Chapter 5 #2
I stay silent but snatch the bag from her and throw it over my shoulder.
The woman smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Ms. Damarcus, you will serve on the Celestial for as long as it takes to achieve your retrial, or you may age out of the process before that happens. You have four years to earn a retrial.”
No part of me wants to be aboard for four years. “Okay—”
“I’m not done.” The woman continues reading from a list of rules. “Retrials take place four times a year, and they accept three applicants each time.”
My stomach lurches, and I grab hold of Specter’s saddle to steady myself.
My eyes pass over the hundreds of staff members loading luggage.
There’s got to be hundreds more already aboard, preparing the ship for its next departure.
I swipe my tongue over dry lips and force my mouth to move. “How is that fair?”
The woman pats the list. “I don’t make the rules, darling.”
My head’s spinning, and I really wish there was somewhere to sit.
If there are hundreds aboard—maybe even a thousand—and three get to do a retrial each quarter, then that means twelve Morphics get a retrial a year.
Twelve. Father never mentioned this. I never bothered to ask anyone who’d been a staff member before me.
I’m starting to wonder what else he forgot to tell me about this place.
Unaware or unconcerned by my disbelief, the woman hands me a small slip of paper with the name of another staff member and a room number.
“You’re here to work, not to enjoy the ship,” she reminds me.
“You’ll serve the guests to the best of your ability and hopefully earn a retrial within four years.
If not, we’ll extract your Morphia in the port when you disembark for the final time.
While aboard, you will donate your Morphia to the ship’s stores.
Daily donations from staff help power the magic on the ship, as well as keep it strong enough to contain the Morphia from extractions.
” She raises her arm to indicate the massive cruise ship.
“We have this ship to thank for keeping dangerous Morphia contained and distanced to minimize the risk of harm to our cities and residents.”
Not to mention, keeping Morphics out of their lands. With my mind tossing and turning like a stormy sea, it occurs to me she hasn’t mentioned how to earn a retrial. “How—”
“Ivander will explain everything else to you.” She cuts me off again. I look down at the crumpled slip in my hand. Ivander. The staff member I’m assigned to for the day. Great. No last name. I’m sure that will make them easy to find.
I catch a whiff of sweat and soiled clothes and realize the smell’s coming from me. The thought of the men and women boarding in their elegant, perfumed clothes makes my ears burn. “Is there somewhere I can make myself more presentable?”
She laughs. “You’ll be out in the sun a bit longer, anyway. No use getting clean. Besides, there’s no time. You start work immediately.”
Anger clenches in my gut, but I push it down. This woman’s doing her job, and I’ve spent days riding without washing before. I just didn’t expect to board the freaking Celestial with my armpits stinking like one of my corpses.
With a false smile of my own, one I learned from Mother, I pat Specter’s flank. “Is there somewhere I can have him boarded while he waits for me to get back?”
The woman’s face falls, and a somber twinge darkens her eyes.
“Oh dear, you still think you’re coming home soon.
” She pulls from a stack of rectangular wooden cards beside her chair.
“Made by crafters,” she says. “Write where you want to send him on the surface of the card and slip it in his saddle. He’ll find his way home. ”
She hands me a quill, and I write Lysandra Jamison’s farm on the surface, although the quill makes no mark as I write.
I brush Specter’s broad white face and slip the card into his saddle.
The stallion snorts and nudges his nose against my cheek.
The gesture makes my throat tight. With a short whinny, Specter shifts his weight and turns back in the direction we came.
I try not to envy him for getting to leave. As I watch his long tail swishing as he retreats, I wish I could talk to Lysandra. She’d give me the no-nonsense advice I need to hold my head up in this place.
The woman clicks her tongue. “Get a move on, girl. You’re holding up the line.”
I step out of the way and run a finger over the paper in my hand. STAFF MEMBER: IVANDER. STAFF BUNK: ROOM 306.
I hold my hand over my eyes to block out the sun and squint at the staff scurrying like ants. They direct guests over the elegant gangway and haul luggage and port supplies over a separate wooden gangway at the back of the ship.
With a heavy sigh, I start walking up and down the lines of staff members.
As I elbow between them and dodge passing carriages, I call out for Ivander every few minutes.
Each staff member I approach either gives me a hard stare and looks away, or smirks when they hear the name and says, “Good luck.”
Surly or friendly, it doesn’t matter. Not a single person stops long enough to help me. Finally, with sweat dripping down my back and wisps of hair sticking to my face, I pause to catch my breath, leaning against a barrel of what I assume is wine.
“You going to help or are you just going to sit?” A smooth voice startles me, and I whirl over my left shoulder to look at the young man whose raised brows suggest I better start helping.
Droplets of sweat cling to his deep brown skin as his eyes—like crackling wood over a fire, brown with flecks of gold—sweep up and down my rumpled clothes.
Although he wears the same uniform as the others, his vest has elegant silver swirls that move over the fabric like water, forming new patterns the longer I stare.
“I’m looking for someone,” I snap, the exhaustion from the two-day ride catching up with me.
He crosses muscular arms over his chest, jostling a bag slung over his right shoulder. The sharp angles of his face catch the light of the beaming sun. “Doesn’t seem like you’re looking. Seems like you’re taking a break.”
His mouth turns up at the edges like he finds it funny.
I step away from the barrel, standing up straight.
Something about his clothes looking pristine while mine smell like actual death sets my teeth on edge.
“Excuse me? I don’t know who you think you are, but you have no right to tell me what I should be doing. ”
“Do I not?” He reaches down and grabs a bag, hauling it into a pile nearby. “I’ve been here longer than you. Maybe I’m someone you should listen to.”
Now he’s trying to scare me. It’s the same heckling I got on the first few nights of boarding school.
Eliza warned me the older kids would try to frighten me with tales of what happens to new students on their first nights, but they were wrong to try to intimidate a Morphic who can raise the dead.
“Fine,” I huff. “I’ve been cooking in this sun looking for the same person for over an hour with no help from anyone. If you really want to help me—”
“When did I say I wanted to help you?” He drops another bag in the pile as his lips pull into a grimace. “You think you’re the only one out here sweating? Don’t blame the others for not stopping their work. Everyone tries to stand out on the first day of a new charter.”
I bite my tongue to keep from snapping back at him. Maybe I shouldn’t have let the stress of the day rule me, but now he’s going out of his way to be unhelpful.
He turns from me and angles a barrel labeled POTATOES on its side.
He rolls it over to the supply pile across from the luggage, narrowly missing my toes.
“As it happens, I’m looking for someone too.
A new recruit. Some arrogant girl with a rich family who’s hoping to steal our spots. Couldn’t be you, could it?”
Shoulders slumping, I resist the urge to turn and run. This isn’t the start I had in mind. “You’re Ivander?” Of course he is. “Glad to meet you.”
He nods. “Ivander Harpyrian.” He points out over the mass of staff members. “I’m going to tell you something. Every single one of them is looking to earn a spot for a retrial. Most of us are. And the odds don’t look as good for us. We don’t all have famous names to hide behind.”
My stomach drops into my toes at his icy tone.
He thinks I’ll get special treatment because of my family name and be on my way back home in a few weeks.
Bold assumption to make. My father didn’t even want me to come here.
My Morphia would be gone already if it were up to my family.
Before I can arrange a coherent argument, Ivander moves on.
He reaches with painted-black fingernails into the bag over his shoulder.
“Here’s your uniform. I’ll be helping you until you get a guest assignment.
” I wrinkle my nose at the word “helping.” He glances up from beneath dark lashes as I take the uniform.
I stay a few paces back so he doesn’t smell the mixture of sweat and anxiety wafting from me.
“I’m a shifter. I work with the performers. Aerial arts,” he clarifies.
So that’s why his clothes look better than mine.
He can change aspects of his appearance.
I notice a bandage laced around his hand and another peeking out from beneath his pant leg.
Like all shifters, he pays a price of physical injury for shifting.
I’m a little distracted by the idea of him swinging on a hanging curtain of silk, muscles rippling in the stage lights.
I get the sense I’m supposed to respond. “Resurrector. Roe Damarcus.”
“I know who you are.” Ivander raps his nails against a barrel ready to be loaded onto the gangway. “Famous father couldn’t save you, huh?”
The hairs on the back of my neck bristle. My father couldn’t save me from my trial, and he can’t save me from this either. When I don’t say anything, his voice lowers, and he waves a hand to indicate the staff members around us. “First thing to remember. They’re not bad people. They’re just here.”
His words seep into my skin and dull the ache in my chest. Since I left home, I’ve been feeling like a prisoner headed to the gallows.
Like a girl who murdered someone in her sleep and can’t remember why she’s being punished.
I thought I could control the spirits until two days ago.
His words give me permission to forgive myself, if only a little.
Ivander gestures elegantly at the ship, wasting no time in overwhelming me with rules.
“You’ve got to remember that’s a prison, not a playhouse.
Not for us. For the guests, this is their chance to experience real magic.
” He places a hand on his chest. “But we’re prisoners here.
Whether we’re right or wrong. Good or bad. ”
Most of the staff members look disheveled and exhausted, but not Ivander.
Definitely not Ivander. I look away before I can get stuck on the defined angle of his jaw.
I must look more like the others. The thought terrifies me.
Now I’m one of the desperate staff members Mother would be nervous to approach.
But like it or not, I did fail my trial, just like everyone here.
Staff might be treated like prisoners here, but those are the rules I’ll have to follow to make it through this.
I don’t want to live among the dangerous Morphics like they do in Gryndar.
I don’t say any of that, though, and instead ask the question that’s been on my mind since check-in. “How do I earn a retrial?”
Ivander holds up a finger and the tip of his painted nail extends into a talon.
He wags it in my face, a little too close to my nose.
I shrink back to avoid the sharp point. “I’m not done.
There are rules.” He ticks them off on each taloned finger.
“Don’t piss off the bosses. Don’t piss off the guests.
And don’t forget to donate your Morphia when asked.
” He must see my lip curl because he continues.
“They don’t bleed you dry or anything. Just take enough to power the ship and help keep the Morphia aboard contained. ”
“Easy as that?” I ask with an edge. None of this sounds easy at all.
He ignores me and claps his hands together. “Right, then. You’re going to help me with the luggage.” With that, he heads in the direction of the gangway where guests board.
I scurry after him. As we approach the guests handing over luggage, their noses wrinkle as they look at me.
My cheeks burn. Ivander, however, flashes a wide smile I’ve never seen before.
Clearly, he saves the charm for the guests.
We stand to the right side, greet the guests, and collect their luggage before they board the gangway.
“Let me take that for you, Madam Karmyne,” Ivander says with a relaxed smoothness I long to steal.
It’s as if he’s trying to exaggerate my incompetence.
He takes an immense rectangular suitcase from the woman’s servant.
The woman, wearing a heavy sapphire dress and a wide-brimmed traveling hat, smiles.
“Are you here for a week or a month this time?” Ivander asks.
The woman touches his arm with a gloved hand. “Sadly, just a week,” she says. “But we’ll make the most of it.”
“You better come visit me at the theater,” he says.
She turns to me. “You’re lucky to learn from Ivander. He’s always our favorite staff member. I’ve been saying it since last year.”
I force a smile. Last year. Ivander’s the best, and he’s already been here at least a year. Panic and dizziness come together to make my legs heavy and my vision spotty.
Ivander continues placing bags in a neat pile for other staff members to take to the luggage plank.
His pleasant chitchat sounds like the far-off buzz of insect wings.
My lips go numb, and my head swims when he says my name.
He must be introducing me to one of the guests.
I have no idea. The world’s spinning, and I hold out my arms vaguely when he tells me to.
“Roe will take your bags, Lord Benefor. She’ll be careful with them. ”
Before I can tell him it’s a bad idea, Lord Benefor plops a heavy trunk in my outstretched arms. As my knees buckle and arms give way, the trunk plummets to the ground, smashing in an earsplitting cacophony of antique glass shattering and a lord yelling.
Well, shit.