She was reading a book, and at first, she didn’t look up.
Her skin was dark, and deeply wrinkled, her hair a shocking silver, but what struck Tes most was that the air around her was empty. No threads, bright or dim, no dancing lines of light. It seemed the captain of the Ferase Stras, home to so much power, had no magic of her own.
She looked old, very old, but not frail, and when she spoke, her voice rang like a bell.
“So few gentle days at sea,” she said, closing the book, “you learn to enjoy them when they come.”
Maris rose, and as she did, the grey pile on the deck twitched, and resolved itself into a large and ancient dog. Maris stared at Tes, and despite the fact she knew the woman had no magic, she couldn’t shake the sense that she was being read. Her eyes never left Tes, but when she spoke, it was to the Antari.
“That is not a persalis, Delilah Bard. That is, if I had to guess, a teenage girl.”
“No,” admitted Lila. “The persalis was, regrettably, destroyed. But I think you’ll find Tes is an … improvement.”
“Is that so?” asked the old woman.
Lila leaned in, and whispered something in the other captain’s ear. Her eyes sharpened. “I see.” There it was again, the hungry flash, as she realized she’d come into possession of something rare. “Perhaps we have a place for her.”
“I’m not a prize for your vault,” snapped Tes.
Maris gave her a long, appraising look. “What are you then?”
She straightened. “I’m a tinkerer.”
Maris raised a brow.
“I mean, I fix things,” explained Tes. “I make them better. And I’m good at it. And yes, I can see magic. And yes, I can change it. And yes, I know that is a strange and valuable gift, but it doesn’t make me a thing instead of a person. I’m not a piece of magic to be put away, and taken out, whenever you have use, and I’m not going to be put in a cage or buried in the bowels of the ship.”
It came spilling out, and left her breathless.
Maris crossed her arms. “Have you finished?”
Tes swallowed. And nodded. Maris smiled. “Good. Now, here is what I know. There is a great deal of magic on this ship. So much that sometimes, I cannot keep track of it all. There are things that have been aboard longer than I have—yes, it’s true—and others whose function I have never been able to discern. Now, it seems you have a talent, one that might make you useful, if you choose to be. And if you stay, as my apprentice, you will be free to use your gift, without being used for it, and maybe even learn a thing or two along the way.
“But,” said Maris, stepping closer. “I have never kept a living person on this ship against their will, and I certainly won’t be starting now. So if you do not wish to stay, then by all means, return to the Barron, and go back to being Lila’s problem. It’s your choice.”
The Antari scowled at that, and seemed about to speak, but Maris shot her a heavy look, and for once, she held her tongue while Tes stood on the deck, and looked around at the floating market, the light spilling through every curtain and doorway, the whole place rich with the promise of magic.
And so she made a choice.
* * *
Tes watched as the Barron drifted away from the Ferase Stras, and turned, setting a course she couldn’t follow. A hand came to rest on her shoulder, the fingers old, but strong. Tes glanced toward Maris.
“I heard your ship was supposed to be impenetrable,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“Then how were you robbed?”
Maris smiled thinly. “It seems my wards could use improving.”
Tes’s fingers twitched at the challenge, her eyes already tracing the lines of light that wove across the ship, her mind racing ahead to all the ways they could be fixed. “I can help with that.”
“Excellent,” said Maris. “Just tell me what you need.”
Tes glanced around at the floating market, with all its levels, its rooms, its secrets. “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”
IV
The palace rose over the Isle, the crimson water lapping at the stone pedestals that held it up. But from the prison deep inside, there was no sound of water, no tinted light. Only the dull echo of footsteps for the second time that day.
They seemed to run ahead, warning the man in the cell below that someone was coming.
Berras was on his feet by the time his visitor arrived. He took in her pale brown eyes and her widow’s peak, the long black hair that fell in a curtain behind her crisp white robes, and for the first time in days, he smiled.
“Ezril.”
The Aven Essen stood beyond the bars, her priestly garments shining like a moon against the dim stone confines. He was used to seeing her in ordinary clothes, her face obscured by her white mask, but she had the kind of voice that conveyed expression, even with her features hidden. Now, her annoyance was on full display.
“Berras Emery,” she said with a long-suffering sigh. “What a mess you made.”
His brow furrowed. “It can be fixed.”
Ezril inclined her head. “Can it?” she mused in her airy way. “I think not. Your plan was rushed. And you, too eager. I warned you of that, didn’t I? Change may seem sudden when it comes, Berras Emery. A tree, split by a bolt of lightning. A flood overrunning the banks. But it’s easy to forget, the storm must gather first.”
He gripped the bars. “Must you always speak in riddles like a priest?”
“I am a priest,” she pointed out, “and they are not riddles, just because you fail to understand them.” She folded her hands inside the sleeves of her robes. “Nature provides an analog to every human problem. An answer to every question.”
“I don’t need answers,” he muttered. “I need you to open the cell, so I can finish what I started.”
“What you started…” she echoed, looking up, not at the prison ceiling, but the palace overhead. “You worked so hard to get within the walls, and here you are. So far, and yet, so close.”
Berras grimaced, but said nothing.
“But you are alone,” she went on. “No persalis, no borrowed magic, no contingent of willing hands.” Her gaze flicked to his bandaged fist. “Just you.”
“If you help me—”
She pressed on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Oh, you might kill one of them, before you’re caught. But I fear we both know which one you would choose.”
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “Do not lie,” she warned. “I know we each have our own reasons, but you promised me when we first met that this wasn’t for revenge.”
“It’s not.”
Ezril clicked her tongue. “The problem with venom, Berras, is that if you’re not careful, it can also poison you.” She shook her head. “No, you had your chance, and failed.” She unfolded her arms, reached out, and trailed her thin fingers over the bars. “Obviously, this requires a more delicate touch.”
Berras lunged at her through the bars, but she was already out of reach. She tutted, lips twitching in a smile. As if it were a game.
“Fine,” he growled. “We’ll do it your way. Sel Fera Noche. Just get me out of here.”
But Ezril had stopped listening. The ring on her hand, carved from pale marble, had begun to glow, warming as it did with a pleasant heat. “I have to go,” she said. “It appears I’m being summoned by the king.”
She turned toward the stairs.
“Ezril,” he called after her. “I will tell them. If you leave me in this cell, I will tell them everything.”
The priest stopped, and sighed. “Well,” she said, “in that case…”
She turned back to the cell, one hand reaching out, not for Berras, but the stone wall at his back. People often forgot that priests had magic. They assumed that because they held the world in balance, their power must be weak. That they could not fell a tree as easily as grow one.