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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

LORE

When it rains in the Sapphire Sea, it feels like the world has turned upside down. I’ve never seen so much damn water.

I t didn’t rain near the Isles often. But when it did, it was the kind that scoured and flooded.

The storm broke seemingly out of nowhere. Clouds gathered in the sky thick and dark as vultures on a new kill, erupting into pounding rain in seconds.

“Huh.” Sersha didn’t seem fazed, even as she quickened her pace, headed toward the edge of the forest. “That’s odd.”

The scrubby trees did little to block the rain, but it stopped within moments of them crossing the tree line. The clouds cleared, as much as Lore could tell behind the ash. The rain was gone as abruptly as it had come, leaving no trace but a few puddles on the ground.

“Very odd,” Sersha said. Her accent was broad; she sounded Caldienan, though in order to be on the Isles, she had to have been arrested in Auverraine.

The rain seemed more than just odd to Lore. It seemed portentous. A frisson of energy ribboned in the air, the same feeling she got standing close to someone channeling.

Though that might not have anything to do with the storm. The whole island felt infected with magic, strands of it churning in the air.

The piece of the Fount was somewhere on the Burnt Isles. It could be here. Lore was fairly certain she wouldn’t have time to search the whole island, especially not while keeping Dani in the dark, but she’d have to at least try.

Sersha led them through the trees, following a well-worn path in the sandy dirt. “You two are from the Second Isle, right? Raihan’s contact said there was a guard shortage. He’d been watching the lines out there for a while, saw the repair docks abandoned.”

Raihan must be the Ferryman, but Lore couldn’t make sense of the phrase watching the lines . As far as she knew, there were no steel cables connecting the rest of the archipelago like there were between Auverraine and the first two Isles. “What does that mean?”

“The lines?” Sersha snorted. “Your guess is as good as mine, girl. All I know is they’re how he manages to navigate the sea.

Something to do with all those silver doodads he has, how they interact with magic from the Golden Mount and what’s left over from the Godsfall.

They work as well as a compass to lead you through the ash.

” She shook her head. “He tried to explain it to me once. Was a scientist before he came here. But I was just a thief, and all of it went straight over my head.”

Dani whipped around to look at Lore. Her hand arched toward the pocket where she’d kept the balance she’d given Raihan—the Ferryman—clearly regretting handing it over. If those silver instruments could guide them through the ash, they’d need one to sail to the Mount.

Up ahead, the charred trees parted, revealing a town.

Well. Town was overselling it. But it was certainly more civilization than Lore expected.

Thatch-roofed huts ringed what looked almost like a Ward square, a patch of browning grass holding a few market stalls that actually seemed rather sturdy.

Buildings made of rough-hewn timber marched up and down dirt roads, the bark still on their beams, and behind them, Lore could see well-tended garden patches, though there weren’t any livestock to speak of.

The gardens were full of low-growing plants, root vegetables and mushrooms, things that could thrive even in these conditions.

The ash here was somewhat thinner than on the Second Isle, but still enough to make the air taste burnt.

People of every color, gender, and nationality ranged about on their business, speaking to one another in a jumble of languages, all wearing clothes of the same undyed linen as Sersha.

A few wore face coverings, but most of them seemed used to the ash.

There were even children playing on the green, moving wooden pieces around a painted board in some game Lore had never seen before, not that she spent much time with children.

The kids were what finally drove home what the kind-of town meant, the permanence of it. “You’ve been here awhile.”

“Some of us.” Sersha, she was learning, was not loquacious. “A few of the buildings have been standing near forever, though. Might even be pre-Godsfall.”

The memories she’d seen of Nyxara’s life as a living goddess, the ships full of pilgrims coming to dwell within the pantheon’s light.

Lore remembered the cities she’d seen them build on the Golden Mount, the houses and towers, gilt-painted with the gods’ names.

She supposed it stood to reason that some of the penitents might build on other islands, though it looked like whoever had settled here hadn’t been nearly as wealthy as those on the Mount.

Some things always stayed the same.

Sersha marched them down one of the dirt roads to a thatch-roofed cottage and opened the door.

Other than a bare cot and a table with two chairs, the cottage was empty.

“Somewhere for newcomers,” she said. “We do shifts in the gardens; yours can start tomorrow. Once you get accustomed, you can see about either trading for one of the empty houses or building your own—”

“We aren’t staying,” Dani said primly.

Lore was too far away to kick her ankle. But, gods, did she want to kick her ankle.

Sersha raised a brow, her perpetually downturned mouth pursing. “How you figure?”

“The Ferryman—Raihan—seems to get off the Isles just fine.” Dani shrugged. “Stands to reason he could teach someone else.”

The look on Sersha’s face said she thought Dani had an inflated view of her own intelligence. “You’re welcome to ask him, I guess. His hut is just down the way.”

“I certainly will.” Dani walked farther into the hut, arranged herself at the table in a clear dismissal. “Thank you, Sersha.”

With one more withering look, the older woman left.

Lore crossed her arms. “Hate to break it to you, but I don’t foresee Raihan spilling extremely valuable navigation secrets just because we ask. Do you know how much the Empire would pay for easy passage near the Isles?”

“He doesn’t have to tell us,” Dani said.

“You can control Spiritum, Lore. If anyone should be able to use an instrument calibrated to the magic of the Fount, it’s you.

All we have to do is get our hands on one.

” Her teeth ground, a near-feral look crossing her face.

“If I’d fucking known, we wouldn’t have handed over the one we had.

Martin had a thousand other things in his room I could have stolen for payment.

I grabbed the first thing I saw, after I slit his throat. ”

When Dani took the instrument out of her pocket, it hadn’t spun to Lore. Hadn’t done anything at all. And if it had been attuned to the lines of magic still emanating from the Fount, wouldn’t it have reacted like the ones on the ship? Surely Dani would have noticed.

“I don’t think the one we had worked, anyway,” Lore said.

A sharp cut of Dani’s eyes her direction. But the other woman just shrugged again. “I suppose you can sense that shit.”

“When are we going to steal one, then?” Lore had no moral compunctions about it. She’d done far worse.

Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, the memory of Anton sneaked up on her. His bloody face overgrown with roses. The sound his bones and cartilage had made as she sawed through his neck with the rusty garden shears.

“ We aren’t doing anything.” Dani crossed to the one unmade cot and stretched out with a sigh. “You’re the criminal. You’re doing the stealing. You’ll be much better at it than me.”

Lore had to agree there.

“But I’d wait until it gets dark.” Dani shifted on the tiny cot, grimacing as she tried to get comfortable. “And do your best not to get killed. Though I guess I don’t have to tell you that, do I?” She yawned. “Thus far, you’ve put quite a lot of effort into staying alive.”

Clearly, Dani was taking the bed, but Lore’s weariness was great enough that she didn’t really care.

She stretched out on the floor, her back to the wall, facing the closed door of the cottage.

It probably wasn’t safe enough for both of them to sleep.

She resolved just to rest her eyes for a moment.

Less than a minute later, she was on the beach.

It wasn’t empty this time. Malcolm stood on the shore, looking pensively out at the false horizon.

Lore rushed to him, afraid that he might turn ghost and fade away before they could speak. Even though this was a dream, she was still out of breath when she reached the tide line. “I was starting to think you weren’t using your power.”

Malcolm’s mouth twitched. “Not willingly.”

There was much to unpack in those two words. “So you channeled it just for this? How did you know about the beach?”

“I didn’t. Though I’m not surprised, really.” He glanced around at the white sand and blue ocean as if expecting it all to disappear at any moment, and half hoping it would. “I suppose we can all dreamwalk now?”

“As long as we’re channeling.”

His eyes closed. “That’s something, at least.”

Lore sat down in the sand. After a moment, Malcolm followed suit.

“So you said you aren’t using it willingly,” Lore said. “Is it just… happening?”

“Once,” he answered, brushing sand off his knee. “Sometimes I hear Him.”

Her mouth dropped open, dread running cold fingers up her back. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

“None of this is.”

He had her there. Lore drew her knees up to her chest. So they’d been wrong. The elemental gods weren’t too weak to speak, to come back as nothing but magic. They’d just needed more time.

The noose around their necks was tightening.

“Maybe you can stop, then. Since you know what to watch out for—”

“Due to a deal we made with the Prime Minister of Caldien, refusing to channel is unfortunately not an option.”

“Why in every hell would you make a deal with the Prime Minister?”

“Because he has one of the pieces of the Fount.” He sighed. “And he promised to rescue you and Alie.”

Well, there was an easy solution. Kind of. “I don’t need rescuing. I’m almost to the Mount.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that will convince Gabe.”

His name struck something in her, like she’d been punched in the stomach. “How is he?”

“Taking to this better than I am.” But Malcolm didn’t sound like he thought that was a positive development.

The outline of the cliffs showed through his middle. He was fading, waking up; soon he would be gone.

“Tell him not to do it.” It came in a rush, and it hurt to say, killing any chance she’d had at seeing him. “If using the power is making the gods stronger, tell him not to use it.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work, Lore.” Nearly mournful as he faded away. “I think we’re past that.”

She opened her eyes.

Night had fallen on the Harbor while she was sleeping.

The scant sunlight was gone, though the darkness wasn’t as profound here as the Second Isle, where ash nearly covered the moon.

When Lore crept to the paneless window, she could just make out the glow of stars.

Out on the water, the ash grew thicker the closer you drew to the Mount, but it seemed the islands themselves got a reprieve.

She wondered if it had something to do with the mines on the First and Second, stirring up dust and latent magic.

On the cot, Dani was fast asleep, her arms flung up over her head, her mouth open. Her face was softer than Lore had ever seen it, even at the tea with Alie. All the malice drained out of her, all the anger and determination.

Lore slipped out the door.

Sersha hadn’t been forthcoming with actual directions, just saying that Raihan’s hut was down the way ; Lore assumed that meant on the same dirt street as their own.

She’d just have to peer in the windows of every hut until she saw one that looked like it could belong to the Ferryman.

But as she exited their rough cabin, a sound rose on the breeze.

Singing.

It was subtle, a gentle lilting right at the edge of her hearing, almost too soft to hear at all. The same hum she’d felt when she stepped off the ship, sharpened into melody by the silence of night.

Lore followed it.

The song rose as she walked, harmonies leading her on. Down the dirt road, almost to its end, a little hut set off from the others, right at the edge of the burnt woods. The song hit a crescendo, louder than it had been but still so soft.

She put her hand on the door.

The song fell away.

Lore pulled her makeshift lockpick from her boot, gave the door an experimental push to test the bolt’s strength.

It opened.

Nerves bundled in her gut, Lore hesitated just before the threshold.

What would Raihan do if she waltzed into his home with a rusty shiv?

He didn’t seem a neighborly sort; he’d barely said two full sentences on the ship.

She didn’t think they had any guns here, but barging into a man’s home unannounced was sure a way to find out.

She peeked through the door.

Raihan was nowhere to be seen. But there were hundreds on hundreds of silver instruments, all whirring away. They were stacked on tables, arranged around piles of books in the corner, crowded before a door in the back wall. Weights swinging, pins spinning.

If she was quiet, darted in and took one and got out, maybe he wouldn’t even notice.

Breath held, Lore stepped over the threshold.

As in the ship, the instruments whirled in her direction. The subtle noises of their movements stopped, and the resulting quiet was deafening.

Behind the door, something moved.

Not all of the instruments were frozen. A few of the silver tools still moved, swinging back and forth. Silently cursing, Lore grabbed one without looking to see whether it was still moving. If worse came to worst, she’d sneak in again tomorrow.

The door at the back of the hut opened.

She tried to run, then stumbled, her boot catching on a raised board in the rough floor.

Lore didn’t fall, but it was a close thing, and the momentary interruption of her flight was enough for Raihan to come through the door, for him to stare right at her.

At the reaction of all his silver implements, pointing in her direction like tattling children.

“You,” he murmured.