Isagani has been growing tetchy in the last couple of days, unused to being stuck in one place with nowhere to run. The lessons are getting tired, and I doubt they’ve ever had this much idle time. They prowl around, hating it. We are all itching to get going, but there’s still not much to do until the wind picks up.
‘Those arrows are finicky to replace, takes a while to fletch and shaft-make,’ Finlyr says, his voice warmer. ‘I’ll teach you sometime.’
Everything is so still, and the humidity presses down on us. The silence of the sea unsettles me, as though she’s preparing for something. I can see sweat glistening on Finlyr’s skin, the scar around his neck, invisible now that he’s growing out his beard. He had taken to wearing high collars and scarves when the ruse was still going, but I had seen the angry red of it, as though a collar of hot metal had choked him.
Sinigang appears on the deck, padding intently across the taffrail. He paces back and forth with a fretful look in his eyes, his ears perked and his fur on end.
‘What’s wrong, Sini?’ I ask, lowering my weapon.
‘What is that?’ he asks, sniffing the air.
We pause and join him at the balustrade.
‘I don’t see anything,’ Isagani says.
Sinigang loafs, tucking his paws underneath himself. ‘Something has changed.’
I look out at the horizon and see ripples on the water – they are in the distance, but gradually making their way towards us. At last, a blessed breeze reaches my skin, and our sails begin to catch the wind. As if awakened, the undead crew come out of their storage room and get to work unfurling the sails and preparing to tack.
Finlyr and I take the helm, weapons forgotten. We can move. We need to move. They approach as we take off excruciatingly slowly. It seems unfair that so much bodily effort means so little on the grand scale. Once we’ve caught the wind and harnessed it, it’s like a deity pushing us forward.
Isagani heads up to the crow’s nest with Birdy, and I go to wake Biba. She’s already up and turns as I come in.
Biba moves to stare out of the porthole.
‘Who are they?’ she asks, and I scramble onto the bed to follow her gaze. Approaching swiftly is another vessel, cutting through the water on our port side. They seem to have come out of nowhere, hovering on the water like an illusion: a Fata Morgana.
‘I don’t know, darling. Let’s get up to the deck, quickly now,’ I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.
‘What do you see Isagani?’ Finlyr is shouting up to the nest as we emerge on deck.
Isagani shields their face from the weak sun with a hat. They stare and then shout down at us: ‘A royal sigil on the flag!’
‘Seaguardians?’
‘No, the ship doesn’t look nice enough. And no uniforms.’
Finlyr and I give each other a puzzled look. Sinigang jumps up onto the taffrail and narrows his eyes.
‘They have a map.’
‘How in Paranish can you know that?’ Finlyr asks sardonically.
‘Otter-cats have impeccable eyesight, which you’d know if you’d cared to ask.’
‘A mystery wrapped in an enigma,’ I mutter. ‘No wonder Narra sent you along.’
‘Well, the undead crew on their deck somewhat gave it away.’
Finlyr swears in a strange language. I suppose he picked up that colourful Lassairian phrase along with the taffrail.
I take out the folded map, which I’ve protected with my life. That wretched royal stamp. ‘Looks like there are still others as desperate as we are. There were so many copies back before. I didn’t think any other crews were still mad enough to do this.’
‘What do we do?’ Isagani asks from aloft.
Finlyr sets his jaw. ‘We’ll both be fighting for the same current. We could ride their slipstream, but ideally, we want to outpace them.’
‘And isSaltsweptfaster?’ I ask.
