Page 45 of Autumn L.A.W

Ezra glanced at her. “Well,” he said quietly. “We’re committed now.”

“Committed,” she repeated. “That’s one word for it.”

“What’s your word?”

She considered. “Irretrievable.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Accurate.”

A gull screamed overhead like the sea’s opinion mattered. It didn’t. This was happening. The breeze carried brine and fuel and the smell of rain that hadn’t decided whether or not to fall yet.

Sahara dragged in a breath and forced herself to let it out slowly. “Do you feel it?” she asked Ezra without looking at him.

“Like a word you almost remember,” he murmured.

“Yes,” she said. “Like pressure at the edge of a migraine.”

“Yes,” he said again.

The ship’s horn bellowed, long and low. People began to move with new urgency. Lines were coiled. Orders called. The tide did what it always did: ignored everyone and went about its business.

Ezra turned slightly toward her. “We should board.”

She nodded, but stayed still a moment longer, watching the ranks of containers like a skyline. One of them held a thing that remembered ancient kings and broken oaths. And that thing remembered her.

She wished she could pretend she didn’t care. She wished it would let her relax.

She wished the man standing beside her didn’t make all of this feel more complicated.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Let’s go babysit a rock.”

“Yes,” Ezra said gently. “Let’s.”

They walked to the gangway, onto the ship, and prepared to face the long ocean voyage to Egypt and whatever awaited them there. Together, come what may.

The gangway trembled under their boots as they crossed. Dockhands moved with efficient indifference, the way people do when they’ve done a job long enough to let muscle memory take over.

A crewman checked Ezra’s papers, then Sahara’s. His eyes skimmed the documents, bored, polite, and wonderfully uninterested.

Good. Sahara preferred people uninterested in her work. It meant they survived longer.

They stepped onto the ship properly, into a world of salt and steel and the rhythmic, hollow sounds of metal groaning to itself.

A young officer guided them below decks with a mixture of courtesy and suspicion. Their cabin was functional: two narrow bunks bolted to the opposite wall, a small metal desk, one chair, a round porthole with a permanently smudged view of the ghost-colored sky.

Sahara set her pack on the upper bunk and looked around. “It’s like a hotel,” she said. “If hotels hated joy.”

Ezra placed his duffel neatly at the foot of the other bunk. “It’s temporary.”

“Everything is temporary,” she said. “Except obelisks, and prisoners with an ax to grind.”

His mouth curved, just slightly. “If our accommodations don’t spark joy, just know we’ll spend most of our time topside or in the mess anyway.”

“Thrilling,” she said. “A messy vacation.”

He didn’t answer that. He just rested his palm briefly on the doorframe, eyes half-closing. Probably ley-mage habits. Feeling the bones of the ship or checking the energy flow.

Sahara pretended not to notice how gentle his magic felt against hers, even when not at rest. Like steady fingers smoothing a crease in suede.