The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(80)

“Okay.” He wet his lips. I could tell he was nervous, but he uncapped the pen and laid my arm across his lap. “Top down? How big?”

I held my thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. He nodded and bent his head over my arm. The pen tickled my skin as the outline took form: an almond shape, graceful, with circles for the masts and a square for the hatch. The Temptation, in simple lines, clean and clear. My father’s hands were surprisingly steady. I grunted, pleased. “This is good.”

“Good. That was the easy part.”

Slate popped a match to life, heating the needle till it gleamed. As the smoke danced snakelike in the air, Lin took a bottle from her pocket. “Here,” she said, uncorking it. “I took it from Rotgut.”

“What is it?” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“He said it was like gin.”

“Good,” Slate said, reaching for the bottle, but Lin yanked it back. “For my hands, baby,” he said, wounded. “Christ.” She narrowed her eyes, but she gave over the bottle.

He poured it over his hands, and then splashed some over my arm. Finally he handed it to me and I took a swallow. Whatever it was burned like fire. “That is not gin,” I wheezed, looking at Lin. She only shrugged.

“He said it was like gin,” she reminded me, but already the fire in my throat had faded into a warmth in my stomach. I lay on the floor with my arm across Slate’s lap; my other hand found Lin’s. My father uncapped the ink, placing it down beside him, fussing with the position of the bottle. His preparations seemed to take forever, and as I waited, a fear crept in. What if this didn’t work? What if the map wouldn’t bring me back to the ship, and I never saw any of them again? Not Slate, not Lin . . . not Kashmir . . .

I had been dreading the pain, but when the first spark of it lit up my arm, I was grateful for the distraction. In the silence of the cabin, I could almost hear the skin—my skin—breaking with a little pock. Tears squeezed out the corners of my eyes; the motion of the needle was sharp and snappy. The gin didn’t seem to be helping much at first, although after a few minutes, the pain ebbed a little. I sighed, and Slate barked a laugh.

“What?”

“Endorphins? The natural high. Nothing. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” There was shame on his face, behind the humor. I squeezed his hand; it was so warm. The fear was creeping back, nestling against me like a cat. “Dad . . . if this doesn’t work . . .”

“It will.”

“How do you know?”

“It has to.” He spoke with the surety that always used to infuriate me; why was it comforting now? “You love him,” he said then, and I did not deny it. “And he loves you. I can tell. I know what love looks like.”

I grimaced at his old refrain, but he didn’t see my expression—his eyes were on Lin. He gave her a crooked smile, and she leaned into his shoulder. I saw it then. The look of love.

Kash had looked at me like that. Had I watched him with the same longing on my face? It was beautiful, it was terrible—and I knew now, how Slate had done what he’d done, and why. And in that moment, all was forgiven.

I couldn’t watch them too long, so I averted my eyes. Then I caught a glimpse of the flesh of my arm, dotted with ink and blood where he’d gone too deep. My stomach roiled. “Right,” I gulped. “Keep going.”

He did, but now the fear had wrapped itself around me in coils that tightened with each breath, like the serpent Dahn, corseting the world. What would I do if I could not return to the ship with the cure?

We had Cook. If time ran out, Slate could always help him steer the ship through the Margins. At the very least, he could get back to his native time. Perhaps once James was aboard the Friendship, he’d prove a quick learner. And if we all somehow survived, I could meet the Temptation back in my own native time—Honolulu, 1884. Surely my father could find a map to bring the ship there; all I’d have to do to meet him was walk through the Margins at the edge of the map of Boeotia.

But what of Kashmir? His face swam before me, his careless grin at contrast with the intensity of his eyes. If I lost him . . . if I lost him . . .

I could not follow that thought to its conclusion—it was a golden thread through a winding maze, at the center of which lurked something more terrifying than any minotaur. How had it come to this? I had spent so much time trying to escape the monster, but I was already trapped in the labyrinth. Like Theseus, I had claimed my birthright, and the route ahead was fraught with peril.

“It’s done.”

Slate’s words woke me, as though from a dream. My breath hitched in my throat as I sat up and looked at my arm. The skin was raised, but the line was thick and dark, red and black—the ship a part of me, like it always had been. And suddenly, I was certain, at least, about this map. No matter where I was, it would bring me home. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Wiping his hands on his shirt, he gave me a half smile, but his eyes were troubled as he helped me to my feet. Then, suddenly, he wrapped his arms around me. “I told you the other night I’d do anything to help you,” he whispered into my hair. “I meant it, Nixie. I hope you know that. I hope you know how much I love you.”

The fierceness in his words gave me pause—but though my arm was throbbing, I hugged him back tightly. “I love you too,” I told him, and I could feel him smile.