Skye took a step toward him. “I don’t care.”
“You should.”
She let out an angry breath. “What are you, then?”
“Nothing good,” he whispered.
And then he was gone.
The girl fell against the hull of her father’s boat, feeling colder than the sea.
Ten
After using the spindle to draw a shining line, the mists rose up. Eris stepped into them and across.
Her footsteps echoed loudly as she waded through the white fog and down the path beneath the stars. A few moments later, an arching blue door with a silver handle stood before her. Opening it, she stepped into the eerie quiet of the labyrinth. The spindle always brought her to this same place—a place between worlds. A place Day had showed her how to use when she was just a child.A place to hide,he’d told her back then.
No sooner had Eris started down its stained-glass halls than she felt the eerie presence of the ghost, following her. Out of habit, she ran her thumb over the familiar curves and grooves of her spindle. When she was younger, she liked to imagine the spindle as a kind of talisman, protecting her from the ghost in the labyrinth. But years of crossing had taught her the thing was harmless. The ghost loved to lurk, which was creepy enough, but it never tried to hurt her.
She started ignoring it, then forgetting it was there.
“Looks like we have a long night of sleuthing ahead of us,” she said to the ghost now, making her way toward one of the doors within. She needed to always pay attention to the path she took, otherwise the labyrinth would turn her about, ensnaring her inside itself for hours, or sending her straight back to where she’d started.
The ghost said nothing. But Eris knew it heard her.
At present, there were four doors, each one leading to a different place. The first and most-used door led to theSea Mistress, Kor’s now-burned vessel; the second led to theHyacinth; the third and newest door led to Firgaard’s palace; and the last stood before her. Painted gold with a brass handle, this one led to Firefall—a wealthy seaside city where Jemsin sent Eris for most of her jobs. A city that just so happened to be crawling with the empress’s spies.
She’d nearly destroyed this door after her last visit, months ago now, when she’d been caught mid-heist by four Lumina soldiers. Before she could even draw her spindle, they were on her, locking her hands in stardust steel cuffs—a form of torture the Lumina were best known for. Not only would the corrosive metal eat right through human wrists, but for some reason, it prevented Eris from stepping across.
She discovered this when they threw her into a temporary holding cell before shipping her back to the Star Isles. With her hands bound in the stardust steel cuffs, Eris tried to use the spindle... but nothing happened. If Jemsin hadn’t found her, hadn’t slaughtered them all, she’d be in the empress’s hands right now. Or dead.
She shivered at the thought.
But Jemsin wasn’t going to stop sending her to Firefall because of a close encounter with some soldiers. If she destroyed the golden door, she’d only have to make a new one. And in order for these doors to open into a place she needed to go, Eris had to fasten them out of something belonging to that particular place. It had taken her months to obtain the material she needed to makethisdoor—which lead straight into Firefall’s royal archives.
So she’d kept it, and was thankful now for her own foresight. Tapping the stolen knife in her belt, she thought of the information Safire gave her.
“Let’s see if she’s a liar, shall we?” she said to the ghost.
The ghost said nothing back.
Eris reached for the knob, pulled the door open, and stepped through.
A Place of Her Own
One evening, Crow heard Skye weeping. He tried to unhear it. Tried to stay away. But the sound of her sorrow was a hook caught inside him. It tugged and it pulled until he gave in.
He found her hiding in the rocks, just out of view of the wharf, and he sat down next to her.
Skye lifted her red, chapped hands to show him. “They hurt,” she said. “But Papa needs me on the boats and the flakes. And Mama needs me for the washing and the cooking.” She stared miserably at her fingers, then looked up at him through eyes full of tears. “What I would give for just one day of quiet and stillness and rest. One day alone at my loom.”
Crow could give her more than just one day.
So he set to work, building a place for her. A secret place, between her world and his. Where she could weave, alone, in silence. He made her a loom. He filled baskets brimming with brightly colored skeins so that she would never run out of thread.
He made doors that would help her get from place to place—the wharf, the house, the cliffs, the market—to give her time to rest.
And then he fastened for her a key. One he disguised as a spindle. “You can hide it among your tools,” he said.
