a sketch, a sketch of a bird. And it was real. It was flying!
Marrill gasped as her cat hissed. The wizard chuckled. The sailor whistled in appreciation. Fin had to bite his tongue to keep from joining in the amazement.
“What is it?” Marrill asked. Her head turned as she watched the ink drawing, now looking for all the world like a rough-sketched blackbird in three dimensions, fly up the mizzenmast.
“That, my dear”—the wizard laughed—“is our guide to our next destination! Our one and only course through these stormy waters to the place we need to be. Marrill, let me introduce you… to the Bintheyr Map to Everywhere!”
Fin pressed his back to the mast, keeping it firmly between him and the crew.
“That’s a map?” the sailor asked.
“That’s a scrap of a map,” Ardent corrected. “The Compass Rose, to be precise. You can call her Rose, if you like. She will point us the way, right to the next piece!”
“Can’t it just lead me home?” Marrill asked.
“This little thing? No, no, no… the full Map will take you anywhere you need to go, but this bit, it can only take us where it needs us to go. Presumably, its next piece.”
Fin sucked in his breath. A map that would show you anything you wished to find? That couldn’t be a coincidence. After nearly dying too many times to count this morning, he’d wound up on board a ship with the very thing that could show him the way to find his mother. Things were starting to turn his way after all.
CHAPTER 18
The Stowaway
Marrill’s mind was still reeling in wonder when Rose let out a cry overhead and dove toward the ship. The bird swooped in a tight circle past the wizard and darted within claw’s reach of Karnelius.
The temptation was too much. Karnelius tore out of Marrill’s arms, launching himself after the bird. With a twitch of her scribbled wings, Rose banked sharply around the mast, then pulled into a steep climb, twisting through the rigging.
Karnelius didn’t even hesitate, tearing across the deck with his fur in full puff and leaping for the mast. Except there was something in the way. A boy, hiding behind the rigging. Marrill’s eyes widened.
Undeterred, Karnelius dug every one of his sharp claws into the kid, climbing him like a tree. The boy yowled, stumbling across the deck as he tri
ed to fling the cat free.
Overhead, Rose let out a cry. Ardent yelped in surprise, and Coll shouted, “Stowaway!” Marrill just stood slack-jawed with surprise, only able to say one word:
“Fin?”
The boy cast about, as though looking for a place to hide. She called his name again. He froze. His eyes grew wide as she stepped toward him.
“It is you, isn’t it?” She felt a surge of relief. She’d been so worried he might have been hurt in the fire, especially since she was the one who made him take her to the docks. But he looked fine, except for maybe some singeing along the cuffs of his pants. And a hint of terror in his eyes at being caught, of course.
She understood the feeling; she’d been in his shoes just that morning.
Fin’s gaze bounced to Ardent and Coll, then back to Marrill again, a frown pinching his eyebrows together. “You, uh…” He cleared his throat, no longer the confident boy who’d guided her through the streets of the Quay. “You r-remember me?”
“Not at all, my boy,” Ardent replied.
Coll crossed his arms and muttered, “Never seen you in my life.”
Marrill rolled her eyes. “Of course I do.” Turning to her two sailing companions, she said, “This is Fin. He’s the one who saved me from the wind and helped me get back to the docks.”
“Ah!” Ardent said. “An excellent service! And one we shan’t forget, I’d wager!”
Fin coughed next to her, almost like a laugh. Marrill waved her hand toward each of them in introduction. “Fin, this is Coll; he’s the captain. And that’s Ardent the… erm… wizard.”
“Perhaps you’ve heard of me?” Ardent looked at Fin expectantly. Fin shook his head and the wizard sighed. “It’s not like there are a lot of wizards about,” he muttered to himself.