The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(87)

But something else splashed in the harbor then, a flash of silver in the light of the moon. I was watching when the next mermaid slipped through the open gates, her clawed hands gouging the brass as she propelled toward the wharf. She was followed by another, and another. Over the city, the bells of Ker-Ys began jangling an alarm. Then Crowhurst turned to me, and I realized just how alone I was on the wall.

The metal squealed again, the gates sliding open another foot, and the earth itself seemed to shudder as a fresh tide rolled across the harbor. The rising water twisted the fishing boats on their moorings, turning them stern up, like dipping ducks. The docks were already swamped, and silver shapes circled hungrily in the water. Even now the tide would be rising through the sewers and pouring into the room where Cook had been—where Kash was now, without his lock picks, without me.

I couldn’t get there in time to free him, even if I could swim through the icy waves. I had to shut the gate. But Crowhurst stood between me and the key, clenching his empty hands. “Maybe you were right,” he said then, and his voice was strange and faraway. “Maybe the past can never be changed.”

“I didn’t say that.” I slipped my hand into my pocket. “I just said you couldn’t do it.”

Crowhurst’s eyes glittered and in his voice, a warning. “I am a cosmic being.”

“You’re a madman.” I slid my finger through the loop of the lock as my heel wavered on the edge. From the Temptation, Slate was shouting over the wind, trying to push the ship closer, but I didn’t turn my head. “And you’ve lost.”

“I know I have,” Crowhurst said, his voice almost sad.

“So let me close the gate,” I said to him, almost pleading. “Let me save Kashmir.”

But he only reached for me, and I swung the lock. It connected with a meaty sound. He clutched his jaw and swore, the curse thick on his tongue. I tried to dart around him, scrambling along the lip of the wall, but he grabbed a fistful of my cloak and shook me—my god, he was strong! My toes brushed the stone as he hauled me close to his face; it was twisted with rage. A fleeting thought struck me then: here was the monster in the castle. “Just because I lose,” he growled, “doesn’t mean you’ll win.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone leaping the gap from the ship—could they reach me in time? I hit Crowhurst again, but he didn’t even seem to feel it. He stepped back, and I clutched desperately at his sleeve, his shoulder. My hand tangled in the chain at his neck as he heaved me toward the sea.

I dragged him to his knees as I fell, one hand on the flask and one scrabbling at the edge of the wall. I let go of the chain and grasped the slick stone with both hands. The high tide pulled at my ankles as I struggled to haul myself up. Crowhurst scrambled to his feet above me. The chain had snapped; the flask slid to the wall and clanged on the stone beside his right foot. As I watched, he lifted his boot above my fingertips.

But then—over the wind, the sound of running feet, and a small shaped barreled into him.

My mother.

They grappled on the wall, he with new fury, and she, fierce but overmatched. Gasping, I dragged myself back up to the wall as he wrapped his hand around her throat. She beat at his chest with her fists, but he did not let go. But then a sound like the crack of a whip, and Crowhurst staggered, eyes wide. Above the red sash he wore, a darker crimson started to spread.

There, in the lee of the tower, Blake was propped up on his elbow, the silver derringer smoking in his hand.

Crowhurst met my eyes—in his own, the shock of loss. He took one step, then another. The third took him over the wall, and my mother went with him.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


The wind was screaming, and so was I. Out on the water, my father shouted Lin’s name as waves rammed the Temptation. The ship tilted on the tide, the stern swinging toward the wall; Slate had abandoned the helm to stare down at the clouds of spray, drifting up like smoke.

Bee scrambled for the wheel as it spun freely. But the captain only looked up at me, and the air between us seemed to dim and thicken before my eyes. His words were drowned out by the sound of the waves, but I knew what he said.

Then he leaped over the rail and vanished into the mist.

“Captain!”

I crawled to the edge of the wall. The water eddied and swirled in the fog below. On the wind, was that a siren song?

“Dad!”

There was no sign of him.

“Mom!”

No sign of either of them, as the waves splintered into fog and obscured the furious sea.

My ears rang, echoing with my father’s voice. Or was it the cries of the crew? Or Gwen’s own grief? Or the distant screams that rang from the town? I did not know, I did not care. This wasn’t right, it wasn’t happening. He had to surface, and soon—he couldn’t hold his breath much longer. Where were they? Where were they?

I rolled to my side and curled like a nautilus. The cold had numbed me, but not enough. Beside me, Crowhurst’s broken chain, and the copper flask; it was like a chip of ice in my palm. Starlight glittered on its surface. How much of the Lethe water remained?

A scream brought me back to my senses as the ship loomed out of the mist. The storm was too high, the wall was too close, and with a sound like snapping bones, the Temptation drove into the wall.

The rising waves ground her ribs against the rocks. Rotgut had left the sails, using a pole to try to fend off the stones, and Bee was frantically signaling the Fool, but there were not enough hands, not with Slate gone, not with Kashmir . . . Kashmir—