Chapter 20
I gritted my teeth, the pain searing through my skull as I forced my energy through my eye and into the loupe.
“Good?” I gasped,
“Hmm…” Xander leaned in, squinting as he stared at me through the loupe like I was some kind of bug in a jar. He stood that way for an unbearably long time before saying, “Yeah, looks good. Go ahead and release it.”
Air flooded into my lungs as I took my first breath in what felt like hours. “Gods,” I panted, shoving the loupe across the table. “Does the pain ever go away?”
“Pain?” Xander looked up from the notebook he’d been scribbling in and cocking his head. “It can definitely be kind of taxing, but it shouldn’t hurt to use it.”
“Well it does. It’s fucking excruciating, actually.”
“Hmm…strange.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “Hopefully it’ll go away with training. We’ll keep an eye on it.”
“So what did you see?” I glanced down at the notebook.
The haze over my vision had begun to fade, and I squinted over at him.
Every Tideblessed could be trained to see magic in others in the way I’d managed at the pirates’ gathering, according to Xander.
Most magic wasn’t flashy like Tink’s fairy dust that was a sparkly spray of gold, but more like a pulse of energy and power that required concentration to see.
Clearly, Hook had done the work as well, which was likely how he’d noticed my connection with Fetch.
Maybe the skill wasn’t limited to just Tideblessed.
Maybe that was how Relyk had first flagged me as a person of interest back in Alabaster. ..
“You’re strong,” Xander continued. “I see so much power in you.”
I didn’t feel strong. Unlocking a ring or steering a ship didn’t seem like much compared to what I’d seen from truly powerful Whispers.
An image of the shimmering purple wall Tink had managed to conjure appeared in my mind.
It’d stretched as far as the eye could see, blocking cannonballs as if they were the wads of paper my step-brothers had loved to spit through wooden tubes at passersby.
“I… I’ve seen people do things with their Whis— Tideblessings that are so far beyond me that it’s hard to imagine catching up.
What good is tinkering or communicating with my falcon if they can blast me to bits with the wave of a hand? ”
“Not everything is a straight up fight, Harm. There are plenty of ways to defeat an enemy before they even know you’re fighting.” His hand whipped out, faster than I could react, and the tip of his middle finger snapped lightly into my forehead as he flicked me.
I reeled back, shooing him away as I remembered the pulsing, black void rolling through The Speaker’s forest, chasing after me as if it was alive rather than just a hole in reality.
“You got away this time, but make no mistake. Soon enough I’ll get you my pretty, and your little bird, too!”
My enemy wasn’t one I could beat with sleight of hand.
“Is that how you slipped that needle into Davy? The one that kept him from being able to use his magic?”
He grinned and clapped his hands together in miniature applause.
“You caught that, did you? That’s good. Few would have, if any.
I had a feeling that there was something…
different about your magic. It’s not specialized, like mine or the others.
You’re a better tinker and falconer than anything else right now, for sure.
But I don’t think you’ve even tapped your potential.
It’s as if you could call on the energy for… well, anything.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?”
“Honestly? Carnie’s intuition,” he answered with a shrug. “But I’ve never been wrong before.”
“Does that mean I can do anything that anyone else can?” I asked, locking eyes with him.
“Not quite, but something close. There’ll probably be some things you’re good at and others that you can hardly manage, but you have far more than the little taste of magic that the rest of us get. It’s exceptional…”
The Speaker had said something similar back in Alabaster, and based on how things were progressing, it was getting hard to argue. My magic, whatever it was, was unknown. And, I was starting to believe it might be something special.
I sucked in a breath, absorbing this new information.
Ever since I’d seen the worm holes that followed me throughout my journey in Alabaster, I’d had the sense that my enemy was unfathomably powerful, and I was woefully outmatched.
With Xander’s belief in my potential, for the first time, I felt like I might have a fighting chance.
“What about your Tideblessing mark…what does that look like?”
I gnawed on my lower lip and shook my head, hoping this confession wasn’t going to make waves. “Don’t know. I don’t think I have one.”
He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Interesting. Or maybe you did and it was somehow erased or removed…” His face cleared and he shrugged. “In any case, I’m happy to keep working with you and seeing if we can unlock your potential.”
That was a relief. I felt like we were getting somewhere and that something was about to shift when it came to my Whisper, but I couldn’t put my finger on what or why.
Xander stepped to the other side of the table, sliding the three cups into position. “One more time.”
I suppressed a groan, forcing out a nod. We’d spent the better part of the morning on this same exercise, and I’d thought we were done with it when he’d asked me to focus my energy into the loupe so he could study my magic. But apparently not.
“Is this actually the last time?” I flashed a half smile despite my annoyance. Not like we had anything better to do on our sail back to see Garth.
“Depends whether you see it.” He let the coin drop to the table. “Now let’s go.”
A blur of flesh and the white of the ceramic mug flashed over the coin as he leapt into action, and it never slowed down. His hands whipped from side to side, the glint of the golden coin flashing all around as he slid it from cup to cup.
The ache crept back into my temples as I fixated on him, but the whirlwind of hands came to a stop just before it became truly unbearable.
I held out a trembling finger, holding my breath as I jabbed it toward the center cup. “There.”
He lifted the cup with a flourish, and my heart sank to my stomach as he revealed the empty patch of oak that’d been sitting under the cup. But, unlike all the previous times when he’d grabbed the coin and gotten ready to start again right away, he lifted the other two cups as well. Both empty.
“Where’s—”
A flash of gold glinted as he flipped his hand over, showing that the coin was sitting on his palm. “Good choice even so.” He winked. “I only moved it out of that cup at the last second. Can’t have my student showing me up this fast.”
I rolled my eyes, but slumped into the chair. “Good for the day, then?”
“Today was mostly just about assessing your powers. We’ll work on it more in the coming days, but I want you practicing in the meantime.” He turned, stuffing his hand into the pouch he’d laid on my bed at the start of the day’s lesson. When it emerged, he was holding a braided leather whip.
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
His emerald-green eyes were almost solemn as he unfolded the weapon, letting the spiked tip clatter to the wooden floor below.
“You need to learn to defend yourself, and this is the best weapon I know of for someone like you to use. Even if you learned to imbue a sword with magic, you wouldn’t want to get into a contest of strength with someone twice your size.
But with a whip, you’ll be able to keep them at bay, never letting them use raw power to their advantage. ”
“I— Thank you.” I found myself strangely touched by the thought he’d put into it.
He pulled it just out of reach as I moved to take it.
“Don’t bother trying to swing it just yet.
I’ll teach you that part later. For now, just focus on trying to imbue it with your magic.
It might be harder than it is with the loupe, but you’re more than capable of doing it.
Just… spend time fixating on it, getting to know how the handle feels in your hand, learning the sounds it makes when it flexes and bends, memorizing the smell of the leather. ”
I stared back at him, cocking an eyebrow. “Uhh, okay?”
“I know it sounds stupid, but it really helps.” He flicked his coin high into the air, snapping it out of the air with his other hand a few feet above his head without so much as a glance.
“I’ve had this coin since I was in the circus.
Can do tricks with her that I’d never manage with a different one. ”
I nodded, still taken aback by the sudden shift in mood. “Makes sense. I’ll work on it in the ways you suggested.”
“Let’s meet up again in a couple days, then.
By then, you should be ready to try swinging it.
” He held the weapon out hesitantly, letting out a breath as I took it.
His lips turned back upward into a smile as I took it, and he clapped his hands together.
“Great. We had a productive first lesson. Looking forward to seeing what you can manage when we meet for our next one.”
I nodded, squeezing down on the grip of the weapon. It’d looked unwieldy and small in his spindly fingers, but it was quite comfortable in mine. As strange as he’d been acting, the mood had shifted, now, and I decided to leave it for another day.
He turned toward the cabin door, reaching down to grab his pouch off of the bed. “See you then.”
“Wait,” I interjected, a little more forcefully than intended.
“Hmm?”
“I wanted to ask you a couple questions that have been on my mind.”
He drew back and nodded reluctantly.
“Go ahead, then.”
“The captain…he’s obviously Tideblessed, but I can’t figure out what his blessing is. I know it’s something with water…and maybe the wind? Some sort of all-encompassing nature thing?”
Xander locked on something in the distance over my shoulder as he scrubbed a hand over his jaw.
“It’s complicated. I know you’re technically part of the crew now, but it’s not information he shares willy nilly. He has too many enemies to be telling the world how to best him, you know what I mean? When he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”
He didn’t say it in a mean way, but this tone left no doubt; That particular topic of discussion was closed.
“Well, can you at least tell me more about his rivalry with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell…I know he hates them, but he made it seem like it goes deeper than just the battle for the clock. He seems to think they’re flat out evil. Is he right?”
He turned slowly to face me, flashing a wry grin.
“Moll already tried this—and much more convincingly than you, I might add. It’s hard to deny her anything when she puts those big blue eyes on you, innit?
” He paused for a moment but continued just as I was about to press.
“Look, all I’ll say is this: You shouldn’t feel sorry for either of them.
Pan had a hard life growing up, but the pair of them deserve whatever comes their way.
If you want more than that, then you’ll have to go back to the Captain.
He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had, and I won’t share something with you that he hasn’t seen fit to share himself. ”
Continuing this line of questioning was a risk. I’d made a friend in the first mate, and he was doing me a great favor by mentoring me. I didn’t want him to pull away. But I couldn’t stop thinking about sassy little Cissy, sweet, sickly Caleb, and Tristan with the chip on his shoulder.
I had to try one more time.
“I get that. But it’s possible to love someone who’s bad. People do it all the time. Are you sure you’re backing the right horse, Xander?” I paused, gnawing on the inside of my cheek as his shoulders stiffened. “There are children involved.”
He shot me a hard stare and then opened his mouth as if to answer for a fraction of a second before snapping it shut. “Like I said. If you want to know more, go talk to Hook. That’s the last we’ll speak of it, lass.”
He walked away and I was left watching him go, wishing I’d kept my stupid mouth shut.
I had precious few friends here and couldn’t afford to be alienating a single one right now. Did that mean I was going to give up trying to get the information I desperately needed? Absolutely not. It just meant I had to be a little stealthier in order to acquire it.
Hook had secrets that could alter the path of this journey, and I was going to uncover them.
One way or another.