Lightning illuminated the world, spearing down and arcing onto the Gwyndemere’s stern, where it struck the aft mast, immediately behind James. The base of the mast exploded into splinters. James felt them pelt against his back, stick in his damp shirt. The shudder of the force shook the deck. A juddering, groaning creak filled the air and ropes twanged, popped, tore loose as the mast began to topple. James didn’t turn to watch, even as he felt the weight collect over him, throwing the stern into deeper darkness beneath its shadow.
Petra’s eyes flashed upward. “James!” she shouted, alarmed, and acted apparently without even thinking. She rammed both of her arms into the air, palms flat, and a palpable wave of power shot up from them, arresting the motion of the collapsing mast. The deck split beneath Petra’s feet, crushing inward as she supported the weight of the mast, cushioning it with pure invisible force.
James could feel the power throttling between himself and Petra, warming his hand, making his knees tremble as if he had just run a mile.
Gently, concentrating furiously, Petra redirected the falling mast, angled it alongside the stern, and then let it drop again, this time safely off the side. The ship shuddered as the broken weight crashed down, rolled over the railing, plunged its tip into the waves, where it ripped, snapped, and drug away into the surging current.
James turned back to Petra, eyes wide with surprise, his mind reeling at this sudden, unexpected change of events.
“You ducked last time,” Petra explained weakly, slumping back against the railing, dipping and shaking her head. Her shoulders hitched as if she was beginning to sob. “You ducked out of the way, leaving the mast to hit me alone.”
James ran to her, grabbed her shoulder, fearing that she might still tilt back over the side, fall to the heaving waves below.
She wasn’t sobbing. She was laughing. It was a weak, helpless sound, but genuine. “You insufferable, noble, stubborn, gallant git,” she said, and leaned against him, still shaking with helpless amusement.
“You were so intent on saving me that you didn’t even move to save yourself.”
James smiled, nervously relishing the sound of Petra’s fragile laughter. “So you saved me instead. Does that mean… we’re even?”
Petra raised her head to answer, looking James in the eyes even as rain began to fall in earnest.
A clatter sounded from nearby. James remembered. When the mast had fallen last time, some of the deck hands had run up from below to investigate. He didn’t remember them coming this quickly, though.
“It’s not over,” Petra said, tensing and growing serious again.
“She won’t give up this easily.”
The door on the side of the galley wrenched open, accompanied by the sound of panicked, stumbling footsteps. It wasn’t a deck hand that emerged. Instead, a lanky young man half-ran, half-fell out of the galley entrance, catching himself on a nearby railing. He pushed rapidly upright, brandishing a wand in one hand, pushing his hair out of his face with the other, looking around frantically.
It was Donofrio Odin-Vann, only not as James knew him. This version of the future professor appeared barely out of his teens, smaller and more gangly, the thick sheaf of his hair longer, greasy and lank on his forehead.
“He stowed away,” James said in dark wonder, his voice nearly lost in the stormy wind. “He was on the ship the whole time!”
“He wasn’t, actually,” Petra said, her brow lowering at the newcomer. “At least, not the first time through. This is a changed event.”
“Petra!” Odin-Vann stammered, clearly surprised to find her there. His voice was higher than James remembered, cracked from disuse during his days of hiding. He shot his gaze around at the wet deck littered with splinters, the missing aft mast. “You’re… still here!
Only, she said…”
“Who said, Don?” Petra asked coyly, cocking her head, her eyes narrowing.
He tried to straighten his matted robes, to recover and mask his surprise. “Your, um, friend. You know. The Lady. She said… she said that you and she were very close. But she said that you would want it this way. I hope you haven’t had any sort of…” he gulped, and glanced around, “of falling out?”
Petra shook her head slowly. She seemed caught between rising anger and sad pity. Resignedly, she asked, “What did she tell you, Don?”
He gulped again and looked around, his eyes bulging at the raging mountains of water, the seething magical storm. “She said… she said that you called her into the world, but that I could take the burden from you,” he called reedily over the rushing wind. “I would host her, and get her power in return. All the power I ever wanted, because she’s some sort of… of goddess. I would be her new sponsor in the earth. And then she would grant me the strength to… to…”
He forced his eyes back to Petra, blinking rapidly, apparently reluctant to go on.
Petra said, “The power to have revenge on all those who mocked you and bullied you. More, the power to never be mocked or bullied ever again.”
“You don’t hate me, do you, Petra?” the young man said earnestly. “You always understood me. We always supported each other…”
She shook her head again, with sadness and betrayal. “I never really knew you at all. Did I?”
Odin-Vann gave a grimace. “Does anyone ever really know anyone else?”
James saw, with frustrating dismay, that this young man was not yet the manipulative mastermind that he would grow to become. And yet he was clearly toxic with power delusions and fantasies of revenge, dangerous more for his desperation than his power or intellect. James only hoped that Petra understood the same.
“You made yourself a fool, Don,” Petra sighed, confirming this.
“The Lady of the Lake won’t help you. She will only use you. That’s what she does. She uses, and manipulates, and lies. And then, when she is done, she kills.”
Young Odin-Vann nodded a little, and a tentative smile curled his lips. “She said that’s what some people would say. But she also said that you would be happy to be relieved of the burden of being her host.
I don’t know how you summoned her into the world, but I do know that you don’t want that responsibility anymore. We’re going to help you let go of it.”
Here, young Odin-Vann’s eyes switched to James, squinted with an insincere smile. “And this is young Mr. Potter, then, is it? The Lady told me about you as well.”
James felt anger well up in him. He drew his wand without even thinking. “I beat you once,” he said with iron conviction. “And I can do it again.”
“You beat me, you say?” Odin-Vann replied quickly, as if moderately impressed. “I don’t recall that. But I’ve been beaten by so very many. Beaten, and laughed at. But soon, the laughing will stop.
Even yours, Mr. James Potter. I hope you enjoyed your one victory. I think it will be your last.”
The confidence in his voice was puzzling. A split second too late did James realize what was happening. The stowaway young man was distracting him and Petra, keeping them talking, goading and occupying them for his own nefarious reason.
James turned back to the raging ocean behind them.