Chapter Fourteen #2
“I miss the greenhouse sometimes,” Ree admitted.
“And I miss my friends. I’m one of many sentient plants that the sorcerer of Belde created.
All of them are my friends. Family, really, even though we’re different species.
I don’t think any of them ever imagined leaving the greenhouse.
Or ever wanted to. I … I left without really saying goodbye.
Because I didn’t want to explain. And I didn’t want to have to watch them not understand. ”
Marin hadn’t heard Ree ever sound sad before. He didn’t talk about home much, and she had no idea that he missed it. If she hadn’t had her hands full of line, she’d have hugged him, branches and roots and all.
“I don’t want to go back—I want to be on the sea,” Ree clarified.
“This is where I belong. But sometimes, especially when we’re on an island and none of the plants are awake and aware …
What I’m trying to say is that you can miss home and choose to live your life elsewhere at the same time. It’s okay to feel both.”
“You’re very wise, Ree,” Dax said.
“It’s the chlorophyll,” he said modestly.
“Dax, do you—” Marin didn’t want to ask the question, but she knew she had to.
It was a captain’s question, as well as a friend’s.
He deserved a choice, always. “We’re returning to Alyssium.
If the conservatory is unharmed … if it’s safe enough …
do you want to … Are you ready to return to the conservatory? ”
He looked down at his notes and didn’t answer for a moment.
“I have to complete my opus. By the solstice. It needs to be performed then. But I’m”—he looked up at Marin—“not ready yet. Would it be all right if I stayed on your crew a little longer? Help you deliver the letter and bring their response back to Belde? I think the time away from the conservatory will be beneficial. With my opus. And my, um, creativity.”
She couldn’t explain why she felt a burst of relief as potent as biting into a grape. “Happy to have you on the crew as long as you want.”
“Yay!” Ree said.
“Thank you,” Dax said. “I want…”
He didn’t finish. “Yes? What?” she prompted.
“It’s not important.”
“I don’t mind unimportant.” After all, the world would consider her unimportant. Her boat. Her job. Her life. Her dreams. “Go ahead.”
“There’s this song,” Dax said. “It’s incomplete and old. It’s about an island that has waterfalls that sing. It doesn’t name the island or where in the sea it is, and I have always wondered if it was real.”
She was one hundred percent certain that that wasn’t what he was going to say.
“I’ve never heard of an island like that, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
” The Crescent Islands were full of hundreds of islands, some large and some tiny, some inhabited and some not, and she’d certainly never been to all of them.
“Ah. Just wondered.”
“If I ever find an island like that, I’ll take you there,” Marin said. If you’re still sailing with me. If I still have a boat to sail and haven’t lost it to either a snake or a weasel. Those were both large “ifs.” But for now … He isn’t ready to stop sailing yet.
The smile he gave her was worth the promise that she had no idea if she’d ever be able to fulfill. “If it turns out to be mythical,” he said, “I won’t hold you to that.”
“Can I go too?” Ree asked.
Marin grinned at him. “Of course.”
Calling out over the waves, Marin let Perri know they were returning to Alyssium.
He proceeded to have a lot of feelings about that, mostly involving splashing and twisting, but he eventually settled down and swam beside them, keeping them on course while they slept and tossing them fish to eat for their meals, along with Marin’s father’s pie and other treats.
As they sailed, Marin continued to remind herself that this was her best option and the only way to have a chance of helping her parents, that she wasn’t endangering her crew unnecessarily, and that Dax wanted to stay with her … at least for now.
Happily, Alyssium was not on fire. And it didn’t even smell (much) like smoke.
It did smell faintly of garbage, Marin noticed, as they poled through the canals.
The sanitation department had not been able to complete its job and activate the cleansing spells during all the chaos, and the city was not yet fully operational.
It did, however, seem to be at least moderately operational, which was an improvement.
There had been guards at her usual archway, which Marin was (to her surprise) pleased to see, and they’d shouted down an update when she’d asked what was happening in the city:
In short, no more emperor and no more empire, that was confirmed.
A provisional government was in place and reviewing all the laws, departments, agencies, etc.
For now, there were still a lot of unknowns, but runners were allowed to enter and leave the city.
No imperial taxes or tariffs levied. No extra toll if they hit the sides of the archway.
“Be my guest,” the guard said. “Bash up your boat as much as you like.”
“The conservatory?” Dax called. “Is it still standing?”
The guard shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. That kind of stuff is for the rich. And they’re all too busy hugging their marble statues and hiding their gold necklaces for fear they’ll lose them to listen to fancy music.” He chuckled at that.
Dax looked appalled. “Music is a language that speaks to everyone. It’s a language of the heart. It’s not just for the rich!”
“Eh,” the guard said. “Only music that speaks to me is my paycheck.”
One of the other guards guffawed. “Ha! What about that feathery fellow at the club? You were waxing poetic ’bout him just the other week.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s music all right. Sings while he juggles bottles of booze. Incredible sight. Never dropped a one. Now that is my heart language.”
Propelled by Perri, Silver left the guards rapidly behind, so whatever the other guard replied, Marin couldn’t hear. Dax muttered, “What is it with juggling musicians? Is that really what people want?”
“You could juggle me,” Ree offered.
“A kind offer, but I’ll stick to the tri-lute, thank you.”
As they made their way through the canals, there were clear signs of damage: some buildings bore scorch marks, many had broken windows, and others had half-crumbled walls.
A few of the overhead bridges had been destroyed—they’d stretch halfway across the canals and then stop in a jagged stone.
But the canals were clear. They didn’t encounter a single barricade.
No more emperor. No more empire.
Could it be true? Could the revolutionaries truly have won? It was over?
She would have expected more rejoicing. And maybe there had been in the immediate aftermath, but now … the empire hadn’t fallen without causing a lot of damage in its death throes.
Near the shop district, where the florist shop was supposed to be, the destruction was even worse.
In this part of the city, the majority of the buildings had been built of wood, not stone, and they’d burned faster.
She imagined too that the sorcerers had been tasked with saving the structures near the heart of the city first and only spread to the areas where ordinary people lived later.
All of them were quiet as Marin poled down a canal that should have been lined with shops and cafés and clusters of stalls selling crafts and produce. It felt more like a graveyard. All the shops were closed. Many were blackened shells.
But there were people. Hollow-eyed people, cleaning, picking through the debris, working on repairs, trying to rebuild. Some of them were children, playing in clumps, more quietly than they should have been.
Marin wondered what the provisional government was doing about this. Did they know? Did they care? There had to be a phenomenal number of things to fix in the wake of the empire’s collapse, but shouldn’t this be a priority?
At last, they found the florist shop, or what was left of it.
She used the pole to slow the boat and then halt.
The pole to tie off to was still there, as were the stone steps leading up to the water-entry to the shop.
The main entry would have been from the plaza on the other side of the buildings.
She could see a glimpse of it through the shop’s broken windows.
“All right, so this wasn’t the best idea,” Marin said.
“We need to find them,” Ree said. “This is Yarrow’s family.”
“They may have left the city…” Marin began.
Ree shook, agitated enough that several leaves fell off his branches.
“Marin, you’d do anything for your family, wouldn’t you?
I know you would. These people … They’re gardeners.
Or they were gardeners before they came here.
They’re from Belde. Like me. They came here, chasing their own dreams, and just because they left doesn’t mean the people they left behind don’t still care.
We have to at least try. I have to try.”
Sweet, noble, young Ree. Marin glanced at Dax. She could see the sympathy in his eyes. He was looking at the same burned-out shop she was, and he knew the odds of finding Yarrow’s family weren’t great.
But Marin didn’t say it. Instead, she tied the boat to the pole, and she walked up the stone steps into the destroyed florist shop. “Hello?” she called. “Is anyone here? We come as friends.”
“As family,” Ree corrected. “We come as family.”
The saddest part of the florist shop was the flowers that weren’t burned—the ones that had survived the fire only to wilt in the aftermath. No one had come to save them.
Marin walked through the remains of Yarrow’s family’s shop. Shattered glass crunched beneath her shoes, and she bent to pick up Ree. He didn’t protest, just curled his branches inward around his roots. She couldn’t imagine how this felt, seeing all the dead plants.
“Do you want to go back and wait on Silver?” she asked him. “It’s okay if you do.”
“No,” Ree said. “I need to try.”
She understood.