“But you said!”
Isolfr shook his head. “I know what I said! I was thrilled that it wasn’t a warship, that it’s not something of Lord Foxfollow’s—”
The name sounded different in this place. It seemed to echo in upon itself.
“We’ll have to talk our way aboard,” Isolfr said. “But we have a chance.” He slumped down against the boat’s side and wrapped his arms around his chest. He’d said it was impossible for him to feel the cold, but looking at him drawn together like that, I wasn’t sure I believed him.
“Would you like my coat?” I said.
He looked over at me and frowned. “You know I don’t need—”
And then the ocean ripped in two. An enormous, glassy wave crested and lifted up the gondola. I tumbled forward, slamming against Isolfr, who shrieked in surprise. I flipped around, flailing about to grab onto the railing, certain that we were going to capsize.
Isolfr went paler than usual. “Let me speak,” he said.
“To who!” I shouted, my voice nearly drowned out by the rush of water showering around us.
The top of a mast appeared against the sky, drawing up and up and up. Next were pale gold sails, masses and masses of them like clouds, and then the woman at the prow, her hair shimmering.
The sailing ship of the reflection emerged out of the ocean, water streaming down its sides. The gondola was knocked back on the ship’s wake, and I held tight to the railing as we plummeted backward. Water splashed over the side, soaking through my coat and my boots and extinguishing the heat-sphere.
Sea and sky, I hoped Isolfr would be able to get us aboard. No heat-sphere would be able to dry this out.
The ship rose majestically, glittering in the sunless light of the sky. It was so bright that it hurt my eyes, and I had to turn my head away, blinking against the dots of light. Beside me, Isolfr stood up, despite the unsteady rocking of the gondola.
“Fishermen of the undersea!” he shouted. “May I speak to your captain?”
There was no answer but silence. I wondered how Isolfr knew to address the ship. He was a spirit, yes, but I knew he was of my world and not the Mists.
Isolfr took a hesitant step forward. The gondola rocked. “Fishermen of the undersea!” he shouted again.
This time a voice drifted down from the ship’s deck.
“Who’s out there? Identify yourself!”
Isolfr glanced over at me. He looked scared, which was no surprise, although I couldn’t do much but chatter at him, I was so cold. If he thought I could give him answers, he ought to know better.
Isolfr turned back to the boat. “We’re from the Sun Realms,” he called back.
The Sun Realms. He must mean our world. I’d never thought it had its own name.
“The Sun Realms?” A face appeared over the ship’s railing, small and pale and fringed with a shaggy mane of thick dark hair. “You here to steal from us?”
“Of course not!” Isolfr shouted. “We just want passage back to dry land.”
The fisherman scowled down at us for a moment longer, then disappeared. I slumped back.
“Where’d he go?” Isolfr asked.
“Leaving us here to die,” I muttered.
But then another man appeared at the railing. He had the look of someone important—golden skin, long black hair pulled into a ponytail, a rather ostentatious blue hat. He leaned over the railing like he was examining us. Neither Isolfr nor I moved.
“How did a pair of sunners wind up with such a fine gondola?” he finally called out.
Isolfr and I glanced at each other. He took a deep breath—trying to rally his courage, no doubt. He squinted up at the man in the blue hat.
“Magic gone wrong,” he called back.
The man snorted. “I doubt that. You aren’t really sunners, are you? No need to be lying, mind. That’s a Boluda-style gondola there, and the Shira is friends of the Boluda family. You’re welcome aboard, no questions asked.” He gave a shallow bow. “Wait a moment and I’ll send some of my men to fetch you.”
And with that, he vanished from the railing, leaving Isolfr and me alone again.
“I told you the protection spell was still working,” Isolfr said.
“Coincidence,” I told him, although I didn’t believe that myself.
We waited for a few moments, and I heard a splash in the water. A rowboat, as golden as the ship’s sails. Two men rowed over to us.
“Now keep in mind it’s the gondola that’s getting you on board.” The man speaking was a different one from the man in the blue hat, although he wore a uniform of the same color, tassels hanging from his shoulders. “The captain doesn’t want to risk angering the Boluda family. But any sign of trouble, we’re tossing you overboard.”
“That sounds fair,” Isolfr said.
I wasn’t so sure about that—after all, they might start the trouble and lay the blame at our feet—but I was so cold by that point I didn’t see much reward in trying to speak.
The rowboat made its way toward us, the oars rising and falling like the beat of a drum. The man in the blue coat stood with a booted foot propped up on the boat’s edge, his big arms crossed over his chest. He was dry. The ship had just burst out of the ocean, and he was dry.
“You stay where you are,” he barked as the boat approached. “I need to check you out, make sure you’re decent.”
I held up both of my hands. “We’re decent,” I said, teeth chattering.
The man glanced at me and laughed. “You look like you’re no danger, then. Not safe, getting your clothes wet in these waters.”
The two rowers drew in their oars and the man sprang off his boat and landed in ours, a leap too wide for a human to make. The gondola barely dipped into the water. “I’ll need to check you for weapons,” the man said. “Hold up your arms.”
Isolfr did. The man patted Isolfr through his clothes. When he didn’t find anything, he made a disappointed grunt and turned to me. I unwrapped my arms from around my chest and held them up, shivering in the cold air. The man must have taken pity on me, because he didn’t search me as thoroughly as he had Isolfr.
“All right then,” he said. “Into the boat with you.”
The rowboat was still too far away for me to climb into it. I looked at the water and my stomach quaked at the thought of jumping into that icy bath. It would probably kill me.
But then the man looped one arm around my waist and one around Isolfr’s and jumped, bouncing into a high arc through the air, taking us with him. The air froze against my face. I cried out, startled, and then he landed us in the rowboat with all the agility of a cat.
“Onward!” he barked, and the two oarsmen dropped their oars into the water and turned us around.
I sat backward in the rowboat, my shivering more violent. The gondola was grander than I’d realized when we’d been inside it. The hull was painted with images of faces with large green eyes and long billowing hair. It took me a moment to recognize that all the faces were the same, that they belonged to the spirit Kolur and Frida had killed back onboard the Penelope II.
I turned away.
“Where you from?” the man asked Isolfr. “You didn’t get waterlogged like that one.” He jutted his thumb out at me.
Isolfr’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened and closed. Despite the cold frosting over my thoughts, I spat out, “He’s a great wizard from Tulja, of the Sun Realms. All Tuljans know how to protect themselves from the freezing ocean.”
The fisherman looked at me, his eyes drawn tight and beady. “I’m with the captain,” he said. “I don’t think you’re from the Sun Realms. But hey, Boluda business is Boluda business, as long as it doesn’t mess with our ship.” He held up to hands. “Which reminds me. Keep any spells to yourself onboard the Shira. Doesn’t matter what kind. We’ve got magic enough in the storage holds.” He turned away from us, toward the oarsmen. “Faster!” he barked. “We want to make it back to Llambric by tomorrow, don’t we?”
&nbs
p; “Excuse me,” Isolfr said. “Did you say you’re going to Llambric?”
“We are indeed. That gonna be a problem?”
“No.” Isolfr shook his head and sat down beside me. He radiated a faint chill that just made me shiver harder. “No problem at all.”
The boatman turned away from us, and Isolfr leaned over and whispered in my ear. “The protection spell is still working. Of all the places in the Mists, Llambric is where we’d most want to be.”
The name meant nothing to me. I was more interested in what the man had said.
“Why can’t we use magic onboard?” I asked Isolfr.
“They’re magic-miners,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Then why are they on a ship?”
“Ladder coming!” shouted a man from the Shira. “Clear the water!”
“Clear!” the fisherman shouted back. Well, not a fisherman. A miner.
I still didn’t understand what he was doing on a boat.
A rope ladder splashed into the water beside us, flinging more damp across my lap. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get warm.
“Hope you can climb,” the fisherman said. “Otherwise, we’re leaving you here.”
“I can climb.” I stood up, grabbed hold of the rope. It was sturdy and strong, and when I pushed myself up onto it, it stayed in place. I heaved myself up, rung by rung. The exercise didn’t do much to warm me up.
At the top, a stout, muscular man was waiting for me, bearded like the others. He took me by one hand and dragged me over the railing.
“Oh, girl, you’ve caught the dampness.” He clapped twice. “Change of clothes for the lady! Bring her heat!”
I muttered a thank-you and stumbled away from him. The ship’s deck gleamed. It looked more like a ballroom than a sailing ship. The sails threw off rays of light, and the ship itself shimmered gold, the way the figurehead had. Men scurried up the masts and around the deck, chanting together in a language I didn’t understand, their boots and palms clapping out a rhythm.
“This way, girl.” Another man came up beside me. He didn’t have a beard, but he did have long matted hair, and rough sailor’s skin, and gray eyes.
Gray eyes.
He blinked at me, those gray eyes looming. “Come along,” he said. “We’ll get you dry. That dampness, it can kill you.”
I felt dizzy. The brightness of the ship was too much. Isolfr hadn’t climbed over the railing yet. My heart started to race.
“No time to dawdle,” the man said, and then he took my hand, gently, and led me toward the upper cabins. I was too dazed, too cold, too exhausted, to try and resist, but I did look over my shoulder at the place where the ladder attached to the ship’s side. It was empty. Empty—
Isolfr’s head appeared over the edge. His pale golden hair seemed like an extension of the ship itself.
“Isolfr!” I cried.
The man glanced over to where I was looking. “Don’t worry, lass, we’ll bring him to you soon enough. But that cold—” He shook his head, made a clucking sound. “Not good, not good for you at all.”
I watched him, cautious. In all the right ways he looked like a human. He looked more like a human than Isolfr did. And yet I couldn’t think of him as human at all.
He led me into one of the upper cabins. It shone just like the deck, and the furniture looked as if it were all carved out of stone.
“I want to see Isolfr,” I said, looking over to the door. The man had left it hanging open, and I could see out to the deck and the sailors bustling around. Their chanting drifted into the cabin.
“He’ll be here in just a minute.” The man opened a drawer underneath the bed and pulled out a pile of folded clothes and set them on the bed. “Why don’t you change up, and I’ll bring you something warm to drink.” He gave me a pleasant smile and nodded down at the clothes. “Go on, don’t want you to die out here! It’ll taint the magic.”
I felt dizzy. Taint the magic. The man turned and left the cabin, shutting the door behind him. There was the sound of a key turning in a lock. I ran up to the door, tried to push it open. It didn’t move.
I cursed and choked back a flood of tears. I might have been in the most beautiful ship cabin I’d ever seen, but I was trapped here. Imprisoned.
And shivering violently.
Moving by rote, I stripped off my wet clothes and stepped into the dry ones the sailor had left behind. They were cut for a man, and so a little too big, but the fabric was thick and warm and soft. I sat down on the bed, sinking low into the mattress. Where was Isolfr?
A few moment later, someone knocked on the door.
I looked over at it, my heart pounding.
“Are you decent?”
“Yes.” I dug my fingers into the mattress. I had no weapon, nothing to defend myself.
The lock turned, the door swung open. The man in the blue coat stood in the doorway, Isolfr at his side. He carried a steaming mug in one hand.
“Just as I promised, I brought you a warm drink.” He stepped into the room, and Isolfr followed. For once he didn’t seem that frightened. The man handed me the drink, then turned over to an alcove set into the wall. “You didn’t light the fire?”
“I didn’t—didn’t know how. You said not to do magic.” I glanced over at Isolfr, the steam from the drink billowing around my face. It smelled of honey and spice, and I wondered if the stories were true, the ones that said eating and drinking in the Mists would trap you there. Nothing else about this place had been what I expected. Not so far, anyway.
“Not big magic. You can light a fire.”
Isolfr knelt beside the fireplace. “I can take care of it,” he said. “I’m familiar with this sort of magic.”
“Ah, good, good. Keep her warm.” The man straightened up, smoothed down his clothes. He nodded at me. “If you spoil our haul for today, there’ll be a worse fate in store for you than freezing.”
And with that, he stepped out of the room, locking us in once again.
“What’s he talking about?” I demanded. “Spoil the haul? Magic? How can you gather up magic?”
“We’re in the Mists. Things work differently here.” Isolfr looked over his shoulder at me. “You should drink that.”
“Is it safe?”
Isolfr turned back to the alcove. There was a pause and a tremor on the air, and then flames erupted inside the wall. They were the same golden color as the rest of the ship, and not like any fire I’d ever seen. But they gave off warmth, just as you would expect.
“It won’t trap you here, if that’s what you’re thinking. That’s a story.” Isolfr stepped away from the fire. “Here, sit close.”
I slid off the bed and pooled down beside the flames. Their heat was a relief, even if nothing else on this ship was. “How do you know it’s just a story? Everything else has been true, about looking for mists and gray eyes—”
“Those are warnings. Things you see in your world. The idea that if you eat in the Mists, you’ll be trapped—that’s just a myth.” He sat down beside me and offered the mug. The scent of spices floated up around me. “I swear to you.”
I looked up him. He’d never given me a reason not to trust him. That much, at least, was true.
I took the mug and stared down at the surface. The drink was dark and creamy, not like any drink I’d ever seen before. I breathed in the spices one more time, and then I took a sip.
Warmth flooded through me.
CHAPTER FOUR
All night, we weren’t allowed to leave the room. One of the fishermen came by to see that I had warmed up—he felt my pulse and leaned his ear against my chest to listen to my heartbeat, nodding like he was satisfied. I sat very still and watched Isolfr.
“Glad to see you’ve recovered,” the fisherman said. He straightened up, smoothed down his beard. “Looks like you won’t be tainting the magic after all. Cassius will bring you food shortly. We all eat dinner at the same time aboard the Shira.”
He left, locking the door
behind him.
“I don’t understand,” I said, staring at the strange licking flames of the fire; they had a tendency to hypnotize. “Why are they so kind to us if they’re keeping us prisoner?”
“They’re fishers of magic.” Isolfr paced across the room, his arms crossed over his chest. “The dive under the surface and collect the magic from the sea, and then sell it in port.” He stopped and looked over at me. “Just like you do with actual fish.”
I didn’t say anything. I remembered fishing aboard the Annika, swapping conversation with Finnur and Asbera.
“I’ve spoken with fishers of magic before,” Isolfr went on. “It’s a tricky business. They saved us because of some obligation to the Boluda family, but now that we’re on board, they have to keep us content. Our unhappiness would taint the magic. But there’s still that risk we’re here to rob them, so—” He jerked his head toward the lock on the door and resumed his pacing.
I watched the flames. His explanation made an odd sort of sense. I wondered if that was how everything would be here in the Mists. I wondered if the rest of my life would be making this odd sort of sense.
As the fisherman had promised, someone brought food to our room later, although I didn’t know how much later—it was hard to sense time passing. When the door swung open the deck was bright, but the sky seemed darker. I only saw it all for a flash though.
Our meal was a stew that reminded me a little of lisila, a dish Asbera had prepared for me back in Tulja. It shimmered blue-gold in the firelight, and I stirred it, still not sure if wanted to eat, even though my mouth watered and my stomach grumbled. But then Isolfr sat beside me and lifted his spoon to his mouth.
“Both of us,” he said. “I may not need to worry, but I don’t want you to worry.”
And then he took a bite and stared at the fire. The flames cast golden light over his pale skin.
I looked down at the stew.
“It’s pretty good,” he said.
That was enough for me. I took one tentative bite and then another and another, slurping down the stew in gulps. I hardly tasted it, but I was so hungry I had to stop myself from slurping it straight from the bowl.