“Down, down, down,” said Fahr, still grinning.
“It was a calculated, carefully timed jump. From a palace parapet, chased by ol’ Bracey and six soldiers, whilst carrying a moaning twelve-year-old prince.”
“Youstole him?” I gasped.
“I was young and provoked,” said Smoke. “And the prince paid well.”
“And I’ve been paying ever since,” said Fahr.
“Gads, that’s true.” He raised a new bottle. “Even the noblest of swabs can be bought for the right price, and I wasn’t near noble.”
“Wait,” I said again. My head was throbbing from the rum and the heat. “You chose to sail with your father’s hired privateer but let everyone think you were stolen?”
“I didn’t let anyone think anything,” he said. “But my father couldn’t admit I’d run away. Court whispers caught fire, and soon, the entire helm believed I’d been stolen by the enemy, thus fueling a very justified war.”
“And the Letter of Marque?”
“To keep me safe while I sailed with a man that the Navyviewed as an enemy.”
I nodded slowly as puzzle pieces fell into place. I looked out to the bay, where the bones of theNil’hellynfloated, sharp against the suns.
Sister.
“So, why theNil’hellyn?” I asked. “Why is she being stripped for theTouchstone?”
“RuneTree wood,” said Fahr. “For years,Rhi’Ahrships sailed through gaps with wood stolen from the RuneTree. Thanavar has been hunting them down, one by one, stripping them clean and adding their boards to theTouchstone.”
“She’s almost all Tree now,” said Echo. “That’s why you can hear her.”
No wonder theTouchstonewas renegade. No wonder the Navy wanted her sunk. Her planks were gleaming with RuneTree wood. Sacred. Powerful.Magik.
“Somehow, theNil’hellynended up as a Bilgetown deck,” said Fahr. “As far as we know, there are only three that we haven’t been able to catch. TheMarelethan, because she’s fast. TheAndomiehr, because she’s lost…”
“And theEndorathil,”I said, “because she’s strong.”
No one said anything to that.
Deep calls to deep, Thanavar had said a lifetime ago,as the Cloudgate now calls to you.
I remembered the plank in the waters, after theDawn Watchsank. How it kept coming for me as if drawn. Chimeric was drawn to chimeric, and now chimeric was drawn to me. This was why theTouchstonefound me. This was why I could hear her voice. It made sense, now. It was beginning to make sense.
He was taking me to the Cloudgate. Somehow, someway, I was going home.
We sat for a long time then, Echo and Smoke quietly playing, me thinking loudly as usual. I watched the boys on the beach,racing to and fro after their corkanut. I watched theNil’hellyn, now almost bare, her hull a skeleton stripped of flesh. I watched theTouchstonerocking gently in the cove, safe and alive and loved by a dangerous man.
“So,” I said finally. “How did you…”
But Fahr was gone, his eyes closed. I stared hard for the rising and falling of his bandaged chest.
“Later, Blue,” said Smoke. “There’s only so much berth for stories on a day like this.”
“Care for a go?” asked Echo, and he waved his long fingers across the board.
With a deep breath, I reached for a shell.
23. Misery
Later that day, I returned to the ship to fetch clean bandages and a jug of fresh water from the pit. Echo said he needed them, but I suspected it was just to give me something to do.
