Kiela led the captain and his soldiers to the cliff stairs. “Watch your step.” As soon as she said it, she felt silly—these were soldiers and sailors who were undoubtedly used to much more perilous conditions than wooden stairs in the breeze.
But the captain said courteously, “Thank you,” and held the handrail as he began the climb. Overall, he didn’t seem a bad sort. Of course, that wouldn’t stop him for an instant if he guessed she’d hidden the heir or that she possessed stolen spellbooks and, worse, had used them. She was fully aware of this, no matter how polite he was. He didn’t know her at all and would have no reason to hesitate.
Rather than joining them on the stairs, Larran said, “I’ll catch up with you folks later. I’ve got to get the herd out to sea to help with the day’s fishing.”
“Now?” Kiela said. She tried not to let all her worries and fear seep into the one syllable, but she heard her voice squeak and knew she hadn’t hidden it all well.
He shrugged casually. “Work doesn’t stop because life interferes.”
The captain looked back at Kiela. “Is there a problem?”
Only if you discover everything illegal I’ve done. “Of course not. I can take you to the old cottage while Larran tends his herd.” She didn’t need Larran with her. It wasn’t as if he could do anything about a half-dozen trained soldiers if they decided to arrest her. Still . . . she’d expected him to come with her, at least for support and encouragement.
Frankly, it hurt that he was leaving.
She told herself it shouldn’t, but her heart wasn’t in the mood to listen. It was too busy thudding faster and faster. Stay calm. You can handle this.
Kiela continued her climb up the cliff stairs, while Larran trotted across the pebbly beach. Looking back, she saw him strip off his shirt, toss it onto a rock, and then wade into the water. He whistled for his merhorses.
At the top, the captain waited for Kiela and his squad to reach him. Hands clasped behind his back, he gazed out across the water and at the purple-streaked clouds on the horizon. In front of him, the roses bobbed in the breeze, and it all looked delightfully picturesque. “Quite the view,” he said.
She caught her breath and nodded. “It’s one of my favorite things about Caltrey.”
“I can see why.” Then he frowned at the sky. “We should move along. There might be a bit of unpleasant weather coming our way soon.”
Kiela leaped on that. “Are you certain you shouldn’t head back to your ship? Get clear of the island and to your next destination before the storm arrives?”
One of his sailors studied the clouds. “It’s far enough away and not certain it’ll develop into a storm,” she said. “It could dissipate. We have plenty of time before we need to be concerned.”
Well, it was worth a try, Kiela thought. “Just a warning: storms blow in quickly on the outer islands. These aren’t like storms near the capital. You shouldn’t underestimate them.”
The sailor disagreed. “Not that quickly. We have time.”
“Lead on,” the captain said.
Kiela led them into the greenery, along the trail that Larran had blazed and that was now matted down from all the back-and-forth since she’d arrived. She hoped it wasn’t suspicious that the trail existed in the first place. Maybe she should have cast a spell to swallow it up too. The imperials could have used their shiny swords to hack through the greenery—that would have really made the area feel uninhabited—but she hadn’t thought of it. “I haven’t lived in the cottage since I was little. I’m not sure why Fenerer thinks I do. He’s clearly confused.”
She stepped out of the green in front of the cottage.
It had been embraced by vines and brambles. Lush and verdant, they knotted around the entire house, blocking the doorway and the windows. The boards that Larran had hammered over the windows and doors weren’t even visible. A few flowers bloomed on some of the vines that draped down over the walls.
“I should have maintained it,” Kiela said apologetically. “But since no one lives here . . .”
“I see that,” the captain said.
“I’m sorry to waste your time,” Kiela said. “I did try to tell you.”
The captain bowed his head politely, even sheepishly. “I do apologize for the intrusion, but since a lead was presented, it has to be followed.”
“Of course,” Kiela said. She could be gracious, now that he’d seen there was nothing here. “If we head back now, I’m sure Bryn will have some baked goods that you can take with you on your way to your next destination.”
“As soon as we conduct our search, we’ll return to town,” Captain Varrik said. He barked to his soldiers, “Search the area.” To Kiela, he said, “A formality, you understand. I need to report that we followed every lead.”
Kiela tried not to let the panic show on her face as the soldiers split up, circling the house and tromping through the forest. If they looked hard enough, would they find Caz and Meep? She hoped the plants had enough sense to stay hidden. What if the soldiers decided to chop down the vines and break into the house? Why would they? It looked as if no one had gone inside the cottage in years. There was no reason to think they’d search inside, if they could even get inside . . .
She noticed that Captain Varrik was watching her carefully. He knows. He sees it in my face. She was certain he could tell she wasn’t calm, but would he guess what she was hiding? He couldn’t know Radane was here, and he had no reason to suspect the spellbooks. Please, Caz and Meep, stay hidden.
Her heart felt as if it were racing as fast as a hummingbird’s wingbeat.
“What’s your plan when you find this missing heir?” Kiela asked, trying to make her voice as casual as possible, as if she were just making conversation.
The captain shifted uncomfortably. “She’ll be put on trial.”
“For what?”
“To determine if she is a threat to the new government of the Crescent Islands.” He turned to face the bramble-covered cottage. His soldiers were stomping through, branches snapping beneath their boots. A bird scolded them from the top of a pine tree, and Kiela glanced up at it—red feathers and an apple-blossom tail. She looked quickly away, hoping none of the soldiers noticed how unusual the bird was. This could all go so badly so very quickly.
Kiela thought about what to say. She had to choose her words carefully. And watch her tone. Lightly, she said, “Well, the woman who was here—don’t know if she was the heir or not—but she didn’t seem like a threat. She just wanted an ordinary life, she said.”
“She did, did she?”
“It sounded to me like she never wanted to return to Alyssium.”
“Ahh.”
One of the soldiers headed for the stairs down to the cove. Oh no, the library boat! It was Alyssium-made. Any sailor would recognize it. He’d know it wasn’t old and abandoned. Worse, the captain would know she’d lied. She’d said she’d never left Caltrey, plus that she’d sold Radane her parents’ boat. There would be more questions, and she didn’t know how to answer them. She clasped her hands behind her back so the captain wouldn’t notice how badly she was shaking.
In a soft voice, Captain Varrik said, “She did always want her own life.”
Before she could decide how to respond, she heard one of the soldiers swear and then call out, “Careful of the thorns!”
“You might want to call them back,” Kiela said, “if you don’t want them scratched up. The thorns are vicious, especially the deeper in you go.”
She saw the captain’s forehead crease as if he were thinking.
“Also, there’s poison ivy. You’re going to end up with a ship full of itching sailors.”
He raised his voice and called to his soldiers, “Steer clear of any poison ivy. Don’t touch shiny leaves if you don’t want to itch.”
I should have grown a lot of poison ivy. And poison oak. And maybe installed a beehive or two. Or a family of raccoons. “It’s not always shiny. Best to avoid any leaves of three.”
He relayed this to his soldiers.
“Give me a giant squid over this anytime,” one of them complained.
Kiela knotted her hands behind her back and tried to concentrate on looking amused instead of terrified. “How can this ‘heir’ be a threat to the government if all she wanted to do was leave? That doesn’t sound like someone they really need to be concerned about.”
The captain nodded. “Politics.”
“If she just wants to live out a quiet, ordinary life, isn’t that best for everyone?”
He studied her for a moment and then raised his voice again, “If you see any red berries, you should retreat immediately.” Red berries? she wondered. Of course there were red berries in a raspberry bramble—
“There are loads of red berries, sir,” a soldier called, “but they appear to be raspberries.”
“Not on Caltrey,” the captain called. “Get out of there. That’s an order—Caltrey is home to a red berry that resembles raspberries but is highly poisonous.” He leveled a look at Kiela. “Our local can confirm that.”
She met his eyes and hoped that she was understanding him correctly. “Absolutely,” Kiela said loudly. “Even inhaling its odor can cause lasting damage to the lungs and kidneys and . . . spleen. It’s terrible for your spleen.”
He nodded. “You heard the local. I don’t want you lot coming down sick when we’re out in the ocean. You see those red berries, you come out.”
At this command, the soldiers exited the brambles, as quickly as they could. They assembled in front of them. A few looked somewhat panicked and kept glancing at the raspberries that covered the cottage.
“It’s why I had to abandon the cottage,” Kiela explained. “The poison berries took root.”
For a moment, she thought she was in the clear. The search was halted. The captain had, for whatever reason, helped her end it. Now they’ll leave, we’ll be safe, and —
She saw movement from the cove stairs, and she tried not to react as the sailor returned. Yes, the soldiers had stopped searching around the cottage, but if he’d seen the boat, Captain Varrik wouldn’t be able to ignore the evidence. It was one thing to obstruct a search subtly; it was another to ignore direct evidence publicly. He’d said himself that he had to report back. There had to be a limit to how far he was willing to push against his orders—cutting short a search through thorny brambles was one thing, but publicly ignoring a lie was another.
Captain Varrik was watching her again. He’d seen her flinch.
He knows I lied.
“No boats in the cove,” the sailor reported. He was holding a bit of rope. “Line is new, so there was a ship docked there not long ago, if I had to guess, but it’s gone now.”
Kiela wanted to cry with relief. They should have found it. They should’ve had questions. They should’ve poked holes in her story and reconsidered the accusations from Fenerer . . . but the library boat was gone.
Larran.
She suppressed a smile.
He must have realized as soon as she told the lie about selling Radane the boat that her boat was the weak spot in their plan. He’d taken a merhorse to the cove and moved the boat while Kiela and the soldiers climbed the cliff stairs and trekked through the forest. She made a mental note to kiss him extra for that. “I told you: I sold my parents’ boat to Radane.”
“And which way did she sail?” Captain Varrik asked.
“I didn’t ask her destination,” Kiela said, “but the closest island is Faysa. It’s east of here.” She added, as if remembering, “She did sail east, I think.” And then: “If she switched directions later, I don’t know. If she is this heir and didn’t want to be found, she most likely did.”
He didn’t react to that, but he barked at his soldiers, “Report!”
Down the line, they reported: because of the poison berries, they could not conduct a thorough search, but from what they had seen, the cottage appeared to be overgrown from every direction, there was no clear entrance that had been used, the brambles were uncut and undisturbed, and the windows and doors were boarded up. One of the soldiers complained about a feral chicken in the midst of the overrun garden. None mentioned a talking spider plant or a mobile cactus or an apple-blossom bird or cloud bears or a lost heir. All of them were adamant that there was no sign that anyone had entered the house in months, and all were anxious to leave the poison-berry-covered cottage.
Kiela managed not to audibly sigh in relief.
The captain bowed toward her. “Again, apologies for the intrusion on your day.”
She wondered again what it meant that he’d invented the nature “fact” about the poison berries. Was he actively trying not to find Radane? It certainly seemed that way. If so, how far would he go?
He asked, “Will you accept a cup of tea at the bakery, in compensation?”
“That would be lovely.” Yet another lie, delivered with a smile. Maybe I’m getting better at this. She led them back through the greenery to the cliff stairs and wondered why he’d suggested tea. Did he want to interrogate her privately? Was she not yet in the clear?
The purple clouds on the horizon were massing, like a bruise in the midst of the blue—it looked as if the sky had been punched. She’d only weathered the one storm on Caltrey so she was no expert, but it didn’t look like it was dissipating to her.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t delay for tea?” Kiela suggested.
“Perhaps you’re right,” the captain said, eyeing the sky as well.
The sailor who’d dismissed the coming storm earlier agreed. “It has grown quickly, but we can still outrun it, if we leave now.”
The captain nodded briskly.
Kiela fell behind as the sailors strode through town, calling for the others. She trailed them to the dock, along with Bryn, Ulina, and other townspeople. Fenerer emerged from his house lugging a trunk and carrying a pack on his back. He pulled it down the dock.
“Requesting passage to Alyssium!” Fenerer called.
“This is not a passenger ship,” the captain informed him. Dismissing him, he shouted commands to his people as they swarmed over the deck, preparing to set sail.
“I request sanctuary!” Fenerer demanded.
Captain Varrik sighed. “On what grounds?”
“Danger of retribution.”
Kiela had read enough legal tomes to know that fear of retribution from the accused was considered a valid reason for granting sanctuary on imperial property, but it was only used in cases where the accused had been found guilty. It didn’t extend to instances of false accusations. In fact, there were laws that allowed those who were falsely accused to demand payment from those who had wronged them.
“Rejected,” Captain Varrik said.
He clearly knew the law as well.
Hmm . . . If he knows the law . . . “Request for payment as the wronged party,” Kiela said.
Fenerer squawked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. “You can’t!”
Ignoring him, Kiela said, “This man has leveled false accusations at me and wasted imperial resources and time. As payment, I request that he be removed from Caltrey and relocated to Alyssium.”
Ulina chuckled.
“You dare—” Fenerer began, and then he shut his mouth. His eyes widened, and she could see what she’d said sink in. He turned to Captain Varrik. “Yes, that. That’s fair.”
Captain Varrik glanced at the growing storm. Kiela wondered if he was calculating whether it would be faster to let Fenerer on his ship or to continue the argument. “You may board,” he said. “Understand that this is no luxury vessel. This is a working ship, and we have orders. We will reach Alyssium when our search is complete, not before, and you will pull your weight about the ship and will not complain about accommodations. Is that understood?”
Fenerer was already up the ramp and onto the deck.
“Thank you,” Kiela said to the captain. “That’s better compensation than tea. Good luck on your search. I hope you find whoever you’re looking for.”
Under his breath, he said, “I hope I don’t.” He waved to the townspeople who had gathered to see him off. “Thank you for your cooperation, people of Caltrey!”
He looked as if he wanted to say more, give a nice rousing speech, but from the deck, Fenerer called, “Hey, where should I put my stuff?”
Captain Varrik sighed and boarded his ship.
Kiela stood on the dock, watching them row out of the harbor and raise the sails, while the angry purple clouds spread across the sky. A streak of silver lightning flashed in the distance.