“Shhh,” Brody said. “I want to hear this.”
“And now, here you are, a woman grown,” the captain was saying. “If I’d known it was you, I’d have tapped my best barrel and welcomed you properly.” The stiffness in the captain’s posture, and the tension in his face and shoulders, told a different story.
Celly wasn’t fooled. “If you’d known it was me,” she said, “you would have found a hole to hide in.”
Strangward chose not to respond to that. Instead, he shaded his eyes and scanned the Siren’s decks. “Isn’t Iona with you?”
“My mother is dead.”
This news seemed to knock Captain Strangward back on his heels. Again, he took a quick look over his shoulder, scanning the deck; then he turned back to Celly. “I am so sorry to hear that. When did this happen?”
“A year ago.”
Strangward went ashen under his sun weathering. “I wish I’d known. I would have liked to pay my respects and—”
“Telling you was the last thing on my mind,” Celestine snapped, “though I’m sure you’d have liked more warning. After Mother died, I found the strength to break out of the prison you built for us, only to find that your gutter-swiving stormcaster brother had surrounded the Sisters with a wall of storms.”
Evan knew she must mean the Weeping Sisters, three small islands, in the Northern Islands chain, that spewed steam and flame and hot-spring water the year round. He’d never gone there—nobody did, these days. They were always shrouded in cloud and battered by wind and wave.
“Celly, you can’t assume that—”
“I can assume whatever the hell I want! I’m empress now. My mother was too weak to rule the coast, but I am not. Harol stole what belonged to me, and trapped my mother and me on the Sisters with his stormlord magic.”
“Your mother wasn’t—” Captain Strangward seemed to reconsider finishing that sentence. “It wasn’t like that,” he said.
“My mother loved me!” Celestine cried, blotting at her eyes with her gauntleted forearms. “But your thrice-damned brother turned her against me after Jak died.”
“Your mother loved you,” Strangward conceded. “I’ll not deny that.”
By now, Evan and Brody were getting fidgety, despite the drama going on before their eyes. They’d walked into the middle of it, after all, they didn’t know any of the characters, and it seemed to have very little to do with them.
“Five years you’ve prowled the Indio at will,” Celestine said, “naming yourself the lord of the ocean and building an empire at my expense. Now everything changes.”
“The only way to make a name is to earn it,” Strangward said.
“As I intend to do,” she said. She leaned forward, her grip tightening on the rail. “Only a fool gets in my way,” Celestine said. Reaching into her carry bag, she pulled something out and held it up.
It glittered in the sunlight—a small object dangling from a chain. Evan’s heart spasmed, leaving him breathless. It matched the broken pendant he’d worn since a time before memory. He pressed his hand against his shirt, relieved to feel the jagged shape through the linen. More than anything, it resembled the broken innards of a clock, but it had always been his most precious possession. His only possession from a past shrouded in mystery.
Evan’s skin prickled, and his magemark burned as he realized that he himself was tangled up in this sailor’s knot of secrets. Maybe this girl was the key to untangling it.
Clearly Strangward recognized the pendant, too. “Where did you get that?” he said, as if he didn’t really want to hear the answer.
“Claire gave it to me,” Celestine said. She gave it a shake, setting it to swinging. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s another piece of that medallion Jak used to wear.”
Who were Claire and Jak? Missing pieces of the puzzle that had been his life so far? Hope kindled within Evan that he was not just a castaway orphan but a part of something powerful and grand. Someone with a history and a future.
Strangward closed his eyes, swallowed. “Claire,” he whispered. “You found Claire.”
“Get off your high horse, Uncle,” Celestine said, her voice sending shivers up Evan’s spine. “They’re mine. They are a part of the Nazari line. They were created for a purpose, and it’s time they served. Harol should have been straight with my mother from the beginning.”
“How do you know he wasn’t?” Strangward said. “They were in love, Celly.”
“Love? Is that what you call it?” Her jaw tightened. “I don’t care how charming he was, she would not have traded away my legacy.” Celestine rested her forearms on the ship’s railing.
“Harol tried to save you, too,” Strangward said.
“You call that salvation? It was more like hell, Uncle.” Celestine brushed at her clothing. “I will never wash the scent of sulfur and smoke from my skin. No, it was my mother who saved me. She loved me.”
She already said that, Evan thought, and Captain Strangward said it. Who is she trying to convince?
“If you meant to start a war with me, you should have destroyed them all when you had the chance,” Celestine said. “Now. Where are the rest of them?”
“I have my faults, Celly,” Strangward said softly, as if confessing in the temple, “but at least I don’t make war on children.”
That seemed to infuriate the young empress. “A war your brother forced on me! It didn’t have to be that way! It has never been that way.” Raising her hand, she pointed at the mainmast. As Evan watched, wide-eyed, flame jetted from her fingers and engulfed it. A fine white ash settled onto the deck, powdering Evan’s hair and clothing. Bits of flaming wood dropped onto the quarterdeck, leaving scorched spots on the planking.
Captain Strangward stared up at the blazing mast as if stunned. All around them, the crew of Cloud Spirit muttered mingled oaths and prayers.
Celly laughed. “Behold Claire’s other gift to me.”
“Whatever you think I’ve done, I didn’t,” Strangward said, sounding tired more than anything else. “Whatever you think I know, you’re wrong. I told Harol that
