Which Serth, of course, would know. He was an Oracle, after all.
Fin moved to the main cabin and opened the door. An F sat on the top step, an N on the stair below, followed by a U. As he’d feared, the trail of frozen letters led into the bowels of the ship. He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the crew. The Naysayer marshaled the pirates toward the forecastle while Marrill pointed off into the distance, her smile outglowing the water of the Stream. Coll shouted to Ardent to trim the sails, turning purple when Ardent slashed the edges off the mainsail with a wave of his hand. Fin felt the ghost of a smile try to work its way to his lips.
But it did nothing to ease the ache pounding in his chest.
A part of him wanted to slam the door shut and rejoin the crew, leaving the icy letters to melt into a slush of unfinished sayings and inky tears. But he couldn’t. Because deep down inside, he knew he would never truly fit in on the Kraken—no matter how hard he tried, no one but Marrill would ever remember him.
And it wouldn’t be long until she returned to her world, where she’d probably forget about him, too. Once again, Fin would be alone.
Unless he could find his mother.
Cautiously, Fin began climbing down the tightly spiraled stairs. It was still cold belowdecks, and the ice-wrapped railings were melting slowly. He toed an elegantly shaped L, kicking it toward the Door-Way to join the other letters. They were in all different fonts and sizes, some whispered and some shouted, but one thing remained the same, the pattern over and over:
Fin U. Lanu. His own name, spelled out like on the form from the Orphan Preserve: FNU LNU. First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown. Even his name had forgotten him.
Fin shivered, the hairs along the back of his neck lifting. The Door-Way felt longer and narrower than he remembered. All of its doors were closed, on wall, floor, and ceiling. Not even the scurrying of a pirat could be heard.
He continued following the stream of letters down the entire length of the corridor to where they stopped before the Map Room door. He squinted, examining the face on the knocker. It looked as though it had been crying, shallow rivulets grooving its brass cheeks.
Before wrapping his hand around the knob, Fin turned to glance behind him, though he knew no one had followed. Force of habit, he thought. Or paranoia. When you’re doing something wrong, it occurred to him, there’s always a shadow lurking just behind you.
But no shadows hid among the brass knockers and carved frames. No dire shapes slipped from doorways or crawled through keyholes. Slowly, he pushed open the door to the Map Room, shivering as a blast of cold air swept out.
Inside, frost still tinged the walls and the frozen letters scattered across the floor hadn’t begun melting yet. It felt almost like walking into a tomb. With Serth swallowed by the Stream, these were the final words of a dead man. As far as Fin could tell at a glance, though, there was no order to them. They were piled around in heaps, many of them stuck together in drifts along the wall where they’d slid from the ship’s constant movement.
Who knew how long it would take to sort it all out? Fin glanced over his shoulder, back down the Door-Way. He didn’t know how much time he had left until they reached Marrill’s world. Soon enough she’d come searching for him.
And before she did, there was something he needed to take care of. Something more important than the words of a dead wizard.
Closing the door behind him, he kicked aside a few frozen letters and moved to the large drawing table in the center of the room. Taking a deep breath, he pulled the Map from his back pocket.
He unfurled it, staring at the blank expanse of canvas. For all the magic the Map had held, now it seemed useless. At least, it was without its final piece. Fin reached into his shirt and drew out a hunk of crystal, shaped like the sun and glowing gently.
The Key. The real Key.
It was funny, he thought as a smile played over his lips, how much it looked like the unripe tentalo he’d kept in his thief’s bag since he got it from Squinting Jenny’s Fruit Stand, all the way back at the Khaznot Quay. Close enough to fool an Oracle, apparently.
It had been easy enough to switch the two out in that last second before he threw the Key off the Dragon. A classic palm job; any two-bit pickpocket or street magician could do it. While everyone’s focused on the Key, take the fruit from the bag (jamming a hope crystal in it for authentic shininess), switch them with a quick motion, then hide the real Key while they all watch the fake one fly through the air.
Misdirection was the word, and everyone was none the wiser.
He grasped the Key and took a deep breath. His toes twitched with anxiousness. His skin tingled. This was it. He had what he needed, at long last.
As he held the Key over it, the Map burst to life, pools and rapids and sandbars and islands and towers and caverns and everything welling up from the depths. They all swirled into place, bounded in by the Neatline, put in form by the Scale, even properly oriented, he supposed, to where he was standing and how he was looking at it, thanks to Rose—the Compass Rose, rather.
The Bintheyr Map to Everywhere was complete.
Taking a deep breath, Fin touched the Key to the Map and whispered the words he’d been waiting too long to say: “Show me my mother.”
The images on the Map whirled and flew. Landscapes and volcanoes and fortresses and oceans passed by so fast it made him dizzy. Then faster and faster, twisting down narrow branches of the Pirate Stream, through rapids, across lochs and lakes and marshes. He had to shut his eyes just to keep from feeling sick.
When he dared to look again, the Map showed open water once more. He could tell by the waves that washed over it, but they weren’t storm waves like the ones the Kraken was crashing through now. They were gentle, peaceful ones. The kind nuzzled up by a wind that sang of summer. The kind that begged for a swim.
As he watched, a mighty vessel came into view, sailing toward him. It was a great galleon, or a man-o’-war, the type that might lead an armada or be the flagship of a king. Astride its bow, a woman stood.
Fin’s breath caught. He recognized her. Her features were cut sharper than in his dreams, and her dark eyes were less gentle, but it was her, all right. The woman who gave him a star to look out after him. The one who brought him to the Quay.
His mother.
Fin’s throat tightened. His eyes shimmered.
The woman turned away from him and placed a hand on the shoulder of a boy standing behind her. Together, they walked toward the stern, heads bent as they talked. They both wore simple clothes, brightly colored and finely woven. Fin could only see the boy’s back, but his jet black hair and olive skin were too familiar. They were just like his own.
Fin choked. Did he have a brother? Could it be? What if there was an entire family out there, just for him? He felt his chest quiver. Joy leapt from his toes to his head and back again. He’d found what he was looking for! Finally, after all this hopeless searching, he’d found where he could belong again!
Just then, the room tilted as the Kraken crashed through a particularly rough wave. The Map snapped shut, and as Fin grasped the table to steady himself, the Key dropped to the floor. But when he knelt to grab it, his eyes landed on a trio of jumbled words it had rolled against: “Master Dear Thief.”
Dear Master Thief. Just like the letter from Serth back at the Khaznot Quay. Fin’s heart kicked up. He glanced at the door again, wondering just how much time he had left. Hopefully, enough. Putting Map and Key aside for a moment, he quickly gathered up all the words, their letters frozen together with a glue of black tears:
One A if Lost dragon, Key back way its
map will lock doesn’t But lock Though forever
key On come the shall of the a the remembers
Sun be show has day the truth then, forgets it Prophecy
When he was done, he rearranged the words into lines according to font, and then again over and over until they made a sort of sense:
A Prophecy
 
; One truth forever shall be
Key remembers lock
Though lock forgets key
On the back of a dragon, the Lost Sun has its day
But if it doesn’t come then,
the map will show the way
It was like Fin’s insides had turned to stone. The joy he’d felt just a moment ago at seeing his mother dissolved. If she was on a ship, that meant she was constantly moving. Which meant that the only way he could find her would be to keep using the Map.
But Serth’s note said the Lost Sun would still have its day, even if it didn’t rise on the Dragon. With that, the Map was still dangerous. If the wrong person ended up with it and the Key, they could still open the Gate. They could still release the Lost Sun of Dzannin and destroy the Pirate Stream. Fin ached, the longing in his chest squeezing impossibly tight. Was finding his mother worth risking the world?
His thoughts were interrupted by a muffled shout drifting through the open porthole. “Land ho!” Squeals echoed around him as tiny doors tucked along the walls slammed open and pirats scampered out, dashing to their stations.
It could only mean they’d reached Marrill’s world. Fin’s time was up. He was going to have to say good-bye to his friend.
And he was going to have to decide what to do about the Map.
He’d just started for the door when a massive scraping sound shuddered through the Kraken. The ship ground to a halt so suddenly that Fin catapulted forward. Behind him, he heard the carefully arranged frozen letters scatter across the floor. An immense groan reverberated through the hull as the ship settled, tilting slightly sideways.
He shoved the Map into his back pocket and the Key in his thief’s bag before taking off toward the stairs. Even from down here, Fin could hear shouts coming from the deck above. Something was wrong!
CHAPTER 42
Where You Need to Go
Marrill had just gotten her first glimpse of home when the Kraken shuddered to a halt. She landed in a heap against the railing, hard enough to knock the breath out of her. She wasn’t the only one who lost her footing—piles of pirates littered the deck, grumbling and cursing as they tried to untangle themselves from each other.
“The Stream’s bottoming out!” Coll cried as he pulled himself up. His expression turned grim as he fought against the wheel. Slowly, with a great groaning sound, the Kraken began listing to one side.
Marrill struggled to her feet and stared out across the Stream. The air shimmered with heat ahead of them, just like it would on land. Through that veil, she couldn’t even tell where the water ended and the asphalt began, but the familiar lines of a parking lot and the shapes of the dumpy strip mall buildings told her she was nearly home. Her parents were so, so close. And she still couldn’t get to them. It was too far away, too much Stream water between here and there.
“Ardent, trim the sails!” Coll ordered.
Ardent eyed the mainsail, holding his fingers up in a scissor formation.
Coll scrambled to correct himself, yelling, “Wait, wait! That means tighten them!”
The wizard did what he was told, but the ship continued to wobble.
Fin dashed up beside her. “What happened?” he asked, out of breath.
“I don’t know.” Marrill’s insides twisted with panic. “We were just fine and then—”
“She’s floundering,” Coll warned. It was obvious how hard he strained to keep from losing control of the ship. The sails bucked and flapped above them. “Keep the wind calm or it’ll tear the sheets free!” he shouted to Ardent.
But no matter what Ardent tried, the wind continued to blow, each gust pushing the ship farther onto her side. “Curse you, Air!” the wizard shouted, waving his fist.
“We need deeper water,” Coll explained. “Prepare to come about!” Overhead, the Ropebone Man strained, his block and tackle squealing sharply as pirats raced along the masts, loosening knots and retying them. The ship protested, then eased backward ever so slightly.
Another shudder and the parking lot grew more distant. They were headed the wrong way—back to the open waters of the Pirate Stream. Away from home. “Wait!” Marrill shouted.
Slowly, the ship righted itself, and Coll turned her until her sails fell limp and she floated safely in place. “I’m sorry,” he told Marrill apologetically. “This is as far as I can take her. Stream’s too shallow past this point.”
“But last time you made it to shore!” she protested.
He glanced over his shoulder, back toward the mass of black clouds dissipating along the horizon. “Must have been the storm surge. It kicks up the tides, makes ’em higher, stronger.”
He turned to Ardent. “Makes sense when you think about it. The first time we got there, we were nearly in a storm. Same thing here. Except now, it’s not strong enough to take us all the way in. We’ve got some time at this depth but”—he shrugged, his expression regretful—“not a lot of it.”
Marrill stared across the distance between her and the parking lot. “What if I swam?” she asked hopefully.
Ardent scooped up a stray length of rope and dropped it over the railing. It hit the water, where it writhed and tangled, the ends splitting. “Afraid not,” he told her. “Well, and a frayed knot, too.” When no one laughed, he tugged on his beard and added, “As you can see, the water still carries too much magic this far out.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip, scouring the ship for something she could use to get ashore. But there was nothing that the magic wouldn’t destroy. “I have to get home,” she whispered, her chest tight.
Fin cleared his throat and shrugged out of his thief’s coat. “Fly,” he said simply, thrusting it toward her. Some-thing flashed in his eyes, then he glanced away.
She looked at the coat and then back at him. Hope began to stir inside her. When she hesitated, he added, “It’s not that far. And I saw how well you handled flying in the storm. You can do it.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She grabbed him and pulled him into a fierce hug that he tentatively returned.
And then she realized what this meant. Going home meant leaving him behind. All of them. She wouldn’t be able to take Ardent with her to heal her mother. She inhaled sharply. It would be okay, she told herself. Her mother had recovered before without magic; hopefully, that meant she could do so again.
She tightened her arms around Fin, and he returned her squeeze. “I don’t want to say good-bye,” she murmured, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
She pulled back and glanced around the ship. For a moment, a part of her wondered what it would be like if she stayed with them. All the adventures she could go on with Fin and Coll and Ardent. Every morning a new world brimming with possibility. But she knew in her heart she needed to get home to her parents, to sit by her mother’s side as she recovered.
Even so, maybe this didn’t have to be good-bye forever. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked.
“I fear not,” Ardent said regretfully.
Marrill’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“Your world is one of the most complete, maybe the most complete, I’ve ever encountered,” he said. “Remember what I told you when we first met, Marrill. Magic is just the potential for creation. It follows no rules, and breaks them all. A world as complex and defined by its own rules as yours, well, it cannot bear much contact with the raw stuff.
“If the River of Creation is a deep and slow-moving river, and the Pirate Stream is a fast, tumultuous torrent, your world is like a windmill on the shores of that slow-moving river. It is beautiful and complex and built to precision, turning and grinding with the slow river’s current. But place the wheel too long in swift-moving waters, and it cannot help but be torn asunder.”
Coll crossed his arms. “Don’t windmills use the wind?”
Ardent flapped his hands. “Well, whatever, like that but with water.”
“I think I get it,” Marrill assured him. “Magic doesn’t foll
ow rules, and my world does, so dumping pure magic into my world would undo the rules, and…”
“Rip it apart,” Ardent finished. “Believe me, the Stream will touch your world again, somewhere, sometime. That’s how I knew we could get you home. But it is rare. And frankly, if the Stream is close enough for you to stumble upon it again, well, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.”
A shiver streaked down Marrill’s spine at the words. She swallowed the tears that burned the back of her throat. She wasn’t sure she understood everything Ardent had told her, but she understood enough to know that this was good-bye forever.
“So this will be it?” Fin asked, echoing her thoughts. “No one from the Stream will ever be able to get into Marrill’s world?” His forehead furrowed, as though he were thinking through what that really meant.
“I’m afraid so,” Ardent replied.
With a deep sigh, Fin pulled a tightly rolled piece of parchment from his back pocket. “You should take the Map, then,” he said, offering it to her.
Marrill frowned. “Why? It’s useless without the Key.”
“To get it off the Stream,” Ardent answered for him. “It’s something Coll and I had already been discussing. I can’t say I’m happy about it, but the Map will be safer in your world, where no one from the Stream can reach it.”
Fin lifted the corner of his mouth in a strained smile, though his eyes looked anywhere but at her. “Better safe than sorry, right?”
Nodding, Marrill took the Map and stuffed it into one of the many pockets in Fin’s thief’s coat. She had to clear her throat several times before she was able to get her voice to work. “I guess this is good-bye, then.”
“I’m sorry,” Ardent said gently. He crouched and opened his arms. She threw herself at him, closing her eyes as he held her tight.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. She didn’t need to say out loud what she was frightened of: of going home, of leaving them, of what would happen with her mom’s illness, of trying to live in an ordinary world after knowing what wondrous things existed.