Eventually, Marin just started telling him, “An hour less than it was before.”
And then she shifted to: “Decided to circumvent the globe instead. It’ll be at least a year.” She amused herself with increasingly wild answers. “Just going in circles now. It’s good for the circulation.” Or, “I’m practicing sailing backward.”
At last, Dax stopped him. “You don’t have to keep asking.”
Ree drooped. “It’s just… they’re scared. And they’re angry. And they’re sad. They didn’t want to have to leave their home, and they don’t know what their future will be like. I tried to tell them they’ll have a home on Belde and a purpose—the greenhouse needs them! But I don’t know that they believed me.”
They’re spiraling, feeding off their own fears, doubts, regrets…She knew what that felt like. It didn’t end anywhere good. They needed to be distracted. She had an idea. “Dax, would you mind playing something?”
“Of course,” Dax said. “What?”
“Something soothing. Like the sunset over the sea.” She pointed toward the west, where the sky was painted with deep russet andorange, and the clouds were shadowed with a darker blue than the sea. The sun was inches from dripping into the ocean. “Play them that.”
Bending his head over his lute, Dax began to play.
At first, the notes were slow and soft. She doubted their guests could even hear them over their own voices and the sound of the waves slapping the sides of the hull. But Dax continued to play, layering the simple melody with harmonies that echoed the wind and the waves.
The melody was the sun as it faded, beautiful but sad as well, as if it was certain it would never rise again, that this was the end and there would be no more. It meandered over memories. As she listened, Marin found herself thinking about her childhood on Flicker, about those afternoons that felt endless and the mornings when she’d bound out of bed with zero plans for the day but knowing that emptiness was a great and glorious thing: an unfettered day. She remembered one afternoon in particular, when she’d climbed to the top of the dormant volcano—an easy climb even for a kid with short legs and no particular climbing skills. Her mother had climbed with her. And her father too? One of them had brought a picnic, probably her father. He was the one who always insisted on treats. She didn’t know how they’d managed to free up an entire afternoon, and at the time she hadn’t questioned it. They’d stayed up there until the sun set and watched it sink into the endless blue, while the winged cats careened over the rooftops below.
She hadn’t thought about that particular sunset in a while, but she remembered it now, watching this sunset. So many days passed so quickly. She didn’t always stop to watch the sun fade or the stars come out, first one and then so many, as if a giant hand had spilled them all out at once. Dax played the stars, sparkling above, his fingers dancing over the strings, and he played the moon, soft and ever-changing, crescent to full then diminishing.
Marin couldn’t have explained how she knew that was what he was playing. She supposed it was possible that he wasn’t, that he heardsomething else in the music entirely, but she didn’t think it mattered. She heard the moon rise.
She didn’t know if the music made the people belowdecks any happier, but it certainly made her feel less like tossing the lot of them overboard.
It occurred to her that she didn’t regret inviting Dax to come with them.
She wondered if she should tell him that.
I can’t tell him.That would be too much like trusting him, and how could she trust anyone? Even if she wanted to.Especially if I want to.
Eventually, they reached Belde.
It was coated in snow, which, now that it was after the festival, felt less sorcerous and more reasonable. Likely, the nearby islands would be just as snowy in a few weeks as well. The fresh-fallen snow blanketed the pine trees and the tops of the greenhouses.
“After this,” Dax asked, “what’s the plan?”
Marin shrugged, as if worry hadn’t been eating her from the inside for the entire sail. “Find a new source of jobs. Make a fortune. Save my parents from my vindictive ex. And then, when that’s done and I’m finally free, sail around the islands and see every miraculous sight there is to see.”
“I might be able to…” he began, stopped, and then started again. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but I may be able to help.” He quickly added, “I can’t promise anything—it’s not a guarantee—but if I can… Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’ll try.”
She stared at him. That was sweet and unexpected and probably not ultimately helpful given how vague and noncommittal he was being, but she appreciated it anyway. “Thank you, but it’s not your responsibility.”
“It’s not yours either,” Dax said. “I talked with your mother while we were visiting. She told me—you blame yourself for whathappened, but you were the one who discovered what Iovar had done before it was too late. They would have lost everything if you hadn’t figured it out and cut him off. From her point of view, you saved them.”
“They wouldn’t have needed saving if I’d been less of a trusting idiot.”
“You were in love,” Dax said. “There’s nothing idiotic about that.”
Marin snorted.
Dax insisted. “It’s never the wrong choice to give your heart and hope for happiness. I think that’s a beautiful thing. Just because he turned out to not be worthy of it doesn’t mean it was a mistake to try. He deceived you. The blame is all on him.”
Again, sweet of him to say, but it didn’t change the facts.
“She said it’s not your debt to pay off,” Dax said. “She was very clear about that. The boat and all the spells that they imbued it with were gifts. Your parents wanted you to have a fresh start, to have a future.”
“Ma said all this to you?” This wasn’t casual how-do-you-like-your-morning-tea conversation. This was personal family business. Her mother usually wasn’t the type to open up to a near stranger. Even her closest friends usually were told a sunny version of the truth.
