“Not in the middle of the afternoon.” She wrung her hands. “I need the dark.”
“We don’t have any extra sails, do we?” Markos asked me.
“Where would we put them?” I snapped. “Do you see a bowsprit?”
“You know I haven’t the faintest idea what a bowsprit is.”
We had no choice but to fight. I folded and unfolded my fingers, trying to calculate how long it would be until we were in range of their muskets. I hated this—the waiting. Cormorant’s bow was like a knife, slicing the thick damp air.
I glanced up at the pointed tip of the sail and realized with surprise that I couldn’t see it.
“Fog,” Fee said.
I popped up on my knees, then onto my feet. Alektor had completely disappeared into the gray mist.
Markos joined me, shivering. “Does bad weather usually come up this fast?”
“It can, this close to the sea.” It was odd though. The day hadn’t even been cloudy.
“Are we? Close to the sea?”
“Of course. The Neck is saltwater.”
A wet chill lay over the water. I could still see the chop of the waves and feel the wind on my face, but the land had vanished, and so had much of the Neck. I lifted the big clapper bell we used to ring out our position in foggy weather.
“Is that a good idea?” Kenté squinted into the murky fog. “Won’t they know where we are?”
“Would you rather get run down by a barge?” I clanged the bell. The Black Dogs were the least of my worries right now. We were far more in danger of running into a post or those rocks. “Dead by pirates or dead by shipwreck is still dead.”
Distantly I heard the sounds of other vessels—bells small and large, and one blaring horn. That was likely to be a seagoing ship, far out. It was hard to tell the direction of noises in a fog. If one of those bells was the Black Dogs, I didn’t know which.
Fee’s fingers tightened on the tiller. “Can’t see,” she whispered.
The posts marking out the channel were wraithlike in the fog, but I could see them. How was it that she, with her sharp eyesight, could not?
Fee’s long tongue darted out to lick her lips. She shook her head in defeat. “Anchor.”
If we anchored right there in the middle of the channel, a bigger ship might plow over us. The fog was thick, but I was sure we’d sailed in worse.
I pushed the bell into Kenté’s hands, and she glanced up, startled. “Ring this on the count of sixty,” I said.
A strange sense of exhilaration ran through me as I took the tiller. My worries about Alektor trickled away. I was at the helm of Cormorant. It felt right. Far off our starboard bow, a post stood in the mist. I adjusted course, pointing toward it.
Markos leaned out to peer around the cabin. “Fifty,” he counted. “Fifty-one. Fee thinks we should drop anchor.”
“It’s all right. I know where I’m going.”
“Caro, be reasonable. I can’t even see your hand on the tiller, and it’s three feet away.” His voice rose. “We’ll run into the piling or the cliff or … or …”
“I can do it.”
He and Kenté exchanged dark looks as she struck the bell. “How are you doing it?”
The post looked like a tall, thin ghost in the fog, but I could see waves striking its base. “It’s not that thick.”
“It is that thick.” He sounded exasperated. “It’s all just gray, as far as the eye can see.”
“Hang on, I’ve got to turn here.” I glanced up at the sail. “Post coming up.”
Markos gripped the cockpit trim, knuckles pale. His eyes dropped to meet Fee’s as she held on to the edge of her seat, her body braced. None of them trusted me. I ground my teeth. Well, all right. If this was the way they were going to be, I’d do it alone.
“Come about!” I called out, and Fee roused herself to help guide the boom over, flinching as she tightened the sheet around the cleat. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t going to hit anything.
“It’s letting up,” Markos said many minutes later.
I wiped sweat from my neck. Behind us fog hung like a great cloud descended from the sky, but ahead sun rays pierced the gray. Instead of only one post, I could see three. Markos was right. The fog was lifting. As I watched, a tiny gust of wind rippled the waves.
“I suppose that was your god at the bottom of the river,” Markos said. “Telling you where the posts were?”
I wished with my whole heart that it was true, but I’d been listening for small things this entire journey, and all I’d heard was a lot of nothing. Besides, it couldn’t have been the god in the river—or Fee would have been able to see through the fog too.
My chest clenched. “The god in the river tells me nothing.”
He gave me a quizzical look.
And so here we were. It is a scary thing, giving your truth to someone. But beyond that, I was reluctant to say it out loud, as if doing so would somehow make it final.
“Markos.” I paused, biting my lip. “I don’t hear the god.”
“But you said all the Oresteias are favored of the god. You said—”
My ears were warm. “I didn’t lie, exactly.” I wished I could sink to the bottom of the Neck. “The god in the river does speak to the Oresteias in the language of small things.” My voice wavered. “Just … not to me.”
“What about the fog?” He studied it, a thoughtful line appearing between his eyes. “That was obviously river magic. Magic of some kind anyway.” He turned to Kenté. “It wasn’t you, was it?”
She shook her head. “A shadowman works the magic of dark and light, sleep and awake. Not weather.”
“Shadowmen can make illusions,” Markos pointed out.
“True, but then it wouldn’t feel like a fog.” She shivered. “This one seemed cursed damp enough to me.”
The lower end of the Neck still lay in cloud. Alektor had been swallowed up. Meanwhile, off our bow, the city of Casteria sprawled along a white line of beach, close enough that I could clearly pick out individual buildings. The afternoon sun shone on the great stone arch of the Archon’s estate, while tiny sails dotted the harbor. We had made it.
I jumped up, passing the tiller to Fee. “I’m going to—to get the sail ready.”
I didn’t have to do anything to the sail, but only Fee knew that. She watched me scramble out of the cockpit, a strange look on her face. Sympathy—and something else I couldn’t name.
My eyes stung. I didn’t want her feeling sorry for me.
“If you don’t hear the river god, why didn’t you just say so before?” Markos persisted. I heard his boots on the deck behind me.
I walked faster. “Because I didn’t want it to be true.” Tears hovered in my eyes, but I fiercely blinked them away. “I’ll still get you to Casteria. We’re almost there, and I didn’t need any god to do it.”
“I know you will,” he said. “Caro, if what you say is true, this only means you’re more talented than I thought. If these other sailors hear the river, then how good must you be, to come so far without that advantage? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed,” I lied. “I don’t want to talk about it.”