Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was a quiet sunrise.
Marin trimmed the sails and wondered what kind of song Dax would have greeted the day with. He’d always varied it. Sometimes it was just his voice. Sometimes he’d play his tri-lute, or he’d encourage Perri to warble harmony with him.
His music was supposed to be shared with the world—he was a soon-to-be grandmaster, the greatest in a generation, as people kept telling her. She was selfish to think she could have kept all that gloriousness to herself. He belonged in that concert hall. It’s what’s best for him.
Standing by the bow, Rijes asked, “Do you believe I will be welcome on Belde?”
Marin had been so deep in wallowing in her thoughts that the sound of another voice made her jerk. The sail billowed, and she quickly adjusted it. From his perch on the mast, Ree called down, “Of course! Everyone is welcome on Belde!”
That wasn’t entirely true, at least in Marin’s experience.
The gardener had never been the most welcoming sort of person, and Terlu had to be skittish about new people, given her situation.
As she recalled, they’d both looked a bit overwhelmed when Yarrow’s family arrived, and that was family.
But then again, Marin had no idea what the current situation was on the island.
Everything had changed everywhere with the revolution.
“If you’re not, we’ll find another island where you’ll be comfortable.
” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
She wasn’t a ferry service, and she had money to earn—a lot of it, very quickly—but she couldn’t turn away Rijes Velk.
Even standing without her robes or the vestments of her office, she exuded so much gravitas.
You didn’t just abandon a woman like that.
Marin still couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that anyone had dared imprison her.
“Or you could sail around with us!” Ree said. “Join our crew!”
We do have an opening.
She hated that she had that thought.
Rijes laughed. “I’m hardly a sailor. But I thank you for the invitation.”
Ree scurried down the mast. “Look at me. Do I look like a sailor to you? But I am a sailor, in my heart.” He thumped his root ball with a few branches, and they all looked at his roots. “It’s not … I don’t literally have … Never mind. The point is that I chose my home. You can too.”
Rijes smiled at him. “You are a very wise plant.”
Out in the waves, Perri whistled as if in agreement.
The myrtle ruffled his leaves as if embarrassed.
“I’m sure the people of Belde will welcome you,” Marin said with more conviction. “Terlu in particular will be happy to see you.”
“She seemed well?” Rijes said.
“Yes.” Marin hesitated, not sure what she wanted to hear. “Less wooden than before.”
“Ahh.” Rijes smiled. “The gardener cast the spell. I thought he might. Even with the imperial laws in effect, it was unlikely that anyone would notice illegal spellwork out on such a remote island. And now that it’s no longer illegal …
I am well pleased. Terlu Perna cast a spell that harmed no one and, in fact, created a charming spider plant who was a quite competent library assistant.
If it hadn’t been for politics and fear of the rising unrest, her punishment never would have been so severe. She has served her sentence.”
Marin was certain that it would be a relief to Terlu to learn she was no longer a criminal.
She looked forward to relaying that news, if Terlu didn’t already know.
She might—word had spread as far as tiny Caltrey, so news was clearly disseminating fast. Everyone agreed that law had been a mistake.
Just consider the magic storms—if magic use became balanced again, then they’d diminish.
Rijes lowered herself onto the deck carefully, and Marin wondered how old she was.
Did she remember life before the magic storms, before the magic ban?
Or had she been too sequestered in the spires of her library?
No, she’d had access to all the knowledge of the empire.
It must have been difficult to know history and to watch the empire deliberately choose cruelty again and again.
Patting the side of the boat beside her, Rijes looked at Ree. “Come, little myrtle. Tell me about the moment you fell in love with the sea.”
With no additional prompting needed, Ree launched into a story of the first time he’d seen the ocean.
Laiken, the late sorcerer of Belde, had brought him to life with a spell, and he and his sibling plants had taken to following the sorcerer around.
“I think we all just wanted a purpose, you know? We wanted to know why. Why had he made us? And what were we supposed to do next?”
Rijes nodded. “People think pleasure is the source of happiness. I have found that it is not. It is purpose. Purpose and passion.”
“Yes!” Ree said.
Marin smiled at the passion in his voice.
She tried to remember the first moment she’d seen the sea—she couldn’t.
It had always been there. She couldn’t remember a day where the sea hadn’t been just outside her window, just a few steps away.
She did remember climbing up to the roof with the winged cats to watch the waves.
Pa had worried about her up that high when she’d been so little. Ma had simply found her a ladder.
Purpose and passion—yes, that’s exactly it.
“A few days after we were awakened, we followed Laiken. He was going to his tower—the workshop where he lived and where he developed his spells—and we walked outside the greenhouse for the first time. It was spring so it was just as green outside the greenhouse as within it and I wasn’t impressed.
Until we came out of the trees and saw the blue.
” He sighed. “I’d never seen anything limitless before, and that’s what I saw.
Potential. Out there … I just knew there were adventures.
A chance for me to find … me, I guess. Inside the greenhouse, I was one of many. But that blueness, it called to me.”
They watched Perri play in the waves while they all were silent, lost in their own thoughts.
The sea serpent had found a herd of merhorses and was merrily swimming around them as they cantered through the waves.
Their jeweled scales glistened in the sunlight, and their manes tossed rainbow sprays of water into the air.
Perri mimicked their whinnies and neighs, sounding as if they were having an in-depth conversation. It was possible they were.
“I tried to explain to Laiken and to the others,” Ree continued.
“They didn’t understand. I’m a plant. I’m supposed to be where the soil is.
I’m not supposed to wander. I’m certainly not supposed to want to be on the sea …
And I couldn’t explain it, especially since I hadn’t even seen a boat yet.
I didn’t know it was possible to venture out on the blue as far as I wanted. To the horizon and beyond.”
“But you eventually saw a boat,” Rijes prompted.
“It was this boat,” Ree said shyly. “You, Marin.”
He hadn’t called her “Captain.” It was a first. She rather liked it.
“I didn’t know it at the time. I just saw the silver sails, and I saw you, moving around the deck, and I knew …
but I thought it was an impossible dream, even before we all fell into the deep sleep.
” To Rijes, he said, “Laiken forced us all into an unwaking sleep. He thought he was protecting us from the world, when all I really wanted was to be out in the world.”
Rijes nodded. “I may not have yearned for the sea, but I do know a bit about caging things out of fear, thinking you’re protecting them.
” Her gaze shifted to the horizon, northward.
“The Great Library of Alyssium was built to protect the knowledge and the stories of the Crescent Islands. It wasn’t ever supposed to keep those spells and dreams and memories from the people.
Its purpose was to preserve it all for the people. ”
Marin had never thought of the Great Library as a place for the people. She’d only ever been allowed at the docks, like the conservatory. Its treasures weren’t for the likes of her. Had they once been? That must have been a marvelous time. “What changed?”
“Fear is a jailer,” Rijes said. “People who have power are often afraid to lose it, and books are the greatest power—they are the culmination of many lifetimes. They grant access to worlds, dreams, thoughts, and wisdom beyond what a person can possibly experience in the span of their own years. Whoever has books has the power to be greater than themselves, to connect themselves to all who have come before and draw strength from them.”
“Like the sea,” Ree said. “It connects me to something greater than myself.”
Marin hadn’t thought of the sea that way, but he was right—she did feel that way.
When she was on the ocean, she wasn’t trapped in the limits of her own body and experiences.
She was connected to something larger, something eternal.
She was connected to all the other sailors who had come before her.
To her parents. To their parents. To every islander who’d left their home in search of a place they felt truly home.
For some, like her, like Ree, that home was the sea itself, as unpredictable and dangerous as it could be. Also as beautiful and wondrous. She watched Perri play with the merhorses and smiled.
“Books are like the sea,” Rijes agreed, “with depths and secrets and currents and moods.”
“They’re just not wet,” Ree said.
Rijes laughed. “I said you were wise, and I stand by it.”
The shrub scooted closer to the librarian. “What happened at the library?” he asked. “Why don’t you want it to be your home anymore?”