I paused.I’d meant myself and Samuel and Benedict and Charles,Hartand the Uknaras, but why not include Maren?He was as much a prisoner as I.Removing him would certainly be a blow to the Ess Noti, and perhaps he could be persuaded to share his knowledge of magecraft with the Aeadine.
“I’m going to escape,” I told the Mereish man, infusing my words with confidence.“I can try to take you with me.This manacle they put on me, what does it do?”
Maren blinked rapidly and made a show of cleaning his instruments.“It suppresses your sorcery.”
“Does it inhibit connection to the Other?”
“It suppresses your sorcery, so yes?”His brows furrowed, though he did not look up.“That is the same thing.”
“I mean in… other ways.Nevermind.Can you take it off?”
“Maybe.”He shot me a tight look, still confused by my initial question.It occurred to me, not for the first time, that even the Mereish truly might not know the full extent of a Mother Ghistingghiseau’spowers.Or was Otherwalking simply a secret so guarded, even Maren had never learned of it?
Either way, it seemed I still had an advantage.
“Where do you sleep?”I asked.
“In my cell.”Maren watched me with guarded eyes, his face angled away from the guards.“Two doors down, on the left.”
“Do you know a discreet way out of here?”
He looked momentarily uncertain, then said, “Leave that with me.”
I found a jagged smile.“Then I will come for you tonight.Be ready.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
The Midwife
SAMUEL
Idid not die of blood loss in the hour that Grant and I spent staggering out of the hills, though the impling’s claws had turned my forearm to ribbons.Grant, demonstrating an admiral resourcefulness, charmed a wide-eyed midwife into stitching me back together in a little house set high on stilts outside one of the villages that clung to the bay.
“Ostchen is the safest city in the north, they say,” the woman said once Grant had finished his dramatic recitation of how he and I, visitors from the Mereish South Isles, had encountered the ravening impling while searching for a view of the sea.“But so many creatures come here.They say that is because ofus, that we are not careful enough to mark our lintels and ward our gardens.”
At this, she gestured flippantly to a symbol carved into the wood of her fireplace.The same one stood over the windows and the door, along with pinned sprigs of what looked like holly.
“But we do.Still, the creatures come.I say…” She tugged the thread still embedded in my flesh, making me wince.Grant, sitting next to me on a narrow settle, leaned forward to meet her, conspiratorially.She happened to be rather pretty and only a few years our senior.“It is because of the ships.So many ghistings and mages.Things from the Other—they seek what is like them, do they not?”
“Is this a new occurrence?”I asked, grateful for the distraction.The sight of her curved needle approaching my splayed flesh again did not help.I looked pointedly past her shoulder to a hanging on the white-painted wall embroidered with Mereish words and a fawn in a meadow.
Around the edges of my vision, the Other still blurred like tears.
The woman nodded.“Yes, this season, since the ships began to return.They say tonight will be the worst for the beasts, as it is the first Black Tide.Not to mention the flooding.”
Her words were delivered lightly, but I was deeply affected.Somewhere on the road, I had lost track of the day.Hastily, I ran back the nights in my head and reached inevitable agreement.
Tonight was the first Black Tide, second only to its successor, next month, when all four moons of the Other and the human world united in darkness.
Perhaps, then, the vestiges of the Other lingering around my vision were not wholly due to my corruption or Hae’s summoning.
Perhaps.
“Which ships returned?”Grant asked.“The fleet?”
Another nod, though this one was more uncertain.“I have never seen such a thing.Over one hundred warships, the whores say.They row out, every night.”She gave a wry smile.“I will have much work this winter.”
The entirety of the Mereish Fleet was suspected to be some three hundred warships, spread between the North Isles, the Mereish mainland and the Southern Isles.But there should have been no more than two dozen active vessels in the vicinity of Ostchen at one time, a small percentage stationed while the rest came and went.
