And who, pray tell, is that mysterious figure standing at the prow of the strange ship?
29
A monstrous tournament cheerleader
Isobelle’s lungs were burning as she raced across the cobblestone street.
What had she been thinking? Whathadshe been thinking? How could she ever have let Gwen go to face danger alone? It had taken only minutes, standing in the silence of Gwen’s room, glancing around at her familiar things – indulging in a brief, extremely dramatic cry on Gwen’s bed – for Lady Isobelle of Avington to realise she’d made the mistake of her life.
What had she been thinking?
She burst out into the harbour, where a quick glance told a horrifying tale. Henry huddled well back from the water’s edge, the dock in splinters, and no sign of Gwen as the sea monster rose up above the waves. Its shape – sinuous tentacles, suckers larger than a knight’s shield – was outlined by an eerie blue-green glow that reflected off the churning waters.
In the foreground was theElizabeth, one part of her hull reduced to matchsticks, half sunk beneath the water. Beyond that was the creature, and further out the moonlight illuminated the shape of the strange ship, still moving towards them despite the frantic ringing of the bell.
A cry went up from Henry and the few townsfolk who had dared emerge from their houses to watch, and such was the note of horror in those voices that Isobelle stumbled to a halt, her gut clenching in the certain knowledge that they knew something she did not, and that something was awful beyond imagining.
Again her gaze swept the scene before her, quick and desperate, and now, perhaps because she was looking for the worst of all possible sights – she saw it.
The tentacled beast had Gwen in its grasp, waving her through the air like it was a monstrous tournament cheerleader, and she a battered, shredded pom-pom.
Her body was limp, and Isobelle went numb, her feet turned to stone as she stood and watched, paralysed by fear. This couldn’t be happening.
Then Gwen moved, grabbing at some sort of makeshift spear, and with a wordless cry Isobelle was stumbling forward, grabbing at her suddenly cumbersome skirts as she dashed towards the pier that stretched out into the harbour.
She was still running when the beast slammed Gwen down into the waves, and her champion vanished.
‘Gwen!’ The name tore itself from Isobelle’s throat, anguished, as the creature sank down beneath the waves, the water darkened with its own blood.
The pair of them were gone, the disturbance in the choppy water the only sign they had ever been there at all.
Isobelle reached the splintered end of the pier, and there she stopped, staring down into the murky waters. Then, with grim determination, she began pulling off her shoes.
A sudden beam of light from the strange ship’s prow halted her, drawing her gaze up. Someone had unshuttered the lantern, casting a brighter glow. By its light, she could see a figure on the boat rapidly disrobing. A woman. Her silhouette was outlined for a moment, the flimsy material of her shift fluttering in the cold wind as her dress fell away.
Then she dived, cutting a graceful arc through the air and disappearing into the water as smoothly as if she were a selkie. Surfacing, the woman cut a line through the water towards the spot where Gwen had vanished, and Isobelle’s hands stilled at the lacing on her bodice as she silently urged the stranger on.
She caught a glimpse of dark hair, and then the woman dived, her feet kicking above the waves for an instant before she disappeared.
‘Please,’ Isobelle whispered, her fingers winding around each other, her body rocking slowly, as if urgingthe woman on. She didn’t know who the woman was – she didn’t care, so long as she reached Gwen in time. The numbness was spreading through her limbs, now. It felt as though she were watching the whole thing unfold from somewhere outside her body.
Gwen, her Gwen, couldn’t have disappeared beneath the waves. That wasn’t how it was meant to happen.
How long had it been?
Abruptly the woman broke the surface not far from the end of the pier, Gwen’s limp body in her arms.
‘Isobelle of Avington,’ came a familiar voice, hoarse but sharp as ever. ‘Don’t you eventhinkabout diving in here in that dress. Get back to shore!’
It was Olivia.Olivia, who was struggling with Gwen’s body as she struck out for the ramp used to haul boats out of the water. Olivia, who had arrived on that ship – had no doubt forced its captain to continue despite the harbour’s alarm bell – had somehow,somehowknown to show up in the nick of time, as she always did.
Isobelle was running before she’d fully understood what was happening, her skirts gathered up, her legs carrying her so quickly that she nearly flew as she stumbled over the uneven timbers of the pier, staggering and regaining her balance, rushing onward.
By the time she reached the harbour’s edge, Olivia was staggering up the stone ramp from the water, gripping Gwen’s motionless body beneath the arms and draggingher with her. Olivia’s shift was plastered to her body, her soaking hair hanging across her face, her skin white and lips blue with cold. Isobelle had never been so glad to see anyone in her life.
She reached Olivia in a couple of strides, taking one side of Gwen so they could bring her up the last few steps and lay her out on her back. Gwen lolled horribly, her limbs a dead weight, her expression slack. Her eyes were half open – there was a terrible absence in them.
Gwen’s chest wasn’t rising and falling. There was no hint of movement anywhere in her body. No hint of the spark that was always there, even when she slept.
