Illustration of a magical, wax seal, a letter and a candle [https://i.imgur.com/Dxx5rxJ.png]
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2 May
Beastslayer
Somewhere in Time Strait
Tarisa,
Dear stars, I can hardly breathe. It just doesn’t seem real, pen against paper. I’ve written so many letters to you in my mind, missing you, six months holding all the missing in my heart until it felt like an aching hole had opened in my chest. So much has happened, you must be a hurricane of worry and rage by now, but please know I would have written if I could!
I’ve had the seal and the wax in my bodice band every moment since the ship left Solan shores. I quickly realized how valuable the seal really is and never let it leave my person. Magic commodities are the Beastslayer’s business and a seal that can send letters across any distance? The captain would slit my throat for it if his first mate didn’t beat him to the slice. Already my little bag has been disturbed half a dozen times by someone looking for valuables, more often since my true identity was discovered.
We were naive, Ree. There was never any hope of me masquerading as a noble boy searching for adventure on a nethership. Yes, Captain Clacey took the bribe and I. It worked for about a fortnight until we hit our first storm. Ordered out of the galley to help tie up some cargo that had shaken loose on deck, I was instantly drenched, revealing my figure. Captain Clacey would have thrown me overboard right then and there had I not told him everything but my real name and which man I was fleeing from.
Captain Clacey laughed until he was sick, not believing a word of it. “Well, since we be hostin’ a lady, that changes things. Wouldn’t do to dump you here. The minute we arrive in Neth Harbor, then I’m hurlin’ you into the sea by your ankle. If the waters don’t eat you alive before you reach shore, you can find your own way home, gutswench.”
Obviously keeping me around for the entertainment, he delighted in reminding me often how toxic the Nethersea is. If only I could go home, I’d swim the whole Strait, monsters and poison thrown in.
Do you understand? You must, or the hurt will fester with you, it always does. I have never once been alone long enough to write even a note for you, let alone melt the wax and use the seal. I’ve kept it that way partly for my own safety. Until now that is. I’ve never felt so alone in my life as I do now.
Yesterday, I was in the galley chopping and filleting the monstrous fish and eels caught in Time Strait, dozens of eyeballs staring at me blankly, while Cook drank in the corner. I composed a letter to you in my head, sprinkling some magicked crumbs over the food to make it taste good without spices. Except for officers, Captain Clacey doesn’t waste money on spices for sailors with nowhere else to go but wandering the Netherworld Sea. He says if they want salt they can lick the mast.
Then I washed dishes, having to do double since Cook more and more often refuses to work. He knows I’m desperate and he isn’t. I sleep in the smelliest hammock in a cramped corner next to Cook. There are no allowances for my being a woman. I simply haven’t changed my clothes in six months and I sleep with Nate’s dagger lashed to my wrist.
You’re glaring at the page by now. Life on Clacey’s ship has been anything but easy. The only good thing about it is a few of the crew, who unfortunately I don’t dare speak to since my gender became known. Oh, and I can’t deny the sea and the breeze and the creak of the sails is wonderful. The wind, too. You know I always loved a stiff wind that tears at my hair and my heart. All that amounts to a bucket of ash now.
Captain Clacey is dead. So is Quartermaster Yule, Navigator Hoy and two other men with the Touch. In fact, the entire ship awoke with every member of its crew dead who had magic…no wounds. They just never woke up.
Our now-highest-ranked boatswain called a meeting on the deck, panicked anarchy coming within an inch of killing the rest of us. With the exception of the ship’s surgeon (who was preparing the potentially dangerous bodies for burial) and two feverish sailors, every member of the ship was crammed on the main deck, whipping each other into a frenzy. Cabin boy Bunt wept openly as a few of the rougher men got into a shoving match, the ship turning lazily in the sparkling currents of Time Strait, helpless to move without a captain with the Touch.
Bristly and paunchy, Boatswain Tory was nonetheless our senior sailor, and he bellowed above the melee, “The ship won’t listen to anyone without the Touch! We can’t navigate without magic! We’ll be sailing by ash breeze, every man on an oar!”
“The oars will disintegrate before we get to port!”
“This cursed water will eat them and then us!”
I said, very stupidly and very timidly, from the barrel I sat on behind Cook, “I can call for help, maybe.”
Only a few of the men heard, staring at me like I was an apparition, a disgusting one. Only Trin, Haver, and Nim have ever spoken to me kindly. A woman who says she disguised her sex to flee from an arranged marriage on a Netherworld-bound ship is bad enough. But in my desperation I let slip that the king sponsored the engagement, so now I’m a liar at best and a traitor at worst in their eyes. They think I’m on the run from a bawdy house, and as I’ve already hinted, it’s made some of the sailors bold. Since Cook will more or less protect me as long as I keep doing his job, I’ve stayed glued to him whenever I can, avoiding ever talking to or being alone with anyone else.
Back to the present disaster. After I offered to call for help, Sailor Daw raised one caterpillar of an eyebrow. “You have magic, girl?”
I stammered, hate that stammer, “Y-yes. Not anything flashy, but maybe if a ship were sighted I could—”
An ear-splitting whistle from Daw silenced the mad crowd. “Numbskulls! We’re saved! She’s a Toucher!”
One and all, they looked at me, seagulls on a single scrap of fish guts.
Behold, your new captain, Tarisa. On a ship with a murderer who just killed every Toucher on board, for reasons unfathomable, with sailors who already despise me, as perhaps they should in this case. I have no experience whatsoever with ships. Managing Papa’s business affairs and brotherly playfighting with Nate and Quinn suddenly seems like a childish dream compared to this.
Yet if we don’t pull together, we’ll never leave the Strait alive. Quartermaster Yule had been dead in his cabin for a whole watch by the time the alarm was raised; no one dared go below and ask him why he wasn’t taking his shift at the wheel. Drifting for six hours in a stiff breeze and a magic tide was enough to put us hundreds of miles off course or two—it’s impossible to tell on these seas. With no stars or sun to determine direction in the Netherworld, it requires magic I don’t know (and strength I might not have) to divine our location, and that’s assuming I can connect with the Slayer in the first place so I can steer. Tory told me Navigator Hoy should have all the materials in his cabin for those duties but I haven’t even looked there yet. I wasn’t going to put off writing to you another minute.
From the sea monsters to navigating a body of water teeming with toxic magic, not to mention learning to steer a ship with magic when I’ve never successfully rowed a rowboat, I am suddenly desperately grateful you made me take Papa’s seal to send you letters. I know I told you it was a priceless magical heirloom—it would break or get stolen—but now the seal stays close to my heart always, my lifeline to a safer world.
I’m glad the captain has a stash of paper and wax because I need you, Ree. You were always the bookish one, the smart one. There are clues in this captain’s cabin (yes, I have quarters now, so I can safely write to you!). The scrap below was in Captain Clacey’s hand when he died and it’s too silly not to mean something. I know you just made a face. Lady detectives (for that’s what you are now, make no mistake) can’t be squeamish.
A clue from the Captain, a note with a sea shanty written on it about his sweetheart. The words and numbers have ink splotches on them. [https://i.imgur.com/rlwRW0z.png]
I love you, T. So very, very much! What a relief it is to write it at last, bold and black!
Maree
P.S. Don’t think I haven’t been worrying just as fiercely about you and Nate (give him the note I wrote below, won’t you?). Not knowing how my actions have affected you in my absence has been torture, but I won’t waste paper on that. Tell me how you are and don’t leave anything out. Part of what made these months bearable was imagining you dancing with Camden in a ballroom or Nate riding Coal down to the Haxas River and back, hatless and happy on his horse. I hope Camden has finally made the engagement official and everything is how you hoped it would be.
A note to Maree's brother Nate, expressing her love for him and apologizing for worrying him [https://i.imgur.com/z182FfD.png]
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2 May
Rosetree
Solan
Captain Maree,
It’s black as pitch outside, sleet slapping into the windows of Mama’s study, the asters torn to pieces, but I feel like spring has come regardless! You’ve written, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry or swear so I’ve done all three in spades.
I don’t doubt your sincerity, M, but I curse your utter lack of imagination! You could have sent me something! Could have barricaded yourself in a closet or the hold and sent me a scrap to prove that you were alive! I’ve relived over and over you walking across the gangplank in the dead of night, head down, hair cut mercilessly short, drunk men stumbling along the Bronat boardwalk behind me.
This is the third draft of this letter. The first I cried on. The second I tore to pieces, feeling a bit better surrounded by a snow of paper scraps.
I tell you all this to explain why Steward Arran now knows all about your situation (I know you didn’t intend your words to leave our small family circle). He was passing by the open door and saw me, surrounded by a sea of scattered white, face blotchy from stale tears. He stopped short, bracing himself against the door frame as if to launch into action.
I gave him the letter; you know him, Arran’s like a rat terrier when he sinks his teeth into something. Besides, he’s been as worried as Nate and I about you.
When I took your letter back, he looked as if he wanted to swear but was too gentlemanly to do so. Tense as a drawn bowstring, he said mildly, “Merciful heavens.”
Folding the letter back up, I slumped in Mama’s old pink chair, staring into space, your letter dangling from my fingertips. Arran shook his head. “Miss Tarisa, don’t even think it.”
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“Think what?”
He tilted his chin down. I think you were the one who remarked that Arran could say as much with his tiniest movement as navy men could with signal flags, and I clearly understood his message. Sometimes, I wish we had some distant old fogey managing for us who didn’t know me so well. I was already thinking of how fast I could throw myself on Portia, ride to the capital, borrow money to charter a ship to rescue you, or harangue the Royal Society of Enchanted Arts about any possible communication between Solan and settlements along the Nethersea.
I stood, ready to punch something—possibly him. “Then what do we do?”
Arran shrugged, a steely, tight gesture. “Think. We think.” He moved quickly but absently towards the door, as if already deep in thought.
“Quinn!”
I cringed inwardly as he turned around. We aren’t children anymore and I hate reminding him of how the lines that used to be blurry have firmed in adulthood. Pretending to ignore the slip, I frowned. “Please don’t tell Nate.”
Expressionless as a sphinx, Arran nodded and then disappeared. I can feel your confusion a world away.
There’s another reason I tore that second letter to pieces. I’d begun to tell you everything. The truth is, M—I don’t want to tell you the truth. Not after reading the terror you’re facing. I know you’re like a bloodhound sniffing out and chasing down other peoples’ problems. This is different, only I don’t know how to explain WHY I’m not racing to Solis to marshal a rescue without telling you everything.
I only discovered your letter after supper, the rose seal glowing softly in Mama’s desk drawer. It’s been so long since we used them, you remember the rules don’t you? Once the wax is pressed and a letter is sent, the seals will stay charged until midnight that day, waiting for a reply. Then the seals go dormant for four days to repower. I am NOT waiting four days to send you a letter back, but still, this sheet might end up in pieces too. We’ll see.
The truth is…we’re under house arrest—or at least, Nate and I are. You don’t have to tell me we were naive. I know.
When planning your escape, we talked about Councilor Erring, about what he might do when he found his unwilling bride missing. How is it you and I dismissed so easily the fact the king sponsored the union? That Erring is one of his closest advisors? In short, sister, we weren’t just poking a bear but provoking a leviathan. Even though you were only engaged to the king’s councilor, the Crown took your rebellion very, very personally.
King Rinlind is brilliant—terrible and despotic, but brilliant. I have no doubt he’s figured out how you escaped and knows he and Erring can’t chase you. Our plan was sound, and almost everything we did consider has proven true. Once a ship crosses through the portal and enters the Netherworld, even the King of Solan has no official jurisdiction. Common naval law takes over. Likewise, I believe Rinlind’s aware that his court, kin and peers dislike his tyrannical actions of late. Ripping away Nate’s title and our assets would raise questions the king doesn’t want to answer, especially since he can’t prove we helped you run.
Yet we underestimated him. Not only has the king involved himself when we expected him not to bother, but instead of painting you as a villain, Rinlind has painted you as a victim of a plot, one that affects him.
I clipped some blurts out of the scandal sheets. They’re in order, oldest to newest. The last was published about three months after you ran. Read those before you go on.
A collection of clippings from the scandal sheets of Solis newspaper, slandering Tarisa, Maree and their brother [https://i.imgur.com/l6d4KPl.png]
The attacks started just three days after your disappearance. First, it was the carriage house. Coal and four other horses died in the fire that burned it down. Nate didn’t speak to me for days. You having to leave without a goodbye and losing his horse somehow turned Nate to stone worse than after Mama died.
We reported it to the constables, who naturally connected the to your disappearance and unbeknownst to us, sent word to the king himself. The king sent us a flowery, sympathetic letter. Boil down the sugar and flowers and this was the gist: your engagement to Councilor Erring has prompted the Councilor’s foreign enemies to attack our family.
It’s a credible lie, I’ll give him that. Councilor Erring is rumored to be an assassin for the Crown and has been accused by Trifay and other countries of killing foreign dignitaries and merchants. It’s confirmed he pays for courtesans with the king’s gold. In short, Erring has plenty of domestic enemies, let alone foreign ones. Only the extended bits about you and Erring’s ‘loving betrothal’ made me want to dry heave.
According to the king, that is why our family is being targeted. Rinlind claims it is really an attack on him since he sponsored the union between you and the Councilor, hinting that if we had some idea of your whereabouts, some reassurance you would return to claim the connection, he could justify royal protection for our family and you in order to prohibit these attacks.
Caught that did you? Attacks. When the king sent his first letter, there had only been one attack. The threat wasn’t missed by Nate or I, but what could we do but thank him?
Four days later, our carriage was ambushed in the middle of the city with us in it. A week after that, we dared go to Duke Havers’ anniversary ball, never having merited an invitation before. I was dancing the allemande with Camden, the first moment of peace I’d had since you left. It was also the first time I’ve been able to see Cam at all since Harris’ died and he unexpectedly inherited the viscountcy. Even in gray half-mourning Camden looked splendid. Every clasp of his hand and darting smile carried a sense of desperate relief that we were together again at last.
That was when bones, yes, fossils with black symbols carved into them were thrown through the windows, glass exploding into the ballroom. The fossils were from a giant winged snake brought back from the Netherworld (the snakes fangs nearly struck me, attached to a jaw as long as my forearm). I would have been struck if Camden hadn’t dragged us both to the side. One man near the windows had his arm broken by a rock-hard vertebra and several guests were hit with flying glass. Later, the bones were reported stolen from the Royal Institute; they’re still trying to figure out how to strip the relics of magic and repair the damage done by the carvings. The scandal sheet mentioned the odor—rotting flesh—but failed to mention the stench was so bad I’m sure I wasn’t the only lady who had to burn her dress.
To have a duke’s anniversary celebration destroyed in so public and bizarre a manner sealed our coffins. That, plus the rumor that you had run off and married a Trifayan noble left us cut by half our acquaintances and anxiously ignored by nearly all the rest. I have little doubt where that dreadful rumor about you marrying a Trifayan got started; I fear it was my fault. I hinted at the beginning that you had left the country on an island holiday and someone merely took advantage of my lack of finesse, filling in the gaps.
Nate and I fled to the country as all scandal victims do, hoping to find peace and respite. Instead…
I nearly, nearly tore the letter. I won’t tear it. But neither will I tell you what met us here. Suffice it to say, for now, the king advises us to stay at Rosetree, lest the persecution worsen. I feel like a fox in a hole too small for me, hounds baying at the mouth of the tunnel.
Ordinarily, we would treat this like a siege to be waited out, but the king doesn’t only wish to starve us socially, but financially. Many of Papa’s investments have been undercut, our partners suffering when taxes mysteriously turn up missing or business licenses are inexplicably revoked.
So in short, we are trapped at Rosetree, with dwindling funds and ballooning bafflement as to why the king cares so very much. The theory that he sponsored the union only as a favor to his friend Erring looks less likely every day, but if not that, why? You know as well as I do the Namans are well-liked, bottom-of-the-barrel nobility. We reek of new land, new money and a title only a few generations aged. No offense, Maree, but no one in this family is big enough fish for anyone to notice, least of all the king. Yet he won’t stop frying us.
Nate has blamed himself ever since you ran. He’s been drinking, rejected at Papa’s club (something the scandal-mongers didn’t miss, as you can see). You two always had a special bond, and I think your note might ease his conscience, but I admit—I still don’t plan to show him your letter or give him your message.
Nate remains good friends with Don, from the university, you remember? I’m suspicious of any third son without a profession who never seems to quite run out of gambling money. Someone is betraying us; to have so many of Papa’s long-standing private investments wrecked by the king’s minions, the Crown must have information only someone close to us could have shared.
Nate harshly brushed aside my concerns—yes, Nate was harsh, if you can believe it. If I show him your letter, he might share something about you with his friends while in his cups that could endanger you. He would never, ever forgive himself then.
I’m so worried about him I feel like wringing his neck. Nate might be Baron Glassel now, and a big brother, but he’s not magic. I told him no one, especially a young woman, gainsays an order of the king’s and gets away without losing much or everything. Still, Erring’s interest in you and Rinlind’s persistence are both ludicrous! We are a family of orphans—once wealthy, but always unimportant. The king acts as if it were his royal self you refused, and it makes no sense!
Do you see now, why I am not marching up and down the shores of Solis Harbor, waving money in the air and shouting for a captain to come after you? Or even racing to the Royal Society or Touchers’ Guild, asking someone to scry you or make contact with one of the Nethersea ports? I tell all this not to burden you but to have you understand why we aren’t mounting an immediate rescue.
I’m afraid Arran’s right, darn him. We don’t have the funds, and even if we did, on the off chance Erring hasn’t already found out where you went, we don’t want to tip him off. These powerful men have proven they’ll spend months of hate and gold on getting you back. I have no doubt if your destination was discovered they could signal someone on the Nethersea and nab you as soon as you pulled into Neth Harbor.
That doesn’t mean I can’t help though, even if I haven’t forgiven you yet for leaving us so long in the dark. Ach, these tears. I’ve read your letter four times now and I have so many questions! Why on this earth or any other did the crew make YOU captain? How do you even become a nethership captain? Shouldn’t they have just made you Navigator if you have no experience? How are you going to figure out where you are?
Oh, I want to know the other things too, the things that don’t matter so much, like what do these men look like, what color are the fish, what are your quarters like? I’ve written you sheets and sheets all these months, too afraid to send anything lest a letter appearing from thin air give you away. A dozen times a day I’d like to ask your advice and Nate and Arran have said the same. I’ll just have to suffer many things in ignorance but please write as much as you can! I thought my agonizing if you were all right would end when I finally received a letter—far from it.
It struck me like a bludgeon that you are now the only Toucher on a boat that just had every magic worker targeted. Ever consider that the enemy wanted the ship swamped and now has had his plans foiled by you? Defending against everyone at every moment is impossible, so if you can even narrow it down to a few potentially murderous suspects, I think you’ll be safer.
I know you’ve been afraid of what these men could do, but I’ve learned from my one-and-a-half Seasons as a marriageable lady that having enemies and friends is always preferable because enemies are inevitable. Find some allies. You don’t have to take orders from anyone anymore but do you even realize that?
Do you remember last year in Lady Rines ballroom, you charged right up to Lord Westin and upbraided him for beating his horse? I stood beside you, writhing with all those eyes on us, but you never faltered and Westin never dared leave lash lines on an animal again. I know you’ve cursed your temper at times, if you can call it a temper, but you’re scaring me. It’s like the waves have washed away your spunk and I think you’re going to need all the boldness you can muster.
I’ll start studying the ‘clue’, if clue it be, at once. As for immediate help, the connection between the seals might not handle a full nautical map but I certainly can be a source of unenchanted information for you. I’ve spent the past months learning everything I could about the portals, the Netherworld and the Nethersea. Just ask. I dare you.
As for you helping us, perhaps…I wasn’t going to tell you this…Councilor Erring is coming to Rosetree in thirteen days, ostensibly to comfort us over your lengthy disappearance (fancy a murderer a comfort). I’m certain the advance notice was given for the same reason a torturer shows their victim the thumbscrews ahead of time, but again, what could we do but say thank you? I told myself Mama would dump scalding gravy in his lap and Papa would threaten him at swordpoint for coming near you, but truly, I can’t guess what our parents would have done.
I know you only spoke with Erring a handful of times before the king announced your engagement to that snake, but anything you know of him, even something inconsequential, could save us. I have a feeling no remembrance is insignificant.
Give me your best guess for where you are. I’m not giving up on a rescue entirely, there has to be a way. Just as the king likely has contacts along the Nethersea, perhaps we could make contact with a port near you if we scraped together the funds. Even if we have to sell Rosetree, Nate and I would be mudgulchers before we lost you.
Tarisa
P.S. Captain or no, prepare your own food.
P.P.S. Camden requires another letter at another time, but no, our engagement isn’t official. You know he can’t ask me while in mourning, but you never were one for the proprieties. Then again, I confess propriety is rotten comfort compared to Camden’s hand in mine. I wish I’d listened to you months ago when you told me to elbow him into taking the leap, hang the consequences.
P.P.P.S. It’s a quarter to midnight, and I’ve been breaking my brain on the ‘code’ you sent me. The only hidden message I could find, if hidden it is, has to do with the splats on the words. If so, it’s a lousy code. I bet that brine-faced, heartless Captain (may he rest in peace) just didn’t want the casual observer to be able to read his note. I could be wrong, it doesn’t make sense to me: mizzen 23. The word sounds familiar, but what about the number? I wish I had more time, but I have to send the letter now before the seals go dormant!
It's the Captain's note, but Tarisa wrote her own comment on it, what she believes it's saying in code [https://i.imgur.com/7PTMW43.png]