“Dark works for us,” Richard said.
The third torch flared into life. They waited.
The dog strayed back, the chain stretching, and licked her hand.
The dark silhouette of a brigantine slid from behind the peninsula.
*
GEORGE lay on his stomach atop a sand dune. A small black box rested on the sand in front of him. Below, the false slavers and their “captives” waited on the beach. In the distance, the brigantine dropped anchor. It was a Weird-style ship, with six segmented masts that rose in a semicircle from the deck, like the wings of a water bird about to take flight. The masts bore panes of gray-green sails. In the open sea, the sails melted against the sky, making the ship harder to see.
Mémère was dead. It had been six months since he’d last seen her. She had come up to visit for a week at Midwinter. He remembered her face as if he’d seen her yesterday. He remembered her smile. The scent of lavender that always floated around her. He knew that scent so well, that years later catching a whiff of it calmed him down.
When he was younger, Mémère was a constant presence in his life. He barely remembered his mother. She was a distant smudge in his memory. He recalled his father better, a large, funny man. When he was eight, he was invited to a friend’s house in the Broken. He was given a choice of movies to watch, and as he flipped through the cases, he saw a man in a leather jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, holding a whip. The title read Raiders of the Lost Ark. He’d read the description and realized that this strange man, Indiana Jones, did the same thing his father did. He hunted treasure.
He’d watched the movie twice in a row, which was probably why he was never invited back. But as he’d grown older, maturity had given him a new perspective. His father wasn’t Indiana Jones, no matter how much he wanted it to be true. His father had abandoned them when they needed him most, forcing Rose to take on all the responsibility of caring for them. There were days she’d come home so tired she could hardly move—once she even fell asleep in the kitchen while peeling potatoes.
But Mémère was always there. Her house served as their safe haven. No matter what trouble he would get into or how much Rose was mad at him, Mémère was always there with hugs, cookies, and old books. She was there the first time his magic showed itself. He was three years old. He’d been playing in the yard when he saw a squirrel. She had a bushy tail and fluffy red fur, and she didn’t seem afraid of him. She just sat on the trunk. He wanted to pet her, so he started moving closer and closer, one tiny step at a time. He was almost there; and then she fell off the trunk and died.
He’d picked up the fluffy body. He didn’t really understand death. He just knew that she wasn’t moving. He wanted her to move, but she wouldn’t. She just hung in his hands, limp, like an old toy. He remembered a feeling of stark terror. For a second he’d thought he would die too, just like the squirrel, then something pulled on him, hurting, and the squirrel turned and looked at him.
He’d dropped her and ran, across the yard and up the porch. He must’ve screamed because his grandmother had run out onto the porch and scooped him up. He’d buried his face in her shoulder, and she hugged him. A ghost of her voice fluttered from his memory: “It will be all right. It’s a gift, Georgie. Nothing to be afraid of. It’s a gift . . .”
George locked his teeth. Six months ago, he’d asked her again to move to the Weird. They had been sitting on the balcony drinking tea. She was leaving to return to the Edge later that day, and a feeling of dread had smothered him, heavy, like a wet blanket. In his mind, she looked exactly the same as she had been when he was little, but now every time she visited, he noticed incremental, alarming changes. Her hair was thinning. Her wrinkles cut deeper into her face. She seemed smaller somehow. It made him ill with worry.
“Please stay,” he asked.
“No, dear. I live in the Edge. That’s where I belong. This is very nice, but it’s not for me.”
He’d helped her get into the phaeton that morning. She’d kissed him good-bye.
He should’ve done more. He should’ve insisted. He should’ve compelled her to stay. If he really had begged, she would have. How could he have been so careless and stupid? Now she was dead. He didn’t even know how she died, if she had burned alive in that damn house . . . he closed his eyes tightly, stopping the tears from welling up.
He would have to tell Rose.
The brigantine was lowering two boats. The people on the beach waited patiently.
“We should be down there,” Jack said next to him.
But they weren’t. Of the two Mar brothers, Kaldar was the more malleable. His ethics had flexible boundaries, and he bent, if the wind was strong enough. But George had taken sword-fighting lessons from Richard over the past year. Richard was like a granite crag in a storm, immovable and resolute. The look in his eyes had told George he wouldn’t be getting his way. Not this time.
His Mirror assignment was over. George had failed. Jason Parris had identified him as an Adrianglian agent, and he’d already sent the dispatch to the Home Office. Erwin wouldn’t be pleased, but right now his handler’s disappointment was the least of George’s worries. He would watch Richard and Charlotte get on the ship; and then he and Jack would be forced to go home like good little children. Inside, he was screaming.