The afternoon was late, the sun already low in the sky as I emerged on deck. Tarn was close behind me, hands full with water canisters. We set everything on the deck, shooing away the gulls that swooped down to steal our food.
Father was at the wheel, while Ananias stood at the stern, watching the pursuing ship through my binoculars. I joined him. Dare’s ship was trailing us by over a mile now, but I didn’t comment on it. It would have seemed like tempting fate to say out loud that we were steadily pulling away.
Ananias lowered the binoculars. “When we switched ships earlier, Alice saw Dare join you on the other ship.”
“I didn’t see him. I promise.”
“I believe you. But why did he let you escape? I mean, he could’ve killed you, or trapped you on that ship. Kept you hostage until the rest of us surrendered. Instead, it’s almost like he hid from you. You have to admit, it’s weird.”
“Yes, it is. Unless he wanted to be back on his ship.”
Ananias handed me the binoculars. “Then what’s he doing now?”
I aimed the binoculars at the distant ship. Four men stood near the prow, facing us. But Dare wasn’t among them.
“Alice says Dare looked unarmed as he boarded that ship,” continued Ananias in a low voice. “Maybe the Sumter men decided to get rid of him.”
I waited for Dare to reappear, to raise his colorful arms and wave, tormenting us even as he was losing the battle once and for all. “Dare’s a seer. He won’t disappear as easily as that.”
“Maybe they know he let you escape . . . like he let you escape from the gunroom on Fort Sumter.”
I lowered the binoculars. I had the feeling these questions weren’t really about Dare at all. “What are you getting at?”
He met my eyes. “Why does Dare need you alive?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you? You really haven’t wondered how all this is happening to you?”
“All what?”
“Oh, come on, Thomas. A few weeks ago you were an afterthought in this colony. Didn’t even realize you had an element at all. Now you and Dare have this game of cat and mouse going, and he seems to know every move we make before it even happens. Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a coincidence. He’s a seer.”
“I’m just saying—”
“What? What are you saying, Ananias?” I reminded myself that this wasn’t the old Ananias talking. He was still grieving for Eleanor, the girl he’d loved, and in shock from discovering that our mother was alive. But I couldn’t hide my anger. “In case you haven’t noticed, Dare’s your uncle too. And it was our mother he didn’t kill, not just mine. And you know what else? He’s not the only one with a history of violence. Seems the Guardians have blood on their hands too.”
“Sounds like you’re quite sympathetic to him.”
“Not sympathetic. Just sick of everyone’s lies.” I lowered my voice as Alice and Jerren joined us on deck. “Believe me, if Dare isn’t dead already, I’ll stand with you and finish him off. That, I can promise you.”
I figured that Ananias would have more to say. Until recently, he never would’ve let me have the final word. But maybe that was what was really at stake here. This wasn’t about Dare, or the Guardians. It was about us—how our roles had been reversed. For years he’d looked out for Griffin and me, while the Guardians groomed him to take charge of the colony. Now there was no colony, and Griffin and I were at the heart of everything that was happening. Where did that leave him? What was his role now?
Ananias walked away. He took a plate of food from Alice and ate, keeping his distance from both Father and me.
He wasn’t the only one eating in silence. Everyone seemed to be splitting their attention between mouthfuls of cured fish and the chasing ship. The quiet didn’t feel peaceful either, but uncomfortable, as if we didn’t know what to say to each other anymore.
It was almost a relief when Dennis piped up. “I saw how you helped us escape from Sumter,” he told Jerren. “Your element’s kind of weird.”
Jerren chuckled. “I think it’s weird that any of us can do what we do.”
“I guess so. How many elementals are there?” Dennis asked no one in particular.
Tarn and my father exchanged glances, but Marin didn’t look up at all. “It’s not important,” she answered.
“It’s important to me.”
Father cleared his throat. “Years ago, there were thousands of us, but most lived too far from Roanoke for their elements to work. Some probably spent their whole lives not even knowing what they could do. Elements fade throughout adulthood, especially if they’re not used.”
“Someone should’ve told them about it,” said Dennis indignantly.
Tarn took over as Father gave a resigned sigh. “Most parents who left Roanoke did it so their children could grow up free from the burden of an element.”
“You mean, there could be hundreds of children out there who have elements, and they don’t even know it?”
“In the past, yes. But not now. Not anymore.”
Dennis picked up a spinach leaf and dropped it again. “What about a solution?”
“What about it?”
“I mean, what if Griffin’s not the only one?”
“Solutions are elements that fix an existing problem. So only a child born since the Exodus could be a solution. And to be honest, I don’t think there are many children left,” Tarn said. She swallowed the last words, no doubt thinking of her daughter Eleanor, who had died only a few days earlier.
Another awkward silence. This time, Marin broke it. “I hear you grew up on Fort Dauphin, Jerren. That’s a very long way from Roanoke Island. I’m surprised your element worked at all down there.”
“It was really weak,” he admitted. “Hardly an element at all. But the one time I used it on people, it surprised them. Just me being able to twist sound at all . . . they didn’t know what to make of it, you know?”
“And what about your sister? What’s Nyla’s element?”
He shrugged. “She doesn’t have one. At least, not that I know of.”
“A child without an element. Or maybe a child who doesn’t understand her element.” Marin raised her eyebrow provocatively. “Just like Thomas, really. And we all know what’s happened since Thomas found out what he can do. Kyte and Joven and Eleanor are dead, and I don’t believe for a moment they’ll be the last to die.”
I was about to fight back when Dennis beat me to it.
“Stop it!” he yelled. He faced his mother, small hands clamped into fists at his sides. “Why are you always like this?”
If Marin had expected resistance, it certainly hadn’t been from Dennis. Now she stared at him with narrowed eyes, as if he were a stranger who looked vaguely familiar. “If you’ve finished eating,” she said coolly, “I suggest you choose a cabin. You must be tired—”
“I’m not tired!” Dennis looked fit to explode. “The only reason we’re alive is because of Thomas. Jerren and Alice too. On Sumter, Chief had plans for me, not you. It was me he wanted to keep around in the colony. Don’t you see? They would’ve gotten rid of you just as soon as they could. You would’ve died, or been killed, and I would’ve been all alone in that place.”
“You don’t know that,” Marin replied, but for once her words lacked conviction.
Dennis regarded his mother with a pitying expression, as if he were the adult and she, the child. “Father’s gone, Mother,” he said. “The things he said . . . they don’t matter anymore. Thomas isn’t what you think. We have to stop looking at everything through Father’s eyes.”
I didn’t know what to say. The conversation didn’t include me, but I was at the heart of it. And if there was one thing I’d thought I knew, it was that Dennis would never question his mother.
/> Now that it was clear Dennis had no intention of leaving, let alone going to bed, Marin stood instead. But as she left, she looked at me with an expression I’d never seen before, wondering and uncertain. And though she didn’t say a word, that look communicated plenty. It was the first time I felt that she wasn’t looking straight through me.
Finally, her eyes shifted, back past the stern to the ship pursuing us. Straightaway her mouth fell open and her expression changed. But she didn’t find a word to express her shock.
CHAPTER 10
We jumped up as one. I braced myself for discovering that Dare’s ship was closer than before. Instead it took me a moment to see the vessel at all. It had changed course, and was heading due south.
“I don’t understand,” murmured Ananias. He turned to our father. “Is there a different current out there? Something that’ll help them close on us?”
Father shook his head. He ran a hand across his mouth, twisting the leathery skin. “No,” he said.
“Then why . . .” Ananias didn’t complete the question. There was no point, no explanation, except the most obvious of all. “He’s turning around. Dare’s giving up.”
Father continued to stare at the ship. “He must’ve known he’d never catch us.”
“But he could’ve followed us to Roanoke,” I said.
“He doesn’t know that’s where we’re heading,” Ananias pointed out.
“Where else would we be heading?” I was as confused as Father. Nothing in Dare’s behavior so far had prepared me for the possibility of his giving in. “Anyway, why go back to Sumter? When we left, it was overrun with rats.”
“The other men’s families are there,” said Jerren.
“But not Dare’s.”
“Maybe they didn’t give Dare a choice,” said Alice. “Maybe they didn’t want to wait for their families to die before turning back to help them.”
“Or maybe Dare wasn’t alive to offer an opinion,” suggested Ananias, looking at me.
“He’s a seer,” I protested. “Who risks his life if he knows the crew is out to get him?”
“We’re a long way from Roanoke,” said Father. “His visions would’ve been foggy, at best.”
The binoculars still hung from a cord around my neck, so I raised them to my eyes and focused on the ship. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the familiar sight of Dare standing at the prow, arm raised. Even in defeat, I expected him to be defiant. But he wasn’t there at all.
I struggled to process everything. All my life Dare had been a living, breathing reminder that nothing was certain or safe. His legend had cast a shadow over our colony. Now we were emerging from that shadow, and I didn’t trust the light.
That’s when it hit me: No one around me was cheering either. Gulls swooped low, picking scraps of food from the deck, but we were still. Waves crashing against the hull sounded louder than ever in the face of our silence. Were we too cautious to celebrate, even when victory seemed assured?
Or was it more than that? Deep down, I’d wanted a chance to confront him, to make him pay for everything he’d done to our colony. Maybe Alice was right—maybe he’d suffered on that ship, and was suffering still, but it wasn’t by my hand or Alice’s. Or any of the people whose lives he had ruined. Didn’t we deserve the chance to exact revenge?
I checked out the ship’s deck again. The Sumter men were busy adjusting course, all their energy concentrated on returning home as quickly as possible, as if they’d forgotten that the solution even existed.
We returned to the food. Birds had been picking at it, so Alice gathered up the plates.
“Need help?” I asked her.
She didn’t answer. Just took off alone for the stairs. A few moments later, I followed her. I needed to see Rose.
There was a small tub of white ointment beside Rose’s cabin door. Alice had probably found it and put it there. I opened the door quietly. Rose was sleeping. Or so I thought.
“You coming in?” she whispered.
I closed the door and knelt beside her. Outside, the sun was low in the sky, and a warm orange glow lit her face. Rose had always been so calm and thoughtful and . . . untouchable. But the past few weeks had changed all that. Her long blond hair was gone, chopped short and pressed into a matted bundle beneath her head. Her flawless skin bore scars that would last a lifetime. I tried to tell myself that she was lucky to be alive, but there was nothing lucky about what she’d been through.
“The other ship has turned around,” I said. “Dare’s gone.”
She managed a smile. “Good.”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? This is what we’ve been waiting for. We needed a sign. Well, this is our sign.”
She waited for me to agree, even stopped breathing momentarily so that she might hear me better. But I still couldn’t get things straight in my mind, so I opened the lid to the tub instead.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, Thomas, but we’ve got to move on. It’s our destiny to get back to Roanoke and start over. Can’t you see that?”
“No, I can’t.” I dipped a finger into the ointment. I wasn’t sure what it was for, but figured it couldn’t do any harm.
“How else do you explain everything? Changing ships today. Escaping from Fort Sumter yesterday. Even the way Nyla got the ship moving out of Charleston Harbor in the first place.”
“You didn’t help her?”
“No. She raised the anchors by herself, if you can believe that. When she came back, I was almost asleep. I don’t think we even spoke. She just held my hand, and . . . well, that’s the last thing I remember.”
Destiny. Maybe she was right. It would certainly have been easier to attribute everything to fate. But fate hadn’t come to our aid in the gunroom on Fort Sumter—Dare had. And if there was one person who I was sure would never believe in fate, it was Dare.
Seeing the ointment on my finger, Rose lifted the hem of her tunic. The knife wounds were hideous—dried blood mixed with deep purple bruising. She gritted her teeth as I applied the ointment in small, slow movements. When I paused, she released a long, low groan.
“I just want you to know,” she said breathily, “that if anyone else was doing this to me, I’d scream at them.”
I dipped my finger in the tub again. “I figured you’d be screaming at me too.”
“Actually, so did I. Guess I really don’t want you to go.”
She raised her left hand and ran a finger across the back of my wrist. Her touch was feather light, but it sent tremors across my body.
My pulse grew faster. I knew the effect it would have on her as my element grew stronger, so I tried to direct the flow of energy back on myself. For a while, it worked, and the dull ache of my echo was inflicted on me. But not only me—Rose’s eyes narrowed as she fought to block out the pain.
I pulled away.
“Don’t,” Rose pleaded. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. Not yet, anyway. You need to save your strength.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing for the past fourteen years. Maybe it’s time for me to toughen up.”
“You sound more like Alice every day.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” Rose peered at me from the corner of her eye. “Clearly it is. Has something happened between you two?”
I almost laughed at that. Something? So many things had happened that I’d lost track, but Rose didn’t need to hear them. “I just like you as you are, is all,” I told her.
“Then hold me.”
I groaned. “You’ll be better soon. I’ll hold you then.”
“That’s all? You’ll just hold me?”
“Maybe . . . kiss you too.”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?”
She probably expected me to go red, but for once, I didn’t. “Yes
, Rose,” I said, tending once more to her wounds. “Really.”
• • •
Later that night, after a turn at the wheel, I selected an empty cabin and fell asleep. I was exhausted, but sleep didn’t come without nightmares: of Plague, and Dare, and the pirates we’d have to face when we reached Roanoke Island.
Someone shook me awake. I batted the hand away and rolled over without opening my eyes.
“Thomas.” Alice’s voice. She grabbed a flap of my tunic and yanked it hard, rolling me toward her.
I snapped my eyes open. The cabin was filling with the dull gray light of a cloudy morning. “What are you doing? What’s the—” I stopped the moment I saw her. Gone was the familiar defiance, the narrowed eyes, the pursed lips. Now she appeared cautious. Scared, even. She opened her mouth, and closed it again.
“What is it, Alice? What’s going on?”
“Something’s happened. Something bad.”
An image of Griffin—bloodied, broken, and now Plague-ridden—filled my mind. I’d known it was possible that he would contract the disease, but the news still caught me off guard.
“How is he?” I asked.
“He?”
“Griffin.”
She shook her head. “This isn’t about Griffin. Or Nyla,” she added after a pause.
“What is it, then?”
“A rat must’ve gotten on board the ship before it left Sumter. Maybe more than one.”
“How do you know?”
It seemed an eternity before she answered. “Because Dennis and Rose shared a cabin last night, and both of them were bitten just before sunrise. They’ve been exposed to the Plague,” she said, spelling it out for me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER 11
I flung the blanket aside and pushed past Alice. She grabbed my arm, but quickly let go again. “Be careful, Thom. Your element has gotten stronger since yesterday.”