“Do you have better last words to me that you’d like to deliver? You could share them now, in case things go south again.”
He puts his hand atop my knee, the blanket between us, and I suddenly feel like I’m tempting fate with this question. But then he says, “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, darling,” I return, stacking my hand over his, “you haven’t a thing to be sorry for.”
I’m still not hearing right, and it’s beginning to shift from irritating to worrisome. Percy’s voice is stifled, and my own is echoing backward in my head, like I’m speaking in a vast, empty hall. Maybe it’s the bandages that have everything muted, but when I snap my fingers next to my right ear—the one that is apparently no longer with me—it sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the room.
Which is when I realize.
I try to sit up and the room tips—it nearly knocks me straight back out. Percy grabs me before I keel over. “Easy.”
I manage to get one hand pressed over the ear I’ve got left, closing it up, and then snap again beside the missing one.
And it’s . . . nothing. No sound at all.
Percy is watching me, his eyebrows knit. “Is it gone?” he asks.
My throat’s feeling a bit wobbly, so I just nod.
It’s hitting me a lot harder than I feel it should. I’m quite lucky to be alive—shouldn’t be crying over losing the hearing in one ear. Percy seems to understand it, though—he slides an arm around my waist and lets me press the side of my face that isn’t minced meat against his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“S’all right,” I murmur, trying to sound mild as milk about it and failing spectacularly. “Could have been worse.”
“Yes. Could have been so much worse.” He laughs, the way Percy always does when something’s got him properly spooked. I can feel his heart beating through his chest, right up against mine. “I’m just so, so glad you’re alive.” His voice breaks a little on the last word, and he touches his lips to the top of my head, so soft it’s almost imaginary.
And I’m not certain what that is. But it isn’t nothing.
Oia, Santorini
30
After seven days at sea, the Eleftheria makes port in the small, mountainous island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. Its cliffsides are canvased in cave houses burrowed into the volcanic stone and whitewashed buildings domed in cobalt blue. Thatch-roofed windmills jut between them, their blades like rays of the sun. The sun itself is a vivid thing, brighter in this crook of the Continent. The whole world looks somehow brighter.
Scipio and his men stay with their ship, but he helps Felicity, Percy, and me find a flat on the cliffs above the sea, with its own cobalt dome and stone floors and a landlord friendly with the captain and willing to take our Italian lire. The rooms are sun warmed and clear, the courtyard crowded with fig trees around a small, laughing fountain. The sea seems everywhere.
The first few days feel packed and frantic, full of learning the land and selling the cargo and arranging supplies and repairs for the ship and looking for a proper doctor who speaks at least one of the languages we do and who can take a look at my face. It’s mostly been Felicity tending to me while we sailed from Venice—my hearing seems to have no inclination to return, and along with the bullet clipping my ear, I caught the discharge from the gun, which left thick speckled burns in random patches from my hairline to my collarbone. I haven’t seen myself in a glass yet, but I have a suspicion that the right half of my face will be off-colored and scarred for the remainder of my life.
My best feature, ruined.
“I don’t think you can claim your entire face as your best feature,” Felicity tells me. “You’re meant to be a bit more discerning.”
We’re at the table in the courtyard, Felicity unwrapping the bandages from my head so she can get a look at how everything is healing. When the Greek doctor came, every instruction he gave was met by a “Yes, I know” from Felicity, though Scipio didn’t translate those for him. He also complimented Felicity on her stitching, which she’s been crowing over ever since.
“Well, it’s difficult to choose when you have so many good options.” I swipe my hand at my right side, forgetting momentarily that the empty buzz that has replaced all other sound isn’t an insect I can swat away. “Fortunately my right ear was the less handsome of the pair.”
“Fortunately, or else you’d be devastated.”
A few months ago, I might have been. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t mourning the loss a wee bit. But we’re all still alive, and still together, so instead it feels strangely like luck.
Felicity lets the bandages fall into her lap atop her surgical kit, then does a careful inventory of my disfigurement. “It looks . . . better.”
“Your telling pause disagrees.”
“It does! The swelling’s gone down, though we need to watch for infection. Let’s leave the bandages off for a bit so it can breathe.” She squints for a moment longer, then says, with a bit of a smug smile, “That stitching of mine is rather impressive.”
“I’d say you’re quite good at this physician business as a whole.”
She looks up from packing her kit, eyes narrowing. “What are you doing? Oh no, are you trying to get along with me? Do we have to get along now?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Thank God.”
“Get along. Don’t be absurd.”
There’s a rap on the courtyard gate and Scipio steps into the garden, a coat thrown over his seaman’s duds though the heat is livid. “Good morning,” Felicity calls, sliding down the bench to make room for him. “We were just about to breakfast.”
“Where’s Mr. Newton?” Scipio asks as he joins us.
“Still abed,” I say. “How’s your darling ship and your cutthroat crew?”
“The crew and the ship are both anxious to be off,” Scipio says. He takes a mug from the spot waiting for Percy and pours himself lime-flower tea from the jug.
“You want to leave?” I ask as Felicity looks up.
“And we’d like you to be with us,” he says. “We’ll take you home, to England, and if Thomas Powell can indeed be persuaded to exercise his influence, collect our letters of marque. We’d like to sail with some legitimacy.”
“Home?” I ask, unable to keep my voice from pinching the word like a creased napkin. Here I was beginning to grow accustomed to this optimistic sunlight and exile-in-Eden business, and now we’re packing it in yet again, this time Britain bound. Back to Father. “How long before you go?”
He shrugs. “Four days. Before the week’s out, at the latest.”
“Can’t we stay a bit longer?” I ask. “I’ve just suffered a grievous injury, after all.”
Felicity’s eyes flick to mine. “Oh, you’re fine. I cleaned you up so well that not only will it heal, but the missing ear will do wonders for taming your ego.”
“Ho, there—” I must be sufficiently recovered, because Felicity has begun to feel it appropriate to begin needling me again.