“Coming?”
“Someone has to tidy the cards.” And he flicked an ear.
Fahr nudged me with his elbow.
“Join me back on deck? No work, just a last night of normal for a while.”
I downed my drink in one go. If the Hall of Sheets was normal, I dreaded what the next few nights would bring.
We left the wardroom, making our way through candlelit holds as I followed him up to the main.
16. Tears of the Moons
It was hard to tell the difference between gap and Sheets at night. It was raining lightly, pelting us from both sides of the corridor, but it was a warm rain, and refreshing. I could see the glimmer from one of the moons in the sliver above us. Lore, I thought it was. She was the smallest. I could barely see her marbled face because of the deck’s rock and heave.
Thom was at the wheels, and Dik was in the rigging. Neale was watchstander, and he knuckled a salute as Fahr walked past. Nothing for me, for which I was grateful. All around us, the Dog Watch was quietly attending their stations, and for a moment, I envied them. Like Worley and his birds, they knew their duties and performed them with ease. There was no shanty tonight, for in a gap, there was no rest, but the wind hummed, and the hull creaked, and the sea sang songs of her own. Songs of duty and grief, riches and loss. We all knew the wordless refrain because we’d lived it.
We strode to the prow over the figurehead, and I peered over the side. There was still a splintered section that stood out against theTouchstone’s hull. It was the last of the damage from the Dreadship battle, and I knew it would be repaired first thing in the morning. Buck and his crew were good that way. Ships needed constant repairs, for a thin sail or a frayed rope could scupper you on the rocks or send you to the deep. Entire fleets had been lost on less.
Fahr pulled his hands from his peacoat and began to draw runes in the blackness. They sparkled as he blew across them, sending aCarmen Lumiereacross the waters. I was familiar with the pattern now and wondered why he’d added a rune of something else at the end. Still, the Sheets lit up like fireworks, illuminating the squalls within. I could see clouds boiling,stormshears twisting, and waves cresting high like mountains. Lightning flashed from wave to wave, and I knew at once that all the stories I had ever heard were true.
But the roar of the seas was tempered now, and I knew it was the extra rune, dampening the rush of the storm so we could hear each other without shouting. Smart man. Skilled mage. Stolen Prince.
Forge fog us all.
“The Sheets are beautiful,” I said quietly, “but terrifying.”
“Like magik,” he said. “Pushing and pulling at the same time.”
The winter hawk flashed above our heads, soaring through the gap south toward the Hall of Silence. Something inside me ached as I watched him go.
“I’d love to be a mirrormage,” I murmured, and I looked up at Fahr. “Are you a mirrormage?”
“Me? No.” He smiled. I watched the rain droplets roll across his umber cheeks. “To be honest, I never had the inclination to learn.”
“My mother told me the more you become your mirror, the more you want to,” I said. “After a while, you forget that you were a mage at all and the life of your mirror consumes you.”
I leaned out over the rail, feeling the rain pelt my forehead and chin.
“When I was young, I’d bring home animals that I’d found alive in our snares. I remember telling her I thought I should save them in case they were mirrormages. She said that if they were, they’d lost themselves to the mirror and deserved to die. I hid the animals after that.”
“I’m sorry, Blue.”
“I think life made her hard,” I said into the hush and hum of the quieted storm. “She used to tell me stories about the time of the early Priestlords, when there were no kings and every city looked to their mages for rule. I think she longed for that, deepdown. She really wanted to be the best at what she did.”
“Not like you at all.”
I laughed.
“Would she have made a good Priestlord?”
“Hels, no,” I said. “The people would riot, and everyone would die.”
I looked out over the night waters and the lightning that arced through the storms. My hair dripped into my eyes, and I let it. I’d grown skilled at hiding behind the dark tumble of waves, and now, I just didn’t notice it anymore.
“I don’t remember my mother,” he said, and he leaned over the rail next to me. “I suppose she was a queen. Maybe a princess. Maybe just a royal courtesan or something. He’s gone through at least five.”
I let his words roll around in my head for a long while. The sea rocked. The clouds flashed.
