“What in sea and sky is going on?” I said.
“I can explain.” He smiled. “You’re hungry, yes? Would you like to get something to eat?”
“No.” I didn’t like that he knew I was hungry. “I want you to explain what the hell you’re doing.” I leaned close to him, lowering my voice. “You wouldn’t let me tell Kolur who you were, and now you’re working for him?”
“Well, you ran off.” Isolfr turned and headed down the path, over to an empty space where the shops ended. He tossed the rope to the ground and gestured for me to join to him. I did, stupid me wanting my answers, and he cast a spell that washed over us both like a sudden wind.
“What was that?”
“So no one can hear us.” Isolfr sat down on the rope. “So yes, I’m working for Kolur, but he doesn’t quite know that. He thinks I’m a Tuljan boy named Pjetur.”
“You’re insane,” I said. “Why are you doing this to us? To him?” I pointed to the docks, in the direction of the Penelope II. “How’d he even afford that ship, anyway? Was it you? Do you have money? Could you have sent me home?”
“He didn’t buy it with money.” Isolfr ran his hands over the rope. “He got the boat in exchange for a spell he and Frida performed—Jandanvari magic, very dangerous.” Isolfr looked up at me. “And the boat wasn’t seaworthy. Still isn’t. That’s why we’re still here, doing repairs.”
“Doing repairs to go on a fool’s errand, is that it? And now you’re helping him? You aren’t even human. Why do you care?”
Isolfr drew his knees up to his chest. “I’m helping him because you won’t,” he said quietly.
“Because I won’t?” Anger flushed in my cheeks. “I tried! But I had no idea what to do. You just gave me all these warnings and then—then Gillean was on deck and he was dead—”
“That was Lord Foxfollow,” Isolfr said. “He found out. I had to go into hiding.”
I wanted to hit him. “I’m lucky Kolur turned out to have magic. All you did was tell me what was coming and give me no way to fight it, and then you wouldn’t even let me warn Kolur.”
Isolfr’s cheeks colored, twin spots of pink like on a doll. “I admit that clouding his memory may not have been the best course of action.”
“They why did you do it?” I glowered at him. “Why are you still doing it?”
The color on Isolfr’s cheek deepened. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I have a right to know.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re the reason I’m stranded here, after all. If you hadn’t gotten involved—”
“You and Kolur and Frida would be dead,” he interrupted. “Lord Foxfollow would have hunted you down.”
“He only found us because we gave Gillean a funeral.” I threw my hands in the air. “And we only had to give Gillean a funeral because his body dropped on our boat. Don’t try and lay the blame on me, Isolfr. Don’t you dare.”
Isolfr shrank back. The magic of his spell shimmered around us, sweet and bright like honeycomb candy. “He would have found you anyway,” he said. “Maybe you would have gotten all the way to Jandanvar first. But he would have killed you eventually.”
There was an intensity in his voice I didn’t expect. It shuddered through me and left me cold. But I wasn’t going to back down.
“I still wouldn’t say that anything you’ve done has helped us.” I peered at him, trying to find some clue in those washed-out human features. “Why are you keeping Frida’s and Kolur’s minds clouded? At least tell me that much.”
Isolfr looked down at his hands. “Fine, I’ll tell you,” he said.
I preened, hearing that. But it wasn’t enough to quell my anger with him.
“Well?” I said.
“I’m getting to it.” He looked up at me. “It’s Frida. She’s terrifying. When she was training in Jandanvar, she called down one of my brothers and she—she bound him to leach out his strength for her spell. My sister had to save him. He almost died.”
“Can you even die?” I snapped. But Isolfr’s eyes widened and I felt a pang of guilt. “Sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t—”
“Yes, I can die,” he said. “Just not like you.”
“What are you?”
He ignored my question. “Kolur was helping her. If either he or Frida saw me in my true form, they’d know what I am. They’d—recognize me. And I—I didn’t want that.”
“You’re scared of them.” It was a strange thought, and an unsettling one. A month ago, I would have found it laughable that anyone could be scared of Kolur, but now I wasn’t so sure. He’d pretended to be a fisherman when he could have been a wizard. Maybe there was some wicked explanation. I shivered.
Isolfr looked away. The magic around us rippled and flickered. For a moment, I thought it was going to disappear completely.
“I was sent to warn them.” He spoke down into the grass. “To give them aid. But I couldn’t do it.” His shoulders hitched, and I felt a twinge of pity for him that turned to irritation quickly enough.
“Who sent you?”
“My superiors. Their names are cloaked, so there’s no point in me even saying them.” He almost sounded miserable. “I don’t know why they sent me. I told them what Frida and Kolur had done—”
“They wouldn’t have hurt you,” I said. “If you really are trying to help.”
“I am!” He leaped to his feet and grabbed the rope. “And anyway, I’m working with them now, aren’t I?”
“In disguise! You could have just done that from the beginning.”
Once again, I’d said something he didn’t want to hear, so he ignored me.
“This is pointless. I hope Kolur makes you empty their chamber pots.” I stalked away from him and straight into the spell. At first I thought it was going to hold me in place, but the air yielded when I passed through. My ears rang, and my skin prickled. When I turned around, Isolfr was gone. No, not gone, just invisible. The way I’d been a few seconds previous.
“Don’t come looking for me!” I shouted into the empty field. Then I stormed back down to the road. Isolfr didn’t follow me, thank the gods. It figured that not only did I have to get saddled with some magical do-gooder, I had to get saddled with a cowardly, incompetent one.
The wind picked up, northerly and sweet-smelling. I shivered and drew my coat closer around my chest. And for a moment, I worried. Not about Isolfr—he wasn’t human; he could take care of himself. But Kolur. Kolur and Frida, too, both sailing into the trap of Lord Foxfollow with only Isolfr to help them.
I shook my head. No. Kolur had lied to me. About where he was taking me, about his past. His business wasn’t mine any longer. Lord Foxfollow cared not for me; I didn’t want to steal away his bride. All I had to think about was earning enough money to get home.
The wind continued to blow, and I continued to shiver beneath my coat.
CHAPTER TEN
I hoped that would be the end of it. I hoped Isolfr would slink back to the Penelope II and do whatever weaselly things he could to keep Kolur and Frida out of trouble. Meanwhile, I’d continue to sail out with the Annika and we’d all go our separate ways. That’s what I hoped life would be like.
And for a while, it was.
The jar in my captain’s quarters grew heavier with stones, even though I had to dump out a handful to pay Rudolf the rent for my little moored Cornflower. I drew down the winds as the Annika sailed up and down the Tuljan coat, I ate meals with Asbera and Finnur, I fetched water from the well, and I bought food from the grocer.
It should have been peaceful, if not satisfying. But it wasn’t. Something always niggled at the back of my head, a note of discomfort that made me toss and turn at night as the waves slapped against the walls of the boat. Whenever I was in town, I found myself looking over my shoulder, watching for the Mists.
I wanted to blame my encounter with Isolfr, thinking he must have planted ideas in my head. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t it.
After a particula
rly long trip aboard the Annika, I went over to the Crocus for the usual dinner with Asbera and Finnur. I climbed over the railing, like always, but this time I saw something that made my heart pound: they had switched out the twisted-up vine charms, swapping the old for the new, and added at least twice as many as before. The charms hung from the masts like sails, dropping small oval leaves across the deck.
Seeing them stirred up a whisper of fear.
“Hanna! I thought I heard your feet on the ceiling.” Asbera’s head appeared in the hatch. “Dinner’s almost ready.” She stopped and set her hands on the deck and stared at me. “What’s wrong?”
“You changed the vines,” I said.
Her expression flickered. “Yes,” she said. “I brought in some new charms. For protection.”
“Were you robbed?” The question sounded naive, even to me.
Asbera shook her head. She shifted her weight like she was uncomfortable. “It’s nothing, Hanna, it really isn’t. You just have to be careful this far north.”
“We know what the Mists are in Kjora.”
“I know you do.” She smiled. “Nothing’s happened, you understand. It’s just—a need for precaution.”
I went down to dinner feeling uneasy.
The next day, I went into Rilil for the first time in nearly a week, and I saw that the charms hanging above the shop doors had gotten bigger too, plumped out with gray moss and dried flowers and wrapped in red ribbons. Tuljan characters were scratched in the soil and stained with red dye. I didn’t have to read them to know that they were protection spells.
Compared to the elaborate earth-magic charms of the Tuljans, my bracelet from the Skalirin magic shop seemed paltry and weak, but I knew it was better than nothing. To calm myself at night, I practiced the protective wind charms I knew, standing up on the stern of the Cornflower, facing out to sea. I called the south wind, and its magic washed over the boat, settling in all the nooks and crannies. I hoped it would bring me the protection I needed.
One evening, everything still bright with the late spring sun, I went for a walk along the docks, my hands tucked tight into my pockets to protect against the chill. I stopped when I spotted the Penelope II against the horizon, her Jolali carvings cast in silhouette against the white sky. At that point, I turned around and went back home.
I’d just wanted to know if Kolur had finished the repairs or not. I’d just wanted to know if she was still in port.
The Annika crew wasn’t an exception to all this new paranoia, either. They took to muttering prayers whenever we left the docks and before we returned, whispering to themselves in a thicker-than-usual Tuljan dialect, the words guttural and unfamiliar. Finnur, seeing me listen in one morning, grabbed me by the hand and said the prayer over me, flashing a bright smile when he finished. “Now you’re just like the rest of us,” he said. It was from him that I learned the words were a prayer at all—an ancient one to guard against the Mists.
And then there were the Nalendan.
We saw them one morning as we dragged the night’s catch to the market. The jangling, pounding music drifted down the street, and everyone in the crew stopped and set their loads down, even Baltasar. I followed their lead and rested my package of ling at my feet and stood straight and unmoving. The music set me on edge, even if it was a protection spell.
The costumed men approached, chanting the same song as before. Magic shimmered around them. The shopkeeper across the way tossed flowers and the man dressed as a pine tree bowed to her, the pines needles of his costume shining in the light.
Magic settled around us like a blanket.
The costumed men passed, and the air sighed with relief. The crew gathered up their packages, but the high spirits from our successful catch had disappeared. Asbera was frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered to her as we made our way down the street.
“The Nalendan,” she said. “They were just here, remember? And to see them again, so soon—” She shook her head. “No matter. We should be grateful for the catch, don’t you think?”
I nodded, although her words kept me on edge. We didn’t speak the rest of the way to the market.
The costumed men disappeared around a curve in the road, but I could still hear their music on the wind.
• • •
A week later, Asbera and Finnur and I went out for drinks. We’d gotten back from a four-day trip and had the next few days off, so it seemed a fine idea to go down to the mead hall for a round or two. I knew we hoped the drinks would help dull the fear that had been cutting through Rilil lately. Not that any of us admitted that out loud.
The mead hall was crowded when we arrived, the lighting dim and smoky. I looked over the mass of faces, scanning for Kolur. I was about as keen on seeing him again as I was on seeing Isolfr. But in the dark light, it was too difficult to make anyone out. All the men looked the same, with their long hair and their thick northern beards.
“In the back,” Finnur said to me. “There’s always a place there.”
We pushed through the crowd to a table in the corner. Asbera ordered ale for all three of us. “I’m looking forward to the next few days,” she said when the serving girl had left. “Some of my herbs need tending to.” She paused. “Maybe you’d like some, Hanna?”
I looked down at the table and twisted my bracelet around my wrist. The herbs, like the pieces of vine, were enchanted to protect the Crocus from the Mists. Everyone was protecting themselves from the Mists, but not a single damn person would admit to it outright. That probably explained why the mead hall was so crowded tonight. All that fear.
“I don’t want to be a bother.” I’d learned not to bring up the Mists myself. It worked out better that way, to keep my head down. “I’m sure you need them.”
“I can spare a few.” She smiled, and Finnur looked at her and then looked at me and grinned.
“Yeah, it’s a right jungle on deck,” he said. “Just like Jokja. You ever hear the stories about Jokja?”
“My mother sailed there,” I said. “Her captain was friends with the queen’s consort.”
Asbera’s eyes lit up. “Really? I hear the Jokja royalty is grand, that the palace is made entirely out of jewels. Is that true?”
Off to my side, Finnur scoffed, but I shook my head. “Not really. But Mama said you could feel the jungle’s magic if you went too close.”
Asbera’s eyes glittered. Our drinks arrived, and the serving girl slammed them down on the table without saying a word. Finnur lifted his up in the air and said, “To two days of freedom.”
“Freedom!” Asbera and I called out, laughing. We clicked our drinks together, ale sloshing over the sides, and drank. I didn’t feel free. Every day away from the boat was a day I wasn’t earning money to return back home.
“Hanna?”
The voice came from behind me. It was soft and silvery like moonlight. My stomach dropped out at the bottom.
“Who’s this?” Asbera grinned. “Should we know him?”
“I’m Pjetur.” Isolfr sat down in the seat beside me. I didn’t bother to correct him; something told me Asbera and Finnur wouldn’t hear me if I did. “I work for Hanna’s old captain.”
“Ah,” Finnur said. “So you can shed some light on Hanna’s mysterious past.”
Asbera smacked him on the arm.
“Afraid not. I know as little as you do.”
I ignored him and scanned the faces of the mead hall again. This time I did find Kolur, sitting over in the corner with Frida. He was staring at me, scowling, but when he saw me looking, he lifted one hand in greeting.
I turned away from him.
“Kolur asked me to check on you,” Isolfr said. “He wants to make sure you’re all right, that you have everything you need.”
“Is that so?” I stared down at the foam of my ale, looking for patterns the way you do in tea leaves and coffee dregs. I didn’t see anything.
“Yes. Things have been—” Isolfr stopped when he sa
w Asbera and Finnur staring at him with unease. “Stormy.”
“Been clear skies for me.” I took a long drink of ale. “And they’ll be clearer once Kolur leaves.”
“Is that true?” Finnur asked. “About Kolur bringing—”
Asbera looked at him sharply, and he didn’t finish his question. But I knew he was asking if Kolur brought the Mists here.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I left him.”
“You poor dear,” Asbera said. “No wonder you want to get away.”
“You can’t lay the blame entirely on Kolur.” Isolfr looked shyly over at Asbera. “Hanna has a tendency to exaggerate.”
I glared at him.
Asbera laughed. “Not from what I’ve seen.”
“Not from what he’s seen, either.” I turned to Isolfr. “Are you finished here? Pjetur?”
He recoiled a little at the snap in my voice, but he did answer with “I am.” He didn’t move away from the table, though, only stared at me with his flat pale eyes. “You could do a great deal of good aboard the Penelope II, and if nothing else, it would be a free place to sleep.” He paused. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you enough before.”
“Not interested,” I said. “Like fishing better.”
Isolfr granted me one last hopeless look. Then he stood and gave a weird, formal bow to Asbera and Finnur both before scuttling to Kolur’s table.
“My,” said Asbera. “I bet that’s an interesting story.”
I swirled my ale around. “It’s not.”
“Prettiest fisherman I’ve ever seen,” said Finnur.
Asbera laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. You sure you don’t want to go back to the Penelope II? Might be worth the—” Her voice hitched. “The danger.”
I knocked back a swig of ale. “Hardly.” I didn’t want to talk about this, didn’t want to talk about Isolfr, or Pjetur, or his unsettling beauty. They hadn’t even seen him in the moonlight and the ocean, the way I had. They’d only seen this watered-down version of him, his beauty faded into handsome blandness.
“You sure about that?” Finnur said. “I feel like Asbera’s about to go in your place.”