Unused to the violence of the waves, she fumbles for ropes and beams to guide her—ten paces to the hatch, seven rungs down the ladder. Belowdecks, no one can stand to his full height, and certainly not Isbe, who is as tall as many of the men and feels a bruise forming on her forehead to prove it. She ducks, using her hands to trace the rough-hewn sides of the narrow bunks until another hand wraps around hers, silently indicating for her to stop.
It’s Gilbert, already lying in his bunk. Even out at sea, he still smells faintly of leather and fresh hay. She climbs onto the hard bunk below his. Though she’d hate to admit it, there’s no way she could make this journey alone . . . she can’t even find her own bed without help.
Her bones hurt. Her head feels heavy, her body tight and cramped. She longs for an open field to ride through, for the earth’s quantity of steadiness. And for peace of mind. Every night Isbe has been turning over her plan and the many ways it might go wrong. Getting into the palace shouldn’t be hard. Traders and messengers are constantly coming and going, and Isbe knows her way around a palace. But what if she’s stopped before gaining conference with the prince himself? Or what if he rejects her plea? What if he agrees to help but it’s already too late? Gil was right—this is a foolish, wild mission.
The vessel creaks and groans. Waves beat against it. Sleep undulates around her, a dark water.
. . . Arms are rocking her. A voice sings. One night so mild, before break of morn. The words are in her blood, thrumming in her ears—except part of her remains awake, aware that the words to the famous lullaby about Belcoeur and Malfleur usually say “reviled,” not “so mild.”
Still the song goes on, swirling around her: Amid the roses wild, all tangled in thorns, the shadow and the child together were born. She is cradled. She is small. She is warm, helpless, held. But then the voice, soft and not quite recognizable, changes key.
The girl and her twin
As sisters did play
’Til darkness did win
The light from the day.
Isbe tosses in her sleep. That isn’t the version of the lullaby she knows—the version everyone knows. The meaning of the new words swims inside her, confusing her. It’s not entirely different, but the phrases have been rearranged and altered in her dream. Play . . . the two girls are playing. That’s not part of the original song. How does it usually end? One her dear twin forever did slay.
Tears fall on her skin. She is rocked, cradled, dreaming but not dreaming. Something in the voice. Who is singing? Mama, Isbe wants to cry out, but she cannot speak, and the desire rips through her chest, a stabbing pain.
Isabelle, the voice sighs. My sweet Isabelle. My sweet . . .
“Leopold. LEOPOLD. ISBE!”
Gil is hovering over her as she wakes; she can feel his breath on her cheek. He is shaking her, addressing her with the fake boy’s name they decided on.
The world around her convulses. Even in the roiling cabin, she can smell that it is still night. She can only have been asleep an hour or two. But the sailors are rustling and shouting and moving about, clambering up the ladder. Is it a storm?
She sits up, banging her head against the upper bunk. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know. Come on,” Gil says, pulling her up.
They stumble toward the ladder. Isbe’s whole body is shaking with excitement. And something else too—the memory of that dream, that voice. She hasn’t had a mother dream in years, but she used to have them a lot. They always leave her feeling light-headed and hot. She never before realized how strange it was that there are two separate versions of the rose lullaby: the one everybody knows, and the one she just heard in her dream. Her mother, whoever she was, must have sung her own version to Isbe as a baby. Maybe she simply didn’t like the gruesome nature of the original.
A sound of clattering rings out above, as though the twenty men have tripled. Her hands grip the rungs. She hears the captain hollering to the rest: “A pod! ’Sa whole host of ’em, an nars too!”
Gil turns and shouts down at her, his voice crackling like a lit match: “Narwhals.”
Above deck, all is chaos, and Isbe gets instantly turned around. She is shuffled this way and that. She falls to her knees. The vessel rears up like a giant startled horse. Men are screaming directions at one another. The rack of weapons clangs loudly as they grab for spears. She thinks of the foreign weapon rigged to the helm, and its name and purpose emerge out of all those days spent learning from Aurora, not just about fascinating devices used for warfare but also those used for hunting. This one could slay enormous sea creatures, from five feet long to thirty.
A harpoon.
She scrambles to her feet, feeling like such a fool for not realizing sooner: all these men and all these weapons . . . this isn’t just a merchant vessel bearing oil from one shore to another. It’s an active whaling ship.
And now they’ve discovered a pod of narwhals, which are among the most treasured creatures of the sea because of their long, unicornlike tusks. Isbe remembers Aurora telling her the famous White Throne—on which the North Faerie was murdered years ago—was carved and constructed solely from their ivory.
“Isbe!” she hears, and Gilbert grabs her arm again.
“What is that sound?” she shouts, trying to understand why it’s as though sixty men, and not twenty, are pounding across the deck.
“Drums.”
Isbe pauses, understanding. “To lure the animal.”
Through the noise, she can hear the captain shouting “All hands!” A thrill flies through her, and she hardly feels the cold wind lashing her. She used to think adventure was sneaking out her window to play in the fields with Gil. Or stealing strips of meat from the kitchens to try and lure the sharp-toothed foxes in the royal forest. But for the first time since leaving the palace, it strikes her how far she has come. With the roar of the sea in her ears and the violent sway of the boat beneath her, she realizes that the very notion of adventure is a lie, for it predicts an arc that ends in its hero triumphing over challenge. This? This is no adventure; this is life, pure and raw, and she can feel the difference, can taste it—its elation and its terror, but most of all, its wild uncertainty.
“Iz,” Gil whispers close to her ear.
Her hands find his. She feels the strength of his arms and shoulders as he tries to steady them both, to steer her back toward the shelter of the hatch. The boat sways and they stumble together; her back hits a low wall. He pulls her down to the floor again, leaning over her, protecting her from the spray and the wind and the sailors pushing past them.
He puts a rope in her hands. “Stay here. Hold this. Wait for me.”
“But—”
His hands are on her shoulders, on her chin, cupping her face. “Wait here.” The whisper is so quiet and yet so clear, it is like a cloak finding its hook.
She pulls him closer. They cling to each other and she finds his ear. “Gil . . . what are you . . .”