Chapter Seventeen
Laughter dances on his face, shimmering and alive and as bright as the sun.
My breath hitches. “Owen?”
I launch myself at him, my arms wrapped around his neck.
His body goes rigid. Over his shoulder, Charlie, Margaret, and Lewis stand side by side, their expressions a mixture of skepticism and relief. Lewis takes a tentative step forward, but Margaret catches his wrist. Charlie covers his face with his hands, sobbing quietly.
I squeeze Owen tighter.
Something wet splatters the top of my head, like a single drop of rain. Then another.
Owen returns my embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice rough. “I’m sorry for everything.”
I draw back, my hands on his shoulders. “Father’s alive!” I tell him, tears streaming down my cheeks. “He’s alive and—”
“I know,” Owen chokes out, rubbing the nape of his neck, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips. “I’ve seen him.”
My stomach drops. “You what?”
He cuts a glance at the sky, eyes glittering with mischief as he wipes his face with the hem of his sleeve. “I’ve been keeping an eye on things.”
Of course—the raven.
I smack his arm, and even though he laughs, the sound is tinged with sadness, and a dozen emotions—shame, guilt, regret, fear—flash in his eyes. Unguarded. Human.
“But…” I shake my head. “You were working for Morana. You were a Shifter—”
“I still am.” He adds quickly, “A Shifter, I mean. But I no longer serve Morana.” Something dark passes over his expression. “I never wanted to.”
“But how?” I ask, watching over his shoulder as our siblings approach, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, listening.
Owen’s throat bobs. “Morana uses fear to control her soldiers,” he says.
“Fear and lies. But on Reckoning Day, after everything I’d done, you told me you loved me.
” He smiles, but his face crumples with a sob, and he shakes his head.
“You broke the spell. And I… I’ve been trying to break free ever since.
It wasn’t easy—Morana had to believe I was on her side.
That I was a loyal servant. But I tried to help you whenever I could. I tried to warn you.”
William Castor is lying to you. “It was your card on the train,” I say. “The message.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more direct,” he says, scratching his jaw. “If he had known I was working against Morana—”
“Don’t be sorry,” I say, drawing him into another hug. “You saved me.”
“I didn’t—”
“I wouldn’t be here without you.” I hold him at arm’s length. “You freed us both.”
His chin quivers. “This is all my fault.”
“No,” I say. “None of this is your fault. And besides,” I add, grinning, “you were right. The Red Island is real.”
He smiles even as more tears fall from his eyes. “Do you think—” His voice catches. “Do you think I can ever come home?”
My stomach twists, my chest tight. “You are home,” I tell him. I peer around him, at our siblings, and wave them toward us. “It’s all right,” I say. “He’s back.”
Lewis slips out of Margaret’s hold, nearly tackling Owen.
“You look awful,” Lewis tells him, mussing his hair.
“Oh, really?” Owen laughs, pivoting to put Lewis in a headlock. “I can still kick your ass, though.”
The two of them jab at each other, giggling and shoving like children, until Owen catches sight of Charlie, his face still buried in his hands.
Lewis hangs back as Owen approaches Charlie, slowly, gently, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder.
“I thought—” Charlie hiccups. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I’m here, brother,” Owen says as Charlie throws his arms around him. “I’m right here.”
After a minute, Owen draws back, only slightly, his head tilted at Margaret.
“Come on, Marge,” he says, a teasing grin tugging at his lips. “I know you missed me.”
A sob wrenches free from Margaret’s chest, and she piles into their hug, followed by Lewis. Owen sticks out a hand, beckoning me, and I half-laugh, half-sob as I join their embrace.
A fifth pair of arms wraps around us.
“I think we really needed this,” Rook says with a sigh.
Charlie and Lewis seem to smother their grins, and Margaret rolls her eyes as we break apart.
But Owen claps Rook on the shoulder. “Ah, the musician,” he says. “Are you still taking requests?”
Rook bows slightly at the waist. “Finally, someone who appreciates my talents.”
Owen smiles as Rook jogs across the deck to fetch his violin, but the instant he’s gone, Owen turns to me, his expression grim, and my heart sinks.
“Who can we trust?” he asks, his voice laced with urgency.
I watch as Rook descends the companionway. Titus trusts him. He trusts Diana, too. And I trust the others—Gabriel, Henry, Jack, and Eliza. They’re my crew. My friends.
“There isn’t a soul aboard this ship whom I don’t trust,” I tell him as Margaret, Charlie, and Lewis all exchange solemn glances, their spines straightening, rolling their shoulders back. Preparing for a fight.
Trust. It means more to my siblings and me than any other word. It’s the difference between life and death. It’s an anchor. A vow.
“Good,” Owen says, nodding slowly. “Because I know what Morana’s planning, and we’re going to need all the help we can get.”
A gentle breeze billows the sails of the Starchaser as the sky turns a soft, dusky shade of lavender, and the quiet melody of Rook’s fiddle paints the coming night with anticipation.
Owen stands near the bow of the ship, quietly chanting, his hands raised. He spent the day putting wards around the Starchaser—magic that Diana tells me hasn’t been practiced since before the Fall. Magic she’s never encountered.
I sit between Gabriel and Eliza as Henry emerges from the galley for the first time all day, carrying a pot of stew. Annie trails along behind him, holding a towering, lopsided stack of wooden bowls, her gaze fixed on the deck.
I get to my feet as Henry approaches Margaret. He doesn’t look up, his dull gaze fixed on the weathered boards underfoot, as Annie offers Margaret a bowl. My sister smiles warmly, taking the bowl from Annie with a soft, “Thank you.”
Henry dishes out the stew with surprising care, but I don’t miss the way Margaret flinches as he reaches out, spoon in hand, to ladle it into her bowl.
Henry’s brows pinch, his mouth twisted in a frown, and he takes a deliberate step back. He serves Jack, then Lewis and Charlie, and finally—
Gabriel refuses a bowl from Annie with a quiet and polite, “No, thank you.”
Margaret scoffs. “What?” She points her spoon accusingly at Gabriel. “Are you just going to starve?”
Henry’s shoulders tense, his eyes flashing, his back still turned to Margaret.
Gabriel scowls, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “I’m not hungry.”
Margaret’s lips pinch. “Eat,” she says slowly, “the damn”—she doesn’t break his stare—“stew.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenches. Reluctantly, he holds out his hand, taking a bowl from Annie, and Henry quickly dishes out the stew.
Henry serves Eliza before briefly meeting my gaze.
“Henry,” I say quietly, but he shakes his head, his chin quivering. He moves on to Diana, leaving Rook’s bowl in her care—she winks at me as she spoons half of Rook’s portion into her own bowl—until there’s only two bowls left.
Owen has just stepped down onto the main deck when Annie throws her arms around him, weeping.
Owen goes rigid. Henry nearly drops the pot of stew.
“Annie—” Henry starts, but Owen holds up his hand.
“It’s quite all right,” he says, patting Annie on the head. He kneels then, and Annie clings to his neck. If it weren’t for Annie’s dark curls, I would think he were embracing Elsie.
I look skyward, blinking tears from my eyes.
“Thank you,” Henry says, his voice rough. “For bringing her home.”
Owen inclines his head slightly in acknowledgment before drawing back, his hands on Annie’s shoulders.
“We’re never going back there,” he says, holding her gaze. Calm. Steady. “We’re safe now, all right?”
Annie’s chin wobbles. She nods.
Owen smiles as he accepts a bowl from her. “Have you been helping your brother in the galley?”
Annie sniffs. She nods again.
“You know,” he says, cutting a glance at me, “my little sister used to help me in the galley, too.”
The ghost of a grin touches Annie’s lips. “Really?”
Owen’s smile broadens. “Really.”
He stands, and as Henry dishes out the stew, Owen implores him to meet his soft, sincere gaze. I don’t hear what Owen says, but I read his lips.
“She can’t lose you both.”
Henry slumps, but he nods, wiping tears with the dishcloth draped over his shoulders. Owen claps him on the arm.
“I appreciate your patience,” Owen says as he approaches our small group. “You have no reason to trust me, and frankly, I don’t have much cause to trust some of you, either.”
I don’t touch my spoon, my stomach twisting into knots. The music from Rook’s violin dies with a whine.
“But Aster trusts you.” He surveys the deck, meeting each member of the Starchaser’s crew with a measured look. “And I trust my sister.”
A silent, steely determination sweeps through the crew. I can feel their eyes on me, but I don’t break Owen’s stare.
“If you have any questions,” Owen says, addressing the group, even as he holds my gaze, “now’s the time to ask.”
Rook clears his throat, raising his hand, and Owen turns to face him.
“What kind of magic did you use to escape the Burning Lands?” he asks, eyes narrowing. “I’ve known plenty of windwalkers. None are capable of leaping across great distances in the blink of an eye.”
A grin tugs at Owen’s lips. “I don’t leap.
I manipulate the wind to propel me forward.
It’s not instantaneous, and the distances I’m able to travel are limited by the Manan I’m able to expend.
When I do it, it’s almost like time slows, and I’m flying very, very fast, but I need to be able to see where I’m going or else…
” He draws his bottom lip between his teeth, shrugs.
“Splat.” He hesitates, his eyes suddenly hard.
Haunted. “My people once called it a vortex.”
Diana tenses, her eyes wide. “You’ve mastered a vortex?”
Owen dips his head, his mouth pulled tight in a frown.
“Morana has attempted to teach the skill to the windwalkers in her regime for centuries, rather unsuccessfully,” he says, hugging the bowl of stew to his chest. “Until me. The others—the Manan it requires…” He sucks his teeth. “They don’t survive.”
Eliza’s knuckles turn white as she grips her spoon, her face screwed up.
I wonder if she’s thinking about Will when a tear drips into her stew, and she quickly wipes her face before she thinks anyone can see.
“Lewis says you know what Morana’s planning,” she says, lifting her gaze to meet Owen’s, her brows drawn. “Tell us what we can do to help.”
Owen’s expression is grim, but his eyes soften. “Long ago, Morana sent General Azeron out in search of a treasure,” he starts, cutting a hesitant glance in my direction.
“The Lightbringer,” I say, my throat tight. “He was looking for me.”
Owen winces. “She wanted the power of the Lightbringer, yes, but,” he says carefully, hesitantly, “that power is useless to her without the Relics of Night.”
My heart skips a beat. The Relics of Night. Will had mentioned them once, when he was still aboard the Starchaser—when I still thought he was cursed. And again, in Morana’s throne room. He said I could help to guide their search.
The sun dips below the horizon, washing the Starchaser in burnt-tangerine light. Our party casts harsh shadows on the deck.
Boots thud, and a new, looming silhouette emerges from the companionway.
“The Relics are a myth,” Titus says, sauntering toward us. He leans against the mainmast, his arms folded, examining the dirt under his nails with what appears to be rapt interest. “Even if they are real, no one’s ever come close to finding one.”
I glance at Diana, Rook, and Gabriel in turn, all looking at Titus as if he were more myth than man himself. And with his cold, haunted eyes, sharp jaw, and lithe, muscular frame… he looks like a statue carved from the moon. A Star given flesh.
A Star covered in dirt and dried blood, reeking like sweat.
There’s a tense moment in which Owen and Titus seem to be appraising each other, until finally, both extend their hands at the same time.
“I never got a chance to thank you,” Owen says, “for saving Aster.”
From the Deathwail, I realize.
It almost looks as if Titus’s cheeks flush pink. “I think we can call it even.”
The two of them shake hands.
Owen clears his throat, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “I can assure you,” Owen says, and it sounds almost like an apology, “the Relics are very real.”
“Relics?” Charlie asks, a crease forming between his brows.
Owen heaves a sigh. “The power of the Lightbringer was not the only gift the True King bestowed upon Hildegarde.
Six hundred years ago, humankind was cursed for their greed because they sought the means to enter Elysia—to go beyond this realm and obtain power that was never meant for them, magic that was never ours to wield.
A Sorcerer fashioned the Relics—imbued with Manan he obtained through…
questionable rituals. First, the Helm to see the gates of Elysia, the Key to unlock the gates, and the Sword to vanquish the being that guards the passage between realms.
“He triumphed, and when he entered Elysia, he was granted one wish by the True King—his prize for being clever enough to succeed. But where he could have wished for peace—for goodness—he wished for power and control. He wanted to rule over the beasts of the night—the Underlings that had been locked away at the dawn of our world.”
Owen’s eyes darken. “Bound by his promise, the True King granted his wish, setting the Underlings free. In his wrath, the True King planned to destroy the Relics so that no one could ever enter his realm again. But Hildegarde petitioned the True King to let her hide the Relics, and because he looked favorably on the human queen, he agreed. Hildegarde enchanted two means of finding the Relics, passed down through generations—ordinary objects of unspeakable power known, collectively, as the Elysian Navigator. A map and an instrument used to interpret it. Useless alone, but together… one could find the Relics of Night, enter Elysia, and demand their own wish from the True King.”
“A wish?” Charlie asks, his brows knit. “What kind of wish?”
“The kind of wish that could help us defeat Morana,” I say quietly. “If we had the Navigator—if we could find all three Relics—we could turn the tides of the war.”
Lewis nods slowly. “We could win the war.”
Titus cocks his head, fixing Owen with an appraising stare. “How do you know the Navigator exists?”
Owen frowns. “Because Aster had one piece of the puzzle.”
Titus’s jaw goes slack. My stomach dips.
“Will took it from you while you slept.” Owen turns to me, his expression sympathetic. “Father’s compass is the Elysian Instrument.”