Noa’s lip trembled. It wasn’t enough. She wanted to stay here with her mother and never leave. Even if she couldn’t see her properly, even if she couldn’t touch her, or hug her, or rest her head in her lap while she brushed Noa’s hair. If all Noa had was the shadow of her, she wanted to cling to that shadow with all the strength she had, even if it meant never feeling sunlight again.
And yet Julian was waiting for her. Infuriating, impossible Julian. He needed the Lost Words. If Xavier found that book first, he might never become king. And when it came right down to it, Noa would do anything for Julian, even though he didn’t deserve it. Even though he definitely didn’t deserve it, and she intended to tell him so, with details and examples, when she got back.
And that “anything” included saying the most difficult goodbye she would ever say in her life.
She drew a long, shaky breath. “Where is it?”
“I’ll show you,” said her mother.
Her mother’s ghost led Noa around the staircase to a field of neatly arranged boulders that seemed to sprout out of the ground. Ghosts drifted by in the distance, threadbare and forlorn, but they paid no attention to Noa and her mother. They stopped by a deep puddle of dark. Noa began sifting through it, lifting different shadows like the edges of piled blankets.
“That’s it, sweetie,” her mother said. “If you look through that shadow, you’ll see the island of Whelm.”
“Whelm?” Noa said. “That’s not on the map.”
“No,” her mother said. “It’s ingrown. Has been for hundreds of years. Ships pass right over it.”
Noa had never heard of an ingrown island. Her stomach was beginning to tie itself in knots. She pulled the shadow back and looked through the door.
She was looking through the shadow cast by a pillar of rock. She recognized Greenwash Strait right away—to her left was a little islet topped by a snoring walrus. She squinted, but she couldn’t see Astrae anywhere. Perhaps it was facing away from her. In the distance, beyond the walrus, were Xavier’s two warships, chock-full of mages. Noa bit her lip. If she jumped into the sea here, a sharp-eyed watchman could spot her.
“Can you see it?” her mother said.
Noa squinted. The wind brushing over the sea raised goose bumps on her skin. The water was black, and the sky was full of stars. She couldn’t see an island, but there was a strange darkness in the water several hundred feet away. It looked like a submerged shoal, but if so, it was a very large one.
Noa drew back. Her heart was thudding. “The island, is it . . . is it underwater?”
“Yes,” her mother said. Her hair floated in a nonexistent breeze, framing her blurry face like tentacles. “Not only that. After the mages hid the Lost Words on Whelm, they turned it upside down.”
That sounded even worse than an inside-out island. “Then how am I supposed to get to the book?”
“There are shadows underwater,” her mother said. “They’re finer than ordinary shadows—closer to cobwebs. If you lift the right one, you’ll find your way to Whelm.”
“Okay,” Noa said slowly. “But I can’t breathe underwater.”
“The book is in a cave,” her mother said. “There’s a shadow that will lead you right to it. You’ll only need to swim a short distance, and then come right back.”
Mother would never allow you to put yourself at risk. Noa balled her hands up—they were trembling and clammy. She thought again of that cold, black sea. How much colder and blacker would it be deep beneath the waves?
“Don’t worry, honey,” the ghost said. “I’ll be with you the whole time. You’ll just go in, grab the book, and then come right back out. It will only take a few seconds, I promise. I know where it is.”
“How?” Noa said.
“Because Xavier’s mages know,” her mother said. “I’ve been spying on them.”
Noa shook her head. “If they know where it is, why haven’t they swum down to get it?”
“It’s deep, deep down. The light mages have been able to locate the cave, but no one has managed to reach it—yet.”
“Salt mages are excellent swimmers,” Noa pointed out. “Surely there are salt mages on those ships.”
“There’s more than one spell hiding the book,” her mother said. “Just as there was more than one hiding the language of Death—not only was Evert inside out, but you could only reach it by sailing backward. There’s a spell on the cave preventing salt mages from reaching it. Salt mages can’t even see Whelm.”
“Oh,” Noa breathed. That meant that Julian wouldn’t be able to get to the book, even if he did find the island. She drew a shaky breath.
“All right,” she said.
Unfortunately, finding the right shadow was every bit as difficult as Noa feared. The shadows that led underwater slipped through her hands, less like cobwebs and more like kelp dragged along by a powerful current. After an hour of struggling, she hadn’t managed to hold on to one.
As time passed, her mother grew fainter and fainter, as if she was having a hard time holding her shape. “Try picturing the place you want to go,” she said. Her voice barely sounded like her own anymore—it was as soft as a whisper. “It’s a shallow cave with a high ceiling half covered with anemones. The book is in a wooden chest on a ledge.”
Noa wiped the sweat from her brow and focused. She pictured the place her mother had described, and plunged her hands into the shadows again. This time, one shadow in particular drifted toward her—as if the shadows sensed what she wanted and moved to obey. Noa dug her nails into it before it could slip away, and lifted.
Darkness. She could see nothing through the door below the shadow. Water sloshed against the edges of the door but didn’t spill into Death. Noa brushed the water
