The Girl from Everywhere (The Girl from Everywhere #1)(4)

The ship rolled on the swells, and bronze light flickered in the fog, followed by the low grumble of thunder. Rain pelted the sails and the mist writhed in a sudden gust. In the crow’s nest above our heads, Rotgut cursed; he must have been swaying like a metronome.

New York should not have been difficult, not like this. “What’s wrong, Captain?”

“I don’t know!” Slate wrenched the wheel starboard, trying to take us around, but the waves were pushing hard to port. Near the prow, Bee tensioned the halyard on the jib, the bell at her waist swinging as she moved.

The Temptation groaned, and the ship shuddered as a swell hit, followed by another high enough to send spray over the rail. Kashmir caught my arm and pulled me close to the mast. I held on, keeping clear of the boom; my fingers found the rough splinters of the bullet hole. A breaker washed the deck, the cold sea soaking my feet.

“Slow down,” Slate said. “I need more time!”

Kashmir sprang into action, racing up the stairs to the quarterdeck and grabbing the sea anchor. I followed on his heels and helped heave it off the stern. As the canvas caught our wake and dragged, another swell hit broadside and jolted us hard enough to rattle my teeth. This time Kashmir stumbled; I took his hand and grabbed the rail, bracing for the next wave, but it never came. The sea stilled once more as we ran right off the edge of the map.


MAP TO COME



The black water faded to blue, and I blinked in the sudden light of dawn—no, sunset. A breeze snapped in the netting and swirled through the mist, pulling it aside like a curtain to reveal, in the distance, the glittering glass skyline of New York City. The twin towers were nowhere to be seen—this was not the eighties, but I didn’t need to see the shore to know it. The captain swore and slammed his fist down on the wheel, stalking away and back, pacing like a tiger himself. This was Slate’s native time and place: late May 2016, within sight of the southern tip of Manhattan.

This was also where the auction would be held, in three days’ time, whether or not we had the money to win it.

Little bubbles of hope, like sea foam in my stomach. If we missed the auction because he failed to Navigate, it would be his fault, not mine. And I would be safe, at least for a little while longer.

The dark sea had calmed, and we floated like a leaf on a pond. I peeled my fingers off the rail, and off Kashmir’s wrist. He glanced at me, but I spread my hands. “The map looked fine to me,” I said, my voice soft, but the captain whirled around as though I had shouted an accusation.

“Maybe you didn’t look hard enough,” he said.

I met his eyes. “Hand drawn. Good detail. Dated. And new to us,” I said, ticking the four points off on my fingers. No matter how detailed a map, once we’d visited, we couldn’t go back, and Slate didn’t always remember where he’d been or what he’d done. Still, I’d only just bought the map, so I knew for certain he’d never used it.

“And yet it’s a dead ender!”

“So what went wrong?”

He snorted. “Nice try, Nixie.”

I threw my hand in the air. “Figure it out yourself, then.”

“You sure you don’t have any ideas?” the captain said, taking a slow step toward me, then another. “I know you’ve been nervous about going to Honolulu.”

His doubt stung. I knew my worth lay in my abilities, my knowledge, the way I could chart a course. Without that, I was little more than ballast. I felt my face redden; out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bee and Kashmir watching. “Don’t blame me for your failures, Slate.”

He glared at me another moment, then returned to the wheel, gritting his teeth and squeezing with white knuckles as though willing us into the right decade. But to no avail. The fog did not rise, the wind did not drop, and the shoreline stayed stubbornly constant.

Bee approached me so I could hear her soft question; sweat or sea spray gleamed on her scarred brow. “If 1981 won’t work, do you know another map to try? One where we can trade tigers for dollars?”

I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to call up everything I’d ever read; not an easy task. “I suppose . . . someone in Rome might buy them for the Colosseum, but even if the captain could go back that far, we’d probably lose money overall.”

Slate threw me a disapproving look. “On top of it being inhumane.”

“As opposed to selling them to the yakuza in Chinatown?” Kashmir said with a grin.

“If a man kills a tiger, that’s inhumane,” Slate muttered. “If a tiger kills a man, that’s just inhuman.”

“The gang was the White Tigers, actually,” I said. “The yakuza are Japanese.”

“What’s the currency in ancient Rome, amira? Is it gold?”

“Not most of it,” I said. “But the coins themselves are quite valuable.”

“We’d have to find a new buyer,” Slate reminded me. “My coin guy died two years ago.”

“How hard could that be?” I said.

“The auction’s on my timeline,” the captain said. “We’ve only got three days.”

“Two now,” Kashmir corrected him.

“Then you think of something!” I glared at them both.

A roar drifted up from the hold; it was a curious sound, like whale song. The captain swore again and left the helm, jogging down the stairs from the quarterdeck and into his cabin, slamming the door behind him. I ran my hands through my hair. As first mate, Bee took his place, but for a moment, my fingers itched to take the wheel. Could I do what the captain had not?