“Is your head troubling you?” He hadn’t noticed Lee indulging to excess last night, but drink took men differently.
“Something is,” Lee muttered.
Now Michael focused on the man—and on the music inside the man. A good tune, solid and steady. Reminded him of his friend Nathan. But there were sharp riffs now that hadn’t been there last night. As if the song that was Raven’s Hill was working on Lee.
“Maybe you should go back to your little island.”
Lee lowered his hand and shook his head. “I’m all right.”
No, you’re not. If something about Raven’s Hill was so troubling to Lee, what might it be doing to Glorianna?
“It’s not much farther.” With luck, he’d catch Nathan before the workday started. Whenever he felt ragged during a visit home, a few hours with Nathan settled him again. Maybe the same would be true for Lee.
They both lengthened their strides, moving with purpose until the harbor was in sight. Then Michael stopped sharply enough that Lee took several more steps before realizing something was wrong.
“That’s Kenneday’s ship,” Michael said, pointing. “I came up with him before things…happened. He should have set sail by now.” Unless the ship no longer had a captain. Kenneday had been standing near him when that monster rose out of the water. “Come on.”
They ran the rest of the way, travel packs bouncing against their shoulders. When they neared the water, Michael veered toward a tavern that was favored by captains and merchants who wanted a drink and a meal while conducting business. Even now, with the sun barely lifted above the horizon, the tavern was open for business and filled with customers.
And there he found Kenneday, sitting alone at a table, looking ashen and years older.
Michael strode up to the table. Upon seeing him, Kenneday cried out and stood up so fast the chair toppled.
“Ah, Michael, have you come back to haunt me? I swear by all I hold dear, there was nothing I could have done to save you. When that…thing…disappeared, I took out a boat to look for you. I did look. But I’ll understand if your soul feels a need to plague me.”
Michael looked at Garvey, who was working behind the bar—and was staring at him out of a face wrung clean of color. “Can we have a pot of strong tea over here?” He waited for the nod before turning back to Kenneday and putting some sting in his voice. “You’ve told me more than once that a captain who loses himself in drink risks losing his ship. And I know you’re a man with a fair share of courage, so I know you aren’t holding your ship, crew, and cargo in the harbor because some beasty rose out of the deep.”
Kenneday’s hand curled into a fist. “If you weren’t a dead man, I’d blacken your eye for using that tone of voice with me.”
“Does he always think people are ghosts, or does this happen only when he’s drunk?” Lee asked.
“Drunk, is it?” Kenneday shouted. “I’m not so far down into the bottle as to be called a drunk!”
“Then listen,” Lee said. “If you throw a punch and hit Michael in the eye, he’ll throw a punch and lay you out on the floor, and then I’ll get dragged into it because these kinds of fights never end with two punches, and we’ll end up trying to explain to his sister and mine how we landed in the guardhouse for a fight that wasn’t our doing.”
“Are you another spirit, then?” Kenneday asked.
“I’m a Bridge, and I’m sober, and I’m very much among the living.”
And you’re getting more pissy by the minute, Michael thought—and wondered whether he should be more worried about Kenneday or Lee.
“So why don’t we all sit down and you can tell Michael why your ship is still in the harbor and why you think he’s dead,” Lee said.
“I saw him go down into that terrible darkness, didn’t I?” Kenneday collapsed into another chair at the table while Lee righted the toppled chair and Michael pulled out a third. “Saw that thing rise up out of the sea and him standing there, facing it. And then the air turned black and the sea turned the color of blood, and when we could see again, Michael and the creature were gone.”
The pot of tea and the cups rattled as Garvey put them on the table. “Your auntie will be pleased you’ve come back to the living.”
“I wasn’t—” Michael shook his head. They were going to believe what they chose to believe. “Nathan said Aunt Brighid had been taken to the doctor’s house after the fire. Is she still there?”
“She’s at the boardinghouse now on Trace Street,” Garvey replied. “Doctor looks in on her every day, even though she’s well enough not to be needing him. Grieving for you and Caitlin Marie, of course, so I’m guessing she’ll be pleased to see you.”
If the shock of seeing us doesn’t kill her. But another thought occurred to him, and he wondered if, in fact, Brighid would be glad to see them.
“As for why I’m still in the harbor,” Kenneday said, “I had cargo for the White Isle, so I went once I felt sure there was nothing to be done for you. But it’s gone, Michael. You can see it. Sure as I’m sitting here, you can see it. When you’re coming up on it, the island looks as solid and real as your own hand. But then it starts to fade away. The closer you get, the more it fades until you sail over water where land should be—and when you get far enough away, you can see it again, behind you. Can’t be reached, though. No ship can dock there. So I came back, with my holds still full, and I didn’t have the heart to go farther. Not just yet.”
“Is the cargo in your hold staples that will last or supplies that will rot?” Lee asked.
“Mostly staples,” Kenneday replied. “There are things that will go bad, but not just yet.”
“Before you shed your cargo at a loss, give it another day,” Lee said.
“You know what became of the White Isle?” Michael asked.
Lee sipped his tea and grimaced. Since Michael found nothing wrong with the tea, he assumed the beverage wasn’t to Lee’s taste.
“Belladonna altered the landscapes to keep the White Isle away from the Eater of the World,” Lee said. “But her resonance is tangled with another Landscaper’s. Maybe that’s why the island is visible at all. It shouldn’t be.”
Kenneday looked from one to the other in disbelief. “Are you saying a sorceress made the White Isle disappear?”
Silence suddenly filled the tables around them, then carried like a wave throughout the tavern. Everyone turned in their direction. Everyone waited for an answer.
And the song that was Raven’s Hill turned dark and jagged.
Without some help, we’re not going to get out of here alive, Michael thought as he studied the faces of the men around him—some he had known for most of his life.
Lee sat back in his chair, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small, smooth stone. “What does a sorceress do that a Magician doesn’t?”
Bad question. Beads of sweat popped out on Michael’s forehead.
“Are you a Magician then?” A man at the next table stood up and cracked his knuckles while he gave Lee a nasty grin.
“No, I’m not,” Lee said calmly, rubbing his thumb over the stone. “But I can tell you this. If the Magicians and sorceresses in your…country…walk away from you, you won’t survive a month. Because they not only protect you from Ephemera, they protect you from your own hearts. That thing you saw in the harbor killed most of the Landscapers and Bridges in my part of the world—and the world is going mad because of it. Before you blame someone else for your ill luck, consider this: Nothing comes to you that doesn’t live within your own heart. That is the way of the world.”
“You’re begging for a lesson,” the man snarled. As he took a step toward them, Lee threw the stone at him. The man caught it, an instinctive action…
…and disappeared.
Another wave of silence filled the tavern.
So fast, Michael thought. It happens so fast. “Where did he go?”