We rode the rest of the way to the docks in a vast and airy silence. I felt empty, my body cold and light as the night breeze, and Kashmir’s face was still as stone. Once back aboard, the captain went back to his cabin and paused outside the door. “Think about it, Nixie.” Then, as though ashamed of his words, he opened the door swiftly and disappeared behind it.
I gripped the rail and stared at the mountains; they were steely as knives under the moon. The sound of laughter and music still drifted from town, and it grated on my ears. Kashmir came to stand beside me, putting his hand close enough to mine that I could feel the warmth of him. I folded my arms across my chest. “What should I do?” I said softly. “I don’t want to turn him in, but I don’t think he’ll stop otherwise.”
“I don’t think he’ll stop either way.” Kashmir shrugged one shoulder. “Why not help him?”
“What?”
“It’s very altruistic to try to save the kingdom, but this is not a fairy tale. He’s offering what you’d always wanted. Why not take it?”
“Kashmir.” Did he really not understand? “If the map works and . . . if I’d had a different life, we never would have met. You would have been cornered on that dock in Vaadi Al-Maas.”
He waved my words away, trying to look nonchalant; if I didn’t know him so well, I might have been fooled. “You shouldn’t worry about me, amira. You shouldn’t worry at all.”
“Why not?”
“Well. If we’d never met, neither you nor I would have known it could have been different. But even if the captain rewrites his own history, how could it affect your reality? I’m from a place you call a fairy tale, and I’m still here.”
“But . . . the Vaadi Al-Maas was real once. People believed in it.”
“I believe in you. Simple enough, right?” His smile was heartbreaking.
I pulled the pins out of my hair, letting it fall down in coils on my shoulders. Of course it wasn’t that simple, but I didn’t want to argue against his point. “Why should I take the risk?”
“He’ll take it for you, either way.”
“You’re not even angry,” I said with wonder. “How can you forgive him?”
“How can you hold it against him?” Kashmir returned. He shrugged off his jacket and folded it over his arm. “Love makes fools of us all. He has to believe it will work, because he’s in love.” He ran his hand through his hair, mussing the gel, and leaned against the railing, watching the full moon shimmer on the water. “And I have to believe it will not.”
I tried to read his face, but his eyes were a mystery. I pulled my shawl tighter around my shoulders. The silence was unbearable. “At least it seems like you had fun at the party,” I said finally.
He laughed a little. “Ah, yes. I did enjoy the dancing.”
“Mrs. Hart is quite a good dancer, I hear.”
Kashmir scoffed. “That woman. I’ve been chased by policemen with less tenacity. I tried to shake her on the lawn, but she found me coming out of the study. She very nearly dragged me into the drawing room by the collar. Thank all the gods she didn’t notice I was holding the map.”
“You certainly found a clever way to distract her.”
“It was necessity, I assure you. Nix,” Kashmir said, a smile creeping into his voice. “Are you jealous?”
“No!” Suddenly the whole dock seemed very quiet, the sound of many ears listening. Unasked for—and unappreciated—my brain reminded me of an Arab proverb: Jealousy is nothing but a fear of being abandoned. I lowered my voice, flustered. “I’m not jealous. I just don’t . . . I’m not jealous.”
“Oh. Good.” Kash bit his lip, but the ghost of his smile lingered. “I’d hate for you to be a fool, as well.”
We stayed there a long time, then, the only sound the water lapping on the pilings. Kashmir seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I didn’t—I couldn’t. Finally he took a deep breath. “Good night, amira.”
For a while after he left, my eyes wandered across the sky as though the answers were there. Then I dropped my shawl on the deck, kicked off my shoes, and gently removed the crimson lei from my neck. I hung it from the bar at the top of my hammock, then I lay down hard. The full moon swam like its own reflection in my vision.
Had I been too selfish? I had never known my mother, but I knew my life as it had been without her: the ship, the sea, the myths, the maps . . . and, yes, Kashmir. The pain I felt at the thought of losing him—the same pain that kept me at arm’s length—gave me a hint of my father’s own struggle.
But what if I could Navigate? I could forget about my father and his search and finally be free to do—and to feel—whatever I wanted. And all that it would cost was a king’s ransom.
I buried my head in my pillow. Kashmir had been right about one thing. This wasn’t a fairy tale.