Chapter 13
As the five of us head to see the bosses that evening, I explain to Alana, Zora, and Isla what we witnessed on the top deck.
Isla lets out a whistle. “I’d rather eat hot dung than jump off this ship with a pair of craft-project wings strapped to my arms.”
Zora nudges her shoulder. “Those wings are well-made. They kept them in the air even with the wind, didn’t they?”
“But there shouldn’t have been any wind,” I say. They may be used to these anomalies, but I’m not. “There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.”
The lines move fast tonight. The bosses must be overwhelmed with preparations for the mid-cruise ball. Preparations that continue regardless of the events of today.
“Don’t worry about what you can’t change,” Isla says. “We’ll get to have fun tomorrow night. Top deck party, remember?”
Alana groans. “That’s a bad idea. What if the bosses—”
“Shhh,” Isla hisses. “The bosses don’t care as long as we do our jobs at the ball.” After a pause, she adds, “But I still don’t want them to know about it, so hush.”
“You’re still planning it after what happened?” I ask.
Isla shrugs. “Everything here is a risk. May as well take one that involves Lixor.” Isla mimes taking a deep drink from her imaginary glass, earning an exasperated look from Zora.
The closer I get to the front of the line, the more I wonder if I’ll get a free pass today. After all, I did save some guests’ lives.
But when Boss Stellan beckons me forward, I know that’s wishful thinking. I hand him my empty jar of Morphia and climb into the chair. It’s the same thing every night. I wait, and they figure out some new way to punish me.
Tonight, he doesn’t take out a knife.
He kneels beside my chair as I donate Morphia.
His dark hair falls in his shadow-rimmed eyes.
When he smiles at me, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
The longer I look at him, the more his eyes sink into his face.
The more his gleaming white teeth look like rows upon rows of fangs resting in bloody gums. Blood trickles from his eyes and nose, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
I swallow hard, resisting the urge to jump out of my chair and run. “Is there something I can do for you?”
Stellan brushes his hand across his mouth, wiping the blood from his lips before it can fall.
The exposed bone of his fingers gets caught in the open wound on his face.
I swallow hard to keep from gagging. “We’ve had trouble with you.
You fight back. We’ve received multiple complaints about your work.
” He shrugs. “You don’t respond to punishments, so we’ve decided to use something you will respond to. ”
I push myself into an upright seated position. I can’t take much more stress today. Stellan leans even closer, hot breath steaming my cheek.
He reaches into his pocket and removes a potion in a crusted brown jar. It looks nothing like the jars of glowing Morphia, and my mouth dries when he holds it out to me. “Drink.”
It’s not an invitation. It’s a command. Careful to avoid contact with his rotting fingers, I take it without thinking but pause. It smells like rotting fish on the lakeshore. One withering look from Stellan warns me to drink before he forces it down my throat.
It doesn’t taste as bad as it smells, but the liquid is thick and strangely hot. I gag but force myself to swallow. For a moment, nothing happens. I wring my hands in my lap, waiting for intense pain.
I feel nothing until the scene changes.
I’m no longer sitting in a metal chair in the storage room. I’m running in a snowy forest, boots sinking into the icy drifts. My breath comes in ragged gasps under a wave of fear so intense it threatens to bring me to my knees. A voice in my head tells me I must keep moving.
Hot blood drips onto the snow in the forest around me. I press my fingers to my abdomen. Sticky and wet. A shot of pain runs through me as I cover the wound, but it’s not my hand. It’s my brother’s.
A ragged scream tears through my trembling lips.
I’m not sure how, but I know I’m feeling what Leith felt when he died.
His fear. His pain. I turn, narrowly avoiding a tree in my way.
My heart’s beating so hard I think it might burst, but I don’t stop.
I can’t stop. My fingers explore the flesh of my abdomen and massage the frayed skin.
Tender to the touch. Shirt drenched in red, copper-smelling blood.
The urge to glance behind me dies under the horrible fear of whatever I’ll see.
Darkness cloaks my surroundings, making every tree look like a shadowy person reaching out to grab me.
Every branch tugging at my clothes slows me down.
The rhythmic crunch of boots stamping through snow confirms I’m not alone. I’m being stalked.
My head spins from blood loss. There’s a sound from behind me. Something like the creak of a bowstring. White-hot pain shoots through my lower back, and I fall. Darkness edges my vision. I’m scared. So scared … So alone …
The experience dissolves, and I’m back in the chair.
My chest heaves, and I glance wildly around. My hands grip the metal armrests, knuckles white. Tears wet my cheeks. I can’t speak. It’s not real. Nothing I saw was real. We never knew how Leith died. I couldn’t resurrect him and give myself or my family that closure.
There’s no way Stellan could have known, but not knowing what’s actually true is harder. It means that fear might have been real.
With blood roaring in my ears, I climb out of the chair, shaking.
Stellan laughs, a sound like the scratch of talons against wood. “You’re free to go.”
I don’t look at anyone and fold my arms tight over my chest. I keep my head down and run from the room.
With no good memories to keep me company, I call out to my brother.
Tears stream down my face as I run through hallways that morph into a sticky swamp bog.
The walls are overgrown with vines and palm fronds, and yellow-green grasses sprout from the floor with thick snakes slithering through them, flicking forked tongues.
I hop over them, grateful for my uniform boots.
A snake with a triangle-shaped head lunges for my calf, and I dodge out of the way only to learn my foot’s stuck.
Mud sucks at my boots, black and tar-like.
Panic tightens my chest, and I twist in the shoe, ejecting my foot as the snake misses my pantleg by a hair length.
I don’t have time to grab my shoe. The snap of jaws behind me reminds me of the scaled beasts with long jaws and sharp teeth I saw on a family trip to the province of Gorthe. They’re getting closer.
Speeding up, I leap to the stairs. One flight. Two flights. All the while, calling out to Leith. I search for the connection I have to the spirit world, yearning for his smile, his laugh.
I end up at the theater without realizing it. When I throw open the double doors, it’s eerily quiet. I’m used to Ivander beating me here, but I appreciate the time to remove my remaining boot and walk barefoot to the stage in silence.
I sit on the stage and recline so I’m lying on my back, gazing up at the battens and border curtains overhead.
With slow, deep breaths, I try to calm myself.
It takes several minutes for my heart to slow and the tears on my cheeks to dry.
I sit up with a shaky breath but freeze as I realize I’m not alone.
There are three people sitting in the audience.
They must have seen me come in, but I sprint to the side of the stage anyway and peer out from behind the wings.
Every time Ivander and I have come here, we’ve been alone.
Now that I’m safe behind the curtains, I can get a closer look.
The four people are about my age. Two of them lean back with their legs propped on the seats in front of them.
A girl paces down the row of seats. She’s wearing a deep blue skirt with a black button-up blouse.
Luckily, they’re just staff members. Their voices echo in the theater. They don’t bother trying to keep quiet.
“I’m so over this,” one of the seated staff members groans. Dark hair falls in his face, but he pushes it back to reveal a flesh-eaten hole in the side of his cheek, as if someone poured an acidic potion onto his bare skin. I clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle my gasp.
The girl pacing shakes her head. “Charmaine is such a bitch. She should never have touched you.”
“She’s jealous,” one of the other boys says.
“What? It’s true. One of the older staff members told me.
Said she used to be a crafter. She was one of the best a decade ago and was all set to get her own stall in the Kalenar Crafter Fair once she passed her trial.
Only, she didn’t pass. Whatever she crafted killed one of the judges.
Her Morphia was extracted on the spot. But she missed Morphia so much, she applied for every charter until Lord Damarcus finally approved her to join the Celestial. ”
I suck in a sharp breath.
“Why doesn’t she leave already?” another staff member in the seats asks. “She’s worked here long enough she could get a job as a prison guard or oversee Morphia experimentation projects or something.”
“You’ve seen what it does to them.” The boy grimaces. “Once you’re Morphicbound, you don’t want to leave. Haven’t you heard the saying among the bosses? You always find your way back.”
The boy with the hole in his cheek sighs. “Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we took all those raw Morphia jars and dumped them over the side into the sea.”
The girl stops pacing and turns to look at him. “Are you kidding? Tamarynth would be overrun by creatures we haven’t seen for almost a thousand years.”