He was fooling himself if he thought that. Yes, she could go back to making deliveries to the conservatory, and she’d see him then, but it wouldn’t be the same. Nothing would be. Not for her and Dax. Not for her parents. Not for the empire. At least with regard to Dax and with regard to the Crescent Islands, that was for the best. She just said, “Sure.”
“You need to come back and watch my opus,” Dax said. “When it’s over, if I succeed,whenI succeed… we’ll talk about the future, and everything will be all right. But you must come back.”
We have no future.The last thing she wanted to do was see him finally accept that. They didn’t need some big, dramatic conversation. It was better to treasure the memories she had than poison them with painful ones. “Good luck,” was all she could bring herself to say.
Before it could become awkward, Marin barked orders at Ree, Perri, and Dax to help with steering the boat into the tunnel beneath the conservatory. She kept them moving, securing the boat to the dock, packing up Dax’s belongings, and hurrying him off the deck. They couldn’t linger, she said—it wasn’t safe for Rijes to stay in the city. The sooner they were underway, the better.
Perri trumpeted a cascade of minor notes.
“Five days after solstice!” Dax called to them. “Come back to Alyssium! Promise me you’ll come! Marin! Come, and everything will be okay!”
As she poled away, Marin made no promises.
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 changedeverywhere 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 Iama 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 knowwhy. Why had he made us? And what were we supposed to do next?”
