The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(30)
I struggled out of the tangle of blankets and pawed through them, searching for my boots in the dark. I’d laced them back on, with some difficulty, before I wondered why I was chasing after him. Why did I care where he was going or what he was doing? What did it matter if he wanted to go on a midnight stroll?
Pulling my cloak around my shoulders, I went abovedecks, the answer ringing in my head: it was what I had always done. He’d always been my responsibility. He wandered off, I sought him out.
And right now, the way he’d been acting, it was too risky not to.
I opened the hatch; the cold stole my breath. Torchlight threw shadows across the stone docks where the fishermen were unloading their catch. Smoke mingled with the white plumes of hot breath and muttered curses as the men worked. I searched, but my father wasn’t among them. Had he walked into the city? The Grand Rue curved up, away from the harbor, and I followed it.
Moonlight gave the town an ethereal grace, turning the stone to silver and the shadows to mysteries. Overhead, the buildings leaned in close as though telling secrets, and the sky shrank to a strip of stars. The windows at ground level were shuttered, and the ones above had curtains drawn; although the town was still and the hour was late, I couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched through the gaps.
The dark intensified my hearing, or perhaps it was the sound carrying farther in the cold; I heard the potch of my boots against the rounded cobbles, the squeak of a hanging sign rocked by the wind, even the rise and fall of the ocean against the seawalls, like the breath of a sleeping giant. A small tabby ran ahead of me for half a block and then slipped under a cart, peering out at me with shining eyes.
Eventually the road spilled into a wide square. In the center, a fountain splashed over a beautifully crafted bronze mermaid. Icicles ran like tears down her cheeks. I walked all the way around, but there was no sign of Slate.
The south end of the plaza was bordered by the crenellated walls and turrets of the chateau. From this angle, high in one of the towers, light glimmered in a single window. Hadn’t the harbormaster said it was abandoned? Was there a caretaker, waiting for the return of a long-lost king? Or a hermit wandering the otherwise empty halls?
I shivered; the drifting mist from the fountain was turning to frost in my hair. Aside from the hish of falling water, all was quiet. The west side of the square was lined with shuttered shops like closed jewel boxes; to the east stood a Gothic cathedral. The stained-glass arches glowed invitingly with colored light, but Slate had never been a religious man. Had I passed him somehow along the way? Or perhaps I had only missed him among the fishermen.
Another blast of wind scoured the square, scattering the arcing water in the fountain and blowing leaves across the cobbles—no, not leaves, but bits of paper. I frowned. This was not New York—paper wasn’t trash, not in this era. Where had it come from?
Wrapping my velvet cloak tight around me, I followed the pieces like bread crumbs marking the invisible path of the southerly wind. Torn scraps gamboled at my feet as I approached the castle. There, before the gatehouse, lay a tattered book; I had knelt to pick it up when a movement caught my eye. Startled, I gasped, my heart leaping into my throat.
A man stood there, not two yards away, in the deep shadow under the stone archway of the castle gatehouse. He gripped the bars of the portcullis. The holes weren’t big enough to fit a dog, but he pressed his head against the iron, as though he could pull himself into the keep by sheer force of will.
“Slate?” I spoke without thinking; as the man moved, I knew it was not the captain.
He turned slowly, unsteady on his feet, as though drunk or distracted, and tottered into the light of the unforgiving moon. Dirty blond hair lay in lank curls past his shoulders, and his robe and shoes were tattered, but he must have been a wealthy man, once. Under the grime was the dull shine of silk and velvet, and a gold chain gleamed on his neck.
“Do you know me?” His accent was quite thick—a rich brogue—but his voice was urgent. “Do you know who I am?”
“I . . . no,” I said, taking a careful step back. “I’m only looking for my father.”
“Your father?” He seemed to wilt, putting his face in his hands, and his voice throbbed with sudden grief. “I had a daughter once. The sea took her.”
“The sea?” I tensed, recalling my own dire fortune—but this wasn’t about Kash and me. “I’m sorry,” I added hastily, the small words falling, worthless as pennies in a hat. But the man tilted his chin up; his eyes shone with tears—or was that rage? I took a step back. “I’ll go. I just . . . Have you seen him? A tall man. He was—”
“Your father is the devil, witch! I can see it in your eyes.”
My hand fluttered like a flag of surrender as I backed away across the square, but he followed with lurching steps. “A monster slavers in the castle!” he cried, his voice echoing from the stones and ringing in the bell tower. “A man wastes away in the pit!” He pulled the pendant of his necklace out of the folds of his robe, brandishing it at me. At first glance, it looked like a cross, but as he held it out, I saw it was a key. “I was a king,” he whispered. “I was a king, but I have no kingdom.”
My jaw dropped; I stared at him. “What did you say?”
“Usurper! Witch!”
“Wait!” I raised my hand, but he slapped it away.