Page 112 of Valour

Hester spun to find her mother perched on the side of the boat, her wings flared.

“Mother,” she breathed. “We are in mortal peril?” She looked all around. Was Orcus upon them? “Is Orcus coming?”

“No. The sea. The exhaustion. Death is not far away.”

Hester’s breath left her in a rush. Thank God. The sea she could deal with. Orcus, she wasn’t so sure.

Wait. What had she said? “My mate?”

Her mother lifted a hand and waved it towards Septimus. “The one you tethered yourself to. It’s curious that you were able to do that. I thought you might have chosen the other.” Her face turned to Winston.

Hester scowled. “Winston is my friend. Besides, we have other things to discuss than my love life, now you’re finally here. Why did you leave me at the orphanage?”

“I told you that. To protect you.”

“From what?”

Her mother hesitated. “There are…beings who wish you harm.”

“Beings? Like Orcus?”

“Orcus is…I didn’t anticipate him. But there are other gods like him.”

“Gods?” Hester looked over at Septimus, who seemed unaware of the conversation she was having. She wondered, not for the first time, whether she had gone mad. Hysteria. Just as the bigoted Anders Larson had blustered about.

Her mother nodded. “Gods. You share their blood, through me. My mother was one of them, and they killed me for being a half-blood. But they shall not have you.”

Gods. Her head reeled. Her grandmother was one. Insane. She had gone insane. “This is nonsense.”

“You don’t have to believe me. I know it’s a lot to take in.”

She was talking to the ghost of her mother. A mother who was half God, apparently. She shook her head. However unbelievable it was, she did have another question. “And what of my father? Is he dead too?”

“Your father lives.”

Hester’s heart skipped a beat. “What? Where is he? Why didn’t he keep me?”

The boat shuddered.

“The ice is too heavy for your vessel. If you do not chip it away, if you do not lose the weight, you will sink.”

Hester’s eyes widened. “Septimus, the ice. Get rid of it.”

Septimus leapt into action, chipping the ice from the decks.

When Hester looked back, her mother was gone.

36

IN WHICH DIGITS ARE LOST AND MAGIC AWAKENS

5th May 1916, Southern Ocean

Frank lowered the sextant and called coordinates to Peggy, who scratched a pencil mark onto the map.

“Right where we’re supposed to be,” Peggy said with a nod, tucked under the foredeck in her sodden sleeping bag.

“I never doubted,” Hester said, shoulders dropping.