Chapter 20
It takes extra time to find my room as I’m reeling from the events of tonight.
When I reach deck two, the hallway is pitch black.
I stumble on something hard and slippery.
The smell of putrid rot makes my mouth water, and I swallow to keep from gagging.
I know without looking down what I’m walking on.
As a resurrector, the feeling is too familiar.
Morbid curiosity draws my eyes to the fleshy bodies covering the floor.
My chest tightens at the sheer number of corpses in varying stages of decomposition.
They can’t be fresh kills, but they could be victims from the past. Real or not, I’m disgusted.
My heel slices through black, decaying skin and I yank it out, covered in slimy entrails.
There are so many bodies, I can’t see the carpeted floor.
I stagger and bite my lip to keep from screaming.
I slip on bloody flesh and use the wall to steady myself.
The corpses’ faces are frozen in screams, teeth rotting, maggots wriggling in their wounds.
Now I look down with intention. I’m careful of where I step and try to pick the more solid bodies to step upon.
It’s like a terrible rendition of a childhood game.
Death does not scare me, but the sight of these bodies fills me with more determination than ever.
Is this the Celestial showing me its body count?
Perhaps it’s showing all the Morphics and non-Morphics it has consumed, feeding on blood and magic.
Something large and hairy skitters by my feet. Now spiders the size of dinner plates emerge from the gaps between corpses. The sound of spindly legs hitting flesh grows louder as a few spiders multiplies into twenty.
Although I try to focus on a memory like Ivander told me to do, nothing comes to me.
The walls, floor, and ceiling spin like a black vortex.
Walking faster, heels puncturing rotting flesh, I count the numbers on the doors.
The closer I get to my room, the more the hallway spins.
It’s like I’ve fallen inside a tornado. A booming knock comes from inside the walls.
Someone—or something—is trying to claw its way free.
The knocking gets faster. Harder. Closer.
Head aching with the reverberating echo, I finally find the brass handle to my room and throw myself through the door. When I stumble inside, I almost collide with someone.
“What’s going on?” Alana should be asleep by now.
It doesn’t take me long to realize she’s not the only one awake.
Niko sits on the floor by the bathroom. Alana has her knees tucked under her chin on her bottom bunk while Isla and Zora crowd together on my top bunk.
Ivander leans against the chest of drawers in front of me.
“Easy, there,” Niko says, still wearing his formalwear vest and long coat from the mid-cruise ball. “There’s not enough room for you to faint.”
Isla reaches beside her for a tray packed with leftover flaky pastries with fruit fillings and chocolate-dipped strawberries.
She brandishes the tray, offering me a dessert.
“Thank goodness you’re here. I was so nervous.
” She massages the lower side of her abdomen, tension causing her body to spasm again.
Still in shock, my eyes fly from the pastry tray to Alana, to Niko, and back to Ivander. “What are you all doing here?”
Alana guides me to sit beside her on the bottom bunk. “We figured after what happened, you wouldn’t want to be alone.”
I blink hard to clear my distorted, watery vision. The weight of the past two days threatens to flatten me, but each one of my friends have come to make sure I was okay. Each of them stayed, despite their own fears and the late hour. Even though it’s their own lives to lose in the hallways.
“You don’t think I killed that girl?”
“None of us do.” Ivander answers without hesitation.
Isla leans down from the upper bunk, now covered in crumbs from a sugar-dusted pastry. “Don’t be silly. Have a hearth fruit tart.” She shoves a tart into my outstretched hand.
I smother my surprise at how quickly she answers, as if no part of her suspects I had anything to do with Elayne’s death. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that reassurance. Relief eases the tension in my shoulders.
Niko laughs, but Zora smacks her girlfriend’s arm. “By the Riveners! Have some tact. She may not want to eat after what she’s been through.”
The truth is, I’m starving. I scarf down the flaky pastry.
The red hearth fruit bursts in my mouth, its signature smoky flavor balanced by sweetness.
I notice an icy taste as I lick the sugar dust off each of my fingers.
Like fresh snow in the morning after one of Credence’s winter storms. Isla must have enhanced the flavor with memories.
“Good, huh?” Isla asks, flipping her golden ringlets over her shoulder. “My dishes went quick tonight.”
Niko leans forward on his knees, craning his neck up at Isla. “Excuse me? People were getting seconds from my trays.”
Zora flexes her feet and points the ends of her toes. “What about Ivander’s performance tonight?” She raises a brow at him. Ivander shrugs. “Don’t act innocent,” she says. “I saw what you did.”
Ivander holds out his hands in surrender.
The soft light of my room’s lantern bathes his angular cheekbones and maroon-painted nails.
I can’t help returning to the memory of him dangling from the silks, illuminated with a backdrop of scorching flames.
It was a risk none of us expected him to take.
I certainly hadn’t after his constant lectures to me about rule-following.
“Maybe I’m tired of the way things are.” Ivander draws in a long breath.
“When I first got here, I started to realize I had a way of charming the guests. The longer I stayed aboard, the more guests recognized me and sought me out. The more they trusted me. I thought I could use my connections to influence changes for myself and my family once I made it off the ship. But Roe’s started to make me think we should fight back now. ”
I choke on powdered sugar stuck in my throat. Me? For the life of me, I can’t figure out how I’ve inspired anyone to make any kind of change. Every time I stand up to the bosses, something bad happens. I’m not a great act to follow. And I know I’m not the act Ivander wants his friends to follow.
“Yeah, he means you,” Isla says, reading my face. “Don’t look so surprised.”
Niko gives me a pointed look. “None of us think you hurt that girl, but we need to know who did.”
“It might have been the ship,” Alana whispers. “But what if it was one of the bosses?”
Silence falls over us at the possibility.
The air gets heavier with the weight of the accusation.
We’re all tense, like we can imagine a boss’s footsteps pounding down the hall just because we dared to say it.
I wouldn’t put it past any of the bosses, but figuring out which one was responsible will take time.
Time we don’t have. And the longer it takes, the more people will get hurt.
If I can get a letter to Father telling him Charmaine killed a staff member years ago, he wouldn’t allow her to work here again, but it doesn’t help us now.
And deep inside, I know my letter wouldn’t make it off this ship.
I turn to Alana. “What was it like for you when you found out you’d have to come here?” These people have become important to me. Have helped me see the truth. The answer, the power to change this ship, is with them.
Her brows lift in surprise. I imagine she’s hidden the memory far away.
She smooths the front of her dress and bites her lip.
“It was the only time I’d ever done anything wrong in school.
My parents were shocked when they heard I’d used my Morphia on a teacher, but they understood more when they found out why.
I’d written them letters about how unforgiving Vivienne’s parents could be.
Vivienne was crying on the way to the test and asked me if I could help her out.
Maybe she only meant she wanted to copy my paper.
I don’t know anymore.” She blinks hard a few times.
“My teacher was Madam Harroway, I’ll never forget.
She was so strict and rarely gave second chances.
I should have guessed I wouldn’t get away with it. ”
Her eyes squeeze shut. “I brought out her feelings of happiness and even a tinge of pleasant surprise. While she was grading the test, she marked more questions right than she should have.”
I pull my knees tight to my chest. Picturing sensitive Alana about to have her life upended because of an attempt to help her friend makes me want to curl inward.
Her voice shakes as she continues. “One of my classmates ratted me out. That was fine. I deserved it. But then Madam Harroway told me to go see the dean. The worst part was, I couldn’t feel anything.
Even when I walked into the room and he had me sit in one of those enormous armchairs.
Even when he explained to me I’d been called out for reckless and dangerous behavior.
Even when he said my trial would never happen and that I’d be going straight to the Celestial.
I felt nothing. I’d used so much of my power on Madam Harroway, my own feelings were gone. ”
Isla scoffs, pounding the wall with her curled fist. “That’s messed up. I can’t imagine the damage it does to hear something like that when you’re incapable of feeling anything about it.”
Zora murmurs her assent. “You couldn’t properly agree to the terms either. Not before your emotions returned.”