I knew, deep in my being, that if I drank, the visions I had seen would come to pass.I knew that the second cup, the one in Benedict’s hands, held something different.It would make his eyes glassy and pull his soul from his bones.Then the pain would come.
I should have stopped it.Should have tried.
But I drank, as did Ben.And when the cup was empty and the soured, wrong taste of the milk was on my tongue, I saw the ghisting himself manifest.
He was hidden in the hollow of his tree like a corpse in a coffin, with his arms crossed over his chest and an overlarge crown fallen around his throat like a noose.He did not leave the tree, did not move.
But his glow filled the clearing.And he stared directly at me.
NINE
The Red Tempest
MARY
Iam still unclear as to why I volunteered for this,” Charles groused, shivering beside me asHartslipped out of Tithe’s sheltered harbor and into the vast, open expanse of the Winter Sea.
The waves were draped in dusky light.Clouds hung heavy in the west, mirroring the line of the sea atop a colorful slash of open sky, where the sun sank from one shroud into the next.Pale orange, pink and bronze caught the waves, illuminating a path all the way to the horizon.
“Because you couldn’t stand to be left behind?”
He buried his chin deeper into the high collar of his coat, making his beard puff up.The look he cast me was dry, edged with a secret only he and I knew.
“I’ve learned to pay my debts,” he muttered.“I still owe you.For what I did, spying for Lirr.For never telling Demery.You still haven’t… have you?”
“No.Even Samuel still doesn’t know,” I assured him, bumping my shoulder into his.“You already paid a high price.Though I’d like to think you came with us for friendship.”
He nodded, raising his eyebrows in consideration.“And adventure?”
“You don’t sound sure about that.”
“I fear I am not.I’m aging, Mary.”Charles’s tone rode the dividebetween jesting and seriousness, with a melancholy shadow to his eyes.“I’ve started to think of home and hearths, long mornings and early bedtimes, floral curtains—save me.Ah, and a woman with a sharp mind and a willingness to bear with my existential ramblings.She is critical to this scenario.Saint, I think I even want children.Is that mad?”
I laughed.“Charles, if that’s the future you want, fight for it.Though you may have to do so in the South Isles, where no one is hunting you for highway robbery or piracy.”
He frowned.“It was a little warm for my liking, but perhaps.What about you?Why are you going to Mere, I mean—though if you care to divulge your dreams of the future, you know I listen well.”His eyes slid to mine.“I struggle to believe you would risk your life to save Benedict Rosser, after what he tried to do to you.”
I squinted at the sea.The first time I’d met Samuel’s brother, he had used his Magni influence to lure me into a more than compromising situation—and attempted to keep me there, against my will.Charles had interrupted us, and he’d seen how the encounter had shaken me.
“I don’t know what I want my future to look like,” I admitted.“Before leaving the Wold there was simply no question.I would marry, keep my own house, stay away from the wider world.I didn’t know anything else, didn’t realize all that was out here to see.So now my notions are… vague.Security, yes.A family, but neither of those need be on land.All I truly know is I enjoy my life and I want toseemore.”I gestured toHartand, by extension, the sea.“And I care for Samuel.”
“And he cares for you,” Charles added with the hint of a question.
“I believe so.”
That made his brows darken in disapproval.“You have been sailing together for months and months.This ship is not large, Mary.What is stopping you?”
I suddenly decided that this conversation was not one I wanted to have.
“I am going to Mere for two reasons,” I said with strengthening conviction.“Firstly, because I care for Samuel, and he was going to make a choice that he would regret for the rest of his life.I could not let him do that.And, it seems, there are other forces at work that could threaten all of us.”
“Ah yes, the mysterious Ess Noti,” Charles mused.“And perhaps even the Usti?”
“If the Usti meant us harm, they already had us at their mercy.”
“Perhaps the time was not right.Perhaps you were more useful elsewhere, for now, or your connection to Demery protected you.Or… Perhaps you are already being watched.”He leaned a little nearer, dropping his voice.“Closely.”
“Oh, hush,” I shot back, resisting the urge to poke him in the eye.But his words gave me pause, and an ominous feeling crept up the back of my neck.“Bastard.”
