‘Don’t we all,’ she muttered.
‘It feels as if my entire future lies outside my control. I want to get off this insane ship and away from these people. I want to leave now!’
On the deck, I led her to the railing and stared toward the scattered lights of the pirate town. ‘We can demand to go ashore. Use our Rain Wild gifts to buy passage on a different vessel. Regain some control over our journey. And send Lant and the youngsters home and out of danger.’
‘Are we back to that?’ Lant shook his head. ‘It will not happen, Fitz. I won’t go home until you go with me. And it would be foolish and dangerous to send these two off alone on a long voyage with people we do not know. Whatever we face, I feel they are safer with us.’
‘It’s not a matter of “safer” for me,’ Per muttered darkly.
I ignored them all and stared at the lights. I wanted to shake all over like a wolf would shake off rain, and run off alone into the darkness to do what I must. I felt caged by responsibilities. What was best for us? ‘Then we should leave this ship tonight, all of us. Find other passage to Clerres.’
‘We can’t,’ said the Fool. Not Amber. I turned my head to look at him. How did he do that? How did he shed one mask and don another so easily? Despite the rouge and powder, he turned my friend’s face to me. ‘We have to go there on this ship, Fitz.’
‘Why?’
‘I told you.’ He sounded both patient and exasperated in a way only the Fool could manage. ‘I’ve begun to dream again. Not many dreams, but the ones that reached me rang with clarity and with … inevitability. If we are going to Clerres, we travel on this ship. It’s a narrow channel I navigate to reach my goal. And only Paragon provides us a passage to the future I must create.’
‘But you never thought to share that information with me until this moment?’ I did not try to keep the accusation out of my voice. Was this a true thing or a gambit by the Fool to get what he wanted? My distrust of Amber was starting to bleed into my friendship with the Fool.
‘The steps I have trodden to get us to Kelsingra and then Trehaug, to get us onto this ship and thence to Divvytown … if I had told you of them, of the things I did and the things I took care not to do, it would have influenced you. Only by you behaving as you would if you knew nothing of what I did would we come here.’
‘What?’ Lant asked, confused.
I could not blame him. I sorted out the Fool’s words. ‘So of course that means you can’t tell me any of your other dreams and warn me of what we must do. It must all be left in your hands.’
He set his gloved hands on the ship’s railing. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly.
‘Balls,’ said Perseverance, quite distinctly. Spark gave him a shocked look and then rebuked him with a shove. He glared at her. ‘Well, it’s not right. It’s not how friends should do things.’
‘Perseverance, enough,’ I said quietly.
Lant sighed. ‘Shouldn’t we move up to the bow and see what is going on?’ And when he turned and walked that way, we followed. I didn’t especially want to go. The deep sobbing of the figurehead and his misery permeated the ship. I paused to reinforce my walls, and then walked on with Amber.
The Fool spoke quietly. The others were far enough ahead that I doubt they heard him. ‘I won’t say I’m sorry. I can’t be sorry for something I must do.’
‘I’m not sure that’s entirely true,’ I responded. I could recall many things that I’d had to do, and many of them I regretted.
‘I’d be sorrier, and so would you, if I began to worry more about your feelings and less about getting to Clerres and rescuing Bee.’
‘Rescuing Bee.’ His words felt like meat dangled for a starving dog. I was tired and battered by Paragon’s guilt and grief. ‘I thought your great ambition was to destroy Clerres and kill as many people as you could. Or as I could kill for you.’
‘You’re angry.’
When he said the words aloud, I felt ashamed. And even angrier. I stopped and stood still. ‘I am,’ I admitted. ‘This is … not how I do things, Fool. When I kill, I do it efficiently. I know who I’m stalking, I know how to find them and how to end them. This is … madness. I’m going into unfamiliar territory, I know little of my targets, and I’m hampered with people I’m responsible for protecting. Then I discover that I’m dancing to your tune, to music I can’t even hear … Answer me this, Fool. Do I live through this? Does the boy? Does Lant go back to Chade and is his father still alive when he gets there? Does Spark survive? Do you?’
‘Some things are more likely than others,’ he said quietly. ‘And all of them still dance and wobble like a spun coin. Dust blown on the wind, a day of rain, a tide that is lower than expected—any and all of those things can change everything. You must know that is true! All I can do is peer into a mist and say, “it looks most clear in that direction”. I tell you that our best chance of finding Bee alive is to remain on Paragon until he arrives in Clerres.’
My pride wanted me to be defiant, but my fatherhood was stronger than my pride. What would I not have done to increase the chance that I might rescue Bee, might hold her and protect her and tell her how devastated I was to have failed her? To promise her that never again would she leave my protection?
The others had waited for us. Amber’s hand squeezed my arm and I led the way to the bow with them trooping behind me. My guard. My guard that I must protect as I led them into I knew not what.
Amber queried softly, ‘Is there a bright light off to our left?’
‘There’s a lantern on the Vivacia. It’s burning very brightly.’ Some sort of argument was going on over on her deck, though I could not hear the details. I heard ‘anchor’ and then a barking of orders to roust someone out of his bed.
Amber had turned her face toward the lantern light and opened her light-gold eyes wide. A slight smile bowed her mouth. Her pale face reminded me of the moon as she said, ‘I can perceive it. My vision is improving slowly, Fitz. So slowly. But I believe it is coming back.’
‘That would be good,’ I said but privately I wondered if she deceived herself.