The Way of the Wizard

Life So Dear or Peace So Sweet C.C. Finlay

The Thimble Islands

off the coast of Connecticut

May, 1776

“I don’t know how we’re supposed to see anything in this mist,” Proctor Brown said in the bow of the boat. The little one-sail wherry bobbed like a cork in a milky morning fog that obscured everything around them, including the British spy ship they were seeking.

“If you shout a little louder, maybe they’ll hear you and call out where they are,” Deborah Walcott answered quietly behind him.

Proctor bit his tongue on a reply. The implication to be quiet was a good one, especially since other searchers had gone missing when they chased the mysterious spy ship.

Deborah’s sharp wit was one of the things that he simultaneously loved and found deeply frustrating. The other was not knowing where he stood with her. The murder of her parents before the Battle of Bunker Hill had complicated things between them, and the friends of her mother who had appointed themselves guardians and chaperones did their best to keep Proctor and Deborah apart.

The tone of her voice had made it hard to tell if she was amused at him or angry, so he turned to read the clues in her face. It didn’t help. Even though only a few feet away in the middle of the boat, she was little more than a gray shadow.

“Eyes forw’d, eh,” said the third passenger from the rear of the boat — a weathered privateer named Esek O’Brian. Like Proctor and Deborah, he’d been personally selected by General George Washington for this mission, though the three of them hadn’t met until Esek picked up Deborah and Proctor on a beach this morning. He was built like an iron anvil, equally suited to shape good purposes as ill, and had been a privateer and smuggler in these waters for thirty years. But all sorts of men had joined the Revolution, so Proctor hesitated to judge him.

“Eyes forward,” Proctor answered. He leaned over the gunwale to watch for the dangerous rocks that lurked just beneath the slate-colored waves.

A British warship had been seen several times lurking among the rocky Thimble Islands just off the coast of Connecticut. There was concern that the British were landing spies there, maybe even preparing to land troops. The American colonies had still not officially declared their independence from England and a dramatic victory by the British could bring it all to end.

The colonies had sent several fishing boats and sloops out to find the elusive ship, but four of them had disappeared now without a trace. There were no sounds of battle, no signs of wreckage. People whispered that it was like magic, that even the fog was unnatural. Diverting more and larger ships to search would leave other parts of the coast unprotected.

So General Washington decided that one small ship, too swift to catch, maybe too small to notice, might succeed where larger ships had failed.

And just in case the whispers of magic were true, he sent along two witches to deal with it. Proctor and Deborah had already used their special talents to counter black magic in Boston before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

A wave splashed over the side, the cold water soaking Proctor’s face, salt stinging his eyes. He was wiping his eyes when just yards ahead of them the water broke over barely submerged boulders.

“Left!” he shouted, then remembered Deborah’s earlier comment about lowering his voice. “Rocks on the left.”

“Port,” O’Brian said, not bothering to hide the contempt in his voice. “It’s port. Look out, miss.” He tugged on the sail-lines with the same ease that Proctor steered a team of oxen on the farm.

Proctor turned to help Deborah, but she ducked easily under the spritsail as it swung over her head. He was chiding himself for always wanting to protect her — she had proven more than capable of looking after herself — when the boat tilted sharply and he had to hold on to keep from going overboard. As the boat skimmed past the hazard, O’Brian let the sail fall slack and they drifted where they were.

“Fog’s a getting thicker, not burning off,” O’Brian said quietly. “Used to be able to see the islands here in the fog from the shadow of the trees. But the army cut down all the trees so there wouldn’t be any place to hide a mast. It didn’t help them, and now it’s not helping us.” He shifted in his seat, rocking the small boat, and the waves slapped harder at the sides for a moment. “So I understand that the two of you are folks with talents, eh?”

Proctor tensed. Witchcraft was still a dangerous thing to discuss with strangers. “I can play Yankee Doodle on the fipple flute.”

O’Brian snorted.

“What were you told about us, Mr. O’Brian?” Deborah asked.

“Esek,” he said. “Like Esek Hopkins, the privateer. I was named for… you’ve never heard of him, have you?” Before Deborah or Proctor could answer, he said, “Never mind. It’s Esek. Mister is for those what think they’re better than other folks.”

He spat over the side of the boat. “I hear you’re a witch and he’s a wizard, or some such, but I shouldn’t be afraid of you because you’re both Christian. But not good Christians, ’cause you’re Quakers. Though either way, don’t make no difference to me. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. Saw a Chinaman in Macau who could make the cards in your hand change colors and move the gold in your pocket to his. Though that last part wasn’t magic as much as it was just playing cards. So call up a demon if you need to, as long as we find this British ship and I get paid.”

“There will be no summoning of demons,” Deborah promised. “But I have been working on a focus for a finding spell.”

Of course, Proctor thought. He figured they would find the ship first, then figure out the magic. Deborah planned more and improvised less. If he had to create a finding spell in a hurry, what would he use? “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Keep your eyes open,” she said.

She bowed her head and folded her hands in prayer. Silence radiated outward from her and across the craft until even the waves lapping the wherry were hushed. “We hold this need in the Light,” she said. “Bring to light the hidden things of darkness.”

She opened her palms like a flower and sat quietly.

“Is that all there is to it?” Esek said. “ ’Cause the Chinaman, he—”

“Give it a moment,” Proctor said.

Deborah was powerful enough that she needed to speak a spell only once, and then hold it in her mind in silence. Proctor still needed a physical focus to channel his spells and needed to repeat it. Though he recognized the verse she had chosen from Corinthians, he was more familiar with the Old Testament and would have crafted a spell from Isaiah. As he stared at Deborah, waiting for her spell to take effect, he made a discreet drawing gesture with his hand for a focus and silently repeated the verse. Give us the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places, give us the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places.

As the words ran through his head, a light — supernatural and numinous — bloomed like a spring flower in Deborah’s cupped hands. Esek flinched despite his earlier assurances, and the boat rocked. But Deborah breathed a little sigh of relief and poured her power into the tiny sphere of light.

Proctor watched her, trying to follow how she did it. But faster than he could track, the light swelled and enveloped Deborah, clinging tightly to her body. Then, just when he thought that was all it would do, it speared outward from the boat like the mirrored beam shining from a lighthouse. It swept through the fog, casting light on one low-lying rocky island after another, each covered with tree stumps and waste, but nothing that could conceal a ship. As it came around the boat, the light, pearlescent and cool, passed over Proctor’s shoulder, setting all his hair on end, leaving its touch like dew on his skin even after it moved on. The light completed one circumference of the boat, then blinked out of existence as completely and abruptly as it had entered.

Deborah sagged, exhausted. “Did you see anything?”

“Um.” Proctor realized he’d been watching her more closely than the beam.

“I never seen anything like that before,” Esek said, and it was hard to tell if he was impressed or frightened as he craned his head around warily, but he rested one hand on the pistol tucked in his belt.

“Better than card tricks?” Proctor asked.

“I dunno ’bout that,” Esek said. “I still don’t see any ship.”

“Maybe the flashing light scared it off,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

He regretted it immediately. Deborah looked at him from under the brim of her plain bonnet, and he could see the tension in the way she held herself. The spell hadn’t gone quite as she had expected, after all. But then, when you worked with supernatural forces, that was often the result. You never really controlled the power, you only channeled it. And like any channel, sometimes it overflowed.

“We’ll be getting back to the old way of searching then,” Esek said, standing up to adjust the sail.

“Maybe we should give Deborah another chance,” Proctor said.

“These have been pirate waters for a hundred years,” Esek said. “Every pirate who was anyone has sailed these waters. I hid a cargo of smuggled tea here from British tax collectors once. But there are only so many places to hide, depending on your ship. Did they say if it was full-rigged or fore-and-aft—?” He stopped as the boat lurched beneath them. “What witchery is this?”

The sail was slack but the boat moved against the current. Beneath the cold breeze coming off the water and the clammy touch of the fog, Proctor felt a tingle across his skin that told him wizard’s work was being done nearby.

“It is not my doing,” Deborah said, and that worried Proctor more than anything.

The sail snapped tight as it caught the wind, then shuddered loudly as the boat continued to push against it. Esek pulled out his revolver, but before he could do anything with it, the fog suddenly lifted.

It should have revealed the clear sky of morning, but as it shredded and fell away like pieces of lace, darkness fell around them.

Night. And a sky filled with stars.

As their eyes adjusted from gray to black, broad-shouldered islands of rock emerged from the murky shade like footpads stepping out of a dark alley.

“What’s going on here?” Esek said. He didn’t seem to know whether to point the pistol at them or at the water. Proctor calculated his chances of tackling him. The boat was too long, too unsteady, and there were too many things between them. Proctor loosened the tomahawk at his belt. He had trained with it for the militia. One good throw…

“Look,” Deborah said. “There’s the ship.”

The ship, anchored nearby, and more.

Distant islands, which had been clear cut, were now covered once again with trees.

But that fact was less remarkable than the structures occupying the two islands dead ahead of them. One smaller island was occupied by a tiny shack made of shipwreck and driftwood. The larger island was filled from edge to edge with a white marble palace, onion-domed with minarets, like something from an oriental picture book.

A rope bridge connected the two islands.

Proctor’s skin usually tingled in the presence of magic, but at this moment it crawled and itched and twitched as if he were wearing a blanket of ants. Deborah crouched in the middle of the boat, appearing just as surprised as he felt.

The boat continued its motion, drifted around the two islands the way water spiraled down a drain. They passed the bigger island with the palace, the smaller island with the shack, and moved on past the anchored ship. It looked old to Proctor, almost ancient. The wood was gray and worm-eaten, cut with deep gouges. The paint had long faded so that it was impossible to tell what colors it had once been and the sails were so thin they were nearly transparent. Frayed lines had been knotted again and again beyond count. There were twenty cannons poking out the gunports on one side, but they were rusted and draped with bits of seaweed and other windblown debris.

“That can’t be the British spy ship,” Proctor said.

“That can’t be… ” Esek said from the back of the little boat. “The devil, it is.”

“Fancy that,” Deborah murmured.

Proctor followed her gaze. Although nearly all the paint had faded, the ship’s name could still be read across the stern. Fancy.

It didn’t mean anything to Proctor. Deborah caught his eye and it didn’t seem to mean anything to her either. But Esek leaned forward eagerly.

“ ’Hoy,” came a voice from the island, startling them all.

A thin man with short-cropped hair and hollow, haunted eyes had stepped out of the shack. He was wearing a dress coat, as gray and dusty as the rocks, threads hanging from the hem. He wore a pair of breeches but no stockings or shoes. He took a hesitant step toward them, then dodged back into the shack.

“Hello,” Proctor shouted. “Where are we?”

The man came back out, tugging a ratty old wig onto his head and slapping an outrageous feathered hat atop that. He ran across the rocks and grabbed hold of a rope-line that connected the island to the ship. “ ’Hoy,” he shouted again. “You don’t want to drift past the ship there.”

Proctor looked past the ship. Another island, mounded with white rocks atop the gray, waited ahead of them. “Why not?” he called back.

But the man was pulling himself hand over hand across the line to the Fancy. He had a knife clenched in his teeth so he was unable to answer.

“I can stop her,” Esek called back. “There’s no wind, she won’t steer out of the current.”

Their boat floated past the Fancy, too quickly to be drifting. It was like they were a fish on a line that someone was reeling in. Now that they were around the ship, Proctor could see the shore of the third island was covered with wreckage, bits of spar and plank and flotsam. The flag of Massachusetts drooped from a broken mast.

The missing ships.

Proctor was about to say as much when a dark shape stirred on the top of the white mound. One of the rocks rolled loose and tumbled with a hollow sound down to the water’s edge, where it came to rest — a skull. The mound was made of bones and skulls.

The dark silhouette stood and stretched like a housecat waking from a nap. But it was too large, the largest cat that Proctor had ever seen. A tiger. Its paws were the size of paddles.

Esek had grabbed an oar from the bottom of the boat and was alternately trying to steer or paddle clear. The boat teetered under Proctor’s feet as he twisted, searching for another oar.

“Here,” shouted the stranger. His feet thumped across the deck of the Fancy as he ran to the bow. He used the knife to saw through one of the sail-lines. Fabric tumbled behind him. He swung the rope once, twice, and let go on the third loop. It arced through the air toward the little boat. Proctor leaned over the side and stretched out his arm.

The rope fell well short, hitting the water with a sad splash.

“Damn,” said the man, softly. “Not as strong as I used to be.”

“Grab it,” Esek shouted. He swatted at it with the oar, tipping the boat precariously, and Proctor flung himself to the other side to keep from falling in. The rope was already beyond them.

The stranger stood in the bow of the Fancy, hand cupped to his mouth. “Been a long time since I had any company. But it was good to know you.”

Esek yelled at the man on the ship. “Try again — throw another rope — it’s not too late—”

Proctor glanced at Deborah — rigid with fear in the middle of the boat — and glanced once over his shoulder. The tiger climbed down from its mound of bones and batted the skull into the water.

Proctor’s head snapped back to the rope that dangled from the ship.

He didn’t have Deborah’s talent, or her skill, but he had used his magic on the farm. And one of the things he had done was learn to feed a rope through a pulley without climbing to the top of the barn.

“Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes,” he said.

Nothing happened. He stretched his hand out to the rope. On the farm he used a smaller piece, cut from the same length, drawn through his hand for a focus. He made the motion of drawing the rope through his hands. “Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.”

The rope lashed out of the water like the end of a whip. It cut a slash across Proctor’s hand but he grabbed it and held on tight. It was just barely long enough to reach them, and the boat twisted under his feet.

“Don’t go overboard,” Esek ordered, rocking the boat so much that he nearly pitched Proctor over the edge. Proctor braced himself, hunkered down, and pulled.

They came a few inches closer to the ship. He could feel the boat trying to pull away from him, like a team of oxen leading a plow. He drew a breath, reached forward, and pulled again. The nose of the boat dipped toward the water, but he drew them a few inches closer.

Deborah scooted over behind him, grabbing the loose end of the rope and pulled with him. Feeling her presence next to him, her breath at his back, lent him extra will. Only the strength of his arms stood between her safety and a likely death. It was enough.

Hand over hand, he dragged them in to the ship.

Deborah gathered up the rope behind him and passed it back to Esek, who quickly tied it off. When they came alongside the Fancy, he lashed them together. Only then did Proctor look back. The tiger seemed to be watching them curiously. When their eyes met, it opened its mouth and roared. The sound echoed over the water, making all Proctor’s hair stand on end and his knees turn to jelly.

A thump sounded behind him. The stranger had dropped a ladder over the side of the ship.

“That’s Old Scratch,” he said, cheerfully. “Don’t pay no attention to her.”

“Are you all right?” Deborah asked. Her fingertips rested on his forearm. Proctor glanced down and saw the blood streaming over his wrist. The slash in his palm had been gouged deeper with each pull on the rope.

“I’m fine,” he said, snatching his hand away and squeezing it shut. The sting, which must have been there all along, finally reached him and he winced. “Are you—?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

The look on her face must have mirrored his own. There was no way either of them could be fine. “Where are we?”

She stepped in close to him and whispered. “It’s like a hidden room off the main room of the house. These are still the Thimble Islands, maybe the very same place we were before. But we’ve passed through a door into a private room.”

“Your doing?” he asked.

“I think what I did with the light must have attracted the attention of a witch far more powerful than we’ve ever seen. Even more powerful than the Widow Nance.”

“The stranger,” Proctor whispered, deliberately not glancing up at the ship. “But then why did he try to save us?”

“That question troubles me also,” she said.

“Come on.” Esek had climbed up the ladder to the deck of the ship and was gesturing for them to follow. Proctor steadied the ladder for Deborah. In a normal tone of voice, he said, “Be careful.”

Esek reached out with one arm and hoisted her onto the deck. Proctor followed and soon stood beside them.

Up close, the stranger looked like a madman. He stank, like a man who had not bathed or washed his clothes in a lifetime. His eyes were rimmed red and the sockets beneath them were as dark as a bruise. There were four pale parallel scars beneath the stubble that covered his sunken cheek. His clothes had once been very fine, better even than Proctor had seen the governor wearing, but they were old and covered with stains. Buttons were missing and the lace trim hung as loose as autumn leaves, waiting for a strong wind to set them adrift. A sword hung at his waist, on a belt that had been notched so many times it nearly wrapped around him twice.

But none of those things, alone or together, marked him as mad, merely as unfortunate, like a castaway lost for years on some desert island. He seemed mad because of his grin, which was as wide as the Atlantic, revealing teeth as dark as stormclouds.

His grin, and his eyes. The smile did not touch his eyes, which were dark and dangerous and fixed on Proctor. “That was a most remarkable feat,” he said, with a nod toward the island with the tiger. “Old Scratch hasn’t been frustrated like that in a very long time.”

“Is the tiger your… pet?” Deborah asked.

The smile returned to the stranger’s face, though not as broad and now slightly uncertain. “No, no, definitely not my pet.” He glanced toward the island and licked his lips nervously, giving an impression wholly at odds with the capable man of action who pulled himself across the rope and ran to attempt their rescue. “But where are my manners? Will you be so kind as to join me in my somewhat humble residence?”

“Do you live in the shack or the palace?” Esek asked. He had tucked the pistol back in his belt, but he rested his hand on his waist close to it.

“Oh, it’s more than a shack, very comfy, really,” the stranger said. “But we mustn’t go in the palace. No, that’s not for us.”

“Who’s it for?” Proctor asked.

The madman grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Who wants to go first?”

The crossing from the ship to the island was done by the way of ropelines, one for hands and one for feet. “I would prefer to go first,” Deborah said. “If those ropes are as old as those on the ship, they’re likely to break under the weight of the gentlemen.”

Without waiting for permission, she stepped out onto one rope and grabbed hold of the other at shoulder height. Though not quick, she made her way confidently and deliberately across the line. Proctor caught himself suppressing a smile. She could be surprisingly practical. When she had gone about half way, and dangled so low that her hem nearly touched the water, the stranger leaned over to Proctor.

“She’s the kind who’ll put on pants if you’re not careful,” he said.

The comment offended Proctor. In fact, Deborah had worn pants on several occasions when they were fighting the witches of the Covenant the year before and it didn’t bother him in the least. But he wasn’t going to give credit to the stranger’s remark, nor defend her actions to someone who didn’t know her. “She values her independence, as all good Americans do,” he said. “It is a trait I admire in her.”

His use of good Americans was intended as a shiny minnow on the end of a hook, by which he hoped to draw out the stranger’s reaction to the war. But he failed to take the bait. In fact, he was so busy glancing back at the island with the tiger that he scarcely seemed to hear them at all.

“Oh, believe me, I know the type,” he mumbled. “I very well know the type.”

Deborah had reached the other side and hopped down onto the rocky shore. She turned and waved at Proctor, who lifted his hand in answer. While he waved, Esek climbed out on the rope. “I’ll be getting over next,” he said.

“Are you sure that’s wisest?” Proctor asked, looking at his size and thinking about what Deborah had said.

“Sure. I’m bigger than either of you, so if it’ll hold me, you can cross no problem, eh?”

He started across. The tiger roared again, a sound followed by a loud splash. The stranger ran back to the other side of the boat and peered down. He reached over and thumped the wood, screaming at the tiger.

“Do tigers swim?” Proctor said.

The stranger spun around, his eyes wide with mad delight. “Oh, yes. And they are also excellent climbers.”

The deep gouges on the side of the ship that he had taken for worm-marks took form again in a different light. Proctor turned back to Esek, who moved quickly for a man his size. Still he was heavy enough that the rope drooped all the way down into the waves, soaking his boots. “You best hurry up,” Proctor called.

Esek gave no reply, but the mad stranger rubbed his hands a bit too gleefully. “They don’t swim that fast. No, it’s you who best hurry when it comes your turn.”

“Can’t the tiger just climb onto your island? Why would we be any safer there?”

The madman patted the hilt of his sword. “We’ve reached an agreement over the years. She doesn’t come on my island and I don’t interfere with hers.”

This talking of the tiger as if it were a person worried Proctor. Though the man looked mad, his words and actions had all been lucid. Everything except his behavior toward the beast. “Didn’t you interfere by rescuing us before we wrecked?”

“Ah, that I did now, didn’t I?” he said, laughing. He clapped Proctor on the shoulder. “I would go now if I were you.”

Esek had climbed ashore across the water and stood at the far edge of the island, staring at the white palace. Deborah stood halfway between him and Proctor, near the entrance of the small hut.

Proctor climbed out on the rope, finding it harder than it looked. His feet swayed back and forth, nearly toppling him into the water. The raw sound of claws scraping wood echoed from the far side of the ship. Terror wriggled into Proctor’s heart, and he hurried, but the more he hurried, the more he swayed until he lost his feet entirely and dangled by his arms while the rope whipped back and forth beneath him. He had one eye looking for purchase for his feet and the other watching for the tiger coming around the edge of the boat.

The madman stood at the side of the ship and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hurry.”

His crazed laughter brought Proctor cold resolve that the circumstances did not provide alone. His feet found the rope and he made his way calmly and deliberately to the other side, where Deborah waited for him.

“I don’t see how he survives here,” Deborah said. “Clearly he lives here — there’s a pile of old rags that serves as either a rat’s nest or a bed, though given the size, I suspect the latter. But there’s no sign of food, only a little bit of water—”

“Do you think he’s a ghost?” Proctor asked quietly. His arms were still shaky from the strain of dragging their boat to safety and then pulling himself across the ropes, and he tried to rub feeling back into them while they spoke.

“He doesn’t smell like a ghost,” Deborah said.

“That’s the truth,” Proctor said. “And I don’t feel like one either, so we didn’t die to get here. He’s certainly mad. Are we?”

“No,” she said. “Because I want to get back in our boat and find a way back home, and there’s nothing mad in that.”

The stranger’s laughter rose in pitch with the sound of splashing. He dangled over the water with the tiger swimming beneath him. The beast lunged upward, swiping at him with its huge paw. He pulled his legs up out of the way and then snapped one down to try to kick the animal’s nose.

Esek had approached them and barked out rough laughter at the sight. “Now that’s a man other men would follow to hell,” he said. Then realizing his own words, “Do you think we’re in hell?”

Proctor shook his head in reply.

The madman swung like a monkey over to the shore and hopped down. As soon as he landed, he snatched up a rock and threw it at the tiger. Without waiting to see if it hit, he turned to his guests. “After all this time, you’d be surprised that there are any rocks remaining, wouldn’t you? But every time I come out here I find some more. Oh… that’s too bad.”

“What?” Proctor asked, but then he saw.

Their little boat was adrift. It floated past the shift, picking up speed, and rammed into the island with enough speed to snap the mast. The waves pulled back and then surged, casting it up on the rocks a second time, this time snapping its keel like the spine of a small animal. Proctor reached out to give Deborah’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

The tiger, treading water just offshore, shook the spray off its head and then paddled away.

“Where is it going?” Proctor asked.

“Back where she came from, just as she always does,” the madman said. “Old Scratch, she’s devious, but predictable.” Then he laughed and clapped his hands. “Well now, who wants some tea?”

The madman walked away from them and checked a variety of tins and broken crockery set out on the rocks.

“We’ll find some way out of here,” Proctor said. “I s—”

“Don’t swear to it,” Deborah said.

Ever the Quaker. It almost made him smile. “I wasn’t going to. I was going to say, I sense magic here, but I haven’t seen him use any yet.”

“I do too, and neither have I. But we should be on our guard. Remember how the Widow Nance tricked us.”

“Too well,” he said. The scars on his arms from that misadventure were still pink and healing. “Can you put a binding spell on him if we need to?”

She opened her hand to reveal several knotted strings. She had been tying them as a focus for a spell. “But not before we find a way off the island.”

Nearby, the madman sniffed at a cracked pitcher. “This one’s fresh,” he said, carrying it over to a circle of rocks outside his shack. “Rainwater.” He piled up pieces of driftwood and knelt to strike a fire. The crack of flint on steel sounded several times before the spray of tiny orange sparks caught hold in the tinder.

The steel and flint puzzled Proctor. If the stranger was a wizard why didn’t he just speak a word and start the fire? Everyone had different talents, but anyone who could open this room off the side of world had incredible power. With the fire going, the madman stood and looked around, puzzled. “Now where did I leave those tea leaves?”

Esek blocked his way. “I know who you are,” he said.

“I’m sure you don’t,” the madman said. His grin was weak.

“You’re Henry Every.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Henry Every, Long Ben, Captain of the Fancy.”

“He’s been dead a long time,” the madman said.

“He’s been gone a long time,” Esek corrected. “He disappeared, never to be seen again. And now I know where you went and why you’ve never been seen.”

“I have tea leaves around here, somewhere, I’m sure,” the madman said, as if they hadn’t spoken. He walked away and examined various plates and fragments of bowls that had been left out on the rocks.

Esek turned to Proctor and Deborah. “Henry Every. I bet you’ve never heard of him either, no more than you’ve heard of Captain Esek Hopkins.”

“No… ” Proctor said. As if he should have heard of every pirate who had ever lived.

“Should we have?” Deborah asked.

Esek shook his head in disbelief. He raised one thick arm and pointed it at the shambling wreck of a man who shuffled around the tiny island lifting and sniffing various plates. “Yes, you should have. That man is the greatest pirate who ever lived. He taught Captain Kidd everything he knew, and… you haven’t heard of Captain Kidd either, I suppose?”

“Him, I’ve heard of,” Proctor said. Captain Kidd was a piece of New England history. There wasn’t a boy in Massachusetts who hadn’t heard of him. “Some say he buried his treasure near Boston, and some say in the Thimble Islands.”

“Captain Kidd sailed through the Thimble Islands,” Esek said. “But it wasn’t to bury his own treasure, it was to dig up Henry Every’s.”

Proctor saw the gleam of greed in Esek’s eyes, and he exchanged a worried glance with Deborah. One madman was more than enough to deal with if they hoped to escape. He tried to interrupt the smuggler, but now that he had started, there was no slowing him down. He paced, using his arms in excitement as he spoke.

“Henry Every is the king of the pirates. He sailed the Fancy in the Indian Sea, where he came across the treasure ship of the emperor of Hindoostan. The treasure ship was huge — it had sixty guns and four hundred soldiers onboard. But Long Ben — that’s what his men called him — laid alongside her in the Fancy, crippled her with the cannons, and then boarded her for some of the bloodiest hand-to-hand fighting any man or devil ever seen. The captain of the ship ran down and hid among the whores—”

Proctor flinched at the harsh word, for Deborah’s sake, though she didn’t show any reaction.

“When Every’s men finally took the ship, they found more than a million dollars in gold and jewels aboard that ship. Each and every man who survived the battle got a thousand pounds in coins and a sack full of rubies and emeralds and diamonds.” He pounded his fist in his palm. “They were as rich as any gentleman in England, and that’s where most of them went, where the authorities arrested them because the emperor of Hindoostan complained to the King. But not Henry Every. He had friends in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and he came here, where a free man has always been welcome. Then he disappeared.”

“The women,” Deborah said.

“What?” Esek seemed confused by her interruption.

“The whores,” she said. “What happened to them?”

“What do you think? The pirates took them aboard for their amusement, those that didn’t kill themselves right away and weren’t killed….” Esek realized what he was saying and the sentence stammered to an end. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to—”

“Didn’t mean to what?” Proctor asked.

“Didn’t mean to speak so freely, I’m sure,” Deborah said. “Though free men should always speak freely, don’t you think?”

Esek was eager to change the subject. “What I’m trying to tell you is this man is the greatest pirate who ever lived. He stole the treasure ship of Hindoostan and captured all the emperor’s wives. And he got away with it.”

Proctor looked over his shoulder at the sad raggedy man walking barefoot over the cold wet rocks. “It doesn’t look like he got away with it to me.”

Esek gestured to Proctor to step aside. “A word between men,” he said.

“Please feel free,” Deborah said. “I know how men can be… delicate sometimes.”

Proctor stepped aside with the privateer. “Distract Every for me if you can,” Esek said in a hushed tone. “I want to explore that larger island. We need a boat, and there may be one hidden on the far side.”

“I can do that,” Proctor said.

“Here we go,” the madman announced cheerfully. Proctor turned to see him grinning as he held up a wooden plate.

They gathered around the fire.

“I don’t often acquire fresh tea leaves here, so I have to dry them,” the madman said, scraping them off into the boiling water. “We better let it steep a while.”

Deborah sat on a nearby rock. When Proctor chose his own seat among the weathered stones, he made sure to choose one so that if the madman were looking at him, his eyes would be turned away from the marble palace.

“Are you?” Deborah asked.

“Am I?” the madman said.

“Are you who he said you are? Henry Every, the pirate captain.”

He shook his head. “I’m just a poor sinner. A man who’s had a long time to regret a few… rash actions.”

“Is your ship the one that’s been spotted around the Thimble Islands of late?” Proctor said. “Can it sail us back there again?”

“If it could sail anywhere else, do you think I’d still be here?” Every fidgeted, frequently stirring the leaves in the pot and looking everywhere but never making eye contact.

“A sinner might still be here, a man with something to repent,” Deborah said.

“I said I was a sinner, not a saint.” Every stood abruptly and entered his shack. He came back with a tall pipe of the sort that Proctor had sometimes seen used to smoke tobacco. Every sucked at a mouthpiece and then threw it down on the rocks, where it hit with a sharp crack. “Useless. Since the opium has gone, it’s been useless.”

His voice trembled.

Proctor was putting all the pieces together. Every wasn’t a wizard: he was cursed, cursed for his piracy and the evil deeds he had done. He could sail his ship back to the other world, but only to taunt him with the things he had lost. “You can sail your ship back to the real world, to our world,” Proctor said. “That’s why we’ve seen your ship so frequently of late, lurking among the islands. But you can’t stay there. You’re drawn back here, the same way our little boat was drawn through the fog. That’s why they can never find you.”

“Perhaps,” Every said quietly. With that one word, he seemed to Proctor to become both sad and even worthy of pity. He had four chipped cups, which he dipped into his pitcher of steeping water. “Would you care for some tea? I’m afraid I can offer you neither cream nor sugar.”

Proctor accepted a cup and tried not to wince when he sipped. The tea was so weak and dirty it tasted like dishwater. Deborah saw his reaction and set her cup down without tasting it. “What happened to you?” Proctor asked.

“I overheard your friend. He had much of it right. My ship and crew attacked a musselman off the coast of Malabar. It was the moghul’s ship, headed for Mecca, carrying his gift to the imans and his wife and all his concubines on holy pilgrimage. The hold was filled with treasure — chest after chest of gold coins and cut jewels, bolts of silk, blocks of pure opium.” He licked his lips nervously. “But it wasn’t enough. When greed takes a man — when it takes a crew of men — no glut of prizes is ever enough. We tortured the crew members and wom—” He glanced at Deborah. “We tortured the crew members. One by one in search of more treasure. For thirteen days, we made sport of them, forcing them to reveal their secrets, little treasures they may have hidden, on their person or aboard the ship. And on the thirteenth day, we found the greatest treasure of all: the moghul’s sorcerer.” He paused. “He gave up his secrets, but the secrets came with a curse.” He held out his hands. “And now here I am. Have you ever heard the expression ‘to grab a tiger by the tail’? Once you grab hold, you can never let go or they will — hey, your friend really shouldn’t venture over there.”

He jumped to his feet. Esek dangled from the ropes midway between Every’s island and the island with the palace.

“He’s our companion, but not our friend,” Proctor said.

Every didn’t hear a word that Proctor said. He was already running down to shore to shout at Esek.

Deborah came to Proctor’s side. “Every is an evil man who has done evil things,” Proctor said. “There’s much he’s not telling us, particularly about the emperor’s wives.”

“I know,” Deborah said. “But his judgment will be up to God, not us.”

Proctor had a terrible realization. “Unless Esek was right and this is hell.”

“Don’t think that thought hasn’t crossed my mind,” Deborah said.

“If this is hell, or even if it isn’t… ” Proctor said. He regretted the words as soon as they escaped his mouth. Not knowing how to pull them back in, he opened the stall doors and chased the rest of them out. “I need to know whether… ” Whether you love me. He couldn’t make himself say it aloud. “Whether you still have feelings for me.”

Deborah took a step away from him, her face revealing and then masking a whole book full of emotions he wasn’t literate enough to read. Having grown up as a witch, in a country that killed witches, she was used to keeping her talents secret, a skill that extended to her thoughts. And he couldn’t blame her. But he wanted to know.

She could tell. She looked up at his face and knew he needed something from her. A word. A sign. She reached out and brushed her fingers against the back of his hand.

“Ask me again once we’ve escaped this place, wherever it is,” she said. “Until we escape, it doesn’t matter.”

Every, ragged and miserable, stretched beyond the normal span of days, stood at the edge of the island and raged at Esek.

“I don’t know,” Proctor said. “If we don’t escape, it may matter even more. Esek told me he would search the big island for a boat.”

Deborah pointed at the Fancy. “We have a boat. Or rather a ship. Maybe it’s Every who’s drawn back here and not the vessel. If we were aboard it without Every, would you know how to get it under sail?”

“I might be able to figure it out, given time,” Proctor said. “But even then, I don’t know that I could steer it through these treacherous channels. How would we break the spell that smashes everything on the rocks? How would we open the door back into our world?”

“I am already thinking of a focus and a spell,” Deborah said.

He nodded, mind racing, eager to help. “What verse will you use? There’s Job. The gates of death have been opened unto thee. Thou hast seen the doors of the shadow of death.”

“You’re too fond of the Old Testament,” she said.

“What do you expect?” he said. “I was raised by Puritans.”

“I believe this is not hell and we are not yet dead,” she said. “I was thinking about something from Acts: The angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them forth.”

“What can I do to help?”

The voices of argument rose to a new pitch. “This is the last time I’ll warn you,” Every screamed, froth flying from his lips like spume from the tip of a wave. “If you don’t come back now, I’ll chase you down and cut out your bloody heart.”

Esek stood on the other island, dripping to the waist. His pistol pointed across the water at Every. “Try it and I’ll finish the job that time did not. You’ve got no claim on a treasure you have not spent in a hundred years, dead man.”

He shuffled backwards toward to the palace. Every screamed in blind incomprehensible rage, put his knife in his teeth, and reached up to grab the ropelines. Esek laughed at him and turned to run to the palace.

“Are you sure we need Esek to escape the island?” Deborah asked.

Proctor looked at the time-worn ship with its puzzle of lines and masts and sails. “Most likely.”

“Then you better go save him. If you cannot save them both.”

Every had already reached the far shore where he dropped nimbly to the rocks and chased Esek into the marble palace. Proctor checked the tomahawk, hung at his belt, the only weapon from his militia days that he carried with him. Then he spit on his hands, reached up, and grabbed the ropelines.

He let his weight hang on the unfamiliar ropes and felt them sag.

This passage was much wider than the one between the ship and Every’s island, and the drooping ropelines dunked Proctor in the waves until he was soaked halfway to his waist. When he reached the far shore, he saw two sets of wet footprints. Esek’s heavy boots followed by the faint and fading print of Every’s bare feet, converging on the large and ornate archway of the marble palace.

Proctor paused before it.

The building itself was wrong. Up close there was no sign of workmanship in the stone, and the ornate details seemed vague and fuzzy whenever he tried to focus on them. It was less a building than it was someone’s memory of a building. And it felt less like a palace and more like a tomb. The finial on the dome was topped with a crescent moon. The real moon, also a crescent, hung in the sky behind it. Proctor realized it had not moved since their arrival.

The sooner they escaped from here, the better.

“Esek, Every,” he shouted. “Come on out — we can work through our differences.”

He heard their voices arguing far away, as if down a long corridor. With a glance back over his shoulder at Deborah, he loosened the tomahawk in his belt, and went inside.

There were no fires, no candles or lamps of any kind, but the broad interior corridors were suffused with a cool light that emanated from the marble walls. Less like natural light and more like someone’s memory of a lit room. The building was large outside, but certainly not much larger than the Old North Church in Boston. And yet the corridor led him on and on, appearing straight in front of him, though whenever he looked behind it twisted and turned.

He ignored the side doors and passages as he followed the voices toward the center of the building. Just ahead he spied a transept, a crossing of major corridors. He heard a cough around one of the corners, and he ran forward. “Esek, is that you? Proclaim yourself—”

The command died on his tongue as he rounded into the new hall.

The tiger stood at his feet, dripping a pool of water on the floor. It stared at Proctor curiously, as if its deep yellow-brown eyes were taking the measure of his soul. It leaned forward and licked the dried blood from the cut on his hand.

Raspy tongue had barely touched bare skin when Proctor spun away and sprinted into the other hall. He dodged into the first side door that opened for him, and then again into a narrow stairway, which he climbed three steps at a time. Every time he glanced back, he saw shadows moving on the wall and heard the soft pad of feet, until he was running blind, not looking back at all. The corridors were narrower here, and darker, with many more branches, and several of the rooms were dead-ends. He stopped in the third of these, braced himself in a corner, and fumbled at his belt for his tomahawk. He held the weapon before him, twitching in anticipation of an attack that might come at any moment or never.

After a while, his panic subsided and he caught his breath.

He was lost. His shifted his feet and felt them squish in wet socks. At first the noise seemed impossibly loud, a trumpet blaring his location. But then he realized it might be his rescue. He dropped to the floor to trace the breadcrumb trail of water drops back to the original entrance.

Hope faded like dew in the sun. The floors felt unreal, like a plaster model of barely remembered floors. There were no drops to follow, not even in the corner where he’d just been standing. The surface swallowed them up the way sand swallowed water.

He stood and peered cautiously around each dim corner. He made his way slowly, choosing the wider corridor every time paths diverged, looking for a staircase down to the first floor again. But the labyrinth frustrated him, and he found himself back in the narrowest of hallways which ended in a plain arched doorway. When he looked back, all the other doors and passages were gone.

He wracked his brain for a verse that he could use as a spell. But all he could think of was First Samuel, And the asses of Kish Saul’s father were lost…

Maybe the only way out was through. He tiptoed forward, as quietly as he could in wet shoes, paused in the door, and peered into the room.

A person dressed from head to foot in dark robes, knelt before an eastward facing window, with forehead, nose, and palms touching the ground. Though he could not understand the words, the voice was unmistakably that of a woman.

“Alaahumma baarik ’ala Muhammadin wa ’alaa ali Muhammadin. Kaama baarakta ’alaa Ibraaheema wa ’alaa ali Ibraaheema. Innaka hammedun Majeed.” She glanced over her right shoulder. “As Salaamu ’alaikum wa rabmatulaah.” She glanced over her left shoulder. “As Salaamu ’ala—”

She noticed Proctor there and faltered. He held up his hands to indicate his peaceful intent.

Only one of his hands was clutching a tomahawk.

He quickly slipped it back into his belt.

“—ikum wa rabmatulaah,” she finished.

With her hands cupped, palm up, at chest level, she said something that only she herself could hear. She had to be one of the women Every had kidnapped. When Esek called them whores, Proctor had imagined exotic women in shameful clothing, flaunting themselves. But this woman reminded him of a pious goodwife or some popish nun. He wanted to speak to her, but something told him it would be wrong to interrupt. Finally, she wiped her face with her palms and stood. She turned to face him. Her skin was dark but her features delicate and perfectly formed. Her amber eyes considered him, thoughtfully but fearlessly.

“You must be a most earnest and good-hearted man to find your way through these corridors,” she said in lilted English. “In all this time, no other man has found me here.”

“To be honest I wasn’t looking,” Proctor said.

“That explains it,” she said. “If you were, you would never have succeeded.”

“Do you know the way out?”

“Of course. That is why you came, to escort me away from this place. Come, we must hurry.” She walked past him, and he turned to follow her, his head spinning with questions.

But the questions quickly disappeared. The corridors that had been twisting and ever-changing before were now straight and solid. She paused and pressed a finger to her lips. “We must stop somewhere on our way out,” she said softly. “There are dangerous men here, and we must be careful to escape their notice.”

Contradictory choices raced through Proctor’s head. On the one hand, they still needed Esek in order to escape. On the other hand, if this poor woman wanted to avoid the notice of a pirate and a smuggler, he felt obligated to help.

She led him down a narrow stairway into a room that looked like the nave of an old church, ringed with high arches. A balcony arcade circled the second story. In the middle of the floor sat a box that Proctor would have taken for an altar had not the top been knocked off to reveal an empty casket. The rest of the room was filled with the emperor’s treasure, or what was left of it. Bolts of brightly colored silk, silver plates and statues, casks of coins and jewels lined the walls. Many were cracked open, or lay empty, the pieces scattered.

The woman held a small bag on a cord. She pulled it open and began to fill it with gold coins and gems.

Proctor felt an itch on the back of his neck. Something wasn’t right. “Are you sure—”

A roar as a shadow passed over his head, and then a heavy weight slammed into his shoulders, knocking him to the ground. He thought that the tiger had found him, pouncing from the balcony above, but then he saw Esek rise beside him.

“The treasure’s mine!” Esek said. “And Every’s whore too.”

Proctor saw the knife in Esek’s hand but he was unprepared for how quickly the smuggler moved to cut his throat. He twisted away just in time to feel the blade slash his cheek. The big sailor’s fist followed a split second later, connecting with his temple and snapping Proctor’s head against the floor.

“Hold still, damn you,” Esek said. “There’s no reason this can’t be quick.”

Proctor had no intention of letting it be quick. His left hand fumbled at his belt for his tomahawk, but it was twisted under him as he tried to roll away from Esek. His right hand grabbed blindly for a weapon, but all his fingers found was a bolt of silk. It was better than nothing, and Proctor whipped it around just as Esek slashed at him again. This time the knife bit into the fabric, which Proctor twisted, knocking the knife out of Esek’s hand; he then shoved the bolt into the smuggler to tangle his arms and knock him down. Esek grabbed a handful of coins and flung them in Proctor’s face, then rose and charged at Proctor again.

The tomahawk came out. Esek warded off the first blow with his forearm. The second split his skull and stuck there like a maul in a piece of wood. Esek toppled to the ground, pulling the weapon out of Proctor’s hand as he fell.

Proctor stood there shaking from the suddenness of the attack, the sharpness of the pain across his face, and the thought of having killed a man he knew so quickly, so easily.

“You had to do it,” the woman said, slipping the cord around her neck and tucking the bag inside her robes.

“We needed him to sail the ship,” he said.

“No we don’t,” she answered. “We only need to cut it loose and go. Follow me.”

“Wait a moment,” he said. He had to put his boot on Esek’s face to pull free his tomahawk, and then he stopped to wipe it on the bolt of silk before slipping it back into his belt. “Now I’m ready.”

They exited the palace in just a few moments and crossed the rocky shore toward the ropelines. Deborah rose eagerly from her seat.

“Are you all right?” she called. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

“I’m fine,” Proctor said. “This is—”

“I am the moghul’s wife,” the woman said softly.

“—a friend,” Proctor called back. To the woman, he said, “Can you make your way across the ropes?”

“I can,” she said, and climbed up on them as one who’d had some practice. Proctor watched her make her way across and then glanced back at the palace, where he thought he saw a face briefly at one of the upper balconies. Every would not let this treasure go lightly. Not if he had sacrificed so much to keep her here. The woman was barely halfway across the ropes when Proctor followed her. He moved more quickly than she did, and was catching up to her in the middle, when he heard Every scream behind him.

“You can’t have her!”

Proctor was twisting around to reply with reason, such as it was, when a pistol cracked and a ball whistled past him. The moghul’s wife gasped and slipped from the rope.

Every stood on the shore with Esek’s pistol in his hand.

“Hurry,” Proctor said. “Before he can reload or follow.”

“I don’t… think… I can,” the woman said. A dark stain spread across her robes. Her hand slipped off the ropes and she fell into water.

Proctor let go and dropped after her. The water was ice cold, worse than he expected, and he swallowed a mouthful. He floundered for a moment, gagging on the salt and trying to catch his breath, when he saw her robes. He swam over and grabbed them, intending to drag her to safety. He went to hook an arm around her, but he found the robes were empty — he had mistaken their waterlogged weight for a body.

“Proctor—”

Deborah’s voice called his attention to shore. Her extended arm carried it back out to the water. In the channel between the islands he saw the tiger.

He looked frantically in either direction for the moghul’s wife and then he swam desperately for the shore. When he looked over his shoulder, the tiger paddled after him. His arms and legs were going numb from the cold when his knee banged against a rock, and he realized he had made it. Slipping and stumbling, he pulled himself up onto the rocks. He was shivering from the cold and his fingers refused to grab hold of anything. Deborah clutched a fistful of his jacket and dragged him to higher ground.

It was not far enough or quick enough. The tiger splashed ashore only yards behind him.

He grabbed Deborah’s arm and choked out words through chattering teeth. “The moghul’s wife is—”

But there was no time for anything more. The tiger surged out of the water and climbed up the rocks behind him. He rolled over onto his back, reaching for his tomahawk. He could grab the beast by the scruff of its neck… maybe blind it… give Deborah a chance to escape…

The tiger was wounded. Blood poured from its side.

It took another step toward Proctor and he reached out to grab it.

His hand missed…

… and the tiger transformed into a naked woman, her body shivering with the cold, her face contorted in pain, and she fell across him, gasping.

“The moghul’s wife is the moghul’s sorcerer,” Deborah said.

Deborah had put on her heavy coat against the fog that morning. Now she pulled it off and quickly wrapped the other woman in it.

Proctor’s brain felt sluggish, as if he were only now putting together the pieces of a puzzle that was obvious to everyone else. The moghul’s wife was also the moghul’s sorcerer. When Every had captured her and tortured her, he had brought her here with him, to his hideaway. She built the palace for herself, a place where she could hide from him. But from time to time she had to come out, and when she did, she took a form that was not so easy for him to abuse.

And now Every came for her again across the ropelines.

The tomahawk was already in Proctor’s hand. He scrambled to his feet and hacked at the lines where they were knotted to a post. The sound of the iron striking wood was answered by a cry of rage. Proctor struck again and again.

The top rope parted and Every fell into the waves.

Proctor hacked at the lower rope and cast it also into the water.

“He cannot swim very well,” the moghul’s wife said. Deborah’s coat was wrapped around her, and Deborah’s arms were wrapped around the coat. “We must hurry and cut loose his ship.”

“I have to treat your wound,” Deborah said.

“Aboard the ship,” the other woman answered. She looked at Proctor. “I was in too much of a hurry. You appeared at my left shoulder, and not my right. It was an evil sign. But I had been here too long already.”

She tried to stand on her own and fell. Proctor scooped her up in his arms and lifted her. She barely weighed anything.

Behind them, Every had floundered back to the far shore. “You can’t have her. Do you hear me? She’s mine.”

The woman shuddered. “Please. Please help me get aboard the ship. I want to see sunshine again… ”

“Can you wrap your arms around my neck and hold on tight?” Proctor asked.

“Yes, I can,” she answered with grim determination.

“Then I will get you aboard. Deborah?”

“I’ll go first,” she said.

“Good. I don’t want you here if he makes it ashore.” Deborah climbed back up to the ship as quickly as she had climbed down. Proctor followed deliberately, holding on tight to the injured woman with one arm as he slid along the ropelines up to the rotting ship. They could see the island of skulls and bones from the deck. It was impossible not to recall the sight of the tiger atop that pile of bones.

“I am most sorry,” the moghul’s wife said. “I was only trying to frighten you away. Those are the bones of every man Every has killed. All his crew members, all the men from the ships caught in his trap designed to bring them here so he might scavenge the things he needed. He liked to pretend that he was trying to save people, then watch them crash—”

She caught her breath in pain.

“Is this place your work or his?” Deborah asked. She opened the coat and examined the gunshot wound. She didn’t say anything of it, but Proctor could read the worry on her face.

“The building was my work, an attempt to protect myself, a place to remember. I formed it from my memories of the Taj Mahal, a tomb built by Shah Jehan for his love of Mumtaz. I made mine in memory of my dear husband, lost to me forever.” She lifted her head, but her skin had begun to look dusty gray. “All the rest, Every created to keep me here. One night forever, the night we landed here, locked in a room outside of time. I taught him, I taught him everything, because I was too weak to let him kill me instead,” she said to Deborah with a sob.

“You only did what you had to do,” Deborah said, stroking her face.

“How do we get away?” Proctor asked, glancing back to the island.

“Just set the ship adrift,” the moghul’s wife answered. “It will want to return to its proper place.”

Proctor ran to the anchor rope. He looked at the means for winding it in, and then decided it was easier to simply cut it loose. He began to chop at it with his tomahawk, but the rope was old and thick and strong.

There was a thump against the side of the ship, and then clawing and scratching.

Proctor chopped harder but the rope refused to part.

One big black paw came over the side of the ship and then another. A panther’s snout followed, its ears laid back.

The moghul’s wife cried out. She spoke rapidly in a different language, probably trying to transform, but whatever she did wasn’t working.

The panther pulled itself onto the deck and shook itself, spraying water everywhere. His chest was heaving, and Proctor could see that he had struggled to swim this far.

It was Every.

Something in the way it stood, something in the ribs showing at its sides — he couldn’t say why, but he knew. This was the source of all those bones piled up on the shipwreck island. Proctor turned and brought down the tomahawk with all his force.

The panther snarled and came at him.

The anchor rope separated and the ship lurched into motion, throwing them all off-balance. As the rope-end slithered across the deck, tethered to the anchor left behind, Proctor said, “Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.”

The rope slipped through the anchor port and disappeared. The panther squatted, ready to pounce.

With all his focus, Proctor drew his hands in the air as if he were making a knot.

The rope whipped up over the side of the ship, wrapped around the panther’s ankle and tied itself into a knot. The panther lunged at Proctor—

— and came up short.

As the boat started to move, the anchor stayed put, and the panther was dragged across the deck. He snarled and bit at the rope, clawed at it, and then, as the ship began to pick up speed, he transformed. Every was naked, flat on his stomach, sliding toward the water. He spun over, grasping at his ankle, but he was a split second too late. He slammed into the side of the ship, flipped up, and was pulled over.

His hand snapped out to snag the ship’s railing.

“I’ll never let you go,” he shouted. “I’ll never let you go!”

The railing snapped.

Proctor ran to the edge of the ship. Every was dragged under screaming, water flooding into his mouth, and then dark water and silence swallowed him.

“The ship is moving,” Deborah said quietly to the moghul’s wife.

She nodded understanding. “Maraja al-bahrayni yaltaqiayni,” she said.

Deborah wrapped her hands around the other woman’s. “Here, draw on my power.”

“Maraja al-bahrayni yaltaqiayni,” she repeated, the words coming with longer pauses between them. “Do you understand? The two seas flow freely so they meet together.”

“I understand,” Deborah said.

Proctor watched. This is what Deborah did well, forming a circle and sharing power with another. Above them, the stars and the moon faded. The sky grew light. For Proctor it was like seeing the transformation from night to dawn to noon, all collapsed into a few seconds. The fog had burned off and it was a clear and sunny day on the ocean. The cries of gulls filled the air, and the smell of saltwater and the sound of waves.

“It’s been so long since I felt sunshine,” the moghul’s wife whispered. She reached up and took the bag from around her neck and handed it to Deborah. “This was to buy my passage home.”

Deborah tried to push it away. “I can’t take that.”

But the woman forced it over Deborah’s head. “I do not think that I will need it now.”

“Don’t say that—”

“I am at peace.” Her voice faltered and the next words were faint. “It is very sweet.”

Deborah squeezed the cords in her fist. “What is your name? We would remember your name.”

But the answer was forever beyond her. Her face turned toward the sun, which bathed it in warm and gentle light.

The ship shuddered beneath their feet and tilted to one side. Proctor looked over and noticed they were low in the water. “Deborah… ”

Deborah was still cradling the other woman in her lap, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Not now,” she said.

“Deborah, the ship is sinking.”

More than sinking. It was coming apart at the seams beneath them. The sides were splitting, the planks in the deck slowly separating. The mast cracked and toppled toward the deck. Proctor wrapped an arm around Deborah and pulled her out of the way. Wood and sail and rigging crashed into the deck just behind them.

“Thank y—” she started to say.

The words were cut off as she slipped out of Proctor’s hand. The deck tilted beneath them as the ship capsized. Proctor slid down the deck toward Deborah, both of them chased by a vast net of tangled wreckage. He had just enough time to take a deep breath before he hit the water. If they didn’t get clear of the wreckage they would be dragged under with it.

His momentum carried him deep, so deep he thought his lungs would burst, but he kicked and pushed his arms and somehow rose again. When his head broke the surface he was gasping for air. He spun in the water, searching for Deborah, and saw her floundering nearby.

He swam to her side. “Here, take hold of me,” he said. “I’ll n—”

The words formed in his mouth, but he had just moments before heard them come from Every’s lips, and he couldn’t say them.

Deborah had no such reservation. “I won’t let go of you,” she said.

With a gladder heart than he’d had a moment before, he pulled them through the waves to a floating mast and they clung to it like shipwreck survivors. A sail appeared in the distance, perhaps even the ship scheduled to rendezvous with them when they had set out that morning with Esek. They would only need to hang on a little while. But Deborah looked despondent.

“We know now there is no British spy ship,” he told her, as they began to shiver in the cold. “And no more ships will disappear in the fog, no more men will die at Every’s hand.”

Deborah nodded reluctantly. Then she let go of the mast with one hand to grab the bag at her throat. “And we have this.”

A thousand uses for that money ran through Proctor’s head in an instant. If nothing else, they could donate it to the war, use it to help the fight for independence.

“With this we can build a real school for women with talent, a place where they can learn to use magic safely and not have to be afraid of men,” she said, and her face began to brighten.

Proctor didn’t even think twice. “I’ll help any way I can.”