The Edge of the Ocean Page 9

  “They are humans,” Merrow explained. “Humans with ships, much like Captain Nyfe’s. Only they do not make berth in the Break. Their port is to the rim, where the Scattered Isles lie.”

  “They are weed-scum on the skin of the sea,” Nyfe said firmly.

  “But I don’t understand,” Flick said. “Why would they want the suitcase? Why wouldn’t they just leave this world with your crew once we worked out how to get everyone out?”

  Nyfe and Merrow glanced at each other, and Flick felt an unpleasant jolt of realization.

  “You weren’t going to tell them about it,” she said. “Were you?”

  Nyfe did not even have the good grace to look ashamed. “It is not that simple, child. There is too much bad blood between us and them.”

  Flick gaped, disbelief rolling off her in waves. “But—but they’re as much a part of this world as you are!”

  “You’re talking about things you don’t understand.” Nyfe raised a finger as threateningly as if it were a sword. “And I do not intend to sit around idle and wait for them to leave us here in this crumbling world. If the Buccaneers have stolen your suitcase, it is war they are asking for.”

  “Captain Nyfe.” Jonathan stepped forward. “There is no need to start a fight over this. We can all help one another, here.”

  “You can’t even help me and my crew,” Nyfe scoffed. “You said you can’t sail a ship through a suitcase. Have you come up with a solution for that yet? And what of those mer-folk as large as ships themselves? You realize not everyone in this world is the same size.”

  Flick didn’t know what to say to that. To leave a ship behind was one thing, but to leave people…

  “Until you come up with a solution, you will do as you’re told.” Nyfe looked at Merrow. “No one can leave this world without the help of the children on my vessel. That’s the rumor your mer-spies will spread, anyway. Sow seeds of doubt into the minds of our enemies. Make it known that any ship or mer-folk who come to me and pledge to become part of my crew shall be accepted. If they don’t fly my colors… they should prepare for war.”

  “No!” Flick clenched her fists. “We’re not your bargaining chips any more than the suitcase is. Besides,” she added, grasping at straws, “you said your ships were valuable. Surely you don’t want them damaged in a pointless fight?”

  “We outnumber the Buccaneers,” Nyfe said. “It would be a short fight, and one in our favor. Once their sailors learn that only I can help them, they will mutiny against Captain Burnish and any of his crew foolish enough to stay loyal to him.”

  “Yesterday you said you wouldn’t leave without your ships,” Flick spluttered, “but now you’ll leave people behind?”

  “Ships carry the dead,” Nyfe snarled. “They are priceless.”

  “More priceless than people?” Flick stared at her.

  Nyfe stared back. “Some.”

  Merrow adjusted their grip and gave a small cough to get everyone’s attention. “I shall do as you have instructed, Pirate Queen. I hope you know what it is you are asking.” They let go, dropping beneath the water with barely a ripple.

  Nyfe turned to Jonathan. “If you have a brain in your head, boy, you’ll tell anyone who asks you that the mer-folk have returned your suitcase to us. We cannot afford for anyone on the ship to think poorly of them at this time. This parley we are sailing to has been hard won, and it could fall apart as easy as a dandelion clock.”

  “This is despicable,” Jonathan replied. “You’re not a hero—you’re only trying to save the people who agree to do as you say.”

  Nyfe bared her teeth. “I command these seas, boy.”

  Jonathan pushed his face up closer to hers. “Your command hangs by a thread. I could break it as soon as I step foot on deck. I could tell your crew we’ve got no way out of here and you’re grasping at straws.”

  “Do that, and you would risk a mutiny,” she countered. “And leave us too busy fighting to leave this world. And that”—she pointed at him—“would be your fault. You left it too late to save your father, I gather. Do you want to make the same mistake again?”

  Jonathan backed away as though Nyfe were a shark. He leaned against the railing, his face ashen.

  “That was uncalled for,” Flick snapped.

  “That is life in the Break,” Nyfe said. “For the sake of peace aboard this ship, keep your mouths shut. We will sail to the Cove of Voices for the parley, and from there to the Buccaneers, to get your suitcase back. Agreed?”

  “I agree.” Jonathan nodded weakly. “I shall say nothing, unless asked. And if I am asked, I shall lie.” He gave her a look of absolute loathing.

  Nyfe gave a nod of acceptance, choosing not to acknowledge the venom in Jonathan’s eyes. “And you, girl.” She glared at Flick. “I would mind your tongue about things you do not understand. This is not your world, and things do not work in the same way as you are used to.”

  Flick wanted to argue again, but Avery was digging a thumb into her back. Just the day before she’d thought they were sailing with the good guys and that the Buccaneers were the real pirates around here. Now it felt as though things might be the other way around.

  Their suitcase was out of reach. They had no way of escaping from the Aconite. And the captain they were sailing with was ready for war. Flick hadn’t felt so at sea since she’d fallen into it out of Quillmaster’s boat. But what could she do? Nothing, at least, not while Nyfe was leaning over her like she was. She nodded. “Yes.”

  Nyfe waited a beat, as if waiting for Flick to call her “Captain,” then let it go. “Let’s go back to the cabin, then. Before we are missed.”

  16

  Flick managed to hold in her anger until she had Avery and Jonathan alone at the rear of the ship half an hour later. “We can’t let her start a war over a suitcase!” she hissed, keeping her voice down.

  “I know. I know.” Jonathan looked exhausted. Ever since Nyfe had snapped at him, he seemed to have shrunk both physically and emotionally.

  “She seemed to be spoiling for a fight with the Buccaneers anyway,” Avery muttered, cracking her knuckles. “Just needed an excuse.”

  “What does she even hope to get out of this?” Flick whispered. “She has a whole load of ships calling her Captain, already. She’d honestly leave people here just because they’ve fought each other in the past?”

  “She needs to grow up.” Avery rubbed her head, making her hair stand on end. “But right now she’s the one with the ships, the command, and everyone listening to her. We’ve got nothing. Literally, since the suitcase was stolen. We have to stay with her. Try to figure something out.”

  “And save everyone,” added Flick.

  “Everyone,” agreed Avery.

  “Yes, that sounds the best course of action,” Jonathan said, staring into space. Flick had the impression he didn’t really know what he was agreeing to.

  Avery gave him a worried look, then turned to Flick. “Okay, so we save everyone. But how? We’re in the middle of the ocean!”

  Flick paused, an idea flickering into being. It felt rather impossible, but anything else would only keep them right under Nyfe’s boot. “What if we don’t stay here with Nyfe? We could get off the ship.”

  “You know how I feel about swimming,” Jonathan sighed.

  “I don’t mean swim,” Flick said. “There are smaller boats on the side of the ship.”

  Avery brightened a little. “I’m listening.”

  “We take one,” Flick said. “We leave this ship and sail to the Buccaneers before Nyfe does.”

  “And how would we do that?” Avery said. “She’s got a bigger boat. She could easily chase us down even if we managed to get away without her noticing at first.”

  “We leave the parley at the Cove of Voices before it’s finished,” Flick said, her brain beginning to tick faster and excitement building in her chest. “Nyfe won’t be able to leave the meeting immediately even once it’s over—you saw how everyone crowded aroun
d her before. And smaller boats go first so they don’t get knocked about in the wake of the bigger ones, remember? She’d have no choice but to give us a head start. We can sail to where the Buccaneers are and get the suitcase back first!” The fact that she didn’t know how to sail was a fact that Flick chose, for the moment, to ignore. How hard could it be?

  “We’d need maps,” Avery was saying. “We could take the ones in Nyfe’s cabin—or copy them, that would be better. Maybe do something to sabotage the Aconite, too, slow them down a bit.”

  Flick nodded. “Better than waiting here for nothing to happen, right?”

  “Right.” Avery said, putting her hands on her hips. “We can’t do anything sitting here. Flick’s plan is a go, I vote.”

  Jonathan had been silent, with his eyes closed, as they spoke. Now, he opened them wearily. “Fine,” he said. “Since we don’t have a better plan. But this needs to be as watertight as a mermaid’s handbag. One slipup and Nyfe will have us in the brig for the rest of the voyage.”

  “Right.” Flick nodded. “Now, who’s good at sneaking about?”

  17

  By the pirates’ clocks, it was two days of sailing before they reached the Cove of Voices. During the journey, Flick and Avery spent every moment they weren’t sitting down for meals doing chores. It turned out there really was a job for everyone on a ship, even if you’d never been on one before. Flick was put to work cleaning the brass in Nyfe’s cabin, and Avery found herself peeling vegetables in the kitchen below decks. It was hot and sticky work for them both, but it did give them a chance to start to put their plans into action.

  As Flick polished brass, she watched Nyfe. The captain always put her maps and charts away carefully, and Flick knew they would be missed if she stole one. So, every time Nyfe left her cabin, Flick took out her waterlogged notebook and pen and copied them instead, a bit each time. From the maps, the Cove of Voices looked to be a long way from the Scattered Isles, and Flick tried hard to ignore the nervous feeling in her gut about her plan.

  She was also anxious about the amount of time they were spending here in the Break. Flick liked math, and she knew that if two days had passed here then something approaching three hours had passed back home. She had told her mom that she would be home before six. And back home it was now past one in the afternoon.

  Avery didn’t seem to have any such worries. She used her time in the kitchens to eavesdrop. She could do a remarkable impression of someone who wasn’t interested in anything, and barely said a word to anyone as she apparently concentrated on nothing besides chopping and mixing. Clearly, her act paid off, because the sailors thought nothing of talking openly around her, and Avery soon had information about the winds, the sailing conditions, and most importantly, gossip about what might happen at the parley with the mer-people.

  She relayed all of this to Flick the night they were supposed to arrive at the cove as they huddled at the prow of the ship by lantern-light. It was raining, and the two girls held a tar-slicked raincoat over both of their heads, hissing to one another for fear of being overheard.

  “I was wrong before,” Avery said over the constant patter of the rain. “The mood on the ship is that Nyfe doesn’t want a real war. She just wants the Buccaneers, and the mer-people on their side, to surrender out of fear that they’ll be left behind if they don’t.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Flick replied, remembering how casual Nyfe had sounded about attacking the other ships. “She wouldn’t risk her own sailors or ships at this point. But why even bother threatening?”

  “Power.” Avery shrugged. “You know what people are like once they get a sniff of it.”

  Flick shivered. “So, Nyfe wants control of all the ships in the Break? And then what? She’ll still be stuck here. Even if she gets the suitcase back from the Buccaneers, she won’t leave her ships behind.”

  “Maybe she expects us to find another solution for her,” Avery said. “Well, maybe she expects Jonathan to find one. You know what annoys me? She talked about her generation being the ones left trying to fix an unfixable world, but she still expects someone else to do it for her. She sees this as a chance to get some power while we, apparently, do the dirty work.”

  Flick chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t suppose Jonathan has given you any ideas about saving the Break at all?”

  “No. You?”

  The girls looked at each other and pulled identical awkward faces.

  Jonathan had spent the last couple of days in his hammock, and nowhere else. The official reason was seasickness, but they both knew it was more than that. He didn’t speak unless directly spoken to, had to be reminded to eat and drink, and if left alone would simply stare into space, occasionally crying soundlessly, tears leaking down his face slowly, as if even they had run out of energy.

  “I don’t know how to help him,” Flick said. “What do you do when someone’s had a shock like that?”

  “I don’t know either,” Avery said. “Nothing like that has ever happened to me. In fact, I had so little childhood trauma that I’ve been forced to develop a personality instead.”

  Flick didn’t want to laugh, she really didn’t, but a bubble of a giggle popped up her throat and ended up as a sort of cackle. She blushed.

  “It wasn’t that funny,” Avery said, but she looked pleased.

  “Obviously.” Flick tried to narrow her eyes at her, but they both ended up grinning stupidly, then looking away, their breath fogging and mixing together in the small dry space they were sharing.

  Flick sighed to herself. She hadn’t set out to make friends with Avery, but she didn’t seem to be able to help it. She would say something and then catch herself wondering whether Avery had been impressed with it. Or hoping Avery would think she was funny, or clever. It didn’t change the fact that Avery still seriously got on Flick’s nerves with her messy-but-perfect hair and infectious laugh and that smile that seemed to tug at the corners of your own mouth. Even though she was trying not to be too interesting, everyone on the ship liked her. Flick could see why.

  She shoved the thoughts aside. She was supposed to be thinking about Jonathan, Strangeworlds, and finding the missing suitcase. Not Avery.

  “I keep thinking about the schism,” she said, to cover the silence she was suddenly aware had been yawning open between them. “In the suitcase, I mean.”

  “What about it?” Avery asked, blinking herself back into the conversation.

  “Well, a schism is supposed to be contained inside a suitcase,” Flick said, “but some of the Strangeworlds suitcases are really small. If you had Nyfe’s shoulders then logically you’d never get into them. But Jonathan’s never said anything anyone not fitting.”

  Avery nodded. “What’s your point?”

  “There must be some sort of… overspill,” Flick suggested. “That means anyone can get through a suitcase, even if it’s a small one.”

  “Makes sense. I mean, as much sense as anything else to do with Strangeworlds.”

  “Well… what if the overspill could be, I don’t know, stretched?” Flick gestured with her hands, like she was stretching a huge elastic band.

  Avery stuck her bottom lip out in a way that was far cuter than Flick felt it had any right to be. “But schisms can’t be changed,” she said.

  “They can. They can get bigger,” Flick said. “Did Jonathan tell you about Five Lights?” She quickly told Avery the story. How the Thieves of the city had stolen and bottled so much magical energy that the schism above their world had grown and devoured bits of the world until it was almost too large to be stopped.

  “… and now, they’re releasing all the bottled magic into the sky,” Flick finished. “To try to repair the damage.”

  Avery’s eyes were wide. “You seriously ripped out of one world into another?”

  “Well, yeah, I broke out of the Waiting Room.” Flick shrugged, like it was no big deal. “I had to.”

  Avery glanced around, as if looking for someone who migh
t be laughing. “Are—are you really from Johnnie’s world?”

  “What?” Flick laughed. “Of course I am. I’ve lived there my entire life. You can’t live in a world you don’t belong in.”

  “I suppose not. But, what are your parents like?”

  “Just ordinary,” Flick said. “They’re just adults. Human beings. Boring.”

  “Guess you just got lucky,” Avery said. “I wonder if you’ve got some Mercator blood. You’re like Elara Mercator, all over again.”

  “I can’t move and trap schisms,” Flick pointed out.

  “No, but you can open and close them, which is better.”

  “I’ve only done it once!” Flick stretched her arms to try to distract herself from the way Avery’s words made her feel like her insides were made of marshmallow. “And it doesn’t help us now. We need to sail a fleet of ships through a suitcase and I am fresh out of ideas.”

  “Ripping a new schism open is out of the question, then?”

  “It’s not like ripping paper,” Flick said. “Besides, when I did it last time, the whole little world collapsed. It vanished, and pretty quickly. That’s the opposite of what we want to happen here.”

  There was a streak of lightning across the dark sky. Flick counted to twelve before there was the low rumble of thunder. “Come on,” she said to Avery. “Let’s see if we’re getting close.”

  They climbed down the steps onto the lower deck. The ship was slowing now, the Cove of Voices in sight on the horizon like a crescent moon fallen into the sea. They would be there in less than an hour.

  Avery blew a low whistle. “We’re doing this, then? Stealing a boat from the Pirate Queen?”

  “We’ve got to,” Flick sighed. “We can’t let Nyfe manipulate this crisis for her own gain.”

  Avery pushed herself off the side. “And we’re agreed on number four?”

  “Number four,” Flick nodded.

  They had agreed to steal Lifeboat Number Four from the side of the Aconite. They were also going to disconnect the rudder chain of the ship to delay Nyfe chasing after them. Flick had sketched out a cutaway of the ship that she had seen on Nyfe’s desk. Avery, whose dad was apparently a mechanic, had been working on engines for as long as she’d been able to hold a spanner, and reckoned could disable the ship long enough to give them a decent head start.