The Deepest Blue(70)

“Then we escape,” Mayara pushed. She was aware that wasn’t an easy thing to do, but neither was surviving here, right? “We leave the island, we find the queen, and we tell her that she either stops the test right now and saves whoever is left, or her daughter will risk death fulfilling a tradition that should have been abolished years ago.”

“No one has ever escaped the island,” Palia said.

“No one has ever survived the island for more than a year,” Mayara pointed out. “No one has ever stayed here voluntarily, gotten to know its caves and tunnels, and stayed hidden from not just the spirits, but also the Silent Ones. No one . . . until her.”

All of them looked at Lanei.

“But the spirits—” Palia began.

“The spirits aren’t our real enemy,” Mayara said. “It’s the Silent Ones who are keeping us here. Lanei, you know the secrets to staying out of their sight. And if we can stay out of their sight, we can escape.”

“They’re watching all the time,” Roe objected.

Lanei looked thoughtful. “They aren’t watching as much as you think. The Silent Ones are, almost by definition, afraid to risk themselves. That’s why they opted to renounce their former lives instead of choosing the test in the first place. So they don’t set foot on Akena. They watch from afar, on islands just beyond the reef, through the eyes of the spirits. To survive, I left evidence that I’d died, and then I made sure no spirit ever saw me.”

Mayara didn’t want to ask what that “evidence” was.

“So we just have to make sure spirits don’t see us,” Roe said, beginning to smile. “And then what? Swim to my mother’s palace and knock on the door?”

“Beyond the reef, the spirits aren’t under the command to kill us,” Mayara said, warming to her idea. “We use them to travel to the capital, and then yes, we knock on the door of the palace, say who you are, and ask to see the queen. She won’t refuse to see you.”

Roe blinked at her. “She won’t. You’re right. That . . . actually sounds like a plan.”

“And no one else dies, either now or in the future.” Mayara looked at Lanei. “Well?”

Lanei was quiet for a moment. “A third choice, huh?”

They all fell silent, considering it, sensing all the spirits swarming over the island and outside of the caves, and trying to figure out how to get past them.

Because if they could, there was a chance to end this once and for all.





Chapter Seventeen

“A third choice,” Kelo said. “That’s what Her Majesty is looking for. The Families offered her either obey or her loved ones suffer. But she needs a third choice.”

He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he was back in the palace, with the queen’s personal adviser, Lady Garnah, in a room inlaid with more turquoise than he’d ever seen, listening to secrets that he wished he didn’t know. Kelo had received the summons while he was politely informing the innkeeper that he’d be leaving. The innkeeper had been crushed to hear his customer wasn’t about to be showered with riches and then elated when a slightly harried courtier had arrived to insist Kelo’s business at the palace wasn’t finished.

“Exactly, a third choice.” Lady Garnah looked as if she wished to pat him on the head like a well-behaved dog. “Smart boy. She needs her power back.”

“You mean, she needs her family back.”

Lady Garnah waved her hand airily. “Same thing.”

“And once she has them back, she’ll end the tests?” Kelo asked.

“Yes—permanently. There are other ways to train heirs.” She said it so easily, as if she weren’t proposing upending generations of tradition, as if everything she’d told Kelo wasn’t shocking.

Kelo felt as though his view of the world had been dropped into a mixing bowl and stirred. He, like all islanders, had regarded the queen as the source of both ultimate protection and ultimate power. To learn she’d been hamstrung by the Families . . . “It’s not right, what they’ve done and what they’re doing.”

“Agreed.” Lady Garnah was watching him closely, as if he were a fascinating new species of bug that she’d been proud to find.

“But I don’t understand why you’re telling me this,” Kelo said. “I’m a simple charm-maker. How can I possibly help you with Families and heirs?” He’d never expected to encounter any of this. Certainly never intended to become wrapped up in politics. He just wanted to make his art in his studio and see his new wife when she came home from a day of oyster diving.

Lady Garnah rolled her eyes. “Really, master artisan? You’re claiming you’re too lowly to do what needs to be done to save your wife? After coming all this way? Admit that you’re a coward and go home alone, then.”

“I’m not a coward! Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.”

“The queen can’t investigate the whereabouts of her family,” Lady Garnah said. “If they think she’s involved, her family will suffer. You, however, are an unknown. You can access the Families. You are hereby commissioned by Her Majesty, blah blah blah, whatever official language you need to hear, to create portraits of the most influential people on the islands. You’ll start with the members of the Families who work in the palace, and once we know which stronghold to visit, you’ll continue your work there until you’ve found the queen’s parents and daughter.”