The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(25)
Though early tales of a sunken city had begun circulating during the Age of Discovery, the map of Ker-Ys was marked 1637. The version of the myth describing the city’s downfall had first been published that same year. By then, the story had included all the major elements: the princess, the devil, the king. At least—it should have. But Dahut had said there was no king. And of course there was Dahut herself, seeming more wayward than wicked. Was she still fated to open the sea gates and be cursed with a mermaid’s tail? Was she a mythological princess, or just an ordinary girl like me?
Well. I raked the hair out of my eyes as I steered the black ship toward the edge of the world. Perhaps not so ordinary.
“What’s changed, Miss Song?” Blake’s voice was soft—only meant for me to hear.
“What?” I glanced over at him, but he was watching the horizon. “What do you mean?”
He sighed. “The other night, you were so willing to embrace the inevitable—to bend the knee to history as written. Today you’re steering the ship to a mythic island to try to learn how to alter the past. What changed your mind?”
I squeezed the handles of the wheel. “You were right. About fighting back.”
“Even if you’ll fail?”
“I won’t fail.” The words came out low, fierce—and my eyes went back to Kashmir. Blake cocked his head; in the silence between us, I could practically hear his thoughts.
“I see.”
Past the buoys at the mouth of the river, the fog crept up, floating, shimmering like a veil. The mist was cool, pleasant after the briny humidity of the city; it condensed on the warm bronze wheel and smelled faintly of honey.
Beside me, Blake took a deep breath of the foggy air. “Is this the Margins, Miss Song?”
I only nodded, putting all thoughts of New York behind me, shedding the heat, the horns, the crush of humanity. Ahead, the answers to my questions lay just beyond the horizon—all I had to do was get us there safely. The deck of the ship began to roll, but I’d roped in too—we all had. This was, after all, a fairy-tale map as well as the Mer d’Iroise; I’d expected the waves to rise. But the temperature was dropping as well. Even in the thick of the fog I could see my breath turn to crystal. Goose bumps flashed across my skin like a school of little fish. I shivered; I’d changed shorts for trousers, but my arms were still bare.
Blake rubbed his hands together. “Is Navigation always so cold?”
I shook my head. “It must be winter there.”
“Winter.” He shook his head, wondering. “I’ve only ever heard stories.”
“Let’s hope the weather is the most singular thing you see,” I said. Then the ship surged forward with a current and the boom pulled at the rigging; I gave the wheel a quarter turn. The pale fog swirled around us, interminable and strange. As the wind rose, it carried notes of a song to my ears—distantly familiar—and snatched them away almost as quickly. I squinted up to see if it was Rotgut, but the crow’s nest was lost in the mist. Besides, it didn’t sound like his voice—it was too airy, too breathless. I bit my lip as it came again: above the roar and shush of the waves, a high voice, clear, singing a sad sea shanty.
“Go down and put on a coat, Blake.”
“I’m quite hardy—”
“I need you out of the way.”
His eyebrows went up at my tone, and for a moment, I wondered if he would disobey—and what I would do if he did. But the ship was under my command, and all souls aboard were too. I couldn’t let him argue, not now. He must have seen it on my face, because he stepped down the stairs toward the hatch. I was briefly grateful for the silence, but alone on the quarterdeck, the white expanse of fog made me feel very small.
The crew moved on the deck like dark wraiths. The wind intensified, thrumming in the rat lines and snapping at the sails, and the ship groaned as the mast creaked. My heart hammered in my chest as the memory of our last journey crept into my head—the thick mists, the lightning, and the black tentacle dragging Kash overboard.
My hands were slick on the wheel. What had I been thinking, taking the helm without Slate to guide me? My anger at him had gotten the better of me—or perhaps it was my hubris. Was I a fool to try to cheat fate? I sought Kashmir through the fog. What if he’d been right? What if this was how I lost him?
Beneath my feet, the Temptation seesawed. The ship climbed a mountainous wave, then dipped down so sharply I was sure that, but for the mist, I’d be looking at the bottom of the sea. Kash was fairly dancing on the deck below—beside him, Bee was hauling in the lines on the foresail. She glanced back at me, her wide eyes bright in the dark. I could almost hear her voice in the look she gave me: you cannot flinch.
They’d done this before—and so had I. I tore my eyes away from the crew and pinned them to the uncertain horizon.
Squinting into the fog off the prow, I redrew the map in the space behind my eyes: the crescent of the island and the slip of a protected bay, all encircled by the thick seawalls. Ker-Ys, the most beautiful city in France—a kingdom without a king. I filled my mind with the myth I knew and the map I’d studied, and I did not search for a glimpse of our destination. Rather, I waited. I knew, without doubt, that the city was there.
This was the trick of Navigation—the most difficult part: the belief, the unflinching faith. And it was so clear in my head that I could not pinpoint the moment when it appeared through the shifting mist off the prow, but in the same way as dawn turns to day, there it was.