Page 41 of Soulgazer

“It’s a pitiful job to seek out. Bags of herbs with no sense to them, cramped wee doorway—and the lantern kept in there needs replacing. It stinks.”

I fight the urge to smell my hair as he looks my way. “It’s work that needs to be done. You don’t have a surgeon, and I know my way around herbs, so I thought—”

“You already have a task, love.” Faolan taps one of the stars embroidered along the shift’s edges, then tosses it to me. My hands go cold as I glance at the chest, the skin between my shoulder blades taut where the tattoo cuts in.

“I can’t just bring it on. I-I don’t know how.”

“Which is why I brought this.” Faolan kneels before the chest and shoves the top free, the hinges groaning in protest. “My advice? Start with the bones. I’ve had them cast by druids or soothsayers at least a dozen times by now, and they always have something interesting to say.” He holds out a small, misshapen sack that clatters with every jerk of his hand.

I don’t move. I can’t.

A pain gathers at the base of my skull.

“Faolan, they won’t…Your crew won’t understand—”

“Leave them to me.” He dismisses me with a wave, and I fist my hands in the shift.

“If you’ll just let me have the job—mending the crew’s clothes or cleaning out the hull. I could even scrub the deck.”

That catches his attention. Faolan stands to face me, and I duck my head, clutching the shift against my front.

“Saoirse?”

I fold the piece over itself again, and then a third time, until the fabric strains against my hands. And when he takes it from me, I stare at the ground between us.

“Trouble.” He taps my chin once, and like an idiot, I lift my gaze to his. It is painfully bemused. “I spent nine months looking for those eyes of yours. Not for a new deckhand. If you’d really like to be of use to me and the crew, you’ll find a way to make them work.”

“I…” I cut my eyes to the chest full of divination tools, stomach seizing. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Or how to keep everyone safe when I do it. It might go wrong—”

Sowrong. Conal’s face flashes across my mind.

I grimace as I draw my arms hard round my waist. “I-I just need more time to sort it out.”

Faolan’s smile flattens, and then he releases a heavy laugh. A hard one. I shrink back. “Well, unfortunately, time’s the one thing we’re a wee bit short on.” He takes my hand from its hiding place, opens the sack, and pours its contents into the center. Knobby pieces of bone piled atop one another, jabbing sharply into my palm. “You’re a legend now, Ocean Eyes. Best start acting like it.”

The door clicks shut behind him. I stare at the ugly things in my hand, wrapping my fingers tighter until they’re a milky yellow blur within. And then I fling them as hard as I can against the opposite wall, releasing the sob I’ve held back for days when they shatter.

I was right. This was a mistake.

My magic is vicious and careless, and inviting it back inside is like courting death. If any of his crew catches wind, they’ll hold the same view as my father. This magic is unnatural—not worth the risk.

And Faolan wants me to wake it as quickly as possible?

Another sob breaks free, and then another as I stumble to my knees and bury my mouth hard against my sleeve to stifle the noise. I cry for the stupid girl I’d been last week, sewing a magpie’s wings and hoping to find someone who might like her enough to take her home. For the grieving child who drowned her oldest brother with a vision of dark water and swirling skies.

For the woman who tried to rewrite her fate with a marriage pact and a moonlit swim, but ended up cursing herself all over again in the process.

It’s not until the door creaks shut that I realize someone’s opened it in the first place. Brona stands petrified beside it, her jaw locked and eyes unreadable as they rake over the pathetic mess I’ve made. Breaths rip out of me in sharp little gasps even as I attempt to smother them.

“A-accident” is all I can manage after the silence becomes too thick, and then I roll onto my knees and reach for the nearest pieces of bone. I’ve only managed to gather two when she crouches beside me with a sigh and plucks a shard from my hand.

“Bullshite. Faolan piss you off, then?”

“N-no—”

“He’s a pushy, irritating son of a bitch on his best days, and an irredeemable pain in the arse on his worst.”

I can’t help but gape as she methodically collects pieces of bone and drops them into the sack. “And you still call him captain?”