The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(67)

“Crowhurst won’t stop you,” Kash added. “Even if he wakes up, trust me, we can sneak you out.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, her mouth twisting. “If he finds me, he’ll make me forget I wanted to leave.”

I blinked at her. “What do you mean by that?”

But Dahut had run out of patience. “Never mind,” she muttered, striding down the gangplank and toward the Dark Horse.

Kash rushed to the rail as she scrambled aboard the yacht. “What do you mean, he’ll make you forget?”

Her only response was to fit the keys to the ignition.

“Dahut, wait!”

The motor purred as she pressed the throttle, and I had half a mind to let her go. After all, if she fled, she still couldn’t open the sea gates. But that wouldn’t guarantee her safety. And I needed to know what she meant about forgetting. Kashmir was one step ahead of me—as she pulled away from the pier, he vaulted over the rail of the Temptation and onto the deck of the Dark Horse.

Swearing, I followed. The yacht was accelerating, and I only barely made the leap. Instead of landing gracefully on my feet like Kash had, I stumbled forward and fell to my knees and one hand, clutching the bottle of mercury to my chest. He helped me up as we motored through the sea gates. Dahut set her jaw in a grim smile. “Change your mind?”

“No.” I put the vial in my pocket and straightened my shirt, raising my voice over the roar of the motor. “But you weren’t born in this timeline, and you aren’t a Navigator. If you go into the mist all alone, you’ll never find your way out!”

“Good thing you’re coming along,” she said.

“So we can arrive in the past on a twenty-first-century powerboat? We’ll run out of gas, or someone will accuse us of witchcraft—”

“They already do,” she muttered. “And I’d rather burn than drown.”

“They drown witches too,” I shot back. “And hang them. Sometimes both. And sometimes they draw and quarter—”

“Amira.”

“What?”

“Not helpful.”

“Sorry.”

Dahut only laughed, and the wind took her hair. The Dark Horse bounced on the chop when we hit the open water. Before us, fishing boats lay scattered across the surface of the Iroise, their oarsmen pulling hard against the current as harpooners crouched in the bows. Guivres were circling above as chummers scattered ropy chunks of offal from red-stained buckets. As Dahut wove between the boats, the men clenched their scarlet fists in the sign of the fig. “Benir la chassé!” one called in a jeering voice. “Bless the hunt, princess!”

But the Dark Horse was as sleek as a sea snake, and far faster than the Temptation. Soon enough, we were past them, skimming the surface of the dark rollers. How far could we go before we slipped into the Margins? If need be, Kash and I could take the helm by force—I still had the gun in my cloak—but mutiny didn’t sit well with me. Better to try to convince her. Still, I wasn’t the one she trusted. I gave Kashmir a pleading look and he nodded.

He made his way to stand beside Dahut at the helm, putting his hand over hers on the throttle. I clenched my jaw at an irrational stab of jealousy. Then I breathed it out; Kashmir wasn’t like that.

“Dahut.” He said her name so softly it was hard to hear—but perhaps that was his intention. “What does he do? How does he make you forget?”

Dahut’s eyes cut to him, still suspicious, but then she opened her mouth, closed it. “I . . . think . . .” She eased back on the throttle, slipping the boat into neutral, and the sudden silence was startling. “I think there’s something in the flask.”

I felt my brow furrow. “What?”

“The copper flask! The one he wears on that chain.” Her voice was urgent now; she clutched Kashmir’s fingers. “Last night, I took a closer look at the page you noticed, the page my father wrote—”

“In your diary?”

“There are indentations on the paper, from what I’d written before. Something he tore out! Something about the flask—when you drink from it, you forget.”

Kashmir turned to me, a question in his eyes. I held up one hand, trying to think. Lin had mentioned it too, hadn’t she? Drinking something, and time disappearing. What sort of potion could erase memories? And where would Crowhurst have found such a thing?

The boat hummed beneath my feet; the guivres cried out as they dove toward the sea. I pulled the pearl pendant of my necklace back and forth on its chain. Then my hand stilled as a thought burst like a firework in my skull. “Boeotia.”

“What?”

“One of his first trips, he told me.” There was fear in my voice, and wonder too. “Come.”

I led them both downstairs, into the cabin where the clocks whispered of the past. Heading straight to Crowhurst’s desk, I flicked on the lamp and lifted the slab of marble to the light.

The map was the size of a half sheet of paper, and chipped around the edges, but the image was still clear. I ran a finger over the cuts and ridges of the pale stone. “The oracle of Trophonius. Here. And above the cave, the twin pools of Mnemosyne and Lethe. Memory, and oblivion.”

“Oblivion?” Kashmir’s voice was soft.

“It’s an old myth. Greek.” I held the stone in reverent hands. “The oracle is described in a guide by the geographer Pausanias. There’s the Herkyna River—here, you see? The temple is built on her banks. At the mouth of the river, there’s a hole in the ground where Trophonius lives. He was swallowed by the earth after he killed his brother. Petitioners looking for answers would be thrown into the cave and return with terrifying visions.”