The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(38)

Glass, Cliff, Coral, Foam . . . Coral. There was something about Coral, some memory she couldn’t dig up. It was like a word she knew but couldn’t quite remember. And then it flashed in her mind once, like lightning.

Coral hadn’t been here for ever. The thought tried to wriggle away from her, a fish caught in bare palms. She clamped down on it.

Coral hadn’t always been here.

Sand strode to her, her breath coming short, her limp jolting her injuries. “Coral.”

Coral barely turned, despite the urgency of Sand’s tone. Long eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. “Yes?”

“When did you get here?”

“I’ve always been here,” Coral said, not meeting Sand’s gaze.

The longer Sand held onto that clamped-down thought, the clearer it became. “Four nights ago, what did you bring back to the village?”

“I always bring a bag of clams.”

Sand resisted the urge to shake Coral by the shoulders. “You don’t. You didn’t. Four nights ago, we had no clams. Someone . . .” The thought fuzzed again, fogging up like her vision after water had splashed on her eyes. Someone else? She tried to focus on it and then gave up.

It didn’t matter. Someone else had done it at some point, though Sand couldn’t remember who. “It wasn’t always you. Think. How did you get here?”

“A boat,” Coral said. Her mouth remained open, as if she were shocked by the words she’d uttered. And then she frowned, twining her hands together. “That can’t be right.”

“It’s right.” How long would this clarity last? Sand wondered if she’d be back at the mango trees the next day, struggling to fill her bag, not remembering the day before. She pressed a hand to the wound she’d sewn up, and the feel of the thread beneath her palm helped her focus. Today was different. The day that Coral had arrived had been different. Sand didn’t know Coral, not really, but her every movement and gesture said one thing to her: soft. Limpid eyes like tide pools, every word voiced with hesitation. She needed to wring an answer out of her before Coral folded. “What sort of boat?”

“Is it important?”

Sand closed her eyes briefly, and she had some distant memory of praying to old, dead gods, the scent of musky incense thick in the air. She could smell it. She met Coral’s gaze. “It’s the most important thing in your life. It is more important than collecting clams.”

This seemed to have an impact at least. They both shifted forward as the line moved, but Coral pressed her lips together. “It was a small boat, with dark wood, but large enough for passengers. I think I was in the hold. It was dark. I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“But you left the boat at some point. You had to get from the boat to Maila. You must have seen more.” She wished she could reach into Coral’s mind and pluck the memory from her.

“Yes,” Coral said slowly. The line moved again, only one person between them and the stewpot.

If they made it to the front, Coral would get her food and then she’d forget all over again, lost in the routines of the day. Sand knew it. She watched another ladleful of stew pour into a bowl with a deepening sense of despair. “What did you see? Tell me now. Please.”

Coral bit her lower lip. She raised her bowl, ready to receive her dinner.

Sand seized her wrist. “Think!”

The words fell from Coral’s mouth. “The sails. They were blue.”

And then a ladleful of soup dropped into Coral’s bowl. Her face went blank, as though a hand had brushed across a piece of slate, wiping it clean and leaving only faded marks of chalk behind.





15





Jovis


An island in the Monkey’s Tail

If a man could die of stress, I’d have died several hundred times over in the past few days.

“Jovis,” the voice said again.

I tried to shrug off the hand on my arm, not looking at its owner. “You are mistaken,” I said, making my voice lower, gruffer. “I’m not who you’re looking for.”

But the hand would not be shrugged away.

Mephi, still curled around my neck, leaned up to whisper in my ear. “Not good?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said, louder than he had.

So when I turned to see who had accosted me, the man looked startled by my response. “You don’t know what yet?”

“Who you are and what you want.” Relief made me a little sharper than I’d intended. The man wasn’t Ioph Carn. He had no weapons and had the soft outline of a person who enjoyed the small pleasures of life. But it was just as well I’d been sharp; he knew my name, and there was a reward on my head.

“I heard –” And then he lowered his voice so drastically I had to lean in. – “about what you did on Deerhead.”

He’d what? I’d been on Deerhead for all of an afternoon. What had I done? Escaped it sinking? And how had he heard? Oh wait – of course. I’d been drifting on the waves like some indolent governor’s son, bereft of witstone and wind. Others would have arrived here before me. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” This time, when I jerked my wrist away, he came with it, stumbling and almost falling face first into the street. I caught him and set him on his feet.