I didn’t reply, though my mind was buzzing with questions. He had someone already? If that was so, why had he kissed me? Perhaps he was more of a scoundrel than I thought.
“Where is she now?” I finally asked.
“She’s dead,” he answered. “Has been for a very long time, although to me it only feels like yesterday.”
“How did she die?”
“Lung sickness,” he answered. “We’d been married for a month when she contracted it. She died a week later. It was a stupid, senseless death, one that haunts me even now.”
Sorrow shone in his eyes. “You have to understand, I’m not quite like you. To me, memories don’t fade over time. If I allow them to surface, I can see them with such clarity it feels like only moments have passed instead of years, so I’ve taught myself to hide those memories. If I don’t, I would never be able to function.”
“Why don’t your memories fade?”
He shrugged. “As I said, I’m not quite like you.”
Typical Maveryck, never answering any of my questions. Did I expect anything else? I ate a few bites of bread and fruit, mostly because I wasn’t sure when we would have our next meal, and I had every intention of keeping up my strength so that I could slay the wraith, reclaim the staff, and be done with this quest.
Maveryck fell silent as the train passed through the countryside. He stared out the window, his gaze distant, as if he’d been swept away by his memories. What was it like to be able to replay memories in perfect clarity at a moment’s notice? And what would cause a person to have such an ability? I’d always known there was something different about him. It made me wonder what else he hadn’t told me about himself. And about his past.
As we traveled through the French countryside, past rows of vineyards, thatched-roofed houses, and small villages where churches with tall steeples stood out among the other buildings, I was reminded of everything I missed in Faythander. There were no fairies, no dragons in the sky, and no maywelters dancing over ponds. Although I couldn’t deny that this world was lovely, its beauty reminded me of what I didn’t have.
I closed my eyes and rested my head on the seat, thinking of how nice it would feel to be back in the keep, sitting in the leather chair by the fire after a long hunt. I would be free of Maveryck and his bewitching ways.
But did I really want to be free of him?
Opening my eyes, I found him still staring out the window, his gray eyes intent as he focused far away. What was he thinking about? It was uncanny how much he knew about this world. I’d nearly gone insane navigating through the train station while he’d had no trouble at all, like he’d done it a million times before.
As dusk approached, the train stopped at the Montpellier station. Maveryck and I made our way down to the train’s bottom level, filed in line, and then walked out the narrow doors.
The station at Montpellier was much smaller than the terminal in Paris, and soon we found the exit and walked outside into the calm evening.
The air tasted of salt, and I knew we were near the ocean.
Maveryck sighed as he glanced toward the setting sun. Its rays streaked across the sky, bands of red and pink against the jagged peaks of tall, ancient-looking buildings. The café and church’s stonework turned deep golden under the setting sun. Church bells chimed in the distance, a sound both melodic and haunting.
“I was hoping to make it before sunset,” he said. “Finding a boat and then locating the island won’t be easy to do in the dark.”
“Should we wait until morning?”
“No, there isn’t time.”
He searched behind us, seeming calm, but then again, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen him anxious. He was like a statue sometimes, so cool and collected that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
“Let’s get off the street,” he said, and then he led me down a narrow alley. Soon, we entered a walkway spanning the distance between the tall brick buildings, blocking out the last rays of sunlight.
With the loss of light came a chill in the air. Maveryck glanced behind us several more times as we made our way through the alley and then toward a harbor where boats docked. I also glanced back, but I couldn’t decide what he was looking at. As far as I could tell, there was no one following us.
Our footsteps rang out against the cobblestones as we descended a steep hill toward the harbor. Sailboats and small skiffs bobbed up and down as they floated in their moorings. Only a few fishermen milled about, most of them tying down their boats or lugging buckets full of fish out of their cargo holds.
Maveryck stopped by one of the fisherman and started a conversation.
Up until that point, I wasn’t sure how Maveryck acquired items. I’d thought of him as a skilled thief and nothing more, but as he stood there talking to the fisherman, I finally realized his true skill.
Deceit.
He could become whomever he needed to be in order to get what he wanted. My heart sank as I grasped the truth, and it dawned on me that it was very possible I had never seen Maveryck as he truly was. He could have been toying with me from the beginning.
In a matter of minutes, Maveryck stood untying the boat from the dock, the fisherman long gone, with only a promise from Maveryck to return the boat whenever he could.
“You used magic on him?” I asked while he continued to untie the boat.
“Magic? No.
