“—such a grandma thing to say,” I mutter.
“Because the captain wants to see you,” he says. “Jack thinks he’s found something.”
Chapter 18
Reva
Just when I was starting to get the slightest hint of equilibrium on the pirate ship, Jack finds a lead. One that leads us to leaving the ship and heading into a giant bird’s nest that’s suspended in midair, high enough to give me vertigo just looking at it. I clutch the seat of another rowing boat we’re sitting in once again, sending up a subtle prayer that we don’t have a second encounter with whatever beast from the deep tossed me into the ocean before.
“This is where we’re going?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Torin says from beside me. “Up in the bird’s nest is an inn which is built on stilts, ones that have been glamoured so they’re difficult to make out.”
“Right.” My eyes flick from Jack to the nest. “And since the rest of us can’t sprout wings, how do we get up there?”
He grins at me. “Magic. Welcome to the Dry Dock.”
That earns a grunt from beside me. Torin’s rowing the boat once again with steady strokes, and I huddle closer to Aster as a bone-chilling breeze hits us. He shifts his leg, so it’s pressed up against mine and even that minor contact between us is enough to slow my racing heart.
“He’s making it sound way more mysterious than he needs to. They have a lift that carries you up there. Must use a boatload of magic.” He grunts again, steering us toward a dock in the middle of the ocean, right beneath the bird’s nest. The waves batter us from side toside, and I cling harder to the seat while Aster keeps a firm grip on my thigh.
Torin docks us, tying a knot swiftly before handing me out of the boat first. The three of them then climb out, standing on a wooden dock and peering up at the nest again.
“See you up there.” Jack gives me a jaunty salute before shifting into his raven form and throwing himself into the air.
A beam of purple light lights up the area beneath the bird’s nest in front of us and my eyes grow wide as a pair of men levitate in the centre of it, slowly descending toward the dock.
“That’show we get up there?” I gaze at Torin with wide eyes. His eyes glitter with the reflected light, and he nods.
“And that’smagic?Is it normal for people to use that much magic out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Not really,” he replies. “We’re maybe ten miles from land, and the area we’re in got hit hard in the last war. It’s the kind of backwater town that used to be booming from its mines, and then when they closed it made do with manufacturing a lot of the munitions used. After the latest peace treaty was signed, it got abandoned, and the people were left to rot.”
“Right.” I’m clueless how that snippet of information leads to this place’s existence, something that must be clear from my expression.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere. No one would come here otherwise, so they decided they needed a gimmick.”
“Right.”
“It’s got a reputation for being somewhere that anything goes, so keep your ears open and your wits about you. I don’t want to have to start a riot after you accidentally sell your kidney if you lose at blackjack.”
“Noted.”
With Aster and Torin bracketing me on either side, we clomp along the dock toward the blinding purple light. “Do they have witches on staff for them to power this thing?” I murmur, shooting a look at Torin as I lower my voice even further. “Or sorcerers, maybe?”
“Doubt it. They probably just buy it in.”
“Is that a thing you can do?” I ask right as the blinding light hits.
We lurch upward, and my knees go weak. I feel Aster wobble beside me and clutch his arm while Torin steadies us both as we slowly levitate through the air. It’s thankfully dark, so I can’t see too much as we travel higher and higher into the sky. It is windy and bitterly cold, though and I find myself clinging on to Torin’s beefy bicep for dear life.
“Well, this is horrible.”
“You should have seen it a few years back. They used to have a rope ladder you had to climb up. It was no fun when there was a storm.”
We reach the top, and Torin keeps his hand on my elbow as I wobble off the magical lift.
The inside of the Dry Dock is sweaty and loud. The floor is a sticky mess of spilled fluids. It’s also overwhelmingly loud with hundreds of voices all shouting over music that seems to consist mainly of wailing.
