“Actually, it’s metal,” Majida said. “I made some adjustments to it.”
Majida turned a crank and half of the domed ceiling opened with a squeak that sounded very metallic. The little room was open to the air, and Harp had an unhindered view of the night sky. The observatory was the closest he’d ever been to the stars, and their vastness made him feel light-headed.
“Are we on top of the Crown?” Harp asked, staring out at the moonlight.
“Yes. I built my observatory on a drake nesting site. But they leave the mountains at night to hunt, so they shouldn’t trouble us. Although a young bull tried to stick his snout in here once.”
“What happened?”
“I left a scar, and he never came back.”
Harp turned his attention to a brass contraption on the far side of the room. Almost as tall as Harp and twice as wide, it had a circular bronze base that held a series of concentric brass rings attached on the same axis inside a metal skeleton. Harp had seen similar devicesalthough on a much smaller scaleused for navigation on ships. Their purpose had something to do with shadows and anglesBoult had explained it once, but Harp had forgotten the extensive equations and numerology necessary to understand how it worked. Harp preferred to navigate with his own eyes and the polar stars. Of course, as Boult pointed out, that didn’t work so well when there was cloud cover.
A low cabinet housed hand-held navigational devices, such as a metal quadrant and a handful of hourglasses, each with different colored sand. Shells and fossils were neatly labeled and ordered in a glass box with many small compartments, and there was a half-empty potion chest open against the wall.
“Your observatory is impressive,” Harp told Majida. “Have you learned all there is to know about the stars?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Majida replied. “I am coming to believe that the answers I seek are found inside the body rather than the vast planes.”
Harp shuddered. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Have you?” Majida said, not sounding surprised at all. She lit a stick of incense in a wooden bowl on the table, and the scent of flowers floated through the air. Majida sat cross-legged on the green threadbare rug in the center of the floor and waited until Harp sat down across from her.
“When the sun rises, we’ll go back down. Zo will show you a hidden tunnel that will take you to the entrance of the ruins. There’s a magical barrier around the ruins, but Verran will be able to get you inside. I don’t know whether you’ll find Liel or not, but I can tell you that the Torque is below the entrance hall of the golden dome. It won’t be easy to get.”
“If we get the Torque, should we bring it to you?” Harp asked.
Majida was quiet for a moment. “No,” she said finally. “If you get the Torque, drop it in the deepest ocean you can find.”
“I can do that. I just happen to have a ship.” “I know.”
“Liel told you about my ship? When we were together on Gwynneth Isle, we talked about getting one. But I didn’t think she knew that it happened.”
“She knew.”
“Why did she never contact me? I know her father helped get me out of Vankila, and I was grateful for that. But I don’t even know if that was his sense of honor or hers.”
“She asked him to help you. He didn’t stop until it was done.”
“Still…”
“Cardew threatened your life if she tried to see you.”
“The Husk-Liel said some things. Things that only Liel knew, but they were twisted.”
“Seeds of truth, Harp, but the fruit of manipulation,” Majida said quietly. “Did you love her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know that?”
“I hope so,” Harp said emphatically.
“I hope you get another chance to tell her.”
The sun was inching over the horizon, casting the sky in deep purple and rose. A salt-scented breeze swept in from the opening in the roof, and Harp wished he were on the Crane listening to the crack of the sails and feeling the swell of the water rock the boat under him.
“I can rid you of your scars,” Majida told him.
Harp shook his head. “Like I told you before, I’ve tried everything. I’ve been to casters up and down the coast. No one can get rid of them.”
“Then I have something they don’t.”
Harp closed his eyes. Majida waited a long time for him to speak.
“I’m not offering because they are horrifying, Harp,” she finally said. “I am offering because they were inflicted on you, like a brand. If you want to keep them”
Harp’s eyes flew open. “I want you to take them off. I want you to make me what I was before.”
“Then what gives you pause?” Majida asked.
“I wonder when Liel saw me. I wonder what kind of man she saw.”
It was four against one, and Harp was too drunk to defend himself.
“Ghoul,” the biggest one said, slamming his fist into Harp’s face. Harp fell back into another man, who held his arms behind his back while the big one punched him in the stomach. “So ugly they had to sew you back together.”
When they had dragged Harp out of the pub into the back alley just minutes before, Liel had lost of them in the crowd. She caught sight of them from the street and strode down the alley to them. By the time they saw her approaching, a blast of fire had shot from her hand and singed the big man’s shoulder. He stumbled back against the wall, clutching his arm and moaning while his friends backed away. They dropped Harp to the cobblestones. The four men bolted down the alley leaving Liel alone with Harp.
The narrow alley was filthy, and she could hear the rats scurrying behind the rubbish bins. It reeked of alcohol and rot, and was the last place she wanted to be. It was the last place she wanted Harp to be. She crouched down beside the body at her feet. Unconscious, Harp lay in a twisted heap, his breathing shallow and labored.
She had been trailing Harp through the city for a couple of days, trying to figure out what to do. She thought about talking to Kitto, but he was always with Harp or the gaunt dwarf, whoever he was. Liel had seen Harp’s scars from a distance, but it was the first time she’d seen them up closethick, red lines crisscrossing his face and hands like a grotesque jigsaw puzzle. His shirt was tangled around his chest, and she could see the scars on his back and stomach.
Cardew had done that to him. Her husband’s threats had been real. The Branch of Linden had spies everywhere, and if Cardew even knew she was in that wretched city, he would come after Harp. Liel had never felt so trapped. She didn’t know how far her husband’s reach extended. If she left Cardew, he might focus his ire on her father and the elves of the Wealdath. Besides, she and Harp had parted in anger. For all she knew, Harp hated her. The safest thing she could do was to leave Harp in the safekeeping of his friends.
She pulled him close so his head rested against her chest. If she didn’t help him, he would die in the alley, drunk and bleeding. She couldn’t let that be the culmination of his life.
How the human had managed to take root in her soul, she would never understand. Until that moment, she had told herself that what she felt for Harp was just a construct of desire, something easily shattered or sacrificed. But she’d never been good at lying to herself, and as she held him, there was no denying what she felt for him.
She forced herself to block out the stench of the alley, the wretched buildings, and the filthy city that corrupted the force of life. With his warm body in her arms, she could finally hear the rustle of leaves, the call of the birds, and the pulse of the faraway forest. She found her strength to mend his broken ribs and to heal the shattered bones in his hands. The gash on his forehead closed, but still the scars remained. When his breathing was deep and even, she pulled him to his feet.
She half-carried him down the road to the dodgy boarding house where he was staying with Kitto and the dwarf. She lowered him onto the doorstep, knocked loudly on the door, and disappeared into the shadows before anyone saw her. Still, there was something else she could do. Liel headed to the docks, where she had seen Harp
