When the Sea is Rising Red (21 page)

With a reluctant sigh, I push off the covers and rise to meet the day.

The others are bleary eyed, and I stumble past them and help myself to more tea, avoiding all eye contact with Dash. For some reason I feel embarrassed by their knowledge of my relationship with him.

“So what’s your grand plan then, master Dash?” says Lils. We’re eating a quick breakfast of eggs and toast, and the sun is just beginning to tinge the horizon. I lean back and set my teabowl down. I’m rather interested in the answer myself. It had better be good if there’s a chance I’m going to get fired over it.

Dash catches my look of irritation and winks. “Well,” he says, and straightens his waistcoat, “it’s a spring low, so we can mostly walk to Lambs’ Island.”

Everyone is silent, then Lils says to him, “You’re a right mucking chancer, you know that? What if we’re caught? You got a taste for iron pliers all of a sudden?”

“No one will be caught. I’ve paid off the look-fars.” He stands. “Now, everyone get a move on. We need to bring back as many mussels as we can carry before the Red Death hits the island.”

Lambs’ Island is forbidden. Once, years ago when we still traded with the Mekekana nation, it was the only place that they were allowed to land their bug-ships. Since the war, and since the War-Singers of MallenIve and Pelimburg stood together to destroy an attacking Meke fleet, we’ve seen not a breath of them. Lambs’ Island has been abandoned, the old iron warehouses crumbling into the sea and the traders’ villas left to the lizards and the seabirds. No one goes there. We are magic, and the Meke are not; our worlds will not meet on friendly terms again.

On days when the tide is at its lowest, there’s a broken causeway that extends from the tip of the Claw all the way to Lambs’ Landing. Parts of it are difficult to cross, and you’re bound to reach your destination wet, but that’s not what keeps people away.

“What about the Meke ghosts?” I ask.

Dash just laughs at me. “That’s a rumor spread by the Houses. There are no ghosts on Lambs’ Island.”

“How do you know?”

“We’ve been there before,” Lils answers for Dash. “He’s right. There ain’t nothing there but broken-down buildings and blue mussels as fat as your fist. We bring enough of those back, we’ll make a mint at the market. Especially now.”

The others nod. Shellfish are scarce now with the bad tide, and they seem to think the rewards outweigh any risk.

Faced with their certainty and the knowledge that, thanks to Dash’s connections and vai, the House look-fars in the towers won’t report us to the sharif, I take the tightly woven straw bag that Nala holds out to me. The other Whelk Streeters trip downstairs, chattering softly to one another as they go. Kirren runs under feet and between legs, making even sullen little Esta laugh. Dash stays at my side, keeping pace with me as we make our way to the rubble-built causeway.

*   *   *

T
HE SUN IS WELL OVER THE HORIZON
by the time we reach the island. Kirren is wet and happy, bounding along the sandy beaches before racing back to Dash’s heels. The air is clean, unspoiled by coal fires or fish markets or the mess of city stink that infuses everything in Pelimburg. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the sharp taste of it. The sea here is still green and gray, untouched by the distant spreading mass of the Red Death.

“Here’s a good lot!” Lils yells from one of the tide pools. I join her and Nala, pulling the fat mussels from the rocks. Tugging them free is hard work, and sweat trickles down my brow and back. It doesn’t take us long to fill all the sacks we’ve brought, and then we tie them tightly and set them in a shallow tide pool to keep the mussels alive.

As I’m tying my hair back again after it’s come loose in the wind, I spot Dash climbing the rise of the hill to where the Meke’s long-abandoned lighthouse stands. It’s weather crumbled and stained white with guano. Scores of birds are wheeling around the tower. Among them are the large black-winged shapes of the sooty albatross; I’ve heard enough Hob talk to know they believe that these birds are the ghosts of the drowned.

No they’re not,
I tell myself firmly. They are birds. Live birds, who squabble over the fish guts sailors throw overboard.

Silently, I follow Dash up the low hill, keeping him just in sight. The air has chilled, and I shiver in the breeze whipping off the ocean. Maybe Lambs’ Island really is the home of ghosts. If there’s a boggert feeding off the Hobs, then perhaps it’s here now, watching us.

Dash disappears over the crest of the hill. I lift my sodden skirts and climb faster.

At the rise, I pause and look down. He’s making his way to a protected little bay, just a narrow tongue of sand between black rocks. The sun bites into my eyes and I squint and shade them so I can see better. A few minutes later he’s crouched on the sand as if he’s waiting for something.

The sea laps at his feet. His mouth is moving, but I can hear nothing.

He’s been still so long that eventually I tire and sit down cross-legged among the wax-berries and aloes and the ubiquitous sea roses that shed their wide black petals like old blood. I should leave him to whatever he’s doing and head back to the others, but something keeps me watching.

And I am rewarded.

A sleek head rises from the waves, her blond hair plastered back. There’s something familiar there, but I’m too far away to see the face clearly. The girl, pale and silvery as a fish, stays in the shallows, the foam swirling about her feet. She takes Dash’s hand, and he talks.

I want to know what it is he’s saying, but there’s no way for me to move closer without him noticing me.

The girl listens and then nods, but she doesn’t let go of Dash’s hand. He has to pull himself free. She bows her head, her fingers tearing something from her hair. It flashes silver and green, bright as new leaves, and she holds it out for a moment before dropping it in the sand at Dash’s feet. It blinks there.

She says something more, then lets the tide pull her back out into the water, back under. Dash watches her sink before he bends to pick up the thing on the sand. Quickly, he tucks it into his pocket and stands.

I crawl backward, out of sight, and run down the hill before he can see me.

Lils, Nala, Verrel, and Esta are lying stretched out in the sun like basking seals. Esta gets up as I approach and toes Verrel in the ribs until he rises and follows her off across the sand. Lils props herself up on one elbow and scowls at me. In contrast, Nala laughs and pokes Lils in the side.

It doesn’t take long for Dash to join us. I pretend to have seen nothing.

We lie on the beach near the shadow of the old lighthouse, watching the clouds scud across the sky and the little pale crabs ghost-walk between strands of the beached seaweed. Dash pulls a bottle of vai from his leather rucksack, and that elicits a ragged cheer from the others. My body is dry for magic, begging me to indulge once again despite my last hangover.

“Not for me, thanks.” I push the bottle gently away, hard as it is to resist its allure.

“You should, you know.”

“Should what? Get drunk on a beach just before walking back in time to beat the tide?” I laugh and throw a piece of driftwood for Kirren. He brings it back to me, his hot breath warming my fingers as he snuffles the bleached wood into my hand. I scratch behind his ears and throw the stick again.

“I promise you, it’ll make the return journey much more interesting.”

“I’ll just bet.”

Nala takes the bottle from Dash and swallows deeply before handing it to Lils. They’re drinking fast, giggling and leaning against each other. Off in the distance, Verrel is helping Esta build a bonfire on the beach.

“What is it with Esta and fire, anyway?” I ask. “One day that girl is going to burn us all while we sleep.”

“Well, we won’t be the first,” Dash says. He grabs the bottle back from Nala and drinks. This time I give in and take it when he offers. As he passes it over, I spot an opalescent mark on the palm of his hand. The skin looks puckered and tender.

“What do you mean?” I shiver even though it’s warm here in the spring sunshine. Esta whoops as the dry branches catch.

“Our dear little Esta and her brother escaped from their father by tying him to the bed and setting him on fire one night.”

I’m horrified. I stare at her. She’s so small, delicate-looking, and with her selkie-dark skin she looks like a fragile sculpture carved from the glassy black rocks that sometimes wash down the Casabi. “And her mother?”

“Her mother was a selkie. She got back her skin while her husband burned and headed straight for the sea.”

And here I am, feeling sorry for myself because of the choices I’ve made. An angry guilt moves me, and I drink deeply. The strong spice washes the sour sick taste from my mouth, and already I can feel the scriv drifting through my veins. So very little, but it’s a drug, and my nerves are screaming for more.

Something must show on my face because Dash is looking at me queerly. “He was a hard bastard, their father. And I know the type, my own da was the same.” He shrugs. “There’s some who deserve to live and some who don’t. The world wasn’t going to miss him. Esta did what everyone else in her family was too damn scared to do.” He sounds like he respects her ruthlessness. “She did what was right.”

“Verrel said that he brought her and Rin to you.”

“About three years back now. Lils was less than impressed at the time.”

“Shut up,” says Lils. “You didn’t give me no warning. It was you I was pissed at, not the mites.” She looks at me. “You never saw children so angry and scared. Gris knows what their da did to them, and there was no way they could follow their mam into the sea.” She shakes her head. “Half-breeds, always getting the worst of both. Took months for the bruises and burns to fade.”

“And the sharif were looking for them,” Nala says softly, drawing shapes in the sand with her finger. “That was a bad year. I don’t think they left Whelk Street for that whole time. Dash was always bringing them back treats, and Verrel would try to cheer them up with his stupid songs.”

“And half our money went to paying off the bloody sharif,” Lils says. “And hiring chirurgeons. And then paying them off so they wouldn’t talk none.”

Dash shrugs. “It was worth it.”

“For Esta and Rin?” Lils says. “Or for you?”

“Oh, always for me, of course.” Dash grins. “All my love for my fellow man is long since used up.”

Lils snorts and drinks deeply. “Wasted it, did you?”

“You bled me dry.”

“Shut up, you.”

“Tossing me aside for some skinny redhead…” He’s still grinning, and I take this to be some kind of long-running joke between them.

Nala punches him in the arm. “Skinny redhead? I’ll show you skinny redhead,” she says, then collapses against him in a fit of giggles. She looks up, squinting against the sun. “Weather’s going to change soon,” she says. “Best get this over with.” Nala clambers to her feet and waits.

Lils says nothing. Instead, she traces the edges of the picture Nala has drawn in the damp sand. With her dark expression gone tight and a little frightened, she allows Nala to pull her up.

“We’re going to go swim,” Nala says, tugging on her lover’s hand.

There’s no need to talk. I sit next to Dash, drinking with him while we watch the two girls pull off their dresses and wade out into the shallows wearing nothing but their bloomers and shifts.

“How far are they going?”

Dash moves closer to me to take the bottle. “Until it’s safe.” Heat radiates from him, and he smells like salt and dune sage.

I frown. The two girls are far out now so that just their heads are bobbing at the surface. Lils’s is dark and small, with the bun pinned tightly at the base of her skull, and Nala’s wild cloud of hair is slicked back with seawater into bloodred tendrils. For a moment, she reminds me of the pale girl in the water—they have the same fine bone structure, the cheeks and jawline of House daughters. She reaches out with her pale hands and undoes Lils’s bun.

The wind changes and I feel a shiver of terror, remembering:

the bat feeding at the Hob’s thigh Jannik’s mother pulsing with stomach-churning power the long giddy drop down Pelim’s Leap as I tossed my shawl and shoes into the surf Ilven’s face white and pinched the last time I saw her after her mother had announced her betrothal the taste of her breath in my mouth, sweet with sugar and scriv and fear

Then the visions fade as Lils leans back and lets the water cover her hair.

“What—?”

Dash grimaces. “That’s our Lils. It’s only safe for her to let down her hair where there’s no people, and where there’s salt water to wash all the nightmares out.”

“What are you talking about?”

He looks at me sidelong. “Lils is a throwback, a Hob with magic. She can trace her family line back to MallenIve, and to the opening of the Well.”

The Well: root of all the magical disasters that befell our country. The magic unleashed by House Mallen that day warped the living things around it. There were patches of fallout that made Hobs and Lammers and animals of all kinds turn strange, some bodily, others magically. Most of the tainted survivors were killed, although some escaped—like the unicorns and the sphynxes who took to the red sands of the deep desert. Even the nixes and selkies fled for the safety of the sea and the treacherous Casabi. Few magical Hobs managed to evade the later purges led by the Great Houses.

Dash carries on talking with a kind of fierce wistfulness. “As long as her hair is coiled up tight the nightmares stay where they are. Her family was able to hide the children who were born with the nightmares by catching them young and keeping their braids tight. No one ever caught one of the dream-children.”

I stare at Lils with faint horror. “If the sharif find out about her, they’ll have her destroyed.”

Hob magic—like all things from the Well—is too unpredictable. Dangerous.

We do not allow it.

I take another gulp of vai from the almost-empty bottle.

“The sharif won’t find out,” he says.