The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(89)

Still, I didn’t let go of the helm, not even as the Temptation slipped at last beneath the surface, pulling me down with her. And for a moment, as the icy water closed over my head, I wondered if I could ever let go. But all around me, bubbles rose from the sinking ship, carrying me to the surface. The Temptation herself still buoyed me up.

I struggled for air even after I broke free of the water; the cold had taken my breath away. Blinking the salt out of my eyes, I scanned the horizon, but saw neither ship nor shore. Panic played tug-of-war with despair, my heart fraying like a rope: the sea was wide and deep, and I was alone.

Like a coward, I longed to escape, to call up the mist and Navigate away. But I had not left Bee and Rotgut only to leave Kashmir as well. Being lost at sea was not the worst fate had to offer.

And Kashmir was coming. I knew it, like I knew the positions of the stars or the pitch of the deck. I did not search for a glimpse of him, rather, I waited—I believed, without doubt, with faith unshakable.

Where was he?

Around me, the waves were flecked with lines of foam, like the starry band of the Milky Way. Treading water, I kept my head above the surface, but the air was even colder than the sea. It wasn’t long before I was shivering uncontrollably; it made it harder to fight the waves. I let the next one roll over my head—just to rest for a moment—but when it passed, I was disoriented; it was only when my lungs started burning that I realized I’d been swimming down. I rolled in the water and struggled back toward the steely sky, taking a quick breath, and another—I had to keep my head above the surface.

I closed my eyes. They stung with the salt, an ocean of tears. I was so tired. Then something big brushed my leg, and my eyes snapped open. Was it flotsam from the wreck, or something worse? I panted as a rush of adrenaline hit, and I scanned the waves frantically for a flash of silver, but the Iroise kept her secrets.

Another swarm of bubbles fizzed up from below. I had read about wrecks; I knew what was happening to my ship. As she sank, the water pressure was crushing the cabin walls, releasing pockets of air. My heart squeezed too, and I saw it in my mind’s eye—the sea riffling through my books, sweeping through the maps, scattering Kashmir’s poems across the blackness of the ocean floor. Lost at sea, lost at sea.

The adrenaline faded. I kept swallowing water, my head sinking beneath the waves. The sea filled my eyes, my ears. Maybe I should have sipped from the Mnemosyne. Joss’s voice came back to me: who you’ll marry—how you’ll die. Why hadn’t I let her tell me? I couldn’t remember now. But perhaps she had been wrong after all. Perhaps I was the one to be lost.

It was a fitting end, to follow the Temptation down. After all, I was my father’s daughter. The ocean roared; my mother hummed a song—or was that the sound of a motor?

“Kash.” My throat was raw with salt and screaming—my voice was a whisper even I couldn’t hear. But the hum was louder now; I turned my head this way and that, trying to see the yacht, but the waves were too high. “Kashmir.”

Just the one word left me breathless. He would never hear me, and he would pass right by in the twilight. Still, I smiled—or I thought I did. He had escaped. I’d been right. He was alive. I only wished I could have kissed him one more time.

In the water, bubbles rose once more from the wreck below. It pained me to see them, for what destruction was there left to do? But would Kash see the effervescence—a white flag, a beacon? No . . . the wind was high and the waves were skimmed with foam as far as I could see. But then something in the water flashed—not silver, but gold.

At first I didn’t understand. I thought it was a star, reflected. But it grew brighter and brighter until it broke the surface: a sky herring, glimmering in the gloom.

She twisted in the air above my head; a slip of light, a slice of the aurora. Another followed, and another; free of the ship, they returned to the celestial sphere, gleaming brightly as they schooled, floating upward like the embers of the pyre of the Temptation. The roar of the motor crescendoed in my ears. Then it cut out, and I heard his voice.

“Amira?”

Kashmir hauled me into the yacht, and his hands scorched my skin. I lay shivering on the deck, looking up at his pale face, his wan smile—and the last stars were like a crown in his hair.

“Stay with me,” he said, trying to help me downstairs, awkward with only one arm.

“Always,” I murmured, still struggling against the dark.

With difficulty, we stumbled below to huddle in the warmth of the cabin, where the clocks swept the future into the past. Kash plugged in the kettle and helped strip my wet clothes. I forced out the words to indicate the bottle in my pocket. He wrapped me in blankets first, and I drifted in and out as he applied the mercury to his shoulder. I could tell by the way he sighed that it was working.

Kashmir brought me a cup of hot water then, and propped me up to drink. “Did they get away, amira? Did they get James Cook to London?”

“I think so.”

“But you stayed.”

“I’m not going to lose you too.” My voice caught in my throat.

Pain flashed across his face. “The crew?”

“Bee and Rotgut are safe aboard the Fool. Blake too.” It was all I could bring myself to say—but he heard what I had omitted.

“The captain? Your mother? Oh, amira.” He wrapped his arms around me. “I’m so sorry.”