Borderlands (15 page)

On the lagoon, all is still.

It's like a curtain has been pulled back, taking every vestige of rain and wind and thunder with it. The transition is almost eerie. Even our boat hushes as we cross the threshold. The alchemy stops fizzling, the metal stops clanking. We roll forward on a surge of momentum from the river, crossing from storm into silence.

Even in darkness, the water is green. It's not a dirty scunge like when the gutters flood in Rourton. It's more of a metallic green: the shine of dew upon grass. The water is so smooth that it almost feels wrong to trespass – as though our boat is hacking through pristine silk.

Silver lets out a low breath, then cranks a handle. There is a long pause before the alchemy clicks and whirrs back into life.

But even as the
Nightsong
regains its power, the waterline grows closer. I hurry to the nearest window and peer over the edge. No, I'm not imagining it; we're travelling lower in the water. That green shine, which looked so smooth and beautiful a moment ago, is rising up to swallow us.

‘What just happened?' I say.

‘There's a seam of magnetic rock along the east side of the lagoon,' Silver says. ‘Just like the seams in the Valley. Boat stopped workin' while we crossed over it, but we're back into normal waters now.'

‘That's why we're safe from the storm?' Teddy guesses. ‘It's an alchemical storm, not a natural one, right? So the magnetic seam messes with its power.'

Silver nods. ‘Bellyachers always roll in from the east. Those magnets're like a shield for this lagoon – keepin' the waters smooth, and stoppin' the storms in their tracks.' She turns to Quirin. ‘
Nightsong
's taken on too much water. She won't make it to the cove on the other side. I'll have to ground her on the rocks. It'll bang up the keel, but . . .'

‘Better than sinking,' Quirin says. He still gazes out behind us, eyes fixed upon the boat that contains his family.

Silver guides our boat towards a little island. As we pull closer to its shore, there is an awful scrape and the
Nightsong
jerks. I stumble and fall to my knees. Looking around, I see I'm not alone; Teddy and Clementine sprawl, slightly stunned, upon the cabin floor. There's another screech – like fingernails on chalkstone – along the bottom of the boat. Silver cranks an alchemy lever and the
Nightsong
bucks, with a metallic groan, as it scrapes up onto a ridge of painfully shallow water. With a final surge, we grind to a halt on the rocks.

‘We call this island the Jaw,' Silver says. ‘Since it's got hidden teeth, eh? Normally I'd avoid it, but . . .' She shrugs. ‘This boat ain't staying afloat on open water.'

I glance around at the remains of the
Nightsong
. The cabin's back wall is torn away: a mangled corpse of wood and metal. A huge gash is clawed in the roof, and water still laps at the trapdoor to the bunkroom. But the water outside is shallow – not much higher than the bilge – and as I watch, the bunkroom's water level begins to fall. I realise our grounding has torn a hole in the bottom of the boat, and that her stomachful of water is leaching away.

The
Forgotten
doesn't follow us onto the rocks; she floats high in the water a safe distance from the Jaw. Clearly, Laverna isn't keen to tear an unnecessary hole in her boat's backside.

Quirin mutters some instructions to Silver, then crosses outside. He drops to sit upon the edge of the deck, ready to slide beneath the guardrail and down into the shallow water.

‘Wait!' Clementine says. ‘I mean, please sir – can't I come? I need to make sure . . .'

Quirin glances back at her. ‘Your sister is still alive. If there'd been any deaths on the
Forgotten
, Laverna would have raised the flag.'

‘But if I could just come and see for myself . . .'

‘You'll have to take my word for it, girl,' Quirin says. ‘The
Forgotten
still has work to do tonight. I don't have time to babysit you.'

Clementine bites her lip, but doesn't respond.

As we watch, Quirin slips into the water. Here it's so shallow that it barely brushes his waist. After a few steps, he reaches the edge of the rock plateau – one moment he's wading, and the next he's gone. His arms reappear about twenty metres away, churning like oars through the lagoon.

I place a hand on Clementine's shoulder, then help her to her feet.

‘What's the
Forgotten
gotta do now?' Teddy says. ‘I reckon they've earned a rest after all that.'

‘Emergency supply stash, hidden on the far side of the lagoon,' Silver says. ‘Food, bandages, medicine. Alchemy juices, too. Quirin's hopin' to re-stock these boats, I'd judge, since everything's been washed away.'

‘Well,' Teddy says, ‘I'm not gonna argue if there's food involved.'

For a moment we just stand there, at a loss for what to do. I expect Silver to give us some instructions – to clear away the wreckage, perhaps, or venture down and salvage sheets from the draining bunkroom. But she just stands there, one hand upon the wheel, her eyes as distant as stars.

‘Should we . . .' I hesitate. ‘Should we say a prayer, or sing a song or something? For the people on the
Merchant's Daughter
.'

Silver gives a bitter little laugh. ‘No songs'll help them now, my friend. There ain't no happy place in the afterlife for smugglers.'

More silence. I don't know how to argue with that. I've never had much time for religion myself. Only the sort of desperate prayers you make in Rourton on a winter's night, when you pray the God of Mouldy Biscuits might prompt a richie to drop some edible rubbish out their window.

I step forward, and place a hesitant hand on the wheel beside Silver's. ‘You saved all our lives,' I tell her. ‘No one else could have got the boat through that.'

Silver looks down at my hand and stiffens. I think she's going to yell at me for presuming to put my hand upon the captain's wheel. Then I realise she's staring at my mother's bracelet – or more specifically, at the silver charms that dangle near the clasp.

‘Where'd you get those?' Her voice is strange. Tight.

I glance at the charms. ‘A friend gave them to me.'

‘A friend?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘My friend who's missing in the borderlands. I thought he might have been the one nagging you to join his fight against the king . . .'

But Silver is no longer listening. She pulls my wrist upwards into the moonlight, and runs a shaking finger across the charms. Her touch lingers upon the silver star. She rubs it between thumb and forefinger: back and forth, back and forth.

‘What's the matter?' I say. ‘I didn't steal them, if that's what you're thinking.'

Silver looks up at me. Her expression is oddly strained. When she speaks, there is barely a trace of the fake western accent in her voice. ‘I've seen these charms before, my friend. Many, many years ago.'

‘What?'

‘I made them.'

A breeze wafts across the surface of the lagoon, throwing ripples into a dance around the edges of our boat. I glance across at my friends, who look just as dumbstruck as I am by this revelation. Then I turn back to Silver. ‘You made them?'

She nods. ‘I told you I was an alchemist.'

‘Yes, but –'

‘In my old life.' Her voice is almost a whisper now. ‘In my old life, before I became a smuggler. I brewed alchemy charms, yes. And I was the best at it. Charms like these . . . they're why I took the name “Silver” when I joined this clan.'

Silver's fingers tremble. Behind her, I see the
Forgotten
pull away into the night.

‘But I made other things, too,' she says. ‘So many things, my friends. Things of which I am ashamed. Things that give me nightmares, that make my soul burn with every moment of the dark.' She runs her fingers across the silver star once more.

‘You worked for the royal family?' I say.

Silver nods. ‘I led a crew of experimental alchemists. We were young and reckless, and we dreamed of earning our place in history. We invented such things . . . such wonderful things. Such terrible things.'

My mouth goes dry. ‘Things like what?'

Silver releases her grip on the star charm. She shakes her head, then steps away. A moment of agony twists her face – as though she's been reminded of a terrible truth, a truth she has worked years to bury. Then she shakes her head again, runs a hand through her hair, and retreats into the shadows of the cabin.

‘Things like what?' I repeat.

Silver steps deeper into the shadows. She slumps against a wall, then slides down into a sitting position with her head in her hands. Her body shakes. She does not respond.

For the rest of the night, we doze. There'll be an almighty clean-up in the morning, but for now we're too weary to care. I choose a position near the front of the boat, wrapped in a jumble with Teddy and Clementine. We lean our heads upon each other's shoulders, sharing body heat. For the first time in days, there's no awkwardness. There's just the night, the water and our crew.

Still, no one really sleeps. I feel the others tremble every now and then. My mind flashes with images. Maisy, bleeding. The surge. The
Merchant's Daughter
going under . . . the moment its light snuffed out. The scream of thunder in my head. The moment I almost lost myself to the Night – and the horrific pleasure of that sensation.

Finally, dawn pours across the lagoon, thick and sticky. We get to work in silence, as if by an unspoken agreement. Silver fiddles with her alchemy chest, rearranging the vials to take stock of her supplies. A couple of vials have smashed, despite Teddy's efforts to protect the chest, so she cuts her sleeves into makeshift gloves to safely dispose of the mess.

Teddy's nose is tender, but not broken. The burn on Clementine's palm is clean. I want to ask Silver to heal it with her bone charm, but the old woman doesn't seem ready to talk. Besides, the last thing we need is to slip further into her debt. So we wash the wound and bind it ourselves. Clementine helps us haul furniture without a word of complaint. I know her mind isn't here – it's with Maisy, sailing off across the lagoon. But I'm still impressed by how she ignores the pain. I suffered plenty of burns when I worked for a Rourton blacksmith, and I know how much they sting. I don't know if I'd be so stoic with an acid-burn across my palm.

We haul blankets and pillows up from the bunkroom, which is now mostly drained. The bedding is sopping, of course, so we hang it to dry along the boat's guardrail.

The wooden chairs can't be salvaged, so we dump them over the side. Chucking them into the water is oddly satisfying, and somehow – after a couple of winks from Teddy – we wind up competing for the biggest splosh. I'm quite happy with my contribution of a belly-flopping chair leg, until Teddy bowls an entire bum-rest over the side. It sprays water up to our faces before it floats to the surface, and Clementine lets out a splutter of disbelief.

‘Oh yeah,' Teddy says. ‘Nort wins by a mile!'

Clementine stares into the water, where our wooden wreckage is bobbing. ‘It seems like such a waste,' she says quietly. I don't think she's just talking about the chairs, but before I can say anything Teddy pipes up.

‘Some lucky fish can get a nice new home out of them,' he says. ‘There's enough nooks and crannies in that lot to call it a mansion.'

He grins, and tries to skim a chair leg like a stone across the water. It plops on the first bounce. ‘Ah well. You win some, you lose some.'

As the day passes, the
Nightsong
slowly shifts back into a viable living space. Not a viable boat, of course – if we tried to steer off these rocks, we'd sink as fast as Teddy's chair leg. But at least the cabin and bunkroom are clean, and the debris is cleared away. I even find a crate of honey-spice nuts down in some forgotten corner of the storage compartment. They're soaked with river water, of course, but still look mostly edible. At this point, I'm willing to call them a feast.