Chapter 19
A cell door slams shut behind me, rattling iron bars.
It’s much rockier in the brig than anywhere else on the ship. My stomach roils with it. Panic has me in a chokehold. I press myself against the bars. “Please,” I say, voice unsteady and weak. “You have to believe me. I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Boss Charmaine kicks at me with her boot, forcing me to step back.
“Then why didn’t you let us ask the girl how she died?
” She crouches in front of the bars. The end of her nose grazes the iron as she bends closer.
“In the end, all Morphics are dangerous.” She sounds like she’s telling herself as much as she’s telling me.
My hands tremble as I grip the bars. “I swear. I’m telling the truth. I don’t know why I couldn’t reach her.” Why I could never reach Leith.
On the way to the cells, we passed the Morphia extraction room.
The idea of my cell sharing a wall with the extraction room makes my eyes sting with tears.
Even when I failed my trial, I knew I had another option.
The Celestial gave me a chance. Now I have nothing left.
Nothing but the death of a young girl that I couldn’t prevent.
Charmaine pats the ends of my knuckles poking through the bars. She flashes a simpering smile with cracked, bloody lips. “I bet you’re wishing you were better behaved now.”
She looks at me with hate and jealousy. This is what she wants. Power over me, power over what she couldn’t have.
She made a promise and she delivered. This has to be one of my deathmares. I’ve been showing off, using resurrection the way Eliza dabs perfume. I thought my power belonged to me. But now, I realize it never did. It was a loan, something I was never guaranteed to keep.
When I was young and worried about my future trial, Leith used to try to reassure me. He’d say, You don’t take a Morphic’s magic just because you don’t like the Morphic.
I always thought that was a bit odd considering he took plenty of Morphics to Malachite Prison, but now, it gives me strength.
The strength to lash out and grab the clasp of Charmaine’s cloak, pulling her closer to the bars.
Boss Balanyr lunges toward me, but I’m not trying to hurt her. I only want them to listen.
“Punish me,” I say. “Any way you want. But don’t take my Morphia.” I release Charmaine’s cloak, and she shoots to her feet, stumbling backward. “Don’t hurt my friends.”
I feel more like I’m begging Father to let me back into his study after I’d broken his favorite potion jar than making a deal with my prison guards, but I don’t care how it sounds. I’ll do what they want.
Charmaine looks to Balanyr without meeting my eyes. “I’ll get the potion. Stay here and watch her.”
Tears stream down my face now. I feel like I’m going to throw up and pass out at the same time. I keep one hand on the bars to hold myself upright and hold my other hand out in front of me, palm up, straining my fingers.
Balanyr takes a step back.
I’m not trying to hurt him, but he doesn’t know that. He has to see I’m not what he thinks. I don’t even have to close my eyes, my desperation is so strong. Silver beams of light burst from my outstretched fingertips.
When I enter the spirit world, I’m floating in a gray-blue ether. As I come across translucent silver spirits and their glowing auras of energy, I invite them back to Tamarynth. A brief reprieve from their onward journey in the eternal world.
I call upon the spirits of kittens. Fluffy little gray balls of fur pounce at my feet.
Because they lack strength, they don’t appear solid.
Bright see-through kittens paw at the flowers I resurrect next.
Wispy red roses and luminous white chrysanthemums spring from my palm and drop to the floor at my feet.
I resurrect butterflies then, blue, orange, white, yellow, and red.
They fly around my head, flexing their wings in the living plane once more.
The tears dripping from my face fall through the translucent wings when they fly beneath my chin. “See.” My hand trembles as one kitten sneaks through the gap in the bars. The kitten purrs and rubs against Balanyr’s large brown boot. “Beautiful.” Ivander said so. I know so.
My shoulders hunch when Charmaine comes back to the cell. The spirits flicker as fear diminishes my control.
An odd sense of calm drifts over me as Charmaine’s boots trudge closer.
If showing them the beauty won’t work, I’ll try another tactic.
I don’t care if I have to jump over the side of this ship into the open ocean.
I don’t care if I have to kill her. The realization scares me, but it also makes me proud.
I can be as cold as my corpses if I have to protect my magic.
I won’t let her take this from me.
Charmaine shakes the potion in front of me and unlocks the cell door. “There’s no one to vouch for you, Lady Damarcus. The situation is too suspicious to go unpunished.”
The entry door to the prison flies open, and two people burst inside. I can’t see around Balanyr and Charmaine, but my heart leaps at the voice.
“How do you know she has no one to vouch for her?”
Asralyn.
Asralyn’s heels click against the ground as she steps into the jail, following Ivander. Her brown hair has fallen from her elegantly styled updo. Ivander steps aside as Asralyn approaches the bosses, arms crossed. Charmaine and Balanyr exchange a look and paint on closed-lipped smiles.
Asralyn taps the toe of her crystal heel against the floor.
“I noticed my concierge had left us alone for far too long.” She narrows her eyes at me.
“So I checked outside the ballroom. When I saw her with that young woman, I became concerned. Vance and I have had a hard enough time getting her to attend to us, much less another guest.” She digs her nails into her arms. “But I overheard them. I heard the truth. The girl said she saw the hallways … change. A dark creature gave her a drink. Roe did nothing but try to help her.”
A heavy, weighted silence follows that makes me feel like I’m being lifted off the ground and crushed all at once.
I hold my breath, waiting for my bosses and now judges to speak.
When they say nothing, Lady Stallard lifts her chin and throws her shoulders back, much the same way I was taught to do as a young lady of Credence.
At this slight change in stance, Balanyr and Charmaine clear their throats. Even Charmaine, teeth clenched with rage, can’t deny a high-paying upper-class guest. Charmaine and I are oddly enough in the same position there. With a stiff nod to Asralyn, Charmaine opens the door to my cell.
I don’t wait for it to swing all the way open before scrambling out from behind the bars. My chest heaves, and I wipe the back of my hand across tearstained cheeks.
“Are you sure,” Charmaine asks in a low rumble, “that you want this girl to continue as your concierge?”
Asralyn nods. “Now, if you’d excuse us, I’d like to enjoy the rest of my night. This was supposed to be my vacation.”
Ivander says nothing. He must have shown her the way, but that still doesn’t explain why she helped me.
Asralyn’s been open in her contempt for my work as a concierge.
She’s never shown any signs of caring whether I get my retrial or not.
I can’t read the expression on her face, but I follow without question.
“Lady Damarcus,” Charmaine says. I turn over my shoulder. “Remember what we spoke about earlier.” She won’t let me forget her threats to me or my friends.
Without a word, I follow Asralyn and Ivander out of the jail and into the hallway of deck one.
The three of us are silent as Ivander leads us to an illusive stationed outside the brig.
She uses her Morphia to make the hallways tame, like in the daytime.
It depletes her energy to get us all the way to deck ten.
By the time we’re outside Asralyn’s room, Ivander has to help the illusive stand.
The walls are starting to crack, revealing rotting wood crawling with maggots and roaches the size of my fist. I pray to the Riveners that nothing will attack us on the walk back to the staff bunks.
Asralyn says nothing about the cracks. She simply opens the door to her room and holds out her hand. “In,” she says to me.
I look over my shoulder at Ivander and the illusive, trying to decide if I should obey her. Asralyn rolls her eyes. “I saved your magic, and now you’re not going to listen to me?”
Good point. I get one last glimpse of Ivander’s eyes, full of anger, but I’m not sure it’s directed at me.
Will the bosses decide to punish my friends instead of me?
Did I put Alana in danger of losing her retrial?
I follow Asralyn into her room, and as the door shuts behind me, the dam holding back my emotions threatens to burst.
The chandelier in the center of the sitting room burns with the final flickers of candlelight. The children and Vance must have already gone to bed. With the dying candles and moon as our only light, it’s more creepy than beautiful.
Asralyn walks to the settee and takes a seat, gown fanning out around her. She drags fingers through her hair. It falls in loose curls around her shoulders, and she nods to the spot next to her. “Sit. That’s not a request.”
Hesitantly, I navigate to the back of the room and sit, careful not to get too close to Asralyn.
From here, we can look out through the sliding glass doors to the open sea.
There’s something soothing about the rhythmic midnight waves reflecting moonlight in the stillness after everyone’s gone to bed.
Asralyn stays silent for so long that I’m not sure if I should leave. I trace my finger over the silver fabric of my dress. A light breeze whooshes against the sliding glass door, and Asralyn sucks in a sharp breath.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s only the wind.”