Chapter 15 #2
“She was a time winder. She could add an hour to her day or take one away. She’d use it to make a performance feel shorter. People would see her performing plays or singing songs, but she could skip to the end. Sometimes she’d add an hour to the end of the day when she was spending time with me.”
Time winders may not be as rare as resurrectors or alchemers, but they aren’t as common as crafters or shifters. “Don’t time winders have trouble staying in the present?”
“Most rarely use their gifts because they see flashes of the future each time they do. Mother told me she never saw what she wanted. It’s like seeing your future actions with no context.” He grimaces. “It was a tricky gift, but she still didn’t deserve to have it taken.”
“Does she miss it?”
“Every day.” He hangs his head and folds his arms tight over his chest. “It was my fault. All of it.”
Without knowing what else to do, I place my hand next to his on the railing. I wonder if he’s told anyone else this story. I wish he knew how much it means to me that he’s trusted me enough to tell it.
He gazes out over the water. “My grandfather was very sick at the time, and it was beyond the menders’ skill to heal him.
I’d overheard some of Malyk’s servants talking about how Alexandrite received rare potions from an alchemer once a month.
I assumed Malyk would have healing potions the rest of the realm couldn’t access.
So the next time Mother went to perform, I disguised myself during her performance.
I shifted my clothing to resemble a guard’s uniform and snuck to Malyk’s personal stores.
But they caught me. Spokesman Malyk took my chance at a trial away and gave me the same choice he gave you.
Work sentence on the ship, or they’d take my Morphia then and there. ”
He slides down the railing and sits on the deck with his legs out in front of him. He points and flexes his toes, like he’s remembering that fateful performance all these years later.
I slide down next to him. “It was a mistake.”
“That’s not all,” he whispers. “Malyk was furious. Enraged that this could happen at his own estate. He blamed my parents and had his guards administer the extraction potion to my mother right on the spot.”
He bites his lip. “Later, my father told me Grandfather’s sickness was incurable.
I stole for nothing. Even after that, Mother begged me not to go.
Told me it was dangerous and that I’d never get a retrial.
My grandfather was the only one who told me to go.
He thought I had to try to get my Morphia back.
He said it was the most important thing I could do for my family after what happened.
Keep my Morphia for my mother, who couldn’t.
He told me Mother and Father were strong, and they’d be okay without me.
I got the letter telling me my grandfather died while at a port stop between charters.
” His voice chokes on the memory. “Before I left, he said that if I’m ever in a position to help someone else, take a chance on them. We get when we give.”
“That’s what you do,” I say. “You help your friends.” I pause, not sure if he wants me to say it. “You’ve helped me.”
“When I met you, I swore I wouldn’t,” Ivander admits with a grin.
“You make it pretty difficult when you pick fights with the bosses every night.” His smile shifts into a sigh.
“When I first boarded this ship, I swore I’d get off with my Morphia as fast as I could.
But then I met Isla and Alana. Then Zora and Niko.
I started to realize I wasn’t the only Morphic aboard who deserved to keep my Morphia.
If I could help them get their retrials …
maybe I could make up for costing my mother hers. ”
Ivander grits his teeth. “You think I’m doing all this to help my friends, but I’m just trying to find a way to face myself again. When I talk to the guests, I’m always thinking how I can use those connections when I get out of here. I’m not this selfless hero the others think I am.”
The waves of guilt emanating from him are so strong I want to pull him out myself. “You should get to think of yourself.” After a pause, I add, “It may not be worth much coming from me, but I believe your mother will forgive you regardless of what happens here.”
His eyes meet mine, as if my words let him come up for air. “It’s worth more than you know.” The intensity in his gaze raises the temperature of the crisp night air around us.
“Why did you help me?” I ask. My eyes drift down to his mouth, and I wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Or if it would even be worth it if we leave this ship and never speak again.
He exhales, dipping his head close to me. “Because you cared about Isla. You didn’t just help her in the kitchen at your own expense. You really cared about her.” He smirks. “I’m not expecting you to give up your retrial for any of my friends, but maybe you’re not stealing it from them either.”
That was what he accused me of when I first met him.
He may now believe I care for his friends and the other Morphics aboard this ship, but only I know the real reason behind the fear stirring in my gut.
The shame and doubt swirling in my abdomen, pushing bile into the back of my throat.
Everything he’s told me about his mother, the guilt he feels—the punishment from Spokesman Malyk—reminds me of my father.
Father must have known how Morphics are treated throughout the province, Morphics guilty of nothing more than being eighteen and imperfect.
In Ivander’s case, when he first boarded the ship, being even younger.
And Father must know how dangerous it is aboard the Celestial for us Morphics too.
Yet now that I’m here, I’m realizing Ivander’s story—and my similar fate and choice—aren’t uncommon.
My whole body bristles with anger. I need to get off this ship and demand answers from my father.
How could he let this entire punishment system continue when Morphics are sent here for frivolous reasons fueled by fear and hate?
What if my family and the council are part of the problem?
I dare myself to think it, to relish in the nakedness of admitting my own place in a broken world.
In a surge of desperation, I close my eyes and search for the connection to my ancestors.
Anyone who’s willing to speak to me, to come forward and tell me the truth of what they envisioned for the trials—for the Celestial.
They wanted to help people like me, like Ivander, like my father. Where did it all go wrong?
“You’re trying to summon, aren’t you?” Ivander asks. “It’s not working, is it?”
“What gave you that idea?” My eyes are squeezed shut, but I hear his snort.
“Because you look murderous.”
He’s right. The moment between us—if there was one—is gone as my attention turns from his eyes, his mouth, back to my Morphia.
I’m frustrated at a lot of things I can’t control or change right now.
I sigh, shoulders softening, and open my eyes.
It seems I can’t change anything tonight.
I’m stuck in more ways than one. Even my past life was never something I could control.
The parties, the gossip, dancing with Reginald.
Maybe it’s time to take control and dance with someone who understands me.
“Are you ready to dance?” I ask.
Ivander’s cheeks flush, and he pulls his knees tight to his chest. “No.”
I stand, pulling us both to our feet. The quiet lullaby of a slow violin medley wafts to us from the center of the deck. “Are you kidding me? You’re the best performer on this ship. You’re really not going to dance?”
“I usually have choreography,” he mutters. “Rehearsals. Pre-written steps.”
“Oh, please. You’re such a perfectionist.” I drag him across the deck back toward the dance floor. He begs me to let him go back to the bar, but he doesn’t pull away even though he’s got the strength.
Alana waves to me from the middle of a dense circle of dancers.
She’s with Niko, who’s put an arm around her waist. Zora and Isla have disappeared, most likely into a couple of inflatable tubes on the lagoon.
If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s dance at fancy parties after the lords and ladies have gone to bed.
Then it’s just people my age and province-dwellers with little status and a much better idea of how to let go.
I pull us onto the dance floor and try to get him to sway with me to the sounds of the violin. “How can you dance when everyone’s watching?” he bends down to say in my ear.
An unbidden wave of heat prickles along my skin at how close his mouth is to my cheek. So the performer gets stage fright offstage. “Pretend you’re onstage. You can criticize my foot placement to make it feel more real for you.”
“Very funny.”
I twirl myself under his arm, pressing close to his chest. He may be all sure of himself with the guests, but around me, he’s shy.
There’s something frustratingly attractive about that.
The truth is, once he finds the courage to dance with me, he’s much better than he knows.
The muscles of his arms and the effortless flexibility of his legs and spine outpace my stiffer movements I learned from formal dancing at our estate’s balls.
He whirls me around the dance floor and makes it feel like we’re flying.
For a moment, I swear we are.
Until I hear the screams.
Ivander’s arms fall from the small of my back as we turn.
Panicked shouts come from the lagoon on the port side of the ship.
The crowd of staff members on the dance floor rush to the lagoon as the violin screeches to a stop.
The people in the pool come up for air. Alana and Niko fight through the crowd to get to Ivander and me.
“What’s going on?” Alana asks.
The lagoon forms a circular perimeter around the ship, set into the deck, so we’re looking down into the water. People leap from it. Farther down the lagoon, I see Isla’s wet blond curls as she throws herself onto the deck. Alana and I push to the front, hearts hammering.
The bioluminescent aqua water has turned a dark scarlet.
As people climb out of the lagoon, they drip bloody water onto the deck. A girl I recognize as the crafter, Maren, spits out a mouthful of red. “I felt something under the water. Something big.”
A boy with shaggy brown hair is pulled from the lagoon, and he stumbles onto the deck, clutching his right arm.
I put a hand over my mouth. A chunk of flesh is missing from his forearm.
He struggles to cover the mangled flesh, but the jagged edges fall through his fingers.
His stilted movements and stunned expression suggest he’s in shock.
We watch in horror as a mass of torn tissue slides out of his grip.
Blood gushes onto the floorboards, pouring like rain as people shriek.
I glimpse a large, blue-gray dorsal fin breaching the lagoon water close to the stern of the ship.
A gaping maw breaks the surface. It’s an endless chasm of jagged teeth around a pulsating throat.
Flesh is stuck between the larger teeth.
Its roar is a high-pitched screech that rings in my ears before it dives, disappearing into the calm, dark waters.
Panicked whispers run through the crowd.
This shouldn’t keep happening on deck. It’s the hallways that have the threatening creatures spontaneously created by raw Morphia, the hallways that are dangerous.
We hear a loud, intentional cough behind us.
Ivander takes in a sharp breath as we turn around, facing the sliding glass doors that lead out onto the top deck.
Boss Charmaine stands in the doorway, wearing a silk dressing gown with her blond hair tied up in a severe knot. “What’s going on here?”