Another wave slams into the ship, nearly knocking us from our cots. My sword slides out from under my bed, striking the opposite wall. The bags of coffee beans Meredy bought in Lyris fly off a crooked table. And above us, the strap holding our lantern suddenly snaps, sending the heavy glass straight toward the ground.
I dive for it, flinging my hands out, and barely avoid colliding with Meredy as she does the same. If we burn up the ship, we’ll have to learn to swim a whole lot sooner.
The battered wood floor scrapes my bare legs, but the lantern is safe in my shaking hands. Struggling to balance on the tilting floor, I somehow manage to climb to my feet and set the lantern gently on the ground, steadying it between the bags of coffee beans.
“Good catch.” Meredy settles on her cot, legs crossed, and pats the empty space beside her. I join her, careful to keep some distance between us. The moment I sit, she locks eyes with me. “We’re lucky you have such quick reflexes, Master Necromancer.”
“Odessa,” I correct under my breath. I’ve been trying to get her to use my name this whole trip, but she’s still talking to me like we’re sisters-in-arms. Not like two people who wake each other up from nightmares we don’t want to talk about, who have nights where we read together and sometimes share memories of Evander.
Still, no matter what she calls me, I just want to chase the worry from her eyes, but it seems I don’t have the magic or the words for that. All I can do is talk to her, keep her mind occupied. “The sea wasn’t this rough when we went to bed. We must have sailed right into a storm. It’s not like Kasmira, forgetting to check our path.”
Meredy takes some coffee beans from one of the bags steadying the lantern and offers them to me. “We’re farther west than she or any of the crew has ever been now, she said. I’m sure her Sight showed her this storm, but we’re all eager to reach Sarral.” She shrugs, but the worry doesn’t leave her face. “She must think the crew can push through it.”
I crunch on a handful of coffee beans, which momentarily distract me from my nerves as waves continue to pummel the ship. “Sheknowsthey can, or we wouldn’t be here. Kasmira would never put anyof us—least of all herself—in danger. Even if her confidence errs on the side of recklessness.”
Saying this aloud makes me feel better for all of two seconds.
The ship leans hard to the left, trying to force Meredy and me from our seats again, and my heart attempts to claw its way out of my chest. Meredy, however, seems more bothered by my scraped knee than the fact that we might be guests at a feast for the fishes soon.
“You’re bleeding.” She frowns as she studies the scrape.
I hadn’t noticed until she pointed it out. Apparently the floor rubbed my lower leg raw when I dove for the lantern, and I’ve smeared red all over Meredy’s only blanket. “I’m sorr—”
“Shhh. You’ve nothing to be sorry for.” She hurries to our water basin, the contents of which are mostly sloshed on the floor, and dampens a clean corner of the worn blanket to dab my wound. The fabric is soothingly cold. “Let me fix this.”
“All right. But I owe you my blanket, at least.” I start to rise, to grab the clean blanket from my cot, but Meredy begins gingerly tidying my scrape, careful never to let any bit of her skin graze mine as she works with the cool cloth.
“There,” she says after what feels like an hour of silence. “How does it feel now?”
“Good as new,” I assure her. “Really, thanks.”
She leans closer, peering into my eyes as if trying to detect a lie, and a grin spreads across my face. I almost wish I could sink through the floor and join the fish now. This is what scares me—not how I want her body tangled up with mine, because it’s surely only natural to want to kiss a girl this smart, this beautiful—but how my heart behaves around her. Sometimes, like when she’s trying out a funny new voice as we read, or I catch her and Lysander stealing glances at me from around a corner while I’m practicing with my sword, I thinkI want to be with her. But how can I be sure, when just weeks ago, I was willing to leave her for good?
Thisis what I tried to leave behind when I decided to board theParadisewithout Meredy. This longing can never be anything more, not with Evander forever caught in the middle. Yet we’re too often stuck in this cabin, where there’s no escaping the current of feelings Meredy stirs in me.
“That’s it. We need a distraction!” she declares, misreading my expression as fear of the storm, or perhaps boredom. “At least until we’re tired enough to sleep through the rest of this mess.”
She grabsThe Baroness’s Secret Heartache, flipping open to chapter twenty-six, and settles herself on the opposite end of her cot, leaving an Evander-sized space between us. I feign an interested smile, though the story has gotten less interesting with each page.
I miss the first few chapters, not because of any particular moment or character, but because I like beginnings. The endless possibilities that exist within them.
“Would you start over?” I ask. “I want to hear about when Alva meets Lunette again. They could’ve been great together. I mean, theyweregreat, until chapter nine, when what’s-his-name showed up...”
Meredy nods like she understands. “Of course you want to go back to the beginning. Before things get messy.”
As I lean against the wall, ready to listen, another book catches my eye. Her father’s journal. It must’ve been pushed from its spot under the bed when Meredy picked up the book we’re reading.
“How’s that coming?” I ask, nodding to the journal.She hasn’t mentioned whether she’s having any luck picking up the threads of her father’s dreams to see and study the world.
“Oh, not bad.” Meredy lifts the leather journal and flips to a spot about halfway through. “So far, I’ve filled in the names of some of thesmaller islands around Lyris and such.” She taps a speck southwest of Karthia, surrounded by other even smaller flecks of ink.
The mere mention of Lyris leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. From now on, whenever we finally go ashore again—which must be soon, given how our bread supply is dwindling—my master necromancer’s pin will stay stashed with the coffee beans and blown-glass trinkets.
I can’t really call myself a master now, anyway. I left my job behind when I left Karthia, and now I’m becoming what I once feared I would when Evander asked me to come away with him: just some girl on a ship. Strangely, with Meredy on my mind, the realization doesn’t bother me quite as much as I expected. At least not right now.
“I’m taking notes on people and places, too,” Meredy adds, regaining my attention. “A recipe for the fish stew they like in Lyris, and how they think the Five-Faced God is actually five gods and goddesses. I can’t believe I just assumed everyone worshipped Vaia, even outside Karthia.”
I think about that a moment as I run my fingers over Meredy’s careful notes. “I like that there are different ways of explaining our magic,” I say at last. “The world is full of more ideas and ways of doing things than I think anyone in Karthia could’ve imagined.”
