Chapter 27
I’d counted on the Waking Tide rousing me the next morning, but up in my drafty room in East Tower, its roar was muted, just a distant rushing. Instead, as I remembered Catua once lamenting, it was the birds that shocked me awake close to dawn, wheedling as they rode the sea breeze past my window.
The day before, I’d snuck up to the culverhouse and, with shaking hands, scratched out a message:
K,
The Bird in Our Booth Grows Wrathful. I May Be Gone in a Sevenday—You Must Visit Sooner, at Archwater.
Bluebird
It was far from perfect, but it would have to do. I couldn’t risk explaining any more on paper, and I was even too nervous to sign off as “C,” deciding to reference my mask instead.
Restless and tense, I dressed in the dry chill, pulling Rhianne’s too-short cloak around my shoulders.
The cuts from the gorse had scabbed over but still ached.
As I stole out of the keep into a pinkish pre-sunrise, I guessed I had a quarter of an hour before I was missed.
I’d have to make sure I woke earlier tomorrow.
But I was determined, at least, to make headway this morning.
To face archwater again—and this time exert my will.
I’d need every scrap of practice I could get to see me through whatever awaited me next.
And besides, the routine felt calming amid this turmoil.
I jogged down the path from the castle to the cove, my heart skittering anxiously at the sound of the sea.
I forced my feet to carry me to the cliff’s edge, the same place Rexim had stood when he’d tested me, and stared down at the water churning in the cove, at the fountains of surf as the waves slammed on stone.
Gone were the sedate, suggestible currents of pallwater.
Peak archwater was six days away, and its fury was already palpable.
I picked my way gingerly down a steep scramble and crouched on an outcropping misted by spray. In a lonely hour lying awake last night, I’d raked over all the times—all the ways—I’d faltered.
“The ocean is a…different beast.”
I’d blown into Bower Island with the wind, commanded the tide, and expected it to listen. I was a stranger, and a fool, and it had treated me thus.
Then, when it had listened, I’d forgotten to thank it. I’d been so encased in my inner world, so embroiled in my own emotions, I hadn’t shown it the respect that Rhama had pressed home.
And now, rightfully, it was angry.
I had to get a grip. I had to rectify this. I shifted forward, dangled my feet in the foam. Stared out at the white swells, the whirlpools and eddies. I emptied my mind of apprehension, then turned my focus outward, to the sea.
“I’m sorry,” I said, really and truly meaning it. No commands this time, just conversation. I tried to open myself up, to just listen. The tide had moods, too, and I needed to learn them.
It came, then, like the flicker of a sputtering candle. A sliver of an emotion that I knew wasn’t mine.
The receding tide was weary but ebullient, gathering strength for its next assault on the bay. I caught wariness, too. A distant suspicion. Resentment that I might get in its way.
I sat with it for a long time—probably too long. I knew Miss Haney would be wondering where I was. But soon I sensed the tide’s wariness ease. And then I opened my mouth and spoke: “Show me your power—send up a fountain.”
A flash of outrage. Then…simmering curiosity. I kept my mind open, stayed tranquil, unmoving.
Then, at last, the next wave rose high, spiralling upward. Droplets refracted the sunrise like jewels. I felt the sea’s pride, a warm flare in my chest, and though I tried to suppress it, I felt pride of my own, too—a gleam of relief, like a torch in the darkness.
The tide shrank back, growing distant again.
A sudden skitter behind me made me start.
Loose gravel tumbled down into the spray.
I hopped into a crouch, craned my neck to peer upward.
Against the flushed sky, I thought I glimpsed something black.
A ripple of fabric, like a cloak’s hem disappearing.
But the next second there was nothing. I blinked salt from my eyes.
A bird, I expected. A crow, or a shearwater. The black-capped birds liked to follow the tides eastward.
After making sure to thank the water, I clambered to my feet, still bruised from two nights ago, and began the slow, careful climb to the clifftop.
There, cresting the ridge, I saw no one, bird or human—only the craggy hump of the old tower’s ruins.
—
I practiced before dawn the next morning, and the next. And during daylight hours, I threw myself into my duties.
At first I’d wondered if it was worth the effort.
But I quickly realized I had no choice. If the Cage didn’t come early, if my note went astray, I had to do whatever I could to impress Rexim, for I’d need to be here when they did arrive, at pallwater, the date Kielty had originally planned.
How would it look to Rexim if I just gave up?
So I plowed through my chores in double time, ferrying water to the horses and bringing ale from the brewhouse, sprinkling the flowers and vines in the orangery.
I made sure to cross paths with Miss Haney at all hours, even calling at her office to ask for more work, knowing she would be reporting back to Rexim.
The Brigant himself didn’t approach me again, but whenever I happened to come across him—outside the stables as he handed over his mount, in the high-ceilinged hallways as I scrubbed down the floors—he stared down his aquiline nose at me, and I straightened my shoulders, quickened my steps, and scoured a little harder, avoiding his eyes.
Amid all this, of course, were my social duties, for the Cormorants were still installed in South Tower.
It was difficult, among the hubbub and rigors of my work, to find any opportunity to speak to Avrix.
But speak to him I must, for he had the only tools.
Moreover, if my note had wound its way to Kielty, the Cage would be coming in just three days, while the Cormorants were still here—something Avrix didn’t know yet…
With a pressing sense of dread, an uncomfortable queasiness, I’d been moving around the castle with a note in my pocket:
Midnight. The Ruined Tower. We Must Speak.
The only chance I had to get anywhere near Avrix was at the Shearwaters’ and the Cormorants’ first rehearsal for their play.
They’d finally settled on one: Cithre’s Folly. Tragic, salacious, controversial, it told the story of the eponymous Cithre, a Brigantess, and her affair with her Orha servant—the latter character, of course, being the villain.
Morgen, directing a wink at us Orha, insisted the work was based on a true story. Emment was diverted, Vercha amused, and Llir—as always—hard to read. Catua, I noticed, had gone slightly pink, and Rhianne had crouched to inspect the fire.
I lingered on the periphery with a pitcher of water as the group cavorted with swords they’d taken from the armory and down from the walls of the entrance hall.
Emment was playing the villainous Orha, and he stalked the floodboards, flourishing a dusty cloak with a gold fringe.
The eldest Shearwater seemed to relish the role, taking on the persona with bright-eyed fervor—almost a wild, feverish devotion.
As I watched him darkly, a fleeting image came to my mind: Emment dragging Zennia; him spitting with rage, embarrassed by her outburst after the fight.
Had he hurt her before they got into the boat?
Shoved her—dead or injured—into the waves later?
Or had it happened on the crossing, out on the water?
Perhaps she’d tried to fight back, to escape…
Maybe Kielty had followed them to the docks. Maybe he or one of his group had taken a boat out behind them, watching. Keeping tabs on the Shearwater heir, knowing the mission they’d been tasked with by Leadership…
I blinked, snapping back to the room. Avrix was passing, twirling a blade.
“Refreshment from the kitchens,” I said, stepping forward. “I heard your sister say rehearsing was thirsty work, so I thought…” I held out the pitcher of water.
He paused with the twitch of a dark brow, then sheathed the sword in one swift movement. “This one’s a keeper,” he announced to the room, making the skin on my neck grow warm.
As I handed over the pitcher and goblets, I slipped my folded note into his palm. He hesitated, but only for a split second, before striding over to Morgen, dipping a hand into his pocket. After that, I didn’t see what he did with the note.
I could only hope he’d meet me at midnight.
—
The Shearwaters and the Cormorants stayed up late that night.
I fretted that they would carry on rehearsing, keep drinking and dancing, until dawn lit the sky, and Avrix wouldn’t be able to steal away at all.
But in the end, as I hovered near the steps to East Tower, I heard them cross the entrance hall a little after one o’clock, Morgen’s rich laughter echoing under the high ceiling.
I slipped into the shadows and out a back entrance. The air outside was salty and smoky—Tigo and Rhianne had been burning branches up on the gorse slopes that evening.
Low tide was less than an hour away. The bay was cloaked in inky navy, but I could hear the rushing of the retreating ocean. I jogged down the path in near-total darkness—my feet knew its rises and hollows by now—and soon picked out the deep black of the eerie tower ruins, blotting out the stars.
It wasn’t long before footsteps scraped on the path. Avrix’s slim figure materialized from the darkness, garbed in a night-robe over a silk shirt and hose. I tried to calm my juddering heart and shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my breeches.
“You came.”
He smiled, his eyes betraying a hard glint. Of what—impatience, interest?—I couldn’t tell. “But of course. We have a job to do together, do we not? And time is moving on. You were right to summon me.”
I stepped a little closer. “Yes, that’s what I needed to talk to you about. I’ve had to ask the Ca–”—my eyes flitted around us, the darkness disconcerting—“the people we discussed to come earlier. In three days, actually.”
He merely squinted, contemplating me in silence. “Oh?” he said eventually, lightly. “And why might that be?”
“Brigant Shearwater wasn’t pleased the night of the ball. Because of…well, because of this.” I gestured to the crumbling tower, or what was left of it. “He wanted to get rid of me, but Vercha spoke to him. I have one week to impress him, but he could change his mind at any time.”
“Yes,” Avrix said, raising a thick eyebrow. “Vercha said there’d been some trouble. I was sorry to hear it. But why should that matter?” He gazed at me as though trying to decide something. “Forgive me for saying it, but should you be…dismissed, I shall still be here to complete the assigned task.”
I frowned. “You’re leaving, too, aren’t you, in a few days?
Our…friends were originally going to come at next pallwater.
They told me I need to time the damage just right, and I’ll need to be here to pass on my information.
The secrets. Besides, there’d be no one left to warn them if anything changes, if Rexim leaves… ”
He was nodding shallowly, brow furrowed in concentration. “As I said, my own contact and I were rather rushed. I’m sure you were given more instruction than I was.”
Up at the castle, lamps were burning in West Tower, but aside from that, the fortress was shrouded. As I looked back at Avrix, my cheeks grew hot. “There’s something else I need to tell you. My tools…they got washed away when I…”
He gave me a pained look. “I’m sorry they sent you down there. Lucky I’m here, eh?” The grimace became a grin. “The family’s bedchambers will have to wait until daytime, but the armory and the statues…I was going to go there now.”
“I can be your lookout,” I said, mirroring his smile.
Pulse speeding now, I followed him up the path.
Working as a pair, we might actually crack this.
In three days, if Kielty had got my note, I’d finally get the answers I craved about Zennia.
Rexim Shearwater would get what was coming to him.
And Morgen and the siblings…they’d be caught up in the fray.
The thought of it should have buoyed me onward. Despite the setbacks, all was getting back on track.
So why did unease still prickle at me like an itch?